TEN

The path through the woods was a lattice of daylight and shadow.

Some people have lively blood, and feeling shows quickly in their features. Phaeton was one of these, and he blushed now as he murmured to himself, “What a blessing that Ino will never hear of this!”

He hurried along with his staff – but without his provisions. You have no food, now, and no silver, Phaeton could imagine Merops and Clymene scolding him – and it’s a wonder you weren’t drowned.

Or kissed – and driven mad.

The young seeker saw only one other human being that troubled morning, a man garbed in a pellis – a tunic of animal skins – gathering wild carrots. Such folk lived in scattered huts, making their way to villages on market day, and, being neither slaves nor servants, were often proud of their freedom.

“Tell me, friend, what creatures dwell within these woods?” Phaeton inquired politely, hoping to hear that nothing more dangerous than a woodpecker lived here.

The woodsman said nothing. He groped for his wooden-bladed shovel, holding the tool as a weapon, ready to strike. Sometimes, a magical and potentially dangerous being took on the disguise of a mortal, and no one could be too careful.

“I’d be grateful, good freedman,” added Phaeton in a tone of high courtesy, “for a bite of carrot or parsnip.”

The root gatherer took a deep breath and relaxed his grip on the shovel. Phaeton’s request proved that he was most likely human. Gods fed on ambrosia – a sweet nourishment unknown among men, and a daemon – a spirit-being – could not be said to eat at all.

Phaeton wiped the mud from the offered carrot with a fern leaf, and chewed the sun-gold root gratefully.

“All manner of beasts, young traveler,” said the woodsman, not unkindly, “hide in these forests.”

“I am very sorry to hear it,” said the young man earnestly.

“Speak to none of them,” added the woodsman. “And see that you especially avoid that band of wandering centaurs.”

Phaeton’s heart sank. “Surely there aren’t many of those terrible horse-men around?”

The root-gatherer raised a finger and sniffed the air. “I can smell them,” he said, “at a thousand paces.”

Phaeton inhaled deeply, but to his senses the air was flavored only with leaf-mold and earth, and a hint of flowering myrtle.

When the young man turned to thank the woodsman he had vanished.

Spring flowers brushed the hem of the young adventurer’s woolen tunic as he hurried ahead, grateful for the splashing sunlight that gleamed on the flowering berry bushes and the wings of birds. The single carrot had done little more than stir the youth’s hunger.

Such hunger is a nagging misfortune, and with each step Phaeton grew all the more famished. And his hunger was not his sole concern.

A large figure shadowed Phaeton’s progress, off in the nearby evergreens. This strange four-legged beast was certainly not another nymph, and surely not a man. This beast was, furthermore, too big to be a satyr – one of the goat-men who molested travelers, especially unprotected women.

It was, in truth, a hooved creature, strongly muscled, and steadily following Phaeton through the forest.

Phaeton swung the staff experimentally, wondering if it would make a stout weapon.

More hoofbeats echoed through the woods.

Phaeton bounded, faster than he had ever run before.