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

Trevyn had never seen him so frightened. Gwern's fear gave him a perverse triumph. Goaded, he stalked
onto the golden boat.

The very boards of the deck were gilt. Trevyn edged across them and looked below, every muscle tense
with caution. He half expected an ambush of wolves or of wolfish men. Instead, he found casks of water
and provisions for a long voyage. Then he felt the ship shudder beneath him, heard the boarding plank fall
away. He sprang to the deck and leaped off at once, landing over his head in icy water. He fought his
way to shore, sputtering. Gwern reached out to help him, and Trevyn did not scorn to take his hand. As
he stood drip┬мping, the wolf-boat clumsily circled and came back to its place.

"In good time!" he shouted at it angrily. "I must say farewell to my father!"

All his dreams of Elwestrand had been shocked out of him by the danger he had tried too long to ignore.
He would be voyaging, but not to Elwestrand, he knew now. He might have let Gwern say his farewells
for him, he reflected, but he had done that once too often already. Shivering, he rode into the shelter of
the trees, and Gwern helped him build a fire. There he sat and warmed himself through the rest of the day
and the night. The sleek elf-ship swam impatiently about the



Bay; Trevyn could glimpse it in the moonlight. But the gaudy wolf-ship lurked stodgily in the shadows
near the shore, flickering like marsh-lights in a darkened swamp. Already Trevyn hated its squalid
splendor. He slept little and was glad to see the dawn.

Rosemary, Ala*n, and Lysse came late the next day. Gwern and Trevyn watched from the shadow of a
giant fir as the elf-boat sped gladly to meet them and nestled close to shore near their feet. Arundel gave
a joyful whinny, the greeting of an elwedeyn steed to the elfin ship that was like kindred to him. But Alan
exclaimed in consternation, "Look yonder! What is that chunk of metal floating there?"

"Perhaps that boat does not concern us," Rosemary murmured.

"It does not concern Hal," Lysse agreed.

So Alan put the boarding plank to the elf-boat and lifted Hal's still body from the horse litter, cradling
him like a baby. He carried him on board his boat and settled him gently on the open deck. Hal would lie
under wheeling sun and stars on his long voyage; his gray eyes gazed up serenely. Alan laid his plinset
beside him, in the sturdy leather case Rosemary had made years before. Then he took the great silver
crown of Veran and flung it with all his strength far out into the Bay. With a sigh that Trevyn felt even
from afar, Alan knelt to kiss Hal's quiet face, then left him there and stepped to shore. He looked at
Rosemary, and she nodded.

Alan slid the plank away. Instantly, the swan-ship glided off, over the bright water, straight toward the
golden light of the setting sun. Gulls flew low, calling, and water rippled. There was no other sound.

Trevyn watched it go. He thought he had put desire from him, but he had not yet felt true desire. He had
never felt a force such as the mystic longing that took hold on him now. Scarcely knowing what he did,
he started from his hiding place, running down the stony beach until his feet met the waves. He stared
after the elf-ship, yearning. The sun reached out to him. The ship was a shape of marvel in its embrace. It
swam swiftly away, at one with the wash of waves and the circling sea currents. Then it was gone,
engulfed in