276 THE SILVER SUN.

The sound of the Ancient Tongue shocked him out of his trance, and he dropped her hand. "I have come to see my brother, Lysee," he declared hoarsely, "to bring him something that belongs to him and to wish him joy on his wedding day. I must go to him now." Dazed, he lifted the reins, but for the first time in years Alfie balked.

The horse rolled his eyes until the whites showed, and flapped his ears, ogling impudently. But Alan did not notice; his gaze was caught on Lysse. The pain in her eyes was pitiful. Yet she was an elf, and should not know such heartfelt pain.,..

"Alan," she whispered, "by the mighty Wheel, tell me now, truly: do you love me still, or not?"

The cruel lie, rehearsed a thousand times, came to Alan's mind, but wrestle with it as he might, it would not leave his tongue. For a breathless moment he strug- gled, shaken to the roots of his being; then the answer exploded from him. "Ay!" he shouted, and the hills of his native land rang with it. "Sweet Lysse, I do!" Shaking, his voice subsided to a whisper. "Oh, Lysse, I am so sorry. ..."

"Why?" She placed gentle hands upon his bowed shoul- ders. "For you know I love you, too, Alan of Laueroc."

"Because I cannot have you." He spoke decidedly, with the perfect calm of longstanding pain. "I will not doom you to death, you whom I love, or tear you from your people. Go, Lysse, sail to fair Elwestrand which is your birthright, you and your brothers and sisters. Live there long after I am dead and turned to dust. I cannot kill you, Lysse 1"

"I will not go," she told him with dogged patience, as if she must explain to him the clearest facts of his life, even the rising and setting of the sun. "Nor will my father ask me to; he knows I must be with you. If you ride away from me I will follow, and if my horse fails me I will walk, winter or summer, to be by your side. I love you. Is so simple a thing so difficult for you to accept?"

In her eyes, to the deepest reaches of her soul, there was no hint of faltering or sorrow.

Alan gazed into those incredible eyes, and saw there a love as marvelous to him as it was incomprehensible, for be scarcely felt deserving. Breathlessly, he sensed the deepest strength of his soul stirring within him, surren-

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dering foolish pride and false honor to the love that rules the heart. With tears of relief flowing freely down his cheeks, Alan took Lysse's chin in his hand and kissed her deeply on the Ups. All the jagged pieces of bis life fell into place, and he was finally at peace with himself and with his world.

Chapter Five.

On that last night before the fateful day, the strong stone walls of Laueroc Castle seemed to choke Hal, so that he felt he must move out of doors, under the stars and the full moon. With Arundel for company, he built a little fire in a copse of trees on the town common. Sitting be- side it, he bowed his head and thought of Alan, wishing that his thoughts could draw him there.

Lysse and Alan were still deep in talk. "Silly," she was chiding him fondly. "To think that any good could come to me, without you! My immortal life would have become a curse, for the Ages of the elves are at an end. My brothers and sisters, like me, will find mortal love in Biwestrand, and will die happy that their ancient loneli- ness is ended. And perhaps a finer race will come out of it all."

"Why did you not tell me!" he cried. "You or Hal. . ."

"The choice had to be yours, without telling. Though I know Hal has suffered with you."

"Dear Hal," he murmured, holding her close against him. "For months I have been longing to speak to him."

"Come, let us go to him. The night moves on apace."

He still held her and sighed, but she laughed at him tenderly. "You shall have me the rest of your lifel"

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They found Hal with his head on his knees beside a dwindling campfire, keeping a dozing vigil, as Alan had often known him to do in times of wounds or sick- ness. The silver circlet on his head had slipped rakishly over one ear, and Alan knelt to gently straighten it. Hal looked up, scarcely daring to believe be was in the world of the waking, whispering, "Alan!" He reached out to embrace him, but his arms stopped in midair as he re- membered that, lately, Alan did not care to be touched.

Alan groaned to himself with aching heart, realizing what distance he had put between them. Lysse kissed Hal on the cheek, then kissed Alan squarely on the lips. "I shall see you on the morrow," she said, and disappeared into the night. Alan still knelt before Hal, meeting his eyes. He reached into his tunic.

"I have something that belongs to you," Alan said, "that I have been longing to give you." He drew out the silver ring he had taken from his father's skeletal hand.

He had not worn it since returning to Celydon from Laueroc almost a year before, but evidently he had often polished it; the tiny circle shone brightly even in the moonlight. Alan handed it to Hal, warm from his body heat, and looked at the ground, searching for words.

"I know," Hal whispered, saying for him the unspeak- able. "I know, my brother. I watched my father die in torment on my account, in the Dark Tower."

Alan's head snapped up. "How long have you known?"

he gasped.

"Since two days before we left. It was written in The Book of Suns, which my old nurse showed to me that afternoon in the garret. But you have known since you went to Laueroc, that first time."

"Ay. My father left a letter for me."

"Then it is that which has been hidden in your eyes since then?"

"Ay."

"Nothing more?"

"Nay. At least, not at first."

Hal was impatient, and his voice echoed the pain of ten months of needless misery. "Oh, Alan, Alan, why did you not tell me?"

"Because of the seven generations," Alan explained

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earnestly. "Because of-of that by which I made you swear. You have often told me that, if you were not the son of that fiendish King, no power on earth could make you seek the throne-that you wanted nothing from life but peace and a little love. For the sake of all the poor folk m this oppressed land, I could not tell you, Hal!

You were the only one who could save theml"

Hal shook his head. "No power on earth, nay. But an even heavier burden found me after I said that, Alan- heavier, but somehow easier to bear: the burden of prophecy." A tiny smile played around the comers of his lips. "It was not only your mighty oath that saved my life. Xt was a song Rosemary sang to me that reminded me of the other burden that came with my birth, 'Bear- ing balm of Veran's flower, Man born blest with elfin do-wer.' Adaoun's image came to my mind, and his eyes upon me compelled me to live until you came with Veran's comfort."

"You mean," asked Alan with a dry mouth, "that I could have told you?"

"By my wounds, 1 wish you hadi" declared Hal with a bitterness that struck Alan to the heart.

"May I die for it, Hal, I didn't know," Alan choked, and then he broke and wept like a child with the frustra- tion of almost a year of estrangement. "I didn't know,"

he moaned.

Hal's arms went around his shoulders; the brothers clutched each other tightly. "Of course you didn't know,"

Hal said fiercely, hating himself. "You did what you felt you must Oh, Alan, I am sorry. Why did I tell you that!"

"Small blame to you," Alan gulped, still struggling for breath. "The way I've been acting, 111 warrant you had forgotten I could care." He flung his head up and faced Hal with a tear-streaked face in which the whole of his soul showed plain and unashamed. "Hal, I love you so- ... I had to put some distance between us, or the secret in my heart would have driven me mad." His head dropped wearily to Hal's shoulder, and Hal held him in silence, swallowing at the lump in his throat.

"I knew my father was unfaithful," said Alan at last, sitting up and wiping his face with his sleeve. "We quar- reled about it. He had married my mother in policy, not in passion, but she was a good, gentle woman, and I loved her deeply. Now I know that your mother was his

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mendor, and he was fated to love her, despite loss of honor-despite the shadow of death. . . . But then I blamed him bitterly. Still, when I first knew you, I hoped-I wished like a boy-that you might be my brother. When you told me you were the King's son, it nearly broke my heart, for who could have dreamed that Leuin's lover, all those years, had been the Queen her- self? And then to find that my dream had come true, and not to be able to tell you!"

"Did Iscovar know, I wonder?" murmured Hal, chang- ing the subject, for Alan was still close to tears.