Keepers of the Western Forest Read online

  Chapter 3

   

  Stella waited until the young man and his horse were out of sight, then she came out from the shade of the tree from where she had been watching and walked down to the rock pool.

  She regarded her reflection with satisfaction for a moment—slanting blue eyes that looked so huge set in that delicate face with its slightly pointed chin and high cheekbones—then she tossed back her mass of golden curls and laughed a silvery laugh. These mortals were so ridiculously easy to fool. He deserved to get a fright, killing one of her deer like that.

  Then why was she troubled by what she had just done? As guardian of the stream, it was her chosen duty to protect all the creatures that came to it for sustenance; but the image of the lad, shouting at the sky, touched her heart and made her sorry for the cruel trick she had played on him. There was something more besides, something stirring in her memory.

  She frowned and looked down again at the water. There was another reflection in the pool now, someone behind her, raven tresses and dark, flashing eyes. She whirled round. “Morgan!”

  Morgan the Enchantress was taller even than Stella. She wore a deep purple gown gathered at the waist by a belt with a golden clasp, fashioned like a wolf’s head with red gemstones for eyes. Her full lips twitched in an approximation of a smile. “Greetings, cousin,” she whispered.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? I really am your cousin, you know. On the faerie side.”

  “Maybe. Child of faerie father and mortal mother—it should never have been. Look at what you have become.”

  Morgan scowled. “What I have become? Just because I put my powers to some kind of use instead of moping around like you, or sitting endlessly meditating like that half-wit brother of yours.”

  Stella glared at her. “Oberon is a greater and nobler spirit than you could ever comprehend. And as for these powers of yours—are you still holding that poor man prisoner in your cave?”

  Morgan’s mouth achieved at last a smile of sorts, a cruel, triumphant grimace. “You poor dear, you’re still pining for that handsome knight of yours. And were you not now just telling me how love between faerie and mortal should never be allowed?”

  Stella looked away and said nothing. Morgan took a step closer. “Listen,” she said. “There is something that I want. If you can help me find it, I will set your knight free.”

  Stella laughed. “Me? Help you?”

  “Yes,” said Morgan. “Tell me, have you heard tell of the Green Knight’s axe?”

  Stella nodded slowly. The axe had belonged to Lord Bertilak, once a good friend of her brother’s, but she was not going to give too much away before she knew what Morgan was after.

  “I’ve heard the story of how the Green Knight used it to test the honour and courage of King Arthur’s court, and how Sir Gawain took up the challenge, but nothing more,” she said. “Why are you so interested in it?”

  “Never mind that. If you can find out where it is and how I can get my hands on it, I will release your knight. You can get people to talk who would never tell me anything.”

  “You’ve only yourself to blame for that,” Stella said.

  Morgan tilted back her head and looked down her nose at her. “I have spoken,” she replied. She swept past and strode off up the path beside the stream towards the mountains.

  Left alone, Stella sighed. She had tried constantly to forget the knight Morgan held spellbound in the cave, but it was useless. When she had first seen him, standing just where that young lad had made his vow but a few minutes ago, her heart had lurched in her breast with such force that she had almost sunk to the ground. He had been calling out, addressing the spirits of the place and thanking them for guarding his homeland during his absence. His noble uplifted head and long fair hair as he stood in his armour by his great warhorse had filled her with a yearning for which nothing in her whole life had prepared her.

  Of course, love between mortal and faerie could not be, she knew that, so she never revealed herself to him. Instead, the next time he appeared at the stream, she followed him. For a time, she was content just to witness his adventures unseen. Aeons of evolution had given her eyes capable not only of analysing the light rays that sustain the visible universe, but also of influencing them directly. This was how she had altered the reflection in the pool just now, to punish the boy for slaying her deer; and in this way too, she could bend the light around her, making herself invisible.

  One day, while following her knight through some wild country, she had met with Morgan. The enchantress had seen the knight. “Cousin, is he not the most handsome man you ever saw?” she said. Stella flushed and made no reply, but she knew instantly that Morgan had guessed her secret. Later, she heard that Morgan had lured the knight to a great cavern, using some story of being a lady in distress, and there had thrown him into a trance and made him her prisoner. Angry, Stella went to the cave to confront her.

  There she found the man she loved, bound to a great pillar of rock that rose from the floor of the cavern, his eyes open but glazed and fixed on the distance. When Stella demanded his release, Morgan told her that there was one way, and one way only, that the spell could be broken. Should the knight’s eye fall on anyone who awakened love in his heart, he would be free.

  “So what do you say, cousin? Will you be the first to try?”

  Despite having sworn never to show herself to him, Stella stepped forward to stand directly in front of the knight and fixed her great, luminous eyes on his. She knew well that her beauty was of an order few mortal men could hope to resist.

  The prisoner showed no sign of even being aware of her presence.

  Morgan laughed. “Now it’s my turn.” She brushed Stella aside, shaking her shining black hair loose, drawing herself to her full height and turning slightly so that her gown moulded itself to the contours of her body; but still the knight stared blindly ahead.

  “Ha!” Morgan’s voice was full of scorn and fury. “No matter. I shall keep him here until I have bent him to my will!”

  “Don’t be a fool. You can’t force love.”

  “You understand nothing, faerie!”

  Stella felt the sting of Morgan’s contempt, but was powerless to undo her sorcery. Sorrowing for her knight, she fled into the forest.

  Ever since that day, she had struggled with her heart, but now she gave up the pretence. She was partly to blame for the sad fate that had overtaken the poor knight; she must do everything she could to set him free. She would visit her brother Oberon and ask him what he knew about the axe. It might give her some hold over Morgan if she could find out why she wanted it so badly.

  After that, she would follow the young lad she had tricked just now. Something told her she ought to know more about him.