by Liam Reese
“And I,” said the strange lonely man who lived by himself in the woods and had magical powers, “believe that she is a spoiled princess who, if she had been allowed to rule this country as she desired, would have sent us all straight to ruin. Far be it from me to have a political opinion, much less express it — I’m quite aware that I don’t pay taxes — but I don’t for a moment believe that she knew what she was doing when she called for an assassination attempt on the king and made her tenuous grasp for power...”
Irae blanched at his words, staring at him with wide eyes. A heated response came to her mind, but she kept it from her lips — but only just.
“How… how do you come by this opinion?” she managed at last.
“I hear things,” he said. “I live in the woods, not under a rock. And so if you are, as I suspect, come to enlist me in the fight against our supposedly corrupt steward, I am afraid that I have to turn you down flat. I am not valiant. I have no emotional investment in your cause, and in fact, I disagree with it entirely. I am no one’s hero, least of all yours, and my abilities, as you call them, are my own, to use as I see fit.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you’ve been chased out of every village you ever belonged to,” she snapped.
“Whether you understand me or not is immaterial.” He folded his arms. “The point is that I cannot, will not, and don’t want to help you. Thank you for your offer of a cold dead bird. Please take yourself out of my woods before I am forced to evict you.”
He vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.
3
Fleet Like A Deer
Thorn could hear her thrashing through the woods, not long after he left. He rubbed at his eyes and sighed. It was so rare that he actually spoke with another human. Such a shame that this one proved to be obnoxious.
Despite her claim to support the cause of the Forged, she must want something from him. If she was on the side of the rebel princess, she would be looking for any allies she could get. Even if they were odd, possibly cursed outcasts who lived alone in the woods and found her cause ridiculous.
“Oh, well,” he spoke aloud, as he tended to do in absence of companionship. “I don’t suppose it actually matters. The last thing I want to do is get involved in politics.”
He took his walking stick from its place against the tree and pushed into the woods.
He hadn’t been joking when he suggested that no one else could live in these woods. They were no less hospitable than any other woods, but who would choose to live in the wilderness, unless they were an outcast? There were also the legends. The nearby villagers claimed the forest to be haunted. They, of course, lived in a perfectly serviceable village, and saw no reason to leave it to begin with, beyond the occasional trek along the path to the next village. So whether or not actual ghosts and goblins gamboled in the woods did not bother them much. Thorn, however, did not have the luxury of a village. He had lived in the woods for long enough that he figured any actual ghosts and goblins would consider him as a local. He only feared the legends some of the time, rather than all the time. Moonless nights when he was low on candles were difficult. But if you asked him in the daytime, he’d say most legends were bunk, and that he had a sneaking suspicion that many of the legends surrounding these particular woods were based on his own presence.
It wasn’t that he never went into the village, because he did — but only rarely. He had traveled in his time, and he hadn’t been born here. There was a good chance that no one knew for certain that he was Forged at all. He tried to be good; he tried to avoid trouble. He hadn’t used his powers in front of anyone for— well, a very long time. He cringed from the memory of the last time.
And even without that particularly painful memory, there was the problem of what, exactly, his powers were. He had tried, every now and then, to Forge something, half hoping that the ability had gone away and that he’d be just like everyone else. Many nights he had sat cross legged beside a young plant, put his hand on it, closed his eyes and concentrated. He had tried to save a rabbit with a broken leg, a squirrel that had fallen out of a tree. It was bad enough that the power no longer listened to him when he called it. It was worse when he poured the golden light out through his hand, and the power ignored him entirely. He could not Forge reliably. He could not even save everything he set out to save.
But no one knew this. As far as he was aware, the villagers treated him like an outcast only because he lived like one; and, of course, because he was very, very strange.
However, he found himself pondering the girl’s words, and thinking about what his life would be like, if he were as accepted as anyone else. If everyone treated him as normal— if he didn’t have to live in the woods. His heart clung to it, and his breath caught a little. It was terrifying— and exhilarating. To leave the woods behind, to live in a house, like a normal man—
No. It was too good to be true. It would take something truly drastic to change reality that much. If even the immortality of the king had not changed the cursedness of the Forged, then what could?
Thorn considered himself a realist. A curse like being one of the Forged was one thing, but to remove prejudice and hatred from the hearts of all people was truly a fantasy.
Still, annoying and obnoxious as the girl had been, it had been nice to talk to someone— perhaps he shouldn’t have chased her away so quickly. What, then? It wasn’t as though he could invite her to his house for tea. He didn’t have any tea. He barely had a house.
He pushed aside a cluster of branches with his walking stick, and ducked underneath others. He could still hear her making her way through the woods. The sounds were louder now than they had been; she must have gotten lost and turned around. She was a comfortable distance away, though, and it was unlikely that she would stumble upon his hideaway.
He stilled, held his hair away from the holes where his ears should have been, and concentrated. He could still hear her muttering invectives and curses against the woods. Apparently, she did not know that they were already quite cursed enough, thank you very much. There was a crash. He smiled. She must have tripped over a tree root. Some part of him took a malicious pleasure in the thought of her sprawled across the ground.
He made his way under another handful of branches, letting them slip silently back into place behind him. Long years of practice and experience had given him the ability to move through the woods without leaving a trace. The skill had not been easily gained. The few times others had come looking for him had not been motivated by a desire for his company. He pushed the painful memory to the back of his mind.
Another moment brought him to his hideaway. It could be called a hut, but the term seemed undeserved. There wasn’t much to it, beyond four walls made of densely woven branches and a roof of the same. It was a place to huddle and build a fire in, kept him dry when the weather turned foul. It wasn’t bad now, though autumn had already set in, so he spent most of his time in the outer section of the hut, which was screened off from the woods by thickly-growing saplings that he had planted a few years ago. There he had a fire pit, complete with a roasting fork propped up on a branch. The roasting fork had belonged to— someone else. He could no longer remember who he had stolen it from.
He didn’t keep track of many of the things he had stolen. He knew they all had once belonged to someone else, but they belonged to him now. They were small things, not likely to be missed. If they were, their disappearance would be put down to misplacement, or house elves.
He crouched by his low fire and flicked at the roasting fork.
“Cold dead bird,” he said, and smiled a little, though it was twisted and unpracticed. “Huh.”
Another crash sounded in the distance.
“I wonder what her name was,” he said aloud. “She didn’t even attempt to introduce herself. I’m not entirely certain, but I believe I remember learning that not introducing yourself was rude.” He frowned at the fire. “Of course, I didn’t introduce myself, either,�
�� he said, “but I didn’t have the right upbringing. I’m well within my rights not to know the how to be polite. Anyway, she knew who I was.”
He stopped, and looked to the right, through the saplings, pondering. “How did she know who I was?”
He was on his feet again, lithe and wary, moving away from his hidden home and towards the ongoing noises of someone unaccustomed to travel crashing through the bushes. He found her quickly, and followed her silently, just to observe her.
Mostly, he observed the same things that he had noticed previously. She moved in quick, sharp motions. Nothing was held back or done by halves. She stomped rather than stepped, walked with her head held high, and didn’t take the time to assess her surroundings. Which was why she continued to be lost, he thought. It wasn’t that difficult to escape these woods, if you had the common sense to pay attention.
She stumbled again, clearly tired from her efforts. She must have been walking for multiple days, if she had come from the capital. He knew it to be nearly a week away. He had narrowly avoided being arrested there once.
So how had she made it all the way here? And what exactly had she come to find? And— who?
He was mystified. Mystified, and a little intrigued.
She stopped at last, and leaned against a convenient tree, heaving a gusty sigh.
“Why did I do this?” she asked the air.
The air answered, “I’ve been trying to work that out, myself.”
“Hells!” She pushed away from the tree, startled, then caught herself and subsided back against it once more. The look on her face was more resigned than anything, but Thorn thought it was probably put on specially for his benefit.
“I suppose you’ve been following me around, watching me.”
“Watching you bumble through my woods, yes. It isn’t difficult to get out if you pay attention.”
“If you’re so eager to be shot of me, then tell me where to go. I’ll go.” She squinted into the darkness of the tree-shadow that concealed him. “Where are you, anyway?”
He stepped out around it, so she could see him. “I thought perhaps you would resent me helping you.”
“I came here for your help,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but I have a feeling you will resent it anyway.”
She moved over and slid down to sit on a stump, shaking her hair free from her collar, and put her elbows on her knees.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” she said. “I probably would have had to come back and try to find you again.”
“Why?”
“To try and convince you.”
“But it went so badly the first time.”
“I know that.” She looked down at her hands, abashed. “I’ve been told I have a bit of a temper. I didn’t— react well, I suppose.”
“I suppose not.” That almost sounded like an apology. He was more intrigued than ever. No one ever took this conciliatory tone with him; he was much more used to people shouting abuse at him. He moved a little closer, strangely encouraged. “I don’t say that I will change my mind, but you are welcome to try again.”
She looked up at him sharply. “Really? Why?”
The last thing he wanted to admit was that this was his longest conversation in years.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but you’re more than you claim. You dress like a commoner, but no one who is not noble-born walks, or talks, like you. You came all the way here to find me and cannot even tell me why without growing angry. You’re all banked up with rage, though you must have been born to privilege.” He folded his arms and looked down. “I want to know why you are so ready to fight against your own kind.”
She huffed out a sigh. “It’s a very long story,” she said.
“I expected as much. How did you know to find me here?”
She settled a little more firmly on her stump, head up, alert and attentive. “Your reputation precedes you.”
He gave a brief, strangled laugh. “Er, no. I don’t have a reputation. People who live alone in the woods don’t have reputations. I’d say they’re well known for it, but it would be a lie.”
She looked at him for a moment and seemed to be weighing what she wanted to say, how she wanted to say it. Finally, she said, “I heard stories. That’s all I’ve ever heard. Stories.”
He nodded slowly, taking this in. “Who told you about me?”
She fiddled with the edge of her cloak. “Bed time tales,” she said. Her eyes were suddenly distant, dreamy. “I think my father told my nurse to frighten me, as a joke.”
“Who told you about me?”
All of a sudden, she appeared to reach a decision, and looked at him fully again. “My governess is a strange woman,” she said. “She was raised in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, by no one of consequence, and she has been a nobody her entire life. However. She remembered vividly that one of the Forged lived in her tiny nothing village, and she would tell me about him as often as I would listen. It was her only claim to fame, her only story.”
“A tiny nothing village on the edge of the Pluron Woods?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. This is not going to go well.” He considered for a moment, then sat down on the ground, back against a tree trunk, not far from her. She seemed a little more at ease in his presence now, though he wasn’t sure what had made the difference. Perhaps because he was more in the light, and she could see him more clearly. He doubted that many would see this as cause for greater comfort.
“Very well,” he said, “tell me about your strange governess and her one and only story.”
“There was a boy that everyone remembered as being very odd indeed.” She spoke slowly. “From the time he was born, the other villagers called him cursed. He was hardly ever seen— his parents kept him away from everyone, as much as possible, and then there was an incident. She was away at the time, caring for me, but she heard about it when she went home. Everyone was afraid. The next time she visited, the boy had disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Into thin air, as far as my governess could make out. Of course, something must have happened to him. People don’t just disappear, do they?”
“Maybe they do. Especially a defenseless innocent — there are swamps. Bogs. Snakes. Swift rivers. Wild animals. Angry men.” He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat, past the memories. “Starvation, freezing to death in the night —”
Her eyes were fixed on him, and she looked unsettled.
“That was the rumor,” she said. “That he was killed, or at least sent away. No one was quite sure, and they forgot about him for the most part. Until he came back.”
Thorn bit his lower lip, and laced his fingers together, hands in his lap. “Why would he do a thing like that, when his parents and the village hated him so?” he inquired quietly.
“Just a sense of general perverseness, I suppose,” she said, with what he suspected was gentle sarcasm. “At any rate, he didn’t come without announcing himself. There was a girl in the village, a young woman. My governess said he had a strange fascination with her — I always thought that perhaps he had fallen in love. She had been sickly her entire life, so he kidnapped her and turned her into a tree.”
“Oh,” said Thorn. He had gone a little paler. “That seems like an overreaction.”
“Yes, I thought so. Also, a bit ridiculous— what good is a tree?” She wriggled her shoulders against the bark behind her. “When it could be a perfectly serviceable human, I mean. Anyway, that’s the story as it was told to me. I don’t suppose you could shed a bit of light on it?”
Thorn caught his breath and clenched his right hand into a slow and careful fist. He had never been told his own story before. It had only been six years, but the details were already hazy and vague. He had done a lot of running since then.
“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “the boy was in love with the girl who was sick, and could tell
that she would soon die. Perhaps by cha
nging her, he let her live on in a new way.”
“As a tree,” said the girl.
Thorn looked around at the forest and sighed. “Yes, as a tree.
“Well, anything is possible, I suppose. At any rate, my governess hasn’t told me the
story in some time — she’s getting on in years and is lacking in her wits. But she made a big deal over it at the time One of the Forged, in her own village! Having known him a little bit when he was a small child. Well, it was the only clue we had, so we set to looking around, asking, and following our noses and the tales that were told.” She looked at him directly, and he flinched a little. “And here you are.”
“Here I am,” he said. He rubbed at his forehead with a thumb, thoughtfully. “I still don’t quite follow how you managed to find me. We’re nowhere near the village in the Pluron Woods. I’ve found a new area to haunt, as you can see.”
“Oh, that,” she said, waving a hand dismissively, “I went to a scrier I knew and asked him to track you down. Once I had a basis to start with, it was easy. We had a few false starts, but, well, here we are now.”
“Scriers and governesses.” He stood up. “You do know some interesting people.”
“And Forged, now.” She stood up too, following his lead quickly. “We do need your help. I know I didn’t state my case quite as well as I could have, but that is one of the problems with being me. My mouth tends to fire before my brain has an arrow knocked. I realize you may not agree with the Queen, but I do think that you should consider the fact that she is the rightful ruler. And if not to that, then perhaps you will consider what she can offer.”
“Oh yes? And what exactly is she prepared to offer me? More than a cold dead bird she happens to have to hand, I expect?”
