Once In a Blue Moon (16 page)

He always dressed in the most colourful and radical fashions, none of which ever suited him. He had long red hair, and an equally fiery goatee. He was smart and earnest and thoughtful, and not nearly as observant as he liked to think. He and Richard had bonded early on through their shared enthusiasm for old songs and legends and their mutual distrust of all forms of authority. They were soon inseparable, and their fathers left them together in the vain hope that one might turn out to be a good influence on the other. Richard and Clarence both firmly believed that things had been much better back in the days when there were real dangers to be faced and heroic deeds could still be performed by young men who thought they needed to prove themselves to their fathers.

Clarence accompanied Richard to the border skirmishes and fought bravely enough at Richard’s side when he had no other choice. But he had been horrified by the senseless, never-ending blood and slaughter and the complete lack of honour or glory. Just blood-soaked killing grounds and sad, anonymous deaths. A soldier’s life turned out to be nothing like the songs. Clarence turned his back on the border the moment Richard was ready to leave, and he never went back.

Richard’s only other close friend was an entirely different sort. Peter Foster was a soldier from a long line of soldiers, trained since early childhood to bear arms in the service of those who claimed to be his betters. He was in his late twenties, and liked to think of himself as the mature and steady member of the group. He’d been brought in as a teenager to train the young Prince Richard in how to fight. They’d taken to each other, and Peter never left. A large and stocky man, Peter wore hard-used leather armour instead of the more usual chain mail, because he liked to be able to move quickly and freely at all times. He carried a sword on his hip, an ugly and nameless butcher’s blade, a shield on his back, and all kinds of useful, vicious, and quite appallingly nasty secrets tucked away about his person. Peter liked to feel he was prepared for anything an unfriendly world might throw at him.

He went to the border skirmishes, alongside Richard and Clarence. To look out for them, and guard their backs. A lot of his family were already there. He didn’t expect anything heroic, so he wasn’t disappointed by what he found. He had never believed in honour or duty, just a soldier’s wage.

Peter was pleasantly ugly, with a scarred face and cool grey eyes, and he had more successes with women than Clarence and Richard put together. (Although Richard lied about his experiences. The others knew, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t easy, being a Prince.)

•   •   •

T
hey approached the Darkwood slowly, and very carefully. They’d left the trail behind some time back, and now they wound their way in and out of sparsely set trees in the growing gloom of late evening. There were warning signs everywhere—great wooden boards with blunt and even harsh words on them. Some so old the lettering had all but faded away, some so recent it looked like the paint was still wet. The woods were completely, unnaturally, still and silent. No bird sang; not a single insect buzzed or fluttered. No sound or sign of wildlife anywhere. The trees and vegetation had become increasingly stunted and sickly, even twisted, as the three riders drew near the Darkwood boundary. Fruiting fungi burst out of cracked tree trunks in pallid, unhealthy colours, while gnarled branches clutched at the lowering skies.

The horses didn’t like where they were going. They snorted loudly, tossing their great heads and fighting the reins, and only the firm hands of their riders kept them moving in the right direction. The horses could feel that something wasn’t right. And although he wouldn’t admit it in front of his companions, so could Prince Richard.

They rounded a sudden corner and there it was, right in front of them. The horses lurched to a halt, digging their hooves in hard, almost throwing their riders. Night filled the forest ahead. It seemed to rise up forever, while stretching endlessly away in both directions, an impenetrable wall of shadows that marked the outer boundary of the Darkwood. The one place in the Forest where it was always dark, where night ruled and always would. The horses reared up and shrieked horribly, their eyes rolling hysterically. Richard swung quickly down out of the saddle and slapped a heavy cloth over his horse’s eyes, holding it in place with both hands. The horse quietened some as Richard spoke soothingly to it and then turned the animal around and walked it back round the corner in the trail. He tied the horse’s reins to a sturdy branch and wrapped the cloth firmly around its head. By the time he’d finished, Peter and Clarence had their horses tied up beside his. The three young men looked at one another. They didn’t say anything. What was there to say? The Darkwood wasn’t what they’d expected, but now that they’d seen it for themselves they all knew that nothing anyone could have said could have prepared them for the reality of that dark and silent wall. Richard was the first to move. He didn’t discuss it with his friends. He just walked back round the corner in the trail, and stood before the Darkwood boundary, staring into the darkness. Peter and Clarence looked at each other, shrugged pretty much in unison, and went back round the corner to join him.

They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, as close as they could get, unconsciously seeking support from one another. They all shuddered pretty much in unison, and not from the cold autumn air, or even from the terrible cold wind that came gusting out of the Darkwood. There was more inside the Darkwood than just the night, and they could feel it in their souls.

“We shouldn’t be here,” said Peter.

“Hush,” said Richard, not looking at him.

“What is that smell, coming out of the dark?” said Clarence. “Oh God, that stinks. Like everything that ever died in there has been left piled up in heaps . . .
What is that?
”

“Death,” said Peter. “Rot and corruption. A warning.”

“Where is that wind blowing from?” said Clarence. “Why doesn’t it stop?”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Peter. “This is nothing like what we expected, and God knows we expected bad enough.”

“No,” said Richard.

“You’re not seriously thinking of going in there, are you?” said Clarence.

Prince Richard smiled at his friends; if the smile seemed a bit forced, neither of them was in any state to notice.

“Seems silly not to,” said Richard, “after we came all this way to see it. We’ve all read the stories and histories, listened to the songs, wondered what it’s like in there, in the night that never ends. But have you ever spoken with anyone who’s experienced it for themselves? I want to know. I want to encounter it firsthand. To know what my ancestor Prince Rupert knew. The experience turned him into a hero. I want . . . I need to test myself against the Darkwood. To see if I’m made of the same stuff as my ancestor.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Peter said flatly. “No one would go in there of his own free will.”

Richard flashed that brave, careless smile at his two friends. “I’m going in. You can stay here.”

“Hell with that,” Peter said immediately. “You go in there on your own, you’ll never come out again.” He glared at the wall of darkness before them and then looked at Clarence. “We won’t be long. You look after the horses.”

“Hell with that,” said Clarence, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets so his friends wouldn’t see how badly they were shaking. “You think I’d let you two hog all the fun? They’ll write songs about us for this. And my song will be the best of all, because I was there.”

The three of them looked into the Darkwood. None of them moved. Because just looking at the boundary was enough to put a chill in their hearts and slow their thoughts to a crawl. It was like looking down from a mountaintop and nerving themselves to jump. The darkness gave away nothing at all. And for all their brave words, each one of them was quietly hoping that one of the others would find the words that would let them turn away with honour. Or, failing that, each of them wanted one of the others to go first. In the end, of course, it was Richard. He stepped smoothly forward and the wall swallowed him up like silent dark waters, without even a ripple to mark his passing. Peter and Clarence plunged in after him.

•   •   •

T
hey all cried out as they entered the Darkwood, stumbling to a halt just a few feet inside the boundary. Horror, and a kind of spiritual revulsion, held them where they were. The cold hit them hard, cutting into them like a knife, leaching all the heat and life and energy out of them. They didn’t belong here. Nothing human did.

Richard made himself look around, his head making slow, jerky, reluctant movements. Dead trees were everywhere, rotting and slumped together. Trees that had been dying for centuries but were still standing. Still suffering. Their leafless, interlocking branches thrust up into the starless night sky and then bowed forward to form an overheard canopy, like the bars of a cage. There was some light, a shimmering silver glow from phosphorescent fungi, that clung to the trunks of those trees nearest the boundary. Just a touch of light, to make the darkness seem even darker, and more cruel. The close, still air was thick with the sick, sweet stench of death and dying things, and never-ending corruption.

Clarence stood shaking and swaying, panting for breath and sobbing like a small child. He’d never felt so alone in his life, or so close to his own death. The darkness seemed to sink into him, like a stain on his soul that he would never be free of. It occurred to him that this was the darkness you saw inside your own coffin, forever. He turned abruptly and ran, back through the boundary and out into the light, into the sane and sensible world of the living. Unable to face a spiritual darkness that was so much more than just the absence of light.

Peter tried to stay, for Richard’s sake, but he couldn’t. He’d been a soldier all his life, never wanted to be anything else, and walked with Lady Death for his companion in many a dark place. He’d known fear and loss and horror, but never anything like this. A darkness that didn’t care how brave he’d been, or all the great things he’d done or might do. He’d never been afraid of the dark before, but he was now. He retreated, step by step, refusing to turn his back on the Darkwood. He backed right through the boundary, leaving his dearest friend behind, on his own, because even that betrayal was more bearable than staying one moment more in the Darkwood.

Prince Richard stood alone in the dark, his heart heaving painfully in his chest, his breathing coming fast and short as his lungs strained for air. He felt cold, so cold he wondered how he could ever feel warm again. Death wasn’t an end here; it was a process. He could feel it. He could sense the dead trees around him, dying by inches but never quite reaching their end. Rotting forever. The silence had a force to it, like a slow, overwhelming tide, smothering even the small living sounds he’d brought with him. The songs were wrong. This wasn’t where nightmares were born; this was where dreams came to die. The darkness closed in around him, sinking into him, like a slow poison of the soul.

And . . . something was out there, in the deepest part of the dark, watching him. Perhaps even creeping up on him, to kill him horribly. Richard cried out, a miserable, almost brutal sound of simple dread. He drew his sword and swept it jerkily back and forth before him. He stepped sideways to set his back against a tree trunk, and then cried out again in revulsion as he felt the solid-looking trunk collapse under his weight, so that he almost fell backwards into the seething mess of corruption within. Because all the trees here had rotten hearts. Richard turned and ran, out of the Darkwood, while he could still remember the way. It seemed to take a lot longer to get out than it had to get in.

•   •   •

H
e broke out of the dark and into the sane and comfortable light of evening, back in the Forest again. He stumbled to a halt, made a series of quick, ugly, almost animal noises of relief, and sank to his knees in the thick mulch of compacted leaves that covered the ground. He dropped his sword and hugged himself tightly, half afraid he might just fall apart if he didn’t. He could feel cold sweat dripping off his face. But he could also feel his heartbeat dropping back to normal, and at least he could breathe again.

He slowly realised his friends were there with him, talking to him, but it was just sounds. He shook his head, hard, and their words started to make sense again. He let them help him to his feet and hand him the sword he’d dropped. He sheathed the sword with an unsteady hand and then hugged both his friends fiercely. They all stood together for a long moment, holding one another close, as though they would never let go. For friendship, for understanding, and to drive the Darkwood cold out of their bodies with human warmth.

After a while, a long while, the three young men let go of each other. They looked back at the dark boundary wall, still separating the sane world from the dark world, and then they looked at one another.

“Damn,” said Peter. “That was bad. I mean, that was really bad. Nothing like what I was expecting.”

“It was awful,” Clarence said simply. “Not just night, not just darkness. More like the complete absence of . . . everything.”

“I’m sorry,” said Richard, and he had never meant it more. “I should never have done that to you.”

“You didn’t know,” said Peter. “No one could have known.”

“No!” Richard said sharply. “We all knew the stories, and the songs. We just didn’t believe them. In one of them, Prince Rupert said about the Darkwood,
It’s dark enough in there to break anyone.
”

“It’s hard to believe Prince Rupert and Princess Julia passed all the way through a much larger Darkwood back in the day, and more than once,” said Peter wonderingly. “Hell, they led armies in there, and fought battles with armies of demons! How did they stand it?”

“They were greater people, then,” said Clarence.

Peter produced a flask of cider brandy, popped the cork, and took a long drink. He sighed deeply, as the warmth of the rough liquor moved slowly through him, and then he passed the flask around. Clarence and Richard took long drinks too, and made appropriate noises. But it didn’t really help. They had all been touched by the dark, marked by the Darkwood. In ways they weren’t ready to understand, or admit to, just yet. They turned their backs on the Darkwood boundary, and walked to their horses, which whickered uncertainly as they approached, as though the animals could tell there was something . . . different about their riders now. The three young men swung into their saddles and set off for their original destination, the small mining village of Cooper’s Mill. They said nothing more to one another. They were all busy with their own thoughts. Not one of them was as full of derring-do as they had all been before.