Medieval 02 - Forbidden

Meg once to an ancient place,” Simon said without looking away from Stagkiller. “The dogs lost her scent.”
    “Did they pick it up again?” Erik asked.
    “No.”
    “Did you search the place?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” asked Cassandra.
    “I was backtracking. I already knew where Meg was.”
    Cassandra and Erik looked at each other.
    “Search Stone Ring,” Erik invited.
    Simon reined his horse over to the stones. The stallion refused to walk between. Circling the ring, Simon tried several more times, finally using his spurs. No matter where he pointed the stallion, or what prodding he gave the horse, it refused the trail.
    Dismounting, Simon walked warily up to the circle. When he looked inside, he saw nothing remarkable. Rocks. Random weeds. Stones canted and covered with moss. A low mound. Mist writhing and lifting in a thousand silver veils.
    With an impatient oath, Simon set off between the stones on foot. Every instinct he had was on edge, quivering with alertness. Yet he saw nothing. He heard nothing.
    No tracks but his own showed in the mist-drenched grass. A quick turn around the base of the mound and over its top told him that the mound had neither an entrance nor any rock large enough to hide behind.
    Relieved, Simon turned his back on the mound and headed for the standing stones where his battle stallion nervously waited. Just as Simon reached for the reins, he stopped, remembering something he had been told when he had first come to Stone Ring Keep as a knight on a quest.
    “Is this where you found Duncan?” Simon called to Erik.
    “Aye. On top of the mound, at the foot of the rowan tree, inside the second ring of stones.”
    Simon spun back toward the mound. He narrowed his eyes against the watery sunlight that was somehow so brilliant it forced him to squint. For a moment he thought he saw the elegant line of a rowan, but it was only a curl of mist rising.
    Uneasily Simon looked around once more. As he had thought, there was only one ring of stones.Even so, he kept glimpsing a second, ghostly ring from the corner of his eye.
    Yet when he looked straight on, there was nothing but mist.
    With an impatient curse, Simon mounted and rode back to where Cassandra and Erik waited with a thoroughly downcast Stagkiller.
    “That can’t be where you found Duncan,” Simon said. “There is no rowan here, and only one ring of stones.”
    “If you say so, then it must be so,” Cassandra said.
    “What do you say?” Simon demanded of Erik.
    “Sometimes Learned eyes see differently.”
    “Then in the name of God, go and look .”
    Without a word, Erik and Cassandra rode to the ring of stones. Their horses switched their tails and minced warily between the large standing stones, but otherwise made no protest. A few yards farther into the ring, the animals visibly calmed. When their riders dismounted, both horses set to grazing as though in a familiar meadow.
    Simon watched the two figures climb the mound. Silhouetted against the brilliant, misty sky, they were almost impossible to see. Using his hand, Simon shaded his eyes against the light that was both soft and yet so intense it made his eyes water to stare directly. Finally he managed to clear his vision.
    Erik and Cassandra were gone.
    A chill went over Simon in the instant before he realized that they must have walked down the far side of the mound and out of his sight. With a savage word, he blinked rapidly, then narrowed his eyes against the light.
    There was no one on the mound.
    His horse snorted and yanked on the rein. Simon looked at the stallion, saw that it wanted only to graze, and looked back at the mound.
    Cassandra and Erik were silhouetted against the sky once more. Their outlines wavered for a moment, as though they were reflections on the surface of a slightly disturbed pond.
    Simon blinked.
    When he looked again at the mound, Erik and Cassandra were walking toward him, talking in low voices. A peregrine arrowed down from the brilliant gray sky to land on Erik’s wrist.
    “What did you find?” Simon asked impatiently.
    “Amber was here,” Cassandra said.
    “And?”
    “Now she is gone,” Erik said.
    “But your hound found no trail,” Simon objected.
    “Did your hounds do better at Blackthorne Keep?”
    Simon grunted. “Where is Amber?”
    Erik looked at Cassandra. The Learned woman was braiding her hair with fingers that shook.
    “Where is Amber?” Simon asked Cassandra harshly.
    “I don’t know.”
    “What does