"Springer, Nancy - Book Of The Isle 3 - Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

"I know it." Lysse spoke with mindful understanding.
"But the lad," Hal continued. "He flees from more than sorrow, I think."
"You think he flees? From Gwern?"
"Ah, the wyrd," Hal murmured. "There is a portent for you, of great weight. I tell you, Trevyn will be more important than any of us, more than King, more than Very King. Of all the Kings of Isle and Welas, I know of none that have had a wyrd."
"Why, what is a wyrd?" Lysse asked curiously.
"More than comrade, more than brother or blood brother, more than second self. Alan was all of those to me. . . ." Hal floundered. "How I wish I knew. I can only sense dimly that the wyrd is one who will be sacrificed when the time comes." Hal dosed his eyes. "Suffering and sacrifice-they are required of any true king. How much more, then, of Trevyn. . . . He will blunder into the teeth of suffering soon."
"I believe he has already begun. But I don't understand." Lysse creased her fair brow. "Who will sacrifice Gwern? And why?"
"Aene. Or the goddess. For greatness." He stirred slightly, faced her again. "There are marvels to come, a quickening, new magic, or old magic made new. . . . There are things I could never do, and they will be done. That mystic sword I found will be thrown in the sea at last; I have seen that. An elfin King must hurl it away, to end the long shadow of Lyrdion on our land. I was never able to do it; 'twas all I could do to touch that weapon once, then walk away."

Lysse leaned forward with as much excitement as he had ever known her to show. "What else?"
"Something about unicorns, and the shape where two circles meet, the spindle shape. And the seeress . . . Trevyn mounted on a cat-eyed steed. Virgins and dragons . . . Do you think it might be a girl he's running from?"
"It has occurred to me," Lysse snapped. "What was Trevyn doing on such a peculiar horse?"
"Bringing the legends back to Isle, from Elwestrand. To travel to Elwestrand and return-I could never do that. It has never been done. But he shall do it. Trevyn shall, the young fool. I have seen."
"Mother of mercy," she-murmured, stunned. "You haven't told him!"
"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 beautiful-frail, 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.
Trevyn sighed, gloomily accepting that Gwern knew of his plans even though he had not told him. He scarcely ever spoke to Gwern, though he had not fought with him since the row over Meg. His dislike had not abated, but he had become somewhat ashamed of it. He had decided to be dignified.
"Very well," he replied coolly, then smiled grimly to himself. He judged that Gwern would not ride with him more than a few days. Gwern would not be able to pass the haunt that guarded the Blessed Bay.
After nightfall they were off, with 'heavy packs of food stolen from the kitchen. Trevyn knew the sentries would be wary of him now, so they had to do some climbing with a rope. The Prince barely bothered to wonder why he trusted Gwern as his companion. Once well beyond the walls, far out on the downs, the mismatched pair called up some horses and set their course by the summer stars that hung low on the western horizon.
Trevyn had never been to the Bay of the Blessed, but he felt sure he could find the way. He would show his parents whether he was a child, to be so lightly left behind! He rode

hard, to be certain of arriving before the slow horse litter. Once he had passed the haunt, the abode of bodiless spirits, he need not fear any pursuit. No mortal could withstand terror of those unresting dead except a few who still remembered the mysteries of the old order, the sound of the Old Language. Among which few, as a Laueroc, Trevyn numbered himself.
Within three days Trevyn and Gwern came to the end of the green meadows and tilled land, to the haunt, where the shades of the dead thickly clustered. Trevyn could feel their eerie presence chill the air. Smugly, he turned to watch Gwern shriek and flee. At last he would be rid of the muddy-hued upstart who hounded him! But Gwern only straightened to attention on his horse.
"Dead people!" he exclaimed, with something like delight. "But why do they not rest? Whence do they come?"
"How should I know?" Trevyn sputtered, fighting off his astonishment and the conclusions he did not wish to reach. Irrationally fleeing, he spun his mount and sent it springing into the haunt. Gwern followed without hesitation, and the wild terrain soon slowed Trevyn's pace. He and Gwern picked their way silently between looming gray rocks and dark firs. Once through the invisible barrier, Trevyn breathed easier, knowing he would not be ingloriously escorted back to Laueroc. But Gwern still rode at his side;
"I think they were gods," Gwern said with the unreasoning certainty of a child.
"Gods!" Trevyn snorted. "Only peasants talk of gods, Gwern!"
"They were little gods, such as can be killed, and they tried hard to cheat death; they still try. But the great gods cannot be killed. There is the goddess my mother; her sooth-name is Alys."
Trevyn gaped at him, staggered anew. Gwern had spoken in the Ancient Tongue, which Trevyn had never heard him use before or expected to hear from him. He hazily sensed that Gwern could not have said "Alys" in the language of Isle or any language of men. But he thought more of his earthy companion than of the goddess. There was no escaping the conclusion now: Gwern moved in the old order. He should

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.