“I can, but I don’t often choose to.”
“Why? It’s faster.”
“Faster is not always better. My feet know the roads I travel, but my eyes do not.”
“Then can we trust your eyes tonight, to get us to the chapel?” Robin asked.
“Once we reach the forest, I will proceed on foot,” Alan said.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Robin asked, kicking his mount into a gallop. Beside him Alan did the same. The wind whipping his face felt good, invigorating, but after a time even that sensation dulled. So Robin dug his fingernails into his palm, the pricking pain breaking through the numbness that surrounded him.
* * *
She was cold.
She had been so hot when she lay down. Like a fire had been stoked inside her skin. She’d been a furnace, burning away the dross. She had lain down and offered all that fire to him, pouring it into the darkness that came for her.
Then she sat up. The little statue was still in her hand. Lines from its edges had been pressed into her palm.
The cold still touched her thighs. She looked left and right to the small forms next to her. They’d been so hot when they crawled in the bed beside her. They looked peaceful, sleeping, their skin closed from the pox marks. She looked at them and felt nothing. No sorrow, no pain, no joy.
She only felt one thing.
Her hand drifted, pressing against the slight swell of her stomach.
* * *
They finally arrived at the edge of the forest. There Alan dismounted and tied his horse to one of the trees at the very edge.
“Sorry, my friend,” the bard said to the beast. “I need you to be here when I get back.” He stroked the animal’s face.
The forest itself was massive. Robin had explored so much of it in his life, yet he knew that he had seen but a small portion of it. And he had never come across a chapel. Neither had he encountered any fey or guardians, with the exception of the magnificent stag.
There had only been so far that he could go without risking his father’s wrath. The older man had not approved of the amount of time Robin spent in the woods, and had forbidden him to stay away from home for more than two consecutive nights.
“Is the path wide enough for this beast?” he asked, as he patted his animal’s neck.
“It is, and it’s best you take him and conserve your strength,” Alan offered.
That was precisely what Robin intended.
Alan took a torch from his saddle and lit it using a fire pot. Both men were apprehensive about taking fire into the forest, but there was no help for it. Robin was in no condition to make his way in the dark. The moonlight would not pierce through the many branches of the trees, and they could not wait for the coming of the dawn.
The bard led the way and Robin urged his horse to follow behind. Once the creature had placed all four feet squarely beneath the canopy, Robin felt something, as though the air itself were crackling around him. His horse clearly felt it, too, for the animal stopped, startled.
Alan turned and looked at him questioningly, then slowly nodded.
“Demons are not permitted here,” he said. “The forest is tending to your wounds.”
“Then why do we not bring the people with the pox here?” Robin asked. “Would Sherwood not heal them, as well?” Indeed, already his pain was easing, particularly over his ribs.
Alan shook his head. “The pox is a curse that has spread, but it is still a disease and it acts like one. Your wounds were inflicted by supernatural creatures, and while the wounds themselves are not evil, their makers have left their trace on you. That is what the forest is burning away—the taint of the demonic magic that harmed you. You will not be healed, but any residual presence will be removed, making the wounds less bothersome.”
Even more important, Robin felt his mind becoming clearer, his thoughts sharper. This was a vast relief, because if the things he had been told were true, he’d need all his wits about him. When the crackling at last faded he was able to nudge his horse forward, and the animal went willingly.
The torch in Alan’s hand cast intense light in front of them, but also caused shadows to leap and weave about in some sort of macabre dance. When Alan would look back, the light playing off his face made it look like a skull.
Robin paid careful attention to where they were going, so that he could return the same way. The monastery was just to the south of the great forest. The paths they followed had been familiar to him. However, where he would have turned to the right to travel toward his home, they instead turned left and very swiftly entered a section of the woods he did not know. He was grateful that the bard was leading the way.
They wound several more miles into the forest, going deeper and deeper. Twice Alan had to replace his torch with a fresh branch he’d found on the ground. When the last one finally began to die out, light was beginning to appear. He carefully stamped out the last of the embers.
“We are almost there,” he said. Robin nodded, relieved to hear it.
A handful of minutes later, the chapel came into view. To Robin’s surprise, while it was overgrown, it looked like a plain chapel of the sort that could have been plucked from anywhere else in the region. Vines were twisting over it and tree roots snarled the stone path that led to the door.
“What is it doing here?” Robin asked, hard pressed to imagine who would have come all this way to pray.
“It is acting as a safe harbor,” Alan replied.
Robin dismounted and tied his horse to a tree near the entrance. His hand was on the door when he turned to look at Alan.
“Are you coming?”
The bard slowly shook his head and took his instrument from his shoulder.
“I have been inside many times, but not today I think.” He began to strum the instrument, creating a strange, haunting tune that made the small hairs on the back of Robin’s neck stand on end. Turning again, he pushed open the door of the chapel and stepped through.
The inside was as unremarkable as the outside. Most churches were filled with decoration, frescoes and paintings, statues of saints, crucifixes. There was nothing here save plain wood benches and an unadorned altar covered in a plain white cloth. He walked to the front of the chapel, briefly glancing at the simple altar, his fingers moving from habit in the sign of the cross. He didn’t know where any magic items might have been left, and his cursory inspection turned up nothing unusual.
Outside, Alan stopped playing and Robin made his way back toward the door.
As he exited he asked, “What am I supposed to do now?” Then he blinked in surprise as he realized that the bard was gone with his horse. He took several swift steps forward, eyes probing in the dim light, but he saw no sign.
From what he had been told, there were fey and other guardians in the forest. Time was running out for his friends and his family, so this would be a good time for one to show itself.
“I need help!” Robin shouted at the top of his lungs.
Leaves shook on a nearby tree, and he swiveled his head in that direction.
A small bird gazed back at him.
Robin felt his desperation mounting. It was as if he could sense his loved ones slipping away from him. Anguish tore at his heart and he fought back a cry of pain that came, not from his body, but from his soul. Struggling to get himself back under control, he finally turned back toward the chapel and stopped.
A small creature, covered in splashes of blue pigment, stood in front of the door staring at him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Robin stared back in astonishment. Then he stepped forward. On longer inspection, what stood before him looked like a man. Tiny and distorted, but close enough to be human.
“What are you doing here?” Robin asked.
The tiny man shrugged. A gnarled black stick in his hand helped prop him up.
“You called.”
He must be referring to the song that Alan was playing, Robin thought, but he didn’t say anyt
hing, since he wasn’t sure what would happen if the creature figured out that he hadn’t been the one who had done the summoning.
“You’re here to help me?” he asked instead.
“That depends. What is it you want?”
“I am searching for a healing elixir once used by Merlin,” Robin replied. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
The creature turned its head, regarding him sideways.
“’Tis not so easy to get the things Sherwood hides,” he replied. The creature’s voice was a soft melody that carried to Robin like the song of a river over stones. It tended to swallow its ‘O’ vowels, but he quickly grew used to the inflection. “The forest is ancient. It has many secrets it enjoys keeping, and is loathe to give up.” Suddenly the tiny man had a pipe in his hand. It appeared in a sleight-of-hand trick, and Robin missed where it came from. He stuck it in his mouth and began to puff. “You look hale enough for an infant, though,” he said between puffs. “Why do you need an elixir?”
Robin’s hopes were buoyed. The creature hadn’t denied the elixir’s existence.
“A curse has been placed on the land,” he explained, “a pox that spreads. I need it to heal my family, my friends, and the others who have been afflicted.”
“Then the answer will be no,” the creature replied. “It’s not Sherwood’s problem.”
“It’s my problem,” Robin insisted. “My mother, sisters, and cousin are all sick. Others—too many others—as well. All of them are innocent of any wrongdoing, save the fact that they have fallen under the rule of an evil man.”
The strange creature scowled. At least, that was what it looked like. He turned and walked half a dozen steps, crunching through dried leaves to a patch of bright flowers growing near the chapel.
“Did you hear that?” the creature asked, addressing his question to the flowers.
Suddenly, one of the blossoms exploded upward. Robin blinked as he realized that it hadn’t been a flower at all, but rather a faerie dressed in a gown the color of the bloom on which she had been sitting. Even tinier than the man who had addressed her, she rose in the air and flew close to his ear, whispering to him.
The larger creature nodded rapidly, listening in rapt attention. When she had finished, the faerie floated back down and landed on the ground next to him. The piles of leaves that lay there were nearly taller than she was.
The blue creature turned toward him. “Your quest is futile, pale knight,” he said flatly. “You should go home.”
“Futile?” Robin replied, letting the word sink in.
The man nodded firmly, waving the pipe at Robin. “Yes, futile. Fruitless, vain, useless, to no effect one way or the other,” he said. “Need I continue?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned away and made as if to depart into the forest.
“But why?” Robin demanded, his voice becoming louder. “Why is it futile?”
“Because your mother and sisters are already dead,” the creature told him.
Robin took a step back, feeling as if he had been struck. Pain screamed through his mind, and he could only compare it to the moment his brother had died. Then he forced it to the side, focusing on a single idea.
It can’t be true.
The creature didn’t even know who he was, let alone who his family might be. This was just a ruse—it had to be, to trick him into giving up his quest.
It’s not going to happen.
“You’re full of shite,” he said, throwing it out there like a challenge.
The creature stiffened, and he straightened ever so slowly. “Not after me morning constitutional, Robin Long-of-stride.”
“How do you know my name?” Robin asked, panic nibbling at the back of his mind.
“I don’t know your name. She knows your name,” the creature said, indicating the flowers the fairy had been resting on. “She heard it on the wind, and she knows more, as well. It is too late for them, the wind said. Your family are dead, and your enemies close on your home to steal it. With you away, they may succeed.
“Go home,” he continued, not a hint of scorn in his voice. “Save it if you can, and leave this elixir business well enough alone.”
Robin’s knees gave way beneath him and he crashed to the earth. He grabbed great fistfuls of dirt and leaves and tried to focus on the sensations. He was in Sherwood, the place where he always felt most at home, the place where he’d longed to run as a child, never to return.
The fairy could be lying.
Or the blue creature might be.
Has to be.
His father’s voice crawled through his mind. Words from childhood stories.
The fey never lie. They’re tricky bastards, but they are honest about it.
He felt the truth of it in his heart. They were gone, and he wept with grief and anguish. Pain rocked through him and he screamed to the trees and the dirt and the animals. Anything that would listen.
Then in his mind he saw Friar Tuck, lying on the ground in the cardinal’s study, his face covered in red sores, sweating, and striving so hard to be brave. His mother and sisters might be dead, but Tuck wasn’t. Neither, hopefully, was Will, or the rest at the monastery.
The cardinal’s words came to him now. He was wounded, injured in body, mind, heart, and soul. He was a broken man who never could be made whole again, but there was something he could do still to help others. Something he must do, with every last ounce of strength.
Anguish passed, and his old friend anger filled the hollow place. It lay in his stomach, quiet but there. Growing louder, stronger.
He pulled himself to his feet.
“Give me the elixir,” he told the creature.
“If your friends are dead, too, would you still seek it?”
“If you keep asking questions like that, I will seek it just to take it from you.”
“Well, if you feel that way about it,” the creature said, “then follow me.” He turned, and began to wind his way through the trees.
* * *
Robin forced one foot numbly in front of the other, the tiny creature always five paces in front, even though his legs were half the length, and he leaned on his stick with each step. Through thickets they walked, up hills, and across the occasional clearing. Robin had no idea how far or how long the journey lasted. The forest remained dark and the air strange.
Then at last they came to a stream, and the creature stopped, allowing Robin to catch up.
“Cross it,” the creature said.
“What?” Robin asked.
“It’s a stream,” the little man said. “Surely you know how to cross a stream.” He looked up. “Or did your people send a dimwit to fetch the elixir of the great and mighty Merlin?”
The flames of anger fanned inside him, but Robin pushed them down. The stream looked shallow, peaceful water flowing lazily by. He should be across in four steps, perhaps five. He stepped into the current, and everything changed.
Suddenly it was moving incredibly fast, and the ground gave way beneath his feet, plunging him into icy water that was well above his head. He floundered, seeking a foothold on the bottom of the river, but there was none—it had dropped away. The other side, which had seemed mere steps away, now looked far beyond his reach.
He could barely even make out the far shore.
Robin twisted and his eyes landed on the creature who stood passively on the shore, leaning on his short cane and smoking his tiny pipe. The man shook his head.
“You’re beyond my help, boy. You’ve angered the river by dismissing her so easily. She’s gonna show you something, indeed. You’re on your own.”
Then Robin was carried away. He could feel the wound in his side threatening to open up, the seal on it softening. His fatigue returned, far too much to be crossing a swollen, turbulent river. His hands grabbed at the rocks on the edge, trying to find something to grasp.
The rocks were slippery, the water a torrent.
He forced himself to take several deep breaths, and he f
ocused on the images of Will and Tuck. He twisted back and faced the opposite shore—his goal. It seemed far away. It couldn’t be, though. Not in reality, even if it was in his mind.
“I think you may kill me,” he muttered.
Drawing a deep breath, he slipped under the surface and began to swim. Seconds later he reached the other side and pulled himself up on the shore. He collapsed on his back for a moment, gasping and coughing up some water he had swallowed.
Slowly he sat up and looked to the other shore. The stream had returned to its natural width, babbling gently over the rocks. The strange creature was no longer there. Robin twisted his head, searching everywhere for him, but the blue man had gone.
Robin dragged himself slowly to his feet, pulling air into his lungs, and with it new purpose. He had to keep going. He had made it across the river, and he had to move, to obtain the elixir. So he put the cursed stream behind him, and started walking.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After walking for what seemed an eternity, at long last he came to a large clearing. It was covered in a carpet of short sweetgrass and tiny red blossoms, bordered on one side by a stream. Whether it was the same one in which he had nearly drowned, he couldn’t tell.
In the center of the clearing stood a lone figure, and he walked toward it. It was another creature painted with blue smudges, similar to the first but this one was larger, fully formed with long limbs and sleek muscle.
“Welcome,” the creature said, inclining his head.
“Is this the heart of Sherwood?” Robin asked.
The creature chuckled. “This is not the heart of the forest. More like an arm, perhaps even a leg. There are many things in Sherwood. Some to heal. Some to kill. Some to see the future. Some to see the past. Some to illuminate the present. Each kept safe by a guardian.”
“I want only one thing,” Robin said. “Merlin’s healing elixir.”
“That is here.”
“May I have it?”
The creature shook its head side to side in rhythmic motion, the top leading and then switching direction, undulating back and forth like a flower caught in a breeze.
Mark of the Black Arrow Page 33
