The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1

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It was sometime after midnight when Ben and his companions finally broke off their flight. The skies had gone black with thunderheads that rolled eastward out of the grasslands. Moons and stars disappeared as if blown from the heavens by the sudden winds, thunder rumbled in long booming peals, and lightning laced the skies. The rains came swiftly, hard and chill, sweeping broomlike across the wastelands. There was barely time to find shelter in a thick copse of fir before the whole of the land surrounding had turned invisible in a wash of impenetrable mist and damp.

The company sat beneath the massive boughs of the centermost fir and peered out through the curtain of needles at the downpour. Wind rushed in stinging swipes through the trees and scrub, and water cascaded down. Everything faded away amid the steady sounds, and the stand of trees became an island in the gloom.

Ben sat back against the fir’s massive trunk after a while and stared at the others, eyes shifting from one face to the next. “I am Ben Holiday, you know,” he said finally. “I really am.”

They looked questioningly at one another and back again at him.

“Save us, mighty High Lord,” said Fillip after a moment, the words a toneless whimper.

“Yes, save us,” begged Sot.

They looked like drowned rats, fur grimy and matted down by the rain, clothing ragged and torn. Their fingers reached tentatively for his legs.

“Stop that,” he admonished wearily. “There is nothing to save you from. You’re all right now.”

“The dragon …” began Fillip.

“The witch …” began Sot.

“Far back and not about to go hunting for us in this. By the time they finish trying to set fire to each other and think to wonder what happened to us, the rain will have washed away any trace of where we went.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

Bunion showed all his teeth and hissed. He looked at Ben as he might an errant bog wump. Abernathy didn’t seem to want to look at Ben at all.

Questor Thews cleared his throat. Ben glanced expectantly at him, and the wizard seemed suddenly uncertain of what to say. “This is rather difficult,” he said finally. He squinted at Ben. “You say you are indeed the High Lord? The witch and the dragon were correct in believing you so?”

Ben nodded slowly.

“And the story you told us at Sterling Silver—that was all true? You were changed somehow by magic? You have lost the protection of the medallion?”

Ben nodded a second time.

“And Meeks has returned and taken your place—and made himself appear as you?”

Ben nodded a third time.

Questor’s lean features squinched down so hard against each other he appeared to be in danger of causing permanent damage. “But how?” he demanded finally. “How did all this happen?”

Ben sighed. “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, I’m afraid.”

Briefly he recounted again his confrontation with Meeks in his bedchamber and his transformation into the stranger he appeared to them to be. He took them to the moment of his decision to travel south in search of Willow. “I’ve been hunting for her ever since,” he concluded.

“See—I told you!” Abernathy snapped.

Questor stiffened and he peered down his long nose at the scribe. “Told me what?” he demanded, owlish face tightening even further.

“That the High Lord wasn’t acting like the High Lord!” Abernathy fairly barked. “That something was definitely wrong! That nothing was what it should be! In fact, wizard, I told you a good deal more than that, if you would bother taking time enough to remember any of it!” He shoved his rain-streaked glasses back on his nose. “I told you that these dreams would bring nothing but trouble. I told you to forget about chasing after them!” He wheeled suddenly on Ben, a prophet whose visions had come to pass. “I warned you as well, didn’t I? I told you to stay in Landover where you belonged! I told you Meeks was too dangerous! But you wouldn’t listen, would you? Neither of you would listen! Now look where we are!”

He sneezed, shook himself furiously, and showered everyone with water. “Sorry,” he muttered, sounding not the least so.

Questor sniffed. “I trust you feel better now?”

Ben decided to head off any further squabbling. “Abernathy is right. We should have listened to him. But we didn’t, and what’s done is done. We have to put all that behind us. At least we’re back together again.”

“A lot of good that’s going to do us!” Abernathy snapped, still miffed.

“Well, it might do us some good.” Ben tried his best to sound positive. “The six of us together might be able to accomplish something more than I could alone.”

“The six of us?” Abernathy eyed the G’home Gnomes with disdain. “You count two more than I, High Lord. In any case, I am still not convinced that you really are the High Lord. Questor Thews is much too quick to believe. We have already been fooled once; it is possible that we are being fooled again. How do we know that this isn’t just another charade? How do we know that this isn’t another of Meeks’ tricks?”

Ben thought about it a moment. “You don’t, I guess. You have to take my word for it. You have to trust me—and trust your instincts.” He sighed. “Do you think Meeks could fool both Strabo and Nightshade that badly? Do you think I would be hanging about claiming to be High Lord if I really weren’t?” He paused. “Do you think I would still be wearing this?”

He reached down inside his tunic front and produced the tarnished medallion. The image of Meeks gleamed wetly, caught in a flash of distant lightning.

“Why are you still wearing it?” Questor asked quietly.

Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid to get rid of it. If Meeks is right and throwing off the medallion will finish me, then who would be left to warn Willow? She doesn’t know any of what’s happened. She doesn’t know that the dreams were sent by Meeks or the danger she’s in. I care too much for her, Questor. I can’t abandon her. I can’t take the chance that she’ll fall into the same trap I did and have no one to help her out.”

They were all silent for a moment, studying him.

“No, High Lord—you can’t,” Questor agreed finally. The wizard looked over at Abernathy. “The real Ben Holiday wouldn’t even think of such a thing, would he?” he asked pointedly. “Not the real Ben Holiday.”

Abernathy considered the possibility silently for a moment, then sighed. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t.” He glanced at Bunion, who nodded his monkey face approvingly. “Very well. The others accept you as High Lord; I shall do so as well.”

“I appreciate that,” Ben assured his scribe.

“But I still think that you are no better off with four of us …” He glanced once more at the G’home Gnomes. “… or six of us—or however many of us can be counted on—than you were by yourself! What is it that six of us are supposed to do that you could not do alone?”

The others looked at him expectantly. He stared past them into the haze of rain and darkness, drew his legs up to his chest to ward off the growing chill, and tried to come up with something. “Find Willow,” he said finally. “Protect her.”

They stared at him voicelessly.

“Look. The third dream is the key to everything that’s happened, and the bridle is the key to the dream. Willow has the bridle now—we know that. Strabo gave it to her. She has it, but what will she do with it?”

“What, Mighty High Lord?” asked Fillip eagerly.

“Yes, what?” echoed Sot.

“She will take it to you, High Lord,” Questor answered quickly. Then he paused. “Or at least to the one she believes to be you.”

“That’s right, Questor,” Ben whispered. “That’s what the dream told her she must do and that’s what she’ll do. She’ll take the bridle to me. But I won’t be me. I’ll be Meeks. Or he’ll be Meeks—the one she’ll run to. And then what happens to her?”

“We have to reach her first,” Questor insisted quietly.

“As soon as it stops raining,” Abernathy added.

Ben nodded. “Six of us will have a better chance than one.”

“Bunion will have a better chance than ten times six,” Abernathy interjected, sneezing again. “I think I am catching cold,” he muttered.

“For once, Abernathy is right!” Questor exclaimed, ignoring the reproving look the dog gave him. “A kobold can track faster and farther than any human. If there is any sign of the girl, Bunion will find it.” He looked over at the kobold, who showed all of his teeth in response. “Indeed, Bunion will find her for us—you may depend upon it.” He shrugged. “As soon as it stops raining, of course.”

Ben shook his head. “We can’t wait that long. We don’t have …”

“But we have to,” the wizard interrupted gently.

“But we can’t …”

“We must.” Questor took his arm and held it. “There can be no tracking done in a storm such as this one, High Lord. There would be no signs to follow.” His owlish face bent close and there was sudden warmth in his eyes. “High Lord, you have come a long way since Sterling Silver. You have clearly suffered much. Your physical appearance, however distorted it might be, does not lie. Look at yourself. You are worn to the bone. You are exhausted. I have seen beggars who looked healthier than you. Abernathy?”

“You look a wreck,” the dog agreed.

“Well, bad enough, at any rate.” The wizard tempered the other’s assessment with a smile. “You need to rest. Sleep now. There will be time enough later to begin the hunt.”

Ben shook his head vigorously. “Questor, I’m not tired. I can’t …”

“I think you must,” the wizard said softly. A bony hand passed briefly before Ben’s face, and his eyes grew suddenly heavy. He could barely keep them open. He felt a pervasive weariness slip within his body and weigh him down. “Rest, High Lord,” Questor whispered.

Ben fought the command, struggled to rise, and found he could not. For once, the wizard’s magic was working right on the first try. Ben was slipping back against the rough trunk of the fir, downward into a bed of needles. His companions drew close. Abernathy’s furry, bespeckled face peered at him through a gathering of shadows. Bunion’s teeth gleamed like daggers. Fillip and Sot were vague images that wavered and voices that murmured and seemed to draw steadily farther away. He found comfort in their presence, strength, and reassurance—his friends, all there with him except Parsnip—and Willow!

“Willow,” he whispered.

He spoke her name once and was asleep.



He dreamed of Willow while he slept, and the dream was a revelation that shocked him, even in his slumber. He searched for the sylph through the forests, hills, and plains of Landover, a solitary quest that drew him on as a magnet would iron. The country through which he traveled was familiar and yet foreign, too, a mix of sunshine and shadows that shimmered with the inconsistency of an image reflected on water. There were things that moved all about him, but they lacked face and form. He hunted alone, his search a seemingly endless one that took him from one end of the valley and back again, swift and certain in its pace but fruitless nevertheless.

He was driven by an urgency that surprised him. There was a need to find the sylph that defied explanation. He was frightened for her without understanding the reason for his fear. He was desperate to be with her, yet his desperation lacked cause. It was as if he were captive to his emotions and they determined his course where reason could not. He could sense Willow’s presence as he searched, a closeness that teased him. It was as if she waited behind each tree and beyond each hill, and he need only journey a bit further to find her. Weariness did not slow him as he traveled; strength of purpose carried him on.

After a time, he began to hear voices. They whispered to him from all about, some in warning, some in admonishment. He heard the River Master, distrustful yet of who Ben was, strangely anxious that the daughter he could not quite love and who could not quite love him be found. He heard the Earth Mother, asking him to repeat again the promise he had made to her to find and protect Willow, insistent that he honor it. He heard that solitary, defeated hunter speak once more in hollow tones of the black unicorn, of the touch that had stolen away his soul. He heard Meeks, his voice a dark and vengeful hiss that promised ruin if the girl and the golden bridle should escape him.

Still he went on.

And then he heard Edgewood Dirk.

It was the voice of the prism cat that slowed him, aware suddenly of how frantic his search for Willow had become. He stopped, his breath ragged in his ears, his chest pounding. He stood within a forest glade that was cool and solitary, a mix of shadows and light, of boughs canopied overhead and moss grown thick underfoot. Dirk sat upon a knoll within that glade, prim and sleek and inscrutable.

“Why do you run so, High Lord Ben Holiday?” Dirk asked quietly.

“I must find Willow,” he replied.

“Why must you find her?” Dirk pressed.

“Because danger threatens her,” he answered.

“And is that all?”

He paused. “Because she needs me.”

“And is that all?”

“Because there is no one else.”

“And is that all?”

“Because …”

But the words he searched for would not come, as elusive as the sylph herself. There were words to be spoken, he sensed. What were those words?

“You work so hard to orchestrate your life,” Dirk declared almost sadly. “You work so hard to fit all the pieces together, a vast puzzle you must master. But you fail to understand the reason for your need to do so. Life is not simply form, High Lord; life is feeling, too.”

“I feel,” he said.

“You govern,” Dirk corrected. “You govern your kingdom, your subjects, your work, and your life. You organize—here as you once organized there. You command. You command as King as you commanded as lawyer. Court-of-law stagecraft or royal-court politics—you are no different now than you were then. You act and you react with quickness and skill. But you do not feel.”

“I try.”

“The heart of the magic lies in feeling, High Lord. Life is born of feeling, and the magic is born of life. How can you understand either life or magic if you do not feel? You search for Willow, but how can you recognize her when you fail to understand what she is? You search with your eyes for something they cannot see. You search with your senses and your body for what they cannot find. You must search instead with your heart. Try now. Try, and tell me what you see.”

He did, but there was a darkness all about him that would not let him see. He drew deep inside himself and found passages through which he could not travel. Obstructions blocked his way, shapeless things that lacked clear definition. He tried furiously to push past them, groping, reaching …

Then Willow was before him, a misty vision suddenly remembered. She was lithe and quicksilver as she passed, her face stunning in its beauty, her body a whisper of his need. Forest green hair tumbled down about her slender shoulders and fell to her waist. White silk draped and clung like a second skin. Her eyes met his, and he found his breath drawn from him with a sharpness that hurt. She smiled, warm and tender, and her whisper was soundless in his mind. There was no danger that threatened her, no sense of urgency about her. She was at peace with herself. She was at rest.

“Why do you run so, High Lord Ben Holiday?” Dirk repeated from somewhere within the shadows.

“I must find Willow,” he answered again.

“Why must you find her?”

“Because …”

Again, he could not find the words. The shadows began to tighten. Willow began to fade back into them.

“Because …”

She faded further, a memory disappearing. He struggled frantically to find the words he needed to say, but they eluded him still. The sense of urgency returned, quick and hard. The danger to the sylph became real once more, as if somehow resurrected by his indecision. He tried to reach out to her with his hands, but she was too far away, and he was too rooted in place.

“Because …”

The shadows were all about, cloaking him now in their blackness, smothering him in their endless dark. He was drawing back out of himself. Dirk was gone. Willow was little more than a patch of light and color against the black, fading, fading …

“Because …”

Willow!

He came awake with a start, jerking upright from his place of rest, his underarms and back damp with sweat. Night shrouded the eastern wastelands in silence. Clouds masked the skies, though the rain had ceased to fall. Ben’s companions slept undisturbed all about him—all except Bunion. Bunion was already gone, his search for Willow begun.

Ben took a deep breath to steady himself. His dream of Willow was still sharp and certain in his mind. He exhaled.

“Because … I love her,” he finished.

Those were the words he had searched for. And he knew with frightening certainty that the words were true.



He was awake for a time after that, alone with his thoughts in the dark silence of the night. After a while, though, he tired and dropped back off to sleep. When he awoke again, it was nearing dawn, the eastern sky behind the valley rim brightening with faint streaks of gray and gold. Bunion had not returned. The others still slept.

He rolled over on his back, glanced about the storm-dampened campsite, and then blinked in surprise. Edgewood Dirk rested comfortably on a thick bough of the fir just a few feet above his head, paws tucked under his sleek body, eyes squinched closed against the light.

The eyes slipped open as Ben stared. “Good morning, High Lord,” the cat offered.

Ben pushed himself up on his elbows. “Good morning, nothing. Where have you been?”

“Oh, here and there.”

“More there than here, it seems!” Ben snapped, a great deal of pent-up anger coming quickly to the fore. “I could have used a little help back there in the Deep Fell when you so conveniently disappeared! I was lucky the witch didn’t do away with me on the spot! And then I was dragged off to Strabo’s den and offered to him as a snack! But all that made precious little difference to you, did it? Thanks for nothing!”

“You are quite welcome,” Dirk replied calmly. “I would remind you once again, however, that I signed on as a companion, not as a protector. Besides, it appears you have suffered no harm in my absence.”

“But I might have, damn it!” Ben couldn’t help himself. He was sick of the cat appearing and disappearing like some wraith. “I might have been fried in dragon oil for all the good you’d have done me!”

“Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and the have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.” Dirk yawned. “You would do better to forget flogging dead horses and try rounding up a few live ones.”

Ben glared. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you have something more important on your mind than chastising me for imagined wrongs.”

Ben paused, remembering suddenly his dream, the search he had undertaken, the golden bridle, the black unicorn, Meeks, and all the rest of the puzzle he still didn’t understand. Ah, and Willow! Thoughts of the sylph pushed all others aside. I love her, he told himself, trying the words on for size. He found them unexpectedly comfortable.

“There are those who theorize that our dreams are simply manifestations of our subconscious thoughts and desires,” Dirk mused, as if delivering an offhand dissertation. “Dreams do not often portray accurately the events upon which those thoughts and desires are formed, but they do demonstrate quite vividly the emotions behind them. We find ourselves involved in bizarre situations and disjointed events, and our tendency is often to dismiss the dream out-of-hand—a self-conscious response. But hidden within the thrashings of our subconscious is a kernel of truth about ourselves that needs to be understood—truth that sometimes we have refused to recognize while awake and now demands recognition while we sleep.”

He paused for dramatic effect. “Love is sometimes such a truth.”

Ben pushed himself upright, stared at this cat turned philosopher a moment, and then shook his head. “Is all this in reference to Willow?” he asked.

Dirk blinked. “Of course, sometimes dreams lie and the truth can be found only in waking.”

“Like with my dream of Miles?” Ben found the cat’s conversation needlessly convoluted. “Why don’t you just say what you mean for once?”

Dirk blinked again. “Because I am a cat.”

“Oh. Sure.” The standard answer again.

“Because some things you simply have to figure out for yourself.”

“Right.”

“Something you have not proven very adept at doing, I’m afraid.”

“Certainly not.”

“Despite my continuing efforts.”

“Hmmmmm.” Ben experienced an almost uncontrollable urge to throttle the beast. To suppress the feeling, he glanced about instead at his still sleeping companions. “Why isn’t anyone but me awake yet?” he demanded.

Dirk glanced about with him. “Perhaps they are simply very tired,” the cat suggested amiably.

Ben gave him a hard look. “What did you do—employ a bit of magic? Fairy magic? As Questor did with me? You did, didn’t you?”

“A bit.”

“But why? I mean, why bother?”

Dirk rose, stretched, and jumped down next to Ben, pointedly ignoring him. He began to wash himself and continued to do so until he had cleaned himself thoroughly, fur carefully ruffled and smoothed back in place again.

Then he faced Ben, emerald eyes gleaming in the faint dawn light. “The problem is, you do not listen. I tell you everything you need to know, but you do not seem to hear any of it. It really is distressing.” He sighed deeply. “I let your companions sleep to demonstrate to you one final lesson about dreams. So much of your understanding of what has happened depends on your understanding of how dreams work. Watch, now, what occurs when your friends awake. And try to pay attention this time, will you? My patience wears exceedingly thin.”

Ben grimaced. Edgewood Dirk settled back on his haunches. Together they waited for something to happen. After a moment, Questor Thews stirred, then Abernathy, and finally the gnomes. One by one, they blinked the sleep from their eyes and sat up.

Then they saw Ben, and more especially, Dirk.

“Ah, good morning, High Lord. Good morning, Dirk,” Questor greeted brightly. “Slept well the both of you, I hope?”

Abernathy muttered something about all cats being night creatures and not needing sleep anyway, even prism cats, and how it was a waste of time to worry about any of them.

Fillip and Sot eyed Dirk as they would a long-awaited dinner and showed not the slightest trace of fear.

Ben stared in bewilderment, the conversation continuing on about him as if the cat’s presence were perfectly normal. No one seemed surprised that the cat was there. Questor and Abernathy were behaving as if his appearance was entirely expected. The gnomes were behaving the way they had at their first encounter with Dirk; neither seemed to remember what their eagerness to make Dirk a meal had cost them.

Ben listened a moment as the others talked and bustled about, then glanced in confusion at the cat. “What … ?”

“Their dreams, High Lord,” Dirk whispered, interrupting. “I let them discover me in their dreams. I was real to them there, so I am real to them here. Don’t you see? Truth is sometimes simply what we perceive it to be—in waking or in dreams.”

Ben didn’t see. He had paid close attention, he had listened as instructed, and he still didn’t see. What was the point of all this and what did it have to do with him?

But there was no more time to consider the matter. A shout from Abernathy—or rather a sort of bark—captured the attention of all. The boughs at the edge of the grove of fir parted and who should appear but Parsnip! Bunion had him in tow, both of them soaked through by the storm, both grimacing ear to ear those wicked, toothy grins. Ben froze. Parsnip was supposed to be guarding Willow! Shaking off his paralysis, he hastened forward with Questor and Abernathy to greet the wiry little creatures, stopped short at the hard, suspicious look directed at him by Parsnip—who, after all, had no idea yet who he was—and finally backed off a step at Questor’s urging. Questor and Bunion conversed briefly back and forth in the rough, guttural language of the kobolds with occasional interjections by Parsnip, and then Questor turned hurriedly to Ben.

“Parsnip has kept watch over Willow since she left Sterling Silver, High Lord—just as you commanded—until yesterday. She dismissed him without reason. When he wouldn’t leave her, she used the fairy magic and slipped away. Even a kobold can’t stay with a sylph when she doesn’t wish it. She has the golden bridle, and … and she searches for the black unicorn.” He shook his owlish features at the look on Ben’s face and tugged worriedly at his white beard. “I know. I don’t understand this last either, High Lord, and neither does Parsnip. Apparently she has decided not to take the bridle to you as her dream instructed!”

Ben fought off the sudden lurch in his stomach. What did this mean, he wondered? “Where is she now?” he asked instead.

Questor shook his head. “Her trail leads north into the Melchor.” He hesitated. “Bunion says she appears to be traveling toward Mirwouk!”

Mirwouk? Where the missing books of magic had been hidden? Why would she go there? Ben felt his frustration increase.

“There is more, High Lord,” Abernathy interjected solemnly, ignoring the warning tug on his tunic sleeve from Questor. “Strabo and Nightshade are at hunt—presumably for you, Willow, and the bridle. And a demon—a huge, flying thing, a thing that answers to no one, it seems—is rumored to scour the whole of the valley. Bunion saw it last night.”

“Meeks’ pet,” Ben whispered, remembering suddenly the monster that had appeared at the dance of the River Master’s nymphs and destroyed them. His face tightened. Edgewood Dirk and the matter of dreams were forgotten. He thought now only of Willow. “We have to reach her before they do,” he announced, his voice sounding hollow in his ears as he fought down the fear that raced through him. “We have to. We’re all she has.”

Everyone reacted. Abernathy barked sharply at the G’home Gnomes and turned the kobolds about once more. Questor put a reassuring hand on Ben’s arm. “We will find her, High Lord. You can depend upon it.”

Quickly they departed into the wastelands, the stranger who was High Lord, the wizard and the scribe, the kobolds and the gnomes.

Edgewood Dirk sat quietly and watched them go.

MIRWOUK AND FLYNT



Willow felt the glare of the midday heat on her face through breaks in the forest trees and was suddenly thirsty. She made her way gingerly around an outcropping of rock that jutted from the ever-steepening slope, climbed to a shelf of tall grass and brush that disappeared ahead into a grove of deeply shaded fir, and paused to look back. Landover spread away below, an irregular checkerboard of fields and forests, hills and plains, rivers and lakes, swatches of blues and greens with brush strokes of pastel interspersed like webbing. Sunlight poured down over the valley from a cloudless blue sky and deepened the colors until they blinded with their brilliance.

Willow sighed. It seemed impossible that anything could be wrong on a day such as this.

She was deep within the Melchor now, past the threshold of hardwood forests, past the higher plateau of pine-wooded foothills, a fair distance up into the main peaks. The sun was sharp and hot this day where the shade failed to screen away its light, and the climb was thirsty work. Willow carried no water with her; she relied on her instincts to find what she needed. Her instincts had failed her these past few hours since leaving the foothills, but now she sensed water to be close again.

Nevertheless, she stayed where she was a moment longer and looked out across the valley in silent contemplation. Far, far distant to the south she could just catch a glimpse of the misted island that was Sterling Silver, and she thought of Ben. She wished he were here with her or that she understood why it was that she wasn’t there with him. She looked out across the valley and felt as if she were all alone in the world.

What was she doing here?

She felt burdened by the weight of the woolen-bundled harness she wore draped across her right shoulder, and she shrugged it off and let it drop into her hands. A burst of sunlight flashed sharply from a stray bit of trapping that slipped from beneath the covering folds. The bridle of spun gold clinked softly. She covered it over and shifted it to her other shoulder. The bridle was heavy, the woven threads and fastenings more cumbersome than she would have believed. She adjusted it carefully and straightened. She had been fortunate that the dragon had agreed to give it to her. All the fairy songs, music, tears, and laughter had been potent magic indeed. Strabo had been charmed. She was still surprised that the ploy had been successful. She was still mystified that she had known somehow that it would be. Dreams, visions, and hunches—such were the vicissitudes that had driven her these past few days, a stray leaf blown by the wind.

Last night it had been a dream again. She frowned at its memory, her smooth, lovely face lined with worry. Last night, the dream had been of Ben.

A breath of wind swept back her waist-length hair and cooled her skin. She remembered her need to drink, but stayed yet another moment to think of her High Lord. The dream had been strange again, a mix of real and surreal, a jumble of fears and hopes. She had come upon the black unicorn once more, the creature hidden in woods and shadows, no demon this time but a hunted thing, frightened and alone. She had feared it, but wept at its terror. What frightened it was uncertain, but the look it spared her was unmistakable. Come to me, it had whispered. Put aside your plan to carry back the bridle of spun gold to Sterling Silver and your High Lord. Forgo your race from the demon you fear me to be and seek instead the truth of what I am. Willow, come to me.

A single look had said all that, so clear, so certain—a dream, and yet real. So she had come, trusting to her fairy instincts as she had always trusted, believing that they alone of all her senses could not be deceived. She had abandoned the call of the first dream that would have taken her to Ben and gone instead in search of …

Of what? Truth?

“Why are the dreams so different?” she questioned softly. “Why am I made so confused?”

Sunlight sparkled off distant waters and forest leaves rippled in the passing wind, but no answers came. She breathed the air deeply and turned away. The shadows of the forest drew her to them, and she let herself be swallowed. Mirwouk was near, she realized in surprise—not more than several miles distant, just beyond the peak she climbed. The fact registered briefly and was forgotten. The broad swath of midday sunlight faded into a scattering of narrow bands, and the shade was cool on her heated skin. She worked her way back into the forest trees, massive fir and pine, seeking the water she knew was hidden there. She found it quickly, a small stream trickling down out of the rocks into a pool and meandering from there to a series of shallows and runs. She laid the bridle carefully on the ground next to her and bent to drink. The water was sweet and welcome to her dry throat. She knelt a long time in the stillness.

The seconds slipped away into minutes. When she lifted her head again, the black unicorn stood across from her.

Her breath caught in her throat and she froze. The unicorn was no more than a dozen paces off, half within shadow, half within pale, filtered sunlight. It was a vision of grace and wonder, slender body as ephemeral as a reflection of love remembered, presence as glorious as a rainbow’s sweep. It did not move, but simply regarded her. Ebony body with goat’s feet and lion’s tail, eyes of green fire, immortal life—all the songs of all the bards through all the ages of the world could not begin to express what the unicorn truly was.

Willow felt a rush of emotion tear through her, stripping bare her soul. She felt her heart begin to break with the ecstasy of it. She had never seen a unicorn and never thought it would be like this. There were tears in her eyes, and she swallowed uncontrollably against what she was feeling.

“Oh, you beautiful thing,” she whispered.

Her voice was so soft that she believed only she could hear her words. But the unicorn nodded in response, and the ridged horn shone brightly with magic. The green eyes fixed upon her with new intensity and flared from some inner well of being. Willow felt something seize hold within her. Her hand groped blindly the earth next to her and came to rest at last upon the bridle.

Oh, I must have you, she thought. I must make you mine!

But the eyes held her and she could not move to act upon her need. The eyes held her, and they whispered of something remembered from the dream.

Come to me, they said. Seek me.

She felt herself flush with the heat of that memory and then go cool. She saw the memory reflected in her eyes, in her mind, and in her heart. She looked across the tiny stream of water as it rushed and gurgled over the rocks in the forest stillness, and the stream was a river she could not bridge. She listened to the singing of birds in the trees, a mingling of songs that cheered and heartened, and the sound became the voice of all her secrets revealed.

She felt magic rage within her in waves of insistence she had never known could exist. She no longer belonged to herself; she belonged now to the unicorn. She would have done anything for it. Anything.

Then, in the next instant, it was gone, disappearing so suddenly and so completely that it might never have been. Indeed, she wondered—had it? Willow stared at the space the black unicorn had occupied, an emptiness of mingled light and shadow, and she fought against the sharpness of her pain.

Had she seen the unicorn? Truly seen it? Had it been real?

The questions left her dazed. She could not move. Then, slowly, purposefully, she rose to her feet, shouldered again the golden bridle, and moved with quiet determination in search of her answers.



She searched all that day. Yet she did not search so much as follow, for there was a sense of being led that she could not explain. She climbed through the tangle of rocks and trees and scrub that carpeted the uneven heights of the Melchor and sought a thing that might not even be. She thought she saw the black unicorn several times more, brief flashes only—an ebony flank, an emerald eye, a ridged horn shining with magic. It did not occur to her that her efforts might be misdirected. She chased quite deliriously and without regret. She knew that the unicorn was there, just beyond her reach. She could feel it waiting for her; she could sense it watching. She did not know its purpose, but she was certain of its need.

Nightfall found her less than a mile west of Mirwouk, exhausted, still alone. She had traversed the forest all about the aging, crumbling fortress. She had retraced her own steps several times. She was no nearer the black unicorn than she had been when she had first spied it, but she was as determined as ever that she would catch up to it. At dawn, she would try again.

She lay down within a sheltering of birch, hugged the bridle of spun gold within its woolen covering close against her breast, and let the cool night air wash over her. Slowly the heat of the day faded, and her exhaustion slipped away. She slept undisturbed and dreamed once more.

Her dream this night was of dozens of white unicorns chained and fettered and begging to be set free. The dream was like a fever that would not break.

From shadows close at hand, eyes of green fire kept watch through the night.



Ben Holiday and his companions spent that night within the Melchor as well, although they were still some distance from Mirwouk and Willow. They were camped just above the foothills leading into the mountains and lucky to be that far. It had taken them the better part of the day just to get out of the wastelands, and they had trekked on through the late afternoon and evening to reach the base of the mountains. Ben had insisted. The kobolds had found Willow’s tracks near sundown, and Ben thought they might catch up to her yet that day. It was only after complete darkness had set in and Questor had pleaded with Ben to be reasonable that the search was temporarily abandoned.

It resumed at daybreak, and the little company found itself less than a mile below Mirwouk by midmorning. It was then that matters began to grow confusing.

The confusion was manifold. In the first place, Willow’s trail was leading toward Mirwouk. Since she wasn’t carrying the golden bridle to Ben—or Meeks disguised as Ben—it was somewhat uncertain what it was that she was doing with it. Possibly she was searching for the black unicorn, although that didn’t make much sense, since in her dream the black unicorn had been a demon creature that threatened her, and she still didn’t know that the dream had been sent by Meeks. Whatever she was doing, she was definitely going toward Mirwouk, and Mirwouk was where Questor’s dream had taken him in search of the missing books of wizard magic and where, in fact, the missing books had been found.

In the second place, the kobolds had discovered that twice already Willow’s tracks had retraced themselves. Sylphs were fairy creatures and not in the habit of getting lost, so that meant either she was searching for something or following something. But there was no indication at all of what that might be.

In the third place, Edgewood Dirk was still among the missing. No one had seen the cat since they had departed their shelter of two nights earlier, following Bunion’s return with Parsnip and the news of Willow’s tracks. Ben hadn’t paid much attention to Dirk’s absence until now, too caught up in his search for Willow really to notice. But confronting these other puzzles had led him almost without thinking to look around for Dirk, perhaps in the vain hope of getting a straight answer from the beast for once; but Dirk was nowhere to be found.

Ben took it all in stride. There wasn’t much any of them could do to clear up the confusion just now, so he simply ordered them to press on.

They crossed Willow’s tracks a third time within a stone’s throw of Mirwouk, and this time the kobolds hesitated. The new trail was fresher than the old. Should they follow it?

Ben nodded and they did.

By midday, they had circled Mirwouk almost completely and crossed Willow’s tracks yet a fourth time. Now she was moving away from the aged fortress. Bunion studied the tracks for several minutes, his face almost pressed up against the earth in his effort to read the markings. He announced finally that he couldn’t tell which tracks were more recent. All seemed quite fresh.

The members of the little company stood staring at each other for a moment, undecided. Sweat lay in a thin sheen across the faces of Ben and Questor, and the G’home Gnomes were whining that they were thirsty. Abernathy was panting. Dust covered all of them like a mist. Eyes squinted against the glaring light of the sun, and faces grimaced and tightened with discomfort. They were all weary and cross and they were all sick and tired of running around in circles.

Though anxious to continue, Ben was nevertheless reluctantly considering the idea of a lunch break and a brief rest when a crashing sound brought him sharply about. The crashing sound was of stone breaking and falling. It was coming from the direction of Mirwouk.

He looked at the others questioningly, but no one seemed anxious to venture an opinion.

“Couldn’t hurt to check it out at least,” Ben declared and resolutely started off to investigate, the others trailing with various degrees of enthusiasm.

They picked their way upward through the tangle of scrub and trees, watching the crumbling walls and towers of Mirwouk appear through breaks in the branches and rise up before them. Parapets loomed against the skyline, ragged and broken, and shutterless windows gaped emptily. Bats darted past in shadowy bursts and cried out sharply. Ahead, the crashing sounds continued—almost as if something was trapped and trying to break free. The minutes slipped away. The little company approached the sagging gates of the fortress and drew to a halt, listening.

The crashing sounds had stopped.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Abernathy announced darkly.

“High Lord, perhaps we ought to …” Questor Thews began, then stopped as he saw a look of disapproval cross Ben’s face.

“Perhaps we ought to have a look,” Ben finished.

So they did, Ben leading, the kobolds a step behind, the others trailing. They passed through the gates, crossed the broad outer courtyard beyond, and slipped into the passageway that ran from the secondary wall to the inner courtyard and the main buildings. The passageway was long and dark and it smelled of rot. Ben wrinkled his nose in distaste and hurried ahead. There was still only silence.

Ben reached the end of the tunnel a dozen steps ahead of everyone and was thinking to himself that he might have been smarter to send Bunion ahead to look things over when he caught sight of the stone giant. It was huge and ugly, a featureless, rough-hewn monstrosity that looked like the beginning stages of some novice sculptor’s efforts at a tribute to Hercules. It appeared to be just a grotesque statue at first, standing there in the middle of the inner courtyard amid a pile of stone rubble. But then the statue moved, turning with a ponderous effort that sounded of rock grating on rock, and it became immediately apparent that this particular statue was very much alive.

Ben stared in bewilderment, not quite certain yet what to do. A sudden tumult rose from the tunnel behind him, and the others of the company emerged in a rush and practically ran over him in their haste to get clear. The G’home Gnomes were no longer whining; they were howling like injured cats. Abernathy and Questor were both yelling at once, and the kobolds were hissing and showing all their teeth in an unmistakable display of hostility. It took Ben a moment to realize that they weren’t responding to anything they saw at this end of the tunnel but to something they had seen at the other.

Ben peered hurriedly past the frenzied group, neck craning. A second stone giant had entered the passageway and was lumbering toward them.

Questor grasped his elbow as if he might strangle it. “High Lord, that is a Flynt! It will smash us to dust if we let it get close enough … ! Ecchhh!” He saw the second one now, as it, too, lumbered forward. “Two of them! Run, High Lord—this way!”

The kobolds were already moving, leading the pack of them across the courtyard to an entryway that disappeared into the fortress proper. The first Flynt had joined the second and both were in pursuit, shambling giants that moved like bulldozers.

The company burst through the entryway and galloped up a flight of stairs.

“What’s a Flynt?” Ben demanded of Questor as they fled. “I don’t remember your telling me anything about Flynts!”

“I probably didn’t tell you anything, High Lord,” Questor acknowledged, breathing hard now. His robes tangled in his feet and he almost went down. “Drat!” He straightened, moving quickly on. “Flynts are aberrations—a creation of old magic, stone monsters brought to life. Very dangerous! They were sentinels of this fortress once, but I thought they were all destroyed centuries ago. Wizards created them. They don’t think, they don’t eat, they don’t sleep, they barely see or smell—but they hear everything. Their intended purpose was to keep intruders out of Mirwouk, but of course that was a long time ago, so who knows what they think their purpose might be now. They seem rather intent on just smashing things. Ugh!” He slowed momentarily and somehow managed to look genuinely thoughtful. “Odd that I didn’t come across them when I was here last.”

Ben rolled his eyes and pulled the wizard ahead.

They reached the top of the stairwell and emerged on a parapet roof about the size of a tennis court. Rubble littered the playing surface. There were no referees in sight and only one other way out—a second stairwell at the far end. The company broke for it as one.

When they reached it, they found it blocked with enough timber and stone to build a set of bleachers.

“Wonderful!” Ben groaned.

“I told you I didn’t like this!” Abernathy declared with a bark that surprised everyone.

The Flynts emerged from the far stairwell, looked slowly about, and began to lumber toward them. Bunion and Parsnip moved protectively in front of the others.

Now it was Ben’s turn to grab Questor. “The kobolds can’t stop those things, damn it! Dredge up some magic!”

Questor moved hurriedly forward, robes flying, tall figure swaying as if he might topple over. He muttered something unintelligible, lifted his arms skyward, and brought them down in a grand sweep. Funnel clouds sprang up from out of nowhere, picked up the loose rubble, and hurtled it at the approaching stone monsters. Unfortunately, the funnel clouds also hurtled some of it back at Questor. The rubble bounced harmlessly off the Flynts. It did not bounce harmlessly off Questor; the wizard went down in a heap, unconscious and bleeding.

Ben and the kobolds rushed to pull the wizard back from further harm. The Flynts still lumbered forward, stone blocks and rubble cracking like deadwood beneath their massive feet.

Ben knelt anxiously. “Questor! Get up! We need you!” He slapped the fallen wizard’s face desperately, rubbed his wrists, and shook him. Questor didn’t move. His owlish face was pale beneath the blood.

Ben leaped back to his feet. Individually, perhaps, the members of the little company were swift and agile enough to evade these stone monsters. Perhaps. But that was before Questor’s injury. No one would get away trying to carry out the wizard, and they were certainly not about to leave him. Ben seized the medallion frantically and let go just as quickly. Useless. He was Meeks’ creation now, his medallion a worthless imitation. There could be no help from the magic; there could be no summons to the Paladin.

But he had to do something!

“Abernathy!”

The dog’s cold nose shoved into his ear, and he jerked away. “High Lord?”

“These things can’t see, taste, or smell—but they can hear, right? Hear anything? Anything even close to Mirwouk, maybe?”

“I am given to understand that the Flynts can hear a pin drop at fifty paces, though I often …”

“Never mind the editorials!” Ben pulled the dog about to face him, furry features held close, glasses glinting with sunlight. “Can you hit high C?”

Abernathy blinked. “High Lord?”

“High C, damn it—can you howl loud enough to hit high C?” The Flynts were no more than a dozen paces off. “Well, can you?”

“I don’t see …”

“Yes or no!”

He was shaking his scribe. Abernathy’s muzzle drew back, and he barked right in Ben’s face. “Yes!”

“Then do it!” Ben screamed.

The whole roof seemed to be shaking. The G’home Gnomes had fastened themselves to Ben once more, crying, “Great High Lord, Mighty High Lord” in chorus and wailing like lost souls. The kobolds were crouched in front of him, ready to spring. The Flynts looked like tanks bearing down.

Then Abernathy began to howl.

He hit high C on the first try, a frightening wail that drowned out the G’home Gnomes and expanded the grimaces on the faces of the kobolds into a whole new dimension. The wail lifted and spread, cutting through everything with the tenacity of gastrically induced stress. The Flynts stopped in their tracks and their massive hands came up against the sides of their heads with a crash as they tried in vain to shut out the sound. It came at them relentlessly—Ben would never have believed Abernathy capable of such sustained agony—and all the while, they battered at themselves.

Finally, the pounding proved to be too much, and the Flynts simply shattered and fell apart. Heads, arms, torsos, and legs collapsed into piles of useless rock. The dust rose and settled again, and nothing moved.

Abernathy stopped howling, and there was a moment of strained silence. The scribe straightened and glared at Ben with undisguised fury. “I have never been so humiliated, High Lord!” he snarled. “Howling like a dog, indeed! I have debased myself in a way I would not have thought possible!”

Ben cleared his throat. “You saved our lives,” he pointed out simply. “That’s what you did.”

Abernathy started to say something more, stopped, and simply continued to glare voicelessly. Finally he took a deep breath of air, exhaled, straightened some more, sniffed distastefully, and said, “When we get those books of magic back, the first thing you will do with them is find a way to turn me back into a human being!”

Ben hastily masked the smile that would have been his undoing. “Agreed. The first thing.”

Hurriedly they picked up Questor Thews and carried him back down the stairway and out of Mirwouk. They encountered no further Flynts. Perhaps the two they had escaped had been the last, Ben thought as they hastened back into the trees.

“Still, it is odd that Questor didn’t see them the first time,” he repeated the wizard’s observation to no one in particular.

“Odd? Not so odd if you consider the possibility that Meeks put them there after he had the books, expressly to prevent anyone from coming back into the fortress!” Abernathy huffed. He would not look at Ben. “Really, High Lord—I would have thought you could figure that one out by yourself!”

Ben endured the admonishment silently. He could have figured it out by himself, but he hadn’t, so what was there to say? What he couldn’t figure out now was why Meeks would bother placing guards at Mirwouk. After all, the missing books of magic were already in his possession!

He dropped that question into the hopper with all the other unanswered questions and concentrated on helping the others lay Questor on a patch of shaded grass. Parsnip wiped away the dust and blood from the wizard’s face and brought him out of his stupor. Questor recovered after a brief period of treatment, Parsnip patched up his injuries, and the little company was back on its feet once more.

“This time we follow Willow’s tracks—however many of them there are—until we find her!” Ben declared resolutely.

“If we find her,” Abernathy muttered.

But no one heard him and off they went again.

DISCOVERY



The heat of the midday sun settled down across the forests of the Melchor in a suffocating blanket and turned its cooling shadows tepid and dank. Morning breezes died away and the air grew thick and still. Insects hummed their toneless songs, leaves hung limp from their branches, and the warm-blooded life of the woodland lay patient and quiet. There was a slowing of time and purpose.

Willow paused at the base of a giant white oak, the weight of the spun gold bridle tugging relentlessly downward on her shoulders where it lay draped across them. A bright sheen of sweat coated the pale green skin of her face and hands, and her lips parted slightly as she worked harder to catch her breath. She had been walking since sunrise, following the black unicorn as it came and went in wisps of dream and shadow, trailing after as if she were a stray bit of dust drawn on in the wake of its passing. She had traveled the whole of the Melchor about Mirwouk half-a-dozen times over, crossing and recrossing her trail time after time, a senseless journey of whim and chance. She was west of Mirwouk now, scarcely a mile from the aged fortress, but she was barely aware of it, and it would have made no difference to her had she taken the time to think about it. She had long since ceased to care about anything but the subject of her search; all else had become irrelevant.

She must find the unicorn. She must know its truth.

She let her eyes glaze slightly with the memory of last night’s dream and wondered anew at its meaning.

Then she drew herself upright and continued on, a frail and tiny bit of life amid the giant trees of the mountain forest, a child strayed. She worked her way slowly through a grove of fir and pine clustered so thickly that the boughs interlocked, barely glanced at a stand of Bonnie Blues beyond, and pressed upward along a gentle slope that led to a meadow plateau. She picked her way with careful steps, remembering wearily that she had passed this way before—once, twice, more? She wasn’t certain. It didn’t matter. She listened to the sound of her heart pounding through her neck and in her ears. It was very loud. It was almost the only sound in the forest. It became the measure of each step she took.

How much farther? she wondered as the heat pressed down. When am I to stop?

She crested the meadowline, paused in the shadow of a long-limbed crimson maple, and closed her eyes against the uncertainty. When she opened them again, the black unicorn stood facing her.

“Oh!” she breathed softly.

The unicorn stood at the center of the meadow, framed in a splash of unclouded sunlight. It was ink black, so perfectly opaque that it might have been sculpted from midnight’s shadows. It faced her, head lifted, mane and tail limp in the breezeless air, a statue carved out of ageless ebony. The green eyes regarded her steadily and within their depths called to her. She breathed the sullen heat into her lungs and felt the scorch of the sun’s brightness. She listened. The eyes of the unicorn spoke soundlessly, images caught and reflected from dreams remembered and visions lost. She listened, and she knew.

The chase was over. The black unicorn would run from her no longer. It was to this time and place that she had been brought. It only remained for her to discover why.

She came forward tentatively, still half expecting with every step she took that the unicorn would disappear, that it would bolt and run. It did not. It simply stood there—motionless, dreamlike. She slipped the bridle from her shoulders and held it loosely in her hands before her, letting the unicorn see it clearly. Sunlight danced off the traces and fastenings, brilliant flashes that pierced the forest shadows. The unicorn waited. Willow passed from the shade of the crimson maple into the meadow’s sunshine, and the sweltering heat enveloped her. Her sea green eyes blinked away a sudden film of moisture, and she shook back her long hair. The unicorn did not move.

She was only a dozen feet from the creature when abruptly she slowed and then stopped. She could not go on. Waves of fear, suspicion, and doubt washed through her, a mingling of whispers that cried out in sudden warning. What was she doing? What was she thinking? The black unicorn was a creature of such ill fortune that no one who had come close to it had been seen again! It was the demon of her dreams! It was the nightmare that had pursued her in her sleep, hunting her as death would!

She felt the weight of the fairy creature’s eyes settle on her. She felt its presence as she would a sickness. She struggled to break and run and could not. Desperately, she fought against the emotions that threatened to consume her and banished them. She took deep, long breaths of the sullen midday air and forced herself to look into the creature’s emerald eyes. She kept her gaze fixed. There was no hint of sickness or death in those eyes—no hint of demon evil. There was gentleness and warmth—and need.

She came forward another few steps.

Then something new slowed her. There was a flash of intuition that swept her mind momentarily, quick and certain. Ben was near, come in search of … of what?

“Ben?” she whispered, waiting.

But there was no one. She was alone with the unicorn. She did not look away from the creature, but she sensed nevertheless that they were alone. She wet her lips and came forward again.

And again she stopped. Her breast heaved. “I cannot touch you,” she murmured to the flawless, impossibly wondrous fairy thing. “I cannot. It will be the end of me if I do.”

She knew it was so. She knew it instinctively, the way she had always known. No one could touch a unicorn; no one had that right. It belonged to a realm of beauty that no mortal creature should ever attempt to transcend. It had wandered into Landover, a bit of some rainbow broken off from its dark storm’s end arc, and it should never be held by hands such as hers. Memories of legends and songs whispered in snatches of warning. She felt tears start down her cheeks and her breath catch in her throat.

Beautiful thing, I cannot …

But she did. Almost before she realized what was happening, she was covering those last few paces in quick, mechanical steps, moving without thinking about what she was doing, reaching out to the midnight creature, and placing the bridle of spun gold gently, carefully about its waiting head. She brushed its silken face with her fingers as she worked, and the touch was electric. She felt the whisper of its mane against the backs of her hands, and the sensation was rife with wonder. Fresh images sprang unbidden into her thoughts, jumbled and not yet understandable, but irresistible nevertheless. She touched the unicorn freely now, reveling in the sensations it caused within her. She could not seem to help herself. She could not stop. She was crying anew, her emotions all uncovered, brought close to the surface of her being. Tears ran down her cheeks as she began to sob uncontrollably.

“I love you,” she cried desperately, her hands falling away at last when the bridle was in place. “Oh, I love you so much, you beautiful, wondrous thing!”

The black unicorn’s horn shone white with magic as it held her gaze, and there were tears now in its eyes as well. For a single moment, they were joined.

Then the moment was gone, and the world beyond intruded with a rush. A huge, dark shadow passed overhead and settled earthward at the clearing’s far edge. In the same instant, a familiar scattering of voices called her name frantically from the clearing’s other end. Her dreams took life, their images suddenly, terrifyingly all about. Whispers of the warnings that had brought her to this moment turned abruptly to screams of dismay in her mind.

She felt the black unicorn shudder violently next to her and watched the white magic of its horn flare. But it did not bolt into the woods. Whatever happened next, it would run no further.

So be it. Neither would she.

Woodenly, she turned to discover their fate.



Ben Holiday burst from the trees into the meadow and stopped so abruptly that the others of the little company who followed after stumbled into him in their eagerness to keep up and knocked him forward another few steps. They were all yelling at once, calling out to Willow in warning where she stood at the meadow’s center, the black unicorn at her side. The shadow of the winged demon had passed overhead a moment earlier, a monstrous cloud against the sun. It was only the worst of luck that could have brought them all together at this same place and time, but the worst of luck seemed to be the only luck Ben could count on. He had tracked Willow to this meadow after escaping the Flynts, believing the worst to be behind him. Now the demon had found them. He saw again in his mind the River Master’s doomed nymphs as the demon burned them to ash and he thought of his promise to the Earth Mother to protect Willow. But he was helpless to do that. How was he going to protect Willow without the medallion?

The demon flew overhead a second time, but it did not attack the sylph or the unicorn or even Ben’s little group. Instead, it settled slowly earthward at the clearing’s far edge, leathered wings folding in against its body, breath steaming with a hiss. Ben squinted against the sunlight. There was a rider atop the demon. The rider was Meeks.

And Meeks, of course, appeared to everyone watching to be Ben.

Ben heard muttered whispers of surprise and confusion from those crowded up behind him. He watched himself climb slowly down from the demon; and even he had to admit that Meeks looked exactly like him. His companions quit yelling, momentary indecision settling in. Ben could feel their eyes bore into his back and could sense the clouds of doubt gathering. He had told them who he was and they had believed him, more or less, until now. But actually seeing Ben Holiday standing there in that clearing across from them was something else altogether …

Then the black unicorn trumpeted, a high, eerie call, and everyone turned. The fairy beast stamped and its nostrils flared, the bridle of spun gold dancing against the sunlight with each toss of its delicate head. Magic flashed in its ridged horn. The unicorn was a thing of impossible beauty and it drew the eyes of all gathered like moths to the light. It shuddered, but held its ground against the weight of their stares. It seemed to be searching for something.

Slowly Willow turned from the unicorn and began to look about as well. Her gaze was curiously empty.

Ben wasn’t sure what was happening, but he decided almost instantly not to wait to find out. “Willow!” he called to the sylph, and her eyes fixed on him. “Willow, it’s me, Ben!” He came forward a few steps, saw the lack of recognition in her eyes, and stopped. “Listen to me. Listen carefully. I know I don’t look like myself. But it is me. Meeks is responsible for everything that’s happened. He’s come back into Landover and stolen the throne. He’s changed me into this. Worse, he’s made himself look like me. That’s not me over there—that’s Meeks!”

She turned now to look over at Meeks, saw Ben’s face and body, and gave a quick gasp. But she saw the demon as well. She took a step forward, stopped, and stepped slowly back again.

“Willow, it’s all right,” Meeks called out to her in Ben’s voice. “Bring the unicorn to me. Pass me the reins of the bridle.”

“No!” Ben yelled frantically. “No, Willow!” He came forward another few steps, stopping quickly as Willow started to back away. “Willow, don’t do it. Meeks sent the dreams—all of them. He has the medallion. He has the missing books of magic. Now he wants the unicorn! I don’t know why, but you can’t let him have it! Please!”

“Willow, be careful of what you see,” Meeks warned in a quiet, soothing voice. “The stranger is dangerous, and the magic he wields confuses. Come over to me before he reaches you.”

Ben was beside himself. “Look at whom I’m with, for God’s sake! Questor, Abernathy, Bunion, Parsnip, Fillip, and Sot!” He turned and beckoned to those behind him. But no one came forward. No one seemed quite sure that they should. Ben felt a hint of desperation creep into his voice as he faced Willow anew. “Why would they be with me if I’m not who I say I am? They know the truth of things!” He wheeled about once more, anger in his voice. “Damn it, Questor, say something to her!”

The wizard hesitated, seemed to consider the advisability of doing what Ben asked, then straightened. “Yes, he speaks the truth. He is the High Lord, Willow,” he said finally.

There were muttered hissings and murmurings of agreement from the others, including a few pleas of “Save us, great High Lord, Mighty High Lord” from the G’home Gnomes, who were hiding now behind Questor’s robes.

Ben turned back. “Willow, come over here quickly! Please! Get away!”

But now Meeks had come forward several paces and he was smiling Ben’s most reassuring smile. “Willow, I love you,” he told her. “I love you and I want to protect you. Come here to me. What you see from the stranger is all illusion. He has no support from our friends; they are just false images. You can see the truth of things if you look. Do you see me? Am I anyone different from the one I always was? What you are hearing are lies! Remember the dream! You must pick up the reins of the bridle and bring the black unicorn to me to be safe from the dangers that threaten! These illusions pretending friendship are the dangers of your dream! Come to me now and be safe!”

Willow was looking first one way and then the other, confusion evident in her face. Behind her, the black unicorn stamped and snorted delicately, a bit of shadow caught in the sunlight, bound in place by ties no one else could see. Ben was frantic. He had to do something!

“Show me the rune stone!” Willow called out suddenly, head jerking from Ben to Meeks and back again. “Let me see the stone I gave you!”

Ben went cold. The rune stone, the milky-colored talisman that warned of danger when it threatened. “I don’t have it!” he called back helplessly. “I lost it when …”

“I have it right here!” Meeks announced in triumph, cutting him short. The wizard reached beneath his robes and brought forth the rune stone—or something that appeared to be the rune stone—glowing bright red. He held it up for inspection.

“Ben?” Willow asked softly, some of the hope coming back into her face. “Is it you?” Ben felt his stomach lurch as the girl started away from him.

“One moment!” Questor Thews called suddenly, and everyone turned. “You must have dropped this, High Lord,” he advised officiously, coming forward a step or two more, the G’home Gnomes shaken free momentarily from his robes. He held out the rune stone Willow had given Ben—at least, his magic made it seem like the stone—and let everyone have a good look. The stone glowed crimson.

Ben had never been more grateful to the wizard in his life. “Thank you, Questor,” he breathed quietly.

Willow had stopped again. Slowly, she backed away from them all, the indecision returned. There was fear now in her face as well. “I do not know which of you is Ben,” she told them quietly. “Perhaps neither of you.”

Her words lingered in the sudden stillness that followed. A frightening tension settled down across the sunlit meadow with its chessboard of frozen figures, each ready to move in a different direction, each poised to strike. Willow pressed back toward the black unicorn, eyes shifting from one set of playing pieces to another, waiting. Behind her, the unicorn had gone still.

I have to do something, Ben told himself once more and wondered frantically what it ought to be.

Then out of the woods strolled Edgewood Dirk. The cat might have been out for an afternoon walk, sauntering with an unconcerned air from the trees, picking its way delicately through the scrub grass and flowers, head and tail held high as it stepped, eyes looking neither right nor left. It paid no attention to any of them. It seemed almost to have stumbled onto things by accident. Dirk walked directly to the center of the clearing, stopped, glanced casually around at those assembled, and sat down.

“Good day,” he greeted them.

Meeks let out a shriek that brought them all out of their boots and flung back his cloak. The Ben Holiday disguise shimmered like a reflection in the waters of a pond disturbed by a thrown stone and began to disintegrate. Willow screamed. The wizard’s clawed hands lifted and extended, and green fire lanced wickedly toward Edgewood Dirk. But the cat had already begun to change, the small furry body growing, shimmering, and smoothing until it was as crystalline as a diamond. The wizard fire struck it and broke apart, scattering like refracted light into the sunlit air, showering the trees and grass and scorching the earth.

Ben was racing desperately toward Willow by this time, yelling like a madman. But the sylph was already beyond his reach. Eyes frantic, she had pressed herself back against the black unicorn and seized the golden bridle that bound the fairy creature. The unicorn was stamping and rearing, crying out its own high-pitched, eerie call, and darting back and forth in small dashes. Willow clung to the beast as a frightened child would to its mother, grappling with it, being dragged along as it went—away from Ben.

“Willow!” he howled.

Meeks was still after Edgewood Dirk. The shards of flame from his first attack had barely been scattered when the wizard struck once more. Fire gathered and arced from his hands in a massive ball, rolling and tumbling through the air to explode into the cat. Dirk arched and shuddered, and the flaming ball seemed to absorb itself into the crystalline form. Then the fire exploded out again, hurtling itself back toward the wizard in a shower of flaming darts. Meeks threw up his cloak like a shield, and the darts deflected everywhere. Some burned into the hide of the demon crouching behind the wizard and it roared and surged skyward with a rasp of fury.

Smoke and fire burned everywhere, and Ben stumbled on blindly through the haze. Behind him, his companions called out. Overhead, the winged demon blocked the sun, its shadow darkening the meadow like an eclipse. The black unicorn sprang forward with a scream, and Willow flung herself atop it. She might have done so out of instinct or out of need, but the result was the same—she was carried away. The unicorn darted past Ben so quickly he barely saw it. He reached for it, but he was far too slow. He had a brief glimpse of Willow’s lithe form clinging to its back, and then both disappeared into the trees.

Then the winged demon attacked. It dropped like a stone toward the meadow, diving from the empty skies, flames bursting from its maw. Ben dropped flat and covered his head. From the corner of one eye, he watched as Dirk shimmered, hunched down against the force of the fire, absorbed it, and thrust it back. Flames hammered into the demon and sent the monster catapulting back. Steam and smoke clogged the meadow air.

Meeks struck again, and Edgewood Dirk repelled the assault. The demon struck, and the cat flung the fire back once more. Ben rose, dropped, rose again, and staggered blindly through the carnage. Shouts and cries reached out to him, and visions floated through the haze before his watering eyes. His hands groped and struggled to hold something, anything—and finally fastened on the medallion.

White heat burned into his palms. For just an instant, he thought he saw the Paladin appear, a faint image somewhere in the distance, a silver, armor-clad figure astride the great white charger.

Then the vision was gone again, a vision that had been impossible in any case. No medallion, no Paladin—Ben knew that. His throat constricted and he choked as the fires of wizard and demon continued to hammer down on Edgewood Dirk and be flung back again. Flowers and grasses burned to black ash. Trees shook and their leaves wilted. The whole world seemed to be in flames.

And finally the meadow itself seemed to explode upward in one vast, heaving cough, steam and fire ripping through everything. Ben felt himself hurtled skyward like a bit of deadwood, flying in a graceless scattering of arms and legs, spinning like a pinwheel.

This is it, he thought just before he tumbled earthward. This is how it all ends.

Then he struck with jarring force and everything went dark.