The Tangle Box

She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head quickly. “I don’t want to know.” There was fear in her voice, recognition that something was about to be stolen away. “What difference does it make to us here?”


He kept his voice calm, even. “By knowing who we are and where we come from, we give ourselves a chance to escape. Our only chance, I think.”

“How is it that you know and we do not?” she snapped at him, angry now, defensive.

“I was given a dream,” he told her. “In the dream I discovered what had happened to us. We have been trapped in this place by magic. We were sent here from another world, our world. Magic was used to make us forget who we are, to make us seem different. We were sent here to wander about forever, I think—to spend what was left of our lives futilely attempting to find a way out. But there is no way out of here except by using magic. You were right—magic alone can save us. But first we have to understand how that magic works. To do that, we have to understand ourselves, who we are, where we came from, what it is we do.”

“No,” she said quietly and shook her head back and forth. “Don’t say anything else.”

“I am not the Knight,” he said, pressing quickly ahead, anxious to get this over with. “I am Ben Holiday, King of Landover.”

Her hands flew to her mouth, shaking. She made a noise deep in her throat.

Unable to bear her look, Ben turned to the Gargoyle. The monster was staring at him, expressionless. “You are called Strabo. You are a dragon, not a Gargoyle.”

He turned back to the Lady, determined. “And you are…”

“Nightshade!” she hissed in fury. She shrank from him, and her smooth face contorted with despair and recognition. Holiday, what have you done to us? What have you done tome ?”

Ben shook his head. “We have done it to ourselves, each of us in turn. This place has made it possible. Magic stole our memories when we were sent here from the Heart. Do you remember? There was a man with a box. There were notes purportedly sent by each of us to the other, bait for the trap that was used to ensnare us. Some sort of spell rapped us about and sent us here, into the box . . .”

“Yes, I remember now!” Strabo growled, who in spite of having his identity uncovered still did not look like the dragon. “I remember the man and his box and the magic netting us like fish! Such power! But why was it done? look at me! How could I have been changed so?”

Ben knelt before him. The clearing was hushed and closed about. It was as if their world had stopped moving.

“We are in the fairy mists,” he said quietly. “Think about how we appear. We have become the things we most fear we might really be. You are a monster, loathed and despised, an outcast that no one wishes to look upon, hunted by all, blamed for everything that cannot otherwise be explained. And you cannot fly, can you? Your wings have been stripped away. Haven’t you always feared being earthbound? Flying has always provided you with a form of escape, no matter how terrible things were. Here, you have been cheated even of that.”

He paused. “And look at me. I am what I feared most to become. I am the King’s Champion, his handpicked destroyer, his butcher of enemies, nameless and empty of everything but my fighting skills and my desire to use them. Even my armor has become a weapon, a monstrous apparition called the Haze that eliminates any enemy who threatens. I fear killing more than anything, and so for me it comes to pass.”

He stopped himself, unwilling to say more. They did not know he was the Paladin, only that the Paladin served the King. He would not have them know more.

“Nightshade,” he said softly, turning back to her again. She crouched down like a cornered beast. “What is it you fear most? What frightens you? Loss of your magic, certainly. You have said as much. But something more ...”

“Silence!” she screamed.

“Being human,” Strabo snapped. “She loses power when she acknowledges her humanness. Her emotions make her weak; they steal away her strength. She must not let herself feel. She must not be tender or soft or give love ...”

Nightshade flew at him, nails raking at his face, but Ben pushed her aside, bore her to the ground, and pinned her there while she spit and screamed like a madwoman. Nightshade had been changed in more ways than one, he thought as he held her. He would never have been able to do this in Landover, for Nightshade had ten times his strength. She was indeed without her power.