Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan.pdf - Nancy Springer - widez2

The Golden

Swan

Nancy Springer

A TIMESCAPE BOOK

PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK

Distributed in Canada by PaperJacks Ltd., a Licensee of the trademarks of Simon & Schuster, a

division of

Gulf+Western Corporation.

AnotherOriginal publication of TIMESCAPE BOOKS

A Timescape Book published by

POCKET BOOKS, a Simon &: Schuster division of

GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.V.

In Canada distributed by Paperjacks Ltd.,

Steclcase Road, Markham, Ontario.

For information address Timescape Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y.

ISBN: 0-671-45253-

First Pocket Books printing May,

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster.

Use of the trademark TIMESCAPE is by exclusive license from Gregory Benford, the trademark

owner.

Printed in Canada

The loom, and on the loom

Thematic colors woven,

The prophecies within the web.

Page 1

The lake, and in the lake The mirroring reflection, The shadowshining face of fate.

The grove, and in the grove

The riddle of the goddess,

The dwelling of the guessing god.

Prologue

In her secluded valley in the midlands of Isle lived Ylim, the weaving seeress, and thither rode young

King Trevyn with Dair, his small son. Dair was a wolf. Leggy, half grown, he bounded along by the

horse, his paws huge and playful, his slate gray fur unruly. Sometimes Trevyn smiled and slapped the

saddle, and the yearling wolf would leap up to ride with him for a while. Dair was a wolf because his

mother had been one at the time of his birth. She had since taken back her human form and returned

across the sea to Tokar, Trevyn surmised. He was a Very King and a sorcerer in the truest sense; the

kiss of the goddess was on him. But he did not know what to do for Dair. Destiny is a personal matter.

The young wolf entered the cottage at his heels and sat courteously by his side. "Laifrita thae, llderweyn,"

said Trevyn to Ylim. "Sweet peace to thee, Grandmother." It was the Old Language, the language of the

Beginning, which only a special few still remembered. She was not his grandmother in fact, though she

might have been grandmother of earth and moon.

"Laifrita thae, Alberic." She called Trevyn by his elfin name. "Laifrita thae, Dair, how are you?"

Quite well, Grandmother, thank you. His voice was a murmur or a growl. Only these special ones could

understand him, they who conversed with the animals as all men once had.

"Is it good, being a wolf?"

It is very good. The smells, and the air in my nostrils, the chase and the -warm meat—He stopped with a

sidelong look at Trevyn, afraid of being laughed at. He had only recently killed Ms first rabbit; more often

he ate at the king's table and slept by the king's bed. But both Ylim and Trevyn listened to him soberly.

"He is quite content," Trevyn said, "and I am glad of it. But I wish I knew what is to become of him,

Grandmother."

"Look your fill," she said.

Dair looked as well. Most folk when they looked on the work of that loom saw nothing. Some who saw

could not remember afterward. But Dair saw and remembered well enough. Light, it was all light, not

cloth; mauve and lavender light. Then a striking feral face appeared. Broad forehead, brows that darkly

met, nostrils that pulsed, wideset amethyst eyes that moved to meet his—thatwere his. A human face, but

unmistakably his connate face, his own.

"A regal face," Trevyn said in a hushed voice. Even as he spoke the face shifted form, became a flower

such as no one had ever seen before, a blossom made of fire and dew. It blazed and flamed; then as they

blinked it dwindled and vanished into the orchid light. The web on the loom went gridelin gray—

Now what? Dair: wondered, puzzled.Shadowy water —

Page 2

It was a lake, the most still and waiting of lakes, its smooth surface glinting iron gray, willows on its verge

hanging moss gray hi breathless, sunless ah". On the dim water a swan floated with scarcely a ripple.

"Strange water," said Trevyn.

The swan was black, its image in the water, white. It had been hurt or crippled somehow, for one wing

hung limp. But in a moment the wing had healed and it was flying, and it had turned white, pure shining

white. It circled and flew nearer, near—the water drew nearer as well. But it was no longer the still lake

water. It was purple tinged and restless. The swan vanished or became the whitecaps of that sea.

Ocean, Dair murmured.

A vast expanse. He knew that cold, swelling, limitless expanse that surrounded Isle—and amidst all that

vastness a speck, a floating cockleshell, a mere bauble of a boat, a coracle—and in it a solitary—

Who is that?

"Watch," said Ylim.

Closer, always closer. They could see the face now. A youth with russet hair, freckles on the high

cheekbones, fine, rugged features and a keen, seeking look about Ms clear brown eyes. One hand was

on a steering oar. The other hung useless from a shriveled arm and shoulder— Dair felt his heart turn

over. Without knowing he had moved he found himself standing with his front paws on the frame of the

loom, and in a blink the vision vanished. He faced featureless cloth.

"Who was it? Ylim asked.

I—don't know. But already he felt the mystic bond.

"You will know him well someday," Ylim said.

"Perhaps you will voyage with him out on that sea," Trevyn mused. Dair turned to him in sharp distress.

But Father, I never want to leave you.

Trevyn smiled, a warm, companionable smile. "It is hi the nature of human young to leave their parents,"

he said.

But I am a wolf. And it is in the nature of wolves to be loyal.

"You are more than wolf or human either," said Ylim. "Whose was the face, the first one?"

Mine. He did not hesitate to claim it. She nodded.

"And it is the face of an immortal. You are the son of Maeve the Moon Mother and Trevyn Elfborn, he

who brought the magic back from Elwestrand to Isle. That was a turning of the great tide, a greater

marvel than you can well imagine, and you were born of that magic." She eyed him sternly. "Dair, the

web does not show its wonders for just anyone, you know. Fate may well take you away from your

father and Isle."

Page 3

Dair only whimpered.

"He is very young," Trevyn excused him. "That one on the boat—do you think he is part of Dair's

destiny?"

"He and the swan, somehow. Ay."

"Who is he? Where does he come from?"

"How can I know?" Ylim grumbled. "I don't direct my weaving, Alberic, any more than you direct your

dreams," For Trevyn's dreams were the font of the magic of Isle.

"And the flower, the lake—"

"I don't know."

"And how Dair's human form is to come to him—"

Ylim merely smiled.

"Answer me just this one question, Ylim," Trevyn requested. "The large question. What part have you

seen in tile pattern for Dair?"

She hesitated. "Dair," she said to the young wolf at last, "this is not binding. The pattern is ever changing.

You may yet change it yourself."

Iunderstand , Dair said.

"The pattern then is this: that you shall continue what your father has begun. That you shall carry magic

onward to the mainland."

Fern flower, fire flower,

Burn, burn when the great tide turns.

Fern flower, show your power.

The Swan Lord will be there to see,

To grasp the stem that burns

And speak with thee,

learn melody,

and sing with wind and tree.

Fern flower, fire flower,

Bloom, bloom when the true time conies.

Page 4

Fern flower, share your power.

The wandering wolf will bear your seed

And take you as his doom,

For all men free

your harmony. The tide has turned indeed.

DAIR

Chapter One

I am Dair. I am spirit, speaking to you mind to mind, for I know no other way to speak the languages of

men. As a man I was a mute because I was born a wolf and stayed so until I was grown—until the day I

found Frain.

I had dreamed of him ever since I had seen him on Ylim's loom. It is hard to explain how much he meant

to me, this bond brother I had never met. There was something in me that could not forget him. Perhaps

it was the wolfwit, which forms attachments for life. Or perhaps it was my father's ardent Laueroc blood.

His forebears, the Sun Kings, had been blood brothers and legendary friends, and then there had been

his own bond with the god in the grove—or perhaps it was something of the elf in him that would not let

me lose sight of the Swan Lord who was coming. Whatever moved me, hardly a day went by that I did

not think of the russet-haired youth as I had seen him, afloat on the lonely sea, his destiny somehow

mixed in with mine. I wondered and longed for him all that year. I grew restless and took to roaming the

downs even as far as the Westwood.

"Wanderlust," Trevyn grumbled. "Dair, you young fur-brained fool, would you please be careful? I

worry about you when you are out alone." There was still much hard feeling against wolves hi Isle. It had

been only a few years since the war when evil sorcery had turned them to a horror, and even Trevyn's

good magic could not erase that memory.

No one can come near me, Ibragged. Igo like a shadow on the wind . I was well grown, strong and

swift as mountain water.

"Indeed." Trevyn sat back studying me, and for some reason he sighed. He had a human child now, an

infant, his legal heir, but always he greeted me with warmth and joy. Truly, I had not meant to go so far

from him. But fate had its finger on me. My second snowy winter came and my unrest deepened as the

snow.

Sometime after the solstice of that winter I left. The dream of the bond brother was on me, I felt the

focus of his coming in the east, and I ran that way to meet him.

I journeyed far faster than any horse. I needed only a coney caught in the snow or a mouse or two and

then I was off, padding, night and day, slipping like a slate blue shadow across Isle. For some weeks I

went straight as an arrow, straight as arrowflight in silence, until I came to the eastern shore. There on the

shingle beach I sat, trying to whiff the smell of destiny in the wind that came across the salt water. Finally

I lay down, curling my warm tail over my nose. I lay there for three days.

I was stubbornly waiting. I would not move to hunt for food even though deer ran by within a hundred

Page 5

Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan.pdf

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