CONTENTS

The catalogue was from Rosen's, Ltd. It was the department store's annual Christmas Wishbook.

It was addressed to Annie.

Ben Holiday stood frozen before the open cubicle of his mailbox, eyes slipping across the gaily decorated cover of the catalogue to the white address label and the name of his dead wife. The lobby of the Chicago high rise seemed oddly still in the graying dusk of the late afternoon rush hour, empty of everyone but the security guard and himself. Outside, past the line of floor-to-ceiling windows that fronted the building entry, the autumn wind blew in chill gusts down the canyon of Michigan Avenue and whispered of winter's coming.

He ran his thumb over the smooth surface of the Wishbook. Annie had loved to shop, even when the shopping had only been through the mail-order catalogues. Rosen's had been one of her favorite stores.

Sudden tears filled his eyes. He hadn't gotten over losing her, even after two years. Sometimes it seemed to him that losing her was nothing more than a trick of his imagination-that when he came home she would still be there waiting for him.

He took a deep breath, fighting back against the emotions that were aroused in him simply by seeing her name on that catalogue cover. It was silly to feel like this. Nothing could bring her back to him. Nothing could change what had happened.

His eyes lifted to stare into the dark square of the now-empty mailbox. He remembered what it has been like when he had first learned that she had been killed. He had just returned from court, a pre-trial on the Microlab case with old Wilson Frink and his sons. Ben was in his office, thinking of ways to persuade his opposition, a lawyer named Bates, that his latest offer of settlement would serve everyone's best interests, when the call had come in. Annie had been in an accident on the Kennedy. She was at St. Jude's in critical condition. Could he come right over...?

He shook his head. He could still hear the voice of the doctor telling him what had happened. The voice had sounded so calm and rational. He had known at once that Annie was dying. He had known instantly. By the time he had gotten to the hospital, she was dead. The baby was dead, too. Annie had been only three months pregnant.

"Mr. Holiday?"

He looked about sharply, startled by the voice. George, the security guard, was looking over at him from behind the lobby desk.

"Everything all right, sir?"

He nodded and forced a quick smile. "Yes-just thinking about something."

He closed the mailbox door, shoved everything he had taken from it save the catalogue into one coat pocket and, still gripping the Wishbook in both hands, moved to the ground-floor elevators. He didn't care for being caught off balance like that. Maybe it was the lawyer in him.

"Cold day out there," George offered, glancing out into the gray. "Going to be a tough winter. Lot of snow, they say. Like it was a couple of years ago."

"Looks that way." Ben barely heard him as he glanced down again at the catalogue. Annie always enjoyed the Christmas Wishbook. She used to read him promos from some of its more bizarre items. She used to make up stories about the kind of people who might purchase such things.

He pushed the elevator call button and the doors opened immediately.

"Have a nice evening, sir," George called after him.

He rode the elevator to his penthouse suite, shucked off his topcoat, and walked into the front room, still clutching the catalogue. Shadows draped the furnishings and dappled the carpeting and walls, but he left the lights off and stood motionless before the bank of windows that looked out over the sunroof and the buildings of the city beyond. Lights glimmered through the evening gray, distant and solitary, each a source of life separate and apart from the thousands of others.

We are so much of the time alone, he thought. Wasn't it strange?

He looked down again at the catalogue. Why do you suppose they had sent it to Annie? Why were companies always sending mailers and flyers and free samples and God-knew-what-all to people long after they were dead and buried? It was an intrusion on their privacy. It was an affront. Didn't these companies update their mailing lists? Or was it simply that they refused ever to give up on a customer?

He checked his anger and, instead, smiled, bitter, ironic. Maybe he should phone it all in to Andy Rooney. Let him write about it.

He turned on the lights then and walked over to the wall bar to make himself a scotch, Glenlivet on the rocks with a splash of water; he measured it out and sipped at it experimentally. There was a bar meeting in a little less than two hours, and he had promised Miles that he would make this one. Miles Bennett was not only his partner, but he was probably his only real friend since Annie's death. All of the others had drifted away somehow, lost in the shufflings and rearrangings of life's social order. Couples and singles made a poor mix, and most of their friends had been couples. He hadn't done much to foster continuing friendships in any case, spending most of his time involved with his work and with his private, inviolate grief. He was not such good company anymore, and only Miles had had the patience and the perseverance to stay with him.

He drank some more of the scotch and wandered back again to the open windows. The lights of the city winked back at him. Being alone wasn't so bad, he reasoned. That was just the way of things. He frowned. Well, that was his way, in any case. It was his choice to be, alone. He could have found companionship again from any one of a number of sources; he could have reintegrated himself into almost any of the city's myriad social circles. He had the necessary attributes. He was young still and successful; he was even wealthy, if money counted for anything-and in this world it almost always did. No, he didn't have to be alone.

And yet he did, because the problem was that he really didn't belong anyway.

He thought about that for a moment-forced himself to think about it. It wasn't simply his choosing to be alone that kept him that way; it was almost a condition of his existence.

The feeling that he was an outsider had always been there. Becoming a lawyer had helped him deal with that feeling, giving him a place in life, giving him a ground upon which he might firmly stand. But the sense of not belonging had persisted, however diminished its intensity-a nagging certainty. Losing Annie had simply given it new life, emphasizing the transiency of any ties that bound him to whom and what he had let himself become. He often wondered if others felt as he did. He supposed they must; he supposed that to some extent everyone felt something of the same displacement. But not as strongly as he, he suspected. Never that strongly.

He knew Miles understood something of it-or at least something of Ben's sense of it. Miles didn't feel about it as Ben did, of course. Miles was the quintessential people person, always at home with others, always comfortable with his surroundings. He wanted Ben to be that way; he wanted to bring him out of that self-imposed shell and back into the mainstream of life. He viewed his friend as some sort of challenge in that regard. That was why Miles was so persistent about these damn bar meetings. That was why he kept after Ben to forget about Annie and get on with his life.

He finished the scotch and made himself another. He was drinking a lot lately, he knew-maybe more than was good for him. He glanced down at his watch. Forty-five minutes had gone by. Another forty-five and Miles would be there, his chaperone for the evening. He shook his head distastefully. Miles didn't understand nearly as much as he thought he did about some things.

Carrying his drink, he walked back across the room to the windows, stared out a moment, and turned away, closing the drapes against the night. He moved back to the couch, debating on whether to check the answer-phone, and saw the catalogue again. He must have put it down without realizing it. It was lying with the other mail on the coffee table in front of the sectional sofa, its glossy cover reflecting sharply in the lamplight.

Rosen's, Ltd. — Christmas Wishbook.

He sat down slowly in front of it and picked it up. A Christmas catalogue of wishes and dreams — he had seen the kind before. An annual release from a department store that ostensibly offered something for everyone, this particular catalogue was for the select few only — the wealthy few.

Annie had always liked it, though.

Slowly, he began to page through it. The offerings jumped out at him, a collection of gifts for the hard-to-please, an assortment of oddities that were essentially one-of-a-kind and could be found nowhere but in the Wishbook. Dinner for two in the private California home of a famous movie star, transportation included. A ten-day cruise for sixty on a yacht, fully crewed and catered to order. A week on a privately owned Caribbean island, including the use of wine cellar and fully stocked larder. A bottle of one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old wine. Hand-blown glass and diamond creations, designed per request. A gold toothpick. Sable coats for little girls' dolls. A collector's chess set of science fiction film characters carved from ebony. A hand-woven tapestry of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The list of offerings went on, item after item, each more exotic and strange than the one before. Ben took a strong pull on his scotch, almost repulsed by the extravagance of it all, but fascinated nevertheless. Then he thumbed ahead into the center of the catalogue. There was a transparent bathtub with live goldfish encased in the framework. There was a silver shaving kit with your initials inlaid in gold. Why in God's name would anyone...?

He caught himself midway through the thought, his eyes drawn instantly to an artist's rendering of the item being offered on the pages that lay open before him.

The promo of the item read as follows:

MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE

Landover — island of enchantment and adventure rescued from the mists of time, home of knights and knaves, of dragons and damsels, of wizards and warlocks. Magic mixes with iron, and chivalry is the code of life for the true hero. All of your fantasies become real in this kingdom from another world. Only one thread to this whole cloth is lacking — you, to rule over all as King and High Lord. Escape into your dreams, and be born again.

Price: $1,000,000.
Personal interview and financial disclosure.
Inquire of Meeks, home office.

That was all it read. The artist's colorful rendering depicted a knight on horseback engaged in battle with a fire-breathing dragon, a beautiful and rather thinly clad damsel shrinking from the conflict before a tower wall, and a dark-robed wizard lifting his hands as if to cast an awesome and life-stealing spell. Some creatures that might have been Elves or Gnomes or some such scampered about in the background, and the towers and parapets of great castles loomed against a gathering of hills and mists.

It had the look of something out of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

"This is nuts!" he muttered almost without thinking.

He stared at the item in disbelief, certain that he must be mistaken. Then he read it again. He read it a third time. It read the same. He finished his scotch in a single gulp and chewed on the ice, irritated with the nonsensicality of the offering. A million dollars for a fairy-tale kingdom? It was ridiculous. It had to be some kind of joke.

He threw down the catalogue, jumped to his feet, and crossed to the bar to mix himself a fresh drink. He stared momentarily at his reflection in the mirrored cabinet — a man of medium height, lean, trim, and athletic-looking, his face rather drawn, with high cheekbones and forehead, slightly receding hairline, hawk nose and piercing blue eyes. He was a man of thirty-nine going on fifty, a man on the verge of passing into middle age too young.

Escape into your dreams...

He crossed back to the couch, placed the drink on the coffee table and picked up the Wishbook once more. Again he read the item on Landover. He shook his head. No such place could possibly exist. The promo was a tease, a hype, what the car business called puffing. The truth was masked in the rhetoric. He chewed gingerly at the inside of his lip. Still, there wasn't all that much rhetoric being used to promote the item. And Rosen's was a highly respected department store; they were not likely to offer anything that they could not deliver, should a buyer appear.

He grinned. What was he thinking? What buyer? Who in his right mind would even consider...? But of course he was questioning himself now. He was the one considering. He had been standing there, drinking his drink and thinking about how he didn't belong; and when he had picked up the Wishbook, the item on Landover had caught his attention right away. He was the one who felt himself the outsider in his own world, who had always felt himself the outsider, who was seeking always a way to escape what he was.

And now here was his chance.

His grin broadened. This was crazy! He was actually contemplating doing something that no sane man would even think twice about!

The scotch was working its way to his head now, and he got up again to walk it off. He looked at his watch, thinking of Miles, and suddenly he didn't want to go to that bar meeting. He didn't want to go anywhere. He walked to the phone and dialed his friend. "Bennett," the familiar voice answered. "Miles, I've decided not to go tonight. Hope you don't mind."

There was a pause. "Doc, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me." Miles loved to call him Doc, ever since the early days when they went up against Wells-Fargo on that corporate buy-out. Doc Holiday, courtroom gunfighter. It drove Ben nuts. "Look, you go on without me."

"You're going." Miles was unflappable. "You said you were going and you're going. You promised."

"So I take it back. Lawyers do it all the time — you read the papers."

"Ben, you need to get out. You need to see something of the world besides your office and your apartment — however lavish the two may be. You need to let your colleagues in the profession know that you're still alive!"

"You tell them I'm alive. Tell them I'll make the next meeting for sure. Tell them anything. But forget about me for tonight."

There was another pause, this one longer. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. But I'm in the midst of something. I want to stay with it."

"You work too hard, Ben."

"Don't we all? See you tomorrow."

He placed the receiver back on the cradle before Miles could say anything further. He stood staring down at the phone. At least he hadn't lied. He was in the midst of something, and he did want to stay with it — however crazy it might be. He took a drink of the scotch. If Annie were there, she would understand. She had always understood his fascination with puzzles and with challenges that others might simply step around. She had shared so much of that with him.

He shook his head. Of course, if Annie were there, none of this would be happening. He wouldn't be thinking about escaping into a dream that couldn't possibly be.

He paused, struck by the implications of that thought. Then holding his drink in his hand, he crossed back to the sofa, picked up the catalogue, and began reading once more.

Ben was late getting to the offices of Holiday and Bennett, Ltd. the next morning, and by the time he arrived his disposition was less than agreeable. He had scheduled an early appearance on a merger contest and gone straight to the Courts Building from home, only to discover that somehow his setting had been removed from the docket. The clerks had no idea how this had happened, opposing counsel was nowhere to be found, and the judge presiding simply advised him that a resetting would be the best solution to the dilemma. Since time was of the essence in the case in question, he requested an early setting — only to be told that the earliest setting possible was in thirty days. Things were always busiest with the approach of the holiday season, the motions clerk announced unsympathetically. Unimpressed with an explanation that he had heard at least twenty times already that November, he requested a setting for a preliminary injunction — only to be told that the judge hearing stays and pleas for temporary relief was vacationing for the next thirty days at some ski resort in Colorado, and it hadn't been decided yet who would bear his docket load while he was gone. A decision on that would probably be made by the end of the week and he should check back then.

The looks directed at him by clerks and judge alike suggested that this was the way of things in the practice of law and that he, of all people, ought to realize it by now. He ought, in fact, simply to accept it.

He did not choose to accept it however, did not care in the least to accept it, and was, by God, sick and tired of the whole business. On the other hand, there was not very much he could do about it. So, frustrated and angered, he went on to work, greeted the girls in the reception area with a mumbled good morning, picked up his phone messages, and retired to the confines of his office to fume. He had enjoyed less than five minutes of that when Miles appeared through the doorway.

"Well, well, just a little ray of sunshine this morning, aren't we?" his friend needled cheerfully.

"Yeah, that's me," he agreed rocking back in his desk chair. "Joy to the world."

"Hearing didn't go so well, I gather?"

"Hearing didn't go at all. Some incompetent took it off the call. Now I'm told it can't be put back on until hell freezes over and cows fly." He shook his head. "What a life."

"Hey, it's a living. Besides, that's the way it all works — hurry up and wait, time is all we've got."

"Well, I'm fed up to the teeth with it!"

Miles moved over to occupy one of the client chairs that fronted the long oak desk. He was a big man, heavy through the middle, thick dark hair and mustache lending maturity to an almost cherubic face.

His eyes, perpetually lidded at half-mast, blinked slowly. "Know what your problem is, Ben?"

"I ought to. You've told me often enough."

"Then why don't you listen? Quit spending all of your time trying to change the things you can't!"

"Miles..."

"Annie's death and the way the legal system works — you can't change those kinds of things, Ben. Not now, not ever. You're like Don Quixote tilting with windmills! You're ruining your life, do you know that?"

Ben brushed Miles aside with a wave of his hand. "I do not know that, as a matter of fact. Besides, your equation doesn't balance. I know that nothing will bring Annie back — I've accepted that. But maybe it's not too late for the legal system — the system of justice that we used to know, the one we both went into the practice of law to uphold."

"You ought to listen to yourself sometime," Miles sighed. "There's nothing wrong with my equation, chief. My equation is painfully accurate. You have never accepted Annie's death. You live your life in a goddamned shell, because you won't accept what's happened — as if living like that is somehow going to change things! I'm your friend, Ben — maybe the only one you've got left. That's why I can talk to you like this — because you can't afford to lose me!"

The big man leaned forward. "And all of this crap about the way things used to be in the practice of law sounds like my father telling me how he used to walk five miles through the snow to get to school. What am I supposed to do — sell my car and walk to work from Barrington? You can't turn back the clock, no matter how much you might like to. You have to accept things as you find them."

Ben let Miles finish without interruption. Miles was right about one thing — only he could talk to him like this, and it was because he was his best friend. But Miles had always approached life differently than he, always preferring to blend in with his surroundings rather than to shape them, always preferring to make do. He just didn't understand that there were some things in life a man simply should not accept.

"Forget about Annie for the moment." Ben paused meaningfully before continuing. "Let me suggest that change is a fact of life, that it is a process brought about by the efforts of men and women dissatisfied with the status quo, and that it is essentially a good thing. Let me also suggest that change is frequently the result of what we have learned, not simply what we have envisioned. History plays a part in change. Therefore, what once was and was good ought not to be cast aside as being simply wishful reminiscence."

Miles brought up one hand. "Look, I'm not saying..."

"Can you honestly sit there. Miles, and tell me that you are satisfied with the direction that the practice of law in this country is taking? Can you even tell me that it is as good and true as it was fifteen years ago when we entered the profession? Look at what's happened, for Christ's sake! We are bogged down in a morass of legislation and regulation that reaches from here to China, and even the judges and lawyers don't understand half of it. We used to be able to call ourselves general practitioners — now we are lucky to be competent in one or two fields, simply because of the updating we must constantly do in order to keep ourselves current. The courts are slow and overburdened. The judges are all too often mediocre lawyers put on the bench through politics. The lawyers coming out of law school view their occupation as a way to make big bucks and get their names in the paper — forget the part about helping people. The whole profession has the worst press this side of Nazi Germany. We have advertising — advertising! Like used-car salesmen, or furniture-store dealers! We don't adequately educate ourselves. We don't adequately police ourselves. We just go through the motions and try to get by!"

Miles stared at him, his head cocked appraisingly. "Are you about finished?"

He nodded, slightly flushed. "Yeah, I suppose so. Did I leave anything out?"

Miles shook his head. "I think you covered the whole nine yards. Feel any better?"

"Much, thanks."

"Good. One final comment, then. I heard everything you said, I duly recorded every word, and I happen to agree with most of it. And I say to you nevertheless, so what? There have been thousands of speeches given, thousands of committee meetings held, thousands of articles written addressing the very problems you so eloquently outline in your tirade — and how much difference has any of it made?"

Ben sighed. "Not much."

"That is understating it. Since this is so, what difference do you think you are going to make?"

"I don't know. But that's not the point."

"No, I don't suppose it is for you. So, what the hell? If you want to enter into a one-man war with the system in an effort to change it, fine and dandy. But a little moderation in your commitment wouldn't hurt. A day off now and then for some of life's less pressing matters might give you some perspective and keep you from burning out completely. Okay?"

Ben nodded. "Okay. Yeah, okay. But I'm not good at moderation."

Miles grinned. "Tell me about it. Now let's talk about something else. Let's talk about last night. Believe it or not, a few people asked about you at the bar meeting — said they missed seeing you."

"They must be desperate for companionship, then."

Miles shrugged. "Maybe. What was so important that you had to cancel out? New case?"

Ben thought about it a moment, then shook his head. "No, nothing new. Just something I wanted to follow up on." He hesitated. Then impulsively he reached down into his briefcase and pulled out the Wishbook. "Miles, want to see something really odd? Take a look at this."

He thumbed the catalogue open to the item about Landover and passed it across the desk. His friend shifted forward to take it from him and then settled back again in the chair.

"Magic kingdom for sale... Landover-island of enchantment and adventure...Hey, what is this?" Miles fumbled to find the cover.

"It's a Christmas catalogue," Ben explained to the big man quickly. "From Rosen's, Ltd. out of New York. A Wishbook. You've seen the type — full of one of a kind gifts."

Miles started reading again, finished, and looked up. "Only a million dollars, huh? What a bargain! Let's fly right to New York and apply — beat the rush."

"What do you make of it?"

Miles stared at him. "Same as you, I hope. Someone is nuts!"

He nodded slowly. "That's what I thought, too. But Rosen's wouldn't put an advertisement in a catalogue like this if they couldn't produce."

"Then it must be staged. The dragons must be overgrown lizards or something. The magic must be sleight of hand." Miles laughed. "Knights and damsels courtesy of Central Casting, dragons courtesy of the San Diego Zoo! Johnny Carson will have the whole menagerie on sometime next week!"

Ben waited for the big man's laughter to die away. "Think so?"

"Of course, I think so! Don't you?"

"I'm not sure."

Miles frowned, then read the advertisement one time more. When he was done, he passed the catalogue back across the desk. "Is this what kept you home last night?"

"In part, yes."

There was a long silence. Miles cleared his throat. "Ben, don't tell me that you're thinking of..."

The phone rang. Ben picked it up, listened for a moment and looked across the desk at his friend. "Mrs. Lang is here."

Miles glanced at his watch and rose. "Needs a new will drafted, I think." He hesitated, looked for a moment as if he might say something more, then jammed his hands in his pants pockets and turned for the door. "Well, enough of this. I've got to get some work done. Catch you later."

He left the room frowning. Ben let him go.

Ben left work early that afternoon and went to the health club to work out. He spent an hour in the weight room, then spent another hour on the light and heavy fighter's bags he had persuaded them to install several years back. He had been a boxer in his teens — fought out of Northside for the better part of five years. He had been a silver glover and could have been a gold, but other interests had taken him away and then he had gone east to school. But he still kept his hand in — even sparring a couple of rounds now and then back at Northside when he found the time. For the most part, he simply worked out, staying fit, keeping himself sharp. He had done so religiously since Annie died. It had helped him to release some of the frustration and anger. It had helped him to fill the time.

It was true that he had not been able to accept her death, he thought as his cab worked its way through the rush hour traffic from the health club to the high rise. He could admit it to himself if not to Miles. The truth was that he didn't know how to accept it. He had loved her with an intensity that was frightening, and she him. They never spoke of it; they never had to. But it was always there. When she died, he had thought of killing himself. He had not done so only because he had known deep inside that he should not, that he should never give in to anything so obviously wrong, that Annie would not want him to. So he had gone on with his life in the best way that he could, but he had never found a way to accept that she was really gone. Perhaps he never would.

Frankly, he wasn't sure that it mattered all that much whether he did.

He paid the cabdriver at the curb, walked into the lobby of the high rise, greeted George, and boarded the elevator for his penthouse suite.

Miles saw him as a grief-stricken recluse, hiding from the world while he mourned his dead wife. Maybe that was the way everyone saw him. But Annie's death had not created the condition; it had merely emphasized it. He had been slipping back into himself more and more in recent years, dissatisfied with what he viewed as the continuing deterioration of his profession, frustrated with the way in which it seemed to sink down upon itself until it no longer served the purposes for which it had been created. Miles would think it odd that he should feel that way — Doc Holiday, the corporate trial lawyer who had slain more Goliaths than any David had ever dreamed effacing. What did he have to feel frustrated about when the system had worked so effectively for him? But of course one's personal successes sometimes only served to point up the inequities worked on others. It was that way with him.

He mixed a Glenlivet and water in his apartment and retired to the front room, seating himself on the sofa and staring out the window into the lights of the city. After a time, he pulled the Christmas Wishbook from Rosen's from his briefcase and opened it to the item on Landover. He had been thinking about it all day; he had been thinking of nothing else since he had first laid eyes on it last night.

What if it were real?

He sat there for a long time, the glass in his hand, the catalogue open before him, thinking about the possibility.

His present life, he felt, was at a standstill. Annie was dead. The profession of law — for him, at least — was just as dead. There were more cases to be taken, more courtroom battles to be won, more Goliaths for David to slay. But the excesses and deficiencies of the legal system would still be there. In the end, he would simply be going through the same ritual with its frustrations'and disappointments, and it would all be meaningless. There had to be more for him in this life.

There had to be.

He looked at the colorful rendering of the knight in battle with the dragon, the damsel in the castle keep, the wizard casting his spell, the fairy folk looking on. Landover. A dream out of a Wishbook.

Escape into your dreams...

For one million dollars, of course. But he had the money. He had money enough to buy it three times over. His father and mother had both been wealthy and he had enjoyed a lucrative practice. The million dollars was there — if that was the way he chose to spend it.

And there was the interview with this fellow Meeks. That puzzled him. What was the purpose of the interview — to screen applicants? Did they anticipate there would be that many and was there some reason to choose among them? Perhaps, where a King was to be selected, there was.

He took a deep breath. What sort of King would he make? He had the price of the kingship — but so would others have it. He was physically and mentally fit — but others would be, too. He was experienced in dealing with people and with laws — others might not be. He was compassionate. He was honorable. He was farsighted.

He was crazy.

He finished off the drink, closed the Wishbook, and went into the kitchen to make dinner. He took his time about it, preparing a rather extravagant beef and vegetable dish, and served it to himself with wine. When the meal was finished, he moved back to the front room again and reseated himself on the sofa before the Wishbook.

He already knew what he was going to do. Perhaps he had known all along. He needed something to believe in again. He needed to recapture the magic that had first drawn him to the practice of law — the sense of wonder and excitement it had brought to his life. Most of all, he needed a challenge — because that was what gave life meaning.

Landover could offer him that.

He was not yet certain that it would, of course. Perhaps it was all an elaborate charade of the sort envisioned by Miles, where the dragons were large iguanas and the knights and wizards were all supplied by Central Casting. Perhaps the dream was a sham, an imitation of what the imagination would have it truly be. Even if it were all real — if it were all as described, all as the artist had rendered it to be — still it might be less than the dream. It might be as ordinary in truth as his present life.

Yet the gamble was worth it, because he had seen the parameters of his present life and there were no unknowns left in it. And somehow, in some unexplainable way, he knew that whatever choices he might make now, with Annie gone the only wrong choice he might make was to make no choice at all.

He crossed back to the bar and made himself an Irish Mist. He toasted himself solemnly in the mirror and drank.

He felt exhilarated.

The following morning, Ben went down to the office only long enough to cancel his appointments for the remainder of that week and the next and to wrap up a few small matters that needed immediate attention. He was taking a short vacation, he told the girls and the law student who clerked for them part-time, doing research. Everything could wait until he returned. Miles was in court in Crystal Lake, so there were no questions asked. It was just as well. He called O'Hare then and booked a flight. By noon, he was on his way to New York.

Meeks

New York City was cold, gray, and alien, the jagged edges of its bones cutting into a sky masked in clouds and mist, the flat planes of its skin glistening through a steady downpour. Ben watched it materialize beneath him as if by magic as the 727 slipped over the waters of the East River and settled down toward the empty runway. Traffic jammed the distant freeways, lifeblood flowing through arteries and veins, but the city had the feel of a corpse.

He took a cab from LaGuardia to the Waldorf, settled back in silence as the driver played reggae, and ignored him. He booked a single at the Waldorf, resisting the temptation of requesting a suite. There would be no such modern suites in Landover. It was a meaningless concession perhaps, but he had to start somewhere, and this was as good a place as any. One step at a time, as the saying went.

In his room, he took five minutes to unpack, then picked up the Manhattan phone directory and looked up the number to Rosen's. He found it in bold print, dialed and waited. When the department store switchboard answered, he asked for Customer Service and was transferred. He indicated to the new voice that he was interested in an item in the Christmas Wishbook and needed to make an appointment with Mr. Meeks. There was a pause, a request for the item number, and again he was transferred.

This time he was kept waiting for several minutes. Then a third voice came on the line, a woman's also, this one soft and graveled. Could he give her his name, address and the number of a major credit card? He could. When did he wish to see Mr. Meeks? Tomorrow morning, if possible. He was visiting from Chicago for a few days only. Would tomorrow morning at ten o'clock be satisfactory? That would be fine. Ten o'clock sharp, then? Fine.

The line went dead. He stared at it for a moment, then hung up.

He went down to the lobby, bought a Times, drank several scotches — Glenlivet and water over ice, as usual — and went in to dinner. He ate with the paper before him, scanning its sections without interest, his mind elsewhere. He was back in his room by seven. He watched a news special on El Salvador, and wondered how after so many years people could continue to kill each other so casually. A variety hour special followed, but he let it play without watching, distracted by a sudden need to analyze the particulars of what he was about. He had thought it through at least a dozen times already that day, but there was always the same nagging uncertainty.

Did he really know what he was doing? Did he really appreciate what he was getting into?

The answers this time were the same as they had been each time before. Yes, he knew what he was doing. Yes, he appreciated what he was getting into. At least, as far as he was able to, he did. One step at a time, remember. He knew he would be leaving a lot behind him if he went and if this Kingdom of Landover proved to be real, but most of it would be in the nature of material possessions and creature comforts, and those really didn't matter to him anymore. Cars and trains and airplanes, refrigerators and stoves and dishwashers, indoor toilets and electric shavers — all the modern things that were left behind to go fishing in Canada. Except that on a fishing trip, such things were left behind for only a few weeks. That wouldn't be the case here. This would be for much longer than a few weeks, and it wouldn't be like any camping trip he had ever heard about — or at least he didn't think it would.

What would it be like, he wondered suddenly? What would it be like in this fairy-tale kingdom called Landover — this kingdom that had somehow come to be offered for sale in a department store catalogue? Would it be like the land of Oz with Munchkins and witches and a tin man who talked? Would there be a yellow brick road to follow?

He resisted a sudden urge to pack up his suitcase and get the hell out of New York before going any further with the whole business. When you got right down to it, what mattered was not the sanity of his inquiry or the future into which he might choose to step. What mattered was the conscious decision to make some change in his life and in making that change to find something that would offer him the purpose of being that he had lost. When you held your ground, the old saying went, you stopped moving. When you stopped moving, everything about you would eventually pass you by.

He sighed. Trouble was, those old bromides always sounded truer than they were.

The variety show gave way to the late news, weather, and sports. Ben undressed and put on pajamas (did people wear pajamas in Landover?), brushed his teeth (did people brush their teeth in Landover?), shut off the television, and went to bed.

He was awake early the next morning, having slept poorly as he always did the first night away from home on a trip. He showered, shaved, dressed in a dark blue business suit, caught the elevator to the lobby where he purchased an early edition of the Times, and went into Oscar's for breakfast.

By nine o'clock, he was on his way to Rosen's.

He chose to walk. The decision was a perverse mix of stubbornness and wariness. The store was only half a dozen blocks from the hotel on Lexington, and anything that close ought to be walked. The day was iron gray and chill, but the rains had moved northeast into New England. A cab was a waste of money. Furthermore, by walking he could approach the store at his own pace and on his own terms — kind of work up to what he was going to do. The trial lawyer in him always appreciated the advantage of being able to orchestrate one's own entrance.

He took his time, letting the feel of the autumn morning bring him fully awake, but he was there by nine-forty anyway. Rosen's was a fifteen-story chrome-and-glass cornerstone to two thirty-plus-story skyscrapers that ran half a block on Lexington and the better part of a short block on the cross street west. An old establishment, the store had obviously been remodeled when the skyscrapers had gone in, the aged stone facade giving way to a more modern look. Plate-glass display windows lined the walkway along Lexington, filled with fashions displayed on mannequins with frozen smiles and empty stares. The late morning rush hour traffic passed them by unsmiling, unseeing. Ben followed the line of windows south to a recessed entry and passed through two sets of double-doors sandwiching a weather foyer to the store within.

The ground floor of Rosen's opened out before him, cavernous, polished, sterile. Rows of metal-and-glass display cases filled with jewelry, cosmetics, and silver filled the hall, gleaming and shining beneath a flood of fluorescent light. A handful of shoppers browsed the aisles that ran between the display cases while store personnel looked on. No one seemed much interested in generating sales. It all had the appearance of some arcane ritual. He glanced about. To his right, an escalator climbed through the ceiling to the floor above. To his left, a bank of elevators lined a distant wall. Straight ahead, where even the most bewildered shopper could not fail to see it, a glass-encased directory announced the departments and the floors on which they could be found.

He took a moment to read the directory. There was no listing for Meeks. He hadn't really expected that there would be. The departments were listed alphabetically. Under the letter C he found the heading, Customer Service, special ordering — eleventh floor. Fair enough, he thought — he would try that. He angled his way through the maze of cases to the elevators, caught one standing open and took it to the eleventh floor.

He stepped from the elevator into a reception area comfortably furnished with overstuffed chairs and couches and fronted by a broad, wraparound desk and typing station. An attractive, thirtyish woman sat behind the desk, absorbed in a phone conversation. Rows of lighted buttons blinked on and off on her console.

She finished her conversation, hung up the phone and smiled pleasantly. "Good morning. May I help you?"

He nodded. "My name is Holiday. I have an appointment at ten with Mr. Meeks."

He might have imagined it, but he thought her smile faded slightly. "Yes, sir. Mr. Meeks does not use offices on this floor. Mr. Meeks uses offices on the penthouse level."

"The penthouse level?"

"Yes, sir." She pointed to another elevator in an alcove to Ben's right. "Simply press the button labeled PL. That will take you to Mr. Meeks. I will telephone to let his receptionist know that you are coming."

"Thank you." He hesitated. "This is the Mr. Meeks who is in charge of special ordering, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Meeks."

"The reason I ask is that your directory lists Customer Service, special ordering, on this floor."

The receptionist brushed nervously at her hair. "Sir, we post no listing for Mr. Meeks. He prefers that his clients come through us." She tried a quick smile. "Mr. Meeks handles only our specialty items — a very select collection of merchandise."

"The items in the Christmas Wishbook?"

"Oh, no. Most of those are handled by regular personnel. Mr. Meeks is not in the employ of Rosen's. Mr. Meeks is a privately employed sales specialist who acts as our agent in certain sales transactions. Mr. Meeks handles only the most exotic and unusual of the items offered in the Wishbook, Mr. Holiday." She leaned forward slightly. "He designates his own line of sales items, I understand."

Ben lifted his eyebrows in response. "Quite talented at his work, then, is he?"

She looked away again suddenly. "Yes, very." She reached for the phone. "I will call up for you, Mr. Holiday." She pointed to the second elevator. "They will be expecting you when you arrive. Good-bye."

He said good-bye in response, walked into the designated elevator and punched PL. The doors closed with the receptionist glancing covertly after him as she held the phone receiver to her ear.

He rode the elevator in silence, listening to the sound of the machinery. There were only four buttons on the panels above and next to the doors, numbered 1,2,3, and PL. They stayed dark for a time as the elevator rose, then began to light in sequence. The elevator did not stop for anyone else along the way. Ben almost wished that it had done so. He was beginning to feel as if he had stepped into the Twilight Zone.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened and he found himself back in a reception area almost identical to the one he had just left. This time the receptionist was an older woman, in her fifties perhaps, diligently engaged in sorting through a raft of papers stacked in piles on her desk while a harried looking man of like age stood before her, his back to the elevator, his voice high-pitched and angry.

"...don't have to do everything that old bastard tells us, and someday he's going to hear about it! Thinks every last one of us is at his beck and call! If he doesn't quit treating us like lackeys, then, damn it, I'll take this to..."

He cut himself short as the receptionist caught sight of Ben. Hesitating, he turned and stalked quickly into the open elevator. A moment later, the doors slid shut.

"Mr. Holiday?" the receptionist inquired, her voice soft and graveled. It was the woman he had spoken to on the phone the previous afternoon.

"Yes," he acknowledged. "I have an appointment with Mr. Meeks."

She picked up the phone and waited. "Mr. Holiday, sir. Yes. Yes, I will."

She placed the receiver back in its cradle and looked up. "It will only be a few moments, Mr. Holiday. Would you have a seat, please."

He glanced about, then took a seat at one end of a sofa. There were magazines and newspapers on a table beside him, but he ignored them. His gaze wandered idly about the reception area, a well-lighted, cheerful center with solid wood desks and cabinets and cool colors on the walls and floors.

A few minutes passed and the phone on the receptionist's desk rang. She picked up the receiver, listened momentarily, and hung up.

"Mr. Holiday?" She rose and beckoned. "This way, please."

She led him into a corridor that opened up behind her work area. The corridor ran past a series of closed doors and branched left and right. That was all the further Ben could see.

"Follow the hallway back, left up the stairs to the door at its end. Mr. Meeks will be expecting you."

She turned and walked back to her desk. Ben Holiday stood where he was for a moment, glancing first at the empty corridor, then at the retreating figure of the receptionist, then back again at the corridor.

So what are you waiting for? he asked himself admonishingly.

He went along the corridor to where it branched and turned left. The doors he passed were closed and bore no title designation or number. Fluorescent ceiling lights seemed pale against the pastel greens and blues of the corridor walls. Thick pile carpet absorbed the sound of his shoes as he walked. It was very still.

He hummed the theme from The Twilight Zone under his breath as he reached the staircase and began to climb.

The staircase ended at a heavy oak door with raised panels and the name "Meeks" stamped on a brass back plate screwed into the wood. He stopped before the door, knocked, turned the sculpted metal handle and stepped inside.

Meeks was standing directly in front of him.

He was very tall, well over six feet, old and bent, his face craggy, his hair white and grizzled. He wore a black leather glove on his left hand. His right hand and arm were missing completely, the empty sleeve of his corduroy jacket tucked into a lower pocket. Pale blue eyes that were hard and steady met Ben's. Meeks looked as if he had fought and survived more than a few battles.

"Mr. Holiday?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper. He sounded a good deal like his receptionist. Ben nodded. "I'm Meeks." The head dipped slightly. He didn't offer his hand and neither did Ben. "Please come in and have a chair."

He turned and shuffled away, hunching as he went as if his legs no longer worked properly. Ben followed him wordlessly, glancing about as he went. The office was elegant, a richly appointed room furnished with a massive old desk of scrolled oak, matching chairs with stuffed leather seats and backs, and workbenches and endtables covered with charts and magazines and what appeared to be work files. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined three walls, filled with ancient tomes and artifacts of all kinds. A bank of windows comprised the fourth wall, but the curtains were drawn tight across them and there were only the ceiling lamps to give the room its oddly muted light. Deep pile carpet of earthen brown sprouted from the floor like dried saw grass. The room smelled faintly of furniture polish and old leather.

"Sit down, Mr. Holiday." Meeks beckoned to a chair drawn up before the desk, then shuffled his way around to the overstaffed swivel chair on the other side, easing himself down into the worn leather gingerly. "Can't move like I used to. Weather tightens the bones. Age and weather. How old are you, Mr. Holiday?"

Ben glanced up, midway through the process of seating himself. The sharp, old eyes were fixed on him. "Forty, come January," he answered.

"A good age." Meeks smiled faintly, but without humor. "A man's still got his strength at forty. He knows most of what he's going to learn, and he's got the strength to put it to good use. Is that so with you, Mr. Holiday?"

Ben hesitated. "I guess so."

"That's what your eyes say. Eyes tell more about a man than anything he says. Eyes reflect a man's soul. They reflect a man's heart. Sometimes they even tell the truths a man wants to keep hidden." He paused. "Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, a cocktail, perhaps?"

"No, nothing, thank you." Ben shifted in his chair impatiently.

"You don't believe that it's possible, do you?" Meeks' brows furrowed deeply, his voice soft. "Landover. You don't believe it exists."

Ben studied the other man thoughtfully. "I'm not sure."

"You appreciate the possibilities, but you question them, too. You seek the challenges that are promised, but you fear they may be only paper windmills. Think of it — a world like nothing anyone on this earth has ever seen! But it sounds impossible. If I might invoke a time-honored cliche, it sounds too good to be true."

"It does."

"Like a man walking on — the moon?"

Ben thought a moment. "More like truth in lending. Or full faith and credit between sister states. Or perhaps consumer protection against false advertising."

Meeks stared at him. "You are a lawyer, Mr. Holiday?"

"I am."

"And you believe in our system of justice, then?"

"I do."

"You do, but you know as well that it doesn't always work, don't you? You want to believe in it, but it disappoints you much too often."

He waited. "That's a fair statement, I suppose," Ben admitted.

"And you think it might be that way with Landover as well." Meeks made it a statement of fact, not a question. He leaned forward, his craggy face intense. "Well, it isn't. Landover is exactly what the advertisement promises. It has everything that the advertisement says that it has and much more — things that are only myth in this world, things only barely imagined. But real in Landover, Mr. Holiday. Real!"

"Dragons, Mr. Meeks?"

"All of the mythical fairy creatures, Mr. Holiday — exactly as promised."

Ben folded his hands before him. "I'd like to believe you, Mr. Meeks. I came to New York to inquire about this... catalogue item because I want to believe it exists. Can you show me anything that would help prove what you say?"

"You mean flyers, color brochures, pictures of the land, references?" His face tightened. "They don't exist, Mr. Holiday. This item is a carefully protected treasure. The specifics of where it lies, what it looks like, what it offers — that is all privileged information which can be released only to the buyer whom I, as the seller's designated agent, ultimately select. As a lawyer, I am sure that you can appreciate the limitations imposed upon me by the word privileged,' Mr. Holiday."

"Is the identity of the seller privileged as well, Mr. Meeks?"

"It is."

"And the reason that this item is being offered for sale in the first place?"

"Privileged, Mr. Holiday."

"Why would anyone sell something as marvelous as this fantasy kingdom, Mr. Meeks? I keep asking myself that question. I keep asking myself if I'm not somehow buying a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge. How do I know that your seller even has the authority to sell Landover?"

Meeks smiled, an attempt at reassurance. "That was all checked carefully prior to listing. I supervised the inquiry myself."

Ben nodded. "So it all comes down to your word, doesn't it?"

Meeks sat back again. "No, Mr. Holiday. It comes down to the worldwide reputation of Rosen's as a department store that always delivers what it offers exactly as promised in its catalogues and advertisements. It comes down to the terms of the contract the store offers to the buyer on specialty items such as this one — a contract that permits recovery of the entire purchase price less a small handling fee should the item fail to prove satisfactory. It comes down to the way we do business."

"Could I see a copy of this contract?"

Meeks bridged the fingers of his gloved hand against his chin and stroked the ridges and lines of his face. "Mr. Holiday, I wonder if we might first back this conversation up a bit to permit me to fulfill the terms of my consignment of this specialty item. You are here to decide whether or not you wish to purchase Landover. But you are also here so that I might decide whether or not you qualify as a purchaser. Would a few questions to that end be an imposition?"

Ben shook his head. "I wouldn't think so. But I'll tell you if they are."

Meeks smiled like the Cheshire Cat and nodded his understanding.

For the next thirty minutes or so, he asked his questions. He asked them very much the way a skilled attorney would ask them of a witness at an oral deposition in pre-trial discovery — with tact, with brevity, and with purpose. Meeks knew what he was looking for, and he probed for it with the experienced touch of a surgeon. Ben Holiday had seen a good many trial lawyers in his years of practice, some of them more accomplished than he. But he had never seen anyone as good as Meeks.

In the end, a lot of ground was covered. Ben had graduated fifteen years earlier from Chicago University's School of Law, Order of the Coif, summa cum laude. He had gone into practice immediately with one of the larger firms, then left after five years to form his own firm with Miles, specializing in litigation. He had won a number of nationally reported corporate law cases as a plaintiffs attorney and settled dozens more. He was respected by his fellow attorneys as one of the best in his field. He had served as president of the Chicago Bar Association and as chairman of a number of committees on the Illinois State Bar. There was talk of running him for president of the American Trial Lawyers Association.

He came from a very wealthy family. His mother had been born into money; his father had made his in futures. Both were dead. He had no brothers or sisters. With Annie's death, he had been left essentially alone. There were some distant cousins on the West Coast and an uncle in Virginia, but he hadn't see any of them for better than five years. He had few close friends — in truth, he had only Miles. His colleagues respected him, but he kept them at a distance. His life in the past few years revolved almost exclusively around his work.

"Have you any administrative experience, Mr. Holiday?" Meeks asked him at one point, a rather veiled look to the hard, old eyes that suggested the question asked something more.

"No."

"Any hobbies?"

"None," he answered, thinking as he did that it was true, that he in fact had no hobbies nor personal pastimes save for the time he spent in training at Northside. He almost amended his answer, then decided it did not matter.

He gave to Meeks the financial statement he had prepared in response to the catalogue advertisement, detailing his net worth. Meeks examined it wordlessly, nodded in satisfaction and set it on the desk before him.

"You are an ideal candidate, Mr. Holiday," he said softly, the whisper quality of his voice becoming almost a hiss. "You are a man whose roots can be easily severed — a man who will not have to worry about leaving family or friends who will enquire too closely of his whereabouts. Because, you see, you will not be able to communicate with anyone but myself during your first year away. That is one of the conditions of acceptance. This should pose no problem for you. You are also a man with sufficient assets to make the purchase — hard assets, not paper assets. You can appreciate the difference. But most importantly, perhaps, you are a man who has something to offer as King of Landover. I don't suppose you've thought much of that, but it is something that matters a great deal to those for whom we act as agent. You have something very special to offer."

He paused. "Which is?" Ben asked.

"Your professional background, Mr. Holiday. You are a lawyer. Think of the good that you can do as not simply one who interprets the law but as one who makes it. A king needs a sense of justice to reign. Your intelligence and your education should serve you well."

"You mean that I shall have need of them in Landover, Mr. Meeks?"

"Certainly." The other's face was expressionless. "A king always has need of intelligence and education."

For an instant Ben thought he detected something in the other's voice that made the statement almost a private joke. "You have personal knowledge of what a king needs, Mr. Meeks?"

Meeks smiled, hard and quick. "If you mean, do I have personal knowledge of what a King of Landover needs, the answer is yes. Background is required of our clients in a listing such as this, and the background provided me suggests that Landover's ruler will have need of the qualities that you possess."

Ben nodded slowly. "Does this mean that my application has been accepted?"

The old man leaned back again in his chair. "What of your own questions, Mr. Holiday? Hadn't we better address those first?"

Ben shrugged. "I'll want them addressed sometime. It might as well be now. Why don't we begin with the contract — the one that's guaranteed to protect me from making what most people would consider a foolish investment."

"You are not most people, Mr. Holiday." The craggy face dropped a shade, changing the configuration of lines and hollows like a twisted rubber mask. "The agreement is this. You will have ten days to examine your purchase with no obligation. If at the end of that time you find it not to be as advertised or to be otherwise unsatisfactory, you may return here for a full refund of your purchase price less a handling fee of five percent. A reasonable charge, I'm sure you'll agree."

"That's it? That's the whole contract?" Ben was incredulous. "All it takes is my decision to back out?"

"That's all it takes." Meeks smiled. "Of course, the decision must be made in the first ten days, you understand."

Ben stared at him. "And everything that's been advertised in the catalogue will be there as promised? All of it? The dragons and knights and witches and warlocks and fairy creatures?"

"And you will be their King, Mr. Holiday. You will be the man to whom all must answer. A great deal of power, but also a great deal of responsibility. Do you think that you are equal to the challenge?"

The room went still as Ben sat before old Meeks and thought of the roads in his life that had led down to this moment. Except for Annie, he had lost little on his journey. He had taken the opportunities that mattered and made the most of them. Now he was presented with an opportunity greater than any previously offered and in taking it he would be leaving nothing of consequence behind. With Annie gone, everything that mattered lay ahead.

Nevertheless, he hesitated. "Could I see a copy of that contract now, Mr. Meeks?"

The old man reached into his center desk drawer and withdrew a single sheet of paper backed in triplicate. He passed it across the desk to Ben. Ben picked up the contract and read it through carefully. It was exactly as the old man had promised. The Kingship of Landover was to be sold to him for a price of one million dollars. The language of the catalogue promo was repeated with appropriate warranties. The closing paragraphs provided for a full refund of the purchase price less the handling charge if within ten days of arrival in Landover the purchaser chose to return the specialty item and withdraw from the Kingdom. A key for such withdrawal would be provided at time of purchase.

Ben paused on reading the final lines. The purchaser agreed on forfeiture of the full purchase price if he or she returned the item anytime after the first ten days or if he or she chose to abandon Landover for any reason during the first year of Kingship.

"What is the point of this final covenant?" he asked, glancing back again at Meeks. "Why can't I leave for a visit back?"

Meeks smiled — a rather poor attempt. "My client is concerned that the purchaser of Landover appreciate the responsibilities that Kingship entail. A man not willing to, what is the saying? — 'stick it out' for at least a year is not a worthy candidate for the job. The agreement assures that you will not wander off and leave the duties of the throne unattended — at least for that first year."

Ben frowned. "I guess I can understand your client's concern." He placed the contract back on the desk, one hand resting on it lightly. "But I'm still a bit skeptical about the offer in general, Mr. Meeks. I think I should be candid. It all seems a bit too easy. A mythical kingdom with fairy creatures that no one has ever seen or heard about before? A place no one has ever been to, that no one has ever come across? And all I have to do is to give Rosen's one million dollars and I own it?"

Meeks said nothing. His aged, craggy face was expressionless.

"Is this kingdom in North America?" Ben pressed.

Meeks said nothing.

"Do I need a passport to reach it? Or medical protection from its diseases?"

Meeks shook his head slowly. "You need no passport or immunization. You need only courage, Mr. Holiday."

Ben flushed slightly. "I think some common sense might be called for as well, Mr. Meeks."

"A purchase such as the one you propose to make, Mr. Holiday, requires least of all common sense. If common sense were the basis of the sale, neither one of us would be having this conversation, would we?" The old man's smile was cold. "Let us be candid, as you suggest. You are a man seeking something that is not available to you in the world you know. You are a man who is tired of his life and all of its trappings. If you were not, you would not be here. I am a man who specializes in selling specialty items — items that are bizarre, that appeal to a limited market, that are invariably difficult to merchandise. I am a man who cannot afford to jeopardize his reputation by selling something that is in any way counterfeit. If I did so, I would not have lasted long in this business. I play no games with you, and I sense that you play none with me.

"Nevertheless, there are certain things that both of us must accept on faith. I must accept you as a potential ruler of Landover basically on faith, knowing little of your real character, but only so much as I have surmised from our short interview. And you must accept much of what I tell you of Landover on faith as well, because there is no meaningful way to show it to you. You must experience it, Mr. Holiday. You must go there and learn of it for yourself."

"In ten days, Mr. Meeks?"

"Time enough, believe me, Mr. Holiday. If you find otherwise, simply use the key provided you to return."

There was a long silence. "Does this mean that you have decided to offer me the purchase?" Ben asked.

Meeks nodded. "I have. I think you are eminently qualified. What do you say to that, Mr. Holiday?"

Ben looked down at the contract. "I'd like to think about it a bit."

Meeks chuckled dryly. "The caution of a lawyer — well and good. I can give you twenty-four hours before the item becomes available to the open market once more, Mr. Holiday. My next appointment is scheduled at one o'clock tomorrow. Take longer if you wish, but I can promise nothing after one day's time."

Ben nodded. "Twenty-four hours should be enough."

He reached for the contract, but Meeks slipped it quickly back. "My policy — and the store's — is not to allow copies of our contracts out of the office prior to signing. You may, of course, examine it again tomorrow at your convenience if you decide to buy."

Ben climbed to his feet and Meeks rose with him, tall and stooped. "You should make the purchase, Mr. Holiday," the old man's whispered voice encouraged. "You are the man for the job, I think."

Ben pursed his lips. "Maybe."

"If you decide to make the purchase, the contract will be waiting for you at the receptionist's desk. Thirty days will be allowed to complete arrangements for payment of the list price. Upon receiving payment in full, I will make available to you instructions for undertaking the journey to Landover and assuming the throne."

He walked Ben to the office door and opened it. "Do yourself a favor. Make the purchase, Mr. Holiday."

The door swung closed again, and Ben stood alone.

He walked back to the Waldorf through the noonday rush, had a leisurely lunch and retired to the lounge just off the lobby. With a yellow pad and pen in hand, he began to make notes about his interview with Meeks.

A number of things still troubled him. One of them was Meeks himself. There was something odd about that old man — something that went beyond his rough appearance. He had the instincts of a seasoned trial lawyer-hard-nosed and predatory. He was pleasant enough, but beneath the surface was a shell of armor two inches thick. The bits and pieces of conversation Ben had overheard in the reception areas and the looks he had seen in the receptionists' faces suggested that Meeks was not the easiest man to work with.

Yet it was more than that. Ben just couldn't seem to put his finger on what it was.

There was the problem, too, of still not having learned much of anything about Landover. No pictures, no flyers, no brochures — nothing. Too difficult to describe, Meeks had hedged. You have to see it. You have to accept the sale on faith. Ben grimaced. If their roles were switched and Meeks were the purchaser, he didn't think for one minute that that old man would settle for what he had been told!

He hadn't really learned anything about Landover in the interview that he hadn't known going into it. He didn't know where it was or what it looked like. He didn't know anything other than what had been described in the brochure.

Escape into your dreams...

Maybe.

And maybe he would be escaping into his nightmares.

All he had to fall back on was the clause in the contract that let him out of the purchase if he chose to rescind within ten days. That was fair enough. More than fair, really. He would lose only the fifty-thousand-dollar handling fee — an expensive, but not unbearable loss. He could journey to this magical kingdom with its fairy folk, with its dragons and damsel and all, and if he found it to be any sort of rip-off, he could journey back again and reclaim his money.

Guaranteed.

He scribbled notes hastily on the pad for a moment, and then looked up suddenly and stared out across the empty lounge.

The truth was that none of that mattered a whit. The truth was that he was prepared to make the purchase just as things stood.

And that was the real problem. That was the thing that bothered him the most. He was prepared to spend a million dollars on a dream because his life had reached a point where nothing that he was or had mattered to him anymore. Anything was preferable to that — even something as wild as what he was considering, a fantasy like Landover with iguanas and Hollywood make-believe. Miles would say he needed help if he were even considering this ridiculous purchase — serious, professional help. Miles would be right, too.

So why was it that none of that made any difference to him? Why was it that he was probably going to make the purchase nevertheless?

His lean frame stretched in the cushioned easy chair. Because, he answered himself. Because I want to try something that other men just dream about. Because I don't know if I can do it, and I want to find out. Because this is the first real challenge that I have come across since losing Annie, and without that challenge, without something to pull me from the mire of my present existence...

He took a deep breath, the sentence left unfinished in his mind. Because life is a series of chances, he thought instead, and the bigger the chance, the greater the satisfaction if he were to succeed.

And he would succeed. He knew he would.

He tore the notes from his yellow pad and shredded them.

He slept on the matter as he had promised himself that he would, but his mind was already made up. At ten o'clock the next morning he was back at Rosen's, back in the penthouse at the receptionist's desk fronting the corridor that led to Meeks' secluded office. The receptionist did not seem at all surprised to see him. She handed him the contract with its triplicate carbons together with a statement of Rosen's payment policy allowing thirty days same as cash on all specialty items purchased. He read the contract once again, saw that it was the same, and signed it. With a carbon copy tucked into his suit pocket, he departed the building and caught a cab to LaGuardia.

By noon, he was on his way back to Chicago. He felt better than he had felt in a very long time.

Landover

The good feeling lasted until the next morning when he began to discover that no one else was quite as keen as he was on this proposed change in his life.

He called his accountant first. He had known Ed Samuelson for better than ten years; while they were not close friends, they were nevertheless close business associates who respected each other's advice. Ben had served as attorney for the accountancy firm of Haines, Samuelson and Roper, Inc. for almost the whole of that time. Ed Samuelson had been his accountant from the beginning. Ed was probably the only man alive who knew the full extent of his holdings. Ed had worked with him when his parents had passed away. He had suggested most of the investments that Ben had bought into. He knew Ben to be a shrewd and astute businessman.

But when Ben called him that morning and told him — told him, not asked him — to sell bonds and securities valued at almost one million dollars and to do so within the next ten days, it was clear to him that Ben had lost his mind. He exploded through the phone receiver. A sale such as that was unadulterated madness! Bonds and CDs could be liquidated only at a loss, because the penalty for early withdrawal was severe. Stocks would have to be sold at market value and in many cases the market was down. Ben would lose money all the way around. Even the tax deductions available from such a rash act couldn't begin to compensate him for the losses he would suffer! Why, in God's name, was it necessary to do this? Why did he suddenly need a million dollars in cash?

Patiently, if somewhat evasively, Ben explained that he had decided to complete purchase of an item that required cash up front and no delay. The tone of his voice made it clear that he was not prepared to reveal the nature of the item. Ed hesitated. Was Ben in some kind of trouble? Ben assured him that he was not. This was simply a decision that he had come to after some extended thought and he would appreciate Ed's help in securing the capital needed.

There wasn't much more to discuss. Reluctantly, Ed Samuelson agreed to do as he was asked. Ben hung up.

Things were even worse at the law office. He called Miles in first; when his friend had seated himself, coffee in hand, Ben told him that he had decided to take a leave of absence from the firm. Miles almost dropped the coffee.

"A leave of absence? What in the hell are you talking about, Doc? This law firm's your whole life! Practicing law is your whole life — has been since Annie died!"

"Maybe that's some of the problem, Miles. Maybe I need to get away from everything for a time — get a fresh perspective on things." Ben shrugged. "You're the one who's been telling me how I need to get out more, see something of the world besides this office and my apartment."

"Yeah, sure, but I don't see... Wait a minute, what kind of a leave of absence are you talking about? How long are you planning to be gone? A couple of weeks? A month?"

"A year."

Miles stared at him.

"At least," Ben added. "Maybe more."

"A year? A whole goddamn year? At least?" Miles was flushed with anger. "That's not a leave of absence. Doc, that's retirement! What are we supposed to do with the practice while you're gone? What about your clients? They're not going to sit around a whole year waiting for you to come back! They'll pack it in and find another firm! And what about the trials you've scheduled? What about the cases you've got pending? For Christ's sake, you can't just..."

"Calm down a minute, will you?" Ben interrupted quickly. "I'm not bailing out and leaving the ship to sink. I've thought it all through. I'll notify all of my clients personally. Cases pending will be disposed of or reassigned. If anyone's unhappy, I'll refer them to another firm. I think most will stay with you."

Miles shifted his bulky frame forward against the desk. "Doc, let's be honest here. Maybe what you say is true — for the most part, at least. Maybe you can satisfy most of your clients. Maybe they'll accept your taking a leave of absence from the firm. But for a year? Or longer? They'll drift. Doc. And what about the trial work you do? No one can just step in and handle that. We'll lose those clients for sure."

"We can stand to lose a few if that's the way it has to be."

"But that's the point. That's not the way it has to be."

"What if I died, Miles? Tonight, just like that. Dead and buried. What would you do then? You'd have the same problem, basically. How would you solve it?"

"It's not the same thing, damn it, and you know it! The analogy stinks!" Miles came to his feet and leaned forward abruptly, arms braced on the desk. "I don't understand what in the hell has gotten into you. Doc. I don't understand at all. You've always been so damn dependable! A bit unorthodox in the courtroom, sure — but always level-headed, always under control. And a really brilliant trial lawyer. Hell, if I had half of your talent..."

"Miles, will you give me a break...?"

The big man brushed the comment aside with a shake of his head. "A whole goddamn year you want to go trooping about? Just like that? First you fly off to New York without a word of explanation, chasing after God knows what, leaving the same day you decide to go, not even talking with me about it, not a word since we sat here and talked about that crazy item in that catalogue, whatever the name of it was, Ross, or Rosenberg's or whatever the hell, and now off again, just like..."

He stopped suddenly, the words dying away in his throat. His face froze in stunned recognition. "Oh, my God!" he whispered softly. His head shook slowly from side to side.

"Oh, my God! It's that damn catalogue fantasyland, isn't it?"

Ben didn't answer him for a moment, undecided as to whether he should. He had intended to keep Landover a secret. He had intended to say nothing of it to anyone.

"Miles, sit back down, will you?" he said finally.

"Sit down? How in God's name do you expect me to sit down after...?

"Just sit the hell down, Miles!" Ben cut his friend short. Miles went still, held his position a moment longer, then sank slowly back into his chair. The stunned look stayed on his florid face.

Now it was Ben who leaned forward. His face was hard. "We've been together a long time, Miles — as friends and partners both. We know a lot about each other. Most of it we've learned from experiences shared. But we don't know everything about each other because that's not possible. No two human beings can know everything about each other, even under the best of circumstances. That's why certain things we do always remain a mystery to everyone else."

He cocked his head. "Remember the times you've warned me about backing away from a case because there was something not quite right about it? Remember, Miles? Drop that case, you'd tell me. It's bad news. It's a loser. Drop it. Sometimes I'd do it. I'd agree with you and I'd drop it. But sometimes I wouldn't. Sometimes I'd take the case anyway, and I'd tell you I was taking it because it felt right to me. You'd go along with that decision — even though you didn't agree with it and you really didn't understand it. But you trusted me to take the chance, didn't you?"

He paused. "Well, that's what I'm asking you to do now. You can't understand and you won't agree. So just put all that aside and trust me."

Miles' eyes shifted to the desk top and up again. "Doc, you're talking a million dollars here!"

Ben shook his head slowly. "No, I'm not. I'm talking about saving myself. Miles. I'm talking about something that doesn't have a price tag."

"But this is... crazy!" Miles' hands gripped the edge of the desk top until the knuckles were white. "This is irresponsible! It's just plain stupid, damn it!"

"I don't see it that way."

"You don't? Shucking off your professional responsibilities, your life's work? Going off to live in a castle and fight dragons — assuming there are any and you're not simply getting fleeced? No TV, no Bears games, no Wrigley Field, no cold beer, no goddamn electricity or showers with hot water or indoor toilets or anything? Leaving behind your home and your friends and... Jesus Christ, Doc!"

"Just think of it as an extended camping trip — the kind where you get away from it all."

"Great! A million-dollar camping trip!"

"My mind is made up on this, Miles."

"Off to some godforsaken..."

"My mind is made up!"

The hard edge to his voice left them both shaken. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, feeling the distance between them widening as if a chasm had opened. Then Ben rose and came quickly around the desk. Miles rose as well. Ben put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it.

"If I don't do something, Miles, I'm going to lose myself," he whispered. "It may take a few months or even a year, but in the end I'm going to slip into the cracks and be gone. I can't let that happen."

His friend looked at him wordlessly, sighed and nodded. "It's your life, Doc. I can't tell you how to live it. I never could." He squared himself. "Will you at least take a few days to think about this some more? That's not asking too much, is it?"

Ben smiled wearily. "I've already thought it through a hundred different ways. That's enough. I'm all done thinking."

Miles shook his head. "Guess a blind man could tell that, couldn't he?"

"I'm going to tell the others now. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep what you know to yourself."

"Sure. Why not? Why let anybody else know that the leading light of the firm is deranged?" He gave Ben a final glance, shrugged and turned toward the office door. "You're nuts, Doc."

Ben followed him out. "Yeah, I'll miss you, too, Miles." He called the staff together then and told them of his plans for a leave of absence from the firm. He told them of his need to get away from his present life, the city, the practice, everything familiar; he told them that he would be leaving in the next few weeks and that he might be gone for better than a year. There was stunned silence and then a flurry of questions. He answered them all patiently. Then he left and went home.

He never mentioned Landover to any of them. Neither did Miles.

It took him the better part of three weeks to put his affairs in order. Most of that time was spent in tying up the loose ends of his law practice — communicating with clients, clearing his court calendar, and reassigning his case load. The transition was difficult. The staff had accepted his decision with stoic resolve, but there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in their looks and conversation that he could not mistake. They felt that he was deserting them, bailing out. And truth be told, he was feeling a bit ambivalent about that possibility himself. On the one hand, the loosening of ties with the firm and his profession gave him a newfound sense of freedom and relief. He felt as if he were escaping a trap — as if he were beginning his life all over again with a chance to discover things he had missed the first time around. On the other hand, there were undeniable twinges of uncertainty and regret at letting go of what he had spent the better part of his adult life building for himself. There was that sense of abandoning the familiar for the unknown that characterizes all journeys made for the first time.

Still, he could come back whenever he chose, he reminded himself. There was really nothing permanent in any of this — at least, not yet.

So he went about the business at hand and tried not to think about the ambivalent feelings, but the more he tried not to think about them, the more he did, and in the end he gave up on it altogether and accepted that it was inevitable. He let the feelings buffet and rage within him, let the doubts and the uncertainties gnaw, and found that he gained a certain measure of strength by being able to withstand them. He had made his decision; he found now that he could live with it.

The three weeks came to an end and he had completed the transition at the firm. He was free of his professional obligations, free to pursue whatever other paths he might choose to follow. In this instance, the path he had chosen led to a mythical kingdom called Landover. Only Miles knew the truth, and Miles wasn't talking. Not to him, not to anyone. Miles was in a determined funk. Miles was convinced he was crazy.

"There will come a time, Doc — a time in the not-too-distant future, unless I miss my guess — when a lightbulb will click on inside your muddled head and you will realize in a flash of belated wisdom that you made a huge mistake. When that happens, you'll come slinking back to the firm, feeling a bit sheepish and a lot poorer, and I will take enormous pleasure in saying 'I told you so' at least half a dozen times. But that hasn't anything to do with anyone but you and me. So we'll just keep this bit of middle-aged foolishness between ourselves. No point in embarrassing the entire firm."

That was the last comment Miles had made with regard to his decision to purchase Landover. He had made it the day after Ben had announced his decision to take a leave of absence to the partners and staff. Since then, he had kept his conversations with Ben confined strictly to business matters. Three weeks later, he had not said another word to his friend about Landover. He had contented himself instead with meaningful glances and a condescending manner suggestive of a shrink trying to glean some insight into the mind of his prize lunatic.

Ben tried to ignore this behavior, but his patience wore thin. The days dragged past, and he grew anxious to end the waiting. Ed Samuelson called to announce that the stocks and bonds had been liquidated and the money was available for the investment — if Ben was still certain that this was something that he wanted to do without further consultation. It was, Ben assured him as if missing the pointed suggestion, and wired the purchase price of Landover to Rosen's in New York, attention Meeks. He made arrangements with Samuelson to manage his financial affairs for an indefinite period of time, preparing suitable powers-of-attorney and supplemental authorizations. The accountant accepted them with a look that was suspiciously similar to the one recently adopted by Miles. Ben's patience ebbed some more. He paid his rent at the Towers for twelve months in advance and arranged for cleaning and security checks. He told George to keep an eye on things, and George seemed genuinely anxious that he have a good trip and a pleasant stay at wherever it was that he was going. George was probably the only one who felt that way, he decided. He prepared an update of his last will and testament, cancelled magazine and newspaper subscriptions, called the health club to advise them he would not be coming in for a time, but to keep the boxing facilities intact, put a hold on his mail at the post office effective the first of next month and deposited the key to his bank lockbox with Ed Samuelson.

Then he sat back to wait some more.

The waiting ended in the fourth week, three days before the end of the month. Snow flumes spit and swirled in the graying afternoon, the post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas holiday weekend flooding the city with eager shoppers dying to celebrate Christ's birth with an exchange of cash for goods. His discontent with the waiting was breeding a rather nasty cynicism. He was watching the madness from the confines of his ivory tower when George called up to announce that a special delivery envelope had arrived from New York.

It was from Meeks. There was a letter, airline tickets, a roadmap of the state of Virginia and an odd-looking receipt. The letter read as follows:

Dear Mr. Holiday,

I write to confirm your acquisition of the specialty item known asLandover , as listed in our most recent holiday catalogue. Your payment in full of the requisite purchase price has been received and escrowed, pending the passage of ten days per our contractual agreement.

I enclose airline tickets which will convey you from Chicago to Chariottesville, Virginia. The tickets will be honored on presentation to representatives of the appropriate carriers at any time during the next seven days.

Upon arrival at the Chariottesville Allegheny terminal, please present the enclosed receipt at the courtesy desk. An automobile has been reserved in your name and will be made available upon your arrival. A package and written instructions will be waiting for you as well.Read the instructions carefully and keep safe the contents of the package .

The roadmap of the state of Virginia is marked in detail to enable you successfully to complete the final leg of your journey to Landover. At its end, you will be met.

On behalf of Rosen's, Ltd., I wish you a pleasant journey.

Meeks

He read the letter through several times, glanced at the airline tickets and the receipt, then examined the roadmap. A red pen line traced a passage on the roadways leading westof the city of Charlottesville to a small "x" in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains just south of Waynesboro. There were cursory instructions printed in the margins of the map, numbered in consecutive paragraphs. He read them through, read the letter once more, then folded the entire packet up again and slipped it back into the envelope.

He sat there for a time on the sofa, staring out at the gray day with its flurry of white snowflakes and the distant sounds of the holiday rush. Then he walked into the bedroom, packed a small overnight bag and called down to George for a taxi.

He was at O'Hare by five o'clock.

It was beginning to snow harder.

It was not snowing in Virginia. It was cool and clear, the sky filled with sunlight that streaked a backdrop of forested mountains glimmering crystalline with morning dew. Ben eased the steel-blue New Yorker into the right lane of Interstate 64 traveling west out of Charlottesville toward Waynesboro.

It was midmorning of the following day. He had flown to Washington National, stayed overnight at the Marriott across from the airport, then caught Allegheny's 7:00 A.M. flight to Charlottesville. Once there, he had presented the odd-looking receipt at the terminal courtesy desk and received in exchange the keys to the New Yorker and a small box wrapped in plain brown paper addressed to him. In the box was a brief letter from Meeks and a medallion. The letter read:

The medallion is your key into and out of Landover. Wear it, and you will be recognized as the rightful heir to the throne. Remove it, and you will be returned to the place marked "x" on the map. Only you can remove it. No one can take it from you. Lose it at your own peril.

Meeks

The medallion was an aged, tarnished piece of metal, its face engraved with a mounted knight in battle harness advancing out of a morning sun that rose over a castle encircled by a lake. A double-link chain was fastened at its apex. It was an exquisite piece of workmanship, but badly worn. The tarnish would not come clean, even with rubbing. He had slipped it around his neck, picked up the car reserved in his name and turned south out of Charlottesville onto Interstate 64.

So far, so good, he thought to himself as he drove west toward the Blue Ridge. Everything had gone according to script.

The map supplied by Meeks lay open on the seat beside him. He had memorized the instructions written on it. He was to follow 64 west almost to Waynesboro and exit the Skyline Drive on the road south toward Lynchburg. Twenty miles in, he would come upon a wayside turn-around on a promontory overlooking a stretch of mountains and valleys within the George Washington National Forest. It would be marked with a small green sign with the number 13 in black. There would be a courtesy phone and a weather shelter. He was to pull over, park, and lock the car with the keys inside, and cross the roadway to the nature path on the opposite side. He was to follow the path into the mountains for approximately two miles. At that point, he would be met.

The map didn't say by whom. Neither did the letter.

The map did say that someone would come later to pick up the car. The phone could be used to arrange for transportation back again, should he decide later to return. A telephone number was provided.

A twinge of doubt tugged suddenly at him. He was a long way out in the middle of nowhere, and no one but Meeks knew exactly where he was. If he were simply to drop from sight, Meeks might suddenly be a million dollars richer — supposing for the sake of argument that this was all an elaborate hoax. Stranger things had happened and for much less.

He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. It didn't make sense. Meeks was an agent for Rosen's, and a man in his position would have been thoroughly checked. Besides, there were too many ways that Meeks could be caught in such a thing. Miles knew of Ben's contact with the store and the reason for that contact. The funds he had cabled could be traced. Copies of the confirmation letter from Meeks were with his safe papers. And the ad for Landover's sale was public knowledge.

He forced the doubts from his mind and concentrated on the drive ahead. His anticipation of what lay ahead had been working on him for weeks. He was so keyed up that he could barely contain himself. He had slept poorly last night. He had been awake before sunrise. He was susceptible to all sorts of half-baked ideas.

He reached the entrance to Skyline Drive in a little more than thirty minutes and turned south onto it. The two lane highway wound steadily upward into the Blue Ridge, weaving through the tangle of forest and mountain rock, rising into the late November sunlight. Panoramic views spread away to either side, the sweep of the national forestlands and parkways slipping past in breathtaking still life. Traffic was light. He encountered three cars traveling in the opposite direction, families with camping gear and luggage, one pulling a fold-up trailer. He came across no one driving south.

Twenty minutes later, he caught sight of the turn-around with its green sign stenciled with the number 13 in black. Easing off the gas pedal, he pulled the New Yorker off the parkway onto the gravel wayside and came to a stop before the courtesy phone and weather shelter. He climbed out of the car and looked about. To his right, the wayside ran several dozen feet to a chain and post guard rail and a promontory that overlooked miles of forestland and mountain ridges comprising a small part of the national park. To his left, across the deserted roadway, the mountainside lifted into the morning sunlight, a maze of trees and rocks wrapped in thin trailers of mist. He stared upward toward the mountain's summit, watching the mist swirl and stir like ribbons drawn through the air. The day was still and empty, and even the passing of the wind made no sound.

He turned, reached into the car and took out his overnight case. It was really little more than a glorified duffel bag filled with a few odd possessions he had thought to bring a bottle of his beloved Glenlivet to be saved for a special occasion, toiletries, paper and pens, several books, a couple sets of boxing gloves, recent copies of magazines he was still reading, tape, antiseptic, an old sweatsuit, and running shoes. He hadn't bothered with much in the way of clothing. He knew that he would probably be better off wearing whatever they wore in Landover.

He closed the car and locked it, the keys inside. He slipped his billfold into his duffel, glanced about once again, and crossed the roadway. He was dressed in a light sweatsuit of navy blue with red and white piping and navy blue Nikes. He had brought the Nikes and the running shoes because he couldn't decide what better to wear on a journey such as this and because he doubted that there would be anything more comfortable in shoes once he got where he was going. It was odd, he reflected, that Meeks hadn't bothered with any instructions about clothing or personals.

He stopped at the far side of the roadway and scanned the forested slope before him. A small stream ran down off the rocks through a series of rapids that flashed silver in the dappled sunlight. A pathway crisscrossed the stream's banks and disappeared into the trees. Ben hitched the duffel over one shoulder and started up.

The pathway wound in a series of twists and turns along the stream, leveling off at intervals in small clearings where wooden benches provided a resting place for the weary hiker. The stream gurgled and lapped against the earthen banks and over rock falls, the only sound in the late November morning. The parkway and the car disappeared behind him as he climbed, and soon there was only the forest to be seen. The climb grew less steep, but the forest closed about on either side, and the pathway became more difficult to discern. Eventually, the stream branched away into a cliff side that dropped from a great height, and the pathway ran on alone.

Slowly a mist began to settle in about him. He stopped then and again looked about. There was nothing to see. He listened. There was nothing to hear. Nevertheless, he had the unpleasant sensation of being followed. Momentary doubt tugged at his resolve; perhaps this whole business was one big, fat mistake. But he shoved the doubt aside quickly and started again along the trail. He had made the commitment weeks ago. He was determined to see it through.

The forest deepened and the mist grew thicker. Trees loomed tightly all about him, dark, skeletal sentries with their dying leaves and evergreen boughs, their trailers of vine and scrub and swatches of saw grass. He was having to push his way past the pine and spruce to keep on the trail, and the mist lent a hazy cast to a morning that had begun with sunshine. Pine needles and fallen leaves crunched underfoot; from beyond where he could see, small animals darted through the carpet.

At least he wasn't entirely alone, he thought. He was growing extremely thirsty, but he hadn't thought to pack a water container. He could go back and try the stream water, but he was reluctant to lose time doing so. He turned his thoughts momentarily to Miles to take his mind off his thirst. He tried to picture Miles out here in the woods with him, trudging through the forest and the mist, huffing and grunting. He smiled. Miles hated all forms of exercise that did not involve beer cans and tableware. He thought Ben was crazy for continuing his boxing workouts so many years after he had ceased to box competitively. He thought athletes were basically little boys who had never grown up.

Ben shook his head. Miles thought a lot of things that didn't make much sense.

He slowed as the pathway ahead petered out into tall grass. A deep cluster of pine barred his passage forward. He pushed his way through and stopped.

"Uh-oh," he whispered.

A wall of towering, rugged oak rose before him, shrouded in layers of shadow. A tunnel had been cut through its center, hollowed out as if by giant's hands. The tunnel was dark and empty, a black hole with no end, a burrow that ran on into trailers of mist, stirred by invisible hands. Sounds drifted from out of the black, distant and unidentifiable.

Ben stood at the tunnel's entrance and stared into the mist and the dark. The tunnel was two dozen feet across and twice as high. He had never seen anything like it. He knew at once that nothing in his world had made it. He knew as well exactly where it led. Nevertheless, he hesitated. There was something about the tunnel that made him uneasy — something beyond the fact that it was an unnatural creation. There was a look and feel to it that bothered him.

He peered about warily. There was nothing to be seen. He might have been the only living thing in the forest, except that he could heal; the sounds from somewhere ahead, like voices, only...

He experienced a sudden, violent urge to turn about and go straight back the way he had come. It was so powerful that he actually took a step backward before he could catch himself. The air from the tunnel seemed to reach out to him in a velvet touch that trailed moisture against his skin. He tightened his arm about the duffel and straightened, bracing himself against what he was feeling. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Did he go on or did he turn back? Which choice for intrepid adventurer. Doc Holiday?

"Well," he said softly.

He started forward. The tunnel seemed to open before him, the darkness drawing back at precisely the rate at which he advanced. The mist caressed him, a lover's hands tender and eager in their touch. He walked steadily, purposefully, letting his eyes sweep briefly right and left, seeing nothing. The sounds continued to stray from out of the invisible distance, still unrecognizable. The forest earth had a soft, spongey feel to it, giving with the weight of his body as he trod upon it. Dark trunks and limbs wrapped about, walls and ceiling that locked away all but the faintest light, a web of damp bark and drying leaves.

Ben risked a quick glance back. The forest from which he had come was gone. The tunnel entrance was gone. It was the same distance back as forward, the same look either way.

"Special effects are pretty good." He forced a quick smile, thinking of Miles, thinking of how ridiculous it was to feel what he was feeling, thinking that he was liking this whole business less and less...

Then he heard the scream.

It lifted from out of the dark and the mist from somewhere behind him. He glanced back once more, still walking. There was movement in the tunnel dark. Figures darted from the trees — human in appearance, but so slight and willowy as to be almost ethereal. Faces appeared, thin and angular with sharp eyes that peered from beneath thatches of moss-hair and corn-silk brows.

The scream sounded again. He blinked. A monstrous, black apparition hung upon the misted air, a thing of scales and leathered wings, of claws and spines. The scream had come from it.

Ben quit walking altogether and stared. The special effects were getting better and better. This one looked almost real.

He dropped his duffel on the trail, put his hands on his hips and watched it assume three-dimensional proportions. It was an ugly thing, as big as a house and as frightening as the worst of his dreams. Still, he could tell illusion from reality. Meeks would have to do better than this if he expected Ben to...

He terminated the thought abruptly. The apparition was coming directly for him — and it didn't look quite so fake any longer. It was beginning to look decidedly real. He picked up the duffel and backed away. The thing screamed. Even the scream sounded real now.

Ben swallowed hard. Maybe that was because the thing was real.

He quit being rational and started to run. The apparition came on, the scream sounding once more. It was close to him now, a nightmare that could not be shaken out of sleep. It settled down upon the tunnel floor and ran upon four legs, the wings pulled back against it, the body compacted and steaming as if heated by an inner fire. And there was something on its back — a figure as dark as it, armored and misshapen, clawed hands grasping reins to guide the thing it rode.

Ben ran faster, his breathing labored and sounding of fear. He was in good condition, but the fear was eroding his strength quickly, and he could make no headway on the creature trailing. All about him he watched the strange faces materialize and then vanish, spirits wandered from the mists, lost in the trees — spectators to the chase taking place within the tunnel. He thought momentarily to break from the pathway and force his way into the forest with the gathering of faces. Perhaps the thing chasing him could not follow. It was so big that, even if he tried, the trees would at least slow its pursuit. But then he would be lost in the dark and the mist and might never find his way back. He stayed on the trail.

The apparition chasing him screamed again, and he could feel the tunnel floor shake with its approach. "Meeks, damn you!" he cried desperately.

He could feel the medallion rub against his chest within the confines of his running suit. He clutched at it instinctively, the talisman he had been given to bring him safely into and — if need be — safely out of Landover. Maybe the medallion could dispell this thing...

Then a rider appeared suddenly at the edge of the darkness ahead, a ragged, hazy form. It was a knight, his armor battered and chipped, lance lowered until it almost rested upon the ground before it. Both rider and horse were soiled and unkempt, apparitions as unfriendly in their appearance as the thing that thundered toward Ben from behind. The rider's head lifted at his approach, and the lance came up. Behind it, there was a sudden trace of daylight.

Ben ran faster still. The tunnel was ending. He had to get clear of it; he had to escape.

The monster that pursued screamed, the sound dying into a frightening hiss. "Stay away from me, damn you!" Ben cried frantically.

Then the horse and rider loomed suddenly before him, grown huge and strangely awesome beneath their covering of dirt. An exclamation of surprise broke from Ben's lips. He had seen this knight before. He had seen his image engraved upon the medallion that he wore!

The breath of the black thing burned against the back of his neck, fetid and raw. Terror streaked through him, and there was the cold touch of something inhuman in his chest. The knight spurred his horse from the blaze of sunlight that marked the tunnel's end, and the faces in the forest whirled as if disembodied ghosts. Ben screamed. Black thing and knight closed at him from either direction, bearing down on him as if he were not there.

The knight reached him first, racing past at a full gallop, the flanks of the charging horse knocking him sprawling from the pathway. He tumbled headlong into the shadows, and his eyes closed tightly against a sudden explosion of light.

Blackness engulfed him, and everything spun wildly. The breath had been knocked from his body, and he was having trouble catching it again. He lay face downward against the earth, the feel of grass and leaves damp against his cheek. He kept his eyes tightly shut and waited for the spinning sensation to cease.

When at last it did, he opened his eyes cautiously. He was in a clearing. The forest rose up all about him, misted and dark, but he could still glimpse traces of daylight beyond its screen. He started to his feet.

It was then that he saw the dragon.

He froze in disbelief. The dragon lay sleeping several dozen yards to his left, curled in a ball against a row of dark trunks. It was a monstrous thing, all scales, spikes, claws, and spines, its wings folded against its body, its snout tucked down into its forelegs. Steam puffed in ragged geysers from its nostrils as it snored contentedly. The raw, white bones of something recently eaten were scattered all about.

Ben sucked in his breath slowly, certain for an instant that this was the black thing that had chased him through the tunnel. But, no, the black thing had been something different altogether...

He quit worrying about what it was and started worrying about how to get away from it. He wished he knew if any of this was real, but there was no time to debate the matter now.

Cautiously, he began to slip through the trees, edging his way past the sleeping dragon in the direction of the light. He had his duffel looped over one shoulder and clamped tightly against his side. The dragon appeared to be sleeping soundly. It would only take a few moments to get clear of it. Ben held his breath and continued to place one foot silently in front of the other. He was almost clear of the beast when one lidded eye suddenly slipped open.

Ben froze a second time. The dragon regarded him balefully, the single eye fixed on him as he stood there amid the trees. Ben held his ground a moment longer, then slowly began to back away.

The dragon's horn-crusted head swung quickly about, lowering against the forest earth. Ben backpedalled faster, seeing the forest trees thin about him, sensing the light grow brighter behind. The dragon's lip curled back almost disdainfully to reveal row upon row of blackened teeth.

Then the dragon blew at him as a sleeping man might blow at a bothersome fly. The odorous breath picked Ben up and flung him like a rag doll through the forest mist. He closed his eyes, tucked into a ball, and braced himself. He struck the earth roughly, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop.

When he opened his eyes again, he sat alone in a clover meadow.

Questor Thews

Sunshine seeped down through rifts in a clouded sky, bathing the meadow with bits and pieces of its warmth. Ben blinked and squinted through its brightness. The misted forest with its shadowed tunnel was gone. The apparitions were gone as well — that black thing, the battered knight, even the dragon.

Ben straightened. What in the hell had happened to them? He brushed at the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Hadn't they been real after all?

He swallowed hard. No, of course they weren't real! They couldn't have been! They were just some sort of mirage!

He glanced about quickly. The meadow in which he sat spread away before him in a carpet of muted greens, blues and pinks, a mix of colors he had never seen in grasses. The clover was white, but touched with crimson spots. The meadow dropped downward into a sprawling valley which rose again miles distant in a wall of mountains that formed a dark barrier against the skyline. Behind him, the trees of a forest loomed blackly against a mountain slope. Trailers of mist hung over everything.

The apparitions had been somewhere in the trees behind him, he thought suddenly. Where had they disappeared to?

And where was he?

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. He was still shaken from his ordeal in the forest tunnel, frightened by the dark things that had come at him, bewildered that he was sitting here in this meadow. He took several deep breaths to steady himself. Whatever it was that had seemed to threaten him in that forest, he was all right now. He was back in the Blue Ridge. He was in Virginia, some twenty miles or so below Waynesboro, a few miles in from the parkway that ran through the George Washington National Forest.

Except that...

He glanced about once again, more carefully this time. Something wasn't quite right. The weather was wrong, for one thing. It was too warm for late November in the Virginia Mountains. He was sweating beneath his running suit and he shouldn't have been doing that, even with the scare he had just experienced. The air had been cooler than this by at least thirty degrees before he had entered that tunnel in the forest.

The clover was wrong, too. There shouldn't be clover blooming in November — especially clover that looked like this, white with crimson spots, like a polka-dot flower. He looked back at the forest. Why were there still leaves as green as summer's new growth on the trees? The leaves should be colored with autumn's touch. The only green should be on the pines and spruce.

He shoved himself hurriedly to one knee. A mix of panic and excitement crept through him. The sun was directly overhead, exactly where it ought to be. But in the distant skies two spheres hung low against the horizon — one faintly peach, the other a sort of washed-out mauve. Ben started. Moons? Two of them? No, they had to be planets. But when had the planets of his solar system ever been so clearly visible to the naked eye?

What in the hell was going on?

He sat back slowly, forcing himself to remain calm. There was a logical explanation for all of this, he reasoned, fighting back against a mix of panic and excitement. The explanation was simple. This was what he had been promised. This was Landover. He glanced about at the green meadow with its spotted clover, at the summer trees of the forest, at the odd-looking spheres hanging above the horizon, and he nodded sagely. There was nothing to worry about. This was just more of the special effects he had experienced in the forest tunnel. This was only a broader projection of such effects within a pocket of land hidden away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He wasn't sure how it had been managed — especially in the middle of a national forest — but he was sure of what it was. He had to admit that it was pretty amazing.

The valley with its summer temperatures could have been a lucky discovery, but the odd flowers, the spheres that looked like planets or moons, and the apparitions in the forest tunnel must have taken some effort and scientific know-how to create.

He came to his feet, slowly rebuilding his confidence. His experience in the forest had unnerved him badly. That black thing and the knight had seemed almost real. The knight's horse had felt very real when it galloped past, knocking him from the trail into the shadows. And he could still feel the breath of the dragon on his face. He might almost have believed...

He stopped short. His gaze, wandering across the floor of the valley below as he puzzled matters through, had caught sight of something.

It was a castle.

Ben stared. A huge swatch of green dominated the central portion of the valley, a checkerboard of meadows and fields dissected by meandering rivers. The castle stood at the near end of that checkerboard. An odd haze that hung over the whole of the valley had obscured his vision at first. But now he was beginning to pick things out, to see things clearly.

One of those things was the castle.

The castle was some miles distant from where he stood, swathed in mist and shadows beyond a deep forest. It sat upon an island in the middle of a lake, forest and hills all about, patches of mist floating past like clouds dropped down to earth. It was a dark and forbidding citadel, appearing almost ghostlike within the swirling haze.

He squinted against the muted light of the sun to see more clearly. But the mist closed suddenly, and the castle was gone.

"Damn!" he muttered softly.

Had that been an apparition as well — another of Landover's special effects? A faint suspicion was beginning to gnaw at him. Was it possible that all of these special effects were not special effects at all? He felt a twinge of the panic and excitement return. What if everything he was seeing was real?

A voice boomed out behind him, and he jumped a foot.

"Well, then, here you are, wandering about in this meadow — not at all where you were supposed to be. Did you stray from the pathway? You look a bit fatigued, if you don't mind my saying so. Are you all right?"

Ben turned at once. The speaker stood about ten feet behind him — a bizarre caricature of some pop artist's gypsy. He was a tall man, well over six feet, but so lean as to be almost sticklike. A mop of curling white hair hung down over large ears, wisps of it mingling with beard and brows of the same color and kind. Gray robes cloaked the scarecrow form, but they were decorated with an array of brilliant sashes, cloth pouches, and jewelry that left the wearer looking something like a fragmented rainbow pinned against a departing thunderstorm. Soft leather boots too big for the feet curled up slightly at the toes and a hawklike nose dominated a pinched and owlish face. A gnarled walking stick guided the way as he came a step closer.

"You are Ben Holiday, aren't you?" the fellow asked, a sudden glint of suspicion in his eyes. A massive crystal dangled from a chain about his throat, and he stuffed it rather self-consciously into the recesses of his robes. "You do have the medallion?"

Ben didn't care for the look. "Who are you?" he replied trying to put the other man on the defensive.

"Ah, I asked you first." The other smiled amiably. "Courtesy dictates that you answer first."

Ben stiffened, a touch of impatience in his voice at being forced to play this cat-and-mouse game. "Okay. I'm Ben Holiday. Now who are you?"

"Yes, well, I will have to see the medallion." The smile broadened slightly. "You could be anyone, after all. Saying that you are Ben Holiday doesn't necessarily make it so."

"You could be anyone, too, couldn't you?" Ben asked in reply. "What gives you the right to ask me anything without first telling me who you are?"

"I am the one sent to meet you, as it happens — assuming, of course, that you are who you claim. Could I see the medallion?"

Ben hesitated, then pulled the medallion from beneath his clothing and, without removing it, held it out for examination. The tall man leaned forward, peered momentarily at the medallion and nodded.

"You are indeed who you claim. I apologize for questioning you, but caution is always well advised in these matters. And now for my own introduction." He bowed deeply from the waist. "Questor Thews, wizard of the court, chief advisor to the throne of Landover, your obedient servant."

"Wizard of the..." Ben glanced sharply about one time more. "Then this is Landover!"

"Landover and nowhere else. Welcome, High Lord Ben Holiday."

"So this is it," Ben murmured, his mind racing suddenly. He looked again at the other. "Where are we exactly?"

Questor Thews seemed puzzled. "Landover, High Lord."

"Yes, but where is Landover? I mean, where is Landover in the Blue Ridge? It must be close to Waynesboro, am I right?"

The wizard smiled. "Oh, well, you are no longer in your world. I thought you understood that. Landover bridges any number of worlds — a kind of gateway, you might say. The mists of the fairy realm connect her to your world and the others. Some bridge closer, of course, and some don't even have the barrier of the mists. But you will leam all that soon enough."

Ben stared. "I'm not in my world? This isn't Virginia?"

Questor Thews shook his head.

"Or the United States or North America or Earth? None of it?"

"No, High Lord. Did you think that the fairy-tale kingdom you bought would be in your world?"

Ben didn't hear him, a desperate obstinacy seizing hold. "I suppose that those planets in the sky over there aren't fake, either? I suppose that they're real?"

Questor turned. "Those are moons, not planets. Landover has eight of them. Only two are visible in the daylight hours, but the other six can be seen as well after dusk during most of the year."

Ben stared. Then he shook his head slowly. "I don't believe any of this. I don't believe one word of it."

Questor Thews looked at him curiously. "Why do you not believe, High Lord?"

"Because a place like this can't exist, damn it!"

"But you chose to come here, didn't you? Why would you come to Landover in the first place, if you did not believe that it could exist?"

Ben had no idea. He was no longer certain why it was that he had come. He was certain of only one thing — that he could not bring himself to accept what the other man was saying. Panic flooded through him at the very thought that Landover could be somewhere other than on Earth. He had never dreamed that it would be anywhere else. It meant that all of his ties with his old life were truly severed, that everything he had once known was really gone. It meant that he was alone in an alien world...

"High Lord, would you mind if we walked while we carry on this conversation?" the wizard interrupted his thoughts. "We have a good distance to cover before nightfall."

"We do? Where are we going?"

"To your castle. High Lord."

"My castle? Wait a minute — do you mean that castle that I saw just before you appeared, the one in the middle of the lake on an island?"

The other nodded. "The very place, High Lord. Shall we be on our way?"

Ben shook his head stubbornly. "Not a chance. I'm not going anywhere until I find out exactly what's going on. What about what happened to me in the forest! Are you telling me all that was real? Are you telling me there actually was a dragon sleeping back there in the trees?"

Questor shrugged nonchalantly. "There could have been. There is a dragon in the valley — and he often naps at the fringes of the mists. The mists were his home once."

Ben frowned. "His home, huh? Well, what about that black, winged thing and its rider?"

The wizard's shaggy brows lifted slightly. "A black, winged thing, you say? A thing that seemed a nightmare, perhaps?"

Ben nodded his head anxiously. "Yes — that was what it seemed."

"That was the Iron Mark." The other pursed his lips. "The Mark is a demon lord. I am surprised he would come after you there in the mists. I would have thought..."He stopped, smiled a quick smile of reassurance and shrugged. "A demon strays into Landover now and again. You happened to come across one of the worst."

"Come across it, my aunt Agatha!" Ben flared. "It was hunting me! It chased me down that forest tunnel and would have had me if not for that knight!"

This time Questor Thews' brows lifted a good deal further. "Knight? What knight?" he demanded quickly.

"The knight — the one on the medallion!"

"You saw the knight on the medallion, Ben Holiday?"

Ben hesitated, surprised at the other's sharp interest. "I saw him in the forest, after the black thing came at me. He appeared in front of me and rode at the black thing. I was caught between them, but the knight's horse side swiped me and knocked me from the trail. The next thing I knew I was sitting here in this meadow."

Questor Thews frowned thoughtfully. "Yes, the horse knocking you from the pathway would account for your appearance here rather than at your appointed destination..." He trailed off, then came slowly forward, bending close to look into Ben's eyes. "You might have imagined the knight, High Lord. You might have only thought to see him. Were you to think back on it, you might see something entirely different."

Ben flushed. "Were I to think back on it, I would see exactly the same thing exactly." He kept his gaze steady. "I would see the knight on the medallion."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Questor Thews stepped back again, one hand rubbing at his ear thoughtfully. "Well," he said. "Well, indeed." He looked surprised. More than that, he looked pleased. He pursed his lips once again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and hunched his shoulders. "Well," he said a third time.

Then the look was gone as quickly as it had come. "We really do have to start walking now, High Lord," he said quickly. "The day is getting on and it would be best if we were to reach the castle before nightfall. Come along, please. It is a good distance off."

He shambled down through the meadow, a tall, ragtag, slightly stooped figure, his robes dragging through the grasses. Ben watched dumbly for a moment, glanced hastily about, then hitched up the duffel over one shoulder and followed reluctantly after.

They passed from the high meadow and began their descent toward the distant bowl of the valley. The valley stretched away below them, a patchwork quilt of farmlands, meadows, forests, lakes and rivers, and swatches of marsh and desert. Mountains ringed the valley tightly, forested and dark, awash in a sea of deep mist that strung its trailers down into the valley and cast its shadow over everything.

Ben Holiday's mind raced. He kept trying to fit what he was seeing into his mental picture of the Blue Ridge. But none of it worked. His eyes wandered across the slopes they were descending, seeing orchard groves, seeking out familiar fruit trees, finding apple, cherry, peach, and plum, but a dozen other fruits as well, many of a color and size completely unfamiliar to him. Grasses were varied shades of green, but also crimson, lavender and turquoise. Scattered through the whole of the strange collection of vegetation were large clumps of trees that vaguely resembled half-grown pin oaks except that they were colored trunk to leaf a brilliant blue.

None of it looked anything at all like the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia or the mountains of any other part of the United States that he had ever heard about.

Even the cast of the day was strange. The mist lent a shadowed look to the whole of the valley, and it reflected in the color tones of the earth. Everything seemed to have developed a somewhat wintry look — though the air was warm like a midsummer's day and the sun shone down through the clouds in the sky.

Ben savored cautiously the look, smell, and feel of the land, and he discovered in doing so that he could almost believe that Landover was exactly what Questor Thews had said that it was — another world completely.

He mulled this prospect over in his mind as he kept pace with his guide. This was no small concession that he was being asked to make. Every shred of logic and every bit of common sense that he could muster in his lawyer's mind argued that Landover was some sort of trick, that fairy worlds were writer's dreams and that what he was seeing was a pocket of merry old England tucked away in the Blue Ridge, castles and knights-in-armor included. Logic and common sense said that the existence of a world such as this, a world outside but somehow linked to his own, a world that no one had ever seen, was so farfetched as to be one step short of impossible: Twilight Zone; Outer Limits. And one step short only because it could be argued that anything after all was theoretically possible.

Yet here he was, and there it was, and what was the explanation for it, if it wasn't what Questor Thews said it was? It looked, smelled, and felt real. It had the look of something real — but at the same time it had the look of something completely foreign to his world, something beyond anything he had ever known or even heard about this side of King Arthur.

This land was a fantasy, a mix of color and shape and being that surprised and bewildered him at every turn — and frightened him, as well.

But already his initial skepticism had begun to erode. What if Landover truly was another worid? What if it was exactly what Meeks had promised?

The thought exhilarated him. It left him stunned.

He glanced surreptitiously at Questor. The tall, stooped figure marched dutifully next to him, gray robes dragging through the grasses, patched with the scarfs and sashes and pouches of gaily colored silk, his whitish hair and beard fringing the owlish face. Questor certainly seemed to feel at home.

His gaze wandered back over the sweep of the valley, and he consciously opened a few heretofore padlocked doors in the deep recesses of his mind. Perhaps logic and common sense ought to take a backseat to instinct for a while, he decided.

Still, a few discreet questions wouldn't hurt.

"How is it that you and I happen to speak the same language?" he asked his guide suddenly. "Where did you learn to speak English?"

"Hmmmnun?" The wizard glanced over, preoccupied with something else.

"If Landover is in another world, how does it happen that you speak English so well?"

Questor shook his head. "I don't speak English at all. I speak the language of my country — at least, I speak the language used by humans."

Ben frowned. "But you're speaking English right now, damn it! How else could we communicate?"

"Oh, I see what you mean." Questor smiled. "I am not speaking your language. High Lord — you are speaking mine."

"Yours?"

"Yes, the magic properties of the medallion that permit you passage into Landover also give you the ability to communicate instantly with its inhabitants, either by spoken word or in writing." He rumbled through one of the pouches momentarily and withdrew a faded map. "Here, read — something of this."

Ben took the map from him and studied the details. The names of towns, rivers, mountain ranges and lakes were all in English.

"These are written in English!" he insisted, handing the map back again.

Questor shook his head. "No, High Lord, they are written in Landoverian — the language of the country. They only appear to be written in English — and only to you. I speak to you now in Landoverian as well; but it seems to you as if your own language. The medallion's fairy magic permits this."

Ben thought it through for a moment, trying to decide what else he should ask on the matter of language and communication, but decided in the end that there really was nothing further to ask. He changed subjects.

"I've never seen anything like those trees," he informed his guide, pointing to the odd-looking blue pin oaks. "What are they?"

"Those are Bonnie Blues." Questor slowed and stopped. "They grow only in Landover as far as I know. They were created of the fairy magic thousands of years ago and given to us. They keep back the mists and feed life into the soil."

Ben frowned dubiously. "I thought sun and rain did that."

"Sun and rain? No, sun and rain only help the process. But magic is the life source of Landover, and the Bonnie Blues are a very strong magic indeed."

"Fairy magic, you said — like the magic that enables us to communicate?"

"The same. High Lord. The fairies gave the magic to the land when they created it. They live now in the mists about us."

"The mists?"

"There." Questor pointed in a sweeping motion to the mountains that ringed the valley, their peaks and forests shrouded in gray. "The fairies live there." He glanced once more at Ben. "Did you see faces in the mist when you passed through the forest from your world to ours?" Ben nodded. "Those were the faces of the fairies. Only the pathway you walked upon belongs to both worlds. That was why I was concerned that you had strayed too far from it."

There was a moment's silence. "What if I had?" Ben asked finally.

The stooped figure pulled the gray robes free from a trailer of scrub on which they had caught. "Why, then you might have wandered too deep into the fairy world and been lost forever." He paused. "Are you hungry. High Lord?"

"What?" The question startled Ben. He was still thinking about his brush with the fairy world and the possibility that one could wander lost in it forever. Until now, this world into which he had come had seemed fairly safe.

"Food and drink — it occurs to me that you may not have had either for some time."

Ben hesitated. "Not since this morning, as a matter of fact."

"Good. Come this way."

Questor walked past him down the slope to a small cluster of Bonnie Blues at the edge of an oak grove. He waited for Ben to join him, then reached up and tore free a branch from one of the trees. The branch broke cleanly and soundlessly. The wizard knelt, grasped the base of the branch with one hand, and with the other stripped it of its leaves. The leaves tumbled into the lap of his robe.

"Here, try one," he offered, holding out one of the leaves. "Take a bite of it."

Ben took the leaf, examined it, then cautiously bit into it and chewed. His face brightened with surprise. "It tastes like... like melon."

The other nodded, smiling. "Now the stalk. Hold it like this." He held the broken end upright. "Now suck on it there, at the break."

Ben did as he was told. "Well, I'll be damned!" he whispered. "It tastes like milk!"

"It is the staple of human existence in the valley," Questor explained, chewing a leaf himself. "One can live on only the Bonnie Blues and a small amount of drinking water, if one has nothing else — and there are those who do not. It wasn't always so, but times have changed..."

He trailed off, distracted. Then he glanced at Ben. "The Bonnie Blues grow wild everywhere in the valley. Their reproductive capacity is amazing — even now. Look there — look at what has happened."

He pointed to the tree where the limb had been broken off. Already, the break was healing over and beginning to bud anew.

"By morning, a new limb will have begun to grow. In a week's time, it will be exactly as we found it — or should be."

Ben nodded without comment. He was thinking about Questor's carefully phrased qualifications. "Times have changed... Their reproductive capacity is amazing — even now... In a week's time, it will be exactly as we found it — or should be." He studied the Bonnie Blues behind the one the wizard had chosen. They seemed to be flourishing less successfully, signs of wilt on their leaves and a drooping to their limbs. Something was distressing them.

Questor interrupted his thoughts. "Well, now that we have sampled the Bonnie Blues, perhaps something a bit more substantial would be in order." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "How would you like some ham and eggs, some fresh bread, and a glass of ale?"

Ben turned. "Are you hiding a picnic basket in one of those pouches?"

"A what? Oh, no, High Lord. I will simply conjure up our meal."

"Conjure...? Ben frowned. "You mean use magic?"

"Exactly! After all, I am a wizard. Now, let me see."

The owlish face screwed up, the shaggy brows narrowing. Ben leaned forward. He had eaten nothing since breakfast, but he was more curious than hungry. Could this odd-looking fellow really do magic?

"A bit of concentrated thought, fingers extended so, a quick motion thus, and... hah!"

There was a flash of light, a quick puff of smoke, and on the ground before them lay half a dozen scatter pillows, tasseled and embroidered. Ben stared in amazement.

"Oh, well, we will need something to sit upon while we eat, I suppose." The wizard brushed the matter aside as if it were of no consequence. "Must have turned the fingers a bit too far right... Now let me see, once again, a bit of thought, fingers, a quick motion..."

Again the light flashed, the smoke puffed, and on the ground before them appeared a crate of eggs and an entire pig dressed out and resplendent with an apple in its mouth.

Questor glanced hurriedly at Ben. "The magic is fickle on occasion. But one simply tries harder." He stretched forth his sticklike arms from his robes. "Here, now, watch closely. Thoughts concentrated, fingers turned, a quick motion, and..."

The light flashed brighter, the smoke pufifed higher, and from out of nowhere a massive tressel table laden with food enough for an army materialized before them. Ben jumped back in surprise. Questor Thews could certainly do magic as he claimed, but it appeared his control of it was rather limited.

"Drat, that is not what I... the thing of it is, that..." Questor was thoroughly agitated. He glared at the table of food. "I am simply tired, I imagine. I will try once again..."

"Never mind," Ben interrupted quickly. He had seen enough of the magic for one sitting. The wizard looked over, displeased. "I mean, I'm really not that hungry after all. Maybe we should just go on."

Questor hesitated, then nodded curtly. "If that is your wish. High Lord — very well." He gave a quick motion with one hand, and the pillows, the pig, the crate of eggs and the entire tressel table with its meal disappeared into air. "You see that I have the magic at my command when I wish it," he announced stiffly.

"Yes, I see that."

"You must understand that the magic I wield is most important, High Lord." Questor was determined to make his point. "You will have need of my magic if you are to be King. There have always been wizards to stand behind the Kings of Landover."

"I understand."

Questor stared at him. He stared back. What he understood above everything, he thought to himself, was that, except for this half-baked wizard, he was all alone in a land he knew almost nothing at all about and he had no desire to alienate his one companion.

"Well, then." Questor's ruffled feathers seemed suddenly back in place. He looked almost sheepish. "I suppose that we should continue on to the castle. High Lord."

Ben nodded. "I suppose we should."

Wordlessly, they resumed their journey.

The afternoon wore on; as it did so, the mists seemed to thicken across the land. The cast of the day dimmed, shadows gathered in dark pools, and the color of the fields, meadows, forests and the lakes and rivers scattered through them lost all hint of vibrancy. There was a sullen feel to the air as if a storm might be approaching, though clearly none was. The sun still shone, and no wind stirred the leaves of the trees. Another moon hung suspended against the skyline, newly risen from beneath the mists.

Ben was still wondering what he had gotten himself into. It was becoming increasingly apparent to him that Landover was nothing of the sham that Miles Bennett had envisioned. The creatures were not courtesy of the San Diego Zoo and the inhabitants were not supplied by Central Casting. The magic that Questor had performed was not the old rabbit-in-the-hat variety, but magic of a sort imagined in newsstand pulp fantasy. By God, would Miles have been astonished by that table and twenty-course dinner trick! How could anyone possibly conjure something like that up so quickly unless they truly were in a fantasy world where magic was real?

That was the other side of the coin he toyed with, unfortunately. Landover was really not a part of Virginia or the United States or North America or anywhere else on Earth. Landover was a whole other world entirely, and he had somehow stepped through a time zone to reach it.

Damn, it was exciting and terrifying all at once! He had wanted this, of course. He had made the purchase understanding that he was going to a fantasy world, that he was buying the throne to a fantasy kingdom. But he had never imagined that it could actually be. He had never thought that it would turn out to be just exactly what the promo and old Meeks had said it would be.

He thought suddenly of Annie and wished she were here with him. She would have been able to help him accept what was happening, he thought. But Annie was not here, and it was because he had lost her that he had come in the first place. Landover was his escape from what her loss had cost him.

He shook his head admonishingly. He must remember that he had come to this world to renew his life, to leave behind the old, to find a different existence from what he had known. He had intended to cut all of his ties; he had wanted to begin again. That being so, it was foolish to bemoan the fact that he might have gotten exactly what he had wanted.

Besides, the challenge it presented intrigued him beyond anything he had ever known.

He mulled matters over in silence, letting Questor lead the way. The wizard had not volunteered any further information since the aborted luncheon, and Ben thought that he might be well advised not to ask any more questions of the man for the time being. He concentrated instead on studying the land about them; first, what was visible from the high slope during their descent and, later, what could be seen more closely from the valley floor. They were traveling east, he concluded, if the sun's passage through the skies was an accurate compass. Mountains ringed the valley and the mist lay over everything. Lake and river country comprised the south end of the valley, desert and scrubland the east, hills the north and heavy woods the west. The center of the valley was a green flatfand of fields and meadows. There were castles in the central plains; he had glimpsed their towers through the mist. There was a very dark, very unpleasant looking hollows north and west, a deep bowl that seemed to gather mist and shadows until they stirred like steaming soup. He viewed all this during their descent from the meadow where Questor had found him; when they reached the valley floor he saw his first people. They were an unimpressive bunch — farmers with their families, woodsmen and hunters, a few stray traders with their wares, and a single rider bearing an heraldic banner of some sort. Except for the rider, the rest looked rather downtrodden. Their clothes were poor, their tools and wagons battered, and their stock worn. The homes of the farmers had seen better days and lacked any decent upkeep. Everyone seemed tired.

Ben saw all of this from some distance off, including the people, so he could not be entirely certain that he was seeing it accurately. Nevertheless, he didn't think he was mistaken.

Questor Thews said nothing about any of it.

It was mid-afternoon when he turned Ben suddenly north. A stretch of wooded hills lay before them, shrouded in trailers of mist that hung across the trees like factory smoke. They passed through in silence, picking their way cautiously where limbs and leaves left the pathway in shadow. They were well north of the lake and river country Ben had seen earlier, yet a sudden cluster of lakes and ponds came into view through the trees, bits of dark water mirroring the muted sunlight in bright splashes. Trailers of mist hung over these as well. Ben glanced about uneasily. There was in these woods a hint of the look and feel that had been present in the fairy world.

They climbed a high ridgeline that rose above the forest trees, and Questor brought Ben to a halt. "Look down there, High Lord," he said and pointed.

Ben looked. Several miles off, ringed in a gathering of trees, mist and shadows was a clearing that shimmered with sunlight. Colors reflected brightly, a rainbow's mix, and there seemed to be flags waving softly in a forest breeze that did not reach to the ridge on which Ben stood.

Questor's arm swept down again. "That is the Heart, High Lord. There you will be crowned King of Landover several days hence when the proclamation of your coming has been sent. Every King that Landover has ever had has been crowned there — every King since Landover came into being."

They stood on the ridgeline a moment longer, staring downward into that single spot of brightness amid the haze of mist and shadows. Neither spoke.

Then Questor turned away. "Come, High Lord. Your castle lies just ahead."

Ben followed dutifully after.

Sterling Silver

The trees closed about, the mists came up, and Questor Thews and Ben Holiday were back within the forest. Shadows darkened the pathway anew, and the colors and feel of the Heart were gone. Ben pushed his way resolutely forward, keeping pace with the shambling figure of the wizard. It was not easy, for Questor covered ground rapidly despite his odd gait. Ben shifted the duffel from one arm to the other, feeling the muscles cramping with stiffness. He rubbed at his shoulders with his free hand and pushed up the sleeves of the running suit. There was sweat soaking through the back of his pullover.

One would think they could free up an escort and carriage for their new King, instead of making him hike it in, he groused inwardly. On the other hand, maybe they didn't use carriages in Landover. Maybe they flew on winged horses. Maybe Questor Thews should have conjured up a couple of those.

He chewed thoughtfully at his lower lip, remembering Questor's attempts at providing lunch. Maybe he was better off hiking.

They climbed toward a new ridgeline of blue spruce grown so thick that pine needles formed a carpet on the forest earth.

Boughs pushed and slapped at their faces, and they bent then heads against them. Then the trees broke apart, the far side of the ridgeline dropped away into meadow, and the castle stood before them.

Ben Holiday stared. It was the same castle he had seen before — only now he could see it clearly. It sat half a mile distant within a lake upon an island just large enough to support it. The lake was iron gray, the island bare of everything but wintry scrub. The castle was a maze of stone and wood and metal towers, parapets, causeways, and walks that thrust into the sky like fingers of a broken hand. A shroud of mist hung across the whole of the island and the waters of the lake and stirred thickly in a sunless cauldron. There was no color anywhere — no flags, no standards, no banners, nothing. The stone and wood had a soiled look, and the metal appeared to have discolored. Though the mortar and block seemed sound and the bulwarks did not crumble, still the castle had the look of a lifeless shell.

It had the look of something out of Dracula.

"This is the castle of the Kings of Landover?" Ben asked incredulously.

"Hmnunmm?" Questorwas preoccupied again. "Oh, yes, this is it. This is Sterling Silver."

Ben dropped his duffel with a thud. "Sterling Silver?"

"That is her name."

"Sterling Silver — as in bright and polished?"

Questor's eyebrows lifted. "She was that once. High Lord."

"She was, was she? Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I'll bet." A well of disappointment opened in the pit of his stomach. "She looks more like Dingy Dungeon than Sterling Silver."

"That is the result of the Tarnish." The wizard folded his arms over his chest and looked out across the meadow. "Twenty years she has been like this. High Lord — not so long, really. The Tarnish has done it. Before, she was bright and polished as the name implies. The stone was white, the wood clean and the metal shining. There were no mists to block the sun. The island was alive with flowers of every color and the lake was crystal blue. It was the most beautiful place in the land."

Ben followed his gaze back to the nightmare that waited below. "So what happened to change all that?"

"The Tarnish. When the last true King of Landover died twenty years ago and no heir ascended to the throne, the discoloration began. It was gradual at first, but quickened as time passed and no King ruled. The life goes out of Sterling Silver, and the Tarnish marks her failing. No amount of cleaning or scrubbing or polishing of stone, wood, and metal can restore her." He glanced over. "She dies. High Lord. She follows her Lord to the grave."

Ben blinked. "You speak of her as if she were alive."

The owlish face nodded. "So she is, High Lord — as alive as you or I."

"But she's dying?"

"Slowly and painfully."

"And that is where you want me to live — in a dying castle?"

Questor smiled. "You must. You are the only one who can heal her." He took Ben's arm and propelled him ahead. "Come along now, High Lord. You will find her quite pleasant on the inside, where her heart is still warm and her life still strong. Things are not really so bad as they might seem. Come, now. You will find her very much a home. Come."

They descended the ridgeline through the meadow to where the waters of the lake lapped softly against a bank of marshy grasses. Weeds grew in thick tufts where the shoreline had eroded and stagnant pools had formed. Frogs croaked and insects hummed, and the lake smelled faintly fishy.

There was a long boat with a curved prow and knight's head, low gunwales, and rudderless stem pulled up upon the banks. Questor motioned, and they climbed aboard. Ben moved to a forward seat while Questor sat in the stem. They had just settled themselves when the boat began to move. It lurched free of the lake shore and slipped quietly into its waters. Ben looked about curiously. He could discover no source of propulsion for the boat.

"The touch of your hands lends it direction," Questor said suddenly.

Ben stared down at his hands as they gripped the gunnels. "My hands?"

"The boat, like the castle, is alive. It is called a lake skimmer. It responds to the touch of those it serves. You are now foremost of those. Will it to carry you and it shall do so."

"Where shall I will it to carry me?"

Questor laughed gently. "Why, to the front door, High Lord."

Ben gripped the gunnels and conveyed the thought silently. The lake skimmer sped swiftly across the dark waters, leaving a white swale in the wake of its passing.

"Slowly, High Lord, slowly," Questor admonished. "You convey your thoughts too urgently."

Ben relaxed his grip and his thoughts, and the lake skimmer slowed. It was exciting, having use of this small magic. He let his fingers brush softly across the smooth wood of the gunwales. It was warm and vibrant. It had the feel of a living thing.

"Questor?" He turned back to the wizard. The sense of life in the lake skimmer bothered him, but he kept his hands in place. "What was it you said before about my healing the castle?"

The fingers of one hand came up to rub the owlish face. "Sterling Silver, like Landover, is in need of a King. The castle fails without one. Your presence within the castle renews her life. When you make her your home, that life will be fully sustained once more."

Ben glanced ahead to the spectral apparition with its dark towers and battlements, its discolored stone walls and vacant eyes. "What if I don't want to make her my home?"

"Oh, I think you will," the wizard replied enigmatically.

Think whatever you want, Ben thought without saying it. His eyes stayed on the approaching castle, on the mist and shadows that shrouded it. He expected at any moment to see something with fangs appear at the windows of the highest tower and to see bats circling watchfully.

He saw, however, nothing.

The lake skimmer grounded gently on the island banks, and Ben and Questor disembarked. An arched entry with raised portcullis stood before them, an open invitation to be swallowed whole. Ben shifted the duffel from one hand to the other, hesitating. If anything, the castle looked worse close up that it had from the ridge crest.

"Questor, I'm not sure about..."

"Come, High Lord," the wizard interrupted, again taking his arm, again propelling him ahead. "You cannot see anything worthwhile from out here. Besides, the others will be waiting."

Ben stumbled forward, eyes shifting nervously upward long the parapets and towers; the stone was damp and the corners and crevices a maze of spider webs. "Others? What others?"

"Why, the others who stand in service to the throne — your staff, High Lord. Not all have left the service of the King."

"Not all?"

But Questor either didn't hear him or simply ignored him, hurrying ahead, forcing Ben to walk more quickly to keep pace. They passed from the entry through a narrow court as dark and dingy in appearance as the rest of the castle and from there through a second entry, smaller than the first, down a short hall and into a foyer. Misty light slipped through high, arched windows, mixing with the gloom and shadows. Ben glanced about. The wood of the supports and stays was polished and clean, the stone scrubbed, and the walls and floors covered in rugs and tapestries that had retained some of their original color. There were even a few pieces of stiff-looking furniture. Had it not been for the gray cast that seemed to permeate everything, the room would have been almost cheerful.

"You see, things are much better inside," Questor insisted.

Ben nodded without enthusiasm. "Lovely." They crossed to a door that opened into a cavernous dining hall with a huge tressel table and high-backed chairs cushioned in scarlet silk. Chandeliers of tarnished silver hung from the ceiling; despite the summer weather, a fire burned in a hearth at the far end of the hall. Ben followed Questor into the hall and stopped.

Three figures stood in a line to the right of the dining table. Their eyes met his.

"Your personal staff. High Lord," Questor announced. Ben stared. The staff consisted of a dog and two large-eared monkeys — or at least two creatures very like monkeys. The dog stood upright on its hind legs and wore breeches with suspenders, a tunic with heraldic insignia, and glasses. Its coat was golden in color, and it had small flaps for ears that looked as if they might have been tacked on as an afterthought. The hair on its head and muzzle made it appear as if it were half porcupine. The creatures that looked like monkeys wore short pants and leather cross-belts from waist to shoulder. One was taller and spindle-legged. The other was heavy and wore a cook's apron. Both had ears like Dumbo and prehensile toes.

Questor motioned to Ben, and they moved forward to stopbefore the dog. "This is Abernathy, court scribe and your personal attendant."

The dog bowed slightly and looked at him over the rims of the glasses. "Welcome, High Lord," the dog said. Ben jumped back in surprise. "Questor, he talks!"

"As well as you do, High Lord," the dog replied stiffly.

"Abernathy is a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier — a breed that has produced a good many champion hunting dogs," Questor interjected. "He was not always a dog, however.

He was a man before he was a dog. He became a dog through a rather unfortunate accident."

"I became a dog through your stupidity." Abernathy's voice was very close to a canine growl. "I have remained a dog through your stupidity."

Questor shrugged. "Well, yes, it was my fault in a way, I suppose." He sighed, glancing at Ben. "I was trying to disguise him and the magic made him thus. Unfortunately, I have not as yet discovered a way to change him back again. But he does quite well as a dog, don't you, Abernathy?"

"I did better as a man."

Questor frowned. "I would have to dispute that, I think."

"That is because you must find some way to justify what you did, Questor Thews. Had I not retained my intelligence — which, fortunately, is considerably higher than your own — I would undoubtedly have been placed in some kennel and forgotten!"

"That is most unkind." The frown deepened. "Perhaps you would have preferred it if I had changed you into a cat!"

Abernathy's reply came out a bark. Questor started and flushed. "I understood that, Abernathy, and I want you to know that I don't appreciate it. Remember where you are. Remember that this is the King you stand before."

Abernathy's shaggy face regarded Ben solemnly. "So much the worse for him."

Questor shot him a dark look, then turned to the creatures standing next to him. "These are kobolds," Questor advised Ben, who was still struggling with the idea that his personal attendant was a talking dog. "They speak their own language and will have nothing to do with ours, though they understand it well enough. They have names in their own language, but the names would mean nothing to you. I have therefore given them names of my own, which they have agreed to accept. The taller is Bunion, the court runner. The heavier is Parsnip, the court chef." He motioned to the two. "Give greeting to the High Lord, kobolds."

The kobolds bowed. When they straightened, their mouths parted to reveal rows of sharpened teeth behind frightening smiles. They hissed softly.

"Parsnip is a true kobold," Questor said. "He is a fairy creature who has chosen open service to the household of a human rather than a haunting. His tribe is one of those that drifted out of the fairy world and stayed. Bunion is a wight, more a woods creature than a domestic. Generically, he is a kobold, but he retains characteristics of other fairy creatures as well. He can pass through the mists as they, though he cannot remain. He can cross through Landover with the swiftness of the fairies as well. But he is bound to Sterling Silver in the same fashion as Parsnip and must always return."

"For reasons that man and dog can only surmise," Abernathy interjected.

Bunion grinned at him blackly and hissed.

Ben pulled Questor Thews aside. It was with some effort that he managed to conceal his irritation. "Exactly what is going on here?"

"Hmmmmm?" Questor stared back at him blankly.

"Read my lips. If I'm understanding all of this correctly, the King of Landover lives in a dungeon and is attended by a menagerie. Are there any more surprises in store for me? What have I got for an army — a herd of cattle?"

The wizard looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, as a matter of fact, High Lord, you don't have any kind of army at all."

"No army? Why is that?"

"It disbanded — more than a dozen years ago, I'm afraid."

"Disbanded? Well, what about retainers — workers, servants, people to look after things in general? Who does that?"

"We do — the four of us." Questor Thews made a sweeping gesture back to Abernathy and the two kobolds.

Ben stared. "No wonder the castle is dying. Why don't you bring in some more help, for God's sake?"

"We have no money to pay them."

"What do you mean, you don't have any money? Don't you have a royal treasury or whatever?"

"The treasury is empty. There isn't a coin in it."

"Well, doesn't the throne tax in some fashion so that there should be money?" Ben's voice was getting louder. "How did Kings pay for anything in the past?"

"They taxed." Questor glanced angrily at Abernathy, who was shaking his head in amusement. "Unfortunately, the taxing system broke down some years ago. Nothing has been paid into the treasury since."

Ben dropped his duffel and put his hands on his hips. "Let me get this straight. I bought a kingdom where the King has no army, no staff but the four of you, and no money? I paid a million dollars for that?"

"You are being unreasonable, Ben Holiday."

"That depends on whose shoes you're standing in, I'd say!"

"You must be patient. You have not yet seen all that there is to see nor learned all that there is to learn of Landover. The immediate problems of taxes and retainers and an army can be solved once proper attention is given to the finding of the solutions. You must remember that there has been no King in Landover for more than twenty years. Since that is so, you must expect that not all will be as it should."

Ben laughed without humor. "There's the understatement of the year. Look, Questor, let's get to the heart of the matter. What else should I know about being King of Landover? What other bad news have you got to tell?"

"Oh, I think that is about the worst of it, High Lord." The wizard smiled disarmingly. "We will have time enough to discuss it all later, but I think a bit of dinner is in order first. It has been a long day, a long journey, and I know that you are tired and hungry both."

Ben cut him short. "I am not that tired or that hungry, damn it! I want to know what else you've been..."

"All in good time, all in good order — you have your health to consider. High Lord," Questor intoned, ignoring him.

"Parsnip will prepare our meal — the castle's magic still keeps her larder well stocked — and while he is doing so, Abernathy will show you to your rooms where you may wash, take a change of clothes, and rest a bit. Abernathy, please escort the High Lord to his bedchamber and see that he has what he needs. I will be along in a while."

He turned and strode from the room before Ben had a chance to object farther. Parsnip and Bunion exited as well. Ben was left staring at Abernathy.

"High Lord?" The dog beckoned to a spiral staircase that wound upward into the castle dark.

Ben nodded wordlessly. He was obviously not going to learn anything more for the moment.

"Lay on, Macduff," he sighed.

Together, they began to climb.

It proved to be a rather healthy trek. They climbed numerous stairs and followed half a dozen shadowed halls before reaching the appointed rooms. Ben spent most of the time lost in thought, pondering the unpleasant news that he was a King without any of the trappings, that he was Lord over Castle Dracula and not much else. He should have been paying closer attention to where he was going, he chided himself when they finally arrived, if for no other reason than to be able to find his way back again without help. He had a faint recollection of stone-block floors and wooden-beamed ceilings, of oak doors and iron fastenings, of tapestries and coats of arms, of muted colors and the discoloration of the Tarnish — but not much more than that.

"Your bath chamber, High Lord," Abernathy announced, halting before a heavy wooden door carved in scroll.

Ben peered inside. There was an iron tub with clawed feet and scrolled sides filled with steaming water, a tray with soaps, a pile of linen towels, with a change of clothing and a pair of boots stacked on a stool.

The bath looked inviting. "How did you manage to keep the water hot all this time?" he asked, wondering suddenly at the steam.

"The castle, High Lord. She still retains something other magic. Food for the larder, hot water for baths — that is about all she has strength enough left for." Abernathy cut himself short and started to leave.

"Wait!" Ben called suddenly. The dog stopped. "I, uh... I just want to tell you that I'm sorry that I acted so surprised that you could talk. I didn't mean to be rude."

"I am quite accustomed to it. High Lord," Abernathy replied, and Ben didn't know if he meant the rudeness or the surprise. The dog peered at him from over the rims of his glasses. "In any case, though I am recognized everywhere within Landover as a major curiosity, I doubt that I will prove to be the biggest surprise that you will encounter."

Ben frowned. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning that you have a lot to learn, and the lessons are likely to be rather astonishing."

He bowed perfunctorily, backed through the door and closed it silently behind him. Ben's frown deepened. That last comment sounded almost like a warning, he thought. It sounded as if Abernathy was advising him that the worst was yet to come.

He brushed the matter from his mind, stripped off his clothes, lowered himself into the tub of water and lay back blissfully to soak. He remained in the tub for the better part of the hour that followed, thinking over all that had happened to him. Oddly enough, the focus of his concern had shifted completely since his arrival in Landover. Then, his concern had been with whether or not what he was seeing and experiencing was real or induced by clever special effects and the ingenuity of modern science. Now, his concern was with whether or not he should be here at all. Questor's revelations about the condition of the kingship were disheartening at best. He had paid a million dollars for a throne that commanded no retainers, no army, no treasury, and no taxing program. He found himself more inclined to accept that Landover was indeed a world apart from his own, a world in which magic really did function, than to accept that he had purchased a throne that commanded nothing.

Still, he wasn't being entirely fair, he chided. He had paid for a throne, but he had also paid for the land — and the land seemed to be exactly as advertised. Moreover, he had to expect that after twenty years with no King sitting on the throne, Landover's monarchy was likely to be floundering somewhat. He couldn't reasonably expect that a working tax system, a standing army, a body of retainers, and a full treasury would survive twenty years of no King. Matters would quite naturally get out of hand after a while. It was logical that there should be some work required of him to get things moving again.

So what was he worried about? When measured against his initial expectations, Landover was far more than he could ever have hoped for, wasn't it?

But Abernathy's veiled warning and his own doubts nagged at him nevertheless, and he could not seem to set the matter to rest. He finished his bath and climbed from the tub, toweling dry. The water in the tub had stayed an even temperature the entire time he was bathing. The room felt comfortable as well — even the stone of the floor was warm against the soles of his bare feet. There was an odd sense of vibrancy in the air, as if the castle were breathing...

He cut short the thought, unwilling to pursue it further just then, and began to dress. He pulled on stockings, some loose undergarments that fastened together with stays, a pair of forest green breeches with ties and a belt, and a loose fitting cream tunic with loops that slipped over metal hooks. The makeup of the ensemble seemed strange to him — the whole of it free of the buttons, zippers, Velcro fastenings and elastic bands that he was accustomed to — but the fit was good and he felt comfortable dressed in it.

He had just finished pulling on the pair of soft leather boots and was wondering what had become of Abernathy when the door opened and Questor appeared.

"Well, you seem rested and refreshed, High Lord." The wizard smiled — rather too broadly, Ben thought. "Was the bath satisfactory?"

"Quite." Ben smiled back. "Questor, why don't we cut through all this bull, and get..."

"This what?"

"Bull." Ben hesitated, searching for a better word. "Smokescreen."

"Smokesereen?"

"The social amenities of Kingship, damn it! I want to know what I've gotten myself into!"

Questor cocked his head thoughtfully. "Oh, I see. How would it be if I were to show you exactly that?"

Ben nodded at once. "That would be fine. That would be wonderful, in fact."

"Very well." The wizard turned and started from the room. "Come with me, please."

They exited the bath chamber and passed back into the hall. Questor took Ben deep into the castle where a pair of massive scrolled doors opened into a tower well with a staircase that spiraled upward into shadow. Wordlessly, they began to climb. When they had reached the landing at the head of the stairs, Questor had Ben press his palms firmly against a crest of the medallion's image of castle and knight that was graven into a massive oak and metal-bound door seated in the tower wall. The door opened soundlessly, and they stepped inside.

They were in a small, circular room. The wall before them opened halfway around from floor to ceiling into clouds of mist that swirled past the towers of the castle as they rose darkly against the coming night. A silver guardrail on stanchions curved at waist height across the opening. A silver lectern was fastened at its midpoint. Ben looked at it momentarily, then looked at Questor. The room had the appearance of a speaker's platform designed to permit royal addresses to whatever audience could be found in the clouds.

"This is the Landsview," Questor said. "Step over to the rail, please."

Ben did as directed. The silver of the rail and lectern was stained with the Tarnish, but, beneath the discoloring, Ben could see thousands of tiny characters scrolled into the metal, etched by the hand of some enormously patient craftsman. Questor fumbled through the pouches he wore strapped about his waist and after a moment produced the same worn map that he had shown Ben earlier when explaining why it was that Ben could speak and read Landoverian.

He unfolded the map carefully and placed it on the lectern.

"Place your hands upon the railing before you. High Lord," he said.

Ben did so. Questor put his hands upon the railing as well. They stood together that way for a moment, staring out into the darkening mist. It was almost dusk.

Then a sudden warmth spread through the metal, a vibrancy of the sort that Ben had experienced in the bath chamber.

"Keep your hands firmly fixed upon the railing," Questor admonished suddenly. "Look at the map before you and select anything drawn upon it that you wish to see. The Landsview will show it to you."

Ben glanced over at him doubtfully, then looked down at the map. The whole of the valley was inscribed on the parchment, inked in various colors to designate forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, plains, valleys, deserts, towns, territories, and castle keeps, the names of all meticulously marked throughout. The colors were faded, the parchment worn. Ben squinted. His eyes came to rest after a moment on Sterling Silver and then on the dark and forbidding hollows he had seen earlier from the heights. The name of the hollows was smudged and illegible.

"There," he indicated, inclining his head. "That hollows north of here. Show me that."

"The Deep Fell." Questor spoke softly. "Very well. Grip the railing tightly, High Lord. Take a deep breath. Concentrate on the map."

Ben's hands tightened. His eyes locked on the map and the hollows marked upon it. The mists that shrouded Sterling Silver swirled in murky trailers before him, and the darkness of coming night slipped across the land. Time froze. He glanced curiously at Questor.

"Concentrate on the map, High Lord."

He looked back at the map, concentrating.

Then the whole of the castle fell away beneath him, stone block walls, towers, and battlements dissipating into empty air, the mists faded and the night sky shone clear and starlit all about him. He was flying through space with only the silver railing and lectern wrapped about him for support. His eyes widened in shock, and he stared downward. Below, the valley sped away in a void of shadows and moonlight.

"Questor!" he cried out in terror, arms stiffening to brace his fall.

The wizard was next to him. One hand slid across to squeeze his.

"Do not be frightened, High Lord," he said. His voice was calm and reassuring, so normal in tone that they might still have been standing within the tower. "It is only the magic at work," he continued. "You are in no danger while you hold fast to the railing."

Ben was holding on so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. He was firmly anchored, he discovered. While there was the sensation of movement, he could neither feel nor hear the wind rush past and no air stirred the parchment map. He held his breath and watched the land sweep away hundreds of feet below, a panorama of shadowed forests, jutting mountains and shimmering lakes. Landover's moons had all risen into view now, a gathering of colored spheres dotting the heavens — peach, burnt rose, jade, beryl, sea green, a sort of washed-out mauve, turquoise, and the largest of all, a brilliant white. It was the strangest display that Ben had ever witnessed, a kind of still life fourth-of-July.

He relaxed a bit now, beginning to feel more at ease with what was happening to him. He had ridden in a hot air balloon once. This flight had something of the feel of that.

They circled the valley's mountains in a slow arc, crossing above the mists of the fairy world.

"There is where Landover's magic is born, High Lord." Questor spoke suddenly. "The fairy world is the source of her magic — a place of timelessness and infinite being, of everywhere and always. It borders on all worlds and has access to all. Corridors pass through it, linking the worlds without. Time passages, they are called — pathways that lead from one world to another. You took one of those pathways when you passed from your world into Landover."

"Do you mean that the fairy world lies between my world and Landover?" Ben asked, realizing suddenly that he was shouting to be heard and that it was quite unnecessary.

Questor shook his head. "Not exactly. The fairy world is an ephemeral place of non-being, High Lord. It is and at the same time it isn't, being both everywhere and nowhere all at once. It cannot be self-contained nor is it the final source of all things. Do you understand?"

Ben smiled. "Not a word."

"Think of it in this way, then. It is closer to Landover than to any of the other worlds it touches upon. Landover is a sort of stepchild."

An odd comparison, Ben thought and watched the mists slip away. Then they were descending, dropping swiftly toward the Deep Fell. The hollows lay directly below them, a tangled stretch of wilderness forest nestled close to the high mountains that formed the northwest comer of the valley's perimeter, a dismal and forbidding wood that light could not seem to penetrate. Shadows lay over everything, and the mists of the fairy world that ringed the valley seemed to reach downward and drape across it like the comer of a blanket.

"There dwells the witch Nightshade." Questor spoke again. "It is said that she crossed over from the fairy world in a time so distant it has been forgotten by all but her. It is said that she came into the world of mortals to take a lover and that, having done so, she can never go back again."

Ben stared downward into the black. It had the look of a pit that bored all the way to hell.

Once more, they swept away across the land. They sped from horizon to horizon, Ben's eyes picking out names inscribed upon the parchment map, one landmark after the other. He found the country of the River Master, another creature of the fairy world, a spirit who had assimilated into human form and adopted as his home the lakes and rivers that dominated the southern half of the valley, ruling over the sprites and nymphs that dwelt within their waters. Ben explored the hills and steeps north above the smudge of the Deep Fell, where lived numerous tribes of gnomes, trolls, and kobolds. Some were miners, farmers, hunters, and tradesmen, some thieves and cutthroats; some were industrious and honest, some shiftless and malicious; some were friendly and some not. Questor was speaking now. The Lords of the Greensward laid claim to the whole of the central valley, their vast holdings of farmland and stock the wealth of a few families whose lineage could be traced back generations, feudal barons whose subjects were thralls working the crops and animals for their masters.

"Slaves?" Ben interrupted sharply, appalled.

"Thralls!" Questor repeated, emphasizing the word. "These are men and women of free will; but they receive of the land and its bounty only what is allocated to them by the barons."

Slaves, Ben thought to himself. A rose by any other name...

Questor's voicje droned on, but Ben missed the rest of what he was saying, his attention diverted suddenly to something new. He thought it at first to be nothing more than a peculiar speck of darkness against the silhouette of one of Landover's moons. Then he realized that the speck was moving.

It was moving toward them.

It flew out of the south, a huge, winged shadow that grew in size against the horizon. Featureless when Ben caught sight of it, it began to take more definite shape as it approached. Leathered wings flared, spined and arched like the struts of a monstrous kite stretched to its breaking point. A barrel-shaped body undulated like a serpent's with the flying motion, its hide covered with scales and plates. Great, clawed feet tucked against its body, and its neck arched snakelike above it, flared behind a head so odious to look upon that Ben flinched in spite of himself.

It was the dragon.

"Questor!" Ben whispered hoarsely, afraid to shout.

The wizard turned, and his head lifted toward the great beast. "Strabo!" he whispered in reply, and there was something almost like reverence in his voice.

They ceased to move then, frozen suddenly in midair. The dragon flew past them, so close that it seemed it would brush against them. It did not see them, for they were not truly to be seen — but it appeared to Ben as if it sensed their presence. The crusted head swept over so that its blooded eyes fixed on them, and its jagged snout split wide. A sharp, frightening hiss ripped through the stillness of the night, lingering and dying slowly into silence.

But the dragon did not slow or change course. Northeast it flew until it had become a distant speck once more. They stared after it until it was gone.

"My God!" Ben said finally, his voice still a whisper. His thirst for adventure was suddenly quenched. He stared down wildly at the empty space that spread away beneath him, the space in which they still hung, unmoving. "Damn it, I've had enough of this, Questor! Take us back to where we came from!"

"The map. High Lord," the wizard said calmly. "Fix your eyes upon the map and seek out Sterling Silver."

Ben did so at once, almost frantic to have his feet back upon solid stone. He found the designation for the castle and concentrated his thoughts upon it. Almost instantly he was back within the tower, standing before the open wall, staring out into the mists.

He released the railing as if it burned him and stepped quickly back. "That beast... that was the dragon that I stumbled on in the forest!" he snapped.

"Yes, High Lord, it was," the other agreed, turning away from the railing with him. The owlish face was contemplative. "Strabo is his name. He lives east where the valley is a wasteland of desert, marsh and scrub. He lives alone there, the last of his kind."

Ben folded his arms into his chest, suddenly cold. "He was close enough to touch."

"It only seemed so." Questor's smile was wry. "The magic made it appear that way. In truth, we never left this room."

"Never left?"

"You may try it yourself sometime. High Lord. The magic of the Landsview is yours to wield — and you have seen for yourself how it works."

"All too well, thank you."

"Have you learned enough about Landover for tonight, then? Would you like to have dinner now?"

Ben had regained his composure. "Dinner would be fine." He took a deep breath. "Are there any surprises that go with it? If there are, I would like to know about them now — not after the fact."

The wizard pushed his way back through the tower door. "No, High Lord. There should be no surprises with dinner. It should be quite pleasant. Come along."

They trekked back through the corridors and stairwells of the castle until, they had again reached the dining hall. Ben still had questions that needed answers, but he was weary and he was hungry and the questions could wait. He let himself be led to the head of the tressel table and seated. His stomach was beginning to settle again, the chill to leave his body. He had survived after all, with no apparent damage. So if that was the worst that he was to endure...

"Would you care for some wine. High Lord?" Questor interrupted his thoughts. The day was gone, and the darkness of the castle was deepening. The wizard lifted his hand and pointed, and the chandeliers came alive with light, a soft golden glow that was flameless and smokeless, yet had no apparent power source. "Another little touch of the magic." The other smiled. "Did you say you wanted wine?"

Ben slumped back in his chair. "Yes — and leave the bottle."

Questor gestured, and the wine appeared at his elbow. The wizard had taken a seat on his right. Abernathy and Bunion appeared and sat on his left. Parsnip would undoubtedly join them after bringing out the dinner. They were just one, big, happy family.

Ben faced the wizard. "I'll say it once more, Questor — no more surprises. I want to know everything. I want to know about the medallion. I want to know about Meeks. I want to know who sold Landover and why. I want to know all of it."

Abernathy put his paws on the table and looked at Ben from over the rims of his glasses. "I would drink the wine first, High Lord, if I were you."

The shaggy face glanced knowingly at Bunion seated next to him. The kobold smiled and hissed and showed all of his teeth.

Ben reached for the wine.

He had consumed a good portion of the bottle before Parsnip reappeared with dinner. The kobold brought a stew made of beef and vegetables, fresh-baked bread, cheeses and pastries. Whatever else was wrong, no one was starving to death, he thought.

He ate a bowl of the stew with pieces of bread and cheese, drank several glasses of wine and thought about Annie and Miles and what he had left behind. Questor and Abernathy argued about everything from the nature of a balanced meal to the role of magic in health care. The kobolds grinned and ate everything in sight. When it came time for seconds, Questor found the stew too cold and suggested it be reheated. Parsnip hissed and showed his teeth, and Abernathy suggested it was better served cold. Questor disagreed. The argument was resolved when Questor used the magic to reheat it where it cooled in its kettle, and the kettle exploded in flames setting fire to the whole of the tressel table and the linen service set upon it. Everyone jumped up, yelling, hissing and barking all at once. Questor used the magic again, and this time it rained inside the dining hall for fifteen minutes.

That was enough for Ben. Wine glass in hand, Abernathy leading, he retired to the royal sleeping quarters, scorched and soaked and woozy. Tomorrow, he decided as he lay back within the coverings of his bed, would be a better day.

Coronation

Tomorrow might indeed have been a better day, but Ben Holiday never had a chance to find out.

He dreamed as he slept, dreams of truth and fantasy. He dreamed of Annie and of finding her alive again, his exhilaration at being with her and loving her blunted by a pervasive sense that she could not stay and he must lose her once more. He dreamed of Miles, bluff and cynical as he reminded Ben at every turn on a journey through a Chicago filled with Bonnie Blues that he had told him so. He dreamed of lawyers and courtrooms in which kobolds hissed from jury boxes and judges had the look of shaggy dogs. He dreamed of high rises and concrete parkways and soaring over all a dragon as black as night. He dreamed of demons and knights, of faces in the mist, and of castles that shone like the sun. He dreamed, and the world slipped away from him.

When he came awake again, it was morning. He lay within his sleeping quarters, a vast chamber of tapestries and silken hangings, of polished oak and heraldic stone sculptures. He lay within his bed, a great canopied sarcophagus of oak and iron that looked as if it might successfully double as a barge. He knew it was morning by the slant of the light through the high arched windows, though the light remained gray and hazy as the mist without screened away its color. It was quiet within his room and quiet in the rooms without. The castle was like a stone shell.

Yet there was warmth in that castle. Sterling Silver was a dungeon to look upon and it lacked the visual appeal of even the most spartan, avant-garde, chrome-and-steel Chicago high rise, but it had the feel of a home. It was warm to the touch, from the floors that he had walked upon to the walls that he had brushed against. The warmth was in the air, despite the mist and the gray; it flowed through her like a life-blood. She was what Questor Thews had called her. She was a living thing.

Waking up inside of her felt right. It felt secure and comforting, the way it was supposed to feel when one woke within one's own home.

He stretched and glanced over to the nightstand on which he had placed his duffel and found Questor Thews sitting on a high-backed chair, looking at him.

"Good morrow, Ben Holiday," the wizard greeted him.

"Good morning," he replied. The good feelings evaporated in a rush as he remembered the wizard's gloomy revelation of the night before — that he was a King without retainers, army, or treasury.

"You rested well, I trust?" Questor asked.

"Quite well, thank you."

"Wonderful. You have a busy day before you."

"I do?"

"Yes, High Lord." Questor was beaming. "Today is your coronation. Today you shall be crowned King of Landover."

Ben blinked. "Today?" He blinked again. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Wait a minute, Questor. What do you mean, today is the coronation? Wasn't it just yesterday that you were telling me that the coronation would not take place for at least several days because you needed time to inform all those that needed informing?"

"Well, ah... yes, I did say that, I admit." The wizard screwed up his owlish face like a guilty child. "The trouble is, it wasn't yesterday that I said that."

"It wasn't yester...?"

"Because this isn't tomorrow."

Ben flushed and sat up quickly in the bed. "Just what in the hell are you talking about?"

Questor Thews smiled. "High Lord, you have been asleep for a week."

Ben stared at him in silence. The wizard stared back. It was so quiet in the room that Ben could hear the sound of his own breathing in his ears.

"How could I have slept for a week?" he asked finally.

Questor steepled his hands before his face. "Do you remember the wine that you drank — the wine I provided?" Ben nodded. "Well, I added a dash of sleeping tonic to its content so that you would be assured of a good night's rest." He gestured with his hands. "It was in the magic I used, just an inflection of the voice and a twist." He demonstrated. "The trouble was, I overdid it. The dash became a thimbleful. So you have been asleep for a week."

"Just a little mistake of the magic, is that it?" Ben was flushed with anger.

Questor fidgeted uneasily. "I am afraid so."

"Well, I am afraid not! What sort of fool do you take me for? You did it on purpose, didn't you? You put me asleep to keep me here!" Ben was shaking, he was so mad. "Did you think I had forgotten the ten-day withdrawal clause in my contract? Ten days were allotted me to return to my own world if I wanted my money back, less the handling fee. Don't tell me you didn't know that! Now eight of those ten days are gone! It's all rather convenient, don't you think?"

"One minute, please." Questor had gone stiff with indignation. "If it were truly my intention to keep you in Landover. High Lord, I would not have bothered to tell you about the sleeping potion or the lost days of sleep at all! I would simply have let you think it was still only your second day in Landover and all ten days would have passed before you realized differently!"

Ben regarded him silently for a moment and then sat back. "I guess you're right about that." He shook his head in disbelief. "I suppose I owe you an apology, but frankly I'm too mad to apologize. I've lost a whole damn week because of you! And while I've been sleeping, you've gone right ahead with the plans for making me King — sent out the invitations and everything! Good thing I woke up on time, isn't it, or you would have been faced with a bedside coronation!"

"Oh, I knew you would awake on time after I discovered the problem," Questor hastened to assure him.

"You mean you hoped you knew," Abernathy interjected, appearing through the bedroom door with a tray. "Breakfast, High Lord?"

He brought the tray over and set it on the nightstand. "Thank you," Ben muttered, his eyes still fixed on Questor.

"I knew," the wizard said pointedly.

"Beautiful day for a coronation," Abernathy said. He looked at Ben over the rims of the glasses. "I have your robes of office ready. They have been altered to fit exactly as they ought to." He paused. "I had plenty of time to measure you while you slept."

"I'll bet." Ben chewed angrily on a piece of bread. "A whole week's worth of time, it appears."

Abernathy shrugged. "Not quite. The rest of us drank the wine as well, High Lord."

"It was an honest mistake," Questor insisted, brows knitting.

"You make a lot of those," Abernathy sniffed.

"Perhaps it would please you if I simply quit trying to help at all!"

"Nothing would please me more!"

Ben held up his hands pleadingly. "Hold it! Enough, already!" He looked from one to the other. "I don't need another argument. As a lawyer, I got my fill of arguments. I need answers. I said last night that I wanted to know the whole story behind the sale of this Kingdom — well, not last night, but the last time we talked, anyway. So maybe this is the time for it, Questor."

The wizard rose, cast a dark glance at Abernathy, and looked back again at Ben. "You shall have your explanation, High Lord. But you must settle for hearing it as we travel to the Heart. The coronation must take place at noon, and we must leave at once in order to be there on time."

Abernathy headed for the door. "His anticipation knows no bounds, I'm sure, wizard. High Lord, I will return with your robes shortly. Meanwhile, try eating a bit more of the breakfast. The castle's magic continues to fail, and we may all soon be foraging the countryside for sustenance."

He left. Questor glared after him, then turned hastily to Ben. "I will only add. High Lord, that, with two days remaining, you have sufficient time to use the medallion to return to your own world — if that should be your wish."

He hesitated, then followed Abernathy out. Ben watched them go. "A whole week," he muttered, shoved the breakfast tray aside, and climbed from the bed.

They set out within the hour — Ben, Questor, Abernathy, and the two kobolds. They left Sterling Silver and her barren island on the lake skimmer, slipping silently through the murky lake waters to the meadow beyond. From there, they passed back into the forests and the mist.

"It would be best to start at the beginning, I suppose," Questor said to Ben after they had entered the forest trees. They walked a step ahead of the others, shoulder to shoulder, the wizard with the studied, swinging gait, shoulders stooped and head lowered. "The problem with the throne began after the death of the old King more than twenty years ago. Things were much different then. The old King had the respect of all of the people of Landover. Five generations of his family had ruled in succession, and all had ruled well. No one challenged the old King's rule — not Nightshade, not even the Mark. There was an army then and retainers and laws to govern all. The treasury was full, and the magic protected the throne. Sterling Silver was not under the Tarnish; she was polished and gleaming like something just crafted, and the island on which she sits was the most beautiful spot in the land. There were flowers and there was sunshine — and no mists or clouds."

Ben glanced over. He was dressed in a red silk tunic and pants with knee-high boots and silver stays. Abernathy carried his ceremonial robes, crown and chains of office. "Questor, I hate to have to tell you this but your explanation is beginning to sound like a bad fairy tale."

"It grows worse, High Lord. The old King died and left but a single son, still a youth, as heir to the throne. The son's guardian was a wizard of great power but dubious principle. The wizard was more father to the son than the old King, having cared for the boy after his mother's death and during the old King's frequent absences from court. The son was a mean-spirited boy, bored with Landover and displeased with the responsibilities his birthright demanded of him, and the wizard played upon this weakness. The wizard had been looking for a way to escape what he viewed as his own limited existence in Landover for some time; he was court wizard then — the position that I now hold — and he thought himself destined for greater things. But a court wizard is bound to the throne and the land by an oath of magic; he could not leave if the throne did not release him. So he employed his considerable skill with words and convinced the boy that they should both leave Landover."

He paused, and his owlish face turned slightly toward Ben. "The wizard is my, half-brother. High Lord. You know him better as Meeks."

"Oh-oh." Ben shook his head slowly. "I begin to see the light."

"Hmmmmm?"

"Just an expression. And will you quit saying hmmmmmm like that? My grandmother in her dotage used to do that everytime I said something to her, and it damn near drove me crazy!"

"Sorry. Well, the trouble with leaving Landover is that when you go, you take nothing with you. The magic won't allow it. Neither my half-brother nor the old King's son could stomach that! So they devised a scheme to sell the throne to someone from another world. If someone from another world were to buy Landover, then my half-brother and the old King's son could collect the proceeds in that other world and thwart the laws of this one which would prohibit them from taking anything out. That way, they could live comfortably wherever they were to go."

"How did they decide on my world?" Ben asked. "Research." Questor smiled. "Yours was a world in which the inhabitants were most likely to be attracted to life here. Landover was the fantasy that they dreamed about."

Ben nodded. "Except that it really isn't."

"Yes, well." Questor cleared his throat. "Time passed while my half-brother subverted the old King's son, while the son grew to manhood, and while they schemed to break their ties with the land. The son never really wanted the throne in any case; he would abandon it quickly enough, whatever the conditions imposed, so long as he could be assured that he would be well looked after. It became the responsibility of my half-brother to find a way to make that happen. That took some thinking and some maneuvering. While all this was happening, the kingdom was falling apart. The magic works on strength of commitment, and there was precious little of that. The treasury emptied. The army disbanded. The laws broke down. The population began to lose its sense of unity and to drift into armed camps. Trade between them all but ceased. Sterling Silver had no master and no retainers to look after her, and she began to fall under the Tarnish. The land was affected as well, withering and turning foul. My half-brother and the old King's son were left with the problem of selling a, ah... how do you put it in your world. High Lord?... oh, yes, a 'pig in a poke'...to some unsuspecting customer."

Ben stared upward into the trees beseechingly. "You have such a way with words, Questor."

"Yes, but you see, High Lord, it doesn't have to be that way — that's what I have been trying to explain to you. A King of strength and wisdom can restore Landover to the way it once was. The laws can be put back — especially by someone like you, who understands the nature of laws. The treasury can be replenished, the army can be restored, and the Tarnish can be cleansed. That is why I donned the mantle of court wizard when it was discarded by my half-brother. That is why I agreed to help my half-brother seek a buyer for the throne. I even wrote the words for the notice of sale."

"You wrote that pack of lies for the sale item in the catalogue?" Ben asked in astonishment.

"I wrote it to attract the right kind of person — one with vision and courage!" A bony finger jabbed at Ben. "And it is not a pack of lies!" The finger dropped away and the lean face tightened. "I did what was necessary, High Lord. Landover must be made new again. She has been allowed to waste away with the fragmenting of the old King's rule, and a loss of the magic will destroy her completely."

"We have heard this speech before, Questor," Abernathy muttered from behind them. "Kindly put it to rest."

The wizard shot him an irritated look. "I am speaking only what needs to be spoken. If you are weary of the speech, close your ears."

"Questor, I'm not following your part in all of this." Ben brought the conversation back around to the subject at hand. "If you feel so strongly about what Landover needs, then why did you let your half-brother and the old King's son run it into the ground in the first place? What were you doing all those years that followed the death of the old King? Where were you while the throne of Landover sat vacant?"

Questor Thews held up his hands imploringly. "Please, High Lord — one question at a time!" He rubbed at his bearded chin fretfully. "You must understand that I was not court wizard then. My half-brother was. And while I don't like to admit it, I am not the wizard that my half-brother is. I am a poor second to him and always have been."

"Where is my quill and scroll," Abernathy exclaimed. "I must have this in writing!"

"I am improving, however, now that I have become court wizard," Questor went on, ignoring the other. "I was without position at the court while my half-brother was in service — an apprentice grown too old to stay on, yet unable to find other work in the Kingdom. I traveled quite a bit, trying to learn something of the magics of the fairies, trying to find work to occupy my time. Some years after the old King died, my half-brother called me home again to help with the administration of the court. He advised me of his intention to leave the Kingdom and not return. He advised me that the old King's son had decided to sell the throne and go with him. He appointed me to act as court wizard and advisor to the new King."

He stopped, turning to face Ben. "He thought, you see, that I would cause him little trouble since I was a poor wizard to begin with and something of a failure in life. He thought that I would be so happy to have the position of court wizard that I would acquiesce to anything he wished. I let him believe that, High Lord. I pretended cooperation, because it was the only way I could aid the land. A new King was needed, if matters were to ever be set right again. I was determined to find that King. I even persuaded my half-brother to let me write the words in his sale notice that would bring that King to Landover."

"And here I am," Ben finished.

"Here you are," Questor agreed.

"A million dollars lighter."

"And a Kingdom richer."

"But my money is gone, isn't it? The contract I signed was a fraud from the beginning? Meeks and the son have walked off with the money, and I'm stuck here for the rest of my life?"

Questor looked at him for a long time, and then he shook his head. "No, High Lord, you are not stuck here for any longer than you choose to be. The contract was valid, the escape clause was valid, and the money awaits you, if you return within ten days."

Now it was Ben's turn to stare. "I'll be damned," he whispered. He studied Questor wordlessly for a moment. "You didn't have to tell me this, you know. You could have let me think the money was gone and that I must stay."

The wizard seemed sad. "No, I could never do that, High Lord."

"Yes, he could," Abernathy chimed in. "And he would, too, if he thought he could get away with it." He squatted and scratched at his neck with his hind leg. "Do you think there are ticks in these woods?" he asked. "I hate ticks."

They walked on in silence. Ben thought through all that Questor had told him. Old Meeks and the dead King's son conspiring to make a quick killing by selling the throne to the Kingdom and setting themselves up in a new world with the money — it made sense, he guessed. But there was a piece to this puzzle that was still missing. The trouble was, he couldn't figure out what that piece was. He knew it was there somewhere, but he couldn't quite manage to put his finger on it. He exercised his lawyer's skills in an effort to solve the problem, but the missing piece kept eluding him.

He gave up looking for it after a time. He would stumble across it sooner or later and he had a bigger problem just now, in any case. Eight of the ten days allotted him under the terms of the contract had already expired. That left him exactly today and tomorrow to decide whether or not he was going to back out of his purchase and head home again. He could do that, Questor had assured him. He believed Questor. The question was not so much whether or not he could, but whether or not he wanted to. Nothing of Landover had turned out to be the way it was advertised in the catalogue, except, of course, in the very broadest sense. There were dragons and damsels and all of that, there was magic, and he was King over all — or about to be. But the fantasy was not what he had expected it to be; it wasn't even close. The money he had paid seemed far too much for what he had gotten.

And yet... the plaintiff gave way to the defendant...and yet there was something indefinable about Landover that appealed to him. Most probably, it was the challenge. He hated to admit it; but if he were to be honest with himself, he had better admit it here and now. He did not like to back away from anything. He did not like to lose. Admitting that he had made a mistake in coming here, in paying one million dollars for a fantasy that truly was a fantasy, though not the fantasy he wished, rankled him. He was a trial lawyer with a trial lawyer's instincts and bullheadedness, and he did not like to walk away from any kind of fight. There was surely a fight ahead for him in Landover, for the sovereignty of the throne was in shambles, and it would take one hell of an effort to restore it. Didn't he think that he could do that? Wasn't he capable of matching his skills against those of any of the subjects that he was expected to rule?

Miles would have told him it wasn't worth it. Miles would have thrown up his hands and gone to civilization, to Soldier Field and elevators and taxis. His associates in the profession would have done the same.

Annie would not. Annie would have told him to tough it out and she would have stood with him. But Annie was dead.

He tightened his jaw, frowning. When he got right down to it, he was dead, too, if he gave it up now and went back. That was why he had taken the gamble in the first place and come — to give himself back his life. He still thought he could do that here; he still believed that Landover could be his home. Besides, money was only money...

But a million dollars? He could hear Miles' exclamation of disbelief. He could see Miles throwing up his hands in disgust.

He was surprised to discover that he was smiling at the idea.

It was exactly noon when the mist and trees parted almost without warning, and the little company entered a clearing bright with sunshine, its grasses a glimmer of green, gold, and crimson. Bonnie Blues grew all about the edges of the clearing, evenly spaced and perfectly formed, and only those that nestled close against the forest beyond showed signs of the wilt that Ben had observed on his journey in. Burnished timbers of white oak formed a dais and throne at the clearing's center. Polished silver stanchions were anchored at the comers of the dais, and in their holders were tall white candles, their wicks new. Flags of varying colors and insignia lifted from behind the dais, and all about were white velvet kneeling pads and rests.

Questor's arm swept across the sunlit clearing. "This is the Heart, High Lord," he said softly. "Here you shall be crowned King of Landover."

Ben stared at the gleaming oak and silver of the throne and dais, the flags and candles, and the clipped grasses and Bonnie Blues. "It shows nothing of the Tarnish, Questor. It all looks as if it were... new."

"The Tarnish has not yet reached the Heart, High Lord. The magic is strongest here. Come."

They crossed in silence, slipping between the lines of velvet kneeling pads and armrests to where the throne and dais waited at the clearing's center. Fragrant smells filled the warm midday air, and the colors of the grasses and trees seemed to shimmer and mix with liquid ease. Ben felt a sense of peace and reverence within the clearing that reminded him of the church sanctuary on Sunday morning when he had been brought to it as a boy. He was surprised to discover that he still remembered.

They reached the dais and stopped. Ben glanced slowly about. The Heart was all but deserted. A few worn-looking herdsmen and farmers, with their wives and children in tow, stood hesitantly at the edges of the clearing, whispering together and looking uncertainly at Ben. Half a dozen hunters in woodsman's garb clustered in a knot in the shadows of the forest, where the sunlight did not reach. A beggar, ragged in fraying leather pants and tunic, sat cross-legged at the base of an oak riddled with wilt. Other than those few, there was no one. Ben frowned. There was a hunted, almost desperate look in the eyes of those few that was troubling.

"Who are they?" he asked Questor quietly.

Questor looked out at the ragged gathering and turned away. "Spectators."

"Spectators?"

"To the coronation."

"Well, where is everybody else?"

"Fashionably late, perhaps." Abernathy deadpanned. Behind him, the kobolds hissed softly and showed their teeth.

Ben put his hand on Questor's shoulder and brought him about. "What's going on, Questor? Where is everyone?"

The wizard rubbed his chin nervously. "It is possible that those who are coming are simply a bit late arriving, detained perhaps by something that they had not foreseen when they..."

"Wait a minute." Ben cut him short. "Run that by me once more — 'those who are coming' did you say? Does that mean that some don't intend to come?"

"Oh, well, I was simply using a figure of speech, High Lord. Certainly all who can come will."

Ben folded his arms across his chest and faced the other squarely. "And I'm Santa Claus. Look, Questor, I've been around long enough to know a fox from a hole in the ground. Now, what's going on here?"

The wizard shifted his feet awkwardly. "Ah... well, you see, the truth of the matter is that very few will be coming."

"How few is very few?"

"Perhaps only a couple."

Abernathy edged toward. "He means just the four of us, High Lord — and those poor souls standing out there in the shadows."

"Just the four of us?" Ben stared at Questor in disbelief. "The four of us? That's all? The coronation of the first King of Landover in more than twenty years, and no one is coming..."

"You are not the first. High Lord," Questor said softly.

"...but the four of us?"

"You are not the first," the wizard repeated.

There was a long moment of silence. "What did you say?" Ben asked.

"There have been others before you, High Lord — other Kings of Landover since the death of the Old King. You are simply the latest of these to ascend the throne. I am sorry that you have to hear this now. I would have preferred that you heard it later when the coronation ceremony was..."

"How many others?" Ben's face was flushed with anger.

"...completed, and we had... What did you say?"

"Kings, damn it! How many others have there been?"

Questor Thews squirmed. "Several dozen, perhaps. Frankly, I have lost count."

The sound of thunder rolled from somewhere distant through the forest trees and mist. Aabernathy's ears pricked sharply.

"Several dozen?" Ben did not yet hear it. His arms dropped to his sides and the muscles of his neck corded. "I can understand why you might have lost count! I can understand as well why no one bothers to come anymore!"

"They came at first, of course," the other continued, his voice irritatingly calm and his gaze steady. "They came because they believed. Even after they quit believing, they came for a time because they were curious. But eventually they were no longer even curious. We have had too many Kings, High Lord, who were not real."

He gestured roughly toward the few who had assembled at the forest's edge. "Those who come now come only because they are desperate."

The thunder sounded again, louder this time and closer, a deep, sustained rumble that echoed through the forest and shook the earth. The kobolds hissed and their ears flattened back against their heads. Ben looked about sharply. Abernathy was growling.

Questor seized Ben's arm. "Climb onto the dais, High Lord! Go, quickly!" Ben hesitated, frowning. "Go!" the wizard snapped, shoving. "Those are demons that come!"

That was reason enough for Ben. The kobolds were already scampering ahead, and he went after them. The thunder reverberated all about them, shaking trees and earth.

"It appears that you will have your audience after all. High Lord," Abernathy said as he bounded up the dais steps on all fours, nearly losing the ceremonial robes and chains of office.

Ben went up the steps behind him, glancing back over his shoulder anxiously. The Heart was deserted save for the four of the little company. The fanners, herdsmen, their families, the hunters, and the beggar had all scattered into the concealing shadows of the forest. The mist and gloom of the surrounding trees seemed to press in tightly against the sunlit clearing.

"Help the High Lord on with his robes and chains," Questor Thews directed Abernathy, hastening onto the dais to stand with them. "Quickly!"

Abernathy rose up again on his hind legs and began fitting the robes and chains of office about Ben. "Wait a minute, Questor," Ben objected, his eyes darting apprehensively to the black tunnel entrance across from them. "I'm not sure I want to do this anymore."

"It is too late, High Lord — you must!" The other's owlish face was suddenly hard with purpose. "Trust me. You will be safe."

Ben thought that he had ample reason to question that assertion, but Abernathy was already fastening the clasps to the robes and chains. The scribe was surprisingly dexterous for a dog, and Ben found himself glancing downward in spite of the situation. He started. Abernathy's paws had blunted fingers with joints.

"He failed to get even that part right," the scribe muttered on seeing the look on Ben's face. "Let us hope he does better with you."

Shadows and mist joined and swirled like stirred ink at the far side of the clearing, and the stillness turned suddenly to a howling wind. The thunder of the demon approach peaked in a harsh rumble that shook the forest earth. Ben turned, the wind whipping his robes until they threatened to break loose. Abernathy stepped away, growling deep in his throat, and the kobolds hissed like snakes and showed their teeth to the black.

Then the demons broke from the mist and dark, materializing as if a hole had opened in the empty air, an army of lean, armored forms as shadowy as night. Weapons and plating clanked, and the hooves of monstrous, serpentine mounts thudded from rock to earth, reverberated, and died. The army slowed and clattered to a halt. White teeth and red eyes gleamed from the mists, and claws and spines jutted from the mass, as if the whole were tangled into one. The army faced the dais in a ragged line, hundreds strong, pressed between the forest trees and the kneeling pads and rests, the sound of their breathing filling the void left by the passing of the thunder. The wind howled once more and died away.

The clearing was filled with the sound of heavy, clotted breathing. "Questor...?" Ben called softly, frozen where he stood.

"Stand, High Lord," the wizard whispered softly.

The demon horde stirred, weapons lifted as one, and a maddened howl broke from the army's collective throat. Abernathy stepped back, jaws snapping. The kobolds seemed to go mad, hissing and shrieking in fury, crouching to either side of where Ben stood.

"Questor...?" Ben tried again, a bit more urgently this time.

Then the Mark appeared. The demons parted suddenly at their center, and he came from out of their midst. He sat astride his winged serpent, a thing that was half snake and half wolf, a thing out of the foulest nightmare. The Mark was all in black armor, opaque and worn with use, bristling with weapons and serrated spines. A helmet with a death's head sat on his shoulders, the visor down.

Ben Holiday wished he were practically anywhere other than where he was.

Questor Thews stepped forward. "Kneel, High Lord!" His voice was a hiss.

"What?"

"Kneel! You are to be King! The demons have come to see you made so, and we must not keep them waiting." The owlish face crinkled with urgency. "Kneel, so you may be sworn!"

Ben knelt, eyes locked on the demons.

"Place your hands upon the medallion," Questor ordered. Ben lifted it from beneath his tunic and did so. "Now repeat these words: 'I shall be one with the land and her people, faithful to all and disloyal to none, bound to the laws of throne and magic, pledged to the world to which I have come — King, hereafter.' Say it."

Ben hesitated. "Questor, I don't like..."

"Say it, Ben Holiday, if you would truly be the King you have said you would be!"

The admonishment was hard and certain, almost as if come from someone other than Questor Thews. Ben met the other's eyes steadily. He could sense a restless movement from the ranks of the demons.

Ben lifted the medallion until it could be seen clearly by all. His eyes never left Questor's. "I shall be one with the land and her people, faithful to all and disloyal to none, bound to the laws of throne and magic, pledged to the world to which I have come — King, hereafter!"

He spoke the words clearly and boldly. He was mildly surprised that he had remembered them all so easily — almost as if he had known them before. The clearing was still. He let the medallion fall back upon his chest.

Questor Thews nodded, and his hand passed through the air immediately above Ben's head. "Rise, Your Majesty," he said softly. "Ben Holiday, King of Landover, High Lord and Liege."

Ben rose, and the sunlight broke over him as it slipped suddenly through the ceiling of mist. The silence of the clearing deepened. Questor Thews bent slowly and dropped to one knee. Abernathy followed him down and the kobolds knelt with him.

But the demons held their place. The Mark stayed mounted, and none about him moved.

"Show them the medallion one time more!" Questor hissed beneath his breath.

Ben turned and held forth in his right hand the medallion, feeling with his fingers the outline of the mounted knight, the lake, castle, and rising sun. Demons cried softly in the ranks of black forms, and a few dropped down. But the Mark brought his arm back swiftly, beckoning all to stand where they were, to keep their feet. The death's head turned back to Ben defiantly.

"Questor, it isn't working!" Ben breathed from out of the side of his mouth.

There was sudden movement in the demon ranks. Astride his monstrous, winged carrier, the Mark was advancing through the screen of mist and shadows. The demons he led were coming with him.

Ben went cold. "Questor!"

But then there was a flare of light from across the Heart, as if something bright had caught the reflection of the sun. It broke from the edge of the forest shadows between the advancing demons and the dais on which Ben and his companions stood. The demons slowed, eyes shifting. Ben and his friends turned.

A horse and rider appeared from out of the mists.

Ben Holiday started. It was the knight he had encountered in the time passage between his world and this, the knight whose image was graven on the medallion, a battered and soiled iron statue as he sat astride his wearied horse. His lance rested upright in its boot cradle and his armored form was still. He might have been chiseled from stone.

"The Paladin!" Questor whispered in disbelief. "He has come back!"

The Mark rose in the harness that bound him to his mount, death's head facing toward the knight. Demons shrank back within the mist and shadows all about him, and there were whimpers of uncertainty. Still the knight did not move.

"Questor, what's happening?" Ben demanded, but the wizard shook his head wordlessly.

A moment longer the demons and the knight faced each other across the sunlit span of the Heart, poised like creatures at hunt. Then the Mark brought one arm upward, fist clenched, and the death's head inclined, if only barely, toward Ben. Wheeling his mount, he turned back into the dark, the army he led turning with him. Shrieks and cries broke the stillness, the wind howled and hooves and boots thundered once more. The demons disappeared back into the air out of which they had come.

The mist and the gloom drew back again, and the sunlight returned. Ben blinked in disbelief. When he turned back once more to find the knight and his war horse, they had disappeared as well. The clearing was empty but for the five who stood upon the dais.

Then there was new movement in the shadows. The few farmers and herdsmen and their families, the hunters and the lone beggar slipped back into view, gathering hesitantly at the fringe of the trees. There was fear and wonder in their eyes. They came no further, but one by one they knelt in the forest earth.

Ben's heart was pounding, and he was damp with sweat. He took a deep breath and wheeled on Questor. "I want to know what in the hell is going on, and I want to know right now!"

Questor Thews seemed genuinely at a loss for words for the first time since they had met. He started to say something, stopped, tried again, and shook his head. Ben glanced at the others. Abernathy was panting as if he had been run. The kobolds were crouched close, ears laid back, eyes slitted.

Ben seized Questor's arm. "Answer me, damn it!"

"High Lord, I don't... I am at a loss to explain..." The owlish face twisted as if caught in a vise. "I would never have believed..."

Ben brought his hand up quickly to cut him off. "For God's sake, Questor, get hold of yourself, will you?"

The other nodded, straightening. "Yes, High Lord."

"And answer the question!"

"High Lord, I..." He stopped again.

Abernathy's shaggy head craned forward over one shoulder. "This should be interesting," he offered. He appeared to have regained control of himself more quickly than the wizard.

Questor shot him a dark look. "I should have made you a cat!" he snapped.

"Questor!" Ben pressed impatiently.

The wizard turned, took a deep breath, cocked his head reflectively and shrugged. "High Lord, I don't quite know how to tell you this." He smiled weakly. "That knight, the one that appears on the medallion you wear, the one that confronted the Mark — he doesn't exist."

The smile disappeared. "High Lord, we have just seen a ghost!"