"Why did you bring us here, Chance?" Fisher asked angrily. "We didn't need to see this."
There was a sudden harshness in her voice, a cold and dangerous edge that Chance had never heard directed at him before, and he paused a moment to be sure his voice would be calm and measured when he answered.
"We had to pass this way to reach the Forest Castle. And I thought we might perhaps use it as a short cut. Just passing through the edge would save us two days' journey."
"You've never been through the Darkwood, have you?" asked Hawk, not looking away from the darkness before him.
"Well, no—it's forbidden. But you'd been through it so many times, I thought you might want to—"
"No," said Hawk. "Been there, done that. I have nothing to prove to myself anymore. We go around."
"We go around," said Fisher.
And so they turned their horses aside, and rode around the boundary of the Darkwood. The cold and silent blackness frightened the horses, and they kept their heads turned away from it. Hawk kept his head turned away too. In his day, there had been a barrier between the Forest and the Darkwood; the Tanglewood. But that was long gone now, destroyed in the Demon War. There was no warning now, to give you a chance to prepare yourself; just a sudden transition from light and life and living things to the soul-destroying horror of the endless dark. Hawk could still remember his first journey through the Darkwood, along with his then companion, the unicorn called Breeze, and how close it had come to overturning his reason. In the cold and rotten heart of the Darkwood he had encountered a spiritual darkness, a stain on his mind and on his soul, and he carried the mark of it with him still.
Even after the driving back of the long night, it had been many years before Hawk and Fisher could bear to sleep without a nightlight.
"I'm sorry," Chance said finally, disturbed by the brooding silence Hawk and Fisher had fallen into. "I should have realized how much this place would affect you. Of course you must have terrible memories, terrible… I should have understood."
"You still don't," said Fisher. "It's partly because we don't want to have to kill any more demons, now that we know what they are. Or were. But it's more than that. Asking us to go back into the dark is like asking us to re-experience our own deaths. Haven't you ever talked to anyone who went through the Darkwood?"
"Very few people will speak of it," said Chance. "The only real hero left from that time is the Landsgrave, Sir Robert Hawke, and he can get quite violent if anyone's dumb enough to raise the question with him. He's always happy to talk about his heroics during the Demon War, and his close personal friendship with the legendary Prince Rupert, but…"
Hawk snorted, amused. "We were never really friends. We went through a lot together, fought side by side against appalling odds, but I can't say I ever really knew the man. There wasn't time. I respected him, certainly; he was a brave man and a fine warrior. I even took his name for my own when I went south. But we were never friends."
"Be that as it may," Chase said diplomatically, "he parlayed that famous friendship with a legend into a strong political career. Everyone loves a hero." He paused, and then risked another question. "Can you tell me what it was like, in the Darkwood?"
"Dark," answered Hawk. "Dark enough to break anyone."
"I was here once before," Chance said. "This is where I met Chappie. The Shaman had a vision; said he saw demons spilling out of the Darkwood. He made a hell of a fuss about it, so to shut him up, the King sent me to take a look. Just me, mind you; no soldiers or Rangers for backup. Luckily, it turned out the Shaman was only partly right. There was just the one demon, who'd sneaked out of the long night and was now lurking on the outskirts of a small town not far from here. The townspeople were terrified, naturally, but as far as I could tell, the demon hadn't caused any real damage yet. So I went to sort things out."
Chance paused for a moment, looking straight ahead, remembering. "I didn't want to kill it, not knowing what it had once been, but I was prepared to, if I had to. If I couldn't persuade or scare it back into the Darkwood, where it belonged. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I'd never actually encountered a demon before, close up. But I figured, one demon out of the long night, how much trouble could it be?"
Fisher snorted, amused. "Hell, some of the things we faced in the long night were bigger than houses."
"And even the ones most like humans could still be real trouble," said Hawk. "Where do you think I got these scars on my face from?"
"I was just saying how I felt then," Chance said quietly. "I soon learned better. I found the demon easily enough. Once darkness fell, there it was, sitting in the town cemetery, squatting before the tombstones and reading the names aloud. It was white as a shroud, pale as a corpse, naked as a grub, with a twisted form and a face that was as much human as not. It had long curving claws on its hands and feet. It had trouble speaking because of all the fangs filling its mouth, but I could understand it. The demon made no move to attack as I approached; instead it just sat and studied me, as though trying to remember what I was. We talked for a while. The poor bastard had started to remember that it had once been human, and lived in this town. It had come out of the long night in search of its memories, its past life. It just wanted to go home, basically.
"Of course, it couldn't be allowed to. It was still a demon, with all its drives and appetites. Several pet cats and dogs had already disappeared. So far, it hadn't been able to remember exactly who it used to be, which was just as well. You can imagine the horror of its old family, if this misshapen thing had come hammering on their door, demanding to be let in.
"So I told the demon it had to go back where it belonged now, back into the Darkwood. It pointed out several of the headstones, and read the names aloud in its thick, guttural voice. They were all members of the same family. Maybe the demon's family, back when it had been human, maybe not. It was still very confused. And then it turned and looked out over the sleeping town, and it started crying.
"I patted it on the shoulder, reassuringly, and suddenly it turned on me, all teeth and claws and vicious strength. I should have drawn my axe the moment I saw the damned thing, but it had looked so pathetic. I hit the ground hard, with the demon on top of me, and it didn't take me long to realize the demon was much stronger than I was. Its clawed hands fastened round my throat, and I couldn't breathe. I pulled at its wrists with all my strength, and couldn't budge them. And then this huge snarling fury came flying out of nowhere and slammed into the demon, knocking it off me. And that's how I met Chappie."
"What happened then?" Fisher asked after Chance had, paused for a long time. "What happened with the demon?"
"I killed it," said Chance. "What else could I do? I couldn't let it stay anywhere near the town, and it would have been cruel to make it go back into the Darkwood, remembering what it had once been. So Chappie pinned it down, and I cut its head off. Afterward, it turned back into a human form, so I buried it in the cemetery, next to what might have been its family. No marker, of course. I never knew its name, and I couldn't ask in the town. It would only have upset people."
"You did what you had to," said Chappie. "You had no choice. You didn't tell them the worst part. The demon had already dug up several graves in the cemetery, and feasted on what it found there."
"It just wanted to go home," said Chance.
"Don't we all," said the dog.
"When we got back to the Forest Castle, they told me King Harald had been murdered in my absence," said Chance. "His enemies had come for him, and I wasn't there to protect him. If I hadn't gone off after that demon—"
"The King would have died anyway," snapped Chappie. "The King was protected by Sir Vivian and his guards, and the bloody Magus' magical wards, and the killer still got to him. What could you have done to protect him, that all those people couldn't?"
"I don't know," said Chance. "And because I wasn't there, I'll never know."
Not long after leaving the Darkwood behind, they came to a clearin
g Hawk recognized. He shouldn't have been able to; it looked like just another clearing, like so many they'd already passed through, but somehow he knew. He could feel the difference in his bones, and in his soul. He stopped his horse abruptly, and looked about him. Fisher had to rein in her horse and come back to join him. Being in the lead, Chance didn't notice for a while, and Chappie had to yell to him to come back. He quickly turned his horse around, one hand near his great axe, but there was no sign of any threat. The birds were singing, the grass was thick and luxurious, the trees stood tall and proud. Just one more Forest clearing.
"You know what this place is, too, don't you?" Hawk asked Fisher.
"Of course. How could I not know?"
"Well, how about letting us in on the secret?" said Chappie as he and Chance came back to join them.
"This is where we met the Demon Prince," said Hawk. "In what was then the sick heart of the Darkwood. This is where I called down the Rainbow to banish the darkness. This is where we emerged from the long night, when the Darkwood was thrust back to its original limits. And this is where the High Warlock told me my father, King John, was dead."
"Damn," Chance said softly. "This is the place? All the songs and legends tell of it, but no one ever seemed to know exactly where it was." He looked eagerly about him, trying to see what Hawk and Fisher saw, but all he saw was a Forest clearing. "This is history! There should be… I don't know, a plaque or a shrine or something. So people could come here, on pilgrimages—"
"No," said Hawk. "Let it stay a legend. The reality would only disappoint them, just as it's disappointing you. You built this place up in your imagination till no reality could match what you saw in your mind's eye. This place isn't important. It's what we did here that matters."
"And some of what we saw and did here are best kept to ourselves," said Fisher. "We still have nightmares, sometimes."
"I would have given everything I had, to have been a part of such an undertaking!" said Chance.
"That's the legend talking," said Hawk. His hand rose slowly to his face, as though the old scars were bothering him. "The reality was somewhat different. You look at this clearing and see only awe and wonder and the triumph of the light. We look at it and remember horror and pain and how close we came to losing everything. I saw my father betrayed by his oldest friend. I saw my Julia crippled, by a living horror older than humanity. I saw Death stare me in the face and grin. I called down the Rainbow, and it was bright and glorious and wonderful beyond belief, but in the end that's not what I remember."
"We remember the dark," said Fisher. "We always will."
Chance could hear the revulsion in their voices, and looked around the clearing again, straining to see something of what they saw, but he couldn't. For him, it was just a clearing. He decided to change the subject.
"You said this is the last place you saw your father, Your Highness?"
"Hawk. I'm just Hawk now. But yes. He was alive when we banished the Demon Prince, and he lived to see the Darkwood thrown back, but the strain was too much for him. He died here, and the High Warlock magicked the body away. He never would say why; only that he had done what was necessary. And knowing what I know about my father, and his part in the coming of the long night, I never questioned the High Warlock. I didn't think I wanted to know."
"What you're hearing now isn't part of the legend," Fisher said to Chance. "And if you're smart, you won't repeat any of it."
"Of course not," Chance agreed quickly, though there were many questions he wanted to ask.
"For a long time, I wasn't sure whether I really believed my father was dead," said Hawk. "I never saw his body. And part of me didn't want to believe it… because I never got to say good-bye. But the more I hear about what's happened to the Forest Land, the clearer it is that King John has to be dead. There's no way he could stay hidden with so much going on. And he would have come back from the shores of Death itself to avenge his murdered son, if he could. So he's dead. Just like Harald. Which only leaves… me. The last of my line. There's Harald's son, Stephen, of course, but he's half Hillsdown. I could be King, if I chose. I have that right. It could be said to be my duty."
"But you don't want to be King," said Fisher.
"No," said Hawk. "I don't."
Time to change the subject again, thought Chance. "There's no doubt about the High Warlock being dead, I'm afraid. The Magus told us when he came to Court to announce himself the Warlock's chosen successor. King Harald needed to be sure the High Warlock was dead, so he sent some admittedly rather reluctant emissaries to the Dark Tower, to check out the situation. They found the High Warlock dead in his chair, and the Tower deserted, so they collapsed the whole damned Tower on top of him, to be his cairn. And perhaps also in the hope that all that weight of stone would be enough to hold his spirit down, and keep it from wandering."
"I'm still pissed off about that," said Chappie. "Barbarians! It was my home, too."
"So much death," Hawk said tiredly. "No wonder we stayed away so long."
They rode on through the Forest. More days passed. There were many areas of dead trees and dead land, places blighted by the fall of the long night that had still not recovered, and perhaps never would. There were trees with no leaves, whose dark trunks crumbled at the touch, rotted away from within, and whole clearings where nothing grew, and the bare ground was cracked and dry. Silent, because no living creature would enter these places, and even the birds and the insects avoided them. Old wounds that would never heal. The horses didn't want to enter these places, either, and on the few occasions when there was no other choice, the riders had to keep a hard rein to prevent the horses from bolting. They tossed their heads, eyes rolling, and their hooves threw up dust and ashes where they walked.
Some parts of the Forest would take generations to recover. And some never would.
Dotted here and there in the woods, in quiet clearings and open glades, they came across many small churches and shrines. Most were Christian, simple places for worship and celebration, but there were other shrines, too, for older gods and more ambivalent forces. The long night had put the fear of God into the Forest population, and they took their comfort where they could find it. There were standing stones and crude altars, marking old places of power and the occasional genius loci; old battlefields in the never-ending struggle between good and .evil, or light and dark. Fresh garlands of flowers lay curled around ancient stones with fresh markings, along with simple prayers written on scraps of paper and weighted down with smooth stones on which open eyes had been painted. Prayers for good weather and better harvests, or just to keep the dark times at bay. There were even occasional small shrines for Prince Rupert and Princess Julia, and old King John, too, with flowers and simple offerings, and pleas for their return someday. Hawk found them touching, but Fisher just turned up her nose. Fisher had always believed that God helps those who help themselves.
They were heading into the more populated areas now, passing through the many new small towns and villages built to replace those lost or destroyed during the Demon War. Bright and shining with freshly quarried stone and new timber, the paint and plaster were still wet on the most recent additions. In the larger towns, new buildings sprouted up amongst the old like new flowers in an old garden. They were all lively, busy places, thronging with people, many of whom still had strong Redhart or Hillsdown accents. The new arrivals had made their mark in other ways, too, showing clearly in unfamiliar architectural styles, and their own transplanted ways and traditions. Hawk found some of these alien ways upsetting, in what should have been the heartland of his old home, but he did his best to hide it. Wherever they had come from, they were Forest people now. His people if he decided to be King. So he smiled and nodded at the friendly faces, and felt more of a stranger in this new Forest Land than they did.
It was early evening when the rain came down, sudden and hard. Thunder rumbled directly overhead, and lightning flared blue-white in the darkening sky. They had come to a p
lace where the trees were widely spaced, and there was no obvious shelter. The horses tossed their heads unhappily, and Chappie slunk in close beside Chance, his tail between his legs and his ears flattened, flinching with each new crash of thunder. Hawk spotted the ancient signpost, half hidden in tall grass, that pointed the way to the small town of Breckon Batch, and they hurried down a narrow trail already fast turning to mud under the driving rain. Chance was the only one with any rain gear, and he didn't have time to stop and put it on, so they were all pretty soaked when the flaring lightning showed them a squat stone tavern on the edge of town, the Starlight Inn. They stabled their horses in the modest lean-to beside the tavern, and hurried inside, though Hawk paused to give the swinging sign a dubious look. The Starlight was a clear reference to the original Starlight Duke, who'd rebelled against a Forest King long ago, and split off his own territory to form what was now Hillsdown. In Forest history, the Starlight Duke was an infamous traitor, and in Rupert's day naming a Forest inn after him would have been an open treason.
Not surprisingly, the Starlight Inn turned out to cater mostly to Hillsdown immigrants. The patrons fell silent as the newcomers came crashing into the dim smoky room, stamping their boots on the stoop and shaking the rain from their cloaks, but they warmed up quickly once Chance introduced himself. It seemed the Questor's good reputation was known throughout the Kingdom. Hawk and Fisher looked on just a little jealously as the inn's patrons made a fuss over Chance and gave him the best seat by the fire. The tavern owner produced jugs of hot mulled ale, and wouldn't hear of them going any further that night, not in such terrible weather. He had rooms available, at very competitive prices, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. He called for the serving wench to bring dry clothes, and room was made for Hawk and Fisher at the fife. Chappie lay as close to the flames as he could get, steaming happily.