“Well, look who’s back!” said a loud booming voice after they were almost a mile into the thick forest.
Raven looked ahead and saw a bearded man in a dark robe and sandals standing in the middle of the trail they’d been traversing. “And you even brought Little John and a peasant with you!”
I must know him, thought Raven, but who the hell is he?
“I hope you have some food handy, Friar Tuck,” said Little John. “We haven’t eaten for days.”
“Days?” asked Friar Tuck, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, hours, anyway.”
“Well, we’re delighted to have you back,” answered Friar Tuck. “It saves us the trouble of rescuing you. Although Maid Marian was sure you could do it without our help.”
“Where is she?” asked Raven, hoping that when she appeared she would actually be Lisa.
“Right here,” said a familiar voice, as Lisa stepped out from between two ancient trees. “I’m glad you’re back, Robin. I knew no jail could hold you.”
If you’re the Mistress of Illusions, thought Raven, you probably arranged it all—the jail, the capture, the jailbreak. I just wish I knew why.
“Hello, Marian,” he said, fighting the urge to call her Lisa. “You’re well, I hope?”
She smiled. “I haven’t been cooped up in the sheriff’s jail, or hunting for an exit with a leopard for a companion.”
He returned her smile. “I wish I could say the same.”
“Did you get a layout of the prison?” asked Friar Tuck. “Might come in handy.”
“Are you planning on getting captured?” asked Little John with a laugh.
“No,” said Friar Tuck. “But if we’re going to invade the sheriff’s stronghold, that might be the way they’ll least expect us.”
“Makes sense,” agreed Raven.
Friar Tuck turned and began walking, the others fell into step behind him, and Raven maneuvered until he was walking alongside Maid Marian.
“You’re Lisa, right?” he whispered.
“You know who I am,” she answered softly.
“What the hell are we doing here?” he asked.
“Staying free and planning to overthrow the Sheriff of Nottingham, of course.”
“I mean us,” said Raven. “As in you and me.”
“It’s all preparation,” she said.
“For what?”
She gave him a mysterious smile. “For what lies ahead for you, of course.”
“For me, not for us?”
“Don’t ask too many questions, Eddie. It’ll just make your head hurt.”
“You called me Eddie.”
She sighed. “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have.”
“Where are we going?”
“I hate to use the word ‘hideout,’” she said. “Let’s say that we’re going to our sanctuary.”
“And nobody’s objected?”
“Why should they? You’re Robin Hood.”
“But you’re not part of this milieu,” said Raven. “You’re here because of me.”
She smiled. “How do you know you’re not here because of me?” she replied. “After all, I am the Mistress of Illusions.”
Raven exhaled deeply. “I hate to ask it, but if you really are the Mistress of Illusions, and after the last couple of months I have no reason to doubt it, why do you even have an interest in a normal, everyday, totally unexceptional guy like me?”
She stared into his eyes. “Because you’re much more than that, Eddie. Entire worlds depend on you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“I keep getting tossed into them,” he answered, “but I sure as hell haven’t seen anything depending on me.”
The trace of a smile played across her lips. “To put it in your vernacular, Eddie, this is spring training.”
“For what?” he insisted.
“For what lies ahead,” she answered, and increased her pace.
Suddenly two men stepped out of the heavy cover and blocked their path. Raven turned questioningly to Lisa.
“Will Scarlet and Alan-a-Dale,” she whispered. “They’re on our side.”
The group came to a halt, and Will Scarlet, tall, lean, deeply sun-bronzed, stepped forward.
“Been looking for you,” he said directly to Raven. “Word has reached us that the sheriff is really enraged that you escaped his prison, and he’s sent out a troop of sixty men to find and kill you.” He paused. “Well, you and Little John and the peasant, but I assume he means all of us.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Friar Tuck.
“We can’t outmuscle them,” answered Lisa, “so we’ll have to outsmart them.”
“Fine,” said Raven. “How?”
Think, Eddie, came the thought from Lisa. You weren’t the biggest dress merchant, or the best, but you always managed to make ends meet and come out ahead.
And as he concentrated on her message, a notion began taking shape.
“Give me half a minute,” he said, closing his eyes and concentrating.
The rest of the Merry Men stood in absolute silence, waiting for their leader to make his pronouncement.
Finally Raven looked up. “What’s the one thing the soldiers will expect?” he said.
“That we’ll be waiting for them in heavy cover,” said Little John.
“Makes the most sense,” agreed Friar Tuck.
“I know,” said Raven. “That’s why we’re not going to do it. They probably have half a dozen methods of penetrating the forest and getting to us, and if they need more men they can always get them.”
“Then what do you plan to do?” asked Alan-a-Dale.
Raven smiled. “They’re going to be protecting their men, and their position, and every inch of the forest that they penetrate.” He paused. “So what’s the one thing they won’t be protecting with their full force?”
They all stared at him, frowning.
“What if I were to tell you that if we succeed, we can probably double our number and present a true challenge to the sheriff?”
Suddenly Lisa smiled. “Oh, of course!”
The others just kept staring in puzzlement.
“The prison!” cried Raven. “While they’re throwing most of their resources into the forest, we’ll capture the prison, and I’m sure just about every prisoner will be more than happy to join us in exchange for his freedom.”
“You know,” said Friar Tuck, “it makes sense!”
“I like it!” said Little John.
“Quick, kill some small animal first,” said Lisa.
“For practice?” asked Little John sardonically.
“For McGillicuddy,” she answered.
“Damn me, she’s right!” shouted Little John.
“Enoch, get your ass over here!” yelled Friar Tuck.
“I ain’t going back into that prison!” growled Enoch the peasant.
“Okay, stay here alone—and good luck to you.”
Enoch stepped forward. “Okay,” he grumbled. “I’m with you.”
“Which way are they coming?” asked Raven.
“South and southwest,” answered Will Scarlet.
Raven turned to Lisa. “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where the prison is, I don’t know one direction from another. What do I do?”
She smiled at him. “The answer is obvious.”
And suddenly it was.
“Little John,” he announced, “you spent longer in that prison than any of us. I think you should have the honor of leading us to its downfall.”
“With great pride and pleasure!” roared Little John. “Follow me!”
And with that he headed off in what Raven assumed was the direction of the prison, or more explicitly, in such a manner that there was no chance they would run into any stragglers from the prison approaching from the south or southwest.
Raven and Lisa fell into step behind the rest of their troops, and made their way through the forest in relative silence.
“You think this’ll work?” he asked her softly.
“Of course it will work,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m putting a lot of lives at risk, lives that trust in me.”
“It will work,” she insisted. “Not because you’re Robin Hood, but because you’re Eddie Raven. Or at least, that’s what we’re calling you now.”
“We?”
“Me, Rofocale, some others you may have briefly met and will certainly encounter again in the future.”
“I wish I knew what the hell this is all about,” muttered Raven.
“Telling you now wouldn’t help at all,” she replied. “When the time comes, you’ll know—and you’ll know without anyone having to tell you anything.”
He stopped walking and stared at her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“You’re frightening me.”
“You’re misinterpreting your emotions,” said Lisa. “Eddie Raven can’t be frightened.”
“The hell I can’t.”
“Hey, come on, Robin!” yelled Alan-a-Dale. “Or there won’t be any of these bastards left for you to kill.”
Raven increased his pace, and soon caught up with the rest of the Merry Men. A few moments later they broke cover and found themselves facing the huge stone prison.
“Where’s the town?” Raven whispered to Lisa. “All I see is the jail.”
“Beyond the next hill,” she said. “They didn’t want it too close to the populace.”
“So, Robin,” said Friar Tuck, “do we take it now?”
“Why not?” said Raven, still unused to giving orders.
“Okay,” said Little John. “You all heard Robin. Now, no battle cries, no screams of any kind. We want to be at the castle before the sheriff’s men know we’re there.”
He waved his sword and began running toward the prison, and all of the Merry Men fell into step behind him.
“You should be proud, Eddie,” said Lisa. “They’re charging it on your say-so.”
“Somehow I felt safer as a Munchkin,” admitted Raven.
“You’ll get over it,” she replied. “If there’s one person who should feel unsafe now, it’s the sheriff.”
The first of their men broke down the door, and suddenly there were shouts, screams, and the clanging of swords.
“I keep thinking I’m going to blink my eyes, and when I open them I’ll be back in the Garment District, and everything I think has happened since then will have been a dream.”
“Ask them if this is a dream,” she said, pointing to one of their men and two of the prison guards writhing on the ground, blood spurting from their wounds.
Raven broke into a run and reached the door, followed closely by Lisa, just as the bulk of the prison guards and warriors came racing back from the forest.
“Lock the door!” shouted Friar Tuck.
Raven shook his head. “Waste of time. We broke it down. Surely they can do so too.” He looked around. “Quick! Check the closest rooms. Find some trash and bring it here.”
Just under a minute later, as the returning guards were almost upon them, Raven had piled the trash to fill up the doorway, and set fire to it just before the guards could pass through it.
“Good thinking, Robin!” cried Will Scarlet. “I hope to hell there’s another way out of here, so we don’t have to fight our way back through the whole damned contingent of them.”
“Beats the hell out of me,” answered Raven. “Hunt up Enoch and ask him—and while I’m thinking of it, watch out for that damned leopard.”
“Not to worry,” came Little John’s voice from down the main corridor. “He’s happily chewing on his lunch.”
“Okay,” said Raven. “Little John, you, Will, and half a dozen others, stay here and guard the entrance. Anybody who knows anything about locksmithing or lock-picking, start going up and down the cell rows letting every prisoner out.”
“Even if they’re loyal to King John and the sheriff?” asked Alan-a-Dale.
“They’re locked away in what you call a prison and I’d call a dungeon!” snapped Raven. “How the hell loyal can they be?”
“Right,” said Alan-a-Dale, signaling half a dozen men to follow him as he went into the interior of the building.
“Tuck!” said Raven.
“Yes, Robin?”
“This can’t be the only way in and out of this damned building. Take some men and start hunting up other means of ingress. When you find them, booby-trap them as best you can.”
Friar Tuck frowned. “Booby-trap?” he repeated.
“Find ways—very painful, even fatal ways—to prevent the guards, and probably the army by now, from entering the prison.”
“Ah!” said Friar Tuck with a grin. “I understand. You just used a term I’d never heard before.” He signaled to the closest half-dozen men. “Follow me!”—and a moment later all six were racing down the nearest cell block.
Raven turned to Lisa. “This may work for an hour, or an afternoon, or even all through the night, but there’s no way we can hold off the whole damned army, and that’s surely what the sheriff’s going to send once he learns what’s been going on.”
“Then you’ll just have to think of something, won’t you?” she said calmly.
“None of this bothers you,” he said, frowning.
“As I said, you’re being tested,” replied Lisa. “It will bother me if you fail.”
“It’ll do more than bother you,” he shot back. “It’ll kill the pair of us. If you’ve got any ideas, any powers I’m not aware of, anything at all, this would be a good time to share them with me.”
She offered him a bittersweet smile. “I’m not the one who’s being tested, Eddie.”
“But you can be killed, can’t you?”
“Under some circumstances,” she said noncommittally.
“But not these?” he persisted.
“I didn’t say that,” replied Lisa.
“But you meant it?”
“You’re concentrating on the wrong things, Eddie,” she said. “First of all, you have to survive. Second, your men are depending on you. You can’t let them down.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then a scream of agony from one of the corridors permeated the area and brought his attention back to the situation at hand.
“All right,” he muttered. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
He began walking in the direction of the scream, and found Will Scarlet and three of his men standing over the corpses of another of his men and a prison guard.
“Have we released all the prisoners?” asked Raven.
“I think so,” said Will. “All we could find, anyway.”
“Has anyone seen the leopard?”
“He’s not far away,” answered Will. “The scream attracted his attention, and the smell of blood has kept him here.”
“Okay,” said Raven. “Leave the corpse here, and let the leopard get to him. It’ll keep him busy for fifteen or twenty minutes, and at least we’ll know where he is.”
“The guards will kill him when they come back,” noted Will.
“Maybe,” agreed Raven. “I suppose it all depends on how fast he eats.”
Will looked in the direction of the door through which they had all entered. “If we survive this, I hope to hell I’m not sharing a blanket with it when it’s all over.”
“A reasonable ambition,” said Raven, starting to walk deeper into the interior of the jail. “How many men do you suppose work here?”
“They don’t need more than about thirty,” answered Will, “but part of the army is stationed here. I would imagine the total is close to one hundred.”
“And we’re sixty at best, probably a little less, and certainly not as well armed and armored for a battle inside the building,” said Raven. “Once we free all the prisoners, we’ve got to get back outside and take a defensive position before they break in, someplace where our arrows will be effective. I don’t think half a dozen of us were wearing any armor. The one thing we don’t want is a massive swordfight.” He paused. “Is there a back entrance?”
“Yes,” said Tuck.
“All right. Run ahead, tell Little John, Will, and the rest to gather by it. We’ll leave the building that way and take up positions for the battle to come.”
“Right,” said Tuck, running off down a corridor.
“That’s always assuming they haven’t surrounded and breached it, of course,” he remarked wryly to Lisa.
“If they have,” she replied, “you’ll find an alternative.”
He stared at her. “Are you the Mistress of Illusions or the Mistress of Outright Fantasy?”
She smiled. “Think of all you’ve been through, Eddie—and yet you’re still here.”
He grimaced. “She says, as we’re surrounded and outgunned in the middle of a medieval prison.”
“I know you have your doubts, Eddie,” she said. “But you weren’t selected at random.”
“If we survive the next hour, and I figure the odds are ten-to-one against it, I want to know how I was selected, and by whom, and for what?”
“Concentrate on the next hour first,” said Lisa.
Raven took her hand and began walking toward what he assumed was the back of the jail building. When he saw a crowd of his men he approached them.
“What’s the problem?” he asked. “I told you to go outside and establish positions.”
“There are maybe thirty of them right outside,” said Friar Tuck. “They know they can’t come in while we’re here by the door, but by the same token we can’t go out.”
Alan-a-Dale sprinted up to the group from a different corridor. “Same situation at the front,” he announced. “It’s a standoff.”
“That can’t last,” said Raven. “They’ll send for more men—and my guess is that we don’t have enough food to hold out for any length of time.” He turned to Little John. “Is the roof flat?”
“Gently sloped,” was the answer.
“That’ll do,” said Raven.
“Robin, you’re not seriously going to pour boiling liquid down on them!” said Friar Tuck. “Hell, they’ll just step back and laugh at us.”
“We fight with arrows, not liquids,” answered Raven. “And from what I see, they fight with swords. Now who has the advantage when we’re twenty feet above the ground and they’re on it?”
Friar Tuck’s eyes widened. “What are we waiting for?”
Raven smiled. “For someone to suggest dragging some furniture to the doorway and setting fire to it, since it will be very difficult for our rooftop archers to hit any targets inside the building.”
“You heard him!” yelled Friar Tuck. “Drag chairs, beds, anything that can burn, to the various doors and set fire to it!”
The men scurried around the building, doing as Friar Tuck had ordered, and Raven looked around for a stairway. It didn’t take long to find one, and he and Lisa were soon standing on the roof, peeking unseen over the edge.
“It’s going to be a slaughter,” he said. “I’d feel sorry for them, if they weren’t planning to kill every last one of us.”
“There are two ways to end a battle to the death,” said Lisa. “I prefer yours.”
He smiled at her. “You know, I could really grow fond of you, especially if you’d stop leading me into one fatal situation after another.”
She returned his smile. “You can be killed,” she said. “But you’re Eddie Raven, at least for the moment, so I know that you won’t be killed.” She paused. “Well, unless you’re careless or foolish.”
“Or mortal,” he said.
“Oh, you’re mortal, all right,” she assured him. “That’s why you have to be so careful. Important things lie ahead of you.”
“And surviving the next few hours isn’t important?”
“It’s important to you,” she said. “And to me,” she added.
“But not in Nature’s scheme of things?”
“Stop, Eddie,” she said. “You must know that’s not true. But you also know there are things I can’t tell you yet.”
There was a commotion as Little John and a dozen others reached the roof, followed within a couple of minutes by the rest of the Merry Men.
“You’d better take your positions and start letting those arrows fly,” said Raven. “The fires can’t burn in the doorways all day.”
The men spread out across the gently sloped roof, and at a signal from Friar Tuck they let loose their first barrage of arrows. There were screams and curses coming up from the ground, and Raven stepped a little closer to the roof’s edge to observe the carnage.
“They’re up there!” cried one of the jailers, pointing to the roof.
He pulled a hatchet out of his belt and hurled it, but it had lost almost all its force by the time it reached the roof, and didn’t come within ten feet of the closest potential target. Others on the ground tried the same strategy, and got nothing for their effort except a barrage of arrows.
“I guess it’s working,” remarked Raven to Lisa.
“I guess it is.”
“Well, they should have the brains to retreat pretty soon,” he said. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“By the time they do, you’ll have lowered the odds for your men, perhaps evened them.”
“You think so?”
“Free will isn’t the commodity that it becomes in a few centuries, Eddie,” replied Lisa. “Their job is to stay here and try to subdue or kill your men. They’ll do it until they’re facing absolute, unequivocal defeat and death, and maybe beyond it.”
“It’s going to be a bloody sight,” said Raven with a grimace.
“Fortunately you won’t have to see it,” she said.
And suddenly he felt a disorientating sense of, not exactly motion, but displacement.
And when he opened his eyes and regained his balance, he was very definitely Elsewhere.