Love and War

Hunting Destiny

By daylight, the stag, with an effort of will, appeared to the knight. The knight's enthusiasm was gratifying, if anything could please in Darken Wood. The knight even mentioned Huma's having followed the stag. The stag moved forward on Prayer's Eye Peak, knowing the knight and his companions would follow. If it was his destiny to lead, it was others' to follow him.

But they did not follow immediately. With one ear he heard the company debating behind him. The half-elf said, "Though I have not seen the white stag myself, I have been with one who has and I have followed it, as in the story the old man told at the Inn of the Last Home."

The stag, turning to look, saw the half-elf fingering a ring of twisted ivy leaves, presumably because it reminded him of his former companion who had seen the stag. Neither half-elf nor ring brought any memory to the stag.

The mage among them, a robed figure with hourglass eyes, spoke more of the story they had heard, apparently a few nights ago, at an inn. An old man had told how Huma, lost in a forest, prayed to Paladine. A white stag had appeared and led him home. "That I remember," the stag thought, "but I had thought no other living being did. Whatever man they met was old indeed, though if he were older, he would remember it as song, not story." A pang of regret for simpler days and easier faith swept over the stag, much as it sweeps over old men for times gone by. He shook his rack of antlers fiercely and kept listening.

The dwarf with the company snorted, almost like an animal himself. "You believe old stories? Here's another, then: Once there was a stag who caused Shadow Wood to turn to Darken Wood."

Another companion squatted on the trail, his ears pricked forward. "Nothing like a good story. When was this, Flint?"

The dwarf scowled at the other — a kender, the stag remembered now. It had been long since he had seen one. The dwarf went on, "Before the Cataclysm. And it's not a good story, not any way at all. The stag chose to betray the Forestmaster — the ruler of this wood, whoever that is. So he — »

"Why?" the kender interrupted. The stag put his ears forward, straining to hear.

The dwarf admitted, "I don't know why." The stag relaxed. "But he wanted to. So he — »

"It doesn't make sense if we don't know why." The kender clearly enjoyed interrupting.

"Nothing makes sense to you; let me go on. The stag went to the king who was pledged to guard the wood — »

"Guard it against what?"

The dwarf reached for the kender. "I'll tie back those foolish ears and make you listen — »

The half-elf stepped between them. "Let him be, Flint. Tas, let Flint tell his story."

"That's better." The dwarf took a deep breath, as much to calm himself as to launch the tale. "Why this stag wanted to betray the Forestmaster, whatever a Forestmaster is, I don't know. It's an old story, and parts of it are all muddled by now. The point is, he did betray the Forestmaster, back in the days when Darken Wood was only Shadow Wood."

"That's not the point at all," the stag murmured, knowing he could not be heard. "I've always thought the why of it more important than the sorrows that followed. Still, I am glad that the why is forgotten."

The dwarf went on: "There was a human king in the woods in those days, as well as living soldiers who guarded the woods. They were pledged to hold the borders against invaders, or robbers, but especially against the Dark Army."

"Who?" That was all that the kender said. Flint swallowed his annoyance. "The Dark Army. An army of the dead raised by dark clerics. In exchange for the dead helping the clerics take the wood from the Forestmaster and make it a fit place for the Queen of Darkness."

All, including the stag, shivered.

"The clerics would cast a spell that made the forest a place where the dead would live again. That's why the Forestmaster set guards on the border, to keep the wood free of evil — but mostly to ward off the Dark Army."

"But the guards failed," the half-elf said softly. Flint snorted again. "Failed? Failed? They broke their vows. The stag offered the king and his men a chance to hunt in the woods — the story's messy there;

I can't tell whether they hunted the stag or something else

and the king leaped at it. He was rebellious, or

untrustworthy, or wanted some time away from his job. That's another missing detail. Anyway, the king and his men left their posts at the edge of Shadow Wood, for only one day."

"But that was time enough." The knight who had first seen the stag sounded grim. Clearly, the stag thought, this one took oaths seriously. The stag shifted from hoof to hoof uncomfortably.

The dwarf went on, "Time enough and more. While King Whoever and his oath-breaking guards hunted, the clerics led the dead into Shadow Wood. Once inside, the dead formed a circle, and inside it the dark clerics did something, it has a name like the Song of Dead Land or the Chant — »

The hooded mage in the company said abruptly, "The Curse of Carrion Land. If it is spoken over a place, all shadows deepen into darkness, and all the buried dead rise again." He smiled at his own knowledge. "It's quite easy to do, once you are inside the borders of a land."

After an uncomfortable silence, Flint said, "Right. And then the dead hunted down the traitor king and his men as if they were animals, and killed them and buried them.

"But the dark clerics had made a mistake. The Dark Army hadn't been buried in Shadow Wood, which was now Darken Wood, but the traitor king and his men had been. So at sunset of the first day, the Dark Army died again, this time for good. And that night the buried king and his men rose again and chased the clerics out." Flint looked around uneasily. "But the Curse of Carrion Land stayed. That's why Darken Wood is evil. And every night, the traitor king and his men go hunting, with no rest for them until they redeem their pledge somehow."

The kender sighed loudly in the silence, making the company jump. "But what about the stag? And doesn't the story have an end?"

Forget the stag, the listening animal thought. And no: there is no end. There will never be an end.

"The stag. Right." The dwarf thought a moment. "There was something — »

The listening stag was relieved when the dwarf admitted, "I don't know exactly what happened to the stag. He died, too, and he had some kind of punishment for his betrayal. He and the king are tied together, but the story is all twisted up by now; in some versions the king and his men hunt the stag, in some they hunt a unicorn, and in some they hunt the Forest-master, whatever the Forestmaster is. But I know that the stag is like the king; he's punished every night for being a traitor. He has to repeat the betrayal over and over, and he and the king can break out of it only if they fulfill their vows of service and loyalty to the Forestmaster. Only they can't. Somebody else is pledged to guard Darken Wood now, and the story says that the stag is too proud or angry or something to renew his vow of service. So there isn't an end. Yet," he finished uncertainly.

"Not a good story," the kender said firmly. "I've heard better."

"So have I," Flint said. "The point is, which kind of stag are we following? The one Huma saw, or the traitor in Darken Wood?"

The stag barely listened to the argument. "Perhaps," he said to himself, "they are the same stag, servant and betrayer. Have any of these fools considered that?" He was relieved when the company, done debating his past and intentions, chose to follow him. He led silently, thoughtfully.

By night he watched the company discuss with the king of the dead. "They are greatly afraid," the stag observed. "That must please the very-late King Peris no end."

Later still, the stag watched them mount on centaurs, who were the Forestmaster's pledged guards, and ride to the Central Glade. Two centaurs remained behind, guarding the way. The stag, freed of his duties as guide, was about to follow the riding company when he heard one of the sentries sing, in a rough and uncouth voice:

There was a proud and noble stag,

In shadow wood was born,

And there he grew,

And there he met and loved a unicorn.

The stag froze, listening.

"There now," the sentry said to his companion with satisfaction, "years it's been since I've sung that, but I can still put it to the tune."

The other centaur answered dubiously, "It rubs against the tune, some places. Are the words right? I wouldn't know, it being new to me."

"New?" the first one questioned. "New? Why, that's the oldest song I know. It was old when our folk fled to the wood, in the time — what's the name? When the seas shook and rocks charged downhill like wild beasts — »

"Cataclysm," the other said.

"Cataclysm," the singer said carefully. "Right. And that's when we were pledged to guard this place. The Forestmaster, she had no living guard then, her own guards being dead and a lot of traitors."

"Traitors? Why?" the other asked.

The stag held his breath, thinking quietly, "Let them not remember. Let it be lost in time. If I know, and if she knows — and if the king knows — that is more than enough."

The first centaur slapped his own bristly side.

"Why? The song tells why. Let me see if I can put more

of it in mind. Somewhat about the stag serving the unicorn -

He sang more hesitantly:

He served her long, he served her well,

He served her, whole and part

Until one night in shadow glade

He told her all his heart.

The other said firmly, "If this song turns filthy, I'll hear none of it."

"No, no. She turns him down. 'She did not laugh — ' No, that's not it. 'She told him no' — I have the matter of it there, but not the music."

The centaur guards moved off on their rounds. The stag remained, then sang softly, to himself:

She did not mock, she did not laugh,

But softly told him nay;

He did not grieve, but chose to leave

And plotted to betray.

He sought out then king peris's men;

His words were cold and blunt,

"Oh, sentry hosts, desert your posts:

I offer you a hunt."

The stag stopped and said bitterly, "Ill-rhymed, ill metered common trash. The song about my leading Huma is doubtless long gone, but this wretched lyric — " His own ears pricked up at the rancor in his voice, and he bounded after the riding company.

He watched them look up at the rock and stare in awe at the Forestmaster. The stag, remembering his own first meeting with the Forestmaster, nursed his dark heart and said nothing as the unicorn met the companions, fed them, advised them.

Finally they were away, born aloft by pegasi. The stag looked at the ridiculous bipeds, particularly the dwarf, and felt contempt for the vileness of the winged horses' servitude. (Cloven-hooved animals feel naturally superior to those with unsplit hooves: the horses, the centaurs, even the pegasi.) "How typical," the stag said to himself, "that they would degrade themselves in that obedience, as close to the stars as they are."

Even after a long and often painful history, the stag was quite sensitive of his honor.

He entered the glade and called, as much command as request: "Master."

"I am here." The unicorn had returned to the rock above the glade.

Forestmaster and stag stood poised, as though pausing before re-entering an old ritual. Each knew what the other would say.

Still they looked, as though they could not help themselves. The stag stood proud and erect, as though posing for a statue. Every hard muscle and taut sinew, every sharp line of limb and deadly point of antler, was etched in shadows. As with all shadows in Darken Wood, they seemed deep and full of death.

The Forestmaster herself seemed all light, as though the curse that held the Wood could never touch her. Her mane shone and half-floated, and the arch and curve of her neck seemed to draw all the way down her flanks and stop only at the ground. Only her eyes were dark, and those not the tainted shadows of Darken Wood but the liquid blackness of a wild thing's eyes, pure and powerful nature.

The stag spoke first. "I have served you this night."

"I know."

"Did I not serve you well?"

"You did."

"Have I not always served you well?"

"You have often served me well"

The stag seemed not to notice the distinction. "And I have asked little in return."

"It was service freely given, gladly accepted." She stared down at him, her horn pointing into the night. "You have more to ask now."

"No. More to offer."

"It is the same thing."

That nearly silenced him. Finally, however, he went on:

"I offer my love. I give it freely, generously; since there is none like me, a gift without parallel." "I know."

After a silence, the stag finished angrily, "Yet you refuse."

"I must." The Forestmaster broke the feeling of ritual by saying, "Humans say of my kind that only a virgin may catch me."

"It is an old legend. That is not why you refuse me." "It is old, and it is exactly why." She spoke less firmly, more sadly. "And like most old legends, it is twisted and half true. It is not the humans who must be chaste. To be who I am, to serve whom I must — »

"Enough," the stag said harshly. "Noble vows aside, you have refused my love."

The Forestmaster stared into his death-laden, proud eyes and closed her own. "I have."

"Why?" The word came out hard and sharp, as fresh 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 moment, looking much like a tired man, for the dead who may not rest know more weariness than any of us. "Tell me, did you see anyone this night?"

"You know I did. A knight, a mage, a half-elf, assorted two-legged shortlings. They are important to you?"

"They are important, I think." The king said absently, "You seem curious. I had thought you indifferent to everything."

"To everything beneath me, which is much of the world. And you, great and loyal Peris?"

"Much the same. Of course, more is beneath a dead king"

The stag said drily, "Long though we have endured, our standards are still better preserved than we are. May they last forever. What is their importance?"

"The standards?"

"Their importance is self-evident, or it is none. I mean the strangers; how are they important?" "To the future of our wood and world."

"Ah. Politics." The stag nodded wisely. "I try to avoid politics."

"I understand completely," the king said casually. "I tried to avoid politics — once."

"A question of permission to enter, and of forced entry, wasn't it?"

"It was." He added with uncustomary frankness, "A question of entry by evil, and into these woods — which at that time were not called Darken. Perhaps you remember the stanzas — »

"I do." The stag sang, a little too eagerly for the king's liking:

but one lone guard forewarned the King:

"This hunt is evil-starred;

for those with arms and potent charms

against whom we must guard

no more will wait with eyes of hate

and souls and hearts of gall,

but purge the wood of light and good,

and Gods forgive us all."

He looked expectantly at King Peris, who sighed hollowly and sang with as full a voice as a spirit could muster:

Still Peris boasts, "Step down, my hosts,

and hear the hunting-horn,

let men invade both wood and glade,

we hunt the unicorn."

He lowered his sword, which he had raised for emphasis. "It wasn't that way at all, of course. And it wasn't rebellion, or wilful treason, or any of those things. My men were bored; I was bored. A hint or two from their commanding officer — " he made a mock bow" — was all it took." He looked around himself. "Imagine thinking anything in a short life and a merry one could be boring. I threw away a kingdom for a day's amusement and an afterlife of painful tedium."

"I am surprised to hear you admit it."

"I am surprised also. Perhaps something is troubling me. Let us change the subject."

"I shall. Did you speak to any of the strangers?" As the king shook his head, the stag nodded, "For I thought I saw one address you."

"Ah. That one was a mage. He spoke first." The king looked as though he had never even tried to evade answering.

"What did he say to you? I could not hear."

King Peris said with difficulty, "He knew that we were the spirits of men who had failed a pledge, that we were doomed to perform that same task endlessly until we somehow earned final peace."

"Knowledgeable man."

"Mages often are. I think he meant to remind me that I could earn final peace."

"And what did you say to him of your present state, 0 King? For if I may be truthful, you do not appear in full majesty. Empty majesty is more like it."

"I told him that we were called to fulfill our oath, one day."

"When you say we," the stag said carefully, "I assume that you meant 'my men and I.'»

"I was not specific. I did not mention you by name, but that does not mean he did not know you also were called to fulfill your oath."

"Did you tell him," the stag inquired, "How long it has been since we first heard that call?"

The king shifted, a move of discomfort in the living. "Discussing these things is not easy. Have you no understanding of how shameful it feels to rehearse a long-broken pledge?"

"I have more feelings than I commonly show. Let us change the subject."

"I shall. Something troubles you."

"Of course. I am in love." Even now the admission came hard.

"That is always trouble. Unrequited, I assume."

"Strangely, yes. Can you imagine my love not being returned?"

"By now, it is easier to imagine than it once was; habit and repetition make all realities seem more real." Seeing the stag tense, the king added hastily, "But because it was true long ago, and for your feelings now, let us say it seems unimaginable."

"It does." The stag tossed his head. "I will, of course, want revenge for my hurt feelings."

"Feelings?" The king struck one shadowy arm with another. The blow left no mark, and the king's expression did not change. "You can still speak of feelings?"

"I can." The stag looked away. "I prefer to speak of them, though I still have them."

"Time changes feelings. Time may change all things, even us."

"Time has not changed what we do, nightly." The stag turned his head, briefly, to look at the north star. "I do not think it can change what I am, nor will it change what I do. I choose, again, to betray the one whom I — the one whom I should obey."

"Another might not so choose. Even you, after some consideration, might not."

When the stag did not respond, the king continued, "Tell me, though you have told me often before: is this a lover one could betray to hunters?" "One could. Does that surprise you?" "No more than it surprises me that you would." Without warning the stag lashed out at a sapling with one of his front hooves. The kick left a sharp imprint in the wood. "How could she have refused me? How can she refuse me?" He kicked again, splintering the small tree. "How dare she refuse me?"

He stood trembling with anger, then mastered himself. "Excuse me," he said to the king. "I'm not myself today."

The king said heavily, "I rather fear that even after ages of punishment, you are still yourself."

"Perhaps you are right. Still, I like to think I would not burst out so, except that I had rather a long night last night."

Peris nodded. "Your feelings have always been hard to contain; long ages of irony and veiled illusion cannot hide them. As for your night, all of our nights are long." He added more slowly, "I have news that may interest you. A second band of strangers, seeking to kill the first, has entered Darken Wood. They are on the same path as the first were."

"And no sentries have stopped them? History repeats itself."

"It does, as we do. I am inclined to make an end to repetition."

The stag paid no attention to the king's last remark. "If these strangers are not invaders, might they be hunters?" the stag asked indifferently.

"Hunters of men and of other bipeds. They might be lured to other hunts." He added, "And as for invading, this band, too, is politically important, though they are — " he hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Evil. One would not have thought more evil could be done to Darken Wood, but apparently so."

"After what you have received at the hands of Darken Wood, does that disturb you?"

"It should," Peris said with assumed indifference. He gave up the pose. "It does. The peace of a world is more important than my petty grievances."

The stag pointed out, "Once, long ago, the fate of a wood wasn't."

"Now it is."

The stag was too stunned to respond. The king added, "I am no longer the sworn guard of Darken Wood,

but I choose to return to my post. I will not hunt you this night."

"You have hunted at my request — have hunted me, as my punishment — every night for — " The stag

stopped. How, in this endless cycle, could he measure time?

The king nodded. "Granted. But a king may change his mind. Once you have seen these strangers, you will understand."

"Will I? You seem sure of that; what are these strangers like?"

The king hesitated. "Complete strangers, let us say."

He said nothing more. "Go see them. Perhaps they will change their mind."

"Or perhaps they will hunt at my request." The king said 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." He lisped slightly.

The stag wondered, none too happily, if the thing's tongue were forked.

"Evil only to those who bring evil with them." He added to the ritual response, "Many have. They do not leave again." He thought, briefly, of King Peris, of the Forestmaster, and of betrayal. "But there is much to be gained here, as well as risk."

"Name the gain." The dragon-man signaled behind him. The arriving troops moved to the very edges of the trail, not beyond, and formed twin lines, guarding each others' backs without a word. They were well-trained for war.

The stag considered what that meant, but went ahead. "There is one who watches over this wood." He hesitated, then amended, "Who rules this wood. All in it, living and.. human and animal, serve her." He took a deep breath and finished, "To take this wood, it is only needed to slay her."

Treachery neither surprised nor impressed the dragon man. "And she is?"

"The Forestmaster. The ruler here. A white unicorn."

Several of the company hissed involuntarily. The leader started. "A unicorn? You suggest a blood-force of draconians could — »

"Hunt her and slay her, yes." The stag added drily, "It appears the moral requirements for such a hunt were exaggerated. That seems sensible, since there is no morality to such a hunt." He added more plainly, "You need not be virgins."

The dragon-man waved a claw. "We have no capacity for desire." He made a face that could have been a smile. "Or for love."

"You are happier than you know," the stag said, mainly to himself. Aloud he repeated, "I have offered you a unicorn hunt. Will you take my offer?"

The dragon-man considered. "How would we find her?"

"You would not. I would, and you would follow. For the rest — " The stag shrugged, his shoulders rippling the motion up his well-muscled neck. "Surely you need not ask me how to hunt and slay animals." An old ache reminded him what this betrayal meant, to the lover as well as to the loved. For one moment he had a vision of those teeth, those claws, tearing at the shadowless white flesh of the Forestmaster.

The dragon — draconian — had not moved for some time. "We would do this for conquest, as well as for reasons we will not share." He smiled, after his kind, with a great many teeth. "Why would you do this?"

"For reasons I will not share." He finished more softly. "For reasons which, apparently, would mean little to you." More and more, the stag was wondering why scorned love and thwarted desire meant much to himself. "I was not aware that soldiers needed excuses, or perhaps you do not feel up to your quarry."

The draconian answered without anger, "Look in

our faces. We could hunt any creature alive to its death."

"I see. And beyond?" the stag asked politely, but the joke was lost on them. "Follow, then. Not too closely."

As he turned and bounded away, he heard a single command, a word or a language he did not know. Once again he was afraid — for his world, and not for himself.

"Perhaps I grow sentimental. Next I will write bad songs and carry noisy bipeds on my back," he said aloud.But the joke was flat, and he realized that sarcasm and self parody could no longer protect him from his own feelings. Behind him he heard the rasp of strange and wicked claws, tearing at the wood that was his whole world.

He was more than halfway to the clearing when bulky shapes, half-hidden in leaves, blocked his way. He froze in place, hoping the draconians behind him would do the same.

A voice called, "Halt."

"Remarkably alert," the stag observed, "if unnecessary."

"Don't be giving rudeness to those who keep faith." The deep voice, unbothered at the stag's sarcasm, went on, "Where does tha go?"

"I have an errand." He spoke coldly, hoping the sentry would take offense and turn away. "Is it habitual in this wood to question duty?"

"Not my habit, nor that of my kind." The figure emerged from the undergrowth. It was, as he had known from the size and voice, a centaur.

Nonetheless, he peered at it curiously.

"Ah," he said as if in recognition. "A draft human. Tell me, how is life in harness?"

The centaur regarded him, as always, with the easy contempt that the hooved and human show the merely human or the merely hooved.

"We are not in harness but in service — as others should be," the centaur said heavily. He tossed his head restlessly. "I have heard rumors and smelled scents this day, as well. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?"

The stag would not look in the centaur's large, dark eyes. "Perhaps you smell the strangers from last night. Is there any reason that their smell would cling to you?"

"We bore them on our backs," he said with dignity. "As all in this wood know. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?" he repeated.

"Why ask me? Surely you think you know more than I; your breed studies stars as well as any beast of burden could."

"Mockery. It's all tha has." He snorted, horselike. "Try to hide the truth from us both, if tha wishes. I study little, but I know stars. These past nights they tell of battle, and of life and death for a stag. It's a' there — for them as looks close." He added, "Maybe tha has not seen these strangers — but tha will." He turned to go.

The stag watched him. "I have a retort," he called, "timed and well framed, laden with irony and literary allusion — but I refuse to favor you with it. I have my dignity."

The centaur said nothing, and in the stag's heart he knew that was the best retort of all. The centaur waited a moment longer, then went his way.

A moment later the lead draconian appeared, sword ready, behind the stag. "He is gone?"

"He is." The stag was looking where the centaur had been, thinking hard. He tried to imagine the centaurs dead and defeated, bleeding as the wood fell again to strangers. He could not imagine that any centaurs would run, or would turn traitor, or would think at all of themselves.

"Then we remain undiscovered."

The stag thought over the centaur's words. "Let us say you remain unseen. Remain so a while longer, by moving behind me again."

The draconian looked at the stag without love and withdrew. The stag moved slowly, thoughtfully, toward the center of Darken Wood.

He caught himself humming. "It's that damned song," he muttered. "Crude and folkish, but the tune sticks in the mind."

Actually, it was the words which stuck in his mind. He found himself singing, half-unwillingly:

The stag led on from night to dawn,

from sunrise into morn,

and in the shade of shadow glade

betrayed the unicorn.

She spoke to him; her voice was grim:

"What have you done for pride?

You know and see your destiny

and yet you turn aside.

You would betray me to my death

and quite forsake your vow?

Then service lent without consent

is all you do me now."

She touched him once, she touched him twice,

and three times with her horn;

and there he fell, and where he fell,

he rose a unicorn.

He heard reptilian muttering behind him and stopped singing. If those behind him were truly to kill the Forestmaster, all music here — perhaps, eventually, all the music in the world — would cease, and all for the stag's petty revenge.

A winged shadow drifted overhead. He ducked automatically, but it was only one of the pegasi, cir cling and diving above the wood.

The stag could picture something larger, something with wings like the draconians', stooping onto the pegasi. He could hear them shrieking, flapping frantically, tumbling from the sky -

"Not them," he murmured. "Not by my doing, surely. But what can I do against these invaders?"

And a moment later, he thought, startled, "And could I give up my revenge, my vengeance for being scorned, after treasuring it for so long? In this cycle of sorrow, vengeance is all that sustains me."

It was something to consider on a long walk.

At mid-day the stag entered the Central Glade alone, well ahead of the draconians. "Master!" The woods took his cry in, draining it, not echoing.

"I am here," came the voice from the rock softly. "I am always here." The woods echoed always.

"I have a question."

"You have often had questions. You may ask."

"There are many and diverse beings who l-live — " he stumbled over the word " — inhabit this wood. Some hooved, some human, some both; some living, some dead, some a mix of living and dead."

"That much is true." She waited.

"How do they think of me? Do they think of me as

one of them?" The loneliness in his own voice startled him.

"You are regarded differently by different beings. Do you wish to be thought one of them?"

The stag thought of those he knew and taunted, then thought of the draconians. "I had not thought so. But recently I discovered a threat which I do not want to harm creatures here, as though they were mine and I cared for them."

"Then by that care, they are yours and you theirs. Does that please you?"

After a long silence, the stag said quietly, "I had not thought it would."

"I am glad." The Forestmaster added, "But that is not why you came, this night, as you have come all the others."

"True." The stag came forward to the rock. "I have come to you a final time. Will you not have me?"

"In service, yes. In love, no." She leapt from the rocks, landing in a cascade of light like stars, even by day. Like the king, like the stag himself, she did not seem surprised by events.

But she was astonished when the stag bent his forelegs and knelt awkwardly in the dust before her. He swayed, unaccustomed to kneeling. "Then I will serve you, a final time. This last thing I do of my own choosing."

The unicorn stared at his lowered head. "May I ask why?"

The stag answered, not moving. "Do not think me inconstant."

"That is the last thing I would think you."

"Good. All that I felt, all that I wish for and desire — " his voice wavered" — are unchanged. But in all the endless times that I have left here, returned here, betrayed here, I never saw the simplest reality of this place: That the wood is larger than I am. It is larger than my need. In the end, it will be larger, and last longer, than even my love could. I offer that love, to it and you, freely and without asking in return — since without asking, you and the wood itself and all in it have always given what you could. I offer my service, and," he finished humbly, "I hope it is well done enough to be of use."

The unicorn looked at him for a long time, seeing every detail of him, every hair and horn and eyelash. At last she said gently, "Most well done, beloved. And remember that I have only said that I could not love you — never that I did not. Go with the hunt."

She touched his forehead with her horn three times.

He fell sideways, legs jerking and twitching. Terrible cries came from him, most loudly when the antlers broke off. His coat grew paler with each moment, and where the Forestmaster had touched him a single spiral horn emerged, blood-tipped, pulling itself through his splintered forehead.

When the draconians emerged, they saw a rock peak and only one unicorn, tottering unsteadily on its hooves. With shouts of triumph they leaped into the air, gliding in pursuit of the unicorn, with their swords swinging and their fanged mouths wide.

The stag moved, stumblingly at first, into Darken Wood. One by one the draconians alit and stalked him on foot.

Through the long afternoon, the stag learned again the old lesson: some hunters one may outrun, but not outlast. Whenever he entered the slightest clearing, the draconians covered more ground than he, gaining rest from the time spent gliding. He wondered if they could fly at all, but soon he was too tired to wonder. While he stayed in the densest forest they could not fly, but he could not run easily, either.

Moreover, in the forest he had to break his own trail, but they could follow in the way he left behind;

he was doing their trailbreaking as well as his own. If he stopped to rest even a moment, he heard the snap of brush and swish of branches closer behind him than they had been when last he rested.

"I would not," he observed to himself as he raced after one such pause, "have thought they could be so patient. It is like being pursued by the dead, as I above all have cause to know."

They had swords and daggers, and perhaps other weapons as well, but the animal in the stag thought most of those pointed teeth, the cold eyes, the hissing breath. He had been pursued — how many times? — for sport, for the challenge, even for his antlers or for a vow, but being chased as meat -

His heart went sick within him and pounded every beat as hard as his hooves pounded the rock-strewn ground.

Behind him came the cold cries of the hunting draconians. To the rhythm of his own rock-chipped hooves, he could not choose but hear the darkest verse of the song touching on himself and on King Peris:

The guards have fled; their trusting land

all undefended lies;

and through the wood invaders ride

with darkness in their eyes.

Without alarms they practice charms

that drive away that light

and shadow into darken wood

is made that evil night.

And afterward, with sword and spear

and horse and horn and hound

they hunted down King Peris's men

and ran them all to ground.

The King was slain, his body lain

among his dying men,

But they were told ere they were cold

to rise and hunt again.

He ran over the green and sunlit hill called Huma's Breast, and found no peace there. Within sight of Prayer's Eye Peak he raced along the river called Night, and took no sleep by it.

He passed the Vale of Sorrow. He passed the Cliffs of Anger. He passed the Slough of Betrayal. Always the draconians grew closer.

"I had not thought Darken Wood so large," he thought once. "Surely I should never have chided the king for a single lapse in guarding so large a trust." He thought briefly of all the scorn he had shown the king, and more fleetingly of how he had originally tempted the king into betraying his trust, but there was little time for apology.

Twice, in the late afternoon, they encircled him and began closing. The first time, he leaped contemptuously over a startled draconian, in full view of the company. The soldier jerked his sword upright hastily, but barely managed to leave a furrow along the stag's flank.

"A scratch, nothing more," he told himself as he limped away. He considered tossing a stinging retort over his shoulder, but thought better. "I would only be lowering myself." And he might, he admitted silently, need the breath.

The second time, panting and exhausted in the Glen of Thorns, he had lain frozen under a branch of blooming sorrow's end, waiting until the draconians had plodded past him to slip quietly away, unmissed until a soldier looked back and saw the white mane as the transformed stag scuttled, head lowered, through the thorn bushes.

"A fawn's trick," he panted, ashamed. "I got away by hiding like a fawn."

He stared at his own side, mottled with thorn scratches and rock scrapes. "No wonder it worked. Still, perhaps these creatures don't see well by day." But he looked at the sun, already sunk below treetop level, and he knew that there would be no third escape.

By dusk he was tottering, barely ahead of the draconians, barely able to move his legs. His eyes showed white all around the edges, and he smelled his own blood in his nostrils. Each step brought a new ache, each breath another side-stitch.

There was no question but that they would kill him. All that mattered was when and where.

Once he nearly sank down on a patch of deathwort, ready to let it end appropriately. If this were but one more death in an endless series, what did it matter whether he died well or badly?

But he heard them coming and struggled wearily to his feet. "I have," he gasped, "an appointment. With a friend, and with — others. I will fail no one this time."

The sun was no more than a blood-red sliver in the brush when he lurched across the trail and into the small glade. He looked around dazedly, though he knew the place well. Even where there were no trees, there seemed to be shadows, and the grass itself seemed tainted with death.

The stag nodded. "Here." His voice was rasping, half choked.

As the draconians arrived in the clearing, he half-fell off the trail and sank down on the grass a few lengths away.

A draconian saw him and called, "Captain."

The lead draconian shouted in triumph and leaped off the trail. The others followed.

The draconian cried, "Pride of kill belongs to Captain Zerkaz."

The stag reared up. "Pride, it seems, is universal, Captain. So is kill."

He punched forward with a hoof. Zerkaz had time to screech with pain before his heart ruptured and his body turned to stone. It wavered once, but remained standing.

While the soldiers gaped, the stag charged another, head lowered.

He had forgotten that he had but a single horn, not antlers. As he pierced the draconian, the dying soldier brought his sword down as hard as he could at close quarters. The horn cracked all the way into the stag's skull.

He staggered back with closed eyes, barely noticing as the second soldier turned to stone. A third, sword out, was facing him, but the others had closed behind him and stood almost touching each other, staring into the field. Their blades wavered, almost trembled.

Around them, dead human warriors, Darken Wood's best guard, were rising, at last ready to fulfill an old promise. Beside them stood King Peris in full battle gear a thousand years old.

The king's armor was white silver over steel, decorated in rubies, for the blood of enemies, and emeralds and sapphires, for an archer's clear eyes. It was, as the stag had often noted, largely ornamental. Perhaps that was why the king and his body of men had once failed to guard against a real menace.

The soldiers of the dead king writhed up from the grass, unbraiding from it as though their bodies were recomposing. Swords in hand and no shields, they fell into a battle line; their empty eyes showed no mercy, no hatred, and no hope.

The stag cried in what voice it had, "Forward!" It leaped awkwardly and took a sword full in the chest as it punched a third draconian. As the sword withdrew, the stag made no sound at all.

Peris the King leaped over the falling animal. "I, not you, lead my men, beast. Forward!" The troops of the dead advanced, and the draconian ranks, weakened already, wavered.

The battle was like some deadly mime. The dead's weapons made no noise — yet their attackers fell, bleeding green liquid and turning stony in anguished poses. Blows against the dead passed through — yet many dead spiraled back into the carrion-tainted earth, and their lightless eyes glowed with an odd relief as they sank.

Forces were in disorder, yet few commands were needed; the dead fought as they had for so long, and the draconians fought for their lives. Except for a few cries of anger and pain from the draconians, the only other sound was the slow fall of stone bodies as, one by one, thedraconians fell to earth clutching unseen wounds and half twisting scaley faces in agony. Starlight flickered off real and ghostly weapons; bodies twisted or toppled into grassy shadows and were bodies no longer.

To an onlooker it might have seemed some strange dance without music. It was a war with little sound and no corpses, a battle for nightmares.

Through it all walked the king, his sword flashing right and left at arm's length. By himself, in the brief fight, he accounted for three draconians, and his heart seemed to beat again with his own pride as they dropped to the right and left. His arms felt, not the endless weariness of the accursed dead, but the growing soreness and strain of a living warrior. His eyes flicked back and forth alertly, noting even how a sweet night wind ruffled the grass into which allies and enemies were falling.

Ahead of him a draconian crouched over the prone stag, bringing a sword down with all the force he could above the near-motionless neck. The stag had not even looked up, dust and chaff barely moving in its nostrils.

The king dove forward, sword aimed at the draconian's heart. He made no attempt to parry the descending sword as it passed through his ornamental armor and into him.

His own blow took effect a moment later; the draconian doubled over, gasping, and froze that way, a corpse carved from a boulder. The king, carried by his own momentum, rolled against the stone body and winced with the pain. "I'll have a bruise tomorrow," he thought vaguely, unsure after all these years what a bruise felt or looked like.

He lay still and listened, hearing nothing but the stag's labored breathing. He struggled to his feet, barely able to hold his sword but aware of triumph and of great pain.

The stag opened his eyes. "Peris. The draconians?" "Dead." Never, in Darken Wood, had the word been said with such satisfaction.

"An unusual way to end a hunt, with dead hunters." "You have said so before." The king knelt, taking the stag's head on his lap. The stag's chest wound, pulled free of the ground, re-opened, but the king paid no attention. "You have often said that at a hunt's end the hunter should be alive, the quarry dead."

"I have often been insulting." His eyes blurred; with great effort he shook his head and cleared them angrily. "What will happen now?"

"If I know soldiers, the commanders who ordered the search of Darken Wood will decide to delay another search until they feel they can risk further loss. They will also hope that their quarry, the questing party of the other night, appears elsewhere, as someone else's responsibility." He shuddered. "At any rate, we will have saved this part of the world for a while — if, as they say, I know soldiers."

"You know soldiers well. You lead them still better."

"Thank you." The king sat down heavily by the bleeding stag. "A satisfying night, but not an easy one. I have been wounded."

"Recently?" The stag grunted as its forehead horn, cracked by the sword-blow, split all the way to the skull.

"Tonight, in fact."

"At any other time, I enjoy a joke — »

"Seriously." Red leaked through the holes in the king's armor, as though the rubies were melting. "I had forgotten how painful this was."

"You could have asked me." The stag raised its pain wracked head. Now the split horn sagged apart, its cleft gaping, and exposed bone at its root.

"I could have," the king agreed. "It seemed rude." He spoke with difficulty. "It seems I have fulfilled a pledge and will die in service."

The stag said, "I also." He added, "Could you help me over to the last standing draconian? I would not mind dying with such memorial."

The king, gasping, carried the shuddering body of the stag to the foot of the standing draconian. "He has — " He coughed.

"Can you speak no more clearly than that? I seem not to hear well just now." The rumble of the moving horns covered all sound.

The king braced himself and said distinctly, "This one has a hoof-print on his chest. Yours?"

"I would nod, but I have a headache." Blood ran from his split forehead. As though watered, the twin horn-shards sprouted buds of antlers.

"Then he will wear my marks as well." Holding the stag with one arm, the king removed his own crown and placed it on the stone figure before sliding wetly down its side to the grass.

The stag rasped, "Either I am overly sensitive by nature, or this seems harder than usual." Blood was flowing darkly around the dust in his chest wound. "Could you not distract me?"

"I could try." The king tilted his head back in pain as he inhaled, and sang in a quavering voice:

"For every wraith who breaks his faith

must wander without cease

and, cold, perform what he did, warm,

and never rest in peace.

He coughed, and a hairline of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. The stag, looking up through filmy eyes, took up the song for him:

so, every night the stag betrays

the love he could not keep

and king and host desert their post

to hunt and never sleep.

They finished, singing together. It took them a long time, since one or the other often stopped to gasp for air, and it seemed important to them that they finish as one:

And so they shall betray and hunt,

until the day they show

that they somehow fulfill the vow

they broke so long ago."

Done, they collapsed against each other. "Not a bad song, really," the king said. "Needs a little tightening here and there, perhaps, fewer cousin-rhymes, but at least it's something of us left behind."

"True. Many have died with less fame and with worse poetry." The stag's antlers shuddered painfully back into place. The stag, eyes upward, lay his head on the king's lap and stared at the draconian. "Who would have thought that I should be hunted by such as this? Or that you should hunt them?"

The king's voice was low and halting. "True. They are vile, and we were proud. But for once, we both have died for something besides ourselves. And when you have been dead as long as I — " he wavered, and said in a last breath — "a little variety in one's chosen way of dying is not such a bad thing."

And as the stag joined the king in final death, he thought sleepily that after a thousand years of nightly betrayal, transformation, pursuit by the dead, painful death and more painful rebirth, almost any change was pleasant. He cradled his head against King Peris's stomach, and the two accepted death as, long ago, it had accepted them.

No one but Time removed the bodies; eventually they disappeared. The stone draconians became overgrown and powdered under the pressure of weather and vines; time's best warriors. Only the one draconian, wearing an ancient crown and scarred on its breast with a cloven hoof, remains. For reasons no one living knows, it does not crumble. Go to the wood, no longer called Darken, and you may see it yet.

Once, not long ago, the Forestmaster came into the glade and stood before the single draconian. The crown was tarnished, the sword rusted; only the hoof-print was still sharp and clear. The Forestmaster stared at the print, then looked thoughtfully around the glade. There was not so much as a mound to show that anyone had died here, and even the memory of the draconians was fading from those who lived in Shadow Wood.

The unicorn tipped her head up and quietly sang two stanzas she had heard recently, added onto a very old ballad:

"The shadows in the woods are plain

and mingle now with light;

they flow and play with sun by day

and dance with moon by night.

From darken wood has shadow wood

been granted its release,

those who were killed in vows fulfilled

have there been granted peace."

She strode to the edge of the woods and thrust her horn in among the vines, circling it quickly. Walking back to the statue, she lifted her horn to the stone and slid a floral wreath onto it. It slid down too far; she moved parallel to the sword and adjusted it. For a moment, sword and horn both pointed to the north star, faintly visible in the darkening sky.

She stepped back. "Sleep well, beloved" She turned and was gone.

The wreath of Paladine's Tears stayed fresh a long time.