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

"There it is," Trevyn said.
Through the perpetual shadows of that dusky, brooding place moved a slim, gray elf-ship-a living thing, restless as a blooded steed between the confines of the shingle shores. Great evergreens towered overhead, the silvery water glimmered 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 of-of 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 figurehead-a 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 sacred place from times long past, and he laid it to the polished deck.
"Don't!" Gwern whispered.
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 dripping, 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

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 this-this 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.
"Nay, go if you must go! Are there provisions on that sickly ship?"
Trevyn only nodded.
"Confound it, let us be on with it, then!"
They put the boarding plank to the gaudy wolf-boat. Trevyn strode off and fetched a bundle of clothing from his horse. Lysse stood probing the strange, glittering craft with smoky gray-green eyes. Only when Trevyn approached did she stir from her trance.
"Your cloak," she urged, motherlike. "It will be chilly on the .open sea."
Trevyn got out the garment and flung it around his shoulders. Alan watched him intently, trying to seize the moment with his mind. Trevyn fastened his cloak, not with his golden brooch, but with a simple pin.
"Your brooch," Alan said. "What has become of it?"
"I lost it somewhere along the road." But Trevyn was taken by surprise, and the lie showed plainly in his eyes. Alan stared at him, stunned. Falsehood, and at this, the last moment they had to share! Trevyn returned his father's gaze with anguish in his own. Then Alan removed the jeweled brooch from his own shoulder, the rayed emblem of the royal crown that he had worn since Hal had given it to him on the day of Trevyn's birth.
"That is yours!" Trevyn exclaimed. "Keep it. I can't take it from you!"
"Borrow it, then. Bring it back," said Alan tightly. He pinned it over his son's heart, wordlessly handed him a purse of gold.

"I will. I swear to you I will return." Trevyn's voice shook. "Father, I am sorry-"
"Hush." Alan gripped his shoulders. "There is no need for speeches. Go with all blessing. . . ." He hugged his son hard and kissed him fiercely before he released him.