Love And War (3 page)

Though he was overjoyed, Aron was also furious. He was about to shake his daughter awake
and demand an explanation when he decided, No, let her confess to me on her own. It would
be better that way.

But confess what exactly? That she had gone for a midnight swim? Surely that's all there
was to it. Surely there was nothing - no one - in the pond waiting for her.

Still, in the Forest of Wayreth, you never know.

So all that day, Aron waited for his daughter to tell him what happened. From his loom he
kept eyeing her, but all she did was go happily about her duties.

Fine! thought Aron in frustration. Let her think she's fooled the old man! I will just
have to catch her in the act!

For the rest of the day, Aron played the innocent, too. He smiled at his daughter, engaged
her in polite conversation during lunch and dinner, and generally acted as if nothing were
on his mind - except that, while at his loom, he was busy weaving a plot.

Then, in the evening, earlier than usual, he said, “I'm tired. I think I'll turn in.”

Petal, darning in a rocking chair near the fire, said, “All right, Father. I'll put out
the fire.”

Aron stretched a phony stretch and went to his room. But he had never been more awake. He
crouched by his bedroom window and peered out into the night air, waiting for his daughter
to leave the cottage.

He waited so long, though, that he nodded off for a moment. When he stirred himself, he
hurried into Petal's room and saw that she had left. Nearly panic-stricken that he had
lost an opportunity, Aron grabbed his stick, a lantern, and a net, and he hurried outside
and passed between the two tulip trees.

By the time he reached the pond, Petal was already standing on its banks and calling toward the abandoned beaver dam, “My love, my love, take
me to your home.” Then she slipped off her gown and stepped into the water.

Aron waited. He wanted to catch both Petal and whoever came to her. When the water reached
Petal's neck, her long fair hair floating behind her, Aron sprang out and tossed the net
across the water. But Petal dropped below too quickly, and Aron pulled in only a turtle
and two frogs. He quickly lit his lantern and held it over the water. What he saw below
horrified him.

Just beneath the surface, but sinking ever deeper, was the pale form of Petal,
hand-in-hand with another being, a shadowy creature made indistinct by both night and
water. Aron pressed so close to the water to see that his nose and lantern went under, the
flame extinguishing with a hiss. The two forms disappeared.

Aron pulled back and sat on the bank near his daughter's gown, which he took in his hand.
His heart was pounding, but this time he would remain calm. He fully expected Petal to
return. And this time he would be waiting for her.

Alas, lulled by the croaking of the frogs, he fell asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the gown was gone from his hands. He dashed straight back to
his cottage where he found, sure enough, Petal curled up in her bed, the puddles of water
on the floor.

“How innocently you sleep there,” muttered Aron, his eyes asquint, “just like the little
girl I once knew, eh? But look here, these puddles belie that innocence. Well, sleep
soundly, my daughter, for you will be deceitful no more.”

Aron left the room, knowing what he had to do. For one more day, he would play the
innocent. For one more day, he would pretend he had nothing burdensome on his mind. He
even whistled again at his loom, which had the intended effect of reassuring Petal.

But as soon as night fell and Petal went to bed, Aron dropped his pose. He quietly secured
both her window shutter and door with braces of wood. Taking up his lantern and stick, he
hurried to the pond.

When he got there, he placed himself near the old beaver dam. There, in a high voice, he
called out, “My love, my love, take me to your home.” Then, his lantern lit, he crouched
down and waited for the creature to rise to the surface.

It didn't do so, either because it was fearful of the light, or because it knew that it
was not Petal who called.

No matter, thought Aron. He stood up. “You shall reveal yourself whether you like it or
not.” And, with that, he gripped his walking stick with two hands and started to break
apart the beaver dam.

He stabbed at the dam repeatedly, prying it, pulling out the limbs, branches, and mud. The
water rushed out of each break, swelling the stream on the other side. The pond itself
slowly began to shrink, leaving behind a widening shore of mud that was laced with
stranded lily pads and their limp stems. Several frogs left high and dry began burrowing
by backing into the mud, their bulbous eyes disappearing last with a blink.

His heart pounding ever faster, Aron worked all the harder. “Come, come!” he called out
over the increasingly loud rush of water. “Don't be shy! Let me see your fishy face!” He
put down his stick and eagerly held his lantern over the surface.

He was rewarded for his efforts. He saw, swimming among an ever thicker riot of fish, a
large, human-shaped something - no, two human-shaped some-things, both still vague in the
muddy, benighted water.

For a moment, one of them seemed to be the pale form of Petal, and Aron had to remind
himself that he had secured her in her room. He was tempted to run back to the cottage
just to make sure, but the water was very low now, and he would see everything soon enough.

Finally, though, as the water dropped to a depth of a mere hand's span and the fish were
bumping into each other, many of them forced out and flopping about the muddy shore, the
two creatures began joining the frogs and burrowing into the mud.

“No! Where are you going?” cried Aron, stepping forward, his foot sinking in the mud with
a slurp.

But the two forms burrowed deeper, even as the pond became only a mud hole, leaving behind
a mere trickle of a stream that meandered among the stranded lily pads, flopping fish, and
stunned turtles, which just stood there stupidly, not knowing which way to go. In the
center of all that was the writhing mud, as the two creatures dug down to escape the
lantern light, or the air, or Aron himself.

Eventually, the writhing slowed, the mounds flattened, and the ground was still. All was
quiet. Even the fish lay exhausted, their gills opening and closing uselessly. Aron felt
cheated not to see the face of the creature whom Petal had called “My love, my love,” but
he was satisfied that it would be a problem no more.

But who was that second creature?

Aron returned quickly to his cottage and, first thing, checked Petal's room. He saw, to
his relief, that she was indeed there, curled up in her bed. So he went to bed himself and
slept more peacefully than he had in a long time.

The next morning he awoke and went directly to his loom, waiting for Petal to rise and
make him some breakfast. But she slept late that morning. Finally, his stomach rumbling,
Aron called out, “Petal! Come on! Make your old father some breakfast.”

She didn't answer.

Perhaps she knows what I did and is being spiteful, thought Aron. “Come on, girl! Up!”

She didn't answer.

Aron went to her room and found her still lying in her bed, curled up. Naturally, there
were no puddles this morning, a fact that gave Aron much satisfaction.

“Up, my girl!” he called, walking over to her and brashly pulling away the covers.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was not Petal at all but pillows set up to
mimic her form.

Without a moment's hesitation, Aron dashed from the room, grabbed one of Petal's large
gardening shovels, and ran to the dried pond.

When he got there, he saw what, in his eagerness, he had missed the night before: his
daughter's gown, lying rumpled on the bank. He immediately stepped into the mud to get to
the center, but the farther he went, the deeper his legs went into the mud. At one point
the mud came nearly up to his knees, and he could hardly walk. But he pressed on, thinking
only of his darling Petal lying buried in the mud.

Then, as he neared the center of the pond, Aron noticed something odd. There, right where
he meant to dig, was a tiny green plant shoot. Or rather two tiny green plant shoots. They
were entwined delicately about each other. And before Aron could pull his right leg from
the mud, those two green shoots, right before his eyes, began to grow.

In a matter of moments, they transformed into long, elegant tree saplings, both still
entwined about each other. But they didn't stop there.

They continued to grow toward the sun, their trunks thickening as they grew. And as they
did so, they encircled each other. They put out ever more branches, tiny leaves, and even
some reddish fruit that hung in clusters.

Soon, what had been two delicate shoots only moments before were now two sturdy trees in
full-grown glory, their thick, nearly merged trunks coiled around each other, their roots
bulging from the mud, their lofty crowns meshed and arching over the entire width of what
had been the pond. Aron pulled himself out of the mud by one of the roots. He gazed at the
two entwining trunks and at the leaves overhead, which now filtered out the sun. “Petal,”
he whimpered, “forgive me. I believed my love was enough.” And there, in the shade of the
two trees, Aron Dewweb sat and wept. By the time the sun had set and the moon had risen,
sending its sprinkles of silver light through the two trees' crowns, Aron died of a broken
heart, and little green leaves fell gently to cover him. . . .

So ended Barryn Warrex's tale.

When Aril Witherwind looked up from his book, he detected in one of the old man's eyes a
solitary tear. The half-elf himself sighed from sadness and had to brush away from his
page a teardrop or two that threatened to make his ink run. “Well, I must say, that is not
a story I expected from a knight,” he said.

Barryn Warrex stirred, his eyes and ears once more seeing and hearing what was before him.
And when he spoke, it was once more with his own deep but tired voice. “I warned you,” he
said. “It is what has been in my heart.” With a creaking of his armor and bones, he slowly
rose to his feet.

“Well, now it's in my book, as well,” said the half-elf, blotting the page and shaking off
his own sadness. “But as to the title. How about, 'A Tale of Eternal Love'? - no, no, too
corny. How about, 'A Tale of Two Loves'? You see, it's about two kinds of love, get it?”

Barryn Warrex, not much caring what title the folklorist gave the story, trudged over to
the flat rock where his helmet and shield were lying.

“Well, I'll have to give that some thought,” continued Aril, tapping his quill feather
against his downy chin. “By the way, this is most important: Should I put this story down
as fact or as fable?”

The knight put on his visorless helmet, his grand white moustaches flowing well out from
it on both sides like two elegant handles. “The story is true enough as far as I'm
concerned.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Aril, squinting at the page through his spectacles. “It seems
pretty incredible - even for the Forest of Wayreth. Perhaps if you had seen those Entwining Trees yourself, it
would lend credibility - ”

With some effort, Barryn Warrex stooped and lifted his heavy, dull shield. “My friend, all
I know is that I, too, once had a beautiful daughter, and that one day, she, too, reached
marriageable age. I behaved no better than this Aron Dewweb.”

“Oh - I'm so sorry,” said Aril Witherwind awkwardly, not sure how to respond to such a
confession. “Uh, I myself have never had children - ”

The old knight slung the shield across his back, and he became as stooped under its weight
as Aril was under his tome. Even as he spoke, Barryn Warrex started off down into the
grassy, flower-dotted valley, where butterflies flitted about him as if to cheer him up.
“It is many years since my own daughter ran away with her lover.”

Aril remained perched on his rock, and, trying to hear the retreating knight, he started a
new page and began scribbling once more in his book.

“Now this old knight has but one last mission in his life,” said Warrex, walking ever
farther off, his voice growing fainter, “and that is to find my daughter and this husband
of hers - ”

“ - and,” murmured Aril, repeating the knight's words exactly as he wrote them down, “ -
give - them - my - blessing.”

A Painter's Vision Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel “It looks so real,” said Curly Kyra with awe. She brushed long ringlets of black hair away
from her eyes and stared at the painting, ignoring calls from down the bar for another
round of ale. “It's a beautiful boat.” Softly, with wonder in her voice, she added, “It
seems as if it could almost sail right off the canvas.”

“Almost, but not quite,” replied Sad-Eye Seron, the painter. He was a skinny man with a
gentle face. His eyebrows drooped at the edges, giving him the perpetually sad expression
that had earned him his nickname. But he smiled now, enjoying the effect his new painting
was having on the lovely, young barmaid he had courted all summer long.

“Will it make a lot of money?” asked Kyra hopefully. Seron's smile vanished. “I sometimes
think that you're the only one who likes my work. Everybody else in Flotsam says, 'Why buy pictures of
things that I can see whenever I look out my window?' ”

“Hey, Kyra,” bellowed a patron with an empty mug. “Am I going to get a refill, or should I
just come back there and pour my own?”

The tavern owner stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Tend to business,” he warned his
barmaid.

“All right, I'm going,” Kyra said. But she didn't move. Instead, she shook her head at the
magnificent sailing scene and stood there in admiration of Seron's artistry.

If Seron was an underappreciated painter, the same could not be said of the pretty picture
known as Curly Kyra. Every unmarried man - and plenty of the married ones - had hopes of
bedding her. She had alabaster skin, bright brown eyes, and full lips that seemed created
expressly for kissing. Even more inviting than her lips, however, was the purely feminine
shape of her figure; since coming of age this summer, she had to slap men's hands more
often than she had to slap at bugs.