The Golden Swan (23 page)

D
O WE GET TO SET ROOT IN
M
ELIOR AT LAST?
the first one asked.
WE COULD LEVEL THE CASTLE STOCK AND STONE.

I
DOUBT IT
, they said. W
HEN I SEE I'LL BELIEVE
. They joined in a dry, whispering chorus. W
HAT MATTER
,
WHAT MATTER THE DOOMS MEN FORETELL!
L
ORDS AND LADIES COME AND GO, AND IT IS ALL THE SAME TO US
. D
EATH GOES ON DYING, AND WE STAND BEHIND THE WALL
.

They were wrong.

W
HAT IS THIS?
one said with a sigh of limp leaves. A
WOLF AND A DOG, SIDE BY SIDE?

We broke into a lope and left them behind. Steep slopes of loose rock met us, then sheer crags. But we went surely on our clever paws, and Frain knew the way, for he had been here twice before. The peasant woman met us and fed us once more on toward evening, and then we slept and made the final journey to the lake.

The lake where it had all begun for Frain, the lake I had once seen on an old woman's loom. Set so much as a foot in the water, folk said, and your own darkness would drag you down. If not, you would become immortal, but eternally in thrall to whatever passions touched you at the time.… It was a deathly lake. High up amid the mountain peaks it lay, in a dark and secluded valley, the water very dim and very still. Far out in the middle of the mirrorlike expanse floated a single swan, a black swan, its left wing trailing in the water, crippled. The image in the water below it was white. Along the far verge, beneath some willow trees, lay a white winged unicorn. Its reflection in the glimmering water was black.

“This is the most perilous of places, the most dangerous of lakes, Dair,” Frain told me softly. “Don't go near the water or look into it, or I can't say what might happen to you.”

He had taken his human form, and I took my own at the sight of him. And he went to the water's edge, as he had told me not to. He knelt there and looked so long that I wondered if he might be bewitched. Slowly, uncertainly, I walked up behind him. There were odd four-petaled flowers at the grassy verge, white, and black flowers floated in the shallows below them, or so it seemed. Frain's freckled face looked up from among them—just his own face, reflected, nothing more. Puzzled, I glanced toward where my own shadow lay. But Frain, suddenly aware of me, jumped up with a shout and lunged at me, wrestling me away with both arms.

“Dair!” he exclaimed anxiously. “Did you see—”

Nothing but myself
. Only my own peculiar face had looked back at me from the shadowshining water. Frain let go of me with a huge sigh.

“I should have known,” he muttered. “You are as pure as I was. Dair, what a fright you gave me! I told you—”

What did you see?
I asked, to head him off. I wanted no quarrel. Not this last day.

“Myself. Somewhat darkly, but nothing too terribly hard to bear.” He looked out at the middle of the lake. “There is my swan,” he said. “Well …” He turned back to me for a moment, laying his hand on my shoulder. “Dair, goodbye.”

Fear clenched me.
Frain, wait
, I begged.
I don't understand. What are you going to do?

“Give myself to the lake.”

But why?
I tried to contain my horror. The white moon-mark, sign of the kiss of the All-Mother, shone faintly on his cheek, and there was a sureness about him.

“You have your task.” His hand gentled my arm as he patiently explained. “And I need my rest.… Dair, I love her still, I always will, it is fated on me, but the love is a torment in me because in this body I hate her as well. I am tired, too much has happened and I remember it all too well, I bear scars. She has gone beyond that now, and if I do the same—if I take a different form from which I may not return, why—there is a chance.…”

He looked away over the towering mountains that made a barrier to the west.

“I know it will seem odd, Dair, but—it is the only way for me. Truly. And it will be—healing of an innocent thing.”

The swan swam a little closer, trailing its crippled wing.

“Goodbye,” Frain muttered, and he hugged me, hard. I felt his face against my own and I felt tears—my own. He turned away. I stopped him with a touch, but he would not face me again, only half turned toward me.

“Dair, I have to go!” The words were choked. Tears on his face, too.

I know. Frain, if you should ever see Trevyn
—
in this world or another
—

He looked at me then, eager, smiling. “I will go to him straightway. What would you like me to tell him?”

Just say that
—
I am well
.

“I'll tell him far more than that.”

He embraced me once more, touched my hand. Then he turned and, with scarcely a ripple, waded into the lake.

It did not take him. I could see quite clearly that it had no power over him at all. He waded in until the water was up to his head and the swan swam a little way ahead of him, and then he gave himself to the lake, he disappeared. I watched for long moments, scarcely daring to blink, sure I would see him again but frightened for him as well—

And the water reached up, the white reflection in the lake reached up and embraced the swan, and the swan lifted its wings with a shout of exultation, crippled no longer. It was black no longer, either, it was white, sea-foam white, lotuspetal white, with a sort of golden sheen about it, an aureole, and it took wing, it soared. It sang—I had never known Frain to sing, but I knew it was he, even so, and the song was one of victory and joy. Triumph, triumph, swan, windmaster, winging, singing through the sky.… The swan flew once over my head, calling a clear greeting, and then it lifted like thistleseed over the westward mountains, sang yet again and was gone. Watching, I found that I was weeping and singing aloud for love and loneliness—howling, if you will. I was a wolf, after all.

Laifrita thae
, Frain. Sweet peace to thee. Fly away.

I padded off through the mountains with the fern seed held in my mouth. I passed out of Vale into the lands beyond and planted seed when the mood took me. Sometimes I dreamed of Frain or of Trevyn, and the dreams comforted me.

Epilogue

On a golden day when summer was thinking of autumn, King Trevyn of Isle rode homeward toward Laueroc from Rodsen. As he rode a great white swan whistled overhead, a swan with an aureate glow that reminded him of certain unaccountable legends he had lately heard, the most splendid of swans. Seeing him, it circled back.
Alberic
, it greeted him by his elfin name.

“Lonn D'Aeric,” said Trevyn with a wondering smile. “Swan Lord.” He got down from his horse to meet an equal, and the creature landed in the grass beside him.

“So the final age is truly at hand,” Trevyn murmured. “Peace passing into eternity—”

Dair asked me to tender you his greeting
, the swan said.

“Frain!” Trevyn exclaimed.

Folk used to call me by that name. I scarcely remember
.… The swan arched his lovely neck.
But I remember Dair. He is
—Even the Old Language would not encompass what Lonn D'Aeric felt. He bowed his graceful head in a sort of homage.

He is a marvel beyond belief, my lord
.

“So you came to love him at last,” said Trevyn softly.

I learned to love him, and all else followed
.

“I can scarcely believe that you are really come,” Trevyn said in a hushed voice. “All striving drawing to an end, yours and everyone's, soon to be done for all time.… What is for you now, Lonn D'Aeric?”

The wide dim sea and that western land
—
what is its name?

“Elwestrand.”

They talked for a while longer, of Dair wandering with the seed, of the sea—Lonn D'Aeric longed for the sea—of the turn of the great tide and the dreams of the One which were nearing consummation. When the stars came out the swan looked skyward and spread his wings.

“It is a long flight,” said Trevyn. “You will be well?”

How can I be otherwise?

He soared off, and Trevyn stood looking after.

Some days later Trevyn had a dream of two swans who met on the bosom of the sea.

It was calm. They floated easily on the dark and sparkling tide, face to face. One swan seemed to wear a crown of golden light; the other shimmered silver where the water jeweled her. They gazed at each other, then dipped their bills to the water, long necks highly arched, drifting closer together; then they raised their heads. Snowy breasts met. Heads came softly together. The necks of the swans formed the twin halves of a fair and perfect white heart.

And then one swan shouted aloud in joy and victory. He spread his great wings, shining and white as foam, raising his body from the water, golden light glinting from his highstretched head, surging and yearning skyward, singing. The triumph song—the other swan joined him, spreading wings, crying joy to the sky. Triumph, triumph, raise thy pinions, Swan Lord skimming, winging high.… They flew. Wingtip to wingtip they flew, westward across the endless water, into sunset light, and the sun was a golden swan that welcomed them into its embrace. Then it sank, and all disappeared into amethyst twilight.

Eastward at the hills of morning

Sunswan lifts his wings of light

Golden golden glory glory

Lifts his wings of light

Triumph, triumph, raise thy pinions

Sunswan golden, blazing bright
,

Triumph, triumph, swan, skymaster
,

Lift thy flame in flight
.

Then winging winging wheeling singing

Skimming triumph up the sky

And all the birds of nesting earth

Beneath his gold wings lie

Comfort, comfort, spread thy pinions
,

Sunswan soaring zenith high
,

Comfort
.…
Down to night's dominion

Gliding through the cyan sky
.

Westward at the deeps of evening

Sunswan dips his wings of fire

Fills the white embrace of twilight

Comfort comfort wings of fire

Quenching long desire of ages

Quenching long desire
.

About the Author

Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone with novels for adults, young adults, and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magic realism, horror, and mystery—although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan and Nora), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and bird-watching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida Panhandle where the bird-watching is spectacular, and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1983 by Nancy Springer

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN: 978-1-4532-4836-2

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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