The old man held up a hand, palm out, arm straight toward them.
Matt paused. "I don't think he wants me to come on."
"Mayhap we should heed him," Yverne said nervously.
"Maybe." Matt frowned. "I think I'll try to get a more complete picture from him. If you'll excuse me, folks?"
He stepped past Fadecourt's jaundiced gaze and went up toward the old man.
He had only taken five steps before the oldster quite calmly reached up and took off his head.
Matt froze, staring, waiting for the wash of horror to finish running through him.
While he was waiting, the old man tucked his head under his arm, turning into a ghost of his former self—not the old man, but the self they had seen chasing Yverne.
The damsel gave a little scream before she managed to clap a hand over her own mouth. Fadecourt was back and by her side in an instant, patting the other hand and murmuring reassurances.
Matt was wondering why the ghost could be seen in the daytime, until he realized the apparition was standing so far under the leaves that the gloom was almost nightlike. He set his jaw with determination and pressed onward.
The ghost began to make excited gestures. Matt stopped again, frowning, and called out, "Fadecourt—do your people have a system of sign language?"
"Nay," the cyclops snapped, and went back to comforting Yverne.
Matt frowned, remembering every bout of charades he'd ever played—not that it would have done any good to ask, "What category?" or "How many words?" But some of the ghost's gestures did seem to be on the verge of making sense, if you understood them as pantomime—the curled hand with two fingers extended downward scissoring could indicate somebody walking. But why was it walking in a U turn? And why that diagonal cut of hand across chest? Was he threatening to cut their heads off, too?
Then something almost clicked. Matt squinted, on the verge of understanding...
A brisk breeze stirred the leaves; a ray of sunlight lanced into the ghost's shelter. With a moan, he faded out, disappeared.
Matt stood, listening to the breeze and the summer insects, letting normality fill him again.
"What's it mean, Wizard?"
Matt looked up at Narlh. "I was just beginning to make sense of it."
"But you didn't quite get there?"
Matt shook his head.
"Shall we go, Lord Matthew?" Fadecourt came up with Yverne.
"Into the forest, or away from it?'' Matt asked.
"Was not the ghost indicating that we should go in?" the damsel asked, glance flicking nervously toward the leaves.
Matt shook his head. "I couldn't even make out that much. That upraised arm could have just meant that we should stop because he wanted to talk to us—or it could have meant that we should stop and not go into the forest."
"He did afright the damsel and make her run before him." Fadecourt's jaw hardened as he glowered at the forest. "Are we to let him bar us now? I say nay!" And he stepped off toward the trees. "Let us dare this forest to do its worst!"
Matt made a long arm and caught his shoulder. "Hold it, friend. Its worst could be very bad indeed. Notice all the little yellow eyes in the shadows, giving us the evil look? And I don't like the way that tree is staring at me."
"Nonsense, Lord Matthew! A tree cannot..." Then Fadecourt caught sight of the oak Matt was pointing at. He gazed at it for a moment, then said, "I catch your meaning. It does look at us, does it not?"
"Indubitably," Matt assured him. "And it does not have beneficent intentions."
"Yet how can a tree do harm?" Yverne asked.
Matt skipped the visions of trees falling on houses and twiggy fingers grabbing somebody by the throat. "This is a magic forest, remember—raised by sorcery, activated by malice. What couldn't a tree do, in there?"
Yverne apparently had a more graphic imagination than he did, to judge by the way she shuddered.
"That's what I thought." Matt turned away to his right. "Let's just see if we can go around it, shall we?"
They saw. They saw all that morning, hiking on and on, the forest to their left, the hills to their right. After the first half hour, Matt stopped and said, "You're very noble and all that, milady, but it looks as if this could go on for a while. You ride Narlh, okay?"
"Nay, I have enjoyed the walk!" she protested.
"Maybe so far—but I don't want to wait till you're looking droopy. It's tiring enough just riding."
"But the poor beast..."
"Aw, you scarcely weigh anything," Narlh scoffed. "Wouldn't make me any more tired than a feather—and I'm carrying plenty of those."
"But 'tis not right that I should ride whilst you walk!"
"It is your privilege, as a lady," Fadecourt assured her, "and ours, as gentlemen. Be of good cheer, Lady Yverne—we have paced long miles already, and a few more will trouble us not at all. You, however, are unused to the exercise—nor are your shoes fitted to it."
"No point in waiting until your slippers are in rags," Matt agreed.
"Well—I am not booted," Yverne admitted, and it only took a little more cajoling to persuade her to ride again.
It was a good thing she did, because the hike went on, and on, and on. Finally, when they called a halt around midday, Yverne's shoulders were slumping as she slid off Narlh's back. The dracogriff wasn't looking too chipper himself; his scales had dulled, and his eyes had turned sullen. Fadecourt was still holding his head high, but you could tell he was working at it.
As for Matt, he was fuming. "Confound it! Will this blasted forest never come to an end?"
"All things end at last, Lord Matthew." Fadecourt sighed. "This, too, shall pass."
"I'm concerned with whether or not we're going to pass it." Matt glared at the gloomy wood. "I could swear I'm looking at the same evil tree for the fourth time! You know, the one that was staring at me?"
"Aye," Fadecourt said weariness dragging at each syllable, "Yet that cannot be. It must be some oak that resembles it."
But Matt was suddenly taut again, with a realization that brought him something like horror. "It could be possible though, you know. Once you allow magic, the range of possibilities increases dramatically." He waved a hand at them. "You folks go ahead and start lunch. Let me see what I can cook up here."
Yverne looked up from opening the saddlebags. "But you, too, must rest!"
"I won't be long."
He wasn't. It didn't take that long to scuff around the long grass until he found an inch-thick stick, about a foot and a half long. He drew his dagger and cut a notch below the two little knots at its top, then jabbed it into the ground and came back to his companions with a vindictive smile.
Yverne held out bread and cheese with a frown. "What virtue is there in setting out a stake?"
"Yeah," Narlh concurred. "Tryin' to set a booby trap for anybody comin' after us?"
"No—I didn't even sharpen the top." Matt folded up tailor-fashion and accepted the slab of bread and cheese.
"Then what purpose will it serve?" Fadecourt asked.
"Let's just say that I hope like fury I don't see it again."
It took a long time. It took four hours, and Matt was beginning to think he was wrong, and it had all been his imagination, and the forest really was that large. It took so long that the sun was declining toward the horizon with a thought of reclining, and Fadecourt was sighing. "I can only admire your tenacity, Lord Matthew, and your zeal—but if we do not make camp soon, the darkness will catch us unaware."
"As long as it's only the darkness that catches us," Matt said grimly. "No, Fadecourt. We have to know what we're up against, before..."
Then he saw it.
He stopped dead, and Yverne lifted her tired gaze, frowning, wondering why he had halted; but just as she was about to ask, Matt sprinted ahead to something in the grass. He yanked it up, bellowing, "Damn it!"