simply, with more emotion than he
had shown before, “Look on them for yourself, and
think what they mean. The hunt must end.” “The hunt
will end when I choose it – which means
that the hunt will never end,” the stag finished bitterly,
“oh, great and loyal king.”
King Peris dropped his hands silently. “Then go and ask
them if they will hunt you. Let them slay you, let them
listen to the same bitter words, the same old pain, over and
over. I also can choose – and I choose never to hunt again. If
you have ever loved these woods, this world – if you have
ever loved at all – see what these strangers mean for our
world, and choose to break the cycle.” He fell silent again.
The stag ruminated – as befits a thoughtful ruminant.
Finally he said, “Evidently, you have business with those
who enter Darken Wood. Might you be persuaded to leave
that business – ”
” – for a later time? Yes. After all, as you point out, I
have left my post before; I could postpone returning to it for
a while. At my time of life – ” he gave a grisly and
meaningless smile – “one day or night is as good as the
next.”
“I gather you find it easy to postpone duty. A matter of
habit, perhaps?”
The king scratched his ghostly beard with a ghostly
finger. “Or else I am betraying my current habits. One is
inclined to hope that you, too, could betray your current
habits, as easily as you once, and ever thereafter, betrayed
the For – ”
“Now who is tactless?”
“Granted. You will consider all that I said? You may
still choose – ”
“I may. I will consider.” The stag bounded off, knowing
he did not need to agree on a later meeting-place with the
dead king. Some meetings are all but foreordained.
Near the edge of the wood, the trail stopped abruptly,
leaving only brush and a dense wall of plants. On the
outside were false vallenwood, which looked like the great
trees but grew no taller than a dwarf, some berry bushes,
thorned and unthorned, and bright wildflowers.
On the inside were stands of twisted nightroot, the bane
of all animal life; guantvine, dense enough to bind the
unwary; and Paladine’s Tears, the tiny blue flowers that
grew and wove into an upright mat between tree trunks.
Though the wall kept curious folk out, the stag knew how
many reckless souls it had kept in.
As he watched, the brush swayed and shivered under
the pressure of hands.
Hands – of a sort. The stag stared at the first clawed
fingers that emerged, waving in the air blindly to push
more branches aside, finding none. The scaled man-thing
that followed them out, blinking, into the sunlight stretched
batlike wings in the open space.
“Kin to dragons.” There was no question in the stag’s
mind, though the stag had never seen these creatures before.
He knew also how few would know that:
if the stag’s appearance to Huma was barely legend now,
the dragons were less than that.
More armored figures followed the first. The stag
backed a few steps, more for his world than for himself.
There were only a few creatures, if ugly ones, but their
presence in this wood, in this world, meant unthinkable
things.
He shook himself and murmured aloud, “The Royal
Peris has a gift for understatement. ‘Strangers’ indeed.” He
tensed his muscles for flight, but stepped forward. “I greet
you.”
Nothing happened. The dragon-men stared in all
directions, unhearing and unseeing.
He concentrated and said more loudly, “I greet you.”
The leader leapt into the air, his wings holding him aloft
a moment. Where the pegasi in flight looked graceful, this
thing looked foul as it sank back, half-rejected by ground
and air alike.
It watched the stag suspiciously. “Where did you come
from?”
The stag shuddered at the hollow, awkward voice that
sounded like a dried man, but he answered it bravely. “From
Darken Wood, where you are. Where have you come
from?”
The dragon-thing ignored the question. “Darken
Wood?” He held his sword at guard. “This is an evil place.”