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

"Sometimes a bit hotter or colder, just for variety. Sometimes one of us dreams of snow and it falls-just for fun, I think. It quickly melts. The plants never wither, but there are seasons. I tell them by the flowers, and by the hills yonder. It is early winter in Isle."
Trevyn studied the distant, rolling hills that Hal pointed out, hills of the peculiar pinkish-gray of wintery woodland cloaked by neither leaves nor snow. "But . . ." Trevyn floundered. Hal glanced around, half laughing at him.
"The sea is wide. The voyage must have taken you three months, maybe four. It is nearly Winterfest." '
"So I lay and stared all that time. All right. But if those trees are bare, there on those hills, why is it springtime here?"
Hal's smile broadened, and he sat down on a smooth-worn stone. "Now that is the marvel of all marvels here," he averred. "I believe those hills are there just for my benefit, to look at. You will never reach them by walking."
"Why not?" Trevyn sat also, glad of the rest, winded by just the small distance they had come. He wondered if Hal was teasing him on that account. But Hal seemed quite serious.
"You see that mountain-the rocky peak nearer than the hills? We call it Elundelei-Mount Sooth. Truth lives there, for those who are able to grasp it. And if you climbed to the top, you might be able to see that we are on an island far smaller than Isle, with the sea ringing it all around."
"But how can that be?" Trevyn protested. "It looks as if the land goes on forever."
"And there is room enough for everyone who comes here, and all their creations, and room to roam, and solitude for anyone who seeks it." Hal shrugged whimsically. "This is Elwestrand, Trevyn, and I dare say you will never understand it; no one does. Come, let us find Adaoun."
They walked along through wilderness interspersed with meadows, gardens, wheat fields, and occasional bright-colored canopies, graceful saillike shapes nestled into the curves of the land. Trevyn saw only a few folk, all comely

even from a distance, raising hands in greeting, dressed in soft, rich-hued clothing like his own. "There is no need for crowns here," Hal declared, "and no need for settled dwellings. We move as the whim takes us. And there is no need of fire wood!* except for cooking, praise be. You know how the elves hate to fell trees."
"Is it only elves who live here?"
"Nay, many others. Men of peace. Look, there is Adaoun."
Trevyn saw Adaoun's horse first, the splendid, blazing-white, gold-winged steed that had once flown over Welas. It grazed beside a placid stream. Beyond, on a gentle rise overlooking the meadow, a swan-white awning draped slender birch trees. On a couch beneath the awning, propped up by linen pillows, sat an old, old white-bearded man.
Trevyn approached by Hal's side, his mind clamoring. Ever since his earliest childhood, he had been told about Adaoun, father of the elves, first sung in the First Song of Aene at the beginning of time', ageless as the elements, sturdy as the mountains, visionary. ... Surely this shrunken mortal could not be he! But the eyes that met Trevyn's plunged deep as wells, nearly drowning him in wonder. He sank to one knee beside the ancient patriarch and felt a withered hand touch his hair in the gesture of blessing.
"Alberic," said Adaoun in a voice soft and vibrant and powerful as the wind. "Welcome."
"Someone else has called me by that name," Trevyn whispered. "But I do not know why, Grandfather." He dared the old man's eyes again, and found that he could meet Adaoun's unfathomable gaze.
"Sometime you will know," Adaoun told him. "But for now I shall call you Grandson, if you like. I have grandchildren now, you know, by the hundreds, now that my children have chosen the lot of mortals and taken mortal mates. But you, whom I have never met, were the first. The years flit by like mayflies for a mortal. . . . You must be nearly of age."
"I am sev-nay, I am eighteen."
"Marvelous," Adaoun murmured. "How marvelous to be so young, and growing. ... I remember quite well when the world was so young. But at last the One has blessed me with

ending. Day by day my body grows weaker, and it will not be long now before I am gathered into death's embrace."
Trevyn flinched and lowered his eyes, for he was not himself on such good terms with death. But he had no need to respond. A young woman came toward them through the birch grove, walking with a sway like sea wind, carrying a tray of food. She brought it to Adaoun, her dress nearly as red as Hal's red bird, set it before him, and wordlessly stood by his side.
"This is Ylim." Adaoun introduced her as if her name told all about her.
"Time's weaver beyond time, whom I met in Isle once," Hal added with amusement. "Alan and I blundered into her valley where the elfin gold still flowered in spite of the blight of the evil kings-but I did not know how to read her web then, and I did not know her name, and certainly I did not know her in that form."
It was the form that made Trevyn stare. How could this lissome woman be the ancient seeress of Isle, the crone who had given her advice to Bevan? He could believe that she was ageless, for nothing about her suggested the tenderness of youth. But she was also lovely, and, he sensed, dangerous, if he so desired. Her skin, soft and lineless, glowed as white as lilies, as white as the belly of a white foal. Her hair, a ripple of wild mane, fell almost to her knees, golden-silver. . . . Trevyn blinked; it was of all colors, like a dream of horses, as changeable as the moon, as shining as the sea. Indigo eyes gazed back at him out of the full-lipped face, and something in Ylim's level look made Trevyn lower his own eyes. They caught on the high swell of her breasts, then closed in confusion. Suddenly he recognized her as the "princess" he had dreamed of in Isle.
"Well met, Alberic," said Ylim.
Her voice was husky, impersonal, not unfriendly. Trevyn could not reply. He heard her turn and take her leave, but he could not raise his eyes to look after her.
"You will get used to her presently,'* Adaoun remarked mildly. "Come, help me eat."
He meant eat with him. There was enough food for all, bread and mellow cheese and tangy fruits that Trevyn could

not name; perhaps they had no names. Afterward, he and Hal followed the stream down to the seashore, where it spread into a lagoon. Tufted grasses edged it, and tall birds waded in the shallows, flashing blue or gray or green as they caught the shifting light. Hal and Trevyn sat down on a gravelly hummock to watch.
"So," blurted Trevyn, "am I dead?"
"Do you feel dead?" Hal asked dryly.
"How should I know? But Ylim is dead, T know that. Father found her slain by lordsmen, and laid her to rest beneath a willow tree-but she was an old woman then."
Hal puffed his lips. "Very true. But perhaps death need not kill. Most men are born squalling, and eat and sweat and brawl out their lives, and die, but there are some . . . Ylim is not of mortal sort anyway. And never was. Nor is she elf. I thing she is just-herself."
"But she has changed."
"Some are able to change-to go through the greatest of changes-and yet not change. I knew her at once when I met her here, though we had met only once before."
Trevyn swung his arms impatiently, batting away Hal's words as if they were bothersome insects. "Uncle," he asked doggedly, "am I going to be able to return to Isle? For return I must, and quickly. There is grave peril."
"I did not want to ask before you were ready. But I can see you have been in evil hands." Hal's eyes glinted angrily at the thought. "What is it? The warlords again out of the north?"
"Nay. Far worse. Tokar."
"Tokar! The Eastern Invaders wish to try again! But Alan will not let them land, Trevyn. They will be slaughtered as they set foot on shore."
"They will not come by ship," Trevyn replied heavily. "Or at least not at first. I think there are already invaders in Isle. They come by magic and take for their own the bodies of wolves." He stopped, expecting an argument, but Hal only turned to him with a face gone intensely still.
"Do not think I disbelieve you," said Hal after a long pause. "All things are possible. . . . But will you tell me what has happened to make you say this?"
So Trevyn told him about the wolves, and Meg, and the

gilded ship, and Emrist, and the confrontation with Wael. He ached, thinking of Meg, and sharper pangs went through him when he spoke of Emrist. Still, those events seemed a distant and puzzling pattern to him from the far shore of Elwestrand, and he recounted them as if telling about a sorrowful dream. And with those memories still floating like lacework in his mind, he absently picked up a handful of gravel, let it trickle through his fingers, then froze, stunned. Each rough fragment had turned to a gem like a tear, silky smooth, of dusky sweet and subtle colors, shot through with winks of moth-white light. Trevyn touched them shakily.
"In another hand, or at another time," Hal marveled, "they might have become crystals, or bits of colored glass, or nothing. Expect no more, Trev. Those are the purest of gifts, as random as rain."
Trevyn picked out one that glimmered plumply, like a tiny moon, autumn pink, with a pale shape like a spindle at its heart. "For Meg, if I am ever to see her again," he stated grimly. "Which you have not yet told me, Uncle."