Reluctantly Rogue Pt. 03

WARNING: This is a long story, but it is unfinished, and likely to remain in that state.

Also, it contains:

-Low levels of erotic content

-Slow Pacing

-Annoying characters

-Unsatisfying events

Consider yourself forewarned, dear reader!

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RELUCTANTLY ROGUE:

The Indecent Adventures of Atyr Bracken

PART THREE

All To Make a Poet

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CHAPTER ONE

Setting Out

It was a long time of lips and laughs and whispers before Atyr slipped out through Kella's window. His feet hit the ground, and a great swell of Experience wound itself in a knot around his heart. For what it had been granted, he could not have said, unless it were that to see the starlit hint of her teeth just peeking from behind her soft, poet's smile, and then to lean in and wrap that smile in a kiss, and to pull it into him to save forevermore in memory, was an experience.

It was a long, starry dream of a walk back to the lodging house. It might have been shorter, but his mind was the mind of a young man in ecstasy, and it was concerned only with the smooth drape of silken hair, the soft warmth of full lips, and with dark eyes; it only infrequently reminded his feet of their destination. And so it was that he found himself fully outside of Woodstead, heading east on the road before he noticed his error.

With a loud laugh for the ears of the night breeze, he spun on his toes and strode back into town. Atyr had never learned to whistle, but he tried now, a squeaking, breathy sketch of a melody half-remembered.

She had kissed him so many times.

He missed Gant's door again on the second attempt, and caught himself halfway to the North End, before he managed to still his joyous thoughts enough to remind himself that he was on less than a quarter-night's drunken sleep, with a long journey to begin in the morning. On the third attempt, he remembered to stop at the inn door.

It was all shadow on the main floor, the patrons all home or in rooms upstairs. At times, Atyr had wondered if Gant ever slept, but even the sunken-eyed innkeep himself had retired.

He almost missed Cei, a slumped form at a table with his head on his arms. His brother's head lolled over to look at him as he approached.

"Been with your lady?" Exhaustion weighted the words. "With Kella?"

Atyr could only give him a grin, a grin which broke into a laugh. Cei pushed himself off the table and slouched back in the chair. A little smile worked its way into his weary features.

"Well, let's hope you don't come back from your Oldwood journey to a tiny Bracken in the oven." Cei gave a little huff of a laugh. "Might kick your ankles enough to get you to finish that cabin though. Think your lady love would live in the Brookwood?"

Atyr swatted at him. "You're a dog, Cei. We just talked."

The younger man squinted in the dark, unconvinced.

"Really, that's all we did! Well, and some kissing." The dumb, sloppy grin split his face again, unbidden.

"Must have been a lot of kissing. Feels like I've been down here all night."

Atyr nodded. "About that. What are you doing up?"

"You left me alone in a bed with a strange woman, Atty. Call me a dog if you like, but a dog that's learned some respect."

"She didn't seem like she minded. She was old enough to have raised us, you know."

Cei shrugged. "I minded." He stood up and stretched his neck, wincing. "C'mon. You can burn my ears with all your talk of kissing on the road tomorrow, but I'm a man half-dead. Bed."

Atyr, still grinning like a drunk, followed him up the stairs. Sleep hit him in the face with the full weight of two days and three trolls and a bottle of woodsman's wine before he even had a chance to yank off his boots.

They rose late and felt no guilt about it. Cei remarked that if the length of a morning's sleep was all that separated success from disaster, Atyr's quest was probably ill-fated to begin with. Pesky had arrived in the night, and was impatiently tapping at the window panes when Atyr opened his eyes. He tried for a moment, but felt no real guilt about that either. Practicing patience would do the little fae some good.

They ate swiftly and packed swiftly and left the town walking swiftly. Brackens might have their faults and limitations, but laziness was not a vice they countenanced.

Pesky and Cei pestered Atyr with questions about his evening with Kella. Both of them seemed incredulous that, given the length of time he had spent in the bedroom with her, nothing beyond kissing had occurred. Atyr wondered idly if his brother might not have been a better fit for Pesky's fae-touch, had circumstances been switched.

It was a confusing conversation, with Cei unable to hear or see Pesky, and Atyr relaying her remarks whenever they were relevant, or responding to things his brother couldn't hear when they weren't. But, while it was at least a relief not to have to ignore the little sprite's remarks in Cei's presence, it didn't ease Atyr's sense of being somehow alone now, unable to truly share this world of the fae with anyone.

It was tiring for Cei as well, it seemed, to have to rely on Atyr to repeat everything for him. Even Pesky grew frustrated, eventually. By mid afternoon, the three companions had drifted mostly into silence.

They camped that night under the boulder in the hollow, the same where Atyr had woken with his leg gone sour. A cheerful little fire was crackling, and all three of them were munching on the last of the bread and fresh vegetables from the Bracken home. Pesky was engrossed with prying peas free from a pod and devouring the little green balls with verve.

"I haven't forgotten how it is you and your lady love can see the sprite, you know."

Atyr stopped chewing as his brother broke the content quiet of their meal. Pesky's peas rolled away onto the ground, forgotten.

"Mhmm. Yeh." It wasn't a topic he was about to encourage, just now.

"Don't think I didn't put together how it was our parents could see her either."

Pesky couldn't resist adding commentary. "Oh, I doubt very much either of you could guess exactly how it was they could see me." She smiled beatifically at Atyr. "Your father is truly a gentleman."

"I am not repeating that to my little brother."

Cei pulled a face, eyes wide and mouth grimacing. "Please don't, whatever it was. Ignorance is a beautiful thing."

Atyr looked at him for a moment. "Look, when I'm not around, you two do whatever you want, if that's what you're getting at, but I don't want to know about it, alright?" He glanced at Pesky. She pretended she was looking for her peas.

"I'm not about to go step off into the brush to 'invite' her," Cei said. "It's just odd being the only one who can't see her. Especially once your lady love joins the family."

Atyr punched him in the shoulder. "Do it on your own time, brother. But personally, I wouldn't recommend inviting that chattering little sprite into your life. She's named Pesky for a reason."

Pesky had actually found a pea, and spoke now around a greedy mouthful. "It is his decision. Let him make it as he wishes."

The next morning the brothers managed an early start, strengthened and refreshed by their first solid sleep in three nights. The morning went swiftly by, as did the road, and the sun was barely halfway into the sky when Atyr led them off down the blaze-marked trail to his build site.

They reached the little, half-built cabin by the slow-swirling eddy around mid-afternoon, when the late-summer sun was baking their clothes to their skin. The clearing was much the same as he had left it nearly three weeks ago, though the grasses and other growth had begun to recover where he had trampled them as he built and lived in the space.

Cei was eager to leap into the pool and wash the heat and sweat away in its cool waters, but Atyr placed a hand on his arm, reminding him that this was the same pool in which he had encountered the Kelpie. Cei looked for a moment afraid, but then shrugged it off with a laugh, joking that the meeting with the Kelpie had certainly seemed to have come to a pleasant resolution for Atyr. But, Atyr noted, he did not go near the water.

They unpacked the heavy bags, and sorted through what would stay with Atyr, and what would be needed for Cei's journey home.

Atyr tried to convince the younger man to spend the night at the site, and to leave in the morning, but Cei was eager to return.

"Our parents are expecting three days travel each way. If I leave now, I can be back in Woodstead by dark tomorrow, spend all the next day there, and still be home without raising worry. I've got thirteen kips in my pocket and no idea when the next time I'll be able to spend them will be." He grinned. "I love you with all the love a brother could ever love with. But I'm also just eighteen summers and never get time in town by myself."

Pesky mimed some very crude actions in the air that Atyr was glad were visible only to him.

He met Cei's eyes and grinned. "I love you as well, and would never want to hold you from your merriment. Try not to get too drunk, but when you you do, avoid the brownish-red wine Gant has behind the counter. It's swill."

They joked and spoke of nothing much for as long as they could, in that sun-bright clearing by the pool, but it was dragging towards the time that Cei would either have to leave, or miss his chance at a day in Woodstead, and so he made ready to head back to the road. They said their goodbyes, laughing and taunting each other. Cei made Atyr promise to bring 'something fae' back for him from the Oldwood, embraced him and made to go. He took a few steps and stopped, turning slowly back around.

"Atty." He was still smiling, but it was that fake smile Atyr knew so well. "I've been trying to decide since that night we went swimming if I should ask you this. I decided I wouldn't, but now..."

The younger man didn't seem like he was going to continue on his own, so Atyr prompted him. "But now? Now what?"

Cei was quiet, and kept his eyes on the turning waters across the clearing. "Moranna."

Ah. That was it, then. "Moranna."

"Yeh. I miss her. Lots Atty. I miss her lots." Cei looked up at him now. "When you're back, and you will come back, I know, and when you do, would you go with me to see her?"

"I thought you said they chased father away from the house?"

Cei nodded. "They did. But I still want to go. Maybe if... I don't know. But would you go, if I did?"

Atyr's throat tried to choke off his words, but he whispered. "I'll go with you. We'll see her. We will."

Neither brother said anything more, but they embraced again, a strong, crushing hug that lasted until they both could be sure their faces were composed. Then they broke, and Cei turned once more, and walked away into the trees of the Brookwood.

Atyr stood long looking at where his brother had disappeared, thinking of family, and of loyalty, and of loss.

The little sprite on his shoulder allowed him the silence for a while before speaking at last. "Atyr? I don't think now is the time for this, but may I ask, briefly: who is Moranna?"

He waited to make certain his voice would be settled before responding. "Our older sister. She married into a family that doesn't like our family. We haven't seen her much." He considered if he wanted to say more, but decided he didn't. Not right now. "I'm sure we'll have time for me to tell you about it in the Oldwood."

"I'm not going."

"What?" Thoughts of his sister momentarily left him.

"I'm not going with you. I'm headed back to Woodstead." She drifted off his shoulder and floated around in front of him, looking away at the trees.

"What can you possibly need to do in Woodstead?"

She didn't answer immediately, so he asked again. "Why? Why are you going to Woodstead? I need you with me!"

Still, she didn't respond, but she turned and stared into his face with wide, white eyes.

"Do you trust her, Atyr?"

He knew immediately what she meant, but he wouldn't admit it. "Who? Trust who?"

"Kella. Kellevere Thorn. Your wonderful, beautiful girl, the wordsmith with the healing hands. Do you trust her? Do you trust her to wait patiently for ten days for your return, with old Bird there to spin tales of great power and fae magics in her ear? For two weeks? Three? When will you come back, and when you do, what will you bring with you? A chance only?"

Those weren't questions he would answer. He would trust Kella, because she deserved to be trusted. He would trust her because he had to. "I could be back faster if I had you to guide me."

"Do you trust her, Atyr?" Pesky was insistent.

He looked down at his hands, and nodded, just once.

She buzzed her wings at him. "You don't. And neither do I."

Now he looked up at her, glaring into her starry face, but he said nothing.

"You're not actually a dummy, you know." She smiled softly, drifting up and down in the late afternoon sun. "You don't trust her. And you know I need to stay with her. You'll agree to that because you love her."

In the end, he did agree. Pesky gave him some warnings and some garbled advice for his coming journey, none of which made much sense. Then they said their quick farewells, and she left. He was sorry to see her go, he realized, and not only because he had hoped for a guide.

Alone now in the clearing, he went over and sat on the bare frame of the half-built cabin. The sun was descending, but he had much of the long summer's afternoon and evening left before dark would force him to rest. With his brother gone, there was no reason to camp here; it would only delay him. He began sorting through his small stash of possessions, picking out what would stay and what he would take into the Oldwood.

First among everything, he laid out the weathercloak. He let his fingers run over the smooth, oiled surface. No matter what the Oldwood might throw at him, at least he would be staying dry, for once. He brought too, his yet-unused storm lantern, as well as knife, dagger, and his father's bow. His bow.

He pulled out the hatchet bit Rehamel had forged for him ages past, and smiled. This, he would have a use for. Setting out his tools from Wetyln, he set to work on a haft for it at long last. He would have loved a good block of ash to pair with the beautiful smithwork, but he had none to hand. Oak would serve.

It was simple work, and it went swiftly and smoothly. The sun was still well above the trees as he fitted the haft, feeling it slide into place with a tight, satisfying solidity. He slipped it into his belt, shouldered his pack and the great black bow, took one last, longing look at the unfinished cabin, then turned and strode across the glade, headed North to the Oldwood. Alone.

"I'll misssss you, woodsman."

Before the voice finished hissing he was spinning in a whirl of panicked motion, dagger already in his hand, face wild. He crouched there for a moment, before gradually relaxing and straightening. "Elatla. Hi."

She was standing in the very center of the eddy, with the water just at her wide hips. The low, orange rays of the sun lit her from behind, glinting across the wet skin of her back, and casting her shadow long across the water. She drew her hands up her body, slow, tracing up to her breasts and cupping them briefly, before stretching her arms above her head with a sinuous grace.

"Must you go ssso sssssoon?" She smiled at him, baring her pointed teeth. "You could staaaaaay."

He ignored the immediate rush of blood downwards, and shook his head. "No. Sorry. I have to go into the Oldwood. I'm leaving now, before sundown."

"I heard you talking, yessssss. With Pesky and the bigger man." She ran her long, pointed tongue around her lips. "Your broooother?"

Atyr didn't like how hungry she looked. "Goodbye, Elatla. I have to go." He gave a nod and turned to leave.

"Alone? All Alooooone?"

Still with his back to her, he answered. "Seems so." He heard movement in the water behind him and spun once more to face her.

She was slinking to the bank, each step bringing her to shallower water, exposing more of her green, swaying body. Nervousness was not all he was feeling. She paused at the edge of the pool.

"I could help you? In the wooood."

Atyr wasn't sure he needed help that badly. "Um, you can leave the pool? Pesky said not."

"I don't leave. Not for a loooooong age. But I caaaaan."

He considered. Out of the water, he was much less afraid of the green woman. Perhaps that was misguided, but at least she couldn't drown him on land. He assumed. "You know the way to the enchanter in the Oldwood?"

"I have not beeeeeen in the wood in a loooooong age. Mortals come, and mortals go, and I do not pay them mind."

"So no, then, you don't know how to get there."

"I can still help, if you let meeeee."

For a long moment he looked at the green woman. Perhaps it was lust clouding his thoughts, or perhaps frustration at being abandoned by Pesky, or maybe it was, as he told himself, reasonable for a mortal to accept any help offered him by the fae, when entering a place like the Oldwood. But whyever he did it, in that moment he made a decision.

"Fine. Yes. Alright, yes. Let's do it. You and me, the Ranger and the Kelpie, on a journey through the Oldwood to find an enchanter who, with the aid of a witch, can rid me of a devil prince." He laughed, a fey mood taking him.

Elatla laughed as well, all tongue and teeth and emerald eyes. "Yessss, what a pairing we will beeeee." She held out a long, green finger and beckoned to him from the pool.

"But first, I musssst feeeeeed."

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CHAPTER TWO

Faerie Treasure

Lust is a hot, savory dish. Fear is a spice. Unless great enough fear can be slathered atop that lust to smother its taste entirely, it cannot dissuade a hungry person from the eating. It rather enhances the flavor. Atyr was two steps towards the kelpie before he noticed himself moving. He staggered to a stop halfway through the third. He had twice survived Elatla's arms, and his fear now only amounted to a bit of zest sprinkled on top. Though in this instance, he was the meal.

His sense of loyalty to Kella, however, was enough to bitter the taste. The sweet memory of her lips on his own increased his appetite, but also reminded him that she was the reason he was here. Then again, the echo of her words came to him. Does it mean no one else can even touch us? Under the soft light of the stars he had nodded, accepting her words without debate, but did he mean it now?

His attention snapped back to Elatla. She was grinning, trying to catch his eye. Once she saw that she had it, her hands slid again up her body to lift and squeeze her breasts. She pressed them together and rubbed them up and down against each other all while her deep green eyes stared into his. "I'm hungry, woodsssman." The flaunting should have been humorous in its overtness, and would have been from any other woman, but from this strange green fae it called forth the hunger in him.

Unbidden, his feet took another step. She needed to eat, didn't she? If that was her price to accompany him, wasn't this necessary, as had been his first time with Wetlyn? And Kella had had no issue there; she'd thought him silly even to mention it. He found himself placing bow and pack on the ground, and stepping closer to the pool once more.

Elatla let her head fall back, mouth wide open, as if in the throes of ecstasy, then looked back at him with a sly smile, arms reaching for him from the pool. "Pleaaaaase?"

The image filled him of her face pressed between his legs, taking him fully in her throat. He wanted that again. To dissuade himself, he tried to think how he might react if he learned that, a mere two days after he had left, Kella had wrapped her thighs around some fae man's head and pulled his mouth to her. He knew the answer should be jealousy, but the idea of it only swelled the hunger in him.

He found he was on the edge of the bank now, within the Kelpie's reach. Careful, dummy, stay alive now.

"Elatla. Can you... can we do this on land? Not in the water?"

She reached up and caressed the inside of his leg, pulling a shudder from him. "Nooooo. You would not like that."

Atyr thought he really might.

"What if I stay on land, on the bank here, while you... feed?"

She grinned and nodded once, and her tongue snaked out and wet her shell-green lips. Long fingers wrapped around his ankle and tugged. Gently, not enough to drag him in, but the intent was clear. Pulse pounding through him, he hurriedly stripped and let himself be pulled down to sit on the damp grass of the bank.

The kelpie in front of him opened her mouth, sharp teeth visible, and his fear returned. But it was too little fear, just a pinch of seasoning. She reached as high as she could, fingers splaying across his chest and leaned forward into him. Her breasts pushed against him, squeezed tightly together by his thighs. The fingers crept their way down across his stomach, to his hips, and then drew inward, teasing closer and closer...

She tickled his skin with sharp nails, and a ragged breath caught in his throat. She leaned in closer, and her breasts were pressed now against his balls and his cock, soft and warm. She let them envelop him, and without thinking he thrust upwards, almost sliding off the bank in his eagerness.

A hissing laughter came from her, and he looked down to see an odd delight in those emerald eyes. She began to lift and drop her chest against him, fucking him. He fucked back into her, watching his tip pop out the top of her cleavage and disappear back inside, over and again. Her gaze never left his face.

The long tongue snaked out, and wormed its way into the warm crevice alongside his cock, saliva coating him, slick and hot. She let her mouth drop lower, so that with each thrust he slid between those hungry lips.

Faster and faster she worked him, until his balls drew close and the muscles between his legs began to pulse. She grabbed him by the hips and pulled him forward, leaning back, and letting his hard shaft run back and forth across her shaking chest, with the tip just entering her open mouth, her tongue wriggling along the underside, her breath hot on his tight-stretched skin, bringing him higher and hotter and closer.

When at last the liquid pressure within him drained into her, she moaned loud, mouth held wide in her pleasure, and he watched as string after string of white cum shot forth and drizzled across her waiting tongue. That hungry mouth was filling fast, but still she held it open until the cream began to overflow down her chin. She stood there a moment longer, tongue catching the milky rivulets that escaped, and stared deep into Atyr's half-shut eyes. He watched as she played with the thick mouthful of his seed, until finally she closed her lips and swallowed.

They remained there for a while, Atyr slumped on the bank, Elatla draped across his lap with her breasts still encasing his softening cock.

At length, she stirred, and pushed herself a little apart from him, hands on his thighs.

"Thhhhank you, woodsman. I have missssssed your taste."

He nodded, not certain if he should say thank you as well. 'You're welcome' seemed out of place. An idle, self-satisfied part of him wondered if his taste was particularly good, in some way.

Elatla leaned towards him again, letting her breasts graze against his thighs. "Will you give mooooore?"

He wanted to, he did, but he was spent. And the diligent, responsible part of him remembered that he had a journey to begin. He shook his head.

"Sorry. Later?"

A long tongue toyed with the tip of his cock, licking up the last glistening drops there. He began to stiffen again. Her mouth curved up knowingly. He was weak, and he knew she could sense it. But she relented, and the tongue slithered back between pointed teeth.

"Have you any more to discusssss, before we depart?"

Atyr forced that diligent part of him forward again. The idle part had been sneaky once more to the fore. "Ah, no. Nothing urgent I can think of, since I guess you've heard the bones of it." He paused. Pesky would have snorted at 'bones'. "I need to find an enchanter in the wood. I have a map to get there. I'm going now. That's about it."

She nodded, and grabbed his forearms to pull herself out of the water. She climbed up and onto his lap, straddling him, and placed a swift, toothy kiss on his mouth. Her tongue slid in, deep and unexpected. There were a traces of his taste there; he could smell it on her breath. His cock, almost fully hard once more, pressed against the heat between her legs. She slid herself along it once, and he could feel how wet she was. Then she placed her feet firmly on either side of his lap and stood. His face was pressed suddenly right against her dripping lips, and she grabbed his head once and ground her hips into his mouth. His eyes opened wide, and he mumbled something muffled and incoherent, but she was already stepping over him and away, leaving him to slump back on the ground, wanting nothing more than to leap after her.

He turned on the bank, and watched, enthralled as she walked away across the little glade. With each step she swung her hips as though in a performance, and the cheeks of her ass slid and jiggled with the perfect amount of firmness. Maybe he could give her more after all? He had half-decided to, when she began to change.

She was shifting, and his eyes found themselves shifting as well. He felt that if only he could watch some single part of her, he would find it becoming other than it had been. Yet, when once he placed his gaze upon her in any one spot, some other bit would catch his eye. He had been watching her ass, of course, but then for some reason he was looking at her hair and finding it darker than he remembered. He tried to focus on that, but then his eyes were back to her ass, and there was a long, flowing tail there, of the same straight black hair that now fell down her back. His gaze slid to her shoulders, and he knew there was something off there, but when he tried to see what it was, he found himself looking instead at her legs, now longer, thicker, and oddly bent, and once his eyes settled there, he found them resting on her hair once more, and it was a mane, and she had at some point become huge without his seeing it happen, and his eyes focused again, and she was no longer the Kelpie at all.

Or perhaps she was. A tall, elegant horse stood before him, with a coat of blackest ink, shadowless, or more rightly, made only of shadow. And yet, it still shone, and it caught the golden sun of the late summer and sent it back as a blue silver sheen of moonlight on rippling water. If Wetlyn had crafted herself to be the pinnacle of woman's beauty, then some sculptor of horses must have shaped the form of this midnight mare. She was a kelpie as the kelpies of legend were.

With wonder in his eyes and no thought in his mind but to touch this beautiful beast before him, Atyr reached out. Dimly, he remembered the stories of kelpies as he had heard them; black horses of surpassing perfection that dragged those who were drawn to the beauty of their coats down to a deep grave beneath the waters. He stumbled, and drew back his hand.

The fae animal turned, and looked sidelong at him. Her eyes were still the same deep-pool gems he had known; the only part of her unchanged.

"Elatla?"

She whickered at him, and stepped once in his direction. He stepped towards her in response. If she had wanted to drag him to his death in the water, surely she had had a better opportunity mere moments ago, as he sat, drained and depleted on the bank. They came to each other, and she nuzzled him once, gently. He touched her soft nose ad let her sniff his palm, before reaching up to stroke the dark forelock between her ears.

"Do I... should I ride you?" He caught himself. Pesky would have died laughing at him for that, but Elatla the mare only tossed her mane and nodded her black head.

Dressed once more, he clambered awkwardly onto her back. Growing up in the dense woodlands of the Brookwood Highlands, he had no experience with horses, but once mounted, he found the riding effortless. That was due, he assumed, to Elatla herself, rather than any innate talent on his part. Wherever he slipped or found himself unbalancing, she moved under him to right his mistake. There was no need to guide her, as she knew their destination, and whenever there was cause to communicate, spoken words were all that were needed.

She moved through the dense trunks as no horse should have been able in that pathless forest. Almost, it seemed, she passed wraith-like through rocks and tangled undergrowth. But, wherever he watched closely, he found instead that her hooves slipped just past each obstacle with a dancer's grace.

The sun was dropping low now, and threw the shadows long across their route. They drifted on through the trees, and with each dip and curve of their travel, it seemed the trunks grew thicker, and closer, and the moss deeper, and the roots reached higher as though to catch at the kelpie's hooves. The shadows were darker too, deeper than they should have been with the sun still above the horizon.

They couldn't have reached the Oldwood yet, and wouldn't before nightfall, nor even before noon the next day, but still, the wood around them felt somehow older, and more fae. There was of course no clear border between Brookwood and Oldwood, no rock wall to divide the two, no gate to enter. The wood merely became gradually older. And yet, he couldn't help wondering at the closeness of the trees. It felt dreadfully old already. As old as fate, and as unwelcoming.

"Elaltla? Do you think we're in the Oldwood so soon? Is that possible?"

The midnight horse beneath him whinnied and bobbed her head once. A yes?

"This is probably a foolish thing to ask. Dumb, Pesky would say." He looked around to catch her eye. "You can't talk, can you?"

A little whicker, like a laugh, and she shook her head side to side. He'd thought not. Just as well. He didn't much like the idea of that serpentine hiss of a voice coming out of the mouth of the steed beneath him.

On they traveled into the deepening shadows. The trees were closer now even than they had been, and in many places Atyr marveled that the great horse could slip between their trunks at all. The bark of the trees started to hint at shapes to his eyes. Faces, he thought, though whenever he looked at one, he found it was only some odd shadows and cracks, with nothing much face-like about it. Yet the trees still loomed at him as he rode, and the faces at the edge of his vision grew only clearer, and less inviting. Glowering, he might have said. Even angry. The night breeze was hushing through the trunks, too eager to wait for full dark, and it carried on it the whispers of words, forbidding and unpleasant.

Even for Elatla's skillful hooves, the way was fast becoming difficult. She began at times to turn aside, to shy from the denser patches of the forest and to choose a longer way. Always, she turned back to the North, to head deeper into the wood, but increasingly they found the way impassable, whether due to a steep ledge rising in front of them, or patch of deep muck, or trees so close even Atyr afoot would have struggled to pass through. It was as though the wood was steering them towards something. Or away. Oldwood indeed.

It would be foolishness to continue over the treacherous ground in the dark, but Atyr was loathe to halt, with the whispers in the air and the faces on the trees, gone whenever he tried to look or to listen. Even if they did stop for the night, it was so crowded around them with roots and rocks and gnarls of vines, that there would be no place to lie down. So he pulled out his storm lantern and, for the first time, put it to use.

The warm glow of it sputtered a moment, and then flared into a soft circle of comforting brightness around them. Even the harsh scent of its smoke was an encouragement among the old trees.

Within a few paces, it seemed that the way grew clearer ahead of them, and they moved north once more with ever fewer obstacles, as though the light of the lamp burned away the forest like sun through morning mist. The formerly foreboding trunks were ever slimmer and further spaced, and the ground less stifled and snarled. The light laid warm yellows across the ferns and grasses that began to show themselves in little patches. Though the evening was almost over, it felt as though the sky was lightening above them.

Atyr's heart was ever lighter too, and he was about to speak to Elatla and ask her to stop here, when he heard a merry music floating faint around them. There was a drum, tapping a rhythm that demanded dancing, and a voice that drifted above it, playful and joyous and clear.

The dark mare bore him towards the melody, and soon a copper light began to flicker through the trees ahead. If ever since he found he could see the fae, an Oldwood story had come to life in front of him, it was now.

Elves. It was elves and elf music, he had no doubt.

Of all the fae in tales, they were the ever the best. The kindest, the loveliest, the bravest and most loving. Above all, the most gracious and inviting to the mortals they met. Almost like close kindred of humans, Atyr had always thought, as though the one had been made from the other.

"On Elatla, on!" he urged her, and on she went, until presently burst from the trees onto a wide road through the forest. The Path? They had found it so soon? On Wetlyn's map, there was only one path through the Oldwood, and it went more places than it didn't. To have found it so swiftly was the luckiest bit of fate he could have hoped for.

They rode along it towards the song and the light. Just ahead, it widened, and a small clearing opened to the side of it. In the clearing was the fire, and around it the elves and their music.

The vigorous beat of the drum required motion of its listeners. Around the flames a handful of dancers pranced and twirled, flowing clothes flashing in festive colors where the firelight caught them, and casting black silhouettes where they were framed against it. Beyond them a ring of other figures sat or stood, all of them moving to the heartbeat of the music. Savory smells of roasting food drifted from the circle, and above that whirling of light and swirling hues he could hear a harp, chording soft, and above it the clear voice that sang its ringing, lively lyrics in an odd tongue which danced from sound to sound.

He saw the singer then, a young woman of about his age. Her profile was hawkish, with a knife of a nose and a sharp chin, oddly fierce in contrast to the sweet song she sang. The drummer, seated just beside her, could only be her mother. She had the same hard-edged features, a generation more weathered. The elves were not so fair as he had expected them to be, but their music more than made up for it.

Every face in that circle was turned to the fire and the dancers there, and so as Atyr rode up on his night-black steed, in his dark Ranger's garb, he remained unnoticed until he was nearly upon them. He had no wish to alarm them, partly out of courtesy, but also from common sense. Elves might be kindly folk in all the tales he knew, but even the kindest people might take rash action when startled in the dark.

It was a fae place, the wood, and these were fae folk, and so it seemed only fitting to him that words he chose were suited to the fae stories of childhood, when he called out to them.

"Hail, friends! Noble elves of the Oldwood! Might I join you in your celebration?"

There was a swift commotion in the gathering before him. The dancers stumbled to a halt, and the drum ceased in an instant. The singer trailed on for a few notes before winding her way to silence. Many of the elves jumped up, and fire-blind eyes darted this way and that, before they found the shadowy form of the dark rider before them.

Atyr slid from Elatla's back and nearly fell flat on his face. He hadn't realized just how sore his legs had gotten during the evening's ride. Grateful for the obscuring dark, he regained his footing, and walked cautiously towards the firelit circle. The figures parted, and the drummer stepped through and came to meet him.

She was tall for a woman, almost Atyr's height, and she strode right up and looked him in the eye.

"You come silent out of the night, in the very shadow of the Oldwood, leading a mare as black as a fae shadow, and it's us you call elves?" She turned now and called to the group behind her. "I think we've found ourselves an elf, more like! Does he bring us faerie treasures, do you suppose?" A few laughs rewarded her, and she turned back to Atyr.

"So, my faerie friend, what have you brought us, in exchange for our fire and our company?"

Atyr was taken aback. Not elves? What other merry folk danced and sang in the Oldwood darkness without care or worry? He looked into the woman's harsh features. She was smiling, and it was a warm smile. The mockery of her words was meant to welcome, not exclude.

"Are you not elves? Can I ask then who you are?"

She took a step back and folded her arms, eyeing him curiously. "We're no more elves than you are. But tell us what you've brought us, and I'll tell you who we are. Come, give us a kip for a song by the fire!"

Understanding hit him now. "Tinkers! You're tinkers!" He laughed. Tinkers never passed as deep in the Brookwood as where Atyr had grown up, but he knew of them, and had twice seen a troupe during a family visit to Woodstead for a Fair Day.

The whole gathering laughed then with him, and the sharp-nosed woman nodded widely. "And Tinkers we are, and it's a kip and a song, or we'll give you back to the night!"

They may not have been elves, but Atyr couldn't imagine a merrier group of people. He couldn't help but laugh again.

"I've a kip for you here," he said, pulling out his purse. "But tell me, why is it that you come at night to the Oldwood? It's a fae place, and dangerous. I wouldn't be here myself, except that I have great need."

"The Oldwood?" The crowd behind her quieted a bit. "You're not in the Oldwood. If you were, you wouldn't have come upon us. It's as fae and dangerous as you say, if half the tales we tell are true." More laughter, as if some well-trod joke had been walked out. "Of course, seeing as we make up three quarters of the tales ourselves, perhaps it's less dangerous than we think! But still, you won't catch us within those old trunks."

Atyr had frozen with his hand in his purse. "Not the Oldwood? Where are we then? I rode into the Oldwood just this afternoon!"

"Then you've ridden out again this evening!" a man called cheerfully from the back, drawing yet more laughs from his fellows. "This is the road from Ferth to Woodstead!"

"To Woodstead?" Atyr was dismayed, his hopes of having found the Path dashed in a few words. Had the Oldwood spit them back out so swiftly?

"Come," said the woman with the nose like a knife, "give us the kip and spend the night in merrymaking. In the morning, you can throw yourself at those cursed trees once more, and perhaps you'll fare better. Give us the kip!"

"Aye, the kip, give us the kip!" Voices called from among the crowd. He laughed, both at his own foolishness, and because it was hard not to laugh among these people, and pulled out a little bronze coin and tossed it to the woman.

She caught it, grinning, and flicked it in the air, catching it on the backs of her fingers. Then she frowned, looking at the little bit of bronze. "You try to trick a Tinker, slip us a blank coin? It's fateful bad luck to--" her voice caught, an odd look coming over her.

Atyr followed her gaze, an apology forming on his lips. He must have tossed her one of the odd, smooth tokens from Wetlyn's cellar. But it wasn't blank, now. On the face of the little brown coin was an image of a small fire, with dancing figures around it. He stared. The woman walked the coin across the backs of her fingers, flipping it to its other face, and her eyes flashed wide and bright in the firelight. Atyr only stood, no response coming to his lips.

She looked up and caught his eye. Her voice was soft, only for his ears. "And we're the elves, are we?" Then louder, she turned back to the rest of her troupe. "The elf from the Oldwood brings faerie treasure indeed!" She tossed the coin high once more and snatched it from the air as it fell, then opened her hands to show them both empty. "Come, sing the night away with us, fair elf, and tomorrow you may return to your land of the fae!"

Sing the night away they did, and Atyr felt as happy and welcome as he could remember ever feeling outside of the Bracken family home. He danced, and laughed, met every one of the two dozen members of the troupe, learned and forgot all of their names, and explained over and again that he was no elf, not even a bit of one, that he was just a boy from the Brookwood Highlands. But they would have none of it. For that night, he was their elf.

As the fire burned low, the drum and the harp were put away, and the sharp-faced girl stopped singing, and came over to sit by Atyr. Older members of the troupe wove tales and poems around the dying embers, and through it all, she murmured to him and told him quiet stories of her own.

She was Lillium, and her mother, the drummer, was the leader of the little troupe, and was also named Lillium, though she was called by their surname, Stola. The were come fresh from Ferth, and headed to Woodstead to stay for a while, before heading to Leffing's Down, and on through to the other towns of the south. She was enthralled, as Atyr had been, by the sleek beauty of Elatla as a mare, and wanted to know how he had acquired her. She wanted to know too, why he planned to risk his life in the Oldwood.

Late in the night, Stola had words for him as well, and questions, but none of them went beyond warm curiosity and the chatter of easy hospitality. She left him with her daughter after a short while, pressing something into the younger woman's hand as they parted. Atyr watched as Lillium gazed down at her palm, and he caught a glimpse of bronze as her fingers closed around it. Her eyes caught his own with a curious light behind them.

As the midnight came and passed, the troupe rolled out their mats and slept under the summer's night sky. Lillium invited him to share her mat, and she curled herself against him under a blanket and fell asleep with her head on his chest, as if there was nothing more common or comfortable in the world. And, in that night of mirth and laughter and song, Atyr reflected that perhaps there was not.

As he lay with the young woman's arm across, him, sleep trickling in and filling him slow, the bronze token slipped partway from her hand. He lifted it carefully from under her fingers, and saw the fire and the dancers on its face. He flipped it over. There was the silhouette of a single figure there; a young woman with a prominent nose and harsh chin, mouth opened as if in song. Behind her in the tiny etched scene, he saw a pool of water, and a cabin half-built.

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CHAPTER THREE

Meadow Dance and Moss

The troupe was roused and fed and packing to leave before Atyr's lids dragged themselves apart. Lillium had left his side as well, but came rushing over soon after he rose, to collect and stow her blanket and mat. All the tinkers carried huge packs on their backs, supported with wooden frames and fastened about their hips to help bear the load. The must all have legs like forge steel, Atyr thought, watching little Lillium draw tight the belt on hers and stand, smooth and swift as though it were only a little shoulder satchel.

"I'll be missing you, elf boy! Come back through Woodstead after your faerie quest. If you're swift about it, mayhap you can share our fire once more." With a wink and a spin, she was gone, off into the bustle of the troupe.

Atyr stared after her, his own goodbye spoken to the empty air.

He collected his pack and his bow, and wandered over to where Elatla huffed and stamped at the ground. Every tinker who passed by her seemed momentarily amazed, and many reached, dreamlike, to stroke her coat. It may well have been more attention than she had received for a very long time. She was immortal, it might have been generations since she had last left the pool. It could have been an age since she had been among so many.

"She'll take no food from us." A man's voice came from behind him. Atyr turned and saw a face he was certain he should remember. It was Makir? Marik? No, surely this was Pern... Poren... The man continued. "We've no beasts of our own, but I tried apples and some stoned oats. I suppose it's faerie fare or none for your fae steed?"

Atyr laughed. "She's no faerie horse, just a good one!" He scratched her ears. "Aren't you Elatla? Just a good old horse." The good old horse looked at him with a green eye that swirled with endless depths of emerald water. She nipped at his arm.

Pulling his fingers safely back to his sides, Atyr smiled brightly at Marik. Or whoever. He was about to say farewell and search out Stola to thank her for the hospitality of her troupe, but she found him first. A calloused hand dropped onto his shoulder.

"You didn't vanish in the night. Perhaps you're less elf than you seem."

He turned, smiling. "Do elves vanish with the sun? I'd heard that was trolls."

"In my stories, elves do. I may have to tell a new story, 'The Elf Who Walked in Sunlight.'"

"It isn't true about the trolls, you know." It was easy to talk to these people. He supposed it was their craft, talking.

"And what do you know of the ways of trolls? Have you met many, elf?" Eyes crinkled in her sun-lined face.

"A few." It was a harmless boast. She'd never believe him, and even if she did...

There was a moment where she looked at him queerly, and glanced at the night-black horse with the water-green eyes. Then she laughed again. "You're an interesting one, and that's true when I say it!" She patted his shoulder again, and leaned in closer. "It's custom to return your kip now, in gratitude for the good cheer and company, but you never gave me a kip, did you? I can hardly send you off without the kip, but I can't return what was never given..."

For only the second time since meeting the tinkers in the night, Atyr wasn't sure how to respond. He knew nothing of tinker customs about kips and company, or what any of it meant to them. All he knew was from a little child's rhyme, and so he recited it with a smile. It was something to say, at least.

"When the tinker's on a trip

With a pack upon his hip

You can join him by the fire

But you'll have to pay a kip

Pay a kip, Pay a kip, Pay a kip!"

It was a game rhyme, where all but one of the children would join hands and skip around in a circle, while the last tried to break in to the center. The last line 'pay a kip' would be repeated until the child was successful. Once in, they would choose one of the others to leave, who then would have to break in themselves, and the game would repeat until the children were bored, or tired, or one of them received some scrape or bruise that brought tears enough to bring it all to a halt.

As soon as he finished, Atyr wondered if it might be thought offensive. But his worry was misplaced. With a grin on her face, Stola took up the chant with a second verse he'd never heard.

"Sing a song or help him pack

Send him off upon the track

With a story or a smile

And he'll let you take it back

Take it back, Take it back, Take it back!"

The whole troupe joined in when she got to the "Take it backs," and kept on repeating it until she hushed them.

Atyr laughed yet again. He couldn't stop laughing around these bright-clad people. All attention was on Stola and himself now, so he called loudly to them. "The moment that slipped out my mouth, I wondered if it might be rude!" Laughter from the listeners. "I'm glad to find it's not!"

Stola ruffled his hair, and leaned close to whisper. "Where do you think rhymes come from, elf?" Then in a loud voice, she turned to the troupe. "There'll be no kip for the elf!"

Boos and groans came from the little crowd, and some laughter as well. Always laughter. Stola let them carry on for a bit, pantomiming deep consideration, then she signaled for quiet once more. "No, I've made my decision! No kip!" More groans. "Hush, you all! I'm leader and it's mine to return. But I've given it to Lillium." Murmurs and chuckles, and faces turning with raised eyebrows to the young woman.

Lillium stood tall and squared her shoulders, nodding once with a grin on her face. Her eyes slid to Atyr for a moment, then away.

Stola was speaking again. "But, my decision is not final! When the elf returns from his faerie quest, he may come find us to claim his kip. And when he does, I might reconsider." Cheers again, and overwrought merriment. Atyr was laughing and grinning now and couldn't stop, shaking his head at the mock trial being played out for him. But Stola wasn't done.

"Unless!" she shouted above the ruckus. "Unless, he leaves the deadly trees to their mischief, and rides with us on his faerie steed, to wherever we may travel!" There were a few more cheers, but now the little group began to quiet, and Atyr sensed this invitation was outside the usual parameters of their game. She looked into his face, with a little smile, and spoke quietly.

"Would you join us, little elf? Would you travel with the tinkers?"

***

The trees were growing closer and darker and older once more, though in the bright morning sun, they had lost their eerie glower. If there were faces there still, he couldn't see them, and the breeze that drifted through the trunks carried no voices to his ears.

It had been hard to part from his new friends. They had cajoled and pleaded with him to stay longer, part in earnest though mainly in jest, but he had begged them to understand that he had no choice, and that leaving was all he could do.

In the end, he left with two kisses on his cheeks. The first had been from Stola, a warm, maternal, yet formal sort of kiss. He sensed it was something of a custom for them, a ceremonial goodbye from the whole troupe, via their leader.

The second kiss had been from Lillium. She had come skipping brightly out of the group, grabbed him, and planted it on his face in a decidedly less ceremonial manner, then skipped away again to loud laughter. Atyr was not at all convinced that second kiss was a typical part of the tinkers' farewells.

On through the trees Elatla drifted, with Atyr on her back. His legs were fresh, the soreness gone when he woke. Whether that was just the quick recovery of a youthful woodsman after a good sleep, or whether it was do to with his fae healing, he couldn't say. He suspected the latter.

The wood was certainly old here. Trees so massive they must have predated the founding of Woodstead were not uncommon, and nowhere were there new growth stands. Atyr realized what felt so odd. There were no saplings. No young trees at all. The cragged bark of every trunk spoke of ancient rains and endless summers. And yet... It didn't feel like it had last night, when he had known they had crossed into the Oldwood. It wasn't fae. It was old, but he wasn't certain it was Old. He tried to ask Elatla, but he couldn't interpret the shakes and tosses of her equine head.

Late in the morning, they happened upon something to break the monotony of aged oak and hoary pine: a small clearing. It was barely a half-dozen strides across. If the trees around hadn't been so dense, it might not have seemed a true clearing at all.

Before they rode into it, the forest had smelled only of must and mildew and loam, but as they entered, a harsh flavor was immediately in the air, a bitter incense. Around the perimeter of the glade were set small, knee-high boulders at intervals, each flattened on the top as if intended as rough seating. In the center lay a wide slab, and it was burnt in the middle with a dark smudge.

Elatla shied from the stone, and would go no nearer, but Atyr was curious. He slid from her back, and approached it. He had intended to step onto it as well, but as he raised his foot to do so, he found himself as unwilling as the kelpie had been. The nape of his neck tingled, and he stepped back a pace. A moment passed while he stood, considering the odd, fire-blackened slab, then he shrugged and, with as casual an air as he could manage, turned his back to it and returned to Elatla. She whickered at him. He pretended not to notice.

"Well, that's encouraging," he said. "Feels pretty fae to me, wouldn't you say?"

A green eye regarded him, with some horse-like emotion or other clearly expressed in its look.

"Or maybe fiendish?" She reacted to that, but again, whatever her reaction meant, he couldn't read it. If only he had ever spent time with horses before now. "Either way, I'd say we're surely in the Oldwood once more, no?"

She bobbed her big head up and down. That, at least, he could understand.

The wind gusted, just a little gust, but refreshing after the close pillars of the wood. Leaves blew in with it, rustling past and rushing off through the trunks, away into the forest. One caught in Elatla's mane, and Atyr noticed with alarm that it was a bright orange. He looked at the others, still falling lightly around them. Reds, yellows, copper and muddy browns. They were autumn leaves.

Oldwood stories flooded his mind then. Those of travelers entering the wood and spending a night with the faeries, only to emerge the next day and find it was the next month. Or the next year. Or that a century had passed, and everyone they had known in life had passed with it. In a panic, he looked to the sky, watching the leaves tumble down. Had he lost all the remaining summer during his morning's journey in the trees? Might he return to find Bird dead and Helliot long returned home, and Kella old, and himself forgotten?

Then he noticed, looking up, that the clearing was in a stand of hemlocks, and their little needles were all a deep green, and the leaves came not from trees at all, but down from on high, far above, tumbling endlessly from tiny specks in the sky, and perhaps even from further still.

If any remaining doubts had remained to him, they were gone. This was the Oldwood.

"Elatla, do you know this little glade? Can you find the path from here?"

She scuffed at the ground and sighed. How he wished he could speak horse. Almost, he began to wonder if she still understood him at all, or if he'd merely been misinterpreting her horse-like mannerisms up to this point. Since he'd become aware of this world, neither of the fae he had met had given him useful answers. No, those had all come from the witch and the fiend.

He pulled out Wetlyn's diagram, and searched it for anything that might match this clearing of falling leaves. There were certainly clearings labeled, and also glades, and even a place described as 'leaf strewn', but nothing that seemed like it could be this spot. That last location was the closest, but it was described as a 'leaf strewn cave of dark stone', and calling some stones in a clearing a 'cave' was more than a stretch. And anyway, that one seemed to be along the path, which this clearing clearly wasn't.

He decided he would follow the rush of leaves, wherever they might lead, and wandered off on foot after them. Elatla followed him, with apparently no input of her own.

The leaves blew on and forward, carried aloft implausibly far by the guiding wind. As they walked among the flashes of fiery color, a soft tickle began in Atyr's ears, like a melody almost, but felt rather than heard. On he went, and the sensation grew, and he realized now that it was music. He could hear it, notes tripping and leaping and tumbling down again into a merry little heap of imagined dancers, and each note was felt in his body as a vibration.

They buzzed in his ears at first, but as the song grew around him, the vibrations spread. First to his head, which set him to smiling at the fuzzy strangeness, then along his spine, which he arched in response, and through his arms which he had to shake to clear the tickling, and then down through his legs, which wanted nothing more than to leap and jump and be restless. The tones went into his core too, and through his stomach and into his pelvis and hips, and it was like the pulsing feeling of the moment before orgasm, and he shuddered at the pleasure of it.

His whole body was quivering, and he wanted to dance, but he forced himself still, and looked again at the map for any mention of a song that was felt in the flesh. There was nothing, but he couldn't feel disappointed or worried with this strange tickling all through him. So off he pranced through the trees, and the song grew ever stronger.

In a short time, or maybe a long time, he couldn't have said, the leaves blew out through the shadows of the trunks into a bright, waving meadow and a rainbow of flowers. The leaves fell among the cheerful colors, the wind that bore them spent, and Atyr tumbled down with them, happy to roll for a moment among the grass. But he was soon up again, and dancing, and the music kept pulsing through him, each note like a feather on and in every part of him at once.

The grass was dancing too, he saw. Swaying with the wind, he had first thought, but there was no wind now. It swayed to the music, and he swayed with it, feeling it brush against his legs, and he realized what a silly thing clothing was. Off it came! Off too went the tiresome pack and the stiff, heavy bow, and the irksome boots, strewn and forgotten behind him as he danced his way into the field of flowers.

It was like sex, he thought, and if only he tried, he was sure he could come just from the grass against his bare skin and the vibrations of the song in his body. But he didn't want to. That would stop the feeling, he was sure of that, and he wanted it never to stop. So he danced.

Elatla nudged at him, but he pushed her away and spun off further into the grasses, happy and naked and erotic and laughing. She followed him and pushed at him with her head. He stumbled and fell, but then rolled away and came up singing, singing the song of the meadow, and the grass was dancing with him as he sang, and he has happy. All afternoon he danced, and the silly old horse eventually went away somewhere, and the buzz of the music in his body washed away any soreness or need to rest or to think.

And then it was evening. The sun was down, and Atyr was down with it. The music was gone with a suddenness that left him stumbling and gasping, and he fell among the dry grasses in that field of dead flowers. His legs and stomach and arms and head and balls hurt. A tiny bit of Experience warmed him, but it gave no strength to his limbs or his spirit. He was naked, and he was alone, and his pack and possessions were he knew not where.

The black shape of the kelpie came over to him through the grass, and looked at him with green, judgmental horse eyes. She turned, and walked away, then looked back. Follow. He could read that much. Aching and exhausted, he stood, and trudged after her, weary and ashamed. She had collected and piled his clothes and his pack and his bow. He thanked her, and apologized, and dressed.

He dug out the diagram once more, and found that the field was one of the locations listed. Luck on a luckless day. The little circle read, "Field of Dancing and Flowers." That description was perhaps a little subdued, when compared to the afternoon he had had. The second small warmth of experience that rushed through him did little to comfort him, as he read those words. He would have to reevaluate Wetlyn's other descriptions. But at least he was on the map now, and a plan could be made.

He looked, and the only arrow from the field went directly to the path, which was heartening. However, the arrow was labeled with the words "before dusk." That left him with the choice of leaving now, after duskfall, and hoping for the best, or weathering a second day in the dancing field. And, he considered, would it work on a second day? It would technically no longer be "before dusk., a dusk already having passed. The wood could be a pedant like that, Wetlyn had warned him. And at any rate, he wasn't sure of his ability to abandon the meadow, if the dancing melody began again with the dawn.

He decided to leave now, even at the risk of losing his place on the map. He sensed that Elatla approved. She did not seem to have appreciated his long afternoon of prancing through the flowers.

She bore him up, and they rode through the dusk and the brittle grass of the field to the dark shadows at its edge. Where there had earlier been the trees of the wood, they found now a high barrier of dark, velvet moss, extending far around the perimeter. Atyr worried at first that it might wall them entirely in, but after following it a short way, they found a gap and stepped through it, leaving the dead grasses behind.

They were in a hallway of sorts, walls of black moss stretching high on both sides, with only the purple evening sky overhead as a roof. Elatla walked in a few steps and paused. The hall split in two directions. Atyr peered down one, and saw it curving back towards the field. Down the other, the hall split again. A maze? He glanced behind him, and found the hall extending a few paces before splitting in three directions. The field was gone.

To the map once more. After a quick scan, he found where they clearly must be. "Maze of Moss and Temptations." It wasn't marked as being connected to the "Field of Dancing and Flowers" but it was connected to the "Whispering Brook" which in turn led back to the Path. They would just have to wander the mossy halls, and see what the 'temptations' might be. Presumably, they were to be avoided. A temptation that need not be resisted was no temptation at all, just a nice thing to have. He cursed the vagueness of Wetlyn's descriptions.

He let Elatla wander where she would, figuring that, if they were both clueless, at least the clueless fae might make better guesses than the clueless mortal. Or something like that.

In only a few turns, he was hopelessly turned around. Watching the kelpie's eyes roll one way and another, he had to assume she was as well. Past one opening in the walls, he heard the same melody that had shimmered above the field, though without the odd vibrations in his body. He looked, and saw a warm, sunny light glowing down the branching hallway. Should they turn back and give up? But no, it had been dusk in the field when they left, that couldn't be right. He shook his head.

"I think this might just be our first 'temptation'. We'd better not."

Elatla bobbed her head in answer and continued straight. Shortly after, they passed a hall from which glorious smells of fresh bread and roasting meats drifted. Atyr's stomach clenched, and he realized he had not eaten since leaving the tinkers that morning. Had it not been called the maze of temptations, he would have happily drifted down that hallway. And should he not? Were all temptations to be avoided? He paused, tapping Elatla and asking her to wait, but he shook her mane, and rode with him on and away.

The next temptation was an obvious fake. There, at the end of a dark way, was his cabin. Fresh lumber was stacked beside it, and his tools lay glinting in the sun. He smiled, shaking his head, and urged Elatla on. She had hesitated at that branch though. Did she see the same things he saw? Had she seen her age-long home, the eddying pool, and wished to go to it?

Soon they came to an alcove in the maze, a mossy room with soft, rolling pads of green velvet large enough to sleep on. A little stream tinkled past, creating the soft drowsy music such as only running water can sing. The hush of a warm breeze rustled about the space. Atyr's eyelids grew heavy, and he tried to decide if this counted as a temptation, or if it might be only a resting place. He wondered once more if it was necessary to resist the temptations, or if indulging in just a few might be fine... he only realized that he had slipped from Elatla's back and taken a step towards the mossy bed when the mare's teeth nipped at his hair and gave it a tug.

"Yah! Fates, Elatla!" He looked around him. "Alright, sorry. Thanks." He turned to mount once more onto her shadowed back, but movement caught his eye from behind. He spun.

It was Kella. She was sitting on the soft mounds of moss in the alcove, smiling at him. She was naked. She raised a hand and beckoned to him with a wink. It wasn't quite right though, Kella wouldn't wink like that. It wasn't exactly her expression either, too hungry perhaps, or too... something. He pulled a face at the image, and stepped away, but she called to him with Kella's voice.

"Atyr. Atyr Bracken, will you leave me without a word?"

It was exactly her voice, and precisely the way she would say it. Only, it wasn't, was it? Not quite. But he couldn't help himself, he responded.

"Kella, I'm sorry, I've--" He stopped short, Elatla was drifting, hoofstep by dreamy hoofstep, into the room, staring fixedly at something he couldn't see. He glared at Kella, and smacked the midnight flank of the mare.

"Elatla! We need to go!"

She twitched, and her eye fixed on him. She whinnied loudly and her gaze swiveled back to the thing he couldn't see. Then she wheeled and clomped swiftly away. He followed, but Kella called again to him. Looking back, he found her lying now on the moss, her gaze burning for him. She was spreading her long, naked legs, and reaching down with her fingers, and-- he shut his eyes and left her, trying to ignore the pulsing between his thighs.

The hall split ahead, one side empty, and down the other...

The sun was shining on a wood-shingled cabin. His family's cabin. And they were all there, happy and smiling, his mother and father, Cei, the hounds... and Moranna. Moranna was with them, and she waved and called out to him. "Atty! I've missed you! We were just about to have supper, won't you..." he didn't hear the end of it, he was running down the empty path, tears on his cheeks and anger hot in his chest. It was a cruel thing, this maze of dark moss.

Kella ran past him suddenly from behind, still naked, terror on her face now, and he reached for her without thinking, but she was ahead of him already. Three trolls raced after her, rushing up, closing. She looked over her shoulder and screamed, and turned down a branching hall, the grey faeling monsters at her heels. Atyr rushed after them, and he saw a grey hand catch her by the throat and smash her to the ground. Her screams grew pained, and he ripped free his dagger and surged forward, but a great black shape slammed into him and knocked him skidding across the ground.

It was Elatla once more. He drew a deep breath and shut his eyes. He wished he could close his ears to the agonized screams from the hall, but he couldn't. He stumbled up, and walked on without a further look, nodding his thanks to the mare.

Suddenly, Kella was running past him again, bleeding but free. The trolls were behind her once more, and behind them ran Cei with an axe in his hand. All five of them turned down another hall, and Atyr heard the screams of Kella renewed, joined by the shrieking agony of his brother. He looked without thinking as he passed. He wished he hadn't. He walked on. It wasn't real.

It wasn't real.

He passed other halls, and he thought there were things in them, but he didn't look at any of them. All he could see was the image in his mind of Kella's naked, broken body, and the torn and bloodied corpse of Cei, and the feasting trolls. Elatla wasn't with him anymore, he was vaguely aware of that, but he didn't know how to find her.

And then ahead of him, he saw that inviting alcove once more, with mossy beds awaiting him. Kella was there, and naked still, but unhurt now. She was staring with loving eyes at Tal. He was naked too. His cock was hard, and he was grinning at Atyr.

"She's a fun thing, I told you." He grabbed Kella by the hair and she laughed, then he yanked her down to her knees and slapped his cock hard against her cheek. Atyr stopped. It was a dead end. Should he turn back? He looked behind him but the alcove was still in front of him. He turned again, but every direction he looked, all he saw was Tal, grinning, and tapping that cock over and over on Kella's eager face.

Her mouth was open, and her tongue extended, subservient, waiting. Tal began to rub the head around her lips and she shuddered and ran her tongue over the man's leaking tip. Atyr's own cock was trying to tear free of his clothes, but there was nowhere else he could look, no where to go. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to.

There was a swift motion, and Tal buried himself deep in her face. She choked, but he held her there by her hair, as she fought for composure, gagging. Saliva dripped from her mouth. Atyr managed to look away for a moment, and when his eyes were dragged back, she had her fingers inside of herself, and she was choking and moaning around the fullness of her throat, and Tal was fucking her, slapping home against the sopping mess of her features.

Then the stocky man pulled free, and Kella gasped and coughed, and looked for the first time at Atyr. She grinned at him, her face coated with the slick from her throat. Tal spun her and grabbed her arms roughly and held them behind her back, forcing her to bend at the waist.

"Want a turn with her face? I got her all ready for you." Atyr could only stare as Tal slammed his length deep into her soaking pussy, hard and furious. He found his own hand was cupping the hard bulge in his pants, and jerked it back.

"Let's get her from both ends, huh? Come on, she wants you!"

Kella licked her messy lips, bouncing with the force of the fucking she was taking. Then Tal yanked her around and tossed her on her face in the moss, where she writhed around in pleasure, hips held high in the air. He looked at Atyr.

"Or maybe you want that sweet little slit? It's all yours. We can share her from behind." He turned to Kella where she waited, willing, eager to be stuffed full however the two men thought best. Tal caught Atyr's eyes, and slowly slipped a finger deep into her ass. Then a second. He began to pump them in and out of her clenching hole, staring all the while at Atyr.

"Come on boy, come breed this little whore." Then he yanked his fingers free and plunged himself into her. She moaned, high and long, and Atyr closed his eyes, shaking with many things.

For a long while he stood, lids shut tight, listening to Kella's cries and whines of lust, and Tal's grunts and lewd encouragements. Then the panting, heaving and howling swelled and reached a frenzied climax, and there was silence.

Atyr stood there still, not wanting to open his eyes and see the two of them twined on the mossy bed, fae trickery though he knew it was. He just stood there, blind, his own arousal throbbing and aching. There was a soft glow against his lids, and a warmth on his skin. Something soft nuzzled his arm and huffed hot breath at him. He cracked an eye. Elalta was there. She nudged him again, and he looked around. The maze was behind them, its black, velvet walls stretching high. The trees were around them once more, those ominous, eerie, welcome trunks of the Oldwood. It was morning, and they were back in the forest. A strong rush of Experience flooded him with confidence and a sense of success.

Ahead ran the Whispering Brook, it's waters climbing backwards up the slope before them, jumping improbably over little ledges in upside-down waterfalls, splashing on and away.

And beyond it, he knew, lay the path through the Oldwood.

===================

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CHAPTER FOUR

Cacoburn

"Ears Open, Mouth Shut."

Those were the only words accompanying the little line winding from 'Whispering Brook' to 'Sunlight Path with Many Flowers.'

Atyr would have liked to collapse on the ground and stuff himself with a day and a morning's worth of food and then sleep until afternoon, but he'd already learned one lesson about dallying in this fae place, and wasn't likely to need a second teaching. Also, he was uncertain about the strictness of 'Mouth Shut'.

Did the instructions mean only that he might listen to the brook but not respond to whatever its whispers might be? Or was it more exacting? Must he pay close attention, and keep lips pressed? He wouldn't risk it. He could suffer a little longer and eat once they'd found the Path at last.

He hauled himself onto Elatla's back, and let her carry him up the hill beside the stream at a gentle pace. The waters flowed upwards past them, babbling and hissing softly over their rocky bed. It did sound like a whisper almost, like a secret intended for other ears. He couldn't make out any words; it wasn't even obvious whether there were any words there to be heard at all. But he listened with ears open.

His mouth, he kept shut. Jaw locked firmly, lips tight. It may have been foolish, the words on the map might after all only have been intended to mean that a traveler should not speak to the waters, but if so, he would let Wetlyn explain that foolishness to him once he had safely returned. He wondered, not for the first time, if she had made the diagram from her own experiences, or if she was merely setting down what she had learned from other sources. It would certainly explain the vagueries of the thing.

Elatla too, was silent, though as a horse that was her wont. It was only a short walk along the brook, up the hill and down the other side, then around a bend and over a second hill, and they found their destination. The trees broke in a row, and sun shone down between them on a narrow, sandy path, lined with flowers of every hue. He hopped carefully from the mare's back, and stepped onto the sand. Once on the path, do not leave it, unless you wish to search for it again. Wetlyn's words were clear in his memory. He was determined to obey them.

It was a thin little trail, though cheerful and bright, just wide enough for one traveler to walk at a time. If he met a fae wanderer from the other direction, he wondered how they might pass one another without stepping off into the flowers. A problem to be solved once encountered. He hoped Elatla would be able to contain her large hooves within the narrow way.

Atyr was still wrenchingly hungry and exhausted from the dancing meadow, but there was no place to rest, so he began to walk, the kelpie stepping cautiously behind him. With luck, the path would widen, otherwise he would have to wait until their next destination for sleep. He pulled out the map yet again to check their route.

Once on the path, the shortest way was to find 'The Forge,' then 'Follow the Wind' to a place named 'Hollowtree,' from where he could just 'Take the Path' to what was called 'Grove of Sorrows.' All routes to the enchanter's home led through that grove. The only problem, was that getting to the forge required him to walk 'With Anger'. The wood would know if he tried faking. He smiled to himself. If he walked long enough and found nothing, he might achieve frustration, but 'With Frustration' would unfortunately bring him to something called only 'A Flat Place', and from there no other lines led.

No, it would be a much longer route for him, and the first destination on it would be the 'Windy Rocks.' To get there was simple, he need only 'Skip on Sore Legs.' Easy enough to do, they were sore already from his dancing in the field. Fates, but that dancing had left him hungry as well. He pulled out a hard biscuit to munch as he walked.

He stowed the map in his pack, settled the weight back on his shoulders, and biscuit at his lips, took a single skipping step. And stopped. An orchard of diverse fruit trees lined the path on both sides ahead, stretching on around the bend. He blinked, certain they hadn't been there the moment before.

"Elatla, do you know anything about--" But of course she didn't. With a sigh, he dug the parchment out once more, but found nothing written about orchards or fruit trees. He walked to the nearest of them.

It grew something like little yellow apples, but smaller, and a bit soft to the touch. They were a lighter than a usual apple, almost a cream. He picked one and and it rested comfortably in his palm, sun-warmed and inviting. He looked at the mare, questioning. She whinnied at him, and he offered the fruit, but she turned away. He had forgotten for a moment that she wasn't a true horse. Fluids. That's what she would want.

Atyr was curious and hungry, and something about that rainbow of fruit trees made him reckless. The round, little thing in his hand had a comforting, inviting weight to it. He took a bite. It was heaven on his tongue, sweet and a bit spice. It smelled of home, of warm memories, of family. His eyes moistened as the emotions filled him. He took a second bite, but it was too good. It was too nice. He lay the little yellow fruit down lovingly in a bed of flowers beside the path.

Next was a tall, straight tree with golden leaves and golden fruits that hung like bells from crimson branches. Eager now, he pulled one free and tasted it. It tasted of courage and hope and the thrilling promise of glory. It had a tang and a fierce bite to it. He ate the fruit whole, and two more besides, tossing his dry biscuit to the ground, untouched and unwanted.

With cheeks still full, he strode boldly to the next. He was a hero, an explorer of orchards, mighty and unconquerable. The drooping boughs before him bore deep blue fruits this time, shaped like long drops of water sighing towards the earth. He seized one and thrust it into his mouth. It was sorrow. If it had a flavour, his tongue was dead to it. He spat it on the path, and his tears fell down beside it. He stumbled to the next tree. Anything to replace the mourning in him.

Bright red fruits with orange nubs grew from the ends of thorny branches as though stabbed onto them. With a sober hand, he pried one free and slowly sank his teeth. Spice. Heat. A burning fire on his tongue. In a sudden rage, he flung the fruit from him, splattering it against the trunk of the tree from which it came. Angry now, he ripped down more of the hateful things and stomped them into the sand.

Next tree. Next fruit. Now, or he would fell this orchard and set a flame to it. Pink fruits, long and smooth. Fine. He wrenched one free and savaged it with his jaws. It burst and thick juice ran over his mouth and across his cheek, and the heat of anger was suddenly the heat of lust within his body. He ran his tongue over his lips, catching all the thick white syrup that had spattered there, then turned his attentions back to the fruit. He slid it into his mouth, unable to resist sucking at the creamy juices within. He licked and smeared and pushed it into him until it was gone. He reached for a second and consumed it, then grabbed yet another.

His eyes devoured it. It was warm and soft in his hand. The long, pink fruit called out to be inside him, and he pressed it to his mouth, sliding it slow between his lips. His other hand found its way down to the throbbing between his thighs, and he grasped and rubbed at himself. He sucked hard at the warm flesh of the fruit, and the white milk flowed out across his tongue and down his throat, delicious and erotic and--

A black horse head was leaning over his shoulder, and a green eye narrowed at him. Atyr paused, mouth filled with the pink fruit, and his face became as red as the angry, spikey ones he had crushed into the sand. Shaking with arousal and embarrassment, he pulled the thing from his mouth and dropped it hastily to the ground. He wiped at the white strings of sweet fluid on his face, and began walking down the path without a word.

It was a long, uncomfortable time before the blood left either his cheeks or his cock.

In the middle of the Path he stopped. Anger! Anger would take them to The Forge, the quickest route! He spun, and came face to face with a still-dissaproving kelpie.

"Anger, Elatla! Those red fruits will make us angry! To take us to the forge!" She huffed and stamped once. "It's the fastest route. Come on, lets go back to the orchard."

With what he would swear was a roll of her equine eyes, she turned carefully in place on the narrow track, and they started back the way they had come.

They walked long. Longer than they should have, and then longer still. Atyr had to call a halt. "This isn't the way. I've been thinking. I was hungry as fate before I ate the fruit. Then the orchard was there. I think I might have to be hungry again."

Elatla whinnied and tossed her head.

"Are you hungry?" A nod. He wondered then how the wood worked, if two traveled together. What if she was hungry and he was not? Would only one of them find the orchard? Could they become separated that easily? Or did the wood treat them as a single thing, to be guided as one? If he found later that Elatla knew the answers to any of his endless questions, he would curse himself for not having asked her before she left the waters of the pool, and her voice with it.

"We should wait. Let me get hungry again, and then we can go on. It shouldn't be too long, I didn't eat much of the fruit." He remembered the pink ones. Not that much, anyway.

He was hungry once more, and they were walking again, and they had been for a while, but there was still no orchard. Again, he called a halt.

"This isn't working. We'll just have to go the way we planned at first, through the Windy Rocks. I need to eat either way, my stomach is dying." He pulled out a second biscuit from his pack, and wished he had not wasted the first. The provisions would have to last. He couldn't rely on fae orchards springing up every time he was hungry.

And then there it was. His other biscuit. Sandy and a little stepped on, it lay on the trail. Glancing around, he found the golden tree of courage beside him once more, overhanging the path with its heroic bells.

He looked at the biscuit in his hand, and turned to Elatla. "Maybe its eating, not hunger. Or, maybe eating while hungry?" Her response was horse-like and unhelpful.

With a stomach full of rage and an arm full of red, nubbly fruits, Atyr stomped down the Path. Elatla kept her distance. In two places, her inky coat was streaked with the splattered remains of the anger fruits. Atyr hadn't offered her any in a while and he didn't intend to. If he got to the luckless Forge without the fate-spurned old nag that was just lovely. Really, it was her that had dragged him into this more than that little shit of a sprite. Pesky may have instigated, but the more he thought about it, the more he decided he never would have returned to town if not for fear of that kelpie, fae-take her.

He whirled, intending to lay it all out for her. The blame, the fault, her role in all this. It was the perfect opportunity to let fly all the anger in him; as a horse, she couldn't yell back. But he saw her face there, turned to the side, watching him with a single, nervous eye, and he relented. She wasn't worth the words.

Walking cautiously towards him, Elatla pointed several times with her muzzle, indicating the trail ahead. Yes, he would keep walking. He found pleasure in her skittishness. Let her feel afraid of him for a change. She walked close now, and he fought the urge to strike at her. The black muzzle nudged at him, pushing him on, then sniffed as well at the red fruits.

Fine. If she needed another, let her have it. They could hate each other a little longer. He mashed one viciously into her mouth, and in an instant he watched the nervousness leave her. The green eyes rolled, and she bit him hard on the arm, drawing blood. He staggered apart with a curse, and they resumed their ruminating journey.

She was too close behind him. Her irksome breath came in snorts. Every plod of hoof on sand was a ceaseless dripping on his patience. He spun once more, ready to yell now and chase her further from him, but she butted him with her head and he fell on his ass on the path. Again, she pointed ahead with her muzzle. He scrambled to his feet, throwing sand at her, and kicked wildly at the red fruits, now scattered about him. She nipped the air, and pointed once more, and screamed, high and bitter.

It was enough to dissuade him. He gathered the dirtied fruit, and turned his back to her.

And there was the Forge. Clearly that was what it must be. It brought him no comfort, nor did the hot feeling of the Experience he received on finding it. He didn't want to find it anymore. Let Kella suffer. Let Bird die. She would anyway, soon enough...

A black nose snuffed at the two little yellow fruits in his coin purse, and snapped its teeth in the air. Right. It was time. Of course the luckless horse would point out the obvious next step. As if he hadn't remembered. He yanked open the pouch, and threw one of the fruits hard into the sand. Let her eat that. He bit into his own.

And he was home. In heart at least. He was home and he was loved and happy and content. In another moment he knew he would feel guilt and remorse as well, but in this moment, everything was as sweet and as perfect as a moment could be. With a smile soft on his lips, he held the rest of his own fruit to the snorting mare. She nipped, but took it. He watched as her eyes settled within themselves, and he stroked her face. She nudged at him, gently now, and they both drifted over to examine the Forge.

It was a natural thing; no bellows, no anvil, no tongs or hammer, just a rock face, bare in the side of the hill, with a roiling liquid fire of the earth in a jagged rift down its center. A bitter reek of eggs, long fouled, drifted from it on black smoke. Heat painted their skin as they came near. A hiss drew his attention past the forge itself to a natural cistern, a circular hole in the rock, filled with water. The flaming liquid in the cleft of the Forge was bubbling and bursting. Small drops of the burning stuff were snuffing themselves in the cold water.

Atyr supposed it was only a forge in a poetic sense. There was clearly no set up for actually crafting anything. He was nevertheless fascinated. What magics brought fire from the earth like this? Was it fiendish? A leaking of the Inferno into the mortal realm? These were questions he could not answer.

A question he could, was where to go next. Hollowtree, he knew, and to get there, he must only follow the wind. But the air was still and hot around the forge. No wind that could be followed, not even a whisper in the air. He considered pulling out the map once more, but he knew there was nothing there he had missed or forgotten.

Elalta was making her way to the pool, skittish of the flame and smoke. Cautiously, she stepped closer, hoof by hoof, then shied away as molten drops spattered once more, hissing as they died. The water. In the water, she might take again her womanly form. Did she wish to speak to him? Or to feed?

The moment her tentative hoof first brushed at the surface, a great cracking came from the forge, and mare and Ranger both skittered back from it. The rock was moving. They backed away further, and watched as a part of the stone beside the fire of the earth drew itself up and away from the rest, and standing as a great figure, turned to face them.

It was a man of rock. Very obviously a man, Atyr noted, looking down. Impressively so. The naked body was heavily muscled and was Atyr's height and half again. Thick shoulders supported a jagged head with simple features, and burning eyes of forge fire glared from a deep cleft under its brow. It held out a massive hand, palm up, and moved no more.

Atyr reached for his dagger, but Elatla swiped gently at him with her head. He moved his hand carefully away, trusting her judgment, but unhappy in that trust. The huge man thrust out his hand again. Did it want something? Atyr exchanged a glance with his companion. No help to be found there. He started to back away, but Elatla whinnied and held her place. It seemed she didn't fear this creature. At least, she wasn't leaving.

The stoney figure pointed now at Atyr's waist, and held out its hand once again. The coin purse?

"Do you want coin?" There was no reaction. Nervously, he pulled free the leather pouch and stepped up to the huge man. His face was level with the thing's stomach. He looked up to see the fiery eyes burning down at him. Hastily, he dropped his gaze, but found himself staring at a swinging cock like the new haft of his hatchet, and his eyes fled back up. Swallowing, he placed the pouch onto the immense palm.

The man turned his hand abruptly to let fall the pouch, and then extended it once more, waiting. Atyr crouched slowly, not looking away from the creature, and picked up the little bag. He pulled out the fae coin and placed it onto the rocky hand. Again, the coin was dropped to the ground. For a second time, the hand pointed to Atyr's hip, and he realized it was the dagger that was wanted. He shook his head, and began to back away, but the stone man took a swift step after him, blinding fast, like a flame in its speed, and yet again held out its hand.

Not as though it would need a luckless knife to end me. With trembling fingers, Atyr drew his long blade and placed it like a toy into the grey hand. The fingers snapped shut around it, completely encasing the dagger, and with no further acknowledgment, the stone man turned to face the burning crack in the earth.

Without hesitation, it thrust its clenched fist deep into the fires before it. A long moment passed with no motion from Atyr, Elatla, or this mountainous man. Then it withdrew its arm, and opened its rocky grasp to reveal a glowing heat within. The fingers began to pull and work at the metal like a stiff clay, bending and pinching at the brightness there. Pounding too, it worked the steel, holding the blade flat on one hand like an anvil of stone, and hammering with the fist or fingertips of the other. Atyr thought again how easily he could be crushed by this monstrous thing.

The beating of stone and the ringing of steel and the smell of the heated metal and earth fire, and the hissing of the pool when the little drops of the flame would quench themselves on its surface, it all blended and faded into a rhythm in the background of Atyr's consciousness. He began to drift, exhaustion and the soreness of his legs bubbling to the fore. At length he sat, with his back against a stone, and watched idly as the great smith worked at the forge. What would come of the crafting?

A fierce hissing cut the air, and with it a wash of white steam came billowing from the cistern. Atyr started, and saw that the giant was quenching what it had forged in the cold waters there. It stood, and held high a dagger much like that it had been given, inspecting it closely, before slamming it point down, deep into the rock of the forge. The blade stabbed into the stone cleanly, as if into soft flesh, and remained there, smoking darkly in the afternoon sun.

Once more, the stone smith held out its hand expectantly. Atyr had no idea what to do. Elatla was still, providing as little advice as he was coming to expect from her. He reached slowly for his small belt knife and held it out. "This? You want this now?"

But the stone giant sliced at the air, palm down, a firm negation. With its other hand, it reached into a cleft near the forge and drew up a handful of bronze coins, letting them trickle through massive fingers in a flashing stream. Atyr nodded. Of course. Payment. He'd tried that, but perhaps the timing had been wrong? But payment for re-forging the knife made sense, in a fae sort of way, even though from here the blade had looked much the same, for all that it was now wedged deep into the stone of the hill and tarnished with black smears of soot. Don't argue with the giant, rocky forge man, Dummy.

He walked slowly to where he had forgotten his purse on the ground, and retrieved the fae kip. He reached up and placed it once more in the palm of the giant with a cautious smile. "I pay my way." As before, the giant let the coin fall to the earth.

Behind him he heard Elatla whinny, and looked over his shoulder. She was shaking her black mane side to side. Not coin then. He tried to think what a smith of stone might require in a children's tale. Perhaps it was having the tinkers fresh on his mind, but he knew the answer then. A song!

It was such a moment for a song. The stone itself had come to life, and forged his blade anew in the fires of the earth, and traded it back to him for a song. He would have to tell Kella on his return. She would love to make a poem of it.

He raked through his mind for a suitable tune, and settled on a story of two lovers meeting in the mountains. His mother was fond of it, and he knew it well. His voice was only passable, but he was taken with a fey delight at the poeticism of it all, as he lay into the opening lyrics:

"On turning track of mountain's bone,

Two lovers met with burning,

And yearning traveled far from home,

Through crag and cleft and stone,

Fair was her hair, fair was the--"

The stone man was swinging its hand again, angrily now, gesturing for silence. It stamped a giant foot and the rocks on the ground shuddered in their seats. Atyr choked and his voice fell off. He began to back away. The beast followed a pace, and he froze. Without moving, he let his eyes track to Elatla. If ever there was a time to intervene... But she was as unmoving as himself.

The foot stamped again like thunder on the rocks, and a stone fist crashed down into the horde of coins, splashing them up in a spray of bronze.

Hands up in a calming gesture, Atyr shuffled sideways to his coins once more, and he was permitted to pick them up. "I have coin! I tried... I do mean to pay you!" He held out the blank token once more in offering. "Look, payment!"

Elatla whinnied loud again, and the giant flew forward. In two stomps it was before him, its hands in fists. It tapped its knuckles only lightly into Atyr's chest, but even that was enough to send the slight man staggering backwards onto the ground. He lay there, staring up in horror. The giant took one more step and loomed over him like a shadow of the earth itself.

Then Elatla was there, and she nudged at the stone man's arm. It spun to face her, and she began to walk away, to the cistern. Atyr and giant both watched as the stepped into the clear water, and shifted. It was the same queer, uncanny transformation. She was a horse, and then she was a green woman. In between, something had taken place, but it was impossible to say what.

She pulled her naked body half up on the rocks and reached out with her arms. Not to Atyr, to the smith. Atyr's eyes swung from one to the other, fear still pounding through him, but joined now by a bizarre fascination with whatever was about to take place. The giant showed no reaction.

Elatla was not dissuaded. She lifted her arms over her head so that her breasts were lifted with them, then let her hands trail back down, slithering over face, throat, and shell-green stomach. She licked her lips and beckoned once more with two fingers to the motionless man of stone. Nothing.

She slipped the fingers into her mouth and began to suck them. In, out, in. She moaned and stared at her prey, and now she drew forth a response. Atyr's eyes widened as the huge cock began to swell and lift itself into the air. Surely, surely she could do nothing with that?

Elatla's enticement continued, and the stone smith took a step towards her. Then another. One more, and it stood at the edge of the pool, its head turned down, erection swinging side to side like a bludgeon. She caressed the stone pillar that was its leg, and it slipped down into the water with her, a hiss of steam emanating at its entry. They stood facing each other, the massive man of grey stone, and the slender, green kelpie, tiny before him. His cock rested on her breasts.

She put them to work at once as she had with Atyr, but she could wrap herself only halfway around the girth of him. The man began to move, the force of each thrust bouncing her backwards in the water. The length of him extended between her breasts and up past her face.

Elatla looked to Atyr now, and demanded his attention with her eyes. She nodded her head to the blade in the rock, then looked back up at the giant smith, thrusting against her chest. Clear pre-cum was beginning to flow steadily from the tip of the massive shaft, steaming in the air.

Atyr nodded and dragged his eyes from the scene, making his way to the blade where it yet smoked, thrust into the rock. The air burned against his face, pulling the skin tight. With a glance over his shoulder at the fae sex behind him, he stretched out a cautious hand. Heat. Blistering heat. He jerked away. Quickly, he pulled free his vest, and wrapped it around the hilt. Almost at once, the cloth began to smoke from within, but he grasped the bundle with both hands and pulled. The blade didn't move. The heat of the forge was already threatening to overwhelm him and drive him back.

He moved apart a pace, taking the vest with him. Another look at the odd coupling in the water. Elatla had pulled away now, and was spreading her legs for the stone smith. Atyr gaped, his dagger forgotten. There was no luckless way in all the fates she could possibly...

The smith lifted her in his two great hands, and she wrapped her thighs around the immense cock. It began slamming against her, slick with the steaming liquid that dripped from the tip. She caught Atyr watching and gestured furiously at the blade.

He spun back, guilty, and set himself to work once more. He re-wrapped the vest but it began to smolder immediately, fibers glowing into tiny sparks. He pulled it free. He turned back towards the cistern. The grey back was to him. He crept forwards.

At the water's edge, he found Elatla's eyes glaring at him with green fire, furious as her thighs were fucked by the giant, her head and beasts bouncing wildly as it slammed against her. He forced what he hoped was an encouraging grin. The stoney hips were thrusting not an armslength from him, and two heavy balls swung like boulders below them. Stealthy as he could, he dipped the vest into the cold water.

Swiftly he returned, and for a third time wrapped the hilt. Steam hissed, and he grasped it and pulled with his full strength. Nothing. He placed a foot on the hot stone of the forge and tried again, sweat streaming from his face. A bubble burst in the earth-fire and spattered his shin with burning pain, and the leg of his pants disintegrated into fluttering ash, but he felt the dagger shift. Again he heaved, and it slid a fraction out. The vest was catching now, the flames flickering around his hands and searing his skin, but he was overcome with a fell determination, a drive to have the blade for himself or to perish here in the heat of the forge. Once more he threw his body against the hilt, and it let loose.

He tumbled to the ground and his head bounced hard off the stones. But a surging burst of Experience drove him back to his feet, and with it came the powerful sense of victory and success that had come with his previous levels. But he had no time for his mark now, the soot-smeared dagger was in hand still, last remnants of the vest burning between his fingers. He rushed to the cistern once more and plunged in the blade to cool it. Steam rose and hissed, but the great smith was too lost in the kelpie's thighs to take note.

It was close to over. Atyr looked to Elatla, and found her lost now in pleasure as well, curling and arching her back in the stone grasp, as the huge shaft slid across her pussy.

Then the massive back shuddered, the hips thrust once more, and the cock extended far from between her squeezing legs. Elatla curled herself forward and pressed her lips as wide around the tip as she could, and the seed filled her.

It came more and faster than she could swallow, overflowing her mouth. She gagged on the gushes of hot cum, and Atyr's eyes grew wide as he saw the white cream flow back out around the head and come snorting even from her nose. But still the slender neck worked and swallowed, and still more milky fluid filled that mouth and washed down that throat and escaped and drenched her face and neck and breasts.

At last the smith laid her semen-glazed form back in the water and stood upright. It noticed Atyr then, dagger in hand. He flinched away, but the great creature seemed satisfied now, or at least sated and un-angry.

Then it held out its hand yet again, palm up. With the other hand it pointed at the bronze token, still lying on the ground. With nothing but trepidation, Atyr picked up the blank little coin, and reached out to set it yet again into the waiting palm.

"A gifffft, it musssst be a gift!" Elatla's voice came in a gurgling hiss from behind the smith. Atyr paused, still holding out the little bit of metal.

He placed it down cautiously and, still looking at the cum-covered face of Elatla said, "A gift, then. In thanks for the blade?" He glanced down, and saw a curved dagger now etched on the smooth metal.

Huge fingers closed around it, and the smith emerged from the cistern. Water poured from its body, and a few last strings of white dribbled from the swinging cock.

It turned then, and dropped the coin amongst the others beside the earth-fire cleft. It extended a finger and tapped the fire-blackened blade in Atyr's hand. A voice grated from its mouth like a tremor from the earth.

"CACOBURN."

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CHAPTER FIVE

Hollowtree

The shift in mood had been remarkable. Only a short while before, a giant smith made of the bones of the bedrock itself had reforged a dagger in the fires of the earth, and then drained its massive balls down Elatla the woman's gasping throat as Atyr had wrenched free the flame-hot blade from amidst the molten sprays that spewed, burning, from the rock behind it.

Now, he rode on Elatla the mare once more, snacking. The breeze was a fresh and sunny tickle on the bare skin of his leg through tattered pants, and they were trotting up and down the flower-lined path chasing dandelion seeds.

Up and down, back and forth, over and again on the same stretch of path. The sun had moved markedly through the sky, but the pair hadn't made it more than a hundred steps in either direction without having to double back. The seeds on the wind would drift up the path in meandering swirls, then whirl around in a happy little twister and head back the way they had come. And repeat.

It should have been infuriating, but after the field, the maze, the fruit, the forge, and though all of it no sleep since he'd re-entered the wood, and now with the bubbling confidence and excitement of a yet-uncompleted Level roiling within him, he was getting a bit dribbly. 'Dribbly' was the only way he could think to describe it. Anything that entered his mind just dribbled back out as words. He just couldn't stop talking at his horse.

"Do you suppose the dagger is different now? I think it might be. It's all sooty, but it won't come clean. Look!" He shoved the dagger in front of Elatla's face. "Oop, sorry. Almost nicked you there! Anyway, it's like it's permanently blackened now. And what do you think "Cacoburn" meant? What the smith said, that is? I like to think it's what he named the knife. It's what I've decided to call it, at any rate. Oh, and it's hard to tell with the sun and all but I think it might still be warm. Well, it is warm, to be sure, but even warmer than you'd expect on a sunny day like this, I mean. It could be magic! Do you think it's magic?"

He waited half a moment for a response, but he hadn't expected one, so he carried on. "I like to think so. Though what sort of magic I couldn't say. Perhaps the enchanter will know!" He chewed a bit of dried meat. "At least, I hope it's magic. Otherwise I just have the same old dagger as before, but dirty and smudged now, plus I paid a fae coin for it. Or, well, I suppose I didn't pay it, did I? You'll have to explain that when you're you again. Not a horse, that is. How is giving a coin for the knife different from paying? You fae don't ever make much sense, do you?"

Elatla let out a slow horse-groan and continued clomping down the path.

"Take this path now. Of course, we know that it takes you all over pretty much anywhere based on how you travel on it, when really it should be where you travel, but more than that, now we're chasing the wind on the path, up and down, and really not getting anywhere! But we can't stop, can we, because then we're not following it anymore, right. Oh, look!" He pointed.

"That tree there, see it? It looks like grumpy old Gant. Well, you wouldn't know him, but he's the innkeep in town, and every time we pass this tree, I think that big burl there looks more and more like his mopey face.

"And we must have passed by it two dozen times! I would have thought, even if the wind led us up and down the Path, we would still be moving along it in some fae way, but we're not, are we? It's just the same few paces, back and forth." He stuffed the last big mouthful of the dried meat in his mouth, gnawing away and mumbling around it.

"You know, that's a funny thing about this wood. I've been in a handful of times before, and it was always odd and fae, but in a dark and gloomy way, you know?" He hauled his pack up on his lap and started rooting through it.

"Hang on, I'll finish that thought in a moment, I want another biscuit. They must have slipped down to the bottom. Right, but anyway, it was always gloomy before, like when you and I first entered it the other day, but-- why have you stopped? And where are those luckless biscuits?

"Anyway, what I mean to say is, now that we've been here more, it's actually a pretty cheery place, isn't it? Weird as fate, but cheery. I mean, the field was exhausting, all that dancing, but in the end it was just dancing, after all. And the maze. Well, the maze was pretty awful in places but only after I refused all the nice stuff. And honestly the last thing I saw was pretty tempting too. I wonder if I could have... uhh...

"Anyway, and then the forge man was scary, but in the end he made me a magic knife! Maybe. And now we're chasing dandelions like little kids! Honestly though, Elatla, start walking again will you? I worry we'll lose the wind if you stay here any longer! Wouldn't want to miss our chance to find Hollowtree after all this!

"I wonder what it is, anyway? I have to say, 'Hollowtree' does sound a little on the ominous side. I think it's just the word 'hollow,' it reminds me of a grave or something. But, with our luck, hopefully it will be a pleasant place, just a nice, hollow tree. I could use a place to sleep and recover a bit. Oh here are those luckless biscuits! Oh, and I gained a level at the forge, I never told you! Just haven't had a moment free to complete it yet. Perhaps once we find Hollowtree I can--"

A laughing voice broke in from ahead. "But you have found it!" Atyr startled so fiercely that he nearly dropped his pack. Standing in the path before them was a tall man with sunny eyes, dressed only in a broad, green belt with many pockets and pouches, from which hung a rough sort of skirt made of a single fur. Behind him were three others, two women and a second man, all dressed similarly in fur skirts with bright belts in yellow, red, and purple. The women, like the men, were topless, and in all of their hair were tied colorful ribbons and beads and flowers.

"And it is a pleasant place!" Called the woman from the back. "And a perfect place to sleep and recover, if that's what you're needing."

Atyr had recovered himself. "This is Hollowtree? We've been looking all afternoon, it seems like."

The first man spoke again. "This isn't, no." He turned and pointed through the trees to the side of the Path. "But that is! Come, follow us and spend an evening of song and merriment!"

The four figures all beamed at him, and turned as one to head back up the trail. Elatla snorted and looked back at him. He wasn't sure what input she needed. If this was Hollowtree, that was what they had sought. He settled his pack once more, and gestured grandly at the figures before them. She followed.

Set back from the path down a little side trail, Hollowtree turned out to be not one hollow tree, but a ring of nine. And they were trees as Atyr had never seen nor heard tell of. It would have taken at least a half dozen men linking hands to reach fully around the smallest of them. Ropes and ribbons and strings of lanterns and hammocks and long bright streamers hung in a jeweled veil around each towering trunk, stretching from the ground to the canopy, which was nearly twice the height of any tree he had ever seen.

Round little doors and windows speckled the trunks over their full reach, and Atyr realized with amazement that he was entering a village of sorts, with the homes inside the trees themselves. He gazed around with wonder and with joy, and tried to think of a remark suitable to express it.

"Welcome to Hollowtree! Or, as we here call it, Home," the man with the green belt said, spreading his arms wide and turning slowly about once. Atyr noticed then that the man had pointed ears. Pointed Ears! This was an elf town! The man was still speaking. "Much of the Wood may be a dark, even a dangerous place, but in this little part of it, it is as you have hoped, pleasant. If you're anything like the rest of us, you'll soon wish you never had to leave. Come, let me show you!"

He led Atyr around the circle from tree to tree, and showed him the round little rooms at the base of each, with round little doors so low they had to be entered in a crouch, and round little windows peering out. He was introduced to everyone they encountered, every face smiling, every meeting as warm as if he were an old friend, returning from a long journey. The elves, it soon began to seem, were fully deserving of every bit of praise they received in tales of the fae.

Once the circuit of all nine trees was complete, and Atyr had smiled and laughed and exchanged pleasant nothings with a dozen people or more, his guide took note of the subdued exhaustion on his face.

"Come, but you must be worn. We can show you the heights of the trees at another time. Let me find you a place you can rest." He brought Atyr to a knotted rope hanging from a small round hole just a short ways up one of the trees. A younger man of around Atyr's age ran up to lead Elatla away. Atyr stopped him.

"She's a kelpie, not a horse. You need not lead her, and it might not be safe."

The young man laughed brightly. "Ah, kelpie she is, no doubt there. But it's no secret from us. I'll show her to water, have no fear!" Atyr opened his mouth to warn about the dangers of water, but the man only shook his head with a smile. "Have no fear. I have none for myself from a kelpie such as this." Elatla nudged the man with her nose, and he laughed once more, swung himself onto her back, and they rode around the great tree and were gone.

Atyr's guide led him up the rope and into a small, round room, with a few furs piled invitingly about the floor, and some simple wooden furniture; two chairs, and a small table cluttered with tools and parchment and scraps of wood and a tumble of other oddments. Around the walls little shelves were set, all likewise jumbled with bright bits of this and that, birds' eggs, dried flowers, little carvings, and pretty stones. "Here, you may rest, and peaceful may you be." Atyr thanked him, and began to say goodbye, when he realized he hadn't yet caught the man's name. He was about to ask for it, but the man had already slid back down the rope.

The piled furs looked soft and, collapsing onto them, he found that they were, more so than he could have hoped. What animal they came from, he couldn't say, some fae beast, renowned for its downy pelt, no doubt. He wanted nothing more than to sleep. But first, finally, the Level.

He sank into the fae mark. It was getting easier, each time he did. Almost, he sensed, there was more there, deeper understandings to be had, if he could find where to look, and how. He accepted the Level, and the experience emptied, bringing with it the rushing wind that wiped away the burns and bruises, and Elatla's bite. It was Rogue again, putting him at Ranger 1, and Rogue 2. Was it normal for a subclass to grow faster than the primary? Too early to tell if it would continue that way.

He searched out his Attributes, and found he had the choice of Vitality 11, Courage 10, and oddly, Fate 7. Fate? Not even Helliot had known what it meant. And what had he done to earn it? It was the lowest of all his Attributes, but did he even want it higher? What would it mean to be more fateful? He'd leave that alone. Courage still tempted him of course. It was a middling score, and he loved the idea of the easy route to hero-dom. But in honesty, he wasn't sure he needed to be braver than he was. He might feel fear at times, but he seldom bowed to it, and what was bravery, if not that? Vitality was clearly the practical choice.

He pushed the little glowing bit of possibility over to Vitality, but then he stopped, and focused again on Fate. Was it ever so slightly brighter than the other two? It was, wasn't it? He nudged the mote that way instead, in the spirit of inquiry, and to his surprise, it split into two, both hovering there, asking him to accept. Why should that be? Indecision took him, as he struggled between practicality, vanity, and curiosity, but in the end, it was Fate.

So he chose it, and it leapt up to 9. What did it mean? Fates can say.

Lastly, he sought out the ability.

"Eyes of the Voyeur" - Unseen watchers' eyes can be felt.

Short, simple, and obviously incredibly useful. Between this and Whisperskin, he was turning out to be one sneaky woodsman. A little thrill ran up his spine as he realized just how impactful it would be to know, really to know, if he was being watched. Stealth was a tricky thing. When successful, it put the hidden party at a huge advantage, no matter the context. But when unsuccessful, the advantage was immediately lost, often to huge consequence.

That little thrill on his spine moved across his shoulders, tickling oddly, then ran down his arm to his fae-mark, and then back up to his head. It was almost, not quite, but almost like something caressing his hair. Odd. It felt, he realized with a creeping certainty, exactly how he would expect truly feeling watchful eyes would feel. He stopped breathing for a moment, and slowly began to turn his head, trying to glimpse behind him with the corner of his eye. But the feeling was gone. He spun to look at the little round door and no one was there.

Well, he figured, it wasn't that strange that someone might have peered in briefly on the newcomer. Thinking about it, 'unseen eyes' likely spent a good deal of time trailing all over everyone, most of whom would never find out. He knew his eyes had certainly been known to rove across many an unknowing person, for a wide variety of reasons, from the idle to the practical to the profoundly indecent. He would probably feel quite a bit of that queer tickling, and sooner, rather than later.

And so he did. It proved to be a rather distracting ability. He had curled up on the furs and fallen quickly asleep, two days of fae adventures in the wood finally laying him low, but the sleep was soon interrupted. A subtle sensation as of a single finger trailing softly over the clothing on his skin ran from his face, down his body, along the bare skin of his leg through the burnt fabric, and back up. His mind stirred and he began to wake. His eyes fluttered open just as he felt the tracing gaze settle on the space between his legs.

A young woman's face was framed in the round opening to the tree room, dark against the setting sun outside. She started slightly as his eyes popped open, then gave him an apologetic grin, and vanished in a instant, down the rope. Atyr lay for a moment, considering in a sleep-addled way what had just occurred, and then let warmth and comfort drag him back down into dreams.

***

He woke again in darkness to a voice calling from the round little door. Sitting up groggily, he met the young man who had led Elatla away to some watery place or other. The elf looked worn and bedraggled, and his hair was a wet mess of beads, tangled ribbons, and crushed flowers. But he was smiling still, wider even than he had that afternoon.

"Sleep if you will, but the village is roused and ready to welcome you to Home. Will you come down with me?'

From outside, the full moon sent its blue light into the round little room, and with it came a clamourous bustling, as of many people all rushing about in a great hurry. Ragged scraps of music came too, little melodies tossed out and forgotten, instruments being tuned, several voices rehearsing a short piece of harmony over and again. And smells, such smells; frying, sizzling, crisping, baking, eating smells. Feasting smells.

His first reaction had been one of dismay; he could in no way refuse the hospitality of the village, yet sleep was his only true desire. But the warm wash of festive sound and aroma was an invigorating balm, and he was soon up and out and down the rope after the youthful elf.

They walked together out into the center of the ring of the great trunks, with many a smile and laugh and heartful greeting thrown to them as they went. At first, Atyr could see nothing but the bare breasts of the women all around him. Every shape and sort were there, more breasts than the poor boy from the Brookwood had seen in all his short life. He tried not to look, but there were breasts everywhere, bouncing, swinging, sitting brightly, firm ones, flat ones... it took a little while for him to adjust, but by the time the festivities were fully underway, the topless women were no more remarkable than were the men.

His companion was a talkative sort, and spoke long and merrily of life in the little tree village. Home, as they named it simply. He was a craftsman's son, and he lived with his father in that tree just over there, about halfway up. They had two rooms to themselves, and a broad branch from which they hung their hammocks, and there was plenty of space, if Atyr wanted to stay with them a while. And he must stay at least a little while, Home was such a wonderful place, and would he like to see where they would have the fire tonight? And...

On he chattered, and Atyr learned a great deal about Hollowtree. He knew he should move on swiftly, but he would need a day to sleep, at the least, if he was to be up for much of a second night, as now seemed likely. And perhaps the elves would have some advice for his journey, or assistance to offer. And, most honestly, the child in him was not so far in the past that he wasn't delighted to be in an actual village of elves. He would stay, he decided. At least a day or two. He could make it worthwhile.

It was a long night, and a wild one, with a great bonfire in the center of the village, and a tall pole with a fluttering rainbow of colored streamers wrapped around it which seemed the centerpiece of some rollicking, dancing game, but when the dawn broke over the great trunks of Holowtree, and the elves began to pack up their festival goods and return to the trees, Atyr felt that it had been far to short, in the end.

There were over two hundred elves living in the trees, he had learned, and he thought he must have spoken with every one of them over the night. Each had had stories to tell him, or songs to sing, or poems to recite, or a dance to share. Atyr felt he had little to return; his songs were few and crass by comparison to the elf music, his dancing spare and unpracticed. His stories in particular, though he had more of those, felt out of place, almost as if tales from the outside world had no home at Home. The elves seemed almost not to fully hear them, as a distracted parent might only half-listen to the babbling accounts of a small child. But they were delighted to share with him, and he soon felt no need to return anything to them but his smiles and laughter. His were every bit as good as those of the elves.

The bare breasts all around, Atyr may have become accustomed to, but other things, he did not. Under their short fur skirts, they wore nothing, and no care did they take either for how they sat or leaped or danced. He got many an unexpected eyeful as the night's revelry carried on about him. Full nudity too, seemed not to bother the elves, and from time to time, some person or other would stride through the crowd without a scrap on them, talking and laughing and dancing with the others, and no one would act as though it were odd in the slightest.

Even sex seemed not to require complete solitude, though here at least the elves seemed to like a bit of space. But off on the edges of the firelight, or in the shadows of the trees, Atyr would see at a distance couples pairing together in ecstasy. And sometimes more than couples. The elves didn't comment, and so he pretended to take no notice himself.

All through that fire-lit night, in that joyous, living crowd, he had almost constantly felt the trace of some set of eyes or other. It wasn't long before that tickling across his skin became just another bit of fae-ness. By the time the sky was lightening, it was only when some unseen gaze lingered on one of the more surprising, private portions of his body that he noticed it at all.

***

The sun was past its height when he finally roused himself and found he was swinging in a woven hammock of bright blue cords. It was the instant after that, that he found that the hammock was hanging from a great limb halfway up one of the enormous trees, and that there was nothing between him and the ground but a long, empty fall. There had been no wine in the elf festival of the night, but the dancing and singing and telling of stories had had an effect every bit as potent. He had no memory of having climbed into this death-tempting net.

And yet, as he stared down at the few figures moving far below, and swung free in the air, high as the top of any two-century pine in the Brookwood, it was the most natural, comforting thing. Curling up inside on a pile of fur as he had yesterday seemed a cramped, stifling way to sleep, as he considered it now.

He met the young elf's father that day, and found he was a true craftsman indeed. The older elf had much to teach him, and set about doing so immediately on discovering Atyr's own love for woodshaping. With tiny tools and steady fingers the man could create delicate shapes and intricate patterns like none Atyr had encountered in the mortal world. Long through the time of the setting sun they worked together in a lovely, cluttered little room in the great tree.

In the evening, the craftsman's son came again and stole Atyr away down to the ground. They met a handful of the younger Hollowtree elves. They laughed and sang and talked and danced, nearly as much as the night before, though with less vigor and wildness. Often throughout, he felt eyes on him, just a glance here and there from some quarter unseen. All were delighted to have Atyr with them, and lavished him with smiles and encouragement to stay as long as he could with them.

One young elf woman in particular soon became fixed to Atyr's side as the small group wandered the village and surrounding wood. She laughed loudest with him, and looked longest on him, and danced with him whenever the moment permitted.

The young elves made many a jest about Atyr's attire, bulky and concealing, as they saw it, and burnt and seared by the forge, with one leg all in tatters no less. By the time the evening was coming to a close and the newly gibbous moon was high in the sky, and true night was spreading its starry blanket over the wood, they had found him a bright blue belt and two fur skirts of his own. The belt was adorned with many pockets, loops, and laces, all ready to be filled with whatever possessions he might wish to carry on his person. He thanked them, and insisted it was time he sleep, that he hoped to rise early in the morning, for a long journey lay yet ahead, but they wouldn't hear of it. No, he couldn't possibly leave without trying on true elf garb! He would feel so much more at Home in it, they laughed. He promised to try on the garments when he returned to the woodcrafter's rooms in the tree for the night, but they protested, laughing, that he must try them now. Then the elf girl that liked him best said slyly that she would love nothing more than to see him dressed as they were, in the light of the moon, and he could not refuse her.

So he stripped bare in the center of the village, and found nothing strange about it as his friends watched him shed his travel-stained clothes and dress in elf fashion. One of the young men seized the discarded clothing and tossed it with a laugh on the lingering embers of the bonfire, where the fabric soon kindled and was forgotten.

He didn't leave the following day. The morning and early afternoon he spent with the older craftsman once more, learning those secrets of carving and joining he had never seen in mortal works. A disorganized tumble of tools was available, but the man rarely reached for him, achieving the finest of detail with only a little ash-handled whittling knife he carried on his person. It was a delight to spend time with him. He was a quiet figure, careful and kind. Atyr could tell the kindness ran deep through his core, as it did in all the elves he had met.

He begged pen and ink from the man, and added to the map what he had discovered: the burnt stone clearing, the blowing leaves, the orchard, and what he had learned of the field and maze and forge. Any detail he could remember, he recorded there, for whatever future use it might be put. Once, as he wrote, eyes prickled at his shoulders, but when he looked, he was alone.

In the late afternoon, the woodcrafter's son came as before and begged Atyr's company. He went willingly, joyfully, and the two soon found the friendly group of young elves from the day before. Again they wandered and enjoyed the sun, song, and laughter. The girl who liked him best had brought him bright ribbons and beads, and together the whole group wove them into his hair. His hair was far shorter than theirs, but they only laughed and told him he would just have to spend enough time at Home for it to grow to a good elvish length.

Then they took him to the edge of the village and picked flowers and wove those too amongst the decorations on his head, and they said he looked as much an elf as any in the village, and they all laughed again, and then they danced along the edges of the trees to a frolicking melody they improvised, with nonsensical words about flowers and streams and other such lovely things.

He didn't leave the next day, or the day after that, or for several days more after those, but instead spent each morning and early afternoon high in the tree, learning the craft of woodworking to a depth and complexity he had not known possible, and then took to the ground to spend the time of the setting sun and early dark in joy and laughter with his friends.

Soon he lost what modesty he had ever had, and lived and learned and danced in the simple bright belt and fur skirt of the elves without a care, and he became used even to the sex that he would see in the grasses outside the village proper, or in rooms in the trees as he climbed past the round little holes of doors and windows, or even in the hammocks that swung lustily through the sky.

As he had been told it would be on his first day at Hollowtree, it was pleasant.

And always and again, he felt eyes on him. In that close place, with no doors to shut, how could he not? Sometimes when he looked, he found a smiling face, and a story would be told to him, or a dance requested, or food offered. But often a gaze would trace across the bare skin of his body, and he would turn to find no one around. Then, he assumed, some elf from high above, or through a window in a tree, had looked his way. He was aware it would have bothered him once, to be never alone, never in private, but here it felt right, somehow. Someone was always watching.

Every night, when the stars were brightest, he would return with the woodcrafter's son to their rooms halfway up their tree, and greet the older elf, and they would talk and recite, and then climb into their hammocks high above the earth and let the wind rock them to sleep.

But the best parts of every day were those with the elf girl who liked him best. As time passed at Hollowtree, they spent more and more of it together, often with the group, but increasingly they would split away and find a quiet place to talk, to sing the little songs they created, to sit in silence, fingers intertwined, and watch the sky, or the small birds that flitted about like bright bits of happiness among the flowers on the ground, or listen to the soft voice of the breeze and the joyful sounds of the village that drifted on it.

After a while, he would sometimes not return to his tree at all, and neither would she. The two of them would lie the whole night long in the grass, and fall asleep watching the stars, or they would nestle themselves in the roots of the smaller trees of the wood around the village, and watch the cozy happenings of the late night until the sky lightened. On those nights, he would come back to the woodcrafter and his son in the morning, and sleep a while, until the day was bright, and then climb from his hammock and it would repeat again.

It was one such night, when the young couple was perched among the canopy at the top of the tallest of the nine trees, watching the moon sink and the stars brighten when she told him of the festival soon to occur. The full moon was coming she reminded him. That was odd, he said, it seemed they had only just had a full moon, on the night he arrived, wasn't that so? But she only laughed, and told him she didn't remember when he had arrived, and that full moons were common enough.

But this full moon, there was to be a festival, and a fire, and a pairing of young elves to each other in the wood. She was excited, and told him so. Every full moon, there was a festival, of course, surely he knew that? But this time, she hoped she could pair with him, to be bonded together in love. Atyr said he wasn't sure he understood, and that he would have to leave soon, he had something to do, but she only laughed at that, and squeezed his fingers warmly in her palm.

Her eyes were sparkling with the swelling moon, and he found he wanted to kiss her. Hadn't he already? Yes, he had, on a starlit night with no moon, they had kissed. But no, she said, they hadn't, and not until the full moon would they. A dream it was, perhaps... But something was missing, something about her, it was almost there, dancing like a falling star across his mind, bright, but then gone before he could look fully at it.

Then he knew. Her name! He'd never yet heard her name! But she laughed again, because of course he had. Hadn't he spoken it a thousand times to her?

And she was right of course, as she always was. What a silly young man, to forget his true love's name! And he whispered it to her in the silver light at the top of the tree that rose above the world. She was Kella, and she was and would forevermore be his beautiful poet.

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CHAPTER SIX

Home

Time passed in the village, sunny, clear, and warm as it ever was. The rhythm of each day was a soft comfort. The variations between them brought gentle anticipation to each moment.

But even in the pleasantness of Home, life was not without its little struggles. This morning, Atyr was halfway up his tree, in the round little room, struggling with a snarled elm burl. He had been given the chunk of wood and shown how to decipher each whorl and twist of its pattern, and to find the forms hidden within, to be shaped and coaxed and pulled forth.

It had appeared easy as he had watched, but now, with tools in hand and the wood before him, it was a mystery. He looked at the wooden swallow amongst the clutter of the table. He had watched closely as it had been carved; its wafer-thin feathers and tiny eye had seemed not so much to have been sculpted, but to have been discovered as the layers of wood were cut away. But his own burl... if there was anything hidden there, he hadn't found it.

Thrice he thought he had formed a clever plan, following the swirls and waves of the wood with his eye, and imagining how each must continue through the piece, but thrice, as he had begun to shave away the obscuring material, he had run only into failure. The grain cut in a way he had not predicted, or if he had guessed it right, it looked nothing like what he had hoped.

The burl was now half the size it had been when he started, and aside from a large pile of cuttings, a little slice on one finger, and a lumpy something that might have been an elk, he had nothing to show for it.

His father came back into the round little room then to see what progress he had made.

"Atyr, you're forcing something on the wood that isn't there. Look, see here?" He tapped a rough finger at a switchback pattern. "You've laid your cuts so you'll have to sever this half from the other. The idea is good, but you have to respect the shape you're given." He held out a hand for the hunk of wood, and Atyr dropped it on his palm.

"Here, see?" His father was adjusting the planned shape, his ash-handled whittling knife scratching new lines so the head of the elk would be twisted, looking behind, thus following the pattern of the burl. "Cut it like this, and it'll flow as it should."

He patted Atyr on the shoulder. "It's not an easy task, this. Any crafter can cut a pleasing shape from a block of wood, but wood isn't clay. You shape it just the way you want, and it'll warp, twist, go off true, even check and split. Cut the shape the wood wants to be, and you've learned true woodcrafting. You know all this already, with a flat. This is just more of the same."

He handed back the piece, and Atyr sighed, but accepted it.

"I'm trying. But if the elk doesn't work out, it'll have to be a small little creature indeed, to be hidden in what's left."

His father only smiled, and scooped up the pile of shavings, throwing it out the round little door to be taken by the drifting breeze and scattered far.

"I've found, when all comes to naught, there's always a little snail to be cut from the last bit of a good burl. You'll find that if nothing else."

The elk didn't work out in the end, but Atyr did find the snail. A tiny, simple spiral of wood that, with only a few clever cuts and some polishing, looked as lively as ever a snail had looked. Which, to be fair, wasn't very.

But, as he often had during his father's woodcrafting instruction, he felt a satisfying bit of Experience. It wasn't much, but again, neither was the snail.

As he did every day sometime after the sun began its decent, he left the round little room and climbed down the long ropes to the ground, to spend the time of the fading light with his friends. And, of course, with Kella.

Today, they were all a chatter with excitement for the festival of the full moon the following night. Atyr was less certain of the details of it all than everyone else seemed to be; he knew there was a bonfire, and a tall pole of colorful streamers, but his memories of past festivals were vague. He supposed he had never participated before, but neither, he thought, had his friends, and they were all very clear about what was to come.

Much though he loved his Home, he often had a strange feeling that the other elves somehow knew more about it than he did, that they were all pulling from some deep source of knowledge, while he was skimming half-remembered hearsay off the surface. It didn't bother him, so much as it disoriented him, like the feeling of forgetting the name of a family member, or one's own birthday.

What he did know, was that all the un-joined elves would be paired together in the game, and that he and Kella were to be so joined. If the two of them spent the night talking together, as they so often did, he would ask her for a better explanation, without the boisterous laughter of their friends to distract.

But Kella, unfortunately, was pulled away to help with the preparations. She sang a little tune to him as she left, of promises and love, and then she was swallowed up and borne away by the excited group of elves.

Others of his friends left early that afternoon as well, to finish little poems and songs they had made, or to help with the food, or to haul out the pole that would be the centerpiece of the game they would play.

As the group dwindled, Atyr found himself a bit lost. Every day, he had known what to do. Now the rhythm had changed, and all the other elves were dancing to it, but he couldn't find the meter.

Cei tapped his arm and drew him away into the cool shadow of their own tree. He had a smile to his lips, and his eyes were merry.

"It's Kella for you, isn't it? You've never said it, but your eyes tell it whenever your mouth is saying something else."

Atyr smiled back. "It is, and I'm for her." He paused, wondering if Cei knew more than he did about what to expect. But his brother spoke again before he could ask.

"Father knows of course. He's such a quiet man, I know not if he's told you, but he's very happy, very happy for you both. Will it be a life-bond? He asked me the other night, but I had no answer for him."

Atyr hesitated. "Cei, can I tell you something? It's an odd thing to say, but at times I feel like I can't remember much, like my memories are only sharp for a few weeks past. Everyone knows so much about this festival, but I can barely recall the last one..."

Cei laughed lightly. "Brother mine, have you never paid mind till now, when you're finally to be a part of the games?"

"It's not just the games, Cei, it's everything, I feel that--"

Cei cut him off. "Ah, but I'll humor you. Try not to forget it all this time, brother! You've too sharp a wit to be excused again." There was a merry shimmer to his eyes. "At every full moon, we raise the pole, as you know, with the many colored ribbons wrapping it round. Every elf who wishes a partner may play in the games. That will be you, tomorrow night?"

Atyr nodded, events clarifying in his memory. The streamer pole with its bright ribbons, the eager, young elves around it...

"You and the rest of us who wish to, will all surround the pole. We'll be blindfolded and sent dancing about it. When the moment feels right, we each rush inward and seize the first streamer we can find. Then, to the woods we'll run with our prize. Surely you remember that much, dear brother?"

There was a memory there, somewhere, drifting up to him. Yes, he did remember having seen that.

"In the wood, we must find an elf with a streamer in a color to match our own. When we do, we can choose to pair together, if we wish. This part you may not remember, having never played the game before."

Atyr felt some relief, that some of this was expected to be unknown to him. "And then, once paired, we are married? That easily?"

His brother blinked at him. "Married? And what is that?"

It was a question Atyr should have had an easy answer to, but he found now he did not. The syllables felt odd on his tongue as he mouthed them again. Married. He shook his head. "I'm not sure. I think it was a story I heard once..."

Cei laughed, and the confusion passed. "Well, that's all there is to it!"

Atyr laughed as well. It was so simple! How he had forgotten the rules of the game, he couldn't imagine.

"Oh, Cei, wait a moment, how is it Kella and I can be paired, if we know not what colors we will pick?"

"Ah, brother, you should know that already! If you catch an elf with a different color, you must trade them for it, and so, through a long night, find the color that matches. Though for some of us, we'll take the colors as they come, and see what the night may bring us!"

Of course. So simple. Catch another in the wood, and claim either their ribbon or their heart. But one thing still escaped his memory. "Is it for life, the pairing?"

"It is a life-bond, or for a moon. That," Cei said, "is a choice between you and your Kella."

It would be a life-bond. In all of this, that was the one thing he knew. Kella and he would be paired for life.

***

The next day was the day of the full moon festival, and Home was upside down in its eagerness. Even Atyr's quiet father decided to forgo woodcrafting and any lessons in it that morning, instead leaving the tree early to mingle and carouse and help with setup.

Atyr's memories were stronger now, and realer. True details came to him with none of the fluffiness that had surrounded them yesterday. The sounds of preparation, music being practiced, decorations being strung, the fire being built, ready for lighting, and the delicious smells of the cooking, they were all real memories, crisp and solid. Now, he even remembered having seen many of his friends playing at the game, in festivals past.

The day passed in a blur of anticipation. He hoped to catch a moment with Kella, to talk to her and make clear their understandings to each other, but she was always a twirl and a dance away from him, helping to carry and cook and a dozen other things besides. The sun climbed, it hovered, it sank, and the full moon began to float up from behind the trees to supplant it, turning all of Home to soft silver for a single, silent moment.

Then the bonfire was lit as the last gleam of red light blinked into that silvered shadow, and it roared upwards, fed by bundled grasses piled high. A cheer rose between the great trees, as two hundred elves shouted as one, and the festival began.

Atyr remembered it well now, the singing and dancing and stories and poems, the food and the music and laughter. It was Home, and it was home, and it was everything life should be. He was among his friends and his village, and his family, and all was flavoured with a buzzing anticipation, a hot desire that undergirded each new moment.

When the moon reached its zenith, every un-joined elf who wished to, began to drift towards the streamer-wrapped pole. A circle formed. Two dozen young elves surrounding the tall trunk, staring up at the long strips of bright cloth, fluttering and wrapping about it in the night breeze. Atyr was one of them, and across from him he saw Kella. She smiled, and ducked out of the circle to run around and join him, clasping his hand in warm fingers. Her golden hair drifted in the air as did the ribbons on the pole, tickling against his shoulder. He leaned in slightly, to let his body brush against hers, and she pressed back, looking up with green eyes shining.

"For life?" she whispered to him, and he whispered it back without hesitation.

"For life."

Around the circle, a handful of older elves were coming. At each of the waiting youths, they stopped, taking the colorful belts from around the waist and tying them about the eyes of the elf, letting their furs fall to the ground.

As they reached Kella, she squeezed his palm and whispered once more to him. "Come find me!"

They pulled the belt from her, and her skirt fell away, and she was naked before him in the light of moon and fire, and they blindfolded her and then moved on to him, and he was bared to the night air and blinded as well.

Then the music began, and the young elves sprang into motion, a whirling, turning press of naked bodies, spinning, leaping, stumbling together in their joyful sightlessness around the pole.

It was chaos and madness and delight. Atyr was lost and he was home, and the music drove him on. Naked skin pressed against him, slid away, and crashed into him again, and he knew not to whom any of it belonged. It was like sex. He had forgotten sex for a while, somehow, but he remembered it now, and he loved it. His body was filled with a need, and he was hard and he danced with the others and knew they felt as he did.

The music swelled and grew about them and the press of hot skin grew less, as one by one elves spun away out of the medley and found their way to the pole. It was his time now, he could feel it, so he turned inwards, to where he knew the center must be, and danced alone, apart from his fellows. He spun and whirled and his arm struck hard wood. He grasped at it wildly, both hands snatching at the air, and a long strip of fabric wrapped around his wrist. He pulled, and it came away, and then hands were grabbing him, steering him from the circle, taking the belt from around his eyes, pushing him towards the dark woods. He ran. In joy, away from the music and dancing and fire and into the black trunks he ran and kept running until the sounds of the village had dimmed.

Among the trees of the wood he stopped. His heart ran on without him, and his breath came in gasps, but he forced himself still and let his skin melt into the shadows. He was only a whisper in the dark. Naked in the night, he was a wraith if he chose it. Let the other elves try to find him if they would. A little smile crept across his face.

He looked now to the long ribbon he held. In the dark between the trees, he could just make out its pale green hue. For the first time tonight, a doubt came over him. How would he know Kella's color, or she his? They would have to find each other before they could even start trying to hunt down a matching pair. It was the sort of thing that should have occurred to him before now...

Through the trees he moved as shadow in shadow on soundless feet. From time to time he watched another elf run naked past, or creep by him, heedless of his presence, and as each passed him the smallest wisps of Experience peeled from their bare skin and buried in his own. Many of the young men were erect as they moved through the trees, as Atyr found himself to be, now and again. He could only assume the women he saw were similarly aroused by the eroticism of the game, and its promised end.

One man moved through the trees, almost as quiet as Atyr, and snuck so close to him he could have touched a shoulder as they passed. The man's eyes wide and bright in the dark. He looked less like someone playing a game, and more like a desperate hunter. He moved on past Atyr without a glance or hesitation, and vanished off through the trees.

It was a long while before he found Kella. He had been searching deeper in the wood, but she had remained close to the perimeter of the village. No doubt she had been hoping he would do the same, so they could find one another. An easily frustrated part of Atyr that he'd almost forgotten surfaced then. Why had they not planned this together?

On unnaturally silent feet, he slipped as a thing of shadow up behind her. A thin slice of moonlight cut across her, a bright mark that caught the curve of her back where it met wide, bare hips. The distant glow of the village cast a red warmth over the front of her naked skin. He had seen her breasts every day he could remember, but in this light, on this night, they awakened some other old, forgotten part of him. Some fae thing inside him that was neither old nor forgotten possessed him then, and a hot flush of Experience filled him as he lifted his green ribbon and covered her eyes with it.

She startled, but didn't move to escape. He pressed himself against her back, feeling the soft heat of her, smelling the gold hair like sunshine in the dark. She melted. His stiffening cock slipped between her thighs and was squeezed by the hot pressure there. She arched her spine and ground herself along it.

"Atyr?"

"Kella."

He wanted to pair with her right there, to toss aside their ribbons on the forest floor and to be inside her, for them to claim one another for always. But she turned to him, and let her hands loop around his waist, and she breathed up onto his lips.

With a slow smile, she lifted her streamer and held it beside their faces. He looked at it and felt some shred of sobriety return. He lifted his own. Light green and a deep red.

She pressed a finger to his lips, and he wished it was a kiss instead. Then she turned with a grin over her shoulder, and repeated her words from before.

"Come find me!"

And she was off, running naked through the trees, and he was alone and aching for her.

But he knew her color now.

The first elf he found was a young man with a light streamer wrapped around his wrist that was either white or a pale yellow, and Atyr drifted past him like a ghost, unseen and unnoticed. A grey mote sped to him and he moved on through the night.

The next was a woman. She was crouched between three close-growing trunks, low and hidden. Her cloth was dark. Might it be red? He came up to her from the side, and tapped softly at her shoulder, letting his Whisperskin fall away as the Experience came to him. She squeaked and clasped a hand to her mouth, stifling the noise. A hesitant smile crossed her face as she recovered and looked him up and down. Her wide eyes were nervous, but alive. It was one of his close friends, though he realized he couldn't remember her name. That was strange wasn't it?

She spoke to him. "Aren't you for Kella?" He nodded, and held up his pale green fabric.

"Is yours dark red?" he asked. "I might need to claim it."

She smiled softly, and held up the cloth. Purple. "It's the ribbon or my heart, and you can't have my heart." She held it out to him, and with a nod and a smile of his own, he swapped it for his green and faded back into the shadows.

Moving away like a breath of twilight, he tried to remember her name. Nothing came to him. He went through all the women's names he could remember, but none felt familiar, until he stumbled across Moranna in his memory. That was a name he knew! But was it hers? He thought not. No, Moranna was family. His sister, wasn't it? Yes, his sister. But she wasn't at Home, she was... where? All his family was at home, Cei, his father and mother... but no, his mother wasn't either, was she? Perhaps she had gone away with Moranna somewhere...

The thoughts tickled at his memory, but even as they did they became hard to sort through, impossible to keep track of, a mushy slop of loose ideas in his head. Then the slop solidified itself, and he wondered at his foolishness. Moranna it was after all, his sister! Of course it was, and of course she lived here, where else would she live? All his family lived at Home.

With his mind in order once more, he began again to stalk the other elves. He couldn't keep the grin off his face as he melted from shadow to darkness back to silent shadow. Soon enough, he found more prey, another man this time. The elf before him had his streamer balled up tight between his fists, hidden as he hunted. Atyr gave the elf no chance at discovering him as he crept up from behind, then looped an arm around the neck with a triumphant laugh. The man jumped in surprise and struggled for an instant, but Atyr had him locked fast by the head, and spurred on now by the fleeting vigor of Experience, he held the man tight. Holding up his hands, the elf showed his ribbon. Purple, a match for Atyr's own.

He let the man go. Not one of his friends, but a friendly face he had seen often enough at Home. The man laughed. "I yield, I am caught!" His eyes looked at Atyr with a question in them.

Atyr had a question forming inside as well. Could he ask this man to wait here, and then fetch Kella to claim the man's purple ribbon? Was that permitted, or did it violate the spirit of the hunt? He was about to make the request, but the young man spoke again.

"A match of colour, I see. Will you trade like for like, or is your search complete?" There was a sly look in the elf's eyes.

Atyr was still thinking. "No, no I don't need to trade, our colours are the same, but--"

The elf was stepping close, chest to chest. He was a little taller than Atyr, his face tilted down. "If not my cloth, then you wish to claim my heart?"

A broad hand grazed against Atyr's stomach, and he realized suddenly the meaning of the elf's question. The man moved closer still, and their bodies grazed against one another. Atyr was startled to find the man's cock stiffening as it pressed against his hip, and even more shocked when he felt his own begin to fill in response. He stumbled back.

"I, I--" He couldn't think of the words. "No, sorry, I didn't understand. I don't... Yes. Yes, I would claim your ribbon. Like for like." He nodded, turning away from the other man, hoping his hardness was hidden in the dark.

The elf looked surprised, but only for a moment, then, with a little laugh, placed his ribbon on Atyr's shoulder, pulled its partner from Atyr's hand, and sped away into the trees without another word.

Atyr stood for a long moment, with the streamer on his shoulder, heart stumbling, wondering about many things he couldn't recall ever having wondered about before.

Then, as he stood, tall and exposed, skin bright in the moonlight, a prickling ran up his back and across his shoulders. He spun to look behind him, and found himself a mere arms length from Moranna once more.

She was grinning wildly, a dark red strip of cloth dangling from her hand. "Say not that your sister never cares for you, dear brother," she said. "I've caught your prey for you, it seems." She took the purple ribbon from his shoulder and laid the red in his hand. She winked at him in the silver light. "Go! Find her!" And she was gone, already darting away on a search of her own.

Atyr remembered this time to let Whisperskin pull him back into the shadows. Fate had helped him once in his carelessness, but he couldn't count on doting, older sisters to save him at every mistake. He had Kella's color now, unless she had lost hers in the time since they'd parted. Now to hunt.

A spirit of night once more, he faded from tree to tree. He came back to the edge of the village, where the light of the festival reached just inside the dark trunks of the wood, and began to round the wide clearing. A thrill was in him like nothing he could remember. He knew not what would happen when he and Kella met once more in the quiet of the forest, and they paired together, but he knew it would be a life-bond, and he knew that he needed it to happen. It was a drumming in him to match the drumming from the village. With every silent step his pulse thrummed so loudly he felt it might betray him.

On he slid through the lengthening night. Every shade of the wood seemed like a silhouette of her until it didn't. Every echo of music from the village was her voice, close at hand. Twice he saw another elf flying naked through the trees, and moved after them in elation, before realizing his mistake. Wherever Kella had gone, she hadn't made herself easy to find.

On the far side of Home, he found a little trail he couldn't recall having ever seen. He followed it a short ways, and found a strange sight. It ended in an intersection with a narrow, sandy path which wound through the trees, flowers of every color lining its shoulders. And, strangeness among strangenesses, it was lit by bright sunlight, even in the depths of this full moon night. He felt drawn to explore it, but he knew for a certainty Kella could not be here, so he left the sunlit path and the flowers behind him, and soon lost all memory of it in the dark of the wood.

He was further into the forest now than he ever had been. With his friends, he always stayed within sight of Home, but this night, his roving pursuit had lead him ever deeper. It had been a little while since he had seen any of the other elves, and the music of the moon festival was entirely gone now, but another sound brushed at his ears. Rushing water, tumbling, falling. He knew the sound to be a waterfall, though how he wasn't sure. There were no waterfalls at Home for him to have heard. He hesitated. Surely, he was moving too deep into the wood, too far to find Kella?

And yet, he drew closer, wanting to see, following the hiss and crash through the trees. Presently, the shadows broke and he stepped into the moonlight on the banks of a small brook. Before his feet, the water fell away down a series of three small falls, each flowing, misted with white, into the next, before splashing in a sparkling curtain into a deep pool at the bottom.

He was entranced. It was beautiful. He wanted to bathe naked in that falling water, and plunge into the pool, to feel the cool surface break against his skin. Almost in a dream, he began to climb down the side of the little falls, reaching out now and again to let the water play and tug at his hand. The mist in the air hung with the scent of fresh moss and old stone, and he filled his lungs with as much as they would hold.

At the bottom of the final little fall, he grasped the rocks of the ledge and leaned out, letting the cold water run down over his head and shoulders, then pulled back with a gasp, and laughed aloud into the night. He stretched his arms above his head. Ah, but he would love to show this to Kella, once he found her. They could come here as often as they wished, perhaps even sleep here by the pool at times. They would have such a long life together. There was so much time to spend here. Then he froze.

Eyes. Eyes were on him, running along his legs from the ankles upwards. He turned, scanning the trees around the pool for any of the other elves. He could see nothing but dark trunks and the wildflowers that caught the moonlight at their roots, but the eyes continued tickling at his skin, now at his thighs. There was no point in hiding, whoever it was had clearly found him. He held his arms wide, disarmingly, and turned about, showing his pursuer that he knew he was discovered. The eyes stopped moving now, the gentle whisper of them settling on his cock. He stopped as well. Was it Kella who had found him and stared at him so?

The stroking of the unseen eyes continued to toy with him him, and he stiffened at the sensation, and at the thought of Kella being so intrigued.

"Hello? I know you're there. Kella, is it you?"

Only the sound of the waterfalls answered, and still the gaze was locked on the swelling between his thighs. He began to speak again, when the voice came, hissing from low in the waters of the pool beneath him.

"I have misssssed you, woodsssman. It has been looooong."

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Elatla

In the rippling waters at his feet, just obscured by the shadow of a low, flat stone in the center of the pool, there was a woman submerged to the neck. She was greenish in the moonlight, and her features inhuman. Even in the dimness, her eyes were pools of emerald water under the sun.

Her lips parted in a wide, hungry smile as she watched Atyr's growing arousal. They were perfect lips, perfect for touching, perfect for... there were many fantasies now flooding his thoughts of things those lips might be perfect for. The scenes were bright and vivid, almost as if they were real memories of recent things. Heat ran within him, trickling down inside to pool between his hips. Without noticing it, he had taken a step towards the plunge basin beneath the falls.

"Have you returned for meeee nooooow? Must we gooooo?"

He struggled to make sense of her questions, the mist of lust clearing only slightly from his mind.

"Go? I must go. I'm on a hunt. But there's no 'we' that I know of."

The green woman narrowed her eyes at him, then drifted forward a pace, rising up from the surface. Her shoulders emerged, and her chest, water rushing down her skin in little rivulets that flashed blue under the moon. For the second time tonight, the image of bare breasts pressed on him. It was strange to find such an everyday sight so arresting. They were perfect, curved things, shining and wet. More fantasies that should have been memories blinded him; he was sliding between those breasts and into that mouth and emptying himself across a snakelike tongue. Why, in his imagination, her tongue should be long and sinuous, he could only wonder.

She paused there, swaying in the water, lifting her shoulders to better display that alluring cleavage, and the smile widened into a grin. Pointed teeth glinted, and a tongue in the shape he had envisioned slipped out and ran around the green lips. A clarity rushed up and over him for a moment, as when a sudden noise chases away the onset of sleep. He should not have known that.

The quiet dragged on, the two figures staring at each other under the falls. Atyr spoke again.

"Have you seen any elves pass this night? Any women? I search for a young elf with golden hair and green eyes."

She looked at him from the pool. "The elves come often, yesss, the men, mostly, but sometimes women as welllll. But not for daysss, woodsman, not for daysss."

Atyr considered that. In all his life, he had heard no mention from anyone at Home of waterfalls or strange green women. It was uncomfortable. It pricked at him like straw through a thin-worn mattress.

"From Home? Elves come here? Can you tell me from which direction; I've never been this far from the village."

"Hollowtree is just that wayyy, not farrr, not farrrr." A long, thin arm stretched to indicate a footpath worn between the trunks across the little glade. How was there a path here, yet he had never found it? The straw worked itself further from the mattress, catching at his skin, driving off the sleepy comfort a bed should bring.

"Hollowtree? Is that what you call it? It's a fitting name, I suppose." And familiar. Fitting and familiar. He peered at her. "You come to the village at times, then, that you can describe it?"

"Noooo, not since I leffffft. I like thisss pool." She stretched, posing for him in the water, and stepped closer once more, emerging, baring wet skin down to her hips. His gaze dropped, to where the glinting surface just obscured the meeting of her thighs, lapping up and down, almost revealing her sex to him. He shuffled forward once more, un-heeding. Hungry eyes watched.

"Will you feeeed me, woodsman? It has been long since I have had your taasssste."

"Feed you? And what taste is that?" But he knew what taste it was, though how the knowledge found him he could not say. The itchy stalks poked harder against him. He tried to wriggle away into comfort, but they followed. Elatla.

"Elatla?" he asked, and a smile met him. "That's your name, yes? How do I know it?"

Green shoulders lifted and fell. "Have you forgotten so sssswift, woodsman? You have been toooo long in Hollowtreeee." She raised a hand to beckon him forward, and he obeyed. "Come with meeee, come for me in the water, and then we will goooo."

The world was beginning to rush around Atyr, a spinning motion that swirled through the steam cloud of lust and drew him forwards. His feet were in the basin before he halted. Elatla, this green woman, stepped forward again, and the water fell away from her hips, flowing down her legs and dripping from the lips between them. More images gushed into Atyr's mind, a great man of stone, with a cock like his forearm, plunging between those green legs, and the hot seed filling her mouth and leaking out across her. And a blade, there was a blade, and a name, a name.... Cacoburn.

Atyr shivered and freed himself from the allure of her body. He pulled away. The world was widening and his memories were expanding, but his memories were fleeing and the world was crushing in on him. He sat on the low bank, and the kelpie, that was what she was, he knew now, she came to him, and her hands ran up his thighs, pulling a moan from his chest.

He caught at her wrists. "Wait! Wait. I am to be paired with another tonight, my Kella. We are for each other and for no one else."

Green eyes looked into his own. "Kella, yessss, you spoke much of her to meeee. But she is far, far, in Woodssstead, and you have let me already suck from you a time before--"

"Stop! Stop." With the name of the town a world of stories was filling him like a cup about to overflow, stories that were real and foreign, and a face, a young woman's face, not an elf, with dark hair and dark eyes floated there, and she threatened his golden Kella and drove her away from him. "Stop this deception! I'll not have my mind twisted by whatever craft you use!"

The kelpie drew just away, and sat in the shallow waters. Her legs were spread to either side of him, affording him a view of the soft folds between, and her fingers trailed down to part them, and to trace around her entrance there. But her face grew still, and the hunger of her expression faded. She wove him a story then, sitting before him with her body displayed.

In her tale, he was a young woodsman, building a cabin by a swirling pool in a place called the Brookwood. One day, a little sprite came to him, and she distracted him, and he cut himself with an axe, and slipped into the pool to clean the cut, and found a kelpie. This kelpie. Elatla. It was a story he knew, a story from his early childhood perhaps, but he hated to hear it, and he fought against remembering it, and he told her again to stop, but she continued to talk, and she held his attention captive with her spread legs and her fingers, tracing and sliding and slipping within.

The man went to the town of Woodstead. He went to Woodstead, and he met a girl named Kella there. He protested again. It was the fake girl, the other one, the dark one. But Elatla held him transfixed with the sight and the scent of her in the shallow waters under the falls, and her story continued. There was an old healer, and a devil, and a witch, and a journey into the Oldwood, and tinkers and dancing in fields, and a maze, and a forge with the stone smith he had imagined, and by the end of the story he was bathed in the affirmation of Experience and he remembered it all and twenty years besides, and it was real.

Atyr wanted to sit. He wanted to think. He wanted to slide inside Elatla and fill her. He wanted to cry. But that was all for later. Wants come after needs, and he needed to escape.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Running Away from Home

Atyr knew no elf could find him as he followed the short trail back to Hollowtree. Even as a simple boy from the Brookwood, he had learned to move swift and stealthy in woodlands, but now he was naked and Whisperskin was over him. He was silent. He was a shade on a shadow.

The festival sounds of the village floated to him first, then the red gleam began to show through the wood, and in only a short walk he found himself in the long darkness cast by one of the nine greet trees. How, in his month here, he could have missed this clearly marked path leading to Elatla's pool, he would never know.

Circling wide around the village perimeter, he moved through the black pillars of the wood until he came to his own tree. Cei would be in the forest still, or perhaps pairing with some elf somewhere, and his father would be away at the fire. No. He shook the comfortable pattern from his head. It was the tree the woodcrafter and his son lived in, not his own. Cei and his father lived in the Brookwood Highlands with his mother, far away. He hadn't seen either of them in over a month. Coldness caught at his throat and he glanced down at the scarlet ribbon still in his hand. He hadn't seen Moranna since before the last summer, well over a year.

Pushing aside thoughts of family past and present, real and beglamoured, he crept across the open ground to the base of the tree. Whisperskin lay the deep shadows of moonless night across him, but he wasn't invisible. The way to the tree was clear and the moon would shine bright on the long, exposed climb to his rooms. To the woodcrafter's rooms.

But no one stopped him. He felt eyes on his skin once, as he swung high in the air over the village, but the glance was only a light touch, then gone. There would be no surprise at seeing an elf running home for a moment, on this festival night.

In the rooms, he found his pack in a corner, with his great, black bow leaned beside it. His father's bow. It was where he had left it, a month ago, unhidden and undisturbed. It must have stood there, unneeded until he no longer noticed it, then unnoticed until he longer remembered it, and then forgotten until this moment.

He touched the smooth limbs of the bow, and ran the loose string between his fingers. The touch was a memory, and the memory was a cold clarity. Opening the pack, he found the map at the top. Wetlyn's map.

He glanced it over, recalling the places he had been on it as he read his own handwriting there. He found Hollowtree. When next he had time, he would have a description to add there, and a long one. From Hollowtree, the line that lead to his next destination, the 'Grove of Sorrows', was simply labeled, 'Take the Path." He knew now the path, the Sunlit Path he had rediscovered just earlier that night. And once in the grove, he would search for the enchanter's home.

All else in the pack was at it should be. Spare clothes, purse, hatchet, provisions. Much of the food was likely spoiled, but he could sort that later. He drew out the clothes, an extra set of Cei's he had brought from his family's cabin. They would be loose on him. He ran the fabric through his hands, twenty years of his life running with it.

Time to go. He began to step into the pants, then stopped. He would need the help of the shadows to leave here. He replaced them in the pack. Naked, he crossed the room to the cluttered table where he had spent long mornings with chisel and knife and awl. The little snail was there, amidst a pile of shavings and cuttings.

He cleared the woodswarf and tossed it into the night sky through the round little door, as his father-- as the woodcrafter had done just yesterday. He looked at the spiral shell and lifted it, letting it roll about on a trembling palm. Taking the ribbon he folded it neatly and laid it on the table, with the snail atop it, orange elm on scarlet cloth on rich brown walnut.

The ink pot and pen stood at the edge of the clutter, beside a little stack of parchment. They called to him to be used, and he looked long at them, but no words came. He had nothing to write. He looked around the round little room, and out the round little door, at the great bough and the three hammocks of his family. He considered laying down in one and sleeping, to wake in the morning and carve and then spend the day dancing and laughing in the village of Hollowtree. Of Home.

But he thought too of Kella. He had no other name for her. She had been his Kella, the girl who liked him best. He could not stay here without her, continuing in the morning as though it were the day before. It would be different, if he stayed. They would be life-bound. They had to be. They would be. He turned back to the table, setting aside the carving and seizing the crimson streamer.

He was outside again, hand already on the rope, when his eye caught his pack in the corner, and the black bow beside it. Black and red, the colors fought for him, and tears ran clear between them.

When he left the room, the blue moonlight was bright on his skin, and the black bow was on his shoulder and the pack on his back. The ribbon was on the table, the snail once more atop it.

Halfway down the tree, an unseen gaze tickled briefly on him and was gone. He kept climbing, but an instant later it was back, and this time it lingered longer. Then several eyes were on him, and they didn't leave. He looked around but the ground below was too crowded to find a single face turned towards him. His stomach twisted, but he had no choices but to climb back up and stay in the tree, or to brave the eyes and continue. So down he went.

At the next bough, he broke his descent to open his pack. Drawing forth dagger and belt, he strapped them round his naked hips. The eyes had left him, but his pulse throbbed in his throat as he swung once more into the jeweled net of ropes and ribbons about the tree.

Before he reached the ground, he felt a single gaze once more. Looking down, he found the distant face of the woodcrafter looking up at him. He bared his teeth in return, hoping it could be mistaken for a grin. He continued his climb.

The older elf smiled at him, once they stood facing each other between the great roots of the tree. The kind eyes took in the pack, and the bow, and the blade at his side. "Odd attire, for the full moon festival." No question there, and Atyr didn't respond.

"You leave us tonight." Still no question. Still a smile on the older elf's face.

Atyr's stood squarely to the man, and his voice was harsh. "I do. I leave. If you'll let me."

"Atyr. Son of mine." His voice was soft. "You were never held here by any hand but your own." He gestured to the pack. "I have left it ready for you always, should ever you want it."

There was nothing Atyr could think to reply to that.

The man spoke again, softer still. "Kella will be in Sorrow tomorrow. Cei says it would have been a life-bond between the two of you?"

Now he had a response. His throat fought against the words, unwilling to let them pass, but he forced them out as through a stalk of straw. "You are not my father. I am not your son, and your son is not named Cei. She is not named Kella." His eyes were wet, but not yet overflowing. "I don't know any of your names."

In the stillness after his words, the elf's smile didn't fade, and his eyes were as warm as ever they had been.

"But yes. It was to have been for life." Now the tears spilled, eyes too full to hold any more.

The woodcrafter still smiled, but the expression had changed. There was a thing behind the eyes which Atyr didn't know. The elf reached into a pocket on his yellow belt, drawing out a small knife, and Atyr stiffened, hand flying to his own dagger. But it was the handle of the knife which was extended towards him. It was a smooth handle, of use-worn ash. The familiar little whittling knife, which he had watched cutting and shaving and picking at wood every morning of his life here at Home.

"You are ever my son, Atyr. Remember that when you use this, and remember us as well. And if ever you return, know that your family will await you."

The elf embraced him and then stood apart a pace. "You should tell her, before you go."

It was truth, and it was temptation. If he looked again on that laughing face, that golden hair and those bright green eyes, he could never leave her. He would rush for the red ribbon and bind them together, joined and inseparable. "I cannot."

The man who had been his father nodded and smiled. "Nevertheless, she will be in Sorrow come the dawn."

Atyr smiled back, a twisted thing on his tear-damp face. "We both will be, father."

There was nothing he wanted more, as he left the kind elf among the roots of the tree, than to walk through the village, through the festival, and find each of his friends, and to find Cei, and Moranna and to hug them all, and promise them all that he would return, and to hunt for Kella and hold her and cry with her and promise her as well.

This place was still real to him, and his old life yet felt like a dream. Clear and vivid, but a thing of the sleeping world, which might fade swift if he let it slip from mind. He believed that other life was the true one, the one he should choose, but he felt now his father's words from the summer. There's believing, and then there's believing. And his mother's response. Seeing it all is different.

He hoped that would be true, when he saw it. For now, he could not risk, and could not bear, to say goodbye.

At the moon-glazed pool beneath the three small falls, he had found Elatla waiting. He had wanted to leave immediately, to escape before he allowed the comfort of Home to come over him, before he decided to forget all that he still only tenuously remembered.

But the kelpie had found his fears overwrought, and she was hungry, she had said. Elves were not the same as his woodsman's taste.

His resolve was being swiftly overcome.

The water fell in pale, misted streams over the rocky ledges, and splattered into drops of moon silver in the pool, consumed by the ripples there. The banks were soft, and mossy, and the flowers about the glen were fragrant with a scent like a soporific nectar, a drowsy haze of sweetness. And in the center of it all, only thigh deep in the water, the kelpie plied her skills.

She licked her lips, and he only shook his head. She stared out from dark lashes, green flashes in the night, but he told her no, and began to open his pack to find clothes. She called to him, and described to him the feeling of his hot cum as it had flowed over her tongue and down her throat in times past. He hesitated, but he did not go to her.

With his attention on her now, she cupped and pressed and massaged her breasts, sending her long tongue down between them, sliding there as his cock once had. He was fully erect, and she was grinning, but still he stayed where he was.

She began to dance. Her hips swung, her back arched, her hands traced everywhere across her skin. He stood, pack forgotten. She turned away from him, and gyrated her ass. His foot began to lift, but he placed it back down. She bent now, and reached back to spread herself wide for his gaze, circling her hips, taunting him with the sight of her entrance. He could have that, if he wanted.

She kept dancing and touching and teasing, and he found he was in the water with her, and she was reaching for him, and leading him to the low, flat stone in the center of the pool and laying him on it on his back, with his legs dangling into the cold waters, and she was in the pool between his thighs.

Elatla grinned her grin of pointed teeth and serpent tongue, and let his hard cock rest against her face. Long fingers wrapped cool around it. Atyr lifted his head to look down at her.

"Thank you woodsssman." Eyes flashed, and her tongue flicked out. She tapped his head several times against it, then breathed hot on the underside. A little shudder ran from his neck down his spine and through his hips, and he bucked against her face. She only laughed, softly, and set to work.

It was a slow thing, a long thing, a teasing time of tickles and touches of her tongue. She never took him in her mouth, but held his shaft at the base, tight in one hand, forcing the blood to stay, swelling harder and larger in her grip. The other hand tickled him lower, sharp nails tracing like little threats across his skin, across one inner thigh, across his balls and swirling around, then over and up the other leg.

Through it all, her tongue played with him, occasionally wrapping his shaft in its slick heat, or licking slow down his length, but always she returned to that most sensitive place on the underside of the head of his cock, and when she did, he would twitch and writhe and feel the cum inside him. It was like a thing alive, begging to be released, if only he could let it. But she never gave him quite enough.

She would let him rest on her tongue, holding him still, so the hot rush of her breath was the only motion against his skin. For a frozen eternity, he would twitch and strain at the air, and the scent of the flowers would fill him with a dizzying want for sleep. Then the tongue would flick and flutter, she would let him thrust wildly into the air, and her tongue would follow him with circles and slithering pleasure, always on that one place.

The nails of her other hand moved away from where they tickled at his balls, lower, to the bridge below them. He clenched at the sharp points of pleasure, the licking at his cock almost forgotten. The orgasm was close now. He just needed to be in her, he needed warmth and pressure and to thrust into her throat. One thrust, and he could empty himself, spill his seed for her, just one.

But it didn't come, and her nails slid back, slowly back along that pulsing bridge, and teased at the cheeks of his ass, first one, and then the other, tracing along them and making his legs straighten at the unexpected sensation. The fingers slipped between them, running up along the cleft. He was unsure what was to come, he was shaking, and he wanted to stop her hand, but he couldn't bear to. The fingers traced up and down, from the base of his spine and then back towards the front, closer, closer to the entrance there...

Then he felt a second tickling on his skin. It was eyes. Unseen eyes. They rested for an instant on his face, then raced down his chest and stomach to the cock that strained and pulsed in the squeezing grip of the kelpie. He knew he should call out, stop her, sit up and find who it was that watched them, but his mind was going, and all he could feel was the pressure of the flood held back within him. The knowledge of the watcher only raised the waters behind that dam. He needed release, he needed to come, and he needed to be watched as he did.

The tongue was a whirlpool under the head of his cock, teasing and slathering that one point. So close, pressure, heat, waves beginning to rock through him. He felt the eyes on his penis like hot water pouring, and he came.

It shot out high and bright in the full moon, pale light on white cum, and fell as pearls and strings across him, spattering as high as his own face, and then lower with each burst, on his neck, chest, stomach, and then a slow flow that ran over the green fingers and pooled in the little patch of hair at the base.

The erection sank away and flopped, thick and soft across his thigh, and his mind sank away with it. He was aware of Elatla's mouth against him, pressed to his stomach, his chest, long tongue lapping up the cream that was her prize. A tickling on his skin followed her tongue, as though she left a strange balm there. The floral perfume was in his mouth and nose, sweet and soft. Sleepy. Her mouth was on his, and she was licking the trails of white from his face and neck, and the odd tingling still followed her touch. His eyes were closing. He fought to keep them open.

Eyes. Unseen eyes. They had been watching him, before he came, and they watched still. That was what followed Elatla's tongue across his body. He needed to tell her.

"Elatla. Elatla?" Her mouth was still locked to him, licking and sucking him clean. "Elatla, we need to go, someone is watching." His lids shut, opened, and shut again.

"Elatla!" He struggled to sitting. "We need to leave. Now!"

He slipped into the cold water, and it chased the sleep of the flowers away. He waded across to the shore and climbed out. His pack was there. He bent to lift it, but it was so heavy. He sat next to it. A short rest. In the flowers here.

Then Elatla was beside him, and she shifted and his eyes slid away, and the black horse was there, snorting and stamping. He nodded. Yes, yes. The eyes were still on him, on his face. He looked around at the dark trees across the glade, but his lids were closing again. Was there a flash of bright gold there? Darkness. A horse nuzzled at him, and a thick tongue was on his face. He slid sideways to the ground, and pushed himself to his knees.

The pack. So heavy, but he slipped it on. And the bow. The dagger. The flowers. The eyes, still the eyes. He pulled himself up on Elatla's great legs, and began to haul himself on to her back. But she was so tall, her back so high, the pack so heavy.

There was a bright flash behind him, bare skin and golden hair flying from the trees. The black mare whinnied and pranced around to turn her hooves towards the figure, and Atyr stumbled. Then the girl who liked him best was on him, and she was pulling at him. Elatla stamped at her and she fell back.

His mind was softening. He was sitting. He was leaning on the pack. Hands were on his face, and tears. Hers or his own? Eyes closing. A hoof stamped. Someone was dragging him over the moss. The moon was full. There was a voice.

There was nothing.

***

They were trees. Sunny trees and smooth bark. Green grey like beeches but not beeches. Young trees and slim. Slender. Hips and curves and poems and faces. Their hands were on him, lifting. Wilt thou wander, wilt though sleep, Ta ri tri tra, come wander. Many women, with hard skin. Drifting. Like beeches but not. Holding him in the sun. This one, with golden hair, leaf eyes, naked with a red ribbon for him. Take it, take it, take a kip, Ribbon round your heart I slip, Tara tara tri, I slip. Olden Hair, faerie eyes. His ribbon, red as well, and they tied them together and bound their wrists together, and his wrists were bound to the tree. It was a purple ribbon, and her eyes were purple. She knelt beside him. The purple ribbon on his wrists, binding him to the stone bench. Riding him at the stone bench. Hands on his hips, making him stand, bent over on the bench. Naked among the women like beeches. His cock was hard. Hands on his hips and a purple ribbon. Her cock was hard too, it pressed against his leg. She had a purple ribbon to match his own. Her cock was hard like beech wood. Claim my ribbon and we swap, Tri, tara trilly-ti-ta, Claim my heart until it stops, Ta tri-tara-tay. The elf man's hands were on his hips with his hard cock pressing against Atyr's leg and he was bent on the stone bench looking at the purple ribbon. The red ribbon. Kella's wrists were bound to his with the red ribbon, her gold hair about her. Old hair about her. Laughing. I only kissed you once, and you didn't give it back, give it back, give it back. She wasn't a tree and her hair was dark and her eyes were dark and her skin was soft. "Did you think it meant more than that, Atyr Bracken?" And Kella was beside her, crying, and ripping at the red ribbon that bound him to Kella. The women were bound together with the red ribbon, gold hair and dark hair. Atyr touched the ribbon, but he couldn't untie it from the stone bench. Kella and Kella were standing behind him laughing at him as he was tied there, naked and bent. Tied Bare. They were like beeches but not beeches. Naked and spent. The golden Kella walked away into the trees and her roots grew deep and she turned dark and was still in the fog beside the pool. Ribbon gone you cannot bind me, Tara tara-ti, I go to Sorrow now, Come Find Me, Come Find Me, Come Find Me. Still in the fog, but the fog was clearing. The cabin was only half built, and she stood beside it singing and she got into a boat in the fog and she died. The Kella who was always dark smiled at him and her eyes were dark and she was tied to the stone bench before him, naked and bent over at the waist. His cock pressed against her leg and he was behind her. He touched her. Skin like wood. Smooth like young beech. Her face. Dark poet's eyes and his cock on her long, snake-like tongue. He slid into her. Her throat. Fucking that green face. Woodsman fill me, let me feed, tara-tay, tara-tri, taste and drink of woodsman seed, tri-ti to-ta tri. Woodsman in the brookwood in the sun, and beeches like beeches but women all around. It was him and Bril pulled her mouth off of him and her hair was golden like the girl who liked him best. "Atty? Why did you leave? I thought it meant more than that?" Kella stood from where she knelt and wiped her mouth. Brushing dark hair from dark eyes. Dark eyes. "Does it mean we can never let anyone else touch us, Atyr Bracken?" Dark eyes and flames behind them. Dark Eyes. Trees like beeches in the dark. Fire in the dark. A bell in the dark. A bell.

"Do you trust her, Atyr?"

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CHAPTER NINE

In Sun and Sorrow

Atyr was awake, but he didn't want to be. He was naked in the sun. It was warm on his skin, with just enough breeze to hush through the trees and bring all the warm, sunny smells to him. It was bright through his lids, and he'd been pretending to himself that he could stay asleep for a long while now. But he couldn't, so at last he opened his eyes.

It was a little glade he was in. How he had gone from the full moon basin below the falls to being asleep in a late-summer glade in the middle of the morning, he couldn't say, but as he tried to figure it out, the memories started returning. It was as if it had been yesterday he had been at the forge, and set off along the path riding on Elatla with Cacoburn at his hip. He couldn't quite picture the faces from his month at Hollowtree, he couldn't hear the voices, it was slipping away as quickly as the memory of a dream fades on waking, unless brought swiftly to mind.

He didn't want to forget though, so he sat for a while in the grass, letting the moments he could recall play out in his head, telling himself each story as he thought of it, turning it all into waking memories. He remembered the night he had left, how he had chased Kella-- no, the girl who had liked him best. How he had said farewell to the man who been his father. He remembered too, the little ash-handled whittling knife.

Unsure if he would find it, or if it was a dream after all, he opened his pack, and dug a little ways through it. The knife was there. He turned it over in his hands. Though he had often watched the woodcrafter work long with it, he had never before held it. The handle was smooth from use, with aged carvings worn almost away. Flowers and branches were still visible, wrapping around in spirals. In the center of the pattern, there was a flat place, with a name just barely legible. Uter.

Atyr sat looking at the knife, reading the name on it for a long time, and wasn't sure what he felt. Empty, if empty was an emotion, but without the hollowness emptiness implies. If there was anything his time in Hollowtree had not been, it was empty. With dewed eyes and a soft smile, he put the knife away and stood to look around.

Elatla was gone. Wherever he was, and however he had gotten here, she hadn't come with him. He supposed that should have been the first thing he noticed, but he had been long without her.

There wasn't much to identify the clearing. Healthy grasses with little grey-white flowers scattered among them. Saplings and young trees ringed the field, beeches mostly, and behind them rose the ancient trunks of the Oldwood. For a moment, Atyr was afraid the forest had spat him out again, so un-fae the clearing felt. But the Oldwood loomed on all sides. No trees in the rest of the Brookwood stretched so tall or had trunks so broad. Or so dark.

He considered taking out the map, but he knew there was nothing there labeled anything like, "small clearing." He would just have to walk and hope he found something.

It was several steps before he realized he was naked still. In his time at Hollowtree, he had become so accustomed to nudity and the small furs that were all the elves wore, that he had almost forgotten that most of his life had been spent with his skin well-covered. He had a little laugh at himself, and sat once more in the grass to dig out pants and a shirt. He found them, but he found also a fur skirt, and his bright blue belt. He had left them on the festival ground around the streamer pole. How had they come to be in his pack?

He looked at the two sets of garb, woodsman and elf. He had left Home behind, but he wasn't sure he was quite ready to be the woodsman again. Not just yet.

The fur sat comfortably on his hips, and into a little pocket on the blue belt, he slipped the whittling knife. On to it as well, he attached elements of his old life, the real one. His coin purse, his belt knife, the hatchet, and of course, Cacoburn.

"On our account, please don't get dressed,

Ta tari-ti trey

We liked you best with out that mess!

Tara, tara ti!"

Atyr whirled at the voice, so swiftly that he felt he'd left his heart behind. But he saw nothing about him except the empty clearing and the trees that hemmed it.

"Hello? Who is it?" It was the sort of unserious little chant a merry elf might make, though the voice was thinner, and more breathy than anyone he had known at Hollowtree.

"Us it is, who call this home,

Where dreaming naked you did roam,

Tri-tri, to-tari!"

It came from behind him again, from the opposite side of the clearing this time. It was hard to be scared of the high voice and silly rhymes, but after the experiences Atyr had had in the Oldwood already, he trusted nothing. He began to back, slowly towards the edge of the glade from where he had as of yet heard no singing. But from there too, now came a rhyme.

"Tary, tary, linger with us,

Tara, tara-trilly,

Do not hurry, linger, tary!

With us! Tara-day!"

Surrounded, then. He stopped. He put a hand to his dagger, and found the hilt oddly warm as before.

"Worrisome Woodsman, dagger hot,

Trilly-day tri, fear us not."

With that last rhyme, a small tree stepped from among the others and danced lightly on its toes a few paces towards him. It was a woman, of sorts. Greyish skin like young beech bark, and taller than a person by a head, with slender curves more continuous than those of any human, as though there were no muscles or bones within to disrupt the smooth lines.

A second and third woman stepped out, and he realized why he hadn't seen them. It wasn't that they were trees, or that they had been hidden among the trees. They were stepping out of the trees. There was a young beech and no woman one moment, then the next, a woman was dancing forward as though part of the trunk had decided to leave the rest behind. Except that, when Atyr looked, the tree from which each woman had stepped was yet whole and undisturbed. It was fae. There was no other word for it.

Soon, with an occasional 'Tara-tara' or 'Tri-trilly-tay-tori' there were well over a dozen of the strange women ringed about him in the clearing. Dryads, he realized. If these were anything other than dryads, than children's tales and tinker's tales alike were nothing more than mountains of deception. And, importantly, 'Dryad's Clearing' had definitely been on the map.

He was hesitant to look away from the grey tree-women surrounding him, and certainly didn't trust them to let him read anything, no matter how cheery their chants, but he remembered that the dryad's clearing had been a location through which he would have liked to plan his route. He had avoided it only because it had seemed too difficult to access. 'Dream of Dryads under the Full Moon', as he recalled, picturing the map. From "Three Small Waterfalls.' Of course. How easy it had been, after all. Unavoidable, really. Fateful.

Yet, here he was. Perhaps the journey neared its end?

"Dryads! Lovely Dryads. Might I ask your assistance? I am lost, and searching for a place, if you know it."

A plump dryad with large eyes and a cheerful smile tip toed a few paces closer to him.

"Lost are you, if here you are,

But we can lead, though it be far,

Trilly-o ta-tri-ti!"

That was encouraging. This dryad in particular seemed a happy creature. At her words, the rest of the circle had nodded and made a hushed, whispering sound like wind in autumn leaves, and many had tripped lightly closer through the white flowers.

Atyr smiled around him, turning in a circle to look at each of them. He wished they would keep their distance. The elves at Hollowtree had been merry as well, and he had lost a month of his life to them. Almost, he had never left.

"It's an enchanter's home I'm looking for. His name is Emrus. Do you know of him?"

The circle closed another dancing step, and a thin dryad chanted an answer.

"Nay, nay we do not know,

Mortal come and mortal go,

So swift they pass, tay trilly-o!"

He tried again. "The routes I know to find him all lead through a place called the 'Grove of Sorrows'. Do you know where that might be?"

All around him the dryads slumped, looking like wilted saplings with unfounded roots after a dry spring, but one who had kept farther back took up a rhyme.

"Sorrow, sorrow, don't be going,

Tary here, until the snowing

Tri-trilly, tay-trilly don't be going"

They all straightened as she chanted and moved in once more, closer still to Atyr.

"Young mortal man, he must be lusting

Sweet woodsman, tary, tary with us,

To-ta tara tri, stay and kiss us!"

Closer still, all smiles and cheer and merriment, but the talk of staying was uncomfortably familiar. The field, the maze, and of course Hollowtree, everything wanted him to stay. For the first time, he remembered something Pesky had told him before they had parted. Anyone can walk in you know. Sometimes it's leaving that's the tricky thing to do. He held up his hands, smiling, trying to keep what little space he had left.

"Fair ladies, please, hear me! I would love to tary with you, I would! But please believe me that I must leave." He placed a hand on the haft of his hatchet. Axes for trees, after all. "Believe me, that I do mean to leave."

If they understood his threat, they ignored it. They all linked arms around him now, a waving ring of grey women that swayed like trees in the breeze. Together they began a chant, and as they chanted, they continued to close, fingers reaching out to touch him, stroking his hair, his chest, playfully lifting the elf skirt to peak beneath. One even dropped to her knees in front of him, the closer to observe. Against his better judgment, he began to wonder if it would be so bad to tary just a little. And that one part of his body that never had any judgment at all, better or otherwise, made its desire in the matter very apparent.

"Tara, tara, tri-trilly-tay

We will not force a man to stay,

The mournful place you seek is near

Tre-ti, tara-to just this way

But naked came you to our grove

And barely now your skin is clothed

And bravely now your manhood reaches

Tara, trilly, skyward reaches

Tary tary, if you will

Tary till your lust is filled

And fill us also, seed for growing,

Stay until the ice and snowing,

Give us saplings in our wombs

Wait till springtime from us blooms

Tara-trey and trilly-trelly

Will you fill us, round our bellies?

Will you tary? Will you leave?

Dryads marry? Sorrows weave?

Stay with us in fatherhood

Tary, tary, tary ever

Or make your way to Sorrow's wood

Tri-ti, trilly-tre, tara tri-tri

Into our glade returning never.

But stay!

Tary ever!"

How they knew the words to chant in unison, Atyr would never know, but as they rhymed, they touched him and caressed him with hard fingers, and stroked him and did everything they could to make him tary, tary with them, tri-tri-trelly. It was a close thing, almost, but as the chant finished, he found, through pounding blood and swimming head, that they had formed two long rows with an aisle down the middle. Each grey face was turned towards him with an invitation on it, but each bark-like arm was pointed down the line to its end at the edge of the clearing.

He hesitated, disheveled and half disrobed by the inquisitive fingers of the dryads, but at the last he mastered himself and turned, and carefully walked down that aisle of grey-beech women to the edge of the clearing. With a smile and a wave, and thanks on his lips, he took one more step out of that sunny morning glade, and stepped into Sorrow.

***

He found the elf who was not Kella there, the girl who liked him best. In that expanse of dead, black trees and grey mist, she stood with her back to him, as naked as he had last seen her, the blood-red ribbon around her neck stark against the gloom. Like the charcoal trunks around her, she was a pillar in the fog, unmoving.

At the sight of that slender back, and that golden hair, he wanted nothing more than to go to her and catch her up and confess to her his mistake. They would return to Home, and leave this grove.

But she was not alone. On through the motionless mists and black streaks of the trees, other figures stood, solitary and still, even as she was. They were shadowy things, with no features he could see. Perhaps, if he peered closer, the faces would sharpen, but there was a feeling in the grove that to do so would be intruding, stomping loudly through the burial of a stranger.

In each direction the grey and black stretched, and in each direction the sparse forms stood as graven things. Behind him too, where he had stepped from the warm sun of morning in the dryad's clearing, the grove now extended. And it was no grove, it was a wood in its own right, endless. For all the little distance he could see in that colorless space, the trees spoke in his heart and told him of the nothing and the stillness without borders.

He took a pace forward now, and the mist parted around his feet in little eddies that were instantly stifled. There was a path there, he saw it, leading towards the girl who liked him best. He followed.

She spun at the sound of his footsteps, and her hair shimmered in a golden arc. Her eyes lit upon him at once, verdant and flashing even in the dimness of the wood, and a light seemed to fill her, and fade. Her eyes were muted once more, dull moss in that dull place. Her hair was old straw. The red at her throat was the only color remaining.

"Atyr. You did not come find me." The voice was flat. It was the sound of hope leaving.

He hesitated. "I do not know what I should call you."

She took a pace towards him, and the mist roiled at her passage, then stilled and died, as though resenting having been forced aside. She raised a hand, too far to touch him.

"I am as you have always named me. Do you not know me? I am your--"

"You are not her!" There was no echo to his voice. Loud, angry, but as flat and dead as hers had been, despite it.

Her hand fell and her face with it, and she turned partway from him, stepping now to one of the black trunks. She gazed at the damp bark a moment before responding.

"I am yours, Atyr. I would always have been." She turned back to him, looking over his pack, his black bow, and the soot-stained dagger at his hip. "We can still return. The full moon will always come, ever and again until all passes from this realm."

It seemed to him that her eyes shone brighter again, and her hair was once more golden. A smile such as she had often worn for him fought to control her lips; he could see it struggling to emerge. He would know it well, if it did.

"We can go Home, Atyr." She pointed behind him, and he turned. Through the grey of it all, past dark trees and shades of sorrow, the trail led, and at its end, he saw yellow warmth, a summer morning. Almost, he could feel the vibrations of song and merriment. He looked to the elf girl, and he looked to Home, and he thought of the lightness of that world, and the life of it. But he turned his back to it, and she faded as he did so.

"I wish to know your name, before I leave." It was all he could say. More was too much.

Hopeful eyes beheld him. "If you would name me your Kella, that would be enough. I need no other, for you."

But he shook his head, jaw tight. "How is it that you are here? In this place?"

"I am here because it is the right place for me, now."

"In Sorrow? Because you are in sorrow? Can you not leave?"

A flicker of color. "I could leave this moment, if you left with me." The distant sounds of Home grew, a call for him to come. "But I will leave either way, when it is right." Her face became fiercer now. "I will not linger in Sorrow for all my life, Atyr Bracken."

He started at his full name. In all his time at Hollowtree, never had his family name been spoken, and hearing it now... she had named him as Kella did. Dark Kella, poet Kella. Real Kella. A drumming grew within him, and he crossed the grey span between them, through the wan stillness of the mist.

"If I called you Kella, would you come with me? We could leave Home, we could leave the Oldwood, even... would you come?"

She touched a finger again to the dark tree beside her, looking at it a moment, then turned and stepped through the last of the distance between them. He could feel the warmth of her naked skin against his own, and smell the sun still in her hair. She did not look up to meet his gaze, but let her eyes fix on his chest. She placed a palm there, flat against him.

"I have known you from moon to moon, and I have loved you through all of it. But it is my Home, and I have known it and loved it for all of my life. I will not leave it." She pressed her head to his chest now, leaning. He felt the barest brush of her nipples as she drew shallow breaths. Through her palm, her heartbeat pulsed against his skin. "I will linger here a while, until the world is bright to me once more, and then I will return Home, and there find life anew. And where will you go, boy I have loved?"

Atyr had no answer for her. Any explanation he might give was crude, practical, a simple itinerary with mundane goals, no fitting reason to leave this girl who had loved him best. He loved another, and she would love again, but in the grey of the wood, what meaning was there in that? And he didn't know.

The only path he could see led back to Hollowtree. Where would he go, would he wander only between those black columns, through that cloying mist, or come to a stand, as still and grey as those grieving around them?

The warmth of her pressed against him more firmly, and a soft touch caressed the back of his head. She leaned into him, her nakedness a fire in that chill place. And his body responded to that flame: heating, burning. Her voice came once more, repeating the words in his ear, the lightest of whispers.

"Where will you go, boy I have loved?" Her lips brushed his jaw. "And will you love me, before you leave?" Hips ground against his leg. He shuddered, and draped himself against her.

Questions blazed in him. Now? In this place? Why not before? What purpose served the moon festival then? With a quaver in his voice, he asked the one that encompassed them all. "Even un-joined?"

There was a gentle nod of her head. Her hand on his chest gripped at him, and the other hand reached for his wrist and pulled, bringing his hand down to the wetness between her legs. "Even un-joined. Like this."

She squeezed his hand with her thighs, leaning against him. He let his head fall to her shoulder, taking in the warm scent of her. He cupped the heat of her sex in his hand and held it there, letting the warmth swell. A little half-breath pulled itself through parted lips at his ear, and he pressed gently against her. She was slick on his palm.

His own arousal was slamming through his body, hard cock pressing against her through the fir of his elf garb, but he hardly noticed. She moaned soft into the grey air of the grove, and the sound fell dead, as though it went no further than the two of them. She wanted more, he could feel it in the flutter of the pulse in her throat.

He began to move then, just a slow press and then a slide of the flat of his hand, and a quiver went through her form. Atyr wondered if the shadowed images around them could see what they did there in the dimness, or if the lovers were just one more shape among many.

She moved against him now, seeking yet more, and he gave it to her freely. He let his fingers run through the little valleys between the folds of her, touching and memorizing each petal-like lip as they passed. Her breath was long, shaking and uneven as it hushed hot past his ear.

With a single finger, he traced up and down the slit, teasing the opening, slipping upwards, gathering her wetness and spreading it over the little nub at the top. At each slow pass she would jolt and her hips would twitch as though to pull away, and he would trace back down, and she would melt into him once more.

He pulled his head back now to watch her face. Her eyes were closed. The lids fluttered. Light brows above were drawn gently together, as though concerned with some small task. Her lips were parted, and a hint of her front teeth showed between them. With each slick slide of his fingers, she would open her mouth slightly wider, with a little intake of breath, and the pink of her tongue would show, running along those teeth. She was soft and gentle and brave as he had never seen her. He loved her for it.

He stopped his fingers, and her eyes drifted drowsily open to meet his own with a question and a pleading. The lips moved, as if to beg him to continue, but no words came, only a high whine, soft and close and almost unheard in that grey wood.

He slid back into her. The whine came back as a keening lament, the head thrown back in a golden arc, the hips thrust back, spine arched back to the utmost. Atyr noticed, even in the rapture of the moment, greyed figures turning now to look, their inward grieving disturbed by this passion among their Sorrow.

There was little for him to do now but hold her. She moved fierce to thrust herself deep upon him, grinding hard against his palm and never letting up. The heat and pressure of her crushed and squeezed around him, and through it all he held her tight with his free arm, watching her face pass from desire, through passion to exultant freedom.

Then her breath caught and she was still for an instant. Her jaw gasped wide. Her eyes flashed open, brilliant and green. Almost pained she looked, frozen there in that moment. Then an uncontrollable shuddering raced through her body, and she shook against him and clenched and spasmed on his fingers, and all throughout her mouth was open and silent, and her eyes were wide and locked to his own, and she shook.

And she shook.

Slowly, she came back from her climax, sighing past his ear, held up only by the arm about her waist. He drew free his fingers and she convulsed, drawing from him a brief worry that he had hurt her. But she smiled, with eyes vague and unfocused. Her voice was slow and slurred.

"And for you?"

Fingers traced up under the fur about his waist making for the jumping hardness of his cock, but he caught her hand and held it softly. He pulled the red ribbon from her neck and held it in sticky fingers. "For me, this will be enough."

And she let herself fall again against him, and they stood together a long moment with eyes shut against the gloom.

When they drew apart and he looked at her, she was as bright and as vibrant as she had ever looked under the sun at Home, green and gold and shining skin. And he saw that indeed she was under the sun, a small patch of light that was permitted down through the dark trunks to bathe them both in warmth and color. Even those graven shades nearest them seemed now less faded, less inward drawn, more alive.

"You will come back, Atyr Bracken. You'll come Home. We always do." The smile on her face was clear now, earnest and certain.

He returned it and more. "Good bye, my golden Kella."

Tears came to her eyes, but her smile was brighter even than before. She stepped back several paces, glowing in the clearing mist, staring long into his eyes. Then she whispered to him, her joyous words from the festival night, now bittersweet with the hope of hoplessness.

"Come find me!"

She turned, and walked down that path to the sun and song at the end of it that was Home, and he watched her naked figure until it faded and the light dimmed and the path to Hollowtree was gone, and only the shades of sorrow remained in the grey grove. Shades of sorrow and a red ribbon.

=========================

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CHAPTER TEN

Emrus's Cabin

If he had had more time, Atyr might have begun to worry how he himself might leave the Grove of Sorrows. It had crossed his mind of course, when he refused his golden Kella's offer to return with her to Hollowtree. And, with the path now gone, he might have found himself at a loss. But as it was, he had stood long looking after her, once she had faded from Sorrow, then turned around to consider his way forward, and found a clear path ahead of him. The mist parted around it, and a short ways ahead, a great trilithon spanned the trail.

He stared at that massive doorway, two stone pillars with a giant slab of a lintel atop them. A piercing whistle of a cry came from out of the wood behind him, and feathered wings sped past and clipped his ear. A small falcon cut through the air and vanished through the gate. Atyr followed.

Drawing near the standing stones, he saw a light begin to shine beyond them, and the vague image of a cabin in a clearing hovering, as if through hung gauze. With no other options presenting themselves, Atyr strode forward and passed under the arch, and found himself once more in the warmth of late summer, and in the warmth of Experience as well. He turned, half expecting both the grey grove and the stone door to have vanished, and found they were still there. It was an unusual bit of reasonableness from this unreasonable wood. Oppressive though Sorrow may have been, it was almost a comfort that at least one thing remained where it had been.

The small clearing he had entered was ringed all around by the dark trees and grey mists of the grove. About the perimeter stood, at intervals, more of the immense stone gateways. In the center of it all, was the cabin.

To Atyr's experienced eye, it looked as if the original structure had been a small, roughly made shack. Countless modifications and additions must have been carried out over what, judging by the varying amounts of moss, had been many years. The skill and craftsmanship of all of it was abominable. Looking at the sagging, heeling heap of a building, he was amazed it was standing at all.

Gardens surrounded it, or at least what may once have been gardens. Certainly, a great diversity of cultivars grew there, many of them unrecognizable to Atyr, but everything was half smothered by weeds and grasses as high as a man's chest. In fact, he only surmised their status as gardens by the clue that they were, at present, being gardened.

The gardener matched the garden, and indeed the cabin, in every way. An old, short little man in patchwork clothes, with implements dangling from a series of belts and bandoleers, white hair like dandelion fluff, and a wide hat that tried and failed to squash it down, instead resting awkwardly on top of the head. On top of the hat perched the falcon, staring fiercely at Atyr. A ruddy face with round cheeks, bright eyes, and a white beard to match the hair turned to him as he passed under the arch, and broke into an expression of intense scrutiny.

"Hello hello, and who are you?" The whimsical old man gestured at the dark trees around. "Very sorry for the Sorrow, very sorry. Not pleasant at all, I know, I know! Oh, but I'm Emrus, old Emrus they call me. Ah, but it's a funny thing they call me that here, mortal among immortals. Funny! But I see you'd know about that, about mortal among immortals, seeing as you're dressed like the elves, you are, in the little furs they wear. But manners, where are my manners? You are?"

Here the odd little man pulled an odd little bracelet from a cluster of them about his wrist, and peered at Atyr through it. The falcon peered as well.

Atyr blinked at him, taken aback by the chaotic scene and the babbling speech, and was just about to introduce himself, when the old man thrust the bracelet back on his wrist and yanked off a second.

"Wrong one, wrong one! Ah, I'm old, old for certain, and dotty to boot!" He looked at Atyr through the new bracelet, and a broad smile broke across his red cheeks. "Aha! Wetlyn's boy you are, her boy indeed! Come, come, I've been waiting long for you, and your parcel's ready, ready and waiting! Come!"

With that, the man spun around and trundled off into the cabin, gesturing vaguely at Atyr to follow, falcon flopping and flapping to stay in place on the hat.

The young woodsman stood for a moment, trying to take it all in, and whispered to himself. "Hello. Very nice to meet you, Emrus. Atyr Bracken, at your service." With a shrug, he followed after into the ramshackle structure.

He was hardly through the wilting door, trying to close it on hinges that wanted it to remain open, when the bony finger of the old man jabbed him in the ribs.

"You're late! So late you are, and it's been ready long, a long time ready. I'll find it for you, come in, come in. Oh, don't mind the door, it'll close if it wants. Wait!"

Here Emrus held up a palm to Atyr's face, stopping the younger man in the middle of his attempt to 'come in, come in.' The old enchanter struggled with his bracelets once more, and pulled free a large one of woven twigs from the snarl. He squinted at Atyr through it for a moment, nodded to himself in satisfaction, and replaced it on his wrist.

Atyr was just about to finally give his name, though it was quick becoming obvious that was unnecessary, but Emrus had more to say.

"We thought you were lost, you know, Ambrisia and myself, thought you were lost in the wood, maybe dead." He patted the angry looking bird on his hat. "Maybe dead. But you're not! If I'd known how long you'd be, I could have made you something that would last, that would do what you need. I could have, if I'd known it would be so long."

Here, Emrus finally stopped, holding very still, staring with wide eyes at Atyr. Atyr took a breath and held it, expecting to be cut off once more, but it seemed it was finally to be his turn to speak.

"Atyr Bracken, at your service."

"Yes, yes, I know all that, I know it, yes. But come! You're late, and I understand that time is pressing. Late as you are, you must be swift. Come, come, let me find it for you. Stand there and be still!"

He spun, ragged clothes, bandoleers, and trinkets all flying out wildly, and Ambrisia flapping into the air with a squeak. He scuttled over to a pile of stuff -- and it was a pile of stuff, there was no more cohesive word for it -- and began to dig, tossing baubles and sticks and books and a dead mouse and many things besides carelessly across the floor.

Atyr had a moment to observe the little room. Before meeting Wetlyn, this is what he would have imagined a witch's home to be. And before meeting Emrus, he might have expected an enchanter to live in a castle, or at least a magic tower of some sort. But this, was not that.

Behind the obscuring stacks of clutter, or more rightly the teetering piles of hoarded things, he had the impression that the room was five-sided. No wall seemed to match the length of any other, and the floor of the whole was tilted starkly, so that more of the stuff inevitably accumulated along the wall at the lower end. Plants of all sorts hung drying from the ceiling beams and from window frames, and from any stack of junk that had a sufficient overhang. Books and rolls of parchment lay strewn about everywhere. The one clear part of the floor had a plank supported by more stacked books as a little table, with yet another pile of books for a seat.

Objects unidentifiable to Atyr abounded, and nearly everywhere, jewelry was scattered, wood, metal, stone, clay: from glittering, refined pieces that seemed as though they might fittingly bedeck the hands of the Lord and Lady Themselves, to rough little things such as a poor child might be given as a plaything.

"Aha, here it is, I knew was here, and it was!" Emrus was shaking a small satchel high above his head, triumphant. He hopped over the ring of objects he had chucked about him in his search, and thrust the little bag into Atyr chest. "Take it, take it, and off you go!" He pushed at the taller man, shooing him towards the door. "Off you go, time is wasting!"

"Wait, wait!" Atyr stumbled back under the onslaught, laughing in spite of his desire to remain respectful. "What is it? What do I do with it? I've hardly said hello, and I've no idea what you've given me."

Emrus closed one eye and looked hard at Atyr. He pulled yet another bracelet free, and switching eyes, inspected the young man once more. Atyr stood unmoving, bemused but silent. At length, Emrus spoke, quieter than he yet had.

"Hmmmm, yes, I see. Well, I'll tell you, then. It's a powder. It's enchanted. A powder enchanted with the properties of fae sight and hearing. Take it to the witch, and she'll know what to do with it. She'll know what to do, young Wetlyn will."

Atyr should have been focused on the powder, but the comment about 'young Wetlyn' caught him too much by surprise. "Young Wetlyn? She's had well over a hundred summers, as I've heard it, yet you call her young?"

"Younger is young, and she's young to me. Time goes and it comes, but younger is always young, as I see it." Ambrisia flapped and nodded her little head in firm, avian agreement.

"Can I ask--"

"Knew it, that you'd ask, I knew it, I did! But I don't know, I don't recall. It's fae in these woods, and I don't recall. My age that is. But I gave her her mark, so I know I was first. If I hadn't been first, I couldn't have done it, and she'd have no mark."

Now that was a surprise. "Her fae-mark? You gave her that? Are you fae yourself then?"

"Not fae, me, no. No, I'm only fae-touched as you. A sprite it was that gave her the mark, but she took it away again, the sprite did, so she did! And she came to me, young Wetlyn, found me here in the wood, she came to me in the wood when I was young, and we toiled together long, very long we worked, and I found it. I found her mark, and I traced it for her, and now she has it again. So I gave it to her, as much as any." He threw back his head and shook his puff of white hair, sending his hat flying. "Ah, but she was beautiful then, she was, so beautiful when we were both young."

"She's beautiful still," Atyr found himself compelled to exclaim. "More beautiful than any mortal I know."

A quiet came over the chaotic room, and Emrus looked at him oddly. The ancient little man cocked his head, and without looking away from Atyr's face, pulled off yet another bracelet. Eyes narrowed as he stared through it at the young woodsman. A long time he looked, and many expressions crossed his face, theatrical and overwrought. Eyes widened and narrowed once more, the mouth opened and shut, little gasps and even squeaks came from the lips. At length he put the bracelet carefully back on his wrist, and sent a knowing glance Atyr's way.

"I see, I see, yes, very beautiful still, more beautiful even than she was, I see. Yes." He gave Atyr a broad wink, and with that wink Atyr felt as though the enchanter might have seen far, far more than he had any right to. A flush came to his young face, and he looked away to examine a stack of some sort of animals' skulls in the corner of the room.

"I uh... I didn't know fae-marks could be taken away. Is that common?"

Emrus was smiling, looking far into the distance, into the past, it could be assumed. "Hmmm? Oh yes, they can, apparently. But common? I've no idea, perhaps, perhaps. Ah, but she was beautiful..."

Atyr wished to leave the topic of Wetlyn and her beauty, and whatever it was that Emrus had seen just now through his bracelet.

"Ah. Um... I must owe you something for this?"

"Hmmm?" The old man was still far away, dreaming of beautiful witches of ages past. "Ah, no no, not necessary, no..."

"I always say, I like to pay my way, if you'll permit me. I only have a little coin." He pulled out his purse and counted the ten kips remaining to him into his palm. He extended it towards the enchanter.

Emrus glanced down. "Eh? No, no payment please. I can't spend these here, at any rate, not mortal kips, not here. No payment! I'm happy only to have had a visitor, I am, I am indeed. Quite happy."

Atyr nodded, shuffling further into the room once more. He had more questions for Emrus, especially if the old enchanter was now in the mood to entertain.

"Can you tell me about the fae-coins? I've had some trouble spending them." He tapped Cacoburn on his hip. "This was crafted for me, and when I tried to give a little fae-kip for it... it didn't go well."

Emrus sat down on the book-stack table, and shuffled his feet up onto the book-stack seat, hunching over and twisting his face at Atyr.

"First to know is this. It's a kip, not a fae-kip. Just a kip. These kips are the first ones. They came first, before the mortal kips. So they're just kips."

He stared so long and hard at Atyr, that it was apparent a response was expected. So Atyr nodded. The nod didn't seem to be enough.

"Understood. How do the kips work then? They were blank, when I had them, but images appeared when I gave them away."

A toothy smile was back on Emrus's face. "Oh, I see, I see, you tried to pay with a blank kip. Yes, a blank kip won't do, not at all, not at all." He tapped his nose meaningfully, as if Atyr should now understand something important.

But Atyr didn't. "You can't spend the blank ones, then?"

Emrus hopped off the table, which slid dangerously to the side. He dove into another pile of clutter, and after a few moments, emerged with a heavy pouch of coin, wheezing slightly. Aged fingers reached in and pulled out a single bronze coin, turning it both ways to show the blank sides.

"Worthless! Absolutely worthless. Insultingly so!"

Then, with a look of great solemnity, he took Atyr's hand and wrapped the young man's fingers around the little coin. "A gift for you, from me. For the pleasure of your visit, freely given."

Atyr looked at him, mouth pursed. "Ah, thank you? Or you're welcome, I--"

"Well look look look! Don't just stand there, look at it!" Emrus gesticulated wildly, knocking over a stack of books and sending a cloud of dust through the sloping room. "Look!"

Atyr looked. On the face, he saw two figures etched, a taller man with a pack and a slung bow, and a shorter man with a broad hat and a falcon on his head. A chuckle came unbidden to his chest. He flipped the coin, and on the other side found the silhouette of a very beautiful woman, in a very suggestive pose. She looked very much like Wetlyn.

"And now!" Emrus was beaming at him through the settling cloud. "And now, the kip is worth the pleasure of your visit today, whatever that may be to me! Spend it wisely, wisely my friend."

Atyr wasn't certain he yet grasped all the ins and outs of the fae economy, but he didn't get a chance to inquire further.

"But now! But now it is time. Your visit was wonderful, but you have little time, and you're late already. Off you go, off you go, goodbye!" Ermus once more began shunting him towards the door. Atyr skidded on his heels, trodding on several unseen objects. One of them cracked unpleasantly.

"Wait, wait!" he cried again. "Might I ask you one more question?"

Emrus stopped shoving and peered at him thoughtfully. "One?"

"... two? Maybe three?"

"Three. Three questions you may ask me. But! But but but, time is going ever on, and you're late late late! So ask!

Atyr sighed, and edged his way back into the room, stepping carefully so as not to crush anything more. He hoped desperately whatever it was had not been enchanted.

"Right. First question." He drew Cacoburn. "I think, or at least hope, that this is enchanted. Can you tell me anything about it? A stone smith made it for me in the fires of the earth."

Emrus took it, and turned it over a few times, a look of distaste on his face. "At the Forge? Not enchanted then. Can't say more. But no enchantment." He sorted through his bracelets, peering at the smoky blade through several of them in series. "Hmm, fiendish. As to be expected." He handed it back.

"Just a dagger then? Nothing special about it?"

"It feels warm." White hair bounced as Emrus shook his head. He placed a hand onto the poof and noticed the missing hat. Hurrying across the room, Atyr retrieved it and handed it over. Ambrisia flapped up to perch once more atop it.

"Question number two, let's hear it."

Atyr fished out the two little dice. "Pesky told me-- she's a sprite I know, she told me--"

"Pesky?" The enchanter's interjection was sharp. "Be careful with that one, young boy, be careful..."

"Erm, can I ask why?"

"You can, but that'll be your second question, and I won't say more in any event, no more on that. Ask your beautiful witch." His beautiful witch? There was a story there, and Atyr was fairly certain he was beginning to piece it together. But that was for another time and place.

"Right... Alright. Well, Pesky told me these are enchanted."

Emrus snatched the dice from Atyr's hand, and scurried off with them to a somewhat clear patch of floor. He kicked aside a little stone necklace, some dried beech leaves, and a few colorful rocks, and dropped down to sit with the dice on his lap. A while passed in silence, as the enchanter whipped off bracelets, pulled little tools from his bandoleers, and intermittently hopped up to search out some implement or other from among the hills of stuff on the floor. At length, he stood, knocked several plumes of dust from his pants, and placed the dice slowly, and with great care, back in Atyr's palm.

Falcon and enchanter both regarded Atyr soberly for a long moment, before Emrus spoke. "Very. Enchanted. Very much so. Roll them and wish. No! Wish first, then roll, that's important. But risky, very risky, I wouldn't risk it. Too risky."

That was news indeed. Wish, and roll the dice and then what? Roll well and the wish would come true?

"What sort of wish? How will I know if it works? I can really just wish for anything and it will come true?"

"I've no idea about any of that. That's why it's risky. Too risky. I've no idea at all." He frowned. "I should not roll those unless you've nothing else left, I wouldn't. Risky. Last question."

Emrus turned and began replacing the various tools and baubles he had collected in order to examine the dice, and Atyr realized each one must have a home amongst the chaotic piles. A shiny glass ball was placed back carefully amongst some loose papers in a corner. A long metal spiral was set back on a windowsill, under a large snail shell there. A reflective stone was pushed back deep into the base of a small mountain of things, and so it went. Atyr watched in astonishment for a while, before remembering what his last question had been. The most important one.

"Do you know how I get back? How I can leave the Oldwood?"

"Eh?" The old man was burrowing under a pile of skins and empty sacks. "Same way you came in, you can go out, can't you?"

"Not really, I don't think. I came in through a glade with dryads in it, but it disappeared behind me. I don't know if I can return."

Without looking up, Emrus extended an arm, pointing off towards a back corner of the room. "That gate. Best of luck!" Atyr looked, but it was unclear what he was supposed to be seeing.

"I'm sorry, but I don't--"

"The gates, my boy, the gates! The stone gates! That one goes to the clearing with the dryads. Oh!" Emrus popped up like a badger from its burrow. "If you're going to the dryads, I've a gift for Thlefritrifalethaytaratrilly, my youngest. Would you take it to her, my gift?"

It was a long, quiet moment while the meaning of that settled on Atyr. Tara-trey and trilly-trelly, Will you fill us, round our bellies? The dryad's parting chant returned now, clear in memory. "Ahhh, I'm very sorry, but I don't know how to leave their grove either, I think it might be best if--"

"Oh, they'll show you the way you came, they will, they'll show you where to go."

The way he had come was back through Hollowtree, and he wasn't ready to test his resolve in that place just yet. "Is there no other way?"

Old eyes in a ruddy face regarded him. "Many. Many others. I've thirteen gates in all, and that's many, I would say."

"Do any of them lead out of the wood? I need to return to Woodstead, if you know where that is."

Emrus came over and sat once more on the book-stack table, still leaning ominously. "They all lead out, eventually. How did you come in to the wood?"

"It took me a couple tries, and a day or two of walking, but finally I found a little clearing with a burnt stone slab in the middle. From there, a wind of autumn leaves led me to a field, where there was music playing and I wanted to dance, and then--"

"Aha!" Emrus grinned broadly. "That one!" Without looking he flung an arm out towards a side window, through which could be seen one of the huge trilithon gates. "From there through the Sorrow, to the Dancing Field, then head into the leaves, and you're out. Simple as that!" He squinted a moment. "Be certain you leave the field early, before dark. Leave before dark and then home you will be!"

"Simple as that? Well, I have to thank you Emrus, you've been a great help to me. Truly. I must ask once more if there's anything I can--"

"Off with you! Leave and be off! It's been lovely, so lovely to visit it has, but you're late, and later still now that you've lingered. Off, off you go!"

And off he went, with many a push and shove and a string of 'off you go's and 'so late as you are's. In short order he found himself bustled out of the sagging cabin, back through the weed-choked gardens, under a great stone arch, and once more among the grey woods of the Grove of Sorrows.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mother of Darkness

Alone in the Grove now, with no golden-haired Kella to be the muse of his attentions, Atyr found his eye drawn to the shadowy figures around him. Ahead, the trail ran a short way, straight and clear of mist, with a cheerful, sunny glow at the end of it. But the sorrow of those shades pulled at him.

He passed one that might have been a heavy-set older woman, and after her a tall masculine shape, both slumped and round of shoulder. Stopping, he looked back to the woman. Grey, hunched in either age or misery or both, her form was like the stump of a forgotten post, no longer needed, no longer wanted, sinking slowly into the final isolation of the earth.

It was a risk, but he took a step towards her, a step off his own path. He threw a nervous glance at the dancing sunlight in the distance. It was as bright as ever. A few more steps, and the glow didn't fade. He walked right up to the tired, old figure. Her features cleared and sharpened as he approached, but she didn't look up to acknowledge him.

"Good day, wise one!" He forced his voice light, carefree. "May I ask what brings you to this grey place?"

There was no reaction; her gaze remained fixed on the ground. Cautiously, wondering at his own boldness, he reached out to touch the aged face, noticing as he did the small tusks that protruded from the lower lip. No human grandmother, this. But sorrow was sorrow, and he let his finger brush the wrinkled cheek. Close set eyes blinked, and the woman started, looking up and around, before finally noticing the young man right before her. No expression moved her features.

Atyr realized he had nothing else to say to her. He opened his mouth, searching for some light topic to cheer the old grandmother, but nothing came. Her face was already drooping, falling once more to the ground, the eyes turning inward. Atyr backed up a pace, the hopelessness of her expression affecting him. Over her shoulder, he noticed the light of the path dimming with his mood, so with a lingering glance, he left her, and she was a grey shade once more.

Lightness of spirit seemed to be the key to the exit from the grove, so he hummed the little tinker rhyme to cheer himself. Pay a kip, Pay a kip, Pay a kip! It didn't much help, but at least the sunlight at the end of the trail remained.

He passed other figures, leaving them to their Sorrow, until he came almost to the light of the field ahead. Not far to the shoulder, a small shape stood, looking side to side, more animate than the others. A child. Against his judgment, he left the path again, going to the figure. It was a young boy, only six or seven summers. Pale tears were on the greyed cheeks, but a soft hope brought colour to the eyes as Atyr approached. He noted the pointed ears. An elf child?

Atyr knelt before the boy, imitating a smile. "Are you lost? You can get to Hollowtree from here, you know. I think you just need to cheer up."

The boy looked at Atyr, and the mouth moved soundlessly. Already the eyes were drifting away, losing what little colour they had gained. Atyr laid a hand on the child's shoulder.

"Have you lost your family? Are they from Hollowtree? From Home, that is? I can help you find them again, would you like that?"

The little face turned back to him, grey once more, and the child shook his head. Eyes back on the ground.

Atyr glanced up to see the golden light of his path dimming further. He tried again. "Would you like to hear a song? I was just singing a fun old rhyme I loved as a child. It's a game song, here, have a listen!"

He chanted both verses to "Pay a Kip," the old, and the one he had recently learned, finishing with a grin and hands spread wide for dramatic effect, but the boy's eyes were looking away into the mist, scared and unsure. The light was fainter, more distant. Atyr knew he had little time left. A nasty tension was growing in his throat, at the thought of leaving this poor lonely child in the wood, but it might be his only choice if he himself was to leave. Sometimes it's leaving that's the tricky thing to do.

"Where are your parents?" His voice came out harsher than he had meant it to, and the boy's eyes snapped up once more. The little form pulled from Atyr's hand, and began to back into the grey mists of the grove.

Atyr held up his hands and backed up a pace as well. He glanced over his shoulder. The light was barely a glimmer through the black trunks. "Is your family at Home? Can I help you find them?" Last attempt, then he would have to run.

The boy was looking around in fear, tears coming faster now, features blurring as he moved away. The light was flickering. The pressure in Atyr's throat was a sickness now, and his own eyes were wet, so he closed them and stood, turning to the last glimmer, and walking away from the Sorrow of the people in the Grove.

The sun hit him like a pleasant wall of heat, and with it came the pulsing, dancing song that drifted over the flowered meadow and vibrated all through his body. His mood lightened somewhat as he left the Grove, but even so, with the images of the old woman and the tears on the young boy's cheeks still crisp in his mind, it was an easy thing to resist the dancing urge, at first.

He trudged through the many-coloured flowers, with the song pulling at his legs, and felt his steps light and his body filled with a fluttering desire to move, but he held his course.

By the middle of the field, the grey faces were gone from his mind, and only a gentle weight tugged him back down to sensibility and a sense of his purpose. But he was skipping now, no longer marching, and in a distant, unimportant way, he was aware it was still a fair walk to the tall trees on other side of the clearing.

By the three quarter mark, he was dancing freely, singing loudly with the song in the air, and his body was afire with the vibrating pleasure of the music, but his eyes remained fixed on the ancient wood ahead. All that kept his last shred of sobriety about him was the odd tickling of other eyes lingering, unseen, on him.

He barely made it. A few paces more, and he knew he would have been spinning away through the flowers, prancing like a fool until dark took him and trapped him once more in the dead field. He flew between the mossy trunks with a final, joyous frolic, and for a moment it was all he could do not to turn around and head back into the flowers. He was laughing, and the song of the field was still loud in his ears and his body.

The wind was blowing through the trees ahead, the autumn leaves rushing along it into the meadow. He felt eyes again, but merry as he was, they didn't trouble him. He called out.

"Hullo, whoever you are! I can't find you, but you're welcome to join me on my journey home! I've no companions, and a need to be jolly!" With that, he began skipping off into the wind, leaving the field, and the fae, and soon he knew, the Oldwood itself behind him. He was returning to Woodstead, and to Kella, and not even the many lingering eyes on him could dampen his mood.

The further he got from the field, the softer the music grew, and the more in control of his merriment he became. Intermittently, the eyes crept along his skin. He was still in a uncommonly happy state, but even so, the persistence of the unseen watchers began to irk him. He stopped among the blowing leaves.

"You've followed me a ways now, whoever you may be. I know there are several of you, though I can't see you in the trees. But come, show yourselves, if you mean no trouble."

At his demand, the watchers did show themselves. From the soft hush of the wind around him, figures swirled into being, breathing and whirling around him like creatures made of the air itself. In and out of visibility they shimmered, white shades of men and women, naked all. They laughed and spoke to him in hushing, sighing voices, first one and then another, from beside and behind and above him as they rode the wind with the leaves.

A slip of a woman in front of him. "Fair traveler, do you wing your way away?"

A waif of a man to his side. "To home you go, flying swift?"

A singsong voice from above, and then a laughing one behind.

"So light of foot, to chase the wind!"

"And wind are we, merry and free, will you chase us too?"

Atyr was turning, looking in wonder at the strange people now rushing around him, all laughter and reedy voices. Their whispering laughter continued as they raced round and about him, blowing at his hair and fluttering his elf furs. They would brush past him and away, swooping and spinning and swirling in a frisky whirlwind. With the song still faint in the air, and the dancing joy of the meadow still vibrating in his limbs, it was hard not to laugh along with these happy folk.

"People of the wind! Do you come to lead me home, or to lead me astray?" He had learned nothing in the Oldwood, if not a distrust of overly pleasant things.

The laughed at that.

"We lead you nowhere, only blow at your hair."

"And if home you go, we will not care!"

Then a disagreeing voice from within the wind. "Ah, but care we might, if he's too soon to flight!"

That last set Atyr truly on edge, and he began walking again. No merry little breeze folk were going to set him off course, this close to escape from the wood.

Except that, in the end, they did.

Try as he would to walk into the wind, it was impossible to judge its direction with all the whirling folk in the air about him, each one a wind of their own. He soon realized that, though the breeze felt ever in his face, the blowing leaves were gone. He turned about, looking wildly for them, but the forest was old and dense here, and in every direction his vision was cut short by close, dark trunks.

He tried to ask the windy creatures to guide him back, or at least to cease their blowing and leave him, but they only sighed and laughed their breathy laughs, and called him an ill-wind, and a stiff breeze, and invited him to wander with them further.

"Come wind chaser, and chase us lightly!"

In the end, he resorted to striking at them, but they would only vanish into little whispering breezes as soon as he moved, and his swings would find nothing but air.

It was only a short while more before they tired of their windy sport, and rushed off up into the sky as a little laughing bluster, but by then, Atyr was turned and spun around well off his course.

With nothing else to do, he sat on the mossy roots of a great tree, and a took a moment to consider the flurry of the past couple days. It had been just last night that he had chased and hunted with the young elves of Hollowtree in the full moon festival, with no thoughts but of staying with them forever. And only this morning he had woken among the dryads in their clearing. He had been so hopeful as he exited the dancing field, so close to home, to success.

He sorted through his pack, expecting to toss much of the food, but he found that all the fruit, bread, cheese, and anything else that might have most swiftly gone bad was missing. Only the dried things and nuts remained. Had it been the old woodcrafter, who had kept his stores so? His thoughts dwelt for a while on Hollowtree, on the people who had been his family, and on the girl he called Kella. He wondered what had led the little boy to the Grove of Sorrows, and whether he would soon find his way back to Home.

With a start, he realized that, in his month at Hollowtree, he had never once seen a child. It was a village of adults, and adults only. Where then were all the elf children? Surely they must exist, and they could hardly all be kept in Sorrow until adulthood. Then too, he wondered if the boy had been an elf at all, or some other creature with which Atyr was unfamiliar.

He ate a quick meal of what he had left to him, then pulled out the map. He hadn't expected to find much to help him there, and he didn't. All he could think to do was to choose a direction and to walk, and to hope that walking brought him clear of the wood, this close to the edge. But the sky was darkening with the passing of the sun, and that was a worry for the morning.

***

Choosing a direction proved to be somewhat out of his control, when he set off the next morning. It was a familiar feeling, that lack of control, since his introduction to the world of the fae. He went southwards, in the vague hope that mundane directions might hold some sway here, but soon found a sheer cliff of black stone heading him off. Climbing it would be impossible, and his attempts to go around were frustrated by increasingly dense brambles with wicked thorns.

Habitually, he pulled out the map, but as was so often the case, he found no mention of anything like the cliff.

He set off to the west, but in only a little while was brought up short by another black wall of rock, reaching high. To the east, the same obstacle presented. Only north remained, the way he had come, so with foreboding clinging to his ankles like a dead weight, he began to backtrack. As he moved, he became aware of great, dark barriers to either side now, distant through the trees. These walls narrowed as he moved, until he found himself funneled into a deep canyon of black, unscalable stone. He turned. Behind him the same walls now stretched, nothing but rocks and the thorny snarl of vines at their foot. The Oldwood had caught him once more.

This close. This close to escape. Rage like he had only felt from the red fruit of the orchard filled him, and he seized a heavy stone from the ground and hurled it at the black cliffs that contained him.

"Let me leave, you cursed forest!"

"Let me leave, you cursed forest!"

His voice came immediately back, echoing down the canyon, but it was changed. The words were the same, but the tone was light, almost joking, as though he had spoken the words in jest to an old friend who was urging him to stay ever later on a visit. So odd was the echo, that it brought him swiftly out of his anger.

He clapped his hands. The echo slapped back, bright and crisp and encouraging. If he was to be stuck in this ravine, he might as well be moving. Surely, even in the Oldwood, staying in place wouldn't get him out. Probably. Turning south once more, he began to walk. His steps came back loud and light. Dark and ominous though the walls appeared, the echoes that bounced from them all seemed somehow cheery, if the echo of a footstep could hold an emotion.

Something caught at his memory, something on the map about echoes. He found it swiftly. 'Echoing Gorge'. This seemed the place. Unhelpfully, no lines led to or from it. If he ever got home, he decided he would love to sit down with the witch and just how many times this piece of parchment had actually had anything actionable to say.

Ahead, the canyon split, one passage veering off to the westward. Atyr kept south. Whether his direction would matter, he couldn't say, though he suspected not, but south was where he wanted to be, so south he would go. As he passed the fork, the echoes of his steps grew immediately dark and frightening. He felt that they were not his own steps, but those of something following.

He stopped, and the echoes stopped. He tried his voice. "I'm going home?"

"I'm going home?" came the twisted response, as though going home was a threat. Atyr took a step back, and the footstep echoed sweetly in his ears once more. He tried a forward step once more, past the side branch. Frightening. Back to the split. Welcoming. He raised his eyebrows. Just when I think it's gotten as fae as it's going to get in here...

He chose the path that didn't sound like the echoes wanted to murder him. If he was going to get murdered by echos, at least his last moments wouldn't be spent wondering why he had marched bravely towards the sound of his own doom.

On he went, and the gorge split more and more frequently, until he was deep in a narrow maze of sheer, black walls, with the sun a bright strip of white overhead. The sentiments reflecting back to him began to multiply as well. It was soon no longer a dichotomy of cheery and threatening sounds, but a wide variety of sensations. Underlying all of them sat his growing unease, until even the most pleasant of echoes began to feel like water dripping, wearing at his resolve.

In one passage his footsteps danced back to him as merry as the drumming of the tinkers, in the next they cracked like breaking bones. One winding corridor began like gentle waves, lulling and lapping peacefully, and ended like the marching feet of a burial procession. He turned swiftly to backtrack the way he had come.

Just as he was reaching the junction from where he had split off to follow the pleasant wave-echoes, a great rushing came from behind and above him, and even as he flinched and twisted to meet it, a winged body as large as his own smashed into him, and piercing agony shot through his shoulder. He was smashed down into the rocky ground among the thorns, and something made of wings and talons and fury was on him, scrabbling, slashing. Pain sliced across his chest in parallel gouges and he surged up roaring, but he was held fast by the claws still deep in his shoulder.

He ripped Cacoburn from its sheath. It was hot in his hand, nearly a pain in itself. He swung wildly at the fury of feathers above him to clear space, and a thin smear of black smoke trailed after the blade. He swung twice, again, and the thing above him pulled back, wrenching its talons from his shoulder. He saw in the chaos of the moment a woman's face, and a flash of breasts and a naked body.

Then the thing was on him again, with a piercing, human shriek that screamed of hate and hunger. He rolled and slid to a crouch, slashing once at the wild-eyed face, then lunging forward into the bird-woman, thrusting and stabbing. She shoved at him with slender arms, but he overpowered her and pressed her back with his onslaught. Then her legs were between them again, powerful things with slashing talons, and he was seized at the hip. Unarmored Defense saved him, his elf fur shredding away in ribbons, only shallow scratches on his waist and thighs.

Naked now, even as was his winged assailant, he threw himself on her once more, and plunged the smoking dagger twice between her ribs. She screamed, arched in agony, and fell back, still. Cacoburn, protruding from the corpse, smoldered darkly in the wound, charring the flesh, but giving off no light or flame. From the woman's dead form, a grey, winged shade drew itself free and rushed warmly into Atyr's chest.

He watched, horrified and exhilarated, astonished at the fiendish burning of the blade, afraid to reach out to draw it forth. With hesitating hand, he grasped the hilt, and felt the heat of it, though it didn't injure him. He wrenched it from the creature, and considered the dark dagger. Fiendish, Emrus had said, but not enchanted. A blade that trailed smoke and charred its victims was enchanted by Atyr's measures, no matter what the mages might say.

His pack had fallen from him in the struggle, and he retrieved it. He considered taking out the spare clothes from Cei, but he was worried about more of these creatures now, and he would want Whisperskin more than Unarmoured Defense. So, he sheathed Cacoburn, still smoking, hefted the heavy bag, and let himself slip into the shadow of the black walls. Unclothed now, but for his blue elf belt, his skin took on the deeper dark of nighttime shadow wherever the light didn't touch him, but the bulk of the pack seemed to prevent much muffling of his steps. He would need to be careful, if he wished for stealth.

Suddenly, he remembered the coin and the healing draught he had pulled from other corpses, and placed a cautious hand on the bird-woman's skin, but nothing pressed back into his palm. He supposed the only thing he truly needed now was a way out, and that seemed unlikely to fit in his hand.

Moving on, he kept as silent as he could, only now and again risking a little noise to better hear the timbre of the echo. Whether he needed to follow the more positive reflections or not, he couldn't say, but at the least he thought it wise to continue avoiding the terrifying ones. With each branch of the canyon maze, the sounds became more nuanced, varied, and disorienting. He began even to risk his voice, the better to understand the emotion of the echoes.

He heard echoes that sounded disapproving yet hopeful, or angry with a lover's hurt, or bittersweet, or joyous but tired. If, as he had first guessed, chasing the pleasanter sounds was what he should be doing, it was becoming quite difficult to parse which those were.

At one split, he was just about to call out some word or other to listen for the echo, when he noticed a dark shape high on the black face of the canyon, a second winged figure. What might these be, these creatures? Were they all ravenous for human flesh, as the first had seemed? Some tale he had heard as a child had featured women with wings and talons, but he couldn't remember more than that. But the first had tried to prey on him from above, and he was taking no chances with the second, however much the beast might look like a woman.

Moving slowly in the shadows, he strung the great, black bow and nocked an arrow. He quarter drew it, sighting at his quarry. The bow was just a hair beyond his strength to truly use as he might wish; it would have to be a swift release, once he drew fully. He did so now, in one fierce heave, and the shaft twanged and flew from the bow. It sped straight, with no arc, high to the top of the wall and sank deep into the creature there. With a wailing scream she fell, wings flailing but unable to stop her descent, and she crashed into a heap among the thorns at the base of the black cliffs, and howled where she lay.

Atyr melted into the shadows with a second arrow nocked, and waited to see what the shrieks of the injured thing might bring. In short order, two more came flying through the narrow passage, and he drew and loosed, but his arrow flew wide. The winged women called harshly to each other at the passage of the bolt and turned as one in his direction. His next shot hit true, and without a sound one of them spun through the air to slam against the wall above him, then dropped, crumpled into the stones beside him in her speed, ghostly Experience winging its way from her even as she fell.

The remaining creature found him now, dark on dark though he was, and came shrieking down from above. He had barely time to swing the great bow as she fell on him, black limb catching her in the wing and sending her off course to score bright gouges on the rock beside him.

Then Cacoburn was in his hand, the black smoke trailing from it once more, and he was upon the thing, slashing at the flailing wings, and the thin arms, throwing her to the ground and straddling her waist to keep the deadly talons at bay. The blackened blade sank deep into the writhing throat and he held it there, searing and burning, flameless, until the monster beneath him was still, and the grey heat fled from her and filled him.

He stood, smoking dagger in hand, and a smoldering furor in his chest. Eyes wide and staring, he scanned the sky, but no more wings darkened it. The howls and moans from the thorns across the way still rent the air. He turned and stalked towards them.

Her body was crushed and broken when he got to her, writhing, flapping her great feathered wings amongst the biting vines. With that burning heat in his grasp and in his heart, he bent and drew the dark blade across her throat. The blood flowed out and hissed against the steel, and with it the hot burning of Experience again filled him, rising this time to an exultant flame of victory, and he knew a Level awaited him.

Once Cacoburn was sheathed, a cooling and a calming washed down over him. He shuddered and wondered at it, before he realized it was only the partial return of sobriety. As he had held the blade and slain with it, he had been driven by a fire within him, but it was gone now, and the boy from the Brookwood felt once more the shakiness and revulsion that should accompany killing, the killing of things that looked human. But he pushed it down within him, and he checked the corpses for any items they might gift him. Finding none, he took once more to the shadows and, keeping himself carefully balanced on the edge of control, continued his winding way through the black ravine.

Two more splits in close succession brought him to a difficult decision. One passage sent back his steps with an echo like applause, but from grudging palms. The other sounded either of slow clapping as well, or of a wet smacking sound of some sort. Neither was particularly attractive, but neither felt distinctly unpleasant either. He chose to wetter of the two, reasoning that at least it hadn't sounded in any way resentful.

A short walk down that branch of the gorge, it became apparent that his decision had been, if not necessarily correct, then at least significant. The passage ended, the first dead end he had encountered. And where it ended, the black of the wall was a deeper black than any other he had seen in the cavern. On a hunch that in the Oldwood no seeming dead end was truly dead, he chanced some words for the unusual hall.

"Hello, is this the way out?"

"Hello, is this the way out?" It wasn't unpleasant. It might not be pleasant either, exactly, it was... what? Was it a teasing echo, or a questioning one? It could almost be a tempting voice, or even lustful, but it could just as easily be mocking him.

He risked moving closer, creeping forward through the echoing shadows. The black grew blacker still as he approached, not just the blackest among the other walls of the canyon, but blackest thing he had seen in his life. The black of the end wall ahead was like the ideal of blackness to which other blacknesses aspire. If darkness had a mother, this was it.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

Starlight and Blackest Black

The wall of perfect black waited ahead, less like darkness than like a failure of vision. Atyr walked forward, mindful of the sound of his steps, still keeping to the shadows. Every soft echo that came to him became more enticing, and he began to wonder if he was being lured. But the alternative was to turn back and wander once again through the echoing halls of the gorge and brave the taloned death from above.

As he drew closer, and the wall took up more of his vision, he felt as though blindness was taking him. Only by looking aside to the normal black of the stone of the walls, now grey by comparison, could he reassure himself that his sight was not leaving.

His shoulder and chest still ached where the talons had pierced and rent. The waiting Level simmered inside of him, an inspiring heat, begging to be released. Demanding. He considered it, imagining the relief of the healing wind that would clear away the pains and restore him, and imagining as well what boons he might receive, but it was a poor time to let himself drift from awareness. Four ravenous bird-women had already come for him. He didn't need a fifth to find him lost down into the winding pattern of the fae-mark.

It was with great curiosity and no little apprehension that he came up to the blackness of the end wall. It filled his sight now, a nothingness such as he had never experienced. This close, the echoes had vanished, and his breath was muffled as if breathed into a warm pillow. With trepidation and mistrust, he reached out a finger and probed at the dark.

It gave, sliding and moving aside. Warm, damp things dragged across his skin. A sweet aroma drifted out as he disturbed the nothing that was there, and he moved his hand through it, and found he could feel long tendrils, vines perhaps. But, if vines, they felt like no mortal vines he knew of. Warm, moist, soft like flesh, and when he managed to grasp one, he found it pulsed gently, as though with a distant heartbeat.

He snatched his hand back in surprise, but when no response came, he reached out once more, found one of the long forms, and drew it forth from the darkness. The dark came with it. More accurately, it was the darkness. From his hand a long strip of black nothing extended up into the blind space above. He let it swing back into place, and thrust his hand deeper into that strange wall. As clearly as he could tell by touch, all of it was composed of these long strands of blackness. The sickly, sweet scent wafted more strongly from among them.

It was an alluring, nectar-like miasma, filling his nostrils and mouth, leaving him wanting more, wanting to fill his lungs, to be coated inside by the taste of that saccharine air.

The map, of course, had no mention of anything to match the description.

Unsure why he did it, other than because he had found no other thing of note in the canyon, no hope of escape, and because he needed to breath in more of that aroma, he cast a glance behind him, set his shoulders, and pushed forward into the blackness of nothing, and was blind as not even the blind can be.

He could feel the slick tendrils parting easily around him as he slid into their midst. The scent was stronger now, heady and overpowering in that black space. Breathing was more difficult, as though the air came from far away, filtered through the dangling curtain. Immediately, all sense of direction was denied him, even up and down melting away into insignificance. And all about him the warm vines pulsed and dripped with their pungent syrup.

It smeared across his naked form as he passed, and it tingled where it lingered on his skin. Down his legs and arms, across his chest, his back and between his thighs: soon his whole body was alive with the stimulating warmth, a slippery coating that buzzed with eroticism. His cock too was slicked with it, filling and pulsing even as the vines were. And on his face, where the nectar ran across his lips and dripped from his chin, the taste of it swelled that need in him for more. It was hunger, it was desire, it was lust.

A vine lay against his face, and without a thought, he let his mouth open, and his tongue slipped out to lick at the sweetness that flowed down it. At that moment, all the hanging tendrils twitched, and began swaying and swinging around him. The passage of each of them across his naked flesh was a sexual thing, and a welcome one in his lust-filled state, and he shivered in the heat of them. Slithering things slid against the hardness between his legs. His back arched, and with a moan he ran his tongue along the thick length on his cheek. It writhed under his attention.

He reached for it, to pull it closer to him, to better taste it, but vines wrapped about his arms and wrists and pulled them out to his sides, lifting him with their strength so that his feet dangled in that perfect darkness. He had no thought to struggle against their grip, and hung there, mindlessly waiting, wanting more.

A slickness was wrapping his ankles now too, pulling them together and continuing upward to encase his legs, immobilising them in a pulsing coccoon of heat and wetness. Higher still, the vines wrapped, until all of him save his head and his cock were contained. He could feel the pre-cum already dripping from him as the nectar dripped from the vines. Throughout, he was oddly placid. The need still filled him, but he was content to await the pleasure of the darkness.

Only then did he become aware of what pleasure it was which they sought. A tendril slid across his face, dragging its long trail of syrup across his parted lips until at last the end of it reached them. The tip of the vine pressed against his mouth and paused, hesitating, as if asking for permission. Was there any other answer? He let his jaw relax. His mind relaxed with it, his lips parted, and through them slithered the thick shaft of the vine, heartbeat strong within it, drizzling its stimulating fluid across his tongue.

As it passed inside his mouth, he felt warmth and wetness surround the head of his cock, and he moaned and his muscles clenched. The tendril stilled, and the sliding sensation on his tip ceased with it. Wanting more of that sweetness in his mouth, he began to suck, working the soft length with his tongue, and suction and motion squirmed around him as well. A second, desperate sound escaped his lips.

Then the vine was pushing deep into him, pressing against his throat and then slithering down further, and every thrust was echoed in the sensations on him. He choked. His throat spasmed around the vine that filled it, and on his own shaft a violent pressure clenched and milked at him. Swiftly already he felt the orgasm growing in his core. The tendril fucked deep into his face, and heat and slick friction devoured him, and the throbbing waves of pleasure rose in him, and with a strangled yell he shot hot cum free into the black void, and as he did he felt pungent fragrance fill his throat and mouth as gush after gush of nectar filled him, swallow after swallow of the intoxicating syrup.

He drifted in the darkness, empty in mind and body. He was aware of the vines moving him, passing him along through that slithering curtain, but where to and in what direction he could not guess. Nor did he try. He only drifted. After a moment they set him down on shaking legs, and he stumbled forward into light and confusion.

It was night, but the light of the moon and stars above was like the midday sun, after the nothingness of the vines. He fell to his knees in lush, soft grass that grew green-blue under the light of the night sky and squeezed his eyes tight to return to blackness.

After a moment, he was able to look into the light around him, and found it was only the dim silver of the moon. A full moon, he noticed with alarm; had a second month passed somehow, since he had left the elves on that festival night? He had slept only once, but swift passage of time was a common feature of Oldwood tales. He had entered the black vines under the light of the sun, and here he was, in his reckoning, only a little while later, in the middle of a deep night clearing. Something odd had happened with his time. Whether he had lost half a day or half a year, he could not say. But the moon was full.

He stared up at it, loss and uncertainty mixing in a bubbling pool within him. It seemed so close, tonight. A fake thing almost, as if he could reach up and touch it. Disoriented and still drained from the embrace of the vines, he lifted an arm to the silvered orb, and he stroked it with a finger. It was rough and cool, like a sphere of granite. Then it vanished.

Atyr jumped to his feet in shock, and stepped away from where the moon had been. In the sudden absence of its light, all the stars shone now brighter. Standing as he was, they were just above his head. Could he.... he stretched his finger towards a star, but it was just out of reach. As he strained for it, it bobbed away from him, and all the stars around it rippled, as though floating in some pond in the sky, into which Atyr had just thrust his arm. He laughed, but an uncomfortable tension clutched softly at his gut. It was odd. Too odd for his liking, beautiful and whimsical though it may have been. He reached tentatively for other stars, but all were just a hair too far. He jumped to snatch one from the sky, but it winked out as his hand passed by.

Looking at the blank place in the night, Atyr decided he didn't quite like this game with the stars. The sky was and should be unchangeable, except by its own rules. Surely, what he did in this little grassy clearing could have no effect on the true sky without, but still he mistrusted it. And it was ever wise to mistrust the Oldwood.

He walked to the center of the grass, and sat once more, looking about him now. All around the little glade hung the immense blackness of the vines, a ring of nothing on every side. Above were the stars, below him the soft bed of lush grass, and not a thing else was there within that dark curtain. The Level still urged at him from within for completion, and this seemed as safe a spot as he was likely to find.

Naked, and still coated in the slick of the vines' nectar, he stared down at his arm and fell easily into the fae-mark. 'Yes?' the pulsing ring of grey asked him. Yes.

The restoration rushed up through him in a spiraling vortex, and the wounds closed and faded and were gone. He gasped, at once awake and aware and alive. He felt for his class markings. Ranger had increased this time, joining Rogue at Level 2. So far, they were neck and neck together. He thought back. It had been Ranger, then Rogue twice in a row, and now Ranger once more. They didn't strictly alternate, but thusfar, they kept close. Was that a property of the classes, or merely a reflection of his actions? Who could say?

He sought out his attributes, hoping Strength would be available. He struggled still with the great black bow from his father, and if he was offered fae magic to ease that struggle, he would gladly accept. And, luck in luckless times, Strength 12 was brightly lit, as were Dexterity 14 and Perception 12. He nudged the mote over Strength without a thought, but then paused. Were Dexterity and Perception both glowing just a bit brighter than Strength, as Fate had been when the mote split? He tested it, letting the mote hover over Perception. It blurred and stretched, as though trying to separate into two, but then settled back into a single glowing point. He tried with Dexterity as well, with the same result. Strength it was then. He accepted the offer, and Strength popped up to 13.

Eagerly, he swam up out of the fae-mark, and pulled the bow from his back. He strung it, and the heavy limbs bent more easily in his arms than ever before. Still a strain, but less so. He nocked an arrow and drew fully. It was hard. It was still a powerful bow, but he could hold it now for a full breath without shaking. Carefully, he let the bow relax, and delight smeared itself across his face with a visceral pleasure. It was good, being fae-touched.

Swiftly, he drew once more and let fly the arrow with a laugh, sending it speeding straight into the void around the clearing. That curtain of blackest vines erupted into a violent, writhing mass of whipping strands of nothing, and a mist of nectar sprayed across Atyr's skin, even where he sat a half dozen strides away. He sobered at that. When it came time to leave the clearing, violence should clearly not be his preferred plan of attack. He unstrung the bow quietly

Sitting once more in the green grass, he settled back into the mark. The most exciting part of each Level now, the ability:

"Trapper's Bait" - Use distracting actions to lure quarry away.

It was a bit of a disappointment, or at least it was not an excitement. As with Whisperskin, the ability sounded fairly mundane on the surface. Already, Atyr could use distracting actions to lure his quarry; anyone could. But, he assumed, something about this would be different, more effective. Whisperskin certainly had turned out that way.

Thinking of Whisperskin, he remembered he was yet unclothed. Stealth was not likely to be needed here in the starlit glade, he hoped. And at any rate, there were no shadows to hide in. He did his best to wipe clean his skin, and dressed in the over-sized garments from Cei. It had been a month since he had worn woodsman's clothes, or any clothes at all other than the small elf furs, and the course weave scratched oddly on his skin. But there was comfort in the knowledge that the shirt and pants came from family, true family. It brought a little smile to his face.

He sat for a while in the grass, looking at the low hanging stars, wondering if there were some reason for their being there, if some secret to the little glade hung among them. A key to an exit, perhaps? He had enjoyed himself within the darkness of the vines, weird though it had been. After a month in these fae lands he was willing to admit that much. Still, he had come hard and that had settled his mind, and he had completed his Level which had awakened and enlivened him, and he was clothed now, and more lucid. He wasn't sure he was ready to head back among those throbbing, dripping lengths just yet. Another way out would be just lovely.

Looking up at the stars, he noticed they were all moving slowly, like tiny, white petals on a pond. Standing, he reached once more for one, and it floated away from him. He swiped at another, and it trailed after his hand, drifting on the current of his passage. He could move them.

At length, he found that the stars did not actually disappear as the moon had, when he snatched at them, but only drifted far, far away, then floated back down, growing brighter until they reached once more the imaginary surface of that pond in the sky.

He tried many things then, wondering if some pattern he might create would do... something. He arranged them in the shapes of the true night sky, hoping as he completed the constellations that it might unlock some fae door, transport him to some other part of the Oldwood. He clustered all the stars in one place. He arranged them into pictures, drawing the Sunlit Path, his half-built cabin, a face, a doorway. He wrote words with them, and then tried to push them all away into darkness at the same time. But always, they only twinkled above him, bobbing in the sky.

Eventually he could think of no other thing to do with the stars, and he sat back on the grass. He ate a meal, dragging it out long, relaxing on the soft turf. He pulled out the contents of his pack and arranged them, repacking them more efficiently. He found the map then, and cursed his foolishness at not having checked it sooner.

Nowhere was there a mention of a star-ceilinged glad, but there was a place called 'Tangled Lust', with a note that read, 'Pleasure pulls inward'. It was cryptic, certainly, but seemed a reasonable match for the vines. But if pleasure had pulled him inward, what led outward? Celibacy? Or pain? He packed the paper once more and forced himself to action.

Whether another month had passed or not, he had to leave. And through the vines was his only route. He straightened his spine, and approached the dark curtain. It was still. If any resentment lingered from his careless arrow, it wasn't evident. He poked at the wet darkness, and there was no response. At least it felt good, the first time. With a deep sigh, he shrugged and stepped once again into the nothing.

As before, the miasma of the nectar filled him and brought him swiftly to a throbbing arousal that demanded more of the sticky sweetness. He was clothed now, so the syrup didn't mainly find his bare skin. On his face and hands, that tingle still clung where it coated him, but the sensation was nothing like when it had been spread over every portion of his naked body.

He pushed forward, sliding through and between the twitching heat of the black mass, gasping with desire, but determined to make it to the other side. Then the vines began to pull at him, tugging at wrists and ankles, slowing him, then stopping him altogether, and finally lifting him as before. His arms were tightly grasped and pulled wide. His legs were grabbed as well, but instead of being wrapped together, this time they were pulled apart, and he was held in the darkness, limbs spread, and the tendrils traced and writhed slick against him, damping the fabric until it clung heavy and hot on his skin.

He was throbbing inside now, his cock straining against the clothes, everything in him wanting to be free of the burdensome fabric, to pleasure the vines once more, and in so doing, pleasure himself. But he needed to leave. A sopping tendril of darkness pressed hard against his mouth, seeking entry, trying to work its way in, and the maddening scent of its fluids filled his nostrils, but he pressed his lips tight and shook his head. The pressure vanished at once from his mouth, but the vines did not release him.

They wrapped all over him, wet constriction against his clothes. Several moved between his thighs in unison, sliding back and forth along him, driving the pulsing heat in his core ever higher. He felt a slithering at the waist of his pants, pulling, dragging down, and he let them. His cock sprang free, and the nectar coated it and he moaned and thrust into the air.

The vines resumed their sliding between his legs, a slippery grinding against the underside of his shaft, his tightening balls, and even in between the cheeks of his ass. It was here their attention focused now, having been denied his mouth. The lubricating syrup that dripping from the long shafts ran hot and thick on him, and his eyes opened wide in that blackness as he felt a firm pressure begin to build at his entrance. At the same moment, he felt a tight, hot ring pressing at the tip of his cock. Everything within him was shaking, with need, with a longing to be inside. And to be filled. It would be himself he was inside, himself he would be filling.

The realization was too much. It was too much to consider. He wasn't ready for that. He wanted it, but he couldn't do it. He shook his head again in the nothing.

"No. No, let me go!"

The vines did. As before, they passed him from tendril to tendril, quivering and soaked in their secretions, until he was once more beyond the curtain. His eyes shut of their own accord, pained by the contrasting brightness. When he cracked them open, he found himself once more in the glade of stars.

A whorl of need and disappointed lust, he dragged his feet a little way from the black curtain, and collapsed to his knees on the grass. No other thoughts were in his head but desire.

It took only a brief moment to finish himself with his hand. Looking at the creamy mess in his palm, he wondered if, had he allowed himself the pleasures of the vines, he would be free of the glade now, or if they only pulled their partners inwards. But he was too worn out to experiment.

Cleaning his body again as best he could, he curled himself on the soft turf, and drifted off among the stars in his dreams.

***

Those little pinpricks in the sky were still above him when he woke, but the moon was back. It was full again. That was a comfort to him. If the moon was always full here, perhaps time had not been flying by. Or perhaps he had skipped another month while he slept. That thought tempered the warmth of comfort with something cold.

After a quick meal, he decided to try violence with the vines after all. Drawing Cacoburn, he approached them. There was no reaction. He drew one long, steadying breath, and let it out. Then he moved. A swift slash at the blackness and a spring backwards and away. Dark chaos erupted before him. What happened in the roiling violence there, he couldn't see, but he remembered the power of the vines' grasp, and he knew he would not survive it. He could not cut his way out.

Time passed, and the night, or day, or whenever it was drew on. He poked at the sky, and tried various patterns to no effect. At first he left the moon alone, but at length he sought to move it about as well. It vanished as before.

He ate a meal. He sat in the grass. He thought about his time at Hollowtree, and the powder from Emrus, and about his half-built cabin, and about his family, and the odd fruit in the orchard, and Cacoburn at his hip, and about the little rhyme from the tinkers, and about Bird, and Helliot, and Pesky. And of course, he thought about Kella.

He nudged more at the stars. He ate another meal. He tried writing little poems in his head, but they were terrible. He fiddled with the constellations, but nothing happened.

He swatted at the stars, and they splashed about above him. He swung again, harder, and then again, enjoying the way they jumped and sloshed in the sky, delighted by his act of impotent violence against the infuriating, little points of light. To his startlement, one of them splashed clear out of the sky, and flew across the glade, where it fell and faded in the grass. But before it died, an odd thing had happened. Its light had fallen on the wall of the vines, and it had shown through them, cutting away the darkness there as though there was nothing particularly black or unusual about it.

Atyr stared at the place the star had landed, blacker than black once more. Slowly, slowly, with an eager thrumming in his chest, he turned his face again to the sky. He stretched up a shaking hand to a star to grasp it, and he knew he wouldn't be able. He wasn't. Sobriety returned, but there was something new smoldering at the back of his mind. There was a way out, and he knew now how to start looking for it.

He struck at the little lights again and again, but he could knock no more of them free. He tried many other ways to catch a star, jumping, swirling, looking away, playing coy, yelling at the stars, persuading the stars, trying to buy a star from the sky with the fae kip Emrus had given him. But nothing worked, until he decided to go fishing in that glitter-marked pond above him.

Reaching towards a bright bit of light that was ever too far to be grasped, he pulled at it. He pulled as though it were a little, silver fish, hooked on a line, and it came. Just a bit, it came closer. Again. A little tug on the imaginary line, and the star was brighter, nearer. He still couldn't reach it, so he pulled and tugged and fought that shimmering thing until it was a fist-sized ball of brilliance just above him, with a cold heat emanating from it. What a cold heat was, he wasn't sure, other than that it was this.

He took it. He just reached up and took a star from the sky, and held it in his hand, and its white light poured pure and clean in bright lances from his fingers. A fierce grin cut his features as he hoisted his pack on one shoulder, and grabbed his bow, and ran for the darkest dark.

The light cut at it, and it fell away, showing the grass below, stark shadows cast by each green blade. Atyr lunged into the light where the dark had been. But already the beams were fading in his grasp, the dark was returning, closing, so he turned and fled. The blackness was on all sides, and he dove forward into the wall of nothing and felt the hot, wet slime of the vines on his face. Then he was through, and he was free of them. But he was still in the little glade, and the star was gone.

He worked long to pull down a second star, and threw it in the middle of the black, but he could see it didn't shine all the way through, so he let it die, and he sat back on the grass and thought some more.

He thought about songs about stars. He thought about stories of stars. He thought of songs and stories of darkness and fae things. He thought about rhymes, and children's games. He thought about gardens. Growing things, like brambles, and like vines. He thought about stories and songs and rhymes about light. He thought about light itself, and how to use it, how to keep it.

He remembered his storm lantern.

It was a cautious excitement that filled him this time, as he reeled in his catch from the sky. He let it lie there above him for a moment and considered it as it gasped with bright light. He held his little lantern in one hand. Then he reached forth and plucked the brilliance from overhead, ripping it from its constellation, and thrust it into the glass chamber of the lamp. It stayed there. He held it, looked at it. The starry illumination shone blinding from within, and didn't fade.

Atyr set down the lantern and collected his things once more, securing his pack, shouldering his bow, and settling the elf belt firmly about his waist. He picked up his lantern, and marched on the curtain. That deepest darkness, that blind nothingness of black, it fled before the light of the star. The grass was soft and green beneath his bare feet, and he strode across it, cutting a path through the night, forging ahead until the blackness ended and he was free of the glade, free of the vines, and back once more in the Oldwood.

He closed the shutters of the lantern, cutting off the light. It was day, back in the wood. He was on a path. The Path, he thought, The Sunlit Path of Many Flowers.

But the path was no sandy thing, as it had been for him before, it was a hard-packed red silt, with jagged shards of black stone and twisted, broken roots reaching up from it. Flowers there were still, but where before he had found a festive array of bright hues, now every blossom was the same, deep, midnight purple, fading to a red center, blooming on black, thorny stalks. The sun above was a wan thing, sickly and faint, and it cast a pallid light over all that was below it.

But it was the Path. There was nothing to do but to follow it.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bridges and Troubling Waters

Almost, as he walked along it, Atyr managed to convince himself that the fell seeming of the Path was a positive sign. As he took inventory of the places he had been in the Oldwood, he found that fairness or foulness of appearance had little to do with the danger of the thing.

The dancing field had been a joyous, beautiful, erotic experience that had left him trapped by a maze in a meadow suddenly dead around him. The maze had been filled with pleasures and horrors alike, and both, he had to assume, would have been disastrous. The Forge was a fearsome thing, and the smith that worked it more so, but in the end it had gifted him a enchanted dagger. By all rights it's enchanted, and fae take the pedant's words who claims otherwise! Then Hollowtree, Home, had been the fairest place imaginable, and it had very nearly trapped him for the rest of his days with its peace and joy. Sorrow had been a miserable place, and he hated still to remember it, but it had nonetheless held no real threat for him, other than sorrow itself.

Yes, he almost decided it was a good thing to see the Path looking so sick and ominous. Almost.

He continued along it. There was no need to consult the map. There were only two ways out of the Oldwood written on it. 'Follow the Path for a Day' was the first, and the one he now intended to use. The other was to leave the path and everything else behind, wander aimlessly in the wood, and hope for the fates to be kind. As someone with the attribute Fate 9, he wasn't ready to throw himself on their mercy.

For as far as he could see, it was unchanging. Looming, ancient trunks, sickly sun from above, and deadly-dark flowers lining both sides of the hard, blood-red path. It was always sunlit, on the path, so marking the passage of time was a guessing game at best. But he walked, and he walked, and he felt that at least some sizable portion of a day must have passed before he encountered anything at all on that dismal route.

It was three things all together that caught his attention. The first was the slopping and gargling sound of running water ahead. The second was a brightening and lightening of the sun, a warmth and cheerful coloring down the way that hinted at a return to the happy path he had walked on before. The third came into view as he approached the stream and the sun; it was a bridge. Over a sickly, little trickle of a stream, the towering structure rose, high and black and twisted, formed of brambles that grew dense on both banks.

Across the tiny stream, the Oldwood was as delightful as any of the surroundings of Hollowtree. The contrast between the two banks was astonishing. On this side, all was grim and poor and sharp, and just on the other bank of the water, close enough to hop to from this side to that, was light and rich colour. Connecting them the bridge threatened. Crossing that, Atyr thought, would be very unwise.

There was a jolly hint of a jump in each step he took towards that brighter shore, and swiftly he came up to the little stream. It was an ill-favoured bit of water, trickling through silt like crushed charcoal, with opaque bubbles that dried and clung to the dead flotsam that clogged it. He was loathe to leap across, lest he slip and touch the foul liquid. His earlier musings returned to his mind; not all that was foul was a danger, and not all that was fair was a boon. Quite the reverse, in his experience.

There was no need to check the map. The bridge wasn't there, he was certain. Yet he checked it anyway, hope against hope, and found himself unhappily correct.

A jittery bit of tension played at the back of his neck as he stood considering the stream. Was it a trick? If he crossed to the light would he find himself locked away in some further trap of the forest? Or, could it be that crossing the bridge, terrifying though it looked, was the only safe way to gain the pleasanter side? He looked up at the wizened bulk above him. Thorns like pen knives reached from it ravenously. And, there were eyes on him, unseen eyes tickling at his face.

It wasn't hard to find their owner. Coming down the happy side of the path, skipping in an odd, jerky manner, was a man. Of sorts. A man from waist to head, barechested, but where pants might normally be, all was fur. Thick legs that bent backwards like a goats extended down and ended in hooves. On his back was a great pack, very much like those the tinkers wore, clanging and dangling with a menagerie of items. A faun! In stories, they were joyful little pranksters of the forest, though the tinker's pack was not something he had heard of. Perhaps it was a peculiarity of this particular faun.

"Ho, ho!" called the furry man. "Cross it not, cross it not!"

Atyr took a step back from the bank, and sent a welcoming smile towards the faun. "I was just wondering what I should do! I would love to be on your side of this stream, but I've been tricked so many times in this wood. I shouldn't cross it, you say?"

The faun came prancing up the path, coming to a clatered halt just across the sludgy trickle, a grin on his bearded face. "Indeed, cross it not, it is peril to do so! A bit of wisdom from a mortal such as yourself." He bowed. "I am Luckly, peddler of all that there is, and I set myself now as your guide, if you'll have me."

Atyr looked at the wet silt at his feet, then the thorny way above, and finally the dark path behind him. "I won't lie that I could use some guidance. Atyr Bracken, at your service."

The odd man spread his arms wide, as though introductions were the most pleasing and astonishing things in the world, and beamed from across the trickle.

Atyr smiled back, hopeful, but not letting the supposed trickster aspect of these creatures slip from his mind. "Can I not cross at all then? Or do you mean only that I must use the bridge? I shouldn't like to set foot on it if I need not."

"Ah, you're clever, clever as I said. If you hop across just here, I've no idea what will become of you. Perhaps you will wander, lost forever? I cannot say. But the bridge is a sure thing. It has never failed me yet!"

"Are you certain?" Atyr wasn't. Luckly seemed a pleasant fellow, but the wood had been cruel with its pleasantnesses many a time before now.

The faun inclined his head. "I can't lay blame at your feet if you doubt me. It's a dark thing, the bridge, and no doubt. But I'll say again, it has never failed me." To demonstrate, he hopped up onto the brambles and tripped lightly across, leaping down at Atyr's side with a flourish and a bow. "Come, on you go now to the better side of the wood!" He gestured for Atyr to cross as well.

That irksome bit of an itch on Atyr's spine still worried at him, but the bridge hadn't done anything terrible to the faun. It hadn't done anything at all. Perhaps it was just a bridge. Cautiously, he placed a foot on the dark, twisted brambles. It responded as a bridge might be expected to respond. He took a step, and another. It was a bridge. Feeling twice a fool, he looked over his shoulder at Luckly to laugh with the faun at his misplaced reluctance, and that bit of an itch expanded into scratching, icy fingers that raked up his back. The bridge was closing behind him.

He lunged back the way he had come, but the gap was already too small. He caught on the wicked thorns, and they held him fast, tearing his clothes but pricking only lightly at his skin. He pulled free, thankful yet again for Unarmoured Defense. Beyond the cage of razor vines, Luckly still stood, smiling warmly at him.

"Ah, it looks like you'll have to cross, I suppose. But you wanted that, didn't you?"

Atyr snarled at the faun, and drew Cacoburn. It smoked in his grasp. With eyes locked to the faun's, he swung the fiendish blade to cut himself free of the bridge, but the bridge flew into motion, whipping out and wrapping his arm in thorny lengths. The sleeve tore where it caught him, and he gasped at the many little stings that strove hungrily to bite his flesh. He pulled at the piercing grip, but it only shredded the shirt further, and began to dig deeper. The clothing was only so much protection.

With his free hand, he drew the belt knife, but now that arm too was siezed, and the vines began to twist and cut through shirt and skin. He threw himself away, the sleeves flew into tatters, blood ran down his arms and he screamed at the pain, but he was free. The two blades fell down through the snarl and slapped into the muck below. He ran.

Along that tall bridge he ran, and it closed and narrowed into a nightmare tunnel around him, catching at his shirt, his hair, his pants, cutting his feet. There were bones in its clutching branches, he saw now, stark white amongst the dark wood. He stooped, but it closed yet smaller, until he was crawling, feet torn, hands bleeding. And still it squeezed him tighter. His pack caught and he let it slip from his shoulders and dragged himself on through the constricting thorns.

The little daggers shredded his shirt along his back, and tore the knees and shin from his pants, and he bled from a hundred slices in his flesh. His chest was a sick roil of hot terror inside. The blue belt of the elves caught fast, and with hands that shook he wrenched it from him. So small was the opening now that he wriggled forwards like a worm. A skull, punctured and cracked, was ground against his face as he passed, and still the piercing points descended on him, and ripped the last of the clothing from him, and dug deep gouges in his skin until he was washed over and again in red blood.

It was only the protection of his brother's clothes that saved him in the end, when at last he fell to the warm sand of the Path on the happier shore.

He lay there naked and gasping, writhing, painting the yellow sand crimson in his agony, waiting for the fae-healing to stop the blood, and to close the wounds. It was slow. As he lay, unable to stand, his eyes caught on the bridge. From this shore, it was a clean, brightly painted thing of carved wood, with red slats and cheery blue railings. His pack, belt, the great black bow and other possessions lay scattered upon it, as if for no reason, he had dropped them there. Only the sheen of the blood, red on red painted wood, told the story of his passage. And on the other side, Luckly watched him, smiling still.

The faun reached down and picked Cacoburn from the silt, turning it over in his hands, and then slipped it into his clanking pack. It was joined by the belt knife. Atyr tried to speak, to yell in protest, but his voice was only a pained gurgle in his throat, and the faun ignored it. Luckly hopped lightly across the stream and skipped up to Atyr's end of the bridge. He looked down at his victim, lying helpless on the bloody sand.

"As I said, it's a sure thing, this bridge. Never fails me, not once! It's a one way affair, I suppose I might have mentioned." With that, he clopped onto the red boards, and walked across, collecting Atyr's things as he went. Only the bloody scraps of fabric he left behind him, as, without another glance, he pranced off down the trail on the dark side and vanished into the trees. A small heat of Experience left Atyr's many wounds and reentered his body, but it was little solace to him, on that sunny shore.

As he had on the shoulder of the road to Woodstead over two months before, he crawled and dragged his tortured form to the edge of the way and collapsed into the comfort of despair. Everything was taken from him, and he was pulled down through that tunnel of bones and shredding thorns, down, tearing, piercing, down, down. He wondered if it was death that he fell into, and he strained for one last moment to see the light of the Sunlit Path before darkness took him, and it flickered in his eyes as the world disappeared.

***

It wasn't death that he had fallen into, but neither was it the health and soundness that fae-healing promised, to which he awoke. He no longer bled, and the wounds were closed, but they were not healed. He looked into his mark, and found that the red circle remained empty. Cold fingers squeezed his lungs and the breath died in his throat. He had become accustomed to the idea that any hurt would vanish with a good sleep. For whatever reason that had been taken away, he felt the lack of it with a clarity as piercing as any of the thorns. He was near death, and death was as final now as it ever was.

That icy grip only tightened within him as he realized the path was gone. In his agony and despair, he must have strayed to far from its sandy length, and in so doing thrown himself into the uncharted wilds of the Oldwood. Though charted or not, his map was gone with his pack. As was the enchanted powder from Emrus. The chill constricted further.

The bridge was gone as well, though the sick little stream remained, and the darker, nastier woods across it. Might he step across that stream and hunt down the hated faun? Whisperskin remained to him. A heat began to battle the cold within him, those little flames of vengeance that smolder and catch and burn hotter with time. A fay glee grew in those little flickers, as an image came to him of the faun's grinning face collapsing into terror as dark hands fastened about his thieving neck. Luckly would find luck leaving him swiftly enough, if this shadow-clad ranger could find him.

With that fire driving him on he moved, with pain-laced skin, to the silty trickle of foul water, and stepped across as the faun had. Nothing changed, except for the widening of his twisted grin, and he slipped into the trunks of the dark forest, just one more shadow among its brethren.

It was not long before the futility of his hunt began to cool the burning in his heart, however. In all the wide wood, with its changeable and inconstant meanderings, how could he expect to find the treacherous faun, by wandering in the trees?

Yet he was a Ranger, and there was naught else to do. He had no clothes, no tools, no weapons, no food, no water, no map, and no idea where he was. So he carried on, hoping for a some place of note which might guide his route, or, if fate should be in a merciless mood, some sign of the hated faun.

What he found at last, was neither trace of Luckly's passage, nor anything he could recall from Wetlyn's map. A small, glassy pool lay in the trees, contained within their intertwined roots. It was more of a puddle than a pool almost, but clear and reflective as polished silver.

He would have passed it by, stopping only to take a drink if it seemed clean enough, had not the sun flashed so brilliantly off its surface. It shone upward to his face in a beam that blinded and flared in his eyes, and when he could see again, he found a perfect reflection staring back at him. His face was criss-crossed with raking pink scars, as was the rest of his bare flesh. Dried blood yet encrusted much of him, crumbling and falling from him in brown flakes. His hair was a crazed tangle, longer than he had ever worn it before, matted and snarled so that it hid his cheeks and his ears. He reached a hand to touch his skin, and as he did, the image before him began to shift.

The hair shrunk back and was clean, the scars faded away, the skin clarified. Then the face was shrinking, the cheeks rounding slightly, the eyes turning softer and younger. In the water he saw himself in the end of his second decade, then the middle, and the beginning. He was a child, then younger still, until a red-faced newborn screamed at him from the silvered surface. He could hear the infant's screams, as he watched his life begin.

***

The babe was lifted, cleaned, bundled and hugged tight until the crying stopped. He grew, crawled, walked, said words and was held and loved through all of it, by his father and mother and the little girl his sister. Then a second baby was born and grew, learned to be a child, and Cei and Moranna and Atyr all played and laughed in the Brookwood together.

There was mischief and sadness, and their parents taught them, cared for them, disciplined them, and loved them. Atyr played with his father's bow, and could bend it not at all. Cei would help him, and Moranna too, and the three of them would struggle until their father came, laughed, bent it, and shot an arrow for them to find in the woods. His mother taught him herb lore and how to find water, and the training of dogs. His father took him deep into the wood hunting, and they all planted and tended the gardens. They built an addition on the little cabin, and later a second cabin a half day away for their cousin.

Atyr was taller now, older, and it was his first time with a girl. He did something with his fingers for a while and Bril said she liked it but that he'd done it enough, and she took him in her mouth and drained him, and smiled up at him from her knees in the wood and told him she loved him. Later she was gone and he was with Jespril now, and they did many things together, always careful to avoid making a child, but then Jespril found an older man and married him. Moranna was married too, to the Wilt's youngest, and Atyr's parents were worried though they tried to be happy for her, but she left, and she stopped writing, and only rumors came, and then nothing.

Atyr left his family's home as well, with tearful, joyous goodbyes, and went a few days east until he found a place for his own home by a spring-fed pool, and he cleared the land and began to build, and he finished the cabin and lived in it by himself for a season. Then one day he cut his palm gutting a fish. He reached into the pool to clean it, and green hands caught his own, and a green woman spoke to him and lured him into to center of the pool where she touched him and gave him bliss. But she dragged him down beneath the water to let him drown and drank his blood, and his corpse floated up to drift in lazy circles around the eddying waters.

It took twenty years to see all that in the reflections before him, and then it was over in an instant.

Atyr stared down at his own dead face, blank wonder swallowing his mind. Then the dead thing in the water spoke to him.

"What a life you have had, Atyr Bracken. And longer than it might have been. You have been strong and steadfast throughout."

He blinked, and shook free his voice after a lifetime of disuse. "I don't feel particularly strong right now. Are you me? Are you me as I would have been, had I not met the sprite?"

"We are one, only on different paths. Either of us may walk where the other has."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Atyr said.

He smiled. "It's not easy for either of us to understand, perhaps. But you have been strong, and brave and kind too. Would another have come all this way, and through so much, just to spare a couple of healers some trouble?"

"It's my fault they're in this trouble. At any rate, I had no idea what a journey it would be."

He nodded. "Yes, but even knowing, you would have gone, you know you would."

"You know that being me, you mean? That you would have gone?"

"Perhaps. I'm not really sure about any of this, you know."

"Well," he said. "Bravery is about doing what is hard, even when you're uncertain, isn't it? And you're honest too, always paying your way, even when it would be easy to slip by for free."

"That's just being a decent person, and most people are decent, you know."

"You take it further though. I know that much. You're more decent than most, even."

"Well, it's kind of you. Hah, kind of me, I suppose."

"Very kind, yes."

"I did say you were kind. Would just anyone have risked their exit from the Sorrow to comfort an old woman, or help a young boy?"

"Yes, but I left them both."

"It was necessary. You left because you had obligations to others that pressed on you."

"Could you have done otherwise?"

Atyr smiled. "Yes, you would have stayed, if you'd been able, if all you risked was your own. You left out of duty to others."

"Think how many people care for you, would risk themselves for you," he said. "That speaks to our goodness, you know. Bad people don't find love like that."

"Well, speaking of love, and people showering it on you, think of all the women who can't stay away. There's Kella of course, but there's that other Kella too, the golden one. They both love you so much, you know."

Warmth was flooding his chest at the memories of all the goodness in his life. He grinned. "Yes, almost hard to choose, isn't it?"

"Well, no, no it's not hard, at all." He frowned, that wasn't quite right. "The elf girl was only a pretender. I care for her, but I could never love her like Kella."

"Nevertheless, she would fly to your side in an instant if you returned to her. And the tinker girl too, she was infatuated when she first saw you. Even Bril, kind Bril back home, she still wants to be with you."

Atyr laughed. "It's the looks, partly, if we're going to be honest. You're a very good-looking young man. Muscled, but lithe and, if we're really being honest, it's that big, heavy cock of yours they all crave."

"They do love that, don't they?" he chuckled. "Once they see it, get a feel of it, it works its way into their mind. And that's really all you are to them, isn't it Atyr? Just a big cock, something to stuff themselves with. Something they can be bred by. And you don't care beyond that, do you?"

The change was sudden, so swift he smiled and nodded along for a moment before he noticed it. "What? No, that isn't at all how I feel, how they feel, it's not like that, it's--"

"In that maze, you just walked away, let Kella get torn apart by the trolls, didn't you. Were you sure that wasn't her, or were you just afraid?"

He shook his head violently. "It wasn't real! It was just a temptation! Like the rest of the maze!"

"You didn't know that, you didn't know anything about the maze. You don't even know if the trolls would just eat her, or if they would have taken pleasure from her first. You've seen how massive their cocks are, too large for a human body to take, that's cert--"

"Shut up. Shut up! You don't know anything about her! You don't care anything about her either!" He was yelling now, anger like fire in his veins. "You were happy to take another in her place. Just as soon as some pretty elf was nice to you, you left her behind."

Atyr yelled back at the thing. "Like you've never left anyone behind. You left Pesky in the rocks on the spire. You only hoped she was alright, you had no idea. And you've abandoned the Kelpie twice now in the wood."

"We both know that's not how it was." His voice was quiet now, hurting. "We both know."

"But isn't it? You're always abandoning people, just like you left that little boy to his fate in Sorrow. Alone, a small child, and you just left him there. Just like you left Kella and Bird in that healing house with a devil prince, and only a little sprite to protect them. Just like you left the elf girl without a word, running from the life you had planned with her as soon as you remembered the other girl. Just like you abandoned your sister after she stopped writing. She could be dead, for all you know, and now you're here, a failure, wasting time, ruining everything until only the--"

With a scream that tore from him as from a dying beast in a trap, Atyr slashed and kicked at the image in the water, shattering and distorting it. But it was wrong. The water splashed down, into the pool where he had struck it, flashing in the pale sun and falling back into the sickly sky below and then spatterring up to the surface. It was all upside down. His reflection stood now in the dark trees of the Oldwood, no longer floating in the eddying pool by his cabin.

It smiled at him. "Good bye, Atyr Bracken. It was an interesting life we lived." Then it turned and walked away from the edge of the pool, and Atyr could only stare up through the water and watch it leave.

The world felt as though it were crushing in on him and rushing away at the same time, and a pressure like a gale wind was in his ears, and his stomach was twisting and threatening, and all over he was shaking and weak. He dropped to his knees by the water, fighting for consciousness.

There was no reflection there now, only the image of the world above shining down to him in the pool.

=========================

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Market Day

It was a simple thing to escape through the pool, and it was impossible. Jumping in to the glassy surface was the obvious thing to do, and it worked. Atyr splashed deep and sank into the sky, turning and landing on his feet on the bank on the other side. Looking down, he saw the trees of the Oldwood looming at him, his reflection still missing. No matter how many times he jumped, it was always an easy escape to the place he had started. Perhaps there was another way to go, but he couldn't look away from the pool. If ever he thought to turn his head, some cruel part of his mind caused him to delay until the urge had passed. Only with his eyes closed, could he shut away the sight of it.

The worst part of the pool was the water. Seeing it. Touching it. Wishing he could drink it. It hung at his feet, at once like a ceiling and floor of clear ice, still and glassy, invitingly wet. But, whenever he gave in to weakness and tried once more to scoop his hands full of a clear draught, he found it was only a veneer; it felt like water as his finger plunged through, but beyond it was only the dry air of the wood above.

His throat dried and the air he breathed scraped at it. His lips cracked, and his head squeezed inward on itself. There was hunger too, and exhaustion, and the wounds of the thorns still ached on his scarred skin, but when water is denied, thirst drives all else away.

A day passed, more or less. He spent it on his feet, staring down into the pool that looked up into the world. That reflective surface only went away for a while when his eyes shut and his thoughts left him, and he slept, standing on the bank. When he woke again, he remembered dreams of staring at water he couldn't drink. And he hurt.

There was no more will to jump through the pool He was too weak to stand, he thought, yet he stood, shaking and sick. He was too thirsty to think, so he didn't. And still the wounds pained him.

A long while he stood, vacant and withering, before something small and bright splashed up from the surface and flashed through the air to land on the bank beside him. He looked at it. It was a fae kip. He picked it up and saw on one side a basket of fruit, and on the other a picnic spread out in a field. The image of food managed, for a moment, to break through the dying that thirst was making for him. Only when a bucket on a rope followed the little coin through the surface and fell onto the bank did he realize his eyes had left the surface of the pool.

He looked around him, and everywhere was a blank nothing. Not a nothing like the black of the vines, but true nothing, as if the world around the reflection had forgotten to create itself. The bucket began to move, tugged by the rope back into the pool, and with desperation, Atyr dove after and seized it. He followed it through the surface, and came out swimming in a dark stone tunnel with a brilliant light at the end of it. At the top of it, he corrected himself, the tunnel extended upwards from wear he treaded water. The bucket was being hauled up and away above him. A well!

It was not the time to question the whims of the fates. Atyr shouted. "Help! Hullo, can you help me? I'm in the well!"

The dark form of a massive head peered out against the bright circle above. The voice was deep, grating like stone on steel. "Eh? Pretty thing? Are you my wish?"

Atyr had no idea if he was anyone's wish, at the moment, and he certainly didn't feel pretty, scarred and wet and naked and cracked by thirst. But, even more than it wasn't time to question to fates, it wasn't time to argue with large things at the tops of wells.

"Yes, yes indeed, that I am! Throw back the bucket and haul me up!"

The voice growled again. "Oh. Alright." The bucket came rocketing back down and Atyr barely splashed aside to avoid it. The water was cool and clear, and it ran down his face and stung the craquelure on his lips.

"Hang on a moment!" He clung to the bucket and began gulping down huge mouthfuls of that life-giving liquid, freezing himself inside with painful succor.

"No. You hang on and I pull. Better plan." The bucket began lifting, too soon, and Atyr called once more.

"Wait, I mean! Give me a moment!" The bucket stopped. Atyr drank a little more. He wanted to fill himself to puking with the cold water, but he'd once seen a traveller drink to excess after emerging from the Brookwood, dying of thirst. The water had killed the man. So he restrained himself, and forced his eyes from the glittering surface.

"Alright, I'm ready! You can haul me up now!" The rope pulled taught, and he began to ascend swiftly and smoothly with the bucket, as if his weight was no great thing for his rescuer.

And, once Atyr had been hauled to the top and tumbled over the rim of the well onto the packed dirt around it, he saw why. It was a man, he supposed, but a man that stood half again as tall as any mortal, and twice as broad, with a squashed face and a wide mouth that grinned with mottled, square teeth. The thick rope looked like twine in its hands. The grin on that ugly face slipped away into something that might have been confusion, and might have been disappointment.

"You are not so pretty!" the voice boomed.

Atyr stumbled upright on shaking limbs. He smiled apologetically, scarred, naked, muddy, and dripping with well water as he was. "I have to agree. I don't feel particularly pretty either. Thank you so much for rescuing me from the well though!" He began backing away, slow and casual. Looking around, he found the well was just a little ways outside some sort of market, or festival perhaps, with booths and tents set up in a chaos of colors in the middle of a wide field. "If ever I can repay you, please don't hesitate to ask."

"You're 'posed to be my pretty wish! But you're not pretty! Dirty!"

It was hard to tell if the creature was getting angry, or if it was this loud and abrasive by nature, but Atyr thought in either event, distance from his rescuer would be a good thing. "Well, perhaps I'll be prettier cleaned up and dressed. I'll go see about a bath and some clothes and--"

"Don't go, wish! You wait and Graszha cleans!"

"Alright, alright." The energy fear brings was beginning to twist around inside Atyr. "Good plan. I'll wait."

Graszha, if that was his name, tossed in the bucket again and drew it up full. He took one long stride to Atyr, and upended it over the young man's head. "Need more buckets!"

Atry smiled and nodded, so very politely. "Of course." He blew water from his mouth and shook his hair.

The second douse seemed to be enough for Graszha. "Hum. Maybe pretty. A little." Small eyes peered at Atyr from that huge face. "Graszha doesn't like this." He swatted at Atyr's soft penis with a finger the same size as it.

Atyr yelped and jumped away. "Very sorry, of course! Very sorry." The big man-thing didn't seem very quick of wit, so Atyr took a risk. "I think I can make myself more pretty for you. Just wait here a moment, and I'll be right back. I'll be a much better wish!"

Graszha seemed to think a moment. At least, he didn't say anything for a bit, and Atyr assumed thought was taking place. Then the voice growled. "Pretty enough now. Graszha can use other parts." Great hands reached for Atyr.

He ran.

He made it almost to the clustered stands before the outraged roar came from behind him. He didn't look back, but tore down an aisle through crowded fae of all types, turned a corner, almost crashed into some tiny bluish creature, careened around to come up behind a row of booths, and sprinted along it until he came to the shade behind a large wooden shack of some sort, billowing with bright scarves and draperies. He stepped, gasping, into the shadows of the blowing cloth, and let Whisperskin settle over him. It was less effective under the high sun of late summer, but he hoped it would be easy enough for eyes to pass him by.

Away in the main thoroughfare, he heard demands being bellowed, and a loud stomping. But, Graszha it seemed, had either a limited desire for his 'pretty wish', or a limited attention, and soon enough the aggrieved cries ceased, and the thumping footsteps retreated back towards the well. At the least, Atyr earned a touch of Experience from his escape.

"Hail, elf-friend. Are you always clothed thus?" Atyr jumped, feeling the unseen eyes only an instant before the voice spoke, and found a man with golden hair and pointed ears staring down at him from a little casement on the wall of the shack.

He stood, embarrassed, letting Whisperskin fade away. "I apologize, I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot with a big someone. I didn't mean to be skulking behind... your shop?"

The corner of the elf's mouth twitched. "Well that's a neat trick. Clothed in shadows and clothed not at all." He chuckled. "But if it's the ogre you're hiding from, I should say it sounds like you two got off on the right foot, pretty wish."

Atyr was becoming very much aware of just how naked he was. Comfortable though he had grown with nudity in Hollowtree, it felt a different thing here in this market. He tried to position himself so the blowing fabric would obscure him a bit.

"I'm sorry, I got pulled here in a very unexpected way. I don't usually go about dressed like this. Or, not dressed, that is. Do you know a place I could find something, anything, to wear?"

"Well," the elf said. "You seem to be in the right place for that. Come around the front, and we'll see what fits you."

Atyr hesitated, considering marching back out onto that aisle of booths. Even if his pursuer had left, he would still be striding naked through the crowd. Sprinting in terror was one thing, striding was another.

"Might I climb in the window? I'm not... decent."

The elf extended a hand and a smile, and hauled him through the little window.

In the shack, a shop was set up. Fabrics and clothes of all shapes and colours were draped about in artful disorganization on tables and from the three walls. Bright silks, rich velvets, pale gauzes and things Atyr couldn't name abounded. It all looked very costly. He wished, suddenly, he had though to bring the kip with him from the pool.

The elf was already selecting an assortment of garments from around the room. Atyr felt the unpleasant twisting of shame in his gut. "I'm sorry, I realized I don't have any coin, mortal or fae. Do you have anything simple I could borrow on credit? Or is there perhaps a favour I could help with?"

The pleasant smile that had been on the shopkeep's face stiffened into something very polite. "No credit, thank you. And no favours." He set the bright clothes down on a table and gestured gracefully to the open front wall. "I will be selling until the gloom sets, should you come into any bronze. Thank you for your interest."

"I'm very sorry. I forgot at first. Before I go, do you know the way to the Path?"

"You'll find it. Return when you've coin." The arm remained pointed at the door.

With no alternative, Atyr apologized and thanked the elf again, then, steeling himself for the embarrassment of public nudity, stepped back into the clamour of the market.

No one much seemed bothered by his naked skin, although he caught several glances up and down his body, and felt many eyes tracing across him, often lingering shamelessly on the more private portions of his anatomy. After his initial discomfort, he noticed that the fae market-goers seemed to wear all levels of attire, from dense, regal dress, to tiny little tassels and belts that only made them look more immodest, to full nudity like himself.

Many of the fae were strange creatures, only vaguely or not at all human-like, but many were quite humanish. And among the more human, quite a handful were naked or close to it, and most of these, though not all, were quite attractive. It took desperate control to contain his penis at only a healthy chubbiness, swinging and bouncing about heavily, but fortunately not disobeying into full erectness.

His intent was only to leave the market at the far end, as far from the well-wishing ogre as possible, but the endless marvels of the stalls soon distracted him. Everywhere, he saw little bits of bronze: fae kips being exchanged for all manner of goods, from the mundane, through the unbelievable, and even the impossible.

One booth sold roses, buttercups, water lilies, and dozens of other flowers he recognized, wild and cultivated, but it also sold blossoms with faces on them, and blooms that turned to track passer's by, and even one that was separated from the rest by a wide space. Many shredded petals of all colours surrounded that last one.

Another stand caught his eye. It was only a single, small table, but on it a black velvet display with many tiers held a wide variety of potions and tinctures, all labeled with crisp script on tiny parchment tags. The aching of his scars ever on his mind, he began to peruse the bottles and vials, searching for anything like the healing draught he had drunk in Wetlyn's tower.

"Might I assist you, mortal mine?" an ancient voice scratched.

Atyr looked up and saw what, before meeting Wetlyn, he had expected a witch to look like. Aged, wrinkled and hunched, with black eyes that glinted with intense points of white light, the woman behind the table was staring not at him, but at his hands, unblinking.

"I'm sorry, I was just looking. I-- I haven't any coin." He gestured down at his bare skin, and immediately reddened, regretting calling attention to his nakedness.

The black eyes didn't stray from his fingers. "Coin is not all I need. There are many things you might provide me, man. What do you seek?"

"Well, I suppose I was hoping there might be something to heal all this." Once more, he indicated his body. "The scars. Once before, I drank something which healed me..." He trailed off, remembering the sort of thing Wetlyn found use for, from young men. "I should go find some coin first though."

But the long fingers were already flashing out, lifting a reddish vial with pointed nails, and dropping it between Atyr's palms. He caught it reflexively.

The presumed witch still stared at his hands. "It is yours, if only you return here at the glooming. I have many favours you might help with."

It was a desperate moment for Atyr. He hurt. He was starving. He had lost everything, and he was lost himself, naked in a dangerous place. His fae-healing was gone. He had no intention of coming back in the dark to see to what terrible uses the witch might put him, but he wanted that potion. And so he asked the question.

"Are you mortal, like me? Or fae?"

She creaked her answer, slowly. "Like you, no. But mortal I am, and we mortals must help one another, mustn't we?" At last, the glinting eyes raised to study his face.

"Yes." He smiled brightly at her. It was a mortal agreement they would make then, not immortal. "I'll see you at the first dark?"

"At the glooming." The eyes dropped once more to the red bottle in his hands.

"I thank you then, wise one! At the glooming." He turned, and walked off into the crowd with his treasure. He could feel her eyes on the small of his back.

As soon as he found a quiet corner of the market, he pulled the cork and, without hesitation, downed the red fluid. It was warm and soothing in his throat, and a sudden sense of well-being and health spread like growing roots through him. He relaxed, smiling, one weight among many lifting from his chest.

But his skin still hurt. Looking down, he found the red wounds still as raw and tender as ever. The weight pressed once more on him, halfway only, but threatening to return. He drifted into the fae-mark. The red circle has half full, but even as he watched, it was draining away, depleting slowly until it stood empty once more. His chest felt the weight twice as heavy as before. One hope crushed.

But it was no time for ruminating. Glorious, delicious, crisp-butter smells drifted on the air. Squashing the fear of death away inside him, he followed his nose towards a simpler goal, and found pies.

Wondrous, wonderful pies. Two rows of them all fresh, some still steaming, and a round, cheerful woman bustling away producing more. A human woman, unless he was mistaken.

"Excuse me. Could I bother you?"

Beaming, she turned from the smokey oven to greet him. "Well, if it isn't a young man." Her eyes drifted down and back up. "A young man with scars, and with a story, I'll warrant. If you haven't lost it with your clothes. And a hunger no doubt, if you've come to me?" Her eyes flicked down to his naked waist once more, and she flushed, just a hint more pink to her round, pink cheeks.

"A story for certain, and twice the hunger. I'm very sorry about the clothes they... I lost them."

She bounced her eyebrows. "So I see. But would you like a pie? That's what you're after?"

That twisting feeling came back. "I am indeed starving. A couple days it's been. I haven't the coin, but--"

"It's not a charity, my baking. If you'd like a pie, you'll have to pay for it." Her gaze drifted down his bare skin once more, then shot up guiltily. "Very sorry." With a nod, she turned back to her oven. It didn't seem to be much of a market for credit and promises. Or for beggars.

He looked at her back for a moment. "Uh, sorry again, but would you know the best way to the Sunlit Path from here."

A shrug of busy shoulders was all he got.

Stomach writhing much more with hunger than with shame, Atyr walked away. He walked past a large booth selling what, so far as he could tell, was a vast array of utterly mundane sticks and rocks. The wood wasn't even good, just the sort of drop branches one might step over in any forest. The rocks were rocks. He walked on, and then stopped.

Hunger turned into determination, and that determination charged and overwhelmed what sense of propriety remained to him on this dismal market day. He would have one of those pies, and he knew how he would get one. He spun around.

"Baker!" he called back to her. She paused, but didn't look up. He walked back to her booth. "Baker," he said again.

She stopped, then set down her mitts and turned, hands on her hips, to stare at him, brows dangerous.

It was time to test Trapper's Bait. "Come with me, I have something to show you."

She snorted, and began turning back to her work.

"Wait!" he said. "It's something very interesting. Follow me."

A heavy sigh came from the round woman. "And why would I do that, beggar?"

"I think you'll want to see what it is." This was not going as he had hoped. He began to walk away, beckoning her to follow. She only shook her head slowly. She looked back to her oven.

"Wait!" His voice was loud, urgent and dramatic now. Hunger was a powerful motivator.

She whirled on him, mouth open as if to begin shouting, but he winked at her. She paused, brows curious.

"I really think you'll like what I have for you." Feeling hopelessly ridiculous, he flexed an arm, and tightened the muscles of his stomach so they showed. Her mouth opened slightly, and her eyes slid slowly down his chest.

"Come with me, fine baker, and you'll see what all I have." It was repetitive, but it was all he could think of. Begging the fates that no one was watching, and feeling the touch of unseen eyes that told him someone was, he shook his hips a little, letting his fat cock swing against his thighs. It began to stiffen more. Hurriedly he turned, with another wink over his shoulder, and walked away. He could feel eyes burning hot on his ass as he left, but he didn't look back until he was at the end of the long row.

The baker was a few paces behind, her eyes vague and dream-adled. He beckoned to her once more, hoping the confusion of the crowd would prevent anyone noticing the oddness of what was occurring. As soon as he turned the corner he began to run back. After the first booth, he ducked into the shadow and let it melt over him. A moment later, the Baker drifted past, and he slipped out behind her and raced back to her table of pies.

Ever so openly, blatantly, as though it was the most normal thing, he picked up the biggest and scooped out a bite. It was a paradise of savory meat and vegetables on his tongue. His jaw spasmed and twinged at the flavour. It was everything he could do not to devour it there. In as carefree a manner as he could, he wandered off, eating bites as slowly as desperation permitted. The Experience he gained only sweetened the taste.

At places he stopped to ask for directions to the Path, but everyone turned him down, most looking slightly affronted at the question. He couldn't imagine what affront asking for directions might cause. Perhaps it was his nakedness, but many of the fae were naked as well. Yet another Oldwood mystery.

Many more booths and stands caught his eye as he wandered the market with his prize, staying away from the quadrant from which he had stolen it. A rough paddock was filled with strange beasts, somewhere between a dog and a predatory sheep. Atyr recognized their fluffy fur as the same from which the Elves of Hollowtree made their skirts.

A broad table, manned by an ogre every bit as intimidating as Graszha, offered a horrifying pile of body parts. All animals seemed represented, as well as many things that looked less animal than Atyr might have hoped. Limbs, skins, teeth, eyes, toes. It was a bloody mess. He noted that most of the other market-goers gave it a wide berth.

Across from it, a booth with dark purple curtains displayed a stunning trove of jewelry, glittering stones, flashing metals, odd glowing hues and subtle auras surrounding many of the items-- Atyr was entranced. The strange, winkled little man that watched the shop came barely past Atyr's knees. The man beckoned with a grin, and invited him inside. Atyr protested he had no coin, but the little fellow was enthusiastic, showing him necklaces, bracelets, cuffs, rings, collars, tassels, and many sort of bodily-adornment Atyr had never heard of nor considered. When the man showed him rings made to fit penises of various dimensions, and began explaining how to find the correct size, Atyr excused himself and left in a hurry.

The shadows were growing long and the sky beginning to darken when, near the far end of the market, an unbelievably cluttered shop caught his eye. A completely disorganized, theme-less assortment of items was for sale. On top of a heap in the central table, lay a blue elf belt, sewn with pockets and pouches, with two knives on it, a small utilitarian one, and a long, curved dagger that was stained with smoke and soot. Atyr's eyes shot across the rest of the mess, and landed on a heavy, black bow, with a quiver of dark arrows beside it.

With a slow, deliberate motion, he let his eyes trail up the furry legs of the shopkeeper. That fire which had faded and almost died was fanned into a fierce flame that burned in his chest and seared across his face in a grin that spoke nothing of merriment.

With pleasure, he let his vengeful glare smolder at Luckly, and watched the faun's eyes go wide and the lips part slowly in disbelief. Atyr let him wilt under the heat of the unspoken accusation a moment longer before he spoke, each word a delightful promise of violence.

"I think your bridge may have failed you at last. In a moment, I am going to ask you nicely to give back what you took from me." He paused, and let the dark shadows of Whisperskin run like night across his scarred skin. "I'm hoping you refuse."

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Fae Justice

The faun wasn't responding to Atyr's request. A grin came over the ranger's face, and slowly, deliberately, he reached out a shadow-mottled hand, and placed it on the hilt of Cacoburn where it lay sheathed on the blue elf belt. "I'm going to take my things now, you understand?"

"Help! Help! Robbery, I'm being robbed!" Luckly burst into action, puling and wailing of his plight to all around. "This naked mortal is threatening me. He's threatening my life! Help! Help!"

Heads were turning, people were stopping. Things that were very much not people were stopping as well. Atyr spun, hand still on Cacoburn, and opened his mouth, explanations forming in his mind, but it was not a welcoming crowd he found when he did. Two things that looked like tall, thin trolls stepped menacingly forward, and a clamour was growing among the gathering mob. He tried anyway.

"This faun tricked me on the Path!" A murmur went through the crowd, but Atyr felt it was not an encouraging sound. "He tried to get me killed, and when I was bleeding on the ground, he stole all my possessions."

"Certain, mortal, certain," said an elegantly dressed woman-ish thing with antlers like a stag. She didn't sound at all certain.

Luckly spoke, and the anticipation of his victory rang pure in his tone. "Unhand my goods, mortal man, and be off! Be glad of my mercy!"

It was a hopeless situation. Atyr backed up, hands held high, and let Whisperskin fade away. "Very sorry. Must have been a different faun. These things just looked so very like my own, I must have been mistaken. Very sorry." Then, with a direful eye thrown to Luckly, he added quietly, "I'll just have to go find the faun actually responsible."

Remarkably, the crowd parted to let him leave. He may have misjudged the sentiment of the market towards mortals, or at least towards nude, shadowy mortals making threats to shop tenders, but at least they didn't seem interested in violence. He stepped carefully through the menagerie of market goers, and came to a dead stop.

Three dark, vague figures rippled before him, the purple-black imagery of their forms washing in and out of focus, revealing the bright white of their bones within. All three wore matching black armor, smooth, shining, efficient looking metal without adornment. They waited at the end of the open row the crowd had made.

The central shade held forth a white staff in its flickering grasp, and beckoned Atyr forward. No sound came forth, but a voice spoke in his mind.

You stand accused and will be held to trial. Follow.

Guards, then? If these had these been the guards in Woodstead, or in Leffing's Down, or even Trael's Tor, he liked to believe he would have acquiesced, meekly and politely. Somehow, he didn't think any trial he would get here from the fae would result in anything favorable for him. Risky option it is, then.

He launched himself back towards the table, hand flying to Cacoburn and wrenching it free. Without stopping his motion, he spun and slashed three times towards the guards, but they didn't react. Instead he turned now to the crowd, and dove into them, shrieks and yells rising at his passing, and cries of 'Knife! A fiend blade he has!" Wonderful, a fiendish blade is likely just what I needed to further ingratiate myself with the fae.

Yet they parted before him, and back into the market he fled, racing down the thoroughfare, ducking into every gap between booths and stalls he could find. From every direction, he could feel eyes flit across his skin as he passed, but Whisperskin was on him once more, and he passed through the lengthening, blurring shadows wherever he could. Round and around and through he wound, until his chest clenched and his legs began to tingle. Never once did he waste time looking back.

Then he was out in the open of the field, moving as close to sprinting as he still could, the last of the eyes on him fading, and still he ran.

Ahead, light and music and voices rose from a deep depression opened in the ground, and he slowed as he approached it. It was an amphitheater. Some performance was taking place. Letting the shadows fall from him in hopes that the crowd here was as unperturbed by nakedness as the market had been, he slipped in amongst the viewers. He pushed himself carefully between a huge, hairy man that smelled like cows, and a tall figure in a yellow robe and hood that covered its face. The hairy man grunted and made room, eyeing the blade but seemingly unconcerned. Atyr settled down, just one more part of the crowd.

Shortly after he sat, three ghost-grey motes of Experience came racing across the field from the direction of the market to warm and reassure him. Yet, the confirmation that he had escaped could only bring so much reassurance. He was still naked, wounded, alone, with no possessions, and lost. Beyond that, he was still, he assumed, wanted. It was hard to focus on the play.

Down on the stage, something was going on with a small castle that was moved about by ghostly figures. A woman was sleeping, or perhaps dead, and she was being placed in a boat. A funeral boat, it might be. Atyr didn't much care.

He was just trying to calculate if the best course of action was to stay here in this moderate hiding place until the end of the performance, or if he should risk the open fields again and search out someplace better. He could probably even make it to the safety of the trees, if he was willing to let the Oldwood take him where it may, and abandon all his possessions. His father's bow, his elf-belt, the map, food and water skin, and of the course the powder, the only reason he was in the wood at all. Cacoburn was all he had. He had to stay.

Just then, he felt eyes trace across his bare back. One pair, then several. He risked a glance. Guards. More of the shade-things, whatever they were. He could see at least a half dozen, just from the corner of his eye. A vice spoke into his mind again, the same words as before. You stand accused and will be held to trial. Follow.

Atyr sat where he was. Let them move first, then he could better respond. He waited a long moment, then looked back again. The guards hadn't moved. There were about ten in all, at least that he could see. You stand accused and will be held to trial. Follow.

Was that all they could say? Moving slowly, Atyr stood, nodded to the big, hairy man, and went to the guards. As he neared them, he kept his posture loose, relaxed and inoffensive. Although, the fiend blade in his hand likely ruined the effect, somewhat. He came close to the line of shades, seeing their skeletons wavering in and out of darkness under their black carapaces. Then he dropped. Down to a crouch, then springing forward under their reach, then up again, sprinting into the dark--

And he was on his face in the grass, smelling the fragrance of the flowers with a dazed lack of clarity. The shades were around him, and a weight held him to the ground. What had happened, he could not say, but it had been fast. Fearsome fast.

You stand accused and will be held to trial. Follow.

This time he followed.

They let him keep Cacoburn in his grasp. Perhaps they had no fear of him, even armed. As they walked back across the field, they spoke no more to him, unless pressed. He tried to reason with them, briefly, and to ask where he was being taken, but all they would do was to repeat those same words in his head. You stand accused and will be held to trial. Follow. Back to the market they brought him.

As Atyr approached, surrounded by the shades, the lingering evening crowd began to gather to watch. The clustered behind, following and murmuring, until the whole procession reached the center of the thoroughfare. Here the guards stopped. They formed a perfect ring around Atyr, facing out to the crowd. There were thirteen in all, all identical, save the one who held the white staff.

This last now stepped forward and the voice came into Atyr's mind, and he knew somehow that it was in the minds of all present. This one stands accused and will be held to trial. Follow all who would be or bear witness.

And with that, with no sense of movement or change or even initial awareness, they were all in a different place, crowd, guards, and Atyr. They were atop a great flat rock, stretching out and up at a low angle to rise over and above the Oldwood below. A broad, twisted, leafless tree grew at the utmost point of the immense rock, seemingly rooted to the stone itself.

In the crowd, he caught a glimpse of Graszha, head and shoulders above much of the crowd, and near the front, Luckly looked at him with something that was half a smirk, half a sneer. Atyr glared back, trying to appear defiant, but feeling the imending end of his journey crushing down on him like a smothering weight of sand.

The guards now began to move as one, shepherding Atyr towards that ancient trunk, towards that high point that seemed to survey the world. His mind reeled and swung from panicked hope to panicked hope, but there was nothing that could be done.

Before the great tree, the guards halted, and opened their ring. You stand accused. Stand now in judgment. The guard with the white staff gestured with it to Atyr, indicating that he should step up to the roots of the tree. He looked up the wizened bark, at the snarl of branches above, black against the deepening sky. Then the tree spoke, and its voice rang out like a choir of horns, low and pure and clear.

"Hear now all who will, the claimant and the accused! Step forth, who would bring claim!" It was the voice of Justice. Even with his mortal ears, Atyr could hear that. But what justice might mean to these fae, he could only wonder. He knew he was soon to find out, and that thought brought only a tightness to his throat and a dryness to his mouth, as he stood naked in that place of judgment.

Luckly trotted forward, though Atyr was pleased to see that in the presence of the tree, even the faun's demeanor became somewhat hesitant. Nevertheless, he still managed a good little speech.

"This mortal man came up to my stall in the market, and attempted to take several of my wares. He made clear his intent of harm against me, should I refuse. When the glamour-shades approached, he seized the dagger which he yet holds, slashed at them, and fled. One might think that demonstration enough of his guilt."

A momentary silence fell, and Atyr wondered if he should speak, and if he could keep his voice calm if he did. But the booming voice of the tree came once more.

"Let now the accused make his defense."

Something heavy and made of unpleasantness dropped down into Atyr's guts, disordering any coherence to his thoughts. It was a moment before he knew how to begin. A long breath shuddered from him, and he held Cacoburn high, smoke drifting faint and black from the exposed blade.

"This blade is mine! I purchased it in Woodstead, and it was re-made for me by the Stone Smith at the Forge here in the Oldwood." He paused, waiting to see what reaction there was, but every person, every thing there, was still.

"I took it from the faun's table only because he took it from me by force. The belt it was on is mine as well, from the elves of Hollowtree, with whom I have stayed. These things and others, he stole from me in the wood. My pack, and a black bow, which was my father's." His hand shook as he held the dagger, and he let it fall. It was a compelling story, and the truth, if only he could set it forth clearly.

"I met Luckly at a small, dirty stream that separates a dark part of the Path from the bright. He tricked me into crossing a bridge of thorns, and it ripped everything I had from me. I barely survived it. He took all I had and left me for dead." Here Atyr paused to point with Cacoburn directly at the faun. "Now, he tries to sell it in the Market. I sought only to recover what is mine."

Quiet again. No one moved, no one spoke. No wind or bird broke the stillness of the rock above the wood. Then the tree thundered again.

"The mortal accused makes no claim here. It is the claim of the faun we discuss. If any here would bear witness, let them now step forth." The echoes of the great voice fell away.

A woman's voice came from the crowd. "I've something to say about him, I do!"

Atyr looked, and saw the pie baker. What she might have to say about his interaction with Luckly was a mystery, but a little rush of heat washed up his back at her presence. She likely was not coming to his defense.

"This man, this naked man, tried to beg a pie of me! I told him to get gone, of course. But then, he lured me away, and when I came back, a pie was missing!" She nodded her head once firmly, as though she had settled the matter. "Speaks ill of his character, it does."

An odd voice came from the back of the crowd, clear and haunting, though whether male or female could not be told. "Lured away by a naked man, were you? And for what, I wonder..."

Laughter dribbled from the assembled crowd, but was quickly stifled.

The tree's great voice came again. "None may speak but those that bear witness. The baker's mortal testimony stands as a suggestion of dishonesty. We do not hear her mortal claim."

Nevertheless there was a quiet murmuring in the crowd, little titters, and a voice muttering, "Lured away, I'll bet she was!"

Luckly seemed pleased by the tree's pronouncement, and winked at Atyr in the nastiest way imaginable. Atyr only met his gaze coldly, and squeezed tighter the hilt of Cacoburn.

The tree was speaking once more. "If any other would bear witness, let them now step forth!"

This time, the twisted old witch hobbled forward, voice rasping as she came towards the tree.

"This man, to my table he came, and in need of my aid he was. I gave him what he sought, if only he would return to me at the glooming. Yet gloom is here, and he never returned!"

"Ah yes, he should have slipped the guards and fled the justice of the tree, all to meet with you at the glooming, fair hag." It was that odd, ambiguous voice once more.

Real laughter sputtered among the crowd now, again choked and silenced by the intended solemnity of the moment.

The tree spoke. "The witch's mortal testimony is held unheard. The needs of justice come before all others. Are there no immortal's who would bear witness in this case?"

Atyr glanced at Luckly, trying to get a sense of how this was proceeding by the faun's reckoning. The furry creature looked annoyed at the tree's statement, but not in the least bit worried. Which meant that Atyr probably should be.

A murmur came from the crowd, Graszha was pushing forward through the assembly.

"Graszha will speak about little man! Pulled him from the well. For my wish. Wanted pretty thing!" The big ogre stared around at the crowd, as if expecting accolades and sympathy, but got only a narrow range of reactions, from bemused to amused. There was a long pause, before he seemed to realize further explanation was needed.

"I wished and pulled him up." Graszha mimed pulling in a rope. "Then he runned away."

A puzzled silence followed, even the Tree seemingly at a loss for how to respond. But once more the pure, androgynous voice spoke again from the back of the crowd.

"The ogre wished for a pretty thing, and drew out a naked, scarred, human man. My my, I have heard many things today."

This time the laughing and chatter of the crowd continued a while, only stopping when the great tree bellowed over them.

"None may speak but those who bear witness! A granted wish must be honoured. The ogre's immortal claim stands alongside the faun's, but does not support it."

Atyr tried to find cheer in the second part of that, but just what might be entailed by the first part, about wishes being honoured, was more than a little concerning. Give me the faun's justice any day.

Once more, the clear voice spoke from the back, apparently undeterred by the tree's repeated calls for silence. "But how came a mortal man from the well, I wonder? Perhaps he fell in only, and was no wish at all."

"NONE MAY SPEAK BUT THOSE WHO BEAR WITNESS."

"Well, may I then bear witness, since immortal voices are desired? We've yet heard but two mortals and... the ogre."

A little snicker ran around the assembled fae. Perhaps there were immortals and immortals.

The tree was quiet a moment, then spoke, its great voice somewhat muted. "Step forth and bear witness, Changeling."

A grey-cloaked figured moved like water through the crowd, and stood free of the others. They spoke now, voice ringing pure in that high place on the rock.

"Atyr Bracken is this mortal's name, and his story is true, what I know of it. Often I have seen him in a lodging house of mortals. I have even heard him attempt poetry there." Here the figure turned their hooded face towards Atyr, with a slight nod. "He speaks true. When last I saw him, he carried a long, black bow, and a heavy pack, and the curved blade he now holds, though it was yet un-fired by the Golem of the Forge. The elf-belt only, have I not seen. These things I say are true, and I mean them to be so.

"That should, as the true statement of an immortal, be enough to clear this man of the faun's claim of robbery. I cannot speak to the matter of the Ogre's wish for something pretty."

Again, laughter from the crowd, and also murmurs, and looks askance at Luckly. Atyr's chest jittered with something eager and pleasant, and also with the burning ferocity he had felt as he left the thorn bridge behind. That flame rekindled hot within him now.

"Speak, accused one!" The tree demanded the attention of all once more. "Tell us how you came to be pulled from the wishing well."

All eyes were on Atyr now. He wished he had a better explanation, a better understanding of what had happened there.

"I-- I came upon a little silver pool in the wood. When I looked in it, I saw my life, only different. I saw myself die. Then the image of me in the pool spoke to me, and trapped me under the water. I was there a day or so, I don't know how long. Then a bucket came through, and I grabbed it and found myself in the well. I asked for help, and Graszha pulled me out. It was I that wished for help, not Graszha that wished for me."

The tree's voice once more. "Are there any who would bear witness? Let them speak."

Now Luckly stepped forward. "It is the pool of mirrored life which he describes. Only through true guilt may one be imprisoned there. Guilty in once case, guilty in many, some might say. I know this to be true."

The murmuring of the crowd grew dark now, and Atyr's worries grew darker to match.

The tree asked again for witnesses, but none stepped forward. Atyr looked around in hopes that the grey-cloaked changeling that apparently knew him would have more to say, but he could not find them.

Now the tree spoke strong and slow, each word a booming call that vibrated in the chest of all present.

"This is the judgment of the tree on the rock that stands above! This mortal has spoken true in the matter of robbery, and his possessions will be returned to him, save the elf-belt. That was not proven his, and will remain with the faun. The faun has spoken true in the matter of threatening, and the mortal has not denied it. In recompense for the threat with the fiendish blade, that same weapon shall be returned to the Faun. The Ogre has spoken true of his wish, yet the wish of one may not bind the will of another entirely, mortal though he be. In lust the wish was made, and lust was denied. Lust shall be denied the accused until a balance is met.

"Do all here to witness agree?" The question echoed like a storm across the rock, and all the assembled crowd spoke as one in agreement.

The tree addressed Atyr directly. "Does the accused agree to this judgment?"

Atyr looked around at the guards, the tree, the crowd. "Do I have a choice, in this?"

"The accused will accept the agreement, or end here on the rock."

The guard with the white staff extended it now, pointing to the highest point of the great stone, where it ended in the sky above the wood.

"And Luckly?" Atyr demanded. "Is there no sentence for the faun who tricked me to what should have been my death, and robbed me on the path?"

"Mortals bring no claims in our immortal court," boomed the tree.

Now the voice of the changeling came once more from the crowd. "Mortal? Is he yet?"

The tree paused, and Atyr had the sense of something looking deep into him, prying into the deepest aspect of how he was. Then the feeling was gone.

"Mortal is the accused, and his claims will not be heard."

Atyr felt his lips twisting at the inequity of it all. "So my choices are accept or die? Sounds like what I've come to expect from you fae." He shook his head. "I agree."

The instant the words left his mouth the tree was gone. The rock was gone, everyone was back in the market, and the guards were dispersing. A few of the assembled witnesses lingered to cast covert glances at him, but in short order, he was alone in the market once more, naked, with Cacoburn in his hand. He had just begun to wonder if something had gone awry with the fae justice, if he had been forgotten and was free to go, when he noticed the changeling watching him. He walked over to the grey-cloaked figure.

"I think I owe you fully for any leniency I was granted. My thanks."

The hooded face nodded once. "Not much leniency, I would say. But you're very welcome."

Atyr smiled at them wryly. "And there's to be no justice for the faun, for waylaying and robbing me?"

A gentle shrug of grey shoulders. "The tree's justice is not always so easy to understand, in the moment. But it is an immortal court. It is not concerned with mortal affairs."

Simple as that. Mortal's don't matter. Atyr grimaced, but moved on.

"You come often to Gant's? I'm not certain I've ever seen you."

The changeling pulled back their hood, and Atyr saw a young man's face, with a short black beard and green eyes. No, with brown eyes, actually. And perhaps not young, either: the man looked of middling age. Then he realized it was an old woman's face, but then it was a young woman. The young woman smiled at him, and batted her blue eyes. They were brown eyes, again. The changeling made no other response.

Atyr laughed. It was an odd time to laugh, he knew that, but the tension and agony of the tree and the rock and everything leading to it over the past few days suddenly felt as though it was flooding out of him and pouring itself on the ground at his feet.

"A useful trick, that! I shouldn't wonder if I've seen you every day!"

"Not every, but I do come often. I sing, at times."

Atyr gave them a warm smile. "I may have heard you, then. Can I ask, do you know... have they forgotten me here? Am I free to leave?"

The changeling put up their hood once more. "Have you knowledge of fae agreements? They do not work as mortals' do."

Atyr nodded. Of course. He had agreed to the judgment of the tree, and so it would happen. There was no need for enforcement.

The hooded figure continued. "I suspect you will find your justice sooner than later. You will be denied lust, in some fashion. And somehow or other, you will be returning that dagger to the Faun. Somehow or other." Shadowed eyes met Atyr's own, and lingered for a moment. Then the changeling held up a hand, nodded, and turned to melt away into the crowd.

No more than halfway through the wide market, Atry saw Graszha once again, stomping down the aisle in his direction. It would be only an instant before the ogre noticed him, and there was nothing Atyr wanted less right now than any more contact with that particular individual. He ducked into the booth beside him.

It was the jewelry booth again, with its tiny wrinkled shopkeep. As enthusiastic and overbearing as before, the little fellow eagerly began where he had left off, going through a long list of metal rings, apparently intended to be worn around the penis. Atyr had no interest in these, but he also had no intentions of leaving the shop until the ogre had passed on. Sneaking a glance out past the dark velvet drapes, he saw the hulking form paused just outside, hunched over an assortment of meats across the way. He ducked his head swiftly. All it would take was for Graszha to look up for a moment, and he would be found.

The tiny man was babbling about fit, about the extensive array of sizes he had in stock, and about the need to consider the amount of expansion during erection, and the effects of each one, on and on. With his mind occupied by the terrifying bulk just beyond the curtains, Atyr found himself acquiescing.

"Yes, yes, sounds wonderful. Truly impressive!"

The little man jumped up in the air happily. "Ah, you'll try one then? Of course, you'll do it yourself, utterly improper for me to touch you, but to test the fit, you should..."

He was babbling again. Atyr looked out, and Graszha was still there.

"Yes, let me just try one, can't wait!" He picked a ring at random from the counter, a brilliant, shiny thing of some sort of whitish metal, and ducked down to slide it on. Of all the luckless things I've found myself doing in the Oldwood, I never expected to be putting jewelry on my dick. It fit comfortably. Perhaps a bit snug, but it slipped on easily enough.

"Wonderful!" He glanced once more, and with immense relief, saw Graszha at last moving away. Time to go. "Yes, a wonderful fit indeed, you're a true artisan. I fear I must leave, though."

He went to slide the ring from his shaft, but it wouldn't budge. Looking up, he found the shopkeep's horrified face staring at him, silent for the first time since Atyr had entered the shop.

"Uh, sorry, this is awkward, how do I, aaah, take this off?"

It was a squeak, not a voice, that came from the little man's throat. "You can't!"

It didn't fully register to Atyr, what had been said. "I'm sorry?"

"You can't! You can't take it off! Only in shared love... your true love, only they can..." The man trailed off, looking down at the ground. "I intended for you to test the fit with these..." He gestured sadly to a row of simple brass rings in graduated sizes.

Atyr's mouth hung open. "I'm sorry, why would you make something like that, that can't be taken off?"

The poor little fellow was shaking his head in misery. "It's a game, for some people... they like it, I never thought anyone would just slip one on blindly... I'm so sorry, so sorry, sorry..."

"But, but why would they want that? Why..."

"When worn, it prevents... it prevents any..." The shopkeep made a growing motion with his hands.

Realization hit then. His oddly disorganized thinking, the chaotic moment, the rash decision, only half-noticed. Fae justice came swift.

"Alright. I understand." It wasn't the shopkeep's fault. He was trying to remain amiable. "So now, I can't-- It won't get any bigger... until I find my true love?"

The tiny man was shaking his head. "It will get a bit bigger. It's part of it." He pointed, and Atyr realized his cock, while completely soft, was in fact hanging much thicker and heavier than usual. If he hadn't been so dismayed, he would have been impressed.

"Please, please don't be angry with me," the little man was begging. "I truly never thought you would..."

Reassurances made, and apologies on both ends, Atyr eventually left the booth. The shopkeep had insisted that no payment was necessary, as it was clearly a mistake on both their parts, and had repeatedly begged for Atyr's understanding.

Atyr, for his own part, was sure in time the gravity of it all would land for him, but for the moment, he was occupied by sudden musings about the ill-defined nature of immortal agreements, and of fae justice. Lust denied was his first punishment, and it had already taken place. Still to occur, was the return of Cacoburn to the faun.

As with his agreement with Helliot a lifetime ago, the words were etched clear and precise in his mind. In recompense for the threat with the fiendish blade, that same weapon shall be returned to the Faun. The fiendish blade would be returned to the faun, but there was no requirement for the manner of the return. Whether that was an oversight on the part of the tree, or perhaps an intentional vaguery, Atyr couldn't say.

He did know one thing. He would be returning the dagger soon. He was looking forward to it.

======================

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Night Blood, Morning Dew

The Market emptied swiftly, as the gloom deepened towards full dark. Only a few shopkeeps lingered, taking care of their last little tasks here and there. Atyr lingered as well, out of the way between two stalls, naked still, with only the shadows to clothe him. No eyes traced across his bare skin. True invisibility could not have served him better.

None of the little booths and stands were cleared away or locked up. The guards, the glamour-shades, as Luckly had named them, stood at intervals around the perimeter of the market. It would appear that the fae had such great faith in those shades' abilities that the vendors worried not at all for their wares. Atyr would be testing those guards tonight.

Fortuitously, the dishonest faun was among those who stayed late, though he seemed to have little to do, as Atyr watched him from the shadows down the way. No doubt, the nasty creature was awaiting his victim's return, to relinquish the pack and the bow, and to receive the dagger in return.

Once true night had fallen, Atyr slipped across the aisle, more a shade than even the guards. Except for a single pace where he darted across the narrow reach of the moonlight, his skin was a ripple in the darkness, and no more. Cacoburn in his hand was a sooty shadow. Only the occasional glint of the ring on his soft, heavy cock might have caught the eye of any but the most intent of observers. But no one saw. He would have felt it.

In through the purple-black curtains at the side of the Luckly's booth he slipped. They fluttered at his passing, and the faun jumped and twisted to look. But Atyr was already crouched in the deep dark of the corner, a deep dark shadow against the deep dark of the drapes. The faun walked right past him to peer cautiously out the slit, then turned and re-entered.

Slow and silent Atyr rose behind him. He reversed the smoking dagger in his hand, and stepped up behind the faun. In a flash of dark motion, the tip of the fiendish blade was pressed tight to the Faun's throat, just hard enough to draw a little blood, hissing against the hot metal. Atyr's other hand slapped tight over the mouth. Luckly jerked and tried to move away, but the pain of the burning point at his throat held him still. He let a shaky whimper run out against Atyr's palm. Atyr whispered in his ear.

"Call out, and I will cut your cry in half as it leaves you. Move, and your throat will burn around my blade. Listen, and we can resolve the tree's justice swiftly, and I will be on my way." Atyr was no poet. Kella could have come up with something more dramatic, he knew, but he'd had some time to plan those lines as he waited. He grinned. Decent enough.

The words certainly had their effect on Luckly. The miserable creature nodded, whining as the tip dug in the shallow wound. The faun's whole frame was shaking.

Relentless, Atyr continued. "I will need my pack, and all that was in it. I will need my bow and my arrows. Will you return them to me? I want to make sure we follow the sentence to perfection."

Luckly made a swallowing noise that might have been a word, and together the pair shuffled across the dark tent. With shaking hands, the faun pulled free first the pack, and then the bow, and gestured to offer them both to Atyr.

"Next," Atyr hissed. "You will remove all my possessions from the elf-belt. The tree said only the belt would remain to you. Again, we will carry out the sentence to the word."

They walked as one to the table where the belt stood. Atyr pressed the knife tighter against the skin, smoking and searing where it bit. Luckly was crying tears now, and where they fell against the blade, they too sizzled and steamed away. The murderous heat was burning within Atyr's chest and core as well.

He loved it.

Luckly picked up the belt, and laid it out flat on the table. A long, shuddering sob came from his bleeding throat. Then he froze.

A glamour-shade guard was walking slowly down the aisle bones flickering in and out of view through its inky form. It would soon pass the booth.

Atyr pulled the faun slowly to the back. He let his voice whisper against the faun's damp ear.

"If you make any sound, I will end your life here."

The pair remained motionless as the guard approached. It drifted down the way, passed just in front of Luckly's shop, and continued on. A second, shaky sob came from the faun, with a a tiny squeak at the end. The shade stopped. It turned towards the dark curtains, the dull glow of its eyes under the black helm peering into the shadows where Atyr and his victim stood. It moved closer, and with a sickening thrill, Atyr made his decision. His voiced hissed harsh in the darkness.

"In recompense, I return this dagger to you!" With a sudden downward jerk, he buried the smoking blade deep into the throat and the chest below. Luckly didn't die as swiftly or as quietly as he had expected. He trashed and flailed on the ground, knocking over piles of his own wares, gurgling his dying screams into the night.

Atyr was moving before the guard, but only just. He dove for the belt and seized it, and turned to scoop up the pack, but the shade was already on him. It swung a black gauntlet at his head, and he felt the chill flash of it graze his nose as he jerked back. Cacaburn slashed in answer, smoke flying behind, and grated with a shriek against the armour at the shoulder. Two more strikes came fast from the dark fists, the second slamming into Atyr's stomach with an icy fury.

He slipped away, gasping for air, and kicked the shade in its side, knocking it out into the aisle. The fiery rage flared hot within his core, and he was launched by some force within his muscles after the dark form. With all the skill of a drunken brute, he slammed into the armored figure and threw it back wards again down the way. He leaped after it and kicked it in the air with the full weight of his body. Back it stumbled once more, and he threw himself on it and bore it down to the ground, and he was astride its flailing form, and it was beating at him with metal fists that gouged and burned with cold.

But his blade burned dark with the fiendish earth-fire, and he drove the point down into the gap in the armour at the throat, and he held it there until the skeletal thing stopped moving, and the shadows fell from the bones and they rolled apart, white and shining among the armour that now lay empty in the dust of the night.

A tide of Experience such as Atyr had never before felt smashed into him and drove him to his feet in exhilaration, pain and injury forgotten. After it came a weak, little, grey mote as Luckly finally ceased twitching back in the dark of the tent.

But the other shades were coming now, a handful already racing down the aisle from both sides. Everything in Atyr screamed to give battle, but even in that wild mood, he knew he could not stand against him. He threw a look to the dark booth where Luckly lay beside his pack and bow, but the guards were nearly at it, the white flickers of their bones showing in the dark as their forms swirled under black armour.

And so Atyr ran. He ran between booths and tents and shacks and down dark aisles and away from the glamour-shades and out into the fields once more, leaving his father's bow behind. And beside the bow, lay his pack, with Emrus's enchanted powder within it.

He could feel the eyes of the shades fixed on the skin of his back, and no matter how he pushed himself, it seemed their icy gaze never grew more distant. He dared not look behind him. The hot fury that had burned inside was cooling under that chill pursuit, turning to a gripping terror that drove him on through the grasses. Lungs felt ready to rip themselves apart in his chest. His legs buzzed with the lightning of exhaustion, but still he ran.

Onto a path through the field he stumbled, bursting through the darkness into blinding sun and blazing, floral color. The Path! He skidded and swerved, seeing as he did his pursuers not far behind, black metal closing on him.

On he ran. What else was there now but running?

He ran and the fear grew. He ran and the shades closed, the strength of their cold eyes growing on his back. He ran and he hurt. He ran without hope, but without alternative. He ran and the world narrowed around him until all was a tunnel of light ahead of him. He ran until the Path disappeared from beneath him and his feet slid on soft, dewy grass and he fell and lay upon the damp green in the warmth of the morning and waited for his death to come from the black, armoured fists. He waited, but it never came. He still felt many eyes on him, but they were of a softer sort now, and they trailed and tickled over his body like gentle, soothing fingers, massaging every portion of his bare skin.

His gasping chest was gradually stilling, the world was widening again around him, and a dozen tiny motes of grey warmth popped into existence and filled him.

With that last confirmation of his escape, he found the will to sit up, and he saw then the owners of the unseen eyes. Women. Beautiful women. Nearly a dozen beautiful, naked women, all of them with rich, golden skin that was traced with a pattern of glowing swirls like vines and leaves. Around them was a grassy glade, but it was a long while before his eyes could see anything but their slim waists and full breasts, and their wide hips, and above all, the welcoming smiles on their lips and the inviting desire of their shining eyes.

They were dryads, they told him, and they closed around and sat and stood about him on the dewy grass. In fear and pain, he must have run to their glade, they said, but only in comfort would he leave it.

Countless fingers traced the red scars of the thorns on his skin, and touched softly at the fresh gouges from the glamour-shade's fists, still bloody and raw. With each touch, it was as though a little pain was drawn out and sent far away, never to return, and he did feel some level of comfort returning. The fingers continued across his naked body even as his eyes closed and the soothing cradle of sleep took him away from care for a while.

***

It was morning still, or maybe morning again, when he woke. He felt refreshed and hale as he had not since the thorns of the bridge had scarred him. For a glorious moment, he thought himself healed, but when he looked down, he saw the red marks still angry on his skin. He moved, and found them still tender, if perhaps less so than the day before. The wounds from the shade's gauntlets at least, were gone. He drifted into the fae-mark, and found his circle of healing still empty. No disappointment tastes so foul as when preceded by hope, and it had been a great hope he had felt, while it lasted.

Yet, luck in luckless times, he found his grey circle of experience well over three quarters full, after his tumultuous night at the market.

The dryads were gone from the glade, and he had time and presence of mind now to look about him. It was a simple clearing, small, with soft, dew-dropped grass across its floor. In the center there lay a little depression, and the dripping water from the grass collected and sat there in a shimmering pool. All was peaceful and quiet, no birds or insects broke the warm stillness of morning.

Soon, the dryads noticed his awakening, and began, singly and in small groups, to drift from the trees to greet him properly, after his rest.

They were lovely. Soft and quiet of demeanor, and without guile or jest. They spoke sparingly, and always in earnest. There was no teasing, never a playful comment or quip, yet they laughed easily for all that. Again they gathered round him, and stroked their fingers over and along the marks of the thorns. It was pleasant, and some of that ache was pulled away by whatever healing their touch held, but the wounds remained, and the vine-traced women seemed perplexed and concerned by this. Yet even their worry was a pleasant thing in itself.

Throughout that morning, he stayed with the dryads and they showed him how they lived in the peace of the glade. They collected the dew with broad leaves and drank it. No other sustenance was required; Atyr found himself quite content just to drink from the grass. Once he had drunk his fill, they guided him to the shallow pool at the center and several together of the women bathed him, cupping the water in their golden hands and letting it pour down his body, rubbing and stroking at him with their fingers to cleanse and massage him. It was arousing to the point of disorientation, and Atyr found himself shaking with need before they were done with him. Only the ring kept his plump cock soft and draped between his thighs.

Then they led him back to the grass to sit a while, and drew apart to talk amongst themselves. At length, one of their number left the group and came to him. She was a tall dryad with black hair. Without embarrassment or care in the asking, she explained that she and the others were all surprised that, in his stay here, and even under their caressing fingers in the pool, he had not risen for them. Her earnestness was infectious, and he soon found himself giving a shameless account of the effects of the white metal ring, and how he had mistakenly affixed it around himself.

She returned to the group, and in a short while, they all came over and gathered round him on the grass. She asked if she might attempt to bring him pleasure even with the enchanted jewelry in place, and with the lust still trembling in him, and the crowd of naked, youthful women all staring eagerly at him, he could not resist.

She had him stand up, and she knelt before him, arching her back and staring up with wide, honest eyes. The other dryads stepped closer, and several wrapped their arms around him from behind, tracing their fingers up and down his chest, stomach, legs... the sexual need swelled and throbbed within his core, and yet he still hung, thick and heavy, but soft.

The kneeling dryad reached up and placed her hands on his thighs. She left kisses across his stomach, and from hip to hip, and then down the long shaft of his cock. She followed these last with her tongue, licking at the tender skin, and he moaned and ground against her face, unable to hold back. She smiled up at him as the length dragged across her features, and opened her mouth wide. Then she ducked her head and collected the tip between her lips, and sucked in the whole length of him.

It was a pleasure he had never experienced before, his whole cock in her mouth and throat, but soft and malleable. At the instant he was all inside her, balls tight against her chin, he felt the orgasm build.

And build. And hover, never breaking, never releasing, until he was shaking and gasping and he had to ask her to stop.

Slowly, she drew back, and let him slide out of her mouth with a pop. His cock fell back and swung once more between his legs and he sagged, held up only by the dryads that still caressed him.

Others then wished to try, some singly, some in pairs, or even groups of three or more, and after some time to recover, he let them. All that day, the dryads sucked and fondled and rubbed and stroked, playing with him, letting the heavy weight of it rest on their faces and in their palms, and between their thighs, and between their firm breasts, and the perfect, round cheeks of their asses, but soft he remained, and though the hot cum seethed in his balls, it remained there as well, contained within.

After a long time of this pleasure and torture, he was to exhausted to continue, and they gave him more dew to drink. It felt as though it had been a long day already, though the sky still was that of morning. He slept anyway, and when he woke, refreshed again, it was still morning. He stayed several days in that peaceful place, and always it was morning there.

When he woke the second time, he found himself recovered, but much as he had been the previous awakening, he was still scarred, still tender, though perhaps somewhat less so.

The dryads however, had spoken together as he slept, and they had a plan to help him. If lust would be denied him until a balance had been met, then they would help him meet that balance. The balance, they had decided, was clearly pleasure given to others. Atyr wasn't certain that was true, thinking that it seemed more likely that all he really needed was someone he truly loved to remove the jewelry, but he was willing to try, and besides, it would be rude not to repay the eager women their impressive efforts of the day before.

His day was spent in pleasure and lust. The pleasure was often mutual, although only the lust of the dryads was ever satisfied. All throughout, many of them stood or sat around, and touched him and each other, and watched, and waited their turn, or relaxed once he had filled their need, at least for a moment.

The first who asked for his touch wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her warm skin against his, reaching down to grasp his soft length in her gentle palm. She took his hand and placed it over the slick heat of her pussy, and he teased her lips, and the little sensitive nub at the top until she squirmed and moaned into his ear. Then he slid two fingers into the sopping heat of her and stroked and rubbed inside and out until a violent shudder rose within her and then relaxed. With a light kiss on his lips and a smile, she left him.

Soon a second golden woman came to him, and lay him on his back and climbed on top, placing his thigh between her own and grinding her dripping sex on his leg until she cried out loudly into glade and fell down on his chest in a warm puddle of pleasure.

The third lay herself down on her back and spread her legs, and asked him to taste her. So he did. First with slow passes and flicks, then with broad licks across her soaked folds. Then with his jaw wide, he sucked at her and thrust into the heat of her entrance, fucking her with his tongue until she begged for release. He pulled free of her and with rapid flutters against her swollen bud, he brought her to a writhing orgasm.

This caught the attention of another of the fae women, and she rolled him to his back and straddled his face where he lay. She hovered her hips just above him, the scent of her arousal strong in his nose. She was so wet with anticipation that it dripped down and fell on Atyr's face before he even touched her. As he began to lick and kiss her sex, she leaned forward and took his soft length in her mouth to the base. She held him there until she came, drenching his face and moaning fiercely around the cock in her throat.

The next dryad had watched her two friends try the pleasures of his mouth with lustful eyes, and was more than ready for her own turn. She was eager and forceful, and she pushed him down to his knees and grabbed his hair with both hands and fucked herself wildly across his lips. All he could do was to hold his mouth wide and his tongue out, and hope to steal the occasional breath until she screamed and came across his face, and then released his head and collapsed back on the dew-covered grass.

Several other came to him and asked what they would, and he gave them their pleasure. One ground herself on his soft shaft until she came all over it. Another lay with her face in the grass and presented her ass high in the air, and had him finger her tight little hole until she collapsed, moaning into the turf. That was the first time Atyr had known that a woman could orgasm that way, with only something in her ass. Then two came at once, the first riding his face as lay on his back, the other standing over her friend where she knelt and grinding against her open mouth. One dryad he even brought to a shaking climax from his mouth and fingers on her nipples alone.

At the end of what must have been a full day, he was spent, and, though the lust unsatisfied ached between his legs, he fell swift asleep.

***

The following morning he woke to find himself a little more hale even than the previous day. Falling into his mark out of curiosity, he found that a tiny glimmer of a red glow hinted at the healing circle there. Hope filled him, and when the first three dryads brought him dew to drink, and asked if he might please them, he was more eager than even the day before.

***

Three more sleeps he stayed in the morning glade with the dryads, and two more times he licked and sucked and touched and stroked and fingered and rubbed until he was too exhausted to do anything but collapse in the morning light and sleep. Three more times he woke more healthy and recovered than the day before, though each day the red healing circle was only filled a fraction more. It would require a long stay indeed, before he was truly whole.

And he hadn't forgotten why he had first come to the Oldwood. When he rose that final morning, he stopped the dryads who came seeking pleasure, and told them he must leave. They smiled and understood, and said they would help as they could.

They had no provisions to give him, no water skins, no clothes. He would be leaving as naked and unprepared as he had arrived. But they might yet help him find his way.

It was a long, long way back to the Market from where they were, and a hard journey too, they said. They seldom left the glade of morning dew, and could not remember every step he must take. He asked if they knew of Emrus, the enchanter in the Grove of Sorrows, but they did not. In the end, they could only give him directions to leave the Oldwood entirely.

Without a map, and without a pack, or food, or even anything in which to carry water, he had to admit defeat, and if not give up ultimately on the enchanted powder, at least escape the wood to recuperate and regroup. Further aimless wandering would almost certainly bring death with it, and that was the most final failure of all. So he collected his belt and blade, all that he had in the world, and accepted the instructions to leave the wood behind.

Leaving the glade, they told him, he would find himself in a terrible place, the Spearwood, the preserved remains of an ancient battle. What he might find there, they couldn't say, except that many fell creatures came to hunt and prey upon one another. Stealth would be his friend.

In the center of the Spearwood he would find the Blood Cairn, a great pile of stones laid in memory of the fallen, that trickled ceaselessly with crimson.

After sleeping on the top of the cairn, he would wake in a place called the Dead Wood, which was exactly what the name implied, a forest of dead trees. Here, he would have to follow his own trail, they said, wandering until he found a place he had passed before, and then tracking himself until he was among living trees once more. Then, they told him, he would be free of the Oldwood, or at least on the very edge of it. But in the Dead Wood, it was important above all to avoid the fog. It was thick and impenetrable, and those who were lost in it were only ever found again as shredded remains.

They gave him a little rhyme to remember their instructions, and wouldn't let him leave until he could recite it perfectly.

Through the Spear Wood to its center

Ascend the Blood Cairn, sleep to enter

Through the Dead Wood, your tracks follow

Beware the fog that blinds and swallows

Follow 'til green leaves you find

And you will leave the Wood behind

Then they all gathered round, and each gave him a kiss, and some gave more besides, a hug, a caress, a quick squeeze of his thick cock, or a whispered 'thank you' in his ear. Lastly, they begged him to promise to return if ever he freed himself of the ring, that they might return the pleasures of his time there. He was wary of fae agreements and would make no promise, but he said he would love to, and that he hoped to, and that much was true.

Then he left that blessed place and the lustful embraces of the dryads, and began the darkest stretch of his journey in the wood of the fae.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rolling Bones

The Spearwood was, as many of the locations in the Oldwood had been, quite true to its name. Atyr stalked naked through the shadows of the trees and found it to be much like any other stretch of this forest of the fae: ancient trunks, clinging moss, dense undergrowth, a canopy that choked back the sun to the perpetual shade of early gloom. The only addition was the spears. Everywhere, there were spears. Not in clusters, not dense, but frequent enough that when no spear was in view, there was one yet lingering in recent memory.

They were a curiosity to Atyr at first, almost a little game to play, finding one spear here, and another there.

They were laid upon the forest floor as though dropped and forgotten. They were embedded in trees as though thrown and abandoned. They were snapped in half, or they were chipped, or their heads were broken, or they were bright and sharp as the day they had been forged. But the spears that most caught Atyr's attention, were those that were thrust among bleached rib cages, or stood proud from holes punctured through ancient skulls. After he had passed a few of these, the game of finding them had begun to sour into something like dread.

These last were sparse when he first entered the Spearwood, but soon became more numerous. White bones in little piles, humans or perhaps elves, no clothing left to them, not even their armour remaining, only the spears which had felled them. At first they lay far scattered, as if killed in a wide-spread forest skirmish, but in short order they began to appear in clusters, where the fighting had been closer, threes and fours together. Then it was dozens. Everywhere between the trees lay that dark history, so close he had to pick a wary path to avoid stepping on the sorrowful things.

But not all was death among the trees. The trees themselves were live and vigorous of course, but so was the floor at their feet. Greenery tangled in abundance. Even, Atyr found little white berries, and purple red fruits he did not recognize. He considered eating them, having had no food to bring from the Dryad's dewy glade, but in the end he didn't risk it. His survival would depend on a swift exit from this fae place.

Creatures there were too. From time to time he would hear their scurryings among the leaves, or the rustling or crashing of larger things. At times, quick, distant flashes of movement caught his eye, though he never saw more. The animals were skittish here, and kept themselves apart.

At length, the trees broke and he stepped into the bright sun that shone upon a wide, shallow basin of white. Bones, all of it. He looked to the far side, half a morning's walk away, and saw nothing but blinding ivory glaring back at him. What battle had been fought here, and when, he wondered if any now knew. But the magnitude of the dying was inconceivable, in the true sense of the word. Even staring at that vast expanse of bone, it was impossible to understand just how many had stood and fought and met their fate here. It seemed to him as if all the world must have perished in this valley.

It's an odd thing about facing the leavings of death. Finding a single skull might send a person into fear, or melancholy, or a spiraling rumination on life and fragility. Finding such a vastness of the perished that it blended in the eye into a single thing? It overwhelmed the ability of the mind to find meaning.

And there, down in the center of it all, the great cairn rose, immense, black pile of stone amongst the bright white. An uncomfortable stillness lay over all of it. No wind, no birds. Even scents seemed to have forgotten the bleached expanse.

Unclothed as he was, save for the blue belt at his waist, and the metal ring that encircled his cock, he had the feeling of being a tiny insect, exposed to the hungry eye of the bright sun above. Whisperskin might yet muffle his steps, but it did nothing to hide his form against the bright white of the sunny basin. Only the warmth of the black dagger in his hand allowed him any sense of security. Yet, in this open space, he would much have preferred the range of his great bow.

The dangers of the bone field however, seemed mainly to be in stumbling and tripping over the endless bleached sticks. Nothing moved in that expanse, and he made swift progress at first.

But as he trekked inwards, he came across the remains of old defenses which he had not seen from the edge of the basin. Ring upon ring of deep, narrow trenches slowed his advance, as they must once have slowed the advance of many of those they now lay about him.

Some were dry at the bottom, filled only with bones, and of course the omnipresent spears. Some had welled with groundwater over time, and were gruesome things now to cross. Refracted skulls grinned up at him through the waters below.

Halfway to the black cairn, the howling began.

From back in the wood, the first cry rose, long and high, then falling in steps to a low, and joined immediately by many more, blending into that familiar music that threatens to raise the hair on even the bravest of the brave. Atyr was not the bravest of the brave, and the hair on his neck, and indeed all over his naked skin, stood straight.

Whisperskin wouldn't help him much against the noses of wolves, even had it been dark, and he had no clothes to provide Unarmoured Defense. If they had found his trail and chose to follow it, his only hope was distance. So he left valor and dignity to the dead, and as he had often found himself doing of late, he ran.

He kept eyes about him as he crashed and crunched through the bones, and threw many a glance behind at the distant woodline. It was not long until the low, grey shapes emerged, racing in a long, spread out pack across the wide field. His throat closed and tried to swallow itself for a moment, and the thrill of danger unavoidable spread outward from his core.

Sloshing through one last water-filled trench, Atyr turned, heart jittering unevenly across his chest, like it wanted to find a way out. There was no outrunning a wolf pack. Never had he wished so fiercely for a bow, but there were no bows to be had on this battlefield, nor were there arrows. Only spears, endless spears. He looked around. Many were too damaged by battle to be useful, but time seemed to have touched the weapons not at all. As swift as he could, he harvested over a dozen that yet had sturdy shafts and bright tips. The wolves were close.

In a moment of unfounded hope, he delved fleetingly into the fae-mark, but the red circle still stood only barely filled. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva and it moved like a slug down his throat. If he could not drive them back before they reached him, it would be an honest fight. A mortal fight, without healing. He drove that part of him that thought about the future down deep and buried it. There was a spear in one hand, and a ready stock of extras beside him. In his other, the fiend blade started to smoke its black, smudgy darkness. That was all that need concern him. Yet his hands shook.

The wolves were nearing, and he hefted the first spear and readied himself. He could see the predatory eyes of the foremost now, glowing with night-glow even in the bright sun.

He threw.

The spear flew straight and hard, and buried itself deep in the dirt just beyond his running target. Luckless shit. Next spear. He threw again, and this time he caught the beast in its rear haunch, sending it crashing and skidding in a shower of bones.

But the wolves were at the trench now. Several came to a halt it its edge, but one, braver than the rest, leaped straight across and managed to scramble onto Atyr's side. A second followed but landed short, splashing down and struggling to climb out again.

The first wolf raced at him, circling behind to lunge at his legs. He whirled with it and swung wildly with the spear, but the beast scampered away. He saw the second wolf pull itself free and come flying at him as well. Every muscle of his body was tensing, struggling to do everything at once.

He lashed out in a wide arc at the circling wolf once more and gained space, then scrambled to face the newcomer. It launched itself through the air at his throat, and he stumbled back. He thrust the spear up and out and felt the heavy weight crash onto its point, dragging the shaft down.

Even as the Experience warmed him from the dead beast, fangs sank deep into his calf and ripped him screaming down among the bones. Twisting through the rending agony, he managed to grasp the scruff of the wolf and stabbed three times into its chest. It shrieked and fell away, twitching among the shattered remnants of an ancient ribcage. Blood steamed hot on Cacoburn's blade, the reek of the burning fouling the empty air.

The other wolves were coming. Several were swimming in the trench now, trying to clamber out onto the bank, and others were running up and down the far side, looking for a narrower crossing.

In the moment's reprieve, Atyr lunged for the spears. He hefted one and sent it flying deep into the back of a swimming wolf. The water foamed red in its mouth and it thrashed the surface into foam with its dying throes.

The next spear missed, but he followed it swiftly with yet another, and a fourth wolf met its end in the waters of the bone-filled trench.

That was enough for the pack. They wanted prey, not a battle, and it was a full siege they found themselves now attempting. They turned and fled out of spear range, there skulking and cowering among the rolling bones, before heading back up the slopes and away into the forest.

Atyr watched them go, pulse dancing to a wild music, breath leaping along in erratic syncopations. They may have left him now, under the bright sun, but would that hold after dark? He would have to sleep at the cairn as soon as he reached it, if his nervous energy would permit him. It wasn't far now.

The fresh wound on his leg had already skinned over. He fell into his mark for a moment. The healing circle was empty once more, but it had been enough to deal with that single bite. He noticed as well, that the experience circle was almost entirely full, after the slaying of the four wolves. Only a hair's breadth remained.

He walked back to the carcasses, and checked each with a palm, but found nothing. Food was a concern, and he considered cutting a haunch to take with him. But he had no strikelight, and even could he roast the thing, he would need to be in a desperate state to eat such a meat. It had been only a morning since he had left the dryads, he was nowhere near hungry enough yet for that.

As Atyr drew near the massive cairn of piled black stones, the ground beneath the bones began to grow damp. At first it was only a bit of moisture, but soon it was enough to show its color. Crimson.

Not long after, he came to where the blood from the cairn collected in small puddles, and eventually to where the bones lay everywhere submerged beneath a shallow pool of red. He could feel them rolling and cracking slickly under his bare feet as he splashed up to the Blood Cairn.

The smell filled him, strong and cutting after the odd scentlessness of the bleached fields. Blood is a subtle aroma, and faint, in the amounts in which it is usually encountered. But when blood flows forth sufficient to submerge such a swath, it becomes nauseating. His tongue tried to hide down the back of his throat at the cloying miasma. He clenched his jaw tight, squeezed his lips, and breathed through a cupped hand to hide from the reek, but if it did anything, it wasn't much.

The blood trickled in little, dripping rivulets down the black stones, spattering from high above to form the scarlet pool below. He climbed up those slick, black stones, up above the depression of the white bones, scrambling, slipping, the red blood smearing and dripping across his naked flesh. By the time he reached the broad, tumbled peak of the cairn, he was more scarlet than not, and the horror of it all had drawn him inside himself.

He stood at the top of that blood soaked pile looking out at the skeleton sea that swelled upwards on all sides. A shaking mess of drying crimson, he tried to remember why he had ever found it important that he come to the Oldwood. He only knew now that he wanted to leave.

Through the Spear Wood to its center

Ascend the Blood Cairn, sleep to enter

That was the dryads' rhyme,

He would have to sleep here, and now.

To say that sleep came difficult for him, would be like saying that breathing comes difficult underwater. It can be done, but it feels like dying.

All that afternoon he lay with eyes closed on the hard, rough stones of the cairn, feeling the hot sun baking and burning his skin, growing ever thirstier until the dripping sounds that pattered endlessly from the stones below became a sickening siren's song. Dark was coming before finally consciousness slipped away, and the sad horror of that valley of death faded.

Immediately, he woke, almost as though falling into a dream. He was standing among dead, twisted briars, between dead, twisted trees. No bones lay around, no black stones. No red of running blood. Only that lifeless growth and a dry mustiness to the air. This was the Deadwood then. He recited the next couplet.

Through the Dead Wood, your tracks follow

Beware the fog that blinds and swallows

It seemed that to find his own trail should be a simple thing. Walk a short way, then turn. What luck! There would be your trail! And yet, as was ever the case in the Oldwood, that was not the way of it.

No sooner had Atyr turned back on his route, than he found he must be a ranger indeed. Not a branch lay broken, not a print marked the forest floor. No leaf was overturned, and no dry moss was scuffed clear from a rock.

He tried again, walking a longer ways, doing his best to kick and shuffle and snap every twig that overhung his way. On turning, he found the same result. He knew that, paces earlier, he had shoved a stick into the soft earth, but Fae take him if he could find it now.

His next attempt was a long, gradual arc, spiraling in on itself so that he must, at length have crossed his original, messy trail, but if he had, he had missed it once again. Planning was out; the fae-way it would be. He would walk, he would wander, he would look, and he would trust to Fate that he would stumble on some mark he had left.

Beyond even the stale scent of old, dead plants, or the peeling bark and dry-rotted trunks, the Deadwood proved to be a nasty place. The forest itself might be dead, but he soon found the flies were not. At first there were only a few, but as he walked on through that moldered place, the swarm that followed him swelled into a buzzing madness around his head.

There were birds too. Like large ravens, but call-less, hushing low through the trees on silent wings like huge, dark owls.

There were muddy, sucking seeps as well, groundwater pooling and turning the earth into slop that grasped at bare feet and was loathe to release them.

It was in one of these seeps that he found the first skeleton. After the countless bones of the Spearwood and the basin around the Cairn, he might have thought it would hold no shock for him, but as his eyes caught on the jaw and single eye-socket shining white from within the black muck, and the tips of ribs poking up like spring bulbs, a sinking dread clutched at his gut. Even as he lingered, a fine mist was starting to rise from the wet land around him. The words of the dryads came to him, the stories of bodies found, slashed and rent by some unknown malevolence. He fled swiftly back the way he had come, to drier ground and clearer air.

A short while longer, he came to a place where two trees like towers grew close together, twisted and spiraling around one another to form a single trunk high above. At the ground, their dead forms created a perfect arch, like a gate in the middle of the forest.

Atyr hesitated, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. There were three options. First, it was possible that going under that gateway was a horrible mistake, one that would transport him far away, to some unknown part of the wood. Second, the gate might be the key to finding his own path within the wood. Or third, these could just be two odd trees, wedded by chance. Two out of three choices were fine. Even the first choice might be either good or bad, depending where it took him. So he set himself, and approached. Fates be with me now, if ever.

He stepped through the gateway. He was still in the Deadwood. Everything seemed about the same. With a little shrug, he continued.

Shortly after that, he found a second skeleton. Or at least, he found parts of one. Shards of bone were strewn about, and half the skull. Imaginings of the sorts of things that might shred wanderers in the mists forced their way into his mind again, and he hurried on into the growing gloom.

It was getting too dark to continue, and it was cold as well, naked as he was. He had no food, nothing to drink, and no way to start a fire, but he found a tree with a hollow in its roots, and settled himself into it, scooping leaves and moss over himself in an attempt to stay warm. At least the flies had left, with the cold. If the thing that shredded in the mists found him here, then it found him here. There was no where else. Somehow, it was sleep that found him instead.

***

He woke shivering in the wan light of dawn with a head that felt dried and shrunken in on itself in pain, and a tongue that scratched uncomfortably in his mouth. If he found no more water this day, it might be his last. He began to walk once more, on legs that ached with thirst and were weak with hunger. There were odd flickerings and flitterings at the edges of his vision, little, dark shapes that rushed about but were gone if he tried to look at them. They could be some nastiness of the wood. They could be some figment of his parched mind's imaginings.

But, luck in luckless times, he found his trail early that morning. There was a bare print in the thick mud that matched his own. There was a tree he had blazed with his blade. There was a stick he had snapped and driven into the dirt. The flies were back, he hurt, and there was a mist rising from the ground in places, but a tiny mote of Experience rose from that trail. It was the barest slip of warmth, when it entered his chest, but it tipped him over the edge into the exuberant feeling of opportunity that came with a new Level. He felt as though he'd hardly had a moment to enjoy the fourth level, and here he was with a fifth. He sat at once where he was to complete it.

The rush of success and accomplishment washed over and through him, giving him new hope for his journey. He checked his class. It was Ranger again, putting him at Ranger 3, and Rogue 2. The red circle of healing remained empty.

His choice of attributes was between Vitality 11, Dexterity 14, and Courage 10. There was no choice to be made, this time around. Immediate necessity demanded he take Vitality, balanced as he was on the edge of being truly wounded at any moment. He pushed the mote over and accepted. Vitality ticked up to 12, and he eagerly checked the circle again. To his relief, it had refilled a bit, now sitting at nearly a quarter full. Not wonderful, but certainly improvement.

And now, to find the ability...

Disarming Offense - Successful strikes may dislodge items and apparel from enemy combatants

Was that... It certainly sounded like a partner ability to Unarmoured Defense. Would his attacks now come with a chance to disarm, or even de-armour his enemies? It certainly sounded that way. This might prove to be an exceptionally powerful ability, in that case.

And... with the powerful elation of the new Level still whirling within him, Atyr found it hard not to let his mind wander to possible other uses to which he might put the ability, depending on how rigorous the definitions of 'strike' and 'enemy' were...

But the mists were still gathering, so he stood once more, and set off swiftly down his own well-marked path. It was easy to follow, and at first, he remembered may of the signs he had left behind. Prints, blazes, scuffs: growing up in the Brookwood had prepared him more for this than any other aspect of his Oldwood journey.

Soon, however, the trail he had marked led him to places he had not been. Or at least, places he did not remember. Yet, there was a footprint, deliberately placed in the muck. Testing, it fit his bare foot perfectly. And there was a blaze on an ash which he remembered just recently having slashed. The tree was the same, a distinctive, twisted thing with a black lightning-char spiraling down its length. But while he remembered it standing close-hemmed by a copse of dead pines, it now stood alone, on a tiny hillock in a mucky bit of swampy ground. But it was his trail, and his mark, and he had no other choice but to follow it.

Increasingly the trail led him through open, slushy ground, even through patches of sopping mud through which he knew he never would have chosen to walk. More and more, the trees fell away, and the wetlands grew wetter, and the land sparser. The fog that rose from the waters was ever thicker, white clouds twisting and swirling only a little way off, far too close for his liking.

He was stepping now from hillock to soggy hillock, following his own footsteps through a marsh he had never entered. To both sides, the white blindness roiled ever closer, until at last it was only a narrow channel of clear air that remained, following his trail forwards.

There were eyes in that fog now.

He could feel them on his skin, scraping, hungry things that raked up and down his naked body. Even when he turned to face them, they lingered, though he could see nothing in the fog. He forced his jaw to relax, and continued forward.

The way ahead was drowned for a dozen paces before the next hillock rose from the fen, a stick stabbed obviously into it, calling him forward. And so he wading in, cold, reeking water climbing up his thighs and bringing an aching chill to his balls. The bottom squelched up and over his feet, sucking at him with each step, but he pushed on and through until he climbed out on the far hillock, drenched and shivering.

His balls had drawn up so close he wondered if they could vanish inside him, but in the sparsest moment of levity, he noticed the ridiculous jewelry he wore had kept his cock swinging thick and heavy. What stupid, luckless things people wasted their coin on. Who would pay for an irremovable ring that kept you soft yet large at all times? But the disturbed smile on his face soon left; only the disturbed part remained.

The mists were closer now, so close he could almost touch them. Every animal instinct in him screamed to turn and race back the way he had come, but the rhyme from the dryads kept him moving forward, shaking with the cold, teeth grinding hard together.

Through the Dead Wood, your tracks follow

So he followed. He followed, but the eyes followed as well, prickling over his skin and making him turn and twist to find their source. But nothing could be seen through the white walls that closed ever on both sides.

Another stretch of fetid water cut him off. Barely, he could see land ahead, but whether there were tracks there, he could not say. He would have to trust the forest. Into the foul liquid he splashed. It sloshed thickly at his knees, his thighs, his hips, chest, and then he was swimming, only his head left for the biting flies to swarm.

Dragging himself gasping onto the far shore, he at first saw no traces of his passage, just sucking mud and dead swamp grass. How much could he trust the dryads' words? Because he had touched them and pleased them, he thought them honest? What else in this wood had been honest? He looked back, and the way seemed brighter, the fog less close. But he looked forwards, and saw, just at the edge of sight, a thing, dead tree with a fresh blaze on it.

When he reached the tree, he found it spattered with slashes of dark crimson. There was a hand at its dead roots. Just a hand. A human hand, ripped free of its host and tossed there. The ground was wet, as all the ground was in this reeking fen, but where it squelched up between his toes it frothed with reddish bubbles.

And there was more. Other... pieces. Shreds of whoever this had been. Most not identifiable, but there was enough remaining to recognize human skin. The back of his tongue felt swollen, and his throat was trying to swallow it. His stomach clenched, searching for something to evict.

And the eyes were back. They were close, and there was more than one pair.

Staggering past the shreds of corpse, he pressed on, shaking with cold, shaking with nausea, shaking with fear. The eyes followed.

A cold wind was blowing from ahead. It drove away the flies, but its fierce bite on his wet, bare flesh was far worse than theirs had been. And with the wind, the mist began to drift past his feet. Faster he went, stumbling into that narrowing passage between the lowering banks of fog.

The eyes followed, and there were noises now too, splashing sounds, snufflings and scrapings. He swiveled to look behind, and found nothing. There was a harsh rasp like a breath being drawn, behind him once again, and he whipped back around. The fog closed everywhere. His eyes were wild, his thoughts were wilder, plans and ideas replaced with desperate urges and unthinking reactions.

He turned back, giving up, ready to abandon the trail, but the path he had taken was obscured. He turned again, slowly now. The way ahead was a wall of white. The noises grew louder. The eyes followed.

The mists were up to his knees, his feet vanishing in that unnatural whiteness. Blindly he stepped forward and his ankle caught on something, and he fell to his hands and knees. When he pulled himself from the foul muck, it was red on his palms, fresh blood bright against the dried flakes of brown from the Cairn. The eyes followed.

The breathing and shuffling was all around, and in all directions white walls of boiling vapor rose up and over him.

Atyr threw back his head, breaths coming fast and hard, his parched mouth cracking. He whipped one way, then another, brandishing his fiend blade at the fog, knowing it was in vain. There was a guttural sound like stones tumbling in a wet sack behind him, and he leapt away and fell once more to his knees, scrabbling back in the muck and filth with his dagger held up as a pathetic talisman against unseen evil. Luck, luckless luck he needed it now.

Luck.

As if the old enchanter was just beside him in the fog, he heard Emrus's creaking voice in his head. 'Wish first, and roll them. But its risky, very risky.'

It was the time for risks, here in this swamp of death. The mist was climbing higher, up to his chest, where he knelt in the bloody muck. Trembling fingers fumbled with the little purse and drew forth the dice.

Something hissed behind him, but he closed his eyes and willed himself to remain still.

Fates give me luck and bring me alive from this fae wood!

He rolled.

Down onto the blood and filth of the fen he dropped the little bones, and they vanished into the mist. He felt for them, and lifted them carefully in the orientation they had landed.

The eyes were on him, and all around he heard breathing. He looked at the dice. A two and a four. What did that mean?

The fog closed over his head, and the eyes remained.

Atyr squeezed the dice in one hand until the corners bit into his palm and brandished Cacoburn high with the other. All was whiteness. All was silence.

But the eyes were fading.

First one, then another pair drifted off and left his bare flesh. The sounds were receding. He didn't dare breath, he didn't dare hope.

The eyes were gone now, but the fog remained.

He stood a while in that white nothingness, shivering, having no way to go. Had the dice only half delivered him, pulling away the death that hovered, but not showing him the way out?

But here was a light in the fog, a little point of violet, blurred and faint, but growing, growing ever closer. Hope swelled like a blossoming flower in his core, and his heart beat yet faster, but with anticipation now, not terror. The light was closer, and a strange, wet sliding sound accompanied it.

A lantern emerged from the mists, bright purple like the light in Wetlyn's tower, and the white burned away around it. It was held by a dark, shiny hand, and beyond that hand emerged a dark, shining man. Or, a mans torso, but where legs should have been, was a thick, black serpent's tail. With whiteless eyes of obsidian, the snake man regarded Atyr.

"Are you losssst, little elf, naked and alone in the missstss?" The voice was a hissing rasp, long and thin-drawn.

Atyr kept the dark blade high in front of him. His voice shook. "Who are you? Why do you come to this foul place?"

The man smiled. "I am Arlissf, and thisss foul place iss my home." He extended a hand to Atyr. "You need not fear the missstss if you go with me."

Atyr nodded slowly, cautiously. Perhaps it was a prejudice at the serpent form of the man, or perhaps it was the horror of his day since leaving the dryads, or perhaps, and most likely of all, he had learned to trust nothing in the Oldwood-- but he did not trust this man.

Arlissf hissed again, pointing onward. "Come, let usss leave the fen. The missstss are cold and unpleasssant even to my sscaled hide, let alone to bare elf flessssh."

"I'm no elf, you know." Atyr looked oddly at the snake man.

The snake man peered back. "Ssso you are not. The misst iss deceiving, even to me. Come, let uss go from the dangersss of the fen."

Atyr gestured. "I'll follow you. I don't know the way." Any help was welcome, in this hated place, but he didn't fancy having that scaled man behind him. Arlissf tilted his head, and slid past with a smile.

"Follow then, and sssoon we will leave the nasssty misst behind usss."

Atyr smiled back, but warily. The dice, he returned to his pouch, but Cacoburn remained clutched tight in his fist.

Off through the mists they traveled. Arlissf's purple lantern melted a clear way through the roiling white.

The strange man proved a pleasant conversationalist, for all the distracting sibilance. He had clean water for Atyr to drink, and that went a long way to restoring the young man. It was not long before his trembling nervousness was calmed, and he fell into idle chatter as the pair moved through the fog.

The ground soon became more solid, less sopping, if not dry, and there were no more deep pools to cross, only the occasional puddle. The wind had died away, and though the biting flies returned, Atyr's bare skin ceased to ache. Most encouraging of all, the mists were clearing, fading from their fae opacity to a more mundane haziness, and eventually falling away to either side, finally becoming no more than a heavy dampness to the air. He didn't put away his weapon, but he was comfortable as he hadn't been since he stepped into the Spearwood two days back. Gloom was falling now over the Deadwood, and he was looking forward to sleep, and perhaps even to food.

Then the snake struck.

Dark scaled fingers flashed out and latched like a noose around the wrist of the hand that held Cacoburn. At the same moment, the thick body wound tight around Atyr's ankles and sent him toppling. Coils wrapped his legs, and then his arms, squeezing, immobilizing. Atyr exhaled with a strangled yell, and found he could no longer inhale against the constricting scales. The dagger was pulled from his helpless grip, and the black length crushed him tight and tighter. Vision faded. He couldn't even struggle, he couldn't even cry out. His arms were bound to his sides, only his fingers could move a little.

But his hand touched the purse. With the airless pressure building and blinding in his head, he reached in and felt the dice. Voiceless, he mouthed the wish.

Take me home.

He dropped the little bits of bone, down onto the dark earth, and they rolled out of sight beneath the smothering scales. Relentless, the monster squeezed ever more of the life from his battered body.

=========================

=========================

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Her Dark Eyes

It was a sound Atyr new well, that of an arrow's flight cut short by deep impact. He had heard it most days of his life, growing up, whether during the practice of his father, or of Cei, Moran, or himself. But not often had he heard it this close to the receiving end.

Three times now, his failing ears heard the sound. Three times the crushing serpent's coils spasmed about him. They weakened. They fell away. His head cleared, his breath returned, and he was free.

There was light, and warmth, and voices all around, and the scent of sun on pine and fresh autumn leaves.

"Our elf boy returns! To fetch his faerie kip, no doubt!"

It was an older woman's voice, proud and singsong. It came to him from a previous life, a life before his fae-wood journey. He pulled himself from among the dark scales, and stood on shaky legs.

"Stola! Lillium! What a luck it is that you came this way!" He looked around at the whole Tinker troupe arrayed before him and stretching down the wide way. An older man with a strung bow gave him a wink and a nod. Atyr grinned, the relief washing him clean throughout. "But I thought you never strayed into the Oldwood?"

"And indeed we never do, elf boy!" Lillium stepped forward, fierce young features set in a smirk as she looked him up and down.

Atyr was suddenly aware that he has entirely naked, save the blue elf-belt. Lillium's eyes lingered with curiosity on the bright metal ring, and he became aware off the oddness of that particular jewelry as well.

"Then I'm not in to Oldwood any longer? This is the Brookwood proper?"

Stola laughed. "Is it a habit of yours, asking that?" She called to her troupe. "Is he in the Oldwood, friends?"

"No!" came the vigorous reply. She continued.

"No, elf boy, you're back in the realms where sensible people wander, though you may not have found any of them yet." She winked. "And a rough time you look to have had! Naked, filthy, bloody, scarred all over, and beset by a brigand no less. I see your mare has left as well?"

"My horse?" Atyr thought Elatla had rather seemed to enjoy the steady diet of elf men at Hollowtree. "I left her with good grazing and care to her liking. But indeed, I was at the end of me, I think, had not fate brought you here." Cheers, from the listening troupe. "But tell me, how is it you can see this monster?"

Lillium and Stola both looked at the dead snake man, then back to Atyr, confusion on their faces.

"See him?" asked Lillium. He was choking you, in the bright sun, in the middle of the road. Not often we see a brigand waylay a naked elf-boy in the Brookwood."

Stola chuckled. "Would have caught our attention, even had we not recognized you!"

Understanding of a sort prickled at Atyr. "A brigand, you say? And how can you tell?"

The man with the bow strode forward and kicked the body where it lay in the dust. "Well, he was brigand-ing you, wasn't he? That's enough for old Engen here."

Engen, that was his name, there's one remembered.

"Moreover," Engen went on. "Look at his dress. No merchant garb this, no hunter, all black cloth, and armed too."

Stola's expression took on an odd stillness at that. Lillium too, looked uncertain.

"Black cloth, Engen? Check your sight, wise elder, it's brown leather he wears, though it's brigands' gear all the same."

Old man and young woman looked at each other disbelievingly. Stola glanced aside to Atyr, and spoke quietly.

"And what do you see, elf boy?"

He didn't want to lie to her, but convincing a whole tinker troupe that a half-man, half-snake lay before them was more than he felt up to, mere moments past his brush with death. It was half-truth, when he answered.

"I see a snake of a man."

Curious eyes regarded him close. Then she turned and called to her troupe. "Come, let us stay our journey a pace! Our guest returns, and he'll be hungry and thirsty, I've no doubt. And a bathe for the filth should come first, or I'll not have him in our midst!" Laughs, knowing nods. It was clear they'd let him in however disgusting he looked.

"And if ever a guest has had stories to spin us, I'll place a kip its our elf boy!" Cheers met Stola's words. Stories are the blood of the tinker.

"And get him some clothes!" A man's voice called from the back.

"Or don't, you half-song!" A woman's voice. Huge laughs rewarded her retort.

Stola shouted over all of them. "Aye, clothes he'll have. I've seen every woman's eye on that bit of jewelry he sports. And some of the men, don't think I've missed your glances, Gerun!"

A young man of about Atyr's age, with bright yellow hair, and a pretty face flushed and ducked back into the crowd. Then Lillium whisked him away through the laughing troupe to a sunny patch at the shoulder of the road with tall elms surrounding. She brought him a water skin and a rag, and apologized that there was no water body close at hand in which to bathe. So he wiped the blood and muck from his skin as best he could.

She watched him. She was clever about it, he never once caught her, but Eyes of the Voyeur let no gaze find him unnoticed.

They had to bring a second skin for his hair, and to rinse away the last streaks.

"I'll not have that back in my pack!" cried the older woman who had lent the rag, once he was done with it. She laughed and chucked the fouled cloth far into the trees.

Then Gerun came forward with bright tinker's clothes. "Stola thinks you're about my size." The golden haired young man was still red in the cheeks, and looked everywhere but at Atyr's naked body. "If you'll have them."

"I've been wandering without a scrap but this belt for well over a week. I will take any garment you'll give me and owe you twenty-fold for it."

It came to Atyr's attention that he could still feel many eyes on him. The troupe was watching the show. Gerun handed him the bright clothing, blushed deeper, and ducked back into the crowd.

There were small clothes, though not of the odd, flexible material that Wetlyn's had been. These were loose things, bright purple with yellow trim. Even the tinker's underthings were uncommon festive. Atyr began to pull them on. There were a few theatrical groans from some of the women.

There were fitted pants in bright green, with black stitching in zigzag patterns up the legs. A broad-sleeve shirt followed, with brilliant strips of fuchsia and light blue. Over the top, there was a cream-colored vest with gold embroidery along the shoulders. Atyr looked at the metallic thread in wonder.

"It's not real gold," said the woman who had lent the rag. "If that's what you're wondering. Thread of gold is common enough in the cities, if you ever visit. Though in these parts, it does catch a few eyes, I'll admit." She looked over his shoulder at the mingling troupe. "But I'll not lie and say Gerun didn't give you his finest." She leaned close and whispered. "If you don't fancy after men-folk, it'd be a kindness to let him know. He's mentioned our elf-boy guest a time or two over the past few weeks."

Atyr felt an uncomfortable tightness in his gut. He glanced behind him, searching out the young man in the crowd. His worried eyes swung back to the woman. "I really don't." He considered asking if she would tell Gerun for him, but if he could brave the Oldwood, he could turn away the idle attentions of a young tinker.

Stola saved him from any immediate action on that uncomfortable little quest, however, striding up with a fresh skin and a rough trencher of food. The snake man had provided him water, but his stomach was rioting in displeasure. He accepted the meal with fearsome gratitude. She brought him a little away from the troupe, and they sat together on the grass beside the road as he ate. She was playful as ever, a laugh never deep behind her eyes, but there was a prying to her conversation now too.

"Elves do walk in daylight, it seems." She picked up a twig and examined it, not looking at Atyr.

He paused a moment, mouth full. "Yes. They do." He swallowed, wondering if he should say more. "I loved with them for a short while, in the Oldwood."

She met his eyes. "Loved with them?"

"Ah, 'lived,' I meant to say."

"Even so." A little smile. "Lived with them only? Are you not then an elf, in the end?"

Atyr laughed. "No, I'm still no more elf than you. Less, I might say. Having known elves now, I think your troupe are the most elvf-like people I've ever met." He took a deep drink of the water. It was clear and crisp, the best he had had since leaving Hollowtree.

Stola reached out her hand towards his head, and hesitated. He pulled away, surprised at the movement.

"I'm sorry. If you say you're no elf, no elf you are." She looked back to the twig in her fingers, peeling the bark from it in little pieces. "Your dagger didn't smoke before. A blade from the elves, is it?"

Atyr looked to Cacoburn. "The same dagger I had before. Reforged in the Oldwood." He paused. Stola and the tinkers had been nothing but wonderful to him, and he marveled at the ease with which he could discuss the fae-events of his life and have them accepted, but telling her of the blade's fiendish nature was a risk. What the older woman knew of fiends, he couldn't say. "It's not elvish though."

Stola only nodded, and kept fiddling with the stick. It was bare now. She flicked it out into the dust of the road and plucked a new twig from the grass between her feet.

"Ah!" said Atyr. "But I do have an elf-blade now!" He reached into the pocket of the belt and drew out the little whittling knife. "The man who gave me this, the elf that is, he was my-- he was almost a father to me."

He extended the worn ash handle to her, and she took it in tentative fingers. She looked at it a long while, then handed it back. For the first time, he saw her eyes without the proud laughter of the leader of the tinkers. Her voice came soft.

"Tinkers tell tales. We make them. We collect them. We sing them and dance them and make rhymes of them that last the ages. Faeries, trolls, dragons... elves." She winked, a forced little gesture in this moment. "You were an odd one when we met you last month, but I knew you were only a young man, for all that we called you our elf.

"I don't know what to think now. You've a fae way about you that wasn't there." She stopped, looking down the road at the merry troupe that waited. "We asked you before as a troupe to come with us, and we meant it, but even so it was a playful thing. But now I ask you in earnest, as Lillium Stola the elder, as a tinker and a mother and a woman. Would you come with us and tell us true tales of the Oldwood?"

Atyr grimaced, his heart plunging down and drowning in his stomach. "I head to Woodstead, and my errand called for haste. I've failed, but I must still return as swift as I can. If only to explain. But if you travel that way, we--"

She was shaking her head. "We have been a month in Woodstead. We head back to Ferth once more."

"And how is that? Weren't you heading from Ferth to Woodstead when last we met?"

Stola laughed, her spirited demeanor returning. "You remember right! You might also remember we intended to head on to Leffing's Down, but just as we were packed and on the road, my young whirlwind of a daughter got an obstinate desire to head back to Ferth. She begged, she politicked, she bargained and promised, and eventually she cried true tears and refused to move another step.

"Well, eventually, she won over enough of the troupe that I gave in. It's been a warm fall, and it won't hurt us to make one last swing up to the north before we wear away down south for the winter." Here she smiled meaningfully at Atyr. "And it's a fateful lucky thing for you we did!"

Luck. Fateful luck... The dice!

Atyr leapt up. "I forgot something, I'll be right back!" He raced off towards the body of the snake man. He had been worried when he found the dice and Pesky had speculated about their possible abilities. Now, some of those fears had been confirmed by Emrus. He had sudden certainty that those little bits of antler were a danger, and a powerful one.

Engen and several others were ringed around the corpse, and they looked unnerved. The old man still gripped his bow. He looked up as Atyr came running, all in his bright tinker's garb now.

"Hey hey, elf boy, you're who we need! This brigand's an odd one and then some. He don't... feel right. Skin's all rough, and he's not... hmmm, he's not where he ought to be. I can't explain it, but you touch him and you'll see what I mean. I keep trying to go through his pockets, but I can't get my fingers on them."

The others all nodded in worried agreement. "Aye," said another man. "And we can't agree where his pockets are, when we all try. Some Oldwood ruffian that chased you out, is he?"

Atyr forced a weak smile. "Something like that. I'm surprised you can see him at all. Most people can't. But you're right enough. If you're seeing a man, you're only half-seeing him. Here."

He lifted the end of the tail, and held it out to Engen. The man looked at him, likely seeing nothing in the extended grasp, but Atyr shook the tail again, and Engen reached forward with a cautious hand. He jerked back.

"Fates, what...?"

Atyr let the tail drop, kicking up dust where it hit the road. The little group all startled. "I don't know what he is, but he's only half a man." He grinned like a fae thing. "From the waist down, he's a snake!"

"Lamia!" Engen hissed. There was much touching and poking and wondering, and the whole troupe eventually gathered around. It turned out Engen had found the dice already, but he was happy enough to return them as soon as he was asked.

Atyr proceeded to look the body over, finding only the purple lantern and a pouch of fae kips, 11 in all, some blank, some marked. The kips would be of no use to the tinkers, but he offered them the light, telling them how it had cut through the fog. But even with its shutters wide, and the glare bright in Atyr's eyes, the tinkers claimed to see no light at all. A fae light it was, they said, and only for the elves. They wouldn't take it, and forced it on him.

He tried to hide it, but he was well-pleased. His storm lantern was lost in the Oldwood, only briefly used, but this new one was in a similar design, but with a light that, as far as he could tell, no mortal could see. No ordinary mortal.

The tinkers had many questions for him, and all gathered around, still poking at the snake-brigand. Many eyes tickled at Atyr, center of attention as he was, but he had grown skilled to ignoring them during his time with the elves. One pair, however, burned on him with an extra heat, trailing slow down his spine, and then lingering on his ass, tracking back and forth like a caress under each cheek.

Caught off guard by the intensity, he looked carefully behind him, turning his head only the barest amount. He saw a splash of bright yellow hair. Gerun. Luck leave me, but it needs doing.

With a long sigh, he set his shoulders, turned, and walked over. At his approach, the pretty face flushed, and Gerun tried to turn away as though he hadn't noticed Atyr.

"Gerun, right?"

The man froze, then turned slowly back, with the fakest bit of casualness imaginable. "Yeh. Gerun. Hi." His eyes shifted to the side.

"I have to thank you for these clothes." Atyr smiled stiffly. "Finest I've ever owned. I owe you for them, I mean that. Can I give you some coin in thanks?"

Gerun only shook his head, still not meeting Atyr's eyes. This must be the shyest tinker in the troupe. Which didn't mean much, he very well might be the only tinker in the troupe who had any shyness at all, performers as they were.

Atyr leaned over into the other man's field of view. "Walk with me a moment? Just to talk a bit?"

It was a short walk, just far enough for a little privacy. Atyr was blunt, but he hoped he had been kind as well. Gerun didn't say much, but he took it well enough, smiling, even letting a half-laugh escape. He would take no coin for the clothes, but Atyr gifted him a fae-kip. The man's delicate features lit up as he found the once blank coin now showing a set of clothes on one side. His face stiffened a bit as he flipped the bit of bronze. He pocketed it before Atyr could catch whatever image had been there.

Soon, it was time to part. The tinkers were headed to Ferth, and Atyr to Woodstead. Again, there was a charade with the kip he had given them at the end of the summer, and still Stola held it hostage, saying that, perhaps it might finally be his once more if they met on the troupe's return to Woodstead. But only if he told them all his Oldwood tales.

"Tales to the tinker are like grist to the miller, seed to the farmer, and a child to a mother," Stola told him, and the listening troupe cheered at the familiar line. It was a good line, and Atyr made a note to remember it for Kella. She might make a poem of it.

"The best luck to you, tinkers!" Atyr called to the group, and the wished him the same. Then Stola gestured to Lillium, and the young woman stepped forward with her tall pack on her back. Behind her, she dragged a second pack, a very familiar pack, and in her other hand there was a great bow, with heavy black limbs, and a quiver of dark arrows.

Worry that he hadn't remembered was there siphoned away, and the space it left was filled with a tripled joy of nostalgia, loss returned, and hope restored. He rushed to the pack and threw it open, tinkers and all else forgotten. It was there. The powder. There was moisture in his eyes and an unstoppable grin on his face. He looked up at Lillium, grinning back at him.

"How...? How can this possibly be?"

"I saw them at an odd, cluttered little stand. Engen recognized the bow at once, and we saw the pack shortly after."

"In the Market? How came you to the Market?"

Stola answered from behind her daughter. "No, no market. It was a single tent, set up on the road from Woodstead. An odd place to sell one's wares, but perhaps when the wares are not all one's to sell... We thought either you would want it, and we might find you, or you would be dead, and we might find something faeire in your pack. There wasn't much of interest." She grinned.

Not in the Oldwood then. Somehow, his pack and bow had found their way out ahead of him. A curious speculation pricked at him.

"Was it a disorganized stand, with purple drapes, dark, almost black?"

The tinkers all looked at him. Stola chuckled.

"Another story here, I think, for you to tell us in Woodstead. Yes, it had dark, purple drapes indeed, elf boy." She clapped her hands. But come, we must part! The day grows long, and the road as well!"

"Wait! I pay my way, where I can. Let me at least repay what it must have cost for these."

Stola paused, then she held out a hand. "A tinker never passes up coin where she finds it."

Atyr upended his purse into her hand. It wasn't much, ten kips in all, plus the fae one from Emrus. But, from Stola's expression, it was more than the pack and bow had cost them. She poked at the fae kip, and raised a brow at Atyr.

She leaned in and whispered. "Elf boy!" Then, loud to the group. "On, tinkers, on! We've a city of coin to pilfer with tales. We'll catch young Atyr on our return to Woodstead, if he's there. Then we shall see if he can take back his kip!"

"Take it Back, Take it back, Take it Back!" The chant went up about the troupe, dying out in laughter and a few loud comments.

At last, Atyr bid them all farewell, and turned to head down the road. But Stola kicked her daughter hard in the rear, sending her stumbling after him.

"We'll catch young Lillium in Woodstead as well! She's told me that she doesn't much care about Ferth after all, doesn't know what came over her! Thinks we should had back south as we planned!" Laughter and some playful jeers. Lillium looked shocked. Her mouth was wide, but a grin was teasing at it.

"But I say, she's dragged us this far, so on we go! She can head back with the elf boy if she wishes, and we'll catch her up whenever we do!" Cheers now.

Then the troupe was off, and Atyr and Lillium stood together on the dusty road. Atyr's face was blank. His mind was working at a chaotic speed, however. Lillium just smiled and shrugged, watching her family recede down the road to Ferth.

"If you don't mind the company?" Her eyes danced as she asked him.

He did not mind the company, not in the least. Lillium was a delight to talk to, and they swapped stories all the way down the road. She told him tales of all sorts, real, fantastical, and many which might have been pulled from either category. He told her tales both true and fantastical from his Oldwood journey, and the reasons for it, Kella, Helliot, and all. Like all the tinkers, she was easy to talk to, and he was soon telling her details he had thought to keep secret until his death. Even the ring he wore, he found himself explaining. She seemed particularly interested in that.

Atyr had hoped to sidetrack to his cabin site, long neglected, both to check on it, and to see if Elatla had returned. Lillium said she had no plans at all, except to wait a couple weeks for her troupe in and around Woodstead. She was a fast walker, almost too fast for him to keep pace with, and they made the clearing with the swirling eddy just before full dark. The scent of fresh water all throughout the clearing brought a powerful nostalgia to him, and he wanted nothing more than to stay and finish building. But Bird waited. Kella waited.

Digging through his pack, he found the storm lantern, and opened it. The starlight shone brilliant in it still, sending all the little glade into silvery glints and slashes of black shadow. Lillium stared at it, her sharp features alight with a fearsome beauty in the glare of the star.

"This is the star you pulled from the sky?" she asked. "In the clearing with the darkness? The darkness that..." Here, even her tinker's boldness failed.

The darkness that let me suck my own cock, and offered me more, yes, that darkness. How had he let that luckless little tale slip from his lips? He was glad for the white sheen over everything that hid, he hoped, the burning color on his cheeks.

"May I?" She reached for the star-lantern, and he handed it over. She wandered off, gazing at the spinning pool, the half built cabin, and at the bit of bronze she pulled from a pouch. On it, Atyr knew, there was a sharp-featured girl singing, by a pool, and a cabin much like this one.

"Mind the pool!" he called after her. "It's not safe to enter." If that was true, at this moment, he didn't yet know. That was a search for the morning.

He took out the new lantern, with the purple fae-light, and checked over all his things, and the cabin. All was as it should be, although grown over with months of neglect. Early fall leaves were scattered across everything. He began clearing them, wishing to do something at the site, but it would be at least a short time before he could return to properly set things right.

After a little while the starlight approached, and Lillium walked up to him where he sat on the half-log bench in front of the little shelter. She closed the lantern and sat beside him, sliding close and leaning into his shoulder as though it were the most normal thing. And it did feel right, in that instant.

They sat for a moment like that, in the dark of the glade. Then she spoke, soft in the soft night.

"Will you answer me, and swear it's true?"

Atyr started, and looked down at her. What was she going to ask? "Yes, I suppose?"

There was a brief silence before the question came.

"Are you truly not an elf?"

He laughed, and drew apart on the bench to look at her fully. "Truly! Truly I am no elf! I thought you all were the elves when we first met, you might remember."

She nodded, and slid closer again, leaning back against him. The pleasant quiet returned. There was a little rustling in the blackthorn bushes. Somewhere an acorn fell loud onto the leaves. An owl cried, far off. At length she spoke again.

"I remember. I knew you were no elf, the first time." She snuggled in closer. "But you didn't have the ears then. I know you didn't. I would have noticed."

Something cold clutched at Atyr's stomach, though he wasn't sure why. He stiffened.

"The ears?" Slowly, he reached up a hand. They surely weren't pointed, not like elves' ears at all. Theirs were long, half again as tall as a human's. And yet, had the shape changed? It hadn't, had it?

"The ears!" She giggled, reaching up to touch them as well, playing with them, running her fingers over and around them. "I like them, you know."

They had changed. There was an angle there that he'd never felt, the round top slightly stretched. It wasn't a point, not a true elf ear, but it was different. He thought of Hollowtree, of Home, of all the many things he could remember... how would it have been, if he had stayed with his golden Kella there? But he thought of the real Kella, dark and a poet. And he looked at this tinker girl beside him, still fondling his ears.

She was turning towards him. She leaned in, and rested her head once more on his shoulder.

They slept together in the shelter as they had before. They only slept, but she draped an arm and a leg over him, and it was comfortable.

***

When they rose the next morning, Atyr checked the pool before all else. He called out but there was no response. Lillium giggled as he stripped to wade in, commenting on the white-metal ring, suggesting that, perhaps they should have tried to remove that, last night. Nevertheless, no kelpie appeared. He even cut his forearm as he stood in the pool, letting the red stain spread out into the water, but Elatla was not there.

He dressed again in the bright garb from Gerun, and they set out for Woodstead. Lillium was fast, her tinker's legs used to long travel and heavy packs. She sped them along with stories and songs and rhymes, and endless laughter. The day and a half journey to which Atyr was accustomed was over by the time the gloom was settling. His legs ached, enough that a tiny mote of grey whisked from them to his chest, but he refused to let it show.

As they approached the town, a sense of foreboding grew over Atyr. What might he find, there? His month in Hollowtree had dragged his journey long, much longer than hoped. What might have occurred, in his absence? What actions might Helliot have taken? All these questions had been smoldering in his mind for days, but they burned now brighter, more urgent. The purple glow at the top of the watchtower on the spire caught his eye, an unpleasant reminder that there was yet the challenge of developing an effective brew from the powder, before Bird might use it. A problem for tomorrow.

They made straight for Kella's house in the western quarter. It was late to be calling, but Atyr was unwilling to sleep away even one more night.

A woman answered the door, presumably Kella's mother.

"Hello?" She half smiled at the brightly dressed pair. "May I help you?"

Atyr smiled back bright as his dress. "So sorry to bother you late. I'm a friend of Kella's. If she's home, might I talk to her for a moment?"

The woman's attempted smile grew suspicious. "I didn't know Kella had made friends with any tinkers..."

"Oh, he's no tinker!" Lillium offered cheekily. "Not even half of one. We just decked him out when we met him on the road. He was completely--"

"My own clothes were in no state to be worn." Atyr cut in. It was the truth. Whatever shreds he left behind in the bridge of thorns were completely unwearable. "Please, she might have mentioned me? Atyr Bracken, at your service, ma'am."

"Ah, Atyr, yes, she has mentioned you, and more than once!" The woman's smile returned, genuine now. "Yes, of course, I'll go and fetch her. I'm her mother, Namlis Thorn. Very pleased to meet the boy from the Brookwood at last." She nodded, and ducked back inside.

Lillium turned to him. "Am I to understand that, if anyone is able to, this is the girl that will remove that interesting ring of yours?"

Atyr opened his mouth wide, trying to find a suitable answer, but in no time at all, there were rapid footsteps from inside. The door was ripped open, and a dark-haired girl stood there, delight in her dark eyes.

She launched herself from the threshold and threw her arms tight around his neck. She kissed him. Hard and long, and fierce. There was nothing cautious, nothing tender, nothing restrained, just joy and delight. It was a long moment before they broke, both gasping.

Lillium waved. "Hi. I'm a tinker!" She clapped softly. " We love a good show, don't mind me."

Kella flushed, just a touch, and stepped back, holding Atyr's hands.

"Well, Atyr Bracken, aren't you going to introduce us?" Then she gasped. "Your face! The scars, what happened?"

Bu he could only grin like a happy fool at his Kella, his dark Kella, his real Kella. He stared into her dark eyes...

There was subtle movement in those eyes. A hint of something, a flicker, like the shimmer of heat in the summer, almost like flames...

He had seen that flickering before, in different eyes. Cold filled him, slow and creeping, as if he were an empty vessel left out in an icy rain, the water creeping ever higher until it overflowed the brim. He saw her face fall as she watched the grin slipping from his face, even as he fought to keep it in place.

She glanced aside at Lillium, then drew him apart a few paces. She held his hands tightly and stared into his eyes, pleading, begging. Her eyes, her dark eyes...

"Atyr. Atyr, you really were gone so long, so much longer than we thought..." She squeezed his hands tighter.

The fires raged on behind those dark eyes he had held so long in memory.

"Atyr?"

He couldn't answer. He was drowning in that frigid water. He couldn't breathe.

She squeezed his hands tighter.

"Atyr, I am so, so sorry."

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---------------END PART THREE---------------

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