Hal sighed and wordlessly sent a flutter of plinset notes like pale green moths into the night; his instrument never lay far from his hand. A figure took form in the darkness of the beach, walking toward them. The man came and joined them, facing them, sitting cross-legged in the sand. An unaccountable trembling took hold of Trevyn.
“Emrist!” he whispered, though the stranger bore scarcely any resemblance to Emrist. He was slender, almost boyish, with dark, straight hair and coal-black eyes burning out of his fair face.
“Nay,” he replied, “I am Bevan. I was in Emrist for a while before he died.” His was the sweetest voice Trevyn had ever heard, manly and melodious, even lovelier than Hal’s. “As I have been in others from time to time,” he added, with a grave, moonlit smile at that other star-son, the Sunset King.
“I knew it!” Trevyn yelped. “Why—why would you not tell me?”
“Emrist could not know. He was himself, as he told you, and very brave.… I am not Emrist, Prince, though he is in me as I was in him.… How well I remember his love for you.” Trevyn felt the touch of dark eyes. “I, myself, do not love you, not yet, but I remember. And nay, he did not suffer much at the end.”
“It seems to me,” Trevyn grumbled distractedly, “that everyone knows the pattern of my life except myself.”
“It is always thus.” Bevan wryly smiled, remembering his own entangled life. “Trust the tides, Alberic.”
“That is easy for you to say, who are immortal,” Trevyn retorted. “But if the tide tosses me to my death, that is the end for me.”
“Why? What makes you think you are different from me? Because you are a fool? Think nothing of it, Prince. I am the one who bequeathed my kingdom a shadowed sword, who doomed my mother’s people by the breaking of the caldron, who left the fairest maiden in Isle and the dearest comrade to follow a gleam.” Bevan’s tone was whimsical. “You are here with me, are you not, Alberic?”
Trevyn could not answer; the implications stunned him.
“Take hold of peace, Trevyn, and it will all come plain,” said Hal quietly. “Lie back and watch the Wheel.”
Trevyn sprang up and strode away from them both. But he paused when he reached the stream, feeling weakness overtake him. Dappled deer had come to drink; they did not tremble at his approach, but only raised their delicate heads to meet his gaze, sprinkling silvery droplets from their soft mouths. Trevyn stood, yearning, as Hal walked up beside him.
“I am afraid,” Trevyn breathed. “I fear this peace. All day I have been on the edge between Elwestrand and Isle; both are like dreams to me, and I ache for both. I float, like a craft without a mooring. If I turn my thoughts away from Isle, she may be lost to me forever. I may never wish to leave this place of wonders. I may forget. And what then, if Wael has his way and sends his minions on to Elwestrand?”
“Bevan and I will take care of them.” Hal sounded amused, and Trevyn snapped his head up to look at him.
“There is something you are not telling me. I don’t understand.”
Hal sobered. “Perhaps you will understand sometime,” he said softly. “Perhaps you will never understand. Does it matter?”
Trevyn wanted to shout that it did, and yet he vaguely sensed that it did not. The brief wisp of realization shook him, dizzied him. He lowered his head, pressed cool palms against his burning eyes, felt Hal’s arms around his shoulders. He laid his head on his uncle’s shoulder for a moment, feeling that touch ease him.
“Too long a day,” murmured Hal. “I’m sorry. Come on; it is not far to our tent.”
They trudged down the beach, side by side. The legendary Prince of Eburacon sat and watched them disappear into the dusky night, then winked out like swordlight sheathed.
Chapter Two
It took a week for Trevyn to regain normal strength. During that time he met many of his cousins and found, somewhat to his dismay, that they were all at least as handsome as he, and fleeter of foot. The girls stunned him with their beauty; he would not have dreamed of touching any of them. The people who were native to the Strand, whom the elves had wed, were as fair, but somehow unmistakably mortal, almost sensuous. Most of them had been there since the Beginning, Hal said, untouched by the shadow that had blighted Isle for a while. They were peaceful folk.
During that time also, Trevyn watched Hal populate an entire meadow with dazzling butterflies from his plinset. He experienced at least fifteen kinds of unicorn, each of them mostly white and utterly lovely. He watched Ylim’s high-crested horses careering over the insubstantial distant hills. And he slept a lot, those lazy, healing days. One day, Hal came to wake him with a smile starting at the corners of his chiseled mouth.
“Have you been dreaming of trees?”
Trevyn sat up groggily. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because they’ve sprung up all around the tent. Hazel, alder, birch, rowan, kerm-oak, big and beautiful. I thought perhaps you’d been planting a grove in your sleep.”
Trevyn blinked. “No, actually”—he yawned—“I think I was dreaming of Gwern.”
“Of Gwern? The wyrd? Well, dream of him more often. There is always room for more trees.”
Hal wandered out, singing softly. Trevyn followed, stretching and admiring his new grove. He and Hal had made a reluctant pact to begin reading the parchment he had brought from Tokar, a thing and a task that seemed supremely out of place in Elwestrand. Still, during the next few days they deciphered it, sitting beneath the dream trees. It was in the court language of the Eastern Invaders, as Hal had said, which he had been obliged to learn as a child, and he approached it with distaste. After he and Trevyn understood the spell for the transferring of the living soul, as well as they could grasp anything so vicious, they devised exorcisms in both Wael’s unlovely language and in the Ancient Tongue. But Hal felt dubious.
“I have learned a bit about magic since I have been here,” he expounded, “enough to know that for every spell there is a counter, and no end to it. I don’t think this will settle anything, Trev—though perhaps I am not the best judge. I had some power, in Isle, but it was prophesied that I was not to use magic because the Easterners had made it shameful. A King’s power must reside in rightfulness. I spurned the Sword of Lyrdion for that reason, and I still wonder if—if it is fitting for a King to do magic.”
“To make birds out of air and music?” Trevyn smiled.
“Ah—but I am no King, here. And I am not the one that does it. Aene, perhaps.”
“Bevan did magic, and he was the greatest of the High Kings.”
“Ay, but that was in the old days.” A twinge crossed Hal’s face. “Before the Children of Duv went to woe, before the Easterners brought blight and shadow—”
“Magic is in us all, nevertheless. And anyway,” Trevyn added, before Hal could argue, “if I can learn Wael’s true-name, I’ll have no need of spells. I’ll need no other power to vanquish him.”
“Then take care he does not learn yours.” Hal’s eyes narrowed. “From what you have told me, he seems like such a warlock as would have been at home in the dark keep of Nemeton. My old foe Waverly, perhaps.”
“Or perhaps Bevan’s old foe Pel Blagden, Emrist said. Where is Bevan? I would like to speak to him again.”
Hal shook his head. “He is as hard to find as those mysterious hills of mine. I have only seen him twice, and one of those times was with you.”
“You invoked him, whether you know it or not,” Trevyn declared, “with your music. Well, I need some answers, Uncle. I am off to the mountain.”
Hal raised his brows. “To Elundelei? Alone?”
“Of course, quite alone. Did you not tell me I could find truth there?”
“Truth and peril, ay. There might be a price to pay.”
Trevyn sighed. “Well, I must risk it. And it seems to me—perhaps I have already paid.”
He baked himself a supply of bread and got some cheese from the herders. Food came without great labor in Elwestrand, and people shared it ch
eerfully. Trevyn left on his journey the next morning, afoot, munching fruit from the wayside trees as he went. It did not occur to him, in Elwestrand, to catch a horse, subject it to his will, and ride. He would not attempt to harness any dream in this land of dreams. He walked toward the high pasturelands, the foothills of Elundelei, pausing from time to time to admire the coursers he saw.
It took him three days to top Elundelei. He met with no one after the first day, after he passed the upper meadows: The second day he wound his way up the crags—a steep path, but not perilous. Rowan and columbine grew in the cracks of the rocks, and the ledges were dense with ferns; he slept among them without a twinge. The third day, late, he reached the top and found a graceful tree with fruit that shone like Ylim’s hair, silver or gold; he could hardly tell in the magenta light. He took one and ate it, for he was hungry. It filled him like bread, yet delighted him like red wine; he thought he could eat a dozen, but found he could scarcely finish the one. As he ate, he stood atop the crags and looked around him. He had heard that no one had ever been able to circle the shoreline of Elwestrand; it always stretched endlessly ahead. Yet, plainly, he stood on a tiny island, a mere speck in the vastness of the sea, which stretched into shadowy infinity on all sides. Only at the farthest reach of the east could Trevyn see a horizon, a thin, bright line. He faced it, watching for the sun. Behind him, and beside the laden tree, a seemingly bottomless cavern serpentined down between the last two upright horns of crag. The home of the moon, Trevyn knew. He would not enter there. He seated himself on the grassy plot beneath the tree and looked on from afar as the sun flamed into view, plunged and sank, boiling, into the sea. Great eagles, as golden as the sun, called and circled over Elundelei. Among them all, Trevyn saw, the largest one shone white.
“Alys,” he whispered. No uproar ensued, no trembling of the mountain beneath him. “Alys!” he repeated, more loudly. Only intense stillness answered him. Even the eagles seemed stilled. The silence prickled at him, and he called no more. He sat without a fire as the purple twilight deepened into velvety night, not quite black. The strange Strand stars came out, the big, mothlike stars that formed pictures he did not quite understand: the Griffin, the Spindle, the Silver Wheel. Trevyn stared at them, and after a while, almost without conscious decision, he lay down on the grass and slept.
He was awakened by a touch of something—not a hand, something within. He looked up to see Ylim standing over him, a white gown floating around her, the half-revealed flesh of her breasts palely shining, full as the globes on the tree. With stumbling haste, he sprang up and away from her.
“Nay!” he declared. “Not again, not while Meg lives. It was shameful enough with Maeve.” But she laughed at him softly.
“Have no fear; that is not my function. Come, you called, did you not?”
“Are you Alys?” he whispered.
“In a way. I can speak for her, and for Aene. But if you wish to truly meet Alys, you must come within.”
“Within,” he murmured weakly.
“Come,” she chided, “you ate of the fruit, did you not, and still are standing? I knew you when you were a fleck on the outer rim of the Wheel. And now you fall asleep on the doorstep of the Hub.”
Her tender scorn reminded him somehow of his mother. Half stung, half comforted, he followed her into the obscurity of the narrow cavern. He felt his way along the walls as the floor dropped with dizzying steepness under his feet. Ylim threaded her way swiftly before him, seeming not to need a light, through darkness so deep that he could not see even the white sheen of her dress. The passageway twisted and burrowed into the heart of the mountain. Then, just as Trevyn thought the depth and darkness would crush him, it took a gentle upward turn and leveled. Trevyn blinked in a whisper of pearly light. He could not find the source or tell the limits of the chamber. Shadows stirred all around him. In a moment his confused eye picked out the figure of a woman who sat on a glimmering curve of crescent throne, encircled by the most delicate of light: Ylim—nay, Maeve—nay, Megan! He started toward her, then stopped and swallowed at his half-formed tears as the vision flickered away.
“I can only appear to you in forms you understand, or partly understand,” said a voice both distant and loving, feminine and fierce. Between the horns of the throne there appeared a blue-eyed cat, then a white swan; a silver harp; a ghostly, graceful ship. Finally there appeared the hazy form of a mandorla, shape of mystic union, floating above the crescent but still within its circular aureole. “Welcome, my well-beloved son,” said the voice of the goddess.
Trevyn stood awed, but rebellion flared in him at that. “Well-beloved son! Then why do I bear scars?” he retorted curtly.
“Suffering is the mark of a Very King. Though you will be something more.… I demand suffering of those to whom I give my favor. Still, do not blame me for your whip weals. You could have found ways to prevent them, if you had let yourself be less than you are. If you had contented yourself to be a twittering, fluttering thing, such as most men are, instead of an eagle, you would have been spared much. The choice was yours.”
“I was not aware of any choice,” stated Trevyn stiffly. But the goddess of many names laughed softly at him.
“There is always a choice.… And now you are here. Is this what you have come for? To scold me?”
Trevyn stood strangling on his anger, vexed the more by the goddess’s imperturbable good humor. It was as if, in motherly style, she did not consider his wrath worth ruffling herself. With an effort, he kept himself from stamping like a child in response. “I came to ask you about Wael,” he said flatly at last. “He is my enemy; is he yours?”
“He has taken my creature, the wolf, that worships me, and turned it into a horror.” For the first time Trevyn discerned an edge in the goddess’s disembodied voice, and he warmed to her anger. “Wael was born as one of my children; everything is. But he has willfully dishonored me. Ay, he is my enemy. But he is not the worst enemy you face, Alberic.”
Trevyn ignored that. He did not want another such lecture as Emrist had given him. “Then tell me, Goddess,” he asked more politely, “how am I to defeat him?”
“Where are the dragons of Lyrdion?” she riddled in return. The mandorla twirled like a spindle, shimmering above the throne. Trevyn kept precarious hold of his temper.
“I know of a magical sword that came from Lyrdion.”
“But I said nothing of magic or a sword. When you find the dragons of Lyrdion, you will know how to deal with Wael.”
Trevyn shook his head at this nonsense. “I will need magic to face him.”
“What is magic? The tricks Wael does? There is more magic in a stunted sour-apple tree than in all his sorcery. Be that tree, Prince, root and branch, leaf and flower, and you will know how to deal with Wael. Be whole, and you will know how to deal with Wael. Watch.” The mandorla glowed brighter, and Trevyn became aware of its continuation, its beyond, the circles that formed its segments on opposing sides. Silver and gold they shone, softly at first but then with a flaming, spinning glory that stunned him beyond taking note of his surroundings. The sharp-ended curve where they met blazed with unfathomable, unsearchable candescence. Essence of sun and moon were in it, essence of earth and sky.…
“Aene,” Trevyn whispered, hiding his eyes.
“So, there are some things you recognize readily enough.” The mandorla subsided to a dusky shimmer, and Trevyn was once again able to face it. “Still, you will never be able to think of me as something other than female”—the voice changed to deeper, manly tones—“or male.”
“Adaoun?” Trevyn murmured confusedly.
“Call me Wael, if you like. He is in me too.” Trevyn started badly at that. But then Emrist sat for a moment on the crescent throne, smiling at him in reassurance. Adaoun; his father; Hal; a figure he did not at first recognize: it was himself, with a wolf curled at his feet. He watched himself lean down to pat it. “And in you,” the voice added.
“Wael?” Trevyn protested. �
�If I knew his true-name, I would banish him off the earth.”
“I have already told you his true-name half a dozen times. When you really know your own sooth-name, you will remember his.”
The mandorla expanded, engulfed him, disappeared into the darkness on all sides. He knew it still surrounded him. Perhaps it surrounded the world. But all he could see was a simple circle before him, a halo of pale light culminating in the crescent of the throne. On impulse, Trevyn walked over to it, wondering vaguely of what metal or material it was made that it gave off such a pearly glow. He laid a hand on it and felt nothing beneath the hand—only a shock that flung him back and sent him tumbling into oblivion before he thudded against the wall.
He awoke, hours later, to find himself still confronted by the same whispering, muted light. It came from Bevan, who sat beside him on the floor, his face sober but not overly concerned.
“That was a bit bold,” he remarked, “even for a Prince of Laueroc.”
Trevyn sat up, rubbing a lump where his head had apparently hit something. “Have you been here long?”
“In a sense, I am always here.” At Trevyn’s sharp glance, Bevan smiled. “All right, no more riddles.”
“Are you real?” asked Trevyn sourly.
The star-son shrugged. “Feel me, if you like. But what is ‘real,’ Prince?—All right, all right! Let me lead you out.” He got lithely to his feet and helped Trevyn up with a warm and glowing hand.
Bevan walked with him all through the three days’ journey down the mountain, though Trevyn made poor company, not talking much, only muttering to himself from time to time. “Am I to return to Isle?” he asked Bevan abruptly at one point.
“That is entirely up to you,” the other coolly replied.
“Everything is up to me, and nothing is up to me!” Trevyn shouted. “I don’t understand!” Bevan cupped his graceful hands, a peculiarly soothing gesture, and Trevyn subsided.
“It’s all very well for you, all this mystery, Star-Son,” he added tartly after a while. “The moon is your mother. But I am the son of—of a Sun King and an elf.” Trevyn winced; the words rang with the wrong effect, even to his ears. “What does—what does She have to do with me? The one whose name I am not going to mention, lest I fail to utter it with proper respect and have something thrown at my sore head.”
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