“I know it. And yet, that is entirely up to him!” Hal smiled wryly. “Do you understand now? Destinies must discover themselves.… So I’ll watch the sea and hope. You are going to light Adaoun’s pyre for us?”
“If I may.” Trevyn regarded his uncle lovingly. “A fitting time for the trying of power, is it not?”
“None better, since power is not to be used lightly.… I have put that parchment with your things. But have a care how you handle it!”
“If all goes well against Wael, I’ll gladly destroy it. Though I may have to barter it to him yet.… But I must go; my heart cries in me to be gone.” Trevyn cast a yearning glance at the marvels that lined the shore, the white swans, the subtle cats, the unicorns.… “My heart cries,” he amended. “Let me go swiftly. Farewell, Uncle, and—many thanks.”
“All blessing go with you,” Hal said, and kissed him, and released him. The sun still clung to the sea as Trevyn climbed on board the elf-boat and threw away ladder and rope. The ship swirled away from shore with the still form of the departed patriarch following in its wake. Trevyn looked beyond and saw the hundreds of his friends and kindred raise their hands to him in silent salute. He gazed until he could no longer see their faces, then blinked as he turned to front the rising sun.
When he glanced back again, they were just dark posts on the rim of the water, so swiftly did the elf-boat swim. Trevyn waited until they had almost faded into his horizon. Then he spoke a soft command. “Luppe,” he said, “halt,” and the elf-boat eased to a stop, turning aside from Adaoun’s trailing bark. Trevyn loosed the rope that bound it to his ship, letting it drop into the sea. Then he stretched out his hand.
“Alys,” he whispered, “hear me. A fire for my grandfather, if you please. A bright blossom to adorn his going and seed his remnants where it will.” He moved his hand, and fire burst from the bark, curving and cupping Adaoun and cradling him in its glow. Sea birds circled overhead with wondering cries, winged shapes of aching whiteness against the sky. A far larger form circled above, blazing white and gold: Wynnda, the immortal winged horse, bidding farewell to his only master. For a moment, to the watchers on shore, sun and ship, pyre and gold-pinioned steed converged. Then the sun, streaming, tore loose of the sea, the ship sailed from view, the steed wheeled away and the fire sank into the water with only a plume of white smoke to mark its place: and that, too, soon faded into oneness with the spinning wind, as Adaoun’s ashes drifted with the dance of the sea.
Trevyn watched the horse and the fire until his eyes could bear no more beauty. Then he whispered, “Switte, go on,” and the ship swirled away once more, quartering north of the rising sun. Trevyn leaned on her prow and watched the waters cleave, and would not look back. More than time and seas, he knew, would sunder him from that place of peace. Star-sons had sailed to Elwestrand, but none had ever returned.… He did not know how Bevan stood looking after him on that far shore, with his hands cupped to comfort Hal.
Book Four
MENWY AND MAGIC
Chapter One
Trevyn did not lie and stare through this voyage; his body pulsed too full of eager life for that. He paced and pondered and studied sea and sky. The elf-ship was plentifully stocked with everything he needed, and some baubles besides, to amuse him. He ate provisions worthy of a King’s son, and slept in bright blankets, and dressed in soft clothing embroidered as beautifully as a ballad. All in all, he stood the months of the voyage well. His dealings with the goddess had taught him a kind of wry serenity. Still, his heart jolted him to his feet when, one day as the sun neared its equinox, a gray seabird flew overhead and circled to meet him.
“How near lies Isle, little brother?” he hailed it.
“No more than a skim and a flitter,” it cried cheerfully, “for you fly faster than I—phew!” The bird circled away as it fell behind. Trevyn scanned the horizon that day until his eyes burned. Disorderly thoughts crowded his mind—fleeting visions of his home and people there, sometimes people he scarcely knew; but mostly he thought of Meg. He stayed on deck that evening until full dark had fallen, and saw nothing. But the next morning the rocky headlands of Welas lay so close that he shouted and reached out as if to touch them. Cliffs soared from seaside to mountaintops; Trevyn could see every tree that clung to them, and he hugged the elf-boat’s prow in wet-eyed delight.
Before midday she turned the point and entered the Bay of the Blessed. Trevyn gulped, for at the far end someone awaited him, a still figure beside a white horse. No ordinary person could be about; this was a forbidden place.… His mother, perhaps? Nay, he could see now, it was Gwern! Trevyn felt only faintly surprised by the warm surge of joy that went through him. In a moment the elf-boat slid to the shore by Gwern’s bare feet, and he silently positioned the boarding plank for Trevyn to disembark. Gwern’s brown face no longer seemed quite so unreadable; Trevyn saw him bite his lip to still it, and grinned in unsolicited reply. He shouldered his blanketroll and strode to shore, extended a hand, touched fingertips the color of earth. To his chagrin, his full eyes overflowed.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to meet me,” he mumbled.
Gwern turned without comment and pulled the plank to shore. The elf-boat wheeled away and scudded out of the Bay. Trevyn stood watching her as one watches a departing friend, almost dismayed that she had spoken no word of farewell. Then he blinked and shook his head, as if to shake off foolishness.
“Did it hurt to leave Elwestrand?” Gwern asked in his curiously flat, husky voice.
“Ay.… And yet, I am so glad to be back, Gwern! This is home, after all.” He breathed deeply, looking around at the land that somehow sang particularly to him. Then his glance caught on the white horse, and his breath stopped in his throat.
“For you,” Gwern said stolidly. “You’ll have need of a bold horse.”
The stallion wore not a thread of trapping except a lunula of silver on its breast, held there by silklike scarlet cord. It was light and graceful of build, swan-necked, not thewed like a war horse but with something of unicorn fineness, Trevyn thought, and perhaps unicorn fierceness, if fierceness were called for. Bright azure eyes blazed down at him from the stallion’s high-flung, bony head. It was these that stopped Trevyn’s breath, for the pupils were spindle-shaped, like a cat’s, and the strange, blue sheen was ringed with fey white. Trevyn found his voice only after a moment’s sincere search.
“Where, in mercy—” he began, but Gwern interrupted him irritably.
“I don’t know! I woke up one morning, and there he stood, moon mark and all. But he’s yours, right enough. Find out for yourself.”
“That’s no elwedeyn horse,” Trevyn protested. “That’s more like one of Ylim’s wild star-crossed steeds from the foothills of Elundelei.”
The horse jerked down its head so that its azure gaze met his of opal green, and Trevyn felt its impatient command. “All right,” he breathed, and moved to its side, vaulted onto its back, half expecting to be flung off headlong. But the horse stood taut and still for his mounting. Gwern handed up his blanketroll.
“Why does he serve me?” Trevyn demanded. “There’s not a speck of love or loyalty in him.”
Gwern shrugged, then whistled like a plover, calling an elwedeyn colt out of the woods for his own use. He had no gear, not so much as a cup to drink from, and his ragged clothing fluttered about him like brown, tattered leaves. Perhaps he smelled, also, but Trevyn either did not notice or did not mind. The two of them set off side by side at trot and canter toward Laueroc. The land was green and lovely, lush with early June rains, surpassingly beautiful even to Trevyn’s elfin eyes.
“Have you seen Meg?” he asked before they had ridden very far.
“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 c
oppery 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.
The Book of Isle Page 67