The Forest of Forever (6 page)

“Ho there, Moschus,” I called to test my voice, though unhappily Moschus was not in sight. Even if he had been behind the next tree, he would not have heard my thin whisper. Now I was feeling downright somnolent. I’ll stop a moment, I thought, and catch my breath. My adventure—the danger, the confrontation with a deceitful woman—has exhausted me. I leaned against the friendly bulk of a cypress trunk. I slid onto the ground and fought to open my eyes. Had Saffron drugged me? I had been so careful not to drink her wine!

The little creature around my neck had grown as heavy as a bronze collar. I tried to raise my arm to remove him. The arm fell to my side.

“Sleep well, my dear.” My last image was Saffron standing over me, flanked by workers. Their thick hands were reaching toward me like knotty clubs.

“No,” I gasped.

“Yes,” she smiled. And I lost consciousness.

* * * *

I came to my senses in a room whose walls were glazed with wax and whose sole furnishings consisted of two leopard-skin rugs, one of them under my prone, aching body, one of them under Kora.

“Kora!”

At least my voice had returned.

She stirred fitfully but she did not open her eyes. She was deathly pale; her green-gold hair lay in wild confusion about her face; her lips had turned blue. I knew the signs. She was not drugged, she was suffering the prolonged separation from her tree. The vital forces were slowly draining out of her.

Saffron, flanked by two workers, stood in the door. “How long does your friend have?” she asked.

“Without her tree, you mean? Five or six days. Seven at most. She’ll weaken each day.”

“And so will you, I presume. We’ve had her for three days and she’s already peaked. I imagine you’ll hold up better—because of your, how shall I say, bovinity.”

“If you mean I’m fat, why don’t you say so?” I snapped. “My lovers call me voluptuous, but you wouldn’t know about that with your skinny little frame.” I tried to struggle to my feet but sank back onto the skin. “Why don’t you let Kora go? You have her pendant.”

“Aren’t you interested in how I captured you?”

“You must have drugged me. I don’t know how, since I didn’t drink your wine.”

“No, and I had to lend you one of my friends.”

I was slow to grasp her meaning. “The Strige?”

“Exactly. He relieved you of some excess blood. You see, his tongue is like a delicate needle. He inserted it into your neck without your feeling a thing and drew forth just enough blood to make you faint. Fortunately for you, we removed him before he had drunk his fill.”

“Why doesn’t he drink your blood?”

“It’s yellow. He only likes green or red. You see, he’s very particular, the dear little fellow.”

I was quick with questions. “And Kora. Why did you buy her from the Panisci?”

“They captured her for me in the first place. For a price, of course.”

“But why?”

“Bait.”

“For Eunostos!” I shuddered. “You had her captured to bait him into your hive.”

“Exactly. I entered into negotiations with a Paniscus chief—Phlebas, is he called? But he refused to deliver Eunostos without maiming him. Said it was quite impossible. He suggested that Kora would be easier handling and accomplish the same purpose.”

“But what do you want with a harmless Minotaur calf?” As if I needed to ask!

“A young bull, I would say. Have you noticed his horns? The best drone is barely adequate as a lover. Consider the one you met, Sunlord. Would he satisfy you?”

“I would rather remain a virgin than give him a try.”

“Exactly. However, if a Dryad can mate with a Minotaur, why not a Thria? A full-grown Minotaur, to be sure, would be a trifle large for me. At the very least, he would muss my wings. But Eunostos is only six feet. It will be interesting to see what offspring he sires. Something more animated than a worker and more manly than a drone, I trust. Perhaps a winged bull like those you see in Hittite monuments.”

“But isn’t it true that the drone who mates with a queen is”—and my voice fell to a quaver—“doomed?”

“Our mating is somewhat turbulent. The drone is generally—and forgive my coarseness, but then I can’t shock you, can I?—gutted.”

CHAPTER VI

I HAD PARTIALLY recovered from my loss of blood to the Strige and not yet begun to feel the effects of separation from my tree. Thus, I was still alert if not exactly vigorous. But Kora, poor thing, was fading like a plucked chrysanthemum. Marmoreal whiteness had become unhealthy pallor, and the solar twinklings had departed from her hair. Her movements were slow, lethargic, labored. She needed immediate sustenance.

The waxen walls thudded dully but failed to crack when I smote them with my fist. The wooden door, bolted from the outside, creaked but did not yield beneath the weight of my shoulder. Our hastily constructed room was a constricting prison. Well, then, they must come to us. I stamped on the earthen floor and let out the roar of a wounded she-bear. Almost at once the flutter of wings announced the approach of visitors. Saffron, flanked by two gray workers, glared at me from the doorway. With my somewhat whimsical fancy, I pictured her as honey poured between slices of wheaten bread and imagined the three of them being devoured by a Cyclops.

“Are you trying to bring down the walls with your bellowing, you old cow?”

“I’m a Dryad, not a female Minotaur. There’s no such thing. My friend is hungry and so am I.” The workers were armed with bamboo spears, like giant stingers, narrowed to lethal points.

“Honey and pollen tea? Sorry, my dear, the offer is withdrawn. Or perhaps the partridge you brought me? It would hardly be gracious for a guest to eat her own gift. Besides, I’ve eaten it myself, and it was quite palatable. That’s more than I can say for the acorns. I almost broke a tooth on the first one I bit.”

“If there are any left,” Kora began.

I hastened to interrupt her. If Saffron suspected that we craved acorns, she would feed them to the squirrels. “I expect they were a little stale. Honey then? Pollen bread?” I pleaded.

“Food is in short supply while my workers are building the hive. Why should I waste it on temporary guests?”

“If we die too soon, you won’t be able to show us to Eunostos and have your way with him.”

“My beauty and my wiles should suffice.”

“Not if he thinks you’ve killed us.”

“I’ll simply tell him you’re my captives. I don’t have to say whether you’re dead or alive.”

“He’s been on his own for a year and he isn’t easily fooled. You’d better keep us handy in case you need some proof.”

She managed to scowl without wrinkling her flawless forehead. Her mouth curved down like an overturned bowl.

“Oh, very well, I guess I can spare you something.” The bowl righted itself. “I’ll send you a special dinner before I call on your friend.”

Special dinner. Perhaps she intended to poison us.

“Never mind,” I said to Kora when Saffron had left the room. “Eunostos will come looking for us. Did you know he’s been scouring the forest ever since you disappeared? He got himself beaten up on your account.”

“Is he badly hurt?” she cried.

“No, just a bit sore. He’s recuperating in my tree.”

“I’m not worthy of him. He thinks of me as a heroine out of his favorite epic,
Hoofbeats in Babylon
. People interpret my silence however they like. To Eunostos, it means mystery and wisdom.”

“You may not be worthy of him, Kora.” I was her best friend but also her frankest critic. “But you’re worthier than most. He’ll find us, you know, and when he does, see that you show your appreciation.”

“Will he, Zoe?” Her voice lacked conviction. “I would give my Centaur pendant—if I still had it—to see him now.”

“You never encouraged him much when you had the chance.”

“Not in the way you mean. He seemed like a younger brother. Always stumbling over his hooves.” I did not tell her that in some ways both of them were still children and that she, from her seemingly sublime eminence of eighteen years, was likely to stumble over her dreams. That is, if she lived to continue dreaming them.

Speech was beginning to tire her but silence was frightening to both of us. If any sounds came to our ears, it was the faint whirring of wings or the mellifluous piping of Saffron as she directed the workers. Finally the piping stopped. She’s gone to my tree, I thought.

Then the workers brought us the promised dinner.

Saffron had sent us the uneaten acorns.

* * * *

Eunostos opened his eyes and stared at the thatched roof above his head. He saw the walls which I had hung with tapestries commemorating my lovers, the square windows which filtered the light through a lattice of foliage. He smelled the bark and leaves of my tree. Zoe’s house, he thought. But how did I come here? At last he remembered.

“Zoe.”

“No. Saffron.”

He recognized the queen who had spied on him in his garden. “How did you find this house?” he asked angrily.

“Zoe herself gave me directions. And she left the door unlatched. Of course I don’t need ladders, though there was one handy if I did.”

He was not in the least impressed with her fabled beauty. Yes, she was prettily formed, like a cowslip or a buttercup. Yes, her skin was as smooth and golden as honey, and her wings were a tremulous translucence as she stood above his couch and smiled down at him with what seemed to be admiration and expectation. But she doesn’t have Kora’s height, he told himself, nor Zoe’s opulence, and there are too many bracelets on her arms, and her wings look as if the faintest breeze would shred them. Actually, he was not prepared to see anything good in a woman who might be responsible for Kora’s disappearance.

“Don’t look so angry!” she teased. “You look as if you would like to butt me. Did I wake you up, dear boy?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Never mind. You’ll sleep like a drone after we’ve had our little visit.”

She sat down beside him on the couch, touching his leg with her thigh. The thigh felt silken beneath its thin silk tunic. He tried to contract himself away from her touch, but he was already pressing into the reeds of the walls. Perhaps resignation was indicated under the circumstances.

“You have a lot of hair on your chest to be so young,” she remarked. “It’s rather becoming, you know. Our drones never grow hair except on their heads. The only thing you can say for them is that they never get bald.”

“We’re born hairy. It keeps us warm in the winter. We don’t get bald either. What do you want?”

“To visit, as I said. To talk. To become acquainted with the last Minotaur. But I shouldn’t imagine you’ll always be the last. You’ll have sons and grandsons, and one day there will be a whole new tribe of Minotaurs. That is, if you choose the proper mate. One whose fertility matches your virility.”

“Zoe isn’t here now.”

“You’re not listening. I didn’t come to see Zoe, I came to see you.”

“I’m trying to listen. But you’re sitting on my hoof. And how did you know I was here?”

“From Zoe. And Kora.”

“Then you must be holding them prisoners!” Angrily he swung his arm and knocked her onto the floor.

She resumed her place on the couch as if she had fallen by accident. Her rueful laugh was like bells with copper tongues, sweet but metallic. Kora had laughed like wind chimes. “I see that no amenities are necessary between us, my dear. Yes, I am holding your two friends in my hive—unwilling guests, you could say—and it lies in your power to rescue them.”

He glared at her. “What do I have to do?”

“Eunostos, I must tell you a sad truth. My daughters are diligent workers, but unintelligent and unresourceful. It has taken them seven days to build the hive, which is not yet finished. I myself have given them a long, proud lineage. I can trace my ancestry back to the days when the Yellow Men were living in crude stone huts and Cretans were cowering in caves. But the males of my tribe—well, to call them Beasts is a monumental exaggeration. The very best of them—Sunlord, for example—is a poor specimen of bestiality. At the next nuptial flight, I’m not even sure that I shall be able to conceive, and a queen who doesn’t conceive is dethroned.”

“In other words, you need a husband from another race.”

“Precisely.”

“Well, you might consider a Centaur.”

She shuddered. “Too large. Too many legs.”

“A Paniscus? They’re the right size for you.”

“Odorous. Onion grass, don’t you know.”

“Just who did you have in mind?”

Impatience flickered behind her smile. “Don’t be dense, dear boy.”

“Me?”

“Who else?”

“For a stud,” he muttered. “Like the Cretan bulls who are bred for the ring.”

“Stud? Husband, you mean. Didn’t I speak of a nuptial flight? Or lover, if the notion of matrimony frightens you. Yes, Eunostos, you are to sire my next eggs. I spied you from the air when I first arrived in this land, and you seemed to me as a dragonfly to a rose. As a tiger moth to a night-blooming cereus. As a—”

“And that’s
all
I have to do to rescue Kora and Zoe?”

“That’s all,” she snapped. The Thriae do not like to be interrupted in their figures of speech. “I have no other reason to hold them.”

“Set them free first.”

She pouted and turned her back. “You make it sound like a crude bargain. Here I’ve swallowed my pride and come to your arms like a common little Dryad, and you want guarantees of my good faith.”

“At least give me proof you’re holding them.”

She proudly produced the Centaur pendant. “I believe this horsy fellow is a close relative of your dear one.”

He nodded with reluctant recognition. “Kora’s pendant. You do have them, then.” He did not think to ask for guarantees of our safety. It never occurred to him that Saffron might have murdered or be in the process of murdering us. His bluff male heart could not conceive of such perfidy in a female.

“After all, what have you to lose?”

After all, what did he have to lose? He did not know the traditional fate of a drone.

“Am I so unlovely?” she continued. “Are my wings uncouth, my color disagreeable? Is this any way to treat a stranger in your land?”

“You’re a bit skinny,” he said, “and you must be a hundred or so.”

“If you think me plain, you ought to see my workers. Why they don’t even know how to paint their faces!”

“You’ve never taught them?”

“It might distract them from their work. As for my age, I am a hundred exactly without a so. This Zoe creature, I believe, is in her three hundreds.”

“You’ve held up well at that,” he admitted. “You’re sure I won’t tear your wings?”

“As sure as I am that the earth is flat and supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”

At least she knew her science.

* * * *

With her small but insistent hand, she pushed him onto his back. Dear Zeus, he thought. After my bout with the Panisci, am I equal to pleasuring a Bee queen? He took a deep breath and flexed his muscles. He lashed his tail—the part which was not under him—until it cracked like a whip. He felt a touch of soreness in his flanks but otherwise Zoe’s remedy and a restful sleep had worked a miracle. He ought to prove adequate, perhaps competent, possibly proficient. True, he had promised to wait for Kora at least a year. But it was for her sake that he was making his sacrifice. Surely she would understand, approve and appreciate.

Saffron sat beside him and, holding both of his horns, stared into his eyes. Then, with a hand no larger than a maple leaf, she rumpled his mane.

“Never trim it, my boy. It becomes you too well. And such large, lovely ears! They’re translucent in this light. Like mother-of-pearl.” For Kora’s sake no sacrifice was too great. If necessary, he decided, he could endure further sacrifices.

First she was lying beside him. Then she was in his arms. Then her little tongue was flickering over his lips and her hands were teasing the hair on his chest into curls. There was something, after all, to be said for a skinny woman.

She had invited; now it was time to accept the invitation. When a lady opens the door and offers the hospitality of a warm hearth, does a man stand shivering in the snow? He entered the house with alacrity and, being a gracious guest, not without gifts…

Smiling, she took the gifts and, still smiling, she bit his ear. He slapped a hand to the bite and felt the dampness of blood. A love nip, he supposed. But why had her teeth met with quite such determined force?

She kicked him. A love kick? Hardly. He must have angered her. Perhaps she felt that he had treated her frail little body like that of a buxom Dryad. Perhaps, accustomed to her drones and in spite of what she said about them, she had wanted mincing caresses instead of stalwart embraces. His experience with women did not extend to Bee queens.

“Saffron,” he started to apologize. “I’m used to the Dryads. If you’ll just tell me how—”

She spat in his face. She became a hybrid of hybrids—griffin, hydra, chimera—and her body entwined him like a python, her arms constricted like tentacles, her thighs resembled a snapping sea turtle. Together they tumbled off the couch and momentarily his big frame was airborne as Saffron fluttered her wings with a frenzy of passion or anger or whatever possessed her.

That’s it, he thought. She wants a nuptial flight! But I’m just not equipped to satisfy her.

That wasn’t it, either. With her fourth kick he lost his patience. Eunostos had known passionate women in the four years since he had come of age, but Saffron’s passion appeared to be born of fury instead of ardor: a venomous, vitriolic contempt for drones, Minotaurs, Men—males in general. He could not fathom her subtleties; he did not philosophize about the female who demands ascendancy, the goddess who requires the sacrifice of the god, the spider who devours her mate.

He simply fought her with his impaired but still prodigious strength. He was not a soft-bellied drone and he was not to be used or misused. She had bitten his ear; he bit her arm with teeth which a beaver might have envied. She kicked; he butted with horns whose heaviness gave them the force of small battering rams. She squeezed; he caught her neck between his hands and she fluttered like a chicken doomed to the pot.

In the end, the captive guest captured the house by storm.

Indignant but not in the least gutted, panting but not winded, a few scratches and bruises added to those sustained from the Panisci, he flung her onto the floor and sat on the couch to glower down at her frazzled body.