"So, we're all agreed that we never need to speak of this again?"

Bors spat out a mouthful of green slime - Slime. That substance is absolutely slime. Slime - and grunted his agreement.

Arthur mutely nodded along. He hadn't opened his eyes for quite some time.

I can't say I blamed him.

I know this has been a pretty traumatic event all around, but there is something quite exciting about the form of mind manipulation that took place here. The implications for -

"Merlin?"

Shut the fuck up?

"Spot on."

*

We made our way back to the path from . . . where we had been.

In doing so, we left behind the cleaved-in-two body of Giles the Boggart and something that might once have been a pig before a very angry knight with giant fists pounded it into sausage meat. Oh, and fluids.

So Many. Fluids.

Fun fact. If your magical, sentient sword gets up off its arse and eviscerates the little monster secreting psychotropic drugs from its arse, the people being affected wake up pretty damn quickly. Particularly if they're being . . . interfered with.

To be honest, I was feeling pretty sorry for the next inhabitant of the Enchanted Forest we came up against. I sensed both of my companions had some things they would need to work out of their systems.

It was fair to say - what with one thing and another - we'd not been the chattiest of questing groups before the attack of the invasive vine, but we were now moving through the forest in complete, awkward, horrified silence.

Rhyddrech Hael would have fucking loved this forest.

When I say 'silence' -

Since the . . . incident, I had been taking the point position. Arthur was taking some processing time and seemed perfectly happy to go along with my half-arsed efforts at 'tracking' Guinevere's kidnapper. In doing so, I'd decided to pull a little ahead of the others. Drynwyn and subtle sensitivity were not close relations, and he did tend to muse aloud.

"Mate, how many times? Let's leave what we saw alone. Don't swords have some sort of bro code? You know. What goes on in the glade of the cactus with the big stalk, stays in the glade of the cactus with the big stalk."

I'm not talking about that. But, for the record, abso-fucking-lutely would he have been up for some of that. All day, every day. No. What I meant was how quiet it all is. Usually, when you are in a forest, you can't move for birds singing, wolves howling and all that. But here? You can hear a pin drop. Rhyddrech was always saying he would have been alright if he could just get some fucking peace. He'd have loved it here.

I stopped in my tracks. I wouldn't say I liked it when Drynwyn had a point. But he was right; there was absolutely no noise at all.

Bors had caught me up. "What's up?"

I glanced down the trail to where Arthur was leading Llameri slowly over some brambles. We were all on foot, and I imagine that would be the case for the foreseeable.

"It's too quiet."

Bors grimaced. "I know what you mean. It's like the whole forest is holding its breath. From what I know about the Enchanted Forest, we should be encountering all manner of creatures. I doubt the complete absence of wildlife means anything good."

Checking Arthur was still out of earshot, I leaned close to the big man and whispered. "Do you have any idea where we are heading?"

"No. The Queen said to leave the destination to her. But," and the big man looked sheepish for a moment. Which was quite the expression on a face more setup for belligerent rage, "it's been ages since I saw any sign of a track to follow. I think, to begin with, someone had been moving ahead of us, leaving a pretty obvious trail. But I've not seen anything like that since we encountered the Forest Guardian. If there's someone following us who's planning to jump out and point us to the Perilous Bridge - or whatever the fuck foolish thing you all came up with - I don't know where they are."

"What are you telling me?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Bors grimaced. "Look, I think we need to get ourselves into the mental place where we understand we are actually completely lost. In the Enchanted Forest."

I rubbed my brow. Goddam it, Guinevere. This was truly the shittiest plan since - no. I don't actually think there is a comparable shitty plan I can invoke here.

This is the gold standard for all shitty plans.

There has never been, nor will there ever be, a plan shittier.

We were leading Prince fucking Arthur on a wild goose chase through the Enchanted Forest, somehow hoping to stumble across someone that Queen Igraine - who didn't like any of us - had primed with directions for the next made-up stopping point on this completely made-up quest to rescue his wife. Who hadn't actually been kidnapped.

Arthur joined us. "Everything okay?"

Bors and I exchanged a look. To be honest, I was pretty much on board with confessing the whole thing right now. Any lingering resentment that I felt towards the Prince had somewhat receded during the time it took to free him from . . .

Nope. Not going there.

I opened my mouth to speak when the forest went from utterly silent to very loud indeed.

"Greetings, mortals!"

The deepness of the booming voice made the very ground tremble. The reverberations ran right up to my feet and turned my legs to jelly. And not in a good way.

Obviously, all three of our horses reared in panic and bolted into the woods. Because, of course, they did.

Strike Seven Hundred and Fifty-Three for ways in which this quest was well and truly borked.

"Leave them!" Bors yelled, yanking Arthur backwards, who had instinctively moved to follow Llameri. Not knowing where the voice had come from, we formed a defensive triad, our backs to each other and weapons out.

There was a tense moment of silence, and then the voice 'spoke' again.

"Few dare to enter my grove. What is it you foolish ones seek?"

And this is where our shitty plan really did its best to shit the bed. Because how were we supposed to know whether this was what the Queen had set up for us? If it was, we should try to play along. "Oh, we're looking for the Princess Guinevere who has been stolen away by some terrible cad. Please give us advice."

On the other hand, every single thing we had come across in this bloody forest had either wanted to kill us or fuck us or both, and we shouldn't bother conversing and instead run away as fast as possible.

Arthur decided for us. "Who are you?"

An amused note entered the voice. "I am someone so far beyond your understanding that even to begin to try and answer your question would cause your brains to leak from your ears."

Having been forced to sit through every episode of Lost, I could kind of see what the voice was getting at.

My dear, I would try not to anger whatever this is. There are things within this forest that would have given me pause in my prime.

I was very much on board with Operation Don't-Piss-Off-the-Unseen-Monster. Arthur, unfortunately, seemed not to have got the memo. "If you are so powerful, will you help us find that which we seek?"

Whoever was speaking laughed. And not a 'oh, how funny you are. Let's be friends' kind of laugh. It was more of a 'Oh, it's going to be such fun to wear your head as a hat' giggle. "Little Prince, it is clear you believe yourself to be on a quest of no small importance. Interestingly, though, I wonder if that is true of all in your party?"

Bors and I quickly put on our best 'no idea what he's chatting about, boss' expressions. I'll have you know that's a very tricky piece of mummery to get right when preparing to fight an invisible forest creature. It seemed we nailed it, though.

"My friends and I are on a quest to recover my wife, who has been stolen from me. Do you know where we can find her?"

There was a pause.

The eerie silence of the forest was not doing much to settle my nerves. Nor was the fact that Merlin had gone very quiet - as if he was doing his best not to draw any attention. Then, the voice boomed out again. "You seek that which is not lost. You will not find Princess Guinevere within this wood. There is only death for you here."

If he was daunted - or remotely suspicious - Arthur managed not to sound it. "If she is not here, do you know where she has gone?"

"Such knowledge comes at a price."

"Name it. We will gladly pay it."

Oh, goodness. My dear, you need to ensure Arthur is very careful indeed here. We should not so quickly make deals with those of the fae.

The voice chuckled. This was not an especially calming sound. If you imagine the laugh of the Wicked Witch of the West, voiced by James Earl Jones, you'd be in the right ballpark.

"Three there are of you. The Warrior. The Mage. The Lord. Thus, I propose three trials. Pass them all, and I will give you the answers you seek. Fail, and . . . well, let us say that I shall eat my fill."

For some reason, I decided to add my voice to proceedings at this stage. "Just to say, Mr Forest, that does not seem especially balanced. You answer a question if we win, and you eat us if you do. Perhaps you should sweeten the pot a little our end. You know, maybe we each get a weapon of mythical properties or something like that?"

"You seem to think you are in a position to make demands. It is the custom of the Enchanted Forest that I offer this opportunity to you. However, this is merely good manners, not a hard or fast rule. Should you prefer, I could just liquify you now?"

"No, that's fine. We're all about honouring quaint folk customs and practices here. Please ignore me."

A note of amusement had dripped into the voice. I didn't need Merlin's hiss of concern to see things were not going well. "Three trials there shall be. A trial of strength. A trial of thought. A trial of honour. Complete them, and you may ask your questions. Fail just one, and the consequences shall be dire."

Okay, so far, so RPG. This was your common-or-garden quest structure, and despite Merlin's doom-filled warnings, I was pretty sure we could handle it.

Bors was obviously 'the Warrior,' and considering I'd recently seen him rip out a Saxon's spine with one hand whilst simultaneously disembowelling another with a spoon, I felt pretty good about him coming through any fight with a win.

Arthur was clearly 'the Lord', and it seemed likely he could handle whatever the trial of 'honour' would be. I mean, he was Prince Arthur. Honour was literally his one job.

That left me as the Mage with the Trial of Thought.

And - let's be honest here - I would be cheating like a bandit.