The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1

The wizard’s smile was strangely gentle. “So that you would know how much I believe in you, High Lord Ben Holiday. The others have argued their belief persuasively and eloquently, but you appear unwilling to listen. I am hoping that this admission to you will accomplish what they, apparently, have not and make you believe in yourself. I think you the King that Landover has waited for. I think that my half-brother fears this as well. He has shown more than a little concern over your refusal to give up when so many before you would have done so long ago. He worries that you will find a way to keep the throne. He is frightened of you, High Lord.”

Willow seized Ben’s arm tightly. “Listen to him, Ben. I believe him.”

Questor sighed wearily. “I had what I believed to be good reason for doing as my half-brother asked. I would not have been given the position of court wizard had I refused. I knew that I could do nothing to help the land if the position were not mine. I believed that the help I could give as court wizard would outweigh any damage my reports might do. It was not until just recently that I began to surmise the fate of those who had purchased the Kingship and failed to stay on. By then it was too late to help them …”

His voice broke. “My half-brother made a further bargain with me, High Lord—a bargain that, I am ashamed to admit, I could not bring myself to refuse. His books of magic, the secrets of the conjuring acquired by wizards since the dawn of the land, are concealed within the Kingdom. Only he knows where. He could not take them out with him, and he has promised them to me. Each time a new King fails, he gives me a bit more of the magic with which to work. I do nothing to aid his plan, High Lord—but the need for the magic is an irresistible lure. Bits and pieces aid me in my learning. I know that he will never give the books to me; I know that he uses me as his pawn. But I believe that sooner or later he will say one word more than he should or give up one secret too many, and I will be able to find the books without him and use them to put an end to him!”

The owlish face twisted sharply in on itself, lines cutting to the bone. “I let myself be used, High Lord, because I saw no other way. My intentions have always been good ones. I want this land restored to what it was. I would do anything to achieve that. I love this land more than my own life!”

Ben studied him silently, conflicting emotions washing through him. Willow still grasped his arm, her fingers insistent, their pressure telling him that she thought Questor spoke the truth. Abernathy still looked wary. The kobolds stood mute beside him, and he could read nothing in their dark faces.

He looked back again at the wizard. His own voice was rough. “Questor, you suggested to me more than once that I could use the medallion to return safely to my own world.”

“It was necessary that I test the depth of your commitment, High Lord!” the other whispered fiercely. “It was necessary that you be given the choice!”

“And if I had elected to use the medallion?”

The silence was endless. “I would like to believe, High Lord … that I would have stopped you.”

There were sudden tears in the other’s eyes. Ben read the mix of shame and hurt reflected there. “I would like to believe so, too, Questor,” he said softly.

He thought a moment, then put his hand on the wizard’s shoulder. “How do you communicate with Meeks, Questor? How do you speak with him?”

Questor took a moment to compose himself, then dug into the folds of his clothing and pulled something free. Ben stared. It was the crystal that Questor had been wearing when Ben had first crossed into Landover. Ben had all but forgotten it. He had seen it several times since, but had never given it more than a passing thought.

“The crystal is his, High Lord,” Questor explained. “He gave it to me when he departed Landover. I warm it with my hands, and his face appears within it. I can speak with him then.”

Ben studied the crystal wordlessly for a moment, looking into the depthless facets, peering through the rainbow of colors that shimmered within. The crystal hung from a silver chain fastened to a ring screwed into its apex.

He looked at Questor. “Has Meeks any other source of contact with Landover?”

The wizard shook his head. “I think not.”

Ben hefted the crystal experimentally. “Do you have enough faith in me to give the crystal up, Questor?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

“The crystal is yours, High Lord,” the wizard replied at once.

Ben nodded and smiled faintly. He passed the crystal back to Questor. “Summon up Mr. Meeks for me, would you, please?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Questor placed the crystal within his palms and cupped them together. Willow, Abernathy, and the kobolds pressed close. Ben felt his heart race. He had not expected to encounter Meeks so soon again; but now that it was about to happen, he looked forward to it eagerly.

Questor opened his palms carefully and picked the crystal up by its chain. Meeks peered out of the crystal’s center, surprise mirrored in his sharp eyes.

Ben bent down so that his eyes were even with those of Meeks. “Good day, Mr. Meeks,” he greeted. “How are things in New York?”

The craggy old face went dark with anger, the eyes baleful as they stared back. Ben had never seen such hatred.

“Don’t feel like talking?” Ben smiled his best courtroom smile. “Can’t say that I blame you. Things aren’t working out all that well for you, are they?”

The black-gloved hand came up in warning as Meeks tried to say something.

“No, don’t bother answering,” Ben cut him short. “Nothing you have to say would interest me. I just want you to know one thing.” He took the crystal from Questor and held it up before him. The smile disappeared. “I just want you to know that the wheels are about to come off your wagon!”

Then he carried the crystal to a stand of rocks that jutted through the earth of a nearby hillside and smashed the orb against them until it was reduced to fragments. He ground the fragments into the earth with his boot.

“Good-bye, Mr. Meeks,” he said quietly.

He turned. His companions were watching him, standing in a knot where he had left them. He walked slowly back to where they waited. Their eyes remained riveted on him.

“I guess that’s the last of Mr. Meeks,” he offered. “It appears that we are back to square one.”

“High Lord, please allow me to say something,” Questor asked. He was agitated, but he composed himself. “High Lord, you cannot give up.” He glanced awkwardly at the others. “Perhaps I have lost everyone’s trust because of what I have done. Perhaps it would be best if I were to go no further with you. I accept that. But you, at least, must go on. Abernathy, Bunion, Parsnip, and Willow, too, will stay with you. They believe in you, and they are right to do so. You have the wisdom, compassion, strength, and courage of which they spoke. But you have something else, High Lord Ben Holiday. You have something that no other King of Landover has shown for many a year—something a King of Landover must have. You have determination. You refuse to quit when another man would. A King needs that quality most of all.”

He paused, his stooped form straightening. “I did not lie when I told you that my half-brother sees that determination in you and is frightened by it.” He shook his head admonishingly. “Do not quit now, High Lord. Be the King that you have wished to be!”

He had finished, and he waited for Ben’s response. Ben glanced at the others—at Willow, the fire in her eyes a reflection of more than her trust; at Abernathy, sardonic and wary; at Parsnip and Bunion, their monkey faces sharp and cunning with hidden knowledge. Each face was like an actor’s mask in some bizarre piece of theater, and the play a thing not yet finished. Who were they really, he wondered—and who was he?

Suddenly he was a lifetime away from everything that had come before his journey into this strange world. Gone were the corporate high rises, the lawyers, the judicial system of the United States of America, the cities, the governments, the codes, and the laws. It was all gone, everything that had ever been. There was only what never was—dragons, witches, fairy creatures of all sorts, castles and knights, damsels and wizards, things of magic and things of enchantment. He was starting life over, and all of the rules were new. He had jumped into the abyss, and he was still falling.

Quite unexpectedly, he started to grin. “Questor, I have no intention of quitting.” The grin broadened. “How could I possibly quit in the face of such an eloquent testimonial of faith? How could I possibly quit with friends such as you to stand with me?” He shook his head slowly, as much at his own madness as at theirs. “No, the beat goes on, and so do we.”

Willow was smiling. The kobolds hissed their approval. Questor looked relieved. Even Abernathy nodded his agreement.

“One condition, however.” The grin disappeared from his face. He stepped forward and put his hand gently on Questor’s shoulder. “We started together, and we finish together. What’s past is past, Questor. We need you with us.”

The wizard stared at him in disbelief. “High Lord, I would do anything you asked of me, but … I cannot …” He glanced at the others self-consciously.

“A vote,” Ben called out at once. “Does Questor go with us? Bunion? Parsnip?” The kobolds nodded. “Willow?” The sylph nodded as well.

He paused and looked at Abernathy. “Abernathy?”

Abernathy faced him silently and made no gesture either way. Ben waited. The scribe might have been chiseled out of stone. “Abernathy?” he repeated softly.

The dog shrugged. “I think he knows less about character than he does about magic, but I also think he meant no real harm. Let him come.”

Ben smiled. “Well done, Abernathy,” he commended. “We are a company once more.” He looked at Questor. “Will you come with us?”

Flushing, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, the wizard nodded eagerly. “Yes, High Lord, I will.”

Ben glanced at each of them in turn, thinking momentarily that they were all nuts, then turned to study the sky. The sun was a fuzzy white glow through the mist and clouds, its center directly overhead. It was nearing midday.

“I suppose that we had better be going, then,” he said.

Abernathy’s teeth clicked sharply. “Umm … going where, High Lord?” he asked hesitantly.

Ben came up to him and put his hands on the dog’s furry shoulders. He glanced conspiratorially at the others. “Where I told the Crag Trolls we were going, Abernathy; where we should have been going all along.”

The scribe stared at him. “And where is that, High Lord?”

Ben smiled solemnly. “To the Deep Fell, Abernathy. To Nightshade.”

DEEP FELL



They thought Ben Holiday mad. They thought it to varying degrees, perhaps, but the vote was unanimous. The kobolds expressed it with a quick hiss and frightening, humorless grins. Willow’s green eyes mirrored it, and she shook back her waist-length hair in disapproval. Questor and Abernathy were aghast, and both began talking at once.

“You have taken leave of your senses, High Lord!” the scribe exploded.

“You cannot risk placing yourself in the hands of the witch!” the wizard admonished.

Ben let them go on a bit, then sat them all down and patiently explained himself. He had not taken leave of his senses, he assured them. On the contrary, he knew exactly what he was doing. He might be taking some risk in going down into the Deep Fell and confronting Nightshade, but there was risk in almost any alternative left to him at this point and no other alternative made as much sense or offered the same opportunities.

Think about it, he urged. The key to every door closed against him lay in use or acquisition of magic. It was magic that had given life to the land and those who lived upon it in the beginning; it was loss of magic that threatened to steal that life away now. The medallion was a thing of magic, enabling him to pass from his world into theirs and—if need be—out again. The Paladin was a thing of magic, and magic was needed to bring him back to them. The castle at Sterling Silver was a thing of magic, and magic was needed to save it. Most of the land’s creatures were creatures of magic, and magic was what they understood, respected and feared. The Lords of the Greensward wanted Ben to rid them of the dragon, and it would take magic to do that. The River Master wanted the land’s inhabitants to work with him to heal the land, and that would probably take some form of magic as well. The Mark and his demons were a dark magic that threatened to destroy them all, and it would take a very powerful form of white magic, indeed, to prevent that from happening.

He paused. Who was most likely, then, to have access to the magic that he needed in order to begin to put things right again? Who possessed magic that the others did not?

Sure, there was risk. There was always risk. But no one had gone to Nightshade in many years; no one had even thought to try. No King of Landover had sought her allegiance since the death of the old King. Since before that, Abernathy interjected firmly—the old King wanted nothing to do with her either. All the more reason to see her now, Ben insisted. She could be talked to. Perhaps she could be persuaded. Possibly, if all else failed, she could be tricked.

His companions stared at him in horror.

He shrugged. Very well, forget the part about tricking her. She was still their best bet. She was possessor of the land’s most powerful magic—Questor had said as much in their lessons. The others fixed accusing eyes on the wizard. A bit of that magic might turn things about for him. He wouldn’t need much; enough to solve just one of the problems facing him would be plenty. Even if she refused her own magic, she might agree to arrange a meeting with the fairies; perhaps he could enlist their help.

He saw Willow cringe slightly at mention of the fairies, and for an instant he was no longer quite so sure of himself. But he shrugged the feeling off and went on with his argument. He had reasoned it through, and the solution to his problem was unmistakable. He had need of an ally to help bring the other inhabitants of Landover to terms. He would not find a more powerful ally than Nightshade.

Nor a more dangerous one, Questor pointed out bluntly.

But Ben was not to be dissuaded. The matter was decided and the journey about to commence. They were off to the Deep Fell. Anyone who didn’t care to go with him could stay behind—he would understand.

No one stepped back. But there were a lot of uneasy looks.

It was midday by now, and they traveled south through the hill country until nightfall. The weather remained foul, the clouds continuing to mass, the onslaught of rain to draw closer. Mist turned to fog as night descended, and it began to drizzle. The company made camp beneath an outcropping of rocks below a ridgeline draped by a grove of weathered ash. The damp and the dark closed about quickly, and the six travelers hunched down together in their shelter and ate a sparse meal of spring water, Bonnie Blues, and some odd roots collected by the resourceful Parsnip. The air turned chill, and Ben found himself wishing for a shot of his now-departed Glenlivet.

Dinner was completed rather quickly, and they began to give thought to their sleeping accommodations. They were without bedding of any kind; everything had been lost in their flight from the trolls. Questor volunteered his use of the magic, and this time Ben agreed. The kobolds seemed hardy enough, but the rest of them might well catch pneumonia by morning if they didn’t have something to help ward off the cold. Besides, Questor had shown improved control over the magic at the Melchor.

Such was not the case this night, however. The magic sparked and poofed, and several dozen flowered hand towels materialized. Questor grumbled about the weather and tried again. This time he produced burlap sacks. Now Abernathy was grumbling as well, and tempers were heating up faster than bodies. On the third try, the wizard conjured up a colorfully striped pavilion tent complete with sitting cushions and dressing boards, and Ben decided that they would settle for that.

They settled themselves in and one by one drifted off to sleep. Abernathy kept watch as he slept, his nose pointed out the tent flap, not entirely convinced that the trolls had given up on them.

Only Ben remained awake. He lay in the dark and listened to the sound of the rain as it drummed against the tent. He was beset with uncertainties that until now he had successfully ignored. He felt time slipping inexorably from him. Sooner than he wished, he knew, it was going to run out altogether. Then the Mark would have him or some other evil that he had no real protection against. Then he would be forced to use the medallion to save himself, even though he had sworn that he would not. What choice would he make then? What would he do when his life was really threatened—not by manor lords looking to box his ears or trolls looking to pen him up, but by some monster that could snuff his life out with nothing more than a thought? Such monsters were out there, he knew. Nightshade was out there.

He forced himself to think about the witch of the Deep Fell for a time. He had not let himself do so earlier; it was easier not to. He knew he had to go to her. It did not help matters to think about how dangerous that might be. Nightshade frightened the others badly, and nothing besides the Mark had done that. He might be biting off more than he could chew once again; he might be putting them all in a worse predicament than the one they had experienced in the camp of the Crag Trolls. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. He could not afford to do that. There might be no one to rescue them this time. He would have to be more careful; he would have to take steps to protect them.

Especially Willow, he thought. He glanced over to where she lay in the dark, trying to follow the line of her sleeping form. She had not transformed herself into and taken root as a tree this night. Evidently, she did so only periodically. He found that he was less repelled by the idea than he had previously been. Perhaps it was only the strangeness of the change that had bothered him so at first, and now he was used to the idea. Sometimes familiarity bred acceptance, not contempt.

He shook his head admonishingly. What you really mean, Holiday, is that she saved your skin, so now you can accept her. Bully for you.

His breathing evened out and his eyes closed. He wished she hadn’t given up so much to follow him. He wished that she had been a little less impulsive. It made him feel responsible for her, and he didn’t want that. She wanted it, of course. She saw things the way some child would see them—their fate told in the winding of vines on a bridal bed, their lives joined by a chance meeting at some midnight swim. She expected things from him that he wasn’t prepared to give to anyone.

His thoughts wandered, and his obstinacy slowly diffused. Perhaps the problem was not with her at all; perhaps it was with him. Maybe the real problem was that he simply didn’t have the things to give her that she was asking for. Perhaps he had lost everything good about himself when Annie had died. He didn’t want to think that, but perhaps it was so.

He was surprised to find tears in his eyes. He brushed them silently away, grateful that no one could see.

He let his thoughts slip away then, and he drifted down into himself. His dreams overtook him, and he slept.



He was awake early, the daylight still a faint blush against the eastern horizon where the mist rolled across the hills. The others of the little company were awake as well, stretching muscles cramped from sleeping in the damp and chill, yawning against the too quick passing of the night. The rain had died away to a spattering of drops from the leaves of the trees. Ben stepped from the pavilion tent into the half-light and walked to where a trickle of water spilled down out of the rocks through a gathering of heavy brush. He was bending down to catch a drink in his cupped hands when a pair of ferretlike faces poked out suddenly from the brush.

He jumped backward, water flying up into his face, a startled oath on his lips.

“Great High Lord,” a voice greeted quickly.

“Mighty High Lord,” a second voice echoed.

Fillip and Sot. Ben recovered his composure, forced himself with considerable effort to discard his impulse to throttle them both, and waited patiently as they worked their way free of their concealment. The G’Home Gnomes were a bedraggled pair, their clothing ripped and their fur matted with the rain. They appeared even dirtier than usual, if that was possible.

They waddled forward, eyes peering up at him in the near dark.

“We experienced some difficulty eluding the Crag Trolls, High Lord,” Fillip explained.

“We were hunted until dark, and then we could not determine where you had gone,” Sot added.

“We were frightened that you had been taken again,” Fillip said.

“We were afraid that you had not escaped,” Sot added.

“But we found your trail and followed it,” Fillip continued.

“We see poorly, but we have an excellent sense of smell,” Sot added.

Ben shook his head helplessly. “Why did you bother coming at all?” he asked, kneeling down so they were all at eye-level. “Why didn’t you simply go on home with the rest of your people?”

“Oh, no, High Lord!” Fillip exclaimed.

“Never, High Lord!” Sot declared.

“We gave our promise to serve you, if you should aid us in freeing our people,” Fillip said.

“We gave our word,” Sot said.

“You kept your part of the bargain, High Lord,” Fillip said.

“Now we intend to keep ours,” Sot finished.

Ben stared at them in disbelief. Loyalty was the last thing he had ever expected from these two. It was also the last thing he needed. Fillip and Sot were more likely to prove a source of trouble than a well of relief.

He almost told them so, but then he caught the look of determination on their faces and in their half-blind eyes. He reminded himself that the G’home Gnomes were the first to step forward and offer their pledge to Landover’s throne—the first, when no one else would. It seemed wrong to dismiss their offer of help out of hand when they were so willing to serve.

He straightened slowly, watching as their eyes followed him up. “We are going to the Deep Fell,” he advised them. “I plan to meet with Nightshade.”

Fillip and Sot looked at each other expressionlessly and nodded.

“Then we can be of service to you, High Lord,” Fillip said.

“Indeed, we can,” Sot agreed.

“We have gone into the Deep Fell on many occasions,” Fillip said.

“We know the hollows well,” Sot said.

“You do?” Ben didn’t even try to hide his amazement.

“Yes, High Lord,” Fillip and Sot said together.

“The witch pays little attention to creatures such as us,” Fillip said.

“The witch does not even see us,” Sot said.

“We will guide you safely in, High Lord,” Fillip offered.

“Then we will guide you safely out again,” Sot added.

Ben extended his hand and shook heartily each grimy paw. “You have yourselves a deal.” He grinned. The gnomes beamed. He drew back. “One question. Why did you wait until now to show yourselves? How long have you been crouching back there in the brush?”

“All night, High Lord,” Fillip admitted.

“We were afraid of the dog,” Sot whispered.

Ben brought them into the camp and announced to the others that the gnomes would be accompanying them to the Deep Fell. Abernathy was thoroughly dismayed and expressed the fact in no uncertain terms. It was one thing to agree to accept the wizard back into their company on the theory that he might prove useful—though he questioned how much use he would, in fact, be—but the gnomes were clearly of no use at all. He growled, and the gnomes shrank back uneasily. The kobolds hissed at them, and even Willow looked doubtful. But Ben was firm in his decision. The G’home Gnomes were coming with them.

They resumed their journey shortly after sunrise. They ate a quick breakfast of stems and leaves from the Bonnie Blues, Questor made the pavilion tent disappear in a flash of light and a puff of smoke, frightening the gnomes half to death in the process, and they were on their way. They traveled south and west on a meandering course that took them down out of the hill country and back into the forestland and lakes bordering the Greensward. Bunion led and the rest followed. It rained on and off, frequently misting like a veil of cold steam. The valley lay socked in by clouds and fog that formed an oddly bluish haze that rolled and mixed against the treetops and the dark, distant walls of the mountains. Flowers bloomed in the rain, and Ben found that odd. The flowers were pastel in color, fragile blooms that lasted only minutes and then withered. Rain flowers, Questor called them—evidencing a sorry lack of originality. They came with the rain and then they were gone. Once, in better times, they had enjoyed a lifespan of a dozen hours or more. But now, like everything else in the valley, they were stricken by the sickness. The magic no longer gave them more than a brief life.

The little company took a short break at mid-morning, settling themselves beside a spring grown thick with reeds, lilies, and cypress. The spring had a greenish-brown cast to it and nothing growing near looked healthy. Bunion set off in search of drinking water. It had begun to rain again, and the others clustered in twos and threes beneath the branches of the trees. Ben waited for a time, then caught Willow’s eye and took her aside where they could be alone.

“Willow,” he said gently. He knew this was going to be difficult. “I have been thinking about your coming with us into the Deep Fell—and wherever else we end up going. I don’t think that you should go any further. I think that you ought to return to your home in Elderew.”

She looked at him steadily. “I do not want to return home, Ben. I want to stay with you.”

“I know that. But I think that it is too dangerous for you to do so.”

“It is no more dangerous for me than it is for you. It may be that you will have need of my help again. I will stay.”

“I will write a letter explaining to your father that I wished you with me until now so that you will not be in trouble with him,” he went on. “I will come later to explain it to him myself.”

“I don’t want to go, Ben,” she said again.

The green cast of her face was darkened by the shadows of the cypress, and she seemed to Ben almost a part of the tree. “I appreciate your willingness to take the same risks that I take,” he said, “but there is no reason for you to do so. I cannot allow it, Willow.”

Her face tilted back slightly, and now there was sudden fire in her green eyes. “You have nothing to say about it, Ben. The decision is mine.” She paused, and it seemed as if she were staring right through him. “Why not tell me what is really on your mind, High Lord of Landover.”

He stared back at her in surprise, then slowly nodded his agreement. “Very well. I’m not sure how to say this. If I could keep you with me and be honest with myself, I think I would do so. But I cannot. I don’t love you, Willow. It may be that the fairy people discover love in a single sighting, but it doesn’t happen that way with me. I don’t believe in what the vines and the portents told you about how this would happen. I don’t believe that you and I are meant to be lovers. I think you and I are meant to be friends, but I can’t let you risk your life for me because of that!”

He stopped, feeling her hands catch up his own and gently hold them.

“You still do not understand, do you, Ben?” she whispered. “I belong to you because that is what is meant to be. It is truth woven in the fabric of the land’s magic, and though you may not see it, nevertheless it will come to pass. I feel love for you because I love in the way of the fairies—at first sighting and by promise. I do not expect that of you. But you will come to love me, Ben. It will happen.”

“Maybe so,” he acknowledged, gripping her hands tightly in response in spite of himself, finding her so desirable that he could almost admit that she might be right. “But I do not love you now. I find you the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I find myself wanting you so badly that I have to fight back the need for you.” He shook his head. “But, Willow, I cannot believe in the future that you seem to see so clearly. You don’t belong to me! You belong to yourself!”

“I belong to nothing if I do not belong to you!” she insisted fiercely. Her face leaned close to his. “Are you frightened of me, Ben? I see fear in your eyes, and I do not understand it.”

He took a deep breath. “There was someone else, Willow—someone who truly belonged to me and I to her. Her name was Annie. She was my wife, and I loved her very much. She was not as beautiful to look at as you, but she was pretty and she was … special. She died two years ago in an accident and I … I haven’t been able to forget her or to quit loving her or to love anyone else.”

His voice broke. He hadn’t realized it would be so difficult talking about Annie after all this time.

“You have not told me why are you afraid, Ben,” Willow pressed, her voice gentle, but insistent.

“I don’t know why I’m afraid!” He shook his head, confused, “I don’t know. I think it’s because when Annie died I lost something of myself—something so precious that I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back again. Sometimes I think I can’t feel anymore. I just seem to pretend …”

There were sudden tears in her eyes, and he was shocked. “Please don’t cry,” he asked her.

Willow smiled bitterly. “I think you are afraid to let yourself love me, because I am so different from what she was,” the sylph said softly. “I think you are afraid that if you let yourself love me, you will somehow lose her. I wouldn’t want that. I want what you were and are and will be—all that is you. But I cannot have that because you are afraid of me.”

He started to deny it, then stopped. She was right when she said that he was frightened of her. He saw her in his mind as she danced in the clearing of aged pines at midnight, changing from sylph to willow tree, rooting in the soil that her mother had danced upon. The transformation repelled him still. She was not human; she was something beyond and apart from that.

How could he ever love a creature so different from Annie … ?

Her fingers brushed at the tears that were slipping now from his own eyes. “I am life of the magic and subject to its will, Ben. So must you be; so will you be. Earth mother and heaven father made us both, and the land binds us.” She bent forward and kissed him on his cheek. “You will lose your fear of me and one day you will love me. I believe that.” Her breath was soft against his face. “I will wait for as long as that takes, Ben, but I will not leave you—not if you beg me, not if you command me. I belong to you. I belong with you. I will stay with you, though the risk is ten times as great as it is now. I will stay, though my own life be given up for yours!”

She rose, a rustle of long hair and clothing in the mid-morning stillness. “Do not ever ask me to leave you again,” she told him.

Then she walked quickly away. He stared after her wordlessly and knew that he would not.



The little company arrived at the Deep Fell shortly before midday. The rain had passed and the day brightened, though clouds still screened the whole of the sky. The smell of damp hung thick in the air, and the morning chill had sharpened.

Ben stood with his companions at the edge of the Deep Fell and stared downward. All but the rim of the bowl was screened away by a blanket of mist. The mist hung over everything, swirling sluggishly across a scattering of tree tops and ridges that poked through the haze like jagged bones from a broken corpse. Scrub choked the rim and upper slopes of the hollows, brambles and thickets that were wintry and stunted. Nothing moved in the pit. No sound came out of it. It was an open grave that waited for an occupant.

Ben eyed it uneasily. It was frightening to look upon—the more so from its edge than from the safety of the Landsview. It appeared monstrous to him, a sprawling, misshapen chasm carved from the earth and left to gather rot. He glanced momentarily at a stand of Bonnie Blues that grew close to the rim. They were blackened and withered.

“High Lord, it is not too late to rethink your decision,” Questor advised softly, standing at his elbow.

He shook his head wordlessly. The decision had been made.

“Perhaps we should wait until morning,” Abernathy muttered, glancing uneasily at the clouded sky.

Ben shook his head a second time. “No. No more delays. I’m going in now.” He turned to them, glancing from one face to the next as he spoke. “I want you to listen carefully and I don’t want any arguments. Fillip and Sot will go with me as guides. They say that they know the Deep Fell. I will take one other. The rest of you will wait here.”

“High Lord, no!” Questor exclaimed in disbelief.

“You would trust yourself to those … those cannibals!” Abernathy raged.

“You may have need of our protection!” Questor went on.

“It is madness for you to go alone!” Abernathy finished.

The kobolds hissed and bared their teeth in unmistakable disapproval, the G’home Gnomes chittered and shrank from the conflict, and the scribe and the wizard kept arguing, both at the same time. Only Willow said nothing, but she stared at Ben so hard that he could feel it.

He put up his hands to quiet them. “Enough, already! I told you that I didn’t want any arguments, and I don’t! I know what I’m doing. I’ve thought it through pretty carefully. We’re not going to have a replay of what happened in the Melchor. If I don’t come out when I should, I want someone free to come in after me.”

“It may be far too late for you by then, High Lord,” Abernathy pointed out bluntly.

“You said you were taking one other, High Lord,” Questor interjected quickly. “I assume you meant me. You may have need of my magic.”

“I may, indeed, Questor,” he agreed. “But not unless I run into trouble with Nightshade and need my chestnuts pulled out of the fire. You’re staying here with Abernathy and the kobolds. I’m taking Willow.”

The sylph’s hard stare turned to one of surprise.

“You would take the girl?” Questor exclaimed. “But what protection can she offer you?”

“None.” Ben watched her eyes turn introspective. “I’m not looking for protection. I’m looking for common ground. I don’t want the witch to think the King of Landover needs protection, and that is what she is likely to think if I descend on her with all of you. Willow is not so threatening. Willow is a fairy creature like the witch. They share a common background, and together Willow and I may be able to find the means to enlist Nightshade to our cause.”

“You do not know the witch, High Lord!” Questor insisted vehemently.

“You certainly do not!” Abernathy agreed.

Willow came forward then, and she took his arm gently. “They may be right, Ben. Nightshade is not likely to offer her help simply because of me. She cares nothing more for the lake country people than for the court at Sterling Silver. She cares nothing for anyone. This is very dangerous.”

He noticed that she did not offer to remain behind. She had already stripped away boots and forest cloak and stood next to him, barefoot in a pair of short pants and sleeveless tunic. “I know,” he answered her. “That is why Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds will remain here—to come to our rescue if we need it. If we all go in at once, we all risk falling victim to the same treachery. But if the strongest of us remain behind, the chances of rescue are improved.” He looked at the others. “Do you understand?”

There was a general grumbling of acknowledgment. “I respectfully submit that this whole idea is both dangerous and foolish, High Lord,” Abernathy declared.

“I would prefer to be there to advise you,” Questor argued.

Ben nodded patiently. “I respect your feelings, but I’ve made up my mind. Whatever risk there is, I don’t want anyone sharing it with me who doesn’t have to. If I could do this myself without endangering anyone, that’s what I would do. Unfortunately, I can’t.”

“No one has ever asked you to, High Lord,” Questor replied quietly.

Ben met his eyes. “I know. I could not have had better friends than you have been.” He paused. “But this is where it all ends, Questor. You have done for me all that you can. Time and choices are running out. I have to make something happen if I wish to be Landover’s King. I have that responsibility—to you, to the land, and to myself.”

Questor said nothing. Ben glanced briefly at the others. No one spoke. He nodded and reached for Willow’s hand. He fought back against the chill that had suddenly settled through him.

“Lead on,” he ordered Fillip and Sot.

Together, they started down into the pit.

NIGHTSHADE



It was like stepping off into a pool of blackened, fouled water. The mist rose to greet them, lapping anxiously at their boots. It climbed to their thighs and curled to their waists. It tugged at their shoulders and finally their necks. A moment later, they were submerged in it completely. Ben had to suppress a sudden urge to hold his breath against its suffocating tide.

His hand gripped Willow’s tightly.

The mist was an impenetrable screen, closing about them as if a blanket that would smother them. It clung to their skin with fingers of damp insistence, and its touch was an itch that scratching would not cure. The smell of rotting wood and earth filled the air, permeating the mist, giving it the texture of toxic liquid splashed upon the skin. An unpleasant warmth issued out of it, as if something huge were trapped within the murk and sweating in terror as its lifeblood was sucked steadily away.

Ben sensed the terror to be his own, and he fought back against it. The back and underarms of his tunic were damp, and his breathing was ragged. He had never been so frightened. It was worse than when the Mark had come for him in the time passage. It was worse than his encounter with the dragon. It was a fear of something felt and not seen. His feet picked their way mechanically down the scrub-choked slope; he was barely aware of their movement. He could see the stocky forms of the gnomes a few feet ahead of him as they doggedly worked their way forward. He could see Willow beside him, her green-skinned form ghostlike, the cornsilk hair on her head, calves and forearms trailing out behind her as if stirred by the mist. He could see bits and pieces of the scrub and rock about him, and of trees and ridges somewhere far ahead. He saw them and was blind to them. It was what he could not see and could only feel that commanded the focus of his attention. It was what was hidden that he seemed suddenly to see best.

His free hand searched for the medallion tucked within his tunic, and he fingered it reassuringly through the cloth.

The minutes dragged on as the four companions groped their way through the haze, eyes searching sightlessly. Then the slope leveled out, the mist thinned, and scrub turned to brush and forest. They had reached a plateau several dozen feet above the hollows floor. Ben blinked. He could see again. Trees spread away before him in a tangle of trunks, limbs, and vines, and ridges thrust upward sharply into their mass, cresting against a skyline that was canopied in roiling mist. The hollows rim had disappeared. Everything beyond was gone.

Ben pushed past the gnomes to stand on a small promontory that jutted out from the slope, and he stared into the wilderness. His breath caught sharply in his throat.

“Oh, my God!” he whispered.

The hollows spread away for as far as the eye could see—farther than was conceivably possible. The Deep Fell had mushroomed into something so vast that its walls could no longer contain it. The Deep Fell had grown as big as all of Landover!

“Willow!” he whispered urgently.

She was beside him at once. He pointed out into the forest, into the vast, endless tract of it, terror reflected in his eyes as he struggled to comprehend what he was looking at. She understood at once. Her hands closed about his, squeezing. “It is only illusion, Ben,” she said quickly. “What you see is not really there. It is only Nightshade’s magic at work. She has mirrored back a thousand times the whole of the hollows to frighten us away.”

Ben looked again. He saw nothing different, but he nodded as if he did anyway. “Sure—just a trick with magic to scare us off.” He took a deep breath. He was calm again. “Want to know something, Willow? It works pretty well.”

He gave her a quick smile. “How is it that you aren’t fooled?”

She smiled a pixie grin back. “The fairy in me senses such tricks.”

They continued their descent toward the hollows floor. Fillip and Sot seemed unbothered by the illusion. That was probably because their eyesight was so poor that they were unaware of the illusion, Ben decided. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.

They reached the hollows floor and paused. The tangle of the wilderness spread away before them, seemingly endless. Gnarled trunks and limbs twisted like spiders’ webs against the ceiling of mist, vines clung like snakes, and brush choked on itself in thick tangles. The earth was damp and yielding.

Fillip and Sot sniffed the air a moment, then started forward. Ben and Willow followed. They pushed ahead through the wilderness, finding paths where it seemed there could be none. The hollows wall disappeared behind them and the jungle closed about. It was eerily still. They neither saw nor heard another living thing. No animals called, no birds flew, no insects hummed. The light was weak, sunlight screened into a dim gray haze by the clouds of mist. Shadows lay over everything. There was a sense of having been swallowed whole. There was a feeling of having been snared.

They had not gone far when they encountered the lizards.

They were at the edge of a deep ravine and about to start down when Ben saw movement at the bottom. He brought the others to a hurried halt and peered cautiously into the shadows. Dozens of lizards clustered together in the pit of the ravine, their scaled, greenish black bodies slithering across one another, their wicked-looking tongues flicking at the misted air. They were all sizes, some as large as alligators, some as small as frogs. They blocked all passage forward.

Willow took Ben’s hand and smiled. “Another illusion, Ben,” she assured him.

“This way, High Lord,” advised Fillip.

“Come, High Lord,” invited Sot.

They descended into the pit and the lizards disappeared. Ben was sweating again and wishing he didn’t feel like such a fool.

Other illusions awaited them, and Ben was fooled each time. There was a monstrous old ash tree clustered thick with giant bats. There was a stream filled with piranhalike fish. Worst of all, there was the clearing in which vaguely human limbs stretched from the broken earth, clawed fingers grasping at anything that sought to pass through. Each time Willow and the gnomes led him resolutely forward, and the imagined dangers evaporated into the mist.

More than an hour slipped by before they reached the swamp. It was past midday. A vast marsh of reeds and quicksand stretched across their path for as far as the eye could see. Steam lifted from the marsh, and the quicksand bubbled as if fed by gasses from the earth below.

Ben glanced quickly at Willow. “Illusion?” he asked, already prepared for the answer she would give.

But this time she shook her head. “No, the swamp is real.”

The gnomes were sniffing the air again. Ben glanced out across the swamp. A crow sat on a branch of deadwood halfway across, a large, ugly bird with a streak of white cresting its head. It stared at him with its tiny, dark eyes, and its head cocked reflectively.

Ben glanced away. “What now?” he asked the others.

“There is a trail further on, High Lord,” Fillip answered.

“A pathway across the marsh,” Sot agreed.

They waddled ahead, following the line of the swamp, ferret faces lifted, testing the air with their noses. Ben and Willow trailed slowly after. A hundred feet further on, the gnomes turned into the swamp and proceeded to cross. The swamp looked no different here than anywhere else, but the ground was firm enough to hold them, and they were safely past in a few minutes’ time. Ben glanced back at the crow. It was still watching him.

“Let’s not get paranoid,” he muttered to himself.

They pressed on into the jungle. They had gone only a short distance further when Fillip and Sot became suddenly excited. Ben pushed quickly forward and found that the gnomes had discovered a nest of forest mice and flushed the family out. Fillip slipped into the brush on his belly, snaked through it soundlessly and emerged with one of the unfortunates firmly in hand. He bit off its head and gave the body to Sot. Ben grimaced, kicked Sot in the backside, and angrily ordered them both to get moving. But the memory of the headless mouse stayed with him.

He forgot about the mouse when they came up against the wall of brambles. The brambles lifted better than a dozen feet into the air, mingling with the trees and vines of the forest, stretching away into the distance. Again, Ben glanced at Willow.

“The brambles are real, too,” she announced.

Fillip and Sot tested the air, walked up and down the wall both ways, then turned right. They had gone about fifty feet when Ben saw the crow. It was sitting on the crest of the wall of brambles just above them and staring down. Sharp eyes fixed on Ben. He stared back momentarily and could have sworn the bird winked.

“Here, High Lord,” Fillip called.

“A passage, High Lord,” Sot announced.

The gnomes pushed through the brambles as if they didn’t exist, and Ben and Willow followed. The brambles parted easily. Ben straightened on the other side and glanced back. The crow was gone.

He saw the crow several times after that, sitting in trees or perching on logs, motionless as it watched him with those same secretive eyes. He never saw it fly and he never heard it call. Once he asked Willow if she saw it, too—none too certain that this wasn’t just another illusion. She said that she did see it, but that she had no idea what it was doing there.

“It seems to be the only bird in the hollows,” he pointed out doubtfully.

She nodded. “Perhaps it belongs to Nightshade.”

That was not a very reassuring thought, but there was nothing Ben could do about it, so he put the matter out of his mind. The jungle had begun to thin, the trunks, limbs, and vines giving way to small clearings in which pockets of mist hung like tethered clouds. There was a brightening in the sky ahead, and a hint of the jungle’s end. But there was no sign of the walls of the hollow as there should have been, and the Deep Fell was as sprawling and endless as it had first seemed.

“Can you tell where we are or how far we’ve come?” he asked the others, but they shook their heads wordlessly.

Then abruptly the jungle gave way and the four companions stood on the threshold of a castle fortress that dwarfed anything Ben had ever seen or even imagined could exist. The castle rose up before them like a mountain, its towers lifting into the clouds and mist so that they were screened from view, its walls receding into the distant horizon for miles. Turrets, battlements, parapets, and ramparts were constructed one upon the other in dazzling geometrical designs, the whole so vast in scope that it might have enclosed an entire city within its stone-block shell. It sat upon a great plateau with the jungle grown thick at its base. A rock-strewn trail led from where they stood to the open castle gates and a raised portcullis.

Ben stared at the castle in disbelief. Nothing could be this huge, his instincts told him. Nothing could be of such monstrous size. It had to be an illusion—a trick of magic, like his vision of the hollows and the things they had encountered….

“What is this place, Willow?” he blurted out, cutting short his speculation, and the disbelief and awe he felt were apparent in his voice.

“I do not know, Ben.” She stood with him, her own gaze fixed on the monstrosity. She shook her head slowly. “I do not understand it. This is not an illusion, Ben—and yet it is. There is magic at work, but the magic accounts for only part of what we see.”

The G’home Gnomes, too, were confused. They shifted about uneasily, their ferretlike faces casting about for a scent they could rely upon. They failed to find one and began mumbling in guarded tones.

Ben forced his gaze away from the castle and looked carefully about for anything that would give him a clue as to its origin and purpose. He saw nothing at first, save for the jungle and the mist.

Then he saw the crow.

It was perched on a tree limb several dozen yards away, wings folded carefully in, eyes fixed on him. It was the same crow—glossy black feathers crested in white. Ben stared at it. He could not explain it, but he was certain that the crow knew what this was all about. It infuriated him that the bird was sitting there so placidly, as if waiting to see what they would do next.

“Come on,” he told the others and started up the trail.

They walked cautiously ahead and the castle loomed closer. It didn’t shimmer and disappear as Ben had expected it might. Instead, it took on an ominous, grim appearance as the weathered rock grew more detailed and the sound of wind whistling through towers and ramparts grew pronounced. Ben was leading now, with Willow a step behind. The gnomes had fallen back, their paws fastened to Ben’s pants, their furry faces apprehensive as they peered out from behind his legs. Dry leaves and twigs rustled across the stone pathway, and the warmth of the jungle had faded to a chill.

The entrance to the castle gaped open before them, a black hole with iron teeth. Shadows wrapped everything beyond in an impenetrable shroud. Ben slowed at the gates and peered guardedly into the gloom. He could just make out what appeared to be a kind of courtyard with a few scattered benches and tables, a cluster of blackened stanchions and a weather-beaten throne covered with dust and spiderwebs. He could see nothing beyond that.

He went forward once more, the others trailing. They passed beneath the shadow of the portcullis and entered the courtyard. It was massive, unkempt, and empty. Their footsteps rang in hollow cadence through the stillness.

Ben was halfway across when he saw the crow. Somehow it had gotten there before them. It sat upon the throne, eyes fixed directly on him. He slowed and stopped.

The crow’s eyes blinked and suddenly turned blood-red.

“Nightshade!” Willow whispered quickly in warning.

The crow began to change. It seemed to expand against the gloom, shimmering with an aura of crimson light, its shadow rising up against the throne like a wraith set free. Blackened stanchions flared and caught fire, and light exploded through the darkness. The G’home Gnomes gasped in dismay, bolted back through the gates of the castle, and were gone. Willow stood next to Ben, her hand gripping his as if it were a lifeline that kept her from drowning. Ben watched the crow transform into something darker still, and he was suddenly afraid that he had made an awful mistake.

Then the crimson aura died away and there was only the light from the fires that burned in the iron stanchions. The crow was gone. Nightshade sat upon the crumbling throne.

“Welcome to Deep Fell, great and mighty High Lord,” she greeted, her voice barely more than a soft hiss.

She was not what Ben had expected. She didn’t really look much like a witch at all—although it never crossed his mind even for an instant that she wasn’t. She was tall and sharp-featured, her skin white and flawless, her hair raven black except for a single streak of white that ran down its center. She was neither old nor young, but somewhere in between. There was an ageless look to her features, a sort of marble statue quality that suggested an artist’s creation that might survive all human life. Ben didn’t know what artist had created the witch, whether god or devil, but some thought had gone into the sculpting. Nightshade was a striking woman.

She rose, black robes falling all about her tall, spare form. She came down off the throne and stopped a dozen feet in front of Ben and Willow. “You show more determination than I had thought possible for a pretender. The magic does not frighten you as it should. Is that because you are stupid or merely reckless?”

Ben’s mind raced. “It’s because I’m determined,” he replied. “I didn’t come into the Deep Fell to be frightened off.”

“More’s the pity for you, perhaps,” she whispered, and the color of her eyes seemed to change from crimson to green. “I have never liked the Kings of Landover; I like you no better. It matters nothing to me that you are from another world, and it matters nothing why you have come. If you wish something of me, you are a fool. I have nothing I wish to give.”

Ben’s hands were sweating. This was not going well at all. “What if I have something I wish to give to you?”

Nightshade laughed, black hair shimmering as her body rocked. “You would give something to me? Landover’s High Lord would give something to the witch of the Deep Fell?” The laughter stopped. “You are a fool after all. You have nothing that I want.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken. Perhaps I do.”

He waited and would say nothing more. Nightshade came nearer, her ghostly face bent down to view him more closely, her sharp features taut against the bones of her face. “I know of you, play-King,” she said. “I have watched you travel from the Greensward to the lake country to the Melchor and finally to here. I know you seek the pledge of the valley’s people and can command nothing more than the misguided loyalty of this girl, that charlatan Questor Thews, a dog, two kobolds, and those pathetic gnomes. You hold the medallion, but you do not command the magic. The Paladin stays gone from you. The Mark hunts you. You are a single step from being yesterday’s memory!”

She loomed over him, a head taller, her dark form hanging like death’s specter. “What can you give to me, play-King?”

Ben edged a step in front of Willow. “Protection.”

The witch stared at him speechlessly. Ben kept his eyes fixed on hers, trying to back her away from him by sheer force of will, the closeness of her dark form suffocating. But Nightshade did not move.

“I am King of Landover, Nightshade, and I intend to remain King,” he said suddenly. “I am not the play-King that you believe me, and I am not a fool. I may not be of this world, and I may not yet know everything about it I should. But I know enough to recognize its problems. Landover needs me. You need me. If you lose me, you risk losing yourself.”

Nightshade stared at him as if he were mad, then glanced at Willow as if to ascertain whether or not the sylph thought him mad as well. Her eyes glittered as they sought his again. “What risk is there to me?”

Ben had her close attention now. He took a deep breath. “The magic goes out of the land, Nightshade. The magic fails. It fails because there is no King as a King was meant to be. Everything fragments, and the poison settles deeper. I see it happening, and I know its cause. You need me. The Mark claims the land, and sooner or later he will have it. The demon will not tolerate you. He will drive you out. He will not abide strength greater than his own.”

“The Mark will not challenge me!” she sneered and there was fury in her eyes.

“Not yet, he won’t,” Ben pressed quickly. “Not in the Deep Fell. But what happens when the rest of the land has withered into an empty husk and only the Deep Fell remains? You’ll be all alone. The Mark will have everything. He’ll have strength enough to challenge you then!”

He was guessing, but something in the witch’s eyes told him he was guessing right. Nightshade straightened, her black form rising up against the gloom. “And you believe that you can protect me?”

“I do. If the valley’s people pledge to me, the Mark will not be so quick to challenge. He cannot stand against all of us. I don’t think he will even try. And if you pledge first, the others must do the same. You are the most powerful, Nightshade; your magic is the strongest. If you give your allegiance to me, the others will follow. I ask nothing else from you. I promise in return to guarantee that the hollows will belong to you alone—always. No one shall bother you here. Not ever.”

She almost smiled. “You offer nothing that I do not already have. I don’t need you to stand against the Mark. I can do that whenever I choose. I can call the others to me and they will come because they are afraid!”

Oh, brother, Ben thought. “They won’t come, Nightshade. They will hide or run from you or they will fight you. They will not allow you to lead them as they might allow me.”

“The lake country will never accept you, Nightshade,” Willow whispered in agreement.

Nightshade’s brow furrowed. “The River Master’s daughter would say as much,” she sneered. “But you mistake whom you deal with, sylph. My magic would sicken ten times over what your father’s would cure—and more quickly than this!”

Her hand shot out, seized Willow’s wrist and turned the sylph’s arm black and withered. Willow shrieked, and Ben yanked the stricken arm free. Instantly, the arm was restored, the sickness gone. Willow was flushed and there were angry tears in her eyes. Ben faced the witch.

“Seize me as you did her!” he challenged, and his hand closed about the medallion.

Nightshade saw the movement and drew back. Her eyes veiled. “Do not threaten me, play-King!” she warned darkly.

Ben held his ground. He was as angry now as she. “Nor you me or those who are my friends, witch,” he replied.

Nightshade seemed to retreat within her robes. Her sharp face lowered into her raven hair, and one hand lifted slowly to point at Ben. “I grant you your determination, play-King. I grant you a measure of courage. But I do not grant you my pledge. If you would have that, you must first prove to me that you deserve it. If you are weaker than the Mark, then I ally myself to my disadvantage. I might as easily ally myself with the demon and bind him in a pledge of magic that he could not break. No, I will not risk myself for you until I know what strength you possess.”

Ben knew he was in trouble. Nightshade had made a decision about him that she was not likely to alter. His mind worked frantically. The darkness of the castle, the vastness of its chambers, seemed to weigh down upon him. Nightshade was his last chance; he could not afford to lose her. He felt his hopes begin to fade, and he fought to hold on to them.

“We need each other, Nightshade,” he argued, searching for a way out. “How can I convince you that I possess the strength necessary to be King?”

The witch seemed to think the matter through for a moment, her pale face lost again within her hair. Then slowly she looked up. There was an unpleasant smile on her thin lips. “Perhaps we do need each other—and perhaps there is something that can help us both. What if I were to tell you that there is a magic that could rid the Greensward of the dragon?”

Ben frowned. “Strabo?”

“Strabo.” The smile stayed fixed. “There is such a magic—a magic that can make you master of the dragon, a magic that can give you command over everything that he does. Use it, and he will do as you say. You can send him from the Greensward, and then the Lords must give you their pledge.”

“So you know of that as well,” Ben mused, trying to give himself time to think. He studied the pale face carefully. “Why would you agree to give such a magic to me, Nightshade? You’ve already made it clear how you feel about me.”

The witch smiled with the intensity of a wolf eyeing dinner. “I said nothing about giving the magic to you, play-King. I said, what if I were to tell you of such a magic. The magic is not in my possession. You must retrieve it from where it is hidden and bring it to me. Then we will share the magic, you and I. Bring it to me, and I will believe in your strength and accept you as King. Do so, and you will hold the promise of your own future.”

“Ben …”Willow began, a note of caution in her voice.

Ben dismissed her with a shake of his head. He had already committed himself. “Where is this magic to be found?” he asked Nightshade.

“It will be found in the mists,” she answered softly. “It will be found in the fairy world.”

Willow’s hand clamped on Ben’s. “No, Ben!” she exclaimed.

“The magic is called Io Dust,” Nightshade continued, ignoring the girl. “It grows from a midnight-blue bush with silver leaves. It nurtures in pods the size of my fist.” She clenched her hand before Ben’s face. “Bring two pods—one for me, one for yourself. The dust from a single pod will be enough to give you mastery over the dragon!”

“Ben, you cannot go into the fairy world!” Willow was frantic. She wheeled on the witch. “Why not go yourself, Nightshade? Why send Ben Holiday when you will not go yourself?”

Nightshade’s head lifted in disdain. “I am admonished by one whose people left the fairy world for this valley when the choice to remain was theirs? You are quick to forget, sylph. I cannot go back into the fairy world. I was cast out from it and am forbidden to return. It is certain death for me if I go back.” She smiled coldly at Ben. “But perhaps this one will have better fortune than I. He, at least, is not forbidden entry.”

Willow yanked Ben about to face her. “You cannot go, Ben. It is death if you do. No one can go into the fairy world and survive who is not born to and kept by it. Listen to me! My people left that world because of what it was—a world in which reality was a projection of emotion and thought, abstraction and imagery. There was no reality apart from what we were, and no substantive truth apart from ourselves! Ben, you cannot survive in such an environment. It requires disciplines and familiarities that you lack. It will destroy you!”

He shook his head. “Maybe not. Maybe I’m more capable than you think.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “No, Ben. It will destroy you,” she repeated tonelessly.

There was an intensity in her face and voice that was frightening. Ben stared into her eyes and hardened himself against the plea that was mirrored there. Slowly he pulled her close against him. “I have to go, Willow,” he whispered so that only she could hear. “I have no other choice!”

“She tricks you, Ben!” Willow whispered back, her face hard against his. “This is a trap! I hear the deception in her voice!” She was shaking. “I see now what this castle is! This castle is a projection of the magic against the wall of the mists! Journey far enough through it and you stand within the fairy world! Ben, she arranged this deception! She knew you were coming to her and she knew why! She has known all along!”

He nodded and pushed her gently away. “That doesn’t change anything, Willow. I still have to go. But I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ll be very careful.” She shook her head wordlessly, and the tears ran down her cheeks. He hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her gently on the mouth. “I’ll be back.”

She seemed to find herself again in that instant. “If you go, so do I.”

“He goes alone,” Nightshade interjected coldly, her face impassive. “I want no aid being given by a creature born of the fairy world. I want no interference from anyone. I want to see for myself whether the play-King possesses the strength he claims. If he brings the pods of Io Dust to me, I will have my proof.”

“I have to go,” Willow insisted, shaking her head slowly. “I belong to him.”

“No,” Ben told her gently. He struggled to find the right words. “You belong to Landover, Willow—and I don’t yet. Maybe I never will. But I have to belong to the land before I can ever even think of belonging to her people. I haven’t earned that right yet, Willow—and I have to!” His smile was tight. “Wait for me here. I will come back for you.”

“Ben …”

“I will come back,” he insisted.

He stepped away, turning again to find Nightshade. He felt empty and directionless, as if some tiny bit of life was turned loose in a sea of debris and blowing winds. He was about to be alone for the first time since he had come into Landover, and he was frightened almost beyond reason.

“Where do I go?” he asked Nightshade, fighting to keep his voice calm.

“Follow the corridor—there.” She pointed behind her, and torchlight glimmered along a shadowed corridor in which mist swirled like a living thing. “You will find a door at its end. The fairy world lies beyond.”

Ben nodded and walked past her without a word. His mind reeled with whispered warnings that he was forced to ignore. He slowed at the corridor entrance and glanced back. Willow stood where he had left her, her slender form a pale green shadow, her strange, beautiful face streaked with tears. He was filled with sudden wonder. How could this girl care so much for him? He was just a stranger to her. He was just someone she had happened across. She had blinded herself to the truth with fables and dreams. She imagined love where there was none. He could not understand.

Nightshade stared after him, her cold face expressionless.

He turned slowly away and walked into the mists.

FAIRY



Everything disappeared at once. The mists closed about like a shroud, and Ben Holiday was alone. The corridor tunneled ahead, coiling snakelike through pairs of torches that gave off dim halos of light in a haze of shadows and gloom. Ben followed it blindly. He could barely see the passage walls against which the halos cast their feeble glow, blocks of stone charred by flame and stained by damp. He could hear only faintly the sound of his boots as they thudded against the flooring. He could see or hear nothing else.

He walked for a long time, and the fear which had already taken seed within him spread like a cancer. He began to think about dying.

But the corridor ended finally at an iron-bound, wooden door with a great curved handle. Ben did not hesitate. He gripped the handle and twisted. The door opened easily, and he stepped quickly through.

He was standing in an elevator facing forward. A panel of lighted buttons to the right of the closed doors told him he was going up.

He was so astonished that for an instant he could only stare at the doors and the buttons. Then he wheeled about, searching for the door through which he had passed. It was gone. There was only the rear wall of the elevator, simulated oak with dark plastic trim. He felt along the edges with his fingers, testing for a hidden latch. There was none.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and a janitor got on.

“Morning,” he greeted pleasantly and punched button eight.

Ben nodded wordlessly. What in the hell was going on? He stared at the control panel, finding it oddly familiar. He glanced hurriedly about the interior and realized that he was on the elevator that serviced the building where his law offices were situated.

He was back in Chicago!

His mind spun. Something had gone wrong. Something must have gone wrong. Otherwise, what was he doing here? He braced himself against the wall railing. There was only one explanation. He had gone back through the mists completely; he had passed right through the fairy world into his own.

The elevator stopped at eight, and the janitor got off. Ben stared after him as the doors slipped closed. He had never seen the man before in his life, and he thought he knew all of the help that serviced the building—by sight, if not by name. They cleaned the offices on Sundays; that was the only time they were permitted to ride the elevators. He was always there, too, catching up on his paperwork. But he didn’t know this man. Why didn’t he?

He shook his head. Maybe it was someone new, he decided—someone the building supervisor had just hired. But new help wouldn’t work the offices on Sunday alone, not when they had access to … He caught himself. He smiled, suddenly giddy. Sunday! It must be Sunday if the janitors were using the elevators! He almost laughed. He hadn’t thought to ask the day of the week since he had crossed into Landover!

The elevator began to rise. He saw the panel buttons blink in front of him and watched them climb toward fifteen. The elevator was taking him to his office. But he hadn’t punched the button, had he? He glanced down in confusion and jumped. He was no longer wearing the clothes he had worn when Nightshade had sent him into the mists. He was wearing the running suit and Nikes he had worn when he had gone into the Blue Ridge.

What was happening?

The elevator stopped at fifteen, the doors slid open and he stepped out into the hallway. A jog left and he was at the glass doors that fronted the lobby to the offices of Holiday and Bennett, Ltd. The doors were open. He pushed through and stepped inside.

Miles Bennett turned from the reception desk, a sheaf of papers in his hands. He saw Ben, and the papers slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor. “Doc!” he whispered.

Ben stared. It was Miles who stood before him, but not the Miles he had left behind. This Miles was a shell of that other man. He was no longer simply heavy; he was bloated. His face was florid in the manner of a man who drinks too much. His dark hair had gone gray and thin. Worry lines marked his face like an etching.

The shock faded from his partner’s eyes and was replaced with undisguised rancor. “Well, well—Doc Holiday.” Miles spoke his name with distaste. “Goddamn if it isn’t old Doc.”

“Hello, Miles,” he greeted and stuck out his hand.

Miles ignored it. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe its really you. I thought I’d never see you again—thought no one ever would. Goddamn. I thought you long since gone to hell and shoveling brimstone, Doc.”

Ben smiled, confused. “Hey, Miles, it hasn’t been that long.”

“No? You don’t call ten years a long time? Ten goddamn years?” Miles smiled as he saw the stunned look on Ben’s face. “Yeah, that’s right, Doc—ten years. Not a living soul has heard a word from you in ten years. No one—me, least of all, your goddamn partner, in case you’d forgot!” He stumbled over the words, swallowing. “You poor, dumb jerk! You don’t even know what’s happened to you while you’ve been off in your fairy world, do you? Well, let me clue you in, Doc. You’re broke! You’ve lost everything!”

Ben felt a chill settle through him. “What?”

“Yeah, everything, Doc.” Miles leaned back against the desk top. “That’s what happens when you’re presumed legally dead—they take everything away and give it to your heirs or to the state! You remember your law, Doc? You remember how it works? You remember anything, goddamn it?”

Ben shook his head disbelievingly. “I’ve been gone ten years?”

“You always were a quick study, Doc.” Miles was sneering openly at him now. “The great Doc Holiday, courtroom legend. How many cases was it you won, Doc? How many shoot-outs did you survive? Doesn’t much matter anymore, does it? Everything you worked for is gone. It’s all gone.” The veins on his cheeks were red and broken. “You don’t even have a place with this firm anymore. You’re just a collection of old stories I tell the young bucks!”

Ben wheeled about and looked at the lettering over the glass entry doors. It read, Bennett and Associates, Ltd. “Miles, it seemed like only a few weeks …” he stammered helplessly.

“Weeks? Oh, damn you to hell, Doc!” Miles was crying. “All those dragons of the law you thought you’d slay, all those witches and warlocks of injustice that you thought you’d take on and straighten out—why the hell didn’t you stay here and do it? Why’d you leave here for your goddamn fairy land? You weren’t a quitter before, Doc. You were too stubborn to quit. Maybe that’s why you were such a good lawyer. You were, you know. You were the best I’d ever seen. You could have done anything. I’d have given my right arm just to help you do it, too. I admired you that much. But, no, you couldn’t survive in the same world with the rest of us. You had to have your own goddamn world! You had to jump ship and leave me with the rats! That’s what happened, you know. The rats came out of their holes and took over—the rats, sniffing around the old cheese. I couldn’t handle it alone! I tried, but the clients wanted you, the business couldn’t function without you, and the whole goddamn mess went down the tubes!”

He sobbed. “Look at you, damn you! You don’t look like you’ve aged a day! And look at me—a boozed-up, burned-out wreck …” He shoved forward, neck muscles straining against the collar of his shirt. “You know what I am, Doc? I’m dead weight, that’s what I am. I’m something that takes up space—something the younger bucks are trying to find a way to shove quietly out the door!” He sobbed again. “And one day, they’re gonna do it, Doc! They’re gonna shove me right out of my own damn office …”

He broke down completely. Ben felt sick inside as he watched his old friend’s composure disintegrate completely. He wanted to step forward, to go to him, but he was unable to move. “Miles …” he tried.

“Get out, Doc,” the other cut him short, his voice breaking. He motioned roughly with his arm. “You don’t belong here. They took everything you had long ago. You’re a dead man, Doc. Get the hell out!”

He left the reception room in a rush and stumbled down the hall into his office. Ben stood rooted in place for an instant, then followed. When he reached Miles’ office, the door was closed. He grasped the handle and stepped inside.

Mist swirled past his face …

The mist disappeared. He stood in an orchard of apple trees ripe with fruit. Green grasses waved gently in the summer breeze, and the smell of honeysuckle was in the air. A pasture fenced with board rail painted white was visible in the distance, and horses grazed in its enclosure. A stables sat close by, and a sprawling ranch house of brick and stained fir overlooked it all from a tree-shaded knoll.

He wheeled about in shock, already knowing that Miles, the office, and the elevator would all be gone. They were. There was nothing left. Had he imagined them? Had he imagined everything? The terrible confrontation with Miles was still replaying itself hatefully in his mind, the emotions it had triggered razor sharp as they cut against his memory. Had he imagined the whole thing?

He glanced quickly down at his clothing. The running suit and Nikes had been replaced by slacks, a short-sleeved shirt and loafers.

What in the hell was happening?

He fought to control the fear that raced through him and brought what was left of his common sense to bear. Had he jumped through time, he wondered? He didn’t think so. But he might have imagined that he had. It could have all been just an illusion. It hadn’t seemed an illusion, but it could have been. The mists could have blinded him. His passage through the fairy world could have deceived him somehow. He could have gone nowhere at all. But if he had gone nowhere and if everything he had seen was an illusion, then what was he seeing now … ?

“Ben?”

He turned, and there was Annie. She looked exactly as he remembered her, a small, winsome girl with huge brown eyes, button nose, and shoulder-length auburn hair. She was dressed in white, a summer frock with ribbons at the waist and shoulders. Her skin was pale and freckled, and the air about her seemed to shimmer in the flush of the sun’s midday light.

“Annie?” he whispered in disbelief. “Oh, my God. Annie, is it really you?”

She smiled then, that unaffected little-girl smile she always gave him when she found something amusing in his expression, and he knew that it truly was her. “Annie,” he repeated and there were tears in his eyes.

He started toward her, the tears almost blinding him, but her hands came up quickly in warning. “No, Ben. Don’t touch me. You mustn’t try to touch me.” She stepped back a pace, and he stopped, confused. “Ben, I’m not alive anymore,” she whispered, tears in her own eyes. She tried to smile through them. “I’m a ghost, Ben. I’m only an image of what you remember. If you try to take hold of me, I will disappear.”

He stood before her, confused all over again. “What … what are you doing here if you’re a ghost?”

She laughed gaily and it was as if he had never lost her. “Ben Holiday! Your memory is as selective as ever. Don’t you remember this place? Look about you. Don’t you know where we are?”

He glanced about, seeing again the pastureland, the stables, the horses, the ranch house on the knoll—and suddenly he did remember. “Your parents’ home!” he exclaimed. “This is your parents’ country home, for Christ’s sake! I’d forgotten about it! I haven’t been out here for … oh, I don’t remember how long!”

Her laughter crinkled the corners of her eyes. “It was your special hideaway when the rigors of city life became too much. Remember? My parents used to kid you about being a city boy who didn’t know a horse’s front end from its hind. You used to say there wasn’t much difference. But you loved it here, Ben. You loved the freedom it gave you.” She glanced about wistfully. “That’s why I still come here, you know. It reminds me of you. Isn’t that odd? We spent so little time here, but still it’s the place that reminds me most of you. I think it was the sense of freedom it seemed to give you that made me feel so good about it—that more so than my own love of the country.”

She wheeled about, pointing back toward the ranch. “Remember the dormer passageways that connected the sleeping rooms through their closets? We used to laugh about those, Ben. We used to talk about gremlins living there—as in the movie. We used to threaten to board them up if anything strange ever happened while we were staying over. You said we’d own that house someday, after my parents were gone, and then we’d board them up for sure!”

Ben nodded, smiling. “Annie, I did always love it here—always.”

She folded her arms across her breast, her smile fading. “But you didn’t keep the house, Ben. You don’t even come back to visit.”

He winced at the pain in her eyes. “Your parents were gone, Annie. It … hurt too much to come back after losing you, too.”

“You should have kept the home, Ben. You would have been happy here. We could have still been with each other here.” She shook her head slowly. “At least you should have come to visit. But you never came even once. You still don’t come. I wait for you to come, but you never do. I miss you so much, Ben. I need to have you by me … even though I can’t touch you or hold you as I once did. Just having you near helps me …” She trailed off. “I can’t make you see me in the city, Ben. You don’t see anything there. I don’t like the city. If I must be a ghost, I would much prefer to haunt the country where everything is fresh and green. But it is no good living here either when you never come.”

“I’m sorry, Annie,” he apologized quickly, anxiously. “I never thought that it would be possible for me to see you again. I would have come had I known that you were here.”

She smiled. “I don’t think you would have, Ben. I don’t think I mean anything to you anymore. Even your coming now was an accident. I know what you are about in your life. Ghosts have better sight than the living. I know that you have chosen to leave me and travel to another world—a world where I will become only a memory. I know of the girl you have met. She is very pretty—and she loves you.”

“Annie!” He almost reached for her in spite of the warning. He had to force his hands to remain at his sides. “Annie, I don’t love this girl. I love you. I have always loved you. I left because I couldn’t stand what was happening to me with you gone! I thought I had to try something or I would lose everything that was left of me!”

“But you never came looking for me, Ben,” she insisted, her voice soft and filled with hurt. “You gave up on me. Now I’ve lost you forever. You’ve gone into this other world, and I can never have you back. I can’t come to you there. I can’t have you close to me like this and I need that, Ben. Even a ghost needs the closeness of the one she loves.”

Ben felt his grip on his emotions start to slip. “I can still come back, Annie. I have the means to do so. I don’t have to stay in Landover.”

“Ben,” she whispered, her brown eyes sad and empty. “You no longer belong in this world. You chose to leave it. You can’t come back. I know that you have spoken with Miles Bennett. What he told you was true. Ten years have passed, Ben. You’ve nothing to come back to. Everything you once had is gone—your possessions, your position with the firm, your standing with the bar, everything. You made a choice ten years ago, and you have to accept the fact that it’s too late to change it now. You can never come back.”

Ben’s struggled in vain to respond. This was madness! How could it be happening? Then he caught himself sharply. Maybe it wasn’t happening. Maybe it was all part of the illusion he had suspected before, a trick of the mists and the fairy world, none of it real. The enormity of that possibility stunned him. Annie seemed real, damn it! How could she not be?

“Daddy?”

He turned. A small child stood a dozen feet away in the shadow of a giant apple tree, a little girl no more than two, her tiny face a mirror of Annie’s. “This is your daughter, Ben,” he heard Annie whisper. “Her name is Beth.”

“Daddy?” the little girl called to him, and her small arms reached up.

But Annie intercepted her, pulled her back, and held her close. Ben dropped slowly to one knee, his tall form stooped over, his arms folded against his chest to stop himself from shaking. “Beth?” he repeated dully.

“Daddy,” the little girl said again, smiling.

“She lives with me, Ben,” Annie told him, swallowing against her own pain. “We visit the country, and I try to teach her what life would have been like for her if …”

She couldn’t finish. She bent her head into Beth’s shoulder, hiding her face. “Don’t cry, Mommy,” the little girl said softly. “It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right, and Ben knew that it never would be again. He felt himself breaking apart inside, needing to be with them, wanting to hold them both, unable to do anything but stand there helplessly.

“Why did you leave us, Ben?” Annie was asking again, her eyes searching his. “Why did you cross over into that other world when we needed you so badly in ours? You should never have quit on us, Ben. Now we’ve lost you—and you’ve lost us. We’ve lost each other forever!”

He was on his feet then, a cry breaking from his throat, stumbling blindly toward where they knelt, arms outstretched. He saw Beth’s small arms trying to reach back.

Mist swirled past his face …

He stumbled, pitched forward, and fell sprawling to the ground. There was a moment of dizziness as he fought to regain the breath that had been knocked from his body. A rush of cool air swept over him, and the sunlight was gone. He blinked against the dusk that closed about, and his hands clutched at an earth turned barren and hard.

Annie and Beth—where were his wife and child?

Slowly he pushed himself back to his feet. He stood at the rim of a valley that was shrouded in mist and twilight. The valley had the look of a dying creature whose death had been a long and painful ordeal. Forests were stripped of their leaves and vines, the limbs and trunks of the trees gnarled and rotting. Plains had turned wintry, the grasses stunted, the flowers sapped of their color. Mountains crested against the misted skyline, but their slopes were stark and barren. A scattering of dwellings and castles hunched down against the earth, ill-kept and worn. Steam rose from lakes and rivers turned foul, their waters sluggish with filth.

Ben caught his breath in horror. He recognized the valley. It was Landover. He looked down at his clothing. It was the clothing that he had been wearing when he had gone down into the Deep Fell.

“No!” he whispered.

Annie and Beth were forgotten. He searched frantically for some sign of life upon the ravaged land. He sought out movement about the dwellings and castles, but found none. He sought out Sterling Silver and found only an empty island in a lake of black water. He sought out the Deep Fell, Rhyndweir, the lake country, the Melchor, and all of the landmarks he had come to know. Each time, he found nothing but devastation. Everything had disappeared.

“Oh, my God!” he breathed.

He stumbled forward, breaking quickly into a run as he dashed down the slope of the hillside, still searching for something of the valley he had left behind him when he had ventured into the fairy world. Grasses rustled dry and stiff against his legs as he ran, and the brittle branches of dying scrub snapped off their stems like gunshots. He passed a stand of Bonnie Blues turned black, their leaves withered and curled. He scanned the trees of the nearest fruit grove and found them bare. No birds flew against the twilight. No small animals scattered at his approach. No insects hummed or darted past.

He grew quickly winded and slowed to a staggering halt. The valley lay blackened and empty before him. Landover was a graveyard.

“This can’t be …” he started to protest softly.

Then a shadow materialized within the mist before him. “So Landover’s King has finally found his way back to us,” a caustic voice greeted.

The speaker stepped into view. It was Questor Thews, the gray robes and gaily colored silk scarves shredded and soiled, the white hair and beard ragged and unkempt. One leg was gone, and he hobbled forward on a crutch. Welts and scars marked his face and arms. His fingers were black with disease, and his eyes were bright with fever.

“Questor!” Ben whispered, horrified.

“Yes, High Lord, Questor Thews, once court wizard and advisor to the Kings of Landover, now a homeless beggar wandering in a land where only the forgotten still live. Are you pleased to see me so?”

His voice was so bitter that Ben shrank from it. “Pleased? Why would I be pleased?” he managed finally. “What happened, Questor?”

“What happened, High Lord? Do you truly not know? Look about you, then. That which you see is what happened! The land died for lack of the magic which a King could have given it! The land died. When the land died, her people died as well. There is nothing left, High Lord—everything is gone!”

Ben shook his head in confusion. “But how could that happen … ?”

“It could happen because Landover’s King abandoned her!” the other cut him short, fury and pain in his voice. “It could happen because you were not here to prevent it! You were off in the fairy world in pursuit of your own ends, and we were left to manage as best we could! Oh, we tried to find you and bring you back; but once within the fairy world, you were lost to us. I warned you, High Lord. I told you that no one could go safely into the fairy world. But you did not listen to me. No, you listened only to your own foolish reasoning and you wandered into that world of mists and dreams and were lost to us. You were gone an entire year, High Lord. An entire year! No one could find you. The medallion was lost. All hope of finding a King was lost. It was the finish for us!”

He stumbled closer, hunching brokenly against the crutch. “The magic faded quickly, High Lord; the poison spread. Soon the creatures of the land, human and otherwise, began to sicken and die. It happened so fast that no one could defend against it—not the River Master with all his healing magic, not Nightshade with all her power. Now all are dead or scattered. Only a few remain—a few like me! We live only because we cannot manage to die!” His voice shook. “I thought that you would come back to us in time, High Lord. I kept hoping that you would. I was a fool. I believed in you, when I should have known you were not worth believing in!”

Ben shook his head sharply. “Questor, don’t …”

A mottled hand brushed his protest aside. “It remains only for the Mark and his demons to come now, High Lord. There is no one left to stand against them, you see—no one. All are dead. All are destroyed. Even the strongest could not survive the passing of the magic.” He shook his head in anguish. “Why did you not come back to us sooner, High Lord? Why did you stay gone so long when you knew you were needed? I loved this land and her people so! I thought it was the same with you. Oh, if I had strength enough left in me, I would take this crutch and …”

His body trembled, and he lifted the crutch threateningly. Ben stepped back in horror, but Questor could lift the crutch only inches, and the effort brought him to ground, a collapsed rag doll. Tears streamed down his ravaged face.

“I hate you so much for what you have done!” he cried. Slowly his face lifted. “Do you know how much I hate you? Do you have any idea? Let me show you!” There was madness in his eyes. “Do you know what became of your beloved sylph after you abandoned her? Do you know what became of Willow?” His face was a mask of fury. “Do you remember her need to nourish within the land’s once fertile soil? Look down into the valley, close by that lake! Look down where the shadows lie deepest! Do you see that twisted, blackened trunk with its roots rotted away into … ?”

Ben could listen no more. He turned and ran. He ran without thinking, consumed with anger and horror that he could not control, desperate to escape the words of this hateful old man who blamed him for all that had happened. He ran, heedless of direction, pushing mindlessly forward through shadows and mist. Screams echoed after him, whether from within his own mind or outside, he could not tell. His world was collapsing about him like a house of cards brought down by an errant wind. He had lost everything—his old world, his new, his old friends, his new, his past, and his future. Familiar faces pushed in about him—Miles, Annie, Questor—their accusing voices whispering of his failures, hurt and anger in their eyes. Words pummeled him, insidious warnings of the losses he had caused.

He ran faster, his own cries strident against the beating of his heart.

Then suddenly he quit moving altogether. He was still running, but the ground had been taken out from under him and he was suspended in air. There was sudden pain. He jerked about violently, searching for the cause …

Taloned feet had fastened on his shoulders, digging deep into clothing and flesh. A massive, twisted form hovered above him, scaled body smelling fetid and rank, the disease of the land sunk deep within it. Ben stared upward wildly, and Strabo’s maw gaped open as the dragon reached down for him.

He screamed.

Mist swirled past his face …

It was happening again. Time and place were shifting. He closed his eyes instantly and kept them closed. The act was accomplished almost before the directive was issued. Something was terribly wrong. His instincts told him so. His instincts told him that the swift changes of time and place that he had been experiencing were impossible. They seemed to be happening, but in reality they were not. They were illusions or dreams or something very close. Whatever they were, they were taking over his life and tearing him apart. He had to stop them now before he was destroyed.

He hid quietly in the darkness of his mind, eyes tightly shut, his voice stilled. He forced himself to concentrate on the sound of his heart beating within his body, on the feeling of the blood coursing through his veins, on the silence that shrouded him. Be at rest, he whispered. Be at peace. Do not give way to what seems to be happening.

Slowly he regained control of himself. But still he kept his eyes closed. He was afraid that if he opened them some new horror would await. He must understand what had been happening to him first.

Meticulously, he reasoned it through. He had gone nowhere, he decided. He was still within the fairy world, still within the mists. Nor had ten years or even one year lapsed. They couldn’t have. The shifts in time and place were illusions brought about by the fairy world or its inhabitants or his reaction to either or both. What he needed to do now was to discover what was causing this. He just needed to understand why.

He built the foundation for his understanding one block at a time. Nothing he had seen was real—that was his beginning premise. If nothing was real, then everything must be false, and if everything was false, there had to be a reason for it taking the form that it had. Why was he seeing these particular visions? He retreated deep into his mind, down into its blackest, most silent regions, where there was nothing beyond the sound of his own thinking. Questor, Miles, and Annie—why had he seen them depicted as he had? He let himself relax in the inky darkness. Willow had warned him of the dangers of the fairy world. What was it that the sylph had said? She had said that in the fairy world reality was a projection of emotion and thought. She had said that there was no reality, no substantive truth apart from what you were. If that were so, what he had seen was what he had projected from within himself. What he had seen was a manifestation of his emotions …

He took a long, slow breath and let it out again. His understanding was beginning to take shape. His visions were the creation of his emotions—but which emotions? He replayed in his mind what he had seen of Miles, Annie and Beth, and Questor Thews. All had been angered or disappointed by what he had caused them to suffer. All had blamed him for their misfortunes. Illusions, but that was the way he had seen them. He had seen them as victims of his own poor judgment and inaction. Why had he seen them so? His mind raced through the possibilities, and suddenly he had his answer. He was afraid that what he had envisioned might really happen! He was afraid that it might all be true! Fear! Fear was the emotion that had shaped his thinking!

It made perfect sense. Fear was the strongest emotion of all. Fear was the least controllable emotion. That was why he had jumped through time and space to witness the horrors that had seemed to befall his friends and loved ones—the fear was breathing life into his worst imaginings. He had been frightened that he would fail in what he had undertaken from the moment he had made his decision to cross into Landover. The natural result of such a failing would be the scenarios he had just experienced. He would be cut off from his old life entirely with no chance to return, he would be stripped of all that he had believed he would gain in his new life, and he would fail his friends and family alike. He would be a man who had lost everything.

A sense of relief rushed through him. Now he understood. Now he knew what to do. If he could control his emotions, he could prevent the nightmares. If he could shut off the fear, conscious or subconscious, he could bring himself back into the present. It was a tall order, but it was his only chance.

He took several long moments to collect his thoughts and to focus them on the task at hand. He told himself to remember the kind of lawyer he had once been, to remember the courtroom skills that had made him so. He told himself to remember that everything he had experienced before was a lie, an imagining of his own making. He pictured instead the world he had seen when traveling through the time passage that had brought him to Landover—the forest with its shroud of mist.

Then slowly he opened his eyes. The forest was back again, deep, solitary, primeval. Mist swirled gently through its trees. Faint visions danced upon the mists, but they did not trouble him. The nightmares were gone, the lies banished. His reasoning had not failed him. He breathed deeply, letting himself drift through the cool, peaceful darkness, in and out of the substanceless visions. Cautiously, he began to search for the magic he had come here to find, for the Io Dust. He thought he caught glimpses of silver and midnight-blue, but nothing whole. He continued to drift, and suddenly he was fragmenting like ice shattered on stone. He was breaking apart, splitting into separate pieces that would not rejoin. Frantically, he forced the feeling down within himself to feel the solidity of the earth beneath his feet.

The sense of dissipation faded. The mist closed about.

He was no longer alone. Voices whispered.

—You are welcome, High Lord of Landover—

—You have found yourself and in doing so you have found us—

He struggled to speak, but found he could not. Faces crowded close, lean and sharp, their features somehow muddied in the twilight. They were the faces he had seen when he had crossed into Landover through the time passage. They were the faces of the fairies.

—Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost, High Lord. Believe it saved, and it may be. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing. Visions born of hope give birth to our success—

—What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it. Can you give life to the dreams that live within you, High Lord? Look into the mists and see—

Ben stared deep into the mists, then watched them swirl and part before him. A land of incredible beauty appeared, sunlight spreading out across it like a golden mantle. Life flourished in the land, and it was filled with boundless energy. There was excitement and promise beyond anything he would have believed possible. He felt himself cry out at the sight and feel of it.

Then slowly the vision faded and was gone. The voices whispered.

—Another time and place for such visions, High Lord. Another life. Bondings such as this must wait their birthings—

—You are a child among elders, High Lord, but you are a child who shows promise. You have seen the truth behind the lies that would deceive you and know it to be your own. You have earned the right to discover more—

Then show me, he wanted to shout! But he could not, and the voices whispered on.

—You have unmasked the fear that would have destroyed you, High Lord. You have shown great presence. But fear has many disguises and assumes many forms. You must learn to recognize them. You must remember what they truly are when next they come for you—

Ben’s throat worked soundlessly. He didn’t understand. What was the fairy’s meaning?

—You must go back now, High Lord. Landover needs your help. Her King must be there to serve her—

—But you may take with you that which you came to find—

Ben saw a bush materialize within the mist before him—a bush of midnight-blue with silver leaves. He felt something pressed into the palm of each hand. He looked down and found that he was holding a pair of oblong pods.

The voices whispered.

—Io Dust, High Lord. Inhale it, and you belong to the giver until released. A single breath is all it takes. But beware. The witch Nightshade seeks the dust for uses of her own and plans to share nothing of it with you. Once you have secured it for her, you will have no further value—

—Be quicker than she, High Lord. Be swift—

Ben nodded mutely, determination etched into the lines of his face.

—Go now. One day only has been lost to you—but that day must remain lost. To bring you back more quickly would cause you harm that could not be repaired. Understand, therefore, that things must necessarily be as you find them—

—Come back to us, High Lord, when the magic is found again—

—Come back to us when the need is there—

—Come…—

—… back—

Voices, faces, and slender forms faded into the mist and were gone. The mist drew back in a tight swirl and disappeared.



Ben Holiday blinked in disbelief. He stood once more in the twilight of the Deep Fell, a pod of Io Dust gripped tightly in each hand. He glanced about cautiously and found that he was alone. Fragments of his imagined encounters with Miles, Annie, and Questor Thews darted momentarily through his memory, cutting like tiny knives. He winced at the pain they caused and quickly brushed them away. They had never been real. They had been lies. His meeting with the fairies had been the only truth.

He lifted the pods of Io Dust and stared thoughtfully at them. He could not help himself. He began to smile like the Cheshire Cat. He had done the impossible. He had gone into the fairy world and, despite everything, he had come out again.

He felt as if he had been reborn.

IO DUST



The Cheshire Cat smile and the good feelings that went with it lasted about thirty seconds—the time it took Ben Holiday to remember the fairies’ warning about Nightshade.

He glanced hurriedly about, eyes sweeping the misted gloom of the Deep Fell. There was no sign of the witch, but she was out there somewhere, waiting for him, planning to dispose of him the instant she got her hands on the Io Dust. That must have been her intention from the beginning—to send him into the fairy world to do what she could not and then to do away with him on his return. He frowned. Had she known that he would return? Probably not. It would make no difference to her if he didn’t. It cost her nothing to let him try. But the fairies had spoken as if she expected that he would come back. That bothered him. How could the witch have known that he would succeed in doing something that no one else could?

His hands closed reassuringly about the pods and he took a deep breath to steady himself. There wasn’t time just now to worry about what the witch did or didn’t know. He had to find Willow and escape the Deep Fell as quickly as he could. He was frightened for the sylph; Nightshade was unlikely to treat her any better than she had treated Ben. Anything might have happened to the girl in his absence, and whatever happened would most certainly be his fault. A whole day lost, the fairies had said. That was far too much time for the girl to have been left alone. Willow was no match for Nightshade. Worse, the others from the little company might have come down into the Deep Fell looking for their missing King and run afoul of the witch as well.

Gritting his teeth angrily against the unpleasant possibilities, he cast about a second time in a effort to get his bearings. Mist and forest rose about him like a wall, and one direction looked the same as another. Clouds hung low across the forest roof, concealing sun and sky. There was nothing to tell him where he was or where he should go.

“Damn!” he whispered softly.

Throwing caution to the winds, he began walking. A lot had happened to Ben Holiday since he had come into Landover from his own world, and most of it had been bad. Each time he had tried to take a step forward, he had been forced to take two steps back. It seemed as if nothing could go right. But all that was about to change. For once, he was going to succeed. He had gone into the fairy world and come out again with the Io Dust when every shred of logic said he couldn’t. He had the means to rid the Greensward of the dragon Strabo and gain the pledge of his most important ally. It would be a giant leap forward toward accomplishing everything he had set out to accomplish—never mind the single steps he had been experimenting with so far. He didn’t care if there were a dozen Nightshades lurking about in the forest mist; he was not about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

A pair of furry faces pushed through the brush directly in front of him, and he jumped back with a startled cry.

“Great High Lord!”

“Mighty High Lord!”

It was Fillip and Sot. Ben exhaled sharply and waited for his heart to drop back out of his throat. So much for his brave determination!

The G’home Gnomes stepped out of the bushes guardedly, their ferret faces hawking the forest scents, noses twitching expectantly.

“High Lord, is it really you? We never thought to see you again!” Fillip said.

“Never! We thought you lost in the mist!” Sot said.

“Where have you two been?” Ben asked, remembering that they had fled the castle at the witch’s transformation from the crow.

“Hiding!” Fillip whispered.

“Watching!” Sot whispered.

“The witch looked for us long and hard,” Fillip said.

“But she couldn’t find us,” Sot said.

“Not when we went underground,” Fillip said.

“Not in our burrows,” Sot said.

Ben sighed. “Bully for you.” He glanced about. “Where is she now?”

“Back where you left her in that clearing, High Lord,” Fillip said.

“Still waiting for your return,” Sot said.

Ben nodded. “And Willow?”

Fillip glanced quickly at Sot. Sot looked at the ground.

Ben knelt before them, a hollow feeling opening in the pit of his stomach. “What happened to Willow?”

Furry faces wrinkled uncomfortably and grimy paws twisted together.

“High Lord, we don’t know,” Fillip said finally.

“We don’t,” Sot agreed.

“When you failed to return, the others came looking for you,” Fillip said.

“They came down from the valley’s rim,” Sot said.

“We didn’t even know they were in the valley,” Fillip said.

“If we had, we would have warned them,” Sot said.

“But we were hiding,” Fillip said.

“We were frightened,” Sot said.

Ben brushed the explanations aside with an impatient wave of his hand. “Will you just tell me what happened!”

“She took them all prisoner, High Lord,” Fillip said.

“She took them all,” Sot echoed.

“Now they have disappeared,” Fillip finished.

“Not a trace of them,” Sot agreed.

Ben sat back slowly on his heels; the color drained from his face. “Oh, my God!” he said quietly, his worst fears realized. Willow, Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds—Nightshade had them all. And it was his fault. He took a long moment to consider the dilemma, then came back to his feet. There could be no thought of escape now—not without his friends. Io Dust or no Io Dust, he wasn’t about to leave them behind.

“Can you take me to Nightshade?” he asked the gnomes.

Fillip and Sot regarded him with undisguised horror.

“No, High Lord!” Fillip whispered.

“No, indeed!” Sot agreed.

“She will make you a prisoner as well!” Fillip said.

“She will make you disappear with the others!” Sot said.

Entirely possible, Ben thought to himself. Then he gave the G’home Gnomes an encouraging smile. “Maybe not,” he told them. He pulled one of the pods of Io Dust from beneath his tunic and held it up thoughtfully. “Maybe not.”

He took five minutes or so to prepare for his encounter with Nightshade. Then he explained the plan he had devised to the gnomes, who listened dutifully and regarded him with perlexed stares. They seemed uncertain what it was he was talking about, but there was no point in trying to explain it further.

“Just try to remember what it is that you’re to do and when you’re to do it,” he cautioned finally and gave up on the matter.

They set out through the forest, the gnomes in the lead, Ben trailing. The afternoon light was fading, passing slowly toward dusk. Ben glanced about uneasily, pausing briefly at the sight of shadows that flickered through the mists behind him. The fairy world was back there somewhere and with it the ghosts of his imagination. He could feel their eyes on him yet, the living and the dead, the past and the present, the old world and the new. What he had seen had been lies, his own fears brought to life. But the lies lingered, whispers of truths that might yet be. He had failed no one in the ways the fairy mists had shown. But he might, if he were not as swift as the fairies had warned that he must be. He might fail them all.

The minutes slipped by. Ben felt them pass with agonizing swiftness. He wanted to urge the gnomes to hurry faster, to quicken their studied pace through the forest maze. But he kept his peace; Fillip and Sot were taking no chances with Nightshade and neither should he.

Then a clearing opened ahead through a screen of pine and heavy brush, barely visible in the gloom. Fillip and Sot dropped into a crouch and glanced hurriedly back at Ben. He crouched with them, then inched ahead cautiously for about another yard or so and stopped.

Nightshade sat statuelike on the webbed, dust-covered throne where she had first appeared to him, eyes fixed on the ground before her. Weather-beaten tables and benches were scattered about before her, ringed by a line of blackened stanchions in which tiny fingers of flame licked at the shadows. The courtyard, the portcullis, and the entire castle were gone. There was only the forest and these few ruined bits of furniture sheltering the witch.

Blood-red eyes blinked, but did not lift.

Ben crept slowly back again, taking the G’home Gnomes with him. When they were safely out of earshot, he dispatched them to carry out their assignment. Soundlessly, they disappeared into the trees. Ben watched them go, lifted his eyes skyward in a silent prayer, and settled back to wait.

He let fifteen minutes pass, judging the time as best he could, then stood up and started forward boldly. He passed through the screen of pine and brush and stepped into the clearing where Nightshade waited.

The witch looked up slowly, head and eyes lifting to watch his approach. Her stark, sharp-featured face reflected a mix of pleasure and surprise—and something else. Excitement. Ben came toward her cautiously, knowing he must be careful. He was still a dozen paces off when she stood up and signaled for him to stop.

“Do you have it?” she asked softly.

He nodded, saying nothing.

Her thin hand ran back through her raven hair, smoothing out the white streak like a trail of foam stirred in dark waters. “I knew you to be better than the play-King I called you,” she whispered, her smile suddenly dazzling. She was tall and majestic standing there before him, robes spread against the forest, marble skin flawless. “I knew you to be … special. I have always had the sight.” She paused. “The Io Dust—show it to me.”

He glanced about, as if searching. “Where is Willow?”

The red eyes narrowed almost immeasurably. “Waiting, safely kept. Now show me!”

He started forward, but her hand came up like a shield and her voice was a hiss. “From there!”

Both hands were in his pockets. Slowly he extracted the left, producing an oblong pod for her inspection.

Her face came alive with excitement. “Io Dust!” She was shaking as she beckoned him closer. “Bring it to me. Carefully!”

He did as he was told, but stopped just out of reach, glancing about once again. “I think you ought to tell me where Willow is first,” he hedged.

“First the Dust,” she insisted, reaching.

He let her take the pod, saying, “Oh, that’s all right, I see her now, back there in the trees.” He started past her, looking anxiously. “Willow! Over here!”

His call and the fervent prayers that accompanied it were both answered on cue. There was a rustling within the brush and a glimpse of someone coming into view. Nightshade turned in startled surprise, red eyes narrowing, following Ben’s gaze. Words of disclaimer were already forming on her lips.

Ben’s right hand came out of his pocket and he flung a handful of the concealed Io Dust directly into Nightshade’s face. The witch gasped in surprise—inhaling the dust as she did so. Surprise and fury twisted her thin features with a look of sudden horror. Ben threw a second fistful of the dust into her face—and again she inhaled it, tripping over her robes as he pushed her roughly back. The pod flew from her hands and she sprawled back upon the earth in a tangle.

Ben was on her like a cat. “Don’t touch me!” he cried in warning. “Don’t even think about hurting me! You belong to me; you will do anything and everything I tell you and nothing else!” He saw her lips draw back in a snarl of rage, and felt the sweat soak the back and underarms of his tunic. “Tell me that you understand,” he whispered quickly.

“I understand,” she repeated and her hatred for him burned in her eyes.

“Good.” He took a deep breath and slowly climbed back to his feet. “Stand up,” he ordered.

Nightshade stood, straightening herself slowly, her body stiff and unyielding, as if constricted from within by some iron will that she fought to resist and could not. “I will destroy you for this!” she snarled. “I will see you suffer in ways that you could not imagine!”

“Not today, you won’t,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. He glanced hurriedly about. “Fillip! Sot!”

The G’home Gnomes crept cautiously from the bushes where they had been hiding, waiting for Ben’s signal to pretend that they were Willow answering his call. They emerged with looks of apprehension etched into their furry faces, their ferret eyes peering almost blindly toward the witch.

“Great High Lord,” Fillip whispered.

“Mighty High Lord,” Sot whispered.

Neither sounded quite so certain he was either, inching forward like rats prepared to bolt at the slightest move. Nightshade swung her gaze on them like a hammer and they cringed from its blow.

“She can’t hurt you,” Ben assured them—working at the same time at assuring himself. He walked over to pick up the discarded pod and brought it back. He held it up for Nightshade to inspect. “Empty,” he said, pointing to a tiny hole he had carved in its bottom. “I took out all the dust and put it in my pocket to use on you. Just about what you had planned for me, wasn’t it? Answer me.”

She nodded. “It was.” The words were laced with venom.

“I want you to stand here and do only what I tell you. We’ll start with some questions. I’ll ask them and you’ll answer them. But tell me the truth, Nightshade—no lies. Understand?” She nodded wordlessly. Ben reached into his tunic front and extracted the second pod of Io Dust. He held it out to her. “Will the dust contained in this pod be enough to gain control of the dragon?”

She smiled. “I don’t know.”

He hadn’t expected that. A suspicion of doubt tugged at his mind. “Have I given you enough dust that you must do as I say?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

She smiled again. “I don’t know.”

He kept his expression neutral. There would be little margin for error, it appeared. “If you feel your need to obey me fading, you must tell me. Do you agree?”

The hatred in her eyes burned deeper. “I agree.”

He didn’t trust her, Io Dust or no Io Dust. He wanted to get this over with and get out of the Deep Fell. Fillip and Sot looked as if they were at least a dozen steps ahead of him already. They were crouched down in the shadow of one of the ruined tables, snouts buried in their chests like confused ostriches.

His eyes returned to Nightshade. “What have you done with Willow and the others who came with me?”

“I took them prisoner,” she said.

“Questor Thews, Abernathy the scribe, the two kobolds? All of them?”

“Yes. They came looking for you, and I took them.”

“What have you done with them?”

“I kept them for a time and then I sent them away.”

She looked almost pleased with the way this was going, and Ben hesitated in spite of himself. “What do you mean, you sent them away?” he pressed.

“I had no use for them, so I sent them away.”

Something was wrong. Nightshade had not planned to release him. She would never have released his friends. He stared at her, watching her eyes change suddenly from crimson to green. “Where did you send them?” he asked quickly.

Her eyes glittered. “To Abaddon. To the Mark.”

He went cold all over. The lies he had imagined had become truths. He had failed his friends after all. “Bring them back!” he ordered sharply. “Bring them back now!”

“I cannot.” She sneered openly. “They are beyond my reach!”

He seized the front of her dark robes, enraged. “You sent them there—you can bring them back again!”

She was smiling in delight. “I cannot, play-King! Once sent to Abaddon, they are beyond my power! They are trapped!”

He released her and stepped back, fighting to regain control of himself. He should have foreseen this! He should have done something to prevent it from happening! He stared about the shadowed clearing futilely, anger and disgust coursing through him as he considered and discarded possibility after possibility in rapid succession.

He wheeled back on her. “You will go into Abaddon and bring them back!” he ordered triumphantly.

Her smile was a thing of near ecstasy. “I cannot do that either, play-King! I have no power in Abaddon! I would be as helpless as they!”

“Then I’ll go myself!” he said. “Where is the entrance, witch!”

She laughed, her face taut. “There is no entrance, fool! Abaddon is forbidden! Only a few … !”

Her triumph was so complete that she failed to catch herself in time. Her mouth snapped shut, but she was already too late. Ben seized the front of her robes.

“A few? What few? Who besides the demons can go there? You?” Her head twisted back and forth wordlessly. “Then who, damn it? Tell me!”

She shuddered and stiffened as if jerked by a hook embedded deep within. Her reply came out almost a scream. “Strabo!”

“The dragon!” he breathed, seeing now. He released her and walked away. “The dragon!” He wheeled and came back again. “Why can the dragon enter and not you?”

Nightshade was beside herself with rage. “His magic … encompasses a greater range than mine, reaches farther … !”

And is more powerful, Ben finished what she could not bring herself to say. He felt himself go limp, sweat soaking through him, weariness sapping at his strength. It made sense. He had first encountered Strabo at the fringes of the mists, still within the fairy world. If the dragon could pass into the fairy world, it stood to reason that he could pass into Abaddon.

And he could take Ben with him.

He almost smiled. The sudden coming together of circumstance and need was frightening. He had thought to use the Io Dust simply to send the dragon out of Landover. That would have been difficult and dangerous enough. Now he must use the Io Dust to force Strabo to carry him down into Abaddon where his friends were trapped and then carry them all out again. The enormity of the task was staggering. He must do this without direction or guidance. He must do this alone. But there was never any question of his not doing it. Willow, Questor, Abernathy, Bunion, and Parsnip had risked themselves for him time and time again. It was an imperative beyond that of Kingship that required he do the same for them.

His eyes found those of the witch. He could see an undisguised satisfaction mirrored there. “You have sworn to destroy me, Nightshade, but it is I who ought to destroy you,” he whispered in fury.

Fillip and Sot had slipped from behind the table and were tugging tentatively at his legs.

“Can we go now, High Lord?” Fillip asked.

“Can we leave this place, High Lord?” Sot echoed.

“She frightens me,” Fillip said.

“She wants to hurt us,” Sot said.

Ben glanced down at them, saw the fear in their eyes, and watched their noses twitch expectantly. They looked like dirty children about to be punished, and he felt sorry for them. They had been through a lot.

“Just a moment more,” he promised. He looked back at Nightshade. “How long has it been since you sent my friends into Abaddon?”

The witch narrowed her green eyes. “I disposed of them this morning—quite early.”

“Did you harm them in any way?”

Her face pinched sharply. “No.”

“They are well, then?”

She laughed. “Perhaps—if the demons haven’t tired of them.”

He wanted to throttle her, but he managed to keep control of himself. “Once I am within Abaddon, how can I find them?”

Nightshade’s body seemed to fold itself deeper into the dark robes. “The dragon can find them for you—if he still obeys!”

Ben nodded wordlessly. There was that problem on top of everything else. How long would the Io Dust render the dragon helpless against him? How long before the effects of its magic wore off? There was only one way to find out, of course.

He shrugged the thought aside. “Where will I find the dragon?” he asked the witch.

Nightshade smiled darkly. “Everywhere, play-King.”

“I’m sure.” He rethought the question. “Where is he certain to go that I can wait for him to come?”

“The Fire Springs!” Her voice was a thin hiss. “He makes his home in the flame-waters!”

Ben remembered the Springs from his studies at Sterling Silver. Lava pools or oil pits or some such, they lay east beyond the Greensward, deep within the wastelands.

“High Lord!” Fillip called urgently, interrupting his thoughts.

“High Lord!” Sot tugged at his leg.

Ben nodded in response one time more. The day was coming to a close, the sun’s light giving way to darkness, the shadows of dusk lengthening through the trees. He did not want to be caught in the Deep Fell after dark.

He stepped forward and stood directly before Nightshade. “I am King of Landover, Nightshade. You may not think so and others may not think so, but, until I decide otherwise, that’s the way it is. A King has certain responsibilities. Among them is a responsibility to protect his subjects. You took it upon yourself to interfere with that responsibility and to place people who were not only subjects, but friends, in extreme danger—so extreme that I may never see any of them again!”

He paused, watching the hate glitter in her eyes as they turned from green back to red again. “You have passed judgment on yourself, Nightshade. What you have done to my friends, I now do to you. I command you to transform yourself into that crow and to fly back into the mists of the fairy world. Do not deviate from your course. Fly until you are once again within the old world and keep flying until … whatever happens, happens.”

The witch shook with rage and frustration, and a sudden glimmer of fear crept into her eyes. “The fairy magic will consume me!” she whispered.

Ben was unmoved. “Do what I have told you, Nightshade. Do it now!”

Nightshade went rigid, then shimmered with crimson light. Flames exploded skyward in the iron stanchions. The witch and the light disappeared and in their place was the crow. Shrieking, it spread its wings against the dusk and flew away into the forest.

Ben stared after her, half expecting that she would return again. She did not. Nightshade was gone. She would fly as he had commanded until she entered the mists and the fairy world that was forbidden to her. He didn’t know what would happen to her when she arrived, but he doubted that it would be pleasant. Too bad. He had given her at least as much chance to survive as she had given his friends. Fair was fair.

He shook his head. He had a bad feeling about it nevertheless.

“Let’s find our way out of here,” he muttered to Fillip and Sot, and the three of them hurried from the clearing.

STRABO



Ben slept that night in a poplar grove a few miles south of the rim of the Deep Fell. When he awoke at sunrise, he began his journey east to the Fire Springs.

He took Fillip and Sot with him, despite their obvious reluctance to go. He had no choice. He was afraid that without them he might become lost or sidetracked. He knew the country reasonably well from his studies at the castle, but there was always the possibility of encountering something those studies had missed or becoming stymied through ignorance, and he couldn’t risk letting either happen. Time was something that he didn’t have to waste, and the G’home Gnomes would have to bear with him a little while longer.

As it was, the journey took the better part of three days. It would have taken longer if Fillip and Sot hadn’t appropriated a pair of plow horses whose day had clearly come and gone. They were so swaybacked and rough-gaited that it jarred his bones just to watch them amble about the campsite. Riding them was worse, but the pace of travel improved and they covered more distance, so he kept his peace. He never asked the gnomes where they got the horses. Moral principle took a backseat to expediency on this occasion.

They came down out of the forested hill country below the Deep Fell, skirted the broad plains of the Greensward, and passed east into the wasteland that stretched to the far rim of the valley. Their journey seemed endless. It dragged with the weight of a millstone tied about their necks. Ben was consumed by fear for his missing friends; too much could happen, all of it bad, before he would be able to reach them. Fillip and Sot were consumed by fear for their own skins; they believed themselves sacrificial lambs being led to the dragon’s dinner table. The three talked to one another as little as possible, uncomfortable with the journey, its purpose, and each other.

Ben thought frequently of Nightshade as they traveled, and his thoughts were not pleasant ones. It was bad enough that he had left Willow alone and unprotected when he had gone into the mists, bad enough that Questor and the others had come down into the hollows looking for him when he had failed to return that first day, and worse than bad that all of them had been whisked off to Abaddon and the demons on a whim, while Nightshade idled about waiting for his return. But it was unforgivable that he hadn’t made better use of the witch when he had held her captive under the power of the Io Dust. There were any number of things he should have done and hadn’t. He should have had her use her magic to bring the dragon to him—to lure it there, if nothing else. Had she been unable to do that, he should have had her use the magic to send him to the dragon. That would have saved three days of traipsing all over the valley on a plow horse! He should have had her supply him with some of her magic. A little extra protection wouldn’t have hurt. And he never should have let her off so easy—not after what she had done. He should have made certain she would cause him no further problems. Or at least he should have made her pledge to him in case she did escape.

But as the journey wore on, such thoughts fragmented, faded and died away. Should have, could have—what the hell difference did it make now? He had done the best he could; he simply hadn’t thought of everything. A pledge made under duress was probably worthless. Unknown magic was probably more dangerous than no magic. Things were better as they were; he would find a way to make do with what he had.

They reached the Fire Springs late on the third day out. The gnomes had taken him deep into the wasteland east of the Greensward, a country of mixed horrors—barren plains of desert sand and dust, hills of saw grass, scrub, and gnarled short trees, sucking swamp that oozed red mud and quicksand, and petrified forests where the trees were tangled, broken bones that jutted from the earth. The land had a wintry cast beyond anything that Ben had seen in the other parts of the valley, a washed and colorless mix from dying vegetation and broken earth. Even the Bonnie Blues did not grow here. The three had worked their way through hills and ridges grown thick with stunted briar and tangled brush to a forest of deadwood, cresting a deep ravine. They walked their horses, unable to ride them through the heavy undergrowth. Mist floated in thick clouds over everything, a blanket that smelled of the land’s death.

“There, High Lord!” Fillip cried suddenly, bringing Ben to a halt with a hasty tug on one sleeve.

“The Fire Springs, High Lord!” Sot announced, pointing into the distance.

Ben peered through the mist and trees. He couldn’t see a thing. He peered harder. Now he caught a glimpse of something flickering against the gloom—a sort of light that reflected on the mist.

“Let’s get a bit closer,” he urged. “I can’t see anything from here.”

He started forward again and then stopped. Fillip and Sot were not moving. They glanced at each other, then at him, then at each other again. Their furry faces lowered and their noses twitched.

“This is close enough, High Lord,” Fillip advised.

“As close as we’re going, High Lord,” Sot agreed.

“We have no protection against the dragon.”

“No protection at all.”

“He would eat us without thinking twice about it.”

“He would burn us to the bone!”

Fillip hesitated. “The dragon is too dangerous, High Lord. Leave him and come away.”

Sot nodded solemnly. “Let the dragon be, High Lord. Let him be.”

Ben studied them a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t let him be, fellows. I need him.” He smiled ruefully and walked back. He placed a hand on the shoulder of each. “Will you wait here for me? Until I come back?”

Fillip looked up at him, eyes squinting. “We will wait for you, High Lord. Until you come back.”

Sot rubbed his paws together absently. “If you come back,” he muttered.

Ben left them with the plow horses and forged ahead into the tangled undergrowth. He picked his way cautiously, trying to be as quiet as possible. He could see geysers of steam rising from beyond the ridgeline to mingle with the mist. The flickering light shone more clearly, a shimmer of brightness dancing against the sky. He could smell something as well—something unpleasantly reminiscent of spoiled meat.

Sweat and dust streaked his face and arms, but he was cold inside. He had been anxious for this until now.

One hand stole to the pockets of his tunic. What remained of the Io Dust from the emptied pod was in his right pocket. The full pod was in his left. He really hadn’t devised a plan yet for using the dust. He didn’t have any idea at all what sort of plan would work. His sole objective was to get as close to the dragon as possible and hope that an opportunity presented itself.

A King of Landover ought to have a better plan than that, he thought gloomily, but he couldn’t seem to come up with one.

He crested the ridgeline and peered over. A broad, misshapen ravine sprawled away before him, pitted with craters of all sizes and shapes, their bowls filled with an unidentifiable bluish liquid on which yellowish flames danced and burned, casting flickers of light against the shroud of mist. Tangled thickets and mounds of earth and rock clogged the floor of the ravine between craters, a formidable array of obstacles to anyone who sought to enter.

Ben looked the ravine over carefully. The dragon was nowhere to be seen.

“It figures,” he muttered.

He debated for a time what to do next. He could either wait where he was until Strabo returned or make his way down into the ravine and wait there. He opted for the second choice. He wanted to be as close as possible to the dragon when he finally faced it.

He slipped over the crest of the ridge and started down. A voice somewhere deep inside kept whispering that he was crazy. He fully agreed. He could not believe he was doing this. He was terrified of the dragon; he would have preferred to turn tail and run out of there as quickly as his shaking legs could manage it. He was not particularly brave; he was just desperate. He hadn’t realized until this moment exactly how desperate he was.

But I won’t let them down, he promised himself, thinking of Willow and the others. Whatever happens, I won’t.

He reached the bottom of the ravine and glanced about. Steam geysered sharply from a crater close at hand, a whooshing sound that startled him. Flames lifted with the explosion and flickered hungrily against the mist. He could barely see where he was going this close to the springs, but he made his way forward resolutely. He supposed that someplace in the middle of the Fire Springs might be the best place to wait—although not too far out in the middle. His breathing was quick and ragged. He wished he had command of the Paladin. He wished Questor and the kobolds were with him. He wished anyone was with him. He wished he were somewhere else.

Steam and heat seared his nose and mouth, and he wrinkled his face in distaste. The smell was terrible. There were bones on the floor of the ravine, some of them quite new. He forced himself to ignore them. Brush and scrub blocked his way, but he pushed steadily through. He skirted a pile of broken rock, a boulder cluster, and the skeleton of a rather large animal. He thought he had come far enough. There was a massive earth mound just ahead with a curl of rock at one end. It appeared a good hiding place. He would wait there for the dragon to return.

He wondered suddenly how long that might be. The Fire Springs might be Strabo’s home, but that didn’t mean he came there all that often. Maybe he came only once a year, for pete’s sake! His impatience with himself flared. He should have asked the witch, damn it! He should have …

He came to an abrupt and startled halt. He was less than a dozen feet from his chosen hiding place, the curl of rock against the massive earthen mound—and the mound had just moved.

He stared. No, he must have imagined it.

The mound moved again.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.

A tiny cloud of dust rose from just above what he had believed to be the tip of the rock curls and a huge, lidded eye slipped open.

Ben Holiday, lawyer extraordinaire, intrepid adventurer, and would-be King of Landover had just made a very big mistake.

The dragon stirred lazily, shaking off the layer of earth and dust that covered it, and uncurled from its sleep. It kept its eyes on Ben, watching him the way a snake watches its cornered prey. Ben was frozen where he stood. He should have used the Io Dust. He should have turned and run. He should have done something—anything!—but he could not move an inch. It was all over but the shouting. He found himself wondering in a rush of black humor if he would be fried or sautéed.

Strabo blinked. The crusted head swung slowly about and the long snout split wide. Blackened teeth slipped free, and a long, split tongue flicked at the misted air.

“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” the dragon asked.

Ben was floored. He had expected a good many things from the dragon, but talking wasn’t one of them. The fact that the dragon talked changed everything. It took the edge off the fear he felt for the beast. It revised in an instant’s time his whole perspective on what was happening to him. If the dragon could be talked to, maybe the dragon could be reasoned with! He forgot about being fried or sautéed. He forgot about defending himself. He searched instead for something to say in reply.

Strabo’s head snapped up. “The mists at the edge of the fairy world—that’s where I saw you. Several weeks ago wasn’t it? I was asleep and you wandered past me. Stared at me so hard you woke me. Rude of you to do that, I might add.” He paused. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

Ben nodded mechanically, an image flashing in his mind of the dragon blowing him away head-over-heels like a feather caught in the wind. He brushed the image aside. He was still unable to believe that he was actually hearing the beast talk. The dragon had an odd voice, a sort of machinelike hiss that reverberated as if released from an echo chamber.

“Who are you?” the dragon asked, head lowering again. “What were you doing in the mists?” He showed his teeth as his lips curled back from his gums. “Are you one of the fairies?”

Ben shook his head. “No, I’m not.” He gathered his wits quickly now. “I’m Ben Holiday, from Chicago. From another world, really. I’m Landover’s new King.”

“Are you?” The dragon seemed unimpressed.

“Yes.” Ben hesitated, his courage slowly returning. “You know, I didn’t think dragons talked.”

Strabo shifted his bulk slightly, undulating his long, serpentine body so that his backside rested against a series of smaller pools, the flames dancing close against his scaled hide. “Oh, one of those,” he sniffed.

Ben frowned. “One of which?”

“One of those humans who think dragons are illiterate, mindless beasts who spend their time wreaking havoc on poor, hard-working, simple folk until some champion appears to do them in. You’re one of those, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am.”

“You read too many fairy tales, Holiday. Who do you think spreads those stories about dragons? Not the dragons, you can be sure. No, humans spread those stories, and humans are not about to characterize themselves as the bad folk and the dragon as the one mistreated, are they? You must consider the source, as they say. It is much easier to cast the dragon as the villain—burning fields, devouring livestock and peasants, seizing beautiful princesses, and challenging knights in armor. It all makes great reading, even if it isn’t the truth.”

Ben stared. What kind of dragon was this?

“There were dragons before there were humans, you know. There were dragons before most of the fairy creatures came into being.” Strabo bent down. His breath was terrible. “The trouble didn’t start with the dragons; it started with the others. No one wanted the dragons around. The dragons took up too much space. Everyone was frightened of the dragons and what they were capable of doing—never mind that it was only a few giving the rest a bad name! And our magic was so much stronger than theirs that they could not control us as they wished.”

The crusted head shook slowly. “But there are always ways of getting what you want if you work hard enough at it, and they worked very hard at getting rid of us. We were exiled, hunted, and destroyed, one after the other, until now there is only me. And they would destroy me as well, if they could.”

He didn’t specify who “they” were, but Ben guessed he meant everyone in general. “Are you saying you aren’t responsible for any of the things for which you are blamed?” he asked, looking a bit doubtful.

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Holiday—of course I’m responsible! I’m responsible for practically all of them!” The voice hissed softly. “I kill the humans and their tame animals when I wish. I burn out their crops and homes if I choose. I steal their mates because it pleases me. I hate them.”

The tongue flicked. “But it wasn’t always so, you see. It wasn’t so until it became easier for me to be the thing they thought me than to try to survive as the creature I once was …” He trailed off, as if remembering. “I’ve been alive for almost a thousand years, you know, and all alone for the past two hundred of those. There are no more dragons. They’re all legends. I’m all there is—like the Paladin. You know of him, Holiday? We’re both the last of our kind.”

Ben watched the dragon nuzzle at a Fire Spring, drinking the burning waters, inhaling the flames slowly. “Why are you telling me all of this?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

The dragon looked up. “Because you’re here.” The snout dipped. “Why are you here, by the way?”

Ben hesitated, remembering suddenly what had brought him. “Well …”

“Oh, yes.” The dragon cut him short. “You’re Landover’s newest King. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I haven’t been at it very long.”

“No, I assume not—otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“Hardly.” The dragon bent closer. “When the old King was alive, he kept me exiled here in this wasteland. I was forbidden the rest of the valley. The Paladin was used to keep me here because the Paladin was as strong as I. I flew the skies at night, sometimes, but could not let myself be seen by the humans nor interfere in their lives …” The dragon’s voice had grown hard. “I promised myself that one day I would be free again. This valley was as much mine as anyone’s. And when the old King died and the Paladin disappeared, I was free, Holiday—and no King of Landover shall ever put me back again.”

Ben was aware of a none-too-subtle shift in the atmosphere between them, but he pretended not to notice. “I’m not here for that,” he said.

“But you are here to ask for my pledge to the throne, aren’t you?”

“I’d thought about it,” Ben admitted.

Strabo’s snout split wide with a low, hissing laugh. “Such courage, Holiday! Wasted, though. I have never given my pledge to Landover’s Kings—never, in the thousand years of my life. Why should I? I am not as those others who live here! I am not confined to Landover as they! I can travel anywhere I choose!”

Ben swallowed. “You can?”

The dragon shifted, tail curling back behind Ben. “Well … not anywhere, I suppose. But almost anywhere. I cannot travel deep into the fairy world nor into worlds where they do not believe in dragons. Do they believe in dragons in your world?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“That explains why I have never been there. I travel only to lands where dragons are real—or, at least, where dragons once were real. I frequent half a dozen worlds close at hand. Most I have hunted. I had to hunt them when the old King forbid me the valley.” His look turned sly, eyes lidding. “But hunting beyond the valley is more work than I care to do. It is easier to hunt here. It is more satisfying!”

The atmosphere had now gone decidedly chilly. The dragon could be talked to, but it looked doubtful that he could be reasoned with. Ben felt doors closing all about him. “Well, I don’t suppose that there’s much point in my suggesting that you do anything else then, is there?”

Strabo lifted slightly on his hind legs, dust rising from his massive body. “I have enjoyed our conversation, Holiday, but it appears to be at an end. Unfortunately, that means the end of you.”

“Oh, wait a minute, let’s not be so hasty.” Ben couldn’t get the words out fast enough, his mind racing. “Our conversation doesn’t have to be over, does it? I think we should talk a bit more!”

“I can understand why you would might want to,” the dragon hissed softly. “But I grow bored.”

“Bored! Okay, let’s change the subject!”

“That wouldn’t help.”

“No? Well, how about if I just leave, then—just walk away, say good-bye, so long?” Ben was desperate now.

The dragon loomed above him, a huge, scaled shadow. “That just postpones the inevitable. Eventually you would come back again. You would have to, because you are Landover’s King. Face it, Holiday—I am the enemy. Either you have to destroy me or I have to destroy you. I much prefer the latter.”

Ben glanced about wildly. “For God’s sake, why does one of us have to destroy the other?”

“Why? Because that’s the way it is between dragons and Kings. That’s the way it’s always been.”

Ben’s frustration had reached the breaking point. “Well if that’s the way it’s always been, then why the long dissertation on the disservice being done to dragons by story-telling humans? Why did you waste time telling me all that if you planned to fry me right after?”

The dragon actually laughed. “What a quaint way of putting it!” He paused. “Yes, why bother telling you anything under the circumstances? Good point.” He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose because it was something to do. There’s not a lot to do out here, you know.”

Ben felt the last of his hope drain away. This was the end. He had dodged one silver bullet in the mists of the fairy world and a second in his confrontation with Nightshade. But this third one was going to do him in. He watched the dragon lift higher above him and begin to inhale slowly. One blast of fire and that would be it. His mind worked frantically. He had to do something! Damn it, he couldn’t just stand there and let himself be incinerated!

“Wait!” he called out sharply. “Don’t do it!” His hand reached into his tunic front and yanked free the medallion. “I still have this! I’ll use its magic if I have to.”

Strabo exhaled slowly, steam, smoke and flame singeing the misted air. He stared at the medallion and his tongue licked out. “You don’t command the magic, Holiday.”

Ben took a deep breath. “You’re wrong. I do. I’ll bring the Paladin if you don’t let me go.”

There was a long moment of silence. The dragon studied him thoughtfully and said nothing. Ben sent up a silent prayer. This was his last hope. The Paladin had come to him before when he was in trouble. Maybe …

His hand tightened about the face of the medallion, feeling the engraved surface press against his palm. A sudden, unexpected revelation came to him. What was he thinking? He could escape right now, if he chose! He had forgotten momentarily that the medallion gave him the means to do so! The medallion would take him back to his old world in an instant—all he had to do was take it off!

But that would mean leaving his friends trapped in Abaddon. That would mean leaving Landover forever. That would mean giving up.

That would also mean staying alive. He weighed the prospect, undecided. “I think you’re lying, Holiday,” the dragon said suddenly and began to breathe in again.

Good-bye, world, Ben thought and prepared to make a futile dash for safety.

But suddenly there was a sharp glimmer of light through the mist and steam that rose above the flames of the springs, and the Paladin did appear! Ben could not believe it. The knight materialized out of nothingness, a solitary, battered form atop his aging mount, lance hoisted in the crook of one arm before him. Strabo turned at once, clearly startled. Flames burst from his maw in an explosive roar, enveloped the knight and horse, and died into smoke. Ben flinched, feeling the backlash of the tremendous heat. He turned away, shielding his eyes, then quickly looked back again.

The Paladin was unharmed.

Strabo rose slowly on his massive hind legs, wings lifting like a shield, lidded eyes casting about to find Ben again. “Twenty years—it’s been twenty years!” he whispered in a low hiss. “I thought him gone forever! How did you bring him back, Holiday? How?”

Ben started to stammer something in reply, as surprised as Strabo by the Paladin’s reappearance, then quickly caught himself. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

“The medallion!” he exclaimed at once. “The medallion brought him! The words of magic are inscribed here—on the medallion’s back! Look for yourself!”

He held the disk out obligingly, dangling it from its silver chain so that the misted light reflected brightly from its surface. Strabo bent down, serpentine neck angling from his massive body, crusted head drawing close. The huge maw split open, the long tongue licking. Ben caught his breath. The dragon’s shadow fell over him, blocking away the light.

“Look—you can see the writing!” Ben urged and thought, just a little closer …

One hooked foreleg reached for the medallion.

Ben’s free hand jerked clear of his tunic pocket, and he flung a fistful of the Io Dust directly into Strabo’s nostrils. The dragon inhaled in surprise, then sneezed. The sneeze nearly blew Ben off his feet, but somehow he held his ground. He snatched back the medallion, reached into his other pocket and produced the pod. Strabo’s head was already swinging about to find him, jaws widening. Ben hurled the pod into the open maw. The dragon was quick, catching the pod in midair, biting down on it in fury, grinding it into pulp.

Too late Strabo realized his mistake. Io Dust flew everywhere, expoding from the dragon’s mouth in jets of white smoke. Strabo gave a dreadful roar and flames burst forth. Ben threw himself aside, rolled twice, scrambled to his feet again and raced for the clump of boulders he had passed coming in. He gained it half a dozen yards ahead of the fire and dove frantically behind it. Strabo had gone completely beserk. He was thrashing above the floor of the Fire Springs in a frenzy, his massive body smashing earth and rock alike. A crater of flames geysered skyward with a booming cough. The dragon roared and breathed fire everywhere. Flames and smoke filled the afternoon air, obscuring everything. The Paladin disappeared. The springs disappeared. Ben huddled in his shelter and prayed he had been quick enough that the dragon had lost sight of him.

After a time, the thrashing and the flames ceased, and it grew quiet again. Ben waited patiently in his shelter, listening to the muffled sounds of the dragon as he moved slowly about. The booming explosions of the Fire Springs faded back into a soft hissing.

“Holiday?”

The dragon’s voice was harsh with anger. Ben stayed where he was.

“Holiday? That was Io Dust, Holiday! That was an entire pod of Io Dust! Where did you get it? You said you weren’t one of the fairies! You lied!”

Ben waited. He hadn’t heard anything he liked yet. He listened as Strabo moved somewhere off to his left—listened to the heavy sound of his body dragging.

“Do you know how dangerous such magic is, Holiday? Do you know the harm you could have caused me? Why did you trick me like that?”

The moving stopped. Ben heard the dragon shift himself, then heard the sound of drinking. Maybe he had made a mistake, he thought suddenly. Maybe an entire pod of Io Dust was too much for anyone. Maybe the dragon was hurt.

There was a lengthy sigh. “Holiday, why have you done this to me? What is it that you want of me? Tell me and be done with it!”

The dragon sounded more hurt than angry. Ben decided to risk it. “I want your word that you will do nothing to harm me!” he called out.

The dragon’s reply was a soft hiss. “You have it.”

“I want you to tell me that you will do whatever I tell you to do and nothing else. You have to anyway, you know.”

“I know, Holiday! I agree! Tell me what it is that you want!”

Ben slipped cautiously from behind the shelter of the boulders. Streamers of mist and smoke still hung over the pit of the Fire Springs, casting everything in an eerie half-light. Strabo crouched several dozen yards away between a series of burning craters, looking like an angry, trapped animal. His ugly, crusted head swung slowly about, lidded eyes catching sight of Ben. Ben tensed, prepared to dive back behind the boulders. But the dragon only looked at him and waited.

“Come over here,” Ben ordered.

The dragon came—meekly. There was undisguised hatred in his eyes. Ben watched the monster approach. The barrel-shaped body hunched along above thick, armored legs. Wings flapped with the movement, and the long tail snaked about restlessly. Ben felt like Fay Wray with King Kong.

“Set me free!” Strabo demanded. “Set me free, and I’ll let you live!”

Ben shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“You mean you won’t!” the dragon whispered, his voice like sandpaper rubbed across slate. “But you can’t keep me like this forever, and when I do get free of you …”

“Let’s just skip the threats, shall we?”

“… there won’t be enough left of you to fill a gnome’s thimble goblet, not enough to feed the smallest cave wight—and I’ll cause you such pain that you won’t believe …”

“Are you ready to listen to me?”

The dragon’s head lifted disdainfully. “I won’t pledge to you, Holiday! It would mean nothing given this way!”

Ben nodded. “I understand that. I don’t want your pledge.”

There was a long moment of silence as the dragon studied him. The hatred in the beast’s eyes had given way to curiosity. It appeared that the worst was over. The dragon was his—for the moment, at least. Ben felt a welcome easing of tension within himself, a dissipation of the fear and sharp anticipation. He had dodged silver bullet number three. He still held the medallion clasped tightly in one hand, and he slipped it back into his tunic now. He glanced about momentarily for the Paladin, but the knight had disappeared again.

“Like a ghost …” he murmured.

He turned back to the dragon. Strabo was still studying him. The wicked tongue licked nervously at the misted air. “Very well, Holiday. I give up. What do you want from me?”

Ben smiled. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable, and I’ll tell you.”