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

the golden horizon, and Trevyn realized that the wash of water was in his own eyes. Still he stared
westward. Not until the sun slipped from view did he realize that his father stood beside him, holding him.
Alan, the great of heart. Trevyn had not yet learned the depths of his love.

"You are quavering like a harp string," Alan said.

Trevyn shook his head to clear the haze of his trance. "Father," he muttered. "I have grieved you, and I
must grieve you more."

"Why, Trevyn?" Lysse and Rosemary drew closer to listen. Gwern quietly emerged from the trees.

"I must go on that golden ship," he told them.

Gwern was expressionless, Rosemary too sunk in her own sorrow to care. Lysse looked at the
wolf-ship with quiet eyes, seeking to pierce its secret. But Alan exploded.

"If you had not been here, you would not have seen it!" he cried. "The elf blood is strong in you. I knew
that if you came to the Bay you would yearn to sail, as Hal did. . . ." Alan choked and subsided. "From
the moment he saw your mother's folk taking ship to the west, he dreamed of the sea."

"I dreamed before I came to the Bay," Trevyn answered in a low voice. "But the elf-ship is gone, Father.
That gaudy boat will not take me to Elwestrand."

Alan stared at his son, truly seeing him for the first time in months. There was no glory lust in Trevyn's
eyes, no youthful impulsiveness. White-faced, the Prince looked as frightened as Alan had ever seen him,
but still set in his resolve. "Where, then?" Alan whispered. But Trevyn had no answer to offer.

Lysse turned from her study of the strange vessel, looked at her son instead, and he did not elude her
gaze. "It is true, my husband," she said to Alan. "He must go. There is a destiny on him."

Alan staggered as if he had been struck. "How can I know that?" he gasped wildly. "Suppose I defy
thisтАФthis so-called destiny of yours, young man, and bid you stay. What then?"

"Then I would defy you, and I would fight you, if it came to



that." Trevyn did not try to hide his misery. "Short of my killing you, nothing worse can befall us both
than my biding here. No good can come to anyone who shirks a destiny, you have told me. No good can
come to us if I stay."

"It will not come to that," Alan muttered. For Trevyn's sake he would yield, though in all his life he had
never surrendered with good grace. "Still, I do not understand," he added bitterly, perhaps to the One.
"On any other day or hour I could have borne this better."

"I can wait a few hours, or even a day," Trevyn said quietly.