and painful as it had been the first time it was spoken.
“Why, when I have told you my own weakness and
admitted that I love you?” For a moment the stag’s proud
pose was gone, and he looked almost alive in his hurt and
desire.
The Forestmaster said quietly, “Because I must.”
The stag had regained his poise. “Because you choose.
That choice is not without consequence.”
“For you? For myself?”
“For both. How do you dare refuse me?” He tried to
sound dignified, arrogant. His voice barely shook.
“I have refused others.”
“None like me. There are none like me.”
“And that, you feel, obliges me to yield the needs of a
world to you. Go then.” She added, “But know I never
wished you to.”
He snorted, derisive even in a deer. “Naturally not.
Service without debt is more pleasant than solitude.”
As the Forestmaster watched him stride off, she
murmured, “Anything is more pleasant than solitude.” He
did not hear her.
“One thing more.” He turned back to her, and she bent
her head to listen. “You said something about destiny to the
strangers.”
She nodded, her mane rippling. “I said it to the warrior,
though I was thinking of the knight. ‘We do not mourn the
loss of those who die fulfilling their destinies.’ ”
“Coldly put. Whom do you mourn? Those who die
unfulfilled? Those with no destinies at all?”
“All have destinies.” She looked up at the sky. From
where he watched, her horn drew a line from him to the
north star. “As all have stars. As you have a star.”
“What of those who refuse their own star and would
choose another?”
She held the point of her horn unwavering. “Stars last.
We do not. Refuse it as long as you must; it will still wait
for you.”
“But I may refuse it as long as I wish.”
When she did not respond, he said, “If I cannot shape
my own destiny, I still refuse the destiny shaped for me.
Farewell – again.”
He barely heard her say, “I know – again.” He
wondered if she were mourning.
Near dawn the stag came to a dark and cheerless spot.
When he arrived at the point near which the sedge was
withered from the lake and no birds sang, he gazed around.
Ahead of him a shadowy spirit in armor stood, waving
his sword restlessly among the weeds. He bent forward, his
lips moving in curses too old to mean much to any but the
stag.
The king jerked upright, startled, as the stag sang
loudly:
KING PERIS’S MEN WERE DUTY BOUND,
TO GUARD THE WOOD FROM FEAR.
THE KING, IN PRIDE, SET SWORD ASIDE,
TO BARGAIN WITH THE DEER.
King Peris responded, waving his sword in time to the
music:
“THERE IS NO HUNT FOR ME,” SAID HE,
OF ANY CREATURE BORN,
UNLESS I COULD IN SHADOW WOOD
HUNT DOWN THE UNICORN.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the stag responded:
“NONE KNOWS SO WELL WHERE SHE MAY DWELL
AS I WHO DID HER WILL,
IF YOU WILL HEED, THEN I WILL LEAD,
AND YOU MAY HAVE YOUR KILL.”
The king resumed his search in the weeds. “Imagine
hearing that old thing again, clumsy meter and all. What
made you think of it?”
The stag made no move to help the king. “I heard parts
of it being sung last night.”
“Well, well. Folk art endures amazingly, wouldn’t you
say? I wouldn’t have thought anyone alive would remember
it.” He looked sharply at the stag. “It was, I assume,
someone alive.”
“It was. One of the centaurs – you remember them;
they replaced you as guardians? – still knows some of the
song. But you shouldn’t be surprised; scandal always
outlives honor”
“True. For example, look at us – though we can hardly
be said to be outliving anything.”
Presently the spirit grunted in satisfaction and raised a
timeworn crown on his sword-point. He put it on with a
bony hand, adjusting it carefully and standing straight. For
barely a moment he looked like some mockery of a real
monarch.
The stag said deliberately, “Long live the king.”
“The king lived long enough.” The dead king sat a