The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1

MEDALLION



It was the most terrifying moment of Ben Holiday’s life.

The Iron Mark advanced the wolf-serpent through the ranks of the demons, slowly closing the distance that separated them. The black armor was scarred and battered, but it gleamed wickedly in the half-light. Weapons jutted from their sheaths and bindings—swords, battle axes, daggers, and a half-dozen more. Serrated spines ran the length of the Mark’s limbs and back, bristling like a porcupine’s quills. The helmet with the death’s head had the visor closed down; but through iron slits, eyes glimmered a bright crimson.

Ben had never noticed before. The Mark was at least eight feet tall. The Mark was huge.

The wolf-serpent lifted its crusted head, its massive jaws parted and its teeth bared. It hissed, the sound like steam released under enormous pressure, and a snake’s tongue licked at the morning air.

All about, the breathing of the demons was a harsh and eager reply.

Ben was suddenly paralyzed. He had been frightened before by the things he had encountered and the dangers he had faced during his brief time in Landover—but never like this. He had thought he would be equal to this confrontation, and he was not. The Mark was going to kill him, and he didn’t know how to stop it from happening. He was captive to his fear, frozen in the manner of an animal who has been brought to bay at last by its most persistent enemy. He would have run in that instant if he could have made himself do so, but he could not. He could only stand there, watching the demon advance on him, waiting for his inevitable destruction.

It was with great effort that he managed to reach within his tunic and clasp tightly the medallion.

The carved surface pressed its outline of island castle, rising sun and mounted knight into the palm of his hand. The medallion was the only hope he had, and he clung to it with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

Help me, he prayed!

There was a sharp hiss of anticipation from the demons. The Mark slowed his wolf-serpent and the helmet with the death’s head lifted watchfully.

It isn’t too late—I can still escape, Ben screamed out in the silence of his mind. I can still use the medallion to save myself!

Something tugged at his memory then—something indefinable. Fear has many disguises, the fairies had warned. You must learn to recognize them. The words were just a nudge, but it was enough to ease the iron grip of his fear and let him reason again. The floodgates opened. Bits and pieces of conversations and events surrounding the medallion recalled themselves in a frantic rush. They spun and swirled like debris in a stream’s sudden eddy, and he grasped for them desperately.

Willow’s calm voice whispered to him in the midst of his confusion: The answers you need are there.

But, damn it, he couldn’t find them!

Then the fingers of his memory closed about a single, small admonishment that he had nearly forgotten in the chaos of the days and weeks now past, and he snatched it clear of the others. It had come from Meeks, of all people. It had been contained in the letter that had accompanied the medallion when it was first given to him.

No one can take the medallion from you, the letter had said.

He repeated the words, sensing something important hidden in them, not yet understanding what it was. The medallion was the key. He had always known that. He had sworn his oath of office upon it. It was the symbol of his rule. It was recognized by all as the mark of his Kingship. It was the key to passage in and out of Landover. It was the link between Landover’s Kings and the Paladin.

The Mark dug iron spurs sharply into the scaled body of the wolf-serpent, and the beast heaved forward once more, hissing with rage. The demon army came with it.

He cannot take the medallion from me, Ben decided suddenly. The Mark must have the medallion, but he cannot take it from me. Somehow, I know it is so. He waits for me to use it so that I will be gone from Landover forever. That is what he expects me to do. That is what he really wants.

Meeks had wanted that as well. All of his enemies seemed to want that.

And that was reason enough not to allow it.

His hand lifted the medallion clear of his tunic, and he let it fall gently against his chest, free of his clothing where all could see it. He would not remove it. He would not use it to escape. He would not leave Landover when he had worked so hard to stay. This was where he belonged, alive or dead. This was his home.

This was his commitment.

He thought suddenly, once again, of the Paladin.

The Iron Mark closed on him, and a lance with spikes jutting from its tip lowered toward his chest. Ben waited. He no longer felt the fear. He no longer felt anything but a renewed stubbornness and determination.

It was enough.

Light flashed at the far edge of the clearing, brilliant and white against the shadows and gloom. The Mark wheeled about and there was a low hiss of recognition from among the ranks of the demons.

The Paladin appeared out of the light.

Ben shuddered. Something deep within drew him almost physically to the apparition—pulled him in the manner of an invisible magnet. It was as if the ghost were reaching for him.

The Paladin rode forward to the forest’s edge and stopped. Behind him, the light died away. But the Paladin did not fade with the light as he had each time before. This time he remained.

Ben was twisting inside of himself, separating away from his being in a way he had not thought possible. He wanted to scream. What was happening? His mind spun. The demons seemed to have gone mad, crying out, shrieking, milling about as if they had lost all direction. The Mark spurred forward through their midst, his carrier grinding them underfoot as if they were blades of grass. Ben heard Questor cry out to him; he heard Willow cry out as well—and he heard the sound of his own voice calling back.

He recognized something grand and terrible then through his haze of confusion and physical distress. The Paladin was no longer a ghost. He was real!

He felt the medallion burn against his chest, a flare of silver light. He felt it turn to ice, then to fire and then to something that was neither. Then he watched it streak across the Heart to where the Paladin waited.

He watched himself be carried with it.

There was just enough time left for a single, stunning revelation. There was one question he had never asked—one that none of them had asked. Who was the Paladin? Now he knew.

He was.

All he had ever needed to do to discover that was to give himself over to this land of magic when it truly meant something. All he had ever needed to do to bring the Paladin back was to forgo the option of escape and to commit finally and irrevocably to a decision to remain.

He was astride the Paladin’s charger. Silver armor closed about him, encasing him in an iron shell. Clasps and fasteners snapped shut, clamps and screws tightened, and the world became a rush of memories. He was submerged within those memories, a swimmer fighting to come up for air. He lost himself in their flow. He changed and was born anew. He was from a thousand other times and places, and he had lived a thousand other lives. The memories were now his. He was a warrior whose skill in battle and combat experience had never been equalled. He was a champion who had never lost.

Ben Holiday ceased to be. Ben Holiday became the Paladin.

He was aware momentarily of the present King of Landover standing statuelike on the dais at the center of the Heart. Time and motion seemed to slow to a standstill. Then he spurred his horse forward, and he forgot everything but the monstrous black challenger that rose to meet him.

They met in a frightening clash of armor and weapons. The spike-studded lance of the Mark and his own of white oak splintered and broke apart. Their mounts screamed and shuddered with the force of the impact, then raced past each other and wheeled recklessly about. Fingers of metal plating and chain mail gripped the hafts of battle axes and the curving blades lifted into the dawn air.

They came at each other again. The Mark was a black monstrosity that dwarfed the worn and battered figure of the silver knight. It was an obvious mismatch. They thundered toward each other and collided in a resounding crash. Axe blades bit deep, lodging in metal joints, slicing through armor. Both riders lost their balance and careened wildly astride their chargers. They wheeled and broke apart, axes hammering. The Paladin was yanked violently backward and pulled from his horse. He fell, clinging to the harness straps of the wolf-serpent.

It seemed the end of him. The wolf-serpent twisted violently, reaching back with its jaws to finish him. He was just out of reach. The Iron Mark wielded his battle axe with both hands. The axe hammered down, blow after blow, as the Mark sought to shatter his enemy’s helmet.

The Paladin dangled from the harness straps, twisting to avoid the terrible blows. He could not release his grip. If he were to fall backward, the weight of his armor would not let him rise again and he would be trampled to death. He groped blindly for his assailant, finding at last the weapons harness the demon wore strapped about his waist.

His fingers closed on the handle of a four-edged dirk.

He wrenched the weapon free and buried it in the Mark’s knee where the jointed metal armor gaped open. The Mark shuddered, and the battle axe dropped from his nerveless fingers. The Paladin grappled with the demon, trying to yank him off balance, seeking to pull him clear of the harness seat. The wolf-serpent wheeled wildly, hissing with rage as he felt his rider slipping. The Mark clung desperately to the reins and harness straps, kicking out at the Paladin. Kneeling pads and armrests shattered like deadwood as the combatants careened through the center of the Heart, and howls rose from the demons caught within.

Then abruptly the Paladin jerked the four-edged dirk from the Mark’s armored knee and jammed it downward into the wolf-serpent’s shoulder where it joined the scaled body. The monster reared and bolted, throwing both knight and demon to the ground in a crash of armor.

The Paladin landed on hands and knees, fighting to keep his balance. Dizziness washed through him. The Mark sprawled a dozen feet away, but he lurched unsteadily to his feet despite the massive weight of his armor. Both hands reached down to a giant broadsword sheathed at his waist.

The Paladin heaved himself upright then and freed his own broadsword just as the Mark reached him. Sword blades hammered into each other in a frightening clash of metal, the sound ringing out against the sudden stillness. The Paladin was thrust back by the heavier form of the Mark, yet kept his feet. Again they lunged and again the swords hammered down. Back and forth across the Heart the combatants staggered as the broadswords rose and fell in the half-light.

The Paladin experienced a sudden, unfamiliar sensation. He was losing this battle.

Then the Mark feinted and reversed the swing of his broadsword so that it cut downward in a sweeping motion toward the Paladin’s feet. It was a glancing blow that careened off the tarnished armor, yet it caught the knight by surprise and knocked him sideways. He went down heavily and his weapon spun out of reach. The Mark was atop him at once. The demon’s giant broadsword arced downward, and the blade caught and lodged in the Paladin’s shoulder plates, wedged between the joints. Had the Mark released the sword, it would have been the end of the Paladin. But the demon clung fast to the weapon, struggling to free it, refusing to let go. It gave the Paladin one last chance. Desperately he groped his way up the demon’s armored body, grappling for the weapons harness once more.

His fingers closed about the haft of the iron-headed mace.

The Paladin reared up, one hand clinging to the Mark’s armored body, the other bringing up the mace. The ridged crown crashed into the helmeted death’s head and the Mark shuddered. The Paladin swung the weapon upward a second time, the whole of his strength behind the blow. The metal visor split wide, and the face within was a nightmare of blood and twisted features. Silver light flared from the body of the Paladin. Once more the mace rose and fell, and the death’s head disintegrated.

The Iron Mark tumbled to the earth, a shapeless mass of black metal. The Paladin rose slowly and stepped away.

A stillness shrouded the Heart, a mantle of hushed silence that was its own terrifying sound. Then the wind rose with a howl, the thunder reverberated through the forest earth, the air swirled black with shadows and gloom, and the gateway to Abaddon opened suddenly about the demons. Howling and crying, they disappeared back into the netherworld.

The clearing stood empty once more. Gloom and shadows dissipated. The dawn’s new light fell across the Paladin as he climbed back astride his charger. The light gleamed on armor that was no longer tarnished or worn, but like new. The light flared, reflecting momentarily from the knight to the medallion worn by Landover’s King as he stood alone at the forefront of the dais.

Then the light faded and the Paladin was gone.



Ben Holiday breathed the morning air and felt the warmth of the sunlight on his body. He felt momentarily weightless in the light clothing of Landover’s King, free once more from the Paladin’s armor. Time and motion thawed and quickened until all was as it had been.

He was himself again. The dream, the nightmare, whichever part of both he had survived, was over.

Shadowy figures stirred within the forest trees and emerged into the Heart, humans and fairies, Lords and knights of the Greensward, and the River Master with his people of the lake country, picking their way carefully through the debris. Ben’s friends appeared from their shelter at the base of the dais, stunned looks on their faces. Willow was smiling.

“High Lord …” Questor began helplessly and trailed off. Then slowly he knelt before the dais. “High Lord,” he whispered.

Willow, Abernathy, and the kobolds knelt with him. Fillip and Sot reappeared, as if by magic, and they, too, knelt. All across the clearing the men of the Greensward and the men of fairy dropped to one knee—the River Master, Kallendbor, Strehan, the Lords of the Greensward, all that had come.

“High Lord,” they acknowledged.

“High Lord,” he whispered back.

KING



It was all pretty simple after that. Even a neophyte monarch like Ben didn’t have much difficulty figuring out what to do with all those astonished subjects. He got them back on their feet and marched them directly to Sterling Silver for a victory feast. Things might have been tough up until this morning and they might be tough again by tomorrow; but for the remainder of this day, at least, it looked like smooth sailing.

He ferried his friends, the River Master and his immediate family, and the Lords of the Greensward and their retainers across in the lake skimmer and left soldiers and assorted entourages to camp along the shoreline. It took several trips to bring everyone invited across, and he made a mental note to construct a bridge before the next get-together.

“There was a bridge in the old days, High Lord,” Questor whispered surreptitiously, as if reading his thoughts, “but when the old King died, the people ceased coming to the castle, the army drifted away, and traffic eventually stopped altogether. The bridge fell into a terrible state of disrepair, boards cracked and rotted, bindings frayed, nails rusted—just a large clog in the lake that reflected the sorry state of the entire kingdom. I tried to salvage it with magic, High Lord, but things just didn’t work out quite the way I had planned …” He stopped rambling and trailed off.

Ben’s eyebrows lifted. “Things?”

Questor leaned closer. They were midway across the lake on their final trip. “I am afraid I sank the bridge, High Lord.”

He peered reluctantly over the skimmer’s bow. Ben peered with him. It was hard to keep from grinning, but he did.

He gathered his guests in the great hall and seated them about a series of tressel tables pulled together. He worried belatedly that Sterling Silver could not find the means to feed them all, but his fears were groundless. The castle reproduced provisions from her larder with newfound strength and determination—as if she could sense the victory that had been won—and there was food and drink enough for everyone, inside and out.

It was a marvelous feast—a celebration in which all shared. Food and drink were consumed with relish, toasts were exchanged and adventures recounted. There was a fellowship that transcended lingering skepticism; there was a strange sense of renewal. One by one those gathered rose to their feet, at Questor’s urging, and pledged once more their loyalty and unconditional support to Landover’s newest King.

“Long life, High Lord Ben Holiday,” the River Master prayed. “May all your future successes match today’s.”

“May you keep the magic close and use it well,” Kallendbor advised, the warning in his voice unmistakable.

“Strength and judgment, High Lord,” wished Strehan, his brow clouded with a continuing mix of awe and doubt.

“Great High Lord!” Fillip cried.

“Mighty High Lord!” Sot echoed.

Ah, well—it was a mixed bag, but a welcome one. One after another, they gave him their pledges and good wishes, and Ben acknowledged each courteously. There was cause for optimism, no matter how difficult tomorrow might turn out to be. The Paladin was returned—brought back from a place in which no one would have thought to look, freed from the prison of Ben’s own heart. The magic was returned to the valley, and Landover would begin its transformation back to the pastoral land it had once been. The changes would be slow, but they would come. The mist and gloom would clear and there would be sunlight again. The Tarnish would fade; Sterling Silver would be Castle Dracula no more. The blight that had stricken the Bonnie Blues would weaken and die. Forests, grasslands, and hills would heal. Lakes and rivers would come clean. Wildlife would flourish anew. Everything would be reborn.

And one day, a day far in the future, perhaps past the time that he would live, the golden vision of life in the valley that he had been shown by the fairies would come to pass.

It can happen, he told himself firmly. I need only believe. I need only remain true. I need only continue to work for it.

He rose when they had finished. “I am your servant, first and always—yours and the land’s,” he told them, his voice quiet. The noise died away and they turned to listen. “I am that to you and I ask that you be the same to each other. We have much to accomplish together. These things we shall do immediately. We shall cease polluting the waterways and ravaging the forestlands of our neighbors. We shall work with each other and teach each other what we can to protect and restore all the land. We shall devise commerce agreements that facilitate free trade between all our peoples. We shall institute public works programs for our roads and waterways. We shall revise our laws and establish courts to enforce them. We shall exchange ambassadors—here and with all of the peoples of the valley—and we shall convene regularly at Sterling Silver to air our grievances in a peaceful and constructive fashion.”

He paused. “We shall find a way to be friends.”

They toasted him, more for the thought than the feasibility of what he was proposing, he knew—but it was a start. There were other ideas to be implemented as well: a workable taxing system, a uniform currency exchange, a census, and various reclamation projects. He had ideas he hadn’t even begun to think through thoroughly enough to propose yet. But the time would come. He would find a way to put them all to work.

He passed down the table, pausing by Kallendbor and the River Master. He bent close. “I rely on you, most of all, to stand by your promises. Each must help the other as you have sworn you would. We are all allies, now.”

There were solemn nods and murmured assurances. But a veil of doubt remained in their eyes. Neither was certain that Ben Holiday was the man to hold their enemies in check. Neither was convinced that he was the King they needed. His victory over the Mark was impressive; but it was only a single victory. They would wait and see.

Ben accepted that. At least he had their pledge. He would find a way to win their trust.

He thought back momentarily to the battle fought between the Paladin and the Mark. He had told no one what he had learned of the link between the knight-errant and himself. He wasn’t sure yet if he ever would. He wondered if he could bring the Paladin back again if the knight were needed. He thought that he could. But it chilled him to think about the transformation he had undergone within that suit of iron—the feelings and emotions he had shared with his champion, the memories of battles and deaths over so many years. He shook his head. There would have to be a very compelling reason for him to call the Paladin back again …

Another toast was proposed by one of the Lords—his good health. He acknowledged it and drank. Count on it, he promised silently.

He switched subjects. He must begin work immediately on restoration of the Heart. So much had been damaged during the battle with the Mark; the ground had been torn, the white velvet kneeling pads and armrests had been destroyed, and the staffs of the flags and the tall stanchions had been shattered. The Heart must be put right again. It meant something special to them all, but to no one more than him.

“Ben.” Willow left her seat and moved next to him. She lifted her wine glass. “Happiness, High Lord,” she wished him, her voice soft against the background of noise.

He smiled. “I think I’ve found that happiness, Willow. You and the others have helped me find it.”

“Is this true?” She looked at him carefully. “And does the pain of what you lost in your old life no longer haunt you, then?”

She spoke of Annie. A momentary image of his dead wife passed within his mind and then faded. His old life was over; he would not be going back to it. He felt he could accept that now. He could never forget Annie, but he could let her go.

“It no longer haunts me,” he answered.

Her green eyes held his own. “Perhaps you will permit me to remain with you long enough to make certain, Ben Holiday?”

He nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

She bent close and kissed his forehead, his cheek and his mouth. The party continued unnoticed around them.



It was after midnight when the festivities ended and the guests began to retire to the rooms that had been prepared for them. Ben had finished saying good night to all who remained and was giving thought to the comforts of his own bed when Questor approached, looking a bit embarrassed.

“High Lord,” he began and stopped. “High Lord, I regret troubling you with so small a problem at this hour, but it needs attending to, and I believe you best suited to deal with it.” He cleared his throat. “It seems that one of the Lords brought a canine pet with him into Sterling Silver—quite a close member of the family, I am given to understand—and now it has disappeared.”

Ben lifted his eyebrows. “A dog?”

Questor nodded. “I have said nothing to Abernathy …”

“I see.” Ben glanced about. Fillip and Sot were nowhere in sight. “And you think … ?”

“Merely a possibility, High Lord.”

Ben sighed. Tomorrow’s troubles were already upon him. But then, of course, so was tomorrow. He grinned in spite of himself. “What do you say, Questor—let’s go find out if the gnomes are planning a midnight snack.”

High Lord Ben Holiday, King of Landover, began the new day rather earlier than expected.

THE BLACK UNICORN





For Amanda

She sees unicorns that are hidden from me …

“How do you know she is a unicorn?” Molly demanded. “And why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her.”



“I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long,” the cat replied without rancor. “I would not waste time in foolishness if I were you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your second question—” Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but examined his claws.



“If she had touched me,” he said very softly, “I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again.”



—Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn





CONTENTS





Prologue

Dreams …

… and Memories

Shadows …

… and Nightmares

Stranger

Edgewood Dirk

Healer Sprite

Dance

Earth Mother

Hunt

Thieves

Mask

Witch and Dragon, Dragon and Witch

Fire and Spun Gold

Search

Mirwouk and Flynt

Discovery

Cat’s Paw

Revelation

Combat

Legend

Epilogue





PROLOGUE





The black unicorn stepped from the morning mists, almost as if born of them, and stared out over the kingdom of Landover.



Daybreak hovered at the crest of the eastern horizon, an intruder that peeked from its place of concealment to catch a glimpse of night’s swift departure. The silence seemed to deepen further with the appearance of the unicorn—as if that one small event in that one tiny corner was sensed somehow throughout the whole of the valley. Everywhere sleep gave way to waking, dreams to being, and that moment of transition was as close as time ever came to being frozen.



The unicorn stood near the summit of the valley’s northern rim, high in the mountains of the Melchor, close to the edge of the world of fairy. Landover spread away before it, forested slopes and bare rock crags dropping toward foothills and grasslands, rivers and lakes, forests and scrub. Color glimmered in hazy patches through the fading dark where streaks of sunlight danced off morning dew. Castles, towns, and cottages were vague, irregular shapes against the symmetry, creatures that hunkered down in rest and breathed smoke from dying embers.



There were tears in the eyes of green fire that swept the valley end to end and glittered with newfound life. It had been so long!



A stream trickled down and collected in a basin of rocks a dozen yards from where the unicorn stood. A tiny gathering of forest creatures crouched at the edge of that pool and stared in awe at the wonder that had materialized before them—a rabbit, a badger, several squirrels and voles, an opossum and young, a solitary toad. A cave wight melted back into the shadows. A bog wump flattened back into its hole. Birds sat motionless upon the branches of the trees. All were stilled. The only sound was the ripple of the stream over mountain rock.



The black unicorn nodded its head in recognition of the homage being paid. Ebony body gleamed in the half light, mane and fetlocks shimmering like silk thrown in the wind. Goat’s feet shifted and lion’s tail swished, restless movements against the backdrop of the still-life world. The ridged horn knifed the darkness, shining faintly with magic. There had never before been a thing of such grace and beauty in all of creation as the unicorn and never would be again.



Dawn broke sharply over the valley of Landover, and the new day was begun. The black unicorn felt the sun’s heat on its face and lifted its head in greeting. But invisible chains still bound it, and the cold of their lingering presence dispelled almost instantly the momentary warmth.



The unicorn shivered. It was immortal and could never be killed by mortal things. But its life could be stolen away all the same. Time was the ally of the enemy who had imprisoned it. And time had begun to move forward again.



The black unicorn slipped like quicksilver through shadows and light in search of its freedom.

DREAMS …



“I had a dream last night,” Ben Holiday announced to his friends at breakfast that morning.

He might as well have been giving a weather report. The wizard Questor Thews did not appear to hear him, his lean, owlish face furrowed in thought, his gaze directed some twenty feet above the breakfast table at an invisible point in space. The kobolds Bunion and Parsnip barely looked up from eating. The scribe Abernathy managed a look of polite curiosity, but for a shaggy-faced dog whose normal look was one of polite curiosity, that was not particularly difficult.

Only the sylph Willow, just come into the dining hall of castle Sterling Silver and seated next to him, showed any real interest—a sudden change of expression that was oddly disquieting.

“I dreamed about home,” he continued, determined to pursue the matter. “I dreamed about the old world.”

“Excuse me?” Questor was looking at him now, apparently returned from whatever planet he had been visiting. “Excuse me, but did I hear you say something about … ?”

“Exactly what did you dream about the old world, High Lord?” Abernathy interrupted impatiently, polite curiosity become faint disapproval. He looked at Ben meaningfully over the rims of his eyeglasses. He always looked at him like that when Ben mentioned anything about the old world.

Ben forged ahead. “I dreamed about Miles Bennett. You remember my telling you about Miles, don’t you—my old law partner? Well, I dreamed about him. I dreamed that he was in trouble. It wasn’t a complete dream; there wasn’t a true beginning or end. It was as if I came in halfway through the story. Miles was in his office, working, sorting through these papers. There were phone calls coming in, messages being delivered, people in the shadows where I couldn’t see them clearly. But I could see that Miles was practically frantic. He looked terrible. He kept asking for me. He kept wondering where I was, why I wasn’t there. I called out to him, but he didn’t hear me. Then there was a distortion of some sort, a darkness, a twisting of what I was seeing. Miles kept calling, asking for me. Then something came between us, and I woke up.”

He glanced briefly at the faces about him. They all were listening now. “But that doesn’t really tell you everything,” he added quickly. “There was a sense of … some impending disaster lurking behind the whole series of images. There was an intensity that was frightening. It was so … real.”

“Some dreams are like that, High Lord,” Abernathy observed, shrugging. He pushed the eyeglasses back on his nose and folded his forelegs primly across his vested chest. He was a fastidious dog. “Dreams are frequently manifestations of our subconscious fears, I’ve read.”

“Not this dream,” Ben insisted. “This was more than your average, garden-variety dream. This was like a premonition.”

Abernathy sniffed. “And I suppose the next thing you are going to tell me is that on the strength of this emotionally distressing, but rationally unfounded, dream you feel compelled to return to your old world?” The scribe was making no effort to conceal his distress now, his worst fears about to be realized.

Ben hesitated. It had been more than a year since he had passed into the mists of the fairy world somewhere deep in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains twenty miles southwest of Waynesboro, Virginia, and entered the kingdom of Landover. He had paid a million dollars for the privilege, answering an advertisement in a department store catalogue, acting more out of desperation than out of reason. He had come into Landover as King, but his acceptance as such by the land’s inhabitants had not come easily. Attacks on his claim to the throne had come from every quarter. Creatures whose very existence he had once believed impossible had nearly destroyed him. Magic, the power that governed everything in this strangely compelling world, was the two-edged sword he had been forced to master in order to survive. Reality had been redefined for him since he had made his decision to enter the mists, and the life he had known as a trial lawyer in Chicago, Illinois, seemed far removed from his present existence. Still, that old life was not completely forgotten, and he thought now and then of going back.

His eyes met those of his scribe. He didn’t know what answer to give. “I admit that I am worried about Miles,” he said finally.

The dining hall was very quiet. The kobolds had stopped eating, their monkey faces frozen in those frightening half grins that showed all their considerable teeth. Abernathy was rigid in his seat. Willow had gone pale, and it appeared that she was about to speak.

But it was Questor Thews who spoke first. “A moment, High Lord,” he advised thoughtfully, one bony finger placed to his lips.

He rose from the table, dismissed from the room the serving boys who stood surreptitiously on either side, and closed the doors tightly behind them. The six friends were alone in the cavernous dining hall. That apparently wasn’t enough for Questor. The great arched entry at the far end of the room opened through a foyer to the remainder of the castle. Questor walked silently to its mouth and peered about.

Ben watched curiously, wondering why Questor was being so cautious. Admittedly, it wasn’t like the old days when there were only the six of them living at Sterling Silver. Now there were retainers of all ages and ranks, soldiers and guardsmen, emissaries and envoys, messengers and assorted others that comprised his court, all stumbling over one another and into his private life when it was least convenient. But it wasn’t as if the subject of his going back to the old world hadn’t been discussed openly before—and by practically everyone. It wasn’t as if the people of Landover didn’t know by this time that he wasn’t a native Landoverian.

He smiled ruefully. Ah, well—there was no harm in being cautious.

He stretched, loosening muscles still tightened from sleep. He was a man of ordinary appearance, his height and build medium, his weight evenly distributed. His movements were quick and precise; he had been a boxer in his youth and still retained much of his old skill. His face was brown from sun and wind, with high cheekbones and forehead, a hawk nose, and a hairline that receded slightly at the corners. Age lines were beginning to show at the corners of his eyes, but the eyes themselves were brilliant blue and icy.

His gaze shifted ceilingward. Morning sunlight streamed through high glass windows and danced off polished wood and stone. The warmth of the castle seeped through him, and he could feel her stir restlessly. She was always listening. He knew that she had heard him speak of the dream and was responding with a measure of discontent. She was the mother who worried for her brash, incautious child. She was the mother who sought always to keep that child safe beside her. She didn’t like it when he talked of leaving.

He glanced covertly at his friends: Questor Thews, the wizard whose magic frequently misfired, a ragtag scarecrow of patchwork robes and tangled gestures; Abernathy, the court scribe become a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier through Questor’s magic and left that way when the magic couldn’t be found to change him back again, a dog in gentleman’s clothing; Willow, the beautiful sylph who was half woman, half tree, a creature of the fairy world with magic of her own; and Bunion and Parsnip, the kobolds who looked like big-eared monkeys in knickers, a messenger and a cook. He had found them all so strange in the beginning. A year later, he found them comfortable and reassuring and felt protected in their presence.

He shook his head. He lived in a world of dragons and witches, of gnomes, trolls, and other strange creatures, of living castles and fairy magic. He lived in a fantasy kingdom in which he was King. He was what he had once only dreamed of being. The old world was long past, the old life gone. Odd, then, that he still thought of that world and life so frequently, of Miles Bennett and Chicago, of the law practice, of the responsibilities and obligations he had left behind. Threads from the tapestry of last night’s dream entwined within his memory and tugged relentlessly at him. He could not forget easily, it seemed, what had comprised so many years of his life …

Questor Thews cleared his throat.

“I had a dream last night as well, High Lord,” the wizard declared, returned from his reconnaissance. Ben’s eyes snapped up. The tall, robed figure hunched down over his high-backed chair, green eyes clear and distant. The bony fingers of one hand scratched the bearded chin, and the voice was a wary hiss. “My dream was of the missing books of magic!”

Ben understood the other’s caution now. Few within Landover knew of the books of magic. The books had belonged to Questor’s half-brother, the former court wizard of Landover, a fellow Ben had known in the old world as Meeks. It was Meeks, in league with a disgruntled heir to the throne, who had sold Ben the kingship of Landover for one million dollars—certain that Ben would fall victim to one of any number of traps set to destroy him, certain that when Ben was finally dispatched the kingship would become his to sell again. Meeks had thought to make Questor his ally, the promise of knowledge from the hidden books of magic the carrot used to entice his half-brother to his cause. But Questor and Ben had become allies instead, eluding all the traps that Meeks had set and severing the old wizard’s ties with Landover for good.

Ben’s eyes fixed Questor’s. Yes, Meeks was gone—but the books of magic still remained concealed somewhere within the valley …

“Did you hear what I said, High Lord?” Questor’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “The missing books—magic gleaned by wizards of Landover since the dawn of her creation! I think I know where they are! I saw where they were in my dream!” The eyes danced. The voice dropped to a whisper. “They are hidden in the catacombs of the ruined fortress of Mirwouk, high in the Melchor! In my dream, I followed after a torch that no hand carried, followed it through the dark, through tunnels and stairways to a door marked with scroll and runes. The door opened; there were blocks of stone flooring and one marked with a special sign. It gave at my touch and the books were there! I remember it all … as if it really happened!”

Now it was Ben’s turn to look dubious. He started to say something in reply and stopped, not knowing what to say. He felt Willow stir uneasily beside him.

“I did not know whether to speak of my dream or not, to be honest with you,” the wizard confided, his words coming in a rush. “I thought maybe I should wait until I was able to discover if the dream was false or true before I said anything. But then you spoke of your dream, and I …” He hesitated. “Mine was like yours, High Lord. It was not so much a dream as a premonition. It was strangely intense, compelling in its vividness. It was not frightening like yours; it was … exhilarating!”

Abernathy, at least, was not impressed. “All this could be the result of something you ate, wizard,” he suggested rather unkindly.

Questor seemed not to hear him. “Do you realize what it would mean if I were to have the books of magic in my possession?” he asked eagerly, hawk face intense. “Do you have any idea of the magic I would command?”

“It seems to me you command quite enough already!” Abernathy snapped. “I would remind you that it was your command—or lack thereof—over magic that reduced me to my present state some years back! There is no telling what damage you might cause if your powers were enhanced further!”

“Damage? What of the good I might accomplish?” Questor wheeled on the other, bending close. “What if I were to find a way to change you back again!”

Abernathy went still. It was one thing to be skeptical—another to be foolishly so. He wanted nothing more in all the world than to be human again.

“Questor, are you sure about this?” Ben asked finally.

“As sure as you, High Lord,” the wizard replied. He hesitated. “Odd, though, that on a single night there should be two dreams …”

“Three,” Willow said suddenly.

They stared at her—Questor, his sentence unfinished; Ben, still trying to grasp the significance of Questor’s revelation; Abernathy and the kobolds speechless. Had she said … ?

“Three,” she repeated. “I, too, had a dream—and it was strange and disturbing and perhaps more vivid than either of yours.”

Ben saw the disquieting expression again, more pronounced, more intense. He had been preoccupied before and had not paid close attention. Willow was not given to exaggeration. Something had shaken her. He saw a worry in her eyes that bordered on fear.

“What was it that you dreamed?” he asked.

She did not speak immediately. She seemed to be remembering. “I was on a journey through lands that were both familiar and at the same time foreign. I was in Landover and yet I was somewhere else. I was seeking something. My people were there, dim shadows that whispered urgently to me. There was a need for haste, but I did not understand why. I simply went on, searching.”

She paused. “Then daylight passed away into darkness, and moonlight flooded a woods that rose all about me like a wall. I was alone now. I was so frightened I could not call for help even though I felt I must. There was a mist that stirred. Shadows crowded so close that they threatened to smother me.” Her hand crept over Ben’s and tightened. “I needed you, Ben. I needed you so badly I could not stand the thought of not having you there. A voice seemed to whisper within me that if I did not complete my journey quickly, I would lose you. Forever.”

Something in the way Willow spoke that single word chilled Ben Holiday to the bone.

“Then suddenly a creature appeared before me, a wraith come from the mists of the predawn night.” The sylph’s green eyes glittered. “It was a unicorn, Ben, so dark that it seemed to absorb the white moon’s light as a sponge would absorb water. It was a unicorn, but something more. It was not white as the unicorns of old, but ink black. It barred my passage, its horn lowered, hooves pawing at the earth. Its slender body seemed to twist and change shape, and I saw it was more demon than unicorn, more devil than fairy. It was blind in the manner of the great marsh bulls, and it had their fury. It came for me, and I ran. I knew, somehow, that I must not let it touch me—that if it were to touch me I was lost. I was quick, but the black unicorn followed close behind. It wanted me. It meant to have me.”

Her breath came quickly, her slender body tense with the emotions that raged within. The room was deathly still. “And then I saw that I held in my hands a bridle of spun gold—real gold threads drawn and woven by the fairies of the old life. I didn’t know how I had come to possess that bridle; I only knew that I mustn’t lose it. I knew that it was the only thing in the world that could harness the black unicorn.”

The hand tightened further. “I ran looking for Ben. The bridle must be taken to him, I sensed, and if I did not reach him with it quickly, the black unicorn would catch me and I would be …”

She trailed off, her eyes fastened on Ben’s. For an instant, he forgot everything she had just told him, lost in those eyes, in the touch of her hand. For an instant, she was the impossibly beautiful woman he had come upon bathing naked in the waters of the Irrylyn almost a year ago, siren and fairy child both. The vision never left him. He recaptured it each time he saw her, the memory become life all over again.

There was an awkward silence. Abernathy cleared his throat. “It seems to have been quite a night for dreams,” he remarked archly. “Everyone in the room but me appears to have had one. Bunion, how about you? Did you dream about friends in trouble or books of magic or black unicorns? Parsnip?”

The kobolds hissed softly and shook their heads in unison. But there was a wary look to their sharp eyes that suggested they did not wish to treat the matter of these dreams as lightly as Abernathy did.

“There was one thing more,” Willow said, still looking only at Ben. “I came awake while I ran from the thing that hunted me—black unicorn or devil. I came awake, but I felt certain the dream had not ended—that there was still something more to come.”

Ben nodded slowly, his reverie broken. “Sometimes we dream the same dream more than once …”

“No, Ben,” she whispered, her voice insistent. Her hand released his. “This dream was like yours—more premonition than dream. I was being warned, my High Lord. A fairy creature is closer to the truth of dreams than others. I was being shown something that I am meant to know—and I have not yet been shown all.”

“There are stories of sightings of a black unicorn in the histories of Landover,” Questor Thews advised suddenly. “I remember reading of them once or twice. They happened long ago, and the reports were vague and unconfirmed. The unicorn was said to be a demon spawn—a thing of such evil that even to gaze once upon it was to become lost …”

The food and drink of their breakfast sat cooling on plates and in cups on the table before them, forgotten. The dining hall was still and empty, yet Ben could sense eyes and ears everywhere. It was an unpleasant feeling. He glanced briefly at Questor’s somber face and then back at Willow’s once more. Had he been told of her dream—and perhaps even of Questor’s as well—and not experienced his own, he might have been inclined to dismiss them. He did not put much stock in dreams. But the memory of Miles Bennett in that darkened office, nearly frantic with worry because Ben was not there when he was needed, hung over him like a cloud. It was as real as his own life. He recognized a similar urgency in the narrative of the dreams of his friends, and their insistence simply reinforced a nagging conviction that dreams as vivid and compelling as theirs should not be dismissed as the byproducts of last night’s dinner or a collection of overactive subconsciousnesses.

“Why are we having these dreams?” he wondered aloud.

“This is a land built on dreams, High Lord,” Questor Thews replied. “This is a land where the dreams of fairy world and mortal world come together and are channeled one to the other. Reality in one is fantasy in the other—except here, where they meet.” He rose, spectral in his patchwork robes. “There have been instances of such dreams before, frequently in scatterings of up to half a dozen. Kings and wizards and men of power have had such dreams throughout the history of Landover.”

“Dreams that are revelations—or even warnings?”

“Dreams that are meant to be acted on, High Lord.”

Ben pursed his lips. “Do you intend to act on yours, Questor? Do you intend to go in search of the missing books of magic—just as your dream has advised?”

Questor hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought.

“And should Willow seek out the golden bridle of her dream? Should I return to Chicago and check out Miles Bennett?”

“High Lord, please—a moment!” Abernathy was on his feet, a decidedly harried look about him. “It might be wise to think this matter through a bit more carefully. It could be a very grave mistake for the lot of you to go running off in search of … of what may very well turn out to be a collection of gastrically induced falsehoods!”

He faced Ben squarely. “High Lord, you must remember that the wizard Meeks is still your greatest enemy. He cannot reach you as long as you stay in Landover, but I am certain he lives for the day you are foolish enough to venture back into the very world in which you left him trapped! What if he discovers that you have returned? What if the danger that threatens your friend is Meeks himself?”

“There is that chance,” Ben agreed.

“Yes, there most certainly is!” Abernathy pushed his glasses firmly back on his nose, his point made.

He glanced now at Questor. “And you should be wise enough to appreciate the dangers inherent in any attempt to harness the power of the missing books of magic—power that was the tool of wizards such as Meeks! There were rumors long before you and I came into being that the books of magic were cast in demon iron and conjured for evil use. How can you be certain that such power will not consume you as quickly as fire would a piece of dried parchment? Such magic is dangerous, Questor Thews!

“As for you—” He turned quickly to Willow, cutting short Questor’s attempts at protest. “—yours is the dream that frightens me most. The legend of a black unicorn is a legend of evil—even your dream tells you that much! Questor Thews failed to advise in his recitation of the histories of Landover that all those who claimed to have seen this creature came to a sudden and unpleasant demise. If there is a black unicorn, it is likely a demon strayed from Abaddon—and best left alone!”

He finished with a snap of his jaws, rigid with the strength of his conviction. His friends stared at him. “We are only surmising,” Ben said, attempting to sooth his agitated scribe. “We are only considering possible alternatives …”

He felt Willow’s hand close again about his own. “No, Ben. Abernathy’s instincts are correct. We are past considering alternatives.”

Ben fell silent. She was right, he knew. Not one of the three had said so, but the decision had been made all the same. They were going on their separate journeys in pursuit of their separate quests. They were resolved to test the truth of their dreams.

“At least one of you is being honest!” Abernathy huffed. “Honest about going if not about the danger of doing so!”

“There are always dangers …” Questor began.

“Yes, yes, wizard!” Abernathy cut him short and focused his attention on Ben. “Have you forgotten the projects presently under way, High Lord?” he asked. “What of the work that requires your presence to see it to completion? The judiciary council meets in a week to consider the format you have implemented for hearing grievances. The irrigation and road work at the eastern borders of the Greensward is set to begin, once you have surveyed the stakings. The tax levy requires an immediate accounting. And the Lords of the Greensward are to visit officially three days from now! You cannot just leave all that!”

Ben glanced away, nodding absently. He was thinking all at once of something else. Just when was it he had decided that he would leave? He couldn’t remember making the decision. It was almost as if somehow the decision had been made for him. He shook his head. That wasn’t possible.

His eyes shifted back to Abernathy. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long,” he promised.

“But you cannot know that!” his scribe insisted.

Ben paused, then smiled an entirely unexpected smile. “Abernathy, some things must take precedence over others. Landover’s business will keep for the few days it will take me to cross over to the old world and back again.” He rose and walked to stand close to his friend. “I can’t let this pass. I can’t pretend the dream didn’t happen and that I’m not worried for Miles. Sooner or later, I would have to go back in any case. I have left too many matters unfinished for too long.”

“Such matters will keep better than those of this kingdom, should you fail to return, High Lord,” his scribe muttered worriedly.

Ben’s smile broadened. “I promise I will be careful. I value the well-being of Landover and her people as much as you.”

“Besides, I can manage affairs of state quite nicely in your absence, High Lord,” Questor added.

Abernathy groaned. “Why is it that I feel no reassurance whatsoever at such a prospect?”

Ben cut off Questor’s response with a cautionary gesture. “Please, no arguing. We need each other’s support.” He turned to Willow. “Are you determined in this as well?”

Willow brushed back her waist-length hair and gave him a studied, almost somber look. “You already know the answer to that question.”

He nodded. “I suppose I do. Where will you start?”

“The lake country. There are some there who may be able to help me.”

“Would you consider waiting for me until I return from my own journey so that I might go with you?”

The sea green eyes were steady. “Would you wait instead for me, Ben?”

He squeezed her hand gently in reply. “No, I guess not. But you are under my care, nevertheless, and I don’t wish you to go alone. In fact, I don’t wish either Questor or you to go alone. Some sort of protection may prove necessary. Bunion will go with one of you, and Parsnip with the other. No, don’t argue with me,” he continued quickly, seeing words of protest forming on the lips of the sylph and the wizard both. “Your journeys could prove dangerous.”

“And yours as well, High Lord,” Questor pointed out.

Ben nodded. “Yes, I realize that. But our circumstances are different. I can take no one with me from this world into the other—at least not without raising more than a few eyebrows—and it is in the other world that such danger as might threaten me awaits. I will have to be my own protector on this outing.”

Besides, the medallion he wore about his neck was protection enough, he thought. He let his fingers stray down the front of his tunic to the medallion’s hard outline. Ironically, Meeks had given him the medallion when he had sold him the kingship—the key to the magic that was now his. Only the bearer could be recognized as King. Only the bearer could pass through the fairy mists from Landover to the worlds beyond and back again. And only the bearer could summon and command the services of the invincible armored champion known as the Paladin.

He traced the image of the knight-errant riding out from the gates of Sterling Silver against the sunrise. The secret of the Paladin was his alone. Even Meeks had never understood the full extent of the medallion’s power or its connection with the Paladin.

He smiled tightly. Meeks had thought himself so clever. He had used the medallion to pass over into Ben’s world and then let himself be trapped there. What the old wizard wouldn’t give to get that medallion back now!

The smile faded. But that would never happen, of course. No one but the bearer could remove the medallion once it was in place—and Ben never took it off. Meeks was no longer any threat to him.

Yet somewhere at the back of his mind, almost buried in the wall of determination that buttressed everything to which he committed himself, a tiny fragment of doubt tugged in warning.

“Well, it appears that there is nothing I can say on the matter that will change your minds,” Abernathy declared to the room at large, drawing Ben’s attention back again. The dog peered at him over the rims of his glasses, pushed the spectacles farther up on his nose, and assumed the posture of a rejected prophet. “So be it. When will you depart, High Lord?”

There was an awkward silence. Ben cleared his throat. “The quicker I go, the quicker I can return.”

Willow rose and stood before him. Her arms went about his waist, drawing him close. They held each other for a moment as the others watched. Ben could feel something stir in the sylph’s slender body—a kind of shiver that whispered of unspoken fears.

“I imagine it would be best if we all got about our business,” Questor Thews said quietly.

No one replied. The silence was enough. Dawn was already stretching into midmorning and there was a shared need to make use of the day ahead.

“Come back safe to me, Ben Holiday,” Willow spoke into his shoulder.

Abernathy heard the admonishment and glanced away. “Come back safe to us all,” he said.



Ben did not waste any time in setting out.

He retired directly to his bedroom after departing the dining hall and packed the duffel he had brought with him from the old world with the few possessions he felt he would need. He changed back into the navy blue sweat suit and Nikes he had worn over. The clothes and shoes felt odd after Landover’s apparel, but comfortable and reassuringly familiar. He was going back at last, he thought as he changed. He was finally going to do it.

He went from the bedchamber down a set of back stairs and through a number of private halls to a small courtyard just off the front gates where the others waited. The morning sun shone from a cloudless blue sky against the white stone of the castle, flashing in blinding streaks where it caught the silver trim. Warmth eased from the earth of the island on which Sterling Silver sat and gave the day a lazy feel. Ben breathed the freshness of the day and felt the castle stir in response beneath his feet.

He locked hand to wrist firmly with the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip, returned Abernathy’s stiff, formal bow, embraced Questor, and kissed Willow with a passion usually reserved for deepest night. There was not much talking. All the talking had already been done. Abernathy again warned against Meeks, and this time Questor cautioned him as well.

“Be careful, High Lord,” the wizard advised, one hand gripping Ben’s shoulder as if to hold him back. “Though shut in a foreign world, my half-brother is not entirely shorn of his magic. He is still a dangerous enemy. Watch out for him.”

Ben promised he would. He walked with them through the gates, past the sentries stationed on day watch and down to the shore’s edge. His horse waited on the far bank, a bay gelding he had named Jurisdiction. It was his private joke that wherever he traveled on horseback, he always had Jurisdiction. No one other than himself understood what he was talking about.

A squad of mounted soldiers waited there as well. Abernathy had insisted that within the kingdom, at least, Landover’s King would not travel without adequate protection.

“Ben.” Willow came to him one final time, her hands pressing something into his. “Take this with you.”

He glanced down covertly. She had given him a smooth, milky-colored stone intricately marked with runes.

Willow closed his hands back about it quickly. “Keep the stone hidden. It is a talisman often carried by my people. If danger threatens, the stone will heat and turn crimson. That way you will be warned.”

She paused, and one hand reached up to stroke his cheek softly. “Remember that I love you. I will always love you.”

He smiled reassuringly, but the words bothered him as they always did. He didn’t want her to love him—not so completely, not so unconditionally. He was frightened of what that meant. Annie had loved him like that—his wife, Annie, now dead, a part of his old life, his old world, killed in that car accident that sometimes seemed as if it had happened a thousand years ago, but more often seemed to have happened yesterday. He wasn’t willing to risk embracing that kind of love and losing it a second time. He couldn’t. The prospect terrified him.

A sudden twinge of sadness passed through him. It was strange, but until he met Willow he had never dreamed he might experience again those feelings he had shared with Annie …

He gave Willow a brief kiss and shoved the stone deep into his pocket. The touch of her hand lingered on his face as he turned away.

Questor took him across in the lake skimmer and waited until he was mounted. “Keep safe, High Lord,” the wizard bade him.

Ben waved back to them all, took a final look at the spires of Sterling Silver, wheeled Jurisdiction about, and galloped away, with the squad of soldiers in tow.



Morning slipped into midday and midday into afternoon as Ben rode westward toward the rim of the valley and the mists that marked the boundaries of the fairy world. Late-year colors carpeted the countryside through which he passed in bright swatches. Meadows were thick with grasses of muted greens, blues, and pinks, and with white clover dotted crimson. Forest vegetation still retained much of its new growth. Bonnie Blues, the trees that were a staple of life within the valley with their offering of drink and food, grew in clusters everywhere—half-grown pin oaks colored a brilliant blue against the various shades of forest green. Two of Landover’s eight moons hung low against the northern horizon, visible even in daylight—one peach, the other a pale mauve. Harvesting was under way in the fields of the small farms scattered about the countryside. Winter’s week-long stay was still a month distant.

Ben drank in the smell, taste, sight, and feel of the valley as if sampling a fine wine. Gone was the mistiness and wintry gray blight that had marked the land when he had first come over and the magic had been dying. The magic was well now, and the land was whole. The valley and her people were at peace.

Ben was not. He set a steady pace as he traveled, but not a quick one. The need for haste he had felt earlier had given way to a strange anxiety at the thought of actually leaving. This would be his first trip out of Landover since his arrival, and although the idea of leaving had not bothered him before, it was beginning to bother him now. A nagging concern lurked about the edges and corners of his determination—that once he left Landover he would not be able to come back again.

It was ridiculous, of course, and he tried valiantly to beat it down, seeking to convince himself that he was experiencing the same misgivings any traveler encountered at the beginning of a trip away from home. He tried arguing that he was a victim of his friends’ repeated warnings and humming “Brigadoon” to lighten the mood.

Nothing helped, however, and he finally gave it up. Some things you simply had to put up with until they lost their grip on you.

It was midafternoon when his party reached the lower slopes of the valley’s western rim. He left the soldiers there with the horses and instructions to set up camp and wait for his return. He might be gone as long as a week, he told them. If he wasn’t back by then, they were to return to Sterling Silver and advise Questor. The captain of the squad gave him a funny look, but accepted the orders without argument. He was used to his King going off on strange errands without his guard—although usually he had one of the kobolds or the wizard in tow.

Ben waited for the captain’s salute, then slung the duffel bag over one shoulder and began the hike up the valley slope.

It was nearing sunset when he reached the summit and crossed toward the misted forest line that marked the boundaries of the fairy world. Daytime’s warmth was slipping rapidly toward evening’s cool, and his elongated shadow trailed after him like a grotesque silhouette. There was a deep, pervasive stillness in the air, and he felt a sense of something hidden.

Ben’s hand strayed to the medallion that hung about his neck, and his fingers closed about it firmly. Questor had told him what to expect. The fairy world was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and all of its many doorways to the worlds beyond were settled within. The way back was whatever way he chose to go and it could be found at whatever point he chose to enter. All he need do was fix in his mind his destination and the medallion would see him to the proper passageway.

That was the theory, at least. Questor had never had the opportunity to test it.

The mist swirled and stirred within the great forest trees, its trailers twisting like snakes. The mist had the look of something alive. There’s a cheerful thought, Ben chided himself. He stopped before the mist, regarded it warily, took a deep breath to steady himself, and started in.

The mist closed about him instantly and the way back became as uncertain as the way forward. He pushed on. A moment later, a tunnel opened before him—the same vast, empty, black hole that had brought him across from the old world a year earlier. It burrowed through mist and trees and disappeared into nothingness. There were sounds in the tunnel, distant and uncertain, and shadows dancing at its rim.

Ben’s pace slowed. He was remembering what it had been like when he had passed through this tunnel the last time. The demon known as the Mark and his black, winged carrier had come at Ben from out of nowhere; by the time he had decided they were real, they had very nearly finished him. Then he had practically stumbled over that sleeping dragon …

Slender shapes darted at the fringes of the darkness within the trees and mist. Fairies.

Ben quit remembering and forced himself to walk more quickly. The fairies had helped him once, and he should have felt comfortable among them. But he did not. He felt alien and alone.

Faces materialized and vanished again in the mists, sharp-eyed and angular with hair the consistency of willow moss. Voices whispered, but the words were indistinct. Ben was sweating. He hated being in the tunnel; he wanted out of there. Ahead, the darkness pressed on.

Ben’s fingers still clutched the medallion in a death grip, and he thought suddenly of the Paladin.

Then the darkness before him brightened to dusky gray, and the tunnel’s length shortened to less than fifty yards. Indefinable shapes swayed unevenly in the half-light, an interlacing of spider webs and bent poles. Voices and movement in the walls of the tunnel gave way to a sharp hissing. A sudden wind rose and howled sharply.

Ben peered ahead into the gloom. The wind whipped at him from the edges of the tunnel’s end and carried the hissing sound into his face with a wet, stinging rush.

And there was something else …

He stepped from the tunnel’s shelter into a blinding rainstorm and found himself face to face with Meeks.

… AND MEMORIES



Ben Holiday froze. Lightning streaked from skies leaden and packed with low-hanging clouds that shed their rain in torrents. Thunder boomed, reverberating across the emptiness, shaking the earth beneath with the force of its passing. Massive oak trees rose all about like the staked walls of some huge fortress, their trunks and leaf-bare limbs glistening blackly. Shorter pine and fir bristled in clumps through the gaps left by their taller sisters, and the rugged slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains lifted darkly against the nearly invisible horizon.

The spectral figure of Meeks stood pinned against this backdrop. He stood without moving, tall and bent and old, white hair grizzled, craggy face as hard as iron. He looked almost nothing of the man Ben remembered. That man had been human; this man had the look of an enraged animal. Gone were the pressed woolen slacks, corduroy jacket, and loafers—the trappings of civilization that had complemented an urbane, if gruff, sales representative of a highly respected department store. Those reassuringly familiar business clothes had been replaced by robes of gunmetal blue that billowed like sailcloth and seemed to absorb the light. A high collar jutted from the shoulders to frame a ghastly, pitted face twisted by fury that bordered on madness. The empty sleeve of his right arm still hung limp. The black leather glove that covered his left hand was yet a claw. But each was more noticeable somehow, as if each were a scar left bare for viewing.

Ben’s throat constricted sharply. There was a tension in the old man that was unmistakable—the tension of an attacker poised to strike.

My God, he has been waiting for me, Ben thought in shock. He knew I was coming!

Then Meeks started for him. Ben took one step back, his right hand tightening frantically about the medallion. Meeks was almost on top of him. The wind shifted, and the sounds of the storm echoed through the mountains with renewed sharpness. The rain swept back against his face, forcing him to blink.

When he looked again, Meeks was gone.

Ben stared. Meeks had disappeared as completely as if he had been a ghost. Rain and darkness cloaked the whole of the surrounding forestland in a shroud of gray wetness. Ben glanced about hurriedly, disbelief twisting his face. There was no sign of Meeks.

It took only a moment for Ben to regain his scattered thoughts. He caught sight of the dim outline of a pathway directly before him and started for it. He moved quickly ahead through the trees, following the pathway’s curve as it wound down the mountainside and away from the time passage that had brought him back to his old world from Landover. And he was indeed back—of that much he was certain. He was back in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, deep in the George Washington National Forest. This was the same pathway that had brought him into Landover more than a year ago. If he followed it far enough, it would take him down out of the mountains to Skyline Drive, a turn-around with the black number 13 stenciled on a green sign, a weather shelter, and—most important of all—a courtesy telephone.

He was soaked through in moments, but he kept moving steadily ahead, the duffel clutched tightly under one arm. His mind worked rapidly. That wasn’t Meeks he had seen, hadn’t even looked like the old Meeks, had been barely recognizable, for Pete’s sake! Besides, Meeks wouldn’t have just disappeared like that if it had really been him, would he?

Doubt tugged sharply at his mind. Had he simply imagined it all, then? Had it all been some sort of mirage?

Belatedly, he thought of the rune stone that Willow had given him. Slowing, he fished through the pocket of his jacket until he found the stone and brought it out into the light. It was still milky in color and gave off no heat. That meant no magic threatened him. But what did that tell him about the phantom vision of Meeks?

He pushed ahead, slipping on the damp, water-soaked earth, pine boughs slapping at his face and hands. He was aware suddenly of how cold it was in these mountains, the chill settling through him with an icy touch. He had forgotten that late autumn could be unpleasant, even in western Virginia. Illinois could be frigid. It might even be snowing in Chicago …

He felt something catch in his throat. Shadows moved through the mist and rain, darting and sliding from view. Each time, he saw Meeks. Each time, he felt the wizard’s gloved hand reaching for him.

Just keep moving, he told himself. Just get yourself to that phone.

It seemed to take much longer, but he reached the courtesy phone some thirty minutes later, climbing down from among the trees and crossing the parkway to the weather shelter that housed it. He was soaked to the skin and freezing, but he felt none of it. The entirety of his concentration was focused on the Plexiglas-enclosed black and silver metal box.

Please let it be working, he prayed.

It was. Rain beat down on the shelter roof in a steady thrum, and mist and gloom closed tightly about. He thought he heard footsteps. He rummaged through his duffel for the coins and credit card he still carried in his wallet, rang information for the name of a limo service out of Waynesboro, and called for a car to come up and get him. It was all done in a matter of minutes.

He sat down then to wait on the wooden bench fastened to the side of the shelter. He was surprised to discover that his hands were shaking.



By the time the limo reached him and he was safely inside, he had regained his composure enough to reason through what had happened to him.

He no longer thought that he had imagined the appearance of Meeks. What he had seen had been real enough. But it hadn’t been Meeks he had seen; it had been an image of Meeks. The image had been triggered by his crossing back through the time passage. He had been meant to see the image. It had been placed there at the tunnel’s end so that he would see it.

The question was, why?

He hunched down in the backseat of the limo as it sped down the parkway toward Waynesboro and considered the possibilities. He had to assume that Meeks was responsible. No other explanation made any sense. So what was Meeks trying to accomplish? Was he trying to warn Ben off—to chase him back through the time passage? That didn’t make any sense. Well, no, the warning part did. Meeks was arrogant enough to want to let Ben know that he was aware of his coming back. But there had to be more to it than that. The image must have been placed there to accomplish something else as well.

He had his answer almost immediately. The image had not only warned Ben of Meeks; it had warned Meeks of Ben! The image was a device to alert the wizard that Ben had come back from Landover!

It made perfect sense. It was only reasonable to expect that Meeks would employ some contrivance—magic or otherwise—to warn him when Landover’s failed Kings crossed back into their old world with the medallion. Once alerted, Meeks could then come after them …

Or, in this case, after him.

It was late afternoon when the driver deposited him at the front steps of a Holiday Inn in downtown Waynesboro, the rain still falling, the daylight completely gone. Ben told the fellow he was on vacation and had hiked the parkway north from Staunton until the bad weather forced him to abandon the plan and call for help. The driver looked at him as if he were nuts. The weather had been like this for better than a week, he snapped. Ben shrugged, paid him in cash, and hurried inside.

On his way to the front desk, he paused long enough to check the date on a newspaper someone had left lying on a table in the lobby. It read Friday, December 9. It was ten days more than a year since he had first walked through the time passage from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia into Landover. Time in the two worlds did indeed pass synchronously.

He booked a room for the night, sent out his clothes to be cleaned and dried, took a steaming-hot shower to warm himself, and ordered dinner sent in. While he waited for the meal and his clothes, he called the airport for reservations to Chicago. There was nothing until morning. He would have to fly to Washington, then transfer to Chicago. He booked the reservation, billed it to his credit card, and hung up.

It was while he was eating dinner that it occurred to him that using a credit card to pay for his air fare wasn’t exactly the smartest thing he could have done. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in front of the TV, the tray balanced on his lap, a Holiday Inn towel wrapped about him, and the room temperature at about eighty. His clothes were still out. Tom Brokaw was giving the news, and it suddenly struck Ben that in a world of sophisticated communications a computerized credit-card trace was a relatively simple matter. If Meeks had gone to the trouble of placing that image at the opening of the time passage to warn of Ben’s return, then he would almost certainly take the matter a step further. He would know that Ben would attempt a visit to Chicago. He would know that Ben would probably elect to fly. A credit-card trace would tell him the airline flight, date of travel, and destination.

He could be waiting when Ben stepped off the plane.

That possibility ruined what was left of the meal. Ben put the tray aside, clicked off the TV, and began to consider more carefully what he was up against. Abernathy had been right. This was turning out to be more dangerous than he had imagined. But he really didn’t have any choice. He had to go back to Chicago and see Miles long enough to discover whether there was any truth to his dream. Meeks would probably be waiting for him somewhere along the line. The trick was to avoid bumping into him.

He permitted himself a brief smile. No problem.

He had his clothes back by nine o’clock and was asleep by ten. He awoke early, had breakfast, shouldered the duffel, and caught a cab to the airport. He flew to Washington on the previous night’s reservation, then canceled the balance of the ticket, walked over to another airline, booked a seat to Chicago on standby under an assumed name, paid for this ticket with cash, and was airborne before noon.

Let’s see Meeks pick up on that one, he thought to himself.

Eyes closed, he leaned back in his seat and reflected on the strange set of circumstances that had taken him away from his home in Chicago to Never-Never Land. The memories made him shake his head reprovingly. Maybe, like Peter Pan, he had just never grown up. He had been a lawyer then, a damn good one, one from whom great things were expected by those who were the movers and shakers in the business. He was in practice with his friend and longtime associate Miles Bennett, a shared partnership in which the two complemented each other like old shoes and work jeans—Ben the outspoken, audacious trial lawyer, Miles the steady, conservative office practitioner. Miles often deplored Ben’s judgment in taking cases, but Ben always seemed to land on his feet despite the heights from which he insisted on jumping. He had won more courtroom battles than the average bear—battles in which his corporate opponents had thought to bury him under an avalanche of money-backed rhetoric and paperwork, legal dodges, delays, and gamesmanship of all sorts. He had so surprised Miles after his victory in the Dodge City Express case that his partner had begun referring to him as Doc Holiday, courtroom gunfighter.

He smiled. Those had been good, satisfying times.

But the good times faded when Annie died. The satisfaction disappeared like quicksilver. His wife had died in a car accident, three months pregnant, and he seemed to lose everything after that. He turned reclusive, shunning everyone but Miles. He had always been something of a loner and he sometimes thought that the death of his wife and baby had just reinforced what was always there. He began to drift, the days running together, their events merging indecipherably. He sensed that he was slowly slipping away from himself.

It was difficult to know what might have happened had he not come across the bizarre offering in the Rosen’s Department Store Christmas Wishbook for the purchase of the throne of the kingdom of Landover. He had thought it ridiculous at first—a fantasy kingdom with wizards and witches, dragons and damsels, knights and knaves for sale for one million dollars. Who would be foolish enough to believe that? But the desperate dissatisfaction he was experiencing in his life had led him to take the chance that something in this impossible fantasy might be real. Any risk was worth taking if it could bring him back to himself. He had shelved his doubts, packed his bags, and flown to Rosen’s New York office to see what was what.

He was required to undergo an interview in order to complete the sale. The interviewer had been Meeks.

The familiar image of Meeks flashed instantly to mind—the tall old man with the whispered voice and dead eyes, a veteran of wars Ben could only imagine. The interview was the only time they had ever met face to face. Meeks had found him an acceptable candidate to be Landover’s King—not to succeed as Ben had believed, but to fail. Meeks had convinced him to make the purchase. Meeks had charmed him like a snake its prey.

Meeks had also underestimated him.

He let his eyes slip open again and he whispered, “That’s right, Ben Holiday—he did underestimate you. Now be sure that you don’t underestimate him.”

The plane touched down at Chicago O’Hare shortly after three, and Ben caught a cab into the city. The driver talked all the way in, mostly about sports: the Cubs’ losing season, the Bulls’ playoff hopes with Jordan, the Blackhawks’ injury problems, the Bears at 13 and 1. The Chicago Bears? Ben listened, replying intermittently, a small voice at the back of his mind telling him there was something wrong with this conversation. He was nearly downtown before he figured out what it was. It was the language. He understood it, even though he had neither heard it nor spoken it for more than a year. In Landover, he heard, spoke, wrote, and thought Landoverian. The magic made it possible for him to do so. Yet here he was, back in his old world, back in good old Chicago, listening to this cab driver speak the English language—or a reasonable facsimile thereof—as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Well, maybe that’s exactly what it was, he thought and smiled.

He had the cab driver deposit him at the Drake, unwilling to return to his old penthouse apartment or to contact any friends or acquaintances just yet. He was being careful now. He was thinking about Meeks. He checked in under an assumed name, paid cash in advance for one night, and let the bellhop guide him to his room. He was increasingly grateful for the fact that he had decided to carry several thousand dollars in cash as a precaution when he had crossed into Landover a year ago. The decision had been almost an afterthought, but it was turning out to be a sound one. The cash was saving him from using the credit card.

Leaving the room with the cash and the billfold in one pocket of his running suit, he took the elevator down, left the hotel, and walked several blocks to Water Tower Place. He shopped, bought a sport coat and slacks, dress shirts, tie, socks and underwear, and a pair of dress loafers, paid cash, and headed back again. There was no point in being conspicuous, and a running suit and Nikes in the middle of the downtown Chicago business district was far too conspicuous. He simply didn’t look the type. Sometimes appearances were everything—particularly in the short view. That was exactly why he hadn’t brought any of his friends with him. A talking dog, a pair of grinning monkeys, a girl who became a tree, and a wizard whose magic frequently got the better of him would hardly escape notice on Michigan Avenue!

He regretted the superficial characterization of his friends almost immediately. He was being needlessly flip. Odd as they might be, they were genuine friends. They had stood by him when it counted, when it was dangerous to do so, and when their own lives were threatened. That was a whole lot more than you could say for most friends.

He bowed his head against a sudden gust of wind, frowning.

Besides, wasn’t he as odd as they?

Wasn’t he the Paladin?

He shoved the thought angrily to the darkest corners of his mind and hurried to catch the crossing light.

He bought several newspapers and magazines in the hotel lobby and retired to his room. He ordered room service and killed time waiting for his dinner by skimming the reading material to update himself on what had been happening in the world during his absence. He stopped long enough to catch an hour of world and local news, and by then his meal had arrived. He continued reading through the dinner hour. It was closing in on seven o’clock by this time, and he decided to call Ed Samuelson.

There were two reasons for Ben’s return to Chicago. The first was to visit with Miles and discover whether the dream about his friend had been accurate. The second was to set his affairs in order permanently. He had already decided that the first would have to wait until morning, but there was no reason to put off the second. That meant a call to Ed.

Ed Samuelson was his accountant, a senior partner in the accountancy firm of Haines, Samuelson & Roper, Inc. Ben had entrusted management of his estate—an estate that was considerable in size—to Ed before he had left for Landover. Ed Samuelson was exactly the sort of person one would hope for in an accountant—discreet, dependable, and conscientious. There had been times when he thought Ben clearly mad in his financial judgment, but he respected the fact that it was Ben’s money to do with as he chose. One of those times had been when Ben decided to purchase the throne of Landover. Ed had liquidated the assets necessary to collect the one million dollar purchase price and had been given power of attorney to manage the balance of Ben’s assets while Ben was away. He had done all this without having the faintest idea what Ben was about.

Ben had not told him then and he had no intention of telling him now. But he knew Ed would accept that.

Calling Ed Samuelson was something of a risk. He had to assume that Meeks knew Ed was his accountant and would be contacted eventually. Anticipating that contact, Meeks might have tapped the accountant’s phone. That was a somewhat paranoid assumption perhaps, but Meeks was no one to fool with. Ben only hoped that, if Meeks had decided on a phone tap, he had opted for one at Ed Samuelson’s office and not one at his home.

He called Ed, found him just finished with his evening meal, and spent the next ten minutes convincing him that it really was Ben Holiday who was calling. Once he got that job done, he warned Ed that no one—and that meant absolutely no one—was to know about this call. Ed was to pretend that he had never received it. Ed asked the same question he always asked when Ben made one of his bizarre requests: Was Ben in some sort of trouble? No, Ben assured him, he was not. It simply wasn’t convenient for anyone to know he was in town at the moment. He did plan on seeing Miles, he assured Ed. He did not think he would have time to see much of anyone else.

Ed seemed satisfied. He listened patiently while Ben explained what he wanted done. Ben promised he would stop by the office tomorrow about noon to sign the necessary papers if Ed could arrange to be there. Ed sighed stoically and said that would be fine. Ben said good night and placed the phone receiver back on its cradle.

Twenty minutes in the shower helped wash away the tension and the growing weariness. He came back out of the bathroom and crawled into his bed, a few of the magazines and newspapers stacked next to him. He started to read, gave it up, and let his thoughts drift and his eyes close.

Moments later, he was asleep.



He dreamed that night of the Paladin.

He was alone at first, standing on a pine-sheltered bluff looking down over Landover’s misted valley. Blues and greens mixed as sky and earth joined, and it was as if he could reach out and touch them. He breathed, and the air was fresh and chill. The clarity of the moment was stunning.

Then shadows deepened and closed down about him like night. Cries and whispers filtered through the pines. He could feel the shape of the medallion pressing against his palm as he clutched at it in anticipation. He had need of it once more, he sensed, and was glad. The being he kept trapped inside could be let loose again!

There was a darting movement to one side and a monstrous black shape surged forward. It was a unicorn, eyes and breath of fire. But it changed almost instantly. It became a devil. Then it changed again.

It was Meeks.

The wizard beckoned, a tall, stooped, menacing form, face scaled over like a lizard’s. He came for Ben, growing in size with each step, changing now into something unrecognizable. There was the smell of fear in Ben’s nostrils, the smell of death.

But he was the Paladin, the knight-errant whose strayed soul had found a home within his body, the King’s champion who had never lost a battle, and nothing could stand against him. He brought that other self to life with a frightening rush of elation. Armor closed about him, and the smell of fear and death gave way to the acrid smells of iron, leather, and oil. He was no longer Ben Holiday, but a creature of some other time and place whose memories were all of battle, of combat and victory, of fighting and dying. Wars raged in his mind, and there were glimpses of struggling behemoths encased in iron, surging back and forth against a haze of red. Metal clanged, and voices huffed and grunted in fury. Bodies fell in death, torn and broken.

He felt himself exhilarated!

Oh, God, he felt himself reborn!

The darkness broke against him, shadows reaching and clawing, and he went to meet them in a rage. The white charger he rode carried him forward like a steam engine driven by fires he could not begin to control. The pines slipped past him in a blur, and the ground disappeared. Meeks became a wraith he could not touch. He raced forward, flying out from the edge of the bluff into nothingness.

The sense of exhilaration vanished. Somewhere in the night, there was a frightening scream. He realized as he fell that the scream was his own.



The dreams left him after that, but he slept poorly for the remainder of the night anyway. He rose shortly after dawn, showered, called room service for breakfast, ate, dressed in the clothes he had bought yesterday, and caught a cab out front of the hotel shortly after nine. He took his duffel bag with him. He did not think he would be returning.

The cab took him south on Michigan Avenue. It was Saturday, but the streets were already beginning to clog with Christmas shoppers anxious to beat the weekend rush. Ben sat back in the relative seclusion of the cab and ignored them. The joys of the approaching holiday were the furthest thing from his mind.

Traces of last night’s dream still whispered darkly to him. He had been badly frightened by that dream and by the truths that it contained.

The Paladin was a reality he had not fully come to grips with. He had become the armored knight only once—and then as much by chance as by intention. It had been necessary to become the Paladin in order to survive, and he had therefore done what was necessary. But the transformation had been a frightening thing, a shedding of his own skin, a crawling into someone else’s—someone or something. The thoughts of that other being were hard and brutal, a warrior’s thoughts, a gladiator’s. There was blood and death in those thoughts, an entire history of survival that Ben could only begin to comprehend. It frankly terrified him. He could not control what this other thing was, he sensed—not entirely. He could only become what it was and accept what that meant.

He was not sure he could ever do that again. He had not tried and did not wish to try.

And yet a part of him did—just as in the dream. And a part of him whispered that someday he must.

He had the cab take him to the offices of Holiday & Bennett, Ltd. The offices were closed on Saturdays, but he knew Miles Bennett would be there anyway. Miles was always there on Saturdays, working until noon, catching up on all the dictating and research that he hadn’t gotten to during the week, taking advantage of the absence of those bothersome interruptions that seemed to dog him during regular business hours.

Ben paid the cab driver to drop him at the end of the block across the street from his destination, then stepped quickly into the doorway of another building. Pedestrians passed him by, oblivious to what he was about, caught up in their own concerns. Traffic moved ahead at a rapid crawl. There were cars parked on the street, but no one seemed to be keeping watch in them.

“Doesn’t hurt to be careful,” he insisted softly.

He stepped back out of the doorway, crossed the street with the light, moved up the block, and pushed through the storm glass doors to the lobby of his building. He saw nothing out of place, nothing odd.

He hurried to an open elevator, stepped inside, punched the button to floor fifteen, and watched the doors slide closed. The elevator started up. Just a few moments more, he thought. And if Miles wasn’t there for some reason, he would simply track him down at his home.

But he hoped he wouldn’t have to do that. He sensed that he might not have the time. Maybe it was the dream, maybe it was simply the circumstances of his being here—but something definitely felt wrong.

The elevator slowed and stopped. The doors slid open, and he stepped into the hallway beyond.

His breath caught sharply in his throat. Once again, he was face to face with Meeks.



Questor Thews brushed at the screen of cobwebs that hung across the narrow stone entry of the ruins of the castle tower and pushed inside. He sneezed as dust clogged his nostrils and muttered in distaste at the damp and dark. He should have had the sense to bring a torch …

A spark of fire flared next to him, and flames leaped from a brand. Bunion passed the handle of the light to Questor.

“I was just about to use the magic to do that for myself!” the wizard snapped irritably, but the kobold just grinned.

They stood within the failing walls of Mirwouk, the ancient fortress Questor had seen in his dream of the missing books of magic. They were far north of Sterling Silver, high within the Melchor, the wind whipping about the worn stone to howl down empty corridors, the chill settling through stale air like winter’s coming. It had taken the wizard and the kobold the better part of three days to get here, and their travel had been quick. The castle had welcomed them with yawning gates and vacant windows. Its rooms and halls stood abandoned.

Questor pushed ahead, searching for something that looked familiar. The late afternoon was settling down about them, and he had no wish to be wandering about this dismal tomb after dark. He was a wizard and could sense things hidden from other folk, and this place had an evil smell about it.

He groped about for a time, then thought he recognized the passageway he had entered. He followed its twists and turns, eyes peering through the gloom. More cobwebs and dust hindered his progress, and there were spiders the size of rats and rats the size of dogs. They scurried and crawled, and he had to watch for them at every step. It was decidedly annoying work. He was tempted to use his magic to turn the lot of them into dust bunnies and let the wind sweep them away.

The passageway took a downward turn, and the shape of its walls altered noticeably. Questor slowed, peering at the stonework. Abruptly, he straightened.

“I recognize this!” he exclaimed in an agitated whisper. “This is the tunnel I saw in my dreams!”

Bunion took the torch from his hand without comment and led the way down. Questor was too excited to argue the matter and followed quickly after. The passage broadened and cleared, free of webbing, dust, rodents, and insects. There was a new smell to the stone, a kind of sickly-fragrant musk. Bunion kept up a brisk pace, and sometimes all that Questor could see before him was the halo of the torch.

All was just as it had been in the dream!

The tunnel went on, angling deeper into the mountain rock, a coil of hollowed corridors and curving stairs. Bunion stayed in front, eyes sharp. Questor was practically breathing down his neck.

Then the tunnel ended at a stone door marked with scroll and runes. Questor was shaking with excitement by now. He felt along the markings and his hands seemed to know exactly where to go. He touched something and the door swung open with a faint grating sound.

The room beyond was massive, its floor constructed of granite blocks polished smooth. Questor led the way now, following the vision inside his head, the memory of his dream. He walked to the center of the chamber, Bunion at his side, the sound of their footfalls a hollow echo.

They stopped before a piece of granite flooring on which the sign of a unicorn had been carved.

Questor Thews stared. A unicorn? One hand tugged uneasily at his chin. Something was wrong here. He did not recall anything about a unicorn in his dream. There had been a sign cut into the stone, but had the sign been that of a unicorn? It seemed a rather large coincidence …

For just an instant, he considered turning about, walking directly back the way he had come, and abandoning the entire project. A small voice inside whispered that he should. There was danger hidden here; he could sense it, feel it, and it frightened him.

But the lure of the missing books was too strong. He reached down, and his fingers traced the ridges of the creature’s horn—again, almost of their own volition. The block stirred and slid aside, fitting into a neatly constructed chute.

Questor Thews peered downward into the hole that was left.

There was something there.



Nightfall draped the lake country in shadows and mist, and the light of colored moons and silver stars was no more than a faint glimmer as it reflected off the still surface of the Irrylyn. Willow stood alone at the shoreline of a tiny inlet ringed in cottonwood and cedar, the waters of the lake lapping at her toes. She was naked, her clothes laid carefully upon the grass behind her. A breeze blew softly against her pale green skin, wove its careless way through the waist-length emerald hair, curled and ribboned, and ruffled the fetlocks that ran the length of her calves and forearms. She shivered with the touch. She was a creature of impossible beauty, half human, half fairy, and she might have been a descendant of the sirens of myth who had lured men to their doom on the rocks of ancient seas.

Night birds called sharply from across the lake, their cries echoing in the stillness. Willow’s whistle called back to them.

Her head lifted and she sniffed the air as an animal might. Parsnip was waiting patiently for her in the campsite fifty yards back, the light of his cooking fire screened by the trees. She had come alone to the Irrylyn to bathe and to remember.

She stepped cautiously into the water, the lukewarm liquid sending a delicious tingle through her body. It was here that she had met Ben Holiday, that they had seen each other for the first time, naked as they bathed, stripped of all pretentions. It was here that she had known that he was the one who was meant for her.

Her smile brightened as she thought back on how it had been—the wonder of the moment. She had told him what was to be, and while he had doubted it—still doubted it, in truth—she had never faltered in her certainty. The fates of her birth, told in the fairy way by the manner of entwining of the bedded flowers of her seeding, could never lie.

Oh, but she loved the outlander Ben Holiday!

Her child’s face beamed and then clouded. She missed Ben. She worried for him. Something in the dream they had shared troubled her in a way she could not explain. There was a riddle behind these dreams that whispered of danger.

She had said nothing of it to Ben because she had read in his voice when he told her of his dream that he had already decided he would go. She knew then that she could not turn him from his purpose and should not try. He understood the risks and accepted them. The urgency of her concern paled beside the strength of his determination.

Perhaps it was for that reason that in telling him of her dream she had not told him all. Something in her dream was different than in his—or Questor Thews’. It was a subtle thing and difficult to explain, but it was there nevertheless.

She crouched in the shallows, emerald hair fanning out across her shoulders like a shawl. Her finger traced patterns on the still surface, and the memory of the dream returned. The wrong feeling was in the texture of the dream, she thought. It was in the way it played against her mind. The visions had been vivid, the events clear. But the telling was somehow false—as if it were all something that could happen in a dream, but not in waking. It was as if the memory was a mask that hid a face beneath.

She ceased her tracing motion and rose. What face was it, she wondered, that lay concealed beneath that mask?

The frown that clouded her face deepened, and she wished suddenly she had not been so accepting of Ben’s decision. She wished she had argued his going after all or that she had insisted that he take her along.

“No, he will be well,” she whispered insistently.

Her eyes lifted skyward and she let the moonglow warm her. Tomorrow she would seek the advice of her mother, whose life was so close to that of the fairy creatures in the mists. Her mother would know of the black unicorn and the bridle of spun gold and would guide her; soon she would be back again with Ben.

She stepped further out into the darkened lake, let the waters close about her, and drifted at peace.

SHADOWS …



The second appearance of Meeks did not elicit in Ben Holiday the panic that the first had. He did not freeze; he did not experience the same sense of confusion. He was surprised, but not stunned. After all, he had a better idea of what to expect this time around. This was just another apparition of the outcast wizard—tall, stooped, cloaked in the robes of gunmetal blue, white hair grizzled, face craggy and sallow, black leather glove lifted like a claw, but an apparition nevertheless.

Wasn’t it?

Meeks started for him, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure. The pale blue eyes were alive with hatred, and the hard features seemed to twist into something not quite human. Meeks closed on him, gliding down the empty, fluorescent-lit corridor soundlessly, growing huge in the silence. Ben stood his ground with difficulty, one hand searching out the reassuring bulk of the medallion beneath his shirt. But what protection did the medallion offer him here? His mind raced. The rune stone, he thought suddenly! The stone would tell him if he was threatened! His free hand rummaged frantically in his pants pocket, fumbling for the stone as the robed figure loomed closer. Despite his resolve, Ben took a quick step backward. He could not find the stone!

Meeks was directly in front of him, dark and menacing. Ben flinched as the wizard blocked the light …

And then he looked up and found himself alone in the deserted corridor, staring into empty space, listening to the silence.

Meeks was gone—another substanceless apparition.

He had found the rune stone, nestled in the corner of his pants pocket, and he pulled it into the light. It was blood red and burned at the touch.

“Damn!” he muttered, angry and frightened both at once.

He took a moment to gather his wits, scanning the hallway swiftly to be certain that he had missed nothing. Then he straightened, finding himself in a sort of defensive half-crouch, and stepped away from the elevator doors. Nothing moved about him. It appeared he really was alone.

But what was the reason for this second vision? Was this another warning? Was it a warning from Meeks or to Meeks?

What was going on?

He hesitated only a moment before turning sharply left toward the glass doors that fronted the offices of Holiday & Bennett, Ltd. Whatever was going on, he felt it wise to keep moving. Meeks had to know that eventually he would come to Miles. That didn’t mean that Meeks was there—or even anywhere close. The apparition might be just another signal to warn him of Ben’s coming. If Ben were quick enough, he would be there and gone before Meeks could do anything about it.

The lights in the office lobby were off. He pulled at the handle on the entry doors and found them locked. That was normal. Miles never unlocked the front doors or turned on the lights when he worked alone. Ben had come prepared for that. He pulled out his office key and inserted it into the lock. The lock turned easily, and the door opened. Ben stepped inside, pocketed the key, and let the door close behind him.

A radio was playing softly in the silence—Willie Nelson, the kind of stuff Miles liked. Ben looked down the inner hallway and saw a light shining out of Miles’ office. He grinned. The old boy was at home.

Maybe. A new wave of doubt and mistrust washed over him, and the grin faded. Better safe than sorry, he cautioned himself, worrying that old chestnut as if it were a spell to cast out evil spirits. He shook his head. He wished there was some way to be sure about Meeks …

He eased his way silently down the hall until he stood before the lighted doorway. Miles Bennett sat alone at his desk, hunched over his law books, a yellow pad crammed with notes open beside him. He had come to work wearing a coat and tie, but the knot in the tie had been pulled loose, and the coat had been shed in favor of rolled-up sleeves and an open collar. He glanced up as he sensed Ben’s presence, and his eyes widened.

“Holy Saint Pete!” He started up, then eased back down again. “Doc—is that really you?”

Ben smiled. “It’s me all right. How are you doing, buddy?”

“How am I doing? How am I doing?” Miles was incredulous. “What the hell kind of question is that? You go trouping off to Shangri-La or whatever, you’re gone better than a year, no one hears a word from you, then one day back you come—right out of nowhere—and you want to know how I am? Pretty damn cheeky, Doc!”

Ben nodded helplessly and groped for something to say. Miles let him struggle with it a moment, then laughed and pushed himself to his feet, a big, rumpled teddy bear in business clothes.

“Well, come on in, Doc! Don’t stand out there in the hallway like the prodigal son returned—even if that’s what you are! Come on in, have a seat, tell me all about it! Damn, I can’t believe it’s really you!”

He hastened around the desk, his big hand extended, took Ben’s, and pumped it firmly. “I’d just about given up on you, you know that? Just about given up. I thought something had happened to you for certain when I didn’t hear anything. You know how your mind works overtime in this business anyway. I began imagining all sorts of things. I even considered calling the police or someone, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone my partner was off chasing little people and dragons!”

He was laughing again, laughing so hard his eyes were tearing, and Ben joined in. “They probably get calls like that all the time.”

“Sure, that’s what makes Chicago the great little town it is!” Miles wiped his eyes. He wore a rumpled blue shirt and dress pants. He looked a little like a giant Smurf. “Hey, Doc—it’s good to see you.”

“You, too, Miles.” He glanced around. “Doesn’t appear that anything has changed since I left.”

“Naw, we keep the place a living shrine to your memory.” Miles glanced around with him, then shrugged. “Wouldn’t know where to start anyway, the place is such a monumental piece of art deco.” He smiled, waited a moment for Ben to say something, and, when Ben didn’t, cleared his throat nervously. “So, here you are, huh? Care to tell me what happened out there in fairyland, Doc? If it’s not too painful to relate, that is. We don’t have to discuss it if you’d rather …”

“We can discuss it.”

“No, we don’t have to. Forget I asked. Forget the whole business.” Miles was insistent now, embarrassed. “It’s just such a surprise to have you come waltzing in like this … Hey, look, I’ve got something for you! Been saving this for when we got together again. Look, got it right here in the drawer.” He hastened back around behind the desk and rummaged quickly through the bottom drawer. “Yeah, here we go!”

He pulled out a bottle of Glenlivet, still sealed, and plopped it on the desk. Two glasses followed.

Ben shook his head and smiled with pleasure. His favorite scotch. “It’s been a long time, Miles,” he admitted.

Miles broke the seal, uncorked the bottle, and poured two fingers into each glass. He pushed one across the desk to Ben, then lifted his own glass in salute. “To crime and other forms of amusement,” he said.

Ben touched glasses with him, and both drank. The Glenlivet was smooth and warm going down. The two old friends took seats across the desk. Willie Nelson continued to sing through the momentary silence.

“So you gonna tell me or what?” Miles asked finally, changing his mind once more.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not? You don’t have to be coy with me, you know. You don’t have to feel embarrassed if this thing didn’t turn out the way you expected.”

Memories flooded Ben’s thoughts. No, it surely hadn’t turned out the way he had expected. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was in deciding how much he should tell Miles. Landover wasn’t something that could be easily explained. It was sort of like the way it was when you were a kid and your parents wanted to know about Susie at the freshman sock hop.

It was like telling them that Santa Claus really did exist.

“Would it be enough if I told you that I found what I was looking for?” he asked Miles after a moment’s thought.

Miles was silent for a moment. “Yeah, if that’s the best you can do,” he replied finally. He hesitated. “Is that the best you can do, Doc?”

Ben nodded. “It is just now.”

“I see. Well, what about later? Can you do better later? I’d hate to think that this was the end of it and I’d never learn anything more. Because I don’t think I could stand that. You left here in search of dragons and damsels in distress, and I told you you were crazy. You believed all that hype about a kingdom where magic was real and fairy-tale creatures lived, and I told you it was impossible. See, Doc, I need to know which of us was right. I need to know if dreams like yours are still possible. I have to know.”

Disappointment reflected in the roundish face. Ben felt sorry for his old friend. Miles had been in on this business from the beginning. He was the only one who knew that Ben had spent a million dollars to purchase a fantasy kingdom that sane men knew couldn’t possibly exist. He was the only one who knew that Ben had gone off in search of that kingdom. He knew how the story started, but he didn’t know how it ended. And it was eating at him.

But there was more to consider here than Miles’ discomforting curiosity. There was his safety. Sometimes knowledge was a dangerous thing. Ben still didn’t know how great a threat Meeks posed—to either of them. He still didn’t know how much truth there was to his dream. Miles appeared to be well, but …

“Miles, I promise I’ll tell you everything one day,” he answered, trying to sound reassuring. “I can’t tell you exactly when, but I promise you’ll know. It’s a difficult thing to talk about—sort of the way it used to be about Annie. I could never talk about her without … worrying about what I said. You remember, don’t you?”

Miles nodded. “I remember, Doc.” He smiled. “Have you made peace with her ghost finally?”

“I have. Finally. But it took a lot of time, and I went through a lot of changes.” He paused, remembering when he had stood alone in the mists of the fairy world and come face to face with the fears he had harbored deep within himself that somehow he had failed his dead wife. “I guess talking about where I’ve been and what I’ve found there will take a little time and help as well. I still have to work a few things through …”

He trailed off, the glass of scotch twirling through his fingers on the desk before him.

“It’s all right, Doc,” Miles said quickly, shrugging. “It’s enough just having you back again and knowing you’re all right. The rest will come later. I know that.”

Ben stared at the scotch for a moment, then lifted his eyes to Miles. “I’m only here for a short time, buddy. I can’t stay.”

Miles looked uncertain, then forced a quick grin. “Hey, what are you telling me? You’ve come back for something, haven’t you? So what was it? You missed the Bulls’ nosedive last winter, the Cubs’ el foldo this spring, the marathon, the elections, all the rest of the vintage Chicago season. You want to catch a Bears game? The monsters of the midway are thirteen and one, you know. And they still serve Bud and nachos at the food stands. What do you say?”

Ben laughed in spite of himself. “I say it sounds pretty good. But that’s not what brought me back. I came back because I was worried about you.”

Miles stared at him. “What?”

“I was worried about you. Don’t make that sound like such an astounding event, damn it. I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”

Miles took a long pull on the scotch, then eased back carefully in the padded desk chair. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know.” He started to continue, then caught himself. “Oh, what the hell—you already think I’m nuts, so what’s a few more pecans in the fruitcake. I had this dream. I dreamed you were in real trouble and you needed me. I didn’t know what the trouble was, only that it was my fault that you were in it. So I came back to find out if the dream was true.”

Miles studied him a moment the way a psychiatrist might study a prize patient, then drained off the rest of his scotch and tipped forward in the chair once more. “You are nuts, Doc—you know that?”

“I know.”

“Fact is, your conscience must be working overtime.”

“You think so?”

“I do. You’re just feeling guilty because you bailed out on me in the middle of the pre-Christmas season court rush, and I was left with all those damn cases! Well, I’ve got news for you! I took care of those cases, and office routine never skipped a beat!” He paused, then grinned. “Well, maybe half a beat. Proud of me, Doc?”

“Yeah, sure, Miles.” Ben frowned. “So there aren’t any problems at the office—nothing wrong with you, nothing that needs me back here?”

Miles rose, picked up the Glenlivet, and poured them each another finger. He was smiling broadly. “Doc, I hate to tell you this, but things couldn’t be better.”

And right then and there, Ben Holiday began to smell a rat.



Fifteen minutes later he was back on the streets. He had visited with Miles just long enough to avoid giving the impression that anything was seriously wrong. He had stayed even when everything inside him was screaming that he ought to run for his life.

Taxis were at a premium Saturday mornings, so he caught a bus south to Ed Samuelson’s office for his noon meeting. He sat alone two seats from the back, clutched the duffel to him like a child’s security blanket, and tried to shake the feeling that there were eyes everywhere watching him. He sat hunched down in his suit and dress coat and waited for the chill to steal from his body.

Think like a lawyer, he admonished himself! Reason it through!

The dream had been a lie. Miles Bennett was not in trouble and had no need of his assistance. Maybe the dream had only been his sense of guilt at leaving his old friend behind working overtime. Maybe it was only coincidence that Questor and Willow had experienced similar dreams on the same night. He didn’t think so. Something had triggered those dreams—something or someone.

Meeks.

But what was his enemy up to?

He left the bus at Madison and walked several doors down to Ed Samuelson’s building. The eyes followed after him.

He met with his accountant and signed various powers-of-attorney and trust instruments enabling management of his affairs to continue in his absence for as long as several years. He didn’t anticipate being gone that long, but you never knew. He shook Ed’s hand, exchanged good-byes, and was back out the door at 12:35 P.M.

This time he waited until he found a taxi. He had the driver take him directly to the airport and caught a 1:30 P.M. flight on Delta to Washington. He was in the nation’s capital by 5:00 P.M. and an hour later caught the last flight out that night on Allegheny to Waynesboro. He kept his eyes open for Meeks the whole time. A man in a trench coat kept looking at him on the flight from Chicago. An old woman selling flowers stopped him in the main terminal at National. A sailor with a duffel bumped him as he turned away too quickly from the Allegheny ticket counter. But there was no sign of Meeks.

He checked the rune stone twice on the flight from Washington to Waynesboro. He checked it almost as an afterthought the first time and reluctantly once after. Both times it glowed blood red and burned at the touch.

He did not go any further that night. He was desperate to continue on—the need for haste was so strong he could barely control it—but reason overcame his sense of urgency. Or maybe it was fear. He did not relish venturing into the Blue Ridge in the dark. It was too easy to become lost or hurt. And it was likely that Meeks would be waiting for him at the entrance to the time passage.

He slept poorly, rose at daybreak, dressed in the warm-up suit and Nikes, ate something—he couldn’t remember later what it was—and called the limo service to pick him up. He stood in the lobby with his duffel in hand and kept an uneasy watch through the plate glass windows. After a moment, he stepped outside. The day was cold and gray and unfriendly; the fact that it was dry offered what little comfort there was to be found. The air smelled bad and tasted worse, and his eyes burned. Everything had an alien look and feel. He checked the rune stone half-a-dozen times. It still glowed bright red.

The limo arrived a short time later and sped him on his way. By midmorning he was hiking back up into the forested mountains of the George Washington National Park, leaving Chicago, Washington, Waynesboro, Miles Bennett, Ed Samuelson, and everything and everyone else in this world in which he now felt himself a stranger and a fugitive far behind.

He found the mists and oaks that marked the entrance to the time passage without incident. There was no sign of Meeks—not in the flesh, not as an apparition. The forest was still and empty; the way forward was clear.

Ben Holiday fairly ran to gain the tunnel’s entrance.



He stopped running on the other side.

Sunshine streamed down out of lightly clouded skies and warmed the earth with its touch. Brightly colored meadows and fruit orchards spread down valley slopes like a quilt of patchwork swatches. Flowers dotted the landscape. Birds flew in dashes of rainbow silk. The smells were clean and fresh.

Ben breathed deeply, chasing the spots that danced before his eyes, waiting for the strength that had been sapped by his flight to return. Oh, yes, he had run. He had flown! It frightened him that he had allowed himself to panic like that. He breathed, deep and slow, refusing to look back again at the dark and misted forests that rose like a wall behind him. He was safe now. He was home.

The words were a litany that soothed him. He let his eyes lift skyward and pass down again across the length and breadth of Landover, comforted by the unexpected sense of familiarity he experienced. How strange that he should feel this way, he marveled. His passing back was like the passing from winter’s slow death to spring’s life. Once he would never have believed he could feel this way. Now it seemed the most logical thing in the world.

It was closing on midday. He walked down from the valley’s rim to the campsite where he had left his escort. They were waiting for him and accepted his return without surprise. The captain greeted him with a salute, brought Jurisdiction around, got his men mounted, and they were on their way. From a world of jet liners and limousines to a world of walking boots and horses—Ben found himself smiling at how natural the transition seemed.

But the smile was a brief one. His thoughts returned to the dreams that Questor, Willow, and he had shared and the nagging certainty that something was very wrong with those dreams. His had been an outright lie. Had those of Questor and Willow been lies as well? His was tied in some way to Meeks—he was almost certain of it. Were those of Questor and Willow tied to Meeks as well? There were too many questions and no answers in sight. He had to get back to Sterling Silver quickly and find his friends.

He reached the castle before nightfall, pressing for a quicker pace the entire way. He scrambled down from his horse, gave the escort a hurried word of thanks, called for the lake skimmer, and crossed quickly to his island home. Silver spires and glistening white walls beamed down at him, and the warmth of his home-mother reached out to wrap him close. But the chill within him persisted.

Abernathy met him just inside the anteway, resplendent in red silk tunic, breeches and stockings, white polished boots and gloves, silver-rimmed glasses, and appointment book. There was irritation in his voice. “You have returned none too soon, High Lord. I have spent the entire day smoothing over the ruffled feelings of certain members of the judiciary council who came here expressly to see you. A number of problems have arisen with next week’s meeting. The irrigation fields south of Waymark have sprung a leak. Tomorrow the Lords of the Greensward arrive, and we haven’t even looked at the list of concerns they sent us. Half-a-dozen other representatives have been sitting about …”

“Nice to see you again, too, Abernathy,” Ben cut him off in midsentence. “Are either Questor or Willow back yet?”

“Uh, no, High Lord.” Abernathy seemed at a momentary loss for words. He trailed along silently as Ben moved past him toward the dining hall. “Did you have a successful trip?” he asked finally.

“Not very. You’re certain neither has returned?”

“Yes, High Lord, I am certain. You are the first one back.”

“Any messages from either?”

“No messages, High Lord.” Abernathy crowded forward. “Is something wrong?”

Ben did not slow. “No, everything is fine.”

Abernathy looked uncertain. “Yes, well, that is good to know.” He hesitated a moment, then cleared his throat. “About the judiciary council’s representatives, High Lord … ?”

Ben shook his head firmly. “Not today. I’ll see them tomorrow.” He turned toward the dining hall and left Abernathy at the door. “Let me know the minute Questor or Willow returns—no matter what I’m doing.”

Abernathy pushed his glasses further up his long nose and disappeared back down the passageway without comment.

Ben ate a quick meal and climbed the stairs to the tower that held the Landsview. The Landsview was a part of the magic of Sterling Silver, a device that gave him a quick glimpse into the happenings of Landover by appearing to allow him to fly the valley end to end. It was a circular platform with a silver guard rail that looked out from the tower through an opening in the wall that ran ceiling to floor. A lectern fastened on the guard rail at its midpoint. An aged parchment map of the kingdom was pinned to the lectern.

Ben stepped up onto the platform, fastened both hands firmly to the guard rail, fixed his eyes upon the map, and willed himself northward. The castle disappeared about him an instant later, and he was sailing through space with only the silver railing and the lectern for support. He sped far north to the mountains of Melchor, swept across their heights and down again. He sped south to the lake country and Elderew, the home city of the people of the River Master. He crisscrossed the forests and hills from one end of the lake country to the other. He found neither Questor Thews nor Willow.

An hour later, he gave it up. His body was drenched with sweat from the effort, and his hands were cramped from gripping the railing. He left the tower of the Landsview disappointed and weary.

He tried to soak the weariness and disappointment away in the waters of a steaming bath, but could not come entirely clean. Images of Meeks haunted him. The wizard had lured him back with that dream of Miles; Ben was certain of it and was also certain that the wizard had some plan in mind to gain revenge on him for Meeks’ exile. What Ben was not certain about was what part the dreams of his friends played in all this—and what danger they might be in right now because of it.

Night descended, and Ben retired to his study. He had already decided to send out search parties for both his missing friends by morning. Everything else would have to wait until he solved the mystery of the dreams. He was becoming increasingly convinced that something was terribly wrong and that he was running out of time to set it right again.

Evening deepened. He was immersed in catching up on the paperwork that had piled up during his absence when the door to his study flew open, a sudden gust of wind scattered the stacks of documents he had arranged carefully on the work table before him, and the gaunt figure of Questor Thews stalked out of the darkness into the light.

“I have found them, High Lord!” Questor exclaimed with an elaborate flourish of one arm, a canvass-wrapped bundle clutched to his chest with the other. He crossed to where Ben was working and deposited the bundle on the table with a loud thump. “There!”

Ben stared. A rather bedraggled Bunion trudged through the door behind him, clothes torn and muddied. Abernathy appeared as well, nightshirt twisted and nightcap askew. He shoved his glasses in place and blinked.

“It was all just exactly as the dream promised,” Questor explained hurriedly, hands working at the canvass wrapping. “Well, not quite as promised. There was the matter of the demon imp hidden in the stonework. A nasty surprise, I can tell you. But Bunion was its equal. Took it by the throat and choked the life out of it. But the rest was just as it was in the dream. We found the passages in Mirwouk and followed them to the door. The door opened, and the room beyond was covered with stonework. One stone had the special markings. It gave at the touch, I reached down and …”

“Questor, you found the missing books?” Ben asked incredulously, cutting him short.

The wizard stopped, stared back at him in turn, and frowned. “Of course I found the books, High Lord. What do you think I have been telling you?” He looked put upon. “Anyway, to continue, I was about to reach down for them—I could see them in the shadows—when Bunion pulled me back. He saw the movement of the imp. There was a terrific struggle between them … Ah, here we are!”

The last fold of canvass fell back. A pair of massive, aged books nestled amid the wrappings. Each book was bound in a leather covering that was scrolled in runes and drawings, the gilt that had once inscribed each marking worn to bits and tracings. Each book had its corners and bindings layered in tarnished brass, and huge locks held the covers sealed.

Ben reached down to touch the cover of the top book, but Questor quickly seized his hand. “A moment, High Lord, please.” The wizard pointed to the book’s lock. “Do you see what has happened to the catch?”

Ben peered closer. The catch was gone, the metal about it seared as if by fire. He checked the catch on the second book. It was still securely in place. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Something had been done to the first book to break the lock that sealed it. He looked back at Questor.

“I have no idea, High Lord,” the wizard answered the unasked question. “I brought the books to you exactly as I found them. I have not tampered with them; I have not attempted to open them. I know from the markings on the covers that they are the missing books of magic. Beyond that, I know no more than you.” He cleared his throat officiously. “I … thought it proper that you be present when I opened them.”

“You thought it proper, did you?” Abernathy growled, hairy face shoving into view. He looked ridiculous in his nightcap. “What you mean is you thought it safer! You wanted the power of the medallion close at hand in case this magic proved to be too much for you!”

Questor stiffened. “I have significant magic of my own, Abernathy, and I assure you that …”

“Never mind, Questor,” Ben cut him short. “You did the right thing. Can you open the books?”

Questor was rigid with indignation by now. “Of course I can open the books! Here!”

He stepped forward, hands hovering over the first of the aged tomes. Ben moved back, his own hands closing on the medallion. There was no point in taking any chances with this sort of …

Questor touched the fastenings, and green fire spit sharply from the metal. Everyone jumped back quickly.

“It would appear that you have underestimated the danger of the situation once again!” Abernathy snapped.

Questor flushed, and his face tightened. His hands came up sharply, sparked, then came alive with a fire of their own—a brilliant crimson fire. He brought his fire down slowly to the metal fastenings, then held it there as it slowly devoured the green fire. Then he brushed his hands together briskly, and both fires were gone.

He gave Abernathy a scornful look. “A rather insignificant measure of danger, wouldn’t you say?”

He reached again for the fastenings and pulled the metal clasp free. Slowly he opened the book to the first page. Aging yellow parchment stared back at him. There was nothing there.

Ben, Abernathy, and Bunion pressed forward about him, peering down through the shadows and half-light. The page was still empty. Questor thumbed to the second page. It was empty as well. He thumbed to the third. Empty.

The fourth page was empty, too, but its center was seared slightly as if held too close to a flame.

“I believe it was you who used the word insignificant, wizard?” Abernathy goaded.

Questor did not reply. There was a stunned look on his face. Slowly he began to leaf through the book, turning one blank page after another, finding each sheet of yellowed parchment empty, but increasingly seared. Finally pages began to appear that were burned through entirely.

He thumbed impulsively to the very center of the book and stopped.

“High Lord,” he said softly.

Ben peered downward at the ruin that lay open before him. A fire had burned the center of the book to ashes, but it was as if the fire had somehow been ignited from within.

High Lord and wizard stared at each other. “Keep going,” Ben urged.

Questor paged through the remainder of the book quickly and found nothing. Each sheet of parchment was just like the others—empty save for where the mysterious fire had burned or seared it.

“I do not understand what this means, High Lord,” Questor Thews admitted finally.

Abernathy started to comment, then changed his mind. “Perhaps the answers lie in the other book,” he suggested wearily.

Ben nodded for Questor to proceed. The wizard closed the first book and set it aside, gloved his hands in the red fire, brought them carefully down, and drew free the green fire that protected the lock on the second book. It took somewhat longer this time to complete the task, for the lock was still intact. Then, the fires extinguished, he released the lock and cautiously opened the book.

The outline of a unicorn stared back at him. The unicorn was drawn on parchment that was neither yellowed nor seared, but pristine white. The unicorn was standing still, its silhouette perfectly formed by dark lines. Questor turned to the second page. There was a second unicorn, this one in motion, but drawn the same way. The third page revealed another unicorn, the fourth still another, and so on. Questor leafed quickly through the entire book and back again. Each page of the book appeared new. Each page held a unicorn, each drawn in a different pose.

There were no writings or markings of any kind other than the drawings of the unicorns.

“I still do not understand what this means.” Questor sighed, frustration etched into his lean face.

“It means these are not the books of magic you believed them to be,” Abernathy offered bluntly.

But Questor shook his head. “No, these are the books. The dream said so, the markings on the bindings say so, and they appear as the old stories described them. These are the missing books, all right.”

They were silent for a moment. Ben stared thoughtfully at the books, then glanced about until his eyes found the shadowy figure of Bunion peering from behind Questor. The kobold grinned ominously.

Ben looked back again at the books. “What we have here,” he said finally, “is one book with unicorns drawn on every page and another book with no unicorns drawn anywhere, but a burned-out center. That has to mean something, for Pete’s sake! Questor, what about Willow’s dream of a black unicorn? Couldn’t the unicorns here have something to do with that?”

Questor considered the possibility for a moment. “I do not see any possible connection, High Lord. The black unicorn is essentially a myth. The unicorns drawn here are not inked in black, but sketched deliberately in white. See how the lines define the features?” He turned a few pages of the second book to illustrate his point. “A black unicorn would be shaded or marked in some way to indicate its color …”

He trailed off, brows knitting tightly in thought. His bony fingers traced the seared lock on the first book delicately. “Why has this lock been broken and the other left intact?” he asked softly, speaking to no one in particular.

“There have not been any unicorns in the valley since its inception, according to the histories of the Kings of Landover,” Abernathy interjected suddenly. “But there were unicorns once—a whole raft of them. There was a legend about it, as a matter of fact. Now let me think … Yes, I remember. Just wait here a moment, please.”

He hurried from the room, nails clicking on the stone, nightshirt trailing. He was back a few moments later, a book of the royal histories of Landover cradled in his arms. The book was very old and its covers worn.

“Yes, this is the one,” the scribe announced. He placed it next to the books of magic, thumbed through it quickly, and stopped. “Yes, right here.” He paused, reading. “It happened hundreds of years ago—very close to the time of the valley’s creation. The fairies dispatched a large gathering of unicorns into our valley from out of the mists. They sent them here for a very particular reason. It seems that they were concerned about a growing disbelief in the magic in many of the outlying worlds—worlds such as your own, High Lord—” The scribe extended him a disapproving look. “—and they wished to give some sign to those worlds that the magic did indeed still exist.” He paused, frowning as he squinted at the aged writing. “I think I have that right. It is difficult to read this clearly because the language is very old.”

“Perhaps it is your eyes that are old,” Questor suggested, none too kindly, and reached for the book.

Abernathy snatched it away irritably. “My eyes are twice what yours are, wizard!” he snapped. He cleared his throat and went on. “It appears, High Lord, that the fairies sent the unicorns as proof to the disbelieving worlds that the magic was still real. One unicorn was to travel to each of these worlds out of Landover through the time passages.” He paused again, read some more, then closed the book with a bang. “But, of course, that never happened.”

Ben frowned. “Why not?”

“Because all the unicorns disappeared, High Lord. They were never seen again by anyone.”

“Disappeared?”

“I remember that story,” Questor declared. “Frankly, it always struck me as a rather strange story.”

Ben frowned some more. “So the fairies send a raft of white unicorns into Landover and they all disappear. And that’s the last of the unicorns except for a black unicorn that may or may not be real and appears only occasionally from God knows where. Except now we also have the missing books of magic that contain nothing about magic at all—just a lot of drawings of unicorns and some half-burned empty pages.”

“One lock broken and one still sealed,” Questor added.

“Nothing about Meeks,” Ben mused.

“Nothing about changing dogs back into men,” Abernathy huffed.

They stared at one another in silence. The books lay open on the table before them—two of magic that didn’t seem very magical at all and one of history that told them nothing historically useful. Ben’s uneasiness grew. The further they followed the threads of these dreams, the more confused matters got. His dream had been a lie; Questor’s had been the truth. The source of their dreams had been different …

Apparently.

But maybe not. He was not sure of anything just now. It was growing late. The trip back had been a long one, he was tired, and the fatigue dulled his thinking. There wasn’t enough time, and he didn’t have enough energy to reason it all through tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough. When morning came, they would search out Willow; once they found her, they would pursue this matter of the dreams until they understood exactly what was going on.

“Lock up the books, Questor. We’re going to bed,” he declared.

There was muttered agreement from all quarters. Bunion went off to the kitchen to clean up and eat. Abernathy went with him, carrying the aged history. Questor scooped up the books of magic and carted them out wordlessly.

Ben watched them go, left alone in the shadows and half-light. He almost wished he had asked them to stay while he forced himself to work on this puzzle a bit longer.

But that was foolish. It would all keep.

Reluctantly, he trudged off to sleep.

… AND NIGHTMARES



Later, Ben Holiday would remember how ill-conceived his advice to himself had been that night. He would remember the words clearly. It will all keep. Tomorrow will be soon enough. He would remember those words as he ate them. He would reflect bitterly on the undiscerning reassurance he had allowed himself to take from them.

That was the beauty of hindsight, of course. It was always twenty-twenty.

The trouble began almost immediately. He retired directly to his bed chamber from the study, slipped on a nightshirt, and crawled beneath the covers. He was exhausted, but sleep would not come. He was keyed up from the day’s events, and the mystery of the dreams played about like a cornered rat in his mind. He chased the rat, but he couldn’t catch it. It was a shadow that eluded him effortlessly. He could see its outline, but could not grasp its form.

Its eyes glowed crimson in the darkness.

He blinked and shoved himself up on his elbows. The rune stone that Willow had given him shone fire red on the nightstand where he had placed it. He blinked, aware suddenly that he must have been nearly asleep when the light had brought him back. The color of the stone meant danger threatened—just as it must have threatened during the whole of the trip back.

But where was the danger to be found, damn it?

He rose and walked about the room like a creature stalking prey. There was nothing there. His clothes still lay draped over the chair where he had thrown them; his duffel still occupied its spot on the floor by the dressing room. He stood in the center of the room for a moment and let the warmth of the castle’s life reach out to him. Sterling Silver responded with a deep, inner glow that wrapped him from head to foot. She was undisturbed.

He frowned. Perhaps the stone was mistaken.

It was distracting, in any case, so he covered it with a towel and climbed back into his bed. He waited a moment, closed his eyes, opened them again, closed them a second time. The darkness cloaked him and did not tease. The rat was gone. Questions and answers mixed and faded in the night. He began to drift.

He might have dreamed for a time, then. There were images of unicorns, some black, some white, and the slender, timeless faces of the fairies. There were images of his friends, both past and present, and of the dreams he had envisioned for his kingdom and his life. They ran through his subconscious, and their fluid motion lulled him as the rolling of an endless sea.

Then a curious fire flared to sudden life within his mind, disrupting the flow. Hands reached from out of nothingness, and fingers clasped the chain about his neck—his hands, his fingers. What were they doing?

And suddenly there was an image of Meeks!

The image appeared from out of a black mist, the wizard a tall, skeletal form cloaked in gunmetal blue with a face as rough and hard as raw iron. He loomed over Ben as if he were death come for its latest victim, one sleeve empty, the other a black claw that reached down, down …

Ben jerked awake with a start, kicking back the bedclothes, sweeping blindly at the dark with one hand. He blinked and squinted. A candle’s flame lit one corner of the room, a solitary pinprick of white-gold against a haze of crimson fire given off by Willow’s rune stone as it blazed in frantic warning on the nightstand, the towel that had covered it gone. Ben could feel the presence of the danger it signaled. His breath came in sharp gasps, and it was as if a giant hand pressed down upon his chest. He fought to push it off, but his muscles would not obey. His body seemed locked in place.

Something moved in the dark—something huge.

Ben tried to shout, but the sound was no more than a whisper.

A figure materialized, scarlet light covering it like blood. The figure stood there and, in a voice that sounded of nails on slate, whispered, “We meet again, Mr. Holiday.”

It was Meeks.

Ben could not speak. He could only stare. It was as if the image that had haunted him during his visit to the old world had somehow managed to follow him back into this one. Except that this was no image. He knew it instantly. This was real!

Meeks smiled thinly. He was quite human in appearance now, the predatory look vanished. “What—no clever words of greeting, no brave admonishments, not even a threat? How unlike you, Mr. Holiday. What seems to be the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

The muscles of Ben’s throat and face tightened as he struggled to regain control of himself. He was paralyzed. Meeks’ flat, terrifying eyes bound him with cords he could not break.

“Yes, yes, the will is there, isn’t it, Mr. Holiday—but the way is so dark! I know that feeling well! Remember how it was when you left me last? Remember? You taunted me in the vision crystal—my sole link with this world—and then you shattered it! You broke my eyes, Mr. Holiday, and you left me blind!” His voice had become a hiss of fury. “Oh, yes, I know what it is like to be paralyzed and alone!”

He moved forward a step further and stopped, his gaunt, craggy face bent against the crimson light of the rune. He seemed impossibly huge. “You are a fool, play-King—do you know that? You thought to play games with me and you did not even bother to understand that it was I who made all the rules. I am the games master, little man, and you are but a novice! I made you King of this land; I gave you all that it had to offer. You took that from me as if you were entitled to it! You took it as if it belonged to you!”

He was shaking with anger, the fingers of his gloved hand knotted in front of his robes in a clawed fist. Ben had never been so terrified in his life. He wanted to shrink down into himself, to crawl beneath the covers once more. He wanted to do anything—anything—that would let him escape this terrible old man.

Then Meeks straightened, and abruptly the anger in his face was replaced by cold indifference. He looked away. “Well, it hardly matters now. The game is over. You have lost, Mr. Holiday.”

Sweat ran down Ben’s rigid back. How could this have possibly happened? Meeks had been trapped in the old world; he had been denied any possible entrance into Landover as long as Ben held the medallion!

“Would you like to know how I got here, Mr. Holiday?” Meeks seemed to have read his mind. The wizard swung slowly back on him. “It was simple, really. I let you bring me.” He saw the look in Ben’s eyes and laughed. “Yes, Mr. Holiday—that’s right. You were responsible for bringing me back again. What do you think of that?”

He came forward until he was standing next to the bed. His craggy face bent close. Ben could smell the stench of him. “The dreams were mine, Mr. Holiday. I sent them to you—to you, my half-brother, and the sylph. I sent them. Not all of my powers were lost in the destruction of the crystal! I could still reach you, Mr. Holiday! In your sleep! I could bridge the two worlds through your subconscious! My foolish half-brother forgot to think of that in cautioning you against me. Dreams were the only tools I needed to take control of you again. How vivid the imagination can be! Did you find the dream I sent you compelling, Mr. Holiday? Yes, of course you did. Your dream was sent to bring you to me, and bring you to me it did! I knew you would come if you thought your friend Mr. Bennett needed you. I knew you must come. It was simple after that, Mr. Holiday. The image at the end of the time passage was magic that alerted me to your return and let me trace your movements. It settled down within you, and you were never free of me after!”

Ben’s heart sank. He should have known that Meeks would use the magic to keep track of him in some way. He should have known the wizard would leave nothing to chance. He had been a fool.

Meeks was smiling like the Cheshire Cat. “The second image was an even more interesting ploy. It diverted you from what I was really about. Oh, yes, I was there with you, Mr. Holiday! I was behind you! While you were preoccupied with my image, I slipped down into your clothing, a thing no bigger than a tiny insect. I concealed myself upon you and I let you carry me back into Landover. The medallion allows only your passage, Mr. Holiday—yet if I am a part of you, it also allows mine!”

He was hidden within my clothing, Ben thought in despair, with me all the way back, and I never realized it. That was why the rune stone glowed in warning. The threat was always there, but I couldn’t see it!

“Ironic, isn’t it, Mr. Holiday—you bringing me back as you did?” The skin on Meeks’ cheeks and forehead was pulled back with the intensity of his smile, and his face was like a skull. “I had to come back, you know. I had to come back immediately because of your damnable, insistent meddling! Have you any idea of the trouble you have caused me? No—no, of course not. You have no idea. You do not even know what I am talking about. You understand nothing! And, in your ignorance, you have very nearly destroyed what it has taken years to create! You have disrupted everything—you and your campaign to become King of Landover!”

He had worked himself into a rage again, and it was only with great effort that he brought himself back under control. Even so, the words spit from him like bile. “No matter, Mr. Holiday, no matter. This all means nothing to you, so there is no point in belaboring it. I have the books now, and there is no further damage that you can do. I have what I need. Your dream has given me mastery of you, my half-brother’s dream has given me mastery of the books, and the sylph’s dream will give me …”

He stopped sharply, almost as if he had erred. There was a curious uneasiness in the pale, hard eyes. He blinked and it was gone. One hand brushed the empty air in dismissal. “Everything. The dreams will give me everything,” he finished.

The medallion, Ben was thinking frantically. If I could only manage to put my hands on the medallion …

Meeks laughed sharply. “There is undoubtedly much that you wish to say to me, isn’t there, Mr. Holiday? And surely much that you wish to do!” The craggy face shoved close before his own once more. The hard eyes bored into him. “Well, I will give you your chance, play-King. I will give you the opportunity that you were so quick to deny me when you smashed the crystal and exiled me from my home!”

One bony finger crooked before Ben’s frozen eyes. “But first I have something to show you. I have it right here, looped safely about my neck.” His hand dipped downward into the robes. “Look closely, Mr. Holiday. Do you see it?”

He withdrew his hand slowly. There was a chain gripped tightly in the fingers. Ben’s medallion hung fastened at its end.

Meeks smiled in triumph as he saw the look of desperation that flooded Ben’s eyes. “Yes, Mr. Holiday! Yes, play-King! Yes, you poor fool! It is your precious medallion! The key to Landover—and it belongs to me now!” He dangled it slowly before Ben, letting it twirl to catch the mixed light of blazing rune stone and candle’s flame. His eyes narrowed. “Do you wish to know what happened to separate you from the medallion? You gave it to me in a dream I sent you, Mr. Holiday. You took the medallion off and passed it to me. You gave the medallion to me willingly. I could not take it by force, but you gave it to me!”

Meeks was like a giant that threatened to crush Ben—tall, dark, looming out of the shadows. His breath hissed. “I think there is nothing I can tell you that you do not already know, is there, Mr. Holiday?”

He made a quick gesture with his hand, and the invisible chains that held Ben paralyzed dropped away. He could move again and speak. Yet he did neither. He simply waited.

“Reach down within your nightshirt, Mr. Holiday,” the wizard whispered.

Ben did as he was told. His fingers closed on a medallion fastened to the end of a chain. Slowly he withdrew it. The medallion was the same shape and size as the one he had once worn—the one Meeks now possessed. But the engraving on the face was changed. Gone was the Paladin, Sterling Silver, and the rising sun. Gone was the polished silver sheen. The medallion was tarnished black as soot and embossed with the robed figure of Meeks.

Ben stared at the medallion in horror, touched it disbelievingly, then let it drop from his fingers as if it had burned him.

Meeks nodded in satisfaction. “I own you, Mr. Holiday. You are mine to do with as I choose. I could simply destroy you, of course—but I won’t. That would be too easy an end for you after all the trouble you have caused me!” He paused, the smile returning—hard, ironic. “Instead, Mr. Holiday, I think I will set you free.”

He moved back a few steps, waiting. Ben hesitated, then rose from the bed, his mind working frantically to find a way out of this nightmare. There were no weapons close at hand. Meeks stood between him and the bedroom door.

He took a step forward.

“Oh, one thing more.” Meeks’ voice stopped him as surely as if he had run into a wall of stone. The hard, old face was a mass of gullies and ridges worn by time. “You are free—but you will have to leave the castle. Now. You see, Mr. Holiday, you do not belong here anymore. You are no longer King. You are, in fact, no longer even yourself.”

One hand lifted. There was a brief sweep of light and Ben’s nightshirt was gone. He was dressed in laborer’s clothing—rough woolen pants and tunic, a woolen cloak, and worn boots. There was dirt on him and the smell of animals.

Meeks studied him dispassionately. “One of the common folk, Mr. Holiday—that is who you will be from this day forward. Work hard and you may find a way to advance yourself. There is opportunity in this land even for such as you. You will not be King again, of course. But you may find some other suitable occupation. I hope so. I would hate to think of you as destitute. I would be most distressed if you were to suffer inconvenience. Life is a long time, you know.”

His gaze shifted suddenly to Willow’s rune stone. “By the way, you will not be needing that any more, will you?” His hand lifted, and the rune stone flew from the nightstand into his gloved palm. His fingers closed, and the stone shattered into dust, its red glow winking out abruptly.

He looked back again at Ben, his smile cold and hard. “Now where were we? Oh, yes—we were discussing the matter of your future. I can assure you that I will monitor it with great interest. The medallion with which I have supplied you will tell me all I need to know. Be careful you do not try to remove that medallion. A certain magic protects against such foolishness—a magic that would shorten your life rather considerably if it were challenged. And I do not want you to die, Mr. Holiday—not for a long, long time.”

Ben stared at the other man in disbelief. What sort of game was this? He measured quickly the distance to the bedroom door. He could move and talk again; he was free of whatever it was that had paralyzed him. He had to try to escape.

Then he saw Meeks watching him, studying him as a cat might a cornered mouse, and fear gave way to anger and shame. “This won’t work, Meeks,” he said quietly, forcing the edge from his voice. “No one will accept this.”

“No?” Meeks kept the smile steady. “And why is that, Mr. Holiday?”

Ben took a deep breath and a couple of steps forward for good measure. “Because these old clothes you’ve slapped on me won’t fool anyone! And medallion or no medallion, I’m still me and you’re still you!”

Meeks arched his eyebrows quizzically. “Are you certain of that, Mr. Holiday? Are you quite sure?”

There was a tug of doubt at the back of Ben’s mind, but he kept it from his eyes. He glanced sideways at the floor-length mirror to catch a glimpse of himself and was relieved to find that physically, at least, he was still the same person he had always been.

But Meeks seemed so certain. Had the wizard changed him in some way that he couldn’t see?

“This won’t work,” he repeated, edging closer to the door as he spoke, trying to figure out what it was that Meeks knew that he didn’t—because there most certainly was something …

Meeks’ laughter was sharp and acrid. “Why don’t we see what works and what doesn’t, Mr. Holiday!”

The gloved hand swept up, the fingers extended, and green fire burst from the tips. Ben sprang forward with a lunge, tumbling past the dark form of the wizard, rolling wildly to dodge the fire, and scrambling back to his feet. He reached the closed door in a rush and had his fingers on the handle when the magic caught up with him. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. Shadows wrapped him, smothered him, and the sleep that wouldn’t come earlier couldn’t now be kept away.

Ben Holiday shuddered helplessly and dropped slowly into blackness.

STRANGER



Ben came awake again in shadows and half-light, eyes squinting through a swirl of images that rocked like the flotsam and jetsam an ocean’s waters tossed against a beachhead. He lay on a pallet of some sort, the touch of its leather padding cool and smooth against his face. His first thought was that he was still alive. His second was to wonder why.

He blinked, waiting for the images to stop moving and take definite shape. The memory of what had happened to him recalled itself with painful intensity. He could feel again the anger, frustration, and despair. Meeks had returned to Landover. Meeks had caught him unprepared, smashed the rune stone given him by Willow, stripped him of his clothing, turned the dark magic on him until consciousness was gone, and …

Oh, my God!

His fingers groped down the front of his tunic, reached inside, and withdrew the medallion that hung from its chain about his neck. Frantically, he held it up to the twilight, the warnings already whispering urgently in his mind, the certainty of what he would find already taking shape in his thoughts. The carved metal face of the medallion seemed to shimmer. For an instant, he thought he saw the familiar figure of the Paladin riding out of Sterling Silver against the rising sun. Then the Paladin, the castle, and the sun were gone, and there was only the cloaked form of Meeks, black against a surface tarnished with disuse.

Ben swallowed against the dryness he felt in his throat, his worst fears realized. Meeks had stolen the medallion of the Kings of Landover.

A sense of desperation flooded through him, and he tried to push himself to his feet. He was successful for a moment, a small rush of adrenaline giving him renewed strength. He stood, the swirl of images steadying enough that he could recognize something of his surroundings. He was still within Sterling Silver. He recognized the room as a sitting chamber situated at the front of the castle, a room reserved for waiting guests. He recognized the bench on which he had been lying, with its rust-colored leather and carved wooden feet. He knew where he was, but he didn’t know why—just as he didn’t know why he was still alive …

Then his strength gave out again, his legs buckled, and he crumpled back onto the bench. Wood scraped and leather creaked, the sounds alerting someone who waited without. The door opened inward. Gimlet eyes glittered from out of a monkey face to which large ears were appended.

It was Bunion!

Bunion stepped into view and peered down at him.

Ben had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. He would have hugged the little kobold if he could have found the strength to do so. As it was, he simply lay there, grinning foolishly and trying to make his mouth work. Bunion helped him back onto the bench and waited for him to get the words out.

“Find Questor,” he managed finally. He swallowed again against the dryness, the inside of his mouth like chalk. “Bring him. Don’t let anyone know what you’re doing. And be careful. Meeks is here in the castle!”

Bunion stared at him a moment longer, an almost puzzled look on his gnarled face, then turned and slipped from the room wordlessly. Ben lay back again, exhausted. Good old Bunion. He didn’t know what the kobold was doing there—or even what he was doing there, for that matter—but it was exactly the piece of good fortune he needed. If he could find Questor quickly enough, he could rally the guard and put an end to any threat Meeks might pose. Meeks was a powerful wizard, but he was no match for so many. Ben would regain the stolen medallion, and Meeks would regret the day he ever even thought about sneaking back into Landover!

He closed his eyes momentarily, marshaling what inner resources he could, then pushed himself upright once more. His eyes swept the room. It was empty. Candlelight from a wall bracket and a table dish chased the shadows. Light from without crept through the crack beneath the closed door. He stood, bracing the backs of his legs against the bench for support. He was still dressed in the peasant garb with which Meeks had clothed him. His hands were black with grime. Cute trick, Ben thought—but it won’t work. I’m still me.

He took a dozen deep breaths, his vision steadying, his strength rebuilding. He could feel the warmth of the castle reaching out from the flooring through his battered work boots. He could feel the vibrancy of her life. There was an urgency to her touch that was disturbing. She seemed to sense the danger he was in.

Don’t worry; it’s going to be all right, he reassured her silently.

Footsteps approached and the door opened. Questor Thews stood there with Bunion. He hesitated, then entered the room wordlessly. The kobold followed, closing the door behind them.

“Questor, thank God you’re here!” Ben blurted out. He started forward, hands reaching out in greeting. “We have to act quickly. Meeks is back—here, now, somewhere in the castle. I don’t know how he managed it, but he stole the medallion. We have to alert the guard and find him before …”

He came to an abrupt stop half-a-dozen feet from his friend, his words trailing off into silence. The wizard’s hands were still at his sides—not extended to receive his own. The owlish face was hard, and the bushy eyebrows furrowed.

Questor Thews was looking at Ben as if he had never seen his King before in his life.

Ben stiffened. “Questor, what’s the matter?”

The wizard continued to stare at him. “Who are you?”

“Who am I? What do you mean, who am I? It’s me, Ben!”

“Ben? You call yourself Ben?”

“Of course, I call myself Ben! What else would I call myself? That’s my name, isn’t it?”

“Apparently you believe so.”

“Questor, what are you talking about? I believe so because it is so!”

Questor Thews frowned. The lines about his brows furrowed even more deeply. “You are Ben Holiday? You are Landover’s High Lord?”

Ben stared back at him speechlessly. The disbelief in the other’s voice was unmistakable. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” he ventured.

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

Ben felt a sharp sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “Look, it’s just the clothes and the dirt, for Pete’s sake! Look at me! Meeks did this—changed the clothes, messed me up a bit. But it’s still me!”

“And you are Ben Holiday?”

“Yes, damn it!”

Questor studied him a moment, then took a deep breath. “You may believe yourself to be Ben Holiday. You may even believe yourself to be High King of Landover. But you are not. I know because I have just come from the King—and he was not you! You are an intruder in this castle. You are a spy and possibly even worse. You have entered uninvited, you have listened in on conversations that were private, you have attacked the High Lord in his bedchamber, and now you are claiming to be someone you clearly are not. If the choice were mine, I would have you imprisoned at once! It is only because the High Lord has ordered your release that you are free now. I suggest you go quickly. Seek help for your affliction, whatever it is, and stay far, far away from here!”

Ben was stunned. He could not think of what to do. He heard himself telling Meeks, “Medallion or no medallion, I’m still me and you’re still you!” He heard Meeks reply, “Are you certain of that?”

What had been done to him?

He turned quickly to Bunion, searching for some hint of recognition in the kobold’s sharp eyes. There was none. He rushed past them both to a mirror that hung upon the wall next to the doorway. He peered through the half-light at his image reflected in the glass. It was his face! He was exactly the same as he had always been! Why couldn’t Questor and Bunion see that?

“Listen to me!” He wheeled on them, frantic. “Meeks has come back from the old world, stolen the medallion, and somehow disguised from everyone but myself who I am! I look the same to me, but not to you!”

Questor folded his arms across his chest. “You look different to everyone but yourself?”

It sounded so ridiculous that for a moment Ben just stared at him. “Yes,” he replied finally. “And he has made himself appear as me! Somehow he has stolen my identity. I didn’t attack him in his bedchamber! He attacked me in mine!” He came forward a step, eyes darting from one face to the other. “He sent the dreams, don’t you see? He arranged all of this! I don’t know why, but he did! This is part of his revenge for what we did to him!”

There was irritation in Questor’s eyes, indifference in Bunion’s. Ben felt his grip on the situation slipping. “You can’t let him do this, damn it! You can’t let him get away with this!” His mind raced. “Look, if I’m not who I say I am, how do I know all that I do? How do I know about the dreams—mine of Miles Bennett, yours of the missing books of magic, Willow’s of the black unicorn! For God’s sake, what about Willow? Someone has to warn her! Listen, damn it! How do I know about the books you brought in last night—the ones with the unicorns? I know about those. I know about the medallion, about … Ask me something! Go on, ask me anything! Test me!”

Questor shook his head solemnly. “I do not have time for these games, whoever-you-are. You know what you know because you are a spy and learned these things by spying. You listened to our conversations and you adapted them to your own purposes. You forget that you already confessed all this to the High Lord when he caught you sneaking about his bedchamber. You admitted everything when pressed. You are fortunate you were not dispatched by the guard when you attempted to flee. You are fortunate you …”

“I did not flee anything!” Ben shouted in fury. He tried to reach out to Questor, but Bunion interceded at once and kept him away. “Listen to me! I am Ben Holiday! I am High Lord of Landover! I …”

The doors opened and guards appeared, alarmed by the frenzy in his voice. Questor beckoned, and they seized hold of his arms.

“Don’t do this!” he screamed. “Give me a chance …”

“You have been given that chance!” Questor Thews interjected coldly. “Take advantage of it and leave!”

Ben was dragged from the room struggling, still screaming his identity, still protesting what had been done to him, while his mind spun with anger and frustration. He caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-robed figure standing in the distance, watching. Meeks! He screamed louder, trying to break free. One of the guards cuffed him and he saw stars. His head drooped and his voice trailed away. He had to do something! But what? What?

The robed figure disappeared. Questor and Bunion were left behind. Ben was dragged through the entry to the castle gates and beyond the walls. The bridge he had rebuilt after he had assumed the throne was bright with torchlight. He was dragged across it. When he reached the far side, he was thrown to the ground.

“Good night, your Majesty,” one of the guards mocked.

“Come visit again soon,” said another.

They walked away laughing. “Next time we’ll have his ears,” one said.

Ben lay upon the ground momentarily, head spinning. Slowly he pushed himself upright and looked back across the bridge at the castle lights. He stared at the towers and battlements as they glistened silver in the light of Land over’s eight moons and listened to the fading sound of voices and the heavy thud of the gates being closed.

Then all was silent.

He still could not believe that this was happening to him.



Mother!” Willow whispered, and there was excitement and longing in her voice.

Moonlight draped the great forests of the lake country in a mix of rainbow colors, its cool brightness a beacon against the shadows. Parsnip was encamped somewhere far back within those shadows, patiently awaiting her return. Elderew lay distant, the city of the River Master wrapped in silence, her inhabitants asleep. Elderew was Willow’s home and the River Master was her father, but it was neither her home nor her father that she had come to see this night.

It was the wood nymph who danced before her like a vision out of fairy.

Willow knelt at the edge of a clearing surrounded by aging pines and watched the magic unfold. Her mother spun and leaped through the night’s stillness, light and ephemeral, born of air and blown on the wind. She was a tiny thing, little more than a wisp of life. White gauze clothed her, transparent and weightless, and the pale green skin of her child’s body glimmered beneath the covering. Waist-length silver hair rippled and shimmered with each movement she made, a trailer of white fire against the night’s dark. Music that she alone could hear swept her on.

Willow watched in rapture. Her mother was a wild thing, so wild that she could not live among humans, even the once-fairy people of the lake country. She had bonded briefly to Willow’s father, but that had been long ago. They had bonded once only, her father nearly driven mad with need for the wood nymph he could not have, and then her mother had disappeared back into the forests again. She had never come back. Willow had been born of that brief union, her father’s constant reminder of the fairy being he forever wanted and could never have. His impossible longing aroused in him both love and hate. His feelings for Willow had always been ambivalent.

Willow understood. She was a sylph, an elemental. She was the child of both her parents, her constant water sprite father and her mercurial wood nymph mother. Her father’s domesticity gave her stability, but she was imbued with her mother’s wildness as well. She was a creature of contradictions. Amorphous, she was both flesh and plant. She was human in the greater part of the moon’s cycle and plant briefly in the cycle’s apex—a single night each twenty-day. Ben had been shocked to see her transformation that first night. She had changed from human to tree in this very clearing, feeding on the energy implanted by her mother in the earth where she danced. Ben had been shocked, but she was what she was, and he had come to accept that. One day he would even love her for it, she believed. It was not so with her father. His love was conditional and always would be. He was still a captive of the insatiable need her mother aroused in him. Willow only seemed to emphasize the weight of the chains that bound him.

So Willow had not come to her father in her effort to understand the dream of the black unicorn. She had come instead to her mother.

Her mother spun closer, whirling and twisting with grace and strength that defied understanding. Although wild and captive in her own way to desires she could not resist, her mother loved her nevertheless—without condition, without measure. She came when Willow needed her, the bond that linked them so strong that they could often sense each other’s thoughts. They spoke now in the silence of their minds, trading images of love and want. The bonding grew stronger, an entwining that expanded thoughts into words …

“Mother,” Willow whispered a second time.

She felt herself dream. Her mother danced, and she saw in the balletic, frenzied movements the vision that had brought her. The black unicorn appeared once more, a creature of exquisite, terrible beauty. It stood before her in the dark wood of which she had first dreamed, slender shape shimmering in moonlight and shadows, in the manner of a wraith. Willow shook to see it so. One moment it was a creature of fairy, the next a demon of Abaddon. Its spiraled horn flared and its hooves pawed the forest earth. Head lowered, it feinted with a quick rush, then backed cautiously away. It seemed trapped with indecision.

What bothers it so? Willow wondered in surprise.

She looked down suddenly and the answer lay cradled in her hands. She was holding again the bridle of spun gold. It was the bridle that kept the unicorn at bay; she knew it instinctively. She caressed it and felt the weave and draw of the threads run smooth against the touch of her fingers. A strange rush of emotions coursed through her. Such power the bridle offered! It could make the unicorn hers, she sensed. There were no unicorns left in all the world, none but in fairy, where she might never go again, none but this one only, and it might be hers if she wished it. All she need do was to stretch out her hand …

But, no, she cautioned abruptly, if she were to touch this creature for even the briefest instant, she would be lost to herself. She knew that; she had always known that. She must take the bridle to Ben because it belonged to him …

And then the unicorn’s head lifted, all beauty and grace. The dark face was perfectly symmetrical, the long mane blown like silk on a whisper of wind. There was fear in its eyes, fear of something other than the sylph and her bridle of spun gold, fear of something beyond her comprehension. Willow was paralyzed with the horror of it. The eyes of the black unicorn threatened to engulf her. The dream closed about. She blinked rapidly to break the spell and caught for just an instant something more than fear in the creature’s eyes. She saw an unmistakable plea for help.

Her hands lifted, almost of their own volition, and she held the bridle before her like a talisman.

The black unicorn snorted, an indelicate, frightened sound, and the shadows of the wood seemed to shimmer in response. Abruptly, the dream faded into vapor and the unicorn was gone. Willow’s mother danced alone again in the pine-sheltered clearing. The wood nymph spun one final time, a bit of moonlight against the dark, slowed in her pirouette, and flitted soundlessly down to where her daughter knelt.

Willow sank back upon her heels in exhaustion, the strength drained from her by the effort she had given over to the dream. “Oh, Mother,” she murmured and clasped the slender, pale green hands. “What have I been shown?” Then she smiled gently and there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. “But there is no purpose in asking you, is there? You know no more of this than I. You dance only what you feel, not what you know.”

Her mother’s delicate features changed in a barely perceptible manner—a lowering of her eyes, a slight twisting of her mouth. She understood, but could not help. Her dance was a conduit to knowledge, but not its source. The magic worked that way with elementals.

“Mother.” Willow clasped the pale hands more tightly, drawing strength from their touch. “I must know the reason for these dreams of the unicorn and the bridle of gold. I must know why I am being shown something that both lures and frightens me as this does. Which vision am I to believe?”

The small hands tightened back on her own, and her mother answered in a brief, birdlike sound that echoed of the forest night.

Willow’s slender form bent close, and something like a chill made her shiver. “There is one in the lake country who can help me understand?” she asked softly. “There is one who might know?” Her face grew intense. “Mother, I must go to him! Tonight!”

Again her mother responded, quick, eerie. She rose and spun swiftly across the clearing and back again. Her hands beckoned frantically. Tomorrow, they said. Tonight is taken. It is your time.

Willow’s face lifted. “Yes, Mother,” she whispered obediently.

She understood. She might wish it otherwise—and indeed had done so more than once before—but she could not deny the fact of it. The twenty-day cycle was at its end; the change was upon her. The need was already so strong that she could barely control herself. She shivered again. She must hurry.

She thought suddenly of Ben and wished he were there with her.

She stood up and walked to the clearing’s center. Her arms lifted skyward as if to draw in the colored moonlight. A radiance enveloped her, and she could feel the essence of her mother emanating from the earth upon which she had danced. She began to feed.

“Stay close to me, Mother,” she pleaded as her body shimmered. Her feet arched and split into roots that snaked downward into the dark earth, her hands and arms lengthened into branches, and the transformation began.

Moments later it was finished. Willow had disappeared. She had become the tree whose namesake she bore and would stay that way until dawn.

Her mother sank down next to her, a child’s ghost slipped from the shadows. She sat motionless for a time. Then her pale, slender arms wrapped about the roughened trunk that harnessed her daughter’s life and held it tight.

Dawn was approaching. Landover’s moons were fading away, one after the other, and night’s shadows were giving ground before a broadening golden hue that edged its way slowly out of the eastern horizon.

Questor Thews stalked the halls of Sterling Silver, a skeletal, ragtag figure in his gray robes with the colored sashes, looking for all the world as if he had lost his best friend. He rounded a corner near the front entry hall and bumped up against Abernathy.

“Taking an early constitutional?” the scribe inquired archly.

Questor grunted and the furrows lining his forehead deepened. “I find I cannot sleep, and I do not for the life of me know why that is. There is reason enough to be tired, heaven knows.”

Abernathy’s shaggy face revealed nothing of what he thought of that. He shrugged and turned to walk next to the wizard. “I understand someone was caught breaking into the High Lord’s bedchamber this evening—someone who claimed to be the King.”

Questor grunted a second time. “A madman. He was lucky to be released. But the High Lord ordered it. ‘Put him across to the mainland,’ he said. I would not have been so generous about the matter had the decision been mine, I assure you.”

They walked a bit further. “Odd that the High Lord simply released him,” Abernathy remarked finally. His nose twitched. “He usually finds better uses for his enemies.”

“Hmmmmmm.” Questor didn’t seem to hear. He was shaking his head at something. “It bothers me that the man knew so much about the dreams. He knew of the books of magic, of the High Lord’s visit back, of the unicorn …” He trailed off momentarily. “He seemed to know everything. He seemed so sure of himself.”

Neither spoke for a time. Questor led the way up a stairwell to a walk overlooking the outer parapets at the front of the castle. Below, the bridge which connected the island to the mainland stretched out across the lake, misted and empty. Questor peered through the fading gloom to the far shore, scanning the water’s edge. His owlish face tightened like a drawn knot.

“The stranger appears to be gone,” he said finally.

Abernathy glanced at him curiously. “Did you expect anything else?” he asked.

He waited in vain for an answer to his question. Questor continued to stare out across the lake and said nothing.