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."
The kender sighed loudly in the silence, making the
company jump. "But what about the stag? And doesn't the
story have an end?"
Forget the stag, the listening animal thought. And no:
there is no end. There will never be an end.
"The stag. Right." The dwarf thought a moment.
"There was something - "
The listening stag was relieved when the dwarf
admitted, "I don't know exactly what happened to the stag.
He died, too, and he had some kind of punishment for his
betrayal. He and the king are tied together, but the story is
all twisted up by now; in some versions the king and his
men hunt the stag, in some they hunt a unicorn, and in some
they hunt the Forest-master, whatever the Forestmaster is.
But I know that the stag is like the king; he's punished every
night for being a traitor. He has to repeat the betrayal over
and over, and he and the king can break out of it only if they
fulfill their vows of service and loyalty to the Forestmaster.
Only they can't. Somebody else is pledged to guard Darken
Wood now, and the story says that the stag is too proud or
angry or something to renew his vow of service. So there
isn't an end. Yet," he finished uncertainly.
"Not a good story," the kender said firmly
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