My father, my father, and don't you hear
What the Elfking quietly promises me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
The wind is rustling through withered leaves."
"Do you want to come with me, pretty boy?
My daughters shall wait on you finely;
My daughters will lead the nightly dance,
And rock and dance and sing you to sleep."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Erlking
They wandered aimlessly through the marshes in a foul mood. Peewit decided to cheer everyone up with a song.
"Please don't," snapped Maenad, who was waking in human form so she could argue more easily.
"But I think this song will surprise you! It'll sound much better than it usually does!"
"That's not promising a whole lot, Peewit," said Johan. "And are you admitting that you don't sound good normally?"
Peewit glared.
"No, but I've found a way to make myself sound even better than before. It's a new technique I've been practicing. If Sabina were here, she could tell you all about how great it sounds."
"This I've got to see."
"Splendid. Just let me get the…the pick I use for it." Peewit began rummaging around in one of Biquette's saddlebags for the magic ring. It wasn't there.
"I know I packed it! It can't be gone, it just can't!" Peewit made Biquette pull to a halt, spread his blanket on the ground and dumped the bag's contents on the blanket and started rummaging for this "pick".
"Peewit, please, we don't have time for this. We'll find you a new pick when we get back to civilization."
"No, no, no, I have to find it!" Peewit wailed, turning socks inside out in desperation. With Maenad standing right there looking impatient and still fuming about Johan calling her senile, he couldn't say what he was really looking for. She would kill him if she knew he'd stolen from her.
"Peewit, come on. The road through the bogs may be gone, but we can't waste time looking for trinkets," she grumbled. "Your music could wake the dead no matter how much you practice or what instrument you use."
"You take that back! I don't sound that bad!"
And the arguing began again, but this time with Peewit demanding an apology from Maenad, and Johan trying to make peace between the two. The snap of a stick grabbed their attention, and all three turned to look at a young well-dressed man in a dark blue tunic with grey hose riding a dun mare.
Maenad drew her sword and Peewit scooped his things back into the saddlebag.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in these bogs?" asked Johan. The boy looked about seventeen, and was grinning like he's found some kind of treasure.
"I'm uh, I'm squire Dennis, and King Gerard sent me after you to assist you in your quest." Dennis kept grinning at them and then suddenly, realizing he was staring, reached into a pouch on his belt and produced a scroll. Maenad took it from the squire and handed it up to Johan. She never took her eyes off the boy.
Does she see through the spell, considering she used it herself? Sabina thought nervously.
"This is King Gerard's seal all right. I recognize it. It's a pleasure to meet you, Dennis. These are my companions, Peewit and Maenad."
Dennis just grinned again, then remembered his manners and greeted Manead and Peewit. Both bowed courteously.
"I have another thing that…Gerard…King Gerard wanted me to give to you," Dennis added. She fumbled with her pouch until she found the Smurfs' map. She wished she wouldn't be so nervous, but she was terrified of being discovered by Peewit or Maenad, and thrilled about being with Johan at long last.
"Here, this is a map of the moors, but I, uh, I can't read it. It's in a strange language." Johan's eyes lit up.
"I knew my friends wouldn't let me down! This is the good fortune we've been waiting for!" He took the map and unrolled it carefully. It was very small. He dismounted and set it gently on Peewit's blanket so his companions could see.
"Hah, looks like I've been taking us in the right direction after all," said Maenad, smiling smugly.
"Yes, but we still have a long way to go, and I can't make out the writing on the map at all, and it describes several points ahead of us," said Johan.
"Maenad, you're the one who knows a dozen languages, can you read it?" asked Peewit.
"No, I've never seen anything like that. And it's so small, I think it was written by…" she looked up at Dennis warily "…by very small hands."
"Well, it shows the direction we need to travel to get to the coast, and that's better than wandering aimlessly," Johan said, rolling the map back up and handing it to Dennis.
"Keep this safe, and come with us."
They followed the route on the map, with Maenad again scouting ahead in wolf form. She gave Johan permission to tell Dennis her secret, on the condition that Dennis never reveal it. Dennis seemed surprisingly unshaken by the revelation that he would be traveling with a werewolf, Maenad thought. She dismissed her suspicion, and they continued until they found the plank road.
It appeared out of nowhere in a foggy and waterlogged bog, where traveling was particularly treacherous and visibility was poor. The companions were grateful for the road, though as soon as they began to follow it, they noticed a very strange feeling. Peewit noticed it first.
"Do you have this feeling like something is watching us? Something that feels angry?" He gulped and coaxed Biquette to move faster.
"I do feel something off," said Dennis, and Johan agreed. Maenad actually looked worried.
"Let's hurry. I don't like the feel of things either. There's something familiar about all of this. And not in a good way. Come on, you stupid excuse of a pack mule," she growled, tugging Reynard's reins.
They hurried along the road, and the mist grew thicker. The moors became silent, except for the cawing of ravens. The stumps of trees long dead and rotted sat in pools of water among lily pads, and reeds poked out of the water as if they were just sprouting. The air became very cold and the sky (what they could see of it) was cloudy and grey.
Peewit hurried ahead of the rest and disappeared in to the fog.
"Peewit, stay with us! You'll get lost!"
Peewit responded with a terrified shriek, and Johan, Maenad and Dennis ran to him, swords drawn. What they saw froze them in their tracks.
A woman dressed in a thick hide cloak stood before them. Her blonde hair hung limp and wet, and her dress was of an ancient peplos style, made of homespun plaid wool and covered in blood, a dress style that Maenad recognized with a shudder. The strange woman moved her head, and it flopped sickeningly, a coiled leather noose dangling from her throat.
"The three-fold death…" Maenad hissed and immediately shifted into a wolf.
"What is…" Johan asked before the women spoke to him. Her voice was like the rustle of dry leaves in the wind.
"Why do you bring our enemy here, child?"
"Who are you, and what do you mean by an enemy?" Johan replied, standing tall.
"I am a guardian of this island. That thing is our enemy. It slaughtered our people, desecrated our groves. You have done a great insult to our Lady to come here with it, after all these years."
'That thing'…Maenad? And the guardian of an island? What island is…oh, no…
"Maenad is my friend, and she has reformed her ways. We mean you no harm now."
"You don't know, child. If you saw the things we have, you would kill it now."
"No, I won't do that. Just let us pass, that's all we ask for. We serve the One True God; we had never heard of your Lady, and we did not know coming here would be taken as an offense."
"A servant of the One God who only wants to pass in peace. How interesting."
Eight more figures materialized from the mists. Some male, some female, but all dressed in heavy, homespun cloaks. All were wet, covered in blood, and had elaborately braided nooses dangling from their broken necks. While Johan tried to reason with the guardian, Peewit still stood in front of them, terrified.
"Like us, but not like us. And something holds him back from his gifts," One of the women said in the same rustling leaves voice.
A man, whose hair was fiery red, drifted up to Peewit. The Jester did not move; he was frozen like a rabbit that had been spotted by a hawk. The guardian placed a thumb squarely on Peewit's forehead. He stiffened, and then fainted on the wet boards.
Dennis's attention was immediately drawn away from Johan and the fist guardian.
"What did you do to him?" He demanded, Holding his sword at the man threateningly.
"We have given him what is rightfully his," said the second woman.
"You tried to kill him!" Dennis cried, and lunged at the man, who vanished and reappeared near the others.
"Young and brash," said the first guardian, "…and ignorant. Take the Roman away from here. You may pass, but we will hold you responsible for her actions, Servants of the One God."
The guardians drifted back into the mist, leaving the four alone with only the sound of ravens breaking the silence. They were not where they had been standing a few moments ago; this was a grassy hill, with no plank road or island to be seen. Peewit lay on the ground, and his companions rushed to his aid. He began to stir.
"Maenad, you know what those things were, don't you? They seemed to know you," Johan said, getting a blanket for Peewit.
"I remember now," Maenad murmured, not looking at anything in particular. "The Slaves of Nerthus. The ones who were drowned in the lake when the processions were over on the first day of spring. None of us actually saw it happen, but we were told by informants."
Peewit struggled to sit up, holding his head.
"It's like a glass goblet shattered in my head…" he said. Dennis gave him a waterskin to drink from, and they decided this hill was as good of a place as any to make camp. Peewit needed to recover from whatever the guardians had one to him, and they needed to consult the map and figure out where they were now.
After a fire was started from what little dry material could be found and a tent was pitched, Dennis gave Johan the map and they all examined it.
"I think we're over here, east of the lake," said Maenad, pointing at an odd squiggle.
"I don't see any lake."
"No, but now I remember where it was now."
"You and your memory! Hasn't it gotten us into enough trouble as it is?"
"Let me see," said Peewit. He stumbled to the map and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He could read it, though he didn't know why. The characters suddenly fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
"It says there was a lake there, but it was swallowed up by the bog. And northeast of that is a town."
All three of his friends stared at him wide-eyed.