The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1

By midafternoon, they had reached the Deep Fell.

It was unchanged and unchanging—a dark, impenetrable smudge on an otherwise brightly sunlit expanse of forestland, hunched down against the earth in the manner of a creature in hiding, tensed to flee or strike. Shadows and mist played hide and seek in its sprawling depths, crawling with slow, irregular movements over trees and swamp and murk. Nothing else could be seen. What life forms there were lay in wait, pawns in a hard and vicious game of survival that rewarded only the quick and the strong. Sounds were muted and colors shaded gray. Only death was at home within the Deep Fell, and only death was immutable. Ben and his companions could sense that truth. Standing at the hollows rim, they stared downward into its darkness and thought their separate thoughts.

“Well, we might as well get at it,” Ben muttered finally. He was remembering the last time he had come into the Deep Fell and the terrifying illusions that Nightshade had created to keep him out—the illusions of endless swamp, lizards, and worse. He was thinking of his encounter with the witch—an encounter that had almost cost him his life. He was not looking forward to a repeat performance.

“Well,” he said again, the word trailing off into silence.

No one was paying any attention to him. Dirk sat next to him, eyes lidded and sleepy-looking as he basked in a small patch of sunlight and watched the movement of the mists in the Deep Fell. Fillip and Sot stood a good dozen yards left, well away from the cat and the hollows. They were whispering in small, anxious voices.

He shook his head. “Fillip. Sot.”

The G’home Gnomes cringed away, pretending not to hear him.

“Get over here!” he snapped irritably, his patience with gnomes and cats in general exhausted.

The gnomes came sheepishly, tentatively, edging forward with uneasy looks at Dirk, who as usual paid them no heed. When they were as close as they were going to get without being dragged, Ben knelt down to face them, his eyes finding theirs.

“Are you certain that Nightshade is down there?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, High Lord.”

“She is, High Lord.”

Ben nodded. “Then I want you to be careful,” he told them quietly. This was no time for impatience or anger, and he suppressed both. “I want you to be very careful, all right? I don’t want you to do anything that will place you in any real danger. Just go down there and look around. I need to know if Willow is there—or even if she’s been there earlier. That’s first. Find out any way you can.”

He paused, and the wide brown eyes of the gnomes shifted uneasily. He waited a moment, captured them again with his own. “There is a bridle made out of spun gold,” he continued. “Nightshade has it hidden down there somewhere. I need that bridle. I want you to see if you can find it. If you can, I want you to steal it.”

The brown eyes widened suddenly to the size of saucers. “No, it’s all right, don’t be afraid,” Ben soothed quickly. “You don’t have to steal it if the witch is anywhere about—only if she’s not or if you can take it without her knowing. Just do what you can. I’ll protect you.”

That was probably the worst lie he had told in his entire life; he didn’t really have any way to protect them. But he had to do something to reassure them or they would simply bolt at the first opportunity. They might do that anyway, but he was hoping the majesty of his office would hold them in thrall just long enough to get this job done.

“High Lord, the witch will hurt us!” Fillip declared.

“Hurt us badly!” Sot agreed.

“No, she won’t,” Ben insisted. “If you’re careful, she won’t even know you’re down there. You’ve been down there before, haven’t you?” Two heads nodded as one. “She didn’t see you then, did she?” Two heads nodded again. “Then there’s no reason she will see you this time either, is there? Just do as I told you and be careful.”

Fillip and Sot looked at each other long and hard. There was enough doubt in their eyes to float a battleship. Finally, they looked back again at Ben.

“Just go down once,” said Fillip.

“Just once,” echoed Sot.

“All right, all right, just once,” Ben agreed, casting an anxious glance at the fading afternoon sun. “But hurry, will you?”

The gnomes disappeared reluctantly into the hollows gloom. Ben watched them until they were out of sight, then sat back to wait.

As he waited, he found himself thinking about Edgewood Dirk’s repeated references to masks. He wore a mask. The missing unicorns wore masks. That’s what the cat had said, but what did the cat mean? He propped himself up against the base of a tree trunk some dozen yards from where Dirk basked in the sunlight and tried to reason it through. It was, after all, about time he reasoned something through. Lawyers were supposed to be able to do that; it was indigenous to their profession. King or no in Landover, he was still a lawyer with a lawyer’s habits and a lawyer’s way of thinking. So think, he exhorted himself! Think!

He thought. Nothing came. Masks were worn by actors and bandits. You wore them to disguise yourself. You put them on and then you took them off when you were done with the disguise. But what did that have to do with him? Or the unicorns? None of us are trying to disguise ourselves, he thought. Meeks is trying to disguise me. Who’s trying to disguise the unicorns?

The wizards who took them, that’s who.

The answer came instantly to him. He shifted upright. The wizards stole the unicorns and then hid them by disguising them. He nodded. It made sense. So how did they disguise them? With masks? What, turned them into cows or trees or something? No. He frowned. Start over again. The wizards took the unicorns—how did they do that—so they could steal their magic. The wizards wanted the magic for their own. But what would they do with it? What use would they find for it? Where was the magic now?

His eyes widened. There were no longer any other true wizards besides Meeks. The source of his power was in the missing but now found books of magic, the books that were supposedly a compilation of the magics acquired by wizards down through the years—the books with the drawing of the unicorns! Sure, the unicorns in the books—or the one book, at least—were drawings of the missing unicorns!

But why make drawings?

Or are they the unicorns themselves?

“Yes!” he whispered in surprise.

It was so impossible that he hadn’t seen it before—but impossible only in his own world, not in Landover where magic was the norm! The missing unicorns, the unicorns no one had seen for centuries, their magic intact, were trapped in the wizards’ books! And the reason that there was nothing else in the books but the drawings of the unicorns was that the magic of the books was entirely that of the unicorns—magic that the wizards had stolen!

And harnessed to their own use?

He didn’t know. He started to say something to Dirk, then checked himself. There was no point in asking the cat if he was right; the cat would simply find a way to confuse him all over again. Figure it out for yourself, he admonished! The unicorns had been transformed by wizard magic into the drawings in the missing books—that would explain the disappearance of the unicorns for all these years, the reason that Meeks had sent the dream of the books to Questor, and the need Meeks had for the books. It would even explain Dirk’s reference to masks.

Or was he just reaching now?

He paused. There were a few other matters still lacking explanation, he realized. What about the black unicorn? Was it simply a white unicorn that had escaped from the books—the first book, perhaps, the one with the burned-out core? Why was it black now if it had been white before? Ash or soot? Ridiculous! Why had it appeared and then disappeared again at other times over the years if it were a prisoner in the wizards’ books? Why was Meeks so desperate to get it back now?

His hands twisted in knots. If one unicorn could break free, why couldn’t the rest?

His confusion began to compound. Meeks had hinted that Ben had done something to wreck his plans, but hadn’t said what. If that was so, it had to have something to do with the unicorns, black and white. But Ben hadn’t the foggiest idea what that something was.

He sat puzzling matters through without success as afternoon stretched toward nightfall and the sun disappeared westward. Shadows lengthened almost imperceptibly across the forest. Slowly, the darkness and mist of the Deep Fell crept out of their daytime confinement to link hands with those shadows and close about Ben and Dirk. The day’s warmth faded into evening chill.

Ben ceased his musings and concentrated on the slope of the hollows. Where were Fillip and Sot? Shouldn’t they have been back by now? He climbed to his feet and stalked to the edge of the pit. There was nothing to be seen. He walked its rim for several hundred yards in both directions, through patches of scrub and brush, peering into the gloom. No luck. A growing uneasiness settled through him. He hadn’t really believed the little gnomes were in any danger or he wouldn’t have sent them down alone. Maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe that was the way he had wanted to see it and not the way it was.

He stalked back to his starting point and stood staring at the smudge of the Deep Fell helplessly. The dangers of the hollows had never bothered the gnomes before. Had something changed that? Damn it, he should have gone with them!

He glanced over at Dirk. Dirk appeared to be sleeping.

Ben waited some more because he didn’t have much choice. The minutes dragged interminably. It was growing darker. It was becoming difficult to distinguish things clearly as the twilight deepened.

Then suddenly there was movement at the hollows rim. Ben straightened, came forward a step, and stopped. A mass of brush parted, and Fillip and Sot pushed their way into view.

“Thank heavens you’re all …” Ben started and trailed off.

The G’home Gnomes were rigid with fear. Paralyzed. Their furry faces were twisted into masks of foreboding, their eyes bright and fixed. They looked neither right nor left nor even at Ben. They stared straight ahead and saw nothing. They stood with their backs to the mass of brush and held hands in the manner of small children.

Ben rushed forward, frightened now. Something was dreadfully wrong. “Fillip! Sot!” He knelt down before them, trying to break whatever spell it was that held them fast. “Look at me. What happened?”

“I happened, play-King!” an unpleasantly familiar voice whispered.

Ben looked up, past the frozen gnomes, at the tall, black shape that had materialized behind them as if by magic and found himself face to face with Nightshade.

WITCH AND DRAGON,

DRAGON AND WITCH



Ben stared voicelessly into the cold green eyes of the witch and, if there had been some place to run, he would have been halfway there already. But there was no running away from Nightshade. She held him fast simply by the force of her presence. She was a wall that he could neither scale nor get around. She was his prison.

Her voice was a whisper. “I never believed it possible that you would be so foolish as to come back here.”

Foolish, indeed, he agreed silently. He forced himself to reach out to the terrified gnomes and draw them to him, away from the witch. They fell into him like rag dolls, shaking with relief, burying their furry faces in his tunic.

“Please help us, High Lord!” was the best Fillip could manage, his own voice a whisper.

“Yes, please!” echoed Sot.

“It’s all right,” Ben lied.

Nightshade laughed softly. She was just as Ben remembered her—tall and sharp-featured, her skin as pale and smooth as marble, her hair jet black, save for a single streak of white down its center, her lean, angular frame cloaked all in black. She was beautiful in her way, ageless in appearance, a creature who had somehow come to terms with her mortality. Yet her face failed to reflect the emotions that would have made her complete. Her eyes were depthless and empty. They looked ready to swallow him.

Well, I asked for this, he thought.

Nightshade’s laughter died away then, and there was the barest hint of uncertainty in her eyes. She came forward a step, peering at him. “What is this?” she asked softly. “You are not the same …” She trailed off, confused. “But you must be; the gnomes have named you High Lord … Here, let me see your face in the light.”

She reached out. Ben was powerless to resist. Fingers as cold as icicles fastened on his chin and tilted his head to the moonlight. She held him there a moment, muttering. “You are different—yet the same, too. What has been done to you, play-King? Or is this some new game you seek to play with me? Are you not Holiday?” Ben could feel Fillip and Sot shivering against his body, tiny hands digging into him. “Ah, there is magic at work here,” Nightshade whispered harshly, fingers releasing his face with a twist. “Whose magic is it? Tell me, now—quickly!”

Ben fought back an urge to scream, fought to keep his voice steady. “Meeks. He’s come back. He’s made himself King and changed me into … this.”

“Meeks?” The green eyes narrowed. “That pathetic charlatan? How has he found magic enough to accomplish this?” Her mouth twisted with disdain. “He lacks the means to tie his own shoes! How could he manage to do this to you?”

Ben said nothing. He didn’t have an answer to give her.

There was a long moment of silence as the witch studied him. Finally, she said, “Where is the medallion? Let me see it!”

When he didn’t immediately respond, she made a quick motion with her fingers. Despite his resolve, he found himself withdrawing the tarnished emblem from his tunic for her inspection. She stared at it a moment, then stared again at his face, then slowly smiled the smile of a predator eyeing dinner.

“So,” she whispered.

That was all she said. It was enough. Ben knew instantly that she had figured out what had been done to him. He knew that she understood the nature of the magic that had changed him. Her realization of it was infuriating to him. It was worse than being held like this. He wanted to scream. He had to know what she had learned, and there was no way in the world that she was going to tell him.

“You are pathetic, play-King,” she went on, her voice still soft but insinuating now as well. “You have always been lucky, but never smart. Your luck has run out. I am almost tempted to leave you as you are. Almost. But I cannot forget what you did to me. I want to be the one to make you suffer for that! Are you surprised to see me again? I think perhaps you are. You thought me gone forever, I imagine—gone into the world of fairy to perish. How foolish of you.”

She knelt down before him so that her eyes were level with his. There was such hate that he flinched from it. “I flew into the mists, play-King—just as you commanded that I must, just as I was bidden. The Io Dust held me bound to your command, and I could not refuse. How I despised you then! But I could do nothing. So I flew into the mists—but I flew slowly, play-King, slowly! I fought to break the spell of the Io Dust as I flew; I fought with all the power that I could summon!”

The smile returned again, slow and hard. “And I did break the spell finally. I shattered it and turned back again. Too late, though, play-King, much too late—for I was already within the fairy mists and there was damage done to me! I hurt as never before; I was scarred by the pain of it! I escaped with my life and little else. It took me months to regain even the smallest part of my magic. I lay within the swamp, a creature in hiding, as helpless as the smallest reptile! I was broken! But I would not give in to the pain and the fear; I thought only of you. I thought only of what I would do to you once I had you in my hands again. And I knew that one day I would find a way to bring you back to me …”

She paused. “But I never dreamed it would happen so soon, my foolish High Lord. What great good fortune! It was the change that brought you to me, wasn’t it? Something about the change—but what? Tell me, play-King. I will have it from you anyway.”

Ben knew this was so. There was no sense in trying to keep anything from the witch. He could see in the empty green eyes what was in store for him. Talking was the only thing that was keeping him alive, and as long as he was alive he had a chance. Chances at this point were not to be tossed aside lightly.

“I came looking for Willow,” he answered, pushing the gnomes behind him now. He wanted them out of the way—just in case. He had to keep his eyes open for the right opportunity. The gnomes, however, continued to cling to him like Velcro.

“The River Master’s daughter? The sylph?” Nightshade’s look was questioning. “Why would she come here?”

“You haven’t seen her?” Ben asked, surprised.

Nightshade smiled unpleasantly. “No, play-King. I have seen no one but you—you and your foolish burrow people. What would the sylph want with me?”

He hesitated, then took a deep breath. “The golden bridle.”

There, it was out. Better to tell her and see if he could learn anything than to play it cute. Fencing with Nightshade was too dangerous.

Nightshade looked genuinely surprised. “The bridle? But why?”

“Because Meeks wants it. Because he sent Willow a dream about the bridle and a black unicorn.” Quickly he told the witch the story of Willow’s dream and of the sylph’s decision to try to learn what she could of the bridle. “She was told that the bridle was here in the Deep Fell.” He paused. “She should have arrived here ahead of me.”

“A pity she didn’t,” Nightshade replied. “I like her little better than I like you. Destroying her would have given me almost as much satisfaction as destroying you.” She paused, thinking. “The black unicorn, is it? Back again? How interesting. And the bridle can hold it fast, the dream says? Yes, that could be possible. After all, it was created by wizard magic. And it was a wizard I stole it from years back …”

Nightshade laughed. She studied him, a cunning look creeping into her eyes. “These pathetic burrow people who belong to you—were they sent to steal the bridle from me?”

Fillip and Sot were trying to crawl inside Ben’s skin, but Ben was barely aware of them. He was thinking of something else altogether. If Meeks had once possessed the bridle, then that meant the wizard probably once used it—might even have used it to hold captive the black unicorn. Had the unicorn somehow escaped then? Was the dream Meeks had sent to Willow designed to regain possession of the bridle so that the unicorn could be recaptured? If so, what did the unicorns in the missing books of magic have to do with …

“Do not bother answering, play-King,” Nightshade interrupted his thoughts. “The answer is in your eyes. These foolish rodents crept into the Deep Fell for just that reason, didn’t they? Crept into my home like the thieves they are? Crept down on their little cat’s paws?”

The mention of cat’s paws reminded him suddenly of Edgewood Dirk. Where was the prism cat? He glanced around before he could think better of it, but Dirk was nowhere to be seen.

“Looking for someone?” Nightshade demanded at once. Her eyes swept the darkened forest behind Ben like knives. “I see no one,” she muttered after a moment. “Whoever it is you look for must have abandoned you.”

Nevertheless, she took a moment to make certain that she was right before turning back to him. “Your thieves are as pathetic as you, play-King,” she resumed her attack. “They think themselves invisible, but they remain unseen only when I do not wish to see them. They were so obvious in their efforts on this misadventure that I could not fail to see them. The minute they were mine, they called for you. ‘Great High Lord; mighty High Lord!’ How foolish! They gave you up without my even having to ask!”

Fillip and Sot were shaking so hard Ben was in danger of being toppled. He put a hand on each to try to offer some sort of reassurance. He felt genuinely sorry for the little fellows. After all, they were in this mess because of him.

“Since you have me, why not let the gnomes go?” he asked the witch suddenly. “They’re foolish creatures, as you say. I tricked them into helping me. They really didn’t have a choice. They don’t even know why they’re here.”

“Worse luck for them.” Nightshade dismissed the plea out of hand. “No one goes free who stands with you, play-King.” Her face lifted, black hair sweeping back. Her eyes scanned the darkness once more. “I no longer like it here. Come.”

She rose, a black shadow that gained in size as she spread her arms. Her robes billowed out like sailcloth. There was a sudden wind through the trees, cold and sharp, and mist from the Deep Fell lifted to wrap them all. Moons and stars vanished into its murk, and there was a sudden sense of lifting free, of floating. The G’home Gnomes clutched Ben tighter than ever, and he in turn held them for lack of something better to hold. There was a whooshing sound and then silence.

Ben blinked against the cold and the mist, and slowly the light returned. Nightshade stood before him, smiling coldly. The smells of swamp and mist hung thick on the air. Torchlight revealed a row of stanchions and the bones of tables and benches scattered across an empty court.

They were somewhere within the Deep Fell, down in Nightshade’s home.

“Do you know what is to happen to you now, play-King?” she asked softly.

He had a pretty good idea. His imagination was working overtime on the possibilities despite his efforts to restrain it. His chances appeared to have run out. He wondered fleetingly why it was that Willow hadn’t gotten here before him. Wasn’t this where the Earth Mother had told her to go? If she wasn’t here, where was she?

He wondered what had become of Edgewood Dirk.

Nightshade’s sudden hiss jarred him free of his thoughts. “Shall I hang you to dry like a piece of old meat? Or shall I play games with you awhile first? We must take our time with this, mustn’t we?”

She started to say something more, then paused as a new thought struck her. “But, no—I have a much better idea! I have a much grander and more fitting demise in mind for you!”

She bent into him. “Do you know that I no longer have the golden bridle, play-King? No? I thought not. It was stolen from me. It was stolen while I was too weak to prevent it, still recovering from the hurt that you caused me! Do you know who has the bridle now? Strabo, play-King! The dragon has the fairy bridle, the bridle that rightfully belongs to me. How ironic! You come to the Deep Fell in search of something that isn’t even here! You come to your doom pointlessly!”

Her face was only inches from his own, skin drawn tight against the bones, the streak in her black hair a silver slash. “Ah, but you give me a chance to do something I could not otherwise do! Strabo dotes on things made of gold, though he has no use for them except as baubles! He has no true appreciation of their worth—especially the bridle with its magic! He would never give it back to me, and I cannot take it from him while he keeps it hidden within the Fire Springs. But he would trade it, play-King. He most certainly would trade it for something he values more.”

Her smile was ferocious. “And what does he value more in all the world than a chance to gain his revenge against you?”

Ben couldn’t imagine. Strabo had been a victim of the Io Dust as well, and he had left Ben with the promise that one day he would repay him. Ben felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. This was like being pushed from the frying pan into the fire. He tried to keep the witch from seeing what he was feeling and failed.

Nightshade’s smile broadened in satisfaction. “Yes, play-King—I will be most content to leave the means of your destruction to the dragon!”

She brought her hands up in a sharp swirl of motion, mists rising as if bidden, chill wind returning in a rush. “Let us see what fun Strabo will have with you!” she cried, and her voice was a hiss.

The G’home Gnomes whimpered and fastened once again on his pant legs. Ben felt himself floating and watched the hollows begin to disappear …



The eastern wastelands lay empty and desolate in the fading afternoon light as Questor Thews, Abernathy, and Bunion worked their way steadily ahead through tangled brush and deadwood, over ridgelines and down ravines, across brief stretches of desert, and around swamp and bog. They had walked all day, pushing aside fatigue and uneasiness in equal measure, determined to reach the home of the dragon by nightfall.

It was going to be close.

Nothing lived in the wastelands of Landover—nothing but the dragon. He had adopted the wastelands as his home when driven from the mists of fairy centuries ago. The wastelands suited the dragon fine. He liked it there. His disposition found proper solace in the devastation wrought by nature’s whims, and he kept the whole of the vast expanse his own. Shunned by the other inhabitants of the valley, he was an entirely solitary being. He was the only creature in the valley—with the exception of Ben Holiday—who could cross back and forth between Landover and the mortal worlds. He could even venture a short distance into the fairy mists. He was unique—the last of his kind and quite proud to be so.

He was not particularly fond of company—a fact not lost on Questor, Abernathy, and Bunion as they hurried now to reach the beast before it got any darker.

It was dusk nevertheless by the time they finally arrived at their destination. They climbed to the crest of a ridgeline that was silhouetted against the coming night by a brightness that flickered and danced as if alive and found themselves staring down into the Fire Springs. The Springs were the dragon’s lair. They were settled within a deep, misshapen ravine, a cluster of craters that burned steadily with blue and yellow fire amid tangled thickets and mounds of rock and earth. Fed by a liquid pooled within the craters, their flames filled the air with smoke, ash, and the raw stench of burning fuel. A constant haze hung across the ravine and the hills surrounding, and geysers lifted periodically against the darkness with booming coughs.

They saw the dragon right off. It slouched down within the center of the ravine, head resting on a crater’s edge, long tongue licking placidly at a scattering of flames.

Strabo didn’t move. He lay sprawled across a mound of earth, his monstrous body a mass of scales, spikes, and plates that seemed almost a part of the landscape. When he breathed, small jets of steam exhaled into the night. His tail was wrapped around a rock formation that rose behind him, and his wings lay back against his body. His claws and teeth were blackened and bent, grown from leathered skin and gums at odd angles and twists. Dust and grime covered him like a blanket.

One red eye swiveled in its socket. “What do you want?” the dragon asked irritably.

It had always amazed Ben Holiday that a dragon could talk, but Ben was an outlander and didn’t understand the nature of these things. It seemed perfectly normal to Questor and Bunion that the dragon should talk, and even more so to Abernathy, being a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier who himself talked.

“We wish to speak with you a moment,” Questor advised. Abernathy managed an affirming nod, but found himself wondering at the same time why anyone in his right mind would wish to speak with something as awful as Strabo.

“I care nothing for what you wish,” the dragon said with a huff of steam from both nostrils. “I care only for what I wish. Go away.”

“This will only take a moment,” Questor persisted.

“I don’t have a moment. Go away before I eat you.”

Questor flushed. “I would remind you to whom you are speaking! There is some courtesy owed me, given our long association! Now, please be civil!”

As if to emphasize his demand, he took a meaningful step forward, a scarecrow figure in tattered sashes that looked like nothing so much as a bundle of loosely joined sticks silhouetted against the light. Bunion showed all his teeth in a frightening grin. Abernathy pushed his glasses further up on his nose and tried to calculate how quickly he could reach the safety of the darkened brush at the base of the ravine behind him.

Strabo blinked and lifted his head from the crater fire. “Questor Thews, is that you?”

Questor puffed out. “It most certainly is.”

Strabo sighed. “How boring. If you were someone of consequence, you might at least prove a brief source of amusement. But you are not worth the effort it would take me to rise and devour you. Go away.”

Questor stiffened. Ignoring Abernathy’s paw on his shoulder, he came forward another step. “My friends and I have journeyed a long way to speak with you—and speak with you we will! If you choose to ignore the long and honorable association between wizards and dragons, that is your loss! But you do us both a great disservice!”

“You seem rather ill-tempered tonight,” the dragon replied. His voice reverberated in a long hiss, and the serpentine body shifted lazily against the rocks and craters, tail splashing liquid fire from a pool. “I might point out that wizards have done nothing for dragons in centuries, so I see little reason to dwell on any association that might once have existed. Such nonsense! I might also point out that while there is no question about my status as a dragon, there is certainly some question about yours as a wizard.”

“I will not be drawn into an argument!” Questor snapped, rather too irritably. “Nor will I depart until you have heard me out!”

Strabo spit at the sulfurous air. “I ought simply to eat you, Questor Thews—you and the dog and that other thing, whatever it is. A kobold, isn’t it? I ought to breathe a bit of fire on you, cook you up nicely, and eat you. But I am in a charitable mood tonight. Leave me and I will forgive your unwelcome intrusion into my home.”

“Perhaps we should reconsider …” Abernathy began, but Questor shushed him at once.

“Did the dog say something?” the dragon asked softly.

“No—and no one is leaving!” Questor announced, planting his feet firmly.

Strabo blinked. “No?”

His crusted head swung abruptly about and flame jetted from his maw. The fire exploded directly beneath Questor Thews and sent him flying skyward with a yelp. Bunion and Abernathy sprang aside, scrambling to get clear of flying rocks, earth, and bits of flame. Questor came down again in a tangled heap of robes and sashes, his bones jarred with the impact.

Strabo chuckled, crooked tongue licking the air. “Very entertaining, wizard. Very amusing.”

Questor climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, spit out a mouthful of dirt, and faced the dragon once more. “That was entirely uncalled for!” he declared, struggling to regain his lost dignity. “I can play such games, too!”

His hands clapped sharply, pointed and spread. He tried to do something with his feet as well, but he lost his footing on the loose rock, slipped, and sat down with a grunt. Light exploded above the craters and a shower of dry leaves tumbled down over Strabo, bursting instantly into flames from the heat.

The dragon was in stitches. “Am I to be smothered in leaves?” he roared, shaking with mirth. “Please, wizard—spare me!”

Questor went rigid, owlish face flushed with anger.

“Maybe we should come back another time,” Abernathy ventured in a low growl from his position behind a protective mound of earth.

But Questor Thews was having none of it. Again, he brushed himself off and got back to his feet. “Laugh at me, will you, dragon?” he snapped. “Laugh at a master practitioner of the magic arts? Very well then—laugh this off!”

Both hands lifted and wove rapidly through the air. Strabo was preparing to send forth another jet of flame when a cloudburst broke immediately overhead and torrents of rain cascaded over him. “Now, stop that!” he howled, but in seconds he was drenched snout to tail. His flame fizzled into steam, and he ducked his head into one of the pools of fire to escape the downpour. When he came up again for air, Questor made a second gesture and the rain ceased.

“There, you see?” the wizard said to Abernathy, nodding in satisfaction. “He won’t be quite so quick to laugh next time!” Then he turned back once more to the dragon. “Rather amusing yourself!” he called over.

Strabo flapped his leathered wings, shook himself off, and glared. “It appears that you will continue to make a nuisance of yourself, Questor Thews, until I either put an end to you or listen to whatever it is that you feel compelled to say. I repeat, I am in a charitable mood tonight. So say what it is you feel you must and be done with it.”

“Thank you very much!” Questor replied. “May we come down?”

The dragon plopped his head back on the edge of the crater and stretched out again. “Do what you please.”

Questor beckoned to his companions. Slowly, they made their way down the side of the ravine and through the maze of craters and rocks until they were twenty yards or so from where the dragon reposed. Strabo ignored them, eyes lidded, snout inhaling the fumes and fires of the crater on which he rested.

“You know I hate water, Questor Thews,” he muttered.

“We have come here to learn something about unicorns,” Questor announced, ignoring him.

Strabo belched. “Read a book.”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Several. But they lack the information about unicorns that you possess. Everyone knows that unicorns and dragons are the oldest of fairy creatures and the oldest of enemies. Each of you knows more of the other than anyone else, fairy or human. I need to know something of unicorns that no one else would.”

“Whatever for?” Strabo sounded bored again. “Besides, why should I help you? You serve that detestable human who tricked me into inhaling Io Dust and then made me pledge never to hunt the valley or its people so long as he remained King! He is still King, isn’t he? Bah! Of course he is—I would have heard otherwise! Ben Holiday, Landover’s High Lord! I would make a quick meal of him, if he were ever to set foot in the springs again!”

“Well, it is highly unlikely that he will. Besides, we are here about unicorns, not about the High Lord.” Questor thought it prudent not to dwell on the subject of Ben Holiday. Strabo had taken great pleasure in ravaging the crops and livestock of the valley before the High Lord had put a stop to it. It was a pleasure the dragon would dearly love to enjoy again—and well might one day the way Holiday was behaving lately. But there was no reason to give the dragon any encouragement.

He cleared his throat officiously. “I assume that you have heard about the black unicorn?”

The dragon’s eyes snapped open and his head lifted. “The black unicorn? Of course. Is it back again, wizard?”

Questor nodded sagely. “For some time now. I am surprised that you didn’t know. There was quite an effort put forth to capture it.”

“Capture it? A unicorn?” Strabo laughed, a series of rough coughs and hisses. His massive body shook with mirth. “The humans would capture a unicorn? How pitiful! No one captures a unicorn, wizard—even you must know that! Unicorns are untouchable!”

“Some think not.”

The dragon’s lip curled. “Some are fools!”

“Then the unicorn is safe? There is nothing that can ensnare it, nothing that can cause it to be held?”

“Nothing!”

“Not maidens of certain virtue nor silver moonlight captured in a fairy net?”

“Old wives’ tales!”

“Not magic of any sort?”

“Magic? Well …” Strabo seemed to hesitate.

Questor took a chance. “Not bridles of spun gold?”

The dragon stared at the wizard voicelessly. There was, Questor Thews realized in surprise, a look of disbelief on the creature’s face.

He cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Not bridles of spun gold?’

And it was at that moment that Nightshade, the stranger who believed himself Ben Holiday, and two sorry-looking G’home Gnomes appeared abruptly out of a swirl of mist not a dozen feet away.

FIRE AND SPUN GOLD



There was an endlessly long moment in which everyone stared at everyone else. It was impossible to tell who was most surprised. Eyes shifted, fixed, and shifted again. Tall forms crouched and robes billowed. The dragon’s hiss of warning mingled with that of the witch. Abernathy growled in spite of himself. Night had closed down upon the little still life in a black mantle that threatened to engulf them all. In the silence, there was only the crackle and spit of the flames as they danced across the cratered pools of blue liquid.

“You are not welcome here, Nightshade,” Strabo whispered finally, his rough voice a rasp of iron. He rose up from the edge of the crater on which he had been resting in a guarded crouch, claws digging into the stone until it cracked and broke. “You are never welcome.”

Nightshade laughed mirthlessly, her pale face streaked with shadow. “I might be welcome this time, dragon,” she replied. “I have brought you something.”

Questor Thews realized suddenly that the two G’home Gnomes standing next to the witch and the stranger who thought himself Ben Holiday were none other than Fillip and Sot! “Abernathy … !” he exclaimed softly, but the dog was already saying, “I know, wizard! But what are they doing here?”

Questor had no idea at all. Questor had no idea about any of what was happening.

Strabo’s massive head lifted and the long tongue licked out. “Why would you bother to bring me anything, witch?”

Nightshade straightened gracefully, her arms folding in about her once more, “Ask me first what it is that I bring,” she whispered.

“There is nothing you could bring me that I would wish. There is no point in asking.”

“Ah, even if what I bring is that which you most desire in all the world? Even if it is that dear to you?”

Ben Holiday was frantically trying to decide how he was going to get out of this mess. There were no friends to be found in this bunch. Questor, Abernathy, and Bunion believed him an impostor and a fool. Fillip and Sot, if they still believed anything about him at all, were interested by this time only in escaping with their hides intact. Nightshade had kept him alive this long strictly for the purpose of striking a bargain with Strabo, who would be only too happy to do away with him for her. He cast about desperately, looking for a way out that apparently didn’t exist.

Strabo’s tail thrashed within a pool of fire and sent a shower of liquid flames skyward against the dark. Ben flinched. “I tire of games this night,” the dragon snapped. “Get to the point!”

Nightshade’s eyes glimmered crimson. “What if I were to offer you Landover’s High Lord, the one they call Holiday? What if I were to offer you that, dragon?”

Strabo’s snout curled and the crusted face tightened. “I would accept that gift gladly!” the dragon hissed.

Ben took a tentative step backward and found he could not. The G’home Gnomes were still fastened to him like leg irons. They were shaking and mumbling incoherently and preventing him quite effectively from making any quick moves. When he tried surreptitiously to pry them free, they just clung to him all the tighter.

“The High Lord is at Sterling Silver!” Questor Thews declared suddenly, anger showing in his owlish face. “You have no power over him there, Nightshade! Besides, he would rid the valley of you in a moment if you were to show yourself!”

“Really?” Nightshade drew the word out lovingly, teasingly. Then she came forward a step, one long finger impaling Questor on its shadow. “When I have finished my business here, wizard—when your precious High Lord is no more—then will I deal with you!”

Ben fixed a pleading gaze on his friends. Get out of here! he tried to tell them.

Nightshade swung back again to Strabo. One clawed hand fastened on Ben’s arm and dragged him forward. “Here is the one the foolish wizard believes so safe from me, Strabo! Ben Holiday, High Lord of Landover! Look closely now! Magic has been used! Look beneath the exterior of what you first see!”

Strabo snorted derisively, belched a quick burst of flame, and laughed. “This one? This is Holiday? Nightshade, you are mad!” He leaned closer, the ooze dripping from his snout. “This one doesn’t even begin to look like … No, wait—you are right, there is magic at work here. What has been done …” The massive head dipped and raised, and the eyes blinked. “Can this be so?”

“Look closely!” Nightshade repeated once again, thrusting Ben before her so hard his head snapped back.

Everyone was looking at Ben now, but only Strabo saw the truth. “Yes!” he hissed, and the massive tail thrashed once more in satisfaction. “Yes, it is Holiday!” The jaws parted and the blackened teeth snapped. “But why is it that only you and I … ?”

“Because only we are older than the magic that does this!” Nightshade anticipated and answered the question before the dragon could complete it. “Do you understand how it has been done?”

Ben, prize exhibit that he was, wanted nothing more than to hear the answer to that question. He had accepted the fact that he was not going to get out of this in one piece, but he hated to think he was going to die without ever knowing how he had been undone.

“But … but that’s not the High Lord!” Questor Thews declared angrily, sounding suddenly as if he were trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. “That cannot be the High Lord! If this is … is … then, the High Lord is …

He trailed off, a strange look of understanding crossing his face, a look of disbelief shredded by horror, a look that screamed soundlessly a single name—Meeks! Bunion was hissing and pulling at his arm, and Abernathy was muttering frantically about how all this could explain someone-or-other’s odd behavior.

All three were pointedly ignored by the dragon and the witch.

“Why would you give him to me?” Strabo was demanding of Nightshade, wary now of what was being offered.

“I said nothing of ‘giving’ you anything, dragon,” Nightshade replied softly. “I wish to trade him.”

“Trade him, witch? You hate him more than I! He sent you into the fairy world and almost destroyed you. He marked you with the magic! Why would you trade him? What could I possess that you would want more than Holiday?”

Nightshade smiled coldly. “Oh, yes, I hate him. And I wish him destroyed. But the pleasure shall be yours, Strabo. You need only give me one thing. Give me back the bridle of spun gold.”

“The bridle?” Strabo’s response came with a hiss of disbelief. He coughed. “What bridle?”

“The bridle!” Nightshade snapped. “The bridle that you stole from me while I was helpless to prevent it. The bridle that is rightfully mine!”

“Bah! Nothing you possess is rightfully yours—least of all the bridle! You yourself stole it from that old wizard!”

“Be that as it may, dragon, the bridle is what I wish!”

“Ah, well, of course, if that is what you wish …” The dragon seemed to be hedging. “But surely, Nightshade, there are other treasures that I possess that would serve you better than such a simple toy! Suggest something else, something of greater worth!”

The witch’s eyes narrowed. “Now who is it that plays games? I have decided on the bridle and it is the bridle that I shall have!”

Ben had been momentarily forgotten. Nightshade had released him and he had slipped back behind her again, the gnomes still clinging to his legs. As he listened to the bartering, he caught Questor Thews studying him with renewed interest. Abernathy peered over the magician’s shoulder through smoke-streaked glasses, and Bunion peered from behind a fold of robe. All were clearly trying to decide how he could be someone other than what he appeared. Ben gritted his teeth and motioned them frantically away with a shake of his head. For crying out loud, they were all going to end up fried!

“It is simply that I fail to see why the bridle is of such interest to you,” Strabo was saying, neck curving upward into the dark so that he loomed over the witch.

“And I fail to see what difference it makes!” Nightshade snapped, straightening up a bit further herself. Firelight danced across her marble face. “I fail to see why you make such an issue of returning what is mine to begin with!”

Strabo sniffed. “I need explain nothing to you!”

“Indeed, you need not! Just give me the bridle!”

“I think not. You wish it too badly.”

“And you wish Holiday not enough!”

“Oh, but I do! Why not accept a chest of gold or a fairy scepter that changes moonbeams into silver coins? Why not take a gemstone marked with runes that belonged to the Trolls when the power of magic was theirs as well—a gemstone that can give truth to the holder?”

“I don’t want truth! I don’t want gold or scepters or anything else you hold, you fat lizard!” Nightshade was genuinely mad now, her voice rising to a near scream. “I want the bridle! Give it to me or Holiday will never be yours!”

She edged forward threateningly, leaving Holiday and the G’home Gnomes half-a-dozen paces behind her. It was the closest to freedom that Ben had been since his capture at the Deep Fell. As the voices of the witch and dragon grew more strident, he began to think that maybe—just maybe—there might be a way out of this yet.

He pried Fillip forcibly from his right leg, held him dangling from the crook of his arm, and began to work Sot free from his left.

“One last time, dragon,” Nightshade was saying. “Will you trade me the bridle for Holiday or not?”

Strabo gave a long sigh of disappointment. “I am afraid, dear witch, that I cannot.”

Nightshade stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then her lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. “You don’t have the bridle anymore, do you? That is why you won’t trade it to me! You don’t have it!”

Strabo sniffed. “Alas, quite true.”

“You bloated mass of scales!” The witch was shaking with fury. “What have you done with it?”

“What I have done with it is my concern!” Strabo snapped in reply, looking more than a bit put upon. He sighed again. “Well, if you must know, I gave it away.”

“You gave it away?” The witch was aghast.

Strabo breathed a long, delicate stream of fire into the night air and followed it with a trail of ashy vapor. The lidded eyes blinked and seemed momentarily distant. “I gave it to a fairy girl who sang to me of beauty and light and things a dragon longs to hear. No maiden has sung to me in many centuries, you know, and I would have given much more than the bridle for a chance to become lost again in such sweet music.”

“You gave the bridle away for a song?” Nightshade spoke the words as if trying to convince herself that they had meaning.

“A memory means more than any tangible treasure.” The dragon sighed once more. “Dragons have always had a weakness for beautiful women, maidens of certain virtue, girls of grace and sweet smiles. There is a bond that joins us. A bond stronger than that of dragons and wizards, I might add,” he addressed Questor Thews in a quick aside. “She sang to me, this girl, and asked me in return for the bridle of spun gold. I gave it to her gladly.” He actually seemed to smile. “She was quite beautiful, this sylph.”

Ben started. A sylph? Willow!

The dragon’s head dipped solemnly toward Ben. “I helped give her back her life once,” he intoned. “Remember? You commanded it, Holiday. I flew her out of Abaddon to her home in the lake country where she could be healed. I didn’t mind that so much—the saving of her life. I hated you, of course—you forced me to submit to you. But I rather enjoyed saving the sylph. It reminded me of the old days when saving maidens was routine work for a dragon.”

He paused. “Or was it devouring them? I can never remember which.”

“You are a fool!” Nightshade spat.

Strabo cocked his head as if thinking it over. Then his snout split wide to reveal all of his considerable teeth. “Do you really think so? A fool? Me? A bigger fool than you, witch? So big a fool as to venture unprotected into the lair of my worst enemy?”

The silence was palpable. Nightshade was a statue. “I am never unprotected, dragon. Beware.”

“Beware? How quaint.” Strabo suddenly coiled like a spring. “I have endured patiently your venomous assault on my character; I have allowed you to speak what you wished. Now it is my turn. You are a skinny, pathetic excuse for witchhood who believes herself far more powerful than she is. You come into my home as if you belong here, order me about, call me names, demand things you have no right to demand, and think you can go right out again. You mistake yourself, Nightshade. I might, had I the chance to do it over again, keep the bridle of spun gold so that I could trade it to you for Holiday. I might. But I regret nothing that I have ever done, and this least of all. The bridle is gone, and I do not wish it back again.”

He bent forward slowly. The rough voice changed to a slow hiss. “But look—Holiday is still here, witch! And since you brought him expressly for me, I rather think I ought to keep him! Don’t you?”

Nightshade’s fingers were like claws as they lifted before her lean face. “You will take nothing more from me, dragon—not now, not ever!”

“Ah, but you have only yourself to blame. You have made the prospect of destroying Holiday so tempting that I cannot resist your lure! I must have him! He is mine to destroy, bridle or no! I think you had best give him to me—now!”

Flames burst from the maw of the dragon and engulfed Nightshade. At the same moment, Ben ripped Sot free at last of his left leg and flung himself sideways to escape the backlash of heat and fire. Questor Thews was moving as well, all arms and legs as he galloped toward Ben. Bunion sprinted past him, ears flattened back. Abernathy went down on all fours and scurried for the safety of the bushes.

Ben surged back to his feet, still carrying the wailing gnomes. Strabo’s fire exploded skyward into the black, filling the air with a shower of sparks and rock. Nightshade stood unharmed in their center, black robes flying like drying bedclothes caught in the wind, pale face lifted, arms gesturing. Fire burst from her fingers and hammered into a surprised Strabo. The dragon flew backward, tumbling into a cratered pool.

“High Lord!” Questor Thews cried out in warning.

Nightshade whirled just in time to be caught by the full force of a magical gesture from the magician that swept the witch up in a blinding flurry of snowflakes. Nightshade swatted at them angrily, screamed, and threw fire back at him. Shards of flame hissed past Ben as he flung himself down again, smothering the gnomes. The fur on Abernathy’s hind end caught fire, and the scribe disappeared up the slope of the Fire Springs with a yelp.

Then Strabo surfaced once more from the crater into which he had fallen, roaring in fury. Uncoiling his serpentine body with a lunge, he sprayed the whole of the Springs with fire. Nightshade swung back on him, shrieking with equal fury, spraying fire of her own. Ben was on his feet and running for his life. The fire swept over him, a wall of heat and red pain. But Questor was there now, hands gesturing desperately, and a shield of some impenetrable plastic substance appeared out of nowhere to slow the fire down. Ben kept his arms locked about the struggling, whimpering G’home Gnomes and scrambled desperately to escape the pursuing flames. Bunion’s tough arms closed about his waist and helped haul all three toward the lip of the cratered valley. Questor followed, calling out in encouragement.

Moments later, they reached the rim of the Fire Springs and stumbled from the heat and smoke into the cooling scrub. Coughing and gasping, they collapsed in a tangled knot. Abernathy joined them from out of the dark.

Behind them, the witch and the dragon continued their private battle uninterrupted, their shrieks and roars filling the night. They hadn’t even realized yet that the object of their struggle had escaped.

Ben glanced hurriedly at his companions. White eyes blinked back at him through the dark. No sense in resting now, they all seemed to agree. It wouldn’t take long for the witch and the dragon to realize what had happened.

Stumbling to their feet once again, they disappeared swiftly into the night.