They must have seemed an odd sight, Abernathy thought as they approached the gates of Rhyndweir, castle fortress of Kallendbor, the most powerful of the Lords of the Greensward. A tall, scrawny, gangly man with a bird on his shoulder, a smallish, wiry beast that looked a little like a crazed monkey, and a dog with human hands and wearing reading glasses—Horris Kew, Biggar, Bunion, and himself. Up the roadway through the town surrounding the fortress they trudged, carrying before them (well, Bunion carrying, actually) the banner of the current and still absent King of Landover. Their horses trailed on a line behind them, grateful no doubt to be rid of riders who didn’t much care for the beasts anyway. The mule with the chests of mind’s eye crystals plodded along with them. The day was hot and humid, the air still, and the prospect of a bath and a cold drink was foremost in everyone’s mind.
Townspeople gathered to watch them come, standing in the shade of doorways and awnings, nudging one another and whispering. Perhaps they knew, Abernathy thought. Perhaps by now, everybody knew.
They had departed Sterling Silver three days earlier, a delegation of King’s emissaries dispatched for the particular purpose of distributing mind’s eye crystals to the people of the Greensward, both high-born and low. The decision to allow the crystals to be shared had been reached with some reservations, but reached nevertheless. Questor Thews was growing desperate in his efforts to cover for the missing King. It was getting harder and harder to invent excuses to explain why the King refused to see anyone personally, delegating all meetings to his chief advisor. A diversion of some sort was needed to keep the more persistent questioners at bay. If nothing else, perhaps the crystals could provide this. Take them out, spread them around, let them amuse for a time, and hope the novelty wouldn’t wear off too fast.
Questor, of course, could not go himself. So Abernathy, despite his objection to the idea, was the logical choice to go in his place. Someone had to represent the King besides Horris Kew and his bird. Someone had to keep an eye on Horris and maybe the bird as well. So Abernathy was pressed into service, and Bunion was sent along for protection and support. An escort of soldiers was offered as well, but no one wanted them, including Abernathy, who preferred to keep matters simple and straightforward. Visit the Lords of the Greensward with an escort and you called immediate attention to yourself. That was a bad idea, Abernathy had decided, and therefore the escort was unnecessary.
Besides, this was a time of peace. What sort of trouble would they run into with the King’s banner paraded before them?
So off they had gone, marching out of the castle gates and heading northeast through the forests and across the hills to the grasslands of the Greensward. Everyone they met along the way was offered one of the crystals. Most accepted them gladly, entranced by what they could do. One or two, more curmudgeonly than their fellows, wouldn’t even consider such nonsense. There were a great many farms and small communities between Sterling Silver and the castles of the Lords of the Greensward, so hundreds of crystals were distributed. Word began to spread, and before long there were people waiting for them on the road. More crystals were passed out, and more people went away happy. So far, so good.
Abernathy had to give credit to Horris Kew. The conjurer made certain that each person given a crystal knew that it was a gift from the King and that he was acting solely as the King’s representative. There was no attempt to take credit for anything, no hint of self-promotion. It was very unlike the Horris Kew Abernathy remembered, and it made him suspicious all over again.
But the faithful Court Scribe was compromised on the matter. As much as he distrusted Horris Kew and his schemes, including this one, he was desperately attached to his own, personal crystal. When he could admit it to himself, which was less and less often, he worried that his attraction bordered on addiction. He seemed to have been snared from the first moment he had looked into the crystal’s wondrous depths. What had he been shown, not once, but each time he looked? Himself, restored to who and what he had once been, a man with a man’s features, the dog body in which he was trapped forever gone. It was his deepest, fondest wish in life, the dream he lived to fulfill, and when he gazed into the faceted light of his mind’s eye crystal, it all came to pass. He could stay there and watch himself for as long as he chose—an increasingly longer period of time each day. He could not only see but feel himself as a man; he could remember what it had been like before Questor Thews invoked his unfortunate incantation and consigned him to his present fate.
It was a wickedly pleasurable pastime, and Abernathy could not get enough of it. It was not as good as being himself again, as looking as he once had, but it was as close as he was likely to get. It was immensely satisfying. And he owed it all to Horris Kew.
Even now, as he approached the towering gates of Rhyndweir and thought gratefully of the bath and cold ale that would be waiting, he was thinking as well of his crystal and the prospect of time alone in his room to look into its depths once more.
The gates opened to receive them, and they marched through and past the handful of guards standing watch. A single minor court official waited to receive them and guide them on. No trumpeted greeting, no turning out of the garrison, no personal attendance by Kallendbor as there would have been for the King, Abernathy thought. Minimal respect was accorded to envoys, and less-than-minimal interest. Kallendbor had never liked Holiday, but he was growing more open in his disdain. Memories of Holiday’s triumphs and accomplishments were growing dim, it seemed. Holiday had faced down Kallendbor on several occasions and done what the Lords of the Greensward had been unable to do—defeat the Iron Mark, disperse the demons back to Abaddon, and unite the kingdom under a single rule. He had defeated every opponent sent against him and overcome every obstacle. All this had been accepted by Kallendbor, if never appreciated. Now, perhaps, even acceptance was in question.
Kallendbor met them at the palace doors, resplendent in crimson robes and jewels, accompanied by his advisors and current favorites. He was a tall, well-built man with hair and beard so red they shone almost gold in the sunlight. His hands and forearms were callused and marked with battle scars. He stood waiting for them to approach, arrogant head held erect, giving the impression that he was looking down on them, that he was lending them his time and attention out of the generosity of his heart. His attitude did not bother Abernathy; the scribe was well used to it. Nevertheless, he did not appreciate the deliberate insolence.
“Lord Kallendbor,” Abernathy greeted, foremost of the three as they came up to him, and inclined his head slightly.
“Scribe,” the other replied with an even slighter bow.
“Awk! Mighty Lord! Mighty Lord!” Biggar squawked.
Kallendbor blinked. “What’s this we have here? A trained bird? Well, now. Is this a gift for me, perhaps?” He was suddenly beaming. “Of course it is! Very well chosen, Abernathy.”
Now here was an opportunity that Abernathy would have given almost anything for—a chance to get rid of Biggar. Abernathy had not liked the bird from day one and the bird had not liked him—and each knew how the other felt. There was something about Biggar that bothered Abernathy more than he could say. He couldn’t define what it was exactly, but it was most certainly there. He had not wanted the bird on this trip; he had argued against it vehemently. But Horris Kew insisted that the bird must accompany them, and in the end—in large part because the mind’s eye crystals were the conjurer’s offering and the entire reason for the journey—the bird went.
Abernathy opened his mouth to speak, to tell Kallendbor that, yes, indeed, the bird was all his. He was too slow.
“My Lord, forgive me for letting this poor creature distract you from our purpose in coming to see you,” Horris Kew interjected quickly. “The bird, alas, is not a gift. He is my companion, my sole treasure in this world from my old life and the people who meant so much to me, who gave me all that I have and made me what I am. You understand, I am sure.” He was speaking very quickly. “The bird, truth be told, is an unpleasant sort, given to fits of temper and biting. You would not be happy with him.”
As if to emphasize the point, Biggar reached over and pecked hard at Horris Kew’s ear. “Ow! There, you see!”
Horris took a swipe at Biggar, who flew off a few yards before settling back down on the other’s shoulder, alert for further attempts.
“Why am I not offered this bird if I wish it?” Kallendbor demanded, his face darkening. “Are you saying I cannot have this bird if it pleases me?”
Abernathy was thinking that this was the end of the crystal distribution program, that they might all just as well turn around and go home right now—except for Biggar, who, it appeared, was destined to stay.
“My Lord, the bird is yours if you wish him,” Horris Kew declared at once. Biggar squawked anew. “But you should know that he speaks very little, and what he said just now—’Mighty Lord’—is a phrase he learned from the King. In other words, the King taught him to say that about himself.”
Abernathy stared. There was a very long silence. Kallendbor flushed and straightened further, looking as if he might explode. Then slowly the dangerous color drained away.
“Never mind, I don’t wish him after all,” he said disdainfully. “If he is mine to take, that is enough. Let Holiday keep him.” He took a steadying breath. “Now, then. Since we have dispensed with the matter of this bird, what is it you wish?”
“My Lord,” Horris Kew said, jumping in again before Abernathy could speak, “you were right in your assumption. We do bring you a gift, something far more intriguing and useful than a bird. It is called a mind’s eye crystal.”
Kallendbor was interested once more. “Let me see it.”
This time Abernathy was quicker. “We would be happy to show it to you, my Lord, perhaps inside where it is cooler and we can be shown to the quarters that I am sure you have arranged for us as envoys of the King.”
Kallendbor smiled, not a pleasant sight. “Of course, you must be exhausted. Riding is hard for you, I expect. Come this way.”
Abernathy did not miss the intended snub, but he ignored it and the little company followed Kallendbor and his retinue inside to the great hall. Glasses of ale drawn from casks kept cooled in the deep waters of the Bairn and the Cosselburn, the rivers bracketing Rhyndweir, were brought and arrangements were begun for rooms and baths. Kallendbor took them over to an area before a series of doors that opened onto a training field and seated them in a circle of chairs. Most of his retinue was left standing, gathered at their master’s shoulder.
“Now, then, what of this gift?” Kallendbor asked anew.
“It is this, my Lord,” Horris Kew declared, and produced from his clothing one of the mind’s eye crystals.
Kallendbor accepted the crystal and studied it with a frown. “It doesn’t look to be precious. What is its worth? Wait!” He leaned forward, looking now at Abernathy. He pointed at Horris Kew. “Who is this?”
“His name is Horris Kew,” the scribe answered, resisting the urge to add more. “He is at present in service to the King. He is the discoverer of these crystals.”
“These crystals?” Kallendbor turned back to Horris Kew. “There are more than one? How many are there?’
“Thousands,” the conjurer replied, smiling. “But each is special. Hold it before you, my Lord, so that it catches the light and then look into it”
Kallendbor studied him suspiciously for a moment, then did as he was bidden. He held the crystal out to catch a streamer of sunlight, then bent down to peer into its depths. He remained that way until the crystal seemed to ignite with white fire, then gasped and jerked back sharply, but kept his eyes fixed. Suddenly he was open mouthed, bending close once more, a bright gleam in his eyes. “No, is it so?” he muttered. “Is it possible?”
Then he snatched the crystal from view, shutting off its light and whatever the light had shown him. “All of you, out!” he demanded to those peering over his shoulder expectantly. “Now!”
They disappeared with surprising quickness, and when they were gone Kallendbor looked again at Horris Kew. “What are these?” he hissed. “What power do they command?”
Horris seemed confused. “Why, they ... they offer visions of many things, my Lord—visions peculiar to each holder. They are a diversion, nothing more.”
Kallendbor shook his head. “Yes, but ... do they show the future, perhaps? Tell me that.”
“Well, yes, perhaps,” Horris Kew went along, no fool he. “To some, of course, not to everyone.”
And suddenly Abernathy found himself wondering if perhaps it was so. Horris himself did not seem to know the truth of the matter, but what if Kallendbor’s guess was right? Did that mean that the visions shown might come to pass? Did it mean that Abernathy might be seeing himself not as he had been but as he would be again?
“The future,” Kallendbor whispered, lost in thought. “Yes, it might be so.”
Whatever he had seen had certainly pleased him, Abernathy thought, barely interested in what that might be, too caught up in considering his own use of the crystal. His chest constricted with the emotions that gathered at the prospect that he might become a man again. If it could only be true!
“How many of these do you have?” Kallendbor demanded suddenly.
Horris Kew swallowed, not sure where this was leading. “As I said, thousands, my Lord.”
“Thousands. How much do they cost?”
“Nothing, my Lord. They are free.”
Kallendbor seemed to choke on something. “Have you given many out yet?”
“Yes, my Lord, many. It is our purpose in coming to the Greensward—to give these crystals to the people so that they may be amused by what they see in them when their daily work is done. Of course, for you, my Lord,” he added quickly, not missing an opportunity when he saw one, “they perhaps offer something more.”
“Yes, something more.” Kallendbor thought. “I have an idea. Allow me to distribute those crystals intended for the other Lords of the Greensward. I shall pass them about in the King’s name, of course. That would save you visiting each stronghold and leave you free to visit the common people.”
It was not a request. Horris Kew looked at Abernathy for help. Abernathy surmised what Kallendbor intended. He would not give the mind’s eye crystals to the other Lords for nothing; he would charge dearly. Probably he would tell them that these crystals, unlike those given for free to the working people, foretold the future. But Abernathy frankly didn’t care one way or the other. News would travel fast enough. Let Kallendbor deal with his neighbors as he chose.
Abernathy shrugged. “Of course, my Lord,” he replied. “Whatever you wish.”
Kallendbor stood up abruptly. “Your rooms are ready. Wash and rest until dinner. We will speak more of this then.” He turned from them, and it was apparent that he could barely restrain himself from peering once more at his crystal. “Oh, yes. Ask my servants if you require anything.”
He went out the door as if catapulted, and was gone.
Alone in his room, Abernathy bathed, dressed, drank another glass of the fine, cold ale, and settled back in his bed, stretched full-length across its covering. He took his crystal from where he kept it hidden, held it up to the light, and stared into it. He was practiced in its use by now, to the extent such practice was needed, and the light and images came at once. He watched himself appear in his old form, a young man with a bright, happy smile and an expectant look, rather handsome for his bookish appearance, rather appealing. He was playing with children and there was a woman watching, pretty and shy. Abernathy felt his breath catch in his throat. There had never been a woman in his life before, no wife, no lover, and yet here one was now. The future, perhaps? Was it possible he was seeing what would be?
He closed his hand over the crystal abruptly and focused everything on the idea. The future. Anything was possible, wasn’t it? What would he give if it were so? He knew the answer without asking. He stared up at the ceiling, at the cracks in the old mortarwork, at the faded paint that had once clearly detailed a pageant of some sort. Like his past, time had faded the event. So much of what once was had been lost in the passing of the years and in the changes wrought. He would not wish to recapture much, he told himself. Just the essence of who he was. Just the whole of who he had been.
He thought suddenly of Ben Holiday, who had been so anxious to leave his past behind. The King had few memories to sustain him, and the changes he had sought had been not of lifestyle but of life. It was not so with Abernathy, but there were parallels to be drawn. He wondered where Holiday was, what had become of him. There remained no trace of the King, no sign of him anywhere, though the search had been long and thorough and was continuing still. It was disturbing that he should vanish so utterly; it did not bode well for any of them if he was gone for good. Another King could bring changes that were not necessarily welcome. Another King would not possess Holiday’s strength of character and determination. For another King, the magic might not work.
He drank the last of his ale, sitting on the edge of his bed, dejected. Nothing seemed right with Holiday gone. Everything seemed disrupted and out of joint. He wished that there were something he could do to change things.
Bunion had gone out to scout the surrounding countryside, to see if there was anything to be learned of the missing King. Perhaps he would find something in his quest. Perhaps something good would come of this trek through the Greensward. Perhaps.
Abernathy lay back upon his bed once more and held his crystal out to catch the light.
Kallendbor did not appear for dinner. Neither did Bunion. Horris Kew and Abernathy ate dinner alone with Biggar looking on from the back of the conjurer’s chair like some foul omen of doom. Abernathy tried to ignore him, but it was difficult since the bird was sitting directly across the table, staring down malevolently from his perch. Abernathy couldn’t help himself. At one point, when Horris wasn’t looking, he bared his teeth at the bird.
Biggar told Horris about it later, but Horris wasn’t interested. They were back in their room, sitting in near darkness with but a single candle burning on the bedside table. Horris was seated on the bed, and Biggar was hunched down on the deep window ledge.
“He growled at me, I tell you!” the bird was insisting. “He practically snapped at me!”
Horris was looking about the room nervously. The tic was working furiously at the corner of his eye. “Growled at you? I didn’t hear anything.”
“Well, all right, maybe he didn’t actually growl.” Biggar was not up to hair-splitting. “But he showed all of his considerable teeth, and there was no mistaking his intent! Horris, pay attention, will you? Quit looking all over the place!”
Horris Kew was indeed scanning the room end to end. He stopped long enough to stare at Biggar in a rather harried, suspicious manner. Tic, tic went the eye. The bird cocked his head. “Are you all right, Horris?”
Horris nodded doubtfully. “I keep seeing something ...” He gestured vaguely. “Out there.” He shrugged. “Sometimes in the shadows of trees and buildings, and sometimes at night in dark corners I think I see it. I feel like I’m being watched.” He took a deep breath. “I think it might be here.”
“The Gorse?” Biggar sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous. How could it be here? It never leaves the cave. You’re imagining things.”
Horris hugged his lanky frame as if cold. His plow-blade nose thrust forward. “I keep thinking about Holiday and the witch and the dragon and what it did to them. I keep worrying that you were right, that it might do the same to us.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Biggar felt an immense satisfaction at the admission. “On the other hand, we’ve gone a bit far with this crystal business to be worried about that now.”
Horris rose and walked about the room uneasily, checking into corners and behind furniture. Biggar cocked his white-crested head. A waste of time, he was thinking. If the Gorse doesn’t want to be seen, it won’t be. Not a creature like that.
“Will you sit down and relax?” he said irritably. Horris was making him nervous.
Horris moved back to the bed and seated himself once more. “Do you know what the Gorse said when I asked what would become of Holiday and the others in the Tangle Box?”
Biggar couldn’t remember and didn’t care. But he said, “What, Horris, tell me.”
“It said they would become entangled in the fairy mists. It said that the spell of forgetfulness would start them down a road that had no end. They would not know who they were. They would not remember from where they had come. They would be sealed away in the mists, and the mists would play with them and eventually drive them mad.” Horris shuddered. “The Gorse said it would take a very long time to happen.”
“None of this is our concern,” Biggar sniffed. “We have enough to worry about as it is.”
“I know, I know.” Horris fidgeted and looked off into the shadows as if he had heard something. “I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
Biggar was disgusted. “Well, you better find a way to stop thinking about it. We have a lot to lose if this crystal-giving program doesn’t work out the way the Gorse expects. On the other hand, we have a lot to gain if it does. For the Gorse, Landover is a stepping-stone to other things, but for us it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If we stick to business, we can do a lot better than we did with Skat Mandu.”
“I know, I know.”
“Stop saying that—I hate it when you’re condescending!”
Horris came to his feet, shaking with anger. “Shut up, Biggar! I’ll be condescending if I choose!” He wrung his hands and swept the room with his eyes. “I know what to do, and I’ll do it! I’ve been doing it right along, haven’t I? But I don’t like being watched! I don’t like the idea of someone being there when I can’t see them!”
Biggar spit. “Horris, for the last time, the Gorse isn’t here!”
Horris clenched his fists in frustration. “But what if it is?”
“Yes, what if I am,” the Gorse said from the shadowy depths of the clothes cabinet, and Horris fainted dead away.
When it was done with them, when it had frightened them both so thoroughly that it was satisfied they would do exactly as it wanted them to and not step one inch outside the lines it had directed them to follow, the Gorse went down the outside wall of the castle like a spider. Once on the ground, it changed to a man and went out through the gates to the town beyond. It was getting easier to move about, its magic growing stronger the longer it was free of the fairy mists and the Tangle Box. It was now able to assume different forms. It could be anything or anyone it wished.
It smiled inside to think of the possibilities.
Horris and the bird were idiots, but useful idiots, and the Gorse intended to keep them just long enough to complete its plan for Landover’s destruction. After that, it would dispense with them.
They had not expected it to come with them on their journey. They could not fathom how it had managed to do so. Well, a few more surprises awaited them on this trip. It was best to keep them just a little off balance, a little uncertain. They could say what they wished about it as long as they worried when they did. A little fear was a useful thing.
Once outside the castle and the town, the Gorse shape-changed once more and moved off toward a darkened stretch of woods in the countryside beyond, becoming barely more than a shadow skimming over the land. Worried for Holiday, the witch, and the dragon, were they? Well, they should worry. It could happen to them just as easily. It could be as terrible as they imagined. Surely his three captives in the Tangle Box must be wishing they could escape their nightmare existence just about now. They must wonder what it would take. Too bad they would never know.
It reached the woods and gathered its magic to summon up the demons of Abaddon. Time for another conference. Their entry into Landover was not far off. The Gorse wanted them ready and waiting. Lines of fire speared downward from its hands into the earth.
The answering rumble of discontent came almost immediately.
The Knight, the Lady, and the Gargoyle followed the river downstream through the Labyrinth for the remainder of that day and all the next. It broadened at times so that the far bank disappeared entirely in the mist, and the flat, gray surface stretched away like smooth stone. No fish jumped from its depths; no birds flew over its surface. Bends and twists came and went, but the river flowed on unchanged and unending.
They encountered no other people, River Gypsies or otherwise. They saw no animals, and the small movements that caught their attention came from the deep shadows of the forest and were gone in the blink of an eye.
The Knight searched often for the Haze, but there was no sign of it. He thought long and hard on its origins, compelled to do so by his certainty that it was somehow tied to them. There was, as the Gargoyle had said, a hunger in the way it came after them. It tracked them for a reason, and the reason was somehow connected to why they were trapped in the Labyrinth. He could not see or hear the Haze, but he could sense its presence. It was always there, just out of sight, waiting.
But what was it waiting for?
On the evening following her rescue from the Gypsies, the Lady asked the Knight why he had come after her. They were seated in the gloom as the last of the day’s faint light filtered away into darkness, staring out at the mist as it crawled out of the trees toward the river. They were alone; the Gargoyle had gone off by himself, as he frequently did at night.
“You could have left me and gone on,” she observed, her voice cool and questioning. “I thought you had done so.”
“I would not have done that,” he replied, not looking at her.
“Why? Why bother with me? Am I really so important to your master that you would risk your life for me? Am I such a rare treasure that you would die before losing me?”
He stared off into the dark without answering.
She brushed at her long black hair. “I am your possession, and you would not let anyone take your possessions from you. That is why you came for me, isn’t it?”
“You do not belong to me,” he said.
“Your master’s possession, then. A chattel you dare not lose for fear of offending him. Is that it?”
He looked at her and found derision and bitterness in her eyes. “Tell me something, my Lady. What do you remember of your life before waking in the Labyrinth?”
Her lips tightened. “Why should I tell you?”
He held her gaze, not looking away this time when the anger sparked and burned at him. “I remember almost nothing of my own life. I know I was a Knight in service to a King. I know I have fought hundreds of battles on his behalf and won them all. I know we are tied together somehow, you and I and, I think, the Gargoyle as well. Something happened to me to bring me to this place and time, but I cannot recall what it was. It is as if my whole life has been stolen away.”
He paused. “I am tired of not answering your questions because I have no answers to give. I do not know the name of the master I serve. I do not even know my own name. I do not know where I came from or where I was going to. I came for you not out of loyalty to a master I do not remember or to fulfill an obligation that I cannot recall, but because you are all I have left to hold onto of my life before coming here. If I lose you, if I give you up, nothing would remain.”
She stared at him, and the anger and bitterness dimmed. In their place there showed understanding and a hint of fear. “I cannot remember anything either,” she said softly, speaking the words as if it caused her pain to do so. “I was important and strong, and I knew what I was about. I had magic once.”
Her voice caught in her throat, and he thought she might cry. She did not. She regained control of herself and continued. “I think that magic sent me here. I think you are right, that we were together before and sent here for the same reason. But I think, too, that it was your fault that it happened, not mine.”
He nodded. “That may be.”
“I blame you for this.”
He nodded again. “I am not offended.”
“But I am glad that you are here and that you came for me, too.”
He was too astonished to reply.
On the second night, when the Gargoyle had disappeared into the growing darkness and they were hunkered down by the riverbank, she spoke to him again. She was wrapped in her cloak as if cold, although the air was warm and humid, and there was no wind.
“Do you think we shall escape this place?” she asked in a very small voice.
“We shall escape,” he replied, for he still believed they would.
“The forest and this river go on and do not show any sign of ending. They show no change. The mists still wrap us about and close us away. There are no people or animals. There are no birds.” She shook her head slowly. “There is magic everywhere; it controls everything in the Labyrinth. You may not be able to feel it, but I do. It is a place of magic, and without magic to aid us we shall not escape.”
“There will be a town or a pass through mountains or—”
“No,” she interrupted, her slim white hand coming up quickly to stop him. “No. There will be nothing but the river and the forest and the mists forever. Nothing.”
He woke early the following morning, having spent an uneasy, mostly sleepless night. The Lady’s words haunted him, a grim prophecy he could not forget. She was sleeping still, curled into her cloak in the tall grass, her face serene and smooth, no trace of anger or despair, no hint of bitterness or fear. She was very beautiful lying there, all pale skin and dark hair, flawless and perfect, the coldness that sometimes marked her when she was awake replaced in sleep by softness.
He looked down at her, and he wondered what they had been to each other before coming into the Labyrinth.
After a moment, he rose and went down to the river’s edge. He splashed water on his face and wiped himself dry. When he rose, the Gargoyle was standing next to him. The beast had cast off his cloak. Dew glistened on the bare patches of his bristly hide, like water on a reptile newly risen from the river’s depths. His wings hung ribbed and listless against his hunched back. His face, so ugly and misshapen, seemed contemplative as he looked out over the river. He did not speak at first, but simply stood there.
“Where do you go at night?” the Knight asked him.
The Gargoyle smiled, showing his yellow teeth. “Into the woods where the shadows are thickest. I sleep better there than in the open.” He looked at the Knight. “Did you think I was off hunting down and eating small creatures too slow and soft to escape me? Or that I was performing some diabolical blood rite?”
The Knight shook his head. “I did not think anything. I simply wondered.”
The Gargoyle sighed. “The truth is, I am a creature of habit. We spoke of what we remembered—or did not remember? I remember my habits best. I am ugly and despised by most; it is a fact of my life. Since I am loathsome to others, I take comfort in keeping to myself. I search out the places others would not go. I conceal myself in darkness and shadows and the privacy of my own company. It works best for me when I do.”
He looked away again. “I did eat other creatures once. I ate whatever I chose and traveled wherever I wished. I could fly. I soared the skies unfettered, and there was nothing that could hold me.” The yellow eyes shifted back. “But something changed that, and I think it is tied somehow to you.”
The Knight blinked. “To me? But I do not even remember you.”
“Odd, isn’t it? I heard what the Lady said to you, about how she believes the Labyrinth is magic. I was listening from the trees. I think she is right. I think we were somehow transported by magic, and that magic keeps us prisoners. Do you feel it as well?”
The Knight shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“The Labyrinth does not feel like any real place,” the Gargoyle said. “It lacks the small things that would make it so. It feels artificial, as if it were created by dreams, where everything happens a short step out of time from how we know things to be. Did you not sense it to be so with that town and after the Gypsies? Magic would do that, and I think it has done so here.”
“If so,” the Knight said quietly, “then the Lady is also right when she says we shall not escape.”
But the Gargoyle shook his head. “It only means that since magic brought us in, magic must take us out. It means we must look for our escape in a different way.”
The Knight stared off again. What other way was there? he wondered. He could not think of any. They lacked magic themselves; to sustain them they had only the weapons he carried and their wits. That didn’t seem enough.
They followed the river again that day, and nothing changed. The river rolled on, the forest stretched away, and the mist and gray permeated everything. The Labyrinth’s sameness was growing almost unbearable. The Knight found himself imagining that the ground they were covering now was the same ground they had covered before. He found himself catching sight of landmarks he recognized and geography he knew. It was impossible, of course. They had gone on the same way without once turning back, so there was no chance that they could be repeating their Steps. Still, the feeling persisted, and it began to wear at the Knight’s resolve.
They camped at a bend in the river where the forest came almost to the water’s edge and they could settle themselves back within its shelter. They did so because the Knight wanted the Gargoyle to be able to sleep with them and not have to go off by himself. The creature was scarred already by his hideous appearance, and it seemed cruel that he should be compelled to hide himself away from them each night. They were companions on this journey and had only themselves for support. They must do what they could to keep the bond between them strong. Even the Lady had quit baiting the Gargoyle, had ceased referring to him in derogatory terms, and had begun to speak to him in a civil tone now and again. It was a start, the Knight believed.
His thoughtfulness was rewarded when the Gargoyle did not go off into the dark, but curled up only a few feet off, in the shadow of an old shade tree. For this night, at least, he would sleep with them.
Rough hands brought them awake, pulling them from their sleep as if they were logs from a woodpile. The Knight came to his feet with a bound, staring about wildly. How had they managed to get so close without his hearing them? The Lady was pressed against him, and he could hear the harsh sound of her breathing. The Gargoyle was hunched down a few feet off, yellow eyes gleaming in the faint new light.
There were monsters all about them, ringing their camp and closing off any avenue of escape. There were at least a dozen huge, gnarly brutes, standing upright on two legs, but bent over in a half crouch as if they might be just as comfortable going down on all fours. They were vaguely manlike in appearance—two legs, two arms, a torso, hands and feet, and a head—but their bodies were knotted and muscled grotesquely and covered with some sort of rough hide. Their faces were almost featureless, but their eyes and snouts gleamed wetly as they peered at their three captives.
One of them spoke, his mouth splitting wide to reveal huge fangs. He gibbered at them, a mixture of snorts and grunts. He gestured vaguely, first at them, then at the river, and finally at the forest.
“They want to know where we come from,” the Lady said.
The Knight stared at her in surprise. “Do you understand them?”
She nodded. “I do. I can’t explain it. I’ve never seen them before. I don’t speak their language. I am not even able to put words to all of the sounds. But the meaning is clear. I can decipher it. Here, let me see if I can make them understand me.”
She made a few deft motions with her fingers and hands.
The creature who had spoken grunted some more. Then he looked about at his fellows and shook his head.
“They want to know what we are doing here. They say we don’t belong, that we are intruders.” The Lady had stepped away again from the Knight, her composure recovered. “They don’t like the look of us.”
“What sort of things are they?” the Gargoyle growled, his own teeth showing.
There was another exchange. “They call themselves Gristlies,” the Lady reported. Her face tightened. “They say that they are going to eat us.”
“Eat us?” The Knight could not believe he had heard right.
“They say we are humans and humans are to be eaten. I can’t make all of it out. It has something to do with custom.”
“They had better keep away from me,” the Gargoyle hissed. His muscles bunched into iron cords, and his claws came out. He was on the verge of doing something that would doom them all.
The Gristlies had engaged in a new discussion, all of them grunting loudly and gesturing. There was apparently some sort of disagreement. The Knight made a quick appraisal of the beasts. All of them were huge, and any two more than a match for him in a contest of strength. He felt the weight of his broadsword on his back. The sword would give them a better chance, but still there were too many to stand against. He had to find a way to even the odds.
The Gargoyle had been thinking the same thing. “We will have to make a run for it,” he rasped.
“Stay where you are.” The Lady’s voice was cool and calm. “They are arguing over what is to be done with us. They are very primitive and superstitious. Something about us bothers several among them. Let me try to determine what it is.”
The argument continued, sharper now. Fangs bared, claws unsheathed, two of the Gristlies began growling at each other. They were ferocious-looking creatures, and the Knight began to suspect that they were much quicker and stronger than he had first believed.
“We have to get out of this circle,” he said quietly, and his hand stole back toward the handle of his sword.
In that instant, the two combative Gristlies attacked each other, tearing and ripping and shrieking horribly. Their fellows fell back before the onslaught, and the circle about the Knight and his companions collapsed. Instantly the Gargoyle bolted for the river. The Knight followed, pulling the Lady after him. To their surprise, the Gristlies did not give chase. The Knight looked back over his shoulder as he ran, but no one was there. From the shadow of the trees came the sounds of the battle between the two who had argued. Improbable as it seemed, the captives no longer appeared to matter.
They had reached the river’s edge and were looking for a way to cross over when the Gristlies reappeared. It was immediately apparent why they had been in no hurry. They bounded from the trees like cats, covering ground so fast that they were upon the three in seconds. There were only seven now, but they looked formidable in the dim light, massive bodies uncoiling, claws and teeth gleaming like knives.
“Draw your sword!” the Lady cried in warning, and, when he was too slow to act, seized the weapon in her own hands and tried to draw it free.
“Don’t!” he snapped, breaking her grip and thrusting her away.
She held her ground furiously. The Gristlies slowed and began circling. “Listen to me!” she snapped. “Your sword does more than you think! Remember the townsfolk? Remember the Gypsies? It was when you drew your sword and did battle that the Haze appeared!”
He stared at her in disbelief. “No! There is no connection!”
“There must be!” she hissed. “We have seen the Haze no other time. And when it comes, it never comes for us, only for those who threaten us! The two must be joined in some way! The Sword and the Haze, both weapons that eliminate our enemies! Think!”
She was breathing hard, and her pale face was bright with perspiration.
The Gargoyle had moved close to them, keeping his sharp eyes fixed on the circling Gristlies. “She may be right,” he said quietly. “Take heed of her.”
The Knight shook his head stubbornly. “No!” he said again, thinking,How could that be, how could it possibly ... ?
And suddenly he knew. The truth appeared like a beast come out of hiding, monstrous and terrible. He should have recognized it earlier; he should have seen it for what it was. He had suspected a link between the Haze and themselves, known there was a tie he could not fathom. He had thought all this time that the Haze hunted after them, a stalker awaiting its chance to strike. He had been wrong. The Haze did not track after them; it traveled with them. Because it belonged to him. The Haze was his missing armor. He went cold to the bone. His armor had not been there when he awoke in the Labyrinth, and yet he had sensed it close at hand. His armor had always been like that, hidden, awaiting its summons. It came on command and wrapped itself about him so that he could do battle against his enemies. That was how it worked.
But here, in the mists of the Labyrinth, its form had been altered. Magic had subverted it, had poisoned it, had made it over into a thing that was unrecognizable. His armor had become the Haze. It must be so. Why else would the Haze come to their rescue each time they were threatened and then retreat back into the mists? What other explanation was there?
He could not breathe, the cold so deep inside him that he was paralyzed. It was true, as he had feared, that he was responsible for the deaths of all those people, that he had destroyed the townsfolk and the River Gypsies, that he had killed them all in his warrior’s guise without even realizing what he was doing.
He stood there, stunned by the impact of his recognition. “No,” he whispered in despair.
He felt the Lady’s hands on his shoulders, bracing him, trying to give him strength. The Gristlies were edging closer, emboldened by his indecision, by his inability to act. “Do something!” the Lady cried. The Gargoyle made a quick feint at the Gristlies, but the foremost only snarled in challenge and held its ground.
“I have no magic!” the Lady wailed in despair, shaking the Knight violently.
He shook her off then, come back to himself, recognizing their danger. The Lady was powerless. The Gargoyle was overmatched. They needed him if they were to survive. But if he drew his broadsword the Haze would come, destroying these creatures as it had destroyed the townsfolk and the River Gypsies—and he could not bear that. But what other weapon did he possess? In desperation, almost without thinking about what he was doing, he reached into his tunic and pulled out the medallion with its graven image of a knight riding out of a castle at sunrise. He yanked it free and held it forth before him, as if it were a talisman. What he hoped it would do, he did not know. He knew only that it was all he possessed from his former life, and that it had the same feel of strangeness and remoteness as his armor.
The effect of its appearance on the Gristlies was astonishing. They cringed away from it instantly, some dropping to their knees, some shielding their eyes, all shrinking from it as if it were anathema to them. Whining, weeping, shivering with fear and awe, they began to withdraw. The Knight lifted the medallion higher and took a step toward them. They broke and ran then, bolting for the trees as if pursued by demons, all the fight taken out of them, anxious only to put as much distance between themselves and the medallion as they could manage. They bounded away on all fours and were gone.
Why? the Knight wondered in amazement.
In the silence that followed, his breathing was audible. His hands lowered to his sides, and he lifted his face to the mists.
The Lady went to the Knight and stood so that her face was directly before his. He did not see her; he was staring straight ahead at nothing, his eyes dangerously fixed and empty.
“What did you do?” she asked quietly.
He did not answer.
“You saved us. Nothing else matters.”
He made no response.
“Listen to me,” she told him. “Forget about the people of that town, and forget the Gypsies. What happened to them was not your fault. You could not have known. You did what you had to do. If you had acted otherwise, we would be dead or imprisoned.”
The Gargoyle hunched down at her elbow, his cloak pulled about him, his face hidden away. “He does not hear you.”
The Lady nodded. Her voice hardened. “Would you abandon us now? Would you give up on yourself because of this? You have killed men all your life as a King’s Champion. It is the essence of who you are. Can you deny this? Look at me.” His eyes did not move. There were tears in them.
She reached out and slapped him hard three times, each slap a sharp crack in the silence. “Look at me!” she hissed.
He did then, the life coming back into his eyes as they turned to meet hers. She waited until she was certain he saw her. “You did what you should have done. Accept that sometimes the consequences are harsh and unforeseen. Accept that you cannot always allow for every result. There is nothing wrong in this.”
“Everything,” he whispered.
“They threatened us!” she snapped. “They might have killed us! Is it wrong that we killed them first? Is your guilt such that you would give them their lives at the cost of ours? Have you lost all reason? Where is your great strength? I would not have you for my keeper if it is gone! I would not be taken by such a man! Give me my freedom if you are so compromised!”
He shook his head. “I acted out of instinct, but I should have used judgment. There is no excuse.”
“You are pathetic!” she sneered. “Why do I waste my time with you? I owe you nothing! I am trapped in this world because of you, and I don’t even know why that is so! You have stolen away my life; you have stripped me of my magic! Now you would deny us the protection of your own small measure as well! Don’t use it, you would say, because it might cause harm! You would pity those who try to destroy us because we must destroy them first!”
His lips tightened. “I pity anything that must die at my hands.”
“Then you are nothing! You are less than nothing! Look about you and tell me what you see! This is a world of mist and madness, Sir Knight! Could it be that you have failed to notice? It will destroy us quickly enough if we underestimate its dangers or show weakness in the face of its considerable strengths! Stand on your hind legs, or you are just another dog!”
“You know nothing of me!”
“I know enough! I know you have lost your nerve! I know you are no longer able to lead us!” Her face was as cold and hard as ice. “I am stronger now than you. I can make my own way! Stay on your knees, if you must! Stay here and wallow in your pity! I want nothing more to do with you!”
She started to rise, shoving past the Gargoyle. The Knight reached out, grasped her arm, and pulled her back down before him. “No!” he shouted. “You will not leave!”
The Lady swung at him with her fist, but he blocked the blow. She swung again, but he caught her wrist. She looked into his face and found it hard-edged and taut. The weakness was gone from his eyes.
“When you leave,” he hissed at her, “you will leave with me!”
She stared at him without speaking. Then her free hand came up slowly and touched his cheek. She felt him flinch, and she smiled. She let her fingers trail down to his neck and drop away.
Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.
Abernathy stopped halfway down the stairs leading from his bedroom to the great hall of Rhyndweir and listened in dismay. At the foot of the stairs, Kallendbor was screaming at Horris Kew. At the gates of the fortress, the people of the Greensward were trying to break through. Across the countryside, there was chaos.
It was not a happy time.
From the start Abernathy had known that something would go wrong with Horris Kew and the great mind’s eye crystal giveaway. He had known it as surely as he had known his own name. It was so predictable that it could have been written in stone. Horris Kew had been involved in a lot of schemes over the years, had come up with a whole bushel full of ideas for quick fixes and cure-alls, and not a one of them had ever worked. It was the same story every time. Things would start out in promising fashion and then somewhere along the way go haywire. No matter what the circumstances, the result was always the same. Somehow, some way, Horris Kew invariably lost control of the events he had set in motion.
In this instance, however, knowing it was so was not enough to save Abernathy. Knowing didn’t do you any good if you didn’t also believe. In truth, Abernathy needed to believe the exact opposite, because once he accepted that nothing had changed with Horris Kew and his schemes, even twenty years later, he had to acknowledge that the mind’s eye crystals weren’t what they seemed, and he couldn’t possibly bring himself to do that. Abernathy was in the throes of serious denial. His own wondrous crystal had captivated him totally. Its visions had enslaved him. He was a prisoner of the prospect of being forever able to recapture glimpses of his former self and to live with the hope that what he was seeing might be a promise of what one day would be again. The visions were his private ecstasy, his own secret personal escape from the hard truths of life. Abernathy had always been a pragmatic sort, but he was helpless before this particular lure. The more he called the visions up, the more entranced he became by them. His addiction progressed from mild to severe. It wasn’t just that he found pleasure in the visions; it was that they offered him the only escape that meant anything.
So he ignored his suspicions, his innate distrust, and his common sense, and he accompanied Horris Kew and his hateful bird down the path to chaos.
Hard evidence of where things were going surfaced quickly enough. The little company had progressed from Kallendbor and Rhyndweir to the other parts of the Greensward and to other people who had learned of the mind’s eye crystals and were waiting to see if what they had heard was true. Crowds gathered at every crossroads and hamlet, and crystals were passed out by the handfuls. When Horris Kew failed to visit the remaining Lords—in deference to Kallendbor’s false promise to deliver their crystals himself—the Lords quickly came to him. Where were their crystals? Was there to be none for them? Were they to be deprived of a treasure given so freely to common folk? Fearing personal harm and silently cursing Kallendbor for his duplicitous nature, the conjurer quickly gave them what they wanted. It became clear to Abernathy that Kallendbor hadn’t taken those extra crystals to sell them. He had taken them to be certain that if his own was lost or stolen or broken, he would still have others. His greed was pointless, though. There were more than enough crystals to go around. The supply appeared inexhaustible. No matter how many were given out, the number remaining never seemed to diminish. Abernathy noted this phenomenon, but as with everything else connected with the great crystal giveaway, he blithely ignored it.
Then the rumors started. There were only a few at first, but the number quickly grew. People were starting to balk at doing their work. Farmers were letting the lands lie fallow and their stock go untended in the fields. Fences broke and barns collapsed, and repairs went unmade. Shopkeepers and merchants were opening and closing when they felt like it and showing little interest in selling their goods. Some were simply letting their wares be stolen, some were giving their merchandise away. Road and construction crews were failing to show up for their jobs. Building had come to a halt. The courts were down to half-day sessions and sometimes less than that. Justice was being dispensed in a cavalier and disinterested manner. Couriers with important dispatches were arriving days late. The dispatches themselves were being written in haphazard fashion by scribes. Home life was no better than the workplace. Husbands and wives were ignoring each other and their children. House-cleaning was being left for someone else, and unwashed dishes and cookware were piling up. No one had clean clothes. Dogs and cats were going hungry.
The cause of this mass neglect was no secret. Everyone was spending every free moment gazing into their newly acquired mind’s eye crystals.
It was astonishing how quickly things began to fall apart once the obsession with the crystals set in. One failure led to another, one moment of disregard to the next, and pretty soon it was like toppling a line of dominoes. Work could wait, the reasoning went; after all, there was always tomorrow. Besides, work was boring. Work was hard. Gazing into the crystals was infinitely more interesting and enjoyable. It was amazing how quickly time passed when you peered into their depths. Why, entire days seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye!
So it went. And the loss of one day led to the loss of the next. Everyone quit doing everything, and soon no one was doing anything except sitting around staring into the crystals. Abernathy knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, where the truth of things still flickered with a candle’s dim glow, that what was happening to the people of Landover was also happening to him. But he could not accept it. He could not give up his use of the crystal, not even for a single second. Not today—maybe tomorrow. Anyway, things weren’t really so bad, were they?
They were, of course. And they quickly got worse. Abernathy was the first to discover how bad they would get. One morning, two weeks out of Rhyndweir, he awakened, reached into his pocket, pulled out his crystal, summoned up his favorite vision, and watched the gem turn to dust in the palm of his hand. He stared at it in disbelief, then in shock, and finally in despair. He waited for it to come back together again, but it stayed a pile of dust. He carried it to Horris Kew, desperate to have it restored. But Horris didn’t have a clue about what was happening. Maybe it was a bad crystal, he suggested. He would give Abernathy another.
But when he opened the chests to get one, they found both empty. Not a crystal remained, although Abernathy was certain there had been crystals the day before or at least the day before that—no one was quite sure. Had they somehow given them all away without realizing it? Where had all the crystals gone?
They were far out on the eastern border of the Greensward by now, having visited most of that land and some parts of the Melchor, and they quickly turned for home. Maybe more crystals could be found on their return, Abernathy suggested hopefully, trying the very best he could not to sound too anxious, conscious of Horris and that stupid bird hanging on his every word. Maybe so, Horris agreed. Yes, quite possibly so. But he didn’t sound like he believed it.
As Abernathy, Bunion, Horris, and the bird journeyed back, new rumors began to crop up. Crystals everywhere were turning to dust. People were furious. What was happening? What were they supposed to do without their visions? Lethargy gave way to violence. Neighbors turned on one another, looking to beg, borrow, or steal crystals to replace the ones they had lost. But no one had any to give. Everyone was in the same terrible position, deprived of what had been seen initially as a diversion but had evolved all too rapidly into a necessity of life. The people milled about and bumped up against each other for a few days in anger and despair, searching for crystals. Then they did what people always do when they get frustrated enough—they turned on the government. In this case, they turned on the Lords of the Greensward. Hadn’t they authorized and facilitated the dispensing of the crystals in the first place? Surely they must be able to get more.
With single-minded resolve, the people marched on the castle fortresses of their Lords, determined to seek redress for their perceived wrongs.
Abernathy should have seen then where things were headed, but he was still so traumatized over the loss of his own crystal that he could not think of anything else. He trudged along despondently, trying to imagine what life would be like if there were no more crystals and the visions were really gone for good. It was a prospect too awful to contemplate. He was barely aware of the others and what they were doing. When Horris and his bird began whispering anxiously at each other and casting uneasy glances over their shoulders, he failed to pay attention. When the black-cloaked stranger joined them—absent one moment, there the next—he didn’t see. Even when Bunion reappeared from one of his frequent scouting patrols and hissed in warning that there was something wrong with the stranger, Abernathy only just heard him. He was beyond such concerns, consumed by private grief, on the edge of slipping away completely.
They arrived at Rhyndweir and found matters in such turmoil that they almost bypassed the castle completely. But they were without supplies by now and anxious to discover if Kallendbor still had his own crystal supply intact. They had heard nothing to suggest otherwise, and indeed by the time they worked their way past the crowds jammed up against the gates and gained the interior of the fortress they discovered that, yes, things were apparently just fine. Kallendbor met them with self-absorbed indifference, provided a brief greeting, and then immediately disappeared again. His crystals were fine, it seemed. Why they remained unaffected when all the others were turning to dust was a mystery, but it was a mystery they thought it wise not to pursue. The plan was to spend the night, replenish supplies, and leave at first light for Sterling Silver. No lingering about, they decided. None of them wanted to be there if anything went wrong with Kallendbor’s crystals.
Abernathy retired to his room and stayed there. He wasn’t hungry, so he didn’t go down for dinner. He wanted to spend as little time with Kallendbor as he had to. Bunion disappeared almost immediately after they arrived, and Abernathy neither knew nor cared where the kobold had gone. Bunion had escaped the trap of the crystals and their visions. Like most kobolds, he was disinterested in and mistrustful of magic and had refused the offer of one early on. Leaving Horris and Abernathy to manage the great crystal giveaway, Bunion had spent his time scouring the countryside in search of the missing Ben Holiday. He had found nothing so far, but he refused to give up looking. Sooner or later, he was convinced, he would find some trace of the missing King.
So Abernathy was alone when night set in and the mob at the gates began to light huge watch fires before the castle, fueling them with the thatched roofs and wooden walls of the closest of the city’s shops and market stalls. As the fires rose and the heat built, the mood of the people began to grow uglier and uglier. Soon they were throwing things against the gates and over the parapets. Shouts turned mean and threatening. Something had to be done, they cried, and it had to be done right now! Where were their crystals? They wanted their crystals back! The castle guards hunkered down and waited out the storm, their own mood a bit uncertain. Many among them had lost crystals as well and were sympathetic to the crowd’s demands. Many had friends and relatives out there yelling up at them. There were some who were leaning toward opening the gates. The only thing that kept them from doing so was a threadbare sense of duty, an ingrained force of habit, and a healthy fear of Kallendbor. It was not clear how long such barriers would keep them in check.
Kallendbor seemed oblivious to the problem. There had been no sign of him since they arrived, and Abernathy had been just as grateful. But when the sound of the mob without began to undergo an ominous change, he found himself wondering what the Lord of the manor house was planning on doing about it. Boiling oil would be a likely choice, if temperament dictated Kallendbor’s reaction. But maybe Kallendbor was ensconced in his private chambers, curled up alone with his wondrous crystal, gazing into its depths, absorbed in what he found there, in the kind of visions that Abernathy himself had once enjoyed ...
Abernathy squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. It was too much, really. He was suddenly furious at the prospect of Kallendbor and his mind’s eye crystals. It wasn’t enough that he enjoyed the use of one; he was hoarding several dozen! Shouldn’t he be willing to share one or two with his guests, especially emissaries from the King himself? Shouldn’t custom and good manners dictate it? Shouldn’t a complaint be lodged and a demand be made?
Abernathy went out of his room in a huff, driven by an itch in his soul, compelled by a need he could barely comprehend.
So it was that he was halfway down the stairs when he heard the sound of Kallendbor and Horris Kew arguing over the din of the crowds outside the castle walls.
“They’re gone, charlatan!” Kallendbor was screaming in fury, his voice echoing up the stairwell from the great hall below. “Every last one of them, gone! Turned to dust! What do you know of this?”
“My Lord, I don’t—”
“You listen to me, you idiot!” Kallendbor wasn’t interested in explanations. “You are responsible for this! I hold you responsible! You had better find a way to restore them right now, right this instant, or I will inflict such pain on your body that you will beg me to put you out of your misery! You and your bird both!”
Abernathy caught his breath. So Kallendbor’s crystals had turned to dust as well! He felt both satisfaction and disappointment. Steeling himself, he crept slowly down the stairs, one cautious step at a time.
“Well?” Kallendbor’s patience had the life span of a moth caught in a candle’s flame.
“My Lord, please, I shall do what I can .. .”
“You shall do what I tell you!” Kallendbor screamed, and there was the sound of shaking, of teeth rattling together, and of Biggar squawking and flying off in a rush.
Abernathy gained a bend in the stairs that allowed him to look down on what was happening below. Kallendbor was holding Horris Kew off the floor by his supplicant’s robes and shaking him as hard as he could. The unfortunate conjurer was whipping back and forth in the big man’s grasp like a rag doll, his feet kicking wildly, his head snapping on his skinny neck. Biggar circled overhead, crying out in dismay, swooping here and there, looking decidedly undecided about what to do.
“Give—me—back—my—crystals!” Kallendbor spit out the demand like a curse, giving Horris Kew a punctuating shake with each word uttered.
“Put him down,” a voice said from the shadows.
Kallendbor turned, startled. “What? Who speaks?”
“Put him down,” the voice repeated. “He isn’t to blame for any of this.”
Kallendbor threw Horris Kew to the floor, where the conjurer lay twitching and gasping for breath. The Lord of the Greensward wheeled toward the voice. His hand dropped to his broadsword, the weapon he always carried. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
A black-cloaked figure detached from the wall to one side, materializing out of nowhere. It glided into view rather than walked, all darkness and smooth motion. Abernathy shrank back instinctively. It was the stranger who had joined them on the road. How did he come to be here? Had he entered the fortress with them? Abernathy could not remember him doing so.
“Who are you?” Kallendbor asked sharply, but the edge had disappeared from his voice and been replaced by a hint of uncertainty.
“A friend,” the stranger answered. He stopped moving a dozen feet away. Although Abernathy tried, he could not see the man’s face. “You can shake Horris Kew until his bones come out of his skin, but that won’t get your crystals back. Horris Kew doesn’t have them to give.”
Kallendbor stiffened. “How do you know this?”
“I know a good many things,” the stranger said. His voice had an odd hissing quality to it, as if the vocal cords had once suffered some severe injury. “I know that Horris Kew and his companions are dupes in this matter, that they do only what they were instructed to do, and that they have no more crystals to give you. I know as well that they did not realize that the crystals they were giving you would turn to dust after only a short period of use. You have been cheated, my Lord. You have been tricked.”
Kallendbor’s hand tightened on his sword. “Who is responsible for this? If you know so much, tell me that!”
The stranger was motionless, enigmatic, impenetrable in the face of the other’s rage. “Take your hand away from your weapon. You cannot hurt me.”
There was a long moment of silence. Horris Kew inched carefully away from Kallendbor, crawling on his hands and knees. Biggar sat on the edge of the stair banister as if carved from stone. Abernathy held his breath.
Kallendbor’s big hand dropped away. “Who are you?” he repeated once more, confused.
The stranger ignored the question. “Think a moment,” he said softly. “Who sent you these crystals? Who sent the conjurer and his bird? Who sent the scribe and the runner? Who do they serve?”
Kallendbor went rigid. “Holiday!” he hissed.
Oh, oh, Abernathy thought.
The stranger laughed, a curiously grating sound. “Do you see now? How better to weaken your position, my Lord, than to make you seem a fool? You have been a thorn in the King’s side from the beginning, and he would have you removed for good. When the crystals turn to dust, the people turn on you. You are their Lord and therefore must answer for their misery. The plan works well, don’t you think?”
Kallendbor could not seem to manage an answer. He was choking on whatever he was trying to say.
“There are more crystals to be had,” the stranger was saying, his voice gone smooth and persuasive. Abernathy was leaning forward to hear every word now. Who was this lying troublemaker? “There is an entire chamber full of them at Sterling Silver, hidden away for a time when they are needed. I have seen these crystals myself; there are thousands and thousands of them. Shouldn’t they be yours?”
For just a moment Abernathy was persuaded. All he could see was a shimmering pile of the precious crystals, hoarded away like gold, selfishly kept from those who needed them. But in the next instant he saw the argument for the lie it was, knowing that Ben Holiday would never do anything like that, remembering in fact that the crystals had come from Horris Kew and not until after the King had disappeared.
He wondered suddenly and for the first time if the two events were connected somehow.
“There is a simple solution for your problem,” the stranger was saying. He had walked over to Horris Kew and pulled him to his feet again, seemingly without effort. “Tell your people the truth of the matter. Tell them that the crystals are being kept secretly at Sterling Silver by the King. Tell them to march on his castle and demand that he give them up! Call together all the Lords of the Greensward. Have them gather their armies and their subjects and march them down to the King’s doorstep. He cannot refuse all of you. He cannot withstand you even if he tries.”
Kallendbor was nodding, persuaded. “I have had enough of Holiday—enough of his interference!”
“Perhaps,” the stranger whispered thoughtfully, “it is time for a new King. Perhaps it is time for a man who would be more responsive to those like yourself, a man who would not behave so intractably toward his betters.”
Abernathy almost barked. He was not proud of the reaction, but it was an honest one. He swallowed the sound in a muffled gasp.
“There are those who appreciate the proper uses of power.” The stranger’s voice was low and compelling. He made a brief, encompassing gesture toward Horris Kew. “There are those who understand the nature of loyalty, who comprehend the realities of its implementation. In other words, Lord Kallendbor, there are those who would serve any master who paid the right price.”
Horris Kew was staring at the stranger, openmouthed. There was another long moment of silence.
Then Kallendbor nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps so. Yes, why not? If he would agree to certain terms, of course. Yes. Why not make another King?” Then he shook his head abruptly. “But there is still Holiday to contend with. It is one thing to demand the release of the crystals and another altogether to remove him from the throne. He commands the services of the Paladin, and none can stand against him.”
“Ah, but what if Holiday were to simply vanish?” the stranger asked in response. He paused meaningfully. “What if he already has?”
Abernathy felt his heart drop. So there it was—the truth at last. Ben Holiday’s disappearance was indeed tied to Horris Kew and his mind’s eye crystals, and all of it was tied to this mysterious stranger. Something terrible was going on, something that Abernathy still didn’t fully comprehend, but the stranger was most definitely behind it.
What was he going to do?
He exhaled softly. He didn’t know, but whatever it was he would have to get out of here to do it.
He began to back carefully up the stairs.
Not carefully enough, however. His boot scraped on the stone as he turned. It was a small noise, but one pair of ears was sharp enough to hear it.
“Awk! Someone’s there!” Biggar rasped out in warning.
They all wheeled toward the stairs. “Find him!” the stranger hissed at once.
Abernathy bolted, deciding that it would not be a good idea for him to be captured at this juncture. He remained upright on two legs for the first couple of steps, then gave it up and went down on all fours. Speed took precedence over dignity, and after all a considerable part of him was dog. He raced up the stairs and down the hall for his room, not knowing where else to go. He could hear the flapping of wings behind him and the pounding of boots farther back. All chance of slipping away quietly in the dead of night was gone. What was he going to do? If they found him they would throw him into the darkest hole in the castle keep. If he was lucky, that was. Otherwise, they would just eliminate him on the spot.
He reached his room and raced inside, slamming the door shut behind him and throwing the bolt. The room was shadowed and dark, the candles not yet lit. He stood gasping for breath with his back to the door and listened to the beating of wings as Biggar flew past, shrieking, “Up here! He’s hiding here!”
Stupid bird talks a lot better than he lets on, Abernathy thought darkly, and found himself staring through the gloom at a pair of yellow eyes that stared back.
“Arf!” he barked, unable to stop himself this time. He flattened back against the door, frozen in place. He was trapped now on both sides. He groped through his clothing for a weapon, but he didn’t have one, so he bared his teeth instead. The yellow eyes blinked curiously, and a familiar face came into view.
“Bunion!” Abernathy gasped in relief, for it was indeed the kobold. “Am I glad to see you!”
Bunion chittered something in response, but Abernathy wasn’t listening. “We have to get out of here, Bunion. Kallendbor and Horris Kew and that stranger caught me listening in on them. They want Holiday off the throne! They have done something to him already, I think. I will tell you all about it later if you can just get us out!”
Bunion jumped down off the window ledge where he had been perched, sped across the room to the door, threw it open, and made a diving grab for Biggar, who was trying to fly inside. Biggar shrieked and swooped aside, but Bunion came away with a handful of black feathers. The bird flew off, crying out in pain and indignation. Bunion beckoned hurriedly to Abernathy, and the scribe followed him out the door. Kallendbor and Horris Kew were just rounding the head of the stairs. There was no sign of the stranger.
Bunion and Abernathy fled in the opposite direction, both of them down on all fours. Like whipped curs, Abernathy thought as he ran.
They went down a back stairs and along a lower hall and into a small storage room. There was a hidden passageway behind a section of the wall, and in seconds they were groping their way through the dark—or at least Abernathy was, since he lacked Bunion’s extraordinary eyes. It took them a long time, but when the passageway ended they were outside the castle walls once more.
From there, they made their way back through the mostly sleeping town and out into the countryside. As they traveled, Abernathy remembered anew the loss of his crystal. It made him cry, and he hid his tears from Bunion. But the pain faded after a while, lessened considerably by the knowledge that the recapturing of his past had been the gift of a false prophet. Horris Kew had used him, and that hurt far more than the loss of his visions. As unpleasant as it was to admit, his self-indulgence had allowed a travesty to take place, and now perhaps Ben Holiday was paying the price for it. Certainly he must do what he could to salvage the situation, and that meant getting word to Questor Thews as quickly as possible. It would be hard to face the wizard after what had happened. It would be hard to tell him the truth. Questor had not taken one of the crystals, after all. He was too stubborn and proud to accept anything from Horris Kew, Abernathy guessed—and right in being so, as it turned out. Yes, facing him would be terribly hard. But it was necessary. Perhaps there was still a way to put things right.
They slept that night in an old barn some miles south and west of Rhyndweir. The straw they used for bedding was rife with fleas and smelled of manure, but Abernathy reasoned that it was minimal penance to pay for his gross stupidity and a small price for his freedom. As he lay squirming and shifting in the dark, listening to Bunion breathe easily next to him, Landover’s Court Scribe promised himself that one day soon there would be a reckoning for all this, and that when that day came he would make certain that Horris Kew, his bird, and that black-cloaked stranger got what was coming to them.
Night waned toward morning, a slow, dull ebbing of sound and motion, and the streets of Greenwich Village grew empty and still. A few cars and trucks crawled by, aimless and solitary, and people still meandered the walks, but that was all. The traffic lights blinked through their sequence of green, yellow, and red with steady precision, and their colors glared off the concrete where a light rain had left its gritty sheen. In the doorways and alleys there were homeless sleeping, ragged lumps of clothing, shadows hunched down against the gloom. The rank smell of garbage wafted on the air, mingling with the steam and mist that rose out of the sewer and subway grates and off the newly washed streets. Somewhere out in the harbor, a fog horn blew.
Willow walked in silence with Edgewood Dirk, feeling trapped and alone. She should not have felt that way. Her confidence should have been higher, her expectations greater. Two-thirds of her journey to gather the soils of three worlds for the birth of her child was complete. Only one leg remained. But it was the one she dreaded most. For as much as she disliked and abhorred Ben’s world with its sprawling cities that ate away at the land and its almost compulsive disregard for the sanctity of life, it was the fairy mists that frightened her most.
It was a difficult fear to reconcile. It grew out of the history of her people and their deliberate distancing from the mists, their choice to accept the burdens and responsibilities of reality over fantasy, their decision to embrace mortality. It grew out of the stories of what happened to mortals who ventured into the fairy mists, of the madness that claimed them because they could not adjust to the dictates of a world where everything was imagined and nothing fixed. It grew as well out of the Earth Mother’s warning to beware the motives of the fairy people in offering their help, for in all things they kept their real purposes hidden, secret from those like her.
She glanced at Edgewood Dirk and wondered what secrets the prism cat kept from her. How much of what he did was for reasons known only to him? Was there duplicity in his accompanying her to this world and the next? She could ask him, but she knew he would not answer. Neither the part of him that was fairy nor the part that was cat would let him tell. He was an enigma by nature, and he would not give up his identity as such.
So she walked and tried not to think too hard about what would happen next. They left the main streets and maneuvered their way down alleys clogged with garbage bins, debris, and rusting vehicles. They passed out of street light into misty gloom, the way forward marked faintly by faraway lamps, a dimly reflected glow on the building walls. Mist and steam mingled in the close corridor, shrouding the passageway, cloaking the night. Willow shivered with its touch and wished she could see the sun again.
Then they were at a gap in the buildings where the haze was so thick she could see nothing of what lay beyond.
Dirk slowed and turned, and she knew instantly that all her choices were gone.
“Are you ready, my lady?” he asked deferentially, unusual for Dirk, and she was instantly afraid all over again.
“Yes,” she replied, and could not tell afterward if she had spoken the word.
“Stay close to me,” he advised, and started to turn.
“Dirk,” she called quickly. He glanced back, hesitating. “Is this a trap?”
The prism cat blinked. “Not of my making,” he said. “I cannot speak for what you might intend. Humans are known well for stumbling into traps of their own making. Perhaps this will happen to you.”
She nodded, folding her arms about herself for warmth. “I am trusting you in this. I am afraid for myself and my child.”
“Trust not the cat,” Dirk philosophized, “without a glove.”
“I trust you because I must, glove or no. If you deceive me, I am lost.”
“You are lost only if you allow it to happen. You are lost only if you quit thinking.” The cat regarded her steadily. “You are stronger than you think, Willow. Do you believe that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
A veil of mist blew between them, and for a moment the cat disappeared. When he was back again, his eyes were still fixed on her. “I told Holiday once that people should listen more closely to what cats would tell them, that they have many useful lessons to teach. I told him it was a failing common to most humans—that they did not listen as closely as they should. I tell you the same thing now.”
“I have listened well,” she said. “But I am not sure I have understood.”
Dirk cocked his head. “Sometimes understanding has to wait a bit on events. So. Are you ready?”
She came forward a step. “Do not leave me, Dirk. Whatever happens, do not. Will you promise me that?”
Edgewood Dirk shook his head. “Cats do not make promises. Are you ready or not?”
Willow straightened. “I depend on you.” The cat stayed silent. “Yes,” she said then. “I am ready.”
They moved into the narrow passageway and the mists that clogged it and were immediately swallowed up. Willow kept her eyes lowered to where Dirk walked before her, vaguely visible in the haze. The mists were dark at first, and then lightened perceptibly. The walls of the buildings fell away, and the smells of the city disappeared. In the blink of an eye, everything about them changed. They were in a forest now, a world of great old trees with canopied limbs that hid the skies, of thick brush and tall ferns, and of smells of an ancient, forgotten time. The air was thick with must and rot and with a misty gloom that shrouded everything, turning the forest to shadows and half light. There was a suggestion of movement, but nothing could be certain where everything was so dim.
Dirk walked steadily on, and Willow followed. She glanced back once, but there was nothing left of the city. She had come out of that world and into this. She was within the fairy mists, and it would all be new again.
She heard the voices first, vague whisperings and mutterings in the gloom. She strained to understand the words and could not. The voices rose and fell, but remained indistinct. Dirk walked on.
She saw their faces next, strange and curious features lifting from the shadows, sharp-featured and angular with hair of moss and corn-silk brows, eyes as penetrating as knife blades when they fixed on her, and bodies so thin and light-seeming as to be all but ethereal. The fairy folk darted and slowed, came and went, flashes of life in the shifting gloom. Dirk walked on.
They arrived at a clearing ringed by trees, fog, and deeper gloom, and Dirk walked to its center and stopped. Willow followed, turning as she did to find the fairy people all about, faces and bodies pressed up against the haze as if against glass.
The voices whispered to her, anxious, persuasive.
Welcome, Queen of Landover
Welcome, once-fairy, to the land of your ancestors
Be at peace and stay with us awhile
See what you might have here with the child you bear . . .
And she was walking suddenly in a field of bright red flowers, the like of which she had never seen. She carried a baby in her arms, the child wrapped carefully in a white blanket, protected from the bright light. The smells of the field were wondrous and rich, and the sunlight warm and reassuring. She felt impossibly light and happy and filled with hope, and below where she walked the entire world spread away before her, all of its cities and towns and hamlets, all of its people, the whole of its life. The child moved in her arms. She reached down to pull back the blanket so that she could peek at its face. The baby peeked back. It looked just like her. It was perfect.
“Oh!” she gasped, and she began to cry with joy.
She was back in the clearing then, back within the fairy mists, staring out into the gloom.
The voices whispered once more.
It will be so, if you wish it
Make your happiness what you would, Queen of Landover. You have the right. You have the means
Keep safe within the mists, safe with your child, safe with us, and it shall be as you were shown
She shook her head, confused. “Safe?”
Stay with us, once-fairy
Be again as your kind once were
Stay, if you would have your vision come true ...
She understood then, saw the price that she was being asked to pay for the assurance that her child would be as the vision had shown. But it was not really so, for they would both end up living in an imaginary world and the vision would be nothing more than what they created in their minds. And she would lose Ben. There had been no mention of Ben, of course, because he was not to be included in this promised land, an outsider, an other-worlder who could never belong to the fairy life.
She looked down at Dirk, but the prism cat was paying no attention to her. It sat turned slightly away, washing its face carefully, lick, lick, scrub, scrub. The indifference it showed was studied and deliberate.
She looked back at the sea of faces in the mist. “I cannot stay here. My place is in Landover. You must know that. The choice was made for me a long time ago. I cannot come back here. I do not wish to.”
A grave error, Queen of Landover.
Your choice affects the child as well. What of the child?
The voices had changed in tone, turning edgy. She swallowed back her fear of what that might mean. “When my child is old enough to decide, it shall make its own decision.”
There was a general murmuring, and it did not sound supportive. It whispered of dissatisfaction and thinly veiled anger. It whispered of bad intent.
She held herself stiffly. “Will you give me the soil my child needs?” she asked.
The whispers died into stillness. Then a voice answered.
Of course. You were promised this soil in coming. It is yours to take. But to take it, it must first be made your own
Fairy earth cannot pass out of the mists until it has been celebrated and embraced by its taker
Willow glanced again at Dirk. No response. The cat was still washing as if nothing else in all the world could be quite so important.
“What must I do?” she asked of the faces.
What is in your blood, sylph child. Dance as your wood nymph mother has taught you to dance. Dance across the earth on which you stand. When you have done so, it will be your own, and you may take it with you and depart these mists
Willow stood transfixed. Dance? There was something hidden here. She could feel it; she was certain of it. But she could not fathom what it was.
Dance, Queen of Landover, if you would have the soil for your child
Dance, if you would complete your journey and give birth
Dance, Willow of the once-fairy
Dance ...
So she did. She began slowly, a few cautious steps to see what would happen, a few small movements to test if all was well. Her clothes felt heavy and cumbersome, but she was not persuaded to take them off as she might have done otherwise, anxious to stay ready to flee if something should go wrong. Nothing did. She danced a bit further, increased the number of her steps, the complexity of her movements. Her fear and caution eased a bit in the face of her joy at doing something she loved so much. The faces of the fairies seemed to recede into the mist, sharp eyes and thin noses, stringy hair and sticklike limbs, bits of light and movement gone back into the gloom. One minute they were there, and the next they were gone. She was alone.
Except for Dirk, who had moved away from her and was watching carefully. He sat as if carved from stone.
She danced faster, caught up suddenly in the flow of the steps, in the rhythm of the movements, in the joy that swelled and surged inside. It seemed to her as if she could dance more quickly, more lightly, more precisely here in the fairy mists than in the real world. All of her efforts were rewarded with success beyond anything she had ever known. Her joy increased as she performed ever more complicated movements, spinning and twirling, leaping and twisting, as light as air, as swift as the wind. She danced, and she could tell that she was suddenly far better than her mother had ever been, that she had mastered in seconds that which her mother had worked for all her life.
She shed her clothes now, her inhibitions forgotten, her promise of caution and restraint abandoned, in seconds, she was naked.
Across the clearing she flew, alone in her flight through mist and half light, oblivious to all else. Yes, the dance was everything she had ever wanted it to be! Yes, it would give her things she had never thought possible! She rose and fell, rose again, and sped on. Colors appeared before her eyes, rainbow-bright and as fresh as flowers in a vast, limitless garden, all carefully arranged and fragrant beyond belief. She was flying over them, soaring in the manner of a bird, as free as air. There were other birds with her, all brightly colored and singing wonderfully, sweeping about her, showing her the way. She lifted from the garden into the sky, rising toward the sun, toward the heavens. Her dance carried her, bore her on, gave her wings.
She was dreaming anything she wished, any possibility, any hope. It was all there, and it all belonged to her. She danced, and all else was forgotten. She no longer remembered where she was or why she had come. She no longer remembered Ben or her child. The dance was everything. The dance was all.
From the mists surrounding the clearing, the fairies watched and smiled among themselves, unseen.
Willow might have been lost then, caught up forever in her dance, had Dirk not sneezed. There seemed to be no reason for it; it just happened. It was a small sound, but it was enough to draw her back from the precipice. For just a second she caught a glimpse of the prism cat somewhere at the corner of her vision and remembered. She saw him looking at her, his steady, impenetrable gaze an open accusation. What was it he had told her? She had asked him of traps, and he had warned her that humans mostly stumbled into those of their own making. Yes, like this one. This dance.
But she could not stop. She was too deep in the throes of its pleasure, of its wonder, to cease moving. The dreams it induced were too compelling to give up. She had done what he had warned her against and trapped herself, and now she could not get free. It was the fairies’ plan for her, she saw—that she should dance and keep dancing and never leave. Here is where her child would be born, here in the fairy mists, and when it was born it would belong to them. They would both belong to the fairies for all time.
Why? Why did they wish it so? She had no answer.
Her thoughts scattered, and for a moment she was in danger of slipping back into her dreams. But she kept her eyes on Dirk as she spun across the clearing, watching him watching her, desperately trying to think what to do. Dance forever. She would never stop. But she must. She must! She would not let this happen to her, she told herself. She would find a way to break free.
Ben. If Ben were there, he would help her. Ben, who she could always rely upon to stand with her, who had pledged himself to her forever. Ben, the strength that sustained her when all else failed. He would always come. Always.
But how could he come this time?
Ben!
Had she called out loud to him? She couldn’t be sure. She felt Dirk beginning to slip away. She could barely see him through the haze of her dance, through the magic that ensnared her.
Ben!
And for just an instant, he was there—a glimpse of his face, of his eyes come out of time and distance. He was there, still a long way off, but within reach.
Suddenly she saw a chance for escape. She would use the fairy magic to her own advantage, turn it to her own use. It had been set to trap her and she had allowed it to do so, but there was still a way out. The dance was a dream, and the dream could be altered if she was strong enough. She was not completely lost, not yet. Not if she didn’t wish it. Not if she didn’t forget.
She closed her eyes and in the sweep of her dance called out to Ben Holiday. She could imagine him as she could imagine everything else. That was the magic of the fairy world. Banish her fear, and she would be able to control her vision, to make it her own, to affect its direction. That was the lesson Ben had once learned. It was the one Dirk had cautioned her to. Use the magic to free yourself. Use the dance to escape.
Ben!She called to him, her voice strong and steady.
And then something wondrous and completely unexpected happened.
The Knight lay sleeping in the Labyrinth, stretched full-length upon the ground within the cover of a grove of hardwood that canopied overhead like a tent. The Lady lay pressed against him, curled to his body, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm draped across his chest. She was smiling, the hardness that so often marked her features absent this night. Mist and gloom hung all about, shrouding the world and those who stalked it, but for the moment at least the Knight and the Lady had left it behind.
The Gargoyle sat hunched down within his cloak a few feet away and watched them uneasily. It did not feel right to him. He could not explain it, but there was a lie in what was happening. That was unmistakable. These two were enemies and this new alliance lacked wisdom and reason. Their impetuousness would catch up to them, he believed. Perhaps it would destroy them.
His misshapen features wrinkled in distaste, and he looked purposefully away.
* * *
As he slept, the Knight began to dream. At first the dream lacked focus, a blurring of sound and movement as he was carried across time and space toward some unknown destination. He was at peace, and so he did not resist the pulling that bore him on. Then he began to hear voices—no, a single voice—calling out a name. He could hear it repeating, over and over. He recognized the voice, but could not place it. The name seemed familiar, too.
Ben.
He listened to the sounds as he traveled, knowing he was closing on them, that he was being drawn, that he was called deliberately.
Ben.
Then he was jolted as if by a massive hand and found himself earthbound once more and upright. The voice was distinct now and quite close. It was a woman, and she called with need. She was someone he knew, someone to whom he was bound, and she called for his protection.
The Knight went to her at once, drawing forth the great broadsword as he pushed through the trees of a forest that loomed about him. It was the Labyrinth and yet it was not. He could not explain it, but while the two were separate they were also somehow joined. All of the elements were the same. He brought the broadsword before him, prepared to do battle. He lacked his heavy armor still, cloaked only in chain mail, in his leather clothing, in his belt and boots and gloves. He gave it less than a passing thought. He felt no fear of what waited for him. The certainty he felt for his cause overwhelmed any doubts. He was meant to give aid to those to whom he was pledged, and the woman who called was foremost of these.
He reached a clearing, the light where it widened to the skies a vague brightness in the smoky haze. Figures scattered at his coming, small creatures that were thin and angular, all sharp edges and bits of moss and stick. They fell back from him as if he bore a plague, hissing and muttering like cornered rats. He went through them without slowing to the clearing’s center and stopped.
The woman who danced through the shadows and half light spun into his arms and held him as if he were a line to safety from a raging sea. Naked, she shivered as if chilled to the bone, and her face and body pressed up against him.
“Ben,” she whispered. “You came.”
The Knight held her close in an effort to still her shaking, and as he did so recognition flooded through him.
“Willow!” he whispered back fiercely.
He knew then. The deception that had shackled him fell away at her touch, at the sound of her voice, at the sight of her face. Though he dreamed, in some way the dream was real. He had been called to her in sleep, but they were joined as surely as if awake and together in the flesh. She clung to him, whispering his name, telling him things he could not understand. They were within the fairy mists. She was imprisoned by the fairies in a dance and could not break free. Their child was to be kept from them, kept here forever. But all was reality if you could imagine it, and so she had imagined him coming to save her in a desperate effort to break free. And come he had, but not as she had believed he would. He was really there. How had this happened? How had he breached the fairy mists?
All about the fairies swarmed like maddened bees, hissing and darting through the gloom, enraged. He saw Edgewood Dirk sitting close by, watching in his cat way. Edgewood Dirk? What was he doing here?
Ah, but more important, what had been done to the Knight of the Labyrinth, who knew himself now to be Ben Holiday? Memories flooded through him, the spell of forgetfulness broken. He had been snatched away from the Heart by magic and imprisoned in a rune-carved box. It was the last thing he remembered had happened before his waking in the Labyrinth. Except that Horris Kew had been standing there, had set the box down, had stepped away just before Ben fell into it, tumbling down with ...
His heart stopped.
With Nightshade and Strabo.
With the Lady and the Gargoyle.
The truth stunned him so that for a moment he could not breathe or move. He held onto Willow as if their positions had been reversed and now she was the lifeline that kept him from being swept away. She sensed his shock and looked up at him quickly, and her hands came up to hold his face.
“Ben,” she whispered anew. “Please. It’s all right.”
With a massive effort he shrugged off his immobility. There was a tearing at the corners of his vision. The dream that bound them was fragmenting, coming to a close, the magic expending itself. Willow could feel it as well. With the ending of the dance, the dream could not sustain itself. She moved to dress, ignoring the small sounds of fury that emanated from the mists, come back to herself once more and determined that she would not be tricked again. Clothed, she bent to the earth across which she had danced and scooped a handful of the soil into the pouch she carried.
Ben watched her without understanding. He started toward her, then found he could not move. He looked down at himself and saw to his horror that he was fading away.
“Willow!” he cried out in warning.
She rose at once and hurried toward him. But he was already losing shape and definition, returning to his dream, to his sleep, to the prison that still held him. He heard her call out to him, saw her reach for him, watched her try to hold him back. But she could not. The magic that had joined them from the fairy mists of two worlds was breaking up.
“Willow!” he cried out again, desperate now, unable to slow his going. "I'll find you somehow! I promise! I’ll come for you!”
“Ben!” he heard her call to him one final time, and then he was lifting away, transparent in the mists, a bit of air and wind borne back across the gap that separated them in waking, back into the sleep from which he had come.
Alone once more in the silent clearing, Willow stared skyward at the roiling gloom. Ben was gone. The magic of her vision had been strong enough to bring him, but not to hold him. He had set her free of the dance, but could not stay to help her further. She felt a renewed desperation settle through her and fought back against her tears. But there was no time for grief, for anything but her child, and she used her anger as armor and wheeled on Edgewood Dirk.
“I want to go home,” she said quietly, deliberately. “Right now.”
The prism cat blinked. “Then go, Queen of Landover.”
“You will not stop me?”
“Not I.”
“Nor the fairies that ring this clearing?”
Dirk yawned. “They have lost interest in playing this particular game. Interesting, don’t you think, how they failed to challenge Holiday?”
She considered. It was interesting. Why had they let him go? And her. What was it that stopped them from interfering?
“What path do I take, Dirk?” she asked him.
Edgewood Dirk rose and stretched. “Any path will do. All lead to where you are meant to go. Your instincts will guide you. As I said earlier, you are stronger man you think.”
She did not respond to him, too angry with what had been done to her to accept compliments. He had helped her in his own peculiar way, whether by accident or on purpose she still wasn’t certain, but the prism cat was no friend in either case. The fairy mists and the creatures who lived within them, Dirk included, were anathema. She wanted gone from them all.
“You are not coming with me?” she questioned.
“No,” he answered. “You have no further need of me. Your quest is finished.”
So it was. She had the soils she had been sent to gather, the soils of the three worlds to which her child’s blood could be traced. If the Earth Mother spoke the truth, the birth of her child could take place now. There was nothing more for her to do, nothing else required. She could go home.
Folding her cloak about her, clutching her pouch of soils close against her body, she turned and began to walk. She did as she was told and followed her instincts. Surprisingly, they seemed quite clear. They took her in a straight line through the trees.
They took her deep into the mists until she disappeared.
Ben Holiday awoke with a start. His eyes snapped open, and he stared straight ahead through the predawn gloom into the trees of the Labyrinth. He did not move; he could not make himself. He was frozen in place as surely as if he had been encased in ice. Questions raced through his mind, one after the other, whispers and dark teasing. Had he dreamed of his meeting with Willow or had it actually taken place? Was it truth or a wild concoction of his imagination? How much of anything that had happened to him that he could remember was real?
The Lady lay pressed up against him, still sleeping. The Gargoyle sat hunched down at the edge of the trees several yards away, head bowed. Ben blinked. Nightshade? Strabo?
He closed his eyes and kept them shut for a moment, thinking. Something had happened to reveal the truth—that much was certain. He was not the Knight; he was Ben Holiday. The Knight was some personification of his real identity. It was so with the Lady and the Gargoyle as well. They had been changed by the Labyrinth and its magic, or by the magic that had sent them here, or by some foul deception they did not yet understand. They had been given identities that mirrored some part of who they were but concealed the rest. They appeared significantly different than they were. Strabo had been changed most; he was not even a dragon anymore. Nightshade was recognizable, yet she was different, too, in a way he could not quite explain. Neither had the use of their magic. Neither possessed the strength and power that was theirs in Landover.
He opened his eyes again. Mist hung amid the trunks and limbs of the trees. It carpeted the grasses on which he lay. The Labyrinth was a vast, endless mirage their vision could not see through.
What had been done to them?
Horris Kew. The conjurer had something to do with this, though in truth it was hard to believe he possessed power enough to imprison them in this otherworld. But he had been there watching. He had provided the box into which they had been lured, in which they were now trapped. Ben repeated the words. Trapped in a box. How, he wondered abruptly, had that been done? Horris Kew. He breathed slowly, carefully, trying to think. Did knowing Horris Kew was involved help in any way? Where were they? Oh, yes, the Labyrinth, but where was that?
His mind sideslipped. Willow. He had gone to her. He had not dreamed it—or if he had, there had been a large piece of reality in the dream. All was possible if you went into the fairy mists, where reality was fluid and anything could be brought to pass. Magic had brought him to her, magic born of her dance and of her imaginings. She had called him to her because she could not break free. Was she free now? Had he helped her escape before the dream had ended? What was she doing in the fairy mists in the first place?
There were no answers for his questions, only more questions. He could not allow too many. Too many would strangle him. Only one thing mattered now—that he break free of the Labyrinth and find her. There must be a way. Magic had been used to conceal the truth about who he was, and there was a reason for that. Somewhere in that concealing there was something that would help him, that would help them all.
He looked back at them again, at their silent, sleeping forms.
Once they knew, of course. Once they were told.
He eased himself away from Nightshade, thinking of what had passed between them as the Knight and the Lady, recognizing the damage they had inadvertently done to themselves. He remembered how she had kissed him. He remembered her touch. His eyes closed in dismay. How could he tell her that it was all a lie? How could he tell her that she was not his charge as he had believed, that the magic of their prison had misled them, had tricked them into thinking that their relationship was something other than what it really was and caused them to ...
He could not finish the thought. Only one thing mattered, there was now and had always been only Willow.
He climbed to his feet, not yet ready to do so. He walked away from her, moving toward the trees, trying to assemble the fragments of what he knew into some recognizable whole. He thought of how he had been made to appear, a Knight with no past and no future, a nameless warrior, a champion for a master with no name and of a cause without identity. His worst nightmare. His worst ...
Fear.
He saw it then, the truth that had been hidden from them all this time. They were in the fairy mists, too!
The Gargoyle was next to him suddenly, a dark shadow moving out of the haze. Gnarled hands balanced his disjointed body as he leaned forward. “What is it?” he asked, seeing Ben’s face.
Ben looked at him, trying to see past the ugliness, past the mask the magic had created. He could not. “I know what has been done to us,” he said. “I know where we came from. I know who we are.”
The Gargoyle’s face twisted and froze, his eyes glittering like candles. “Tell me.”
Ben shook his head. He motioned to the Lady. “We must wake her, too.”
They walked to her, and Ben reached down and touched her arm. She awoke at once, flawless, cold features softened by sleep, a smile upon her face. “I dreamed of you,” she began.
He placed a warning finger to her lips. “No, say nothing. Don’t speak. Sit up and listen to me. I have something to tell you.” He moved back from her, letting her rise. “Listen carefully. I know who we are.”
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head quickly. “I don’t want to know.” There was fear in her voice, recognition that something was about to be stolen away. “What difference does it make to us here?”
He kept his voice calm, even. “By knowing who we are and where we come from, we give ourselves a chance to escape. Our only chance, I think.”
“How is it that you know and we do not?” she snapped at him, angry now, defensive.
“I was given a dream,” he told her. “In the dream I discovered what had happened to us. We have been trapped in this place by magic. We were sent here from another world, our world. Magic was used to make us forget who we are, to make us seem different. We were sent here to wander about forever, I think—to spend what was left of our lives futilely attempting to find a way out. But there is no way out of here except by using magic. You were right—magic alone can save us. But first we have to understand how that magic works. To do that, we have to understand ourselves, who we are, where we came from, what it is we do.”
“No,” she said quietly and shook her head back and forth. “Don’t say anything else.”
“I am not the Knight,” he said, pressing quickly ahead, anxious to get this over with. “I am Ben Holiday, King of Landover.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, shaking. She made a noise deep in her throat.
Unable to bear her look, Ben turned to the Gargoyle. The monster was staring at him, expressionless. “You are called Strabo. You are a dragon, not a Gargoyle.”
He turned back to the Lady, determined. “And you are…”
“Nightshade!” she hissed in fury. She shrank from him, and her smooth face contorted with despair and recognition. Holiday, what have you done to us? What have you done tome ?”
Ben shook his head. “We have done it to ourselves, each of us in turn. This place has made it possible. Magic stole our memories when we were sent here from the Heart. Do you remember? There was a man with a box. There were notes purportedly sent by each of us to the other, bait for the trap that was used to ensnare us. Some sort of spell rapped us about and sent us here, into the box . . .”
“Yes, I remember now!” Strabo growled, who in spite of having his identity uncovered still did not look like the dragon. “I remember the man and his box and the magic netting us like fish! Such power! But why was it done? look at me! How could I have been changed so?”
Ben knelt before him. The clearing was hushed and closed about. It was as if their world had stopped moving.
“We are in the fairy mists,” he said quietly. “Think about how we appear. We have become the things we most fear we might really be. You are a monster, loathed and despised, an outcast that no one wishes to look upon, hunted by all, blamed for everything that cannot otherwise be explained. And you cannot fly, can you? Your wings have been stripped away. Haven’t you always feared being earthbound? Flying has always provided you with a form of escape, no matter how terrible things were. Here, you have been cheated even of that.”
He paused. “And look at me. I am what I feared most to become. I am the King’s Champion, his handpicked destroyer, his butcher of enemies, nameless and empty of everything but my fighting skills and my desire to use them. Even my armor has become a weapon, a monstrous apparition called the Haze that eliminates any enemy who threatens. I fear killing more than anything, and so for me it comes to pass.”
He stopped himself, unwilling to say more. They did not know he was the Paladin, only that the Paladin served the King. He would not have them know more.
“Nightshade,” he said softly, turning back to her again. She crouched down like a cornered beast. “What is it you fear most? What frightens you? Loss of your magic, certainly. You have said as much. But something more ...”
“Silence!” she screamed.
“Being human,” Strabo snapped. “She loses power when she acknowledges her humanness. Her emotions make her weak; they steal away her strength. She must not let herself feel. She must not be tender or soft or give love ...”
Nightshade flew at him, nails raking at his face, but Ben pushed her aside, bore her to the ground, and pinned her there while she spit and screamed like a madwoman. Nightshade had been changed in more ways than one, he thought as he held her. He would never have been able to do this in Landover, for Nightshade had ten times his strength. She was indeed without her power.
She went quiet finally and turned her head aside from him, tears coursing down her pale face. “I will hate you forever,” she whispered, the words barely audible. “For what you have done to me, for what you have made me feel—all of it a lie, a monstrous deceit! That I could care for you, could love you, could have you as a woman would a man—how could I have been so stupid? I will hate you forever, Holiday. I will never forget.”
He stood up and left her lying there, still turned away. There was nothing he could say to her that would help. That she had been made to feel something for him was unpardonable; that she had been deceived into thinking him her lover unforgivable. It did not matter what she had felt before. The chasm that had opened between them would never be bridged now.
“The Labyrinth is a part of the fairy mists.” He straightened his cloak, knocked askew in his struggle. “It was Willow who called to me in my dream. She called from another part of the mists. When I went to her, I could sense that where she was and where I was were joined. I was reminded how the mists work on those who are human or have left that world. They use fear against us, to change who we are, to make us over, to confront us with that which will drive us mad. Where there is no reality but that which we create, imagination plays havoc with our emotions. Particularly fear. We are lost when that happens. We cannot control it as the fairy people do. They told me so once. They warned me against it.”
He took a deep breath. “What we have done in our travels, where we have gone, who we have encountered, is not real. Or not real beyond the Labyrinth. Do you see? We made it up, all of it! Together or separately, I don’t know which. The townsfolk, the River Gypsies, the Gristlies—they were all representations of creatures from Landover. The people of the Greensward, the once-fairy, Rock Trolls, G’home Gnomes, or whatever. They don’t exist outside our minds or these mists or this prison in which we are confined.”
Strabo shook his head. “The fairy mists would not affect me or the witch as they would you. We are fairy creatures ourselves. Yet look at me. I am more changed than you! And no less riddled with the fear you describe. And I did not sense it! I should have been able to do so, having access to the mists in my passage from world to world. Nightshade might be banned from the mists, but I am not. No, Holiday. There is more to this.”
“There is the box!” Ben snapped. “The box is something more than a container for the mists. It is a trap strong enough to hold such as we. Another magic works within it.”
“It is possible,” the other agreed thoughtfully. “But if so, then what magic can free us?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Ben said. “When I remembered who I was, I remembered something else, too. I think that our identities were stripped from us to wipe out any chance that we might remember anything that would help us escape. This trap was set up to work two ways. First, to make us forget who we are. Second, to steal away any magic we commanded, to render us impotent. Well, we’ve overcome the first, so that leaves the second. No magic. And we can’t escape this trap without magic.”
He glanced from one to the other. Nightshade was back on her feet, ramrod straight, her expression flat and set. “But I think that Horris Kew or whoever it was who put us here might have made a mistake. The magic intended to be stolen from us was innate. That’s why we were changed in different ways. You were changed most of all, Strabo. Your magic is inherent in what you are—a dragon—so you were changed to something else entirely. Otherwise, you could use your fire to escape this trap, because your fire is your greatest power and among other things it lets you cross between worlds.”
He turned to Nightshade. “And you were stripped of your magic for the same reason, although it was not necessary to change your appearance because how you looked made no difference to whether your magic worked. But the result was the same. Like Strabo, you were trapped without a means of escape because the magic you relied on most, the magic inside yourself, was gone.”
He paused. “But it is different with me. I have no innate magic. I came to Landover without any and still possess none. So I was not affected. My memory was stolen, and that was enough. As long as I didn’t remember who I was, what danger did I pose?”
“Get to the point,” Nightshade snapped coldly.
“This is the point,” Ben replied. He reached into his tunic and pulled forth the medallion with the graven image of the Paladin riding out of Sterling Silver at sunrise. “The medallion of the Kings of Landover, given to me when I was brought over from my own world. It invests me with the right to rule, it gives me command over the Paladin, and it does one thing more. It lets me pass through the fairy mists.”
There was a protracted silence. “Then you think ...” Strabo began and stopped.
“It is possible that the magic of the talisman was not leached away in the same manner as your own, that our prison is designed to render the magic of living creatures useless, but not the magic of inanimate things.” Ben paused. “Beyond Landover, the medallion lends no authority to rule and will not summon the Paladin. But it will allow passage through the fairy mists. Perhaps it can do so here. It has retained its link to the armor of the Paladin, even though that armor comes in the form of the Haze. It was recognized by the Gristlies and warded us from them. Perhaps it can set us free as well.”
“If we are indeed imprisoned in some part of the mists,” Strabo pointed out dourly.
“If,” Ben agreed.
“This is a very slim chance you offer us,” the other mused.
“But the only one we have.”
Strabo nodded, his ugly face almost serene. “The only one.”
Nightshade came forward then, all black anger and hard edges, and stopped before Ben. “Will this really work?” she demanded, her voice dangerously quiet.
He met her gaze and held it. “I think so. We will have to take the medallion into the mists and test it. If it does what it should, we will emerge from the mists where we entered them.”
“Restored to ourselves?” Her eyes glittered.
“I don’t know. Once we are beyond the prison and its magic, we should be.”
She nodded. Her face was white marble, her eyes gone almost red. There was such fury mirrored there that he shrank inwardly from it.
“You had better hope so, play-King,” she said softly. “Because if we do not escape this madness and I am not made whole again, every part of me, every piece of who and what I am, I will spend the rest of my days waiting for a chance to destroy you.”
She drew her long cloak close about her, a dark ghost in the misty dawn. “You have my word on that. Now get us out of here.”
Time seemed stopped.
Willow walked slowly, steadily through the mists, placing her feet carefully with each step. She could not tell where she was going. She could barely see the ground she trod. If this was a trap, she was finished. The haze was so dense that she would be on top of whatever snare might be waiting long before she could identify it. She was proceeding on trust, and where the fairies were concerned this was not particularly reassuring.
But after a while, the air began to clear. It thinned gradually, like dawn coming out of night, a slow giving way of greater shadows to lesser. The light strengthened from black to gray, but still there was no sun. Gradually the mist receded until it was entwined within a wall of trees and scrub. Willow looked about. She was in a jungle of tangled trees and vines, damp and fetid earth, and silence. There was no sound about her, no movement, as if all life had been destroyed.
She moved forward a few tentative steps and stopped. She looked about again. A sinking feeling unsettled her stomach. She knew where she was. She was in the Deep Fell, the home of Nightshade.
For an instant she thought she must be mistaken. How could she possibly have come here, of all places? She moved forward again, searching the jungle about her, trying to peer through the thick canopy of the trees, to see beyond the shadows, to convince herself she was wrong. She could not. Her instincts and memory were quite clear on the matter. She was in the Deep Fell.
She took a slow breath to steady herself. This might be another fairy trick, she thought. It might be their revenge on her, letting her wander into Nightshade’s lair. Trust your instincts, Edgewood Dirk had advised. Trust not the cat. She exhaled. Whatever the case, she must escape quickly or she would be discovered.
She moved swiftly through the thick, green tangle of the Fell, anxious now to gain the rim of the Hollows while it was still light. Though morning was not yet here, it was quite conceivable that she could wander the Fell until nightfall without getting free. Many had. Many had never come out. She kept silent in her passage, using her skills as once-fairy, taking heart in the fact that at least she was back in Landover. She wondered how her instincts could have misled her so. She had to have been deceived by fairy magic. How cruel and spiteful of them, she thought angrily.
Then sudden pain shot through her stomach and limbs, and she doubled over. She dropped to one knee, gasping. The pain lasted only a moment and was gone. She came back to her feet and hurried on. Within minutes, it returned. It was stronger this time and lasted twice as long. She knelt in the tall grass and clutched at herself. What was happening to her?
A jolt of recognition snapped her head up.
It was the baby! It was time!
She closed her eyes in frustration and disbelief. But not here! Please, not here!
She struggled to her feet and continued on, but in seconds the pain returned, dropping her back to her knees, so strong she could barely breathe. Her teeth clenched, she tried to rise one final time and then gave it up. The baby would decide, the Earth Mother had said. Apparently the baby was doing so now. Willow knelt on the floor of the Deep Fell and cried. Her child should not be born in this foul place! It should not be born in shadows and darkness, born out of the sunlight! Did the fairies have anything to do with this? Had they planned it this way, their spite so great at losing the child that they now wished it harmed?
Tears continued to leak from Willow’s clenched eyes as she groped at her waist for the pouch containing the precious soils. She found it and pulled it free. She loosened the drawstrings. The pain was coming in sudden spurts that wracked her body. No preparation for this birth, no time to adjust. It was happening quickly, coming so fast that there was no time left for thinking.
She crawled a few feet farther to a patch of bare ground and clawed at the soil with her fingers to loosen it. It was not difficult to do; the Deep Fell’s earth was damp and soft. When she had cultivated a small patch, she opened the pouch and spread the soils she had gathered in a wide swath about her, reaching down to mix them in. The pain was continuous now, rising and falling in steady waves. She wished she knew more about what to expect, wished she had asked the Earth Mother. Giving birth for the once-fairy was an inconstant and differing experience with each child conceived, and she knew so little of how it worked. She gritted her teeth harder, mixing the soils together, those of the old pines in the lake country, of the place called Greenwich in Ben’s world, and of the fairy mists, working them into the soil of the Deep Fell.
Please,she thought.Please don’t let this harm my child.
Then she cast down the empty pouch and with an effort came to her feet. Wracked with pain, feeling the child stirring anxiously now within her womb, she prepared to give herself over to the change. The child would come when she was in tree form. She had not been able to tell Ben that. She did not know that she ever could.
She shed her clothing and was naked. Then she placed herself at the very center of the soils she had mixed and dug her toes into the earth.
At the moment of her transformation, she was at peace. It was out of her hands now. She had done all she could do to assure her child’s safe birthing. She had kept the trust of the Earth Mother; she had brought back the soils that were required. There was nothing left for her to do but to let her child be born. She wished suddenly for Ben. She wanted to feel his presence, to have him touch her, to hear some small words of reassurance. She did not like being alone now.
Her eyes closed.
Slowly she transformed, fingers and toes lengthening to twigs and roots, arms splitting into branches, legs fusing to a trunk, the whole of her body changing shape and color and look. Her hair disappeared. Her face vanished. She twisted sinuously as bark covered her over. She sighed once, and then she was still.
Hours passed and nothing moved within the Deep Fell where the willow tree rooted. No wind rustled its leaves. No birds flew onto its branches. No small creatures climbed its smooth trunk. The air brightened to a dull, hazy gray, and the summer heat intensified, trapped within the jungle’s dank tangle. A rain passed through and faded. Water dripped from the supple limbs onto the ground.
Noon approached.
Then the tree seemed to shiver with some inner turmoil. Slowly, agonizingly, where the trunk began to branch skyward, the skin split apart and a broad shoot pushed out into the light. It appeared quickly, as if its growth were accelerated, thrusting and twining upward. It broadened as it grew and changed shape.
In moments, it had become a pod.
Within the pod, there was movement.
Questor Thews and Abernathy stood together on the parapets of Sterling Silver and looked out across the lake that surrounded the castle island to the throngs of people streaming onto the grasslands. They had been coming all day, tens growing to hundreds, hundreds to thousands. Most had come from the Greensward, though there was a scattering of Trolls from the Melchor, wights from the barren wastelands east, and villagers and farmers from some dozen or so small communities directly north and south. They came as if vagabonds, bearing no food or blankets or even the most rudimentary implements for fire-making. They seemed not to care. Men, women, and children, some with old plow horses and mules, some with a ragtag following of dogs and cats, they had trekked their way here from wherever, as diverse a gathering as ever there was. Now they milled about across the lake from the castle and stared over at it as if hoping someone might invite them in for a good meal.
It was not food they sought, however. What each of them craved, what every single one of them had come to obtain, what all of them were determined to have at any cost, was a mind’s eye crystal.
“Look at them,” Abernathy muttered, then shook his head so that his dog ears flapped gently. “This is truly dreadful.”
“Worse than what we had anticipated, I’m afraid,” Questor Thews agreed solemnly.
They had been anticipating some sort of trouble ever since Abernathy and Bunion had returned from Rhyndweir with the story of the black-cloaked stranger and Horris Kew. A vast stash of mind’s eye crystals awaited them at Sterling Silver, the stranger had insisted. It was there for the taking. Abernathy had dutifully reported every last word to Questor Thews, and so they had braced themselves. But it was Kallendbor and the other Lords of the Greensward they had expected to face, appearing with their armies to exact an accounting, marching up to the gates to force an entry. Instead they found themselves confronted by thousands of farmers and tradesmen and their families, simple people who bore no weapons and wore no armor, all of them hungry and tired and misguided, all of them standing about like cattle waiting for someone to lead them to the barn.
Well, the barn was back the way they had come, of course, but none of them wanted to hear that. They didn’t want to hear anything that didn’t involve the words “mind’s eye crystals” and that was the sad but inescapable fact of the matter.
They certainly weren’t listening to anything Questor Thews or Abernathy had to tell them. When the first of them had arrived, quite early that morning, they had come onto the bridge that linked the island with the mainland. The portcullis had been lowered during the night, so they halted at the gates and shouted up for Ben Holiday to come down. Questor Thews had appeared on the ramparts and shouted back that the King was absent at the moment—what did they want? Mind’s eye crystals, they declared vehemently, one for each of them. Well, there weren’t any to be had, Questor had replied. They called him a liar and a few other names, and started making disparaging remarks about his lineage. Abernathy had appeared beside his friend, still feeling very responsible for the whole mess, and assured the people massed on the bridge—the number growing even as they argued—that Questor Thews was telling the truth, that there were no mind’s eye crystals inside the castle. That didn’t fly with anyone. The threats and name-calling continued. The mob grew larger.
Finally Questor sent a squad of King’s soldiers out to move the people back off the bridge and to set up a picket line on the far side of the lake. Amid much pushing and shoving, the soldiers cleared the bridge, but no one turned about and started for home as the Court Wizard had hoped. Instead they held their ground just beyond the picket line and waited for something to happen. Nothing did, of course. Questor wasn’t entirely sure what they thought might In any event, the number of people swelled into the thousands by midday, all crammed down off the high plains and surrounding hills onto the lower grasslands fronting the castle. The summer heat worsened on a day that was gloriously clear and cloudless, and tempers grew short
Then someone on one side of the picket line said something and someone on the other side said something else, and as quick as that the mob rushed the line, overpowered the soldiers, and threw them into the lake. Then they charged across the bridge for the castle gates.
This might have been the start of real trouble except that Questor was still standing out on the battlements with Abernathy trying to decide what else he could do. When he saw the mob rush the castle, he pushed up the sleeves of his old gray robe and called on his magic. This was a precipitous act if ever there was one, since Questor’s conjuring never worked well when rushed (or even when it wasn’t, for that matter), but no one was really thinking too clearly by now. He meant to send a bolt of lightning flashing down into their midst, something to scatter them or to fling them into the waters of the lake. Instead, he sent down the equivalent of several gallons of oil—not the flaming kind, the plain old greasy kind—right into the foremost of those leading the charge. The oil splashed down across the wooden surface of the bridge and the entire leading edge of the mob went down in an oily tangle of arms and legs. Those following stumbled over their fellows while trying to slow themselves or break past, and they went down, too. In seconds, the entire bridge was awash in oil-slicked bodies.
Questor Thews ordered the gates closed, and the castle was summarily sealed up. The mob dragged its collective self back off the bridge, cursing and threatening with every step. This isn’t finished by any means! You watch and see if it is, Questor Thews! Just wait until the Lords of the Greensward arrive! You’ll see what real trouble is then, all of you!
True enough, Questor Thews had agreed silently, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. So here they were, some long hours later, the day edging toward night, waiting to see which would arrive first, Kallendbor or sunset.
Sunset seemed a pretty good bet. The skies east were already darkening and the skies west turning gold. Several of the moons were out to the north, hanging low in the horizon, lifting gradually toward the stars. There was no sign of Kallendbor and the Lords of the Greensward—no shouts announcing their imminent arrival, no dust upon the approaching plains, no thud of horses’ hooves or clank of armor. It looked as if any further trouble was going to be delayed until morning.
Abernathy hoped so. It had been difficult telling Questor Thews how he had been tricked by Horris Kew. It had been like pulling teeth to admit that he had been duped so thoroughly that he had aided and abetted the dissemination of the wretched mind’s eye crystals to the people of Landover, thereby permitting the present situation to come to pass. He was still struggling with the loss of his own crystal and the visions it had presented, and in the end he told that to Questor Thews as well. Might as well admit everything, he decided. What difference could it make now?
As it happened, Questor had been extraordinarily understanding and supportive. Quite all right, he had said. Who could blame you? I would have done the same if it were me. He actually thanked Abernathy for putting aside personal feelings in favor of the greater well-being of the Kingdom of Landover and of the missing Ben Holiday in particular.
“I was as much a fool as you,” he said solemnly, his wispy hair stuck out as if he were a porcupine taking a defensive stance. “I accepted Horris Kew’s word as gullibly as you. I did not question the worth of these crystals he presented to us. They seemed the perfect answer to our dilemma. To tell you the truth, I was on the verge of asking for one myself.”
“But you did not,” Abernathy observed sadly. “I have no such excuse.”
“Nonsense!” Questor shook his head vehemently. “I practically forced one on you when he asked for a trial. I could have tried it out myself, but I let you take the chance. Anyway, it was not too long ago that I stood in your shoes, old friend. I was the one who conjured the magic that sent you and the King’s medallion back to his old world. No, I can’t allow you a bit of the blame in this.”
All of which made Abernathy feel not a minute’s worth better about what he had done. Still, Questor was trying to make him feel less guilty, and Abernathy appreciated it. What would make him feel a whole lot cheerier was finding out what had become of Ben Holiday. Questor had used the Landsview anew just that morning, Bunion had scoured the countryside close at hand once more, and neither had a thing to show for their efforts. Wherever Ben Holiday was, he was well hidden. Abernathy wanted to get his teeth on that black-cloaked stranger and bite down real hard on his ear or some such. He was ashamed that his animal side was coming to the fore in this matter, but he was desperate to redeem himself for the harm he had caused.
“Uh-oh,” Questor Thews said suddenly, and put an end to the scribe’s contemplation. “Look over there.”
Abernathy looked. A gang of men had emerged from the trees of the forest west bearing a huge log that had been fashioned into a battering ram. They lugged the log down the hillside and onto the grasslands. They bore it across the flats toward the lake. They were chanting and huffing as they came, and those thousands of their fellows gathered about cheered them on lustily.
“They can’t be serious,” the wizard gasped.
But they were, of course. They were dead serious. There were thirty or more, evenly split to either side of their makeshift ram, trotting slowly across the grasslands and up to the bridge. All about them, people had come to their feet and were thrusting their fists into the air.
“You, there!” Questor Thews shouted, white hair flying. “Turn back right now! Drop that log!”
No one could hear him; they were shouting too loud. They were practically screaming in anticipation. The gang of men and their ram turned onto the bridge and started across, picking up speed. A howl of determination burst from their lips.
Questor Thews rolled up his sleeves once more atop the parapets. “We’ll see about this!” he muttered furiously.
Abernathy stood frozen in place. What should he do? His ears twitched, and he let out a growl.
The men on the bridge crossed in a final rush and slammed their battering ram into the castle gates. There was a monstrous thud and a splintering of wood. The ram and the men carrying it bounced back a few feet and collapsed on the causeway. It seemed to Abernathy as if he could feel the force of the blow on the gates all the way atop the wall where he stood in his half crouch, hands clamped over his muzzle.
“All right for you!” Questor Thews cried out, arms and robes flying. He looked ready to do something. He looked poised to strike. White light gathered at ends of his fingertips. Abernathy clenched his teeth. Something bad was about to happen.
The men with the ram picked themselves up and charged once more, undaunted.
Questor’s arms windmilled wildly. Too wildly. He was working so hard at whatever spell he was conjuring that he lost his balance. When he tried to regain it, he tripped on his robes. He stumbled forward dangerously close to the edge of the ramparts. Abernathy reached out hurriedly and grabbed him. As he did so, Questor’s magic released from his fingers and flew down into the mob. From the sound that emanated from the wizard’s lips, Abernathy could tell that something unexpected was about to happen.
He was not wrong. The magic fell onto the bridge like silver rain, soft and gentle. Perhaps it was meant to be a bolt of lightning that would scatter the men with the ram. Perhaps it was supposed to be another dousing of oil. Neither happened. Instead the magic fell upon the causeway and disappeared into its wooden surface as if water into sand, and a moment later the bridge shuddered and arched as if a sleeping snake awakened. Down went the men with the ram a second time, only yards from their objective, cursing and screaming. The bridge heaved, throwing the men about like rag dolls. The ram flew up into the air and rolled off the bridge and into the moat. The men screamed and cursed some more. Questor and Abernathy hung onto each other and stared downward in disbelief. The bridge was writhing now. It detached from the castle and the far shore and began to twist back on itself. The few men still clinging to its surface abandoned their perch and dived for safety. Boards cracked and snapped apart. Iron nails popped. Bindings frayed and gave way. Up rose the bridge one final time, a serpent breaching from the deep, then it broke into a million pieces and collapsed into the lake and was gone.
There was a long moment of stunned silence. The men who had carried the battering ram were pulling themselves back ashore with the help of friends and relatives. The rest of the ragtag mob was gathered on the shoreline, staring. The waters churned and roiled like a kettle set to boil.
Questor looked at Abernathy and blinked. “Well, what do you know about that!” he said.
Sunset arrived and there were no further incidents. The mob had apparently had enough for one day and now turned its attention to building cooking fires and scrounging for food. With the causeway destroyed, the last open link with the mainland was severed, and Sterling Silver was truly an island in the middle of a lake. No way to reach her now, it was clear, unless you wanted to swim. Most of those gathered couldn’t swim and in many cases distrusted water in general. Questor was inclined to congratulate himself on a well-executed bit of magic, but he refrained from doing so since the whole business had gone completely awry and Abernathy knew it.
Abernathy, for his part, had gone back to wondering how ever in the world they were going to get out of this mess without Holiday.
It was still light when, despite Questor’s and Abernathy’s fondest hopes and unspoken predictions, Kallendbor and a substantial army arrived to take up a position directly across from the castle gates. Peasants and common folk were shoved aside and room was made for the fighting men and their leader. Close by Kallendbor’s side was Horris Kew and his bird, the former shuffling about distractedly, the latter riding his shoulder like the proverbial omen of doom. Abernathy watched them bleakly. The cause of all of this, he thought darkly. Horris Kew and his bird. If he could just reach them. If he could just get his hands on them for five seconds. The image lingered.
There was no sign of the black-cloaked stranger. Questor and Abernathy both searched for him without success. Maybe he had stayed behind, but neither of them believed so.
Darkness fell, the sun disappeared, and the fires brightened against the night. Sentries took up positions on the banks of the lake, visibly placed so that those in the castle could see that a siege had been laid. Questor and Abernathy remained on the ramparts where they had stood all day and brooded.
“Whatever are we going to do?” Abernathy muttered disconsolately.
The camp milled about below, people jostling for room in the crowded meadow. The smell of meat cooking wafted up. Cups of ale were being passed about, and laughter grew loud and raucous.
“A regular picnic, isn’t it?” Questor replied irritably. Then he started. “Abernathy, look there!”
Abernathy looked. Kallendbor was standing at the edge of the lake with Horris Kew and the bird. Right next to him was the black-cloaked stranger, bold as you please. They stood apart from everyone else, staring out across the water at Sterling Silver.
“Making plans for tomorrow, I’ll warrant,” the wizard said. He shook his head wearily. “Well, I’ve had enough of this. I’m going up to the Landsview to see if there is anything new to be learned of the King. I shall scour the countryside once more, and maybe this time something will reveal itself.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hands and started away. “Anything is better than watching those idiots.”
He departed in a sweep of gray robes, leaving Abernathy to keep watch alone. Contemplating the unfairness of life and the stupidity of men become dogs and wondering anew what he could do to redeem himself, Abernathy continued standing there despite Questor’s assessment of the act as a waste of time. There seemed little he could accomplish so long as he was penned up in the castle. He thought vaguely about swimming the lake and sneaking up on Horris Kew and his bird, but that would only get him taken prisoner or worse.
On the far bank, Kallendbor, Horris Kew, Biggar, and the stranger continued to huddle in the near dark, co-conspirators of the night.
Abernathy was trying quite unsuccessfully to read their lips when a commotion from behind brought him sharply about. Two of the castle guards had appeared from out of the stairwell holding in their burly hands two small, grimy, struggling figures.
“Great High Lord!” one moaned pitifully.
“Mighty High Lord!” the other wailed.
Well, there you are, Abernathy thought as the two were brought forward. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, somehow they always do. There was no mistaking these two—the stout, hairy, dirt-encrusted bodies; the bearded, ferret-like faces with pointed ears and wet noses; the peasant-reject clothes topped off with ridiculous leather skullcaps and tiny red feathers. They were as familiar and unwelcome as deep winter cold and sweltering summer heat, unavoidable visitations that came and went more frequently than the weather. They were G’home Gnomes, the most despised people in the entire kingdom of Landover, the lowest of the low, the final step down the evolutionary ladder. They were thieves and pilferers who lived hand-to-mouth and by the deliberate misfortune they brought to others. They were that variety of creature that scavenges what it consumes and thus cleans up what all others leave behind—except, of course, that G’home Gnomes also cleaned up much of that which was not intended to be left behind in the first place. They were particularly fond of pet cats, which was all right with Abernathy, and pet dogs, which was decidedly not.
These two Gnomes, in particular, were a source of unending distress to the members of the court of Ben Holiday. Ever since they had appeared unexpectedly to pledge their fealty to the throne some three years earlier—a decidedly mixed blessing if ever there was one—they had been underfoot. Now here they were again, the same two troublemakers, back for another shot at making Abernathy’s life miserable.
Fillip and Sot cringed when they saw him. They were still whining for Holiday, who at least would tolerate them. Abernathy had no such compunction.
“Where is the High Lord?” Fillip asked immediately.
“Yes, where is the King?” Sot echoed.
“Found them messing about in the King’s bedchamber,” one of the guards advised, giving Fillip a good shake in an effort to still his struggling. The Gnome whimpered. “Thieving, I expect.”
“Never, no never!” Fillip cried.
“Never from the High Lord!” Sot cried.
Abernathy felt a headache coming on. “Set them down,” he ordered with a sigh.
The guards dropped them in a heap. The Gnomes fell to their knees, groveling pitifully.
“Great Court Scribe!”
“Mighty Court Scribe!”
Abernathy rubbed his temples. “Oh, stop it!” He dismissed the guards and motioned the Gnomes to their feet. They rose hesitantly, glancing about with worried looks, thinking perhaps that some terrible fate was about to befall them, thinking perhaps of trying to escape.
Abernathy studied them wearily. “What is it that you want?” he snapped.
The G’home Gnomes exchanged a hurried glance.
“To see the High Lord,” Fillip answered hesitantly.
“To speak with the High Lord,” Sot agreed.
They were terrible at lying, and Abernathy saw at once that they were being evasive. It had been a very long, disappointing day, and he had no time for this.
“Eaten any stray animals lately?” he asked softly, leaning forward so that they could see the faint gleam of his teeth.
“Oh, no, we would never ...”
“Only vegetables, I promise ...”
“Because every so often I have this craving for roast Gnome,” Abernathy interrupted pointedly. They went as still as stone. “Now give me the truth, or I shall not be responsible for what happens next!”
Fillip swallowed hard. “We want a mind’s eye crystal,” he answered miserably.
Sot nodded. “Everyone has one but us.”
“We just want one.”
“Yes, just one.”
“That is not asking too much.”
“No, not too much.”
Abernathy wanted to throttle them. Was there no end to this nonsense? “Look at me,” he said, a very real edge to his voice. They met his gaze reluctantly. “There are no mind’s eye crystals here. None. Not a one. There never were. If I have anything to say about it, there never will be!” He almost checked himself on that last statement, but then decided he really meant it. He reached out and caught them by their skinny, gnarly arms. “Come here.”
He dragged them over to the parapets, ignoring their moans and cries about being thrown to their doom. “Look out there!” he snapped irritably. “Go on, look!” They looked. “See that man with the bird? Next to Lord Kallendbor? Next to the man in the black cloak?”
They hesitated, then nodded as one.
“That,” Abernathy declared triumphantly, “is the one who has the mind’s eye crystals! So go talk to him!”
He let go of them and stepped away, hands on dog hips. The G’home Gnomes looked at each other uncertainly, then back at Horris Kew, then back at Abernathy.
“There are no crystals here?” Fillip asked, sounding hurt
“None?” Sot asked.
Abernathy shook his head. “You have my solemn word as Court Scribe and servant to the King. If there are any crystals to be found, that is the man who can find them.”
Fillip and Sot wiped dirt-encrusted fingers across damp snouts and teary eyes and stared down at the conjurer with increasing interest. They sniffled rather anxiously, and their jaws worked to no discernible purpose. They stepped back.
“We shall speak with him, then,” Fillip announced, taking the lead as always.
“Yes, we shall,” Sot reinforced.
They started to turn away and move back toward the stairwell. In spite of himself, Abernathy called them back. “Wait!” he hailed. “Hold on a moment.” He walked over to them. He didn’t owe them this, but he couldn’t let them go unwarned either. “Listen to me. These men, the one in black particularly, are very dangerous. You cannot just walk up to them and ask for crystals. They are likely to cut you into tiny pieces for your trouble.”
Fillip and Sot looked at each other.
“We will be very careful,” Fillip advised.
“Very,” Sot agreed.
They started away again.
“Wait!” Abernathy called a second time. Something had just occurred to him, something he had missed before. The G’home Gnomes turned. “How did you get in here?” he asked suspiciously. “You did not come over the bridge. And you do not look like you swam the lake. So how exactly did you get in?”
They exchanged another in that endless series of furtive looks. Neither spoke.
Abernathy came right up to them then and bent down. “You tunneled in, didn’t you?” Fillip bit his lip. Sot clenched his jaw. “Didn’t you?”
They nodded. Reluctantly.
“All the way from the far bank?” Abernathy was incredulous.
Fillip sulked. “The forest, actually.”
Sot sulked harder. “Back in the trees.”
Abernathy stared. “No, how could you? That would take days, weeks.” He stopped himself. “Wait a minute. How long has this tunnel of yours been in place?”
“A while,” Fillip muttered, and scuffed the stone rampart with the claws of his feet.
“And where does this tunnel come out?”
Another pause, this one longer. “The kitchen larder,” Sot admitted finally.
Abernathy straightened once more. Memories of food mysteriously disappearing from the larder surfaced like dead fish at moonrise. Cooks’ helpers had been blamed. Accusations had been made. No resolution had ever been reached.
“So,” he said softly, drawing the word out like a hangman’s noose. “The kitchen larder.”
Fillip and Sot cringed and waited for the blow to fall. But Abernathy wasn’t even looking at them. He was looking away, toward the ramparts and beyond. He was not considering retribution against the G’home Gnomes; he was weighing instead the prospect of getting even with Horris Kew. With the glow of the watch fires dancing off the shadowed stone of Sterling Silver, he stood poised on the brink of a decision that would either redeem him or cost him his life.
It took him only a moment to make up his mind. He bent down again and asked pointedly, “Is this tunnel of yours big enough for me?”