Fost had been aware of being followed, which told him no more than that the foresters didn't care if he sensed their presence. If they didn't want travellers to suspect they were near, it would take Ziore's perceptions to discover them.
They followed a broad avenue between the tall anhak. It seemed no different from any that ran through the wood, but by various subtle signs Fost knew this for the road to the Tree.
A young man rose from a bush and stepped into their path. He smiled, which relieved Fost.
'Good day,' he said. 'Seldom are these ways travelled by those who use feet other than their own.'
'Good day, Darkwood. I apologize for the princess and myself for riding mounts in these woods. But we have a message too urgent to bear on foot.'
'You, the Longstrider, say that? Oho, that's rich, indeed.' He wiped his eyes from laughter. 'But you must know, Longstrider who sees fit to clutter his good and proper name with the graceless noise Fost, that you'd be ever welcome to go upon these ways in any manner you choose.' 'Thank you, Darkwood.'
Moriana's gray was tossing its narrow head and whimpering. Feeling that she had to assert her part in these slow proceedings, Moriana shook back her hair and said, 'You may carry along the tidings that Moriana Etuul, Queen in exile of the City in the Sky, has arrived on a visit of state to the King of Nevrym.'
'Oh, indeed. Is that the way it is now?' Green eyes twinkled. He had seemed a young man at first but reading the fine wrinkles in his face convinced Moriana he was past forty. 'But that's something of a problem, Your Majesty. The man you seek does not exist.'
'But I…'She stopped in confusion, then organized her thoughts. 'I don't understand.'
The forest echoed with Darkwood's laughter. Fost grinned but kept an eye on her in case she decided to try to chastise this presumptuous groundling for laughing at her.
'Ah, forgive me,' Darkwood said. This time he pulled a scarf from a hidden pocket to dab tears from his eyes. 'But you see, Majesty, there is no King of Nevrym – unless you refer to the Tree, Paramount, Lord of All Trees. But the idea that a man could rule a forest, ah, you outwoods folk are droll. The man you seek is Grimpeace, ferocious to foe and fair to friend – and king in Nevrym, never of it.' Moriana smiled with visible effort. 'Please be so good as to guide us, Sir Darkwood.'
'So I shall. For none is allowed to travel the ways of the wood unescorted.' He smiled approvingly when she didn't try to claim they had done just that in the last few days.
They rode for several more hours. Still smarting from her humiliation over the matter of who was king of what, Moriana kept her twitchy greyhound at a long-limbed trot for the first several miles until it became apparent that the ever-smiling Darkwood kept up the rapid pace without breaking into a sweat.
'Great Ultimate, Fost, how did you ever manage to outrun a party of these folk?' she asked as she reined in the gray dog to a walk.
'I was young and in good shape,' he said, slowing to match her pace. 'Also I was scared cross-eyed.'
By design, the road took an abrupt turn around a dense stand of anhak so that the clearing in which the Tree stood appeared suddenly to view. Moriana gasped at the sight of it. Though he'd seen it before, Fost felt his heart clutch convulsively in wonder at the sight.
This was obviously the Tree. Next to it everything else was shrubbery.
It rose over a thousand feet in the clear forest air, a giant conifer with dark green needles and a red trunk. Their master of all trees was more than the symbol and pride of the Nevrymin, it was the seat of their government as well. For hundreds of feet its bole was honeycombed with entrances, passageways, small apartments and halls as grand as the Audience Hall of the Palace of Winds. The many tiers were a history of the foresters carved in wood. The Tree still grew and every generation a new level had to be hollowed out. Stairways and catwalks spiraled around the massive trunk. When Moriana realized that the antlike figures moving along them were people, wonder flooded back anew.
'Well, my friends,' said Grimpeace around a mouthful of good venison. 'Where do you go now?'
Fost and Moriana traded glances. It was a good question. Oddly, they hadn't discussed it on the way from Omizantrim. They had barely thought of it.
Each sensed that the life they'd known before had perished. The world had become a strange and awful place, a battleground for forces beyond their comprehension. Even if both survived, which seemed increasingly unlikely, they little knew what kind of world they'd be living in when this new War of Powers came to a resolution. If it ever did.
The message delivered, Fost and Moriana sat looking at one another on their side of a well-laden banquet table. It was a board fit for the Tree, forty feet long and eight across. No knife scars defaced it, as was customary at feasting tables, and spilled wine was hastily mopped up by attendants. In return, the wood, shining with a luminous luster, surpassed in beauty any piece of furniture Moriana had seen. Like the capital of the foresters, it was carved from the living wood of the Tree and kept alive by special magics known only to the Nevrymin.
'Where are we going?' Fost asked. Now that the news of the Hissers' defection was delivered, he didn't know the answer.
Moriana did. 'High Medurim,' she answered.
CHAPTER TEN
'Whoa!' cried Fost, motioning for a halt. Moriana's greyhound squealed in terror as she reined in harshly. In a single fluid movement, she dropped her bow from shoulder to hand and pulled an arrow from her quiver. By the side of the track, Darkwood stood looking on with his habitual smile. He didn't unsling his bow.
Heart racing, Moriana followed Fost's gesture. She expected enemies. What she saw made her heart leap, but not from fear.
A unicorn stag stood on a knoll to the left of the path. The trees grew sparsely there. The great beast stood between two of the black, gnarled anhaks and gazed down at the travellers, one forefoot raised.
Something in the animal's attitude told Moriana the posture was not that of a creature poised for flight. It regarded them with disdain, its eyes huge and amber, set in the capacious skull on either side of the single straight horn. Its hide was a glossy chestnut and its throat and wide chest glowed silvery. A long tail ending in a tuft of auburn was held curled over the animal's back like a manticore's sting.
'Will you shoot, Lady?' Darkwood's smile had taken on the tilt they had come to associate with some private jest. 'Their flesh is a delicacy beyond compare.'
Moriana looked at Fost. His mouth was compressed in a curious fashion as if he tried to suppress a grin. Erimenes swayed at his side.
'Shoot!' the genie urged, his eyes gleaming with spectral blood-lust.
'No,' begged Ziore, floating beside Moriana. 'He's too magnificent!'
Moriana lowered her bow, relaxed the string and slid the arrow back into its sheath.
'She's right. I could only slay such a beast if I starved. Never for sport.'
As if it heard her words, the stag dipped its horn once and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
'You chose wisely, Highness,' said Darkwood. 'You'd never have hit him.'
Moriana's mouth tightened. This groundling made jokes at her expense, and she didn't care for it. 'You forget I'm Skyborn,' she informed him haughtily.
'Oh, I know that, Lady, and I know well you could put three arrows out of three through my chest with that monster bow of yours. But skill counts for more in hunting the Nevrym unicorn than cleverness of hand and eye. You'd have missed him, this I know.' His grin widened. 'Even as I'd know you'd next have seen him charging from that clump of blackleaf.' He pointed at a clump of shrubbery twenty yards distant. 'With his head down and blood in his eye. And I know a unicorn's fighting horn will pierce a quarter inch of the finest North Keep plate as if it were parchment.'