The Liftlic

They called it the Whispering Wood, and it was forbidden to the citizens of Camelot to pass through it, for as long as Arthur could remember. The whole place was mystic in a way not even King Uther Pendragon could combat, so he forbid it, and did his best to ignore it, and gossip turned to rumor turned to whisper.

And now, the path was hardly discernible. Arthur sat his saddle and toyed with his reins and tried to visually penetrate the trees and bushes, grasses and brambles, as his mount's ears swiveled alert to noises imperceptible.

It was forbidden. But if he went around, it would add two days to his trip. And already he regretted the time lost to the stupid bet made with Morgana. Also lost.

Experimentally, Arthur loosed the reins over his horse's neck, and pressed in his heels, to see what the beast's instincts were. His mount jerked its head, picked up its hooves and set them down as if uncertain of the footing – soft loam beneath straggling weedy grass – but moved forward.

And in moments, Arthur was beneath the spreading branches of the trees that were part of the Whispering Wood. Over and around him the breezes played, and twigs rubbed and stretched like fingers squeezing inside leather gloves.

Scree-scratch.

He couldn't make out more than a handful of paces along the path, ever, it wound so subtly through the underbrush. The distances dimmed gloomily, but around him visibility was relatively clear. He squinted upward, but no blue sky or yellow sun penetrated the canopy overhead.

It was too quiet. If forest creatures braved this wood, they did so surreptitiously – unless he was the most fearsome thing to traverse the path.

Disconcerting thought.

He suddenly hoped that the air currents that touched his face and shoulders and sidled on, didn't recognize the Pendragon crest or the scarlet-and-gold of his tunic. That the draping ivy and willow fronds that sometimes brushed and lingered over his arms and hair didn't smell his heritage. He felt something of an enemy, here. Might this be viewed as an incursion, and responded to?

The grasses rustled around his horse's legs, and it plodded readily on, ears in constant motion. Arthur didn't know whether that was reassuring or not – no threat to pinpoint the location of. Was it all around him, or nonexistent? The air sighed, and suddenly he felt the hairs stir on the back of his neck, all down his forearms beneath his sleeves, and his ears actually pulled toward some undiscernible sound.

He dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword in the saddle-sheath. The horse halted.

Pllleeeeeeaasssssse…

Arthur shivered involuntarily, and cast a quick glance all around him – even above him. The Wood whispered actual words?

The sound came again, a soft and directionless plea, a distant sob. Pleeeassse… ohhhhhh…

Maybe there were ruins here. Sometimes an odd rock formation – natural or man-caused – resulted in weird whistling when the direction of the wind was just-

A brief gust buffeted him gently, and he blinked against it.

Hello?

And he relaxed. That had been a voice, he was sure of it. Remote, but comprehensible.

Hello? Plleeeaassssee… Heeelllp... Help. Mercy. Pity… pleeeassse…

Arthur shifted unintentionally, and the horse stepped forward. He couldn't see any further than before, but kept peering about for any sign of human passage or habitation.

"Hello?" he called nervously, feeling stupid. He tried to swallow the dryness in his throat, and wasn't completely successful. "Is someone there? Who are you?"

Oh, please… help. Where are you?

Arthur hesitated to say, here, and to someone he didn't know. "Where are you? I don't see you. What help do you need?"

Oh, help…

The voice was a low, dismal, hopeless sob, and it caught at Arthur's chivalry. Til he remembered – whoever might have come here to be lost, or trapped in a cave-in, or some such, would be a lawbreaker at least. Dangerous, maybe… magic. Or a victim of magic?

"Who are you? What sort of help do you need?" he called back. "Are you hurt?"

Don't leave me, please. For the love of mercy… help me. Please.

He was getting closer, the voice was clearer. Stronger, maybe – but he could imagine the sort of terror that might come of being stuck in a place like this, where aid could not be anticipated and despair was certain – and then someone came.

Oh, there you are… the voice said, and it sounded childish with wonder. Please don't… leave me.

Air currents eddied around him, ruffling his sleeves and the edges of his trousers at his boots. A more insistent breeze lifted his hair from his brow – he realized he'd been sweating – and flipped the laces of his shirt at his collar.

"You can see me?" he called, looking around again, and no movement or unusual color like a person's clothing caught his eyes. "Where are you? I can't see you?"

Do you see the hawthorn?

He sent his eyes around again, squinting and ducking lower in the saddle – realizing that his mount had stopped in its tracks.

The old hawthorn?

The horse dipped its head to the right to eye Arthur, and shifted its weight as if impatient to be off. Or, to have Arthur be off.

The white hawthorn…

Arthur glanced up and all around. The twiggy fingers of the trees clasped together, swaying and creaking and pulling, and it seemed to him that the light was a little better, a little softer and purer, off to the right. A clearing? The grass blurred a fresher green, too.

He dismounted, sliding the reins through his fingers to lead his horse. It followed, docile and willing and unafraid and he took comfort from that fact.

And he did see the hawthorn, at the middle of the clearing.

"Okay, I see the tree," he called, still searching around him. "Where are you?"

I'm here.

Arthur turned slowly, looking low and high. And he was in a mystic forbidden wood – granted, it didn't look out of the ordinary, but… "Are you making fun of me?" he asked rather sternly, to cover trepidation. "I don't see anyone."

I'm the tree.

A cold tingle made its way up Arthur's spine and he turned to face the old white hawthorn. It swayed gently in the breeze. It didn't seem to creak ominously, like the other trees of the forest.

The voice amended, I mean, I'm in the tree.

Arthur took a step back. Then another, shifting sideways so he could aim his boot for the stirrup – and then his mount's ribs. And gallop for freedom – why hadn't he listened to this one of his father's orders?

No, please don't leave! The agony was palpable, and froze Arthur in his tracks.

But nothing else happened… He didn't turn to stone, no vines shot up from the earth to hold him in place, his boots didn't sink into the earth like quicksand.

Please, you've no idea… how long it's been… please don't go. I call and call and no one comes and I'm… lonely.

Arthur stood still and considered. If he fled now, he'd wonder forever. And he was rather in a hurry – but when he returned from procuring the items to pay Morgana's bet, he'd either have to ride two days around, or… come back here. And it might be dangerous, but – there didn't seem to be an immediate threat.

"Who are you?" he said. Courage was one knightly trait he pursued above most others. "Why are you in there?"

A pair of wind-puffs, like someone gulping for breath and calm. It was a witch. She cursed me, long ago. Imprisoned me here…

"Why?" Arthur said curiously.

The hawthorn seemed to shiver, the small shiny leaves rustling delicately. Jealousy and spite, mostly. I suppose she's dead by now, anyway, for all the good it did her.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said awkwardly, inadequately.

Thank you. I think I've learned my lesson.

Arthur caught at an odd and maybe rude urge to snicker at the sarcasm, even if the unknown entity didn't seem the sort to mind. The voice didn't sound at all like the dead moaning or the malevolent hissing told of around campfires on Samhain, luring the unwary to drown in bogs or crush their bones falling down into caves or pits, or be trapped overnight in haunted ruins to find that a hundred years had gone by when daylight finally came again.

The clearing around the hawthorn could have been any meadow in Camelot. Serene - nodding wildflowers shy in the grass, mayflies twirling their short lives away in mass unconcern. A snake twined its way toward – then away from Arthur's boot. He dropped his reins, and the horse plodded softly several steps before lowering its head to crop grass.

What about you? the voice asked, calmer and with interest. Who are you?

"My name is Arthur," he said, venturing closer to the hawthorn, step by step. Across the clearing a large brown rabbit paused in nibbling something between its front paws, and its long ears twitched. Arthur held still, watching it. "My father is the king of Camelot."

Camelot, the voice breathed, eager and interested, and Arthur found himself explaining about his bet with the king's ward.

The rabbit finished or discarded its tidbit, and hopped placidly several paces around the edge of the clearing before turning to rustle a short way into the concealing underbrush. Arthur continued toward the trunk exposed by the height of the lowest branches in a leisurely fashion, neither enticed nor repulsed by the hawthorn's end of the conversation, as questions flowed about his life and his friends.

Finally he placed his hand on the bole – smooth, rather than roughly striated, and soft like the spring horns of a young buck. Instantly he knew he was neither dreaming nor enchanted, himself; it was a tree like no other, thrumming subtly with life. It was as if he'd reached out to touch someone's warm living skin, and realized that a pulse could be felt, also. Nor was there any sense that he was invading privacy; the hawthorn sighed as if in contentment.

I'm glad you came.

A pair of birds twittered around each other, dissatisfied with one branch til they found another to settle on.

"I can't stay," Arthur said, surprised to hear regret and apology in his voice.

There was a moment of silence, and then… If you go round the other side, you'll find a sort of fold in the trunk, running from the base as high as a man can reach. If you can find something to pry it open-

But Arthur had stumbled back a few steps in mild alarm, snatching his hand back precipitously. "You can feel that?" he demanded. "Or – see where I am?"

I can sense you. How close, and in which direction.

That… wasn't too creepy. He himself could do the same with an opponent on the sparring field, even blind-folded. But Arthur was still unsettled, in a situation that magic had made extraordinary. Magic was an enemy he was relatively ignorant of, even if this person was a victim, himself. "What were you saying?"

If you can pry open the fold round back of the tree, I think it might serve to release me. I can almost reach, myself… but not quite.

Spoken so hopefully, and innocently, but a cascade of numb horror tumbled through Arthur's chest toward the pit of his stomach. Release the unknown, trapped by magic, with no guarantee what would happen.

Arthur?

He turned his face away as if the tree could see his expression, or tell what he was thinking, and stumbled over grassy tussocks in reaching the opposite side of the tree. His mount was now in his field of vision, still placidly cropping slow mouthfuls of the clearing's grass. And yes, there was a long vertical fold in the trunk.

"What would you do if I set you free?" he asked. As if he could trust the answer.

But it wasn't, I would hunt that witch down and tear her apart along with anyone who got in my way. It wasn't, I would restore my empire and crush the kingdoms of men!

I'd start by restoring my Wood. It feels… desolate. And hopeless. Does it feel that way to you? It didn't used to.

"Did you live here?" he said. Aside from the voice – and the path – there had been no signs of habitation or husbandry. No overgrown gardens or orchards, no ramshackle hut or mossy-crumbling stone fences.

I still do. Said indignantly.

"It's just," Arthur tried, "well, if you said you were lonely – this Wood, it's forbidden."

Silence.

"I mean," he added awkwardly, feeling as if he'd insulted someone's home. "People say it's haunted, or cursed…"

Because of me.

It wasn't a question; Arthur shrugged uncomfortably.

But you're here…

"Well, I'm… the king's son." Who would stop him? Who would accuse him to the king? He didn't think the punishment for transgression was death, exactly – so he could afford to pay a fine, if it came to that.

I take it then… you must be very brave, to come here by yourself.

Brave or something. Arthur felt more awkward now than afraid, and he dared to put his hand back on the tree's trunk, his thumb very close to that inward fold. An unnoticed squirrel, clinging upside down on the trunk just out of arm's reach above his head, flicked its tail and whisked away upward, out of sight.

You're not going to do it, are you. Softly, bleakly.

"I can't," Arthur said, hoping desperately that he would be understood. "I don't know… what will happen. My father… the laws on magic…"

You can't just take my word for it. Not a question, but a quiet despair.

Arthur swallowed a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry."

The voice was slower to say, Thank you. And added a moment later, Perhaps you'll be brave enough to pass this way again sometime? It does get… lonely.

"Perhaps," Arthur said.

Another moment of awkward silence, bordering on painful.

Maybe just go, if you're going to? I don't want to… embarrass myself.

Arthur backed toward his mount, searching for something to say. Farewell would be almost rude.

I was glad to meet you…

"You as well," he blurted. And turned to fumble for reins and stirrup, swinging himself up.

Taking a last look at the big white hawthorn. Pulling the horse's head back toward the path, and squeezing knees and bootheels to encourage its pace.

Behind him, silence. The air was still, no curious breezes or stray whispers or weird moaning.

He reached the path without incident, and turned in his destined direction. The leaves and branches were still too thick overhead to see the sky, but it seemed darker. More dismal – and once again the silence struck him, the utter lack of life beyond the hawthorn's clearing. That said something about the prisoner's character, didn't it? The mysterious person who'd inadvertently given the Wood its name and caused his own condition to worsen, in pleading for respite.

A pattering sound startled him, sounding like paws on the leaves around and above him, all over and at once, til a cold drip landed on his cheek, and another slid down his collar. Within moments his shirt and tunic were dotted with silent raindrops.

There had been no anger, no threats or promises or deals of the sort that always fooled the stupidly trusting or greedy traveler in tales. Just a desire for connection and companionship, even temporary, and the gathering of pride tattered by isolation.

His mount stopped, and Arthur didn't even recall intending to draw rein. Around him, drops fell uninterrupted by any wandering breezes. He turned and looked back, and could see neither clearing nor hawthorn.

His errand, though, seemed suddenly unbearably superficial. He couldn't imagine making his purchase – returning this way to offer gossip and platitudes? or avoiding? – arriving at the citadel to enjoy comfort and freedom more than most men, despite the strictures of his responsibilities. Do you promise to exercise mercy and justice in your deeds and judgments…

And sit at a patrol campfire to tell this story to a disbelieving audience. A jeering, mocking audience.

His fingers pulled the reins, his knees pressed the mount's flanks, and they walked, swish-swish through rain-flecked grass, back to the clearing.

Patter… drip-drip…

Arthur?

He dismounted, drawing his sword from the saddle-sheath in one motion, then stalked toward the tree.

Arthur!

Rounding the trunk to the opposite side, he raised his blade over his head two-handed, then sliced forward with all his strength, aiming to slide the last few inches of the sword right down the fold.

He expected the momentum would allow him to chop a hands-breath, maybe two, before his blade stuck.

But it didn't. There was resistance – his eyes were closed, and surprised muscles throughout his body seized again to find himself initially successful, to keep cutting – and then the tip caught in a root, cleaving earth as he bent forward, heaving for breath in a surprised reaction.

His first thought, glancing up at the tree, was that he'd somehow missed. There was a straight vertical split opening – widening – just beside the fold, like the grain of a log separating before the wedge of a wood-cutter's axe-head. He lifted one hand from his sword-hilt, reaching to fit fingers into the new split, thumb into the natural-seeming fold, and pulled like he was trying to break down a prison-door one loosened plank at a time.

Pure white light sparked from the split, flashing out like lightning, and Arthur went tumbling onto the grass, losing his grip on his sword but retaining some splinter of the hawthorn's trunk in his off-hand. For a moment he was blinded.

Then he blinked away the blue-and-pink afterimages from his vision – and gawked, making no move to rise from his sprawl in the grass.

The figure was male, lean and long-legged and black-haired. But… barefoot, and clad only in a pair of skin-close leggings made of soft fawn-colored hide. Above the garment's laces, there was subtle musculature of the flat torso, but not the detail of a man's chest, or the presence of a mother-to-child navel mark. His skin glimmered subtly, pearl-orange, and it reminded Arthur of when he used to catch butterflies as a child, and the material of their ephemeral wings rubbed off on the pads of his fingers. This effect ranged from below the wrist to below the jawline, as the figure touched and stared at his arms in awe of his physical freedom after so long – then raised eyes to Arthur's.

The coloring of his face was different, too. Eyes like sapphires for color and light refraction, bird-fine bones and milk-pale skin, and the shadows in the hollows of his eyes were touched with a deep-rose hue instead of expected purple-brown.

He looked at Arthur, his mouth dropped open in wonderment – then his whole face lighted with incandescent glee, and he leaped across the clearing.

Arthur struggled up from his elbows, twisting to watch the strange person darting across the grass – instead of disappearing into the underbrush gloom, he made an abrupt right turn as easily as any stag, to sprint around the clearing's edge. Speeding several quick steps, then leaping to soar over no need for several more – and his head was thrown back to laugh like sunlight rippling over a swift brook. His arms thrown wide to feel the wind he was creating – Arthur felt it as he bounded past, and it smelled like hay and sunflowers – and there were more rabbits popping up in his wake to stare after him, incredulous and fascinated.

Finally he came to a stop where Arthur had seen him first, before the hollowed-out trunk of the hawthorn, at a standstill but quivering with vitality and focusing a brilliant eager grin on Arthur.

Who said stupidly, "You're not human."

"No – I'm a liftlic, of course." It was the very same voice, only spoken from a corporeal throat. Slightly deeper, slightly hoarse.

He'd never heard the term before. Magic, obviously – maybe something like a tree-spirit, or water-spirit? Air-spirit?

One black eyebrow quirked, and the grin eased as he looked down at himself, then at Arthur to compare. "Oh. Because you are a human. I didn't realize…" He gave himself a little shake, then stepped forward to offer Arthur a hand. "It doesn't matter. I don't mind."

He was between Arthur and his sword. Arthur lifted his eyes from the inaccessible blade to the human-like-but-not hand, and hesitated. Everything he'd always been taught about magic – and it was this creature to decide, it doesn't matter? Defiantly he thrust his hand out and was yanked so lightly to his feet he was breathless as he settled his balance, taken aback by the – also inhuman – strength.

"Thank you," he said, a gleeful laugh rippling through his eyes and chest in a way that made Arthur want to grin, too. "I should hug you, but I don't know what that would do to the pace of your heart-beat."

A joke? Arthur had only a moment to be dumbfounded, before he was thoroughly staggered, as the man – the liftlic? – folded himself to a graceful kneeling position.

"Master," he said. "What would you have me do first? How may I serve you?"

"You-" Arthur stammered. "I don't… want you to…" He gulped a steadying breath. "What do you mean?"

"You freed me," the liftlic reminded him, upturned face still showing delighted. "I can never repay you, though I will try. You are my master now, and I your faithful servant, inseparable through the ages…"

"No!" Arthur said, alarmed, taking two steps back. "We can't. I can't, and you can't – magic is not allowed in Camelot, and you… you…" He gestured; the person was very clearly, not human.

"But I am magic," he answered, unperturbed. "And we are in Camelot." Casually he turned and retrieved Arthur's sword, handling it with his fingertips but demonstrating both strength and confidence, standing to extend the hilt to Arthur as though their conversation and what Arthur might do with the blade were completely disconnected. And maybe he wouldn't be able to stick the sword through the liflic, and maybe it wouldn't actually do anything to him if Arthur did.

Arthur accepted his sword and held it awkwardly. He wasn't wearing a sheath at his hip, and it was unthinkable, after all, to point it at or use it on this newly-freed prisoner.

"I have my errand," he said. "And then I have to return home, to my duties. You cannot come with-"

"Oh!" the other said, eyes sparkling. Then he disappeared – so suddenly Arthur's heart skipped a beat, and his breath clogged his throat.

But there wasn't even time to whirl around and search behind him, before the strange liftlic appeared again, making an offering of a new bundle laid across his forearms, with a pleased expression. Clearly, the object of Arthur's quest, Morgana's requirement in the winning of the bet, and of stunning quality, better than Arthur was anticipating available.

"Where did you…" he began stupidly, not moving to accept the bundle. A suspicion rose – "Did you steal this from someone?"

"Certainly not." The being looked indignant. "The purse on your saddle is two coins lighter. Though that must be where you want this, isn't it?"

Arthur blinked around the impression of movement, and the liftlic's arms were empty, crossed over his chest. Across the clearing, behind the saddle, the obvious bundle was fastened. Did this make Arthur guilty of using magic? Or Morgana, when he presented the unusually-acquired debt?

"You can't come to Camelot," he said. "They would try to kill you there. I can't be your master."

The liftlic wasn't fazed. "You can't cancel the debt just by saying so. But I don't have to follow your every footstep to serve you efficiently, I promise. The moment you call, I will be there."

"How?" Arthur said, again feeling stupid.

A grin flashed. "I'm very fast."

He shook his head. No, it wasn't to be contemplated. He couldn't… be tempted. "How do I cancel the debt, then?"

Black brows drew down slightly, troubled. "The staff. When you are done with me, you break the staff."

Arthur realized he was still holding the piece of splintered tree-trunk in his left hand, a pace and a half long and three fingers' width. One side was flattened with the oddly soft bark, the rest was rounded but not uniformly, without danger of further splitting or slivers.

"I break the staff, and you're no longer bound to serve me?" Arthur said, to clarify. The air-spirit nodded, and Arthur thrust his sword into the earth a few inches for safekeeping, then grasped the staff in two hands spread wide, preparing to snap it in half over his knee.

"No-no-no, what are you doing?" The liftlic seized the staff in his hands, right in the center where Arthur had planned the break. The glee was gone – the puzzlement was gone – what was left was almost terror, and Arthur halted.

"I can't have a servant like you," he said. He was going to add, I don't want… but he couldn't make himself say it. What incredible power might this creature be capable of? What hard things lay in store in his future, in his reign, that might be made simple, with such a servant? An asset, a resource, a tool… a living breathing being. He pulled at the staff again, to be allowed to break it.

"No, you mustn't," the liftlic protested, alarmed. "What if you need me? What if you need me, and you can't call me, and I can't hear you? No, you must keep it."

Arthur considered. It would be an insult to refuse – it would be a crime to accept. He had no right to empower himself so… but was the destruction of the temptation the righteous course? What if his kingdom someday needed a greater feat than he was capable of, to save it? It would require humility and restraint, to keep the staff and not use it until there was an emergency…

His grip slackened, and he let one hand go. The air-spirit watched him a moment more, then released his hold, satisfied that Arthur would keep the staff.

The magical artifact. Arthur shivered, and temptation subsided into awe and respect, somewhere deep inside where his skill as a fighter and his authority as the kingdom's heir resided.

"I should be going," he said.

"I should be staying," the other answered with a smile. "My land needs so much work. But I'll see you again."

Arthur nodded, and the liftlic spread a low, fluidly elegant bow. No other words seemed needed, so he turned to cross the clearing to his mount, again. He sheathed his sword, and swung himself into the saddle, holding the staff like a standard-bearer without the banner. Gathering the reins, a thought struck him, and he looked back. "Do you have a name?"

"I am Merlin. When you need me, when you call for me, I will come."

A perfect name for a spirit of the air. Arthur smiled, and lifted his hand, calling, "Farewell!"

"And you…"

He glanced down momentarily to turn his horse's head back toward Camelot, reflecting as he rubbed his thumb over the smooth grain of the wooden staff, how he might've won more than Morgana, this time.

When he looked back again, Merlin was gone. But birdsong followed him all the way out of the Whispering Wood.

Tbc…

A/N: So I've been saying that I want to do a oneshot like this ever since I watched C.M. in "The Tempest"… How does it work? *winks*

PS, Liftlic means "aerial"… little pun, that.