Irresistible Forces

Shadows in the Wood by Jennifer Roberson

Awareness stirred. Then stilled. Stirred again, weakly; was like a weary man struggling to open eyelids grown too heavy for his will. Opened. Closed. Awake, then asleep.

He had lived in darkness so long he did not at first believe such a thing as light existed. But it sparked at the edges of awareness, kindled fitfully into life. A very quiet life it was, timid and halting, but incontrovertibly life. He recognized it as such. And in that recognition, he acknowledged sentience. Victory at last over the enemy.

At last? For all he knew, it had been no more than the day before now, this moment, that he had been defeated. Enspelled. Entrapped. But with sentience and awareness came also understanding that such imprisonment as his had been conjured to last a lifetime, or a hundred lifetimes of men older than he. For time out of mind.

But he was not… man. That he knew. The body, the soul, remained imprisoned. Only the mind, the barest flicker of awareness, bestirred itself out of the long, enforced lethargy.

He wondered what had awakened him. Here, there was no scent, no sight, no sound. He tasted nothing, because he had no mouth. He merely was, when before, for time uncounted, he was not.

Was not.

Now, again, all unexpectedly, he was.

Astonishment. Relief. Exultation.

Alive. Not as men marked it, for he, in this place, was nothing approaching human. He had no heart to beat, no mouth to speak, no eyes to see; neither ears to hear nor nose to smell. No body answered his will. No pulse throbbed in his neck. But for now it did not matter. Something in him sensed, something in him knew, release after all was possible.

Someone is coming.

No more than that.

Someone is coming.

It was his comfort. It was his joy. It was the light against the darkness, the shield against the spear.

Someone. Someday.

For now, it was enough.

She felt the morning fog drift down and settle, a cool caress of dampness upon her face and hair, insinuating itself beneath the peaked hummock of rough-spun blanket draped across one shoulder. She burrowed closer into the blankets and hides to the warmth that was male, to the Crusade-scarred body grown precious years before; beloved before even they met in carnal congress beneath the roof of the tiny oratory built onto her father's manor at her mother's behest.

All dead to her now: father, mother, brother; even the manor, which now was held by the Crown, embodied by a man she knew as heartless. John Lackland. John Softsword. John, King of England. Who refused to return to her the hall into which she had been born, in which she had found a worthwhile living even after she knew herself the only one left of her blood. A man, a king, who listened instead to another man she named enemy: William deLacey. High Sheriff of Nottingham.

The warmth, the body beside her, sensed her awakening and began its own. He turned toward her, drawing her nearer, wrapping her in his arms and legs. One spread-fingered hand cradled the back of her skull, tucking her head beneath his chin.

He stroked the black strands escaped from her braid. "Cold?"

She felt more than heard the words deep in his chest and smiled. "Not now".

The prickle of unshaven jaw snagged her hair as he shifted closer." 'Twill be winter soon."

"Too soon," she murmured, twining her limbs more tightly with his.

One hand wound a strand of her hair through his fingers. "I had hoped to offer you more than a rude cave and a bed upon the ground."

Of course he had. And would have: wealth beyond imagining, power, title, castle. But he, as she, was denied that legacy, stripped of all his father had labored to build even as hers had labored, even as hers was stripped, albeit in death. Her father had been a mere knight, his a powerful earl, but it mattered little to sheriff or king. Knight and earl were dead, and the heirs of both, through royal decree, lacked such claim as would put them beneath the roofs their fathers had caused to be raised.

She gazed upward, blinking against moisture. The only roof now they called their own was the canopy of trees arching high overhead; their hall made of living trunks rather than hewn pillars; windows not of glass but built instead of air, where the leaves twined aside and permitted entry to the sun. Such little sky to see, here in the shadows of Sherwood, where their only hope of survival lay in escaping the sheriffs men.

She and Robin — formerly Sir Robert of Locksley, knight and honored Crusader, companion to now-dead Lionheart — took such privacy as they could find in the depths of the woods, laying a bed some distance from the others, friends and fellow outlaws, screened by the lattice-work of limbs and leaves, of bracken and vine. A pile of small boughs, uprooted fern, an armful of hides and blankets spread upon the hummock. Some would call it rude, a peasant's crude nest. But so long as he was in it, she would call it home.

Yet Robin was right. Already autumn's leaves fell, cloaking the ground and everything upon it, including themselves. They would soon have little warmth, and less foliage to hide behind. It was close on time to go to the caves.

But not just yet. His hands were upon her, and hers upon him, finding eager entrance into clothing beneath the blankets of cloth, of hide, of fallen leaves. As dawn broke upon them, sluggish behind the fog, they affirmed yet again beneath the vault of tree and sky what had been obvious to their souls, obvious to their hearts, from even before the beginning that night in the oratory, with illumination banished save for lightning's fitful brilliance.

Robin set his shoulder against the bole of a broad-crowned oak and gazed down the road, one hand wrapped around the grip of a strung bow that stood nearly as tall as he. A leather baldric crossed from left shoulder to right hip; from a quiver behind the shoulder sprouted a spray of goose feathers and a sheaf of straight-hewn shafts a full cloth-yard long. He wore hosen and tunic as any peasant, woven of crude cloth, but also boots upon his feet — once fine, now scuffed and soiled — and a brigandine taken from a man he himself had killed. Once accustomed to weighty armor, he found the shirt of linked rings to be no burden.

In the Holy Land, on Crusade, stealth had not been an issue. He had ridden with an army headed by three sovereigns and many high lords. But Sir Robert of Locksley had returned to England a very different man. And that man, now stripped of his knighthood, his earldom, and his home by the Lionheart's brother, lived among the shadows in the company of outlaws instead of kings and queens.

Robin in the Wood, Robin in the Hood. Robin Hood. Whose entire life, now, was defined by stealth.

He listened for hoofbeats. Then knelt, pressed a palm against the beaten track, and felt for the same. He heard, and felt, nothing. There was no prey upon the road.

Once awake, awareness did not slide again into sleep. The tiny spark he recognized as himself, in spirit if not embodied, continued to glow brightly, slowly gathering strength until he had no fear it might be snuffed out. He remained bound, bodiless, with no recourse to escape, but he was awake, aware, and alive. He understood this, too, was a part of the spell, that to know oneself trapped for uncountable days was as much a torture as a lash upon bare flesh — as if betrayal such as he had known were not torture enough. But he rather thought not. These happenings seemed unplanned, and unforeseen, by the enemy who had enspelled him.

He recognized — something. Nebulous yet, wholly unformed, but his senses comprehended what his body could not feel.

Someone is coming.

Awareness coalesced, compacted, then spasmed in recognition. In comprehension of — opportunity.

He lacked a mouth, but the words, the plea, formed nonetheless.

Oh, come. Come soon. Come NOW.

Marian had grown accustomed to living among the trees, naming the forest her hall. She had arrived at a compromise with the results of such surroundings: the damp soil that worked its way into her clothing, the stains of vegetation, the litter of crumpled leaves, the occasional thorn punctures and scratches. So long as no true hurt came of such importunities, she could suffer them in silence, except when a broken thorn stuck fast beneath her flesh, in which case someone — usually Robin, or Much with his quick, deft hands — dug it out for her. She had, three years before, cast off the binding skirts of a lady's embroidered chemises and went now clothed more like a man, in heavy woven hosen, tunic, and boots. Over it all she wore a surcoat belted around her hips, the sleeveless, open-sided length of cloth invented on Crusade to beat back the blow of the Holy Land's sun on metal armor. But hers was not made of fine cloth with the red cross of Crusade on her breast or shoulder; hers was leather, cut to her size, and offered more maidenly modesty than hosen and tunic alone.

Though, at that, Marian smiled. She was no more a maiden, being too often titled whore despite the fact she and Robin had married a few years earlier. And her modesty had been shed years before in the oratory.

But the part of living as an outlaw among the trees and deadfall that she most detested was packing to move the camp. They had all taken to heart the lessons learned of keeping safe from the men who would capture them. They claimed no true home except what they made for a day or a night, though occasionally they settled some few days longer in a place deemed safe; no tables, no stools, save for the trunks of fallen trees, a tumble of moss-laden stone. But there were such things as iron pots, a tripod for the fire, bowls, mugs, bedding. Not to mention the swords, the staffs, the knives, and the invaluable bows Robin had taught each of them to use with frightening accuracy, from Much, the simpleton boy, and the giant, Little John, to Will Scarlet and the minstrel Alan of the Dales; even poor Brother Tuck, preferring to trust to God rather than to the bow, learned it nonetheless. An English longbow, Robin had explained, was a more powerful weapon even than a Norman crossbow with its deadly quarrels, for a cloth-yard arrow could punch through armor from long distances, with the archer well-shielded behind trees and brush.

Marian had cause to know. She had herself learned how to use a bow years before, but now knew also how to fletch the shafts with goose feathers, to tie on and seal the deadly iron broadheads with sinew and glue. A few of the sheriffs men had been wounded by her arrows, by the accuracy of her aim that might have, could have, killed them, had she chosen to do so. One day, she knew, she would choose, would be brought to the choice. She did not wish to make it. But so long as such men as the sheriff set upon them desired the lives of men she cared for, Marian would not shirk the task of preserving those lives at the cost of their own.

Now Robin came back from the High Road linking Nottingham to Lincoln, a byway that afforded them opportunity to improve the lot of the poor while inconveniencing the lords and wealthy merchants who protested the loss of coin and ornamentation. He slipped through the trees and foliage as if born to the life, making almost no sound. When he saw what little was left to do before departure, he smiled at her in accord. They knew each other's thoughts. Knew each other's habits.

"Anyone coming?" Will Scarlet asked, picking idly at his teeth with a green twig. "Any rich Norman rabbits for our stewpot?"

Robin shook his head with its cascade of pale hair. "No one."

Little John reached down for his pack. "Gives us time, then, to make some distance."

Alan of the Dales was making certain his lute case rode easily against his shoulders. "We'll have to take a deer once we reach the caves, or go hungry tonight."

"And tomorrow," Tuck put in, patting his ample belly. "No doubt I could go without, but—"

"But we dare not risk it," Scarlet interjected, "or we'll be hearing your complaints all night!"

Tuck was astonished. "I never complain!"

"Your belly does," Little John clarified pointedly.

"Oh." The monk's expression was mortified. "Oh, dear."

"Never mind," Robin told him, grinning. "We'll take our deer and feast right well."

Marian swung her own pack up and slid her arms through the straps. It was a matter of less effort now, to arrange pack, bow, and quiver about her person without tangling anything. Outlawry and privation had trained them all.

Much, grown taller than when he had joined them but still thin and hollow-faced, doused the small fire. He could not fully hide its signs or that people had gathered around it, but his job was to make certain none of them could be identified. The sheriffs men might find a deserted clearing, but there would be no tracks to follow, no indication of who had camped there. Sherwood housed innumerable outlaws. Not every fire, nor every campsite, hosted Robin Hood and his band.

Robin's hand fell on Much's shoulder, thanking him in silence. Next he glanced at Marian. She nodded, drawing in a breath. Then they turned as one to the trees and stepped into the shadows, fading away as if their bodies were wrought of air and light, not formed of flesh and bone. In such meager human sorcery lay survival.

He sensed impatience, emotions that had been dead to him for days, years, decades. He sensed urgency and yearning; he tasted the promise of power, the ability once again to make a difference in the world.

Kingmaker. Widowmaker. Reviled, and beloved. But he knew only one path. Impediments upon it were to be overcome.

Hurry, he wished.

He wished it very hard.

The outcry echoed in the trees. Robin spun around, gesturing sharply to the others strung out behind him on the deer track. Even as all of them dove into foliage, separating to make more difficult targets, a second cry rang out, a different voice now, followed by shouts in Norman French. He held his breath, listening; now it was possible to also hear the threshing of men running through the forest and the louder crashing of horses in pursuit.

Robin, grimacing as he dropped flat behind a downed tree, swore in silence. Poachers, likely, or even known outlaws, had been spotted by one of the sheriffs patrols. It was sheer bad luck that those pursued were heading straight toward him and his party.

He raised his head slightly and searched over his shoulder. Save for the last fading movement of stilling branches and waving, hip-high fern, there was no hint that a woman and six men were hidden close by. He wished he could see Marian, but if she were invisible to him, neither could the Norman soldiers see her.

More crashing through underbrush. Now he could hear panting, and wheezing, and the blurted, broken prayers of a man who would do better to hoard his breath. Not far away another man cried out, and then a triumphant shout went up from the soldiers.

Underbrush broke apart in front of Robin. The second outlaw was abruptly there, his arms outstretched, his batting hands attempting to open an escape route through hanging vines and low, sweeping branches. Robin briefly saw the scratched, agonized face, the staring eyes, the open mouth. And then the man teetered atop the very trunk Locksley took shelter behind.

Growling oaths behind gritted teeth, Robin reared up, grabbed the man's tunic, and yanked him off the tree. The outlaw came down hard and loose, limbs splayed; a knee caught Robin in the side of the head hard enough to double his vision.

"Stay down!" he hissed, as the man lay sprawled belly-down on the ground, sobbing in fear and exhaustion.

A soldier on horseback broke through, blue cloak flapping. He wore the traditional conical Norman helm with its steel nasal bisecting his dark face. Robin ducked as the horse gathered itself and sailed over the tree — sailed, too, over two men seeking protection in its meager shelter.

Robin turned on his knees, shouting a warning to the others. More soldiers were crashing before him now, spreading out. The Norman who had jumped the log was calling to his fellows in French, wheeling his horse even as he raised an already spanned crossbow, quarrel resting in its channel. But Robin had had more time; his own arrow was loosed, flying, and took the soldier through the throat.

Now he focused on another—how many are there? — as he deftly nocked a second arrow. So many— there was no time to think, to plan. Only to react.

He stood. Pulled the bowstring back to his chin. Sighted and let fly.

The Norman flew backward off his horse as if a trebuchet stone had struck him in the chest.

But others had broken through. They had spotted other game now, shouting positions to one another. Even as Robin nocked a third arrow, someone clutched at him. "Don't let them catch me!" the rescued man cried. "They'll cut me 'and off!"

His aim spoiled, the arrow went wide. Cursing, Robin caught a glimpse of flared equine nostrils, the gape of equine mouth, and the flash of a sword blade swinging down at his head.

"Get off—" he blurted, diving for the ground.

But the blade sheared through hair and flesh, and the sharpened tip slid across his skull.

Marian was well-hidden until Robin's arrow took the first soldier through the throat. The Norman tumbled limply off his mount, but one booted foot caught in the stirrup long enough to spook the horse, who responded with great lunging leaps sideways. Marian, directly in the animal's path, attempted to scramble out of the way. But the panicked horse wheeled around, and the body, coming loose at last, was swung out sideways in a wide arc.

The impact of the mailed body colliding with her own knocked Marian off her feet. She was aware of weight, disorientation, her own startled outcry — and then she went down hard against the ground, sprawled on her back, pinned by the weight of the soldier.

She had heard the term "dead weight" before. She had not truly known what it implied. Now she did.

Breath was gone. She gulped air as fear crowded close. She could not breathe—

Panicked, she shoved at the body, trying to dislodge it. Her struggles did nothing but waste what little breath remained in her lungs.

A dead man could not kill her.

The thought stilled her, calmed her, permitted her to draw a normal breath again. Air came in with relief, and then she became aware of more than the soldier's weight, of his stench. Bladder and bowels.

Blood. Blood in her mouth, running into her throat. She choked, coughed, felt the spray leave her mouth. She turned her head and spat, not knowing if it were dead man's blood or her own.

The body muffled sound, but she heard shouting. And then abruptly the terrible weight was lifted, dragged aside. Someone was grunting with effort.

"Lady… Lady Marian—" Tuck. His hands grasped one of her arms, dragged her up from the ground. "They're distracted — you must go now!"

She was dizzy, blinking at him woozily as she put a hand to her mouth. Blood filled it again.

"You're swifter than I," Tuck wheezed. "You must go on. Take Robin and go!"

That got through. "Robin?"

"Injured." Tuck yanked her to her feet. "Can you stand? Good. Here…" He pulled her to a downed tree.

She saw Robin then, slumped against the tree as blood sheeted down the side of his face. "Go, both of you." Tuck pushed her. "The others are leading them away. Waste no time. Tis Robin they want more than any of us."

She knelt beside Robin. He was conscious but clearly in pain. She put a hand to his face and realized they both bled badly.

"Up," Tuck insisted. He helped Marian back to her feet, then pulled Robin from the ground. "Go on. Get as far as you can."

"Caves," Robin said between gritted teeth, weaving in place.

Tuck nodded. "We shall meet you there when we can."

Marian spat blood again. Hers, she realized, not the dead man's. She had cut her mouth. "Can you walk?" she asked Robin.

Through the blood, he managed a twisted smile. "Given a choice between that or hanging?" He closed her hand in his own. "Say rather I can run."

Robin pulled her over the fallen tree, and then both of them were running.

Awareness encompassed more than he had expected ever to sense again, to know, to feel. It was nearly tangible now, coming closer, closer. If hands were his to use, he could nearly touch redemption. Nearly know release.

Come—

Robin's lungs were afire, but even that pain did not match the pounding in his head. His right hand clutched Marian's left; otherwise, he would have pressed it against his temple in a fruitless attempt to dull the pain. To halt the blood.

Head wounds. He had learned on Crusade how badly head wounds bled, even if they were not serious. And he believed his was not; the pain was immense, but no worse than anything he had felt before. He remained conscious and on his feet, albeit those feet were clumsy.

Marian's breathing matched his, ragged and whistling. Together they stumbled through the foliage, attempting to put distance between them and the Normans. Tuck had done them a huge service, Robin knew; it was possible he and the others were captured by now, some of them even killed. But the monk had gotten them away from such danger, and if they were careful they might yet be worthy of his sacrifice. He did not know where they went, merely that they ran. They left behind the deer trail and fought to make a new one, raking aside with outstretched hands impediments such as vine and undergrowth.

"Wait—" It was barely the breath of a sound expelled from her bloodied mouth. "Stop—"

He halted, catching a hanging vine to hold himself upright. Marian released his hand and bent over, sucking air noisily. Her long black braid was disheveled, strands pulled loose by branches as they ran. A bruise was rising on her face, blotching one cheekbone. She wiped her mouth free of blood, studied the slick hand dispassionately, then looked at Robin, still panting.

"— head?" she asked.

"Attached." It was all he could manage, clinging to the vine.

Marian nodded vaguely, attempting a smile. She straightened, then turned and staggered toward a great old oak, roots thick as a man's thigh where they broke free of the soil in a tangle akin to Celtic knotwork. She drooped against the trunk, pressing her forehead into bark.

Robin loosed his grip on the vine and made his way across to her, wincing against the renewed pain in his head. With care he avoided tripping over the oak roots, but when he reached the trunk he nearly fell. He caught himself with one outstretched arm, then turned and set his spine against the trunk, sliding down until he sat on the ground, cradled between two twisted roots.

With gentle fingers he explored the side of his head. Fortunately the sword blade's motion had mostly been spent. It had sliced into the flesh above his right ear, but had not cracked the skull beneath. That skull would no doubt house an abominable headache for a day or two, but he was mostly undamaged.

Robin shifted his position to a more comfortable one.

Breath came more easily now. Marian's surcoat swung as she turned; then, like him, she sat down amidst the roots. She looked aside, spat blood, then blotted her mouth against her tunic sleeve.

She studied the soiled sleeve critically. "Stopping, I think."

Robin stretched out his arm, slung it wearily across her shoulders, and pulled her close. "I think we are out of danger." He paused. "For now."

Marian didn't answer. She was staring around, frowning. "Where are we?"

Robin glanced into the shadows, noting the trees seemed almost uniform in size, shape, and placement. Mistletoe clustered in branches, foliage crowded the ground, but the huge trees took precedence over the rest of the forest.

He felt at his head again. "When I was a child, my mother told me there were oak groves planted by Druids in Sherwood. That they were the oldest part of the forest, and sacred. But she was always telling me stories. I never knew which were true."

"These are oaks," Marian said. "And—" She broke off sharply. "Robin… there are faces." Alarm chilled him. He sat bolt upright, preparing to gather his legs under him until she waved him back down. "No, not Normans — at least, not living ones. Look! Do you see?" She gestured. "Look at the trunks."

He looked, and saw nothing.

Marian got to her feet and crunched through fallen leaves to the oak closest to the one Robin leaned against. "Look here." Her blood-smeared hand touched the massive trunk, tracing a shape. "Here are the eyes, the nose — and the mouth. See it?" She looked back at him, waiting expectantly.

He rolled his head in negation. "A trick of light and shadow."

"On all of them? Look around, Robin." Marian's out-stretched arm encompassed their surroundings. "This is an oak grove, one far older than you or me… or even, I daresay, our fathers' fathers. Just as your mother told you." She moved to the next tree, intent. Once again her hand traced a shape. "Eyes, nose, mouth… and here is the chin."

He made a noncommittal sound.

Marian's expression was sympathetic, but clearly she was certain of what she saw. He closed his eyes and rested as she walked from tree to tree, murmuring to herself. He was nearly asleep when she reached his tree, circling it. He heard her stop, heard her startled blurt of sound, and then abruptly she was attempting to haul him to his feet.

"Come and see," she ordered.

His remonstration made no headway. She dragged him around to the backside of the huge old tree, took his hand in hers, and pressed his fingers against the wood.

"Feel it." She moved his hand, tracing something. "Here, see? The brow, the bridge of the nose, the cheekbones — this one is much clearer than the others. Do you see it?"

He did. This time, he did. There in the bark, no longer merely a trick of light and shadow, was the shape of a face. It was more defined than those in the other trunks. Sightless eyes stared.

"It's a man," Marian said quietly.

And then, beneath their bloodied hands, the wood began to move.

The spell attenuated, began to shred, broke. He felt it fail, felt the last minute particles attempt to bind themselves together once more in order to also bind him, but it was too late. Awareness melded with spirit, merged with comprehension, joined with the power that had been held too long in abeyance. He tapped it, called it, welcomed it; felt it bound joyously back to him like a hound to its hearth. One moment it was absent; the next, present.

With a roar of triumph, he ripped himself free of the tree. wood chips flying, banished the clinging aftermath of the long, dreamless sleep and stepped into life again, into the world again, into his body. Flesh, blood, and bone. And power incarnate.

The empty tree screamed.

As the body tore itself free of the massive trunk, shredding strips and.chips of wood, Marian blurted a sound of shock and hastily backed away. A root caught her, and she went down hard. Even as Robin bent to help her up, he halted, arrested in midmotion. Both stared at the stranger who had wrenched himself out of living oak.

He was wild-eyed, breathing hard. From the tree he went to his knees as if in supplication, or perhaps weakness. Splayed hands pressed against the layers of leaves, elbows locked to hold himself upright. Shoulder-length hair, dark save where it was frosted with the first touch of gray, tumbled around his face. Marian could not see his expression now as he knelt, but she heard the rapid, uneven breathing, saw the shuddering in spine and shoulders.

For all she and Robin were stunned, the stranger seemed more so.

She let Robin pull her to her feet. They put a cautious distance between themselves and the man but did not flee: Instead, they stared at each other in blank astonishment, then turned as one to the stranger. Robin's sword chimed as he unsheathed it.

When the man looked up, Marian saw gray eyes clear as water, black-lashed, and pale, unblemished skin. His beard was short and well-tended. He wore a blue robe of excellent cloth, and pinned to his left shoulder was a red-and-gold enameled brooch, dragon-shaped, of Celtic workmanship. When he brought his hands out of the loose, powdery leaves, she saw he wore a gold ring set with a red cabochon stone she believed might be a ruby.

"Robin." She kept her tone carefully casual. "Is this a trick of light and shadow?"

Equally casual, he replied, "This appears to be flesh and blood."

"We are awake, are we not?"

"As far as I can tell, we are awake." He tugged her litter-strewn braid sharply. "Feel that?"

"Yes," she said crossly, putting a hand to her scalp.

"And I still bleed a little, so this must be real." He paused. "My mother apparently told me the truth."

Marian was amazed at how calm he sounded. She didn't feel calm. She felt oddly detached. Somehow distant from what she had witnessed, and what she was witnessing now. And yet every noise she heard sounded preternaturally loud.

Should I not be running? Or, if she were a proper woman, fainting?

But then, she had not been proper since meeting Robin. Still, Marian wondered why she felt no urge to run. It wasn't fear that the stranger might harm her if she tried; she wasn't certain a man who had been trapped in a tree trunk moments before could harm her. But she found herself immensely curious to know what had happened to him — and to be quite certain she had truly seen him tear himself out of a living tree.

Still on his knees, the man looked over his shoulder at the tree. Except for a hollowed gouge in the trunk, the oak appeared no different. It was simply a tree. But a glance at other oaks still bearing likenesses of other men emphasized the truth of his own presence.

He turned back to face them. With hands now grown steady, he pushed heavy hair away from his face and bared a narrow circlet of beaten gold. He was, Marian realized, only ten or twelve years older than she.

She wondered what Robin was thinking. A quick glance at his face showed grimness, his skin drawn taut beneath the golden stubble and smeared blood. He seemed at ease; but then he always looked relaxed, wholly unprepared to strike when but a moment later the enemy was down. They had lost their bows along the way as they ran but were not unarmed; they had a meat-knife, quiver, and arrows, and Robin the sword.

Oddly, she wanted to say, "Do not harm him," which made no sense. She knew nothing of the man save he had, to all appearances, been a resident of a tree. A resident in a tree.

The stranger's eyes fixed themselves on Robin's sword. A sudden light came into them, an expression of sharpened awareness and understanding. He stood up abruptly. Sharply, he asked something in a language neither of them knew.

Robin said something in fluent Norman French. The stranger frowned, plainly impatient, and tried several different languages in swift succession. In each there were words that sounded vaguely familiar to Marian, but he remained a cipher until a final try.

"Latin!" Marian exclaimed. "Oh, where is Tuck when we need him?"

This time, when the stranger spoke, his words, though twisted, were in an accented English they could understand. "When is it?"

Robin began to ask a question of his own, something to do with a carved man turning into flesh and stepping out of a tree, but the stranger overrode him.

"When is it?"

When. Not where. Perplexed, Marian said, "The Year of Our Lord 1202."

The gray eyes widened. "So long? I had not thought so" — his tone took on bitterness—"when I had mind again to think at all." He looked more closely at Marian, then at Robin, inspecting them.

Marian became aware of her disheveled clothing, her braid half undone, bits of leaf and twigs caught in her hair and the loose weave of her hosen beneath the surcoat. Her chin itched from drying blood, and her face stung from scratches. Then the stranger turned to the tree again and put out a hand, feeling the bark. When he brought it away, smeared streaks of red crossed his palm.

"Blood," he murmured. "Surely she did not foresee this, or she would have prepared for it. But who would have expected the blood of two Sacrifices to commingle in the Holy Grove, let alone upon the walls of my prison?"

"Sacrifices?" Robin demanded. "Are we meant to die here, when somehow all of your companions are let out of their trees?"

The stranger ignored the question and looked at Marian. "The Year of Our Lord, you said." She nodded. "You mean the man Christians called the Nazarene?"

Marian blinked. "Of course."

"Of course." He sounded rueful. Then his expression altered. His eyes were once again fixed on Robin's sword. "There is a task before me. It was mine to do before the enchantment, and no less mine to do now that I am free of it, regardless of how long it has been. Will you aid me?"

"Aid you?" Robin echoed. "Perhaps you should aid us by explaining what just happened."

The stranger smiled. "I see power is no more understood now — whenever this time may be — than it was then." Absently, he touched the brooch on his left shoulder. "Vortigern meant me to be the Sacrifice when his walls would not stand; instead, I gave him news of the dragons under the water. When the red defeated the white." His pupils had swollen, turning eyes from gray to black. "He is dead. The red dragon of Wales. And so the task lies before me." His eyes cleared, and he looked at them both as if seeing them for the first time. "Forgive me. Perhaps it will all explain itself upon introductions. I am Myrddyn Emrys." He gave it the Welsh pronunciation, tongue-tip against upper teeth. "Men call me Merlin."

"Merlin!" Robin blurted.

The stranger nodded. "The task is to find a sword, and give it back to the lake."

"Merlin," Robin repeated, and this time Marian heard adult disbelief colored by a young boy's burgeoning hope.

Merlin had spent his entire life being—different. People feared him for it, distrusted, disbelieved; some of them were convinced he should be killed outright, lest he prove a danger to them. But that life, that time, was done. He faced a new world now, a different world, and far more difficult challenges. In his time, magic at least had been acknowledged if often distrusted; here, clearly, no one believed in it at all. Which somewhat explained the inability of the young man and young woman to accept what had happened.

An enchantment, he had told them as they knelt to wash their bloodied faces at a trickle of a stream, a spell wrought by Nimtie, the great sorceress. He did not tell them his own part in the spell, that he had allowed himself for the first time in his life to be blinded by a woman's beauty and allure, to permit her into his heart. Once she had learned enough of him, enough of his power, she had revealed her true goal: to imprison him for all time and thus remove the impediment he represented to the new power in Britain.

A Britain without Arthur.

He grieved privately, letting no one, not even Nimüe, recognize the depth of his pain. Arthur he had wrought out of the flesh of Britain herself, a man destined to unite a world torn awry against the threat of the Saxon hordes. And so he had for a time; but then other forces took advantage of a childless king and a queen in disrepute, dividing Arthur's attention when it was most needed to settle an uneasy court. By the time the Saxon threat became immediate, Arthur had lost too many supporters among the noblemen — and too many knights. The advent of a bastard got unknowingly on his own sister had sealed his fate. Merlin, in retirement, had done what he could, but Arthur died and Britain was left defenseless.

A Britain without Arthur could not survive as Merlin had meant her to, safeguarded by the one man empowered with the natural ability to keep her whole. Hundreds of years had passed since Arthur's death, and even now Merlin had only to look at the man kneeling at stream's edge, with his fall of white-blond hair and pale greenish-brown eyes, his height, to see that the Saxons had triumphed. And so the man agreed when asked, explaining that Britain's people were now called "English," born of "England," that once had been "Angle-land." The land of Angles and Saxons.

Marian, however, was not. It was clear when Merlin looked upon her. She was small, slight, and black-haired, bearing more resemblence to the people of his time in her features, despite the blue of her eyes. She called herself English, but her blood was older than Robin's.

And now England — Britain — had fallen again. To a people called the Normans, Robin explained, who refused even to learn the language of the people they conquered. A people who had a king whose excess of temper was legendary, along with the greed and turbulence of his reign.

"Then we should waste no more time," Merlin told them. "Arthur is dead, but his legacy may yet be realized."

"By finding the sword," Marian said dubiously, rebraiding her hair.

Robin's smile, even as he felt at the clotted slice in his head, was very nearly fatuous. "Excalibur."

"The sword belongs to the lake," Merlin said, "now that Arthur cannot wield it. Britain's welfare resides in it. Arthur, with Excalibur, drove away the Saxons once, but Mordred and his faction kept him from completing his task. You have told me of other invasions. To keep Britain from ever being invaded again, we must find the sword and return it to the lake."

"That will be enough?" Marian asked. "No one ever again shall invade England?"

"No one."

"You are Merlin the Enchanter," Robin said. "What use would we be to you?"

"You will recall it was you who got me out of the tree," he reminded them dryly.

They exchanged glances, still perplexed.

"You are the Sacrifices," Merlin explained gently. "Just as Arthur himself was."

And as he saw the confusion deepening in their eyes, he realized that with the years had disappeared the knowledge that was beginning to die out even in his time.

He gestured back toward the way they had come. "That was a Holy Grove, sacred to the Druids. It was Nimüe's conceit to imprison me there — and, apparently, others as well." His expression reflected regret that he, Marian, and Robin had been unable to free the others. "There are men and women born into the world who are meant to be Sacrifices for their people, for their times, to keep the land strong and whole. They need not be killed upon an altar, though that was done once, but merely die in defense of their land and ideals. To die serving the greater whole."

"We are outlaws," Robin said. "We are fortunate if we can feed ourselves each day; what service can we offer England?"

"Hope," Merlin answered. "Have you not told me you give over most of what you take to peasants?"

"Because the king is taxing the poor to death," Marian declared.

Merlin nodded. "And so you steal from those who have wealth to spare, and divide it fairly among those who have none." His eyes were unwavering. "At the risk of your own lives."

He had made them uncomfortable. Neither of them fully understood what they represented to the folk they aided. Perhaps they never would. It was the nature of Sacrifices to do what was required without acknowledging the selflessness of it, because they saw only the need and simply acted. Arthur had not been raised to be a king per se, but to be a decent, honest, fair man of great ability, capable of leading others to the goal he perceived as worthy, because it served the people.

Arthur had come into privilege and kingship because it was the position needed to guide Britain. Robert of Locksley and Marian of Ravenskeep had been stripped of their privilege because that loss led them to the position of aiding the poor, when no one else in England appeared willing to do so.

Who else was worthy of aiding him in his task?

"We had better go," Merlin said.

"Wait." Robin's brows were knit beneath raggedly cut hair. "Do you even know where the sword is?"

Merlin smiled. "Do you expect a quest? To be a knight of the Round Table, searching for the Grail? But the answer is disappointing, I fear: Nimtie told me, as my body was turned to wood."

Robert of Locksley, born the son of an earl — albeit last, and was thus inconsequential — wanted very much to say he disbelieved the nonsense the stranger told them. He recalled too vividly the beatings meted out by his father, wishing to purge what remained in his sons of anything fanciful, such as stories of Arthur and his enchanter, Merlin. But Robin's mother had told him to believe as he wished, that stories were good for the soul as well as the heart. And so he had learned the stories, and loved them, and believed them, until he grew up and joined a Crusade that took the lives of innocents as well as warriors. He could not say when he had come to understand that there were stories and there were truths, with a vast gulf between the two, but he knew that Merlin, Arthur, and all the others of the legend were not real.

Except that Merlin was—here.

The part of him that wished to believe wondered why Merlin did not simply conjure a spell that would move them to wherever it was he wanted to go, without benefit of walking. The rational part of him believed in no such ability, that the stranger was nothing but a madman. But he remembered all too well the sight of the tree disgorging a man. Still, Merlin did not do so; he said he could not.

They slept little, ate less, and followed whatever it was that guided Merlin. The enchanter pronounced himself stunned by the changes that had overtaken England — no, Britain — and yet admitted there was much that had not altered. He seemed unimpressed by the fact that he had been entrapped in a tree for hundreds of years; if anything, he considered it quite natural. Such things as sorcery were expected by Merlin, while Robin found it impossible to accept that fanciful stories, no matter how beautiful, no matter how entrancing, were grounded in fact.

But when at last they walked out of the forest and saw the wooded hill rising before them, surrounded by a ring of grassy lowlands, and Merlin sank down as if in prayer, murmuring in a language neither he nor Marian understood, Robin knew more was at work than fancy or folly.

From his knees, Merlin said, "Avalon."

Robin started. "No!"

"It was an island," Merlin persisted. "Look, you, and see how it might have been. The shore here, the water there — and the isle beyond."

Robin looked upon it. An expanse of land stretched before him, and a high hill above it, swelling out of turf. There was no water, no shore, nothing to cross save grass.

"It is much changed," said Merlin, "but not so very altered that a man of my begetting may not recognize it."

A man of his begetting. A chill prickled Robin's spine.

Marian gazed upon the hill. "Women ruled there."

"For time out of mind," Merlin agreed. "It was the goddess's place, and that of her servants. Men were occasionally tolerated but never truly welcomed."

"You?" she asked.

His tone was dry. "Tolerated."

"And the sword?" Robin inquired.

Merlin seemed to have drifted away from them. "There is a grave upon the island," he said. "A man sleeps in it. But also an ideal. He and others embodied — and yet embody — it. The sword is there." He looked at Robin. "Come nightfall, you and the goddess's daughter must climb what is now a hill, but once was an island."

Marian's brows rose. "Goddess's daughter?"

"In your blood," he answered. "In your bones. But those who remain will attempt to stop you regardless." He smiled as they exchanged a concerned glance. "Just as the sheriff attempts to stop you from robbing the wealthy and poaching the king's deer."

That put it in perspective. Robin sighed. "What do you want us to do?"

"Find the sword," Merlin answered. "I am known there, even by the stones that outlive us all; I cannot go. It is for you to do."

"I am a man," Robin said. "Will I be — what did you say? Tolerated?"

Merlin inclined his head in Marian's direction. "Because of her, yes."

Marian's tone was implacable. "We go nowhere, and do nothing, without knowing what we may expect."

"Resistance," Merlin told her.

Suspicious, Robin inquired, "What kind of resistance?"

The enchanter spread his hands. "That I cannot say. It may take many forms."

Robin remained suspicious. "But you will not accompany us."

Merlin shook his head. "If I go, the task cannot be completed. And it must be, for Arthur's sake and the welfare of Britain."

Robin laughed. "You have a way with words, Myrddyn Emrys. Perhaps that is the secret of your sorcery. You convince others to do the work for you."

Merlin said, "So long as the work is done, it matters not who has the doing of it."

Marian continued to gaze upon the hill. "How will we know to find the sword? Is it standing up from a stone?"

Robin's laughter rang out. The enchanter was mystified, until the story was explained. Merlin frowned. "It was not like that at all. There was no such drama. It was—"

Marian halted him with a raised hand. "Please. Let it remain as we know it. Tales and legends are akin to food when there is little hope in a poor man's life."

Merlin's smile twitched. "This is as much as I know: The grave and the sword are on the isle. Where, I cannot say."

It felt like a challenge. Or even, after all, a quest. Marian looked at Robin. "The moon will be full tonight. Shall we go a'hunting?"

He put out a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, smiling. "Let us make a new legend."

Moonlight lay on the land as Marian and Robin crossed the grass Merlin claimed had once been a lake. She wondered if it might possibly be true, as its appearance was so different from that of the forest behind them and the hill before. There were no great oaks, beeches, and alders, no tangle of foliage, no stone outcroppings. Merely grasslands, hollowed out of the earth.

A faint wind blew, teasing at their hair. Robin's was awash with moonlight, nearly silver-white. The metal of his brigandine glowed and sparked. The light was kind to his face, for all his expression was serious; she wanted abruptly to stop him, to kiss him, to vow again how much she loved him, but something in the night suggested such behavior would be unwelcome. She felt urgency well up into a desire to find the sword for Merlin and return to him as soon as possible. Nothing in her wished to tarry.

Beside her, Robin shuddered. He felt her glance and smiled ruefully. "Someone walked over my grave."

Fear sent a frisson through her. "Say no such thing. Not here."

He glanced around, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Perhaps not," he agreed.

Before them lay the first incline of the hill, a ragged seam of stone curving into the darkness, and a terrace of grass above it. Here vegetation began, clumps spreading inward, ascending the hill. The trees stood higher yet, forming a crown around the summit. She and Robin climbed steadily upward, until he stopped short just as they entered the outer fringe of trees.

The look on his face startled her. "What is it?"

"I am not supposed to be here." He worked his shoulders as if they prickled with chill. "Merlin was right — men are not wanted. But—" He broke off, feeling gingerly at the cut on his head.

"But?" she prodded.

"But I in particular am not wanted. Or so it feels." He studied his fingers. "Bleeding again."

"Let me see." She moved around to his other side, turning his head into the moonlight. "A little, yes…" She peeled hair away, saw where fresh blood welled. Moment by moment it ran faster, thicker, until even her fingers could not stop it. "Perhaps we should turn back."

Robin's expression was odd. "He said there would be resistance."

Marian frowned as she drew her meat-knife and commenced cutting a strip from her tunic. "You believe you are bleeding again because of that?"

"I believe that on a night such as this, it may be possible." He winced. "And the ache is returning."

"Bend your head." Marian tied the cloth around his head. "Do you believe what he says? That there even is a sword, and if we find it, it may guard England?"

Robin sighed, fingering the knot she had tied in the makeshift bandage. "I am not certain what I believe. But if there is truth to it…" He shrugged. "What harm if we try?"

"An aching head."

"Ah, well, I daresay I can stand that." Robin looked at the vanguard of trees springing up around them. "The stories say Arthur was taken away by nine queens and given secret burial rites. If this is Avalon— what remains of it, in any case — it is possible his grave is here. And what else is there to do but bury the king's sword with the king's body?"

"Give it to his son," Marian answered promptly. "Save that no one of Arthur's court would wish to see a bastard, a patricide, carrying it."

"Merlin was not there when Arthur died," Robin went on thoughtfully. "He may have meant to give it back to the lake on Arthur's death, but if the women of Avalon took it away with the body—"

"— they would have brought it here." Marian gazed up the hill to where the trees thickened, choked with undergrowth. "But all of it is merely a story…"

"Is it?" Robin asked. "Stories are changed over time, embellished the way Alan embellishes his ballads, but what if the kernel is true? What if that man back there, whom we witnessed come out of a tree no matter how much we wish to deny it, truly is Merlin?"

"Then Arthur's grave is up there."

"And the sword," Robin said. "Excalibur" He reached out a hand to her. "Shall we find it?"

Marian put her own in his. "Alan would make a fine ballad of this."

Robin's teeth gleamed in a wide grin. "Oh, that he would! He would have us being beset on all sides by unseen enemies, battling evil spirits, making our way up a hill that crawled with the shades of long-dead men."

"Well," Marian said dryly, "of such fancies are legends born."

With every step he took ascending the hill, Robin felt oppressed. Heavy. As if his body gained the mass and weight of stones, ancient under the sun. Breath ran ragged. His head ached. It took all of his strength to put one foot after the other and continue climbing.

He knew Marian was concerned. He saw it each time she halted a step or two above him, looking back to find him toiling behind her, expending effort merely to keep moving. The bandage around his head stilled most of the blood, but a stubborn trickle dribbled continuously down beside his ear. His shoulder was wet with it, where the blood had fallen.

They were nearly to the crown of the hill when he drew his sword. He could not say why it was necessary, save to know it was. In his years upon Crusade, and more years yet as an outlaw in Sherwood, he had learned to trust his instincts.

Just as they crossed beyond the last line of trees and stepped out onto the rocky summit, Marian stopped short. Her eyes, he saw, were stretched wide, unblinking; trembling hands moved to cover her ears. The sound she made was like nothing he had ever heard from her, a combination of whimper, protest, and astonishment.

He reached out to touch her, to put his hand upon her shoulder, but found such resistance in the air that he could not. His hand stopped short of her body, unable to go farther. "Marian?"

"I hear them," she said.

Robin heard nothing.

She drew in a breath. "Their souls are still here."

"Whose souls?"

"The women — the women who lived here. Those who worshipped the goddess." She closed her eyes then, intent upon something he could neither see nor hear. "They knew peace here, in life and death. Not Christians, but reverent in their own way, following their faith." She removed her hands and looked at him. "Merlin was right: He could not come here. Nor do they wish you to be here."

"And you?" he asked.

Marian smiled crookedly. "I may or may not be descended from women who lived here in Merlin's day. The power has faded, but there is memory here. I will not be chased away." She closed her eyes again. He could see the lids twitching as if she slept; her mouth moved slightly. The words she quoted were nothing he had ever heard, from her or anyone else.

"Marian?"

This time it was she who reached out to him. Resistance snapped. He felt her hand on his, smooth and warm, as she led him to the center of the hilltop.

"He is with me," she said, and the world made way.

There were voices in her ears. Nothing she could make out, not words she understood, but voices, women's voices, calling out. Was it her help they desired or her absence? Marian could not tell what it was they wanted, merely that they existed, that they filled her mind with sound and her heart with yearning.

His hand was warm in hers, but she was barely conscious of it. She led him without hesitation to the center of the summit, to the place where stacked stone had tumbled into ruin, from graceful lines into disarray. Most were lichen-clad, moss-grown, buried in soil and ground cover. Some had cracked wide open, broken into bits by frost and sun. Nothing here resembled a place to live, but live they had. She could feel it in her bones, sense it singing in her blood.

"Here," she said.

Robin stopped beside her. "The grave?"

She turned her face up to the moon, squinting at its brilliance. "No. The women worshipped here."

He was silent. Marian sensed his unease. She turned to him, to reassure him that she was welcome here, that so long as he was her consort he would be tolerated — but she forgot the intention as something came down between them. A hissing line of light lanced out of the sky, so cold it burned. They broke apart and fell back, guarding their eyes. In the flash of illumination Marian saw Robin's drawn and hollowed face, the grimness in his mouth. The bared blade of his sword glinted in the darkness.

She was Christian-born and — bred, not a goddess-worshipper. But something within responded to the place. She, a woman, had a right to be here. None of the women of Avalon had ever turned away one of their own, though not all had remained. What remained of them would not turn her away. Still, she was uneasy.

Resistance, Merlin had said. Robin had spoken of unseen enemies and evil beings. Marian sensed neither here, merely the memories of women who had left the world of men to make their own way, to find their own faith. That memory could make itself tangible did not, somehow, strike her as unusual. Not here. Not this night. Nor that the souls of the women, tied to the stone and soil of Avalon, would be present still. They had not known a heaven such as Christians did. They had worshipped another way.

Blasphemy, the priests would say. Heresy. It was not Marian's way, but she could respect that women before her might seek another road. A woman's life was difficult, with or without a man.

Her man stood beside her.

Marian looked into his eyes. Blood yet ran down his jaw to drip upon his shoulder. She reached up, touched his face, felt the warmth of his flesh beneath the beard. Felt the stickiness of blood.

In her heart welled a strange, strong fierceness. We have come at Merlin's behest, she said within, not to disrupt, not to dishonor, but to set to rights what has been perverted. England — Britain — must prevail, but she cannot without your aid. Allow us to be the vessels of this aid. Let us have the sword.

A moment later, the answer was given.

Marian smiled. "I know the way."

His brows arched. "To the grave?"

She gestured. "Look."

She waited for him to see it, to find it, to remark in satisfaction. But he did none of those things. He looked, but he was blind.

"Here." She took his hand again, led him to the stone.

Beneath a scattering of dirt, encroached upon by ground cover, lay a flat, crude plinth of weathered stone half the length of Robin's height.

"This?" he asked. "This is — nothing."

The answer was immediate. "If men knew Arthur slept here, they would come. And if they came, they would undoubtedly expect a monument to the king. But that is not what the women, or Avalon, wished. Only peace. And that they offered Arthur."

He was dubious. "How can you be certain this is his grave? Surely others have died here."

She shrugged. "I can give you no explanation. I just — know." Because they have told me.

Robin closed his mouth on his next question and squatted down. He set aside his sword, then leaned forward. One hand went out to the stone, to touch its surface. He ran his fingers over the stone and stopped. His expression abruptly stilled.

"What is it?" Marian asked.

He traced the stone again, feeling more carefully this time. She saw the pattern: down the length of the stone, then across.

" Tis carved here," Robin said. He motioned her to kneel down, then took her hand and pressed it across the stone. "Do you feel it?"

Marian shook her head.

"Wait…" He guided her hand up, then down, then across. "Do you feel it?"

She frowned. "Some kind of carving, I agree. But I cannot make it out."

Robin retrieved his sword from beside the stone and set it atop the pitted surface. And Marian understood.

She said, "Merlin came out of the tree. Out of wood."

Robin nodded. "And this is stone."

With the touch of our blood.

She stared at the sword as it lay atop the plinth. Then slowly she bent and took it into her hands. Her right she curled around the leather-wrapped grip. Her left she closed upon the blade, closed and closed, then slid it the length of the blade.

"Marian!" His hands were on hers, freeing the sword. He swore under his breath as he saw the blood flow.

"No," she said as he searched hastily for something to stop the blood. "Wait." She reached up, touched the side of his head with its soggy strip of cloth, brought her other hand away. Carefully, she pressed both against the stone. In the wake of her touch, she left bloody handprints.

"Marian"

He caught her now, trapped her hands, wrapped around the left the cloth he had cut from his own tunic. She allowed it, watched his eyes as he tended her. In this moment he thought only of her, not of what they wrought atop Arthur's grave.

When he was done, she looked at the stone. "There," she told him.

Robin barely glanced at it, more concerned with her welfare. But when he looked again, his eyes widened.

He stood up abruptly, stiff with shock. Of utter disbelief.

Marian smiled through her tears. "Take it up, Robin. Excalibur was never meant for a woman's hands, any more than Avalon was meant for a man."

But for a long time he stood atop the hill, moonlight bleaching his hair, and did not touch it.

Smiling, Marian rose. In her hands she carried the other sword, the blade that knew its home in the sheath at Robin's hip. She began to walk away, back to the trees cloaking the shoulders of Avalon's crown.

"Marian."

She held her silence. When he joined her, when he came down the hill to walk beside her through the trees to the shore on the verge of grass, not water, he carried Arthur's sword.

The enchanter saw it in their faces as they came up out of the grasslands below the hill. He had seen it many times before, hundreds of years before, in those who served Arthur: the acknowledgment that they were a part of something greater than any man might name, though he could not explain it. Goddess-touched, god-touched, God-touched; the name did not matter. What mattered was that they had, this night, become a part of the tapestry others long before Merlin had begun to weave. A tapestry made of living threads, dyed in the blood of the Sacrifice.

He smiled. The Nazarene, too, had been a Sacrifice.

He waited in silence as they came up to him. Marian carried Robin's sword. The other, the one Merlin himself had been given by the Lady, rested in the hands of a man who would have, had he been born in an earlier time, aided Arthur with all the loyalty in his soul.

Well. He aided him now.

Merlin smiled. "It is well done."

Robin's expression was solemn. "What would you have of us now?"

"Your part is finished," Merlin answered. "This is for me to do." He took the great sword from Robin, held it almost reverently. "In the morning, you will go back to Sherwood, to the life you have made. I thank you both for your time, and your aid. I promise you this much in recompense, because I have seen it: You will not die for years and years. No one so petty as the Sheriff of Nottingham will cause your deaths; time will take its toll. But where I go now, I go alone."

"To the lake?" Marian asked.

"We could follow you," Robin threatened mildly.

Merlin laughed. "But you are there already."

He turned then, put his back to them, took three steps away from them. Even as he heard each begin to ask what it was he did, he sent the sword spinning into the air. Moonlight sparked and glinted. Not meant to fly, eventually the weapon came down. It struck the ground soundlessly, too far for them to hear.

"Now," Merlin murmured.

Beneath the sword, the earth opened. From it swelled water, bursting free to spill out onto the grasslands between forest and hill. Satisfied, Merlin watched as it ran and ran, as it filled and filled, more rapidly than a man could clearly see, until at last the water stilled. Lapping at his feet were the wavelets of a lake. Floating upon the waters, shrouded in mist and moonlight, was the isle of Avalon.

"Lady," Merlin said, "I give it back to you. I give him back to you. So both may guard Britain."

After a moment he turned to them both. He marked the pallor of their faces, the stillness of their bodies, the blood upon their flesh. Smiling, he stepped close. He set each hand to the backs of their skulls, and, such as it was in him to do, blessed them both even as he healed their hurts.

Robin said, baffled, "It was on Avalon already."

Merlin nodded. "The women safeguarded it, not knowing it was the Lady who entrusted it to me until Arthur came of age. But it was never of earth. It was for no one to keep, not even the well intentioned."

"Why us?" Marian asked. "Why not you?"

"In the old ways, the old days, a woman ruled. But never alone. She had a consort. She made the Great Marriage. And it was sealed with blood." He smiled at them both. "The times have changed. No need for the consort to die, but the blood of the Great Marriage remains sacred. I had none to offer." He saw the frowns in their eyes, the uneasiness with the idea of ancient rituals. "Go home," he said gently. "You have served Britain well. She will not fail for time out of mind."

Tears stood in Marian's eyes. "What about you?"

"The same," he answered. "I go. This is not my time. This is not my place. I belong — elsewhere."

"Where will you go?" Robin asked.

Merlin smiled. He indicated a shadow upon the water, stretching out from the island. "They are sending a boat for me."

"But — you said you were not wanted there," Marian said.

"I am tolerated," Merlin answered, "now and again." He looked over their heads at the forest beyond. "Make a bed among the trees. There is an oak grove there that will serve you well — and I promise there are no faces in the trees, nor captive enchanters."

They were reluctant to leave but did as he bade, slowly walking away. He watched the man reach out for the woman's hand; watched the woman reach out for the man's. Their fingers entwined, then locked, and they walked together toward the trees.

The boat bumped quietly against the shore. Dark shapes were in it, shrouded in such a way he could see no faces. He stepped into the boat, found his balance, nodded. The boat began to move.

Merlin looked back at the shore. In the moonlight he saw them, and then they stepped into darkness, became shadows in the wood.

He turned away and took his seat in the boat. He stripped off the circlet, the ring, and the dragon brooch. Without regret, he tossed them over the side into the water. Payment rendered.

For want of conversation, he said to the wraiths of Avalon, "They will be legend themselves one day. Just as Arthur is."

Then the mists came down around him as Avalon disappeared, and the Lady took him home.