Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan

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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.

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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 —

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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."

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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.

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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

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feet. Snow fell and covered me. Then the clouds drew away and a cold, cold night came. Every star

showed, and all the stardark between, and all the warmth of earth seemed to have vanished into that

void. There was a looming feeling in the night or hi me. I got up and stretched myself for a moment and

looked out over the dim ocean, feeling myself tiny in the sight of those twin eyes, sea and sky. There was

a steady lapping sound out on the far water that I could not identify. Even my nose told me nothing. All

night I sat and watched the dark water and saw nothing. I remembered such dark water from an old

woman's loom.

In the morning some instinct sent me northward a little way, and there he lay, naked, the salt spray

turning to white rime ice on him.

Frain. The Swan Lord. I did not yet know him by those names, but I knew how important he was to me,

and for a horrible moment I thought he was dead. He was lying on the hard, seawashed sand below the

high tide ledge, his red hair snarled like wrack, his face far too pale—as pale as sand and snow. But he

still breathed, I saw. I lay down right on top of him, trying to warm him with my thick fur, and at that

touch a pang of yearning made me howl aloud and the change came on me all in a moment.

It was not of my doing or deciding. These things are often awkward—I might have been of more use to

him as a wolf. But it came on me willy-nilly, amid a welter of emotions, compassion—it is the most

human of emotions—and longing—I wanted his smile,I had come all this way to meet him, to be his

friend, his human friend, it seemed… Cold is what I remember first. The day was as bitterly cold as the

night had been. Cold air and cold snow and sand—my fur was gone. I was practically hairless. How

humans were to be pitied, to be always so naked beneath their clothes, so cold! I pitied myself heartily.

My limbs shot out, long, and my heart pounded within great broad ribs. My muzzle disappeared. My

vision blurred for a moment, then righted itself, and hands waved foolishly in front of my face. I was

terrified, startled beyond telling. I sprang up to run off. But my limbs would no longer serve me wolf

fashion, and I fell over on my side, thrashing. One foot struck Frain, and he groaned.

I had hurt him. I wanted to howl again.

Instead I quieted myself, gathered my wits a moment. Then I struggled up enough to balance on one

front paw— hand. I used the other to tug and shake at him. His only reaction was to swallow. I tugged

harder, then managed to sit on my haunches and get both hands free. I graspedhim under the shoulders,

pushed with my feet and sprawled over backwards, pulling him a little farther from the sea. I wanted to

get him out of reach of the tide," though it meant dragging him into the snow. But I was barely able to

wriggle out from under him. A few more such efforts and I was exhausted.

I was very weak.I had not eaten in too long a time for a human, it seemed. And I was cold, shivering, a

horrible, strange sensation to me. I felt terribly afraid. I would freeze, we would both freeze, unless I

found us help— tried to rise on my long hind legs, to walk man fashion. I fell. Again I tried, and again I

fell, and again and again. I gave in and tried to go on four legs, but all my speed and grace and strength

had left me; I could go no better than a snail. The nearest dwelling might be miles… Despair washed over

me like an incoming tide, and I bowed my head to the ground. This bond brother I had found, I was

failing him in every way. I could not carry him to shelter, and I had no longer even any fur to warm him. I

had thought that once we were together all things would come to rights, but we were naked, helpless, no

better than mewling babes. I whimpered like the babe in its basket back at Laueroc. Then I whined

dismally. Finally I raised my head and gave forth with a longdrawn, loud and woebegone howl.

And from the distance an answering shout came.

Trevyn. I should have known he would be anxious, that he would be searching for me, babe or no

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babe—I should have known. Dear Trevyn. I rose to my knees so that he could see me. He came

thundering toward me over the wealds at the head of a half dozen men, looking angry and frightened both

at once. When he saw me the look changed to one of astonishment. He brought his horse right up to me,

pulling it to a plunging halt.

"Dair?" he cried out. "Dair!"

Thrown off balance, I fell over again. Hot liquid had started down my face at the sight of him. Tears. I

would have known what it was if I had thought, but I was appalled by the feeling and by the spasms that

had hold of me, the sobs. Trevyn knelt beside me and put his arms around me, folded me into the shelter

of his cloak and of his embrace, trying to comfort me.

"Dair," he whispered, "Dair, my son," and he rocked me gently in his arms. "It will be better soon, truly it

will."

How did he know what I was feeling, the fear, the pain? But of course he would. He was wise. With

some small surprise I saw that he was weeping too. Somehow his tears strengthened me. I straightened,

looking for the youth I had found by the sea. The men had already brought him up beside us.

"It ishe ," Trevyn breathed. "The one—"

We saw in Ylim's web. I know.

Trevyn reached over and felt at him, checking his breathing and pulse.

"He's more than half dead," one of the men said.

"Cover him warmly and get him in all haste to Nemeton. There are doctors there." Trevyn fastened his

cloak around me and stood up, helping me up as well, supporting me.

"You are as tall as I," he marveled.

It was true. We were two youths. He was twenty, and I looked about the same—we might have been

brothers or comrades. But I might as well have been a child just then.

Ithurts, I whimpered, meaning my legs and everything

in general. The sounds that left my mouth were mere noises, but Trevyn understood in much the same

way that he had always understood.

"I know," he said. "Or I can imagine… Perhaps I cannot. Try to rest as we ride."

He got me onto his horse, carrying me sideways hi the saddle before him. We cantered southward along

the shore toward the port city of Nemeton with the men taking turns carrying Frain. I settled into a time

of numb endurance measured out in the rhythm of the horses' hooves. A memory floated up from deep

mind. Trevyn had carried me like this before, but I had been very young then, still hi my first fur.

It was dusk before we made the castle. Frain was taken to a sickchamber amid a tumult of excitement

caused by our arrival. Trevyn sat me down in front of a blazing fire and saw to it himself that I ate. Then

he put me into the royal bed that the lord of that place had meant for him, and he rubbed my strange, stiff

limbs with his warm hands until I was able to sleep. It was the first time I had slept between sheets.

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He was sitting by my side when I awoke in the morning.

That one I found? I asked.

"Much the same." Trevyn reached out to touch me, awkwardly, for no reason. "Dair, why did you go

away?"

Ihad to. The call was on me .

"And I did not understand or see what was happening to you. So there you were all alone when you

needed me most."

You came when I needed you most, I said. He did not reply, and I lay thinking.

The change, I added—7had to face it alone .

So here I was in human form. But I was not likely to make a very satisfactory human, I sensed. And my

bond brother, what of him? All of life seemed in confusion.

Ido not want to leave you again , I said to Trevyn. But we both knew I must.

Chapter Two

Being on two legs was a nuisance. It took me several days just to learn to stand and walk without help.

The height made me dizzy and made everything look strange. And there were matters of modesty to be

dealt with, where to relieve myself and clothing, which was a constant bother. I wore as little as possible.

And eating. Luckily I had been accustomed to cooked meats, so it was only the manner of eating that

was strange to me. I could no longer put my face down to a plate on the floor. I had to sit and use a cup

and convey the food to my mouth with my hands. No mention was made of knife and fork, for which I

was grateful. The hands were clumsy enough. So was the mouth.

"Move your lips," Trevyn would say to me gently from time to time. "They are. shaped like mine now.

Make speech."

"Awaaa," I would say, or perhaps "Rawawarrr." I could manage nothing more. Trevyn would repeat a

simple word to me, "meat" or "water," trying to help me. But I could not be helped. I had missed learning

something that human young learn while I was a wolf.

For that first week, while I was struggling with human form, the stranger I had found lay abed and did

not fully come to himself. He could be roused and given wine and bread and broth, so he grew no

weaker. He talked. But he talked only to himself, his dreams or shadows on the wall, and in a language

no one could understand. He did not know where he was, the doctors said.

As soon as I could walk the distance I went with Trevyn to see him.

He sat propped up on pillows, his hair bright and fine as feathers against the white linen, his crippled left

arm beside him and the other folded across his chest. A doctor and servants stood by his bedside

shaking their heads. The stranger youth was talking steadily to no one at all. His voice ran like a river

between walls, behind weirs, calm, forceful, controlled. He might have been addressing a council. Trevyn

sat beside him and listened, frowning.

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"I thought I knew every language of the overseas lands," he said, "but this one is new to me."

The youth talked through the afternoon and into the night. The doctor could neither soothe him into

slumber nor rouse him to sense. Trevyn kept his seat, trying for some kind of understanding. It was very

hard to hear emotion in that level voice. A few times there might have been a hint of anger or plea. And

as dark fell I thought I began to hear weariness. No—more than weariness.

"What is it, Dair?" Trevyn asked me. "You have instincts for many things. What do you think ails him?"

Despair—or desperation.

Trevyn nodded and turned to the physician. "Let us try the little yellow flower," he said.

It was called Veran's Crown or Elfin Gold. It had come back to Isle with the other things of wonder,

and it grew everywhere, but it was used only with greatest reverence and hi cases of sore need, for it was

a powerful balm. None was yet in bloom so early in the season, but some was always kept dried in jars.

A single dried plant was brought to Trevyn along with steaming water. He whispered the blessing,

crushed the tiny thing and dropped it into the water. The sweet green smell of it filled the room, the very

smell of peace.

Suddenly I felt that I was a wolf again, a pup, romping by Trevyn's side without a notion of anything

except joy and without a care in the world—I could have wept for knowing it would never again be so,

but at the same time the memory gave me a feeling of utter gladness. I could almost believe that those

days had come back to stay. Those springtime days—the stranger had quieted, seeming to listen for a

sound only he could hear. Suddenly he sat straight up and turned to the shadowy figure by his

bedside—the light was very low, so as not to trouble him.

"Tirell?" he asked, or rather, he begged. His voice was no longer steady—it shook with emotion.

"Nay," said Trevyn gently, "it is I, Trevyn, King of Isle."

I brought a candle closer so they could see each other. The red-haired youth looked up in confusion.

"Tirell is King of Vale," he said in a dialect we could understand, a mixed mongrel language called

Traders-tongue. He stared at Trevyn. "Where—I thought I heard Tirell."

"It is the balm," Trevyn told him. "We had to give it to you to—comfort you. It has taken you back to a

place of peace, perhaps the home where you were loved as a child."

"Yes—though in truth it was none too peaceful." The youth sank back on his pillows with a sigh, and

when he spoke he had found calm again, it must have been second nature to him. "My name is Frain," he

said. "If this place has a king, I dare say it is not Ogygia."

"I have never heard it called by that name." Trevyn raised his brows. "We call it Isle. How did you come

here, Frain?"

"In a leaky coracle."

We saw you, Isaid. Frain heard it as a growl. He was not one of the special few who remembered, who

could understand me. He gave me a startled, mistrustful look, such as the castlefolk often did.

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"That is Dair," Trevyn said. "He who found you by the sea."

"I owe him my thanks, then." Frain looked at me doubtfully and did not offer the thanks he said he

owed.

"We found no coracle," Trevyn added after a moment.

"It leaked, and then it sank," Frain said in a matter-of-fact way. "I am not much of a sailor, and I had not

carried enough food, either. Your Majesty, I am ravenous."

"We will get you food. Call me Trevyn."

"I can't. Anyone can see you are a True King."

The doctor bustled out to see about the food, and Trevyn sat smiling at Frain in amusement and growing

affection. There was an air of fine, gallant bravery about Frain, and yet a modesty as well, so marked that

it was almost shyness. An odd blend. I felt my heart go out to him for the oddity of him—well, it had

gone out to him before I knew him.

"Why, then," said Trevyn, "call me Lord."

"Thank you, my lord. My brother, Tirell—he is a True King too."

I would not have thought there could be two such kings in the world. This was either madness or the

touch of the goddess. Trevyn gave Frain a keen glance. "You mistook me for him a moment ago," he

said.

"In the dark." Frain smiled, a warm smile and very good to look on. "You are as comely as he, but his

hair is as black as yours is fair, Lord, black as jet, and his face white with scarcely a hint of color to it,

and his eyes blazing blue, ice blue. Women pine with longing for him." Frain's smile faded. "But that is the

least of him," he added quietly. "I know the power of the True King. This is a magical place, Lord, is it

not?"

Trevyn only nodded. I believe he was astonished.

"Then perhaps you can understand," Frain said slowly, "when I say I have met with a peculiar sort of

enchantment, or perhaps a doom. I have traveled seven years since I left Vale, my lord, but they have not

aged me. I have not aged a day since the day I was foolish enough to bathe in Lady Death's mirroring

lake. I was fifteen then, and I am nearly twenty-four now. But I am still fifteen—in effect."

Trevyn had seen too many marvels in his life to doubt anyone. He merely nodded.

"You do not look fifteen," he said with a scholar's interest. "Maybe seventeen or so." Frain was sturdy,

muscular even, and handsome in spite of the crippled arm.

"I was well grown." A tinge of bitterness seeped into his voice. "A child in the body of a man."

"And now you have eternal youth." Trevyn sat back, musing, gazing at the stranger. "People judge that to

be the greatest of blessings, the foremost gift of the gods."

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TheGoldenSwanNancySpringerATIMESCAPEBOOKPUBLISHEDBYPOCKETBOOKSNEWYORKDistributedinCanadabyPaperJacksLtd.,aLicenseeofthetrademarksofSimon&Schuster,adivisionofGulf+WesternCorporation.AnotherOriginalpublicationofTIMESCAPEBOOKSATimescapeBookpublishedbyPOCKETBOOKS,aSimon&:SchusterdivisionofGULF&WESTERNCO...

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