"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."