The Tangle Box

Cradling the baby in her arms, she began to walk on once again.

It was nearing midmorning by the time Ben Holiday reached the country just south of the Deep Fell. He would never have gotten there that fast if Strabo had not offered to trade him a ride for possession of the Tangle Box. The dragon had wanted the box from the first, but Ben had refused to give it up, not convinced that it should be in anyone’s possession but his own.

“Let me have it, Holiday,” the dragon had argued. “I will keep it in a place no one can reach, in a fire pit deep within the Wastelands where no one goes.”

“But why would you want it at all?” Ben asked. “What would you do with it?”

The dragon had flown back from his assault on the demons. They were alone in the center of the meadow. Horris Kew slumped on the ground some yards away. Questor Thews and Abernathy had not yet reached them.

The dragon’s voice was wistful. “I would take it out and look at it from time to time. A dragon covets treasures and hoards precious things. It is all we have left from our old life—all I have left, now that I am alone.” Strabo’s horned head dipped close. “I would keep it hidden where it could never be found. I would keep it just for me.”

Ben had interrupted the conversation long enough to intervene between a sodden, angry Abernathy, who had just come rushing up, and a terrified Horris Kew, and assisted by Questor Thews had restored some small measure of peace between them. The conjurer had saved their lives, after all, he reminded his much-distressed scribe. He went on then to dismiss Kallendbor and his army, exacting an oath from the Lord of Rhyndweir to appear before him in one week’s time for an accounting of his actions. He ordered his Guard to disperse those people who had come looking for mind’s eye crystals and found a great deal more than they had bargained for, back to wherever it was they had come from.

Then he remembered Willow. He went immediately to the Landsview and found her just as she was climbing free of the Deep Fell. Nightshade’s domain, he thought in horror, and no place for the sylph. He was thinking of Nightshade’s parting words to him. He was thinking what the witch might do to Willow if she were given half a chance.

It was a two-day ride to the Deep Fell—far too long under the circumstances. So he struck a bargain with Strabo. A ride to the Deep Fell and back in exchange for the Tangle Box, if the dragon promised that no one else would ever set eyes on it and no one, including the dragon, would ever attempt to open it. Strabo agreed. He extended his firm and unbreakable promise. He gave his dragon’s oath. It was enough, Questor Thews whispered in a short aside. A dragon’s word was his bond.

So off Ben went aboard Strabo, winging through the storm winds and rain, finally passing out of black clouds and into blue skies. The sun shone anew on the land, spilling golden light across the grasslands and bills running north, cutting a swath of brightness through the fading dark.

“She is there, Holiday,” the dragon called back when they grew close, its sharp eyes finding the sylph much quicker than Ben’s.

They swooped down onto the crest of a hill, a scattering of woods running right and left. Willow appeared from across a meadow of wildflowers and Bonnie Blues, and Ben ran to meet her, heedless of everything else. She called to him, her face radiant, tears coming into her eyes once more.

He raced up to her and abruptly stopped, the bundle in her arms a fragile barrier between them. What was she carrying? “Are you all right?” he asked, anxious to be reassured that she was well, eager just to hear her voice.

“Yes, Ben,” she answered. “And you?”

He nodded, smiling. “I love you, Willow,” he said.

He could see her throat constrict “Come see our child,” she whispered.

He came forward a step, closing the small distance between them, expectation and disbelief racing through him. It was too quick, he thought. It was not yet time. She had not even looked pregnant. How could she have given birth so fast?

The questions vanished in the afterglow of her smile. “The baby?” he said, and she nodded.

She parted the folds of her cloak so he could see. He bent down and peered inside.

A pair of dazzling green eyes stared boldly back.





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