"Veran prepared them for us," Adaoun explained, "when the prophecies became known to him."

290.

Laueroc 291

They have stayed whole all these years?" Rosemary gasped.

"They have stayed whole. There is power in living wood, and there was great power in his hands."

There were no supplies needed for the voyage to El- westrand, nor any sails, for that is a singular journey.

The elves lingered a while, talking with their friends, and ate a last meal before they embarked. The horses, all except Wynnda, had been given as gifts to Hal and Alan and the House of Laueroc.

"We closed the valley," Adaoun explained. "We blocked the entry with great rocks, and Wynnda flew us out. It comforts us to know that the creatures will always live there, the great eagles and the shy deer, without fear of men. We know you would have done what you could, Mireldeyn and Elwyndas, but a mortal's span is

but short.. .."

"We understand," Hal replied quietly.

After a while there was nothing more to say, and the elves slowly boarded. The four stood silently on the shore as, swimming like swans, the gray ships slid away with a lapping of ripples against their wooden flanks. Everyone waved. Hal held Rosemary's hand. Alan put an arm around Lysse's waist as she watched her brothers, sisters and loving father slip away from her, bound for El- westrand across the Western Sea. Her eyes held a strange,

sad joy.

"Farewell-farewell!" cried the elves, until their cries became one with the salt cries of the sea birds. Adaoun, at the prow of the largest ship, was soon only a dark

post against the silver sea.

They watched until the ships became birdlike shapes against the setting sun, disappearing into its embrace.

Then the sun sank, and they could see the ships no more.

Rosemary broke silence at last, for she felt the trembling of Hal's hand and heard the straining of his heart.

"You wish you were going with them," she said gently,

"do you not?"

He turned to her, his gray eyes awash with the mystery of the gray sea. "Ay," he whispered. "Ay. But there is so much healing to be done, in Isle. ... I am fated to be left

behind to carry on."

Hal and Rosemary, Alan and Lysse camped on the shore that night, with the lapping of the waves and the

292 THE SILVER SUN.

crying of the sea birds in their ears. When the new day dawned, they turned their faces to the rising sun and rode back toward the world of green meadows and mortal men.

So the battle's won, the consummation Now at hand, the living sweet;

And still the Wheel is every turning, Year fey year the hill fires burning;

Vision flits upon the moonlit waters.

So if ever I should lose the, love of men And choose to walk again My own fey, lonely way, Do not grieve. Love, but say That once, a summer day, You held me in the meadow sunlight, Kissed me in the meadow sun, And in that sunlit meadow closed my eyes,

-a song of Hervoyel