"Love and War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthology)

FOR THOSE WITH ARMS AND POTENT CHARMS

He looked expectantly at King Peris, who sighed hollowly and sang with as full a voice as a spirit could muster:

He lowered his sword, which he had raised for emphasis. "It wasn't that way at all, of course. And it wasn't rebellion, or wilful treason, or any of those things. My men were bored; I was bored. A hint or two from their commanding officer — " he made a mock bow" — was all it took." He looked around himself. "Imagine thinking anything in a short life and a merry one could be boring. I threw away a kingdom for a day's amusement and an afterlife of painful tedium."

"I am surprised to hear you admit it."

"I am surprised also. Perhaps something is troubling me. Let us change the subject."

"I shall. Did you speak to any of the strangers?" As the king shook his head, the stag nodded, "For I thought I saw one address you."

"Ah. That one was a mage. He spoke first." The king looked as though he had never even tried to evade answering.

"What did he say to you? I could not hear."

King Peris said with difficulty, "He knew that we were the spirits of men who had failed a pledge, that we were doomed to perform that same task endlessly until we somehow earned final peace."

"Knowledgeable man."

"Mages often are. I think he meant to remind me that I could earn final peace."

"And what did you say to him of your present state, 0 King? For if I may be truthful, you do not appear in full majesty. Empty majesty is more like it."

"I told him that we were called to fulfill our oath, one day."

"When you say we," the stag said carefully, "I assume that you meant 'my men and I.'»

"I was not specific. I did not mention you by name, but that does not mean he did not know you also were called to fulfill your oath."

"Did you tell him," the stag inquired, "How long it has been since we first heard that call?"

The king shifted, a move of discomfort in the living. "Discussing these things is not easy. Have you no understanding of how shameful it feels to rehearse a long-broken pledge?"

"I have more feelings than I commonly show. Let us change the subject."

"I shall. Something troubles you."

"Of course. I am in love." Even now the admission came hard.

"That is always trouble. Unrequited, I assume."

"Strangely, yes. Can you imagine my love not being returned?"

"By now, it is easier to imagine than it once was; habit and repetition make all realities seem more real." Seeing the stag tense, the king added hastily, "But because it was true long ago, and for your feelings now, let us say it seems unimaginable."

"It does." The stag tossed his head. "I will, of course, want revenge for my hurt feelings."

"Feelings?" The king struck one shadowy arm with another. The blow left no mark, and the king's expression did not change. "You can still speak of feelings?"

"I can." The stag looked away. "I prefer to speak of them, though I still have them."

"Time changes feelings. Time may change all things, even us."

"Time has not changed what we do, nightly." The stag turned his head, briefly, to look at the north star. "I do not think it can change what I am, nor will it change what I do. I choose, again, to betray the one whom I — the one whom I should obey."

"Another might not so choose. Even you, after some consideration, might not."

When the stag did not respond, the king continued, "Tell me, though you have told me often before: is this a lover one could betray to hunters?" "One could. Does that surprise you?" "No more than it surprises me that you would." Without warning the stag lashed out at a sapling with one of his front hooves. The kick left a sharp imprint in the wood. "How could she have refused me? How can she refuse me?" He kicked again, splintering the small tree. "How DARE she refuse me?"

He stood trembling with anger, then mastered himself. "Excuse me," he said to the king. "I'm not myself today."

The king said heavily, "I rather fear that even after ages of punishment, you are still yourself."

"Perhaps you are right. Still, I like to think I would not burst out so, except that I had rather a long night last night."

Peris nodded. "Your feelings have always been hard to contain; long ages of irony and veiled illusion cannot hide them. As for your night, all of our nights are long." He added more slowly, "I have news that may interest you. A second band of strangers, seeking to kill the first, has entered Darken Wood. They are on the same path as the first were."

"And no sentries have stopped them? History repeats itself."

"It does, as we do. I am inclined to make an end to repetition."

The stag paid no attention to the king's last remark. "If these strangers are not invaders, might they be hunters?" the stag asked indifferently.

"Hunters of men and of other bipeds. They might be lured to other hunts." He added, "And as for invading, this band, too, is politically important, though they are — " he hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Evil. One would not have thought more evil could be done to Darken Wood, but apparently so."

"After what you have received at the hands of Darken Wood, does that disturb you?"

"It should," Peris said with assumed indifference. He gave up the pose. "It does. The peace of a world is more important than my petty grievances."

The stag pointed out, "Once, long ago, the fate of a wood wasn't."

"Now it is."

The stag was too stunned to respond. The king added, "I am no longer the sworn guard of Darken Wood,

but I choose to return to my post. I will not hunt you this night."

"You have hunted at my request — have hunted me, as my punishment — every night for — " The stag

stopped. How, in this endless cycle, could he measure time?

The king nodded. "Granted. But a king may change his mind. Once you have seen these strangers, you will understand."

"Will I? You seem sure of that; what are these strangers like?"

The king hesitated. "Complete strangers, let us say."

He said nothing more. "Go see them. Perhaps they will change their mind."

"Or perhaps they will hunt at my request." The king said simply, with more emotion than he

had shown before, "Look on them for yourself, and

think what they mean. The hunt must end." "The hunt will end when I choose it — which means

that the hunt will never end," the stag finished bitterly,

"oh, great and loyal king."

King Peris dropped his hands silently. "Then go and ask them if they will hunt you. Let them slay you, let them listen to the same bitter words, the same old pain, over and over. I also can choose — and I choose never to hunt again. If you have ever loved these woods, this world — if you have ever loved at all — see what these strangers mean for our world, and choose to break the cycle." He fell silent again.

The stag ruminated — as befits a thoughtful ruminant. Finally he said, "Evidently, you have business with those who enter Darken Wood. Might you be persuaded to leave that business —»

" — for a later time? Yes. After all, as you point out, I have left my post before; I could postpone returning to it for a while. At my time of life — " he gave a grisly and meaningless smile — "one day or night is as good as the next."

"I gather you find it easy to postpone duty. A matter of habit, perhaps?"

The king scratched his ghostly beard with a ghostly finger. "Or else I am betraying my current habits. One is inclined to hope that you, too, could betray your current habits, as easily as you once, and ever thereafter, betrayed the For —»

"Now who is tactless?"

"Granted. You will consider all that I said? You may still choose —»

"I may. I will consider." The stag bounded off, knowing he did not need to agree on a later meeting-place with the dead king. Some meetings are all but foreordained.

Near the edge of the wood, the trail stopped abruptly, leaving only brush and a dense wall of plants. On the outside were false vallenwood, which looked like the great trees but grew no taller than a dwarf, some berry bushes, thorned and unthorned, and bright wildflowers.

On the inside were stands of twisted nightroot, the bane of all animal life; guantvine, dense enough to bind the unwary; and Paladine's Tears, the tiny blue flowers that grew and wove into an upright mat between tree trunks. Though the wall kept curious folk out, the stag knew how many reckless souls it had kept in.

As he watched, the brush swayed and shivered under the pressure of hands.

Hands — of a sort. The stag stared at the first clawed fingers that emerged, waving in the air blindly to push more branches aside, finding none. The scaled man-thing that followed them out, blinking, into the sunlight stretched batlike wings in the open space.

"Kin to dragons." There was no question in the stag's mind, though the stag had never seen these creatures before. He knew also how few would know that:

if the stag's appearance to Huma was barely legend now, the dragons were less than that.

More armored figures followed the first. The stag backed a few steps, more for his world than for himself. There were only a few creatures, if ugly ones, but their presence in this wood, in this world, meant unthinkable things.

He shook himself and murmured aloud, "The Royal Peris has a gift for understatement. 'Strangers' indeed." He tensed his muscles for flight, but stepped forward. "I greet you."

Nothing happened. The dragon-men stared in all directions, unhearing and unseeing.

He concentrated and said more loudly, "I greet you."

The leader leapt into the air, his wings holding him aloft a moment. Where the pegasi in flight looked graceful, this thing looked foul as it sank back, half-rejected by ground and air alike.

It watched the stag suspiciously. "Where did you come from?"

The stag shuddered at the hollow, awkward voice that sounded like a dried man, but he answered it bravely. "From Darken Wood, where you are. Where have you come from?"

The dragon-thing ignored the question. "Darken Wood?" He held his sword at guard. "This is an evil place." He lisped slightly.

The stag wondered, none too happily, if the thing's tongue were forked.

"Evil only to those who bring evil with them." He added to the ritual response, "Many have. They do not leave again." He thought, briefly, of King Peris, of the Forestmaster, and of betrayal. "But there is much to be gained here, as well as risk."

"Name the gain." The dragon-man signaled behind him. The arriving troops moved to the very edges of the trail, not beyond, and formed twin lines, guarding each others' backs without a word. They were well-trained for war.

The stag considered what that meant, but went ahead. "There is one who watches over this wood." He hesitated, then amended, "Who rules this wood. All in it, living and..

human and animal, serve her." He took a deep breath and

finished, "To take this wood, it is only needed to slay her."

Treachery neither surprised nor impressed the dragon man. "And she is?"

"The Forestmaster. The ruler here. A white unicorn."

Several of the company hissed involuntarily. The leader started. "A unicorn? You suggest a blood-force of draconians could —»

"Hunt her and slay her, yes." The stag added drily, "It appears the moral requirements for such a hunt were exaggerated. That seems sensible, since there is no morality to such a hunt." He added more plainly, "You need not be virgins."

The dragon-man waved a claw. "We have no capacity for desire." He made a face that could have been a smile. "Or for love."

"You are happier than you know," the stag said, mainly to himself. Aloud he repeated, "I have offered you a unicorn hunt. Will you take my offer?"

The dragon-man considered. "How would we find her?"

"You would not. I would, and you would follow. For the rest — " The stag shrugged, his shoulders rippling the motion up his well-muscled neck. "Surely you need not ask me how to hunt and slay animals." An old ache reminded him what this betrayal meant, to the lover as well as to the loved. For one moment he had a vision of those teeth, those claws, tearing at the shadowless white flesh of the Forestmaster.

The dragon — draconian — had not moved for some time. "We would do this for conquest, as well as for reasons we will not share." He smiled, after his kind, with a great many teeth. "Why would you do this?"

"For reasons I will not share." He finished more softly. "For reasons which, apparently, would mean little to you." More and more, the stag was wondering why scorned love and thwarted desire meant much to himself. "I was not aware that soldiers needed excuses, or perhaps you do not feel up to your quarry."

The draconian answered without anger, "Look in

our faces. We could hunt any creature alive to its death."

"I see. And beyond?" the stag asked politely, but the joke was lost on them. "Follow, then. Not too closely."

As he turned and bounded away, he heard a single command, a word or a language he did not know. Once again he was afraid — for his world, and not for himself.

"Perhaps I grow sentimental. Next I will write bad songs and carry noisy bipeds on my back," he said aloud.But the joke was flat, and he realized that sarcasm and self parody could no longer protect him from his own feelings. Behind him he heard the rasp of strange and wicked claws, tearing at the wood that was his whole world.

He was more than halfway to the clearing when bulky shapes, half-hidden in leaves, blocked his way. He froze in place, hoping the draconians behind him would do the same.

A voice called, "Halt."

"Remarkably alert," the stag observed, "if unnecessary."

"Don't be giving rudeness to those who keep faith." The deep voice, unbothered at the stag's sarcasm, went on, "Where does tha go?"

"I have an errand." He spoke coldly, hoping the sentry would take offense and turn away. "Is it habitual in this wood to question duty?"

"Not my habit, nor that of my kind." The figure emerged from the undergrowth. It was, as he had known from the size and voice, a centaur.

Nonetheless, he peered at it curiously.

"Ah," he said as if in recognition. "A draft human. Tell me, how is life in harness?"

The centaur regarded him, as always, with the easy contempt that the hooved and human show the merely human or the merely hooved.

"We are not in harness but in service — as others should be," the centaur said heavily. He tossed his head restlessly. "I have heard rumors and smelled scents this day, as well. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?"

The stag would not look in the centaur's large, dark eyes. "Perhaps you smell the strangers from last night. Is there any reason that their smell would cling to you?"

"We bore them on our backs," he said with dignity. "As all in this wood know. Are more strangers in Darken Wood?" he repeated.

"Why ask me? Surely you think you know more than I; your breed studies stars as well as any beast of burden could."

"Mockery. It's all tha has." He snorted, horselike. "Try to hide the truth from us both, if tha wishes. I study little, but I know stars. These past nights they tell of battle, and of life and death for a stag. It's a' there — for them as looks close." He added, "Maybe tha has not seen these strangers — but tha will." He turned to go.

The stag watched him. "I have a retort," he called, "timed and well framed, laden with irony and literary allusion — but I refuse to favor you with it. I have my dignity."

The centaur said nothing, and in the stag's heart he knew that was the best retort of all. The centaur waited a moment longer, then went his way.

A moment later the lead draconian appeared, sword ready, behind the stag. "He is gone?"

"He is." The stag was looking where the centaur had been, thinking hard. He tried to imagine the centaurs dead and defeated, bleeding as the wood fell again to strangers. He could not imagine that any centaurs would run, or would turn traitor, or would think at all of themselves.

"Then we remain undiscovered."

The stag thought over the centaur's words. "Let us say you remain unseen. Remain so a while longer, by moving behind me again."

The draconian looked at the stag without love and withdrew. The stag moved slowly, thoughtfully, toward the center of Darken Wood.

He caught himself humming. "It's that damned song," he muttered. "Crude and folkish, but the tune sticks in the mind."

Actually, it was the words which stuck in his mind. He found himself singing, half-unwillingly: