“So they’ve found a way of detecting nuisances, eh?” Bergold said when Roan had finished. He ran a thoughtful finger down the side of one gill. “That would have been a very useful device to the rest of us. Pity Carodil never seems to share the good stuff. And who is this lad?” He beckoned the guards over. The young man between them dragged his feet, swearing colorfully in mathematical formulae and scientific notation.
“One of them,” Roan said. “Treat him gently. He never tried to attack me.”
“I’m not a physical oaf, if that’s what you mean,” the youth said. For a moment he tried to duplicate Brom’s cold-eyed, intellectual stare, but he couldn’t maintain it for long. He shifted back to his own countenance, an amiable, scared, slightly weak-chinned young man. “I’m an intellectual.”
“Where are the others going?” Spar asked him, shaking his arm roughly. “Where are they making for?”
“That’s classified,” the youth said, trying to fold his arms and failing because of the fingertrap. “You won’t get me to betray my leader.” He and Spar glared at each other.
“I would if I had the time, my lad,” the captain of the guard said. “Believe that. You’d best talk while there are teeth left in your head.”
“I bet you couldn’t trust a word he’d say,” Colenna said, peering up into the young man’s face. He ignored her.
“We’ve still got the footprints to follow,” Roan said. “He can’t hide those. Brom left in too much of a hurry to cover them.”
“Shall we take this young buffoon with us?” Spar asked. “Or should we send him back to take his medicine from Carodil?”
At the mention of the minister’s name, the young man looked nervous for the first time, but he gritted his teeth.
“Do what you will with me,” he said, stoutly. “I’ll die in the name of Science.”
“You young ass—” Spar began, but Leonora put a fingertip on his arm to arrest him.
“Please, let me,” she said, undulating into the young man’s line of view. His eyes widened when he saw the princess, but he didn’t speak. “You have to help us. Can’t you see that what Brom wants to do is wrong? He’ll destroy us all.”
“What does that matter, if it uncovers the truth?” the young man asked, trying to sound reasonable, but his voice trembled just a little.
Leonora pressed her advantage. She changed subtly a little at a time. Her shining hair unbound itself and unfolded down her back into thick, silky tresses. The heavy, green tunic thinned until it looked more like the gown she had worn in the court, clinging to the curves of her body, then her cloak edged itself in ermine tassels. The small gold locket on the thin chain around her neck became a regal golden pendant with a shining diamond at its heart. Behind Roan, he heard gentle murmurs of approval from the others. The apprentice gulped, but he held his chin high.
“You are a loyal subject of the Dreamland,” Leonora said, now more a shining vision than a flesh-and-blood woman. She was the symbol of all good and all beauty. No one, male or female, could behold her and be unaffected. Her voice was persuasive and gentle, permeating Roan’s consciousness. He wished he was the subject of her focus. “You want it to continue. We all do. I would consider it a personal service if you would help us. My father would look on you with favor, even offer you a boon, in exchange for your help.” She took a half-pace closer to him, and even Roan felt the young man’s blood pressure go up. “I would be so grateful. I need your aid. For the sake of the Dreamland.”
The apprentice stared at her, red-faced and desperate. “I . . . can’t . . . say . . . any . . . more.” He turned away and put his hands over his eyes. Leonora stepped back, mortal and vulnerable again, with her mouth open in shock. Roan hurried over to put an arm around her shoulders, and felt her clothes thickening with padding. She was hurt. Never in Roan’s experience had such an appeal based on the powerful combination of patriotism and her personal magnetism been turned down. Either Brom must have aroused incorruptible loyalty in his forces or else the normal urges of men were dead in this poor boy. Leonora turned sad, lovely eyes up to Roan, who shook his head. It wasn’t her fault. She gave him a bright, brittle smile in a face that looked like a china doll.
“Oh, bother, if the young fanatic’s not talking, he’ll be a pest on the road. And why should we feed him our travel rations?” Bergold asked, dismissing the apprentice with an annoyed wave. “Take him back to the castle. Here, Misha, would you do it? You look the equal of this young lout.”
“Gladly,” said Misha, whose natural form was robust and sturdy. He towered over the apprentice. “I might just make Mnemosyne by dark. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Just follow the trail,” Roan said.
They tied the youth’s arms with long grass and put him on the back of one of the pack animals. Misha pedaled off, keeping a good hold on the prisoner’s tether. Bergold tilted one large, flat eye while he rummaged through the pouch he carried over his shoulder.
“Aha!” he said, coming up with a pleated bundle of paper and waving it at Roan. “Romney sent a copy of the Great Map with us.” Bergold unfolded it part way so everyone could see the leaf that showed where they stood. “You’ve covered quite a distance on foot, my friend.”
“Not enough,” Roan said grimly, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t stop them. But I’m grateful to Romney.”
“This map will continue to update whenever the Great Map itself is updated. We are to send messages back if we find a feature has altered.”
“We will if we can,” Roan said.
“Hurry up,” Leonora said, urgently. “Dusk is falling. Brom is going to get away from us.”
“No, he won’t, Your Highness,” Captain Spar said.
“They’re on foot, and carrying that heavy litter,” Roan reminded her as Bergold struggled to fold up the map. “We’ll catch up with them before dark. Never fear.”
Roan took a moment to compress the arrow signs into small stones again, and put them in his pocket. One never knew when they might be useful again. Lum brought Roan his steed. Cruiser was still nervous. He twitched and curvetted half a dozen times before Roan could get onto the saddle seat.
“Hurry,” Leonora pleaded.
“Can you see the trail?” Leonora asked, standing up on her pedals to pump harder. “I can’t see it any more.”
“It’s all right, Your Highness,” Lum assured her, riding steadily ahead of the company. He glanced back to nod encouragingly. He was a sinewy man of thirty with an amiable nature. His thick, dark hair was cut close to his head underneath his uniform helmet, and his dark eyes had long lashes in the corners that made them look almond-shaped. The beam of his bicycle lantern made a calico pattern of the path ahead, but he was able to read what signs it had to offer. An expert at orienteering, he had taken over the lead when Roan needed a break to rest his eyes.
Roan felt numb, as if he had been riding in a long, dim tunnel for years and years. The sun had sunk in the west until it was only a glimmer at the horizon. Lum let out a glad cry.
“I’ve got our lads here. Those heavy footprints are pretty well unmistakable.” The young corporal raised one hand to rub his eyes. “It’s been a long day. Will we stop soon, captain?”
“We can’t!” the princess said, alarmed. “Please go on, please! You’re not really tired, are you? I’m not.”
“Well, all right, Your Highness,” Lum said, obediently, and pulled sharply to one side. He crossed the verge where two footpaths met, and beckoned to the others. “Hup! To the right, please. I almost missed the trail here. They turned.”
Roan roused, grateful for the novelty of a change of direction. He shook himself, trying to awaken deadened nerves. “Are you sure?”
“Yessir. Heading east, now, it looks like.”
“Are you sure?” Felan echoed, a slim silhouette behind his bicycle lamp. “I thought I saw threshed grass off to the right just now. Still going south.”
“Did you?” Roan asked. “Show me. They
might have split up. Lum, come with me. Spar, keep on. We’ll catch up.”
“Yes sir,” the captain called. The rest of the party rolled after him, their wheels hissing on the gravel and grass.
“Here, Roan,” Felan said. He backpedaled to a stop and extended a long arm to point down at the grass. “See the way it’s matted down? It keeps going, too!” He swung his hand outward to indicate the direction. Roan turned his bicycle lamp out that way and squinted.
A strong sensation of influence lay over this part of the land, and receded into the distance. Roan peered out as far as the end of his bicycle’s beam reached. The ground had been well-threshed, and recently, too.
“I don’t see anything, sir,” Lum said, positively.
“Don’t you see the way the grass is bent, man?” Felan said, irritably. “Come on.”
Roan heard the sound of bicycle tires hissing on the grass behind him. A guard, Private Hutchings, coasted to a stop, braking with his foot on the ground.
“Captain Spar asks what do you think?” he panted.
“The trail goes this way,” Felan said.
“Captain Spar says that the track he’s following is inconclusive,” the guard said, taking a deep breath. “He says Mistress Colenna got ahead of him in the woods and got lost and started calling for help, and when he found her and she got back in line he couldn’t find no trace of the track, not for 360 degrees in any direction, sir, and should the rest of us rejoin you, or halt until daybreak?”
Roan looked at the other two, who were clearly relying upon him for leadership. Felan swung a hand toward the broken ground leading south and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Lum stood stolidly astride his bicycle waiting for orders.
“Ask him to turn around and join us,” Roan said.
More endless riding. The sun had disappeared behind the hills. Even the stars were hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, leaving only lamplight to guide them farther and farther south. Roan’s focus had shrunk to the narrow, bouncing beams. He felt as if the body he inhabited wasn’t his own any more. If he stopped pedaling, the bike’s wheels would keep spinning anyhow, round and round and round, because the path would pull him along by his eyeballs. Thunder loomed ominously around the edges of his hearing. Suddenly, a blast of lightning split the sky from top to bottom, filling it with a cold, blue glare.
“Look at that!” Spar shouted.
“The trail goes right to it,” Felan said.
Roan looked up from the track, and his heart filled with despair. Lightning cracked again, illuminating in a single flash the grotesque face of the Nightmare Forest.
Chapter 9
Everyone braked to a halt, and stood looking up at the twisted, claw-like branches colored the dead gray of ash against the night-dark sky. The trunks were threatening shadows. Among them, the gleam of hundreds of pairs of eyes reflecting the group’s lanterns appeared and disappeared before anyone could guess what they belonged to.
“I’m sure they went in there,” Felan insisted, putting his foot onto his pedal.
“Oh, no,” Roan said, balking. The Nightmare Forest!
“Yes!” Felan said, pointing at the ground. “Look, man.”
“If that’s the way the trail goes, we have to follow,” Bergold said, uneasily.
“Go in there in the dark?” Private Alette asked, her voice rising to a strangled squeak. “We can’t . . . I’ve heard if you . . . go in there after dark . . . you never come out.”
“You can get out,” Roan said, steeling his voice so it wouldn’t quiver. All his childhood fears were hammering inside his chest trying to escape. “I did it. It was hard, though.”
“Then, let’s go,” Spar said. But no one moved.
“We must go on,” Leonora said, her voice trembling. “If we stay together, we should be all right.”
Roan later considered his next act to be the bravest thing he had ever done. Very deliberately, he dismounted his bike, and walked it forward under the looming overhang of the twisted branches. He glanced back over his shoulder at the others.
“Come on, then,” he said.
“I’m right behind you,” Leonora said, hastily, falling in behind him with Golden Schwinn. Roan could hear the uneasy rattle of spokes as the royal steed twitched with fear. Leonora hushed it and talked to it in a soothing undertone. The sound of her voice calmed him, too. This moment was like many in their childhood, when they had dared the shadows together, although those terrors had been bogeys in one of the castle’s many closets and cellars, well-domesticated over the centuries. This was untamed and frightening. He kept her behind him so any peril that threatened her would have to go through him first.
Behind the leaders, the others followed in a cluster, staying as close as possible without running up their heels. Only Spar seemed unmoved by the looming menace.
“It’s just trees,” he growled scornfully, as the others looked around them white-eyed. “Firewood on the hoof. House parts. Unpulped paper.”
The confusing influences Roan and Felan had found leading up to the forest became lost once they were in it. Broken twigs and telltale heavy footprints from the litter bearers were clear evidence something large had passed through. Maybe several large things, in fact, to judge by the condition of the ground. Piles of leaves were kicked up, and the undergrowth was torn. The track ended abruptly in a narrow, impenetrable thicket, at the foot of a huge and menacing tree.
“Where did they go?” Leonora asked, peering ahead over his shoulder. “How did they get out of here?”
“I don’t know,” Roan asked. He left Cruiser with Golden Schwinn, and leaned around both sides of the great tree with his lamp to see where the trail went. The huge tree shifted slightly against his weight, and Roan jumped back. Another three inches of torn ground appeared under its roots.
“It moved!” Leonora exclaimed.
Uneasily, Roan looked up at the tree. “I think we’ve been following the prints from this big fellow.”
“Don’t get it angry,” Bergold cautioned him, with an alarmed look on his face. “That’s a mad oak. They’re slow to react, but they’re the strongest things in the world next to an avalanche.”
“I won’t,” Roan said, in a very calm voice, keeping his eyes on the thick branches over his head. He took his hand off the bark, and eased away from it slowly. “Everyone move steadily and slowly until we’re off its dripline. Don’t disturb any roots.”
But it was difficult for a large group of people and bicycles to reverse course in the dark in a strange place without a single accident. Roan steered Cruiser, squeaking with protest, a step at a time. Then, the stinging began. Buzzing no-see-ums alit on his exposed hands and face. Where they touched, painful, itchy welts arose before he could brush the bugs off.
“Ow!” Leonora cried, slapping at her arms. “Something’s biting me!”
“Ward yourself, madam,” the nurse said, firmly, immediately behind Roan and the princess. “We should have put repellent on before coming outside, shouldn’t we?”
Such prosaic advice momentarily calmed the group. Roan drew a veil of influence over himself like a coverall. The no-see-ums withdrew, humming furiously at being thwarted. Roan mentally thumbed his nose at the Forest.
“Keep going,” Bergold said, his normally cheerful voice cautious. “We’re bound to get out of this in a moment.”
“Watch where you’re going!” a voice shouted behind him, and Roan heard a loud crash. He looked back over his shoulder. Felan’s steed and that of one of the guards had locked handlebars. Both bikes bucked and jumped to free themselves, with their owners trying vainly to pull them apart.
“Here, you!” Spar shouted at his guard. “Private Alette! Put your beast under control!”
“I’m trying, sir!” the husky young woman said, yanking at the frame of her fighting steed. She glanced up at her captain, and her eyes widened into saucers at something beyond him.
Roan looked up. Two enormous, twisted branches were reac
hing down towards the battling bicycles. Leonora shrieked a warning. Felan let go of his steed, and pointed at the tree, aiming all the influence at his command, but the Nightmare Forest was stronger than any single being. The branches brushed him and Alette aside, snatched up the two bicycles, and flung them far off into the darkness.
Squeaking with fear, the other steeds jerked loose from their riders’ grasps and retreated along the narrow path, rolling right over their owners’ feet in their panic. Roan grabbed for Cruiser and missed. The silver bike crashed into the undergrowth, with Golden Schwinn right behind, creaking for help. In a moment, they were all gone.
“Stop them!” Leonora cried.
“Stay here with Spar!” Roan shouted to her.
He plunged into the forest after the frightened bicycles. Their high-pitched squealing receded in several directions. Roan cast about, then followed the loudest sound.
Within a few paces, he realized he had made a mistake. What lamps the party was carrying were attached to the bicycles or in the packs. None of them were in his possession. He was alone in the dark in the middle of the Nightmare Forest. He turned to go back, and realized he didn’t know which way he had come from.
A deep rumble stirred the ground under his feet, and sinister whispers began in the treetops above him. In a heartbeat, Roan was back in time twenty years, and the shouts he heard were the voices of his two small friends. They had dared each other to go into the haunted woods. He was a fool for letting himself be convinced to come. The trees all seemed so much bigger in the dark, and he could no longer see the sky. Roan hoped he wasn’t making any of this happen to him. He wrapped his arms around himself and concentrated, trying to contain his own influence. He was an adult, surrounded only by shadows and trees. The noise came from the wind in the boughs. There was nothing to fear.
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