Free The Sable Moon by Nancy Springer Page A

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.
    â€œI think they were gods,” Gwern said with the unreasoning certainty of a child.
    â€œGods!” Trevyn snorted. “Only peasants talk of gods, Gwern!”
    â€œThey 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.
    â€œDawn 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.
    â€œThere 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.
    â€œMireldeyn 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