The Book of Isle

by Nancy Springer

  He ran with aching heart and burning lungs. Folk scattered before him, caught sight of his straining, tear-streaked face, his eyes blazing with a fey green brilliance, and saw that face later in their dreams. Trevyn saw nothing except the sea. He scarcely heard the shouts of his pursuers over the pounding in his ears, but as he reached the harbor the ring of hooves on cobbles cut through the clamor of his desperation. He glanced back to see Rheged’s mounted warriers scarcely a stone’s throw behind him. Trevyn bit his lip, darting like a deer for some escape. He reached the tip of the farthest wharf, raised his arm to hurl his treasures into the sea. Then fishermen shouted, and he followed their gaze open-mouthed. A form of dark loveliness rippled the sunlit water. A slender elf-boat skimmed toward him faster than any dead craft of men could ever sail. She sped through the crowded harbor and touched dock at his feet. Trevyn stumbled on board and sank down just as the kingsmen came up to him. The elf-boat bounded off with him the moment she felt his weight. The kingsmen scrambled aboard a merchant vessel, but Trevyn did not even trouble himself to watch the pursuit. No power of sail or slaves could match the speed of this swimming thing.

  He laid his face down on her friendly deck and wept. He grieved for Emrist, and for the old slave whose name he did not know, and perhaps for himself. He hoped against reason that the elf-boat was taking him home to Isle, to his father’s strength and his mother’s comfort and a chance of forgiveness from Meg. He had long since forgotten to dream of Elwestrand. He wept until he could weep no more, and then he slept. The parchment lay crumpled beneath him, where his body held it. But the brooch nestled in fingers slackened by exhaustion. And presently, and quite unknown to Trevyn, a gentle wave came up and took it from him.

  Chapter Seven

  Alan had hardly been his ardent self since Hal had turned his face to the west. And he had struggled with the slow gnawing of despair since the springtime day that Trevyn had left on a glittering ship that sailed east. But the sharp unrest that struck him one morning in late summer was a new sensation.

  “It’s like something tugging under my ribs,” he told Lysse.

  “Indigestion,” she replied in wifely tones. “You’d better stay away from the seasonings for a while.”

  Alan agreed and tried to think of other things. But the pang did not leave him, and in a few days he realized that its focus lay to the east. “Something is pulling at me,” he explained to Lysse. “I can’t tell what, or whether for good or ill.”

  She searched his eyes lovingly, puzzling for a clue to his malaise. “I see no good to come of it,” she finally said. “You must think of your people, my lord.”

  “It will do no harm to journey as far as Nemeton. It has been a long time since I’ve seen Cory. Perhaps something in those parts needs my attention.”

  Lysse stared at him with worry growing in her eyes. “It sounds fair,” she exclaimed, “but I feel a foreboding—must you go?”

  “Ay, I must go! I’ll have no rest until I know the meaning of this—this force that wrenches at me.”

  “Then take me with you, Alan,” she said earnestly, “for, by my troth, I am afraid to let you out of my sight.”

  “Why, Love? Do you not trust me?”

  “My heart is heavy,” she said, “and I think trust has nothing to do with it.”

  Alan shook his head, beleaguered. “But, Love, I need you to stay here and take command for me. I cannot depend on Ket these days; he is as addle-headed as a young gallant.” Lysse had to smile at that. Ket courted Rosemary with dignity and gravest courtesy, but his joy in her had made him absentminded. “Perhaps they’ll soon set the date and get back to business, so you can travel with me again,” Alan continued. “But this time you must stay.… I am sorry.”

  Lysse regarded him with anxious exasperation. “Give me your word, then,” she demanded at last.

  “To what? Say what, and it is yours.”

  “I hardly know.…” Lysse frowned. “To take no rash course. To return to me straightway, and to your throne.”

  “Confound it, woman, did you think I’d do less? But certainly I’ll give you my word.”

  Once he had decided on the journey, Alan wasted no time, reaching Nemeton with a group of retainers in only ten days. This was the easternmost town in Isle, and the closest to Tokar. At Nemeton the Eastern Invaders had landed their warships, and raised their infamous Tower, and ruled. Hal had been reared there; he had broken and burned the Tower when his time came, and he and Alan had moved their government to the gentler Laueroc, their father’s holding. Now the place was held in fealty by Alan’s former comrade, and the horror of its memory was gradually fading from folks’ minds.

  “Well met, Alan! But what brings you?” Corin asked when they had embraced.

  “Whim,” Alan replied. “Sheerest whim. Some wind of chance blows me this way.”

  Corin knew better. It had been years since Alan had taken time for carefree adventuring, and now that Hal was gone … Cory had not seen Alan since, but he guessed from long friendship the extent of Alan’s burden in spirit and in duty. And the Prince mysteriously gone as well! Corin wished he knew what to say to Alan. He watched him and wondered as they feasted that night. He wondered the more when Alan rode out the next day to the Long Beaches, for Alan had never been a lover of the sea.

  Alan went alone, without even a dog for company, and watched the sun blaze on the salt water, and loped his horse along the line of the tide. But he was not all alone on the deserted beach. Before noon he reached the point that projects to the east and found Gwern sitting there. Alan had not seen him since that day at the Bay of the Blessed, though he had sometimes heard report of him. Gwern was said to be living like a wild man on the fringes of Isle, eating fish and blackberries, traveling along the sandy southeastern coast. He did not turn to the sound of Alan’s horse. He sat with his bare feet buried in the sand, staring out over the water, straight at the plains of Tokar, though Alan did not know that.

  Alan vaulted off his horse and let it roam, walked over to Gwern, sat beside him on the gravel and seaweed left by high tide. Gwern scarcely glanced, at him before his earth-brown eyes flicked back to the east. “King,” he asked with his customary lack of ceremony, “what draws you here?”

  “I wish I knew.” Alan was not offended by Gwern’s directness. In fact, he liked it somehow, though there was no comfort of warmth to be found in Gwern. Alan was used to the fellowship of his friends, but this youth who treated him as equal was neither friend nor enemy, he sensed. Gwern was supremely himself. Nothing he did or said could reflect on Alan in any way, and nothing Alan did could much affect him. His impersonal presence refreshed Alan’s raw and burning mind like a cool breeze within.

  Gwern said nothing. He never said anything unless there was something of essence to say. Alan frankly stared at him, knowing he would not mind. Gwern’s clothing was in tatters, his body not filthy exactly, but definitely a stranger to soap. What could this dust-colored oddity have to do with Trevyn? And yet, watch Gwern like a weathercock for Trevyn, Lysse had said. Well, the weathercock pointed east.

  “You have been following the shoreline.” Alan broke silence. “Following Trevyn?”

  “As closely as I can without leaving the land.” Gwern dropped the words at his leisure, like pebbles into a pond, as if they were insignificant. But Alan felt his heart jump.

  “Where is he, then? What do you see?”

  “I see nothing; I do not have the Sight. I do nothing. I only feel.” Gwern did not look at Alan as he talked, and his face, lit by the iridescence of the sea, was utterly expressionless.

  “What do you feel, then?” pursued Alan, somewhat exasperated. “For I’m pickled if I can tell.”

  Gwern took breath to speak, then held it. “Hot,” he finally said.

  “What?” Alan almost shouted.

  “Hot! He is hot. I can’t help it.” Gwern sullenly dug himself deeper into the sand.

  Alan shared his lunch with Gwern, then left to go back
to Nemeton, reluctantly; the eastward pull was strong on him. The next day he returned to the beach and found Gwern no more communicative than ever. They spent the day staring out over the waves. From time to time Gwern would rise and move southward a few feet, perhaps even a furlong. Once he smiled.

  “What was that?” Alan asked.

  “Love,” Gwern replied without hesitation. “Longing and love.” Later, his face subtly changed. “What?” Alan asked again. “Despair,” answered Gwern.

  Alan would not leave the shore that night, sleeping fitfully on the damp gravel. The next day Corin worriedly mustered some retainers and set out in search of him. He found him pacing the verge of the waves, wet to his knees. A bit farther along the strand sat an unkempt youth who neither moved nor spoke at his approach, but glared like a madman over the featureless water. Corin stared, then dismounted and fell into step beside Alan, asking him, as an old friend will, what troubled him. The answer made little sense. Alan seemed too distraught for sense.

  “I gave her my word,” he blurted disjointedly, “which she had never asked of me before, never.… I would be a villain to betray her. But if it were not for that, days ago I would have taken ship and set sail. It must be something to do with Trevyn. If he needs me, and calls me thus … I may never forgive myself. But I gave her my word.…”

  Down the beach, Gwern stirred and made a strangled sound in his throat. Alan whirled. “What was that?” he demanded.

  “Dread,” Gwern replied.

  Alan paced through the day with scarcely a rest or a bite to eat. The tug, like an invisible hook to his heart, had grown to a racking pain that threatened to tear him asunder. Gwern edged his way down the tideline, apparently in some distress of his own; his masklike face had gone hard and tight. Corin paced beside his liege, unable to help him. That night Alan lay tossing in restless exhaustion while Cory watched beside him. With daybreak he was up and pacing as before. Gwern emerged from the woodlot where he had disappeared for the night and stood at the strand’s edge, blinking into the rising sun. Once it was well up, he settled into the sand and seemed to root himself, scarcely breathing, his clay-colored face intense with subterranean anguish. Trevyn had entered Wael’s chamber at Kantukal.

  Alan paced frenziedly, panting in pain, scarcely seeming aware anymore of his surroundings. Suddenly, in mid-morning, he cried out, a terrible cry of tormented defeat, and hurled himself into the waves. Cory caught hold of him, and struggled with him amid the froth, and with some retainers wrestled him to the sand where he lay groaning. Alan did not attempt to rise again, and Gwern sat still as a stump. An hour passed, perhaps more, as Alan lay sweating in agony while Corin and his men stood helplessly by. Then Gwern sighed, almost sobbed, and Alan sat up, blinking in bewilderment. His pain had left him all in a moment. “What in thunder?” he murmured.

  Cory knelt by him. “Are you all right?” he whispered shakily.

  “Hungry and in need of a wash.… Do I remember sleeping on this accursed beach?” Alan got slowly to his feet. Gwern sank his head into folded arms.

  “What is it?” Alan asked numbly.

  “Grief,” Gwern moaned. “Death and grief, death and grief, grief.…”

  Alan stared, motionless, his mind caught on a question that would not find its way to his lips. Cory tugged at his arm.

  “Alan,” he begged, “come away.”

  In a haze of weariness, Alan followed him back to the castle. Cory got him fed and couched at once, puzzled, but very much relieved to see him better. The next day they talked, and neither of them had any explanation for the other. So, hoping for a sign of some sort, Alan lingered on at Nemeton. From time to time he rode to the Beaches, scanning earth, sea, and sky for his answer. Gwern was gone, and after a while Cory learned not to fear for Alan, letting him go alone. So no one knew what Alan found.

  The answer, or so he took it to be, came to him less than a fortnight after his narrow escape. In fact, it was on Trevyn’s birth day, and that awareness played through Alan’s mind as he rode gently along the fingertips of the reaching sea. A glow caught his eye, a golden shine among the pebbles of the beach, and he stopped to look—he felt as if a barbed shaft had pierced him to the heart. The rayed emblem of the rising sun glinted up at him, its spokes set with gems of many hues. As slowly as a man in a nightmare, Alan got down from his mount, picked it up, and turned it over and over in his hand. There was no mistaking the brooch, Hal’s gift to him on this same day eighteen years before. Alan did not weep, but desolation settled over him like a black shroud, for he felt certain now that his son was dead.

  He started back to Laueroc that very day. He did not show Lysse the brooch when he arrived, proud to spare her this grief, yet blaming her in his heart. He complained of nothing. But he ceased to be the loving husband Lysse had known, and as the weeks went by she grew sad, not knowing what to do for him.

  Book Three

  YLIM’S LOOM

  Chapter One

  Trevyn was never to remember anything of the voyage except sun and stars circling, the moon twirling between—all skimming through the movements of some inscrutable dance. Vaguely puzzling, he could not discern the pattern, so intricate was its phrasing, but he could feel its voiceless rhythm. He sensed that the elf-boat also moved in the dance, and so as not to interfere he lay very still on her deck, still and staring, with no thought of food or drink, twirl the moon as it might. If rain wet him he was not to recall it, or day’s heat, or night’s chill. Nor did he note his coming to shore. When awareness came back to him at last, it came with pain and reluctance of body and spirit, perhaps as keen as the pain of an infant in birth. But someone held him, cradled him as if he were a child, and the warmth of the embrace eased him. Trevyn knew those strong arms, he thought.

  “Father?” he faltered.

  “Nay, Trev.” It was a well-beloved voice he heard, but for a moment he did not recognize it. He gazed up into the sea-lit face, blinking the darkness from his eyes.

  “Uncle Hal,” he murmured, and sank back into oblivion.

  He sensed, distantly, that he was cared for. He felt the warmth of a bath, the taste of a strengthening drink, soft blankets, and a bed like an embrace. But his deeper awareness labored in the misery of Tokar. Vividly envisioning the whips of the slavers, he found that he could no longer face them; he flinched and struggled away from them, softly weeping. Emrist lay dying under the whips of the slavers, and he could not help him, not even by screaming. His grief bore him down like a weight as massive as the world. His own frailty struck him through with pity too deep even for tears.

  Somehow a white stag flitted through the scarred texture of his dreams, leading him away, though he knew he had not moved. It took him to a forest of huge and knotted trees, their branches woven together into a tapestry, forming intricate pictures of ships with wings, and myriad shining spheres, and leopards and dragons and black flowers. In the midst of the forest grew a slender sapling, its branches terse as winter, reaching. A cavalcade of alabaster ladies came and gave it their jewels for leaves, seated themselves beneath the young and growing tree. Trevyn followed the white hart. It sped out of the forest, plunged into the sea, and swam away, its silver antlers shining. Trevyn stood with his feet in the water, yearning; he could not follow it there. By the shore a man sat playing a silver harp.

  Trevyn sat and listened. The music took him up winging, carried him out of self, let him leap with the antelope and glide with the eagles and fight by the side of the star-son himself in a strange little land called Isle.… Trevyn blinked, and looked again, and saw that the harper was his Uncle Hal, playing his plinset by candlelight under a shelter of golden cloth. Trevyn propped himself up in his warm bed.

  “You have ransomed me with song,” he said huskily, “as you did for Father at Caerronan.”

  Hal set down his instrument to come to him, and one finger caught a string, striking a single, rich note. A form spiraled itself out of the vibrations; a bird flew up, ensouled by that sound,
a bird of the most ardent red Trevyn had ever seen, red so true that it enthralled the eye. The bird circled the confines of the tent, singing a phrase that swelled Trevyn’s heart, which he was never afterward quite able to remember. Then Hal lifted the tent flap and the bird took its leave without fright, darting skyward.

  “That was my love for you,” Hal explained softly, sitting by Trevyn’s bedside. “Things tend to become very real here.… Lad, you bear scars. I am very, very sorry it has been so hard for you.”

  “Family tradition.” Trevyn grinned with moistened eyes as joy took hold of him. “I can’t deny I’ve felt as beaten as an old rug.… But one good look at you heals me. You are …” Trevyn did not know how to finish.

  “I am content,” agreed Hal.

  He was more than content; he was well and whole for the first time in all his tortuous life, and Trevyn was able to sense it quite surely. Hal’s eyes glowed, and his body moved with certainty and ease. Moreover, he no longer seemed aloof and appraising to Trevyn; he had greeted him with the warmth of a friend and equal. As Trevyn gazed at him, smiling but lost for words, Hal rose with feral grace and pulled back the door flap, beckoning to someone outside. A boy, perhaps twelve years old, entered with a covered tray, set it down, bowed with youthful haste, and hurried out. Could it be that all people in this place were blessed? The boy was beautiful.

  “One of your cousins,” Hal explained.

  Cousins! Trevyn’s mind reeled. He had no cousins, no relations of any sort, except perhaps in …

  “Then this is Elwestrand,” he gulped.

  “Of course.”

  Trevyn ate his food very slowly, as Hal cautioned him. He was caught in astonishment, and his flesh sat heavily on his unaccustomed spirit. He knew now that he had not filled his stomach for the months of the voyage—that thought alone stunned him. But the simple food, porridge and honey, soothed him with its familiarity. He slept peacefully afterward, and awoke later to the soft notes of Hal’s plinset, and ate again. Then he dressed in the clothing Hal gave him: a tunic of finest wool, spring green—his mother’s color—and light brown hose, and cloth boots, and a short leaf-gold cloak. “All right?” Hal asked. “Then let us go to see Adaoun. Your grandfather.”