Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (46 page)

“Should we run?” asked Fisher.

“Do you want to?” countered Hawk.

“I couldn’t bear to see you hurt again,” said Fisher. “You know the Castle better than them. We could lose ourselves till they get tired of looking.”

“No,” said Hawk. “We don’t run. Not ever. Not for my sake, or ours. Because if we run, everyone will know we’re weak. That those bastards have broken our spirit, as well as our bodies. The news would spread all over the Castle. No one would talk to us anymore. And besides, we’re Hawk and Fisher. We don’t run. That’s part of who and what we are.”

Fisher smiled slowly. “Of course. I forgot that for a moment. Better to stand and fight and maybe die, because if we don’t, we wouldn’t be ourselves anymore.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Hawk.

He drew his axe and Fisher drew her sword, and they stood together in the middle of the room, watching the door. It took all their strength just to hold their weapons steady. The door soon burst open, slamming back against the wall as twenty of the Duke’s men stamped into the room. They came to an abrupt halt and stared at Hawk and Fisher a little uncertainly, taken aback by the drawn weapons. The Duke’s men looked at one another for a moment, and then their leader stepped forward. A big man with muscles on his muscles. He tucked his thumbs into his swordbelt and did his best to fix Hawk with an imperious gaze.

“I’m Hogg. I speak for the Starlight Duke. He gives you a deadline. Either produce a viable suspect for King Harald’s murder by midday tomorrow, or he commands you to leave Forest Castle, never to return. The Duke will then merge Hillsdown and the Forest Kingdom by force of arms, in the name of his grandson, Stephen. The Duke will of course rule this new country, until Stephen comes of age. If you stay, or seek to interfere in any way, you will be killed. You are also commanded to stay well away from the Inverted Cathedral, also on pain of death. That is all.”

“Very nicely memorized,” said Hawk. “Ten out of ten for content, but you need to work on the menace more. It’s all in the delivery.”

Fisher looked at Hawk. “Why would he care about the Inverted Cathedral?”

“Because whatever weapons, treasures, or powers are to be found there, the Duke presumably wants them for himself,” Hawk said easily. “Or at least, he wants only his people, or people under his control, getting their hands on such things. And he doesn’t want us in particular getting nvolved, because either we’d give what we found to the Queen so she could be more independent of her father, or we might keep them for ourselves and become even more of a danger to him.”

“Yeah,” said Fisher. “That sounds like the Duke. Now, are you going to give this arsehole the bad news or am I?”

“Me first, then you,” said Hawk. He smiled at Hogg, the Duke’s spokesman. It was a confident, happy, and really rather unpleasant smile. “I notice Duke Alric didn’t come himself. That’s because he wasn’t dumb enough to deliver such a speech in person. He knew Fisher and I would take turns kicking his arse until he could use his buttocks for earmuffs. You can go back to your master and tell him that Hawk and Fisher don’t give a damn what he wants. We will go where we choose, do as we will, and make fillets out of anyone who gets in our way. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s twenty of you, versus two people who recently got the crap kicked out of them. Well, we may not be exactly all that we used to be, but you will observe that all our injuries are gone. And ten to one odds or not, we’re better than you’ll ever be. If you rush us all at once, there’s a chance you’ll bring us down in the end. But we’ll kill a hell of a lot of you along the way. So, which of you are willing to die so that some of your fellows might win out? How much does the Duke pay you guys? Does it include funeral expenses?”

“Enough talk,” growled Fisher. “I feel like killing someone.”

Hawk grinned his old wolf’s grin, his axe steady in his hand. Fisher was grinning, too, and there was no humor at all in her unrelenting gaze. Hogg swallowed hard and fell back a step. And then he turned and almost ran from the room, his men hurrying out after him. Hawk and Fisher waited until they’d heard the Duke’s men retreat a fair way down the corridor, then they lowered their suddenly very heavy weapons, staggered over to the nearest chairs, and sat down.

“Damn, we’re good,” said Fisher.

“Oh, yeah,” said Hawk. “Of course, it helped that we weren’t bluffing. We were ready to fight, and they knew it. They just couldn’t believe we’d be ready to take on such odds if we weren’t up to it.”

“We have got to do something about this, Hawk,” said Fisher. “Before we run into someone who’s too dumb to be fooled.”

“There is another way,” Hawk said slowly, reluctantly. “I’ve been thinking more and more of all the good I could do if I were to reveal who I really am. If I declared myself Prince Rupert. I have the Royal seal. Chance would back me up. As Prince, I’d have the authority to order the right things done. The people would flock to me as they did before. The Duke would think twice about leading an army against forces led by the legendary Prince Rupert. I could put that legend to good use for once. Do I have the right to deny my duty, just because I don’t want to take up my family responsibilities? I was always frustrated by my lack of authority back in Haven, by the lack of power to do something about all the evil I saw every day. As Prince Rupert and Princess Julia, we could make people do the right thing, force them to do what’s necessary by sheer Royal authority.”

“Isn’t that what Harald tried to do?” asked Fisher.

“I’m not my brother. As Prince and Princess, our physical weakness wouldn’t matter. We could just order people like Chance and Sir Vivian to do the hard work for us.”

“You’re not thinking this through,” said Fisher. “Once you put the crown on, you could never take it off. To get the kind of authority you’re talking about, you’d have to put aside the Queen Regent and your nephew, Stephen, and become King Rupert. Ruler of the Forest Kingdom. Our lives would never be our own again. And isn’t that why we left here in the first place?”

“I know, but perhaps it’s my duty to be King.”

“What about your duty to me?” Fisher asked.

Then the window behind them burst open, and rain came pouring into the room. It sprayed through the window in an almost horizontal blast, as though forced into the room by some unimaginable pressure, only to stop short barely halfway across the room. As Hawk and Fisher watched open-mouthed, the water pressed together to form a solid pillar, blue and glistening, before slowly shaping itself into a human form. The spraying rain cut off abruptly, and there before Hawk and Fisher stood a woman made all of water. Six feet tall and clear as crystal, she wore a long dress, but it and her form were entirely fluid, with long, slow ripples flowing through her. The long hair that fell to her shoulders ran constantly away, constantly renewing itself. Beads of water ran steadily down her face like endless tears and dripped from her chin. She turned her head slowly to look at Hawk and Fisher, and her pale blue mouth moved in a gentle smile.

“All right,” said Hawk. “You win the prize for the weirdest thing I’ve seen today. Who might you be?”

“I am the Lady of the Lake, an elemental protector of the Forest.” More ripples spread across her face as her lips moved, and her voice was like the gurgling of a running stream, given shape and meaning and a human warmth. She walked slowly around the room, studying it. A fire in a grate steamed when she got too close to it, and she left a wet trail behind her. With no sign of feet beneath the long dress, she seemed to glide more than walk, like a watery spirit. She turned back to face Hawk and Fisher. “I have come to protect the Castle once you have gone into the Inverted Cathedral.”

“Hold everything,” Fisher said firmly. “We haven’t decided we’re going to do that yet. We still have a murder to solve.”

“You will go into the Cathedral,” said the Lady calmly. “Because you have to.”

“Lady,” said Hawk politely, “who, or what, are you, exactly?”

“I was created around the spirit of a woman who drowned herself,” said the Lady of the Lake. “She wanted to escape from a world she found intolerable, but the world wasn’t finished with her. There had been an earlier Lady of the Lake, but she was gone, and a new protector was needed. And so a mortal soul became immortal, as the spirit of the waters. But not long after my creation, while I was still weak and inexperienced, the Demon Prince used Wild Magic to contain me in my Lake, and I became a helpless captive. I knew what was happening to the Land as the long night spread, but I was unable to intervene.

“After the Demon Prince was banished, I emerged, took on my full powers, and I have spent my time since slowly helping and encouraging the regrowth of the Forest. The Land was badly damaged during the long night, and I fear parts of it may never recover, even with my help. Now a dark time threatens us again, and I have come here to warn you. I have avoided human contact until now, partly because I didn’t want to meet people who might have known me while I was still alive, and partly because I’m not human anymore. I remember what it was like, but I must take a larger view now.”

“Why choose us to reveal yourself to?” asked Hawk.

“Because I knew I could trust Prince Rupert and Princess Julia. I am the Lady of the Lake, and nothing is hidden from me.”

“Oh, great,” said Fisher. “Another complication. Try and remember we’re Hawk and Fisher these days if you have to talk to anyone else.”

The Lady of the Lake didn’t seem to be listening. She was looking around the room again. It was hard to read the expressions of her watery face, but Hawk thought she looked sad. She brought her hand to her mouth, and for a moment her fingertips merged seamlessly with her lips. “It’s been a long time since I was last here,” she said quietly. “When I was still alive. It hasn’t changed much. That’s the Castle’s strength, and its weakness.”

“Do you really live in a Lake?” said Fisher bluntly.

The Lady smiled at her. “I
am
the Lake. Wherever water flows in the Forest, I am there. I exist in every stream and brook, every waterfall and rainstorm. I am a part of the Land now. I’ve been watching you ever since you entered the Forest. Everything here has been waiting for your arrival. Now you are here, destiny can finally begin to unfold. It is your fate to enter the Inverted Cathedral and do what must be done there.”

“We don’t have to do a damn thing we don’t want to,” said Fisher just a little testily. “And what the hell is so important about us going into the Inverted Cathedral anyway? Seems like everybody wants us to go in there.”

“The Blue Moon will be here soon,” said the Lady. “Full and potent, to reign over a word of unleashed Wild Magic. An endless nightmare for whatever humans survive in it. Only you can prevent this. It’s why you came back here.”

“We came back of our own free will, to discover Harald’s murderer!” said Hawk.

“You already know who killed him,” said the Lady. “You just don’t want to admit it yet.”

Hawk looked at her for a long moment. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”

“I’d like to think so,” said the Lady. She smiled at Hawk and he smiled back, strangely drawn to her, though he didn’t know why. Fisher watched all this and felt a bit left out.

“I can cure you both,” said the Lady, suddenly all business again. “I know what has happened to you and how weak you are. I can make you whole and strong again.”

“Is that a bribe?” Fisher asked. “Conditional on us going into that damned Cathedral?”

“No,” said the Lady. “It is my gift to you. Whatever you decide to do.” She held out her hands to Hawk and Fisher, and water fell from her palms and fingers like splashing waterfalls. “Come to me, and drink of my waters, and be whole again. The strength of the Forest Land flows through me. Drink of the Land, and be its champions again.”

Hawk and Fisher looked at each other. They both wanted to ask what the catch was, but the words wouldn’t come. They knew they were in the presence of something bigger than themselves, as though some aspect of the Land itself was in the room with them. They bowed their heads to the Lady of the Lake, and drank of the water flowing from her hands. It was cold and fresh, like water from a mountain spring, and as they swallowed, they could feel it coursing through their bodies like a tidal bore, slow but irresistible, washing away all the detritus of their lives. Strength filled their arms and legs, and straightened their backs. All their pains were gone, and their minds were suddenly, almost painfully, clear. The Lady of the Lake withdrew her hands, and Hawk and Fisher grinned at her, feeling fit and well and wholly alive for the first time in ages. The door opened behind them, and they both spun around, weapons at the ready, to find themselves confronting Chance and Sir Vivian standing, somewhat startled, in the doorway. Hawk and Fisher put away their weapons and smiled radiantly at their visitors.

“Sorry to intrude,” said Chance, looking with interest at the smiling Lady of the Lake. “Are we interrupting anything?”

“I am the Lady of the Lake,” said the watery spirit. “Don’t worry about the carpet, it’ll dry out. I am an elemental champion of the Land, come to protect it in its hour of need. It is good to meet you at last, Sir Questor, Sir Vivian.”

Sir Vivian looked at Chance. “I don’t know why we bother having any security in this Castle. People come and go as they damn well please these days.”

“Be that as it may,” said Chance, turning back to Hawk and Fisher, “Jericho Lament, the famous, or infamous, depending on which version you listen to, Walking Man, is here in the Castle. And he wants to talk to the pair of you. Right now. And even sooner than that, if possible.”

“I’ve heard of him,” said Hawk. “But I thought he was just some sort of rural legend.”

“Oh, he’s real enough, unfortunately,” said Chance. “And altogether far more powerful than I feel comfortable contemplating. Please come and talk with him, before he starts looking for more evil people to punish.”

“If we must,” said Fisher. She looked at Hawk. “Want to bet he wants us to go into the bloody Cathedral as well?”