The Golden Swan Read Online Free PDF

hotly. “If you knew what he had gone through—” He would have sprung to sword for Tirell’s sake, I felt sure of it. How odd! He who had been ready to kill him a few hours before—
    â€œThe suffering comes before the kingship,” Trevyn remarked.
    â€œYes.” Frain gave Trevyn a wondering glance, all his heat cooled. “Yes, my lord, you know, you understand. I—remember how he wept after he had wounded me. Then I fainted, and by the time I awoke he had come back from madness, he was better, truly better, warm and whole as I had not known him to be since—since it had started. He was the brother I had always loved. He took my hand and met my eyes with love and sorrow, and the land itself hailed him, and all the people were rejoicing because the blessing of the goddess was on him—”
    â€œSo how could you be so petty as to sulk about a little thing like an arm?” Trevyn put in dryly.
    â€œAn arm and a true love.” Frain tried to match Trevyn’s tone and his smile, but could not. “I went away,” he added.
    â€œTo find Ogygia and lay your case before the goddess.”
    â€œNo, that came later. First I went to the lake to find Shamarra. But everything had changed. The swan had gone black and was as crippled as I, and the water itself was fearsome. When I looked in I saw—never mind.” His eyes shifted and he hastened on. “There was a woman there, a sort of queenly goddess, and she told me that the wrath of Adalis was on Shamarra because of her overweening. She had been transformed into a night bird and sent to wander the wind.”
    Trevyn looked both startled and intense. “What did you say is the name of your goddess?”
    â€œThere are many names. Every woman’s name is a name of the goddess. There is Eala the swan and the white horse Epona, and Morrghu the raven of war, and Vieyra the hell hag, and Suevi, Rae, Mela—dozens of others. But the mother of Vale is Adalis.”
    â€œI thought you said that. I heard, but I could not believe my ears.” Trevyn put a palm to his hurt brow with a sigh. “Frain, if you can say that most holy name so offhandedly without the castle stones flying from their places and raining destruction on your head, truly you must be of immortal kind.”
    â€œReally?” Frain said that softly, but his excitement grew as he talked, he leaned forward and his voice rose. “You mean you call her by that same name, and she is here, she can respond to you? Do you really mean that?”
    â€œShe is here as much as anywhere,” Trevyn said with some small wonder, for the goddess makes every land her own.
    â€œWhy, then,” Frain breathed, “this must be Ogygia after all.”
    â€œPerhaps. If you say so. I am surprised that it has taken you so long to find it.”
    â€œHave you ever tried to find a legendary land?” Frain asked, a hint of vexation in his steady voice. “I never knew there were so many lands that lay beyond Vale. I trudged across them, places and places of them, and no one had ever heard of Ogygia, all they could do was point me toward this one and that one who might know, and I asked them all to no avail. Follow the setting sun, they said, and find the ocean. And when I found it at last, I walked the length of that vast shoreline looking for Ogygia or news of Ogygia: And I had never seen an immensity like that of the sea.” Frain’s voice was tinged with awe and terror. “I knew when I saw it that it was as the woman by the lake had said, that I could no sooner reach Ogygia than the crippled swan. But I had to try.”
    Trevyn sighed in vexation of his own. He had indeed been to legendary lands, and he badly wanted to explain to Frain the ways of the All-Mother. But he knew that Frain had to find her on his own.
    â€œThere is an island far, far west of here,” he said finally, “where the elves have made their