he said.

In a few minutes they knelt on the bank of the stream,

with bandages and hunting knives at hand. They bared their left arms to the elbow and laid the wrists side by side as Hal directed. Each grasped his knife with his right hand, and faced the other in the moonlight.

"I am loath to hurt you," whispered Alan.

"Of all my wounds, I shall have one that I cherish,"

answered Hal. "Fear not for me. Are you ready?"

Alan nodded. In one moment each tapped the stream of the other's life, and at once they pressed their two wrists tightly together, so that their blood ran down and dripped

from their elbows.

Hal spoke huskily, reciting words dimly remembered

The Forest 41

from his study of Welandais lore. "As our blood mingles in our veins and becomes as one, so let our thoughts and our lives mingle and become as one."

"Let us be brothers," responded Alan quietly, "in blood end in love and in law."

"So let it be written," Hal said as if speaking to him- self, "in Dot Solden. Even unto the closing of the Age."

"So let it be written," said Alan firmly, "in our hearts. Is there any more need of words between us, brother?"

Hal looked into those brave blue eyes which gazed at him in joyous affection, and suddenly he knew that seventeen years of loneliness were at last over. He wept, and as Alan held him in a one-armed hug, his tears mois- tened the drying blood on their clasped arms.

Later, they bandaged each other in matching white wristlets, smiling, aware of their absurdity but not em- barrassed between themselves. They talked for hours, lazily, of Alan's loss and Hal's burden. It no longer hurt to speak of these things.

Dawn was breaking before they unrolled their blankets and lay down. Hal fell asleep at once, like an exhausted and happy child, but Alan lay for a while looking at him.

Much of the mystery of Hal was unfolding to him. So his comrade was a Prince! Hal's moodiness, his air of com- mand, his self-possession and sense of purpose were all understandable in light of that fact. Moreover, he was of the royal Welandais blood! Even to Alan, pragmatist that he was, the name of Welas rang with a mystic sum- mons. The Blessed Kings of Welas spoke with elves, folk said. Alan smiled, as he always did, at the ignorant super- stitions of the peasantry. Still, he knew that the rulers of Welas were credited with a kind of second sight, an almost eerie wisdom. And their folk were something of a marvel.

The Welandais were peaceloving, tuneful people; yet when war was forced upon them there were no fiercer fighters.

Only by treachery, and by the use of armies ten times their force, did Iscovar at last succeed in subduing them.

Alan felt sure that something of the peculiar Welandais temperament was involved in a portion of his conversa- tion with Hal-a tiny detail, yet it was often on his mind.

He had asked Hal the meaning of that strange phrase, Dot Solden, that he had used in his oath of blood brother- hood.

"The Book of Suns," Hal had explained. "It is a con-

42.

THE SILVER SUN.

cept, like that of fate. In it are supposed to be written the events of men's days, their lifetimes, the ages of their history. One could call it the book of life."

Alan had always been impatient with the esoteric, and this bordered on the nonsensical. "Well, if it is the book of life," he had retorted scornfully, "then why is it called The Book of Suns?" A slightly pained look had washed across Hal's face, and Alan had said at once, "Never mind; forget it." But Hal had stared with knit brows, eyes puzzled and distant, like someone trying to recall a dream lost with morning's rising. "I don't know," he had mut- tered at last, more to himself than Alan. "I don't know."

It bad taken minutes to bring him out of his trance. Re- membering the incident, Alan sighed, thinking of the strangeness that flickered behind the misty veil of Hal's

eyes.

Indeed, he should have guessed before now that the

blood of Welas ran in Hal's veins. And now in his own, Alan reflected with sober joy. He, like Hal, was an only child, and though his youth had been filled with family and companions there had been something missing. Now he had a friend and a brother such as come to few men in a lifetime, and he was glad. He knew that be loved Hal even more than he had loved his father. Still, even now he did not entirely know who it was that be loved, Was it a warlock, whose spells froze enemies and bent prison bars? If it was, Hal himself did not know his own power, Alan believed. But he felt that Hal was something more than sorcerer, something more than Prince, comrade or brother, and that something made him sigh. Something in those cloudy gray eyes saddened him. Hal had said that he would hold no secrets from his brother; but there was a secret in him, nevertheless.

It was early afternoon when they awoke and eyed each other with half-humorous smiles. "I have not yet thanked you for saving my life," Hal remarked.

"Forget that." Alan was surprised to find himself red- dening. "There is no need of such words between us, brother."

"There never was, even before yesterday." Hal knelt, fussing with the fire. "But nevertheless, Alan, I am ashamed. You freed me from a stronghold at great risk to yourself, and all I could find to say was, where is my sword."

Alan had to laugh, hearing his own sentiments so neatly mirrored. "Well, you have need of a noble weapon," he conceded. "How were you taken, Hal?"

"Dreaming," Hal admitted with a grimace. "Or think- ing more of Corin than of the road. . . . Arundel tried to warn me, but I blundered right into the lordsmen. They knocked me down before I had a chance to draw a weapon. Then they tied me up and knelt to cast lots for my horse and gear. I had told Arundel not to fight; the odds were too great. But one of them held him slackiy, like a palfrey, and I shouted at him to go. He broke away easily. And that," Hal added, grinning, "is when they started beating me."

43.

44 THE SILVER SUN.

"I thought as much," Alan said. "I thought you could not be taken knowingly. Well, I suppose we shall have to be off after your sword."

"Not today. I am exhausted, and the day is half spent."

Alan felt the same, utterly fatigued, though more from emotion than from exertion. So they tended their horses and hung their blankets up to air, and ate the meat that Corin had left them.

"What is the lineage of the sword?" Alan asked. He was still trying to understand Hal's recklessness in tak- ing them onto the Waste.

"I don't know. Trigg gave it to me." Hal smiled sheep- ishly. "I am loath to lose his gift."

"And also," Alan ventured, "you had some plan in coming north?"

"At first I rode north to put more distance between myself and Nemeton. , . . Now I am worried about Corin.

And I need to explore, to find friends and learn to know my land. . . . But my plans are more like dreams, Alan."

'Tell me."

"I thought to circle Isle from east to west . . . and of course I must go to Welas," Hal added with a faraway look in his eyes. "I have kinsfolk there, whom I have never known."

"And Iscovar?"

Hal sighed. "Well, I shall not have to be a father- slayer, Alan. The One be praised, that nightmare at least is kept from me. Within four years, the King should be dead of the disease that feeds upon lust. When I was not yet sixteen I knew this from my mother, who knew it from the royal physician. He told her then, five years, and one of those has gone by while I lived with Craig the Grim. So if I am to be King-and make my people some amends for the horrors of my forebears-I must have my bid ready in time.

"I have two great advantages over my enemies. One, that they do not know of this illness of the King. The secret is well kept, as you can imagine, or already the great lords would be worrying at Iscovar's throat instead of fawning at his feet. The second advantage is that they do not know I am out of the Tower. If they realized how far I am from the throne and the royal armies, they would have already moved to the kill and commenced quarreling over the spoils. So the King keeps that secret

The Forest 45

as well, though you may be sure he searches for me diligently.

"You saved me from a more horrible fate than you knew, Alan, when you spirited me out of that smelly tower of Gar's. Like all the great lords, he came to court often; Iscovar insists on such attentions. So he knows me, and if he had once seen me I would have become his pawn and prisoner, eternally dishonored."