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

have known it the first time he saw him touch an elwedeyn horse.
Gwern took no pause for his astonishment. "She answers to many names, but that is the most puissant,"
he continued soberly. "Call on her when you have need."

Trevyn regarded his dun-faced companion in mingled wonder and suspicion. What was this Gwern, and
why should he offer aid when Trevyn had never showed him anything but hostility? "I have been taught to
call only on the nameless One, and that seldom," he said at last.

Gwern shrugged. "And what is this Aene?" he asked, again in the Ancient Tongue.

"Dawn and dusk, the hawk and the hunted, sun and sable moon." Trevyn impatiently parroted the words
Hal had taught him; already he had tired of riddles. "What of it? Come on, Gwern, let us be moving!"

The brown youth obeyed with a strange smile. Trevyn had just spoken the name of destiny, and in his
ignorance he rushed to leave it behind.

For another three days the two rode through a wilderness of jumbled stone and giant, lowering trees.
They saw no living creatures except birds and deer and the elwedeyn horses that also liked to explore
these parts. In time they came to the Gleaming River and followed it south, down to the Bay through
which Veran had entered Welas. They reached that quiet expanse without a sight of Alan and the
Queens. Signaling their horses to a stop, they looked out over the shimmering water.

"There it is," Trevyn said.

Through the perpetual shadows of that dusky, brooding place moved a slim, gray elf-shipтАФa living thing,
restless as a blooded steed between the confines of the shingle shores. Great evergreens towered
overhead, the silvery water glim┬мmered between, and the elf-boat circled like a swan, waiting. Trevyn
moved closer.

"Mireldeyn is coming," he told the vessel in the Old Language. Then he gulped. "What in the name
ofтАФof my fathers is that?"

Another ship floated close to shore near the mouth of the



Bay, wallowing sullenly in the gleaming water. It was no elf-craft. It was broad, heavy, and high-headed,
and it glittered all over with gold, shining like a miser's dream. The railings were riotous with gold filigree.
At the bow leaped a figureheadтАФa golden wolf with bared teeth of mother-of-pearl. Trevyn felt sick.
This could be no mere chance.

Slowly he rode along the verge of the Bay until he came to the glittering ship. There was no anchor or
line holding it in place, no captain ,or any living being on board. The gilded wolf glared balefully, daring
Trevyn to come closer. Grudgingly, he found a boarding plank, left at that sa┬мcred place from times long
past, and he laid it to the pol┬мished deck.

"Don't!" Gwern whispered.