Oath and the Measure by Michael Williams Page B

of where we should be, good Luin. But in a way, I suppose, we are home.”
    The mare snorted again at the prospect of approaching shelter. Slowly her walk became a trot, then a canter, and with redoubled energy, she carried Sturm Brightblade toward the worn gates of his ancestors.

Chapter 6
The Darkwoods
———
    Deep in the Southern Darkwoods, lying in a hammock of vine and leaves, Lord Wilderness closed his eyes and set down his flute. Around him, the light was distorted, green and amber, as though the woods themselves were a dark and curving glass.
    The hammock was suspended between two ancient oaks above the foundation of a ruin even more ancient. Moss-covered stones dotted the clearing like worn teeth, outlining faintly the foundation of a small building, perhaps a moat house or monastery, no doubt abandoned and left to fall apart some time back in the Age of Might.
    Vertumnus’s eyes flickered open suddenly. Perched above him in the branches of an ancient oak, two dryads stared down at him in perplexity.
    “You
could
have killed him!” hissed the smaller of the pair, her black hair knotted in a long coil. Her voice was rich and sinister, like the rush of wind over dried leaves.
    Vertumnus did not answer. Slowly he folded his hands on his chest, and for a moment, he looked like the statue of an entombed king, still and regal and unfathomable. The dryads stirred uneasily above him, the tall one scrambling down the side of the hammock as nimbly as a spider down a web until she came to rest by the side of the Green Man and nestled against him, her face buried in the green thicket of his beard.
    “I know ye’re not for killing him,” she whispered seductively, her voice flute music and her touch the light flutter of a bird’s wing. “And it makes no difference to us. But daunt him and confuse him and send him addled back to his creed-bound brothers.
Do
it! Do it
now!
”
    Vertumnus chuckled, and the wind whistled through his laughter.
    “You’re as bloodthirsty as stirges, the whole oak-dwelling lot of you,” he rumbled. “And as foolish and insistent as magpies.”
    The leaves rustled as he waved away the dryads.
    “Begone with the both of you! ’tis morning and time for me to sleep.”
    He stretched, and the dryad at his side scrambled out of the hammock and onto the dried leaves of the forest floor. Pouting, she stared at the green prodigy half-drowsing in the branches above her, his voice filled with alien wonder and magic.
    “Not one of us, are ye,” she accused. “Not yet. And no longer one of them, though ye may yearn for the days gone by.”
    Vertumnus only laughed and turned in the hammock. He shook his head, and acorns rained through the netted vines, and for a moment, the air shimmered with a thousand swirling samaras. With glittering black eyes, he regarded the dryad, his gaze warm and amused but unreadable.
    “Who are you to say, little Evanthe, whither I yearn or aspire?”
    From somewhere amid the thick, spreading branches of juniper, a great owl descended, alighting on the clews of the hammock, a sprig of sharp blue berries in its beak. Vertumnus winked at the owl, ironically regarding the sulking nymphs below him.
    “As for now,” he yawned, “get ye to an oak tree, and my companion and I will drowse and dream the dreams of the nocturnal and wise.” Vertumnus arched an eyebrow, turned to the owl, and waved away the nymphs once again—this time more impatiently.
    Angrily the dryads glided toward the center of the woods, looking back over their shoulders once, then a second time, at this unmanageable green mystery in their midst.
    “Ye’ll
never
be one of us!” the little one shouted tauntingly. “Though ye’re green as a sapling, as a summer leek, ye’ll never be like us, Lord Wilderness!” Then both of them vanished into the dappled light of the forest depths.
    Vertumnus smiled and closed his eyes.
    “Diona,” he whispered, raising the flute to his lips, “you will never