The Forest of Forever by Thomas Burnett Swann Read Free Book Online Page A

the Centaurs, she never spent more than a morning away from her tree.
    In a word, Kora was lost.
    Eunostos felt as if he had plunged into a stream of melting snow. First he was numb; then the cold went through him like splinters of ice.
    “Did you look for her?”
    “Yes. And the Centaurs. All afternoon. All we found was a shred of cloth from her gown. And hoofmarks. Eunostos, I think the Panisci have her.”
    * * * *
    The news of Kora’s disappearance reverberated through the forest. She had no enemies, so we thought, and we—her fellow Dryads, the Centaurs, even the little Bears of Artemis—were shamed and frightened by our failure to find her. Myrrha was inconsolable. Moschus brought her beer. The Bears of Artemis brought her pails of blackberries. I brought her a smoked goose and a loaf of bread. She greeted all of us with the same blank expression. She moved with a slow, shambling gait and spoke in monosyllables or disconnected phrases.
    And what about Eunostos? She did not know where he had gone when he fled from her house; she hardly remembered his going. Others were a little more helpful. The evening of Kora’s disappearance, a Bear Girl had seen him cross the meadow of yellow gagea.
    “It was like there were bees after him,” she said. “He didn’t even speak to me. And he’s usually so friendly.” A Paniscus who, like most of his self-centered race, seemed unconcerned about Kora, thought that he remembered seeing Eunostos head for the hills which climbed toward Mt. Ida. On the other hand, he mused, it was dark and he might have seen a Centaur boy.
    Needless to say, I went in search of him myself as soon as I had seen that Myrrha was in good hands. Misled by the Paniscus, I lost the whole morning in the foothills of Mt. Ida. But in the afternoon, I tracked his hoofprints to the limestone ridge which shuts most of our country from the outer world of the Cretans. There, in the darkest and most inaccessible cave, I found him huddled so tightly that you would have thought him a bear cub instead of a six-foot Minotaur. “Eunostos.”
    Silence. Then, as if from the end of a beaver’s warren, the slow, reassuring words. “Yes, Aunt Zoe.”
    “But my dear, you’ve had an accident.”
    “It was the Panisci.”
    “But how did you get here?”
    “I don’t remember. I must have wandered here after they beat me up.”
    “Well, now you’re coming home with me!”
    * * * *
    He had been roughhoused from hoof to tail—not exactly mauled, you understand, not quite crippled, but scratched, clawed, bitten, and butted in a fashion which indicated a pack of cowardly Panisci. It was all that I could do to push him up my ladder and guide him to a couch, where he sank to his haunches and dropped his head into his hands. I was barely able to keep him from toppling onto the floor.
    “My poor calf,” I cried, brushing the mane from his eyes and baring a large gash across his forehead. “What have they done to you?”
    “I went looking for Kora. I thought the Panisci had her.” He coughed and shuddered. “You know how they’ve lechered after her.”
    “And—?”
    “They didn’t have her, but Phlebas—he’s the cross-eyed one—said he wished they did. He knew what to do with her even if I didn’t. I rammed him in the belly until he admitted that they had had her but had sold her to one of the Bee queens. Then his friends jumped me. I could have handled three or four. But six at the same time! After that, I don’t remember a thing till you found me in the cave.”
    “Wait till Chiron hears about this,” I muttered angrily. “The Thriae will wish they had never blown this way. Have you any idea which queen?”
    “Not really. But the one who spied on Kora and me was wearing a tiger-colored tunic. Will that help?”
    “It may help a great deal. Each of them seems to have her special color. But no more talking now, Eunostos. You’re no good to Kora like this.” I managed to stretch his long frame onto the