Paladin

Miles used to say that there were lawyers and then there were lawyers; trouble was, there were too many of the former and not enough of the latter. He used to say that when he was steamed by some act of incompetence visited upon him by a fellow practitioner of the arts.

Ben Holiday ran that saying through his mind on and off during the hike back to Sterling Silver, altering the words a bit to fit the circumstances of his present dilemma. There were ghosts and then there were ghosts, he corrected. There are imagined ghosts and real ghosts, phantoms of the mind and sure-enough live spooks that went bump in the night. He supposed one could safely say that there were indeed too many of the former and not enough of the latter, although maybe everyone was better off that way.

Whatever the case, the knight graven on the medallion he wore, the knight who had twice come between him and the Mark, the knight who materialized and then disappeared as if made of smoke, was certainly one of the latter and not some chemically induced distortion that was the result of eating the food or drinking the water in a strange land. He knew that as surely as he knew that Questor Thews was still holding out on him about the circumstances surrounding the sale of the throne of Landover. And he meant to learn the truth about both. But he was not going to learn much of anything right away, it appeared. For Questor, after proclaiming the knight a ghost that no longer existed, refused to say anything more about the matter until they were safely returned to Sterling Silver. Ben protested vehemently, Abernathy tossed off a few barbs about cold feet, the kobolds hissed and showed their teeth to the vanished demons, but the wizard remained firm. Ben Holiday had a right to know the whole story behind the appearance of the ghost — what was it he had called it, the Paladin? — but he would have to wait until they were again within the walls of the castle. The owlish face set itself, the stooped figure turned, and Questor Thews stalked off into the forest without a backward glance. Since Ben had no intention of remaining in that clearing by himself after what had just happened, he hastened after like an obedient duckling following its mother.

Some posture for a King, he chided himself. But then who was he kidding? He was about as much King of Landover as he was President of the United States. He might have been proclaimed King by an inept wizard, a converted dog, and a couple of hissing monkeys and he might have paid a million dollars for the privilege — he set his teeth, thinking of that — but he was still just an outsider who had wandered into a foreign country and who didn't yet know the customs and could barely speak the language.

But that would change, he promised. He would see it change or know the reason why.

It took them the better part of the afternoon to complete the journey back again, and dusk was settling over the misted valley and waterways when they again came in sight of Sterling Silver. The dreary, hollow cast of the fortress dampened Ben Holiday's spirits further, and they scarcely needed that. He thought again about the ten days allotted him to return to his own world under the terms of the contract he had signed and for the first time the wisdom of doing so seemed clear to him.

Once back within the castle, Questor dispatched Parsnip to prepare dinner and Bunion to lay out a fresh set of clothing for Ben. Then taking Ben and Abernathy in tow, he set out on an expedition that took them deep into the bowels of the castle. They passed down numerous corridors and through countless halls, all musted and stained by the Tarnish, but lit with the smokeless lights and warmed by the life of the castle. Colors shimmered weakly in the gray, and touches of polished wood and stone glimmered. There was a sense of something grand and elegant passing away in the wake of The Tarnish, and Ben was bothered by it. He should not have been, he thought, as he trailed silently after Questor. He had slept only a single time within these walls, and the castle held no special meaning for him. In fact, if it hadn't been for Questor telling him that she was a living thing...

He shoved his thoughts aside as they stepped through a massive oak and iron-pinioned door into a small courtyard with a chapel set at its center. The chapel was as dingy and discolored as the rest of Sterling Silver, yet the mists gathered less thickly here, and traces of sunlight still fell upon the stone and wood of roof and walls and the stained glass of high, arched windows. They crossed the courtyard to the chapel steps, climbed to scrolled oak doors that were matched and pegged in iron pins and pushed their way inside.

Ben peered through the failing light. Floors, ceiling, and walls were trimmed in white and scarlet, the colors faded, the whole of the chapel's dim interior musted and gray. There was no altar; there were no pews. Coats of arms hung upon the walls with shields and weapons propped below, and a single kneeling pad and arm rest faced forward toward a dais that occupied the very center of the room. A solitary figure stood upon the dais. It was the knight on the medallion.

Ben started. He thought for an instant that the knight was alive and at watch. Then he realized that it was only an armored shell occupying the dais and that nothing living was kept within.

Questor started forward into the chapel. "Come, High Lord."

Ben followed, eyes fixed on the figure on the dais. Abernathy trailed them. The suit of armor was chipped and battered as if from many battles, the polish gone, the metal stained almost black by the Tarnish. A huge broadsword was sheathed in a scabbard at one hip, and a mace with a wedge-shaped head hung from its leather harness at the other. A great iron-tipped lance rested butt downward from the grip of one metal hand. All three weapons were as debilitated as the armor and crusted over with dirt and grime. There was a crest on the metal breastplate and on the shield that rested beside the lance — an emblem that depicted the sun rising over Sterling Silver.

Ben took a deep breath. He could be certain as he stood before it that the armor was only a shell. Yet he was certain, too, that this was the same armor that had been worn by the knight who had twice now intervened in his encounters with the Mark.

"He was called the Paladin," Questor said at his elbow. "He was the King's champion."

Ben looked over. "He was, was he? What happened to him?"

"He disappeared after the death of the old King, and no one has seen him since." The sharp eyes met Ben's. "Until now, that is."

"It seems, then, that you no longer think I was imagining things when I came through the time passage."

"I never thought that, High Lord. I simply feared that you had been deceived."

"Deceived? By whom?"

They faced each other in silence. Abernathy scratched at one ear.

"This pregnant pause in your digression suggests that some vast and terrible secret is about to be revealed," Ben said finally. "Does this mean I am about to learn the rest of what you still haven't told me?"

Questor Thews nodded. "It does."

Ben folded his arms across his chest. "Fine. But let's have all of it this time, Questor — not just part of all of it like before. No more surprises saved for later, okay?"

The other nodded one time more. "No more surprises, High Lord. In fact, it was your mistrust of me that prompted my request that Abernathy join us. Abernathy is court historian as well as court scribe. He will be quick enough to correct me if I should misspeak myself." He sighed. "Perhaps you will have more faith in his word than in mine."

Ben waited. Questor Thews glanced momentarily at the suit of armor and then looked slowly about the empty chapel. He seemed lost within himself. The silence deepened as the seconds slipped away, and the haze of twilight spread its shadows further into the failing light.

"You may begin whenever you are ready," Abernathy growled impatiently. "Dinner cools on the table while we stand about."

"I find it difficult to know where to begin," Questor snapped. He turned to Ben once more. "It was a different time, you know — twenty years ago. The old King ruled and the Paladin was his champion, as he had been champion of; the Kings of Landover since the dawn of her creation. He was born of the magic, created by the fairy people as Landover herself was created, drawn from the mists of their world to become a part of this. No one has ever seen his face. No one has ever seen him other than like this — clad in the suit of armor you see before you, metal head to foot, visor drawn and closed. He was an enigma to all. Even my half-brother found him a puzzle with no solution."

He paused. "Landover is more than just another world that borders on the fairy world — she is the gateway to the, fairy world. She was created for that purpose. But where the fairy world is timeless and everywhere at once, Landover is a fixed point in time and place both. She is the end point of the time passages from all of the other worlds. Some worlds she joins more closely than others. Some worlds are but a step through the mists where others, like your own, are a distant passage. The closer worlds have always been those where the magic was real and its use most prevalent. The inhabitants are frequently descendants of creatures of the fairy world who migrated or strayed or were simply driven out. Once gone from the fairy world, they could never return. Few have been happy in exile. Most have sought a way back again. For all, Landover has always been the key."

"I hope all this is taking us somewhere," Ben interjected pointedly.

"It depends on how far you like to travel," Abernathy groused.

Questor hunched his shoulders, arms folding into his robes. "The Paladin was the protector of the King, who in his turn was the protector of the land. There was need for that protector. There were those both within Landover and without who would use her for their own purposes if her King and her protector should falter. But the magic that guarded her was formidable. There was no one who could stand against the Paladin."

Ben frowned, suddenly suspicious. "Questor, you're not going to tell me that..."

"I will tell you. High Lord, only what is," the other interrupted quickly. "You wished to be told the whole story, and I am about to accommodate you. When the old King died and his son did not assume the throne, but sought instead for a way to abandon Landover, those who have always laid wait without began to sniff about the gates. The Paladin was gone, disappeared with the passing of the old King, and none could find a way to bring him back again. Months drifted into years as the son grew older and plotted with my half-brother to leave the land, and still no King ruled and the Paladin stayed gone. My half-brother used all of his considerable magic to seek out the absent knight-errant, but all of his considerable magic was not enough. The Paladin was gone, and it seemed unlikely that he would come again.

"Naturally, this encouraged the ones who prowled at Landover's borders. If the Paladin were indeed gone, if the magic were weakened, Landover could be theirs. Remember, High Lord — the gateway to the world of fairy was a prize that some would give anything to own. My half-brother saw this and he knew that he must act quickly or Landover would fall from his control."

The owlish face tightened. "So he devised a plan. The throne of the Kingdom would be sold to a buyer from a very distant world, giving Landover a King and extricating both the son and my half-brother from the laws that bound them to her. But they would sell the throne to a buyer for a limited period of time only — say, six months or a year. That way the throne would revert back to them and they could sell it again. By doing so, they would steadily increase their personal fortune, enabling the son to live as he chose and my half-brother to enhance his opportunities to gain power in other worlds. The difficulty with all of this was in finding interested buyers."

"So he contacted Rosen's?" Ben interjected.

"Not at first. He began by making the sales independently. His customers were mostly unsavory sorts, wealthy but with principles as dubious as his own. Frequently they were men needing to escape temporarily from their own world. Landover was a perfect shelter for them; they could play at being King, live rather well off the comforts of Sterling Silver, and then return to their own world when their tenure was ended."

"Criminals," Ben whispered softly. "He sent you criminals." He shook his head in disbelief, then looked up sharply. "What about the ones who got here and didn't want to leave? Didn't that ever happen?"

"Yes, it happened from time to time," Questor acknowledged. "But I was always there to be certain that they left on time — whether they were ready to do so or not. I had magic enough to accomplish that." He frowned. "I have often wondered, though, how my half-brother got the medallion back from such troublemakers once they had returned home again. His magic would advise him of their presence, but how could he have known where to find and how to secure the medallion again...?"

He trailed off thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Never mind. The fact remains that for quite some time he successfully sold Kingships for limited periods and made a good deal of money. But his customers were an unpredictable lot, and the state of affairs in Landover was worsening in the wake of this succession of would-be Kings. More to the point, the money wasn't coming in fast enough. So finally he decided to offer the throne for sale outright — not to the unreliable sorts of people he had been dealing with in the past, but to the general public. He contacted Rosen's, Ltd. He told them that he was a procurer of rare artifacts and unusual service items. He convinced them of his worth by locating through the use of his magic a few treasures and curiosities thought lost. When he was accepted as a legitimate source of such items, he offered them the sale of Landover. I think they must have disbelieved at first, but he found a way to convince them finally. He sent one of them over for a look."

He grinned fiercely. Then his eyes narrowed. "But there was more to this sale than Rosen's imagined, High Lord. My half-brother and the old King's son had no intention of giving up for good something as valuable as the Kingship of Landover. A pre-condition to the offering gave them exclusive control over the selection of buyers. That way they could sell the throne to someone too weak to hold it, so that it would revert back to them, and they could sell it again. They could even sell options on the side — moving preferred customers to the head of an imaginery list. Rosen's would never know the difference. The difficulty now was not in finding interested customers, but in finding interested customers who possessed both the means of purchase and the requisite lack of character to succeed in staying on as King!"

Ben Hushed. "Like me, I gather?"

The other shrugged. "You asked earlier how many Kings of Landover there have been since the old King. There have been more than thirty."

"Thirty-two, to be exact," Abernathy interjected. "Two already this year. You are the third."

Ben stared. "Good God, that many?"

Questor nodded. "My half-brother's plan has worked perfectly — until now." He paused. "I believe he may have made a mistake with you."

"I would withhold judgment on that, if I were you, High Lord," Abernathy spoke up quickly. "Things are more complicated than you perceive. Tell him the rest, wizard."

The owlish face tightened. "I shall, if given half a chance!" He faced Ben. "This last plan was a good one, but there were two problems with it. First, it was obvious to my half-brother that not every buyer would lack sufficient character to overcome the difficulties of governing Landover. Even though he would interview each personally, he might still mistakenly choose one who would not back away from the challenges that the Kingship offered. Should that happen, he might not get Landover back again for sale. The second problem was more serious. The longer the Kingdom languished without a strong King or with a succession of failures, the more disorganized matters would become and the more difficult it would be for any new King to succeed. He wanted that. But he also knew that the more disorganized things became, the greater the chances for usurpation of the crown from those who prowled without. He did not want that."

Questor paused. "So he found a single solution to both problems. He goaded the Mark into challenging for the throne."

"Uh-oh." Ben was beginning to get an inkling of what was to come.

"The Mark rules Abaddon, the netherworld that lies beneath Landover. Abaddon is a demon world, a black pit of exile for the worst of those driven from the fairy world since the dawn of time. The demons exiled there would like nothing better than to get back into the fairy world, and the only way back is through Landover. When my half-brother extended the challenge to the Mark and the Mark became convinced that the Paladin was no longer protector of Landover, the demon lord came out of Abaddon and proclaimed himself King."

The brows of the wizard knit above the sharp, old eyes. "There was a catch to this, of course — and my half-brother knew it. The Mark could not truly be King while another ruled under color of law and while the magic of the medallion gave its protection to the wearer. He could only claim to be King and challenge for the right. So each midwinter, when the Bonnie Blues turn white, the Mark comes out of Abaddon into Landover and asks challenge of the King. As yet, no one has accepted."

"I can imagine," Ben breathed softly. "Just to make certain that I understand all this, Questor, what form does this challenge take?"

The heavy brows lifted. "Strength of arms, High Lord."

"You mean, jousting with lances or something?"

Abernathy touched him on the shoulder. "He means, mortal combat with weapons of choice — a battle to the death."

There was an endless moment of silence. Ben took a deep breath. "That's what I have to look toward to — a fight to the death with this demon?" He shook his head in disbelief. "No wonder no one lasts very long in this position. Even if they wanted to, even if they were willing to try to straighten things out, sooner or later they would have to face the Mark. What's the point of even trying?" He was growing angry all over again. "So what do you expect of me, Questor? Do you expect me to accept a challenge that no one else would? I'd have to be out of my mind!"

The stooped figure shifted from one foot to the other. "Perhaps. But it might be different with you. None of the others had help. Yet twice now after twenty years of absence, the Paladin has come to you."

Ben wheeled at once on Abernathy. "Is he telling me the truth — the Paladin has never come to anyone before?"

Abernathy shook his head solemnly. "Never, High Lord." He cleared his throat. "It grieves me to admit it, but the wizard may have a point. It might indeed be different with you."

"But I had nothing to do with the Paladin's appearance," Ben insisted. "And I don't know that he came to me necessarily. He was simply there. Besides, you said yourself it was a ghost we were seeing. And even if he wasn't a ghost, he looked wrecked to me. The Mark looked the stronger of the two and not in the least intimidated by this so-called champion that the King is supposed to rely upon to protect him. Frankly, I can't believe any of this. And I don't know that I understand it yet. Let's back up a minute. Questor, your half-brother Meeks sells the throne to an outsider like me for a big price, choosing someone who won't last. Even if he mistakenly chooses someone who might tough it out, the Mark is on hand to make sure he doesn't. But the Mark can't be King while someone else holds the medallion — am I right? So what does the Mark get out of all this? Doesn't Meeks keep bringing other candidates in month after month, year after year?"

Questor nodded. "But the Mark is a demon, and the demons live long lives, High Lord. Time is less meaningful when you can afford to wait, and the Mark can afford to wait a long, long time. Eventually, my half-brother and the old King's son will tire of the game and will have accumulated enough riches and power to divert their interest from Landover's throne. When that happens, they will cease bothering with the matter and abandon Landover to her fate."

"Oh." Ben understood now. "And when that happens, the Mark will gain Landover by default."

"That is one possibility. Another is that the demon will find a way in the interim to gain control of the medallion. He cannot seize it by force from the wearer; but sooner or later, one of Landover's succession of Kings will grow careless and lose it — or one will accept the Mark's challenge and be..."

Ben held up his hands quickly. "Don't say it." He hesitated. "What about the other predators, the ones whose worlds border on Landover? What are they doing while all this is going on?"

The wizard shrugged. "They are not strong enough as yet to stand against the Mark and the demons of Abaddon. One day, perhaps they will be. Only the Paladin had ever possessed such strength."

Ben frowned. "What I don't understand is why this Paladin simply disappeared after the death of the old King. If he were truly protector of the land and the throne, why would he disappear just because there was a change of Kings? And what's become of the fairies? Didn't you say that they created Landover as a gateway to their world? Why don't they protect it, then?"

Questor shook his head and said nothing. Abernathy was quiet as well. Ben studied them wordlessly a moment, then turned back again to the suit of armor on the dais. It was tarnished and rusted, battered and worn, a shell that resembled nothing so much as the discarded body of a junk car shipped to the salvage yard for scrap. This was all that remained of Landover's protector — of the King's protector. He walked to the kneeling pad and stared up at the metal shell wordlessly. This was what he had seen in the mists of the time passage and again in the mists of the forest that ringed the Heart. Had it been but a part of those mists? He had not thought so, but he was less certain now. This was a land of magic, not exact science. Dreams and visions might seem more real here.

"Questor, you called the Paladin a ghost," he said finally, not turning to look at the other. "How can a ghost be of any help to me?"

There was a long pause. "He was not always a ghost. Perhaps he need not remain one."

"Life after death, is that it?"

"He was a thing created of the magic," Questor answered quietly. "Perhaps life and death have no meaning for him."

"Do you have any idea at all how we can go about finding that out?"

"No."

"Do you have any suggestions for finding a way to get him back again?"

"No."

"That's what I thought. All we can do is hope he shows up before the Mark issues his next challenge and turns me into the latest of a long line of kingly failures!"

"You have another choice. You can use the medallion. The medallion can take you back to your own world whenever you choose to go. The Mark cannot stop you. You need only wish for it, and you will be gone."

Ben grimaced. Wonderful. Just tap the red shoes together three times and repeat, "There's no place like home." Off he would go, back to Kansas. Just wonderful. He had to do it within the next twenty-four hours, of course, if he didn't want to return a million dollars lighter. And whether he chose to do it within the next twenty-four hours or whether he waited until the Mark came riding for him out of the black pit, he would be running in either case, leaving Landover exactly as he had described himself — the latest in a long line of Kingly failures.

His jaw set. He didn't like losing. He didn't like giving up.

On the other hand, he wasn't paticularly keen on dying. "How did I ever get myself into this?" he muttered under his breath.

"Did you say something?" Questor asked. He turned away from the dais and the shell of armor, his eyes searching out the stooped figures of the wizard and the scribe through the lengthening shadows of twilight. "No," he sighed. "I was just mumbling." They nodded and said nothing.

"I was just thinking to myself."

They nodded again. "I was just..."

He trailed off hopelessly. The three of them stared at one another in silence and no one said anything more.

It was almost completely dark out when they left the chapel to retrace their steps through the corridors and halls of the castle. The smokeless lamps spread their glow through the shadows. The flooring and walls were vibrant with warmth. "What do you gain from all of this?" Ben asked Questor at one point.

"Hmmmmm?" The stopped figure turned. "Do you get a share of the profits on all these sales of the throne?"

"High Lord!"

"Well, you did say you helped write the sales pitch, didn't you?"

The other was flushed and agitated. "I receive no part of any monies spent to acquire Landover!" he snapped.

Ben shrugged and glanced over at Abernathy. But for once the scribe made no comment. "Sorry," Ben apologized. "I just wondered why you were involved in all of this."

The other man said nothing, and Ben let the subject drop. He thought about it as they walked, though, and decided finally that what Questor gained from these sales was what he had probably wanted all along — the position and title of court wizard. His half-brother had held both before him, and Questor Thews had been a man without any real direction in his life. Now he had found that direction, and it probably made him happy enough just to be able to point to that.

And shouldn't it be — like that for me as well, he wondered suddenly?

He was struck by the thought. Why was it that he had purchased the throne of Landover in the first place? He hadn't purchased it with the thought that it would become some other-world version of Sun City where he might retire, play golf and meditate on the purpose of man's existence, had he? He had purchased the throne to escape a world and a life he no longer found challenging. He was the wanderer that Questor Thews had once been. Landover's Kingship offered him direction. It offered him the challenge he had sought.

So what was he griping about?

Easy, he answered himself. He was griping because this kind of challenge could kill him — literally. This wasn't a court of law with a judge and jury and rules that he was talking about here. This was a battlefield with armor and weapons and only one rule — survival of the fittest. He was a King without a court, without an army, without a treasury, and without subjects interested in obeying a sovereign they refused to recognize. He was a King with a castle that was slowly passing into dust, four retainers straight out of the brothers Grimm and a protector that was nine-tenths ghost. He might not have been looking for Sun City, but he sure as hell hadn't bargained for this, either!

Had he?

He carried the debate with him to dinner.

He ate again in the great hall. Questor, Abernathy and the two kobolds kept him company. He would have eaten alone if he had not insisted that the others join him. They were retainers to the King of Landover now, Questor pointed out, and retainers did not eat with the High Lord unless they were invited to do so. Ben announced that until further notice they all had a standing invitation.

Dinner was less eventful than the previous night. There were candles and good china place settings. The food was excellent, and no one felt compelled to improve on its service. Conversation was kept to a minimum; Bunion and Parsnip ate in silence, and Questor and Abernathy exchanged only mild barbs on the eating habits of men and dogs. Ben sampled everything on the table, more hungry than he had a right to be, stayed clear of the wine, and kept his thoughts to himself. No one said anything about the coronation. No one said anything about the Mark or the Paladin.

It was all very civilized. It was also endless. Ben finally sent everyone from the table and sat there alone in the candlelight. His thoughts remained fixed on Landover. Should he stay or should he go? How sturdy was this wall of seemingly unsolvable problems that he was butting his head against? How much sense did it make for him to keep trying.

How many angels could pass through the eye of a needle? The answers to all of these questions eluded him entirely. He went to bed still seeking them out.

He woke the next morning shortly after sunrise, washed in the basin placed next to his bed, dressed in his running sweats and Nikes, and slipped quietly through the halls of Sterling Silver for the front entry. He was soundless in his movements, but Abernathy had good ears and was waiting for him at the portcullis.

"Breakfast, High Lord?" he asked, his glasses inching down over his furry nose as he looked Ben over.

Ben shook his head. "Not yet. I want to run first."

"Run?"

"That's right — run. I did it all the time before I came to Landover and I miss it. I miss the workouts at the Northside Health Club. I miss the sparring and the speed work and the heavy bag. Boxing, we call it. I guess that doesn't mean anything to you."

"It is true that dogs do not box," Abernathy replied. "Dogs do run, however. Where is it that you plan to run this morning, High Lord?"

Ben hesitated. "I don't know yet. Probably at the valley's rim where there's'some sun.

Abernathy nodded. "I'll send someone to accompany you."

Ben shook his head. "I don't need anyone, thanks."

The other turned away. "I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," he said and disappeared down the hallway. Ben stared after him momentarily, then wheeled without waiting and strode through the portcullis and gates to the lake skimmer. He boarded and his thoughts sent the skiff leaping recklessly ahead through the gray waters. He did not need someone with him everywhere he went, he thought stubbornly. He was not some helpless child.

He grounded the lake skimmer on the far shore, turned, and jogged ahead through the gloom. He worked his way slowly to the valley slope, then started up. When he reached the rim, he turned right and began to follow the forest's edge. Below him, the valley lay wrapped in shadows. Above, the pale golden light of the sun washed the new day in trailers of mist.

He ran easily, his thoughts drifting with the soft padding of his running shoes on the damp earth. His head felt clear and alert, and his muscles felt strong. He hadn't felt like that since he had arrived in Landover, and the feeling was a good one. Trees slipped rapidly away beside him, and the ground passed smoothly beneath. He breathed the air and let the stiffness in his body slowly work itself out.

Last night's questions were still with him, and the search for their answers went on. This was the final day of the ten days allotted him for rescission under the terms of his contract with Meeks. If he didn't rescind now, he would lose the million dollars paid for the purchase of Landover's Kingship. He might also lose his life — although Questor Thews had assured him that the medallion would take him back again at any time with but a moment's thought. In any case, the choices were clear. He could stay and attempt to straighten out the morass of problems he would face as King of Landover, risk a confrontation with the Mark and give up the million dollars, or he could leave, admit that the purchase was the dog that Miles had warned, return to his old life and world, and get back most of the million dollars he had spent. Neither choice held much appeal. Neither choice held much hope.

He was breathing more quickly now, feeling the strain of running begin to wear pleasingly on his muscles. He pushed himself, picking up the pace slightly, working to pass through the wall of his resistance. A flash of something dark caught his eye — something moving through the forest. He glanced over sharply, searching. There was nothing now — only the trees. He kept moving. He must have imagined it.

He thought again about the Paladin, knight-errant of the realm. He sensed somehow that the Paladin was the key to everything that was wrong with Landover's throne. It was too large a coincidence that, with the old King's death, the Paladin had disappeared as well and everything had started to go wrong with the Kingship. There was a link between them that he needed to understand. It might be possible for him to do so, he reasoned, if it were true as Questor had thought that the Paladin had indeed appeared twice now because of him. Perhaps he could find a way to bring the Paladin back yet a third time — and this time discover if he were indeed but a ghost.

The sun rose higher as he ran on, and it was approaching midmoming when he started back down the valley slope for the lake skimmer. Twice more he thought he caught sight of something moving in the trees, but each time he looked there was nothing there. He recalled Abernathy's veiled warning, but dismissed it summarily. They were always telling you to stay off the streets of Chicago, too, but you didn't live life shut away in a box.

He thought about that as he took the lake skimmer back across to Sterling Silver. There were always risks in life. Life was meant to be lived like that because if it wasn't, then what was the purpose of living it at all? Measuring the risks was important, of course, but experiencing them was necessary. It was the same thing he was always trying to explain to Miles. Sometimes you did things because they felt right. Sometimes you did things because...

He thought suddenly of the faces of those farmers and herdsmen and their families, those hunters and that beggar who had traveled to the Heart for his coronation. There had been a sort of desperate hope in those faces — as if those people wanted to believe that he could be King. There had been only a few, of course, and he was hardly responsible to them, yet...

His thinking faltered as the lake skimmer grounded at the front gates of the castle. He stood up slowly, recapturing the thoughts, losing himself in them. He barely saw Abernathy appear in the shadow of the portcullis.

"Breakfast, High Lord?"

"What?" Ben was almost startled. "Oh, yes — that would be fine." He climbed from the boat and moved quickly into the castle. "And send Questor to me right away."

"Yes, High Lord." The dog trailed after, nails clicking on the stone. "Did you enjoy your run?"

"Yes, I did — very much. Sorry I didn't wait, but I didn't think I needed anyone to go along just for that."

There was a moment's silence. Ben sensed the dog looking at him and glanced back. "I think I should tell you. High Lord, that Bunion was with you every step of the way. I sent him to make sure that you were properly looked after."

Ben grinned. "I thought I saw something. But it wasn't necessary for him to be there, was it?"

Abernathy shrugged. "That depends on how well you could have handled by yourself the timber wolf, the cave wight, and the bog wump that he dispatched when he caught them stalking after you in search of breakfast." He turned off into an adjoining corridor. "And speaking of breakfast, yours is waiting in the dining hall. I will send for the wizard."

Ben stared after him. Bog wump? Cave wight? Sweat beaded on his forehead suddenly. For Christ's sake, he hadn't seen or heard a thing! Was Abernathy trying to be funny?

He hesitated, then hurried on. He didn't think Abernathy was the sort to make jokes about something like this. Apparently he had been in danger out there and hadn't even known it.

He ate breakfast alone. Parsnip brought it to him and left. Abernathy did not reappear. Once, halfway through the meal, he caught sight of Bunion standing in the shadows of an entry off to one side. The kobold grinned so that all of his teeth showed like whitened spikes and disappeared. Ben did not grin back.

He was almost finished when Questor finally appeared. He shoved his plate aside and told the wizard to sit down with him.

"Questor, I want to know exactly how things are now compared to how they were when the old King was alive. I want to know what worked then and what doesn't work now. I want to figure out what has to be done to get things back to where they were."

Questor Thews nodded slowly, brows knitting over his sharp eyes. His hands folded on the table. "I will try. High Lord, though some things may escape my immediate memory. Some of it, you already know. There was an army that served the King of Landover; that is gone. There was a court with retainers; only Abernathy, Parsnip, Bunion and myself remain. There was a treasury; it is depleted. There was a system of taxes and yearly gifts; it has broken down. There were programs for public works, social reforms and land preservation; they no longer exist. There were laws and the laws were enforced; now they are ignored or enforced selectively. There were accords and alliances and pacts of understanding between the peoples of the land; most have lapsed or been openly repudiated."

"Stop right there." Ben rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Who among the King's subjects stands allied with whom at this point?"

"No one stands allied with anyone, so far as I can tell. Humans, half-humans, fairy creatures — no one trusts anyone."

Ben frowned. "And none of them has much use for the King, I gather? No, you needn't answer that. I can answer it for myself." He paused "Is there any one of them strong enough to stand up to the Mark?"

The wizard hesitated. "Nightshade, perhaps. Her magic is very powerful. But even she would be hard pressed to survive a duel with the Mark. Only the Paladin possessed strength enough to defeat the demon."

"What if everyone were to band together?"

Questor Thews hesitated longer this time. "Yes, the Mark and his demons might be successfully challenged then."

"But it would take someone to unite them first."

"Yes, it would take that."

"The King of Landover could be that someone."

"He could."

"But just at the moment the King of Landover can't even draw a crowd for his own coronation, can he?"

Questor said nothing. Ben and the wizard stared at each other across the table.

"Questor, what's a bog wump?" Ben asked finally.

The other frowned. "A bog wump. High Lord?" Ben nodded. "A bog wump is a variety of forest wight, a spiney, flesh-eating creature that burrows in marshy earth and paralyzes its victims with its tongue."

"Does it hunt in the early morning?"

"It does."

"Does it hunt humans?"

"It might. High Lord, what...?"

"And Bunion — would he be a match for one of these bog wumps?"

Questor's mouth snapped shut on the rest of whatever it was he was going to say. His owlish face crinkled. "A kobold is a match for almost anything alive. They are ferocious fighters."

"Why are Bunion and Parsnip still here at Sterling Silver when everyone else in the court is gone?"

The owlish face crinkled into a complete knot. "They are here because they have pledged themselves to the service of the throne and its King. Kobolds do not take their pledges lightly. Once made, a pledge is never broken. So long as there is a King of Landover, Bunion and Parsnip will stay on."

"Is it the same with Abernathy?"

"It is. This is his chosen service."

"And you?"

There was a long pause. "Yes, High Lord, it is the same with me."

Ben sat back. He didn't say anything for a moment, his eyes locking on Questor's, his arms folding loosely across his chest. He listened in the silence for the whisper of the other's thoughts and spun the webbing of his own.

Then he smiled reluctantly. "I have decided to stay on as Landover's King."

Questor Thews smiled back. "I see." He seemed genuinely pleased. "I thought that you might."

"Did you?" Ben laughed. "Then you were more certain than I. I only now made the choice."

"If I might ask, Ben Holiday — what was it that decided you?"

The smile disappeared from Ben's face. He hesitated, thinking momentarily of those few who had come to the Heart to witness his coronation. They were not so different, really, from the clients he had taken an oath to represent, and he not so different from the lawyer who had taken that oath. Perhaps he did owe them something after all.

He said nothing of that to Questor, though. He merely shrugged. "It was a balancing of the equities, I suppose. If I stay, it will cost me a million dollars — presuming, of course, that I can find a way to stay alive. If I go, it will cost me my self-respect. I would like to think that my self-respect is worth a million dollars."

The wizard nodded. "Perhaps it is."

"Besides, I don't like quitting in the middle of something. It grates on me to think that Meeks chose me because he expected that I would do exactly that. I want very badly to disappoint him in his expectation. We have a saying where I come from, Questor: Don't get mad, get even. The longer I stay, the better chance I have of finding a way to do that. It's worth the risks involved."

"The risks are substantial."

"I know. And I don't suppose anyone besides me would even think twice about taking them."

Questor thought a moment. "Maybe not. But no one else stands in your shoes, High Lord."

Ben sighed. "Well, in any case, the matter's settled. I'm staying and that's that." He straightened slowly. "What I have to do now is to concentrate on finding ways of dealing with Landover's problems before they bury me."

Questor nodded.

"And the first of those problems is the refusal of any of the King's subjects to recognize me as King. Or themselves as subjects. They have to be made to pledge to the throne."

The other nodded one time more. "How will you do that?"

"I don't know yet. But I do know one thing. No one is going to come here to make that pledge. The coronation would have brought them, were they at all willing. Since they refuse to come here, we'll have to go there — there being wherever they are."

Questor frowned. "I have reservations about such a plan, High Lord. It could prove very dangerous."

Ben shrugged. "Maybe, but I don't see that we have much choice in the matter." He stood up. "Care to make a suggestion as to where we should start?"

The wizard sighed and stood up with him. "I suggest, High Lord, that we start at the beginning."

Lords of the Greensward

There had been many who had pledged service to the Kings of Landover — families who for generations had fought in the armies of the High Lords and stood beside their thrones. There had been many who could point with pride to their record of loyal and faithful service. But none had served so well or so long as the Lords of the Greensward, and it was to them that Ben Holiday was advised he should go first.

"The barons trace their bloodlines back thousands of years — some to the time that Landover came into being," Questor Thews explained. "They have always stood with the King. They formed the backbone of his army; they comprised the core of his advisors and court. Some of them were Kings of Landover themselves — though none in the last several hundred years. They were always the first to offer service. When the old King died, they were the last to depart. If you are to gain support anywhere. High Lord, it would be from them."

Ben accepted the suggestion — although it was really less a suggestion than a caution, he thought — and departed Sterling Silver at dawn of the following day for the estates of the land barons. Questor Thews, Abernathy and the two kobolds went with him once again. Ben, the wizard and the scribe rode horseback because the journey to the Greensward was a long one. The kobolds could have ridden, too, had they chosen to do so, but kobolds in general had little use for horses, being quicker of foot and stronger of wind than the best racer that had ever run, and so almost always traveled afoot. Besides, horses were unusually skittish when ridden by kobolds. Ben had no trouble understanding that. Anything that could dispatch a timber wolf, a cave wight, and a bog wump with such ease made him skittish, too.

It was a peculiar-looking group that departed that morning. Questor led the way, his tall, brightly cloaked figure slouched across an old gray that must have been ready for pasture years ago. Ben followed on Wishbone, a sorrel with the oddly shaped white blaze that gave him his name and a propensity for seizing the bit and bolting. He did that twice with Ben hanging on for dear life each time. Questor, after the second incident, whacked him hard across the nose and threatened magic in horse tongue. That seemed to bring Wishbone to his senses. Abernathy followed atop a white-faced bay gelding and carried the King's standard with its bynow familiar insignia of the Paladin riding out from the castle at sunrise embroidered in scarlet on a field of white. It was strange indeed to see a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier with glasses and tunic riding a horse and holding a flag, but Ben kept the smile from his face, because Abernathy obviously saw nothing at all funny about it. Parsnip trailed, leading on a long set of guide ropes a pack train of donkeys with food, clothing, and bedding. Bunion had gone on ahead, sent by Questor to advise the land barons that the King of Landover wished a meeting.

"They will have no choice; they will have to receive you," Questor declared. "Courtesy dictates that they not turn away a Lord whose stature is equal to or higher than their own. Of course, they would have to receive you if you were simply a traveler seeking shelter and food, too, but that is beneath you as King."

"Very little is beneath me at this point," Ben replied.

They rode out through the mists and shadows of the early morning, skirted the shores of the lake until they were turned east, then wound slowly to the valley rim. Several times Ben Holiday glanced back through the gray, watching the stark, colorless projection of Sterling Silver against the dawn sky, her towers, battlements, and walls ravaged as if by some nameless disease. He was surprised to discover that it was hard for him to leave her. She might appear as Castle Dracula to the naked eye, and he might find her loathsome to look upon, but he had felt the warmth of her and he had touched the life within. She had been kind to him. She had made him feel welcome. He found himself wishing that he could do something to help her.

He consoled himself with the thought that one day he would.

Then the castle, the mists, and the valley disappeared behind them as the company rode east through forest and hill country toward Landover's heartland. They traveled steadily for the better part of the day, stopping once for a midday meal and several times to rest, and by dusk they were within sight of the broad sweep of fields, pastures, and farmland that comprised the Greensward.

They made camp that night within a copse of fir on a knoll overlooking pastureland given over to cattle and goats and a cluster of small huts and wooden houses some miles further east. Ben swung down gratefully from Wishbone's back when Questor brought them to a halt. It had been some time since he had ridden a horse. It had been, in truth, the better part of twenty years — and that last time had been on a date in college that he would just as soon have forgotten. Now, a world and a lifetime away, he recalled the feeling that came with a long ride — his body stiff, the land still moving about him as he tried to walk, the sensation of the horse still locked between his knees, though he was dismounted. He knew that by tomorrow he would be sore from the shoulders down.

"Would you walk with me a moment. High Lord?" Questor asked and beckoned to him. Ben wanted to throttle the wizard for even suggesting the idea, but he forced his irritation aside and went.

They walked only a short distance to the edge of the knoll and stood shoulder to shoulder staring out across the flatlands below.

Questor's arm swept the horizon. "The Greensward, High Lord — the estates of the old families, the baronies of Landover. Their domain encompasses more than half of the kingdom. There were but twenty families at last count, and those twenty rule all of the land, its thralls, their villages and families and stock — subject to the King's will, of course."

"Of course." Ben looked out over the valley. "You said twenty families at last count. What do you mean, 'at last count'?"

The wizard shrugged. "Families merge through marriage. Families accept wardship from stronger families. Families die out — sometimes with a little help."

Ben glanced at him from the corner of one eye. "Charming. They don't all get along so well, then, I gather?"

"Just so. United under the old King, they were less disposed to take advantage of one another. Divided under no monarch, they are a suspicious and at times scheming lot."

"A circumstance that I might be able to use to my advantage, you think?"

The owlish face glanced over. "There is that possibility."

Ben nodded. "There is also the possibiity that their suspicions and schemes might result in them trying to do away with me."

"Tch-tch," Questor clucked. "I will be with you. High Lord. Besides, they are unlikely to waste time and effort trying to do away with a King that they regard as essentially worthless. They refused, after all, even to attend your coronation."

"You are a wellspring of inspiration," Ben admonished dryly. "Whatever would I do without your support?"

"Oh, well, that is all part of my service to the throne." Questor either missed the dig entirely or was ignoring it.

"So tell me what else I should know."

"Just this." Questor faced him. "In better times, these lands were fertile, the stock fatted, and there were willing thralls enough to make up a dozen armies to serve Landover's King. Much has changed for the worse, as you will see on tomorrow's journey in. But what has changed can be put right again — if you can find a way to secure the pledge of the Greensward's Lords."

He glanced over once more, turned, and walked back toward the camp. Ben watched him go and shook his head in disbelief. "I'll work on it," he muttered.

It took an hour longer than it should have done to set camp. There were tents to be put up, and Questor took it upon himself to aid the process through use of his magic. The magic inflated the tents like balloons and sent them floating skyward to lodge in the highest tree limbs, and it required all of Parsnip's considerable athletic skill to bring them down once more. The horses bolted from their tether when Abernathy barked — to his acute embarrassment — after catching sight of a stray farm cat, and it was another hour until they could be caught and brought back around. Then supplies were unloaded, the King's standards set, the stock fed and watered, and the bedding placed — all without incident.

Dinner, however, was a disaster. There was a stew with beef and vegetables which smelled delicious while cooking, but lost some of its flavor after Questor fueled the cooking fire with a touch of quickening which created a miniature inferno that left the kettle and its contents black and crusted. The fruit of the Bonnie Blues was moderately satisfying, but Ben would have preferred at least one plate of the stew. Questor and Abernathy carped about the behavior of men and dogs, and Parsnip hissed at them both. Ben began to consider rescinding his standing invitation to have them join him for his meals.

It was nearing bedtime when Bunion returned from his journey to the Greensward to advise them that the land barons would be waiting to receive Landover's new King on his arrival at Rhyndweir. Ben didn't know what Rhyndweir was and he didn't care. He was too tired and fed up to care and he went to sleep without worrying about it.

They reached Rhyndweir by mid-afternoon of the following day, and Ben had an opportunity to see for himself exactly what it was. Rhyndweir was a monstrous, sprawling castle seated atop a broad plateau at the joining of two rivers. Towers and parapets lifted skyward out of fortress walls more than a hundred feet high to lance into the mist-shrouded blue of the mid-afternoon skies. They had been traveling east in the Greensward since sunrise, following the labyrinth roadways that wound down through the valley's lowlands past fields and villages, past farmers' cottages and herdsmen's huts. Once or twice there had been the sight of castle walls in the distance, far from where they traveled and almost miragelike in the shimmer of Landover's sun. But none had been as grand and awesome as Rhyndweir.

Ben shook his head. Sterling Silver was so much the worse by comparison that he hated to think about it.

The homesteads and villages of the common people of the Greensward did not compare favorably either. The fields looked seedy and the crops appeared to be afflicted with various forms of blight. The cottages and huts of the farmers and herdsmen looked ill-kept, as if their owners no longer took pride in them. The shops and stands of the villages looked dingy and weathered. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Questor nodded knowingly at Ben's glance. The Lords of the Greensward spent too much time at each other's throats.

Ben turned his attention back again to Rhyndweir. He studied the castle in silence as the little company approached from the valley it commanded on a roadway running parallel to the northernmost of the rivers. A scattering of village shops and cottages lined the juncture of the rivers in the broad shadow of the castle, forming a threshold to its gates. Thralls watched curiously as the company crossed a wooden bridge spanning to the castle approach, their tools lowered, their heads lifted in silent contemplation. Many had the same worn but expectant look on their faces as those who had come to the Heart.

"They have not seen a King of Landover make this journey to their master's castle in twenty years. High Lord," Questor spoke softly at his elbow. "You are the first."

"No one else made the effort?" Ben asked.

"No one else," Questor replied.

Their horses' hooves clumped off the bridge planks and thudded softly in the dusty earth. Ahead, the roadway lifted toward the walls of the castle and the open gates. Pennants flew from the parapets at every turn, brilliant silks fluttering in the wind. Banners hung from stanchions above the gates, and heralds stepped forward to sound their trumpets in shrill blasts that shattered the afternoon quiet. Lines of knights on horseback formed an honor guard on either side of the gateway, lances lifted in salute.

"This seems a little much, given everyone's attitude about the coronation, don't you think?" Ben muttered. His stomach had the same hollow feeling it always developed before major court appearances.

Questor's owlish face was screwed into a knot. "Yes, this does appear to be a bit overdone."

"When anyone's this overly friendly in my world, it's time to watch your backside."

"You are in no danger, High Lord," the wizard responded quickly.

Ben smiled and said nothing. They had reached the gates, passing down the corridor formed by the honor guard, the blare of the trumpets still ringing across the valley. Ben took a quick count. There were at least a hundred knights in the guard. Armor and weapons glistened brightly. Visored helmets stared straight ahead. The knights were iron statues that kept their place and did not stir. Ben sat rigid atop his mount. Every muscle in his body ached from yesterday's ride, but he refused to let the pain show. This wasn't just a reception line — this was a show of strength. This looked to be a case of who could impress whom. He glanced back at his little entourage of Questor, Abernathy and the kobolds and wished he had a bit more to work with.

They rode into the shadow of the gateway through the towering walls and the great woven banners. A delegation waited in the court ahead, a gathering of men afoot, robed and jeweled.

"The Lords of the Greensward," Questor breathed softly to Ben. "The tall one, the one who stands foremost, is Kallendbor, master of Rhyndweir. His is the largest of the estates, and he the most powerful of the Lords. Look for him to take the lead in what is to follow."

Ben nodded and said nothing. He had forgotten the ache in his body, and his stomach had settled. Already, he was considering what he would say — very much as if he were about to argue a case in court. He supposed that was what he was going to have to do, in a sense. It was going to be interesting.

Questor brought the company to a halt a dozen yards from the assembly of Lords and looked at Ben. Together, they dismounted. Pages came forward to take the reins. Abernathy remained on his horse, the King's banner hanging limp from its staff. Parsnip and Bunion stood to either side, crouched expectantly. No one looked very comfortable.

Kallendbor detached himself from the assemblage and came forward. Ignoring Ben, he addressed himself to Questor, inclining his head briefly. "Well met, Questor Thews. I see that you have brought our newest King to visit us."

Ben stepped in front of the wizard at once. "It was my decision to come here. Lord Kallendbor. I thought it would be quicker to visit you than to wait for you to visit me."

There was a moment of silence as the two faced each other. Kallendbor's eyes narrowed slightly, but his face remained expressionless. He was taller than Ben by several inches, heavier by twenty pounds, red-haired and bearded, and heavily muscled. He held himself erect, conveying the impression that he was looking down on Ben.

"Coronations occur so frequently these days in Landover that it is difficult to attend them all," he said pointedly.

"I expect the number to undergo a sharp decline," Ben replied. "Mine will be the last for some time."

"The last, you believe?" The other's smile was sardonic. "That may prove a difficult expectation to fulfill."

"Perhaps. But I intend to fulfill it, nevertheless. Please understand this, Lord Kallendbor. I am not like the others who came into Landover and left again at the first hint of trouble. I came here to be King, and King is what I will be."

"The purchase of a crown does not necessarily make one a King," one of the others muttered from the cluster behind Kallendbor.

"Nor does being born into the right family necessarily make one a Lord," Ben shot back quickly. "Nor purchase of an estate, nor marriage into one, nor theft by deception, nor conquest by arms, nor any of a dozen other available schemes and artifices used since the dawn of time — none of these make either Lords or Kings. Laws make Lords and Kings, if there is to be any order in life. Your laws. Lords of the Greensward, have made me King of Landover."

"Laws older than we and not of our making," Kallendbor growled.

"Laws to which, nevertheless, you are bound," Ben answered.

There was quick murmur of voices and angry looks. Kallendbor studied him wordlessly. Then he bowed, his face still expressionless. "You show initiative in coming here to meet with us, High Lord. Be welcome, then. There is no need for us to stand further in this court. Come into the hall and share dinner. Bathe first, if you wish. Rest a bit — you look tired. Rooms have been set aside for you. We can talk later."

Ben nodded in reply, beckoned to the others of the little company, and together they followed the Lords of the Greensward across the courtyard and into the great hall beyond. Light from high, arched windows that were glassed and latticed flooded the passageways they followed, lending a bright and airy feel to the castle.

Ben leaned close to Questor. "How do you think we are doing so far?"

"They have agreed to board us," the other whispered back. "That is more than I expected them to do."

"It is? That's not what you said earlier!"

"I know. But I saw no reason to worry you."

Ben stared at him momentarily, then shook his head. "You never cease to amaze me, Questor."

"Hmmmmm?"

"Never mind. How far can we trust these people?"

The wizard slouched ahead, smiling. "About as far as piglets hop. I would keep my wits about me at dinner, if I were you."

What followed was a leisurely period of rest and relaxation in the rooms appointed for Landover's King and his entourage. There were sleeping rooms for all, baths with hot water and sweet soaps, fresh clothing, and bottles of wine. Ben took advantage of all but the wine. His experiences with wine thus far had been less than rewarding. Besides, he trusted Kallendbor and the others no farther than Questor, and he wanted a sharp wit about him when it came time to state his case. He left the wine unopened on the serving tray and noticed that the others did the same.

The call to dinner came at sunset. Dinner was a sumptuous affair served in the castle's great hall at a long tressel table filled with foodstuffs and dozens of additional bottles of wine. Ben left the wine alone once more. He was beginning to feel paranoid about it, but that couldn't be helped. He sat at the center of the long dinner table with Kallendbor on his right and a Lord named Strehan on his left. Questor had been placed at one end of the table, Abernathy and the kobolds at another, smaller table. Ben saw at once that he was being deliberately isolated. He thought briefly about arguing the placement, but then decided to let the matter pass. He would be tested sooner or later, and it might as well begin here. It was important that he convince the Lords of the Greensward that he was capable of standing alone.

Conversation was pleasant, but minimal for the first part of the meal, and it was not until the main course of pork roast and young pheasant was nearly gone that the subject of the Kingship was broached once more. Ben was wondering idly if the Lords of the Greensward always ate so well or if this was a deliberate effort to impress him, when Kallendbor spoke.

"You seem a man of some determination. High Lord," the other complimented and lifted his glass in salute.

Ben nodded in response, but left his glass on the table.

Kallendbor drank and set the glass carefully down before him. "We would not poison a King of Landover if we wanted him dead, you know. We would simply wait for the Mark to dispatch him for us."

Ben smiled disarmingly. "Is that what you have planned for me?"

The weathered face creased with amusement. Scars showed white against the tan. "We have nothing bad planned for you. We have nothing planned at all. We are here to listen to what you have planned for us, High Lord."

"We are loyal subjects to the throne, and we stand always with the King," Strehan added from the other side. "But there has been a problem of late knowing just who that King is to be."

"We would serve loyally if we could determine that the King we are asked to serve is a true King and not simply a Play King whose interests are his own and not in keeping with ours," Kallendbor continued. "Since the death of the old King and the exile of his son, we have been subjected to a barrage of false Kings who last months or weeks or even days and are gone before we can even learn their names. Pledging loyalty to such as these serves no one's interests."

"Pledging loyalty to such as these is a betrayal of those Kings that have protected the realm since time began," Strehan said. "What purpose is served in pledging to a King who can do nothing for us?"

Ben looked at him wordlessly and thought. Here comes the pitch.

"You could be another of those Kings," Strehan said.

Ben smiled. Strehan was a thin-faced, angular man, taller even than Kallendbor. "But I'm not," Ben answered.

"Then you must explain what you have planned for us, High Lord," Kallendbor insisted. "You must explain what advantage you have set aside so that we may know our pledge is well given."

Oh-ho, Ben thought. "It seems to me that the advantages of pledging ought to be obvious," he replied. "A King is a figure of central authority who governs over the whole of the land. He gives and enforces laws that are applied fairly to all. He protects against the injustices that would otherwise flourish."

"There are no injustices here in the Greensward!" Strehan snapped.

"None at all?" Ben shook his head wonderingly. "I had been given to understand that even among equals there is always dissension; and quite often, in the absence of central authority, it takes the form of violence."

Kallendbor frowned. "You think that we quarrel among ourselves?"

"I think that, if the opportunity presented itself, you might be tempted to do away with each other like that!" Ben let the shock register in their faces a moment, then bent forward. "Let's get right to the point, shall we? You need a King in Landover. There has always been a King, and there always shall be a King. It is the form of rule that the people recognize and the laws support. If you let the throne remain vacant, or if you continue to refuse to recognize whoever rightfully sits upon it, you risk everything. You are a land of diverse peoples and mounting problems. Those problems need resolution, and you cannot resolve them alone. You do not get along well with each other in the absence of the old King, and you need someone to replace him. I'm the one you need, and I will tell you why."

The rest of the table had gone quiet as the conversation between Ben and the two Lords grew more heated, and now everyone was listening. Ben came slowly to his feet.

"I came here because the Lords of the Greensward have always been the first to pledge their loyalty to Landover's throne. Questor told me that. He said it was here that I should begin, if the loose threads of the Kingship were to be pulled back together again. And it is your kingship. The throne and the laws promulgated by it belong to you and to all of the people of this valley. You have lost both and you need them back before Landover splinters so far apart that, like a broken board, it will never be made whole again. I can do that. I can do that because I do not come from Landover; I come from another world entirely. I have no prejudices to hinder me, no predetermined obligations to honor, no favorites to which I must cater. I can be honest and fair. I gave up everything I had to come here, so you may be certain that I am serious in my intentions. I have a background in the laws of my world that will allow me to interpret yours fairly.

"You need those laws to be in force, Lords of the Greensward. You need them so there can be stability in your lives beyond that brought about by force of arms. Trust comes with mutual reliance and faith — not with threats. I know that all is not tranquil between the estates. I know that all is not tranquil between the peoples of Landover. It will never be so until you agree to stand once more behind a King. History and the law require it."

"We have managed well enough up until now without a King to rule over us," one Lord interjected irritably.

"Have you, then?" Ben shook his head. "I don't think so. The Tarnish that drains the life from Sterling Silver ravages the Greensward as well. I've seen the blighted condition of your crops and the dissatisfied faces of the thralls who work them. The entire valley decays; you need a King! Look at yourselves! You don't begin to feel comfortable with one another — I can sense that much, and I'm an outsider! You are threatened by demons and by others who covet this land. Divided, you won't be able to hold on to what you have for very long, I think."

Another came to his feet. "Even if what you say is so, why should we pledge to you as High Lord? What makes you think you can do better than your predecessors?"

"Because I can!" Ben took a deep breath, and his eyes found Questor's. "Because I am stronger than they were."

"I want nothing to do with this," another Lord growled from across the table. "A pledge to you puts us at risk against the Mark and the demons that serve him!"

"You are already at risk," Ben pointed out. "If no King comes to stand against the Mark, then one day he will come into the land and claim it all. Join with me and we can stop that."

"We can stop that?" Strehan was on his feet, towering over Ben. "What hope do we have, High Lord? Have you fought in battle against demons such as the Mark? Where are your battle scars?"

Ben flushed. "If we stand together, then..."

"If we stand together, then it seems we are no better than if we stand alone!" Strehan snapped. "What use do you serve if you have no battle worth? What you ask is that the Lords of the Greensward put their own lives forward for yours!"

Voices raised loudly in agreement. Ben felt his control over the situation begin to slip.

"I ask no one to risk themselves for me," he said quickly. "I ask for an alliance with the throne, the same alliance that you had with the old King. I will ask such an alliance from all of Landover's subjects. But I ask it first of you."

"Bravely spoken, High Lord! But what if we were to ask an alliance from you?" The speaker was Kallendbor. He came slowly to his feet, standing next to Ben, his red-bearded face hard. Strehan slipped back into his seat. The other Lords went silent.

Ben glanced quickly at Questor for help, saw confusion mirrored in the wizard's owlish face, and gave up looking. He turned back to Kallendbor. "What sort of alliance did you have in mind?"

"A marriage," the other said quietly.

"A marriage?"

"Yours, High Lord — to the daughter of any house you choose. Take for a wife the child of one of us, a wife to give you children, a wife to bind you to us with blood ties." Kallendbor smiled faintly. "Then we will pledge to you. Then we will acknowledge you as Landover's King!"

There was an endless moment of silence. Ben was so stunned that for a moment he could not even comprehend what was being asked. When he managed to accept the whole of what Kallendbor had requested of him, he saw as well the truth that lay behind it. He was being asked to provide to the Lords of the Greensward a legitimate heir to the throne of Landover — one that would rule after him. He thought that, once produced, such an heir would not likely have long to wait to ascend to the throne.

"I cannot accept," he said finally. He could see in his mind's eye Annie's youthful face, and the memory of it caused him new pain. "I cannot accept because I have recently lost my own wife, and I cannot take another so soon. I cannot do it."

He saw at once that not one of them understood what he was saying. Angry looks appeared instantly on the faces of all. It might be that in Landover's baronies, as in the baronies of medieval history in his own world, marriage was mostly for convenience. He didn't know, and it was too late now to find out. He had made the wrong decision in the minds of the Lords of the Greensward.

"You are not even a whole man!" Kallendbor sneered suddenly. Shouts rang out from the other Lords in approval.

Ben stood his ground. "I am King by law."

"You are a play-King like the others! You are a fraud!"

"He wears the medallion, Lord Kallendbor!" Questor shouted out from the far end of the table, shuffling away from his seat to come around.

"He may wear it, but it does him little good!" The red-bearded Lord had his eyes fixed on Ben. The shouts from the others continued. Kallendbor played to them, his voice rising. "He does not command the Paladin, does he? He has no champion to fight for him against man or demon! He has no one but you, Questor Thews. You had best come and get him now!"

"I need no one to stand up for me!" Ben stepped between Kallendbor and the approaching wizard. "I can stand for myself against anyone!"

The instant he had said it he wished that he hadn't. The room went still. He saw the smile come immediately to Kallendbor's hard face, the glint to his eye. "Would you care to test your strength against mine, High Lord?" the other asked softly.

Ben felt the dampness of sweat beneath his arms and along the crease of his back. He recognized the trap he had stepped into, but there seemed no way out of it now. "A test of strength seldom proves anything. Lord Kallendbor," he replied, his gaze kept steady on the other.

Kallendbor's smile turned unpleasant. "I would expect a man who relies solely on laws for his protection to say that."

Anger flooded through Ben. "Very well. How would you suggest that I test my strength against yours?"

"High Lord, you cannot allow..." Questor began, but was silenced by the shouts of the others gathered about the table.

Kallendbor rubbed his bearded face slowly, considering. "Well, now, there are any number of possibilities, all of them..."

He was cut short by a sharp bark from the far end of the table. It was Abernathy who, in his excitement to be heard, had lapsed back momentarily into the form of communication basic to this breed. "Forgive me," he said quickly as the snickers began to rise. "Lord Kallendbor, you seem to have forgotten the etiquette this situation demands. You were the one to issue the challenge to a contest. It is your opponent's right, therefore, to select the game."

Kallendbor frowned. "I assumed that because he was from another world he did not know the games of this one."

"He need only know a variation of them," Abernathy replied, peering at the other over his glasses. "Excuse me for one moment, please."

He left the table walking upright, head erect. Veiled laughter rose from the gathered Lords as the dog left the room. Ben glanced quickly at Questor, who shrugged and shook his head. The wizard had no idea what the scribe was about either.

A few moments later, Abernathy was back. He carried in his hands two pairs of eight ounce boxing gloves — the ones that Ben had brought with him into Landover to keep in training.

"Fisticuffs, Lord Kallendbor," the soft-coated Wheaten Terrier announced.

Kallendbor threw back his head and laughed. "Fisticuffs? With those? I would prefer bare knuckles to leather socks filled with stuffing!"

Abernathy brought the gloves about the table to where the combatants stood. "High Lord," he bowed deeply, his soft eyes on Ben. "Perhaps it would be best if you forgave Lord Kallendbor his rash challenge. It would not do to see him injured because of his inability to master your weapons."

"No! I do not withdraw the challenge!" Kallendbor snatched one pair of gloves from the scribe and began to pull them on. Strehan turned to help him.

Abernathy passed the second pair to Ben. "He is very strong, High Lord. Watch yourself."

"I thought that you knew nothing of boxing," Ben whispered, working one glove on. Questor appeared at his side, helping him tighten the laces. "How did you know to find these?"

"I was responsible for the unpacking of your possessions when you arrived at Sterling Silver," Abernathy answered, giving Ben what might have been a smile coming from anyone else. "These gloves were there along with a magazine that demonstrated your game. I studied the pictures and drawings in the magazine. Our games are much the same. You call yours boxing. We call ours fisticuffs."

"I'll be damned!" Ben breathed.

Kallendbor had his gloves in place and was stripped to the waist. Ben glanced past Questor as he worked. Kallendbor's chest and arms rippled with muscle, and scars from battle wounds criss-crossed his body. He looked like a gladiator from the cast of Spartacus.

A space was being cleared at the center of the room, ringed by thralls in service to the castle proper and by the other Lords of the Greensward. The space was a little more than twice the size of a normal boxing ring.

"Any rules to this game?" Ben asked, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

Questor nodded. "Just one. Whoever is still standing at the end of the fight is the winner."

Ben slapped his gloves together to test the tightness of the laces and shrugged the tunic from his back. "That's it, huh? I guess I won't have any trouble remembering, will I?"

He went around the dinner table and into the makeshift ring. Kallendbor was waiting. Ben stopped momentarily at the edge of the crowd; Questor, Abernathy, and the two kobolds crowded in close beside him.

"So much for the lawyer's approach to things," he sighed.

"I will look after you, High Lord," Questor whispered hurriedly.

Ben turned. "No magic, Questor."

"But, High Lord, you cannot..."

"No magic. That's final."

The wizard grimaced and nodded reluctantly. "The medallion will protect you anyway," he muttered. But he did not sound all that sure that it would.

Ben shrugged the matter aside and stepped out into the ring. Kallendbor came at him at once, hands cocked, arms spread wide as if he intended to grapple. Ben hit him once with the left jab and sidestepped. The big man turned, grunting, and Ben hit him again, once, twice, a third time. The jabs were sharp and quick, snapping Kallendbor's head back. Ben danced away, moving smoothly, feeling the adrenalin begin to flow through his body. Kallendbor roared with fury and came at him with both arms flailing. Ben ducked, caught the blows on his arms and shoulders, then burrowed into the other's body with a flurry of quick punches, stepped away, jabbed and caught Kallendbor flush on the jaw with a full right hook.

Kallendbor went straight to the floor, a dazed look on his face. Ben danced away. He could hear Questor yelling encouragement. He could hear the oaths and shouts of the Lords of the Greensward. The blood pumped through him, and it seemed to him that he could hear the sound of his heartbeat throbbing in his ears.

Kallendbor climbed slowly back to his feet, eyes glinting with fury. He was as strong as Abernathy had warned. He would not be taken out easily.

He came at Ben once more, cautiously this time, fists held protectively before his face. The fighters feinted and jabbed, circling. Kallendbor's bearded face was flushed and angry. He pushed his gloves into Ben's, knocking them back, looking for an opening.

Then, suddenly, he charged. He was quick, and he caught Ben off balance with his rush. The blows rained into Ben, thrusting through his guard, catching him in the face. Ben danced away, his own fists jabbing back. But Kallendbor never slowed. He bore into Ben like a juggernaut, knocking him to the floor. Ben struggled back to his feet, but Kallendbor's wild blows caught him twice on the side of the head and down he went again.

The shouts of the Lords of the Greensward became a roar in Ben's ears, and there were colored lights dancing before his eyes. Kallendbor was standing over him, hitting at him with both hands, the smell of his sweat heavy in the air. Ben rolled away, careening into the ring of onlookers. Hands shoved him back. Kallendbor's boots and knees struck out at him, and he felt the pain of the blows lance through his body. He curled into a ball, his gloves tight against his face, his forearms against his chest.

He could feel the medallion he wore about his neck pressed against him.

The pain was becoming unbearable. He knew he was going to lose consciousness if he did not do something quickly. He rolled to his knees, bracing. When Kallendbor rushed at him again, he grappled desperately at the other's legs, pulled him off balance and tumbled him to the floor.

Ben came back to his feet at once, shaking the dizziness from his head, gloves cocked before his face. Kallendbor was up as well, his breath hissing from between his teeth. A strange light had appeared from behind the big man and the crowd of onlookers. It was a light that seemed to be growing brighter. Ben shook his head, trying to concentrate on the advancing Kallendbor. But now others were aware of the light as well. Heads had begun to turn and the crowd to part as the light advanced toward them. There was a figure within the light, a knight in battered, worn armor, helmet visor closed.

There was an audible gasp from the crowd of Lords and thralls.

The knight was the Paladin.

The assemblage stared, murmurs rippling through the sudden silence as the figure shimmered in the light. Some dropped to their knees, crying out in the same manner as had the demons when the Paladin had appeared to them in the Heart. Kallendbor stood uncertainly at the center of the circle, hands lowered, eyes turned away now from Ben to view the specter.

The Paladin shimmered a moment longer in the light, and then he faded back again and was gone. The light died away into evening dark.

Kallendbor wheeled at once on Ben. "What trickery is this, play-King? Why do you bring that ghost into Rhyndweir?"

Ben shook his head angrily. "I brought nothing but..."

Questor cut the rest of what he was going to say short. "Lord Kallendbor, you mistake what has happened here. Twice before, the Paladin has appeared when the High Lord's safety was threatened. You are being warned. Lords of the Greensward, that this man, Ben Holiday, is the true King of Landover!"

"We are warned by a ghost in a light?" Kallendbor laughed, spitting blood from his cracked lips. "You have used your magic to try to frighten us, Questor Thews, and you have failed!"

He looked at Ben with disdain. "This game is finished. I want no more of you or your traveling circus. I want no part of you as my King!"

The shouts of the other Lords echoed his declaration. Ben stood where he was. "Whether you want any part of me or not, I am King nevertheless!" he snapped. "You may ignore me as you would ignore any truth, but I will remain a fact of your life! You think to ignore the laws that made me King, Kallendbor, but you will not be able to do so forever! I will find a way to see that you cannot!"

"You need not look far, play-King!" Kallendbor was beside himself with fury. He shrugged out of the boxing gloves and threw them at Ben. "You claim to be King of Landover? You claim to command the services of the Paladin? Very well, prove that you truly are what you claim by ridding us of the one plague on our existence that we cannot ourselves dismiss! Rid us of Strabo! Rid us of the dragon!"

He stalked forward until he was almost on top of Ben. "Twenty years now the dragon has raided our stock and destroyed our property. We have hunted him from one end of Landover to the other, but he has the magic of the old world and we cannot kill him. You are heir to the old magic, too — if you are who you claim! So rid us of the dragon, play-King, and then I will bow to you as High Lord and pledge you my life!"

A roar of approval rose from the throats of all assembled. "Rid us of the dragon!" they cried as one. Ben's eyes remained locked on Kallendbor's.

"Until then, I will ignore you as I would ignore the ants that crawl beneath my feet!" Kallendbor whispered in his face.

He wheeled and stalked from the circle, the other Lords following after. Slowly, the room began to empty. Ben was left alone with Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds. The four came forward to remove his gloves and to clean the blood and sweat from his face and body.

"What's all this about the dragon?" Ben demanded immediately.

"Later, High Lord," Questor answered, dabbing at a bruise already beginning to form under one eye. "A bath and a night's sleep are in order first."

Ben shook his head. "Not in this place! I wouldn't spend another moment here if it meant hiking out across a damn desert! Pack everything. We're leaving right now. We'll talk about the dragon on the way."

"But, High Lord..."

"Now, Questor!"

No one chose to argue the point further. An hour later their little company was back on the road traveling west out of Rhyndweir into the night.

Willow

Ben's decision to leave Rhyndweir so abruptly proved to be a poor one. The company had barely cleared the outskirts of the village shops and cottages lining the castle's approach when it began to rain. The rain came slowly at first, a spattering of drops against their faces, light and teasing. Then the drops became a shower, and the shower became a downpour. Clouds blocked away the land's moons and the distant stars, and everything turned as black as pitch. Wind howled across the flat, empty pastures and fields of the Greensward, thrusting at the travelers like a giant's breath. It took only moments for the company to decide to seek immediate shelter, but they were already soaked to the bone by then.

They spent the night in a dilapidated, empty barn in which stock had once been housed. Rain blew through holes in the walls and roofing, and there were few dry spots to be found. The air turned chill, and the damp clothing seemed colder than before. Ben and his companions huddled together in the dark in a large horse stall at one end of the bam. It was dryer there than anywhere else in the building, and there was straw on which to bed. A fire was out of the question, so everyone had to make do with a quick change of clothing and a sharing of the blankets from their bedding. Questor offered to try his magic on a flameless warming device he had once successfully conjured up, but Ben would not allow it. Questor's magic evidenced an unpleasant propensity for backfiring, and their barn was the only shelter in sight. Besides, Ben reasoned obstinately, weathering out the storm in such poor surroundings seemed appropriate punishment for the way he had botched things at Rhyndweir.

"I blew it, Questor," he said to the other as they huddled in the dark and listened to the rainfall drum on the old barn's roof.

"Hmmmmm?" Questor's attention was concentrated on wiping dirt and blood from the numerous cuts and abrasions Ben had suffered during his fight with Kallendbor.

"I screwed up. I mishandled the whole thing. I let Kallendbor trick me into accepting his stupid challenge. I lost my composure; I let the entire affair get out of hand." He sighed and leaned back against the stall side. "I should have done a better job of arguing my case. Some lawyer, right? Some King!"

"I think you handled matters rather well, High Lord." Ben looked at him skeptically. "You do?"

"It was obviously intended that you should fail in your attempt to gain a pledge from the Lords of the Greensward unless you were willing to gain that pledge on their terms. Had you agreed to marry a daughter of one of their households, the pledge would have been yours. You would have had a wife and a dozen in-laws for the balance of your reign as King — a reign that would have been considerably shorter than you would have liked." The wizard shrugged. "But you knew what they intended as well as I, didn't you?"

"I knew."

"So you were right to refuse the offer, and I think you showed great composure under the circumstances. I think that if the game had been allowed to continue, you might have beaten him."

Ben laughed. "I appreciate the vote of confidence. I notice, however, that you left nothing to chance."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you ignored my order not to use the magic and conjured up that image of the Paladin when it looked as if I was going down for the count!"

The owlish face studied him, a faint outline in the dark. Questor set aside the bloodied cloths. "I did nothing of the sort. High Lord. That was the Paladin."

There was a long silence. "Then he has come three times now," Ben whispered finally, his bewilderment evident.

"He came when I was caught in the time passage with the Mark, he came when the demons appeared at the coronation, and now he has come to the Greensward. But he seems just exactly what you called him, Questor — a ghost! He looks as if he's only an image made of light! What is he really?"

The other shrugged. "Maybe what he appears — maybe something more."

Ben hunched his knees up close against his body, trying to stay warm. "I think that he's out there. I think that he's trying to come back again." He looked at Questor for confirmation.

Questor shook his head. "I do not know, High Lord. Maybe so."

"What was it that brought him in the past? There must be something you can tell me about him — about why and how he appeared to the old King."

"He appeared when he was summoned," the other replied. "The summons has always come from the wearer of the medallion. The medallion is a part of the magic, High Lord. There is a link between it, the Kings of Landover, and the Paladin. But only the Kings of Landover have ever fully understood what that link was."

Ben pulled the medallion from beneath his tunic and studied it. "Maybe if I rub it, or talk to it, or just grasp it — maybe that will bring the Paladin. What do you think?"

Questor shrugged. Ben tried all three and nothing happened. He tried wishing for the Paladin's appearance, hands clutched about the medallion so tightly he could feel the impression of its carved surface. Nothing happened.

"I suppose I should have known it wouldn't be that easy." He sighed and dropped the medallion back down the front of his tunic, feeling it catch on the chain that lay looped about his neck. He looked up through a hole in the barn roof as the wind rattled the shingles against their fastenings. "Tell me about the dragon and the Lords of the Greensward."

The wizard's stooped form bent closer still. "You heard most of it from Kallendbor yourself. The Lords of the Greensward are at war with Strabo. The dragon is their nemesis. He has preyed upon them for the better part of twenty years — ever since the old King died. He burns their crops and their buildings; he devours their livestock and occasionally their thralls. He hunts their lands at will, and they are powerless to stop it."

"Because the dragon is part of the magic — isn't that it?"

"Yes, High Lord. Strabo is the last of his kind. He was a creature of the world of fairy until his exile thousands of years ago. He cannot be harmed by mortal weapons, only by the magic from which he was created. That was why Kallendbor felt safe in challenging you to rid him of the dragon — he believes you a fraud. A true King of Landover would command the magic of the medallion and could summon the Paladin to do his bidding."

Ben nodded. "It all comes back to the Paladin, doesn't it? Tell me, Questor, why is it that the dragon hunts the Greensward as he does?"

The wizard smiled. "He is a dragon."

"Yes, I know. But he didn't always hunt like this, I gather — at least, not while the old King lived."

"True. He kept to his own land in times previous. Perhaps he feared the old King. Perhaps the Paladin kept him there until the old King was dead. Your guess is as good as mine."

Ben grunted irritably and leaned back against the stall side. His entire body hurt. "Why is it that you can't manage any answer to any of these questions, damn it? You're supposed to be the court wizard and my personal advisor, but you don't seem to know much of anything!"

Questor looked away. "I do the best I can, High Lord."

Ben immediately regretted his words. He touched the other on the shoulder. "I know. I'm sorry I said that."

"I was away from the court when the old King was alive, and my half-brother and I were never close. Had we been close, perhaps I could have learned at least some of the answers to your questions."

"Forget it, Questor. I'm sorry I said anything."

"It has not been easy for me either, you know."

"I know, I know."

"I have had to master the magic practically alone. I have had no tutor, no master to instruct me. I have had to preserve the throne of Landover while shepherding about a flock of Kings who were frightened by the sight of their own shadow and who wanted nothing more challenging than the spectacle of knights at a joust!" His voice was rising. "I have given everything that I have so that the monarchy might endure, even while beset by miseries that would break the back of an ordinary..."

Abernathy's growl interrupted rudely. "Please, wizard, enough of your soliloquies! We are already bored to tears by this account of your sufferings and can bear no more!"

Questor's mouth snapped shut with an audible click of his teeth.

Ben smiled in spite of himself. It hurt his face to do so. "I hope that I do not number among those unfortunate Kings you have just described, Questor," he said.

The other's baleful gaze was still turned on Abernathy. "Hardly."

"Good. Tell me one thing more, then. Can we rely on Kallendbor to be as good as his word?"

Questor looked back now. "About the dragon — yes. He swore an oath."

Ben nodded. "Then we must find a way to get rid of the dragon."

There was an endless moment of silence. Ben could sense the others looking at each other in the dark. "Any ideas as to how we go about doing that?" he asked.

Questor shook his head. "It has never been done."

"There is a first time for everything," Ben replied lightly, wondering as he said it just whom it was he was trying to convince. "You said that it would take magic to rid us of the dragon. Who could help us find that magic?"

Questor considered. "Nightshade, of course. She is the most powerful of those come from the world of fairy. But she is as dangerous as the dragon. I think we might have better luck with the River Master. He, at least, has proven loyal to the Kings of Landover in the past."

"Is he a creature of magic?"

"He was, once upon a time. He has been gone from the world of fairy for centuries. Still, he retains something of the knowledge of the old ways and may have help to offer. It was to him that I would have suggested we go next — even if the Lords of the Greensward had given their pledge."

Ben nodded. "Then it's settled. Tomorrow we travel to the country of the River Master." He stretched, hunched down into his blankets, hesitated a moment and said, "This may not count for much, but I want to thank you all for standing by me."

There was a mutter of acknowledgment and the sound of the others rolling into their bed coverings. Everything was silent for a moment except for the sound of the rain falling and the soft rush of the wind.

Then Abernathy spoke. "High Lord, would it be asking too much that we refrain from camping out in barns after tonight? I think there are fleas in this straw."

Ben smiled broadly and drifted off to sleep.

Daybreak brought an end to the rain, and a glimmer of sunshine appeared through the haze of mist and clouds that lingered on. The little company resumed the journey through the valley of Landover, this time turning south for the country of the River Master. They traveled all day, Ben, Questor and Abernathy on horseback, the kobolds afoot. Once again, Bunion went ahead to announce their coming. They passed from the lowland estates of the Lords of the Greensward at midafternoon, leaving behind their broad, open stretches of meadow and farmland, and by dusk were deep into the rolling hill country of the River Master.

The color of life was different here, Ben saw. The cast of things was brighter and truer — as if the failing of the magic had not penetrated so deeply. It was a country of lakes and rivers nestled within hollows and valleys, of orchards and woods scattered on gentle slopes, of grasses and ferns that shimmered in the wind like the waves of some ocean. The mists were thicker in the hill country, trapped in pockets like harnessed clouds, stirring and wending their way from hollow to valley and back again. But the greens of grasses and trees and the blues of lakes and rivers were brighter than in the Greensward, and the splashes of pinks, crimsons, and lavenders did not have that wintry tone than marked so distinctly the plains. Even the Bonnie Blues seemed not so blighted, though darkening spots still marred their beauty.

Ben asked Questor why this was.

"The River Master and those who serve him are closer to the old ways than most. Bits and pieces of the magic are still theirs to command. What magic they still retain they use to keep the earth and waters of their homeland clean." Questor gave a cursory glance about and then shrugged. "The River Master's magic protects against a failing of the land's magic only marginally. Already, signs of wilt and graying are evident. The River Master and his followers fight a holding action at best. The land will fail here in the end as it fails everywhere else."

"All because Landover has no King?" Ben still found the correlation between the two difficult to accept.

"Had no King, High Lord — no King for twenty years."

"The thirty-two failures don't count for much, I gather?"

"Against a failing of the magic of the sort you see now? Nothing. You will be the first to count for anything."

Maybe yes, maybe no, Ben thought grimly, reminded Of his lack of success with the Lords of the Greensward. "I really don't understand — doesn't anyone recognize the problem? I mean, the land is dying all about them and it's all because they can't get together long enough to settle on a King!"

"I do not think they perceive matters quite that way, High Lord," Abernathy said quietly, edging forward on his horse.

Ben glanced back. "What do you mean?"

"He means that the connection between the loss of a King and the failing of the land's magic is one that only I have made," Questor interrupted, obviously irritated with the scribe. "He means that no one else sees the problem the same way I do."

Ben frowned. "Well, what if they're right and you're wrong?"

Questor's owlish face tightened into a knot. "Then everything you and I are trying to do is a colossal waste of time! But it happens that they are not right and I am not wrong!" Questor glared back at Abernathy momentarily and than faced forward. "I have had twenty years to consider the problem. High Lord. I have observed and studied; I have employed what magic I command to test my theory. It's with some confidence that I tell you that Landover must have a King again if it is to survive!"

He was so adamant in his defense that Ben remained silent. It was Abernathy who spoke first.

"If you have finished momentarily with your attempt at self-vindication, Questor Thews, perhaps you will allow me to get a word in edgewise to explain what I really meant when I said others do not perceive matters as we." He looked down at Questor over the rims of his glasses, while the wizard stiffened in his saddle but refused to turn. "What I meant was that the lack of perception on the part of others was not as regards the problem, but the solution to it. Most see quite clearly that the failing of the magic came about with the death of the old King. But none agree that coronation of a new King will necessarily solve the problem. Some believe restrictions should be placed on the solution sought. Some believe another solution altogether should be sought. Some believe no solution should be sought at all."

"No solution at all — who thinks that?" Ben asked disbelievingly.

"Nightshade thinks that." Questor reined his horse back to them, his irritation with Abernathy momentarily put aside. "She cares only for the Deep Fell, and her own magic keeps the hollows as she wishes them. Should the magic of the land fail, hers would be the most powerful."

"The Lords of the Greensward would accept one of their own as King, but no other," Abernathy added to his explanation. "They accept the solution, but would place restrictions on it."

"And the River Master seeks to find another solution altogether — his solution being one of self-healing," Questor finished.

"That was what I meant in the first place," Abernathy huffed.

The wizard shrugged. "Then you should have said so." Shadows were gathering rapidly across the land as they turned their horses into a small grove of poplar to set camp for the night. A wooded ridgeline crested the skyline west, and the sun had already settled into its branches, filtering daylight into streamers of hazy gold. A lake stretched south of their campsite, a broad stretch of shimmering gray water over which mist floated in thick clouds while trees screened away dozens of tiny inlets and coves. Birds flew in wide, lazy circles against the night.

"The lake is called Irrylyn," Questor told Ben as they dismounted and handed the reins of their horses to Parsnip. "It is said that, on certain nights of the high summer, the sprites and nymphs of the River Master bathe within these waters to keep their youth."

"That should be exciting." Ben yawned and stretched, wishing nothing more exciting at this point than a good night's sleep.

"Some believe that the waters have the power to preserve youth." Questor was caught up in his musings. "Some believe that the waters can turn back old age and make one young again."

"Some believe anything." Abernathy grunted, shaking himself until his hair ruffled back from beneath the dust that matted it. "I have washed in those waters more than once and gained nothing for my efforts beyond a better smell."

"Something you might give thought to now," Questor advised, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Abernathy growled in response and padded off into the dark. Ben watched him go, then turned to Questor. "That sounds like a good idea for me, as well, Questor. I feel like somebody's doormat. Is there any reason I can't wash off some of this dirt?"

"No reason at all, High Lord." The wizard was already turning away, searching for Parsnip. "I suppose that I had better see to dinner."

Ben started for the lake and then stopped. "Anything dangerous down there that I ought to know about?" he called back, remembering suddenly the bog wump, the cave wight, and whatever else it was he hadn't even seen during his morning run about Sterling Silver.

But Questor was already out of hearing, his stooped form a vague shadow in the mists. Ben hesitated, staring after him, then shrugged and started for the lake once more. If nymphs and sprites could bathe in the waters of the Irrylyn, how dangerous could it be? Besides, Abernathy was already down there.

He picked his way through the shadows to the water's edge. The lake spread away before him, a sheen of silver that mirrored trailers of mist and the colored spheres of Landover's moons. Willows, cottonwood, and cedar canopied him, like drooping giants against the failing light, and birds called sharply through the twilight. Ben stripped off his clothes and boots, searching the dark for Abernathy. The dog was nowhere in sight, and he could not hear him moving.

Naked, he stepped out into the water. Shock registered in his face. The water was warm! It was like a bath — a soft, pleasant heat that soothed and relaxed the muscles of the body. He reached down and touched it with his hand, certain that the difference in air and water temperature must account for the odd sensation of warmth. But, no, the water was truly warm — as if a giant hot springs.

He shook his head. Cautiously, he stepped out until he was knee-deep in the lake, the shadow of his body stretched back against the waters. Something else was odd. It felt as if he were walking in sand. He reached down again and brought up a handful of the lake bottom. It was sand! He checked it carefully in the moonlight to make certain. He was inland at a forested lake where there should only have been mud or rock, and instead there was sand!

He walked ahead, beginning to wonder if perhaps there was indeed some sort of magic at work in the Irrylyn. He glanced about once again for some sign of Abernathy, but the dog was missing. Slowly he lowered himself neck-deep into the water, feeling its warmth soak through him, giving himself over to the sensation. He was several dozen yards from shore by now, the slope from the water's edge a gradual one that receded no more than several inches every ten feet or so. He swam into the dark, stretching his body out, breathing at regular intervals. When he came up for air, he saw a second inlet curve back from his own and swam toward it. It was tiny, barely a hundred feet across, and he swam past it toward a third. He switched from the crawl to a soundless breaststroke, head lifted toward his destination. Moonlight flooded the water with streamers of color, and the mist snaked past in shadowy screens of gray. Ben closed his eyes and swam.

The third inlet was smaller still, barely two dozen yards wide. Rushes screened the shoreline, and cedars and willows canopied above the waters, throwing dark shadows toward the lake. Ben dove beneath the water and swam silently into the cove, pulling his way toward the shallows.

He surfaced a dozen yards from the shoreline — and a woman was directly in front of him. She stood not ten feet away, a little more than ankle-deep in the lake's waters, as naked as he. She made no attempt to turn away or to cover herself. She was like a frightened animal caught in the light, frozen in that split second of hesitation before it would be gone.

Ben Holiday stared, seeing momentarily in his mind someone he had thought forever lost. Water ran down into his eyes and he blinked it away.

"Annie?" he whispered in disbelief.

Then the shadows and the mist shifted where they fell across her, and he saw that she was not Annie — that she was someone else.

And perhaps something else as well.

Her skin was pale green, smooth and flawless and almost silvery as the waters of the Irrylyn shimmered against it. Her hair was green as well, deep forest green, the tresses tumbling to her waist, braided with flowers and ribbons. But her hair grew in narrow lines along the backs other forearms as well and along the backs of her calves, silken manes that stirred gently with the whisper of the night wind over the lake.

"Who are you?" she asked softly.

He could not bring himself to answer. He was seeing her clearly now, finding her exquisite beyond anything he would have imagined possible. She was an artist's flawless rendering of a fairy queen brought suddenly to life. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

She came forward a step in the moonlight. Her face was so youthful that it made her seem hardly more than a girl. But her body...

"Who are you?" she repeated.

"Ben." He could barely make himself answer, and it never occurred to him to answer any other way.

"I am Willow," she told him. "I belong to you now."

He was stunned anew. She came toward him, her body swaying with the movement, and now it was he who had become the frightened animal poised to flee.

"Ben." Her voice assumed a sweet, lilting cadence as she spoke to him. "I am a sylph, the child of a sprite become human and a wood nymph stayed wild. I was conceived on the midyear's passing in the heat of the eight moons full, and my fates were woven in the vines and flowers of the gardens in which my parents lay. Twice each year, the fates decreed, I was to steal to the Irrylyn in darkness and bathe in her waters. To the man who saw me thus, and to no other, would I belong."

Ben shook his head quickly, his mouth working. "But that's craz... that's not right! I don't even know you! You don't know me!"

She slowed before him, close enough now that she might reach out and touch him. He wanted her to do that. The need for that touch burned through him. He fought against it with everything he could muster, feeling trapped in the emotions that rushed through him.

"Ben." She whispered his name and the sound of it seemed to wrap about him. "I belong to you. I feel that it is so. I sense that the fates were right. I am given, as with the sylphs of old. I am given to the one who sees me thus." Her face lifted, the perfect features radiating back the rainbow colors of the moons. "You must take me, Ben."

He could not force his eyes away from her. "Willow." He used her name now, desperate to turn back the emotions that raged through him. "I cannot take... what does not belong to me. I am not even from this world. Willow. I barely know..."

"Ben," she whispered urgently, cutting short the rest of what he would say. "Nothing matters but that this has happened. I belong to you." She came a step closer. "Touch me, Ben."

His hand came up. Thoughts of Annie flashed with lightning clarity through his mind, and still his hand came up. The warmth of the waters of the Irrylyn and the air about him wrapped him so close that it seemed he could not breathe. The fingers of her hand touched his.

"Come away with me, Ben," she whispered.

Fire burned through him, a white-hot heat that consumed his reason. She was the need he had never known. He could not refuse her. Colors and warmth blinded him to everything but her, and the whole of the world about him dropped away. His hand closed tightly about hers, and he felt them join.

"Come away with me, now." Her body pressed close.

He reached for her, his arms wrapping her close, the softness of her body astonishing to him.

"High Lord!"

Everything blurred. There was a crashing of underbrush and the sound of footsteps. Rushes stirred, and the silence of the evening was shattered. Willow slipped from his arms.

"High Lord!"

Abernathy shoved his way into view at the shore's edge, panting with near exhaustion, his glasses askew on his furry nose. Ben stared at him in stunned silence, then glanced wildly about. He stood in the tiny inlet alone, naked and shivering now. Willow was gone.

"Goodness, do not wander off like that again without one of us!" Abernathy snapped, a mix of irritation and relief in his voice. "I would have thought that your experience at Sterling Silver would have been lesson enough!"

Ben barely heard him. He was scanning the inlet waters and shoreline for Willow. The need for her still burned through him like fire, and he could think of nothing else. But she was nowhere to be found.

Abernathy sat back on his haunches, grumbling to himself. "Well, I suppose that it is not your fault. It is mostly the fault of Questor Thews. You did tell him that you wished to bathe in the lake and he should have known better than to send you off without Parsnip for company. The wizard seems incapable of understanding the risks this land poses for you." He paused. "High Lord? Are you all right?"

"Yes," Ben answered at once. Had Willow been some sort of bizarre hallucination? She had seemed so real...

"You appear a bit distressed," Abernathy said.

"No, no, I'm fine..." He trailed off. "I just thought that I... saw something, I guess."

He turned then and moved to the shoreline, stepping from the waters of the Irrylyn to dry ground. Abernathy had brought a blanket and wrapped it about him. Ben pulled the blanket close.

"Dinner is waiting, High Lord," the dog advised, studying Ben closely over the rims of his glasses. Carefully, he straightened them. "Perhaps some soup will warm you."

Ben gave a perfunctory nod. "Sounds good." He hesitated. "Abernathy, do you know what a sylph is?"

The dog studied him some more. "Yes, High Lord. A sylph is a sort of woods fairy, the female offspring of sprites and nymphs, I'm told. I have never seen one, but they are supposed to be very beautiful." His ears cocked. "Beautiful in human terms, that is. Dogs might differ."

Ben stared off into the dark. "I suppose." He took a deep breath. "Soup, you say? I could use a bowl."

Abernathy turned and started away. "The campsite is this way, High Lord. The soup should be quite good if the wizard has managed to refrain from trying to improve on it by using his sadly limited magic."

Ben cast a quick glance back at the inlet. The waters of the lake glimmered undisturbed in the moonlight. The shoreline stood empty.

He shook his head and hurried after Abernathy.

The soup was good. It steamed down inside Ben Holiday and took away the chill that had left him shaking when he had discovered he was alone in that inlet. Questor was relieved to see him safely back and quarreled with Abernathy all during the meal as to who should assume responsibility for the High Lord's disappearance. Ben didn't listen. He let them argue, spoke when spoken to, and kept his thoughts to himself. Two bowls of soup and several glasses of wine later, he was comfortably drowsy as he stared into the flames of the small fire Parsnip had built. It hadn't even occurred to him to worry about drinking the wine.

He went to sleep shortly after. He rolled into his blankets and turned away from the fire, his gaze directed to the silver waters of the lake, the trailers of mist that hovered and swirled above them, and the night beyond. He listened to the silence that settled quickly over the hill country. He searched the darkness for shadows.

He slept well that night and, while he slept, he dreamed. He did not dream of Annie or Miles. He did not dream of the life he had left when he crossed over into Landover, nor of Landover or the myriad problems he faced as her King.

He dreamed instead of Willow.

River Master

Bunion returned at dawn. The morning was chill and damp mist and shadows settled thick across the forest like a gray woolen blanket pulled close about a still-sleeping child. The remainder of the little company was at breakfast when the kobold appeared from the trees, a phantasm slipped from the dreams of last night. He went directly to Questor, spoke to him in that unintelligible mix of grunts and hisses, nodded to the others, and sat down to finish off what was left of the cold bread, berries, and ale.

Questor advised Ben that the River Master had agreed to receive them. Ben nodded wordlessly. His thoughts were elsewhere. Visions of Willow still lingered in his mind, images so real that they might have been something other than the dreams they were. Waking, he had sought to banish them, feeling them a betrayal somehow of Annie. But the visions had been too strong and he had been strangely anxious to preserve them in spite of his guilt. Why had he dreamed of Willow? he pondered. Why had the dreams been so intense? He finished his meal wrapped in his private reverie and saw nothing of the looks exchanged by Questor and Abernathy.

They departed the campsite shortly thereafter, a ragged little procession of ghosts, winding silently through the half-light. They made their way single file about the Irrylyn, following the shoreline along a pathway barely wide enough for one. It was a journey through fantasia. Steam lifted snakelike from the valley floor in a mix of warm earth and cool air to mingle with the trailers of mist that swirled about the forest. Trees stood dark and wet against the gray, a tangle of huge, black-barked oaks, elms, gnarled hickories, willows, and cedars. Wraiths of the imagination whisked into view and were gone in the blink of an eye, lithe creatures that teased and taunted. Ben found himself numbed by the intransiency of it all — feeling as if he could not come fully awake from last night's sleep, as if he had been drugged. He rode in a fog that shrouded mind and eyes both, straining for a glimpse of what was real through the maze of shadow pictures. But only the mist-dampened trees and the flat, hard surface of the lake were certain.

Then the lake was gone with the rest of the world, and only the trees remained. Morning lengthened, and still the mist and shadows wrapped the land close and would do no more than whisper of hidden secrets. Sounds filtered softly through the deep haze, bits and pieces of other lives and other happenings that Ben could only guess at. He searched the haze at every turn for a glimpse of Willow, a prodding voice within him whispering that she was there somewhere among the sounds and shadows, watching. He searched, but he did not find her.

It was shortly thereafter that the wood sprite appeared to them.

They had turned their horses down a draw formed by a series of fallen trees. Bunion leading the way on foot, when the sprite slipped from the mists at the kobold's shoulder. He was a lean, wiry figure, barely taller than Bunion, skin as brown and grainy as the bark of a sapling, hair grown thick down the back of his neck and along his arms. Earth colored clothing hung loosely against his body; his sleeves and pantlegs were cut short, his feet slipped into a boot that laced about the calves with leather. He barely slowed the procession as he appeared, falling in beside Bunion, moving forward through the haze in an almost birdlike manner, quick and restless.

"Questor!" Ben's voice was a rough hiss, louder than he had intended it to be. "Who is that?"

The wizard, riding just ahead, leaned back in his saddle, a finger to his lips. "Gently, High Lord. Our guide is a wood sprite in service to the River Master. There are others all about us."

Ben's gaze shifted quickly to the mist. He saw no one. "Our guide? Our guide to what?" His voice had dropped to a whisper.

"Our guide to Elderew, the home of the River Master."

"We need a guide?"

Quester shrugged. "It is safer to have one, High Lord. Marsh lies all about Elderew and more than a few have been lost to it. The lake country can be treacherous. The guide is a courtesy extended us by the River Master — a courtesy extended to all guests upon their arrival."

Ben glanced once more into the opaque curtain of the fog. "I hope the same courtesy is extended to guests upon their departure," he muttered to himself.

They moved ahead into the trees. Other forms appeared suddenly from the mist, lean, wiry shapes like their guide, some with the same wood-grained appearance, some stick-like and gnarled, some smooth and sleek with skin that was almost silver. They fell in silently on either side of the column, hands grasping the reins of the horses, guiding the animals ahead. Pools of water and reed-grown marsh materialized all along the trail they followed, vast patches of swamp in which nothing moved but the fog. The trail narrowed further and at times disappeared altogether, leaving them in water that rose to their guides' waists and the horses' haunches. Creatures swam in the water, some with fins, some with reptilian scales, some with faces that were almost human. Creatures darted through the mist, dancing across the mire's surface like weightless skip-flies. They surfaced far out in the fog, and there were only flashes before they were gone again. Ben felt himself waking now, the dreams of last night dissipated finally, no more than faint memories and disconnected feelings. His mind sharpened as he peered through the gloom and studied the beings about him with mingled incredulity and disbelief. He was enveloped in a sudden, biting sense of hopelessness. Sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, pixies, elementals — the names came back to him as he watched these marsh creatures appear and fade again. He recalled his early, exploratory reading of fantasy and horror fiction, an almost forbidden trespass, and relived his wonder at the strange beings he had encountered. Such creatures could only exist in the writer's mind and come to life through his pen, he had believed — wishing secretly at the same time that it could be otherwise. Yet here those creatures were, the inhabitants of the world into which he had come, and he knew less of them than he did of those make-believe writer's creations he had encountered in his youth — and they, in turn, knew nothing at all of him. How, in God's name, could he convince them then to accept him as their King? What could he say that would persuade them to pledge to him?

The hopelessness of the task was appalling. It terrified him so that for a moment he was paralyzed with indecision. The lean, shadowy figures of the River Master's people slipped through the mist all about him, and he saw them as alien beings for whom he was nothing more than a curiosity. It had been different with the Lords of the Greensward. There had been a similarity in appearance, at least, a sense of sameness. But there was nothing of that with the people of the River Master.

He shoved the indecision and the fear from his mind. He swept back into its cubicle the hopelessness he felt. He banished them with a fury that was surprising. Such feelings were merely excuses to quit, and he would never do that. Bridges could be built between beings of any kind. There had been Kings that had served these people before; he could serve them just as well. He would find a way to make them see that. He would do whatever was necessary, but he would never quit. Never.

"High Lord?"

Abernathy was at his elbow, liquid brown eyes questioning. Ben looked down. His hands were gripping the pommel of his saddle so tightly that the knuckles were white. Sweat dampened the back and underarms of his tunic. He knew his face reflected the intensity of his feelings.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself, hands releasing their death-grip. "It was just a chill," he alibied, forced his gaze away, and kicked Wishbone ahead so that Abernathy was safely behind him once more.

A great gathering of hoary cypress loomed darkly through the mist ahead, trailers of moss hanging from their branches, gnarled roots digging into the marshy soil like claws. The little company and their wraithlike guides passed into their midst, swallowed in shadows and the smell of fetid earth. Their path was snakelike through the ancient trees, circumventing black pools that mirrored, like opaque glass, and patches of marsh that steamed. The grove of cypress was massive, and they became lost within it. The minutes slipped away, and daylight took on the guise of fading dusk.

Then the sheltering trees thinned and the ground began to rise. Slowly the company worked its way upward through the forest to where the mist burned away and the day brightened with sun. Marsh gave way to hardened earth, cypress to oak and elm. The raw smell of the lowland lake country filtered out into sweeter smells of pine and cedar. The faces in the mist became distinct now as elusive figures darted all about, but had the substance of real beings. Voices lifted out of the forest ahead. Ben sensed the end of their journey was at hand, and his pulse quickened.

A rush of color filtered through the trees, garlands of flowers strung from limbs and swaybars, and the sound of rushing water filled the air. The trees parted before them, the trail broadened, and a massive open-air amphitheater stood cradled in the light. Ben stared. The amphitheater was formed of living trees wrapped in a three-quarter circle about an arena of grasses and flowers; there were lines of walkways and seats constructed of limbs and sawn logs, fastened and shaped about the framework of the amphitheater's bowl. Branches from the trees canopied overhead to form a natural covering, and traces of sunlight broke through the mist where it thinned at the roof of the forest, falling in long, rainbow streamers to the grasses below in the manner of light in a rain forest when the monsoons have passed.

"High Lord," Abernathy called softly back to him. "Look."

He pointed — not to the amphitheater, but to what lay beyond. Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. What he was seeing was something almost surreal. Trees twice the size of those which framed the amphitheater lifted skyward in the forest beyond, pillars of such monstrous proportions that they dwarfed even the redwoods he had once visited when traveling with Annie through California. Great, angular branches laced together, binding one tree to the next, creating a complex and intricate network of limbs that joined each to the other until all were one.

An entire city lay cradled within and below those branches.

It was a magnificent, sprawling artist's rendering of an imagined fairy homeland. Cottages and shops sat high within the branches of the giant trees, interconnected by lanes and walkways that descended gradually toward the forest floor where the greater part of the city sat astride a series of canals fed by a river that cut through the center of the city. It was the soft rush of the river's waters that they had heard before. The forest's leafy roof screened away the sky, but sunlight broke through in scattered patches. Color from flowers and bushes brightened homes and shops, gardens and hedgerows, waterways and treelanes. The mists shrouded the city like a soft filter, and the gray, wintry cast that characterized so much of the valley was banished.

The fairy-born people of the River Master filled the treelanes and waterways, angular faces and bodies bits and pieces of the land's shadows as they passed through the mist.

"That is Elderew," Questor announced needlessly, for Ben had already surmised that much.

The members of the little company turned into the amphitheater, the slight forms of their guides slipping from them one by one until only the guide who had appeared first to them remained. They passed through the open quarter section to the arena bowl — Bunion in the lead, stride for stride with their guide; Questor and Ben next; Abernathy a few paces behind, bravely hoisting aloft once more the scarlet and white King's standard with the armored figure of the Paladin; Parsnip and the pack animals trailing. A reception committee was waiting, just emerged from one of several tunnels leading into the amphitheater from beneath its seats, gathered now in a knot at the tunnel's entrance. There were men and women both in the group; while Ben could not discern faces from so great a distance, he could easily identify items of forest clothing similar to that worn by their guide and swatches of the same wood-grained skin.

They drew to a halt at the center of the arena, dismounted, and walked forward to where the reception committee waited. The kobolds and Abernathy trailed Ben and Questor now, and the guide had remained behind with the animals. Ben cast a quick glance over at the wizard.

"If you have any last minute advice, Questor, I would appreciate it," he whispered.

"Hmmmmm?" The wizard's thoughts were elsewhere once again.

"About the River Master? About what sort of person he is?"

"What sort of creature, you mean," Abernathy interjected acidly from behind them.

"A sprite, High Lord," Questor answered. "A fairy who become half-human when he crossed into Landover and adopted this valley as his home, a woods and water being, a... a, uh..." The wizard paused thoughtfully. "He is really quite hard to describe, when you come right down to it."

"Best that he discover for himself," Abernathy declared pointedly.

Questor thought a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Yes, perhaps so."

They were too close to the gathering that awaited them for Ben to discuss the matter further — though in light of what had just been implied, he would have dearly loved to do so — and he turned his attention instead to a quick study of his hosts. He identified the River Master at once. The River Master stood central and foremost among those gathered, a tall, lean figure garbed in pants, tunic and cloak that were forest green, polished boots and leather cross-belts, and a slim silver diadem bound about his forehead. His skin was of a silver cast and grained like that of their guide — almost scaled — but his hair was black and thick about the nape of his neck and forearms. There was an odd, chiseled appearance to his eyes and mouth, and his nose was almost nonexistent. He had the look of something carved of wood.

The remaining members of the gathering stood grouped about him, younger for the most part, men and women of varying shapes and sizes, a scattering effaces as nut-brown and grained as that of their guide, one or two silver like the River Master, one sticklike and almost featureless, one covered with fur that was a russet color, one reptilian in looks and coloring, one a ghostly white with deep black eyes, and one...

Ben slowed abruptly, fighting to keep from his face the sudden shock that raced through him. One of those gathered, the one standing at the River Master's left hand, was Willow.

"Questor!" His voice was a low hiss. "The girl on the left — who is she?"

Questor stared over at him. "Who?"

"The girl on the left! The one with the green skin and hair, damn it!"

"Oh, the sylph?" Questor smiled benignly to those ahead, speaking to Ben out of the side of his mouth. "Her name is Willow. She is one of the River Master's children." He paused. "What difference does..."

Ben hushed him into immediate silence. They kept walking, Ben's mind working frantically, his eyes flitting from the faces of the others gathered to Willow's. She stared back at him boldly, her own eyes challenging.

"Welcome, High Lord," the River Master greeted as Ben and his companions reached him. He bowed briefly, little more than a nod, and those with him bowed as well. "Welcome to Elderew."

Masking his surprise at seeing Willow, Ben drew his scattered thoughts together with a vengeance. "I appreciate the greeting. I appreciate as well your receiving me in your home on such short notice."

The River Master laughed. It was a big, hearty laugh that filled the amphitheater with its sound, but the grainy, chiseled face was like stone. "The fact that you come at all does you much credit, High Lord. You are the first to do so since the old King died. I would be a poor host indeed if I were to refuse to receive you after so long a wait!"

Ben smiled politely, but the smile gave way to shock when he noticed that the River Master had gills at the side of his neck. "Apparently it has been a long wait for everyone," he managed.

The River Master nodded. "Quite long." He turned. "This is my family, High Lord — my wives, my children, and my grandchildren. Many have never seen a King of Landover and asked to be in attendance."

He introduced them one by one, the gills at the side of his neck fluttering softly as he spoke. Ben listened patiently, nodding to each, nodding to Willow as to the others as she was brought forward, feeling the heat of her eyes burn through him. When the River Master had finished, Ben introduced those in his own company.

"All are welcome," the River Master announced in response, and he gave his hand to each. "There will be a celebration in your honor this evening and a processional. You are to think of Elderew as your home while you are with us." He gave Ben what was meant to pass for a smile. "And now I think that you and I should speak of what has brought you here. High Lord. It is the way of things in the lake country to dispose of business directly and with expedience. While your companions are boarded in the village, you and I shall have our conference — just the two of us. Will you consent to that?"

Ben nodded. "I will." He did not even glance at Questor to see if the wizard approved. Questor could not help him in this. He knew what it was that he had to do, and he knew that he had to do it alone. Besides, the River Master did not seem a bad sort, Abernathy's cryptic comments notwithstanding.

The River Master dispatched his family with instructions to conduct Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds to their lodgings. Then he turned to Ben. "Would you like to see something of the village while we talk, High Lord?" he asked.

It was more a suggestion than a question, but Ben nodded agreeably nevertheless. The River Master beckoned him down into one of the tunnels that cut beneath the amphitheater and he followed wordlessly. He had a last glimpse of Willow staring after him from the misty sunlight and then the shadows closed about.

When he emerged at the far end of the tunnel, the River Master took him along a canal bank lined with flowerbeds and hedgerows, carefully trimmed and tended, into a park that bordered the perimeter of the amphitheater. There were children playing in the park, small darting forms of varying sizes and shapes that reflected the diversity of their parentage, their voices bright and cheerful in the comparative stillness of the afternoon. Ben smiled wistfully. It had been a long time since he had listened to the sound of children playing; except for their different appearance, they might have been the children of his own world.

But, of course, this was his world now.

"I know that you have come to Elderew to ask my pledge to the throne, High Lord," the River Master informed him suddenly, his silver face a tight, expressionless mask. It seemed that his face never altered, reflecting nothing of his thoughts. "I know, as well, that you went first to the Lords of the Greensward with this same request and that the request was refused." Ben glanced quickly at him, but the River Master brushed the look aside with a shrug. "Oh, you needn't be surprised that I know such things. High Lord. I am once and always of the fairy world, and I still have something of the magic I once wielded. I have eyes in most corners of the valley."

He paused, digressing momentarily on the construction of the park and the canal system that ran through Elderew. Ben listened patiently, seeing that he meant to conduct the discussion at his own pace, content to let him do so. They walked from the park into a grove of elm bordering the giant trees that were the framework of the village.

"I respect the initiative and the courage that you have shown in undertaking your journey to the peoples of the valley, High Lord." The River Master returned now to the matter of Ben's visit. "I believe you to be a stronger man than those who laid claim to the throne of Landover before. Your actions at Rhyndweir would suggest that you are, in any case. I think you are also a straightforward and decisive man, so I will spare you the evasive maneuverings of diplomacy. I have considered your request — knowing what it is, as I have said — and I must reject it."

They walked on in silence. Ben was stunned. "May I ask why?" he said finally.

"I can see no advantage to granting it."

"I would argue that you should see many advantages."

The River Master nodded. "Yes, I know. You would argue that there is strength in numbers — that a central government would benefit the whole of the people of the land. You would argue that the people of the land cannot trust one another while there is no King. You would argue that we are threatened from without by neighboring worlds and from within by the Mark and his demons. You would argue that the land is stricken with a blight that is caused by a failing of the magic that made her, and that eventually she will die." He looked over. "Have I correctly stated the arguments that you would make?"

Ben nodded slowly. "How would you answer them?"

"I would tell you a story." The River Master slowed and led Ben to a bench chiseled from a massive rock. They sat. "The people of the lake country came from the fairy world, High Lord — most in a time long since forgotten by everyone but us. We are a fairy people who choose to live in a world of humans. We have become mortals by choice, affected by time's passage where once we were virtually immortal. We are elementals — creatures of wood, earth, and water-sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, pixies, and dozens more. We left the fairy world and claimed the lake country as our own. We made it what it is — a country of beauty, grace, and health. We made it so because that was our purpose for coming into Landover in the first place. We came to give her life — not simply the lake country, but all of the valley."

He paused. "We have that power. High Lord — the power to give life." He bent close, an earnest teacher instructing his pupil. "We have not lost all of the magic, you see. We still possess the power to heal. We can take a land that suffers from sickness and blight and make it whole again. Come with me a moment. See what I mean."

He rose and walked a short distance to a gathering of brush nestled at the perimeter of the elm grove. The leaves were showing signs of wilt and spotting, much as the Bonnie Blues Ben had observed on his journey to Sterling Silver.

"See the sickness in the leaves?" the River Master asked.

He reached down and placed his hand upon the brush, close to where it rooted in the earth. There was concentration in his face. His breathing slowed and his head bent until his chin rested on his chest. Slowly the brush stirred, responding to his touch. The wilt and spotting disappeared, the color returned, and the brush grew straight again in the afternoon light.

The River Master rose. "We have the power to heal," he repeated, the intensity still visible in his eyes. "We would have used it to benefit the whole of the land had we been allowed to do so. But there are many who distrust us. There are many more who care nothing for the work that we do. They prefer us confined to the lake country, and we have honored their wishes. If they chose to think us dangerous because we are different, then so be it. But they will not leave well enough alone, High Lord. They continue to harm the land through their use of it. They cause sickness to spead through their carelessness and disregard. They bring sickness not only to their own homes in the valley, but to ours as well — to the rivers and the forests that belong to us!"

Ben nodded. Perhaps they shared common ground after all. "Your world is really not so different from my own, River Master. There were many who pollute the land and water in my world as well, and they disregard the safety and health of others in doing so."

"Then, High Lord, you will understand the ending that I put to my story." The River Master faced him squarely. "The lake country belongs to us — to the people who live within and care for it. This is our home. If the others in the valley choose to destroy their homes, that is of no concern to us. We have the power to heal our rivers and forests, and we will do so for as long as it is necessary. The loss of the magic that came with the death of the old King caused no greater problem for us than had already existed. The Lords of the Greensward, the trolls, kobolds, gnomes, and all of the others had spread their sickness through Landover long before that. Nothing has changed for us. We have always been a separate people, and I suspect that we always will be."

He shook his head slowly. "I wish you success, High Lord, but I will not pledge to you. Your coming to the throne of Landover changes nothing for the people of the lake country."

Ben glanced down again at the bit of brush the River Master had healed and then folded his arms across his chest solemnly. "I was told by Questor Thews that the River Master and his people worked to cure the sickness that spreads through Landover. But isn't it true that your work to keep the sickness out grows more difficult each day? The loss of the magic spreads the sickness too quickly. River Master.

There will come a day when even your skill will not be enough, a day when the blight is so strong that the magic of the land itself will die."

The River Master's face was a stone. "The others may perish because they lack the skills to survive. High Lord That will not happen with us."

Ben frowned. "That declaration of independence seem rather overoptimistic, don't you think? What of the Mark and his demons? Can you survive them?" There was a trace of irritation in his voice.

"They cannot even see us if we do not wish it. We can disappear into the mist in a moment. They pose no danger to us."

"They don't? What if they occupy Elderew?"

"Then we would build again. We have done so before. The land always offers the means to survive when you possess the magic."

His placid certainty was infuriating. He was a mirror image of the proverbial scholar who lived inside of his books and saw nothing of the world that was not printed there. It appeared that Abernathy's cynicism had some foundation in fact after all. Ben's mind raced, sorting through arguments and discarding them just as quickly. The River Master had obviously decided that he would not pledge to any King of Landover, and it did not seem that there was anything that could make him change his mind. Yet Ben knew that he must find a way.

A light clicked on inside his head. "What of the reason that you came to Landover in the first place, River Master? What of your work here?"

The chiseled face regarded him thoughtfully. "My work, High Lord?"

"Your work — the work that brought all of your people out of the fairy world and into Landover. What of that? You left paradise and timeless, immortal life to cross into a world with time and death. You accepted that you would be human. You did that because you wanted to cleanse Landover, to make her earth, trees, mountains, and waters healthy and safe! I don't know why you made that choice, but you did. Now you seem to be telling me that you have given up! You don't seem that sort of man to me. Are you willing to sit back and let the whole valley turn sick and wither away into nothing just to prove a point? Once the sickness spreads far enough and deep enough, how will you ever find the magic to drive it out!"

The River Master stared at him wordlessly, a small frown appearing, a hint of doubt in his eyes.

Ben charged quickly ahead. "If you pledge to me, I will put an end to the pollution of the waterways and the forests. I will stop the spread of the sickness — not just here, in the lake country, but throughout the valley."

"A noble ambition. High Lord." The River Master seemed almost sad. "How will you do that?"

"I will find a way."

"How? You'lack even the small magic of the old King, the magic that gave him mastery over the Paladin. You wear the medallion — I see it beneath your tunic — but it is little more than a symbol of your office. High Lord, you are a King in name only. How can you do any of what you promise?"

Ben took a deep breath. The words stung, but he was careful to keep the anger from his voice. "I don't know. But I will find a way."

The River Master was silent a moment, lost in thought. Then he nodded slowly. His words were slow and carefully measured. "Very well, High Lord. Nothing is lost by letting you try. You make a promise I will hold you to. Put an end to the pollution. Put a stop to the spreading of the sickness. Extract a promise from the others who inhabit this valley that they will work with us to preserve the land. When you have done that, then I will give you my pledge."

He extended his hand. "A bargain, High Lord?"

Ben gripped the hand firmly in his own. "A bargain, River Master."

They shook. The sound of the children's laughter rang softly in the distance. Ben sighed inwardly. Another conditional pledge extracted. He was a man building a house of cards.

He gave the River Master his best courtroom smile. "You wouldn't happen to know a way to keep the dragon out of the Greensward, would you?"

Elderew

The River Master did not know a way to keep the dragon out of the Greensward. No one did, so far as he knew. Nightshade might, he speculated as he guided Ben back through the grove of elm and into the park with its children. The witch of the Deep Fell had magic more powerful than that of any other creature in the valley — although even Nightshade had never dared offer challenge to Strabo. In any case, Nightshade would never agree to help him, even if she had the means to do so. She had always hated the Kings of Landover because they commanded the services of the Paladin, and the Paladin was more powerful than she.

Times change, Ben thought dismally.

There were the fairies, of course, the River Master added almost as an afterthought. The fairies had always been able to control the dragons. That was why the dragons had fled from or been driven out of their world and come over into the valley. But the fairies would not help Ben either. The fairies helped no one, unless it was their idea first. They stayed within the mists, hidden in their timeless, ageless world, and lived their own lives according to their own rules. Ben could not even go to them to ask their help. No one ever went into the fairy world and came out again.

They walked down together through EIderew, the River Master describing the history of his city and its people, Ben wondering how on God's green earth — or this one, for that matter — he was ever going to make a success out of being King. The afternoon slipped away; while the city was a marvelous and exciting creation, the tour was wasted on Ben. He listened dutifully, commented in all of the appropriate places, asked the proper questions, and waited with a saint's patience for a chance to excuse himself.

The chance never came. Dusk settled, and the River Master deposited him at his lodging for the night — a ground-level cottage with several open-air porches and walkups, secluded gardens and an impressive stand of Bonnie Blues. Overhead, the brightly lighted treelanes of the city spiraled through the mist of the forest roof in arcs of hazy gold. Laughter and light banter echoed through the shadows. For some, the day's work was finished.

Ben trooped into the cottage, the daylight fading quickly to nightfall behind him, the River Master's promise of an evening of celebration hanging over him like a pall. The last thing he felt like doing was celebrating.

The others of the little company were waiting for him as he entered. He gave them a cursory hello and plopped down in a comfortably cushioned wicker rocker.

"I struck out again," he announced wearily.

Questor took a seat across from him. "He refused his pledge, High Lord?"

"More or less. He promised to give it only after I've found a way to put a stop to the pollution of the valley by the others who live here. I have to extract their sworn vow to work with the lake country people to keep the valley clean."

"I warned you he would be difficult, High Lord," Abernathy declared triumphantly. Ben glanced over. He remembered his scribe's admonishment somewhat differently, but there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point.

"I think you have done rather well. High Lord," Questor informed him, ignoring Abernathy.

Ben groaned. "Questor, please..."

"I am quite serious about this, I assure you," the wizard added quickly. "I was worried he would refuse you unconditionally. He was loyal to the old King out of a sense of respect for a monarchy that had governed hundreds of years and out of a desire not to provoke trouble by refusing obeisance. But the lake country people have never truly had a sense of belonging; there has never been an acceptance of them by the others."

"The River Master said something along those same lines. Why is it such a problem?"

Questor shook his head. "Mostly, it is a lack of understanding. The people of the lake country are fairies and they command magic the others in the valley do not and never will. The people of the lake country chose self-exile from a world viewed by most as perfect, a world that is timeless and changeless, a world where one can be immortal. The people of the lake country live differently from the others, and their conception of life's priorities is different. All of that breeds mistrust, jealousy, envy — a lot of very destructive emotions."

"There is another side to the story, of course," Abernathy interjected from behind Questor. "The people of the lake country have always had difficulty associating with the others of Landover. They remain aloof for the most part, arguing that their values should be imposed while they as a people remain apart. They rail against the others for spreading sickness and blight through poor management of the land and waters, yet they stay hidden within their mist and forest."

Ben frowned. "Is the pollution they complain about really that bad?"

Questor shrugged. "Bad enough. The Lords of the Greensward strip the land for their fields and livestock and hunt the forests for food. The trolls mine the mountains north for ores and their smelts poison the streams that feed the valley. Others contribute their share as well."

"It is difficult to accommodate everyone. High Lord," Abernathy added quietly, eyes blinking thoughtfully beneath his shaggy brows.

"Words of wisdom." Ben found himself thinking suddenly of the life he had left behind him in Chicago. "The more things change, the more things stay the same," he muttered.

Questor and Abernathy looked at each other. "High Lord?" Questor asked.

Ben rose, stretched and shook his head. "Forget it. How soon do tonight's festivities commence?"

"Quite soon, High Lord," the wizard replied.

"A bath, High Lord?" Abernathy asked quickly. "A change of clothes?"

"Both. And some ideas, if anyone has any, on how we can go about pleasing everyone long enough to persuade them all to acknowledge the damn throne!"

Bunion and Parsnip hissed and grinned eagerly from across the room. Ben gave them a dark look, started from the room, then stopped. "You know, I wouldn't mind tonight so much if I thought I could find a way to change the River Master's mind — but I don't see it happening." He paused, considering. "Still, how much time do I have to work with?"

"These celebrations usually last all night. High Lord," Questor replied.

Ben sighed wearily. "Terrific," he muttered and left the room.

Questor's prediction proved to be right on target. The celebration began shortly after sunset and lasted until dawn. It was ostensibly held in honor of Landover's visiting High Lord, but Ben was left with the distinct impression that the people of the lake country would have been willing to hold a celebration for almost any reason. Certainly neither pace nor order, orchestration nor duration, was in any way dictated by him.

The festivities began with a processional. Ben was seated in the amphitheater with the members of his little company, the River Master and his family, Willow among them, and several hundred others, as children and young people with torches and colored banners streamed through the open quarter section and circled the arena in a kaleidoscope of color and light, singing songs as they came. Concentric circles formed and turned slowly about one another, and the cheers and shouts of the people gathered lifted in appreciation. Music from flutes, horns, stringed instruments, and pipes rose from a band of players gathered directly below where Ben sat. The music was high and lilting, whisking the processional along, increasing its tempo as the minutes slipped past.

Soon the broad concentric circles dissolved into smaller wheels, and the marchers became dancers who spun and whirled in the grasses, torches and banners fluttering above them as the music quickened. Wine and ale passed freely about the arena and the amphitheater seats above, and all joined in the clapping and singing. The sound rose to echo through the great forest trees of Elderew, filling the night until no other sound could be heard. Mist dissipated and the moons of Landover filled the skies, bright spheres of color that hung suspended like oversized balloons. Streamers of rainbow light filtered down through the trees to mingle with the fire of the torches and cast back the shadows.

Ben quickly gave up looking for an opportunity to talk further with the River Master about pledging to the throne. No one was interested in doing anything except having a good time. The singing and shouting drowned out all efforts at normal conversation, and the wine was consumed with a speed he found astonishing. He accepted a glass warily and as a courtesy and found it quite good. He drank another, because what the hell difference did it make? Then several more; in no time at all, he was three sheets to the wind and having one hell of a good time. Questor and the kobolds drank with him, seemingly as relaxed as he, and only Abernathy abstained, muttering something about wine not being good for animals. Soon they were all singing and clapping, and it didn't really matter what the singing and the clapping was for.

The River Master seemed pleased that Ben was having such a good time. He came over often, his chiseled, expressionless face flushed and dark eyes bright, welcoming Ben once again to Elderew, wishing him well, asking him if there was anything he might need. Ben was tempted to give him the obvious answer, but held his tongue. The River Master clearly meant well, and the merriment was infectious. He had not enjoyed himself this much since long before he had come into this strange land.

The night slipped on, the festivities grew heightened, and the people in the amphitheater seats began to pour down into the arena to mingle with the those who had made up the processional. The singing and dancing became more frenzied, the fairies of the lake country flitting through the shadows and light as if they were yet the magical people they had once been. The River Master took the hand of one of his several wives, a slender river sprite, and pulled her after him toward the field. He called to Ben and the others, to the members of his family, and to his people to join him. Most went. Ben rose, hesitated, looked back to where Willow had been seated, found her gone, and sat down again. What was he thinking? What cause had he to celebrate? The wine's effects wore off with astonishing swiftness as he faced the unpleasant truths of his efforts at Kingship, and he lost his taste for celebrating.

He rose again, still unsteady, excused himself hastily to the others, and hurried toward the closest amphitheater exit. Abernathy came after him, but he sent the scribe scurrying with a sharp admonishment. Sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, and pixies milled past him, dancing and singing, caught up in the spirit of the celebration. Ben brushed quickly past them. He had had enough of people for one day, and he wanted to be alone.

Shadows closed about him in the tunnel beneath, and then he was back in the forest. Lights winked from the treelanes overhead, and the sounds of the celebration began to diminish. He pushed ahead into the dark, anxious to be returned to his lodging and to be away from the festivities he had abandoned. His stomach churned with the wine, and suddenly he was sick at the pathside. He straightened, waited for his head and stomach to clear, and went on. When he reached the cottage, he climbed the walkway to an open air side porch and slumped down in a high-backed wicker chair.

"Aren't you wonderful?" he congratulated himself.

He felt depressed and discouraged. He had believed so strongly in himself in the beginning. He knew he could be King of Landover. He possessed intelligence and ability, he was compassionate, he had experience working with people, and he understood the application of laws in society. Most important of all, he needed this challenge and he had thought himself ready for it. But all of that seemed to count for nothing in the greater scheme of things. His progress toward gaining even the minimal amount of recognition a King required had met with no success whatsoever — just a lot of conditional bargains. The old King's closest allies had rebuffed him; the others had ignored him. He had lost the services of the King's protector, now become something very much akin to a ghost haunting a deserted house, and the Mark and his demons were footsteps creeping up on him with the passing of each day.

He stretched and stared out into the night. Well, what the hell? he thought obstinately. Nothing at stake here but his self-respect, was there? All he had to do was use the medallion and he'd go back to Chicago, a million dollars lighter, but safe and sound. He had failed before at things, and he would undoubtedly fail again. Face it — this might be one of the failures.

He played with the idea in his mind a moment, then found himself thinking of the faces of those few who had come to his coronation, the farmers and their families, the hunters, the ones who still looked for a King they might believe in. Too bad for them, of course, he thought, wondering even as he did so how he could be so damn flip.

"So maybe you're not so wonderful after all," he muttered wearily.

Something moved in the shadow of the trees close beside the porch, and he jerked about. "Ben?"

It was Willow. She slipped from the trees and came toward him, a ghostly figure in white silk, her green hair shimmering in the light. She was like a bit of moonlit mist crossing a midnight lake, ephemeral but impossibly beautiful. She came up to him, the silk hanging close against her body.

"I followed you, Ben," she told him softly, but with no apology in her voice. "I knew you would tire and come to sleep. But do not sleep yet. Come first with me. Come with me and watch my mother dance."

He felt his throat tighten as she neared him. "Your mother?"

"She is a wood nymph, Ben — so wild that she will not live among the people of Elderew. My father has never been able to bring her to him. But the music will draw her and she will yearn to dance. She will come to the old pines and she will look for me. Come, Ben. I want you there."

She came onto the porch, reached down for his hand and stopped. "Oh, your face! You have been hurt!" He had almost forgotten the beating Kallendbor had administered. Her hand touched his forehead softly. "I did not see your injuries at the Irrylyn. Here."

She swept her fingers swiftly about his face and at once the pain was gone. He could not hide the astonishment in his eyes.

"The small hurts can be healed, Ben," she whispered. "The ones that can be seen."

"Willow..." he began.

"I will not ask you to come away with me again — not until you are ready." Her fingers lingered on his cheek, warm and gentle. "I know who you are now. I know you to be of another world and not yet at peace with ours. I will wait."

He shook his head. "Willow..."

"Come, Ben!" She grasped his hand firmly and pulled him from the chair. "Come, hurry!" She led him from the porch and into the trees. "My mother will not wait!"

Ben no longer thought to resist. They ran into the forest, she a vision of something he had not believed could exist and he the shadow she drew after her. They darted through the trees, his hand in hers, and soon he was hopelessly lost and did not care. The heat of her touch burned through him, and the need for her began to grow anew within him.

They slowed after a time, deep in a woods become misted and shadowed far beyond that of Elderew. The sounds of the celebration still echoed through the trees, but distant and soft. Colored slivers of moonlight slipped downward from the forest roof and dappled the earth like paint spots. Willow held Ben's hand tightly in her own, the warmth of her like a fire that drew him. The mane of hair from her forearm brushed against his wrist like corn silk. She crept now through the trees and brush, soundlessly skirting the giant sentinels and their offspring, a bit of fragmented night.

Then the hardwood trees gave way to pine, evergreens that were giant and aged. Willow and Ben pushed through their needled boughs, and a clearing opened before them.

There Willow's mother danced in a prism of colored moonlight.

She was a tiny thing, barely larger than a child, her features delicate and fine. Silver hair hung below her waist, and the skin of her slender body and limbs was pale green, like her daughter's. She was clothed all in white gauze, and a radiance emanated from her that seemed born of some self-generated inner light. Spinning and leaping as if she were driven by a madness peculiar to her alone, she danced through the moonlit clearing to the rhythm of the distant music.

"Mother!" Willow breathed softly, and there was excitement and happiness reflected in her eyes.

The wood nymph's eyes met her own for just an instant, but she did not slow her dance. Willow knelt wordlessly at the clearing's edge, pulling Ben down gently beside her. Together they sat in silence and watched the phantasm before them do magic.

How long she danced and how long they watched, Ben did not know. Time seemed to come to a standstill in that clearing. All that had troubled him on his return from the amphitheater lost significance and was forgotten. There was only Willow and he and the lady who danced. He felt them fade one by the grace and beauty of that dance. He felt them bond in a way he did not understand, but desperately needed. He fet the bonding take place, and he did not resist.

Then the dance was finished. There was a sudden stillness, a hush, and it seemed that the music had ceased to play. Willow's mother turned for a fleeting moment to view them and was gone. Ben stared, hearing again the music of the celebration. But the wood nymph had disappeared as if she had never been.

"Oh, Mother!" Willow whispered, and she was crying. "She is so beautiful, Ben. Isn't she beautiful?"

Ben nodded, feeling her small hand grasping his own. "She is very beautiful, Willow."

The sylph rose, drawing him up with her. "Ben," she spoke his name so softly he almost missed it. "I belong to you now. High Lord and the daughter of fairies, we shall be one. You must ask my father to allow me to go with you when you leave. You must tell him that I am needed — for I truly am, Ben — and when you have told him that, he will let me go."

Ben shook his head quickly. "Willow, I cannot ask for..."

"You are the High Lord, and your request cannot be refused." She hushed him, a finger resting on his lips. "I am but one of my father's many children, one whose mother will not even live with the man she lay with to give me birth, one whose favor in her father's eyes varies with his moods. But you must ask for me, Ben."

Annie's face flashed in his mind, a counterpoint to the fire that this girl kindled within his body. "I can't do that."

"You do not understand the magic of the fairy people, Ben. I see that in your eyes; I hear it in your voice. But Landover is the heart of that magic, and you must accept what that means."

She released his hand and stepped softly away. "I must go now. I must nourish in the soil that my mother has graced. Leave me, Ben. Go back through the forest; the way will open up to you."

"No, wait. Willow..."

"Ask for me, Ben. My father must give me up." Her delicate face lifted to the colored streamers of moonlight that bathed the clearing. "Oh, Ben, it is as if my mother were all about me, wrapping me close, drawing me to her. I can feel her still. The essence of her reaches to me from the soil. This night I can be with her. Leave now, Ben. Hurry away."

But he stood rooted before her, stubbornly refusing to do as she asked. Why was she insisting that she belonged to him? Why couldn't she see that what she was seeking was impossible?

She spun in the clearing's center, beautiful, sensuous, delicate. He wanted her so badly in that instant that tears came to his eyes.

"Willow!" he cried out, starting forward.

She came out of her spin and faced him, feet planted firmly in the clearing's earth, arms raised skyward, face lifted. Ben stopped. A sudden radiance began to emanate from the sylph, the same radiance that her mother had given off while dancing. Willow shimmered, turned transparent in the light and began to swell and distort. Ben shielded his eyes, dropping to one knee in shock. Willow was changing before him, turning into something different entirely, arms and legs darkening and turning gnarled, sweeping outward like a canopy, splitting and lengthening...

He blinked, and Willow was gone. A tree had taken her place. It was the tree from which she took her name. She had become that tree.

Ben stared. He felt a wave of shock and repulsion wash through him. He fought to deny it, but it would not give way. She had said she would nourish in the soil. She had said she could feel her mother reaching up to her. My God, what manner of being was she?

He waited for the answer to come to him, a solitary figure in the mist and shadows of the forest. He waited, but the answer would not come.

He might have waited there all night if Bunion had not appeared, stepping suddenly from the trees to take his arm and lead him away like a disobedient child. He went with the kobold without argument, too stunned to do anything else. Conflicting emotions raged through him, battering him. Willow was so beautiful and vibrant, and the need for her within him was impossibly strong. Yet at the same time he was repulsed by her, a creature who gave every appearance of being amorphous, who could become a tree as easily as a human.

He did not look back as he left the clearing; he could not bear to. He was too ashamed of what he was feeling. He pushed his way through the ancient pines, trailing after Bunion in silence. The kobold must have followed after him, he realized. Questor or Abernathy must have sent him. They were taking no chances after his disappearance at the Irrylyn.

He wished suddenly that they had not found him that night. He wished that he had disappeared. He wished a thousand other things that might have happened and now never would.

The journey back was a short one. The others were waiting for him at the cottage, anxious looks on their faces. They sat him down and gathered around him.

"You should have told us of the sylph. High Lord," Questor said quietly, after exchanging a few brief words with Bunion. "We could have warned you what to expect."

"I warned him once already that the people of the lake country were not like us," Abernathy advised, and Ben didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Questor hushed the scribe quickly.

"You have to understand something, High Lord," the wizard went on, turning back to Ben. "Willow is the child of a sprite and a wood nymph. Her father is only half human. Her mother is less so, more a part of the forest than a part of man, an elemental who finds life within the soil. Something of that was passed on to Willow at birth, and she requires the same nourishment. She is a changeling; she owes her life to both plant and animal forms. It is natural for her to take the form of each; she could be no other way. But it must seem strange, I know, to you."

Ben shook his head slowly, feeling some of the conflict within dissipate. "No stranger than anything else that's happened, I guess." He felt sick at heart and weary; he needed to sleep.

Questor hesitated. "She must care deeply for you."

Ben nodded, remembering. "She said that she belongs to me."

Questor glanced quickly at Abernathy and away again. The kobolds stared at Ben with bright, questioning eyes. Ben stared back.

"But she doesn't," he said finally. "She belongs to the lake country. She belongs to her family and to her people."

Abernathy muttered something unintelligible and turned away. Questor said nothing at all. Ben studied them wordlessly a moment, then climbed to his feet. "I'm going to bed," he announced.

He started from the room, and their eyes followed after him. Then he stopped momentarily at the doorway to his bedroom. "We're going home," he told them and waited. "Tomorrow, at first light."

No one said anything. He closed the door behind him and stood alone in the dark.

G'home Gnome

They left Elderew the next morning shortly after daybreak. Mist hung across the lake country like a shroud, and the dawn air was damp and still. It was the kind of day in which ghosts and goblins came to life. The River Master was there to see them off and looked to be neither. Questor had summoned him, and he appeared without complaint. He could not have slept, for the festivities had barely ended, but he looked fresh and alert. Ben extended his thanks on behalf of the company for the hospitality they had been shown, and the River Master, his grainy, chiseled face still as expressionless as flat stone, bowed briefly in acknowledgment. Ben glanced about several times for Willow, but she was nowhere to be seen. He considered again her request that she be allowed to accompany him back to Sterling Silver. Part of him wanted her with him; part of him would not allow it. Indecision gave way to expediency; time ran out on the debate. He left without speaking of it to her father.

The company rode north for the remainder of the day, passing out of the lake country and its mists into the gray, open expanse of the western end of the Greensward and from there to the forested hills surrounding Sterling Silver. Sunlight barely pierced a clouded sky that stretched above them the whole of the journey back, and there was the smell of rain in the air. It was nightfall when they stepped once more from the lake skimmer and walked the final few yards to the gates of the castle. A smattering of raindrops was just beginning to fall.

It rained all that night. The rain was steady and hard and it blotted out the entire worid beyond the immediate walls. That was perfectly all right with Ben. He fished out the bottle of Glenlivet he had been saving for a special occasion, gathered Questor, Abernathy, and the two kobolds at the table in the dining hall, and proceeded to get roaring drunk. He got drunk alone. The other four sipped gingerly from their tumblers as he consumed nearly the whole of the bottle by himself. He talked to them as he drank about life in his world, about Chicago and its people, about his friends and family, about anything and everything but Landover. They responded politely, but he had no memory later of what they said and frankly didn't care. When the scotch was gone and there was no longer anything left to talk about, he rose to his feet and stumbled off to bed.

Questor and Abernathy were both at his bedside when he awoke the next morning. He felt like hell. It was still raining.

"Good morning, High Lord," they greeted together, faces somber. They had the look of pallbearers at a funeral.

"Come back when I'm dead," he ordered, rolled over and went back to sleep.

He came awake a second time at noon. This time there was no one there. The rain had stopped, and the sun was sending a few faint streamers of light earthward through a veil of mist. Ben pushed himself into a sitting position and stared into space. His head throbbed and his mouth tasted of cotton. He was so angry with himself that he could barely keep from screaming.

He washed, dressed and trooped down the castle stairs to the great hall. He took his time, studying the stone walls, the tarnished silver trappings, the worn tapestries and drapes. He felt the warmth of the castle reaching out to him, a comforting mother's touch. It had been a long time since he had felt that touch. His hands brushed the stone in response.

Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds were all gathered in the great hall, engaged in various make-work tasks. All looked up quickly as he entered. Ben came up to them and stopped.

"I'm sorry about last night," he apologized immediately. "I guess that was just something that I had to get out of my system. I hope you all rested well, because we have a great deal of work to do."

Questor glanced at the others, then back to Ben. "Where are we going now, High Lord?" he asked.

Ben smiled. "We're going to school, Questor."

The lessons began that afternoon. Ben was the student; Questor, Abernathy, Bunion, and Parsnip were his teachers. Ben had thought it all through — much of it in fits and starts while in various stages of inebriation and repentance — but carefully. He had spent most of his time since his arrival in Landover running about pointlessly. Questor might argue that the visits to the Greensward and Elderew had served a good purpose — and perhaps they had. But the bottom line was that he was floundering. He was a stranger in a land he had never dreamed could exist. He was trying to govern countries he had not even seen. He was trying to bargain with rulers and headmen he knew nothing about. However competent, hard-working, and well-intentioned he might be, he could not expect to assimilate as rapidly as he was trying. There were lessons to be learned, and it was time that he learned them.

He began with Sterling Silver. He took the remainder of the afternoon and toured the castle from cellar to turret, Questor and Abernathy at his side. He had the scribe relate the history of the castle and her Kings from as far back as his records and memory would record. He had the wizard fill in the gaps. He learned everything he could of what had transpired in and about those halls and chambers, towers and parapets, grounds and lakes. He used eyes and nose and touch to ingest her life, and he made himself feel as one with her.

He ate dinner late that night in the great hall and spent the dinner hour and two hours after with Parsnip learning to recognize the consumables and poisons of the valley. Questor stayed with him, interpreting everything Parsnip said.

The next day he used the Landsview. He took Questor with him the first several times out, traversing the valley from one end to the other, studying the geography, the provinces, the towns, the fortresses and castles, and the people who inhabited them all. By midaftemoon, he was making the trip alone, feeling more comfortable with the magic, learning to expand the vast range of the Landsview to suit his needs, and replaying in his mind the bits and pieces of information imparted to him by the wizard.

He went out by Landsview again the following day, and each day after that, his attention focused now on the history of the valley, matching events with places and people. Questor was his teacher once again, and the wizard proved infinitely patient. It was difficult for Ben to match dates and times to places and things where he had so little previous background in either. Questor was forced to repeat the lessons over and over. But Ben had a good memory and he was determined. By the end of the first week of lessons, he had a decent working knowledge of Landover.

He engaged in outings closer to Sterling Silver as well, journeys made afoot and not through the magic of the Landsview. Bunion was his guide and mentor on these excursions. The kobold took him from the valley into the forests and hills about the castle to study more closely the life forms that inhabited the region. They tracked down a timber wolf, hunted to his lair a cave wight, and uncovered a pair of bog wumps. They unearthed tunnel rats, snakes, and reptiles of various forms, treed a variety of cats, and spied upon the distant, rock-sheltered eyries of hunting birds. They studied the plantlife. Questor went with them on the first outing to interpret; after that, he was left behind. Ben and the kobold found that they could communicate well enough on their own.

Ten days later, Ben used the Landsview to seek out Strabo. He went alone. He intended this outing to be a measure of his progress in learning to control the magic. He had thought at first to seek out Willow, but it would be as if he were spying on her and he did not want that. So he settled on the dragon instead. The dragon terrified him, and he wanted to see how he could handle his fear. He searched most of the day before finding the monster engaged in devouring half a dozen cattle at the north end of the Greensward, gnawing and crunching on carcasses shredded and broken almost beyond recognition. The dragon seemed to sense his presence as he brought himself to within a dozen yards of the feast. The crusted snout raised and jagged, blackened teeth snapped at the air before him. Ben held his ground for a long five count, then pulled quickly away, satisfied.

He wanted to make a foray alone into the forests about Sterling Silver to test what he had learned from Bunion, but Questor put his foot down. They compromised on a daytime hike in which Bunion would trail and not interfere if Ben was not threatened. Ben trooped out at dawn, trooped back again at dusk and never saw Bunion once. He also never saw the cave wight and the tree adder that the kobold dispatched as they were about to make a meal of him. He consoled himself with the knowledge that, while he had seen neither of these, he had seen and avoided several bog wumps, wolves, other wights and reptiles, and a big cat, all of whom would have made a meal of him just as quickly.

Two weeks later, he could recite from memory recent history, geographical landmarks and routes to and from the same, consumables and poisons, the creatures inhabiting the valley, the workings of the social orders that dominated the major races, and the rules that any manual of basic survival in Landover would include. He was still working on the Landsview. He had not yet developed his confidence in its magic to undergo the final test that he had set for himself — a search for the witch Nightshade in the hollows of the Deep Fell. Nightshade never ventured out of the oppressively dark confines of the Deep Fell, and he did not yet trust himself to attempt an intrusion.

He was still wrestling with his uncertainty when a more immediate problem appeared at the castle gates.

"You have visitors, High Lord," Abernathy announced.

Ben was bent over a worktable in one of the lower sitting rooms, perusing ancient maps of the valley. He looked up in surprise, seeing first the scribe and then Questor a few discreet steps behind him.

"Visitors?" he repeated.

"Gnomes, High Lord," Questor advised him.

"G'home Gnomes," Abernathy added, and there was hint of disdain in his voice.

Ben stared at them. He shoved back the maps. "What in the world are G'home Gnomes?" His lessons with Questor' had never gotten this far.

"A rather pathetic species of gnome, I am afraid," Quetor replied.

"A rather worthless species, you mean," Abernathy creeled coldly.

"That is not necessarily so."

"It is definitely so."

"I am sorry to say that you reflect only your own predices, Abernathy."

"I reflect a well-reasoned opinion, Questor Thews."

"What is this — Laurel and Hardy?" Ben broke in. They stared back at him blankly. "Never mind," he told them, impatiently brushing the reference aside with a wave of one hand. "Just tell me what G'home Gnomes are."

"They are a tribe of gnomes living in the foothills north below the high peaks of Melchor," Questor answered, his owlish face shoving forward past Abernathy. "They are burrow people; they inhabit tunnels and dens they dig out of the earth. Most of the time they stay in the ground..."

"Where they ought to stay," Abernathy interjected.

"...but now and again they forage the surrounding countryside." He gave Abernathy a withering glance. "Do you mind?" His eyes shifted back to Ben. "They are not well liked. They tend to appropriate things that do not belong to them and give back nothing in exchange. Their burrowing can be a nuisance when it encroaches on pastureland or grain fields. They are extremely territorial and, once settled in, will not move. It doesn't matter who owns the land they have settled on — once there, they stay."

"You have not told him the worst!" Abernathy insisted.

"Why not tell him yourself," Questor huffed, stepping back.

"They eat dogs. High Lord!" Abernathy snapped, unable to contain himself any longer. His muzzle drew back to reveal his teeth. "They are cannibals!"

"Unfortunately, true." Questor shoved forward once more, crowding Abernathy aside with his shoulder. "They eat cats as well, however, and I have never heard you complain about that!"

Ben grimaced. "Terrific. What about the name?"

"An abbreviation, High Lord," Questor said. "The gnomes became so vexatious with their burrowing and their thieving that everyone began to express openly their wish that they would simply 'go home' to wherever it was they had come from. After a while, the admonishment 'go home, gnomes' became the nickname by which they were known — G'home Gnomes."

Ben shook his head in disbelief. "Now there's a story right out of the Brothers Grimm. The G'home Gnomes. Well, what brings these gnomes to us?"

"They will speak of that only with you, High Lord. Will you see them?"

Abernathy looked very much as if he wanted to bite Questor, but he managed to refrain from doing so, his shaggy muzzle frozen in a half-snarl. Questor rocked back on his heels, eyes fixed on Ben expectantly.

"The royal appointment calendar isn't exactly bulging at the seams," Ben answered, looking first at Abernathy, then at Questor. "I can't see where meeting someone who has taken the trouble to come all this way can hurt anything."

"I trust you will remember later that it was you who said that, High Lord." Abernathy sniffed. "There are two of them waiting. Shall I show both in?"

Ben had to fight to keep from grinning. "Please do."

Abernathy left and was back a few moments later with the G'home Gnomes.

"Fillip and Sot, High Lord," Abernathy announced, teeth showing.

The gnomes came forward and bowed so low their heads touched the castle stone. They were the most miserable looking creatures Ben had ever seen. They were barely four feet tall, their bodies stout and covered with hair, their faces ferretlike and bearded from neck to nose. They wore clothes that the lowliest bum would have refused, and they looked as if they hadn't bathed since birth. Dust coated their bodies and clothing; dirt and grime were caked in the seams of their skin and under fingernails that looked dangerously diseased. Tiny, pointed ears jutted from either side of skull caps with red feathers stuck in the bands, and toes with curled nails peeked out from the ends of ruined boots.

"Great High Lord," one addressed him.

"Mighty High Lord," the other added.

They took their heads off the floor and faced him, eyes squinting. They looked like moles come to surface for a glimpse of daylight.

"I am Fillip," one said.

"I am Sot," the other said.

"We have come to offer our pledge of fealty to the High Lord of Landover on behalf of all of the G'home Gnomes," Fillip said.

"We have come to offer felicitations," Sot said.

"We wish you long life and health," Fillip said.

"We wish you many children," Sot said.

"We extend to you our skills and our experience to be used in whatever manner you may choose," Fillip said.

"We extend to you our services," Sot said.

"But first we have a small problem," Fillip said.

"We do," Sot agreed.

They waited, their presentation apparently finished. Ben wondered if they had simply run out of gas. "What sort of problem do you have?" he asked solicitously.

They glanced at each other. Sharp mole faces crinkled and tiny, pointed teeth showed liked daggers.

"Trolls," Fillip said.

"Crag Trolls," Sot said.

Again they waited. Ben cleared his throat. "What about them?" Whereas he had known nothing of the G'home Gnomes, he did know something of the Crag Trolls.

"They have taken our people," Fillip said.

"Not all of our people, but a rather substantial number," Sot corrected.

"They missed us," Fillip said.

"We were away," Sot said.

"They raided our burrows and dens, and they carried our people off with them," Fillip said.

"They seized everyone they found," Sot said.

"They took them to Melchor to work the mines and the furnaces," Fillip said.

"They took them to the fires," Sot grieved.

Ben was beginning to get the picture. The Crag Trolls were a rather primitive race of beings living in the mountains of Melchor. Their primary business was mining ores from the rock and converting them in their furnaces to weapons and armor which they sold to the other inhabitants of the valley. The Crag Trolls were a reclusive and unfriendly bunch, but they seldom provoked trouble with their neighbors and had never used slave labor.

He glanced past the gnomes to Questor and Abernathy.

The wizard shrugged and the scribe gave him one of his patented 'I told you so' looks.

"Why did the Crag Trolls seize your people?" Ben asked the gnomes.

Fillip and Sot glanced at each other thoughtfully, then shook their heads.

"We do not know, great High Lord," Fillip said.

"We do not," Sot said.

They were without doubt the worst liars Ben had ever encountered. Nevertheless, he decided to be tactful. "Why do you think the Crag Trolls seized your people?" he pressed.

"That would be difficult to say," Fillip said.

"Very difficult," Sot agreed.

"There could be any number of reasons," Fillip said.

"Any number," Sot echoed.

"It is possible, I suppose, that in foraging we might have appropriated property which the trolls felt belonged to them," Fillip speculated.

"It is possible that we might have claimed property we believed abandoned but which, in truth, still belonged to them," Sot added.

"Mistakes of that sort sometimes do happen," Fillip said.

"Sometimes," Sot said.

Ben nodded. He didn't believe for a minute that any foraging from the Crag Trolls had been anything short of deliberate. The only mistake had been in the gnomes' belief that they could get away with it.

"If a mistake of this sort were to happen," Ben observed carefully, "wouldn't the Crag Trolls simply have asked for the missing property back?"

The gnomes looked decidedly uncomfortable. Neither said anything.

Ben frowned. "What sort of property might have been misappropriated, do you think?" he asked them.

Fillip glanced down at his boots, and the toes wriggled uneasily. Sot's ferret features twisted about and looked as if they might like to disappear into his fur.

"The trolls like to keep pets," Fillip said finally.

"The trolls are very fond of pets," Sot added.

"They like the furry tree sloths most of all," Fillip said.

"They give them to their children to play with," Sot said.

"How can one tell wild furry tree sloths from pet furry tree sloths?" Fillip queried.

"How can one know which is which?" Sot queried.

A terrible suspicion crossed Ben's mind. "You can always give back misappropriated pets, can't you?" he asked them.

"Not always," Fillip said, somehow managing to look mortified.

"No, not always," Sot agreed.

Ben caught a glimpse of Abernathy out of the comer of his eye. His scribe's hackles were raised up like the spikes of a cornered porcupine.

He looked back at the gnomes. "You ate those tree sloths, didn't you?" he demanded.

Neither said a word. They looked down at their boots. They looked aside at the walls. They looked everywhere but at Ben. Abernathy gave a low, menacing growl, and Questor hushed him into silence. "Wait outside, please," Ben told the gnomes. Fillip and Sot turned about quickly and scurried from the room, small rodent bodies swaying awkwardly with the movement. Fillip glanced back once as if he might say something more, then reconsidered and hurried out. Questor followed them to the door and closed it tightly behind them. Ben looked at his aides. "Well, what do you think?" Questor shrugged. "I think it is easier to catch and devour a tame furry tree sloth than a wild one."

"I think someone should eat a few of them and see how they like it!" Abernathy snapped.

"Would such a meal interest you?" Questor asked.

Ben stepped forward impatiently. "I'm not asking what you think about what they did. I'm asking what you think about helping them."

Abernathy was appalled. His ears flattened back and his glasses slipped askew on his nose. "I would sooner bed down with fleas. High Lord! I would sooner share lodging with cats!"

"What about the fact that the trolls have forced these people into slavery?" Ben pressed.

"It seems clear to me that they brought it on themselves!" his scribe answered stiffly. "In any case, you have far more important concerns than the G'home Gnomes!"

Ben frowned. "Do I?"

"High Lord," Questor interrupted and stepped forward. "The Melchor is dangerous country and the Crag Trolls have never been the most loyal of the King's subjects. They are a tribal people, very primitive, very unreceptive to intervention from anyone not of their own country. The old King kept them in line primarily by staying out of their business.

When he had to intervene, he did so with an army to stand behind him."

"And I have no army to stand behind me, do I?" Ben finished. "I don't even have the services of the Paladin."

"High Lord, the G'home Gnomes have been nothing but trouble for as long as anyone can remember!" Abernathy stepped over to join Questor. "They are a nuisance wherever they go! They are cannibals and thieves! Why would you even consider helping them in this dispute?"

Questor nodded in agreement. "Perhaps this kind of request is one best refused, High Lord."

"No, Questor," Ben replied at once. "This is exactly the kind of request that I cannot refuse." He looked at the wizard and the scribe in turn and shook his head. "You don't understand, do you? I came into Landover to be King. I cannot pick and choose when I will be King and over whom. I am King now and always and for everyone who needs me. That is the way it works with monarchies. I know that much from the history of my own world. A King must proclaim and administer the laws of the Kingdom fairly and equally to all of his subjects. There can be no favorites; there can be no exceptions. What I would do for the Lords of the Greensward and the sprites and nymphs of Elderew I must do for the G'home Gnomes. If I back away once, I set a precedent for doing so the next time and the time after that and so on any time it seems convenient."

"But you have no support in this, High Lord," Questor argued.

"Perhaps not. But if I am successful in helping the gnomes, then I might have that support the next time out. The gnomes have given their pledge, which is one pledge more than I had before they made the journey here. They deserve something for that. Maybe the others will pledge as well if they see that the throne can be of use even to the G'home Gnomes. Maybe they will reconsider their position."

"Maybe cows will fly over the castle," Abernathy grumbled.

"Maybe," Ben agreed. "I've seen stranger things since I arrived."

They stared at each other wordlessly for a moment.

"I do not care for this idea at all," Questor said, his owlish face lined with doubt.

"Nor I," Abernathy echoed.

"Then we agree," Ben concluded. "I don't like it either. But we are going anyway. We are going because that's what we have to do. School's out, as the saying goes. It's time to face life in the real world again. Now let's have the gnomes back in here."

Questor and Abernathy bowed in acknowledgment and left we room muttering to themselves.

Thee G'home Gnomes returned with protestations of good intent spilling forth. The furry tree sloths were a favorite food of their people, Fillip insisted. Yes, the furry tree sloths are quite delicious, Sot agreed. Ben cut them short. Their request would be granted, he told them. He would go with them to the Melchor to see what could be done to gain the release of those taken by the Crag Trolls. They would depart Sterling Silver at dawn. Fillip and Sot stared at him, then fell to their knees before him, groveling in a most disgusting manner. Ben had them removed at once.

He went up to the Landsview alone that evening after dinner. The gnomes had been sequestered in their rooms by Abernathy (who refused to trust them anywhere else in the castle), and the others were occupied with preparations for the journey north. Ben had time to use as he chose. He decided to take a quick peek into the lake country.

The night was misted and dark, no different from dozens of others, seven of Landover's brightly colored moons faintly visible over the line of the horizon, stars a distant sprinkling of street lights through a midnight fog. The Landsview took him instantly to the lake country, and he descended slowly into Elderew. The city was bright with torch light atop treelanes and along roadways, and her people were still abroad. The sound of laughter and light conversation made him feel uneasy somehow — more an intruder that he already was. He slipped over the amphitheater, down across the city dwellings and shops, past the cottage that had been his lodging, and into the deep woods. He found the old pines where Willow's mother had danced. They were deserted. The tree into which Willow had transformed herself was gone. Willow was nowhere to be found.

He let himself remain in the deep woods for a time, thinking of Annie. He could not explain why, but he needed to think of her. He needed to be with her, too, but he knew that Annie was gone and it was pointless to dwell on it. He felt alone, a traveler come far from home and friends. He was adrift. He felt that he had cut himself off from everything, and that his reasons for doing so were proving to be poor ones. He needed someone to tell him that it would all work out, that he was doing the right thing, that there were better times ahead.

There was no one to do that, however. There was only himself.

Midnight came and went before Ben finally refocussed on Sterling Silver. He took his hands reluctantly from the railing of the Landsview and he was home again.