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

THE STAG LED ON FROM NIGHT TO DAWN,

SHE SPOKE TO HIM; HER VOICE WAS GRIM:

AND THREE TIMES WITH HER HORN;

He heard reptilian muttering behind him and stopped singing. If those behind him were truly to kill the Forestmaster, all music here — perhaps, eventually, all the music in the world — would cease, and all for the stag's petty revenge.

A winged shadow drifted overhead. He ducked automatically, but it was only one of the pegasi, cir cling and diving above the wood.

The stag could picture something larger, something with wings like the draconians', stooping onto the pegasi. He could hear them shrieking, flapping frantically, tumbling from the sky -

"Not them," he murmured. "Not by my doing, surely. But what can I do against these invaders?"

And a moment later, he thought, startled, "And could I give up my revenge, my vengeance for being scorned, after treasuring it for so long? In this cycle of sorrow, vengeance is all that sustains me."

It was something to consider on a long walk.

At mid-day the stag entered the Central Glade alone, well ahead of the draconians. "Master!" The woods took his cry in, draining it, not echoing.

"I am here," came the voice from the rock softly. "I am always here." The woods echoed ALWAYS.

"I have a question."

"You have often had questions. You may ask."

"There are many and diverse beings who l-live — " he stumbled over the word " — inhabit this wood. Some hooved, some human, some both; some living, some dead, some a mix of living and dead."

"That much is true." She waited.

"How do they think of me? Do they think of me as

one of them?" The loneliness in his own voice startled him.

"You are regarded differently by different beings. Do you wish to be thought one of them?"

The stag thought of those he knew and taunted, then thought of the draconians. "I had not thought so. But recently I discovered a threat which I do not want to harm creatures here, as though they were mine and I cared for them."

"Then by that care, they are yours and you theirs. Does that please you?"

After a long silence, the stag said quietly, "I had not thought it would."

"I am glad." The Forestmaster added, "But that is not why you came, this night, as you have come all the others."

"True." The stag came forward to the rock. "I have come to you a final time. Will you not have me?"

"In service, yes. In love, no." She leapt from the rocks, landing in a cascade of light like stars, even by day. Like the king, like the stag himself, she did not seem surprised by events.

But she was astonished when the stag bent his forelegs and knelt awkwardly in the dust before her. He swayed, unaccustomed to kneeling. "Then I will serve you, a final time. This last thing I do of my own choosing."

The unicorn stared at his lowered head. "May I ask why?"

The stag answered, not moving. "Do not think me inconstant."

"That is the last thing I would think you."

"Good. All that I felt, all that I wish for and desire — " his voice wavered" — are unchanged. But in all the endless times that I have left here, returned here, betrayed here, I never saw the simplest reality of this place: That the wood is larger than I am. It is larger than my need. In the end, it will be larger, and last longer, than even my love could. I offer that love, to it and you, freely and without asking in return — since without asking, you and the wood itself and all in it have always given what you could. I offer my service, and," he finished humbly, "I hope it is well done enough to be of use."

The unicorn looked at him for a long time, seeing every detail of him, every hair and horn and eyelash. At last she said gently, "Most well done, beloved. And remember that I have only said that I COULD not love you — never that I DID not. Go with the hunt."

She touched his forehead with her horn three times.

He fell sideways, legs jerking and twitching. Terrible cries came from him, most loudly when the antlers broke off. His coat grew paler with each moment, and where the Forestmaster had touched him a single spiral horn emerged, blood-tipped, pulling itself through his splintered forehead.

When the draconians emerged, they saw a rock peak and only one unicorn, tottering unsteadily on its hooves. With shouts of triumph they leaped into the air, gliding in pursuit of the unicorn, with their swords swinging and their fanged mouths wide.

The stag moved, stumblingly at first, into Darken Wood. One by one the draconians alit and stalked him on foot.

Through the long afternoon, the stag learned again the old lesson: some hunters one may outrun, but not outlast. Whenever he entered the slightest clearing, the draconians covered more ground than he, gaining rest from the time spent gliding. He wondered if they could fly at all, but soon he was too tired to wonder. While he stayed in the densest forest they could not fly, but he could not run easily, either.

Moreover, in the forest he had to break his own trail, but they could follow in the way he left behind;

he was doing their trailbreaking as well as his own. If he stopped to rest even a moment, he heard the snap of brush and swish of branches closer behind him than they had been when last he rested.

"I would not," he observed to himself as he raced after one such pause, "have thought they could be so patient. It is like being pursued by the dead, as I above all have cause to know."

They had swords and daggers, and perhaps other weapons as well, but the animal in the stag thought most of those pointed teeth, the cold eyes, the hissing breath. He had been pursued — how many times? — for sport, for the challenge, even for his antlers or for a vow, but being chased as meat -

His heart went sick within him and pounded every beat as hard as his hooves pounded the rock-strewn ground.

Behind him came the cold cries of the hunting draconians. To the rhythm of his own rock-chipped hooves, he could not choose but hear the darkest verse of the song touching on himself and on King Peris: