And if people had been pleasant to him and his parents, if they’d been able to prosper on their own, maybe his Dad and Mum wouldn’t have felt as if they had to go out into the Forest as often or for as long. They might still have been here, if they hadn’t felt so unwelcome in Errold’s Grove.
He shook his head angrily to keep from crying all over again. He had to think hard to be able to get a breath; he felt as if he were in a constriction trap, and the trap kept getting smaller every day. I don’t think I can bear too much more of this, he thought, but this time the thought had more of a feeling of desperation behind it. I’ve got to get away; I’ve got to figure out how I can take care of myself, and get away from here. This place, these people - they’re trying to make me just like them, and I don’t want to be like them! Wanting everything just alike is what’s killing them all, they just don’t realize it.
There had to be more to life than the kind of life the villagers were living - a dull, pedestrian, day-to-day existence. When he wasn’t being badgered, he was being bored to death.
Every day is exactly like every other day. Only the weather and the seasons change, and even they don’t make that much difference, unless there’s something like a flood or a blizzard. Or a monster or something they think is a monster. Or maybe a Herald comes along once a year at most. It’s always the same food, the same gossip, the same things going wrong or right. Nobody ever does anything just for the sake of doing it, and nobody ever dares try anything new.
There were times when he thought that even the appearance of a monster from the Pelagiris Forest would be preferable to the day-in, day-out sameness. It might wake up some of these people, show them that there were more important things than complaining about one small boy.
No one ever makes songs or tales about people plowing their bean fields. What’s the point of living on the edge of a perilous and magical place like the Forest if you don’t go looking for adventure in it? Or if not adventure, why not just - life? People used to go looking for adventure - or for mosses and other dye-stuffs, anyway - but now they would rather hide in the village and pretend the Forest wasn’t just beyond their carefully cultivated fields. They’d rather do without prosperity than take a chance against danger, and Darian could not understand that.
My folks went out looking for adventure; maybe there is something in my blood. Only it isn’t bad blood, it’s just - I don’t know. I just know if I don’t do something different soon, I’m going to burst. I don’t know how these folks stand living like this. Maybe they don’t burst because they’re hollow.
He looked back over his shoulder at the Forest with longing. He always felt more contented when he was in there, and the temptation to keep going, to keep on looking to see what was beyond the next stand of trees, behind the next patch of undergrowth, was often overwhelming. It always felt as if there was something exciting out there waiting for him, if he just went far enough in.
And maybe Dad and Mum are still alive in there, somewhere. . . .
His belly wrenched. He was thinking that again, as he had for ages, and he still could not let that hope go. Until someone found proof otherwise, he would always be certain that they weren’t dead, that they were trapped or imprisoned somewhere, waiting for someone to find them. As long as he could believe that, he couldn’t give up, and he had something to hold onto in the middle of the night, when he woke up and found himself beneath a thick, thatched roof instead of the open sky, or tent canvas, or forest canopy.
That hope faded a little more with each passing day, though. It got harder to believe they were still alive somewhere, when there was never any trace, either of what became of them, or of a force or person that could have imprisoned them.
Maybe when a trader comes, I can get him to take me with him. I could work for him until we get somewhere where there are more people, then I could join the Guard. I bet I’d be a great fighter - in fact, I bet I’d be one of the best fighters there ever was! He was easily one of the best bowmen in the village; more than half the time he’d been apprenticed it was his skill that put meat in Justyn’s stew, and not the “gratitude” of the villagers.
Then again, all the wars were supposed to be over now, and maybe they wouldn’t need fighters. Well, that was all right. I could remind people about the furs and the dyes that used to come from here - I could get them to put together an expedition to explore the Forest, that’s what I could do! I know all Dad’s trapping trails; I could be famous for opening up the Forest!
Or maybe he could just work for the trader until he had enough put by to buy his own supplies and traps. He could go out into the Forest himself, and become as good a trapper as his Dad was. He remembered his Dad saying more than once that he was doing the villagers a favor by trading those furs for “kind” instead of “cash” and that the traders never gave but a fraction of the worth of the fur. If I took my furs to a big city myself, I could get a lot of money for them. I could get rich - and I’d probably be famous, too.
As for the people of Errold’s Grove, well, when they saw how he was prospering, maybe they would stop cowering in their houses like rabbits in a burrow, and dare the Forest themselves again.
I haven’t seen that many monsters, and most of them weren‘t dangerous if you kept your wits about you. I’ve never seen any “forest spirits” or “vapor demons” or anything you could even mistake for something like that. Hellfires, I haven’t even seen Hawkbrothers, and I know they‘re supposed to be out there somewhere - so how dangerous could it be now that the mage-storms are over really? I’ve probably spent as much time in the Forest as anyone here, and I just don’t think that hiding in your house and pretending that the Forest isn’t there is going to do anyone any good.
He looked up slyly for a moment, and realized that he had managed to kick his stone up to the back of the inn - or what served as an inn here in the village. It really wasn’t much more than another cottage with two rooms, one large room full of benches and tables, one a kitchen, and a loft above the kitchen where the owner slept - it was owned by Hanbil Brason, who brewed the beer and dispensed it to the men who gathered here of an evening, and in earlier years besides selling beer and food, he at times had sold floor space at night to passing traders. Nowadays, when there wasn’t much in the way of coined money in the village, Hanbil sold his brew by tally - you brought in a bushel of barley, a bunch of hops, a dozen eggs, some pork or chicken, and he would reckon up how much in “real” money that represented and put it on a tally-stick for you.
Then you drank and ate until you used up the tally. Hanbil was the only man with whose tallies no one argued, because he was the only source of beer, and his was the only place in the village where men could gather to complain about their wives in relative peace.
He was aided in his endeavors by Lilly, who served beer and meat pasties, cleaned and washed up, and dispensed some other unspecified services that caused the good wives of Errold’s Grove to frown and pronounce her “no better than she should be.” Whatever that meant. It might have had something to do with the fact that she wore skirts kilted up above her knee, extremely tight bodices, and blouses that continually fell off one shoulder, showing a great deal more of her than the wives liked. Lilly was no girl; she was older than some of those wives, and really no prettier. The women had no cause to feel any jealousy about her looks. But they did, and they took some pleasure in snubbing her at every opportunity. However, like poor old Kyle, folks said she was not especially bright, so she didn’t seem to take any notice of being slighted. Or if she noticed, she didn’t care; maybe having the approval of the husbands was worth the snubs of the wives.