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

bright. "
Trevyn felt something coming through the air from the south and east, something of such darkness that he thought it would blot out the moon. It smote him with fear, terrible fear such as no spirit had ever caused in him, fear even beyond screaming. He silently trembled against the unfeeling earth as the focus of evil passed beside him and into the cave. Then he heard Emrist catch his breath, and, moving with leaden reluctance, he forced himself to look within. A shape of nightmare was growing in the shadows of the cave, a being of obscurest gloom that displaced the haze of Emrist's making. Trevyn felt its terror as a crushing weight that robbed him of breath or movement. It was a spectral wolf, substance only of blackness, huge, looming, floating forward, with eyes and bared teeth of flame. Emrist snatched up a handful of salt and flung it at the thing, spoke to it in the Ancient Tongue, words of exorcism: "Este nillen, gurn olet, kenne Aene." ["Be no more, evil thing, in the name of the One."] But his words were a trembling whisper, and had no effect. With a wrenching effort, Trevyn glanced at his master and saw him sway on his feet. The shape of shadow and fire was nearly on him, and his words stopped with a choke as he caught at the cave wall for support.
Sudden fury swept up Trevyn like a gale tearing a ship from its moorings. By the One, he would not again be unmanned by some wolfish apparition! He leaped into the inner thickness, to Emrist's side, and words long pent burst from him with a power he had not known he possessed: "Begone, vile phantom, and trouble him no more! Begone, dark thing!" In his passion, Trevyn lunged at the grinning specter to throttle it, but he blinked; his hand passed through emptiness, and his enemy vanished.
Beside him, Emrist leaned against earth with lidded eyes. Trevyn lifted him and, grasping a candle in his free hand,

supported him out of the cave and down the slope to lay him by the pool. Emrist gasped painfully at the clean night air. Trevyn cradled his head in silence, dabbing water on his face and rubbing his bony chest. Presently, Emrist's breathing eased, and he opened his eyes. Wonder grew in them.
"Alberic!" he exclaimed in the Old Language. "No wonder Maeve went to you! I should have known it long ago."
Though he had never heard the name before, Trevyn understood its meaning: elf ruler, spirit ruler, eagle King and unicorn King. But he did not know why Emrist should call him by that name.
"Nay," he replied gently in the same tongue, "my name is Trevyn."
"Your sooth-name is Alberic," Emrist murmured, gazing up at him.
Trevyn could not doubt him. Though Emrist was not much older than himself, he seemed old as Isle just then, and wise as any seer. A warm ache of gratitude filled Trevyn, making him blink and tighten his arms around the frail man. Once again Emrist had given him back to himself and like a father had named him.
"Blood, what am I thinking of!" Suddenly urgent, Emrist struggled to sit up. "My lord, you are in great peril."
"Ay," Trevyn agreed regretfully, "that wolfish thing will tell its master of my whereabouts. I must leave, and quickly."
"Worse than that. They have got your brooch!"
Trevyn frowned in puzzlement, knowing he had left his brooch with Meg. "Who?"
"Rheged and that warlock Wael. They have had men hunting you these many weeks, and yesterday I saw that they had found it-" Emrist lost coherence in his earnestness. "And I, the dolt, not to realize it was you! Haven't you felt it tug, my lord? He can draw a soul to him from any such belonging, and the body of necessity with it, just as he drew the wolf-boat by a splinter of the figurehead-"
Trevyn's brow creased anew. "I have felt nothing. Can the Sight have misled you, Emrist?"
He mused. "Perhaps it was sight of future, not of present- but the peril is the same. I heard them gloating, and I saw the

brooch in their hands. It was in the half-sun shape of Veran's fame, golden, with jeweled rays, a kingly thing. There was no mistaking it."
Trevyn struck his forehead with his palm. "They are mistaken even so," he exclaimed hoarsely. "It's my father's! He only lent it to me. . . . Tides and tempests, Emrist, I must get it back at once! What could happen to him?"
Emrist's eyes, full of horror, gave him answer enough. "I will come with you," he said.
Trevyn bit his lip in dismay, for he knew Emrist's traveling pace. Though he was reluctant to hurt one to whom he owed every thanks, his fear for Alan firmed his answer. "Nay. I must go with all speed." .
"Then you will go with all speed into disaster!" cried an unexpected voice. "What will you do when you come to Kantukal, indeed?" Trevyn and Emrist stared as Maeve entered their little circle of light, but she ignored their discomfiture in her concern. "If your father the King is of such stuff as you, it will be many days before Wael's spell can have much effect. Perhaps it has not yet even begun. After you two come to Kantukal, there should still be time enough for Em to thwart Wael's scheming."
"Maeve," her brother interposed mildly, "how do you come to be here?"
"Did you think I would sleep through this night? I heard Freca leave and followed as soon as I could. I was loath to interrupt, loath to spy, and yet loath to steal away; so I hovered near, like a moth at the lamp."
Trevyn laughed shakily. "I know what you mean. I have been such a moth these many weeks past, afraid to singe my wings. . . . But Maeve, would you not rather have Emrist by you here and safe?"
"There was little safety for him here-tonight." She met his eyes quite candidly. "And though he is frail of body, Freca, his power is a giant in him."
"His name is Trevyn," Emrist corrected her. "He who shall rule as Alberic, son of Alan, of the line of Laueroc-"
" 'Freca' will do well. If we are to go a-courting to Kantukal, you cannot be my-lording me." Trevyn could not say what had changed his mind, unless it was the wisdom he

had seen in Maeve's eyes. But he felt assurance at once that what he did was right for Alan as well as for Emrist.
"-of Isle," went on Emrist, unperturbed. "Heir also of Hal, of the line of Veran of Welas, King of the Setting Sun-"
"Spare me." Trevyn got to his feet. "I'll go fetch your things from the cave."
"Leave them there till they rot," Emrist replied bitterly. "I'll use them no more."
"The parchment? I would like to read it, if I may."
The magician hesitated. "It is a very evil thing," he answered slowly. "But it may yet be of use, I dare say."
Trevyn made his way up to the cave in the dark, leaving
them the candle. He found the entrance mostly by the smell
of pungent smoke. The other candles had drowned in their
wax, and the incense had subsided to ashes, but still there was
light within the cave-a small, spectral light. It had been no
trick of Trevyn's mind that the emblem of the leaping wolf
shone with the same warmthless shimmer as the death-lights
flickering over a marsh. It almost seemed to move before his
eyes, and the mouth gaped, glinting with ranked teeth.
Trevyn stared at the thing awhile before he took hold of the
parchment by a far corner. He rolled it so that the emblem
disappeared inside, and, grateful for the darkness, made his
way back to the others. _