The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1

BUTTON, BUTTON



Abernathy lay in his darkened cage and dreamed fitfully of Landover’s sunshine and green meadows. He hadn’t been feeling very well the past day or so, a condition he attributed to a combination of his confinement and the food—mostly the lack thereof. He half suspected that something in the environment of this land in general was having a debilitating effect on his system, something apart from his present circumstances, but there was no way to test his theory. In any case, he spent most of his time dozing, finding what small refuge he could in his dreams of better times and places.

Elizabeth hadn’t been to see him in more than two days now. He noticed that the guards had been checking on him more frequently, and he assumed that her failure to appear was due in part at least to fear of discovery. Michel Ard Rhi had come once. That, too, had been at least two days ago. He had looked at his prisoner quite dispassionately, asked him once if he had anything to give him, then left without another word when Abernathy advised him in no uncertain terms that he was wasting his time.

No one else had come at all.

Abernathy was beginning to grow frightened. He was beginning to believe that he actually was going to be left there to die.

The thought stirred him from his sleep, his dreams faded away, and the reality of his situation intruded once more. He grappled momentarily with the prospect of dying. It might not be so frightening if he were to confront it directly, he decided. He considered his choices in the matter of Michel Ard Rhi and the medallion. There were none. He certainly could not relinquish the medallion; his conscience and his duty would not allow it. Such a powerful magic must not be allowed to pass into the hands of so evil a man. Even death was preferable to that.

Of course, once he was dead, what was to prevent Michel from just taking the medallion off his lifeless body?

He was despondent all over again, thinking of that possibility, and he closed his eyes once more in an effort to escape back into his dreams.

“Hsssst! Abernathy! Wake up!”

Abernathy’s eyes slowly opened and he found Elizabeth standing outside his cage. She was gesturing impatiently. “Come on, Abernathy, wake up!”

Abernathy rose stiffly, straightened his soiled clothing, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his spectacles, and slipped them over his nose. “I am awake, Elizabeth,” he insisted sleepily, shoving the spectacles carefully into place.

“Good!” she whispered, fumbling now with the cage door. “Because we’re getting you out of here right now!”

Abernathy watched in befuddlement as the little girl located the lock, inserted a key, twisted it, and pulled. The cage door swung open. “How about that?” she murmured in satisfaction.

“Elizabeth …”

“I took the key off the rack in the guard room where they keep the spares. They won’t miss it right away! I’ll have it back before they know it’s gone. Don’t worry. No one saw me.”

“Elizabeth …”

“Come on, Abernathy! What are you waiting for?”

Abernathy couldn’t seem to think, staring vacantly at the open cage door. “This seems awfully dangerous for you to …”

“Do you want out of here or not?” she demanded, a trace of irritation in her voice.

From down the hall, beyond the passageway door, the imprisoned dogs suddenly began barking, yelps and howls of dismay. “Yes, I do,” Abernathy answered quickly and crawled through the open door.

He stood erect in the passageway beyond for the first time since his imprisonment, feeling immediately better. Elizabeth closed the cage door once more and locked it. “This way, Abernathy! Hurry!”

He followed her across the passageway and through the break in the wall to a stairway beyond. Elizabeth turned and pushed the hidden door in the wall section closed. The sounds of the barking dogs died away into silence.

They stood there in the blackness a moment until Elizabeth clicked on a flashlight. Abernathy was pleasantly surprised to discover that he still retained sufficient faculties to remember reading about flashlights in one of the little girl’s magazines that first afternoon he had hidden out in her room. He guessed he wasn’t as debilitated as he had imagined.

Elizabeth led the way up the stairs, Abernathy dutifully following. “We don’t have much time,” she was saying. “The Coles are already here to take me to the school chorus program. You remember my friend Nita? They’re her parents. They’re visiting with my dad while I finish dressing.” Abernathy noticed she was wearing a ruffled pink and white dress. “That’s what I’m supposed to be doing now. Nita’s up there in my room, keeping watch, pretending she’s helping me. When we get back, she’ll go down and tell her parents and my dad that I’ll be right there. While she’s doing that, I’ll sneak you downstairs the back way to a door that leads out to the yard. The Coles’ car is parked there and we can hide you in the trunk. The release is on the dash. It’s perfect! The guards won’t bother to check the Coles—not with my dad with them.”

Abernathy started. “An automobile, one of those mechanical … ?”

“Shhhh! Yes, yes, an automobile! Just listen, will you?” Elizabeth had no time for interruptions. “Once at the school, we’ll all go in to get ready, but I’ll tell the Coles I have to go back out for my purse, which I’ll leave in the car. When I come out, I’ll open the trunk and let you out. Okay?”

Abernathy was shaking his head doubtfully. “What if you cannot get me out? Will I be able to breathe in there? What if I … ?”

“Abernathy!” Elizabeth turned, exasperated. “Don’t worry, all right? I’ll get you out. And you can breathe just fine in a car trunk. Now, listen! I found someone to help you get to Virginia.”

They had reached a landing where the stairs stopped at a door. Elizabeth turned, eyes bright. “His name is Mr. Whitsell. He’s a dog trainer. He goes around to the schools and talks about animal care and things. He said if I brought you to him, he would help you. Now wait here.”

She pushed open the door on the landing, handed the flashlight to Abernathy, disappeared through the opening, and pushed the door shut again. Abernathy stood there pointing the flashlight at the wall and waiting. Things were happening much too rapidly to suit him, but there was nothing to be done about it. If there was even the slightest chance that he might escape Graum Wythe and Michel Ard Rhi, he had to take it.

Elizabeth was back almost at once, bundled in a coat, scarf, and gloves. “Put this on,” she instructed, handing him an old topcoat and brimmed hat. “I took them from the storage closets where they keep the old stuff.”

She took the flashlight from him while he struggled into the hat and coat. The coat felt like a tent on him, and the hat wouldn’t stay in place. Elizabeth looked at him and giggled. “You look like a spy!”

She led him through the wall opening into a closet filled with brooms, mops, and buckets. She paused, peered through the door leading out, then beckoned him after her. They slipped quickly down a hallway to a back stairs that wound downward to the ground floor and a set of double doors that opened onto the back yard.

Abernathy peered through a glass panel in the door over Elizabeth’s shoulder.

An automobile was parked close against the castle wall. Lights bathed the yard in their muted yellow glow, but no one was about.

“Ready?” she asked, turning to look up at him.

“Ready,” he answered.

She pulled open the double doors and rushed for the automobile. Abernathy followed. She had the driver’s door open and the trunk release pulled by the time he reached her. “Hurry!” she whispered and helped him climb hastily inside. “Don’t worry!” she said when he was safely settled, pausing momentarily with her hands on the lid. “I’ll be back to get you out when we reach the school! Just be patient!”

Then the lid slammed down and she was gone.



Abernathy lay hidden in the automobile for only a few minutes before he heard voices approach, the passenger doors open and close again, and the engine start up. Then the automobile began to move, jouncing and bumping him all over the place as it twisted and wound down the roadway and steadily picked up speed. The trunk was carpeted, but there wasn’t much padding underneath, and Abernathy was thoroughly knocked about. He tried to find something to hold on to, but there wasn’t anything to grasp, and he had to settle for bracing himself against the top and sides.

The ride seemed to go on interminably. To make matters worse, the automobile gave off a rather noxious odor that quickly upset Abernathy’s stomach and gave him a headache. He began to wonder if he was going to survive the experience.

Then, finally, the automobile slowed and stopped, the doors opened and closed, the voices faded away, and all went still except for the muffled and somewhat distant sounds of other doors opening and closing and other voices calling out. Abernathy waited patiently, letting cramped muscles relax again, rubbing strained ligaments and bruised bones. He promised himself faithfully that if he could just get safely back to Landover, he would never, under any circumstances, even think of riding in another of these horrendous, mechanical monsters.

Time slipped away. Elizabeth did not come. Abernathy lay in the dark and listened for her, thinking that the worst had happened, that she had been prevented somehow from returning, and that now he was trapped there indefinitely. He began to doze. He was almost asleep when he heard the sound of footsteps.

The car door opened, the trunk latch was sprung, the lid popped up, and there was Elizabeth. She was gasping for breath. “Hurry, Abernathy, I have to get back right away!” She helped him from the trunk. “I’m sorry it took so long, but my dad wanted to come with me and I had to wait until he … Are you all right? You look all bent over! Oh, I’m sorry about this, really I am!”

Abernathy shook his head quickly. “No, no! No need to be sorry about anything. I am just fine, Elizabeth.” A few latecomers were passing in the distance, and he pulled the topcoat close about him and adjusted the brimmed hat. He bent down to her. “Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said softly. “Thank you for everything.”

She put her arms about him and hugged him, then stepped quickly back. “Mr. Whitsell lives a couple of miles north. Follow this road out here.” She pointed. “When you reach a road with a sign that says Forest Park, turn right and count the numbers until you find 2986. It’ll be on the left. Oh, Abernathy!”

She hugged him again, and he hugged her back. “Don’t worry. I will find it, Elizabeth,” he assured her.

“I have to go,” she said and started away. Then she turned and hurried back. “I almost forgot. Take this.” She thrust an envelope into his paw.

“What is it?”

“The money I promised, for an airplane ticket or whatever. It’s okay to keep it,” she added hastily as he tried to give it back. “You might need it. If you don’t, you can give it back when we see each other again.”

“Elizabeth …”

“No, you keep it!” she insisted, turning and starting quickly away. “Goodbye, Abernathy! I’ll miss you!”

She ran toward the school building and was gone.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Abernathy whispered after her.



It was approaching midnight by the time Abernathy turned up the walk to 2986 Forest Park, still wearing the brimmed hat and the trench coat. He had made a wrong turn some distance back and had been forced to retrace his steps. As he approached the little house with the shuttered windows and flower boxes, he could see a man dozing in a chair through the partially drawn blinds of the front window. The light next to him was the only light burning in the house.

Abernathy went up to the door cautiously and knocked. When there was no response, he knocked again.

“Yeah, what is it?” a voice growled.

Abernathy didn’t know what to say, so he waited. After a moment, the voice said, “Okay, just a minute, I’m coming.”

Footsteps approached. The front door opened, and the man from the chair stood there, bearded and sleepy-eyed, wearing jeans and a work shirt open to the waist over a sleeveless undershirt. A tiny black poodle stood next to him, sniffing. “Are you Mr. Whitsell?” Abernathy asked.

Davis Whitsell stared, his mouth dropping open. “Uh … yeah,” he said finally.

Abernathy glanced around uneasily. “My name is Abernathy. Do you suppose that …”

The other man started; then he seemed to understand and managed a slight smile. “The little girl at Franklin!” he exclaimed. “You’re the one she told me about! You’re the one she said was locked up somewhere, right? Sure, you’re the talking dog!”

“I’m a man who was turned into a dog,” Abernathy said rather stiffly.

“Sure, sure, she told me about that!” Whitsell backed off a step or two. “Well, come in, come on in … Abernathy! Sophie, get back. Here, let me take that coat from you. Way too big, anyway. Hat doesn’t do a thing for you either. Here, sit down.”

“Who is it, Davis?” a woman’s voice called from somewhere down the hall.

“Uh, no one, Alice—just a friend,” Whitsell replied hurriedly. “Go back to sleep.” He leaned close. “My wife, Alice,” he whispered.

He took Abernathy’s coat and hat and beckoned him across the living room to the couch. Sophie wagged her tail and whined softly, sniffing at Abernathy with dismaying enthusiasm. Abernathy nudged her away.

The TV was on. Whitsell turned the volume down carefully, then seated himself across from Abernathy. He leaned forward eagerly, his voice hushed. “Well, tell you the truth, I thought the little girl was kidding me. I thought she was making all this up. But …” He stopped, as if trying to gather his thoughts. “So, you were changed into a dog, were you? Terrier breed, right? Uh, English breed, I’d guess.”

“Soft-coated Wheaten Terrier,” Abernathy advised, looking around doubtfully.

“Sure, that’s it.” Whitsell got up again. “You look all done in, you know that? Would you like something to eat, drink maybe? Uh, real food, right—you being human and all? Come on into the kitchen, I’ll fix you something.”

They walked from the living room to a kitchen that looked out into the back yard. Whitsell poked through the refrigerator and came up with some cold ham, potato salad, and milk. He made Abernathy a sandwich, commenting over and over again on how amazing he was. God almighty, he said, a real live talking dog! He must have said it a dozen times. Abernathy was offended, but he kept it to himself. Finally Whitsell finished, carried the food to a small folding table with four chairs, made Abernathy sit down, grabbed a beer for himself, and sat down as well.

“Look, the little girl … uh, what’s her name?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Yeah, Elizabeth said you had to get to Virginia. That right?”

Abernathy nodded, his mouth full of sandwich. He was starved.

“What do you have to go to Virginia for?”

Abernathy considered his answer. “I have friends there,” he said finally.

“Well, can’t we just call them up?” the other asked. “I mean, if you need help, why not just give them a call?”

Abernathy was confused. “A call?”

“Sure, by phone.”

“Oh, telephone.” He remembered now what that was. “They don’t have a telephone.”

Davis Whitsell smiled. “That so?” He sipped at his beer and watched while Abernathy finished his food. The dog could feel him thinking.

“Well, it won’t be easy getting you all the way to Virginia,” he ventured after a moment.

Abernathy looked up, hesitated, then said, “I have some money to pay my way.”

Whitsell shrugged. “Maybe so, but we can’t just put you on an airplane or a train and ship you out. There would be all sorts of questions about who or what you were. Uh, pardon me for saying that, but you got to understand that people aren’t used to seeing dogs who dress up and walk about and talk like you do.”

He cleared his throat. “Other thing is, the little girl said something about you being held prisoner. That right?”

Abernathy nodded. “Elizabeth helped me escape.”

“Then this might be dangerous business, me helping you. Someone’s going to be pretty unhappy once they find you gone. Someone’s liable to be coming after you. That means we have to be extra careful, don’t it? ’Cause you’re pretty special, you know. Don’t find dogs like you every day. Sorry. Men like you, I mean. So best to get in quick, get out quick. Make what we can off this, eh?” He seemed to be thinking his way through the matter. “Won’t be easy. You’ll have to do exactly what I tell you.”

Abernathy nodded. “I understand.” He drank the last of his milk. “Can you help at all?”

“Sure! You bet I can!” Whitsell rubbed his hands briskly. “Best thing for now, though, is to get some sleep, then we’ll talk about it in the morning, come up with something. Okay? Got the spare room down the hall you can use. Bed’s all made up. Alice won’t like it, doesn’t like anything she can’t understand, but I’ll handle her, don’t you worry. Come on with me.”

He took Abernathy down the hall to the spare room, showed him the bed and the bath, provided him with a set of towels, and got him settled in. All the while he was thinking out loud, talking about missed opportunities and once-in-a-lifetime chances. If he could just figure out a way to make things work, he kept saying.

Abernathy pulled off his clothes, climbed into bed, and lay back. He was vaguely bothered by what he was hearing, but he was too exhausted to give the matter proper consideration. He closed his eyes wearily. Whitsell switched off the light, stepped outside, and pulled the door shut behind him.

The house was very still. Just outside, the branches of a tree brushed against the window like claws.

Abernathy listened for only a moment. Then he was asleep.

JERICHO



It was approaching nightfall when Questor Thews, the kobolds, and the G’home Gnomes arrived at Rhyndweir. The sky was hazy blue-gray with tiny strips of pink where the sun still lingered as it fled from the encroaching darkness. Mist clung to the Greensward in gauzy strips, turning the land to shadows and blurred images. Rain still fell, a thin veil of damp that seemed to hang on the air. Sounds were muted and displaced in the murkiness, and it was as if life had lost all substance and drifted bodiless.

Bunion led the way cautiously as they crossed the bridge spanning the juncture of the rivers that fronted the towering plateau on which the fortress castle of Lord Kallendbor had been built. The town beneath was closing down for the day, a jumbled mix of grunting men and animals, of clanging iron and creaking wood, and of weariness and sweat. The little company passed down the roadway through the shops and cottages; the buildings were dim, squat mounds in the mist, from which slivers of candlelight peeked out warily. The roadway was rutted and muddied from the rain, a morass that sucked at their boots and the horses’ hoofs. Heads turned to watch them pass, evidenced momentary interest, then turned quickly away again.

“I’m hungry!” whined Fillip.

“My feet hurt!” added Sot.

But Parsnip hissed softly in warning, and the gnomes went still again.

Then Rhyndweir materialized before them out of the mist and rain. Walls and parapets, towers and battlements, the whole of the great castle slowly took shape, a monstrous ghost hunkered down against the night. It was a massive thing, lifting skyward over a hundred feet, its uppermost spires lost in the low-hanging clouds. Flags hung limply from standards, torches flickered dimly from within their lamps, and dozens of sodden guards kept watch upon the walls. The outer gates yawned open, huge wooden and ironbound jaws fronting a lowered portcullis. The inner gates stood closed. It was a forbidding sight, and the little company approached with mixed feelings of wariness and trepidation.

The gate watch stopped them, asked them to state their business, and then moved them into the shelter of an alcove in the shadow of the wall while a message was carried to the Lord Kallendbor. Time dragged slowly past as they stood shivering and weary in the gloom and the damp. Questor was not pleased; a King’s emissary was not to be kept waiting. When their escort finally arrived, a pair of lesser nobles dispatched directly from Kallendbor with perfunctory apologies for the delay, the wizard was quick to voice his displeasure at their treatment. They were representatives of the King, he pointed out coldly—not supplicants. The escort merely apologized once again, no more concerned about the matter than before, and beckoned them inside.

Leaving the horses and pack animals, they circumvented the portcullis and inner gates by slipping through a series of hidden passages in the walls, crossed the main courtyard to the castle proper, entered an all but invisible side door which first had to be unlocked, and then passed down several corridors until they reached a great hall dominated by a huge fireplace at its far end. Logs burned brightly in the hearth, the heat almost suffocating. Questor winced away and squinted into the light.

The Lord Kallendbor turned from where he stood before the blaze—so close to the fire, it seemed to Questor, that he must be scorched. Kallendbor was a big man, tall and heavily muscled, his face and body scarred from countless battles. He wore chain mail tonight beneath his robes, armored boots, and a brace of daggers. His brilliant red hair and beard gave him a striking appearance—more so against the flames of the hearth. When he came forward, it was as if he brought the fire with him.

He dismissed the lesser nobles with a brief nod. “Well met, Questor Thews,” he rumbled, extending one callused hand.

Questor accepted the hand and held it. “Better met, my Lord, if I had not been kept waiting so long in the cold and the wet!”

The kobolds hissed softly in agreement, while the G’home Gnomes shrank back behind Questor’s legs, their eyes like dinner plates. Kallendbor took them all in at a glance and dismissed them just as quickly.

“My apologies,” he offered Questor, withdrawing his hand. “Things have been a bit uncertain of late. I must be cautious these days.”

Questor brushed the loose water from his cloak, owlish face twisting into a frown. “Cautious? More than that, I would guess, my Lord. I saw the deployment of your watch, the guards at all the entrances, the portcullis down, and the inner gates closed. I see the armor you wear, even in your own home. You behave as if you are at siege.”

Kallendbor rubbed his hands briskly and looked back at the fire. “Perhaps I am.” He seemed distracted. “What brings you to Rhyndweir, Questor Thews? Some further bidding of the High Lord? What does he require now? That I battle demons with him? That I chase after that black unicorn again? What does he wish now? Tell me.”

Questor hesitated. There was something in the way Kallendbor asked his questions that suggested he already knew the answers. “Something has been stolen from the High Lord,” he said finally.

“Ah?” Kallendbor kept his eyes on the blaze. “What might that be? A bottle, perhaps?”

The room went still. Questor held his breath.

“A bottle with dancing clowns painted on it?” Kallendbor added softly.

“You have the bottle in your possession, then.” Questor made the question a statement of fact.

Kallendbor turned now, smiling as wickedly as the kobolds ever thought of doing. “Yes, Questor Thews, I have it. A troll gave it to me—a miserable, thieving troll. He thought to sell it to me, actually, this thief. He had stolen it from some other trolls after they had quarreled among themselves. He survived the quarrel, wounded, and came to me. He would not have done so—come to me, that is—if he had been thinking clearly, if he had not been so badly hurt …”

The big man trailed off, shaking his head. “He told me there was magic in the bottle, a little creature, a demon, a Darkling he said, who could give the holder of the bottle anything he wished. I laughed at him, Questor Thews. You can understand. I have never had much faith in magic; only in strength of arms. Why would you want to sell anything so dear, I asked this troll? Then I saw the fear in his eyes and I knew why. He was frightened of the bottle. Its power was too great. He wanted to be rid of the bottle—but there was enough greed left in him to wish something in return.”

Kallendbor looked away. “I think he believed the bottle was responsible somehow for the destruction of his companions—that in some way this creature that lives within caused it.”

Questor said nothing, waiting. He wasn’t sure yet where this was leading and he wanted to find out.

Kallendbor sighed. “So I paid him the price he asked, and then I had his head cut off and spiked on the gateway. Did you see it when you entered? No? Well, I put it there to remind anyone who needs reminding that I have no use for thieves and swindlers.”

Fillip and Sot were shivering against Questor’s legs. Questor reached down surreptitiously and slapped them. He straightened again as Kallendbor looked around.

“You claim the bottle belongs to the High Lord, Questor Thews, but the bottle does not bear the mark of the throne.” Kallendbor shrugged. “The bottle could belong to anyone.”

Questor bristled. “Nevertheless …”

“Nevertheless,” the big man cut in quickly, “I shall give the bottle back to you.” He paused. “After I am finished with it.”

The flames in the hearth crackled loudly in the silence as they consumed the wood. Questor was buffeted by a mix of emotions. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“That I have a use for this bottle, Questor Thews,” the other said quietly. “That I intend to give the magic a chance.”

There was something in the big man’s eyes that Questor could not identify—something that wasn’t anger or determination or anything else he had ever seen there before. “You must reconsider,” he advised quickly.

“Reconsider? Why, Questor Thews? Because you say so?”

“Because the magic of the bottle is too dangerous!”

Kallendbor laughed. “Magic doesn’t frighten me!”

“Would you challenge the High Lord on this?” Questor was angry now.

The big man’s face went hard. “The High Lord isn’t here, Questor Thews. Only you.”

“As his representative!”

“In my home!” Kallendbor was livid. “Let the matter rest!”

Questor nodded slowly. He recognized now what was reflected in Kallendbor’s eyes. It was an almost desperate need. For what, he wondered? What was it that he wanted the bottle to give him?

He cleared his throat. “There is no reason for us to argue, my Lord,” he said soothingly. “Tell me—to what use will you put the magic?”

But the big man shook his head. “Not tonight, Questor Thews. Time enough to talk about it tomorrow.” He clapped his hands and a scattering of servants appeared. “A hot bath, some dry clothes, and a good meal for our guests,” he instructed. “Then to bed.”

Questor bowed reluctantly, turned to go, then hesitated. “I still think …”

“And I think,” Kallendbor interrupted pointedly, “that you should rest now, Questor Thews.”

He stood there, armor glinting in the firelight, eyes flat and hard. Questor saw there was nothing more to be accomplished at this meeting. He must bide his time.

“Very well, my Lord,” he said finally. “Good night to you.”

He bowed and departed the room with the kobolds and gnomes in tow.



Later that night, when his companions were sleeping and the castle was at rest, Questor Thews went back. He slipped down the empty corridors, hiding himself with small touches of magic from the few guards he encountered, moving on cat’s feet through the stillness. His purpose was rather vague, even in his own mind. He supposed he needed to satisfy himself about Kallendbor and the bottle—that matters were as Rhyndweir’s Lord had declared them to be and not as Questor feared.

He reached the great hall without being seen, bypassed its entrance and the sentries standing watch in favor of a connecting anteroom, eased the anteroom door open, then closed it softly behind him. He stood there in the darkness for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. He knew this castle as he knew all the castles of Landover. This one, like most of the others, was a maze of connecting halls and rooms, some known, some secret. He’d learned much that he wasn’t necessarily intended to learn while carrying messages in the service of the old King.

When his sight grew sharp enough to permit it, he moved across the room to a shadowed nook, touched a wooden peg in the wall, and pushed gently on the panel it secured. The panel swung back, giving him a clear view of what lay beyond.

Kallendbor sat in a great chair facing the hearth, the bottle with its painted clowns resting loosely in his lap. His face was flushed and his smile an odd grimace. The Darkling skittered about the room, going first to this, then to that, eyes as bright as the flames blazing in the hearth, but infinitely more wicked. Questor found he could not stare into those eyes comfortably for more than an instant.

Kallendbor called, and the Darkling scampered up his arm and rubbed itself against him like a cat. “Master, great master, such strength as I feel in you!” it purred.

Kallendbor laughed, then said to it, “Leave me, creature! Go play!”

The Darkling dropped down again, skittered across the stone floor to the open hearth, and leaped into the fire. Dancing about, the creature played with the flames as if they were cool water.

“Black thing!” Kallendbor hissed. Questor saw him raise an ale mug rather unsteadily, the contents splashing down his front. Kallendbor was drunk.

Questor Thews thought seriously then of stealing the bottle and its loathsome inhabitant from the Lord of Rhyndweir and ending this nonsense once and for all. There would be little risk to himself. He could simply wait until the man tired of his game and returned the bottle to its hiding place, then nip the treasure for himself, collect the Kobolds and the G’home Gnomes, and disappear.

It was a most tempting thought.

But he decided against it. First, everyone who had stolen the bottle had come to a bad end. Second, Questor had never been a thief and did not relish the thought of starting now. Finally, Kallendbor had said he would return the bottle after he finished with it and he deserved the benefit of the doubt. He had always been—despite his other obvious failings—a man of his word.

Reluctantly, Questor set the thought aside.

He risked a final look into the room. Kallendbor sat slumped in his chair, staring at the hearth. Within its flames, the Darkling was laughing and dancing gleefully.

Questor let the wall panel swing shut again, shook his grizzled head doubtfully, and departed for his room.



Dawn brought an end to the rains, with skies swept clear of clouds and gloom and colored once more a vast, depthless blue. Sunshine flooded the valley, and even the dark, catacombed recesses of Rhyndweir seemed bright and new.

Questor and his companions were awakened at first light by a knock on their bedchamber door and a message from Kallendbor. They were to dress and join him for breakfast, the young page announced. After that, they would be going for a ride.

The G’home Gnomes had long since had enough of Kallendbor and begged Questor to be allowed to stay in their rooms where they could draw the window coverings closed again and snuggle safely in the darkness. Questor shrugged and agreed, inwardly relieved that he would not have to contend with their constant whining while dealing with the problem of how to get the bottle back from Kallendbor before he caused any mischief with it. He assigned Parsnip to keep watch over them and arranged for breakfast to be delivered to their rooms. Then, with Bunion in tow, he hurried out to join Rhyndweir’s Lord.

Breakfast was almost completed, however, before Kallendbor appeared, armored head to foot and bristling with weapons. In one gloved hand he carried a sack containing an object that was almost certainly the bottle. He greeted Questor perfunctorily and beckoned him to follow.

They went down to the main courtyard. Several hundred knights in full battle dress waited with their mounts. Kallendbor called for his own horse, saw to it that Questor was provided with his gray, mounted, and wheeled the knights into formation. Questor had to hurry to keep up. The gates opened, the portcullis rose with a screech of metal, and out the column rode.

Questor Thews was brought to the forefront to ride directly beside Kallendbor. Bunion raced off on his own, on foot as always, anxious to keep himself clear of the dust and noise of the horsemen. Questor looked once or twice to find him, but the kobold was as invisible as air. The wizard quickly gave up searching and directed his efforts instead to the task of discovering what Kallendbor was up to.

The Lord of Rhyndweir appeared to have no intention of disclosing that information, all but ignoring Questor as he led his men down the rutted roadway through the town. People appeared in the doors and windows of the shops and cottages, and a few halfhearted calls and whistles trailed after. No one in the town had any idea what Kallendbor was about, or cared much, for that matter. They wanted to be kept safe—that was all that really mattered to them. Kallendbor had never been a popular ruler—just a strong one. Twenty Lords ruled the Greensward, but Kallendbor was the most powerful and his people knew it. He was the one Lord to whom the others all deferred. He was the Lord no one dared challenge.

Until now, it seemed.

“I am betrayed, Questor Thews!” Kallendbor was suddenly telling him. “I am beset at every turn in a way I would never have believed possible! Betrayed, mind you, not by my enemies, but by my fellow Lords! Stosyth, Harrandye, Wilse! Lords I thought I could trust—Lords who, at least, were too cowed to act if I did not approve!” Kallendbor’s face was scarlet. “But Strehan is the one who surprised and disappointed me most, Questor Thews—Strehan, the closest of them all to me! Like an ungrateful child who bites its father’s tending hand!”

He spit into the dirt as they rode, the column winding down across the bridge and out into the grasslands. Leather battle harnesses creaked, metal fastenings clanked, horses snorted and nickered, and men called out. Questor tried to picture the tall, shambling, dour Strehan as a child of any sort, ungrateful or otherwise, and found the task beyond him.

“They have built this … this tower, Questor Thews!” Kallendbor snapped in fury. “The four of them! Built it at the falls of the Syr, at the juncture of my lands! They tell me it is an outpost, nothing more. They apparently take me for a fool! It stands taller than the walls of Rhyndweir, and its battlements shadow the whole of my eastern borders! If they should choose, they could close off the river itself and dam up the waters that feed my fields! This tower offends me, wizard! It hurts me in ways I would not have thought I could be hurt!”

He bent close as they rode. “I would have destroyed it the moment I discovered it but for the fact that the combined armies of these four dogs guard it as one! I have not the strength to break them without so decimating my own armies as to leave me weakened and vulnerable to all! So I have been forced to endure this … this aberration!”

He jerked upright again, eyes bits of ice. “But no more!”

Questor saw it all instantly. “My Lord, the magic of the bottle is too dangerous …”

“Dangerous!” Kallendbor cut him short with a vicious chop of one hand. “Nothing is more dangerous than this tower! Nothing! It must be destroyed! If the magic can serve my needs, then I will chance whatever danger it poses and gladly!”

He wheeled ahead, and Questor was left with a mouthful of dust and a feeling of helplessness in the face of what was surely to come.

They rode northeast toward the Melchor through the remainder of the morning until at last, as the midday approached, the falls of the Syr came into view. There was the tower, a massive, stone-block fortress situated on the bluff at the edge of the falls where they spilled down into the valley. It was indeed a monstrous thing, all black and bristling with battlements and repelling devices. Armed men stalked its parapets, and riders patrolled its causeways. Trumpets and shouts sounded at the approach of Kallendbor’s knights, and the tower stirred to life as if a sluggish giant.

The Lord of Rhyndweir signaled for a halt, and the column pulled up at the river’s edge some several hundred yards beyond the base of the bluff and the fortress tower. Kallendbor sat looking at the tower for a moment, then called forward one of his knights.

“Tell those in the tower that they have until midday to leave,” he instructed. “Say to them, at midday the tower will be destroyed. Now, go.”

The knight rode off and Kallendbor had the column stand down. They waited. Questor considered once again saying something to Kallendbor about the danger of using the bottle’s magic, but decided against it. It was pointless to argue the matter further; Kallendbor’s mind was made up. The wiser course of action was to allow Rhyndweir’s Lord to have his way for the moment, but to get the bottle back from him immediately after this business was finished. Questor Thews was not happy with the prospect, but it seemed to him that he had no other reasonable choice.

He stood next to his gray, his tall frame stooped beneath his patchwork robes as he stared off into the distance and thought suddenly of the High Lord and of Abernathy. Thinking of them distressed him further. He certainly had not done much to help either of them in this matter so far, he thought dismally.

The messenger returned. The men in the tower would not be leaving, he reported. They had simply laughed at the ultimatum. They had suggested that Kallendbor leave instead. Kallendbor grinned like a wolf when he heard the messenger’s report, fixed his gaze on the tower, and did not look away again as he awaited the arrival of midday.

When it came, Rhyndweir’s Lord grunted in satisfaction, climbed back aboard his mount, and said, “Come with me, Questor Thews.”

Together, they rode forward along the river’s edge for about a hundred yards, then stopped and dismounted. Kallendbor stood so that the horses blocked what he was doing from his waiting men. Then he brought out the sack from a saddle pouch and produced the brightly painted bottle.

“Now, we shall see,” he whispered softly, cradling his treasure.

He pulled free the stopper and out climbed the Darkling, squinting its reddened eyes against the sunlight. “Master!” it hissed softly, stroking its hands along Kallendbor’s gloved fingers. “What is it you wish?”

Kallendbor pointed. “Destroy that tower!” He paused, glancing briefly at Questor. “If your magic is strong enough, that is!” he added in challenge.

“Master, my magic is as strong as your life!” The demon spit the words out with a curl of its lip.

It climbed down from the bottle and skittered off across the ground, over the river’s waters as if they were nothing more than a walkway, and out into the plains directly below the bluff where the fortress stood. There it stopped. It did nothing for a moment, gazing upward. Then it seemed to jump and whirl, to dance about in a sudden profusion of colored light, and a monstrous horn appeared out of nowhere. The demon darted away to a point another hundred yards along the base of the bluff, and a second horn appeared. It darted away again, and a third appeared.

The demon stood back then and pointed, and the horns began to sound—a long, deep, mournful howl like the wailing of some great wind through an empty canyon.

“See!” Kallendbor whispered in delight.

The wailing was causing the whole of the land about them to quake, but nowhere more so than atop the bluff where the offending tower sat. The tower shuddered as if it were a stricken beast. Cracks began to appear along its seams, and stone blocks began to loosen. Kallendbor and Questor Thews braced. The sound of the horns rose, and now the horses were stamping and rearing, and Kallendbor had to seize the reins of both and hold them fast to keep them from fleeing.

“Demon spawn!” the Lord of Rhyndweir cried with a howl.

The horns reached a new pitch, and the land split apart all about them in deep cracks and crevices. The bluff was shattered, and the tower was turned into an avalanche of crumbling rock. Men screamed from within. The walls exploded into rubble in an instant’s time, and the whole of the tower collapsed. Down it tumbled to the plains and the river’s waters and was gone.

Then the horns disappeared, and the sound of their wailing faded into silence. The land was still again, empty save for the awestruck men of Rhyndweir and the cloud of dust and silt that rose above the rubble of the shattered tower.

The Darkling skittered back across the river and bounded up once more onto the lip of the bottle, its grin wicked and sharp. “Done, master!” it hissed. “Done at your command!”

Kallendbor’s face was alive with excitement. “Yes, demon! Such power!”

“Your power!” the Darkling soothed. “Yours only, master!”

Questor Thews did not care one bit for the look that crossed Kallendbor’s face when he heard that. “Kallendbor …” he started to say.

But the big man waved him into silence. “Back into the bottle, little one,” he commanded.

The Darkling slipped obediently from view, and Kallendbor replaced the stopper.

“Remember your promise,” Questor tried again, stepping forward to claim the bottle.

But Kallendbor snatched it away. “Yes, yes, Questor Thews!” he snapped. “But only when I am finished! Only then. I may have … other uses yet.”

Without waiting for the wizard’s response, he mounted his horse and rode quickly away. Questor Thews stood there, staring after him. He turned back one final time to gaze up at the empty space where only moments earlier the tower had stood. All those men dead, he thought suddenly. And Kallendbor barely gave them a thought.

He shook his head worriedly and pulled himself back up on his frightened gray.

He knew already that Kallendbor was never going to return the bottle to him. He was going to have to take it back.



He returned to Rhyndweir lost in thought, the day slipping into evening almost before he knew it. He ate dinner in his room with the gnomes and Parsnip. Kallendbor left him there willingly, making no effort to insist on his presence in the dining hall. Kallendbor did not attend himself. There were clearly other matters of more pressing concern for the Lord of Rhyndweir.

Questor was halfway through his meal when he realized that Bunion had failed to return. He had no idea what had become of the little kobold. No one had seen anything of him since early morning.

When dinner was finished, Questor took a walk to clear his thoughts, found that they were too murky to do so, and returned to his bedchamber to sleep. He went to bed still wondering what had become of Bunion.

It was after midnight when the bedchamber door burst open and Kallendbor stalked through. “Where is it, Questor Thews?” he shouted in fury.

Questor looked up from his pillow, sleepy-eyed, and tried to figure out what was happening. Parsnip was already between him and the Lord of Rhyndweir, hissing in warning, teeth gleaming brightly. The G’home Gnomes were cowering under the bed. Torchlight cast a harsh glare from the hallway beyond and there were armed men milling about uncertainly.

Kallendbor loomed over him, an angry giant. “You will return it to me at once, old man!”

Questor rose, indignant now. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you …”

“The bottle, Questor Thews—what have you done with the bottle?”

“The bottle?”

“It is missing, wizard!” Kallendbor was livid. “Stolen from a room locked all around and guarded at every entrance! No ordinary man could have accomplished that! It would have required someone who could enter and leave without being seen—someone like yourself!”

Bunion! thought Questor instantly. A kobold could go where others could not and not be seen doing it! Bunion must have …

Kallendbor reached for Questor, and only the sight of Parsnip’s bared teeth kept him from seizing the wizard’s thin neck. “Give it to me, Questor Thews, or I’ll have you … !”

“I do not have the bottle, my Lord!” Questor snapped in reply, pushing forward bravely to confront the other. Kallendbor was as big as a wall.

“If you do not have it, then you know where it is!” the other rasped in fury. “Tell me!”

Questor took a deep breath. “My word is known to be good everywhere, my Lord,” he said evenly. “You know that to be so. I do not lie. The truth is exactly as I have told you. I do not have the bottle nor do I know where it is. I have seen nothing of it since this morning when you took it away.” He cleared his throat. “I warned you that the magic was dangerous and that—”

“Enough!” Kallendbor wheeled away and stalked back to the open door. When he reached it, he wheeled back again. “You will stay as my guest a few days more, Questor Thews!” he said. “I think you would do well to pray that the bottle reappears in that time—one way or the other!”

He walked out, slamming the door behind him. Questor could hear the locks snapping into place and the sound of men taking up watch.

“We are being made prisoners!” he exclaimed in disbelief.

He started across the room, stopped, started forward again, stopped again, thought angrily of what the High Lord would do when he learned that his representatives were being held against their will by a land baron, and then remembered that the High Lord would do nothing because Ben Holiday wasn’t even in Landover anymore and wouldn’t know a thing about any of this.

In short, Questor realized dismally, he was on his own.



It was several hours later that Bunion reappeared. He did not come through the door, being no fool, but through the window of the tower wall. He tapped softly on the shutter until Questor opened it in curiosity and found him perched there on the window ledge. Below, it was a straight drop of at least sixty feet to the battlement wall.

The little kobold was grinning broadly, his teeth flashing. In one hand was a length of knotted rope. Questor peered out. Somehow Bunion must have scaled the castle wall to reach them.

“Come to rescue us, I see!” Questor whispered in excitement and smiled back. “You were right to do so!”

Bunion, it happened, had been as suspicious of Kallendbor’s intentions as Questor and had decided to keep an eye on things from a distance after witnessing the destruction of the tower. Kobolds, of course, could do that; you couldn’t see them if they didn’t want you to. That was the way of things with true fairy creatures. Bunion understood all too well the awesome power of the magic wielded by the Darkling and he did not think Kallendbor strong enough to resist its lure. Better that he remain hidden, he had decided, until he could be certain that Questor and the others would not become victims of Kallendbor’s misguided ambition. It was fortunate he had done so.

Questor helped the kobold crawl inside, and together they began tying one end of the knotted rope about a wall hook. The others were awake now as well, and Questor was quick to hush the gnomes into silence. The last thing he needed was for Fillip and Sot to start whining. They worked quickly and quietly, and the rope was firmly fastened in minutes. Then out the window they all went, one after the other, hand over hand down the castle wall. It was easy going for the kobolds and the gnomes, and only Questor was forced to work a bit at it.

Once safely down, they followed Bunion along the castle wall to a stairway and down that to a passage leading to an iron door that opened to the outside. Slipping through the dark, keeping within the shadows, they crossed to the back of the town and arrived at a shed where waited the horses and pack animals Bunion had somehow managed to retrieve.

Questor mounted his gray, put Fillip and Sot together on Jurisdiction, left the remaining animals to Parsnip’s care, and signaled for Bunion to lead them out. Slowly, cautiously, they made their way through the sleeping town, crossed the bridge, and disappeared into the night.

“Farewell and good riddance, Lord Kallendbor!” Questor shouted back once they were safely into the grasslands.

He was feeling considerably better about things. He had extracted himself and his friends from a difficult situation before any harm had been done to them. He neatly sidestepped the fact that it was Bunion who had actually rescued them by telling himself that it was his leadership that had made it all possible. He was free now to resume his duties and to carry out the responsibilities that had been given him. He would prove his worth to the High Lord yet!

There was only one problem. Bunion, it turned out, didn’t have the missing bottle after all. Someone else had stolen it—someone who, like Bunion, could get in and out of a heavily guarded room without being seen.

Questor Thews knotted his owlish face in thought.

Now who could that someone be?

SHOW TIME



When the phone finally rang, Ben Holiday almost broke his leg falling over a chair in his eagerness to catch the call.

“Damn! Hello?”

“Doc? I’m here, finally,” Miles Bennett said through the receiver. “I’m downstairs in the lobby.”

Ben breathed a long, audible sigh of relief. “Thank God!”

“You want me to come up?”

“Immediately.”

He hung up the phone, collapsed onto the nearby sofa, and rubbed his sore leg ruefully. Salvation, at last! He had been waiting four days for Miles to arrive with the information on Michel Ard Rhi and Abernathy—four long, endless days of being cooped up in the opulent confines of the Shangri-La. Miles had wired the promised money, so at least he had been able to avoid starvation and eviction. But it hadn’t been possible to leave the room for more than an hour or two each day—always late at night or early in the morning. Willow simply drew too much attention.

Besides, the sylph had not been feeling well ever since their arrival from Landover.

He glanced over to where she sat naked in a pool of sunlight on the balcony just outside the sliding glass doors that opened off the living room of their suite. She sat there every day, sometimes for hours, staring out into the desert, face lifted toward the sun, perfectly still. It seemed to help her to be exposed like that, so he left her alone. He figured that it had something to do with her amorphous physiology, that the sunlight was good for both the animal and plant parts of her. Nevertheless, she seemed listless and wan, her coloring not quite right, her energy mysteriously depleted. At times, she appeared disoriented. He was very worried about her. He was beginning to believe that something either present or lacking in the environment of his world was causing the problem. He wanted to finish this business with Abernathy and the missing medallion and get Willow safely back to Landover.

He got up, walked into the bathroom, and splashed some cold water on his face. He hadn’t slept well these past few days, too keyed up, too anxious to do something and end this waiting. He toweled his face dry and gazed at himself in the mirror. He looked healthy enough, he decided, except for his eyes. His eyes were tiny roadmaps. That came from lack of sleep and reading two or three paperback novels a day to keep from going stir crazy.

A knock sounded on the door. He tossed aside the towel, crossed the room, and squinted into the peephole. It was Miles. He released the latch and pulled open the door.

“Hiya, Doc,” Miles greeted, extending his hand.

Ben took it and pumped it vigorously. Miles hadn’t changed a bit—still the big, baby-faced teddy bear with the rumpled suit and the winning smile. He was carrying a leather briefcase under one arm. “You look good, Miles,” he said and meant it.

“You look like a damn yuppie,” Miles replied. “Running suit and Nikes, camped out in the Shangri-La, waiting for nightfall and the lights of the city. Except you’re too old. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure you can.” He stepped aside to let his old friend into the room, checked both ways down the outside hall, then closed the door behind them. “Find a comfortable seat, why don’t you?”

Miles moved across the room, admiring the furnishings, whistling softly at the fully stocked bar, and then suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. “For Christ’s sake, Doc!”

He was staring through the sliding glass doors at Willow.

“Nuts!” Ben exclaimed in dismay. He had forgotten all about Willow.

He went into the bedroom, took down a bathrobe, and went out onto the balcony. He placed the robe gently around Willow’s slender shoulders. She looked up at him questioningly, her eyes distant and haunted.

“Miles is here,” he told her quietly.

She nodded and rose to join him. They walked back into the living room to confront the still-paralyzed man who was clutching his briefcase like a shield. “Miles, this is Willow,” he said.

Miles seemed to remember himself. “Oh, yeah, pleased to meet you … Willow,” he stammered.

“Willow is from Landover, Miles,” Ben explained. “From where I live now. She’s a sylph.”

Miles looked at him. “A what?”

“A sylph. A mix of wood nymph and water sprite.”

“Sure.” Miles smiled uneasily. “She’s green, Doc.”

“That’s just her coloring.” Ben was suddenly uncomfortable. “Look, why don’t we sit down on the sofa and have a look at what you brought, Miles.”

Miles nodded, his eyes still on Willow. The sylph smiled briefly, then turned and moved off into the bedroom. “You know, it’s a good thing I’m standing here having this conversation with you, Doc, and actually seeing this girl, rather than hearing about her over the phone,” Miles said quietly. “Otherwise, I’d be tempted to write you off as a certified nut case.”

Ben smiled. “I don’t blame you.” He dropped onto the sofa and motioned Miles to join him.

“A sylph, huh?” Miles shook his head. “So all that stuff about a world of magic with dragons and fairy creatures was real after all. That right, Doc? Was it all real?”

Ben sighed. “Some of it, anyway.”

“My God.” Miles slowly sat down beside him, a stunned look on his face. “You aren’t kidding me, are you? It really exists? Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? I can see it in your face. And that girl … she’s, well, she’s beautiful, different, something like you’d imagine would live in a fairy world. Damn, Doc!”

Ben nodded. “We can talk about it some more later, Miles. But what about the information I asked you to get? Any luck?”

Miles was staring at Willow through the bedroom door as she undraped the bathrobe and stepped off into the shower. “Uh, yeah,” he said finally. He unsnapped his briefcase and pulled out an orange-colored file. “Here’s what the investigators got on this Michel Ard Rhi character. And, believe me, he’s a character with a capital C.”

Ben accepted the file, opened it, and quickly began to scan its contents. The first page offered general history. Michel Ard Rhi. Birthplace, parents, age, early history all unknown. A financier, mostly through private concerns. Net worth estimated at two hundred twenty-five million dollars. Lived outside Woodinville, Washington—Washington?—in a castle purchased and then shipped, block by block, from Great Britain. Unmarried. No hobbies, no clubs, no organizations.

“Not much here,” he remarked.

“Keep reading,” Miles said.

He did. On the second page, it began to get interesting. Michel Ard Rhi kept his own private army. He had helped finance several revolutions in foreign countries. He owned pieces of banking institutions, major arms corporations, even a few foreign government–subsidized industries. There was a suggestion that he might be involved in a good deal more, but there was no hard evidence. He had been charged with various criminal acts, mostly fraud related to SEC violations, although there was something about animal cruelty, but he had never been convicted. He traveled extensively, always with bodyguards, always by private transport.

Ben closed the file. “Washington, huh? I don’t get it. I was sure Las Vegas was where we would find …”

“Wait a minute, Doc,” Miles interrupted quickly. “There’s something more, something that just turned up yesterday. It’s pretty farfetched, but it might tie in somehow with this guy being up there in Washington.”

He dug through his briefcase and extracted a single sheet of typed paper. “Here we go. The investigators threw this in after I told them I wanted anything they could find on a talking dog. Seems one of them has some contacts in the scandal sheet business. Listen to this. Some fellow living in Woodinville, Washington—same place, right—tried to make a deal with Hollywood Eye for a hundred thousand dollars cash on delivery for an exclusive interview and photo session with a genuine talking dog!”

“Abernathy!” Ben exclaimed immediately.

Miles shrugged. “Could be.”

“Did they give his name? The dog’s?”

“Nope. Just the man’s. Davis Whitsell. He’s a dog trainer and showman. But he lives right there in Woodinville, same place this Ard Rhi keeps his walled tower. What do you think?”

Ben sat forward, his mind racing. “I think it’s an awfully big coincidence, if that’s all it is. But, if not, what’s Abernathy doing with this Whitsell character instead of Ard Rhi? And what are Willow and I doing here? Could be Questor messed up with the magic and sent us to Nevada instead of to Washington. Damn! I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t deposit us in the Pacific Ocean!” He was thinking out loud to himself now, and Miles was staring at him. He smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m just trying to sort all this out. You did a heck of a job, Miles. Thanks.”

Miles shrugged. “You’re welcome. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on here?”

Ben studied his old friend a moment, then nodded. “I’m going to try. You deserve that much. You want a Glenlivet while we talk?”

Miles had his scotch, then another, then a third as Ben tried to explain the story behind Abernathy and the missing medallion. This, of course, necessarily involved some minimal description of Landover, and that, in turn, took them off on a variety of side trips. Ben didn’t tell Miles everything, particularly where it involved anything dangerous, because he knew it would only worry Miles. Willow appeared from the shower, and Ben sent down for dinner. Miles seemed to grow more comfortable in the sylph’s presence after a time, and she in his, and they began to talk with each other like real people. Much of what Miles had to say to Willow left her mystified, and much of what she had to say to him left him speechless—but they got along. The evening wore on, the questions mostly got answered, and the lights of the strip began to brighten the casinos and lounges against the night skies.

Finally, Willow drifted off to bed, and Miles and Ben were left alone. Ben poured them a brandy from the bar stock, and they sat together staring out the window.

“You have a place to stay?” Ben said after a time. “I never thought to check.”

Miles nodded, his gaze distant. “Down a floor or two. Down with the commoners. I booked it with the plane tickets.”

“That reminds me.” Ben was on his feet. “I have to call the airport right now for a flight out tomorrow.”

“Washington?”

Ben nodded. “Where the heck is Woodinville?” he called back as he crossed to the phone.

“North of Seattle.” Miles stretched. “Make sure you make reservations for three.”

Ben stopped. “Wait a minute, you’re not going.”

Miles sighed. “Sure, I’m going. What do you think, Doc? That I’m leaving just when this is getting interesting? Besides, you might need me. You don’t have all the connections you used to. I do—not to mention credit cards and money.”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. This could be dangerous, Miles. Who knows what we’re up against with Michel Ard Rhi. I don’t like the idea—”

“Doc!” Miles cut him short. “I’m going. Make the call.”

Ben gave up arguing, made the reservations on an early morning PSA flight, and returned to the sofa. Miles was staring out the window again.

“Remember when we were kids and we did all that pretending? Remember how we created all those make-believe worlds to play in? I was thinking about how lucky you were to find one for real, Doc. Everyone else has to live with the world they’ve got.” He shook his head. “Not you. You get to live what others can only wish for.”

Ben didn’t say anything. He was thinking about how differently they looked at things. It was the difference in their realities. Landover was his reality; Miles had only this world. He remembered how desperately he had wished for exactly what he had now just two short years ago. He had forgotten about that. It was good to remember it again.

“I am pretty lucky,” he said finally.

Miles did not reply.

They sat together in silence, sipping brandy and letting their private dreams take shape in the playground of their thoughts.



Their flight out of Las Vegas was at 7:58 A.M. on PSA flight 726, a smaller jet making a single stopover in Reno on its way north to Seattle. They arrived early at the airport, camped out in an empty terminal until boarding, and took seats at the rear of the airplane to avoid drawing any more attention than was necessary. Ben had bound up Willow’s hair in a head scarf, covered her face with skin-toned foundation cream, and clothed her head to foot to hide her skin, but she looked like a walking sideshow nevertheless. Worse, she was more listless than ever. Her strength seemed to be simply draining away from her.

When they had taken off the second time out of Reno and Miles was dozing, she leaned over to Ben and whispered, “I know what troubles me, Ben. I need to nourish in the soil. I need to make the change. I think that is why I am so weak. I’m sorry.”

He nodded and hugged her close. He had forgotten about her need to transform from human to tree every twenty days. Perhaps he had simply blocked it away when he had agreed to bring her on this journey in the misguided hope that it wouldn’t prove to be a problem. But the twenty-day cycle had obviously come around again. She would have to be allowed to change.

But what would the elements in the soil of this world do to her body systems?

He didn’t like to think about it. It made him feel helpless. They were trapped here now, trapped until he found Abernathy and retrieved his medallion.

He took a deep breath, gripped Willow’s gloved hand tightly in his own, and leaned back in his seat. Just one more day, he promised silently. By tonight, he would be on Davis Whitsell’s doorstep, and his search would be over.



The phone rang in the living room, and Davis Whitsell pushed back his bowl of Wheaties, got up from the breakfast table, and hurried to answer it. Abernathy watched him through a crack in the bedroom door. They were alone in the house. Alice Whitsell had gone to visit her mother three days ago. Show dogs were one thing, she had said on leaving—talking dogs were something else. She would be back when the dog—if that’s what it really was in the first place—was gone.

Probably just as well, Davis had insisted afterward. It was easier to concentrate on things when Alice wasn’t running the TV or her mouth.

Abernathy didn’t know what he meant. What he did know was that as far as he could determine he was no closer to reaching Virginia than before. Despite his host’s repeated assurances that everything would be fine, he was beginning to grow suspicious.

He listened as Davis picked up the receiver. “Davis Whitsell.” There was a pause. “Yes, Mr. Stern, how are you? Uh, huh. Sure thing.” He sounded very eager. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there!”

Davis placed the receiver back on its cradle, rubbed his hands together briskly, cast a quick look down the hall in the direction of Abernathy’s bedroom, then picked up the phone again and dialed. Abernathy continued to stand at the door and listen.

“Blanche?” Whitsell said into the receiver. His voice was hushed. “Let me talk to Alice. Yeah.” He waited. “Alice? Listen, I only got a moment. I just got a call from the Hollywood Eye! Yeah, how about that? The Hollywood Eye! You thought I was nuts, didn’t you? One hundred thousand dollars for the interview, a few pictures, and out the door! When it’s done, I put the dog on the plane, wish him luck, and we get on with our lives—a hell of a lot richer and a hell of a lot better known. The Eye will have the exclusive, but the other magazines will pick up the story afterward. I’ll have more business than I know what to do with. We’re gonna be in the big bucks, girl! No more scratching and scrimping for us!” There was a brief pause. “Sure, it’s safe! Look, I gotta go. See you in a few days, okay?”

He hung up and went back into the kitchen. Abernathy watched him rinse the dishes and put them in the sink, then start down the hall toward the bedrooms. Abernathy hesitated, then moved back from the door to the bed and lay down, trying to look as if he were just waking.

Whitsell stuck his head through the door. “I’m going out for a bit,” he advised. “That guy I told you about, the one who’s going to provide the rest of the money we need to get you back to Virginia, is down at the motel waiting to talk to me. Then we’ll be coming back here for the interview. If you check out, we’re all set. So maybe you’d better get yourself ready.”

Abernathy blinked and sat up. “Are you sure all this is necessary, Mr. Whitsell? I feel rather uncomfortable with the idea of talking about myself and having pictures taken. I doubt that the High Lord … uh, my friend, would approve.”

“There you go with that High Lord’ business again,” Whitsell snapped. “Who is this guy, anyway?” He shook his head wearily when Abernathy just stared at him. “Look, if we don’t talk to the man with the money and let him take your picture, we don’t get the money. And if we don’t get the money, we can’t get you back to Virginia. As I told you before, the money Elizabeth gave you just isn’t enough.”

Abernathy nodded doubtfully. He wasn’t sure he believed that anymore. “How much longer until I can go?”

Whitsell shrugged. “Day, maybe two. Just be patient.”

Abernathy thought he had been patient long enough, but he decided not to say so. Instead, he stood up and started for the bathroom. “I will be ready when you return,” he promised.

Whitsell left him there, passed back through the living room, pausing to scratch Sophie’s ears affectionately, went out the side door into the carport, and got into his old pickup. Abernathy watched him go. He knew he was being used, but there was no help for it. He had no one else he could turn to and nowhere else he could go. The best he could do was hope that Whitsell would keep his word.

He walked into the living room and peered out the window long enough to see the pickup back out the driveway and turn up the street.

He paid no attention at all to the black van parked across the way.



Somewhere down the hall, the old clock ticked methodically in the stillness. Abernathy stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at himself. Four days were gone since he had escaped Michel Ard Rhi and Graum Wythe, and Landover seemed as far away as ever. He sighed and licked his nose, rethinking his options. If this business of the interview and the pictures didn’t produce results, he guessed he was simply going to have to bid Davis Whitsell good-bye and strike out on his own. What other choice did he have? Time was running out on him. He had to find a way to get the medallion safely back to the High Lord.

He cleaned his teeth, brushed his fur, and studied himself some more in the mirror. He was looking much better than he had on his arrival, he decided. Eating and sleeping like a regular person did wonders for one.

He toweled his paws absently. Too bad Mrs. Whitsell had felt it necessary to leave. He couldn’t understand why she had been so upset …

He thought he heard something and started to turn.

That was when the immobilizing spray hit him in the face. He staggered back, choking. A cord wound about his muzzle and a sack came over his head. He was lifted off his feet and carried out. He struggled weakly, but the hands that held him were strong and practiced. He could hear voices, hushed and hurried, and through a small tear in the sack he caught a glimpse of a black van with its rear doors open. He was tossed inside and the doors slammed shut.

Then something sharp jabbed into his backside, and he was engulfed in blackness.

LOVE SONG



Day slipped away into evening in the country of the River Master, and the fairy folk of Elderew put aside their work and began to light the lamps of the tree lanes and pathways in preparation for the coming of night. All through the massive old trees which cradled their city, they darted—along limbs and branches, up and down gnarled trunks, through steadily lengthening shadows and thickening mist. Sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, pixies, elementals of all forms and shapes, they were the creatures of the fairy world that surrounded the valley of Landover, creatures who were exiled or had fled from lives in which they had found no pleasure, though such lives had lasted an eternity.

The River Master stood at the edge of a park fronting his hidden forest city and mused on dreams of paradise lost. He was a tall, lean man, dressed in robes of forest green, a sprite with grainy, silver skin, gills at the side of his neck that fluttered gently as he breathed, hair that grew thick and black on his head and forearms, and an odd, chiseled face with eyes that were flat and penetrating. He had come into Landover at the time of its inception, bringing his people with him, exiled forever by choice from the mists of fairy. Mortal now, in a sense he had never appreciated in his old life, he lived in the seclusion of the lake country and worked to keep its earth, water, air, and life forms clean and safe. He was a healer sprite, capable of giving back life where it had been stolen. But some wounds refused to heal, and the irretrievable loss of his birth home was a scar that would always be with him.

He walked a few steps closer to the city, conscious of the guards who trailed at a respectful distance to allow him his privacy. Five of eight moons glimmered full in the night sky, colors bright against the black—mauve, peach, jade, burnt rose, and white.

“Paradise lost,” he whispered, thinking still of the haunting dreams of the fairy mists. He looked around. “But paradise gained, too.”

He loved the lake country. It was the heart and soul of his people, the exiles and the wanderers who had banded with him to begin anew, to discover and build for themselves and their children a world of beginnings and ends, a world of no absolutes—a world they could not find within the mists. Elderew lay hidden within marshlands, deep within a sprawling maze of forests and lakes, so well concealed that no one could find a way in or out without the help of its denizens. Those who tried simply disappeared in the mire. Elderew was a haven from the madness of those in the valley that could not appreciate the value of life—the land barons of the Greensward, the trolls and gnomes of the mountains, the monsters driven from fairy who still survived after a millennium of war. Destruction and misuse of the land was the trademark of such beings. But here, in the sanctuary of the River Master, there was peace.

He watched a dance procession begin to form at the edge of the park before him, a line of children draped in flowers and bright cloth and bearing candles. They sang and wound their way along the paths, over the waterway bridges, and through the gardens and hedgerows. He smiled as he watched them, content.

It was better now in the lands beyond the lake country, he reflected, than it had been before the coming of Ben Holiday. The High Lord of Landover had done much to heal the breach that existed between the disparate peoples of the valley; he had done much to encourage preservation and conservation of the land and its life. Holiday judged rightly—as the River Master did—that all life was inextricably bound together and that if one tie was cut, others were endangered as well.

Willow had gone with the High Lord, Willow his child—chosen, she claimed, in the manner of the sylphs of old, by fates that were woven in the grasses on which her parents lay at her conception. Willow believed in Ben Holiday. The River Master found her belief enviable.

He breathed deeply the night air. Not that his opinions mattered much these days with the High Lord. Holiday was still angry with him for attempting to trap the black unicorn and harness its powers some months back. Holiday had never been able to accept the fact that fairy power belonged only to fairy creatures because they, alone, understood its use.

He shook his head. Ben Holiday had been good for Landover, but he still had much to learn.

There was a small disturbance off to his left, and it brought him about. Onlookers to the dancing of the children had moved rapidly aside as a pair of his marsh sentries stalked out of the gloom of the lowlands mist with a singularly frightening creature between them. Hardened veterans, their grainy wood faces as fixed as stone, the wood nymphs nevertheless kept a fair amount of distance between themselves and their charge. The River Master’s guards started to close about him instantly, but he quickly waved them back. It would serve no purpose to show fear. He stood his ground and let the creature approach.

The creature was called a shadow wight. It was a form of elemental whose physical self had been ravaged at some point in its existence for an unspeakable deed or misuse so that, while it did not die, all that remained of it was its spirit. That poor life was consigned to an eternity of nonbeing. It could sustain itself only within shadows and dark spots, never within light. It had been denied its body and so had no real presence. What presence it possessed it was forced to construct from the debris of its haunts and the remains of its victims. A succubus, it stole life from others so that it, in turn, could survive, thieving and robbing from the lost and dying as a scavenger would. There were few of these horrors left in the valley now, most having perished with the passing of the ages.

This one, the River Master thought darkly, was particularly loathsome.

The shadow wight came to him on spindly, warped legs that might have belonged to an aged troll. Its arms were the limbs of some animal; its body was human. It possessed gnome hands and feet, a human child’s fingers, and a face that was a mix of ravaged parts.

It bore in one hand an old woven sack.

It smiled, and its mouth seemed to twist in a silent scream. “Lord River Master,” it said, its voice an echo of empty caverns. It bowed crookedly.

“It came to us without being brought,” one of the sentries informed the River Master pointedly.

The Lord of the lake country people nodded. “Why have you come?” he asked the wight.

The shadow wight straightened unsteadily. Light passed through its misshapen body at the ragged joining of its bones. “To offer a gift—and to ask one.”

“You found your way in; find your way out again.” The River Master’s face was as hard as stone. “Life will be my gift to you; ridding yourself from my presence will be your gift to me.”

“Death would be a better gift,” the shadow wight whispered, and its empty eyes reflected the distant candlelight. It turned to where the children still danced, wetting its lips with its tongue. “Look at me, Lord River Master. What creature that lived in all the worlds of all the times that are or ever were is more pathetic than I?”

The River Master did not respond, waiting. The wight’s empty gaze shifted again. “I will tell you a story and ask that you listen, nothing more. A few quick moments that might be of interest, Lord River Master. Will you hear me?”

The River Master almost said no. He was so repulsed by the creature that he had barely been able to tolerate its presence this long. Then something caused him to relent. “Speak,” he commanded wearily.

“Two years now have I lived within the crawl spaces and dark spots of the castle of Rhyndweir,” the shadow wight said, edging a step closer, its voice so low that only the River Master could hear. “I lived on the wretches the Lord of that castle cast into its keep and on those poor creatures who strayed too far from the light. I watched and learned much. Then, this past night gone, a ruined troll brought to Rhyndweir’s Lord a treasure to sell, a treasure of such wondrous possibilities that it surpassed anything I had ever seen! The Lord of Rhyndweir took the treasure from the troll and had him killed. I, in turn, took it from the Lord of Rhyndweir.”

“Kallendbor,” said the River Master distastefully. He bore no great affection for any of the Lords of the Greensward, Kallendbor least of all.

“I stole it from his sanctuary while he slept, stole it from beneath the noses of his watch because, after all, Lord River Master, they are only men. I stole it, and I brought it to you—my gift for a gift in return!”

The River Master fought back the wave of revulsion that passed through him as the shadow wight laughed hollowly. “What is this gift?”

“This!” the wight said and pulled from the sack it carried in its withered pink hand a white bottle with red dancing clowns.

“Ah, no!” the River Master cried in recognition. “I know this gift well, shadow wight—and it is no gift at all! It is a curse! It is the bottle of the Darkling!”

“It calls itself so,” the other said, coming closer still, so close its breath was warm against the River Master’s skin. “But it is indeed a gift! It can give the bearer of the bottle …”

“Anything!” finished the River Master, shying away despite his resolve. “But the magic it employs is evil beyond all words!”

“I care nothing for good or evil,” the wight said. “I care only for one thing. Listen to me, Lord River Master. I stole the bottle and I brought it to you. What you do with it now is of no concern to me. Destroy it, if you wish. But first use it to help me!” Its voice was a hiss of despair. “I want myself back again!”

The River Master stared. “Back again? That which you once were?”

“That! Only that! Look at me! I cannot bear myself longer, Lord River Master! I have lived an eternity of nonbeing, of shadowlife, of scavenging and horror beyond all words because I have had no choice! I have stolen lives from every quarter, thieved them from every being that is or was! No more! I want myself back; I want my life again!”

The River Master frowned. “What is it that you expect me to do?”

“Use the bottle to help me!”

“Use the bottle? Why not use it yourself, shadow wight? Haven’t you already said that the bottle can give the bearer anything?”

The wight was trying to cry, but there were no tears in its ruined body. “Lord River Master, I—can—give—myself—nothing! I cannot use the bottle! I have no being and cannot invoke the magic! I am … only barely here! I am only a shadow! All the magic in the world is useless to me! Look at me! I am helpless!”

The River Master stared at the shadow wight with newfound horror, seeing for the first time the truth of what its existence must be like.

“Please!” it begged, dropping to its knees. “Help me!”

The River Master hesitated, then took the sack from the creature’s extended hand. “I will consider it,” he said. He signaled back the watch. “Wait here for a time while I do so. And be careful you work no harm on any of my people, or the choice will be made for me.”

He moved away a bit, holding the sack loosely, slowed, and looked back. The shadow wight was crouched upon the earth, huddled like a broken thing, watching him. He had not the power to heal such a being, he thought wearily. And if the bottle’s magic should give him such power, had he even the right to try?

He turned sharply and walked away. He passed from the park into the city, passed by the dancers and the merrymakers, walked down pathways and along garden rows, lost in the barren landscape of his thoughts. He knew the power of the Darkling. He had known of its power for years, as he knew of the power of most magics. He remembered the uses to which it had been put by the old King’s careless son and the dark wizard Meeks. He understood the way such magic wove brightly colored ribbons about its holder and then turned them suddenly to chains.

The greater the power, the greater the risk, he reminded himself.

And power such as this could do almost anything.

He reached the edge of the city before realizing where he was. He stopped, looked back momentarily for his guards, found them trailing at a respectful distance as always, and promptly dismissed them. He needed to be by himself. The guards hesitated, then were gone.

The River Master walked on alone. What should he do? The bottle was his if he chose to help the shadow wight. It never occurred to him simply to keep the bottle and send the wight packing; he was not that sort. Either he would keep the bottle and help the wight as it had asked, or he would give the bottle back and dismiss the unfortunate creature from his life. If he chose the latter, there was nothing more to consider. If he chose the former, he must decide whether he could use the magic to aid the wight—and perhaps even himself in some way—without falling victim to its power.

Could he do that, he wondered?

Could anyone?

He stopped within a clearing of Bonnie Blues that rose twenty feet above him and screened the night skies in a webbing of deep azure silk. The sounds of the city trailed after him, faint now and distant—laughter, singing, the music and dancing of the children. The old pines were close at hand, the grove in which the wood nymphs danced at midnight, the place where he had first met Willow’s mother …

The thought trailed away in a wash of bitter memories. How long had it been? How long since he had seen her? He could still see her so clearly, even though he had been with her only that one night and lain with her only that once. She was the muse that tortured his soul still, a wondrous, nameless creature, a wood nymph so wild that he could never hope to possess her, not even for a single night more …

And then it came to him, a design so dark that it engulfed him as if he had been submerged in ice water.

“No!” he whispered in horror.

But why not? He stared down suddenly at the sack that contained the magic bottle—the bottle that could give him anything.

Why not?

The bottle needed testing. He must know if he could control it. He must know if he could help the shadow wight as it had asked him or if the magic was too strong to control. What harm, then, in indulging himself just this little bit, just this once.

Why not ask the Darkling to bring him Willow’s mother?

He went hot and cold at the same time, warmed by the thought of her presence after so long an absence, chilled by the prospect of using the magic thus. Ah, but the heat was so much stronger! He longed for the nymph as he had longed for nothing in his life. It had been seemingly forever! Nothing was so missing from his life as what she could bring to him …

“I must try!” he whispered suddenly. “I must!”

He walked swiftly through the woodlands, through the great, silent trees where only the night sounds could reach him, until at last he stood within the grove of old pines. The stillness there was pervasive, and it was only in his mind that he could hear the children’s laughter and see Willow’s mother dance once more.

He would not ask much, he told himself suddenly. He would only ask to see her dance for him—just dance.

The need to have her there again burned through him like a fever. He set the sack upon the earth and lifted out the brightly colored bottle. Red harlequins gleamed like blood drawings in the moonlight.

Quickly, he pulled free the stopper.

The Darkling crawled into the light like some loathsome insect. “Oh, sweet are your dreams, master!” it hissed and began to writhe about the lip of the bottle as if possessed. “Sweet longings that need to be fulfilled!”

“You can read my thoughts?” the River Master asked, sudden apprehension flooding through him.

“I can read your very soul, master,” the black thing whispered. “I can see the depth and height of your passion! Let me satisfy it, master! I can give you what you wish!”

The River Master hesitated. The gills at his neck fluttered almost uncontrollably, and his breathing was harsh in his ears. This was wrong, he thought suddenly. This was a mistake! The magic was too much …

Then the demon sprang upright on the bottle and wove its fingers through the air, conjuring from out of nowhere a vision of Willow’s mother. She danced in miniature in a cloud of silver, her face as lovely as it had ever been in the River Master’s memories, her dance a magic that transcended reason or restraint. She spun, whirled, and was gone.

The Darkling’s laughter was low and anxious. “Would you have her whole?” it asked softly. “In flesh and blood form?”

The River Master stood transfixed. “Yes!” he whispered finally. “Bring her! Let me see her dance!”

The Darkling sped from sight as if one of night’s shadows fleeing daylight. The River Master stood alone in the grove of old pines and stared after him, hearing again the music of the children, the bright, mesmerizing sounds of the dance. His silver skin glistened, and his hard, flat eyes were suddenly alive with expectation.

To see her dance again, to see her dance just once more …

Then, with the speed of thought, the Darkling was back again. It skittered through the ring of pines into the clearing, its laughter high and quick. It held in its hands lines of red fire that did not seem to burn, tugging on them in the manner of a handler.

The lines were secured at their other end to Willow’s mother.

She came into the light as if a dog at its master’s bidding, the lines of red fire fastened about her wrists and ankles, her slender form shaking as if from a chill. She was lovely, so small and airy, so much more alive than the pale vision the River Master still guarded deep within his memory. Silver hair fell waist-length and shimmered with every movement of her tiny limbs. Her skin was pale green like Willow’s, her face childlike. A gown of white gauze clothed her body, and a silver ribbon cinched her waist. She stood there, staring at him, her eyes filled with fear.

The River Master saw nothing of the fear. He saw only the beauty he had dreamed of all these many years, come finally to life. “Let her dance!” he whispered.

The Darkling hissed and jerked on the lines, but the frightened wood nymph simply crouched down against the earth, her face buried in her arms. She began to keen, a low, terrified cry that was almost birdlike.

“No!” the River Master shouted angrily. “I want her to dance, not cry as if stricken!”

“Yes, master!” the Darkling said. “She requires only a love song!”

The demon hissed once again, then began to sing—if singing it could be called. His voice was a harsh, rasping wail that caused the River Master to flinch from the sound and Willow’s mother to jerk upright as if possessed. The lines of red fire fell away, and the wood nymph stood free once more. Yet she was not truly free, for the voice of the demon bound her as surely as iron chains. It picked her up and moved her about like a puppet, forcing her to dance, compelling her to move to the music. All about the clearing, she whirled and spun, a seemingly lifeless, if perfectly formed bit of workmanship. She danced, yet the dance was not a dance of beauty, but only of forced motion. She danced, and while she danced, tears ran in streams down her child’s face.

The River Master was horrified. “Let her dance free!” he shouted in fury.

The Darkling glared at him with blood-red eyes, hissed in loathing, and changed the shape and form of its song to something so unmentionable that the River Master dropped to his knees at the sound. Willow’s mother danced faster, her speed of movement disguising now her lack of control. She was a blur of white gauze and silver hair as she spun recklessly, helplessly through the night.

She was destroying herself, the River Master realized suddenly! The dance was killing her!

Still she danced on, and the River Master watched, helpless to act. It was as if the magic bound him, too. He was caught up in its feel, a peculiar satisfaction welling up within him at the power it released. He recognized the horror of what was happening, yet could not break free. He wanted the dance to continue. He wanted the vision stayed.

Then suddenly he was screaming without knowing how or why, “Enough! Enough!”

The Darkling abruptly ceased its song, and Willow’s mother collapsed on the forest earth. The River Master dropped the bottle, rushed to where she lay, lifted her gently in his arms, and cringed as he saw the ravaged look on her face. She was no longer the vision he remembered; she was like some beaten thing.

He whirled on the Darkling. “You said a love song, demon!”

The Darkling skittered to the discarded bottle and perched there. “I sang the love song that was in your heart, master!” it whispered.

The River Master froze. He knew it was the truth. It was his song the Darkling had sung, a song born of selfishness and disregard, a song that lacked any semblance of real love. His impassive face tried to twist in on itself as he felt the pain well up from within. He turned to hide what he was feeling.

Willow’s mother stirred in his arms, her eyes fluttered and opened, and the fear returned to them instantly. “Hush,” he said quickly. “There will be no more harm done to you. You will be allowed to go.”

He hesitated, then impulsively he hugged her close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

His need for her in that moment was so great that he could barely bring himself to speak the words that would free her, but his horror at what he had done compelled him to. He saw the fear lessen perceptibly and the tears come again to her eyes. He stroked her gently, waited while her strength returned, then helped her to her feet. She stood there momentarily looking at him, glanced past him once in anguish at the creature who crouched upon the bottle’s lip, then whirled and fled into the forest like a frightened deer.

The River Master stared after her, seeing only the trees and the shadows, feeling the emptiness of the night all about him. He had lost her forever this time, he sensed.

He turned. “Back into the bottle,” he said softly to the demon.

The Darkling climbed obediently from view, and the River Master replaced the stopper. He stood there momentarily staring at the bottle and found that he was shaking. He jammed the bottle into the sack and stalked from the clearing back through the forest to the city. The sounds of the music and the dancing grew distinct again as he approached, but the feeling of joy they had given him earlier was completely gone.

He crossed torchlit bridges and wound down paths and garden walks, feeling the weight of the sack and its contents as if it were the burden of his guilt. Finally, he re-entered the park.

The shadow wight crouched where he had left it on the grass, dead eyes fixed on nothing. It rose at the approach of the River Master, impatience apparent in its movements. Poor soul, the River Master thought and suddenly wondered how much of his pity was meant for the wight.

He came up to the shadow wight and stood there for a moment, studying the creature. Then he handed back the sack with the bottle. “I cannot help you,” he said softly. “I cannot use this magic.”

“Cannot?”

“It is too dangerous—for me, for anyone.”

“Lord River Master, please …” the wight wailed.

“Listen to me,” the River Master interrupted gently. “Take this sack and drop it into the deepest pit of mire in the marshland you can find. Lose it where it can never be found. When you have done that, come back to me, and I will do what I can for you, using the healing powers of the lake country people.”

The shadow wight flinched. “But can you make me what I was?” it cried out sharply. “Can you do that with your powers?”

The River Master shook his head. “I think not. Not completely. I think no one can.”

The shadow wight shrieked as if bitten, snatched the sack with the bottle from his hands, and fled wordlessly into the night.

The River Master thought momentarily to pursue it, then changed his mind. As much as he disliked risking the possibility that the bottle might fall into other, less wise hands, he hadn’t the right to interfere. After all, the shadow wight had come to him freely; it must be let go the same way. There was nowhere for it to run in any case, if not to him. There was no one else who would wish to help it. Other creatures would be terrified of it. And it couldn’t use the magic of the bottle itself, so the bottle was useless to it. It would probably think the matter through and do as he had suggested. It would drop the bottle and its demon into the mire.

Distracted by thoughts of what he had done that night, haunted by memories of Willow’s mother in that clearing, he pushed the matter of the shadow wight from his mind.

He would regret later that he hadn’t been thinking more clearly.



The shadow wight fled north all that night, escaping from the marshland forests of the lake country into the wooded hills surrounding Sterling Silver and continuing on toward the wall of the mountains. It ran first without purpose, fleeing the intangibles of disappointment and despair, then discovered quite unexpectedly the purpose it had lacked and ran toward its promise. It sped from one end of the valley to the other, south from the lake country, north to the Melchor. It was as quick as thought, the shadow wight, as quicksilver as a kobold like Bunion, and it could be anywhere in almost no time.

As dawn approached, it found itself at the rim of the Deep Fell. “Mistress Nightshade will help me,” it whispered to the dark.

It started down the wall of the hollows, picking its way swiftly through undergrowth and over rock, the sack with the precious bottle held firmly in one hand. Light began to creep from behind the rim of the mountains, silver shards of brightness that lengthened and chased the shadows. The shadow wight pushed on.

When at last it reached the floor of the hollows, deep within the tangle of trees, scrub, marsh, and weeds, Nightshade was waiting. She materialized before him out of nothing, her tall, forbidding figure rising up from the shadows like a wraith’s, black robes stark against her white skin, the streak of white that parted her raven hair almost silver.

Green eyes studied the shadow wight dispassionately. “What brings you to me, shadow wight?” the witch of the Deep Fell asked.

“Lady, I bring a gift in exchange for a gift,” the wight whimpered, falling to its knees. “I bring a magic that …”

“Give it to me,” she commanded softly.

It handed the sack over obediently, unable to question or resist her voice. She took it, opened it, and lifted out the bottle. “Yessss!” she breathed in recognition, her voice a serpent’s hiss.

She cradled the bottle lovingly for a moment, then glanced back again at the shadow wight. “What gift would you have of me?” she asked it.

“Give me back my real self!” the wight exclaimed quickly. “Let me be as I was before!”

Nightshade smiled, her ageless face sharp and cunning. “Why, shadow wight, you ask so simple a gift. What you were before was what we all were once.” She bent down and touched him softly on his face. “Nothing.”

There was a flash of red light and the shadow wight disappeared. In its place was a huge dragonfly. The dragonfly buzzed and looped away as if maddened. It sped frantically across a bit of marshy swamp. Then something huge snapped at it from out of the mire, and it was gone.

Nightshade’s smile broadened. “Such a foolish gift,” she whispered.

Her gaze shifted. Sunlight streamed from out of the eastern skies overhead. The new day was beginning.

She turned with the bottle cradled in her arms and prepared to welcome it.

LOST AND FOUND



Ben Holiday turned the rental car into the drive of 2986 Forest Park, brought it to a stop, shut down the engine, and set the brake. He glanced briefly at Miles, who looked a little like what Bear Bryant used to on the sidelines, and then at Willow, who smiled at him through a mask of weariness and pain. Ben smiled back. It was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

They left the car and walked to the front stoop of the small, well-kept ranch home and knocked on the door. Ben could hear the sound of his pulse in his ears and he shifted his feet anxiously.

The door opened, and a lanky, bearded man with hollow eyes and a guarded look stood facing them. He was holding a can of beer in one hand. “Yeah?” His eyes fastened on Willow.

“Davis Whitsell?” Ben asked.

“Yeah?” Whitsell’s voice was a mix of fear and mistrust. He couldn’t stop staring at the sylph.

“Are you the man who has the talking dog?”

Whitsell continued to stare.

“The one who called Hollywood Eye?” Ben persisted.

Willow smiled. Davis Whitsell forced his eyes away. “You from the Eye?” he asked cautiously.

Miles shook his head. “Hardly, Mr. Whitsell. We’re from …”

“We represent another concern,” Ben interrupted quickly. He glanced about the empty neighborhood momentarily. “Do you suppose we could step inside and talk?”

Whitsell hesitated. “I don’t think …”

“You could finish your beer that way,” Ben interjected. “You could let the lady rest a moment, too. She’s not feeling very well.”

“I don’t have the dog anymore,” the other said suddenly.

Ben glanced at his companions. The uncertainty and concern mirrored in their faces was undisguised. “Could we come inside anyway, Mr. Whitsell?” he asked quietly.

Ben thought he was going to say no. He seemed right on the verge of saying it, closing the door, and putting them out of his life. Then something changed his mind. He nodded wordlessly and stepped aside.

When they were inside, he closed the door behind them and went over to sit in a well-worn easy chair. The house was dark and still, the blinds drawn, and the ticking of the old clock at the head of the hall the only sound. Ben and his companions sat together on the sofa. Whitsell took a long pull at his beer and looked at them. “I told you the dog was gone,” he repeated.

Ben exchanged a quick glance with Miles. “Where did he go?” he asked.

Whitsell shrugged, trying hard to be nonchalant. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You mean he just left?”

“Sorta. What difference does it make?” Whitsell leaned forward. “Who are you, anyway? Who do you represent? The Inquirer or something?”

Ben took a deep breath. “Before I tell you that, Mr. Whitsell, I have to know something from you. I have to know if we’re both talking about the same dog. We happen to be looking for a very particular dog—a dog that really does talk. Did this dog really talk, Mr. Whitsell? I mean, really talk?”

Whitsell suddenly looked very frightened. “I don’t think we should continue this,” he said abruptly. “I think you should go.”

None of them moved. Willow wasn’t even paying attention to him. She was making a strange, birdlike sound—a sound Ben had never heard before. It brought a tiny black poodle out from under the couch with a whine and into her lap as if they had been friends all their lives. The dog nuzzled the girl and licked her hand, and the girl stroked the animal fondly.

“She’s been badly frightened,” Willow said softly, to no one in particular.

Whitsell started to get up, then sat back again. “Why should I tell you anything?” he muttered. “How do I know what you want?”

Miles was drumming his fingers on his knee impatiently. “What we want is a little cooperation, Mr. Whitsell.”

They stared at each other for a moment. “You from the police?” Whitsell asked finally. “Some special branch, maybe? Is that what this is all about?” He seemed to think better of the question almost before he had finished asking it. “What am I thinking here? Police don’t use girls with green hair, for Pete’s sake!”

“No, we’re not police.” Ben stood up suddenly and walked about for a minute. How much should he tell this man? Whitsell had his eyes fixed on Willow again, watching the little dog nuzzle into the girl as she continued to pet it.

Ben made his decision. “Was the dog’s name Abernathy?”

He stopped walking and looked directly at Whitsell. The other man blinked in surprise. “Yeah, it was,” he said. “How did you know that?”

Ben came back and sat down again. “My name is Ben. This is Miles and Willow.” He pointed to the other two. “Abernathy is our friend, Mr. Whitsell. That’s how we know. He’s our friend, and we’ve come to take him home.”

There was a long moment of silence as they studied each other wordlessly, and then Davis Whitsell nodded. “I believe you. Don’t know why, exactly, but I do. I just wish I could help you.” He sighed. “But the dog’s … but Abernathy’s gone.”

“Did you sell him, Mr. Whitsell?” Miles asked.

“No, hell, no!” the other snapped angrily. “I never planned anything like that! I was just gonna make a few bucks off that interview with the Eye, then send him to Virginia, the way he wanted. Wasn’t no harm gonna come to him. But it was the chance I’d waited for all my life, don’t you see, the chance to get a little recognition, get off the circuit, maybe, and …”

He had leaned forward in the chair, but now he trailed off, spent, and slumped back again. “It doesn’t matter now, I guess. The point is, he’s gone. Someone took him.”

He took another long pull on his beer and put it down carefully on the table beside him, back into a glistening ring of condensation that the bottom of the can had formed earlier. “You’re really who you say you are?” he asked. “You’re really friends of Abernathy?”

Ben nodded. “Are you?”

“Yeah, though maybe you wouldn’t know it from all that’s happened.”

“Why don’t you tell us about it?”

Whitsell did. He started at the beginning, telling them about how he had gone to Franklin Elementary to do his show, how the little girl Elizabeth—hell, he didn’t even know her last name—had come up to him, asked his help. He told them about the dog, about Abernathy, coming to his door that night, a genuine talking dog walking upright like a man, saying the little girl sent him, that he needed to get back to Virginia for some reason or other, and that he couldn’t use a phone because there wasn’t any. Whitsell hadn’t believed a word of it. But he had agreed to help anyway, hiding Abernathy out in his home, packing Alice off to her mother’s, then trying to line up that interview with the Hollywood Eye so he could raise enough money to pay the cost of sending the dog to Virginia and maybe make a few bucks for himself in the bargain.

“But I got fooled,” he admitted sourly. “I was tricked out of the house. When I got back, Abernathy was gone, and poor old Sophie was stuffed in the freezer, half froze!” His gaze shifted momentarily to Willow. “That’s why she’s so skittish, Miss. She’s a very sensitive animal.” He looked back then at Ben. “I can’t prove it, of course, but I know sure as I sit here that the same fellow that had your friend caged up in the first place found out about what I was doing and took him back again! Trouble is, I don’t even know who he is. Not sure I want to, man like that.”

Then he seemed to realize how that sounded and reddened. He shook his head. “Sorry. Fact is, I could find out about him from the school, find out the little girl’s last name, where she lives. She’d know the man’s name. Hell, I’ll do it right now, mister, if you think it’ll help that dog! I feel terrible about this whole business!”

“Thanks anyway, but I think we already know the name of the man,” Ben said quietly. “I think we know where he is, too.”

Whitsell hesitated, surprised.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?”

Whitsell frowned. “No, I guess not. You think you can do something to help the dog—uh, Abernathy?”

Ben stood up without answering, and the others followed suit. Sophie jumped down from Willow’s lap and nuzzled her legs through her dress. The hem lifted slightly, and Whitsell caught a brief glimpse of silky emerald hair on the back of the sylph’s slender ankle.

“Thanks for your help, Mr. Whitsell,” Miles was saying.

“Look, you want me to go with you, maybe help out?” the other offered suddenly, surprising them. “This seems like pretty dangerous stuff, but I want to do my part …”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ben said. They moved toward the door.

Davis Whitsell followed. “I’d be worried about that little girl, too, if I were you,” he added. Sophie had returned to his side now, and he picked her up. “She might have been found out.”

“We’ll look into it. She’ll be all right.” Ben was already thinking about what to do next.

Whitsell saw them to the door and outside. The late afternoon sun was sinking rapidly below the horizon, the dusk turning the light silver. Shadows from shade trees and utility poles dappled and ribbed the neighborhood houses. A man with an insurance sign pasted on the side of his car was just pulling into a driveway down the block, the crunch of his tires on the gravel sharp in the stillness.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Davis Whitsell told them. He hesitated, then reached out to shake hands with the men, as if needing some small reassurance that they believed him. “Look, I don’t know who you are or where you’re from or what all this is about. But I do know this much. I never wanted anything bad to happen to Abernathy. Tell him that, will you? The little girl, too.”

Ben nodded. “I’ll tell them, Mr. Whitsell.”

He was hoping as he said it that he would have the chance.



In the country of Landover, the wizard Questor Thews was hoping much the same thing. He was not, however, optimistic.

Following their escape from the castle fortress of Rhyndweir, Questor, the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip, and the G’home Gnomes Fillip and Sot had journeyed south and east once more to the sanctuary of Sterling Silver. Questor and the kobolds had gone home because there really didn’t seem to be any alternative now that the trail of the missing bottle had come to an end. Questor still hadn’t been able to fathom who might have stolen the bottle from Kallendbor; until he could figure that out, he really hadn’t any idea where he ought to start looking again. Besides, affairs of state had been left alone for several days now and needed looking after in the High Lord’s absence.

The G’home Gnomes tagged along because they were still too frightened after their ordeal with the band of trolls to do anything else.

A message from the Lord Kallendbor in the form of a threat of immediate reprisal for the imagined theft of the bottle almost beat Questor back to the castle, but the wizard was undaunted. Kallendbor was hardly likely to challenge the power of the High Lord—unless, of course, he was to discover that Holiday was missing, heaven forbid!—however irritated he was about losing the bottle. Questor penned off a strongly worded reply on realm stationery repeating once again that he was in no way responsible for the theft of the bottle, nor were any of those in his company, and that any hostile response would be dealt with severely. He stamped it with the High Lord’s seal and dispatched it. Enough was enough.

During the next twenty-four hours, he met with a delegation of other Lords from the Greensward to address their grievances, including Strehan’s concerning the destruction of his tower by Kallendbor, advised the newly formed judicial council on establishment of courts to enforce the King’s Rule, studied irrigation charts that would enable farmers to cultivate portions of the arid eastern expanses of the valley, and heard ambassadors and others from all parts of the realm. He did this as representative of and advisor to the High Lord, assuring all that the King would give immediate attention to their concerns. No one questioned his word. Everyone still assumed that Holiday was somewhere in the valley, and Questor was not about to suggest otherwise. Everything went smoothly, and that first day expired without incident.

The first signs of trouble appeared with the next. Reports began to drift in of disturbances from all corners of the valley, a random scattering of raindrops that quickly grew into a downpour. Crag Trolls were suddenly, unexplainably skirmishing, not only with G’home Gnomes, but also with outlying residents of the Greensward, with kobolds and sprites, and even with each other. The lake country claimed it was being inundated with fouled water from the Greensward and infested by plant-eating rats. The Greensward complained that it was under siege from a flurry of small dragons that were burning crops and livestock alike. Fairy folk and humans were setting on one another as if fighting were a newly discovered form of recreation. As fast as Questor read one report, two more came in. He went to bed that night exhausted.

The third day was even worse. The reports had accumulated overnight, and on waking he was deluged. Everyone seemed to be at odds with everyone else. No one knew exactly why. There was hostility at every turn. No one knew what was causing it. Dissatisfaction quickly grew into a demand for action. Where was the High Lord? Why wasn’t he dealing with this mess personally?

Questor Thews began to smell a rat. He had already begun to suspect that the Darkling was somehow behind all this sudden unrest, and now he was beginning to suspect that the demon was serving the interests of someone whose primary concern was getting back at Ben Holiday. It seemed obvious to the wizard that the one clear purpose of all these unrelated incidents was to focus everyone’s anger on the High Lord. Excluding Kallendbor, who had already lost the bottle once and was unlikely to have gotten it back again so fast, the two who most wanted revenge on Holiday were the dragon Strabo and the witch Nightshade.

Questor considered the two.

Strabo was hardly likely to bother himself with magic where Holiday was concerned; he was more apt simply to try to flatten him.

Nightshade was another matter.

Questor left messengers and ambassadors alike to cool their heels in the reception rooms and ascended Sterling Silver’s high tower to where the Landsview was kept. He stepped onto the platform, fastened his hands on the polished railing, and willed himself out into the valley. Castle walls and towers disappeared, and Questor Thews was flying through space, swept away by the magic. He took himself directly across the valley to the Deep Fell and down within. Safe, because he was only seeing what was there and was not himself present, the wizard began to search for the witch. He didn’t find her. He took himself out of the hollows and crisscrossed the valley, end to end. He still didn’t find her.

He returned to Sterling Silver, went back down to the various reception rooms, addressed another spate of grievances, went back up to the Landsview, and went out again. He repeated this procedure four additional times that day, growing increasingly frustrated and concerned as the valley’s problems mounted, the outcry for an appearance by the High Lord grew, and his own efforts went unrewarded. He began to wonder if he was mistaken.

Finally, on his fifth trip out, he found the witch. He discovered her at the far north corner of the hollows, almost into the lower peaks of the Melchor, situated where her view of the valley was unobstructed.

She was holding the missing bottle, and the Darkling was rubbing its small, twisted, bristling dark form lovingly along one thin, white hand.

Questor returned to Sterling Silver, dismissed everyone for the day, and sat down to try to figure out what to do.

He couldn’t escape the fact that this whole mess was his fault. He was the one who had insisted on trying the magic that would have changed Abernathy back into a man. He was the one who had persuaded the High Lord to give his precious medallion to the dog so that it might act as a catalyst. He was the one who had then permitted the magic to go awry. He cringed at that admission. He was the one who had dispatched the poor scribe into Holiday’s old world and brought the bottle and the Darkling into his. He was the one who had allowed the bottle to sit unattended so that it might be stolen by the G’home Gnomes, the troll thieves, Kallendbor, and in the end some final unknown so that now it was in the hands of Nightshade.

He sat alone in the shadows and silence of his private chambers and faced truths he would have preferred to leave alone. He was a poor wizard at best; he might as well admit it. Sometimes he could control the magic—what little he had learned—but, more often than not, it seemed to control him. He had enjoyed a few successes, but suffered many failures. He was an apprentice of an art that defied his staunchest efforts to master it. Perhaps he was not meant to be a wizard. Perhaps he should simply accept the fact of it.

He rubbed his chin and screwed up his owlish face in distaste. Never! He would sooner be a toad!

He stood up, paced about the darkened chamber for a time, and sat down again. There was no point in bemoaning his life’s condition. True wizard or no, he was going to have to do something about Nightshade. The problem, of course, was that he didn’t know what. He could go down into the Deep Fell and confront the witch, demand the bottle back, and threaten her with his magic. Unfortunately, that would likely be the end of him. He was no match for Nightshade in her own domain, especially with the bottle and its demon in her service. She would gobble him up like a sweetmeat.

He saw again in his mind the witch and the Darkling at the hollows rim, a match if ever there was one, darkest evil and her favorite child.

He clasped his hands before him, frowning so hard the ends of his mouth almost disappeared below his chin. The Paladin was the only one who could master the witch—but the Paladin would only appear if the High Lord summoned him, and the High Lord was trapped in his old world until he could find the missing Abernathy, regain his medallion, and get back again.

Questor Thews gave a great sigh of disgust. It had all gotten so complicated!

“Well!” he snapped, coming abruptly to his feet. “We shall have to uncomplicate things!”

Brave words, he thought darkly. Uncomplicating things meant finding Holiday, Abernathy, and the medallion and getting all three safely back into Landover to deal with Nightshade and the Darkling. He hadn’t the magic to do that. He’d told Holiday as much when he had sent him back.

There was another way, however.

A rather unlikely way.

He was chilled suddenly at the thought of what he had to do. He wrapped his gray robes with their bright-colored silk patches close about him for momentary warmth, then released them again to tug restlessly at his ear. Well, either he was Court Wizard or he wasn’t! Better learn the truth of matters right here and now!

“No point in waiting, either,” he whispered.

Determined, he went out the door and down the hall to find Bunion. He would leave tonight.

GAMBIT



“I’m telling you, it won’t work,” Miles Bennett insisted. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things, Doc.”

Ben Holiday leaned forward wearily. “You keep saying that. Why don’t you try being more positive about things.”

“I am being positive! I’m positive it won’t work!”

Ben sighed, leaned back again, and stretched his legs out comfortably in front of him. “It’ll work,” he said.

They were speeding through the countryside north of Woodinville on 522 in a black stretch limousine, Miles driving, Ben sitting alone in the back seat. Miles wore a chauffeur’s cap and coat at least one size too small, which was unfortunate because the whole scenario would have played better if the driver had been as immaculately dressed as his passenger. But there hadn’t been time to shop for Miles—and even if there had, they probably wouldn’t have been able to find a clothing store with chauffeur uniforms for rent or sale in any case—so they’d had to settle for what the original driver was wearing. Ben looked considerably better. There’d been time to shop for him. He wore a five hundred dollar three-piece dark blue suit with just a hint of pinstriping, a pale blue silk shirt, and a deep mauve silk tie with a scattering of blues and lavenders woven in. A matching scarf was tucked neatly into his breast pocket. He glanced surreptitiously at himself in the rearview mirror. Just your average millionaire businessman, he thought—with just a touch of the wheeler-dealer in evidence. Sitting in his stretch limo with his chauffeur and his fine clothes, he looked every bit the successful entrepreneur.

Which was the way he was supposed to look, of course.

“What if he’s seen your picture somewhere?” Miles asked suddenly. “What if he recognizes who you really are?”

“Then I’m in big trouble,” Ben admitted. “But he won’t. He’s had no reason to track down a picture of me. Meeks always handled the Landover sales by himself. Michel Ard Rhi was content to collect the money and let matters take care of themselves. He had his own interests to look after.”

“Like running guns and overthrowing foreign governments.” Miles shook his head. “This plan is too risky, Doc.”

Ben stared out into the darkness. “True. But it’s the only plan we’ve got.”

He watched the dark shapes of the trees on either side of the highway rush past and disappear like frozen giants, the land sullen and empty, the night skies overcast and impenetrable. It was always smart to have a plan, he told himself. Too bad it couldn’t always be a good one.

They had left Davis Whitsell knowing that Abernathy was again in the hands of Michel Ard Rhi. It didn’t matter that Whitsell hadn’t seen Abernathy’s abductors. They were as certain as the trainer that it had been Michel Ard Rhi who had taken him. Abernathy was imprisoned somewhere in Ard Rhi’s castle fortress, and it was up to them to rescue him—quickly. There was no telling what Ard Rhi would do to the dog now. There was no telling what he would do to that little girl either, once he found her out. He might even use the little girl as a weapon against the dog. Abernathy still had the medallion; Whitsell had mentioned seeing it. They had to assume that Ard Rhi knew about the medallion and was trying to get it back. If not, he would have done away with Abernathy long ago. He couldn’t take the medallion by force, of course, but he could put an awful lot of pressure on the dog to persuade him to part with it willingly. The little girl would provide just the sort of pressure Ard Rhi would be apt to use.

That being the case, there simply wasn’t any time to come up with the sort of elaborate, foolproof plan they might otherwise have envisioned. Abernathy and the little girl were in immediate danger. Willow was growing steadily sicker from the environment into which she had willingly placed herself in order not to be separated from Ben. God only knew what was happening back in Landover with the Darkling still on the loose and Questor Thews trying to govern. Ben seized hold of the first reasonable plan that came to mind.

It was going to take an awful lot of luck to make it work.

“Don’t forget about Willow,” he reminded Miles suddenly.

“I won’t. But I don’t see how she’s going to have any better luck than you.” He glanced quickly back over his shoulder. “There’s bound to be lights all over the place, Doc.”

Ben nodded. He was worried about that, too. How effective would Willow’s magic be when she needed it? What if it failed her entirely? Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it; he knew that, like all the fairy folk, the sylph could move about freely without being seen. But that was in Landover and that was when she was well. Willow was so weak, so drained by the attack on her system! She desperately needed the nurturing soil and air of her own world. She needed to make the transformation. But she couldn’t do it here in this world. She had already told him so. Too many of the chemicals in the soil and air were toxins to her system. She was trapped in her present form until Ben could find a way to get her back to Landover again.

He tightened the muscles of his jaw. It was pointless to dwell on it. There would be no help for her until he regained the medallion—no help for any of them.

He turned his attention to the plan. It had been a fairly simple matter to have the rented limo and driver sent north out of Seattle to the little motel in Bothell that they had quickly made their base of operations. It had been equally simple to bribe the driver to part with the limo and his coat and cap for a few hours while he waited in the motel room and watched TV. After all, five hundred dollars was a lot of money. And it hadn’t been too tough to track down the clothes Ben needed.

Finding Michel Ard Rhi had been easier yet. “Oh, sure, that nut that lives out in the castle!” the manager of the motel had eagerly volunteered when Ben asked. “Gramma White or some such, it’s called. Looks like something out of King Arthur. Sits back in there behind the winery off 522. Can’t even see it from the road. Guy runs it like a prison. Doesn’t allow anyone close. As I said, a nut case! Who else would live in a castle in the middle of nowhere?” Then he had drawn Ben a map.

Finding the nut case was one thing; arranging to see him on short notice and at night was something else. Ben had made the call. He had spoken with a man whose sole position with Ard Rhi, it appeared, was to prevent people like Ben from disturbing his boss. Ben had explained that he was only in Seattle that one night. He had explained that the timing was quite important. He had even suggested that he was used to doing business at night. Nothing helped. Ben had talked money, opportunity, ambition, everything he could think of to persuade the man. The man was a stone. He had left the phone twice, presumably to confer with his boss, but each time he had returned as implacable as before. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps another day. Definitely not tonight. Mr. Ard Rhi never meets with anyone at night.

Finally, Ben had used Abernathy’s name and alluded none too subtly to his own strong connection with certain government agencies. If he were not permitted to speak to Mr. Ard Rhi and speak with him now, personally, this night, he would have to consider turning the matter over to one of those agencies, and Mr. Ard Rhi might not find it so easy to refuse them.

That did the job. Grudgingly, the secretary had advised him that he would have his appointment. But must it be at night? It must, Ben insisted. There had been a pause, more background conversation, heated words. Very well, a few minutes only, nine o’clock sharp at Graum Wythe. The phone had gone dead. At the close of things, the secretary’s voice had sounded very dangerous indeed. But that hadn’t mattered to Ben. His meeting with Michel Ard Rhi had to take place at night, or the entire plan was out the window.

Miles slowed the limo abruptly, distracting Ben from his thoughts, wheeled left at a pair of stone block pillars with globe lights, and proceeded down a narrow, single-lane road that disappeared back into the trees. What little light there was from the headlamps of other cars, from the distant windows of solitary houses, and from the reflection of ground light off the clouded skies disappeared. The lights of the limo were lonely beacons in the gloom.

They drove on, a long, solitary journey through the night. The woods gave way to the vineyards, acres of small, gnarled vines planted in endless rows. The minutes slipped away.

Ben thought of Willow, hidden in the trunk of the car, carefully wrapped in blankets. He wished he could check on her, make certain she was all right. But they had agreed. No chances were to be taken. Once they had left Bothell, there was to be no stopping until …

Ben blinked.

Lights flared ahead from beyond the wooded hill they climbed—triggered, it seemed, by their approach. As they topped the rise, the spires of Graum Wythe lifted starkly before them. Though still far distant, they could see the castle clearly. Flags and pennants blew sharply in the night wind, their insignia unidentifiable in the shadows. A drawbridge had already begun to lower across a moat, and a portcullis was being raised. Breastworks and spiked fences crisscrossed the open countryside surrounding the castle, dark scars on the grassland. The limo crawled down the roadway toward a set of massive iron gates that opened through a long, low stone wall that ran for miles in either direction.

Ben took a deep breath and shivered in spite of himself. How grotesque the castle seemed!

The iron gates swung open soundlessly to admit them, and Miles eased the limo through. He had quit talking, rigid in the driver’s seat. Ben could imagine what he was thinking.

The roadway wound snakelike toward the castle, brightly lit and flanked by deep culverts. That’s probably so nobody wanders off by mistake, Ben thought darkly. For the first time since he had conceived this venture, he began to have doubts. Graum Wythe hunkered down before him like some huge beast, all alone in the empty countryside with its towers, parapets, guards, spotlights, and sharp wire. It looked less like a castle than a prison. He was going into that prison and he was going in unprotected.

The full realization of where he was struck him suddenly, a frightening and certain truth that left him shaken. He was such a fool! He thought of himself as still being in a world of glass high-rises and jetliners. But Graum Wythe wasn’t part of that world; it was part of another. It was part of a life he had bought into when he had purchased his kingship nearly two years ago. There wasn’t anything from the modern world out here. He could dress in suits and ride in limos and know that cities and highways were all around him, and it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. This was Landover! But the Paladin was not here to rescue him. Questor Thews was not here to advise him. He had no magic to aid him. If anything went wrong, he was probably finished.

The car reached the end of the winding roadway and pulled onto the lowered drawbridge. They passed over the moat, under the portcullis, and into a courtyard with a turn-around drive that looped ahead to the main entry. Manicured lawns and flower gardens failed to make up for the towering stoneblock walls and iron-grated windows.

“Charming,” Miles whispered from the front.

Ben sat quietly. He was calm now, quite composed. It was like old times, he told himself. It was like it had been when he was a lawyer. He was simply going into trial court one more time.

Miles pulled the limo to a stop at the top of the drive, got out, and walked around to open the door for Ben. Ben stepped out and glanced around. The walls and towers of Graum Wythe loomed all about him, casting their shadows against the blaze of lights that flooded the yard. Too many lights, Ben thought. Guards patrolled the entries and the walls, faceless, black-garbed figures in the night. Too many of them as well.

A doorman appeared through the heavy brass and oak doors of the main entry and stood waiting. Miles closed the car door firmly and leaned close.

“Good luck, Doc,” he whispered.

Ben nodded. Then he went up the steps and disappeared into the castle.



The minutes slipped past. Miles waited by the back door of the limo for a time, then walked around to the driver’s door, stopped, and glanced casually about. The castle doors were closed again and the doorman gone. The courtyard was deserted—discounting, of course, the spotlights that lit it up bright as day and guards that patrolled the walls all around it. Miles shook his head. He reached in the car under the dash and popped the trunk, trying hard not to think about what he was doing, trying to appear nonchalant. He walked back to the trunk, lifted the lid, reached in, and took out a polishing cloth. He barely glanced at the blanketed, huddled shape in one corner. Leaving the trunk open, he moved to the front of the car and began wiping down the windshield.

A pair of black-uniformed guards walked out of the shadows from one corner of the building and stopped, watching him. He kept polishing. The guards carried automatic weapons.

Willow will never make it, he thought dismally.

The guards strolled on. Miles was sweating. He released the hood latch, then moved to the front of the car and looked in, fiddling with nothing. He had never felt so entirely alone and at the same time so completely observed. He could feel eyes on him everywhere. He glanced surreptitiously from beneath the hood. Who knew how many of those eyes would catch Willow trying to sneak past?

He finished with the phony engine inspection and dropped the hood back in place. There hadn’t been a sign of movement anywhere. What was she waiting for? His cherubic face grimaced. What did he think she was waiting for, for God’s sake? She was waiting for a power outage!

That damn Doc and his harebrained schemes!

He walked back around the car to the trunk, half-determined to find a way to call the whole thing off, certain the whole plan was already shot to hell. He was utterly astonished when he glanced in the trunk and found Willow gone.



Standing inside the front entry, the doorman patted Ben down for weapons and, presumably, wires. There weren’t any to be found. Neither man said a word.

When the search was finished, Ben followed the doorman along a cavernous, vaulted corridor past suits of armor, tapestries, marble statues, and oil paintings in gilt-edged frames to a pair of dark oak doors that opened into a study. A genuine study, mind you, Ben thought—not a little room with a few shelves and bookcases and a reading chair, but a full-blown English-style study with dozens of huge, stuffed leather reading chairs and companion tables of the sort you saw in those old Sherlock Holmes movies in mansions where the characters retired to take brandy and cigars and talk murder. A fire blazed in a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, the embers of charred logs smoldering redly beneath the iron grate. A pair of latticed windows looked out into gardens that featured sculpted hedges and wrought-iron benches and were disturbingly deep.

The doorman stepped aside to let Ben enter, pulled the study doors closed behind him, and was gone.

Michel Ard Rhi was already on his feet, materializing from out of one of the huge stuffed chairs as if he had miraculously taken form from its leather. He was dressed entirely in the stuff, a sort of charcoal jumpsuit complete with low boots, and he looked as if he were trying to do Hamlet. But there was nothing funny about the way he looked at Ben. He stood there, a tall, rawboned figure, his shock of black hair and his dark eyes shadowing the whole of his face, his features pinched with displeasure. He did not come forward to offer his hand. He did not invite Ben in. He simply viewed him.

“I do not appreciate being threatened, Mr. Squires,” he said softly. Squires was the phony name Ben had given over the phone. “Not by anyone, but especially not by someone looking to do business with me.”

Ben kept his poise. “It was necessary that I see you, Mr. Ard Rhi,” he replied calmly. “Tonight. It was obvious that I was not going to be able to do so unless I found a way to change your mind.”

Michel Ard Rhi studied him, apparently considering whether to pursue the matter. Then he said, “You have your meeting. What do you want?”

Ben moved forward until he was less than a dozen paces from the other. There was anger in the sharp eyes, but no sign of recognition. “I want Abernathy,” he said.

Ard Rhi shrugged. “So you said, but I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Let me save both of us a little valuable time,” Ben continued smoothly. “I know all about Abernathy. I know what he is and what he can do. I know about Davis Whitsell. I know about Hollywood Eye. I know most of what there is to know about this matter. I don’t know what your interest is in this creature, but it doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t conflict with mine. My interest is paramount, Mr. Ard Rhi, and immediate. I don’t have time to wait for sideshows and the like.”

The other man studied him, a hint of shrewdness displacing the anger. “And your interest is … ?”

“Scientific.” Ben smiled conspiratorially. “I operate a specialized business, Mr. Ard Rhi—one that investigates the functioning of life forms and explores ways to make them better. My business operates somewhat covertly. You’ll not have heard of either its name or mine. Uncle Sam aids in funding, and we exchange favors from time to time. Do you understand?”

A nod. “Experiments?”

“Among other things.” Another smile. “Could we sit down now and talk like businessmen?”

Michel Ard Rhi did not smile back, but indicated a chair and sat down across from Ben. “This is all very interesting, Mr. Squires. But I can’t help you. There isn’t any Abernathy. The whole business is a lie.”

Ben shrugged as if he expected as much. “Whatever you say.” He leaned back comfortably. “But if there were an Abernathy, and if he became available, then he would be a most valuable commodity—to a number of interested parties. I would be prepared to make a substantial offer for him.”

The other man’s expression did not change. “Really.”

“If he were undamaged.”

“He doesn’t exist.”

“Supposing.”

“Supposing doesn’t make it so.”

“He would be worth twenty-five million dollars.”

Michel Ard Rhi stared. “Twenty-five million dollars?” he repeated.

Ben nodded. He didn’t have twenty-five million dollars to spend on Abernathy, of course. He didn’t have twenty-five million dollars, period. But then he didn’t really expect that any amount of money could purchase his friend—not before Michel Ard Rhi had his hands on the medallion.

What he was doing was buying time.

So far, it hadn’t cost him much.



Willow slipped noiselessly along the dimly lit passageways of Graum Wythe, little more than another of night’s shadows. She was tired, the use of the magic that kept her concealed a drain on her already diminished strength. She felt sick inside, a pervasive queasiness that would not be banished. At times she was so stricken she was forced to stop, leaning back in dark corners and waiting for her strength to return. She knew what was wrong with her. She was dying. It was happening a little at a time, a little each day, but she recognized the signs. She could not survive outside of her own world for more than a short time—especially not here, not in an environment where the soil and the air were unclean and poisoned with waste.

She had not told Ben. She did not intend to. Ben had enough to concern him, and there was nothing he could do for her, in any case. Besides, she had known the risk when she had decided to come with him. Any fault was her own.

She breathed the close air of the castle, nauseated by its taste and smell. Her skin was pale and damp with perspiration. She forced herself from her hiding place and continued swiftly on. She was on the second floor and close to where she needed to go now. She could sense it. She must hurry, though. Ben could give her only a few minutes.

She reached a single door at the bend in the hall and pressed her ear against it, listening. There was breathing within.

It was the little girl, Elizabeth.

She placed her hand on the latch. It was for this reason that they had come to Graum Wythe at night—so that they could be certain the little girl would be there.

She pressed down on the latch until it gave, pushed the door open, and slipped inside. Elizabeth was in her nightdress, propped up in her bed on one elbow, reading a book. She started when Willow appeared, her eyes going wide.

“Who are you?” she breathed. “Oh! You’re all green!”

Willow smiled, closed the door behind her, and held a finger to her lips. “Shhh, Elizabeth. It is all right. My name is Willow. I am a friend of Abernathy’s.”

Elizabeth sat bolt upright in the bed. “Abernathy? You are?” She pushed the covers back and scrambled out of the bed. “Are you a fairy? A fairy princess, maybe? You look like one, you’re so beautiful! Can you do magic? Can you …

Willow moved her finger to the little girl’s lips. “Shhhhh,” she repeated softly. “We do not have much time.”

Elizabeth frowned. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong? Oh, I bet you don’t know! Abernathy’s gone! He’s not here anymore! Michel had him locked in a cage in the cellars, but I sneaked him out and sent him …”

“Elizabeth,” Willow interrupted gently. She knelt down next to the little girl and took her hands. “I have to tell you something. I am afraid Abernathy did not escape after all. Michel found him and brought him back.”

“Oh, poor Abernathy!” Elizabeth’s face tightened into a knot of anguish. “Michel will hurt him, I know he will! He was starving to death when I helped him escape! Now Michel will really hurt him. That’s how he is! He’ll really hurt him!”

Willow turned her toward the bed and sat with her on its edge. “We have to find another way to help him escape from here, Elizabeth,” she said. “Is there anyone you can think of who could help us?”

Elizabeth looked doubtful. “My father, maybe. But he’s gone.”

“When does you father return?”

“Next week, Wednesday.” Elizabeth’s face knotted further. “It’s not soon enough, is it, Willow? Michel was looking funny at me at dinner tonight—as if he knew something. He kept talking about dogs, and then he would smile, a mean smile. He knows I helped, I’ll bet. He’s just teasing me with it. He’s going to hurt Abernathy, isn’t he?”

Willow squeezed the small hands. “We will not let him. I have friends with me. We are going to take Abernathy away.”

“You are?” Elizabeth was immediately excited. “Maybe I can help!”

Willow shook her head firmly. “Not this time.”

“But I want to help!” Elizabeth said firmly. “Michel already knows I helped once, so I can’t be in any worse trouble! Maybe you can take me, too! I don’t want to stay here anymore!”

Willow frowned slightly. “Elizabeth, I …”

“Michel’s already said I can’t leave my room! I have to stay up here all the time until he says different. He has to know! Tomorrow is Halloween, and I don’t even get to go trick-or-treating! I practically had to beg to get permission to go to the school party tomorrow night. I even had to get Nita Coles to get her parents to call up and offer me a ride! With my dad gone, Michel wasn’t going to let me go. But I told him everyone would wonder if I wasn’t at the party because the whole school was going—so he gave in.” She was crying. “I guess going to the party doesn’t matter much now, not with Abernathy locked up again. Oh, I thought he was safe!”

Suddenly she stopped crying and her head jerked up sharply. “Willow, I know a way to get Abernathy out! If Michel’s got him locked up again in the cellar, I know how to get him out!”

Willow touched the little girl’s tear-streaked face. “How, Elizabeth?”

“The same way I got him out before—through the passageway in the wall! Michel doesn’t know about that yet! I know because I was in it again after Abernathy got away, and it wasn’t closed off or anything! And I could get a key to those cages again if I had to—I know I could!” She was excited now, her breathing rapid, her face flushed. “Willow, we could get him out tonight!”

For just an instant, Willow considered it. Then she shook her head. “No, Elizabeth, not tonight. Soon, though. And perhaps you can help. In fact, you already have. You have told me of a way to reach Abernathy. That was one reason I came to you—to see if there was a way. But we must be very careful, Elizabeth. We must not make any mistakes. Do you understand?”

Elizabeth was crestfallen, but managed a grudging nod.

Willow tried a wan smile. She had already stayed beyond her allotted time and she was growing dangerously weak from the effort. “You must not say anything about seeing me, Elizabeth. You must pretend I never came. You must act as if you know nothing about Abernathy. Can you do that?”

The little girl nodded. “I can pretend better than anyone.”

“Good.” Willow rose and started for the door, one of Elizabeth’s hands still clinging to her. She turned. “Be patient, Elizabeth. We all want Abernathy safe again. Perhaps tomorrow …”

“I love Abernathy,” Elizabeth said suddenly.

Willow turned, looked at the little girl’s face, and then hugged her close. “I do, too, Elizabeth.”

They held each other for a long time.



Twenty-five million dollars is a lot of money, Mr. Squires,” Michel Ard Rhi was saying.

Ben smiled. “We try not to put limits on the price of our research, Mr. Ard Rhi.”

Still seated in the stuffed leather chairs, they studied each other in the silence and shadows of the study. No sound reached them from without.

“The subject of our discussion would have to be in good condition, of course,” Ben repeated. “A damaged specimen would be useless.”

The other said nothing.

“I would need to make an inspection.”

Still nothing.

“I would need assurances that Abernathy …”

“There is no Abernathy, Mr. Squires—remember?” Michel Ard Rhi said suddenly. Ben waited. “Even if there were … I would have to think about your offer.”

Ben nodded. He had expected that. It was too much to hope that he would have a chance to see Abernathy right away. “Perhaps if I were to arrange to stay a bit longer than planned, Mr. Ard Rhi, we might continue this discussion tomorrow?”

The other man shrugged. He touched something beneath the table beside him and rose. “I will decide the time and the place of any future meetings, Mr. Squires. Is that understood?”

Ben smiled companionably. “As long as it’s soon, Mr. Ard Rhi.”

Surprisingly, Michel Ard Rhi smiled back. “Let me give you some advice, Mr. Squires,” he said, coming forward a few paces. “You should be more careful with your demands. This is a place of some danger, you know. That is its history. People have disappeared in these walls. They were never seen again. There is magic here—some of it very bad.”

Ben was suddenly cold. He knows, he thought in horror.

“A life or two snuffed out, what does it matter? Even important lives—like your own—can be swallowed up and disappear. The magic does that, Mr. Squires. It simply swallows you up.”

Ben heard the door behind him open.

“Be careful after this,” the other warned softly, eyes hard with the promise that the threat was real. “I don’t like you.”

The doorman stepped into view and Michel Ard Rhi turned abruptly away. Ben walked quickly from the study, daring to breathe again, feeling the chill in his spine begin to fade. He passed back down the empty corridor to the front entry and went out, the doorman showing the way. As he stepped into the night, he thought he felt something brush against him. He looked but there was nothing there.

The door closed behind him. Miles was standing by the rear door, holding it open. Ben climbed into the car and sat back wordlessly. He watched Miles walk around the rear of the limo to the driver’s door. The trunk was already closed. There was no sign of Willow.

“Willow?” he whispered urgently.

“I’m here, Ben,” she replied, a disembodied voice from out of the pool of shadows at his feet, so close to him that he jumped.

Miles got in and started the car. Within minutes they were back through the portcullis, over the drawbridge, up the winding roadway, and out the iron gates. Willow sat up in the seat then next to Ben and related everything Elizabeth had told her. When she was finished, no one said anything for a time. The car’s engine hummed in the silence as they passed back out onto 522 and turned south toward Woodinville.

When Miles turned up the heater, no one complained.

SNATCH



October 31 was a gray, cloudy, drizzly day where the wind blew in sharp gusts, and the rain spit and chilled the air, as the whole western half of Washington State experienced a forewarning of winter’s coming. It was a gloomy day of shadows and strange sounds, the kind of day when people think about curling up next to a warm fire with a glass of something hot and a good book. It was a day when they found themselves listening to the sounds of the weather and to things that weren’t even there. It was, in short, a perfect day for an Allhallows Eve.

Elizabeth was eating lunch in the school cafeteria when she got the message that a telephone call from home was waiting for her in the office. She hurried to get it, leaving Nita Coles to guard her double-chocolate-chip cookie; when she returned, she was so excited she didn’t bother to eat it. Later, when they were at recess, she told Nita that she didn’t need a ride to the Halloween party that night after all—although she might need one home. Nita said okay and told Elizabeth she thought she was acting weird.

Ben Holiday spent the better part of that blustery day south of Woodinville and Bothell in greater Seattle visiting costume shops. It took him a long time to find the costume he was looking for. Even then, he had to spend several hours afterward, back in the motel room, altering its appearance until it met with his approval.

Willow spent the day in bed, resting. She was growing steadily weaker and she was having trouble breathing. She tried to hide it from Ben, but it wasn’t something she could hide. He was good about it, though, not saying anything, letting her sleep, forcing himself to concentrate on his preparations for that night. She saw that and loved him the more for it.

Miles Bennett visited several private airports until he found one with a suitable plane and pilot that could be chartered for a flight out that night. He told the pilot that there would be four of them and they would be flying to Virginia.

They all went about their business, right along with the rest of the world, but for them, it seemed, Friday was an endless wait …



Finally, dusk found Ben, Miles, and Willow back once more on 522 headed north out of Woodinville toward Graum Wythe. They were in the rental car this time, the limo long since dispatched back to Seattle. Ben was driving, Willow was beside him in the passenger seat, and Miles sat in back. The wind whistled and the weaving shadows of branches played along the car’s dark shell like devil’s fingers. The skies were slate gray, turning black as the final twinge of daylight slipped rapidly away.

“Doc, this isn’t going to work,” Miles said suddenly, breaking what had been a seemingly interminable stretch of silence.

It was like a replay of yesterday. Ben grinned, though Miles couldn’t see it. “Why not, Miles?”

“Because there are too many things that can go wrong, that’s why. I know I said the same thing about last night’s plan and you still got away with it, but that was different. This plan is a hell of a lot more dangerous! You realize, of course, that we don’t even know if Abernathy is down there in those dungeons or cages or whatever! What if he’s not there? What if he’s there, but you can’t get to him? What if they’ve changed the locks or hidden the keys, for God’s sake? What do we do then?”

“Come back tomorrow and try again.”

“Oh, sure! Halloween will be over! What are we supposed to do? Wait for Thanksgiving and go in as turkeys? Or maybe Christmas and go down the chimney like Santa and his elves?”

Ben glanced around. Miles looked pretty funny sitting there in that gorilla suit. But, then, he looked pretty funny himself in the shaggy dog outfit that made him look somewhat like Abernathy. “Relax, Miles,” he said.

“Relax?” Ben could practically see him turning red inside the heavy suit. “What if they count heads, Doc? If they count heads, we’re dead!”

“I told you how to handle that. It will work just the way we want it to. By the time they figure out what’s happened, we’ll be long gone.”

They rode on in silence until they reached the stone pillars with the lighted globes and Ben wheeled the car left down the wooded, private road. Then Willow said, “I wish we didn’t have to take Elizabeth with us.”

Ben nodded. “I know. But we can’t leave her behind—not after this. Michel Ard Rhi will know she was involved. She’s better off out of there. Her father will understand after Miles has talked to him. They’ll be well looked after.”

“Humphhh!” Miles grunted. “You’re crazy, Doc, you know that? No wonder you like living in fairyland!”

Willow slumped back in the seat and closed her eyes again. Her breathing was ragged. “Are you sure you can do this?” Ben asked quietly. The sylph nodded without replying.

They drove through the vineyards and finally the electric sensor that triggered the floodlights. When they reached the low stone wall, the iron gates were open and Graum Wythe’s drawbridge and portcullis were already in operation. The castle looked massive and forbidding against the mix of low-hanging clouds and distant mountains, the outline of its towers and parapets hazy with the mist and rain. The wipers of the car clicked back and forth, blurring and clearing in brief intervals the sweep of the land ahead. Ben eased the rental car down the winding roadway, unable to escape the feeling that he had somehow managed to forget something.

They crossed the drawbridge, the tires thumping on the timbers, passed through the maw of the castle gates, and pulled around the drive. Lights blazed through the mist and gloom, but the guards they had seen the previous night were not in evidence. Doesn’t mean that they’re not out there, though, Ben thought and swung the car in close to the entry.

They stepped out quickly and hastened into the shelter of the front entryway, Ben holding Willow close to keep her from slipping. They knocked and waited. The door opened almost at once, and the doorman was there to greet them. He blinked in surprise.

What he saw was a gorilla, a shaggy dog, and a young woman dyed green from head to foot.

“Evening,” Ben greeted through the dog suit. “We’re here to pick up Elizabeth for her Halloween party at the grade school. I’m Mr. Barker, this is my wife Helen, and this is Mr. Campbell.” He made the introductions quickly so the names wouldn’t register, and they didn’t.

“Oh.” The doorman was not a conversationalist. He beckoned them inside, however, and they gladly went. They stood in the entryway, brushing off stray drops of rain and looking guardedly about. The doorman studied them momentarily, then went to a phone and called someone. Ben held his breath. The doorman put the phone down and returned.

“Miss Elizabeth asked if one of you could help her with her costume,” he said.

“Yes, I can help,” Willow offered, right on cue. “I know the way, thank you.”

She disappeared up the winding stairway and was gone. Ben and Miles sat down on a bench in the entryway, oversized bookends from a curio shop. The doorman studied them some more, probably trying to figure out how any sane adult could be talked into dressing up like that, then turned down the hall and disappeared from view.

Ben felt the heat of the two costumes he was wearing turn his back and underarms damp.

So far, so good, he thought.



Willow tapped lightly on Elizabeth’s bedroom door and waited. Almost immediately, the door was opened by a small clown with frizzy orange hair, a white face, and an enormous red nose. “Oh, Willow!” Elizabeth whispered, grasping her hand and pulling her urgently inside. “It’s all going wrong!”

Willow took her shoulders gently. “What’s going wrong, Elizabeth?”

“Abernathy! He’s all … strange! I went down to the cellars this afternoon after school to see if he was all right—you know, to make certain he was still there. I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I was worried, Willow!” The words practically tumbled over one another. “I sneaked out of my room. I made sure no one saw me, then went down through the passage in the walls to the cellars. Abernathy was there, locked in one of those cages, all chained up! Oh, Willow, he looked so sad! He looked all ragged and dirty. I whispered to him, called to him, but he didn’t seem to know who I was. He just … he sounded like he couldn’t talk right! He said a bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense and he couldn’t seem to sit up or move or anything!”

The blue eyes glistened with tears. “Willow, he’s so sick! I don’t know if he can even walk!”

Willow felt a mix of fear and uncertainty wash through her, but she forced it quickly away. “Do not be afraid, Elizabeth,” she said firmly. “Show me where he is. It will be all right.”

They slipped from the room into the empty hall, the tiny clown and the emerald fairy. An old clock ticked in the silence from one end, and the sound of very distant voices echoed faintly. Elizabeth took Willow to a cluttered broom closet. Closing the door behind them, she produced a flashlight, then spent a few seconds pushing at the back wall until a section of it swung open. Silently, they went down the stairs that lay beyond, navigating through several twists and turns, two landings, and one short tunnel, until at last they reached another section of wall, this one with a rusted iron handle fixed to it.

“He’s right through here!” Elizabeth whispered.

She took hold of the handle and pulled. The wall eased back, and the rush of stale, fetid air caused Willow to gasp. Nausea washed through her, but she swallowed against it and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Willow, are you all right?” Elizabeth asked urgently, her brightly colored clown’s face bent close.

“Yes, Elizabeth,” Willow whispered. She couldn’t give in now. Just a little longer, she promised herself. Just a little.

She peered through the opening in the wall. Cages lined a passageway, shadowed cells of rock and iron bars. There was movement in one. Something lay there twitching.

“That’s Abernathy!” Elizabeth confirmed in a small, frightened voice.

Willow took a moment longer to check the corridor beyond for other signs of movement. There were none. “Are there guards?” she asked softly.

Elizabeth pointed. “Down there, beyond that door. Just one, usually.”

Willow pushed her way out into the cellar passage, feeling the nausea and weakness surge through her once more. She went to the cage that held Abernathy and peered in. The dog lay on a pile of straw, his fur matted and soiled, his clothes torn. He had been sick, and the discharge clung to him. He smelled awful. There was a chain fastened about his neck.

The medallion hung there as well.

Abernathy was mumbling incoherently. He was talking about everything and nothing all at once, his speech slurred, his words fragments of witless chatter. He has been drugged, Willow thought.

Elizabeth was handing her something. “This is the key to the cage door, Willow,” she whispered. She looked very frightened. “I don’t know if it fits the chain on his neck!”

Her clown nose fell off, and she picked it up hurriedly and pushed it back into place. Willow took the key from her and started to insert it into the cage door lock.

It was at that same moment that they heard the latch on the door at the end of the corridor begin to turn.



Michel Ard Rhi came down the front hallway past the entry and paused momentarily as he saw the gorilla and the shaggy dog sitting there on the waiting bench. It was apparent that he wasn’t sure what to make of them. He looked at them, and they looked back. No one said anything.

Ben held his breath and waited. He could feel Miles go rigid beside him. Suddenly, Michel seemed to realize what they were doing there. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The Halloween party at the school. You must be here for Elizabeth.”

A phone rang somewhere down the hall.

Michel hesitated, as if he might say something more, then turned and walked away quickly to answer it. The shaggy dog and the gorilla glanced at each other in silent relief.



The guard pushed his way wearily through the cellar door and came down the corridor of iron cages, boots clumping heavily on the stone block. He was dressed in black and wore an automatic weapon and a ring of keys at his belt. Elizabeth shrank further into the darkness behind the hidden section of wall where she was concealed, peering out through the tiny crack she had left open.

Willow was still out there in the corridor. But where? Why couldn’t she see her?

She watched the guard pause at Abernathy’s cage, check the door perfunctorily to make certain it was locked, then turn and walk back again the way he had come. As he passed her hiding place, the keys at his belt suddenly came free. Elizabeth blinked in disbelief. The snap that held them seemed to loosen of its own accord and all at once the keys were gone. The guard completed his walk down the corridor, pushed back through the metal door, and disappeared.

Elizabeth slipped quickly from her hiding place. “Willow!” she called in a muffled hiss.

The sylph appeared out of nowhere at her side, the ring of keys in one hand. “Hurry, now,” she whispered. “We do not have much time.”

They went back to Abernathy’s cage, and Willow opened the door with the key Elizabeth had given her earlier. They hastened inside, moving to the incoherent dog and kneeling beside him. Willow bent close. The scribe’s eyes were dilated and his breathing was rapid. When she tried to lift him, he sagged helplessly against her.

A moment of panic seized her. He was far too heavy for her to carry—far too heavy even if Elizabeth helped. She had to find a way to bring him out of his stupor.

“Try these until you find one that fits,” she told Elizabeth, handing her the key ring.

Elizabeth went to work with the keys, trying one after another in the lock of the neck chain. Willow rubbed Abernathy’s paws, then his head. Nothing seemed to help. Her panic deepened. She had to bring Ben down. But she knew, even as she considered the idea, that it wasn’t possible. The plan wouldn’t work with Ben down here. Besides, there simply wasn’t time.

Finally, she did the only thing she could think to do to help the dog. She used her fairy magic. She was so weak that she had little to command, but she called up what she had. She placed her hands on Abernathy’s head, closed her eyes in concentration, and drew the poison out of his system and into her own. It entered her in a rush, a vile fluid, and she worked desperately to negate its effects on her own body. She was not strong enough. It was too much for her. Some of it broke through her defenses and began to sicken further her already weakened system. Nausea mingled with pain. She shuddered and wrenched herself away, vomiting into the straw.

“Willow, Willow!” she heard Elizabeth cry out in fear. “Please, don’t be sick!”

The little clown’s face was pressed up against her own, whispering urgently, crying. Willow blinked. The red nose was gone again, she thought, distracted. She couldn’t seem to organize her thoughts. Everything was drifting. Then suddenly, miraculously, she heard Abernathy say, “Willow? What are you doing here?” And she knew it was going to be all right.



It was only after they were back in the passageway, safely clear of the cages, that Elizabeth rubbed her face where the clown’s nose should have been and realized she had lost it. Panic gripped her. She must have dropped it while they were freeing Abernathy. It would certainly be found. She thought about stopping, then decided not to. It was too late to do anything now. Willow was too weak to go back and would never let Elizabeth return alone. She bit her tongue and concentrated on the task at hand, shining the flashlight’s thin beam on the stairs ahead as they climbed toward the broom closet. Willow and Abernathy followed a few steps behind, hanging on to each other for support, both of them looking as if they would collapse with every step.

“Just a little farther,” Elizabeth kept whispering to encourage them, but neither replied.

They reached the landing to the broom closet, worked the wall section open, and pushed inside. Willow’s pale face was bright with perspiration, and she seemed to be having trouble focusing. “It is all right, Elizabeth,” she assured the little girl, seeing the look of worry in her eyes, but Elizabeth was no fool and could clearly see that it was definitely not all right.

When they were finally back inside Elizabeth’s room, the little girl and Willow worked hurriedly on Abernathy, combing his matted fur, cleaning him up as best they could. They tried to strip off his ruined clothes, but he protested so vehemently about being left naked that they finally agreed to let him keep the half pants and boots. It wasn’t what Ben had wanted, but Willow was too tired to argue. She could feel herself withering a bit more with the passing of every second.

She surprised herself though. She wasn’t as frightened of dying as she had imagined she would be.

The hall phone rang for what seemed to Ben and Miles an interminable length of time before the doorman appeared to answer it. There was a brief conversation, and then the doorman hung up and said to them, “Miss Elizabeth said to tell you that she would be right down.”

“Finally!” Miles breathed in a hushed voice.

The doorman lingered a moment, then walked away again.

“I’m going out now,” Ben whispered. “Remember what to do.”

He rose and disappeared silently through the front door. He went down the front steps and got into the car. There, he stripped away the dog suit, straightened the costume beneath, and slipped a new mask into place. Then he got out again and went back inside.

The doorman was just returning. He frowned on seeing the gorilla now sitting in the company of a skeleton. “This is Mr. Andrews,” Miles said quickly. “He was waiting in the car, but he got tired. Mr. Barker went upstairs to help his wife with Elizabeth.”

The doorman nodded absently, still staring at Ben. He appeared to be on the verge of saying something when Elizabeth, the green lady, and the shaggy dog came down the stairway. The green lady did not look well at all.

“All set, John,” Elizabeth said brightly to the doorman. She was carrying a small overnight bag. “We have to hurry. By the way, I forgot. I’m spending the night with Nita Coles. Tell Michel, will you? ’Bye.”

The doorman smiled faintly and said good-bye. The bunch of them, the gorilla, the skeleton, the green lady, the shaggy dog, and Elizabeth went out the door quickly and were gone.

The doorman stared after them thoughtfully. Had the shaggy dog been wearing pants when he came in?



By the time Ben Holiday pulled the rental car into the parking lot of Franklin Elementary, there were miniature witches, werewolves, ghosts, devils, punk rockers, and assorted other horrors arriving from everywhere, all dashing from their cars to the shelter of the lighted school as if truly possessed. The rain was still falling heavily. There were going to be more than a few disappointed trick-or-treaters this night.

Ben turned the wheel into the curb and put the gearshift into park. He looked over at Elizabeth seated next to him. “Time to go, kiddo.”

Elizabeth nodded, somehow managing to look sad even with the painted happy face. “I wish I could go with you.”

“Not this time, honey,” Ben smiled. “You know what to do now, don’t you—after the party?”

“Sure. I go home with Nita and her parents and stay there until my dad comes for me.” She sounded sad, too.

“Right. Mr. Bennett will see to it that he finds out what has happened to you. Whatever happens, don’t go back to the castle. Okay?”

“Okay. Good-bye, Ben. Good-bye, Willow.” She turned to Willow, seated next to her, and gave the sylph a long hug and kiss on the cheek. Willow kissed her back and smiled, saying nothing. She was so sick it was hard for her to talk. “Will you be okay?” Elizabeth wanted to know, asking the question hesitantly.

“Yes, Elizabeth.” Willow managed another quick kiss and opened the door. Ben had never seen her this bad, not even when she had been prevented from making the transformation into her namesake that first time she was taken into Abaddon. His patience slipped a notch.

“’Bye, Abernathy,” Elizabeth said to the dog, who was seated with Miles in the back. She started to say something, stopped, and then said, “I’ll miss you.”

Abernathy nodded. “I will miss you, too, Elizabeth.”

Then she was out the door and dashing for the school. Ben waited until she was safely inside, then wheeled the car out of the parking lot and sped quickly back through Woodinville to 522 and turned west.

“High Lord, I cannot thank you enough for coming to rescue me,” Abernathy was saying. “I had given myself up for lost.”

Ben was thinking of Willow and trying hard to keep the car within the speed limit. “I’m sorry this had to happen, Abernathy. Questor is sorry, too. He really is.”

“I find that hard to believe,” the dog declared, sounding very much like his old self. The effect of the drugs had pretty much worn off, and the scribe was more tired than anything. It was Willow who was in trouble now.

Ben eased the speed of the rental car up a notch.

“He was trying to help you, don’t forget,” he said.

“He scarcely understands the meaning of the word!” Abernathy huffed. He was quiet a moment. “By the way—here.” He took the chain with the medallion from his own neck, reached across the seatback, and placed it carefully about Ben’s. “I feel much better knowing you have this safely back.”

Ben didn’t say so, but he felt much better, too.

He reached Interstate 5 twenty minutes later and turned the car south. The rain diminished somewhat and it appeared to be clearing ahead. The airport was less than half an hour’s drive.

Willow’s hand stretched across the seat and found his. He squeezed it gently and tried to will some of the strength from his body into hers.

A car passed them in the left lane and a woman in the passenger seat stared over. What she saw was a skeleton driving a gorilla, a shaggy dog, and a lady dyed green. The woman said something to the driver and the car moved on.

Ben had forgotten about their costumes. He thought momentarily about removing them, then decided against it. There wasn’t time. Besides, this was Halloween. Lots of people would be out in costumes tonight, going one place or another, trick-or-treating, attending parties, having fun. It was like that in Seattle; he’d read as much in this morning’s newspaper. Halloween was a big deal.

He was feeling better about things by the time the lights of the city came into view. The rain had practically disappeared, and they were only moments from their destination. He watched the skyscrapers brighten the night skies and spread away before him in vertical lines. He took a deep breath and allowed himself the luxury of thinking they were almost safely home.

That was when he saw the lights of the state patrol car coming up behind him. “Oh, oh,” he muttered.

The patrol car closed quickly, and he eased the rental car over onto the freeway shoulder by a bridge abutment. The patrol car pulled in behind.

“Doc, what’s he stopping you for?” Miles demanded. “Were you speeding or something?”

Ben had a sick feeling in his stomach. “I don’t think so,” he said quietly.

He watched in the rearview mirror. The trooper was on the radio a moment, and another patrol car pulled up behind the first. The trooper in the first car got out then, walked up to Ben’s window, and looked in. His face was inscrutable. “Can I see your license, sir?”

Ben reached for his billfold and belatedly remembered he didn’t have it. Miles had signed for the car on his license. “Officer, I don’t have it with me, but I can give you the number. It is a valid license. And the car is registered with Mr. Bennett.”

He indicated the gorilla. Miles was trying to take off the head, but it was stuck. The trooper nodded. “Do you have some proof of identification?” he asked.

“Uh, Mr. Bennett has,” Ben said.

“I do, officer,” Miles hastily confirmed. “Here, right inside this damn suit if I can just …” He trailed off, struggling to get it free.

The trooper looked at Willow and Abernathy. Then he looked back at Ben. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come with me, sir,” he said. “Please pull your vehicle out behind mine and follow me downtown. The other patrol car will follow you.”

Ben went cold. Something had gone terribly wrong. “I’m a lawyer,” he said impulsively. “Are we being charged with something?”

The trooper shook his head. “Not by me, you aren’t. Except maybe I’ll issue you a warning ticket for driving a vehicle without carrying your license—assuming you have a license like you say. I’ll want to check the registration on this vehicle as well.”

“But … ?”

“There is apparently another matter that needs clearing up. Please follow me, sir.” He turned away without further explanation and walked back to his car.

Ben slumped back and heard Miles say softly in his ear, “We’ve been made, Doc. What do we do now?”

He shook his head wearily. He didn’t have the slightest idea.

ITCH



It took Questor Thews the better part of three days to travel by horseback from Sterling Silver to the eastern edge of the Wastelands. He went alone, slipping from the castle before dawn of the first day, departing while the bothersome G’home Gnomes and all those annoyingly insistent ambassadors, couriers, and supplicants from one place or another still slept. Affairs of state would simply have to wait, he had decided, whether it was convenient or not. Bunion and Parsnip were there to see him off, anxious that they be allowed to accompany him, distressed at his insistence on going alone. Questor would not be swayed by the toothy grins and the furtive looks. This was something he must do by himself. Neither of them could help. It was best that they stay at the castle and look after things in his absence. He mounted his old gray and rode out, Don Quixote without his Sancho Panza, a scarecrow searching for his field of need. He went north through the wooded hill country of Sterling Silver, northeast across the fields and pastures of the Greensward, and finally east into the Wastelands.

It was nearing sunset on that third day when he finally sighted the distant glow of the Fire Springs.

“Come along, now,” he urged his old gray, who had caught the scent of what lay ahead and was beginning to balk.

Questor Thews was a man who bore a very large burden of guilt. He knew that things would not be right again in the Kingdom of Landover until the High Lord was returned. Nightshade would continue her campaign of disruption and anarchy until someone found a way to deal with that bottle and its demon. Questor was not, unfortunately, the one who could do that. The High Lord was. But the High Lord was trapped in his old world and would not be able to come back again until he recovered his lost medallion—and even then would likely not come back if he could not bring Willow and the missing Abernathy with him. All of this was the fault of one Questor Thews, of course, and the wizard could not afford to stand by longer and allow matters to assume their own course when the course they assumed might well be the wrong one.

Therefore, he had come up with a plan to put things back the way they were. It was a very straightforward, if somewhat minimally developed plan—but a plan nevertheless. He would enlist the aid of the dragon Strabo to bring Holiday and the others back.

It was all quite simple, really, and he was surprised that he hadn’t thought of it earlier. No one could journey in or out of the valley of Landover without passing through the mists of fairy, and no one could pass out of Landover and back in again through the mists of fairy without the magic of Holiday’s missing medallion—no one, that is, except Strabo. Dragons could still go pretty much where they chose. Oh, they couldn’t go deep into the fairy mists, of course, because dragons had been banished from there long ago. But they could go most places. The magic that allowed them passage through the mists was their own. That was why dragons were apt to pop up almost anywhere. Strabo was no exception. He had already taken Ben Holiday down into the netherworld of Abaddon for the purpose of rescuing Questor, Willow, Abernathy, and the kobolds from the demons. He could certainly make a second trip now to rescue Holiday.

Questor’s face knotted. Strabo could, to be sure—but whether or not he would was another matter entirely. After all, the Abaddon trip had been made under extreme duress, and the dragon had made it quite clear on a number of occasions since that he would rather choke on his own smoke than lift a claw to help Ben Holiday again.

So while the plan’s conception was indeed quite simple, its execution probably would not be.

“Ah, well,” he sighed resignedly. “Something has to be tried.”

He guided the gray to the edge of the hills that ringed the Fire Springs, dismounted, stripped saddle and bridle from the old horse, slapped him on the rump, and sent him home. No point in worrying about keeping the horse, he thought. If he couldn’t persuade Strabo to help, he wouldn’t be needing a horse.

He tugged at one long ear. How was he going to persuade Strabo to help anyway?

He thought about it a moment, then shrugged away his worry and began to make his way up the slope through the heavy scrub. Twilight descended gradually over the valley in darkening patches of blue and gray, and the sun diminished to a thin silver slash above the treeline along the western rim, then disappeared altogether. Questor glanced up. A bank of low-hanging clouds hung directly overhead, and its underside shimmered orange and red from the glow of the Springs. The wizard breathed in smoke and ash and sneezed. A sneeze, he thought irritably! That was how this whole mess had begun! He shoved ahead doggedly, heedless of the brambles and scrub that caught his robes and tore through fabric and skin. The explosions were audible now, short, booming coughs that lifted into the night like giant hiccups before subsiding into gurgles of discontent. The heat grew intense, and Questor began sweating freely.

At last he topped a rise and stopped, hands settling firmly on his hips. The Fire Springs were spread out below him, a series of jagged craters in which a blue and yellow liquid bubbled and sizzled. Periodically, a crater would erupt in a geyser of flame, then settle back again discontentedly. The air was sulfurous and hot, its stench a mix of the burning liquid and the blackened bones of animals the resident dragon had devoured.

The dragon was eating now, it happened. He lay wrapped about one of the smaller craters at the north end of the Springs, busily gnawing on what appeared to Questor to be the remains of an unfortunate cow. Bones snapped and crackled loudly within the monstrous jaws, black teeth grinding contentedly. Questor wrinkled his nose in distaste. Strabo’s eating habits had always annoyed him.

“Dragon, dragon,” he murmured softly to himself.

Strabo seared a section of the cow with his fire, then tore it from the carcass and chewed loudly.

Questor Thews came forward to the very edge of the rise so that he was plainly visible. “Old dragon!” he called out. “I need a word with you!”

Strabo stopped chewing a moment and looked up. “Who’s there?” he snapped irritably. He squinted. “Questor Thews, is that you?”

“It is.”

“I thought so. How boring.” The dragon’s teeth snapped the air for emphasis. “And who are you calling ‘old’? You’re practically a fossil yourself!”

“I need a word with you.”

“So you said. I heard you quite clearly. It comes as no surprise, Questor Thews. You always want a word with someone. You seem to delight in talking. I sometimes think that if you could manage to transform your unending conversation into magic, you would indeed be a formidable wizard.”

Questor’s brow furrowed. “This is quite important!”

“Not to me. I have a dinner to finish.”

The dragon went back to work on the cow, gnawing a new portion free and chewing contentedly. He seemed oblivious of anything else.

“Reduced to stealing cows again, are you?” Questor asked suddenly, coming forward another few steps. “Tch, tch. How sad. Practically a charity case, aren’t you?”

Strabo stopped eating in mid-bite and swung his crusted, scaled head slowly about to face the wizard. “This cow is a stray that wandered in and stayed for dinner,” he said, grinning. “Rather like yourself.”

“I would make a poor meal for you.”

“Then perhaps you would make a decent dessert!” The dragon seemed to consider the idea. “No, I suppose not. There’s not enough of you even for that.”

“Not for a stomach the size of yours!”

“On the other hand, eating you would at least silence you.”

Questor shook his head. “Why don’t you just hear what I have to tell you?”

“I told you, wizard, I am eating!”

Questor hunkered down on his heels, smoothing his patched robes. “Very well. I shall wait until you are finished.”

“Do anything you please, so long as you keep silent!”

Strabo returned to his meal, searing the flesh with quick bursts of fire, tearing off great chunks of meat and bone, and chewing ferociously. His long tail twisted and snapped as he ate, as if it were the impatient recipient of food that was too long in reaching it. Questor watched. Out of the corner of one eye, Strabo watched back.

Finally, the dragon discarded the carcass of the cow by spitting it into the mouth of the crater he was wrapped about and wheeled sharply once more toward the wizard. “Enough of this, Questor Thews! How can I eat with you sitting there and staring at me as if you were some harbinger of doom? You ruin my appetite! What is it that you want?”

Questor climbed gingerly to his feet, rubbing at his cramped legs. “I want your help.”

The dragon snaked his way through the craters, his monstrous, cumbersome body impervious to the ash and fire, his tail and wings shaking off drops of liquid flame as he went. When he reached Questor’s end of the Springs, he lifted himself up on his hind legs and licked his jaws hungrily with a long, split tongue.

“Questor Thews, I find it impossible to think of a single reason why I would want to help you! And do not, please, give me that tired old recitation about the close ties of dragons and wizards, how we have shared so much of history, and how we must do what we can for each other in times of need. You tried that last time, if you recall. It was nonsense then and it is nonsense now. Helping you in any way, frankly, is abhorrent!”

“Your help is not for me,” Questor finally managed to get in. “Your help is for the High Lord.”

The dragon stared at him as if he were mad. “Holiday? You want me to help Holiday? Why ever in the world would I agree to do that?”

“Because he is your High Lord as well as mine,” Questor said. “It is time to acknowledge the fact, Strabo. Like it or not, Ben Holiday is High Lord of Land over, and so long as you live within the valley you are subject to his laws. That means that you are required to give aid to your King when he needs it!”

Strabo was in stitches. He was laughing so hard he could no longer hold himself upright; he collapsed in one of the craters, showering flames everywhere. Questor ducked a scattering and straightened. “There is nothing to laugh about here!”

“There is everything!” the dragon howled. He choked and gasped and belched smoke and fire. “Questor Thews, you are truly astounding. I think you even believe yourself sometimes. How droll!”

“Will you help or not?” Questor demanded indignantly.

“I should say not!” The dragon rose up once more. “I am not a subject of this land or its High Lord! I live where I choose and obey my own laws! I am certainly not required to give aid to anyone—least of all Holiday! What utter nonsense!”

Questor was not surprised to hear Strabo speak like this, knowing perfectly well that the dragon had never willingly done anything to help anyone in his entire life. But it had been worth the try.

“What of the pretty sylph, Willow?” he asked. “She is in need of your help as well. You saved her life once before, remember? She has sung to you and given you dreams to muse on. Surely, you would help Holiday if it meant helping her.”

“Not a chance,” the dragon sniffed.

Questor thought. “Very well,” he said. “Then you must help Holiday for your own sake.”

“My own sake?” Strabo licked his teeth. “What clever argument will you conjure up now, wizard?”

“An argument that even a dragon can understand,” Questor Thews replied. “Nightshade has gained control of a magic that threatens everyone in the valley. She has already begun to employ it, turning humans and the fairy folk against each other and causing disorder everywhere. If she is allowed to continue, she will destroy them all.”

The dragon sneered. “What do I care?”

Questor shrugged. “Sooner or later she will get around to you, Strabo. Next to Holiday, you are her worst enemy. What do you imagine will happen to you then?”

“Bah! I am a match for any magic the witch might command!”

Questor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I wish I could say the same. This is a different magic, Strabo—a magic as old as your own. It comes in the form of a demon that lives in a bottle. The demon draws its strength from the holder of the bottle and can employ that strength in any way it chooses. You would agree, wouldn’t you, that Nightshade’s strength is formidable?”

“I agree to nothing!” The dragon was irritated. “Get out of here, Questor Thews! I tire of you!”

“As much as you hate Holiday, his is the only magic that can withstand the demon. Landover’s High Lord commands the Paladin, and the Paladin can withstand anything.”

“Begone, wizard!”

“If you do not agree to help Holiday, Strabo, there will be no Paladin to stand against Nightshade and the demon. If you do not agree to help, we are all doomed.”

“Begone!”

The dragon breathed a stream of fire that seared the whole of the slope below where Questor Thews was standing and left the air smoking and filled with ash. Questor choked and gasped and retreated from the heat. When the air cleared, he saw the dragon turning sullenly away. “I care nothing for Nightshade, her demon, Holiday, you, or anyone else in this valley!” he muttered. “I barely care anything for myself! Now, go!”

Questor Thews frowned his deepest frown. Well, he had tried. No one could say that he hadn’t. He had done his best to reason with the dragon and he had failed. The dragon was simply being his normal, intractable self. If he continued to press the matter now, it would mean a fight.

He sighed wearily. That was the way it was between dragons and wizards. That was the way it had always been.

He strode forward to the edge of the rise again and stopped. “Strabo!” The dragon’s crusted head swung about. “Old dragon, it appears that we shall have to do this the hard way. I had hoped that common sense would prevail over innate stubbornness, but it now appears clear that will not be possible. It is necessary that you agree to help the High Lord, and if you will not do so willingly, then you shall do so nevertheless!”

Strabo stared at Questor in genuine amazement. “Good heavens, Questor Thews, are you threatening me?”

Questor drew himself up to his full height. “If threatening you is what it takes to gain your cooperation, then I will threaten you and worse.”

“Really?” The dragon took a long moment to study the wizard, then slapped his tail in a crater of fire with a loud whack and sent the burning liquid flying everywhere. “Go on home, silly old wizard!” he snapped and started to turn away.

Questor brought his hands up in a broad sweep, fire gathering at his fingertips as he did so. With a lunge, he sent the fire hurtling at the dragon. It struck Strabo full along the length of his great body, lifted him from the earth, and sent him flying over several of the bubbling craters to land in a tangled heap. Rock and flames scattered everywhere, and the dragon gave an audible grunt.

“Dear me!” Questor whispered, surprised that he could muster such magic.

Strabo picked himself up slowly, shook himself head to tail, coughed, spit, and turned slowly back to the wizard. “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, a hint of admiration in his voice.

“I have learned much you do not yet know about,” Questor bluffed. “Best that you simply agree now to do as I have asked.”

Strabo replied with a sheet of flame that lanced at Questor and sent him cartwheeling head over heels into a patch of brush. A second rush of fire followed, but Questor was tumbling back down the hillside by that time, out of sight, and the fire merely fried the landscape until it was black.

“Bah, come back here, Questor Thews!” the dragon called after him from the other side of the rise. “This fight hasn’t even started yet and already you’re running for home!”

Questor picked himself up gingerly and started back up the slope. This was going to require a considerable effort on his part, he decided grimly.

For the next twenty minutes, wizard and dragon attacked each other with a ferocity that was terrifying. They twisted and dodged and skipped about, hurdling craters that spit smoke and steam and flame, turning the whole of the Fire Springs into a blackened battleground. Blow for blow they traded, Questor employing every conceivable form of magic against the dragon, conjuring up spells he didn’t even know he knew, Strabo answering back with bursts of flame. Back and forth they swung, pushing and shoving like fighters in a ring, and when the twenty minutes drew to a close, they were both gasping for breath and lurching like drunks.

“Wizard … you continually astonish me!” Strabo panted, slowly curling himself into a ball at the center of the Springs.

“Have you … given further consideration to … my request?” Questor demanded in reply.

“Most … certainly,” Strabo said and sent a fireball hurtling at the wizard.

They resumed their struggle wordlessly, and only their grunts and cries and the occasional booming coughs of the craters broke the evening stillness. The clouds dispersed, and a scattering of stars and several of Landover’s moons broke through the cover. The wind died, and the air warmed. Twilight passed away, and night descended.

Questor sent a swarm of gnats at the dragon, clogging his nose, eyes, and mouth. Strabo choked and gasped and breathed fire everywhere, thrashing as if chained. He began to swear, using words Questor had never heard before. Then he lifted free of the earth, launched himself at the wizard, and attempted to flatten him. Questor conjured a hole in the earth and dropped into it just before the dragon landed with a whump where previously he had been standing. Strabo sat there, looking about for him, not seeing him, so angry at his apparent miss he didn’t realize what had happened. Then a six-foot bee stinger shoved at him from underneath and sent him lurching skyward again with a howl. Questor appeared from the hole, throwing fire; the dragon threw fire back; and both of them fell apart again, singed and smoking.

“Wizard, we are … too old for this!” Strabo gasped, licking away bits of ash that were crusted on his nose. “Give it up!”

“I will give it up … when you say ‘yes’—not before!” Questor answered.

Strabo shook his blackened head. “Whatever … it is you wish, it cannot possibly … be worth all this!”

Questor wondered. He was black from head to foot with ash and burns, his robes were tattered and soiled beyond repair, his hair was standing straight out from his head, and the muscles and joints of his body felt as if they would never be right again. He had tried every magic he knew and then some, and nothing had fazed the dragon. He was alive, he thought, only by a series of flukes unparalleled in the history of wizardry. Much of the magic he had tried had misfired—as usual—and much of what he might like to do was beyond him. The only thing that was keeping him on his feet was the knowledge that if he failed now, he might as well forget about ever calling himself a wizard again. This was his last chance, his one opportunity to prove to himself—even if to no one else—that he really was the wizard he had always claimed to be.

He took a deep breath. “Are you … ready to listen?” he asked.

Strabo opened his maw as far as it would open and showed Questor all of his considerable teeth. “Step … inside, why don’t you, Questor Thews … so you can better hear my answer!”

Questor sent a flurry of canker sores into the dragon’s mouth, but the hide was so tough they couldn’t even begin to settle before they were dispatched. Strabo responded with a blast that sent the wizard tumbling head over heels and burned off his boots. They traded fireballs for a moment, then Questor pin-wheeled his arms until it seemed they might fly off and sent a ferocious ice storm at the dragon. Sleet and frigid wind beat against the dragon as he sought refuge in the fire of one of the larger craters. But the storm was so fierce it suffocated the flames and turned the liquid in the crater to ice. Strabo was trapped in the resulting block, the ice hammering off his head as he howled in rage.

Finally, the magic gave out and the storm subsided. A foot of snow covered the dragon, but it was already melting from the heat of the other craters. Strabo poked his head out from beneath the covering and shook off the last of the flakes irritably. Then he heaved upward with a roar, and the ice shattered into cubes. The dragon was free once more, steam pouring from his nostrils as he swung about to face Questor Thews.

Questor stiffened. What would it take to overcome the beast, he wondered in frustration. What did he have to do?

He dodged another rush of flame, then another, and threw up a shield of magic against a third. Strabo was simply too strong. He wasn’t going to win a test of strength against the dragon. He had to find another way.

He waited for Strabo to pause for breath, then sent an itch.

The itch started inside the dragon’s left hind foot, but when he lifted the foot to scratch, the itch moved up to his thigh, then to his back, his neck, his ear, his nose, and back down to his right foot. Strabo twisted and grunted, flailing madly as the itch worked its way up one side and down the other, as elusive as buttered sausage, slipping and sliding away from him as he sought to relieve it. He howled and he roared, he writhed and he lurched, and nothing helped. He forgot about Questor Thews, working his serpentine body over the sharp edges of the craters, dousing himself in the liquid fire, trying desperately to scratch.

When at last Questor Thews made a quick motion with his hands and took back the itch, Strabo was a limp noodle. He lay gasping at the center of the Fire Springs, his strength momentarily spent, his tongue hanging out on the ground. His eyes rolled wearily until they settled at last on the wizard.

“All right, all right!” he said, panting like an old dog. “I have had enough! What is it that you want, Questor Thews? Just tell me and let’s get it over with!”

Questor Thews puffed up a bit and permitted himself a smile of satisfaction.

“Well, old dragon, it is really quite simple,” he began.

HALLOWEEN CRAZIES



Chief Deputy Pick Wilson of the King County Sheriff’s Department leaned forward cautiously across his paper-laden work desk and said to Ben Holiday, “So you and your friends were just on your way to a Halloween party at … What hotel was that again?”

Ben looked thoughtful. “I think it was the Sheraton. I’m not sure. The invitation should be in the car somewhere.”

“Uh-huh. So you were on your way to this party, in a rental car, your suitcases packed in the trunk …”

“We were leaving right afterward for the airport,” Ben interjected. The room smelled of new paint and disinfectant and was suffocatingly hot.

“With no identification, not even your driver’s license?” Wilson paused, looking mildly baffled.

“I explained all that, Deputy.” Ben was having trouble concealing his irritation. “Mr. Bennett has identification. Mine was left behind by accident.”

“Along with that of Mr. Abernathy and the young lady,” Wilson finished. “Yes, so you explained.”

He eased himself back again in his chair, looking from the skeleton to the gorilla to the shaggy dog to the pale green lady and back again. None of them had taken off their costumes yet, although Ben had long ago removed his death’s mask and Miles had finally gotten rid of the troublesome gorilla head. They sat there in that sterile, functional, bare-walled office somewhere in the bowels of the King County Courts Building, where the Washington State Police had deposited them nearly an hour ago, looking for all the world like candidates for “Let’s Make A Deal.” Wilson continued to look at them, and Ben could tell exactly what he was thinking.

The deputy cleared his throat, glancing down at some papers before him. “And the shaggy dog costume we found in the back seat … ?”

“Was an extra. It didn’t fit right.” Ben leaned forward. “We’ve been over this ground before. If you have a charge to make, please make it. You’ve seen our card, deputy. Mr. Bennett and I are both lawyers, and we are prepared to defend ourselves and our friends, if that should prove necessary. But we are growing very tired of just sitting here. Are there any more questions?”

Wilson smiled faintly. “Just a few. Uh, wouldn’t Mr. Abernathy be more comfortable with his mask off?”

“No, he would not,” Ben snapped irritably. He glanced sideways at Abernathy. “It took considerable effort to get it on him in the first place, believe me. And we still hope to make that party, deputy. So another five minutes and that’s it. You’ll have to charge us.”

He was bluffing, but he had to do something to move matters along. He still didn’t know exactly what Wilson knew or what sort of trouble they were in. Just a mix-up of some sort, the deputy had assured them. Just a matter of straightening it all out. But when it came right down to doing any straightening, they just seemed to continue running about in circles.

Willow sat next to him in something that resembled a trance. Her eyes were half-closed, and her breathing extremely shallow. Wilson had watched her with growing suspicion. Ben had explained to the deputy that she was just a little under the weather, but he knew Wilson didn’t believe him. Wilson believed she was on drugs.

“Your lady friend doesn’t appear to be doing so well, Mr. Holiday,” the Chief Deputy said, as if reading Ben’s mind. “Would she like to lie down?”

“I don’t want to leave you, Ben,” Willow said quietly, eyes flickering open briefly before closing again.

Wilson hesitated, then shrugged. Ben moved his chair closer to Willow and put his arm around her, trying to make it look as much as possible as if he were simply comforting her rather than holding her upright. She sagged against him weakly.

“I’m going to call local counsel, Deputy Wilson,” announced Miles suddenly. He stood up. “Is there a phone I can use?”

Wilson nodded. “Next office. Dial 9 to get an outside line.”

Miles glanced meaningfully at Ben, then exited the room. As he went out, one of several clerks working in the reception area outside stuck her head through the door and told Wilson he was wanted on the phone. Wilson got up and walked over. Ben could hear a couple of the deputies lounging outside talking about how the whole city was overrun like this every Halloween. Witches, goblins, ghosts, and God-knew-what, one said. Zoo animals everywhere, the other said. It was hard enough keeping the peace on normal nights, the first said. Impossible on Halloween, the other said. Bunch of nuts, the first said. Bunch of crazies, the other said.

Wilson finished his conversation with the clerk. “Excuse me a moment, Mr. Holiday,” he said and went out. The door closed behind him.

Abernathy looked over worriedly. “What’s going to happen to us, High Lord?” he asked in a whisper. He hadn’t said a word since they got there because Ben had warned him not to. It was hard enough keeping up this charade about a Halloween party without trying to explain how the mouth in a dog mask could move so much like the real thing.

Ben smiled, trying to look reassuring. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’ll be out of here soon enough.”

“I don’t understand why they keep asking if I want to take off my mask, High Lord. Why don’t I just tell them the truth?”

“Because they can’t handle the truth, that’s why!” Ben sighed, irritated with himself. There was no point in snapping at the faithful scribe. “I’m sorry, Abernathy. I wish we could just tell the truth. I wish it were that simple.”

Abernathy nodded doubtfully, glanced at Willow, then leaned forward and whispered, “I know you came back for me and I am deeply grateful. But I think that, if we are not allowed to go soon, you must forget about me. You must cross back into Landover and help those whose needs are more pressing.” His eyes flickered briefly to Willow and away again. Willow appeared to be asleep.

Ben shook his head wearily. “Too late for that, Abernathy. I’m as much a prisoner now as you. No, we’ll all go back together. All of us.”

Abernathy kept his brown eyes locked on Ben’s. “I don’t know if that’s going to be possible, High Lord,” he said quietly.

Ben didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He watched as Miles reappeared through the door and closed it again.

“Help’s on the way,” he said. “I reached Winston Sack, senior partner with the firm of Sack, Saul, and McQuinn. We did some business with them a few years back in that Seafirst case. He said he’d send someone right over.”

Ben nodded. “I hope whoever it is hurries.”

Wilson came back into the room, all business. “Mr. Holiday, do you know a man named Michel Ard Rhi?”

Ben had been ready for that question from the beginning. There couldn’t be any other reason that they would be detained like this. He pretended to think a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, it appears that Mr. Ard Rhi has accused you and your friends of stealing something from him. Some sort of medallion.”

The room got very quiet. “That’s ridiculous,” Ben said.

“Mr. Ard Rhi has given a description of the medallion to us. The description is quite thorough. The medallion is silver and engraved with some sort of knight and a castle.” He paused. “Do you have a medallion like that, Mr. Holiday?”

Ben felt his throat constrict. “Let’s wait for the attorney that Mr. Bennett contacted to arrive before we answer any more questions. Okay?”

Wilson shrugged. “Up to you. Mr. Ard Rhi has contacted someone in the Attorney General’s office. That’s why you’re here. Mr. Ard Rhi’s coming down from up around Woodinville, I gather. Should be here in just a bit. The Attorney General’s office already has a man in the building.” He got up. “Maybe when everyone gets here, we can clear all this up.”

He went out again, closing the door softly behind him. There was a moment of silence while he moved away, then Miles snapped, “Damnit, Doc, all he has to do is search you to find …”

“Miles!” Ben cut him short with a hiss. “What was I supposed to do? Tell him I had it? If he finds out I have it, we’ll be charged for sure and the medallion confiscated in the bargain! I can’t allow that to happen!”

“Well, I don’t see how you can prevent it! They’ll find it anyway the moment they search you!”

“Listen up, will you? He’s not going to search me! He can’t do that without probable cause, and he hasn’t got any! Besides, it won’t come to that!”

Miles’ round face tightened. “With all due respect, Doc, you are not a criminal lawyer! You’re a hell of trial lawyer, but your specialty is civil litigation! How do you know if he’s got probable cause or not? Ard Rhi is going to say you took it, and that sounds like probable cause for a search to me!”

Ben felt trapped. He knew Miles was right. But if he admitted to having the medallion, they would be there in that Courts Building for the rest of their lives, or at least long enough to make it seem that way. He looked from Miles to Abernathy to Willow. Miles was beside himself with worry, Abernathy was within an inch of doing something that would blow his cover, and Willow was so sick she could no longer even sit upright without help. Landover was looking farther and farther away with the passing of every moment. His plan of escape was coming apart at the seams. He could not afford any further complications. He had to find a way to get them out of there right now.

He got up, walked to the door, and opened it. “Wilson,” he called quietly, and the Chief Deputy left what he was doing to wander over. “I’ve been thinking,” Ben said. “Why not put this whole matter over until tomorrow—or even until the first of the week. This isn’t anything that won’t keep. Willow seems to be getting worse. I want her to get some rest, maybe see a doctor. When that’s done, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you want. How about it?”

He meant it. He would come back, from Landover if necessary, and set things straight once and for all. He had already decided that he didn’t care for the idea of Michel Ard Rhi running around loose in his old world after all.

But Wilson was already shaking his head. “Sorry, Mr. Holiday, but I can’t do that. I might consider it if it were just me making the decision. But the order to hold you came right from the Attorney General’s office. I can’t release you until they say so. You’re a lawyer; you understand.”

Ben nodded wordlessly. He understood, all right. Somewhere along the line, Michel Ard Rhi had greased some political wheels. He should have expected as much. He thanked Wilson anyway and went back inside the office, closing the door once more. He sat down again beside Willow and cradled her against him.

“Well, you tried, Doc,” Miles offered quietly.

Willow’s head lifted momentarily from his shoulder. “It will be all right, Ben,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.”

He did worry, though. He worried that time was slipping away. He worried that all the doors out of this mess were closing one after the other, and he wasn’t going to be able to do a thing about it.

He was still worrying twenty minutes later when there was a brief knock, the door opened, and a young man in a neatly pressed, three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase appeared, spoke momentarily over his shoulder to Wilson, and stepped inside. This had better be the cavalry, Ben thought. The young man stopped. He was not prepared for what greeted him.

“Mr. Bennett?” he asked, looking doubtfully at the skeleton, gorilla, shaggy dog, and pale green lady facing him. Miles stuck out his hand and the young man shook it. “Lloyd Willoughby, Mr. Bennett, from Sack, Saul, and McQuinn. Mr. Sack called me and asked me to come over.”

“We appreciate it, Mr. Willoughby,” Miles said and proceeded to introduce the others. Ben shook his hand. Abernathy and Willow just looked at him, and he in turn looked back at them. Ben thought he looked awfully young—and that meant awfully green. You could tell from the way he was looking at them that he was thinking much the same thing Chief Deputy Wilson had been thinking a short time earlier.

Willoughby put his briefcase on Wilson’s desk and rubbed his hands together nervously. “Now, then, what seems to be the problem?”

“The problem is simple,” Ben offered, taking charge. “We are being held on a bogus theft charge—a charge made by a Mr. Ard Rhi. This man apparently has some clout in the Attorney General’s office, because that’s where the order to hold us originated. What we want—and right now—is to be allowed to go home and worry about this another time. Willow is quite ill and needs to be put to bed.”

“Well, I understood that there was a possible theft charge pending,” Willoughby said, looking increasingly nervous. “Some sort of medallion? What can you tell me about that?”

“I can tell you that I have it and that it is mine,” Ben answered, seeing no purpose in pretending otherwise. “Mr. Ard Rhi has no basis for his charge that I stole it.”

“Have you told this to the Chief Deputy?”

“No, Mr. Willoughby, because if I did, he would want to take the medallion, and I have no intention of giving it up.”

Willoughby now looked as if he were waist deep in alligators. He managed a faint smile. “Certainly, Mr. Holiday, I understand. But, do you have the medallion on you? Because from what I understand, if they choose to charge you, they might search you, find the medallion, and take it from you anyway.”

Ben fumed. “What about probable cause? Isn’t it Ard Rhi’s word against ours? That’s not enough for probable cause, is it?”

Willoughby looked perplexed. “Actually, Mr. Holiday, I’m not sure. The truth is, criminal law is only a sideline in our firm’s practice. I handle a small amount to satisfy those of our clients who want one of us to represent them, but I don’t do much otherwise.” He smiled weakly. “Mr. Sack always calls me to cover for him on these nighttime matters.”

Green as new wood, Ben thought. We’re doomed.

“You mean you’re not even a criminal attorney?” Miles began, coming to his feet as if he might actually be the gorilla he was dressed as. Willoughby took a quick step back, and Ben restrained Miles with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down again into his seat with a quick warning glance in the general direction of the door that separated them from Wilson.

He turned back to Willoughby. “I don’t want them to search me, Mr. Willoughby. It is as simple as that. Can you prevent it?” Willoughby looked doubtful. “Tell you what, then,” Ben followed up quickly. “Let’s play it by ear. You be local counsel, but I’ll call the shots. Just follow my lead, okay?”

Willoughby looked as if he were considering whether or not he was being asked to do anything unethical. His brows were knit and his smooth, young face was deeply intense. Ben knew he would be useless if push came to shove. But there was no time to bring in anyone else.

The door opened to re-admit Wilson. “Mr. Martin of the Attorney General’s office has asked me to bring you up to Three Court for a short meeting, Mr. Holiday. All of you, please. Maybe now you can go home.”

When cows fly, Ben thought dismally.

They took the elevator up several floors and got off in a carpeted waiting area. The Chief Deputy led them down a short hall to a pair of paneled doors and from there into an empty courtroom. They stood at the head of an aisle that led down through a dozen rows of a viewing gallery to a gate that opened onto the trial floor and the judge’s bench. The jury box and the witness stand sat to the left, the reporters’ stand to the right. Further right, a bank of windows that ran the length of the wall opened out onto the lights of the city. Shadows lay over the room, broken only by a pair of recessed ceiling lamps that spotlighted the counsel tables situated directly in front of the gate.

A man with glasses and graying hair rose from one of the tables and said, “Chief Deputy, would you bring Mr. Holiday and his friends down here, please?”

Willoughby stepped to the forefront on their arrival, sticking out his hand and announcing, “Lloyd Willoughby of Sack, Saul, and McQuinn, Mr. Martin. I have been asked to represent Mr. Holiday.”

Martin shook his hand perfunctorily and promptly forgot him. “It’s late, Mr. Holiday, and I’m tired. I know who you are. I’ve even followed a case or two you’ve tried. We’ve both been around the block, so let me get right to the point. The complainant, Mr. Ard Rhi, says you took a medallion from him. He wants it returned. I don’t know what the dispute is, but I have Mr. Ard Rhi’s word that if the medallion is returned, the whole matter will be forgotten. No charges will be filed. What do you say?”

Ben shrugged. “I say Mr. Ard Rhi is nuts. Is that why we’re being detained—because someone says we stole a medallion? What kind of nonsense is this, anyway?”

Martin shook his head. “Frankly, I don’t know. A lot of what happens anymore is beyond me. At any rate, you better think it over because if the medallion doesn’t show up and Mr. Ard Rhi does—he’s supposed to be on his way—you are likely to be charged, Mr. Holiday.”

“On one man’s word?”

“Afraid so.”

Ben came right against him. “As you said, Mr. Martin, I’m a lawyer who’s been around the block. So is Mr. Bennett. Our word ought to count for something. Who is this Ard Rhi? Why should you take his word? That’s all you have, isn’t it?”

Martin was unruffled. He stood his ground. “The only word I get, Mr. Holiday, is from my boss, who keeps me employed, and he says to charge you if Mr. Ard Rhi—whoever he is and whatever he does—signs a complaint. My guess is that if he doesn’t get the medallion back, he’ll sign. What do you think?”

Ben couldn’t say what he was thinking without getting in worse trouble than he already was. “Okay, detain me, Mr. Martin. But how about letting the others go? Apparently I’m the one who’s to be charged.”

Martin shook his head. “No such luck. Your friends are to be charged as accomplices. Look, I’ve just finished a long, hard day in court. I lost the case I was trying, I missed my kid’s Halloween party, and now I’m stuck down here with you people. I don’t like this any better than you do, but that’s the way life works sometimes. So let’s just have a seat here while we wait for Mr. Ard Rhi. And maybe I can finish some of this paperwork I’m too damned tired to haul back to my office.” He motioned to the gallery. “Give me a break, huh? Talk it over. I don’t want to mess with this thing.”

He trooped wearily back to the counsel table and sat down, bending over a legal pad and notes. Willoughby motioned them all solicitously toward the gallery seats, where they sat in a row.

Martin looked up again. “Chief Deputy? Your people got orders to bring Mr. Ard Rhi up here when he arrives?” Martin waited for the affirming nod, then went back to his notes. Wilson drifted back up the aisle to the courtroom doors and stayed there.

Willoughby eased his way down the line to Ben and bent down. “Maybe you really should reconsider your decision not to give up the medallion, Mr. Holiday,” he whispered, sounding as if perhaps Ben should realize that this would be best for all concerned.

Ben gave him a look that caused him to move quickly away. Willow’s voice was a whisper in his ear. “Don’t … give them the medallion, Ben.” She sounded so weak it made his throat constrict. “If you must,” she said, “leave me. Promise you will.”

“Me as well, High Lord,” Abernathy said, bending close. “Whatever happens to us, at least you must get back to Landover!”

Ben closed his eyes. There was that choice. He had the medallion back again. Alone, he could undoubtedly find a way to slip out. But it would mean abandoning his friends, and he wasn’t about to do that, no matter what. Miles would probably be all right, but Willow wouldn’t last the night. And what would become of Abernathy? He shook his head. There had to be another way out of this.

Miles leaned over. “Maybe you better think about hiding the medallion, Doc. Just for tonight. You can come back for it tomorrow. You can’t let them find it on you!”

Ben didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer. Hello, choice number two. He knew Miles was right, but he also knew that he didn’t want to part with the medallion again for any reason. Twice now he had lost it, once before when Meeks had tricked him into thinking he had given it up when in fact he hadn’t, and this time when he had given it to Abernathy in Questor’s ill-fated effort to change the dog back into a man. Both times he had managed to retrieve it, but only after considerable difficulty. He was not anxious to risk a third mishap. The medallion had become an integral part of him since he had crossed into Landover, and while he didn’t yet fully understand how it had happened, he knew that he could no longer function without it. It gave him the magic that made him King. It gave him power over the Paladin. And while he was reluctant to admit it, it gave him his identity.

He sat in the near-dark courtroom and thought about the medallion and all that he had become since it had been given to him. He looked at the trappings of the courtroom, symbols of his old life as a member of the bar, shards of the person he had been, and thought about how far he had gone away from them. Democracy to monarchy. Trial and error to trial by combat. A jury of his peers to a jury of one. No law but his. It had all been made possible by his acquisition of the medallion. His hand drifted to his tunic front. His smile was ironic. The trappings of his old life might be gone, but hadn’t he simply exchanged them for new ones?

The doors pushed open and another deputy appeared. He spoke briefly with Wilson, and Wilson walked down to Martin. They in turn conversed, and then Martin got up and walked back up the aisle with the Chief Deputy. All three men pushed through the doors and disappeared.

Ben felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to prickle. Something was up.

A few moments later, they were back. Martin walked down the aisle to stand before Ben. “Mr. Ard Rhi is here, Mr. Holiday. He says you came to his house last night posing as a Mr. Squires in an attempt to buy the medallion. When he wouldn’t sell, you came back tonight with your friends and stole it. Apparently, the daughter of his steward helped you. He says she’s admitted her part in the matter.” He looked toward the courtroom doors. “Chief Deputy?”

Wilson and the other deputy pushed open the doors and said something to someone outside. Michel Ard Rhi stepped into view, his face impassive, but his eyes dark with anger. Behind him appeared two members of Graum Wythe’s watch.

Elizabeth stood disconsolately between them. Her eyes were downcast and tears streaked her freckled face.

Ben felt sick. They had found Elizabeth. There was no telling what they had threatened her with to force her to confess to stealing the medallion. And there was no telling what they would do to her if Ard Rhi didn’t get it now.

“Do any of you know the little girl?” Martin asked quietly.

No one said anything. No one had to.

“How about it, Mr. Holiday?” Martin pressed. “If you return the medallion, this whole matter can be dropped right here and now. Otherwise, I have to charge you.”

Ben didn’t answer. He couldn’t. There seemed no way out.

Martin sighed. “Mr. Holiday?”

Ben leaned forward, just to shift positions while he tried to stall, but Abernathy misinterpreted the move, thinking he had decided to give up the medallion, and hurriedly brought up a paw to restrain him.

“No, High Lord, you cannot!” he exclaimed.

Martin stared at the dog. Ben could see in the man’s eyes what he was thinking. He was thinking, how can the mouth on a dog costume move like that? How come he has teeth and a tongue? How come he seems so real?

Then a ball of crimson fire exploded outside the bank of courtroom windows, a black hole opened through the night, and out of the hole flew Strabo the dragon and Questor Thews.

DRAGON AT THE BAR



It was one of those rare moments in life when everything seems to come to a halt, where movement is suspended, and everyone is trapped in a sort of three-dimensional still life. It was one of those moments that imprints itself in the memory, so that years later everyone still remembers exactly what it was like—what the feelings were, the smells, the tastes, the colors, and the lines and angles of everything around; and most of all, the way everything that happened just before and just after seemed focused on that moment like sunlight reflected off still water in colored threads.

It was like that for Ben Holiday. For that one moment, he saw everything as if it were captured in a photograph. He was half-turned in his seat in the front row of that courtroom gallery, Willow on one side, slumped down against his shoulder, Abernathy on the other, eyes shining, and Miles further left, still in his gorilla outfit, his cherubic face a mix of astonishment and dismay. Martin and Willoughby stood just in front of them on the other side of the gate, two generations of three-piece suits, their entire lives given over to a belief in the value of reason and common sense, the former looking as if he had just witnessed Armageddon, the latter looking as if he had caused it. Behind and to the rear, just visible in Ben’s peripheral vision, were Chief Deputy Wilson and his brothers-at-arms, minions of the law, bent in half crouches that gave them the appearance of startled cats poised to run either way. Michel Ard Rhi had black hatred etched on his face, and his men were white with fear. Only Elizabeth radiated the pure wonder that was captured, too, somewhere in Ben.

Outside, pinned against the backdrop of the lights of the city of Seattle, was Strabo. His bulk seemed to hang in the air, wings outspread like a monstrous hang glider’s, his black, crusted, serpentine form framed in the windows of the courtroom like an image projected on a screen. His yellow-lamp eyes blinked, and smoke trailed in streamers from his nostrils and mouth. Questor Thews sat astride him, patchwork gray robes so tattered they seemed to hang in strips, white hair and beard streaked with ash and flying in the wind. There was wonder mirrored in the wizard’s face as well.

Ben wanted to howl with the exhilaration he was feeling.

Then Martin whispered, “Good God!” his voice like a small child’s, and the moment was gone.

Everyone began moving and shouting at once. Wilson and the second deputy came down the aisle still crouched, slipping their guns from their holsters, yelling at everyone to get down. Ben yelled back, telling them not to shoot, glancing once over his shoulder to where Questor Thews was already making a quick circling motion with his fingers, then back again to see the astonished deputies staring at fistfuls of daisies where the guns had been. The hallway outside had become an impassable jungle, floor-to-ceiling deepest Africa, and Michel Ard Rhi and his men, trying desperately to flee, found their exit blocked. Elizabeth had broken free of them and was running down the aisle to greet Abernathy, crying and saying something about a clown nose and Michel and how sorry she was. Willoughby was pulling and tugging on Miles as if somehow Miles might get him out of this nightmare, and Miles was trying in vain to shove the other man away.

Then, suddenly, Strabo shifted positions outside the window, and his huge tail swung about like a wrecking ball and hammered into the bank of windows with an explosion that shattered glass, wooden frames, and half the wall. The city night rushed in, wind and cold, the sounds of cars from the streets and ships from the docks, and the lights of the adjacent high rises which now seemed magnified a hundredfold.

Ben went to the floor, Miles was thrown back into the gallery seats, and Abernathy and Elizabeth came together in a rush.

“Strabo!” Michel Ard Rhi screamed in recognition.

The dragon flew in through the opening like a dirigible and settled onto the courtroom floor, flattening counsel benches, the reporters’ stand, and part of the gate.

“Holiday!” he hissed, and his tongue licked out from between the blackened spikes of his teeth. “What an ugly world you come from!”

Martin, Willoughby, Wilson, the second deputy, Michel Ard Rhi, and his men were climbing all over one another in an effort to get out of the way of the dragon, but they couldn’t break through the wall of foliage that blocked the courtroom doors. Strabo glanced at them; his maw opened, and a jet of steam shot out at the five, who screamed in terror and dove for the cover of the gallery seats. The dragon laughed and clicked his jaws at them.

“Enough of that nonsense!” Questor Thews snapped. The wizard began climbing down from the dragon’s back.

“You drag me here against my will, force me to rescue a man I despise, a man who is nothing less than what he deserves to be—the victim of his own foolhardiness—and now you would deprive me of the tiny bit of pleasure this pointless venture affords!” Strabo huffed and snapped his tail, taking out another row of gallery seats. “You are so tiresome, Questor Thews!”

Questor ignored him. “High Lord!” The wizard came forward and embraced Ben warmly. “Are you well?”

“Questor, I have never been better!” Ben exclaimed, pounding the other on the back so hard he almost knocked him over. “And I have never been happier to see anyone in all my life! Not ever!”

“I could not tolerate even the thought of you being here another moment, High Lord,” Questor declared solemnly. He straightened. “Let me make my confession here and now. This entire mishap has been my fault. I am the one who made a mess out of things and I am the one who must put them right again.”

He turned, his eyes settling on Abernathy. “Old friend!” he called over. “I have done you a grave disservice. I am sorry for what I did. I hope you will forgive me.”

Abernathy wrinkled his nose with distaste. “Cat’s whiskers, Questor Thews! There is no time for this nonsense!” Questor assumed a pained look. “Oh, for the … Very well! I forgive you! You knew I would! Now, get us out of here, confound it!”

But Questor had caught sight of Michel Ard Rhi. “Ah, hello, Michel!” he called up the aisle to where the other was crouched behind a line of benches. He smiled brightly, then whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Ben, “What is going on here, anyway?”

Quickly, Ben filled him in. He told him what Michel had done to Abernathy and tried to do to them.

Questor was understandably appalled. “Michel hasn’t changed a bit, it seems. He remains the same detestable fellow he always was. Landover is well rid of him.” He shrugged. “Well, this is all great fun, but I am afraid we must be going, High Lord. I suspect the magic I employed to close off this room won’t last very long. Magic has never enjoyed much success in this world.” He took a moment to survey his handiwork at the courtroom door, then sighed. “That’s a much better than average forest wall I conjured, don’t you think? I am quite proud of it. I have always been rather good at growing things, you know.”

“A regular green thumb,” Ben acknowledged. He had his eyes fixed on Michel Ard Rhi. “Listen, Questor, as far as I’m concerned, the quicker you get us out of here, the better. But we have to take Michel with us. I know,” he added hastily, seeing the look of horror on the other’s face, “you think I’m nuts. But what about Elizabeth if we leave him? What happens to her?”

Questor frowned. Clearly, he hadn’t considered that. “Oh, dear,” he said.

Elizabeth, a dozen feet up the aisle, was clearly thinking much the same thing. “Abernathy!” she begged, tugging on his sleeve. When he looked down, her eyes were huge. “Please don’t leave me behind! I don’t want to stay here anymore. I want to come with you.”

Abernathy shook his head. “Elizabeth, no …”

“Yes, Abernathy, please! I want to! I want to learn magic, and fly dragons and play with you and Willow and see the castle where …”

“Elizabeth …”

“… Ben is King and the fairy world and all the strange creatures, everything, but I don’t want to stay here, not with Michel, not even if my father said it would be all right, because it wouldn’t, not ever …”

“But I can’t take you!”

They stared at each other in anguish. Then Abernathy bent down impulsively, hugged the little girl close, and felt her hug him back. “Oh, Elizabeth!” he whispered.

Outside the window, still in the distance, sirens sounded. Miles grabbed Ben. “You have to get out of here now, Doc—or you’re liable not to get out at all.” He shook his head. “I still think this whole thing is just a crazy dream. Green fairies and talking dogs and now dragons! I think I’m going to wake up tomorrow and wonder what I had to drink tonight!” Then he grinned. “Doesn’t matter, though.” He glanced at the dragon, who was chewing on a section of the judge’s bench. “I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it!”

Ben smiled. “Thanks, Miles. Thanks for sticking with me. I know it wasn’t easy—especially with so many weird things happening all at once. But someday you’ll understand. Someday I’ll come back and tell you everything.”

Miles put a big hand on his shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that, Doc. Now get going. And don’t worry about things here. I’ll do what I can for the little girl. I’ll find a way to straighten it all out, I promise.”

Questor had been studying Elizabeth and Abernathy while Miles was speaking, but now suddenly he started. “Straighten things out!” he exclaimed. “That gives me an idea!” He wheeled and hurried up the aisle to where Michel Ard Rhi and the others still crouched behind the gallery seats. “Let me see,” the wizard muttered to himself. “I think I still remember how this works. Ah!”

He muttered a few quick words, added a few curt gestures, and pointed, one after the other, to Chief Deputy Wilson, to the second deputy, to Michel’s two henchmen, to Martin, and finally to Lloyd Willoughby of Sack, Saul, and McQuinn. All immediately assumed a rather blissful look and settled to the floor sound asleep.

“There!” Questor rubbed his hands together briskly. “When they wake up, they will have had a very pleasant rest and all this will seem a rather vague dream!” He beamed at Miles. “That should make your task somewhat easier!”

Ben glanced at Miles, who was studying the vacant look on Willoughby’s face suspiciously. The sirens had settled underneath the Courts Building, and a spotlight was playing about the ragged opening in the wall.

“Questor, we have to get out of here!” Ben called sharply. He picked up Willow and cradled her in his arms. “Bring Michel and let’s go!”

“Oh, no, High Lord!” Questor shook his head adamantly. “We can’t have Michel Ard Rhi running about Landover again! He was much too much trouble the last time he was there. I believe he will do better here, in your world.”

Ben started to object, but Questor was already approaching Michel, who was on his feet again and backed up against the courtroom wall. “Stay away from me, Questor Thews,” he was snarling. “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Michel, Michel, Michel!” Questor sighed wearily. “You were always such a pathetic excuse for a Prince, and it seems you have not changed. You appear determined to bring unpleasantness into the lives of everyone around you. I simply don’t understand it. In any case, you are going to have to change—even if I have to help you.”

Michel crouched. “Don’t come near me, you old fool. You play tricks with your magic that might fool others, but not me! You always were a charlatan, a pretend wizard who couldn’t begin to do real magic, a ridiculous clown everyone …”

Questor made a short chopping motion, and the words ceased to come out of Michel Ard Rhi’s mouth, even though he continued trying to speak. When he realized what had been done to him, he reeled back in horror.

“We can all improve ourselves in this life, Michel,” Questor whispered. “You just never learned how.”

He made a series of intricate motions and spoke softly. There was a wisp of golden dust that flew from his fingers and settled onto Michel Ard Rhi. The exiled Prince of Landover shrank back, then stiffened, and his eyes seemed to catch sight of something very far away, something that none of the others could see. He relaxed, and there was a strange mix of horror and understanding mirrored in his face.

Questor turned away and started back down the aisle. “Should have done that a long time ago,” he muttered. “Simple sort of magic, best kind there is. Strong enough to last, too, even in this barbaric world of nonbelievers.”

He stopped momentarily as he reached Abernathy and Elizabeth, and he put his gnarled hands on the little girl’s shoulders. “I am sorry, Elizabeth, but Abernathy is right. You cannot come with us. You belong here, with your father and your friends. This is your home, not Landover. And there is a reason for that, just as there is a reason for most of what happens in life. I won’t pretend that I understand all of what that reason is, but I understand a bit of it. You believe in the magic, don’t you? Well, that is surely part of why you are here. Every world needs someone who believes in the magic—to make certain that it isn’t forgotten by those who don’t.”

He bent to kiss her forehead. “See what you can do, will you?”

He continued down the aisle past Ben. “Do not worry, High Lord. She will have no further problem with Michel Ard Rhi, I assure you.”

“How do you know that?” Ben asked. “What did you do to him?”

But the wizard was already through the gate and climbing back up on the dragon. “I’ll explain later, High Lord. We really have to be going now. Right this instant, I think.”

He motioned back up the aisle, and Ben could see that the wall of foliage blocking the courtroom entry was beginning to fade. In moments, the entry would be clear again.

“Get out of here, Doc!” Miles whispered roughly. “Good luck!”

Ben clutched the other’s arm for a moment, then released him and carried Willow through the courtroom debris to where Strabo had swung about to face the opening in the wall. The dragon eyed Ben malevolently, hissed, and showed all of his teeth. “Ride me, Holiday,” he invited menacingly. “It will be the last chance you will ever have to do so.”

“Strabo. I would never have believed it,” Ben marveled.

“I care nothing for what you believe,” the dragon snarled. “Quit wasting my time!”

Ben cradled Willow tightly against him and started to mount. “It must have taken a small miracle for Questor to …” He stopped at the sudden sound of approaching helicopters, their rotors whipping through the night.

Strabo’s lips curled back. “What is that I hear?” he hissed.

“Trouble,” Ben answered, and hitched his way up quickly behind Questor. Willow opened her eyes briefly and closed them again. Ben squeezed her shoulders and pulled her close. “Hurry up, Abernathy!”

Elizabeth was hugging the dog once more. “I still want to go with you!” she whispered fiercely. “I still do!”

“I know,” he whispered back, then broke free roughly. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Good-bye.”

The others were calling out to him. He was halfway through the shattered gallery gate to join them when he heard Elizabeth call frantically, “Abernathy!” He turned at once. “Come back? Please? Someday?”

He paused, then nodded. “I promise, Elizabeth.”

“Don’t forget about me!”

“I won’t. Not ever.”

“I love you, Abernathy,” she said.

He smiled, tried to respond, then simply licked at his nose and hurried away. He was crying when he pulled himself up behind Ben. “Sorry, High Lord,” he said softly.

“Home, dragon!” Questor Thews cried.

Strabo hissed in response and lifted clear of the shattered courtroom.

Wind blew and dust swirled with the beating of the great beast’s wings; the lights that remained flickered and went out, and the dragon seemed to fill the whole of the night. A thing out of legend and bedtime tales, he was real for yet another instant to the man and the child who watched. Then he flew through the opening in the wall and was gone.

Miles walked back up the aisle to where Elizabeth was staring out into the dark. He stood there with her in silence, smiling as he felt her hand come up to take his own.