“I don’t know if I lost consciousness. What I do know is that there was a sudden flood of awareness or sensation. I was wide awake and alert, more so than I’d ever been before in my life. I knew exactly where everything was around me, noticed the gradual dimming of the yellow light from the crystal, the gradual brightening of the dawn sky. I could feel every heartbeat, the blood rushing through my body, the ground minutely shifting beneath me as I breathed in and out.

  “I leapt to my feet.

  “Normally, that’s an exaggeration, but somehow I did physically leap up. My legs bent to get my feet beneath me, my back rocked forwards, my arms flung out as leverage. Muscles tensed and flexed without my conscious thought, and I was on my two feet with a soft cloud of the dusty earth falling back to the ground behind me. I almost felt dizzy, light-headed, yet I remained perfectly in control of my body.

  “Needless to say, I had never done that before.

  “I was still, somehow, holding the sword.

  “It was no great leap (not like the physical one I’d just made) for me to come to the conclusion that the sword was doing something to me. I was too alert, too acrobatic, too co-ordinated. Too clear of thought as well: I wouldn’t have figured the cause and effect out nearly so quickly the previous day. I brought the sword up to examine it. Somehow I knew it was called Petrosk, although whether I had subconsciously assigned the name or had divined it in some manner I didn’t know, and still don’t.

  “Petrosk was... it still is... a hand and a half sword with a blade about three feet in length, but you’ve seen that for yourselves. It is incredibly sharp, and I’ve never managed to dull it. It won’t cut through anything, but anything that you’d think it should cut, it will. Except me. I’ve never cut myself on it. Believe me, I tried.

  “Whatever was happening to me was bound up with the sword. I had heard stories and tales: I knew that magic can bring great power, but almost always at a high cost. At the time I didn’t know what that cost might be (although the area of dead earth surrounding the crystal was not hopeful), but I’m oddly proud of my younger self for what I tried to do almost straight away.

  “I took one step forwards, thrust the blade back into the fading crystal, then turned on my heels and ran from the clearing.

  “With every foot that pounded onto the forest floor, I breathed a word out loud.

  “‘Don’t... want... magic... Don’t... want... curse... Don’t... want... sword... Do... want... to... go... home!’

  “The sun rose on my right, and I kept running. I wasn’t sure how far I’d travelled: the night before was a half-recalled dream and even the prior day’s journeying seemed hazy to me. Just how long had I been under whatever compulsion had dragged me to the crystal, to Petrosk?

  “‘Don’t... want... sword...’

  “Surely it couldn’t be too far back to the Mere? But then, magic was involved. At the time, I knew little about magic, but I considered it possible that I had been pulled further and faster than I should otherwise have been able to travel. Yet my legs and feet weren’t aching and blistered, so surely I hadn’t been travelling for days?

  “‘Don’t... want... magic...’

  “Whatever was affecting me back in the clearing was clearly still in effect. I came upon a small stream, cheerfully gurgling its way through tree roots and rocks in a manner completely out of sympathy with my own suppressed panic. I wanted to lash out at it for its unfeeling nature, but settled for drinking a long draught of cool water instead. The sun was reaching its zenith. Strangely, I didn’t feel too hungry, but I found some wood sorrel and forced myself to eat a little.

  “I ran on, but now the calls of birds rang intrusively in my ears. Some were calling out warnings as I approached, others just singing for whatever reason they had for singing. I wanted to snap at them, bring them down with stone or sling, but I tried to hold back my anger. Was this some side effect of the magic? Whatever was happening to me, it was no fault of the birds, even the surprising number of them that flew directly at me as I approached their nests. I continued on.

  “‘Don’t... want... curse...’

  “I couldn’t have used my sling on them if I’d wanted to anyway. My sling, together with my belt, knife, flint, waterskin and pack, had been left at Lord Gerrint’s camp. It seems that whatever powers had drawn me away from my sleep that night hadn’t considered my future needs. I didn’t know if that was an ominous sign for what the magic might do to me in the future, but I was certain that being lost in the middle of the Copperwood in just the clothes in which I stood was not ideal. It was scant consolation, but at least I had my boots.

  “‘Want... to... go... home!’

  “The sun was setting behind me now. I stopped, panting, but not exhausted despite having ran through the forest for the whole day. I’d eaten a few scraps of leaves, drank once around noon, and should have been feeling weak. However, I’d not stumbled or tripped even once. Clearly, the magic still had a hold of me.

  “Well, I’ll just have to run further tomorrow! I thought to myself.

  “I scraped together a meal of sorts from leaves and berries, pulled my hood over my head, and lay down to sleep.

  “The woman sitting by my sleeping form was lithe and willowy, her head adorned with long copper tresses that rustled as she moved. She looked at me impassively. I sat up and scowled at her.

  “‘This is a dream, or magic, or both, and I don’t want any of it, if you please, my lady. I just want to be Ulthunc and go back home.’ There was an anger within me still, not caused by the woman, but a roiling mass of rage that just wanted a target. She was there, she was the target that the rage would choose if I let it, but I wasn’t having any of it and held myself back from leaping at her.

  “Her expression did not change as she spoke.

  “‘Strange. The power has always chosen the vanquisher of its previous host, and they have grown with its terrible might, unable to fight what it would do to them. But you resist.’

  “‘I don’t want the magic, I don’t want a curse, I don’t want any sword and I don’t want this power, my lady. I’m sorry, I just want to leave the woods and go home.’

  “‘Do you not feel the urge to fight, to destroy?’

  “‘I’ve always been told that submitting to our urges is for the beasts, if you please. To control our urges is what makes a person a person. And I don’t want the magic, take it back please.’

  “She cocked her head to one side as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. Then she smiled, and it was like a breath of wind on a hot summer’s day and the kiss of the sun in midwinter all rolled into one.

  “‘It is not I that gave you the magic. You gathered it to yourself by slaying is last wielder, even though you did not mean to do so. Perhaps you are what was needed to free the Copperwood from this bane. Perhaps you are the one to control its power. But heed my advice, you must...’ But then she stopped her speech mid-sentence, her face transformed into a rictus of horror and pain. She looked down at my hand, and with a sound like the felling of a score of trees, she was gone.

  “I looked down at my hand, then moved it back as if stung. There, laying by my side, was the sword I had left behind at the crystal.

  “Petrosk was still there as I woke up. I got to my feet and stared at it from several yards distance.

  “There was no sign of the lady with the copper hair, except for her words in my memory. Even so, I knew my dream had not been a dream, in much the same way as I now realised my departure from Lord Gerrint’s camp had not been a dream. I think my seeing her as a woman had been the only dreamed thing, although I think the words she spoke to me were real.

  “Years later, on the other side of the Copperwood, I would come across a small shrine. I entered it, and saw on the wall a picture of a woman very like the one in my dream. I am not certain, but I believe that she was the spirit of the Copperwood itself. And she wanted me to save the Copperwood from a bane. I eyed Petrosk. Was that the bane, or was it the tool to rid the world of the bane? It would be years before I finally found the answer to the question.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “At the time, though, I was still having none of it. No magic, no sword and then no curse. Deep within, I think I knew that my fate had already been laid upon me, but I did not want to accept that.

  “I ran from the clearing again.

  “Several days passed in this way. I would spend my time heading north-east, hoping to find the Boar’s trail, Maiden’s Mere, or (even better) the edge of the Copperwood. Every night I fell asleep, only to wake to find Petrosk lying by my side in the morning. I would feed myself as best as I could from what I could forage in the woods on passing. Here, the magic showed its boon. There was no way that I was taking on enough food to do that much exertion, yet I somehow continued.

  “Every night I would try to improve my situation somehow. I made a sort of cord from nettle stems and tried to fashion that into a snare. The first attempt caught something in the night, but that something gnawed through the stems and escaped. On the fourth night I managed to catch an elderly rabbit. After an infuriatingly unsuccessful attempt to skin and gut it using a reasonably sharp stone, I found myself looking thoughtfully at Petrosk. There was quite an internal tussle between my appetite and my stubbornness before I finally ripped open my prey with my fingers.

  “Between catching the rabbit, preparing it, lighting the fire (very tricky without using steel), cooking and eating my catch, it was late in the morning before I set off. I was certain I was heading in the right direction, but the woods remained completely unfamiliar to me. It did cross my mind that I could have been moved back towards the centre of the Copperwood each night as I slept, but if that were the case then whatever force was doing the movement was also shifting the area around me. Trees and streams remained in the same places, while my snares were where I’d left them the night before. Was it possible, I wondered as I ran on through the never ending trees, that to make any real progress I needed to take the sword with me? But that felt like a conscious acceptance of the magic. I had only held the sword that one time, as I pulled it from the crystal and my body was not under my control. I was resolved never to willingly touch it.

  “Obviously, I was unable to keep that resolution.

  “Two nights after the rabbit (a phrase which shows how unsuccessful I had been with my snares), I slept soundly by the bank of a brook. I had set a trap in the stream before sleeping, a series of sticks driven into the stream bed that would hopefully funnel in a fish before trapping it. My stomach had begun to grumble at the diet of mainly uncooked roots, leaves and berries. With luck, my breakfast would be waiting for me in the morning.

  “A creature was waiting for me in the morning, but it was neither a trapped fish nor a rabbit.

  “I woke immediately and fully, as had become the norm for me, to the sound of movement and growls. There was a large, grey wolf moving towards me, mere yards away, its eyes fixed on my once sleeping form, snarling, with froth flecked mouth. This did not seem like the ordinary behaviour of a lone wolf in summer. At once, I rolled over and sprang to my feet, aware that Petrosk was in my hand. I was equal parts dismayed that I had instinctively grasped it and relieved that I had something with which to defend myself. Because there was no doubt that the wolf was readying itself to pounce.

  “Its leap was expected, yet startled me all the same. I took a half step back as this beast, whose open maw seemed to me to be exceptionally large and to have far more teeth than it should, hurtled through the air. Surprised as I was, my arm was already swinging around in front of me, reflexively acting in a way it never had before. The blade seemed to catch the light from somewhere, or else sent forth its own glimmer, as it arced through the air. I must have missed, I thought, feeling no resistance, but then the air seemed stained red with blood and the wolf crashed into me with no clawing nor biting. Instead it was the impact of a heavy limp body which knocked me off my feet.

  “The sword fell to my side, strangely clean of the blood that was staining my upper body.

  “That day I took the sword with me as I made my way through the forest.

  “There was an element of resignation. I had picked up the sword, I had used it, I had killed with it. It could be argued that I did it unconsciously or instinctually (though I still wondered about the source of those instincts), but I had not been compelled to do so by any outside force. There was also an acceptance that whatever this magic was, it had already caught hold of me. I had slept six nights since the crystal in the clearing, and every morning I had awoken to find Petrosk lying there at my side. Any hope I’d had in evading my fate was revealed to have been less than a dream.

  “There was also an element of acceptance. Although it was summer and the wild beasts of the Copperwood were not as hungry, and therefore dangerous, as they might be in the winter, yet I was still a solitary, unarmed man moving through a forest. I balked at the word ‘lost,’ I might not have known where I was, but I was certain I would find my way out. And the magic would help me. Indeed, it already had been helping me: I had been able to run at a reasonable pace through the trees for six long days with little food. I was beginning to feel the strain on my body, but it was still a remarkable feat.

  “It therefore shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I was growing increasingly expectant of finding the edge of the Copperwood at any point. With the sword to help me (and I was planning on using it to skin and gut any animals I’d caught, chop kindling and start my fires as a form of petty revenge on it), my journey should become easier. The only possible drawback was a decrease in my speed of movement when carrying Petrosk. A sword is not a natural or safe thing to carry when running a distance. Yet as the day went on, I found myself moving as quickly as before. I was surprised to find that I was not bashing into the sword, or cutting myself as I ran. Indeed, the stiffness and aches in my body fell away as I carried it.

  “I don’t now believe that the Copperwood had been hauling my further back into its heart each night, but at the time I felt a weird sense of vindication when I stumbled onto Maiden’s Mere at the end of that day, sword in hand. I had caught the scent of mould and decay as I approached, had greeted the foul smell as if it were an old friend and kept going a little further than I would normally have done. The sun was already down by the time I stumbled through the trees onto the shoreline. The vague outline of the Mere was familiar but different, and I suspected that I had emerged more to the west of where I had been a week earlier. A more detailed exploration would have to wait until the morning.

  “Where we had fought the Boar was apparent only from its body, swollen even greater by decay. I observed it from the shoreline as the last of the morning mists were burned away by the sun. It had been moved from where we had left it, an abortive attempt having been made to drag it to shore, but it was still some distance out into the Mere. The biggest change, however, was its decapitation. The head had been clearly removed from its body, and even from this distance I could see that it had been accomplished with difficulty. From the size of the head, I would have guessed that it had weighed as much as two men just by itself.

  “There should have been a far more obvious marker of what had happened here than just the Boar’s body. When I was last there, the treeline had been burned for dozens of yards on either side of where the Boar had entered the Mere, yet now the gap had been filled in by new growth. I say new growth, but there were saplings there that overtopped my height and looked to be several years old. I was seized by a sudden panic that my travels in the Copperwood had lasted years rather than days. It was only through looking back at the Boar’s body, in the first stages of decay, that I managed to reassure myself that all was well.

  “I had hoped there would be somebody there to greet me, but aside from myself and the slain Boar, there was nobody. I looked around and called out.

  “‘Gwilm? Dorcae? Hello?’

  “My voice sounded strange in my own ears, tripping and stumbling over the names. I realised it was the first time I had spoken in days. It had been longer since I had heard another human voice. I listened in silence for several minutes, but there was no reply.

  “I suspected it was not far from Maiden’s Mere to Appleford, and resolved to follow the river flowing out from the Mere northwards in the hope that it would lead me there. I soon became frustrated. I had grown used to travelling in what I hoped to be a straight line through the Copperwood (I would have doubted I was that accurate a navigator, yet I had somehow arrived at Maiden’s Mere after a week’s travel: I would discover that my sense of direction had become uncannily accurate), but the river looped and wound through the trees as rivers are wont to do. I fell asleep that night irritated and annoyed, almost wishing that I had been attacked by a wolf or bear so that I had something on which to vent my rage.

  “The irritation bled into my dreams. I was rushing through the trees, desperate to get somewhere. There was fire behind me, but it was of no concern. All of a sudden, I burst through the trees and was again back at Maiden’s Mere. Small figures tried to assault me, but I brushed them aside with ease. I caught a glimpse of one of their faces.

  “Shev.

  “Suddenly, the faces of all the attackers swam into focus. Gwilm, Dorcae, Torrea, Jerrol, the serjeant, Alric, Galad. Myself. My perception shifted.

  “Wait, this wasn’t how it happened, I thought, now seeing out of my smaller self’s eyes. A gigantic boar, whose head shifted between my own and the Boar’s, thrashed and splashed through the water, now throwing somebody to one side with tusks and snout, now baring its neck to mortal blows. At once, the creature was defeated, its head falling from its body. A burned and scarred Jerrol linked arms with Dorcae and the two of them dragged it away through the woods. I saw my own eyes, but monstrously huge, blink at me as they were pulled away. I was left alone in the Mere, unsure how to leave.

  “I awoke in a cold sweat, crying out into the pre-dawn light. Stumbling to my feet with a lack of grace I thought had been forever lost to me, I spent several anxious moments checking my height as best I was able against nearby trees.

  “Eventually, I began to laugh at myself. I’d clearly not been turned into some monster, unless my clothes had been magicked to grow alongside me. Even then, I couldn’t have grown so large that I dwarfed trees and people without noticing.

  “It seemed strange that I was not more affected by the dream-self abandoned on the Mere. I supposed if that dream-self had thought logically (although thinking logically in dreams is a sure-fire way of waking up), he could easily have left the Copperwood just by following the trail left by the head of the Boar...

  “I cursed dream-self and my waking self for fools. Logic might be anathema to dreams, but that dream had got my thought processes, or their lack, down pat.

  “Two days later, after having doubled back to the Mere and travelled further around it until I had found the (fairly obvious, even after some days) trail left by a score of people moving a monstrous Boar’s head. This led me through the trees around a low hill to the east of the Mere, where it joined to a well-used path. I practically sprinted along that path, only stopping when I had finally left the Copperwood. Before me, I could see the welcome sight of fields filled with grain, cows contentedly grazing and smoke rising from thatch-roofed cottages.

  “Appleford.”