The Sable Moon (27 page)

“She has traveled with me all spring.” Coming from Gwern, this statement sounded perfectly unremarkable, and meant not a nuance more than it said. “She left me a week ago, when I felt sure you were coming to land. She is bound eastward, to see your father.”

Trevyn tried to muddle this through for a moment. “Is she—is she very angry with me?” he asked at last.

“She loves you.” Gwern's tone did not even try to reassure; he spoke only simple fact. “But she has her qualms, and she is not likely to come to you. You'll have to seek her out.”

“But I won't be able to, not for a while,” said Trevyn painfully. “I mean …”

“The wolves, ay. All of Isle is under the shadow of them.”

“And my father; what has he done about them? Where is he? Has battle been joined?”

Gwern grimaced uncomfortably. “I don't know. How should I know? Some things I can tell, but others … I know your father thinks you're dead. Meg said so.”

“What!” Trevyn had never felt so alive, and he sputtered in astonishment that anyone, especially his father, could fail to feel his wellbeing. “Whatever gave him that idea?” he cried.

“I don't know. Meg's gone to tell him you're coming. But if we ride hard, we're likely to find him before she does.”

They rode until deep dark, ate Trevyn's elfin viands, and were up by the following dawn. They rode rapidly and companionably through that day and the next. Trevyn could not understand why he had ever disliked Gwern. The brown youth's plainspoken presence cheered and soothed and excited him now; he felt some feeling both achingly lovely and as comfortable as old clothes. Gwern, like Trevyn, guided his unbridled steed with a touch and a word of the Elder Tongue. Gwern was someone as alone as himself, Trevyn understood now, and very much like himself. The glow he felt was more than comradeship. But for the time he would not give it any other name.

They made Laueroc on the fourth day. Trevyn noted, as they traversed the town, how still the streets seemed, how lacking in chatter and workaday bustle. Those few folk who were about gave him no salute except a stare. An air of dread and hopelessness brooded over the place, as palpable as a cloud of fog. Trevyn entered the castle grounds with foreboding. The courtyard was empty. He left Gwern there with the horses and ran into the keep, up the spiraling stairway toward the living quarters. Halfway up, he almost collided with Rosemary. She gasped at the sight of him.

“Hello, Aunt Ro.” He kissed her hastily. “Wherever is everyone?”

“At the fighting, Trevyn,” she answered softly, “or else fled.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “Where is Mother?”

“Above.” Trevyn turned to go, but Rosemary laid a hand on his arm. “Trev—she is not herself.”

“How so?” He had not foreseen this.

“She is sad and troubled, even more than most of us.… But I hope your coming will cheer her.”

“Aene be willing,” he muttered, and plunged up the stairs.

Lysse was sitting at the loom in the large central chamber—only sitting, not weaving. She did not glance up as Trevyn entered, and he stopped for a moment to look at her, feeling the sight jab him like a knife. She was not so much changed; her dress was still soft green, her hair a flow of gold and her face rose-petal smooth. But her eyes were locked on pain like prison iron.

“Mother,” he whispered, then went and took her by the shoulders. “Mother.” She looked up at him and smiled, but the smile touched only the surface of her pain. He hugged her.

“Had you forgotten I was coming back?”

“Nay, not a bit.” Her face did not change. “I am glad to see you, Trev. There is much work for you here.”

“Mother,” he queried very gently, “will you tell me what ails you?”

“Nay, that I will not.” Her jaw hardened with the resolve. “But if you send your father back to me, perhaps we can cure it.”

“Where is he?”

“In the midlands somewhere.” She faced him, helpless to gauge the extent of his knowledge, now that her Sight was gone. “Have you heard about the wolves?”

“I have spoken to no one here except Gwern. But I have met those wolves already, here and in Tokar. How bad is it?”

“In loss of life, not really severe.… Perhaps some few hundred folk have fallen their prey. But the whole land quakes in terror of them. They roam at will, insolently bold. Even within doors people do not feel safe from them. They have pulled an infant from a cradle at the mother's feet and torn a grandmother sitting by her fire. They spread nightmare like a pestilence. Strong men who have seen no more than a gray shadow have left cottage and land, thinking somehow to escape them. But the dread is everywhere.”

“How far afield do they range?”

“I believe they have not yet ventured far into the south.… A few have come to Laueroc, and you have seen how the town has emptied on their account. In the east, the land is desolate.”

“I must be off at once.” Trevyn rose restively. “I don't have time to go hunting dragons.… Mother, where are the dragons of Lyrdion?”

“Long gone!” She peered at him, justly puzzled. “They have not been seen for years and years, not since Veran's time.”

“Riddles,” Trevyn grumbled. “There is no time for riddles. I must go, and … Mother, I know you must stay here; you are the governor, with Father gone. But shouldn't Aunt Rosemary be in Celydon?”

“I know she longs to go to her home. But Alan and Ket have both bid her stay by me, for her own safety and also to keep me company. Celydon is hard beset. What could she do there?”

“Do? Perhaps nothing.” Trevyn gestured helplessly. “She is the gentle Lady of All Trees, Mother. The wolves worshiped her once at the Rowan grove. Her presence could—I don't know. Could stir the Forest back toward the old order.”

Lysse gazed, vague and absorbed, as if a distant bell had rung. “Of course,” she murmured. “A dark spell needs magic to combat it. But Isle has nearly forgotten the old magic.…”

“See if Aunt Ro can get to Celydon. I cannot take her there; I must go to Father. I'll send tidings when I can, Mother.” He started out.

“Trevyn,” she warned, “the horses will not face the wolves, not even Arundel, before he died in the winter.”

“I knew old Arundel would not last long without Hal. But I have a horse of a different sort.” He paused a moment, bemused, thinking of that horse, then turned away again.

“Trevyn,” Lysse called after him, “you'll need a sword.”

“Indeed!” He grinned at her; she almost sounded like his mother again. “I lost mine when that gaudy ship went down. What do you suggest?”

“Take Hal's, then, and his shield and helm. And Trevyn,” she called him back again, “take care.”

“I will.” He regarded her a moment, then said quite suddenly, “Mother, your father sends you his love and greeting. He is with the tide now.”

“Ah!” Her face softened. “Then he is content. What is it like, that Elwestrand?”

“A gentle country, full of peace and enchantment and singing. I'll tell you when I return.… Farewell, Mother.” He left her with light of Elwestrand in her eyes, and it eased his going.

Gwern had put some harness on the horses, Trevyn discovered when he clattered back to the courtyard. For his own part, he had armed himself and found Gwern a pack and some clothes. He instinctively knew better than to offer Gwern weapons. He had seen Gwern angry, even furious, but he could not envision him taking part in any ordered combat.

“I don't need those things,” Gwern complained.

“Carry them for me, then. Come on.” They took some food from the kitchen, then departed. It felt odd to ride out through the deserted courtyard, the nearly unmanned gates of the city. Trevyn looked about uneasily. Laueroc seemed ready to yield with scarcely a struggle to a Tokarian invasion, and much of the rest of Isle might be the same. The warships might already have landed.

It took Gwern and Trevyn a week of hard riding to reach the midlands, and another two days to locate Alan. Wolves and King and liegemen had joined battle on a grassy plain near the Black River, a plain that had seen battle before, and more than once. In evening light the fighters appeared as a dark, struggling mass, like gurgling mud. A coppery blaze shot through it, and Trevyn pulled up his fey white steed. “The sword!” he gasped, stricken, and they both stared. Even at the distance, they could hear Alan roaring and snarling like the wolves he smote. The sound was blood red and crushing, like the mighty weapon in his hand.

“By my troth,” Trevyn breathed, “I'd as soon beard a dragon as handle that blade. The song you sang, Gwern …”

“Hal's song. I could always feel him singing, inside.… He felt the shadow of Hau Ferddas, and the prophecy.”

“That it must be flung into the sea—”

“By a mortal of elfin kind. Your father is not the man, Prince.”

They had come up behind the wolves, opposite Alan, and Gwern's steed had already started to plunge and buck at the lupine scent. Resigned, he dismounted and let the horse pound away. “Go on,” he told Trevyn. “I'll join you later.”

“To do what? I have no desire to kill wolves, poor things! And I'm not going to touch that bloody sword, either.”

“Go on! Just go to your father. He needs you, and he certainly doesn't need to see me. Go on.”

Trevyn bit his lip and nodded. He unsheathed his silver sword, a gesture only of defense, and put heels to white flanks. Without hesitation, the cat-eyed steed cantered forward.

Alan raised a sword that flew on wings of rage. The battle meant nothing to him except the release of rage; kingdom, family, friends, and folk had long since ceased to matter to him. His innermost will was locked into hatred, and he watched in bitter triumph as his sword beat back those who tried to slay him.

His men, and men from all the southern towns, and from Whitewater and Lee and as far north as Firth, followed him apprehensively. Perhaps their King was demented, but what choice was theirs? They hoped they kept the wolves from doing other harm, that they saved a few lives in Nemeton. Alan wanted to drive the wolves clear away from the Forest into the southern sea. It appeared as if he even thought he succeeded. But his men could see that every day the creatures made a mockery of their efforts, toyed with them gleefully, leaving them cheerfully at sundown to return as cheerfully in the morning. If Alan's army moved, it was because the wolves chivied them and harried them and herded them here and there, picking off panicky men who faced them only because they had found it was worse to run, to feel the shadowy horror panting behind. Only Alan seemed oblivious to dread of the wolves. He dreaded night worse. While his men took all too brief a respite, he paced, shutting out a nightmare he refused even to name. He strode to battle almost eagerly in the mornings, for then he could lose himself in the glory of his magical sword.

So when the setting sun blinded him one evening, blazing in his eyes, he cursed; he hated it. He hated to remember that Hal and Trevyn had passed beyond the sunset, to the uttermost west, whence there was no return.… What figure rode toward him, emerging out of the sunset, a form armed in silver but haloed in rays of gold? It shimmered before Alan's blinking eyes like a vision of the glorious past that he had nearly forgotten in the gory present. It was Hal! But it could not be Hal.… Hau Ferddas thudded to the ground, and Alan stood without noticing, watching the rider draw nearer. A shout sounded in his ears, someone seized him and tugged him back from the fray, but he only stared. The approaching horse was white, its forehead blazing white, on its breast a crescent of silven It sprang fiercely, almost joyfully, into the midst of the wolves, scattering them with its hooves. The rider laid about him with the flat of his sword. Golden hair shone under the silver helm, and gray-green eyes flashed beneath. It was not Hal, then, but someone like him, a hero of elfin stature whom Alan did not know. He had spied the enemy leader now, the big wolf that always sat and grinned; he sent his horse lunging toward it. But the wolf shied away, yapped once, and all of the wolves loped off. The men cheered, but the rider sat his horse and watched the gray beasts go without pursuing them.

Alan pulled away from the arms that held him, walked forward without realizing he had taken a step. His bloody sword hung from his limp hand and dragged in the dirt as he stumbled around bodies of men and beasts. The rider heard him coming, glanced around, and snatched off his helm as he slid to the ground. “Father!” he exclaimed, coming toward him.

“Trevyn?” Alan whispered.

“Ay, to be sure!” The young man gripped him, for Alan swayed where he stood. “What, have you forgotten me already?”

“Nay, indeed. But you have changed.” Alan looked as pale as if he had seen a ghost. “And I felt quite sure that you were dead of shipwreck.”

“Why? Did I not tell you I would return?” Trevyn smiled, teasing, trying to rouse Alan to some touch of joy. But Alan only fumbled at an inner pocket and brought forth a jeweled brooch, a sunburst of gold.

“I picked this up along the shore,” he explained dully.

“That brooch,” said Trevyn with feeling, “has taken part in more mischief than I can fathom! Guard it carefully, and keep it away from the sea. By the tides, I shall tell you a tale of that brooch! But first I must tell you a tale of these wolves. Let us go where we can talk.… Father, you look spent. Take my horse.”

Trevyn had to help him onto the cat-eyed steed. As they prepared to leave, Ket came up and merely glanced at Trevyn in greeting.

“Liege,” he addressed Alan, “shall I have the men advance their position?”

“Do what you like,” Alan told him numbly, and turned away. But Trevyn shook his head, and Ket silently acknowledged.

Trevyn walked off by Alan to the cottage where he had established his post of command, a mile away. Ket ordered the men to stay where they were for the time. Then, discreetly, he also made his way toward the cottage, to watch over Alan as he had done for many weeks, and to speak with Trevyn when he could.