Lord of the Forest Read online

  At the moment it showed a forest very like the one they’d dashed through. There was nothing unusual about the mirrored scene. Finches and other small birds flitted through the undergrowth and beams of sunlight shot radiant light through the greenery, picking out tall trunks.

  Yet, studying it a little longer, she felt a sense of menace. Linnea straightened up and looked about the room instead. The magpie on her shoulder flew off and settled on a heavy beam overhead to take another nap. Evidently he’d been here before and had his favorite spots.

  The upper chamber of Quercus’s dwelling was lined with shelves holding scrolls in cylindrical cases. One lay unrolled on a table, filled with beautiful drawings of medicinal plants.

  “The librarian at Alexandria sent me that,” he remarked. He was carrying two cups of tea on a tray and a corked bottle of something she assumed was stronger stuff. Marius could have it. She was suddenly afraid of the memories wine might set free. Her ordeal at the end had been only seconds long, but thinking of it made her shake.

  She picked up the tea and sipped at it, drawing her shredded gown around her body. The tree spirit took no notice of her near-nudity or of Marius’s complete nakedness. In his own shaggy, thick-skinned way, Quercus was naked as well.

  Marius uncorked the bottle and poured a dark green, pungent liquid into his tea. He swallowed it down in one go and asked the spirit for more. Quercus obliged.

  Marius drank that more slowly, looking curiously at Linnea over the rim. “What did you see in the scrying pool?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Hm.” He studied her thoughtfully.

  “There is nothing there but birds and rustling leaves,” she said. “The way we came has closed up.”

  He frowned and looked at Quercus. “Do you think the trees are joining ranks to protect us?”

  “I couldn’t say. You haven’t told me why you were fleeing, Marius, or what from.”

  Marius took a deep breath and let it out. “Ravelle. He is back.”

  Quercus cursed in Treeish, a language Linnea didn’t understand. But Marius did.

  “Strong words, Querky, coming from you,” he said in mock reproof.

  The tree spirit shook his head and scowled. His features, except for his wise eyes, disappeared into infinitely multiplying wrinkles. He sat for some moments lost in thought.

  “I had hoped he’d given up,” Quercus said at last. “Why can he not stay within the bounds of the Outer Darkness? The land of the living is not meant for him.”

  “He loves power,” Marius said bluntly. “And I and the other lords of the Arcan archipelago will not let him have it.”

  “Well and good. But how are we of the Forest Isle to be rid of him?—oh, never mind. It is he who attacked you both, I see, and that is why you have come.”

  “He attacked Linnea. Some of the trees attacked me as I ran.”

  Quercus raised a mushroom like eyebrow. “Near here? Which ones?”

  “I did not have time to tie a ribbon around them, my friend. We were running for our lives.”

  Quercus cleared his throat. “Forgive my digressions. I am neglecting my duty. Which of you wishes to be seen to first?”

  Marius nodded in Linnea’s direction.

  “You have many more wounds than I,” she protested. “Do not be gallant.”

  He ignored her. “Ravelle gave her a scratch.”

  Quercus’s face scrunched up with concern. “His claws hold a lethal poison. My lady, you should have told me of this at once. There is a poultice that will draw the foulness out. But you must bare yourself.”

  The creature spoke as if she were not nearly naked already, with utmost courtesy but no embarrassment. She moved the torn but still shimmering cloth aside, presenting her breasts unselfconsciously. Marius gave a faint, involuntary sigh of appreciation.

  Quercus looked intently at the scratch. “The stain of it is spreading under her skin.”

  “Then you must hurry.” Marius’s voice held a note of urgent concern.

  Linnea glanced his way with no show of alarm. Since they had entered the enormous oak tree, the burning pain in the scratch had ceased.

  “But it feels better,” she said to the spirit.

  “That is because the poison in his claws acts variably. One minute it is felt, the next, not at all. The scratch itself is a minor injury but one infinitesimal drop of his filthy juice below the skin and—well, enough said. Let me grind the herbs for a poultice.”

  He went quickly to work with a mortar and pestle, throwing in leaves and dried things, mixing it with water and forming a wet mass. His wrinkles had settled into an expression that seemed calm enough.

  When he spooned the mixture onto a linen cloth, it dripped through when he lifted it, prepared to put it on her chest. Quercus hesitated, looking again at the remnants of her gown.

  “It is ruined,” she hastened to assure him. “If I could burn it—”

  “An excellent idea. But you will find no fire inside my tree. Not so much as a spark. Take it off, bundle it, and Marius can set fire to it someplace else.”

  She rose and let the gown slip from her shoulders and crumple into a puddle on the floor. Then she sat again, amused by Marius’s discomfiture. It was as her mother had told her when she began to become a woman. To be nearly naked was far more exciting than to be bear.

  But the look in his eyes told her that he adored her either way. The worry that shadowed his admiration made her turn quickly to Quercus, who guided her to a long bench. “Please lie down.” Then he nodded toward Marius, as if giving some silent instruction to him. Marius rose and sat at the end of the bench.

  When she had stretched out on the bench, Quercus placed the dripping poultice directly upon the scratch. The resinous herbs burned far worse than the scratch and she almost screamed.

  “I had not expected it to hurt so. The scratch must be deeper than it seemed upon close examination,” he murmured to Marius. “Soothe her as best you can. My dear, forgive me.”

  “Ah!” she cried through clenched teeth. “How long?”

  “Until the poison is drawn. See—it bubbles through.”

  She lifted her head and looked down. Bubbles had appeared on the linen, breaking one by one. A foul, sulfurous smell filled the air and Quercus ran to an opening in the wall of the chamber and opened shutters made of thickly woven leaves.

  The miasma wafted out—but not before she remembered every second of what had happened with Ravelle.

  Linnea burst into bitter tears.

  That night, encircled in Marius’s arms, she told him everything. His response was to cover her with kisses that were at once chaste and kind. His thoughts of revenge were anything but.

  They sat together in the morning. Quercus busied himself with some project of his and left them alone.

  “You were going to tell me about the gods—what they did to you,” she said, sipping a restorative tea the healer had made for her. “Was it a punishment?”

  “No, I had committed no crime. They did it for sport. My brother and I were stable boys. They took both of us on a whim. My father tried to grab my ankle as I was born aloft but he had to let go. We served for a while as cupbearers in the court of the pantheon.”

  “I see.” She called to mind her mother’s stories of the divine ones—they were more quarrelsome than humans and much too fond of having their way. “I did not know you had a brother. Is he—like you?”

  “No. Although we could be twins, so strong is the resemblance. But he is not ever a centaur. His name is Darius.”

  This aspect of her lover’s life was entirely unexpected. She had no immediate living relatives and those of her father’s kind, the Bovidae, were wont to roam far and wide. Linnea had been alone for much of her young life.

  “Does he live on the Forest Isle? I would hate to mistake him for you.”

  Marius laughed. “Yes, he does, but he is seldom seen, even by me. And you might confuse us–but he is younger. He serves as a Watche
r of the Green. There are many watchers on these islands and some are evil. I can vouch for his character.” He looked her up and down in the torn gown. “You can meet him and judge for yourself, of course. But I might have to dress you in a sack first.”

  “If I could be invisible in the eyes of men and demons, I would,” she retorted.

  Marius looked chagrined and she reminded herself again that she had told him nothing, even though she suspected he had guessed some of it.

  “Darius is a good man.”

  “How did he escape the court of the gods?”

  “He was first to go,” Marius returned to his story. “A divine factotum dispatched him back to earth on the wings of the old eagle who’d brought him up into the clouds. Then they showed me the amulet and asked me if I wanted it. I was very young but knew enough of their mischief to say no.”

  She nodded. “I doubt that it mattered. Gods do what they want.”

  “Indeed they do. The mortals and immortals of earth must suffer the consequences. An old one enchanted the stone and then hung it about my neck. It began to glow and sparkle. Boy that I was, I was pleased with the gift, until the transformation to the centaur began. The first time was agonizingly painful.”

  “So I have seen,” she said with sympathy.

  “The gods laughed at my dismay, then grew angry at my screams.”

  Linnea sighed. “Why do humans worship them and build them temples and bring them offerings? It makes no sense.”

  Marius raised his hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “Who can say? So that they will not be the next victim of mischief or worse? I have no faith in gods or priests.”

  “Nor do I,” she murmured.

  “When the change was complete, I stood there crying. A lesser goddess, slender and small, felt sympathy for me and wove me a halter and reins of flowers with her own hands, vowing she would be the first to ride me. I knelt before her but the strongest of the gods, her lover, fell into a jealous rage. He dragged me to the edge of the clouds and pushed me out of their lofty realm to fall to earth. He expected me to die, I think.”

  Linnea did not care to think about the slender little goddess who had been so kind. “What happened?”

  “As I tumbled, the amulet came loose from its golden chain and fell. I grabbed at the air.” He nodded up at the sleeping magpie on the beam. “That one swooped down out of nowhere and caught it.”

  Linnea frowned. “Did the gods fling him down too?”

  Marius shook his head. “No. He was flying by. Any shining thing catches a magpie’s interest. Off he flew, the amulet in his beak, just before I plunged into a forest pool. When I surfaced, he was gone.”

  “I see. And so was the amulet, I assume.”

  “He never brought it back and I have never found his nest. He may have more than one nest, for all I know, but that is Esau’s secret to keep. I did try. It took me eons to tame him—that’s why I was so surprised when he let you feed him.”

  Linnea pondered that but not for long, not thinking it significant.

  “But every magpie is born a thief, Linnea. And thieves do not give up treasures easily. Besides, he is only a bird and not the kind that talks.”

  She smiled faintly. “Still, he is loyal if he has stayed with you all this time. And he fought the demon and the imps like a little Fury.”

  “Esau is not always playful.”

  They looked at each other, sharing a brief, glowing memory of the serenity the three of them—man, woman, bird—had shared. The juicy, ruby-colored seeds, freely shared too, eaten with abandon, had seemed a portent of fruitfulness and joy. The sexual union between Marius and Linnea had been an extraordinary experience, life-affirming and utterly sensual.

  But since the appearance of Ravelle, that sweet, magic mood was irreparably shattered. His demonic malevolence was far worse than the mere mischief of careless gods. It was calculated.

  Marius seemed to understand that her memories of yesterday had plunged her into sudden silence and did not press her.

  “You must stay here,” he said at last. “And I will call a convocation of the lords of Arcan. Not here. Old Querky needs his solitude.”

  Quercus looked up from the scroll he was studying. “Yes, I do.”

  The magpie flew down from the beam above and landed on Marius’s shoulder.

  “Traitor,” he said affectionately. “So you are back with me.”

  “He goes where he is needed most,” Quercus pointed out.

  “So he does. When there is not anything shiny to collect or food to steal.”

  The magpie squawked at Quercus, who laughed and responded to it in Treeish.

  “No fair keeping secrets. What did he say?” Marius asked.

  The tree spirit laughed again and smoothed the bird’s black-and-white feathers. “He said that an army travels on its belly. And he is not wrong about that.”

  Marius bent down to give Linnea a farewell kiss. They had said everything that needed to be said last night. She would stay here where Quercus could keep an eye on her and she could continue to heal. If she wished, she could conjure Marius in the scrying pool although it would not allow her to speak to him.

  Once the lords were gathered, it would not take long to vanquish Ravelle and hold him at bay in the Outer Darkness. Or so Marius hoped. He had not the firepower of Vane or the ability to fly of Gideon.

  Clad in a kirtle of soft leaves that were fuzzy to the touch, she rose to walk with him to the top of the staircase. He gave her another kiss and caught her up in a fervent embrace that betrayed his feelings for her. Quercus busied himself with his scroll until he had done, humming absently.

  “I think it is best that you do not venture outside the tree for now, dearest,” Marius said softly. “Everything you might need is here. And Quercus says that you can climb out on the bigger limbs if you wish. Tuck your kirtle up and use your hands.” He gave her one last kiss on the nose. “I wish I could be below to see you do it.”

  “Hush, Marius.”

  His hands slid down from her waist but he hesitated before going further. Linnea pressed herself against him and at last he stroked all of her that he could reach. Their lovemaking last night had been gentle in the extreme—and the ultimate climax shared at the same instant. She felt healed. Caressed from head to toe, tongued to full release, and rocked beneath him, his lusty tenderness had erased the demon’s vile touch from her body and mind.

  “Look for me in the pool tonight, Linnea. I must return to Philonous.”

  “The old willow must be worried about you,” she murmured. “I know that I shall be.” Her uneasiness about him had vanished, drawn out with the poison from her wound.

  He held her close. “I hate to let you go.”

  She sighed and nuzzled the side of his neck, then pressed her lips to the skin over his strongly beating heart. “There. Take that with you. I would give you a token of my favor to wear, but as you have no clothes and no pockets, you will have to make do with a kiss.”

  Marius cupped her breasts and brought his mouth down over hers. “And there is one for you,” he whispered when he stopped. “Wait for me.”

  “I will,” she said as he turned to dash down the spiral staircase and go back to his green realm. A final look upward at her and he was gone.

  6

  Lord Vane, the ruler of the Isle of Fire, sat enthroned before a blaze that threatened to consume his ancestral hall. The massive stones of which it was built were black as coal, a flat black that reflected nothing.

  He was lost in contemplation of the blue flames that licked around the wood in the fireplace. Marius had sent over a raft of logs moons ago, seeing that the fallen giants of his domain were gathered once their remains had dried to whiteness. That brother of his supervised the gangs of men that got them rolled to the sea and tied to a raft, but Darius himself never left the island.

  The brothers were fearless, to be sure, but the Isle of Fire was not loved by those from the forest. He rose and looked ou
t an archer’s narrow window at the setting sun. The volcano—his foundry, as he thought of it—belched smoke and ash. The spew tinted the sky in lurid tones of purple and black that seemed to hover in the air. The sun’s red rays pierced it like flaming arrows.

  Just as he liked it.

  The same disturbing gloom prevailed in his grandiose dwelling. He looked again into the roaring blaze, wishing the fire nymphs would appear. They came and went as they pleased, and he could not control them.

  Which was, in a way, the best part.

  A singular flame rolled around the giant log and then separated itself from the others. It shot higher, its undulating contours becoming the shape of a woman.