"Nancy Springer - Isle 03 - The Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

"I am not a half-wit," he retorted frostily. "What is the good of a prophecy told? He must work it out
himself, or make a hash of it, as the case may be. I've written it down among my things, for some scholar
to grub up years hence. Then Trevyn shall have his glory, if glory is due."
"Mother of mercy," she said again. "Unicorns stand for wholeness. . . . What are the two circles that
meet?"

"Gold and silver, sun and moon . . ." Hal's voice faded dreamily away. He was tired, and spoke no
more, then or in the weeks that followed. He lay in deep stillness. Alan stopped trying to talk him out of
his strange trance, though he was full of anger that had no vent. Sometimes he climbed the tower stairs to
Hal's door and looked silently in for a while, then turned and went away. He would not sit by his
brother's side.

Hal faded into brightness. Though he did not eat or move, his body remained beautifulтАФfrail, scarred
from old wounds, but glowing with spirit life. During the first days of spring, when a hint of green began to
tinge the hillsides, Hal gradually, carefully ceased to breathe. Power and vision still shone from his open
eyes.

Alan could not grieve anymore; how was he to grieve for one who had not truly died? But Rosemary
wept, for she was a woman and she knew her loss. Trevyn clung to his dream. When the trees began to
bud and Hal still did not stir, his loved ones prepared to take him to the Bay, where, Lysse's



Sight told her, an elf-ship awaited him. Alan dressed him in the bright, soft raiment of the elves and laid
him in a horse litter. Beside him Rosemary placed the antique plinset that had always been his comfort.
Alan brought the mighty silver crown that had come with Veran to Isle.

"Hal does net want the heavy crown," Lysse said. "He told me so. He will be no king in Elwestrand."

Alan looked at the great crown that was rayed like a silver sun. The sheen of it was the same as the
tide-washed gray of Hal's eyes. Alan blinked and turned away.

"It has no place here without him," he said roughly. "He is the last of that line. I will throw it into the sea
whence it came. Lysse, get him the circlet I made him, at least. . . ."

Trevyn came out, leading Rhyssiart, his golden steed, ready to ride with the others. But Alan turned on
him brusquely. "Put that horse away. You are to stay here."

Trevyn's jaw dropped in astonished protest, and hot anger stirred in him; he quickly squeezed it down.
He watched, motionless, as Alan and the Queens rode off with, the horse litter between them. Arundel
followed behind, riderless. Meadowlarks sang high overhead as the little procession moved slowly
toward the Bay of the Blessed, a seven days' journey away. Trevyn stood with his disobedience already
forming in his mind.



Chapter Six

"I am going, too," Gwern stated.