Previously...

After a few lengths, Yorres broke into a trot and then to a walk. The back of his throat was still tight with nervous fear. His encounter with Virgil had frightened him more than he let on. It was not good that the elders knew he was back, or that they had sent Virgil to find him. This meant they were already seeking him for questioning, and that they meant business. Virgil wasn’t called the Sentinel for nothing. It had been a stroke of luck that Virgil was in the mood to let him slide this time, he knew, and it was so good to see some of the old good humor returned to him.

Hearing a deer treading somewhere near him the tall grass, Yorres stood, silent, motionless, ears up.

His mind wandered back to his old friend. Virgil had been changed deeply one rainy day, a day that still lived in the dark places of the minds of all those who had been there. I tell of the day when Baal was overrun by fever and madness at last, and he killed that poor fawn. Virgil and Ephra had been the first to find Baal, bloody and fuming, towering over her ruined remains. That night, the ghost of the fawn had haunted them both, crying out in a plaintive wail to be saved from a death she had already endured. Virgil, ever vigilant, sought the demon Baal out in the rain and darkness. When he found him, they locked their horns and fought in the mud and storm. In the scuffle, Ephra was very seriously wounded, and the spirit fawn had attempted to intervene. In the confusion that followed, Baal took flight into the woods.

Word spread so quickly of the incident that the forest was raucous with weeping and shouting. Nearly every adult stag was awakened and gathered in the glade that evening, including all of the elders (though this was no formal council). Yorres recalled their arguing – many were out for blood, others wanted Baal driven from the forest. Some few sought a more peaceful road to reconciliation, having seen more blood in an afternoon than in their entire previous lives, but they were largely ignored. The elders agreed to hold a council meeting to which all would be invited, but that did little to satisfy fearful parents and angry young stags seeking combat and glory.

Virgil told Yorres then: he wanted revenge. For the fawn. For Ephra. Matters like this were always quite simple to Virgil, and Yorres was positively righteous with indignation, he recalled in the silent darkness. How arrogant, how foolhardy he must have seemed then. Protector of the innocent indeed – where had he been on that day, with his cantrips and transformations? A single spell, but a word from his mouth, would have made Baal’s viciously curved horns as harmless as daisies. He had failed this fawn, and by proxy had failed every one of his pupils, the Lightbringers, and the Forest herself. He thought then that they had to prove themselves, to do something to make it right, to take it back. To enact justice.

They hunted him, a band of 12 or more, with the old general Walter running the show. An elder, Walter was by far the hardiest and most grizzled battle veteran in the Forest. Young stags who weren’t interested in being badly beaten took a wide berth of Walter during the sparring and rutting season. He was an old but sturdy ram with massive curled horns, his face and flanks a criss-cross of scars from the battles of many, many seasons. If there were those who thought him too old for hunting and sparring, they only said so quietly and well out of earshot.

Though Walter had led that band, it had been Virgil who ultimately chased Baal aground. Few knew Yorres’ personal role in that victory, as he had promptly turned himself into a little brown wren, which had allowed him to scout for Baal from high atop the trees and to fly far faster than Baal could hope to run. With his help, Virgil and the others harried Baal throughout the night, and the murderer was driven from the Endless Forest before dawn. Virgil was hailed as a hero across the land, and anointed Guardian of the Forest by the elders in the ensuing communal outpouring of relief and gratitude. Yet the title rested heavy on his shoulders, and the weight of that event seemed to be forever growing in Virgil’s mind. Their innocence, and the purity of the entire Forest had been shattered, and nothing would ever be the same afterwards.

Another leaf shifted in the darkness near him. He could smell the other deer, could almost hear his breathing.

“Who’s there?” Yorres piped in a conspiratorial whisper. “Show yourself!”

The hidden deer shifted in the bushes just ahead of him, and Yorres focused his attention there.

“I say to you, come out,” he instructed, this time a bit louder. “I will not warn you again.” He waited for several moments. With no response forthcoming, he began to incant, the sharp prongs of his antlers glowing brightly blue-white: “Lux lucis inci…”

“Stop,” said the hidden deer, stepping into the clearing. “I had to be sure it was you, Yorres.” In the fading gleam of his spell, Yorres saw him. His face was a skull, his eyes burning red pinpricks, his coat black as jet. Yet there was no malice in his stance. This was a mysterious, even frightening stag, yet Yorres showed nothing but relief on seeing him.

“It… it is you.” Yorres exhaled. “I had meant to find you.”

The Phantom stepped forward and bowed curtly. “Did you see her?” he asked. “Did you relay my message to Lemon in the afterlife?” There were no tears in his eyes, yet his strange and hollow voice echoed with deep emotion.

“That is what I wanted to tell you,” Yorres replied. “I did not see Lemontwist in that place.”

“What…? Why? What is the meaning of this?” the Phantom spluttered.

Yorres smiled. “I asked… well, I asked after Lemon when I did not see her just beyond the veil.”

“And? You must tell me where she is!”

“Hear me, Phantom: Lemon is not in that place because she is still very much alive.”

Continue to Chapter Seven