Abernathy was not by nature compulsive in his behavior or even remotely venturesome, so it was with some surprise that he found himself contemplating squeezing into the narrow tunnel hollowed out by Fillip and Sot far back in a corner of the kitchen larder, intent on crawling its length to the woods behind the siege lines ringing Sterling Silver, there to undertake some precarious and probably foolhardy effort to capture and squeeze information out of Horris Kew. It wasn’t that he didn’t realize what it was he was doing or appreciate the danger involved that disturbed him; it was that he would even consider such madness in the first place.
He consoled himself by determining it was his dog side taking over and therefore entirely the fault of Questor Thews.
The wizard had no idea what Abernathy was about. If he had known, he would have put a stop to it at once or insisted on going himself, neither of which the Court Scribe could permit. After all, this was Abernathy’s mess to clean up, his pride to redeem, his self-esteem to regain. Besides, Questor was needed where he was, within the walls of the castle where he could present at least a semblance of a defense against the inevitable assault Kallendbor and his army would mount. Questor’s magic might be erratic, but it was a force to be reckoned with nevertheless and would give the castle’s assailants at least some pause in their efforts.
Meanwhile, he hoped, he would be able to find out what had become of Ben Holiday.
He was forced to strip off his clothes to get into the tunnel; it was that tight. Nudity was an indignity he was prepared to endure. The G’home Gnomes had made the tunnel for themselves, after all, and not for him. In the shadows of the larder, the kitchen staff dismissed summarily and without explanation to other parts of the castle, Abernathy pulled off his clothing and thought for a moment about what he was doing. He did not think about Horris Kew or his bird or Kallendbor or the black-cloaked stranger this time. The danger from that quarter was known. He thought instead about placing himself in the hands—and possibly teeth—of Fillip and Sot. They were dubious allies at best, given their history as scavengers and consumers of cats and dogs. He was quite certain that if the opportunity presented itself they would not hesitate to eat him. Why not? It was in their nature, wasn’t it? Since that was so, however, it was incumbent on Abernathy, given his present precarious circumstances, to give them a very good reason not to make a meal of him.
He decided to appeal to the one character virtue he was able to accord them.
“Listen carefully to me,” he told them, crouching naked at the tunnel entry, trying hard not to feel foolish. “There is something I have not told you. What we are doing is very important to the well-being of the High Lord. We have not given out the news, but something bad has happened to him. He has disappeared. Those men out there, the one with the mind’s eye crystals and the black-cloaked one, are responsible. I have a plan to save Holiday, but you will have to help me. You want to save the High Lord, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes!” Fillip declared.
“Yes, indeed!” Sot insisted.
They nodded so hard he thought their heads might shake loose from their shoulders. He was stretching the truth here concerning Holiday and any plan for his rescue, but in a good cause. The one thing he could count on where the G’home Gnomes were concerned was their unswerving loyalty to the High Lord. It had been set in concrete from the time of their first meeting, when Ben Holiday had done what no one else would have even considered doing—he had gone to their rescue in a cause that was recognizably questionable, determined that a King must serve all of his subjects equally. He had saved their lives, and they had never forgotten. They continued to be thieves and scavengers and acted in misguided ways more often than not, but as they had shown already on more than one occasion, they would do anything for the High Lord.
Abernathy was counting on that now. He was counting on it quite heavily.
“Once we are through the tunnel, I will tell you my plan,” he continued. “But we must work together on this. Holiday’s life is at risk,”
“You can depend on us,” Fillip advised eagerly.
“You can,” Sot agreed.
Abernathy hoped so. His life was at risk as well.
They went down into the tunnel, Fillip first, Abernathy second, Sot trailing. They crawled in headfirst, stretching out full-length along an earthen passageway that twisted and burrowed down into blackness. Abernathy found that he could not see a thing. He could hear Fillip moving ahead of him and followed the sound of his squirming. From behind, Sot nudged his feet to prod him along. Roots scraped his belly and back. Insects skittered past him in a flurry of legs, in places, patches of damp soaked into him and matted his fur. Everything smelled pungent and close. Abernathy hated tunnels. He hated anything that confined him (another dog trait, he assumed). He wanted out of there very badly, but he forced himself to go on. He had initiated this venture and he was determined to see it through.
The Gnomes must have tunneled all the way under the lake, a feat that Abernathy could not comprehend, given its well-known depth. He envisioned the earth collapsing on top of him; he imagined the lake waters pouring in. The crawl went on endlessly, and at more than one point he thought that he had reached the limit of his endurance. But he refused to quit.
When he emerged once more into the light of moons and stars within a clump of bushes behind the siege lines, there to brush dirt and insects away and to breathe anew and with much gratitude a cool night air which smelled and tasted sweeter than anything in recent memory, he vowed that whatever happened from here on out, he was not under any circumstances going back into that tunnel.
His composure regained, he followed the G’home Gnomes out of the bushes and through the trees to the rise that looked down on the meadow and the makeshift army besieging Sterling Silver. Cooking fires were dying out, and people were stretched out on the grass sleeping. Sentries from Kallendbor’s war party still patrolled the shores of the lake, keeping close watch over the island castle, and small knots of men still drank and joked restlessly, but for the most part everyone had settled in for the night. Abernathy searched the meadow, particularly along the shoreline, for some sign of Horris Kew or the black-cloaked stranger. There was none to be found. Not even Kallendbor was visible.
“What do we do now?” Fillip asked anxiously.
“Yes, what?” Sot echoed.
Abernathy wasn’t sure. He licked his nose worriedly.
Somehow he had to find Horris Kew. But how was he supposed to do that given his present circumstances? To begin with, he looked like a dog, and without any clothes he had little hope of disguising the fact. If he went down into the camp like this, he would be spotted in a moment.
Reluctantly, he turned to the Gnomes. “Do you think you could sneak down there and find the man I showed you from the castle, the one with the bird?”
“The man with the mind’s eye crystals,” Fillip announced brightly.
“That one,” Sot declared.
Abernathy had hoped they might focus on something besides the crystals. It was Ben Holiday he was after, and G’home Gnomes were easily distracted from what mattered in favor of what interested. It was Abernathy’s biggest fear that they would get sidetracked. They just couldn’t seem to help themselves.
“We can find him,” Fillip said.
“Easily,” Sot said.
Abernathy sighed. “All right, give it a try. But just find him, then come right back and tell me where he is. So I can tell you my plan. Do not do anything else. Do not let him know you are there. Can you remember that?”
“Yes, we can remember,” Fillip said, nodding.
“Easily,” Sot repeated.
They slipped away into the darkness and disappeared from view. We can remember, they had promised. Abernathy wished he could be sure.
Not too far away, back somewhat from the rabble that crowded the meadow, Horris Kew and Biggar sat conversing quietly in the dark. Horris was crouched within the shadows of an old spreading maple that edged out from the forest behind, coming halfway down the slope like a scout. Biggar was perched on the trunk of a tree that had once been the maple’s companion but had fallen victim to lightning. Horris sat with his back against the maple, the trunk of the other tree close by his legs where they stretched out before him like tent poles.
“You are a coward, Horris,” the bird sneered. “A pathetic, craven coward. I would never have thought it of you.”
“I am a realist, Biggar.” Horris was having none of this coward business. “I know when I am in over my head, and this is definitely one of those times.”
It was a bitter admission, but not an unfamiliar one. Sooner or later Horris Kew always found himself in over his head in his machinations. Why these things never worked out as he intended, why they always went wrong somewhere along the way, was a mystery that continued to baffle him. But it was clear that this time, just as all the other times before, things had gone dangerously haywire.
He had been convinced of it since the Gorse had showed itself to Kallendbor and instigated the march on Sterling Silver. At least that long, he corrected. Perhaps he had been convinced of it before, given the nature of the being with which he had become entangled. The Gorse was just what Biggar had warned it was—an incredibly powerful monster that could turn on them in a moment. That it would do so sooner or later was no longer in doubt. Since the march from Rhyndweir, Horris could see his usefulness to the creature coming to an end. For one thing, the Gorse had regained its human form and could walk among men, night or day. That meant it no longer relied on Horris to run its errands. Worse, it was beginning to disregard the fact that Horris was even there. When siege was laid to Sterling Silver, it addressed Kallendbor as an equal and barely deigned to notice Horris. Forgotten were all the promises of the role Horris would play in the new order. There was no longer any mention, veiled or otherwise, of Horris becoming King in Holiday’s place. Horris was being shoved aside, no mistake about it.
“So you simply plan to give it all up once again?” the bird snapped, bringing him out of his reverie. “Just walk away from the chance of a lifetime? What’s the matter with you? I thought you had some backbone about you!”
Horris glowered. “Just exactly what is it that you expect me to do, Biggar? Tell that monster I don’t like how I’m being treated and I want what’s fair? That should prove interesting. Given what we now know, I should say we will be lucky to get out of this alive even if we keep our mouths shut!”
Biggar spit, an ugly sound. “You can tell it you want to be King, Horris! You can tell it that! The Gorse suggested it, after all! It’s a good plan. You be King for a day, we get our hands on as much wealth as we can, then we get out of here. But we don’t cut and run with nothing!”
Horris folded his arms across his bony chest and huffed. “Tell it I want to be King, you think? Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s going on? Haven’t you been listening? This isn’t about mind’s eye crystals or Sterling Silver or being King! There is something else going on here, something infinitely more complex and devious. The Gorse is simply using us—Kallendbor included—to get what it wants. It spent a lot of time getting free of that box, and it wasn’t happy about being put there in the first place! Think about it!”
Biggar’s beak clacked shut. “What do you mean?”
Horris leaned forward. “For a bird possessed of enhanced intelligence, you can be awfully dense. Revenge, Biggar! The Gorse wants a healthy measure of it, don’t you see? There are old debts to be paid for injuries suffered, and the Gorse is doing all this to collect on those debts. It practically told us as much. Landover for us, it said, and the fairy mists for itself—remember? I didn’t realize what that meant then, but I do now. We have always followed a very sound rule of business, Biggar, and it has served us well. If there isn’t any money to be made, we get out. Well, there isn’t any money involved in the revenge business, and it’s time to fold our tent and get while the getting’s good!”
“But thereis money, Horris,” the bird insisted. “That’s just the point. There’s all kinds of money, just across that lake, just inside those walls. If we can hang on for a few more days, we have a chance to take a good chunk of it with us. The Gorse can help us—maybe without even knowing it. Let the beast have its revenge, what do we care? What we need is what’s inside those walls. That, and a way out of Landover. Or have you forgotten we’re trapped here? The Gorse can give us both.”
“What it can give us is a quick trip into that box with Holiday and the others.” Horris shook his head stubbornly. “You saw what it did. It dispatched Holiday like a child. Down into the Tangle Box and out of Landover in the blink of an eye. No more King. It’ll do the same with us when it’s ready, and I don’t think that time is too far off.”
Biggar hopped onto the end of Horris Kew’s boot. His claws dug in. “Maybe we should hedge our bets a bit, Horris. Suppose you’re right. What we need is a little something to keep the Gorse from harming us. Like the box.”
Horris blinked. “The Tangle Box?”
“We slip away right now, tonight,” said the bird. “We can reach the cave on horseback and return before morning. Take the box and hide it. Use it as a lever to make certain we get what we want.” The sharp eyes gleamed.
Horris stared at the bird for a moment, then he shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve gone round the bend, Biggar. You really have. Threaten the Gorse? What does it care if we have the box or not? We don’t even know how to use it!”
“We know the words,” the bird whispered. “We know the spell. What if we were to say it again?”
There was a long, terrible silence. Horris wished he had never opened the box in the first place, never spoken the words that released the Gorse, never returned to Landover at all. He wished he had taken up some other less-stressful profession, like leatherworking or weaving. He was suddenly and inescapably fed up with magic in all its forms.
“Come on, Horris, let’s go!” Biggar urged. “Don’t just sit there. Get up!”
Biggar couldn’t see it, of course. Perhaps it was due to the fact that even with enhanced intelligence there was still only a bird’s brain inside that tiny feathered cranium trying to sort it all out. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to see.
“If we do this,” Horris Kew began softly, “if we decide to challenge the Gorse, if we actually go back to the cave and steal the Tangle Box ...”
He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. He slumped back against the tree, his bony frame collapsing in on itself like a deflated balloon.
Biggar hopped back and forth between the other’s boot and the tree trunk, hissing like a snake. “You coward! You worm-body! You ridiculous excuse for a wizard! All talk and no action wimp-head! How I ever let myself become involved with the likes of you is more than I can comprehend!”
Something moved behind the tree trunk, barely noticeable, a silent bit of shadow and nothing more, but neither of them saw it.
“Biggar, Biggar, you are not thinking .. .”
“Iam thinking! I am the only one who’s thinking!” Biggar puffed up to twice his size, turning himself into a ferocious black porcupine. “Go on, then! Lie there like a rag doll, a collection of sackcloth sewn up with sawdust brains! Go on!”
Horris Kew closed his eyes and put his hands over his face.
“I’ll not spend another moment with such a coward!” raged Biggar. “Not one, single, further, disgusting—”
A grimy hand reached up from behind the log on which he perched, clamped itself over his beak and neck, and dragged him from sight.
After a moment, Horris Kew opened his eyes again and peered about. No Biggar. Just like that, he was gone. Horris sat forward, puzzled. A single black feather lay rocking on the log.
“Biggar?” he called tentatively.
There was no answer.
The hour approached midnight.
Abernathy sat quietly at the edge of the woods and watched the last of the revelers nod off, leaving a sprinkling of fires and the distant, vague shapes of Kallendbor’s sentries. The darkness deepened all about. Sterling Silver was a vague bulk against the horizon, almost entirely empty of light. Overhead, the sky was clear and bright with several moons and thousands of stars. It was warm and pleasant and under other circumstances might have assured everyone a good night’s sleep.
As it was, Abernathy did not dare even think about sleep, worried sick already over the length of time that had passed since Fillip and Sot had left his side in search of Horris Kew. There had been no outcry, so he didn’t think they had been spied, but he was uncomfortable with having them gone this long nevertheless. There were too many ways for that pair to get into trouble, too many missteps they could take before they realized their mistake. He wished he had gone with them. He chided himself for trusting them to go alone.
He had just about made up his mind to go look for them, to slip down into the camp and steal a concealing cloak and search them out, when they abruptly reappeared. They popped up out of the shadows almost in front of him, causing him to start in spite of himself.
“Where have you been?” he asked, irritated.
The G’home Gnomes smiled, showing all their teeth. They looked exceptionally pleased with themselves.
“Look what we have,” said Fillip.
“Come, take a look,” said Sot.
Abernathy tried to look, for he could see that they did indeed have something—something that appeared to be moving—but they brushed past him without slowing.
“No, no, not here,” Fillip said quickly.
“In the dark, away from the camp,” Sot said.
So they trekked back into the woods, well away from the meadow and its campers, until there was no one anywhere about but themselves. At this point Fillip and Sot turned back to Abernathy once more, and the former proudly held out his hands.
“Here!” he announced.
Abernathy stared. It was the bird, the myna or whatever it was, the one that belonged to Horris Kew. It was clutched firmly in the Gnome’s grimy hands, its neck grasped none too gently, its beak clamped shut so that it could not cry out. Its wings fluttered weakly, but it appeared to have spent itself thoroughly.
Abernathy sighed in despair. “I told you just to look, just to find the bird’s owner and come back to me. I did not tell you to take the bird! What good is the bird to us!”
“Much good,” insisted Sot, undeterred. He prodded Fillip eagerly. “Show him.”
Fillip dropped his fingers below Biggar’s beak and gave a small shake. “Speak, bird.”
The bird did not speak. It hung there limply, pitifully. It looked half-dead. Abernathy felt a throbbing in his temples and sighed.
Fillip glowered. He bent down close to the bird’s face. “Speak, stupid bird, or I will wring your neck and eat you,” he said, and he tightened his clawed fingers meaningfully.
“All right, all right!” the bird snapped, coming suddenly alive. Abernathy jerked back in surprise. The bird’s head twisted wildly. “I’m talking, okay? What do you want me to say?”
Fillip held the bird out proudly. “See?”
Abernathy bent down for a closer look. “Well, well,” he said softly. “You talk a lot better than you pretend, don’t you?”
“Better than you, furball,” Biggar sneered. “Tell these mole people to let go of me right now or it will be the worse for you.”
Abernathy reached out and poked the bird. “What is your name again? Biggar? Well, Biggar, guess what?” There was unmistakable satisfaction in his voice. “It took awhile, but I remember you now. It was a long time ago, wasn’t it? You belonged to the old King’s wizard, to Questor Thews’s brother. One day, you were simply reported missing. What happened? Were you dispatched to Ben Holiday’s old world—just like Horris Kew? No, never mind about that. It hardly matters now. Just tell me what you know about the High Lord’s disappearance, hmm? And don’t leave anything out”
Biggar closed his beak with a sharp clack. But it was too late for stonewalling. Fillip and Sot had overheard most of his conversation with Horris Kew and dutifully repeated it now to Abernathy. They got their facts confused a few times and failed to interpret all the words properly, but it was clear enough for the scribe to figure out what had happened. The Gorse was some sort of monster. It was using Horris Kew and Kallendbor. The mind’s eye crystals were its cat’s paw against the throne. Most important, Ben Holiday’s disappearance had come about through use of a powerful spell that would somehow have to be reversed. That meant finding the Gorse’s cave and the Tangle Box hidden within it.
Abernathy turned his attention back to Biggar. The bird had said nothing since his first outburst, withdrawing into silence for the entirety of the time that Fillip and Sot had revealed his secrets. Now he glanced quickly up at Abernathy as the scribe bent down close to look at him.
“Polly want a cracker?” Abernathy coaxed maliciously.
Biggar, despite being firmly held, snapped at his nose.
Abernathy smiled and showed all of his teeth. “You listen to me, you worthless bag of feathers. You are going to lead us to this cave—tonight. When we get there, you are going to take us inside. You are going to show us this Tangle Box, and you are going to teach us the words of the spell. Do you understand me?”
Biggar’s bright eyes fixed on him. “I’m not doing anything. They’ll find me missing and come looking for me. The Gorse, particularly. Wait until you see what it’ll do to you!”
“Whatever it does,” Abernathy replied pointedly, “you will not be around to see it happen.” There was a long, meaningful silence. “The fact of the matter is,” he continued, “if you do not show me where that cave is right now, I am going to give you to my friends and tell them to do whatever they like with you as long as they assure me that I will never, ever see you again.”
He kept his gaze and his voice steady. “Because I am very angry about being tricked. I am even more angry about what you have done to the High Lord. I want him back, safe and sound, and I expect you to help me if you have any hope at all of living out the night. Has that penetrated your little bird brain?”
There was another long silence. “Say something quick,” Abernathy urged.
Biggar’s voice came out a croak. “The cave is west, beyond the Heart.” Then he recovered. “But it won’t do you any good.”
Abernathy smiled and gave the bird another look at his teeth. “We’ll see about that,” he promised.
While Fillip kept tight hold of Biggar, Sot was dispatched to find horses for the journey west, the word find being understood to be a euphemism for the word steal by all concerned. Beggars could not afford to be choosers, and the G’home Gnomes were thieves by nature and habit and would readily interpret find as steal in any event. The hard part of all this was not in reconciling moral principles but in accepting that horses must be used. Neither Abernathy nor the Gnomes had any particular love for horses, and in truth horses didn’t much care for them either. It was one of those inbred hostilities that could not be overcome by either reason or circumstance. But the distance involved required at least a good day by foot and only four hours by horseback. Since time was running out for Questor Thews and Sterling Silver—dawn, after all, would find Kallendbor and the black-cloaked stranger working hard to discover ways to shorten the siege—necessity ruled and horses would have to be tolerated. If only barely.
Sot was back in record time, leading two haltered and blanketed horses, one a bay, the other a sorrel, that he had quite obviously removed from a picket line. He had not thought to acquire either saddles or bridles, which complicated matters. The horses were already shying and snorting with distaste at the small, ragged, dirt-encrusted rodent who led them. In lieu of saddles, Abernathy decided to leave the blankets in place, trimming them with Sot’s hunting knife so that they did not hang below the horses’ flanks and securing them as best he could with a makeshift girth strap woven out of the pieces trimmed. It was a sad-looking job, but there was no help for it.
They mounted up then, Abernathy aboard the sorrel, which was the more rambunctious of the pair, and Fillip and Sot atop the bay. Fillip held the halter rope and Sot the bird. The horses were dancing and huffing by now, beginning to realize what was in store for them and being none too happy about it. Abernathy had them walk the horses at first, anxious to get as far away from the encampment as possible in case they chose to bolt. This was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. When they were several miles off and well up into the hill country west, Abernathy kicked his mount in the flanks gently and they were off.
At a dead run. Both horses leapt away as if on command and tore through the trees and over the hills like creatures possessed. Abernathy tried to rein his sorrel in, but the horse was having none of it. Free of the constraints of bit and reins, it simply took command. Abernathy gave up trying to do anything but hang on. Behind him, he could hear the Gnomes howling in despair. If they were thrown, they might lose the bird. If they lost the bird, they were finished. He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to shout back useless advice.
Eventually the horses wore themselves out, slowed to a trot, and finally a walk. All three riders were still aboard and in possession of their faculties, although they felt as if their bones had been rearranged. They had come a very long way in a very short time, as it turned out, and before they knew it they were at the Heart and passing west. Abernathy called back from time to time for directions from Biggar, and the bird grudgingly supplied what was required. The moons shifted languidly along the horizon and overhead across the sky as night eased toward morning. The countryside changed its look as the trees thickened and the forests grew more dense. Soon they were forced to proceed at a careful walk in a woods that offered no trail and allowed no misstep.
It was little more than an hour later when they reached the cave. They dismounted at the top of a steep rise, tied the horses to a tree, and maneuvered their way down the slope to a tangled thicket below. The descent went slowly, as all were stiff and sore from the ride. The Gnomes complained loudly and incessantly, and Abernathy gave thought to gagging them. At the base of the slope, they turned back through a gathering of brush and found themselves up against a huge, flat stone into which intricate symbols had been carved. Abernathy could neither read nor understand the symbols.
“What do we do now?” he demanded of Biggar.
The bird was looking somewhat the worse for wear, having been held tightly by the legs during the entire ride, often upside-down as Sot struggled to keep his seat atop the bay. Feathers were sticking out everywhere, and dust coated the once-sleek black body.
“I don’t know that I should tell you another thing,” he snapped in reply. “When are you going to let me go!”
“When I see the High Lord safe and sound again!” Abernathy was in no mood for argument.
Biggar spit disdainfully. “That won’t happen. Not if I help you get into the cave, not if I show you the box, and not if you speak the spell. It won’t happen because you’re not a wizard or a conjurer or anyone else capable of summoning magic.”
“This from a bird,” Abernathy replied testily. “Just get us inside, Biggar. Let me worry about the rest.”
The bird sniffed. “Very well. Have it your way. Touch these symbols in the order I direct” And he proceeded to repeat the procedure for opening the cavern door as he had memorized it from watching Horris Kew.
A moment later, the stone swung back, grating against its rock seating, yawning into a black hole streaked dimly with a silver phosphorescence. The little company stood staring uncertainly into the uninviting gloom.
“Well?” Biggar sneered. “Are you going to stand out here all day or are you going in? Let’s get this over with.”
“How far back does this cave run?” Abernathy asked.
“To its end!” the bird snapped. “Sheesh!”
Abernathy ignored him. He didn’t like caves any better than he liked tunnels, but he couldn’t risk sending the G’home Gnomes in alone. No telling what might happen. On the other hand, he wasn’t anxious to walk into a trap.
“I will go first,” Fillip volunteered, providing a solution to the problem.
“I will go second,” Sot offered.
“We don’t mind tunnels and caves.”
“We like the dark.”
That was fine with Abernathy. He was content to bring up the rear. The better to keep an eye on everyone. Besides, if there were any traps the Gnomes would have a far better chance of spotting them than he would. Too bad his nose worked better than his eyes, but such was his lot and there was no point in bemoaning it.
“All right,” he agreed. “But be careful.”
“Do not worry about us,” Fillip advised cheerfully.
“Not for a minute,” Sot added.
Fair enough, Abernathy allowed. Not that he was inclined to do so in any case. “Just keep a tight grip on the bird,” he ordered.
They stepped cautiously through the door, easing their way out of night’s darkness and into the cavern’s. The phosphorescence gleamed in dull streaks along the corridor walls ahead, like candlelight seen through a rain-streaked window. They paused in the entry, casting about. The air within was surprisingly warm. The silence was immense.
A sudden, terrible thought struck Abernathy. What if the Gorse had come here ahead of them for some reason and was waiting? The idea was so frightening that for a moment he could not move. It occurred to him suddenly that he was in way over his head. He had no weapons, no magic, and no fighting skills with which to protect himself. The Gnomes were worthless in a fight; all they would do was burrow to safety. This whole enterprise was fraught with danger and riddled with the possibility of failure. What had he been thinking in undertaking it in the first place?
Then the momentary fear passed, and he was able to calm himself. He had done what he must do, what was necessary and right, and that was enough to justify any risk. High Lord Ben Holiday depended on him. He did not know how exactly, but he knew that in some way it was true. He reminded himself anew how he had aided and abetted the Gorse and Horris Kew in their efforts to subvert the people of Landover and undermine the throne. He reminded himself of the debt that he must pay for his foolishness.
“Well, then, let’s proceed,” he announced bravely.
The Gnomes, who had been watching him work his way through his hesitancy, eased through the doorway. Abernathy took a deep breath and followed.
Instantly, the door grated shut behind them.
Abernathy jumped, the Gnomes yelped, and for an instant there was complete pandemonium. Abernathy threw himself instinctively against the door to force it open again. Both Gnomes raced to help and ran into each other for their trouble. As they collided, Biggar pecked as hard as he could on the hand grasping him, and Sot let go.
Biggar broke free instantly, flew up into the air, and in the blink of an eye streaked away into the cave.
Within the Labyrinth, Ben Holiday worked his way slowly through the mist, the talisman of the medallion held carefully before him. Strabo and Nightshade trailed, silent wraiths following his lead. They had all been transformed inwardly since the revelation of their identity, but outwardly each was crippled in appearance and capability and bore the weight of their imprisonment like chains. There was the sense now that they walked their last mile, that if they failed to get free this time they would be trapped forever. There was within them a growing desperation.
None was more acutely aware of it than Ben, who carried in his hands their only hope. The medallion did not speak to him; it did not give off light or provide direction. He walked like a blind man, seeing nothing of the trail he needed, knowing only that the medallion had taken him through the fairy mists before and must somehow do so again if they were to survive. For survival was the issue here, though the word went unspoken. If they remained within the mists, they would eventually go mad. Madness was a certainty they could see as clearly as their desperation, a pall as inexorable as the Haze arising when they were threatened. But unlike the Haze, it came not to protect but to destroy them. It did so gradually, an eroding of confidence, hope, and will. It worked against them as surely as a sickness against health, wearing them down so that in the end death was all that remained.
But it would not have them yet, Ben whispered in his mind. Finding Willow again, even in his dream, even for that briefest of moments, finding her and knowing that she depended on him, that she waited for him somewhere beyond the entangling mists of the Labyrinth, she and their unborn child, was enough to strengthen his determination to live. He would find a way out. The medallion would give them their escape. It must.
“I see no change in anything.” Nightshade’s cold voice drifted up from behind.
In truth, she was right. They seemed to be making no progress, though they had been walking for hours. Shouldn’t they have been clear by now if the medallion was working? How long must it take? Ben peered ahead through the gloom, trying to see some difference in the texture and viscidity of the mist He did not slow, thinking that if he did they might stop, and if they stopped they were lost. Movement gave hope, movement of any sort.
“There is a lessening of the dampness,” Strabo said suddenly.
Ben glanced down. He was right. The ground on which they walked was firmer than it had been at any time since they had come into the mists. Perhaps this was a sign. He took it as one and picked up the pace. Ahead, the trees seemed less dense. Was this possible? Hope blossomed within him. He grew flushed with its brightness. The trees were giving way, opening into a clearing, the clearing opening in turn into a passageway, a hollowed-out tunnel through massive old growth that ran on into a distant dark ...
“Yes,” he whispered aloud.
For it was a recognizable trail they approached now, one familiar to all who had passed through the fairy mists into Landover. They hastened toward it eagerly, even Nightshade brightening perceptibly at the welcome sight. They entered the tunneled gloom in a knot, hurrying down the forest trail. It was the link they had sought, the way back from where they had come. There were no fairies here, no sounds, no movement, no hint of life of any sort save the trees and the brush and the fog that shrouded them. They were still within the fairy mists of the Labyrinth. Yet somewhere close, somewhere just ahead, the door leading out awaited.
But suddenly the gloom closed tightly about before them, turning as dark as ink, becoming a wall that rose and stretched away without end. They slowed as they came up to it, baffled that it should be there. They stopped as they found it would not allow them to go farther, touching its surface and finding it as hard and immovable as stone. They walked its perimeter in either direction for a distance and then retraced their steps. The wall offered no doorway leading through. It allowed no passage out.
“What is this madness?” Nightshade hissed in fury.
Ben shook his head. The medallion would neither part the mists nor show them a way around. This wall, whatever it was, was impervious to the magic. How could that be? If the fairy mists imprisoned them, then the medallion should be able to take them through. The medallion gave passage through all of the mists.
Then suddenly he recognized what it was that he was seeing. This black wall was not formed of the fairy mists. It was the confinement of the Tangle Box itself, a different form of magic than the mists, a final barrier against escape. And the lock for this door, he feared, did not lie within their prison. It lay instead without.
He stepped back in frustration and despair. He had been able to pass from the mists of the Tangle Box in his dream, but he could not do so while awake.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Strabo asked quietly, hunched down at his elbow, anger seeping into his voice.
Ben Holiday did not have an answer.
It took Biggar only moments to reach the back of the cavern, the chamber where the Gorse had concealed the Tangle Box. Biggar swooped down to where the box sat on a rock shelf far back in the shadows, landing on an outcropping just above. Now what? He had given no thought to anything but escape up until this point, and now that he had achieved his goal he wasn’t sure what to do next. There was only one way out of the cave and that was back the way he had come. There were runes carved in the rock above the door, different than those that opened the door from without, but he knew the required sequence. All that was needed was to lure the dog and the ferrets away long enough to let him trigger the release.
He could hear them coming already, the scratching of their claws on the rock, the whine of their voices.
“Here, birdie, birdie,” one of them called.
Biggar sneered. Birdie, birdie, indeed.
He waited patiently in the near dark until they came into view. They materialized out of the gloom like hairy pigs, sniffing and snuffling their way about the cavern floor. How pathetic! It was the ferrets or whatever they were, creeping about, earthbound imbeciles who had about as much chance of catching him as they did of mastering physics.
“Come here, birdie,” one of them repeated patiently.
“Here, stupid bird,” the other snapped.
Must be the one he pecked, Biggar thought. He would have smiled if his beak had allowed it. He hoped he had hurt the wretched little monster plenty. He hoped the beast developed gangrene and dropped dead. Precious little concern he’d shown for Biggar, after all. Carrying him slung down on that horse! Beating Biggar’s head against his leg as he tried to keep his seat! Well, they’d soon see what messing around with him would get them!
He lifted off his perch and flew back across the chamber. They saw him instantly, eyes sharper than he would have thought, and leapt to catch him as he whizzed past. Hopeless, of course. He was twenty feet off the floor and twice as quick as they were. He was past them and speeding for the entrance while they were still clutching at air. Maybe the dog had come hunting, too. Maybe.
But he hadn’t. The dog was stationed directly in front of the stone barrier, waiting. Biggar banked hurriedly, narrowly avoiding the dog’s outstretched hands and bared teeth. The dog was smarter than the ferrets. He wasn’t about to let Biggar escape so easily.
“Come back here, you little ...”
The dog’s shouted epithets died away into echoes that bounced off the rock as Biggar flew back toward the main chamber. So it was a standoff. They were all trapped in the cave. Biggar’s mind raced. The trick now was to lure the dog away from the stone slab, to bring him back into the cavern just long enough for Biggar to slip past and trigger the lock. Once he was outside the cave, they would never catch him. Then the Gorse could deal with them. He wondered suddenly if there was any chance that the Gorse would come back to the cave that night. Perhaps Horris would go to it with the tale of Biggar’s disappearance. Perhaps. But that was giving Horris more credit for brains than he deserved. These days, Horris was too stupid to figure out how to tie his shoes. Since the Gorse had been released, Horris was scared and confused and generally useless. Biggar was thinking that maybe it was time for a new partner. What did he need Horris for anyway? He was the real brains of the pair. Always had been.
He lifted toward the ceiling as he approached the back chamber, but even so he just narrowly avoided Sot as the Gnome leaped down from a rocky promontory he had gained high up on the wall to one side. The Gnome plummeted past him, hands grasping, and dropped to the cavern floor. Biggar listened to him hit, a dull thud, then heard him groan and start to mutter. Good.
“Nice try, rodent-face,” he called out gleefully, and then he ducked as the other ferret threw something past his head. A metal pan or plate, some piece of cookware that Horris had carried in. He squawked angrily and rose up as far as he could go. Time for evasive action.
All sorts of things started flying at him now as the Gnomes attacked in earnest, trying to bring him down. They threw everything they could lift, yelling at him all the while, calling him “stupid bird” and worse, growing angrier by the moment. That suited Biggar just fine. Anger caused mistakes, and he was counting on one from them. They had not seen the Tangle Box yet, and he made a point of staying away from it. Wheeling, diving, soaring out of reach, he teased and taunted them unmercifully, calling them names back, daring them to catch him. Total idiots that they were, they just kept yelling and leaping about and trying to hit him with stuff. Fat chance.
On the other hand, he was growing a tad weary with all this dodging about, and he still didn’t have a plan for getting the dog away from the door. He needed a distraction that would bring the dog running, something the dog couldn’t ignore. He wondered suddenly what would happen if he spoke the words to the spell that had imprisoned Holiday and the others. Nothing good, he decided and discarded the idea quickly. That box was too dangerous. Besides, suppose it released its prisoners? Better to leave it where it was for now. He scanned the cavern again for another avenue of escape, hoping that maybe he had missed an air shaft or fissure. But there was nothing to be seen.
Below, the G’home Gnomes began pulling blankets off Horris Kew’s makeshift bed and tying them together to form a net. Come now, Biggar smirked. He flew at them while they worked, distracting them, taunting them further. He could see the gleam of their yellow eyes as they ducked and hissed up at him. They were really angry, the both of them. Served them right. They completed their net, the whole of it riddled with escape holes—Idiots!—and began trying to maneuver him into a corner where he could be trapped.
“Fatheads! Toads! Stupid groundhogs!” he called down to them, easily evading their pathetic efforts.
He swooped down and picked up some of the lighter implements that had been thrown at him, carried them aloft, and dropped them on the Gnomes’ heads. The Gnomes screeched and howled. Maybe that would bring the dog, Biggar thought hopefully. But the dog still didn’t come. Not enough noise, maybe. Biggar tried again with something slightly heavier, a wooden ladle. He dropped it squarely on Fillip’s head, and the Gnome lost his balance on the perch he had gained some ten feet up and fell headfirst to the floor. It must have hurt terribly, but the Gnome was back on his feet at once. Heads of iron, Biggar thought. No brains to encumber their thick skulls.
The game continued for a time, the Gnomes swinging their net at Biggar, Biggar avoiding the snare and calling out names. No one could gain an advantage. Biggar called the dog names as well, but there was no response. He darted back down the tunnel to where the dog kept watch, trying to draw it after him with insults and nosedives, but the dog stayed put.
It was Biggar who lost patience first. He could not bear that these halfwits had kept him trapped for so long, could not stand the idea of being stymied by idiots. He decided to try something to break the stalemate. He streaked back into the far chamber, past the leaping, grasping Gnomes, and across the room to the Tangle Box. Enough of caution. The one thing that would bring the dog was the box—especially if he thought something dreadful was going to happen to it. Biggar would accommodate him, then.
He teased the ferret creatures back toward the entry, giving them just enough hope that they might catch hold of him to keep them coming, then swooped back across the chamber to the Tangle Box. He landed squarely on top of the container, dug his claws into the crevices where the symbols of power had been carved, secured his grip, and lifted off. It was not easy doing so. The box was heavy and cumbersome. He watched the Gnomes race toward him, yelling more wildly as they realized what he was doing. They were incoherent, however, not yet yelling “Tangle Box” or some such, so the dog still didn’t come. Clacking his beak with the effort, Biggar rose into the gloom, the box secured in his claws. His wings flapped madly to keep him aloft. His pinions strained. Below, the ferrets were leaping wildly for him.
He struggled and flapped his way into the highest reaches of the chamber, the Tangle Box bobbing in his grasp. His plan was to carry it about for a few more moments and then drop it. One act or the other was bound to bring the dog.
“Stupid bird, come down!” one Gnome howled.
“Why don’t you come up?” he snarled back.
“You’ll be sorry for this!” the other shouted.
“Care to see what will happen if I let go of this?” he teased, letting the box jiggle wildly. “I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”
They shrieked like banshees at that, racing about below him like scampering mice routed out of their nest. He was really enjoying this. He angled from one side of the chamber to the other, drawing them after, a pair of ridiculous, hopeless pawns.
But still the dog didn’t come.
He lost patience for the last time. Fine, if this was how they wanted to play it, fine! He was all worn out anyway. He banked away from them to the highest point in the chamber and released the Tangle Box.
Unfortunately, one of his claws caught quite firmly in a seam as he did so.
Down went the Tangle Box, plummeting to the cavern floor, and down went a hapless Biggar with it The bird struggled wildly to break free, scratching and scraping at the weight about its foot, but it was held fast. Up rushed the stone floor. Biggar shrieked and closed his eyes.
The expected did not come to pass, however. There was no skull-smashing stop on the stone, no splatter of box and bird. At the last possible moment Sot threw himself across the floor and caught both in the cradle of his gnarly, hairy arms.
Biggar had just enough time to open his eyes before a grimy hand closed tightly about his unfortunate neck.
“Got you now, stupid bird,” the Gnome whispered.
Abernathy stood at the cavern entrance and listened as the tumult in the inner chambers died into sudden and unexpected silence. He waited for it to resume, but it did not. The silence lengthened and deepened. Clearly something had happened, but what? He could not leave his post to find out. He knew that Biggar would slip past him and escape if he did. The bird had been trying to lure him away for the past hour, waiting for his chance. Abernathy had sent Fillip and Sot in after the troublesome creature, thinking as he did that they were best suited for the task in any event. He did not know how they would ever manage to catch the bird, but there was little choice other than to allow them to try. The extent of their efforts had been evident from the sounds of their struggle, a continuous, relentless cacophony that suggested all manner of unpleasant happenings.
And now everything was still.
“Fillip?” he called tentatively. “Sot?”
No answer. He waited anxiously. What should he do?
Then finally a pair of dim, but familiar shapes appeared out of the phosphorescence-streaked gloom, bearing between them an intricately carved wooden box. Abernathy’s heart leapt with expectation.
“You found it!” he exclaimed, restraining the urge to dance a bit.
The Gnomes trundled toward him, looking somewhat the worse for wear.
“Stupid bird tried to drop it,” Fillip said grimly.
“Tried to smash it,” Sot embellished.
“Hurt the High Lord,” Fillip said.
“Maybe kill the High Lord,” Sot said.
They stroked the wooden surface of the Tangle Box lovingly and then passed it carefully over to the dog.
“Stupid bird won’t do that again,” Fillip said.
“Not ever,” Sot said
And spit out a well-chewed black feather.
The sunrise over Sterling Silver was a blood-red stain on the eastern horizon that promised bad weather for the day ahead. Questor Thews was back on the ramparts of the castle, looking down over the waking encampment of Kallendbor’s professional army and the ragtag collection of villagers and farmers that had preceded it in the quest for the phantom collection of mind’s eye crystals. Night’s darkness was receding reluctantly west, edged back by the crimson dawn, and the light washed over the huddled forms of the besiegers like blood.
Hardly an auspicious omen, the wizard thought.
He had been up most of the night scouring the countryside with the Landsview in search of Ben Holiday. He had traveled the length and breadth of Landover, north to south, east to west, and found no trace of the High Lord. He was tired and discouraged from his efforts and frankly at his wit’s end. What was he supposed to do now? The castle was under siege, two-thirds of the population were in open revolt, and he had been left alone to deal with all of it. Not even Abernathy was to be found, a new and unwelcome source of irritation. Willow hadn’t returned yet either. If people kept disappearing, the monarchy would soon run out of responsible leaders and collapse like a deflated balloon.
Bunion moved out of the shadows and stood beside him, looking down at the congregation stirring on the meadow. For once, the kobold didn’t offer his toothy smile. Questor sighed, reached down, and patted the gnarled little fellow reassuringly on the shoulder. Bunion was exhausted and discouraged, too. It seemed as if they all had run out of options and must now simply wait to see what would happen.
They didn’t have to wait long. As the sun began to rise and the camp to stir, the black-cloaked stranger appeared out of the forest gloom and made his way toward the far end of the meadow where heavy thickets fronted the face of a bluff. No one was camped in this space, the ground rough and uneven, the brush studded with thorns and itchweed, the light veiled, and the shadows thick. Questor watched the stranger move away from the besiegers. No one went with him. No one even seemed to notice he was there. He did not move furtively, but with a purpose that defied intervention from any quarter. Questor glanced back across the broad stretch of the meadow. There was no sign of Horris Kew or his bird or even of Kallendbor.
Keeping clear somehow of the brambles, the black-cloaked stranger eased through the lingering shadows. What was he up to? Questor Thews didn’t know, but he was convinced he would be better off if he did. He kept thinking that he ought to be doing something, but he really had no idea what.
Bunion chittered quickly, urgently.
“No, wait here,” Questor advised. “No swimming the moat until we know what he’s up to. No heroics. We’ve lost enough people as it is.” And he wondered again where Abernathy had gone.
Kallendbor had come into view now, trailed by his officers and retainers. Most were armored and ready for battle. War horses were being saddled. Weapons were being brought down from the heights in wagons and foot soldiers were lining up to receive them. Questor’s mouth tightened. Apparently Kallendbor was growing tired of the siege already.
Scarlet light swept over Sterling Silver and its encircling lake and spread across the meadow. It reached the bluff face where the black-cloaked stranger had stepped out of the shadows. It began to climb toward the woods beyond.
Questor squinted against its glare. The stranger had moved well out into the open and was facing the bluff.
“What is he up to?” the wizard muttered suspiciously.
In the next instant the stranger’s arms lifted beneath his concealing cloak, his body went rigid, and lines of fire arced downward into the earth. The wizard started. The stranger was using magic! He exchanged a worried glance with Bunion. There were shouts now from the central part of the meadow, where others had seen the flames. Kallendbor was atop his charger, shouting orders at his officers. Men were milling about, not certain what it was they were supposed to do. Lines of soldiers afoot and on horseback were drawing up into formation. Farmers and villagers and their families were caught between fleeing and sticking around to see what would happen.
Had they possessed sufficient foresight, they would have chosen flight. There was a deep, ominous rumble from within the earth, and the sound of stone grating, as if an enormous door had swung open.
Uh, oh, Questor Thews thought belatedly.
The bluff face seemed to rip itself apart, torn like shredded paper, obliterated behind the sundering of the air in front of it. Scarlet dawn light poured into the black hole that was left, filling it with shifting color and smoky shadows. Thunder boomed, shaking the earth and those who stared openmouthed from both the meadow and Sterling Silver’s ramparts. The hiss of monsters mixed with a clash of armor and weapons. Everything rose to a shriek that sounded of things dying in terrible agony.
Questor went dry-mourned. Demons! The black-cloaked stranger had summoned demons!
A fierce wind whipped across the meadow, flattening tents and standards and causing horses to rear in terror and men afoot to drop to their knees. Kallendbor had his broadsword out, holding it forth like a matchstick against a hurricane.
Demons emerged from the rent, their armor bristling with spikes and jagged edges, all blackened and charred as if burned in the hottest fire. Their bodies smoked as they leapt from the gap onto the meadow floor, steam leaking from their visors and the chinks where their armor was fastened by stays. They were lean and misshapen beings, all bent and twisted like trees on a windswept ridge stripped bare and turned as hard as iron. They rode beasts that had no name and lent themselves to no description, things out of nightmare and horrific fantasy, creatures out of shadowy netherworlds.
Out from the darkest recesses of Abaddon they came, spreading right and left about the solitary figure of the black-cloaked stranger, sweeping from lake to bluff rise and filling up every inch of ground in between until they covered the far end of the meadow. The dawn’s blood hue settled over them so that they had the look of coals on which a bellows had been turned, the heat etched into the fissures and cracks of their black forms like fire burned into metal.
Questor Thews felt his heart move into his throat.
When the black-cloaked stranger turned to face him from across the lake, he knew that real trouble had arrived on his doorstep.
* * *
“You ate the bird? You ate him?”
Abernathy stared in disbelief at Fillip and Sot, who stood crestfallen before him, the satisfied smiles slowly melting from their faces.
“He deserved it,” Fillip mumbled defensively.
“Stupid bird,” Sot muttered.
“But you didn’t have to eat him!” Abernathy shouted, furious now. “Do you know what you’ve done? The bird was the only one who knew how to get us out of here! He was the only one who knew how to open the box! What are we supposed to do without him? We are trapped in this cave and the High Lord is trapped in the box and we cannot do anything about either!”
The G’home Gnomes looked at each other, wringing their hands pathetically.
“We forgot,” Fillip whined.
“Yes, we forgot,” Sot echoed.
“We didn’t know,” Fillip said.
“We didn’t think,” Sot said.
“Anyway, it was his idea,” Fillip said, pointing to Sot
“Yes, it was my ...” Sot stopped short. “It was not! It was yours!”
“Yours!”
“Yours!”
They began shouting at and then pushing each other, and finally they rushed together kicking and biting and fell to the cave floor in a tangle. Abernathy rolled his eyes, moved over to one side, and sat down with the Tangle Box on his lap. Let them fight, he thought. Let them pull out their hair and choke on it, for all he cared. He sat back against the cave wall, pondering fate’s cruel hand. To have come this close and be denied was almost too much to bear. He watched the G’home Gnomes battle across the cave floor and into the shadows. He still couldn’t believe they had eaten the bird. Well, maybe he could. Actually, it made perfect sense, given who he was dealing with. For them, eating the bird was a natural response. He was mostly angry at himself, he guessed, for letting it happen. Not that he could have anticipated it, he supposed. But, still ...
He ruminated on to no discernible purpose for a time, unable to help himself. The minutes slipped by. From back in the dark, the sounds of fighting stopped. Abernathy listened. Maybe they had eaten each other. Poetic justice, if they had.
But after a moment, they emerged, cut and scraped and disheveled, their heads downcast, their mouths set in a tight line. They sat down across from him wordlessly, staring at nothing. Abernathy stared back.
“Sorry,” Fillip muttered after a moment.
“Sorry,” Sot muttered.
Abernathy nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them that it was all right, because of course it wasn’t, or that he forgave them, because of course he didn’t. So he didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Fillip said brightly to Sot, “Maybe there are still crystals hidden back in the cave!”
Sot looked up eagerly. “Yes, maybe there are! Let’s look!”
And off they went, scurrying away into the darkness. Abernathy sighed and let them go. Maybe it would keep them out of further mischief. More time passed—Abernathy didn’t know how much. He thought about using trial and error to figure out the rune sequence that would open the door, but there were dozens of markings about the door and he had no hope of finding the right combination. Still, what else could he do? He set down the Tangle Box and started to rise.
Just as he did, the locks on the cave door triggered, and it began to open. Abernathy froze, then flattened himself against the wall to one side. The door swung slowly inward, grating and squealing as it went, letting in a faint twinge of reddish-gray light from the approaching dawn.
Abernathy caught his breath. What if it was the black-cloaked stranger? He closed his eyes involuntarily.
“Biggar?” a familiar voice called tentatively.
Horris Kew’s plow-nosed face shoved into view as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Abernathy stayed perfectly still, unable to believe his good fortune.
“Biggar?” the other called once more, and came inside the cave.
The stone door began to close behind him. Abernathy moved between the door and the conjurer, and said, “Hello, Horris.”
When Horris turned, Abernathy leapt on him and bore him to the floor. Horris shrieked and tried to break free, struggling mightily. He was all bony arms and legs, and Abernathy couldn’t hold him. Horris squirmed out from under his attacker, dragged himself to his feet, and reached for the door. Desperate to hold him, Abernathy fastened his teeth in the other’s worn supplicant’s robes and braced himself on all fours. Horris tried to pull free, but couldn’t quite manage it. Abernathy growled. The two struggled back and forth in front of the door, neither able to gain an advantage.
Then Horris Kew caught sight of the Tangle Box, shrieked anew, tore himself free with a mighty rip, and snatched up the box. He was making for the door and safety, kicking out at Abernathy furiously, when Fillip and Sot charged out of the darkness and catapulted into him, knocking him from his feet and flat on his back where he lay gasping for breath.
Abernathy took back the Tangle Box, started to give it to Fillip, and thought better of the idea. Using his free hand, he hauled Horris Kew back to his feet and shook him so hard he could hear the other’s teeth rattle.
“You listen to me, you troublesome fraud!” he hissed angrily. “You do exactly as I say or you will regret the day you were born!”
“Let me go!” Horris Kew pleaded. “None of this is my fault! I didn’t know!”
“You never know!” Abernathy snapped. “That’s your problem! What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I came looking for Biggar,” Horris managed, swallowing his fear in great gulps of breath. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
Abernathy waited for the other’s breathing to slow a beat, then brought them nose-to-nose. “The Gnomes ate him, Horris,” he said softly. Horris Kew’s eyes went wide. “And if you do not do what I tell you, I am going to let them eat you as well. Do you understand me?”
Horris nodded at once, unable to speak.
Abernathy moved back a fraction of an inch. “You can start by opening the cave door and getting us out of here. And do not attempt any tricks. Do not try running. I shall have a good grip on you the entire time.”
He propelled Horris back to the entrance, Fillip and Sot following close behind, and waited while the terrified conjurer worked the rune sequence and triggered a release of the locks. The door opened ponderously, and conjurer, scribe, and Gnomes stumbled back out into the light.
Abernathy swung Horris Kew back around to face him. “Despite what you think, this is indeed all your fault, Horris, everything that has happened, so I do not want to hear you say anything else. You have one chance to set things right; and I suggest you take it. I want the High Lord set free. I want High Lord Ben Holiday back in Landover. You put him in the box; now you get him out!”
Horris Kew swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his cheeks and mouth making a sucking noise. He looked like a scarecrow left out in the field long after its usefulness has reached an end. He looked like he might collapse into a pile of straw. “I don’t know if I can do that,” he whispered.
Abernathy gave him the meanest look he could muster. “You had better hope you can,” he replied softly.
“But what will they do to me once they’re free? Holiday might understand, but what about the dragon and the witch?”
“You will have bigger worries if you do not set them free.” Abernathy was in no mood to bargain. “Speak the words of the spell, Horris. Right now.”
Horris Kew licked his lips, glanced down at the G’home Gnomes, and took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”
Abernathy, without releasing him, handed over the Tangle Box and moved around behind him. One hand clamped about the conjurer’s skinny neck. “Remember, no tricks.”
Dawn was a red glare through the shadowy mass of the forest about them as it chased the darkness slowly west. Abernathy did not like the look of it. Bad weather was moving in. He was already thinking about the trip back to Sterling Silver, about the siege, about Kallendbor and the black-cloaked stranger. He gave Horris Kew’s neck a sharp squeeze. Horris began to speak.
“Rashun, oblight, surena! Larin, kestel, maneta! Ruhn!”
And the top of the Tangle Box disappeared instantly in a misty swirl of wicked green light.
Ben Holiday saw the crack appear in the blackness of the wall before him and turned toward it instantly. It glimmered as he raced for it, Nightshade and Strabo a step behind, then broadened as if the entire wall had been split apart. Fairy mist spun wildly, drawn to the brightness as if become a living thing. Ben flung himself into the breach, heedless of the consequences, knowing only that an opening of any kind offered a chance to get free. The light seemed to suck him up, to draw him into a vortex that twisted him about like a feather in a great wind. He was conscious of the witch and the dragon being drawn along with him, all three of them caught up in a whirlwind of motion. The gloom and the mist disappeared below him. The Labyrinth faded away. Above, the light took on a greenish glow, and there were shadows that swayed and rippled—tree branches and leaves, he realized—and sky, still dark with night’s departure, and the smell of earth and moss and old growth, and the coppery taste of something like sulfur, and the sound of voices crying out ...
And then he was spit out into the forest gloom of Landover, come back once more into the world from which he had been taken. He found himself standing less than a dozen feet from Abernathy, Horris Kew, and Fillip and Sot, all of whom stared at him wide-eyed and openmouthed.
Then Nightshade appeared as well, become herself once more, the power of her magic radiating off her body in small sparks and glimmerings. She flung her arms skyward, a spontaneous gesture, the white streak in her black hair gleaming like frost on coal, the cool edges of her sculpted face lifted toward the red glow of the dawn.
“Free!” she cried with joy.
Strabo exploded out of the Tangle Box behind her, returned to his dragon form, scaly black body uncoiling, wings unfolding, rising skyward with a huge burst of fire that rolled from his maw, hammered into the cave door, and then burned upward through the trees. Steaming and glistening, all spikes and edges, the dragon gave a huge, booming cough and rocketed away into the departing night.
“High Lord!” Abernathy exclaimed in greeting, the relief evident in his voice. He snatched back the Tangle Box from Horris Kew and hurried over. “Are you all right?”
Ben nodded, looking around, making certain that in fact he was. Fillip and Sot were making small squeaking sounds in his direction while cowering away from the black form of Nightshade. Horris Kew appeared to be looking for a place to hide.
Ben took a deep breath. “Abernathy, what is going on?”
The scribe drew himself up. “Well, actually, quite a lot, as it happens ...”
A burst of acclaim from the G’home Gnomes cut him short.
“Great High Lord!”
“Mighty High Lord!”
Fillip and Sot were hugging each other and jumping up and down in glee, apparently convinced that it really was him after all. Ben gave them a tentative smile. What were they doing here?
Abernathy tried to continue, but Nightshade had spotted Horris Kew and was starting forward in a rush of black robes. “You!” she hissed in undisguised fury.
Ben stepped quickly between them. “Wait, Nightshade. I want to hear from Abernathy first.”
“Get out of my way, play-King,” the witch ordered venomously. “We are no longer in the Labyrinth and no longer subject to its rules. I have my magic back, and I can do as I please!”
But Ben held his ground, reached into his tunic, and brought forth the medallion. “We are both who we were. Do not test your strength against mine. I will hear from my scribe on what has been happening in our absence before I make a decision about Horris Kew.”
Nightshade stood frozen in place, livid with fury. “Start talking, Abernathy,” Ben advised quietly.
Abernathy did. He told the High Lord all about the Tangle Box and Horris Kew, the mind’s eye crystals, the black-cloaked stranger, Kallendbor, and the siege of Sterling Silver. Ben listened without comment, his eyes fixed on Nightshade. When Abernathy was finished, Ben stepped back to stand beside Horris Kew. “Well?”
“My Lord, I have nothing to say in my defense.” The conjurer seemed totally defeated. His tall, skinny frame was hunched over in submission. “The stranger is a fairy being come out of the Tangle Box—my fault, as well—a thing of great magic and evil called the Gorse. It plans revenge of some sort against the people of the fairy mists after it conquers Landover. I am sorry I did anything to help it, believe me,” He paused, swallowing. “I would say in my behalf that I did help set you free.”
“After you trapped us, of course,” Ben pointed out. He looked at Nightshade. “I’ll have to keep him with me for a time. I may have need of him in dealing with this fairy creature.”
Nightshade shook her black-maned head. “Give him to me.”
“He is not the real enemy, Nightshade. He never was. He was used as thoroughly as we were, if not as badly. Put aside your anger. Come with us to Sterling Silver and confront the Gorse. Your magic would be a great help. We worked together in the mists; we can do so again.”
“I have no interest in your problems!” Nightshade snapped. “Solve them on your own!”
She stared at Ben challengingly. Ben took a deep breath. “I know that what happened in the mists, what passed between us ...”
“Stop!” she shrieked with such fury that Fillip and Sot scattered into the trees and disappeared. She was white with rage. “Don’t say a word! Don’t say anything! I hate you, play-King! I hate you with every bone in my body! I live only to see you destroyed! What you did to me, what you pretended ... !”
“There was no pretense .,.”
“No! You cannot speak to me!” Her cold, hard, beautiful face was a twisted mask. “Take the conjurer! I want nothing to do with either of you! But...” Here she fixed Horris Kew with her gaze as a pin might a butterfly. “If I should ever see you again, if I should ever catch you alone ...”
Her gaze shifted back to Ben. She gave him a withering glare. “I will hate you forever!” she whispered, the words a curse that hung in the following silence like razors waiting to cut.
Then she lifted her arms in a sweeping motion, brought smoke and mist about her in a rash, and disappeared into the dawn.
Ben stared after her, mixed emotions running through him as he considered the impact of her anger. It seemed strange that it should be like this after what they had shared—and at the same time inevitable. He wondered briefly if there was any way it might have been avoided and decided there was not.
“High Lord!” Abernathy cried urgently, and grabbed at his sleeve.
Ben turned.
A huge shadow fell over them, and Strabo descended once more out of the sky, snapping off branches and stirring up dust and debris as he settled his great bulk down upon the forest floor.
“Holiday,” he rasped in friendly fashion. “We are not finished yet, you and I. Is this the one responsible for what was done to us?”
Ben shook his head. “No, Strabo. The one we want is back at Sterling Silver, engaged in further mischief.”
The dragon’s great horned head swung about, and the yellow eyes gleamed in the half light. “We started this journey together, though we did not choose to do so. Shall we end it together as well?”
Ben smiled in pleasant surprise. “I think we should,” he agreed.
When they had gone from the clearing, Holiday, Abernathy, Horris Kew, and Strabo, the men flying off atop the dragon, and when enough time had passed that it was clear that Nightshade was gone as well, Fillip and Sot emerged from hiding. They crept out of the trees and stood peering about guardedly, ready to bolt at the slightest sound. But there was only silence and the faint, lingering smell of dragon fire where it had burned the trees.
“They are gone,” Fillip said.
“Gone,” Sot echoed.
They turned toward the cave, measuring the distance that separated them from its opening. The door stood ajar now, knocked off its hinges by Strabo’s blast of fire, the locks smashed. Steam rose from its blackened surface in delicate tendrils.
“We could go inside now,” Fillip said.
“Yes, we could look for crystals,” Sot said.
“There might still be some,” Fillip said.
“Even though we didn’t find them before,” Sot said.
“Hidden in a clever spot.”
“Where we didn’t think to look.”
There was a long pause as they considered the prospect. The dawn’s coloring had penetrated the forest gloom and was turning everything crimson. Birds had stopped singing. Insects had stopped chirping and buzzing. Nothing moved The silence was oppressive.
“I think we should go home,” Fillip said quietly.
“I think we should,” Sot agreed.
So they did.
As he looked down from his perch atop Strabo, flying high above Landover, Ben Holiday found himself pondering on how quickly things could change. An hour earlier he had been imprisoned in the Tangle Box, as far removed from this world as the dead from the living. A day earlier, he had not even known who he was. He had believed himself to be the Knight, a King’s Champion, a personification of the Paladin that was in fact his alter ego. Nightshade and Strabo had not existed; his companions had been the Lady and the Gargoyle, and they had been as lost to themselves as he was. Together they had formed an odd company, bereft of any real knowledge of their past, forced to begin life anew in a world about which they knew almost nothing. Thrown together by a common mishap, compelled to share a life filled with unknowns and false hope, they had reached an understanding during their travels that bordered on friendship.
More than friendship, he amended carefully, where Nightshade was concerned.
Now all of it was gone, stripped away with the recapture of their identities and return to Landover. It was as if they had been made over twice, once going into the Tangle Box, once coming out, stripped each time of life’s knowledge and forced to learn anew, strangers first in an unknown world, familiars second in a world all too well known. It was the second that would allow no part of the first, the second that demanded that everything from the first be given up because it had all been acquired and nurtured under false pretenses. It made Ben sad. He had shared a closeness with Nightshade that would never be there again. There had been a mutual dependence that was ended forever. Things would be different with Strabo as well. He carried them now to Sterling Silver to settle accounts with the Gorse, but once that was finished he would be gone. Ben harbored no illusions. There would be no further talks as there had been between the Knight and the Gargoyle, no sharing of fears and hopes, no common effort to understand the workings of life. They would go their own ways as they had done before being lured into the Tangle Box, and the time they had spent together in the mists would fade as surely as a dream on waking.
Ben resisted the urge to look back at Horris Kew, who sat immediately behind him and ahead of Abernathy. The instrument of their misfortune, he thought darkly—yet too foolish and misguided to be held responsible. The Gorse was the real enemy. How was he going to deal with this creature? It had a formidable command of magic and would not hesitate to use it, especially once it discovered that Ben, Nightshade, and Strabo were set free again. Why had it imprisoned them in the first place? What sort of threat did they represent that compelled it to place them in the box? Or was it simply a matter of expediency and nothing more?
Whatever the answers to his questions, there was one chilling certainty. In order to deal with the Gorse, he would once again be forced to become the Paladin, the King’s knight-errant, the creature he feared he was becoming in fact. His fear had made him see himself as the Knight within the Tangle Box, and he had barely survived what that had initiated—the destruction of the townsfolk, the River Gypsies, and very nearly the Gristlies. His fear of his dark half had worked to destroy him within the fairy mists, but he had escaped. Yet now he must become his dark half if he was to survive. And once again he must worry how much of the Paladin’s identity he assumed and how much of Ben Holiday’s he gave up with each transformation.
Ben watched the Heart pass away beneath him, white velvet rests outlined in pristine bars against verdant green grasses, the flags of Landover’s Kings a swirl of bright color in the wind. A part of him was anxious for the change, eager for the transformation. It had always been so. It was this that frightened him most.
Horris Kew was thinking as well, and his thoughts were not pleasant ones either. A confrontation between the Gorse and Holiday was only moments away, and no matter who won he was in big trouble. Both would hold him responsible for anything the other had done or had tried to do or even had planned to do. Both would want to exact punishment of some sort. In the case of the Gorse, Horris did not want to consider too carefully what that punishment might be. Certainly it would not be pleasant. Holiday might be the better choice. He wished Biggar were there to consult. He found, oddly enough, that he missed the bird. They had shared a common attitude toward life’s opportunities and misfortunes, and it was too bad the latter had caught up with Biggar a little earlier than either of them had expected. Horris felt keenly the loss. If nothing else, perhaps he could have blamed some of what had happened on the bird.
He sighed. Thinking like that led nowhere, of course. He shifted gears and tried to decide what he could do to salvage matters. He would have to do something quick. Already Sterling Silver’s bright ramparts were coming into view. Take sides with Holiday then, he decided. His chances were better with Landover’s King, a fellow human being, than they were with the Gorse. So what could he do to help himself? What could he do that would put him in a better light when it came time to determine his fate?
Ahead, the dawn was a crimson stain all across the horizon, a strange and terrifying sight. The red was so pronounced that it seemed to have seeped into the earth itself, to color grasses, trees, brush, rivers, lakes, roadways, fields, towns, farms, and the whole of every living thing for as far as the eye could see. Clouds were forming all about them. They hadn’t been there the previous day; there had been no trace of them last night. They appeared as if by magic, masking the morning skies west to east, threatening to swallow the rising sun, the harbinger of a storm that was quickly approaching.
Strabo started down, a gradual descent out of the retreating night. The approaching sun momentarily blinded the dragon’s passengers, and they squinted against its glare. The castle’s polished battlements and towers gleamed redly, reflecting the strange light. The portcullis was down and the gates closed. The bridge running from the island to the mainland was shattered. Shadows clustered darkly across the meadow that fronted the castle gates, and the sluggish movement of armies massing was visible. Ben Holiday started. Battle lines were being drawn up between opposing forces. There were Greensward soldiers at one end of the meadow and Abaddon’s demons at the other.
“High Lord!” Abernathy exclaimed in horror.
Ben glanced over his shoulder and nodded back. Demons from Abaddon—the Gorse must have brought them out to aid him in his plan. What had he promised them? What lure had he used? They would not have come if they thought the Paladin would be there to stop them; they had always been terrified of the Paladin. So the Gorse must have promised them that with the King gone from Landover, there would be no threat from his Champion. With Nightshade and Strabo dispatched as well, there was little to fear from anyone.
Ben’s mouth tightened. Now he must face both the Gorse and Abaddon’s demons. Even with Strabo to aid him, he did not much care for the odds.
“Strabo!” he called down to the dragon. A wicked yellow eye locked on him. “Take us down! Land right between them!”
The dragon hissed sharply, flattened out his approach, swept the battlefield once in a high, broad arc so that all could see him, and then settled slowly into the center of the meadow.
Ben, Horris Kew, and Abernathy scrambled down. It was like descending into a bizarre painting, a horrifically rendered version of Hell on Earth. The reddish dawn gave the whole of the grasslands a surreal look. Even the Bonnie Blues were turned to blood. Men, women, and children clustered at the edges of the trees and across the ridgeline north like the ghosts of the dead.
Ben turned toward the demons and exhaled slowly as he took in the size of their army. Too many. Far too many.
“My Lord, I think that maybe I have—” Horris Kew began, and was cut short as Abernathy’s hand clamped tightly about the back of his neck.
Ben turned to his scribe, who still clutched the Tangle Box tightly beneath his free arm. “Take the box and Horris and move to the lake,” Ben ordered his scribe. “Call for Questor to bring the lake skimmer and have him ferry you both across. Hurry!”
Abernathy hastened away, dragging a protesting Horris Kew after. Ben glanced at the demons anew. The Gorse had moved into the forefront of their ranks, black-cloaked and featureless even in the strange light. Ben moved out from the shadow of the dragon to face the demons. He reached into his tunic and held forth the medallion of Landover’s Kings. At his side, Strabo widened his maw and coughed sharply, an explosive sound. There was movement all up and down the clustered black ranks, an uneasiness, a hesitancy. It was one thing to face a Lord of the Greensward and his army. It was something else again to confront Holiday and Strabo as well.
“Kallendbor!” Ben called over his shoulder into the ranks of the Greensward army.
Almost immediately there was the sound of a rider approaching from behind. Ben turned. Kallendbor, armored head to foot with only his face showing beneath his lifted visor, wheeled to a stop atop his charger.
“High Lord,” he greeted, his red-bearded face pale, his eyes darting nervously to the dragon.
Ben stalked to meet him. “I know of your part in all this, Kallendbor,” he said curtly. “You will have to answer for it when this business is done.”
Kallendbor nodded. There was no apology in his piercing blue eyes. “I'll answer if I must and if we are both alive at the end of this day.”
“Fair enough. For now, let’s concentrate on finding a way to dispatch the demons back to where they belong and the black-cloaked trickster with them. Do your men stand ready to fight?”
“We are at your service, High Lord.” There was no hesitation.
“Ride back then and wait for my signal,” Ben ordered.
Kallendbor saluted and galloped away. Unrepentant to the last, Ben thought. Some men refused to change.
He turned back toward the Gorse and the demons. A huge black rider had moved out in front of the others. The Mark. The others would follow its lead into battle. The demon leader stopped and stared across at Ben and Strabo.
The dragon’s crusted head swung about. “Call up the Paladin, Holiday. The demons grow edgy.”
Ben nodded. He was resigned to what must happen now, but despaired of it as well. Once again, he must summon the Paladin to do battle for him. Once again, there would be killing and destruction, and much of it would come at his hands. Another terrible battle, and he was powerless to stop it, helpless to do anything other than participate and hope that somehow he could find a way to shorten it. Faint hope, born of desperation and lack of choice. He felt Strabo’s eyes watching him. The Gorse was responsible for this and should be brought to account, but how could that be done? How powerful was this fairy creature? Very, he guessed, if the fairy people had gone to such extremes to lock it away in the Tangle Box and keep it there.
“Holiday!” the dragon rasped impatiently.
Lock the Gorse back into the Tangle Box—that was what he should do. Lock it away for good. But how? What magic would it take?
There was no time to wonder about it further, no time to decide what help could be found. The demons had begun to advance, coming across the meadow in a dark mass, slowly, deliberately, inexorably.
“Holiday!” Strabo hissed furiously.
Paladin’s sword and dragon’s fire—would they be enough to save Landover?
Ben Holiday reached for the medallion that would give him his answer.
Horris Kew was practically beside himself with frustration. He stood glumly next to Abernathy at the water’s edge, watching the approach of Questor Thews in the lake skimmer, thinking that his last chance to save himself was about to be taken away.
He had tried to tell Holiday, but Landover’s King did not have time for him. He had tried to tell Abernathy, but the scribe had heard all he wanted to hear. He considered telling Questor Thews when the wizard arrived to convey them back across to the comparative safety of the castle fortress, but he was reasonably certain that he would find no help from that quarter either. No one wanted to listen to Horris and that was the hard truth of the matter. Except that for once Horris had something important to say. He shuffled his size-sixteens, hugged himself like a rag doll and tried to remain calm. But it was hard to stay calm knowing what was going to become of him if the Gorse and the demons prevailed over Holiday. If Holiday won, his circumstances would still be precarious, but acceptable. If Holiday won, he had a reasonable chance of staying alive. But if the Gorse came out of this the victor, Horris Kew was stew meat. It didn’t pay to dwell on exactly what recipe would be used, but the result would be the same. The Gorse had seen him standing with Holiday and the dragon; it had seen him quite plainly. The inference was obvious. Horris had joined the enemy. There could be no forgiveness. No excuses would be allowed. The Gorse would grind him up and spit him out, and that would be that.
Horris recalled how the creature had made him feel when they first started out together in this hateful venture. He remembered the silky, dangerous voice and the lingering smell of death. He could still feel its power threatening to strangle him with invisible fingers. He did not relish experiencing any of it again. The tic was gone from his eye for the first time since he had set the Gorse free. Here was his chance to keep it from coming back.
Thunder rolled out of the west, building on itself where the clouds massed. The heavy bank was spreading rapidly toward the sun, swallowing up its light as it came, turning everything black. Wind whipped across the meadow and over the confronting armies. Horses shied, and armor and weapons clanged. The air began to smell of rain.
Horris had been thinking about the Tangle Box. How had the Gorse been put into it in the first place? Surely the renegade fairy had not gone willingly—no more so than Holiday, the witch, and the dragon. Twice now, Horris had been called upon to speak words of power that released captives of the box.
Could the spell be reversed?
He thought about the way that Holiday and the others had been dispatched. The Gorse had constructed an elaborate net of magic upon the spot to which his three victims had been lured. Then Horris had appeared with the Tangle Box, spoken the words of power, triggered the net, and the trap had been sprung.
Simple enough. It would seem at first glance then that a similar approach would be necessary to snare the Gorse. Except that something was nagging at Horris Kew. Wasn’t the Tangle Box constructed for that particular purpose? If so, then the entrapment of Holiday and the other two was an unnatural use of the box, an aberration of that for which it was intended. Besides, if the Gorse knew this was how the magic worked, how had it allowed itself to be trapped in the first place? And if it didn’t know then, how had it learned since?
And what about this? The Gorse had known the words that would free it, but couldn’t speak them. It had been necessary to manipulate Biggar through the Skat Mandu charade to have Horris speak the words instead. Didn’t this suggest something? Didn’t this mean that the Gorse found the words anathema for some reason and so required that another use them?
Didn’t it mean, Horris wondered, that the same spell—the spell that the Gorse was so careful to avoid using himself—might work both ways?
The more he considered the possibility, the more sense it made. The fairies, having built the Tangle Box, would have employed a special, customized magic to trap the Gorse within, a magic that it could never use to effect its own escape. And it would not be a magic that would trap away others—like Holiday, Nightshade, and Strabo—so that, to subvert the purpose of the box, something different would be required to ensnare them. And perhaps, in the bargain, to protect the Gorse from being recaptured. Hence the carefully conceived net of magic the Gorse had employed.
Sure, it was a stretch. But Horris Kew was desperate and his conjurer’s opportunistic mind was grasping at straws because that was all that was left him.
They should listen to him, he believed. Holiday, Abernathy, Questor Thews, all of them. They should try his suggestion out. What harm could it do at this point? But he might as well be asking to be made King. No one was going to try any idea he suggested.
Thunder rolled once more, a long, booming peal that shook the ground on which he stood. In the meadow’s center, Kallendbor had ridden back to his army and Holiday was turning toward the Gorse and the demons. The Mark had moved to the forefront of his horde and was beginning a slow advance. The dragon had lifted itself into a crouch and was venting steam through its nostrils as the fire built in its belly. Horris glanced over his shoulder. Questor Thews was almost ashore. Abernathy had turned to meet the wizard, his back momentarily to Horris.
Biggar had always accused him of indecision. He hated to think that the bird had been right.
Horris Kew swallowed, his throat dry. Now or never, wasn’t it? He glanced again at Holiday. Landover’s King had removed the medallion of his office from within his dark tunic and was holding it up to the light.
Do it!
Horris yanked the Tangle Box out from under Abernathy’s arm, then lowered his shoulder and knocked the astonished scribe backward into the lake. Then he ran as fast as his long legs could carry him toward the Gorse. He was thinking he had gone mad, he was a fool, he had just made the worst mistake of his life. Shouts rose up as he was sighted. Angry cries assailed him from every side. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dragon’s black-horned head swing quickly about, and he envisioned himself encased in fire. A moment more, he thought. One moment more.
The Gorse had not moved. It was watching him come, thinking he was bringing the Tangle Box back again, an unwitting pawn to the end. The demons shifted like shadows in the enfolding black of the storm. Weapons glinted darkly. Horris Kew tried not to think about them. His gangly body was shaking, and his scarecrow limbs were flying out all over the place. He was sweating and gasping from the strain of his flight. He had never been so terrified.
He heard Questor Thews shout his name. A bolt of ragged fire zipped past his ear. He dropped to one knee in a panic and set the Tangle Box on the ground before him. He looked across the meadow at the Gorse, and he could see in its terrible eyes that it recognized the truth at last. The monster’s black cloak billowed as it charged toward him in rage.
Quickly, Horris began to chant.
“Rashun, oblight, surena! Larin, kestel ...”
Ben Holiday stood frozen in place, the medallion still clutched in his hand, momentarily forgotten. He had not seen Horris Kew until just a moment ago. Questor Thews was pulling Abernathy from the lake, both of them shouting angrily and gesturing. Strabo was uncoiling his huge, dark length, spreading his wings, and preparing to lift off. Fire leaked from between his jagged teeth.
All of them too late to intercede, Ben thought in frustration and despair.
Mist blossomed in a dark cloud from the Tangle Box, the lid disappeared, and the tunnel back down into the Labyrinth opened anew. Wicked green light shot forth to mingle with the red glare of the sun and the dark of the approaching storm. Thunder boomed, and a scattering of raindrops began to fall. The meadow had gone suddenly still, the clamor of the opposing armies disappearing into a hush of expectancy.
Out from the Tangle Box appeared a swarm of shadows, misty forms that twisted and writhed in the strange mix of light, dark specters set free. They rose in a cluster and men shot across the meadow toward the demons. The Gorse cried out, a terrible wail of despair. Webs of protective magic spun from its hands, encircling its black form to ward off its attackers. The shadows went right through the webs, seized the Gorse, and dragged it into the open. The Gorse thrashed and tore futilely. It spit like a cat. It fought with every ounce of strength and every weapon of magic it possessed. But the shadows were relentless. They hauled the renegade fairy back across the meadow to the box. They wrapped it about with their cloaking forms and pulled it down.
Down into the prison it thought it had escaped forever.
Down into the frightening darkness of the fairy mists.
They disappeared inside, the shadows and the Gorse, and the lid to the Tangle Box closed for good.
The wind broke loose across the meadow in a howl. Airborne, Strabo passed over the box and Horris Kew like death’s shadow, but then flew on to descend instead upon the demons of Abaddon, breathing its fire into their midst. Dozens disintegrated. The rest, bereft of the promised protection of the Gorse and its magic, had no interest in a fight. Led by their Mark, they turned back toward the bluff out of which they had come, back into the rent in the air that had given them passage into Landover, and descended down again into their netherworld home. In seconds, the last of them had gone, and the space they had briefly occupied in the world of light stood empty.
Strabo swung back toward the army of the Greensward, hissing in triumph and challenge.
Standing at the center of the meadow still, the rain falling into his face in sheets, the wind ripping at his frozen body, Ben Holiday exhaled slowly and slipped the medallion of the Kings of Landover back inside his tunic.
Willow came awake in the faint, gray dawn light, the dampness of the Deep Fell seeping through her naked body. She was lying on the ground, curled into a ball, the baby resting in the crook of her arm. At first she wasn’t aware of it. She blinked against the sleep that still clouded her mind, trying to remember where she was. Then she felt the baby move and looked down at it.
Her child.
She studied it for a long time, and tears came to her eyes.
She remembered everything then—coming out of the fairy mists into the Deep Fell, transforming into her other self, forming the pod, drifting into sleep. She cradled the child to her, giving it what warmth she could, lending it the small shelter of her body.
Then she rose, slipped back into her clothes, and wrapped the baby in her cloak. It was sleeping still, not yet hungry enough to wake, not disturbed by its surroundings as Willow was. The Deep Fell had not been her choice for where the baby should be born, and she did not intend to remain there any longer than necessary. Mist rolled through the branches of the jungle trees and snaked down along the trunks. Silence blanketed everything. Nothing moved. It was a dead world, and only the witch who had made it so belonged here.
Willow began to walk, moving toward the light—east, where the sun rose over Landover. She must get clear quickly, before she was discovered. She was weak still from giving birth, but mostly she was fearful. She was not so frightened for herself as she was for her child, the measure of her life with Ben, the culmination of their bonding. She peeked down at it again through the folds of the cloak, making certain she had seen it right on waking, that nothing had changed. The tears came anew. There was a tightness in her throat. She wanted to find and be with Ben, to make certain he was alright, and to let him see their child.
She walked for what seemed a long time, but probably was not. Her body ached in strange ways—a dull, empty pain in her loins, a constriction in her chest a soreness that laced the muscles of her arms and legs. She did not know how much to attribute to the birth and how much to sleeping naked in the chill of the Fell. Movement helped ease the pain in her arms and chest, loosening muscles that were cramped and tight. The pain within her loins persisted. She ignored it. She could not be too far from the wall of the hollow, she told herself. If she just kept moving, she would get free.
She came out of a stretch of old growth laced with mist and gloom, entered a clearing, and stopped. Nightshade stood before her, wrapped in her black cloak, drawn up as straight and immutable as a stone statue, her red eyes gleaming.
“What are you doing here, sylph?” she demanded softly.
Willow’s heart sank. Having been forced to give birth to her child in this forbidding place, she had wanted only to escape without encountering the witch, and it seemed she was to be denied even this.
She managed to keep the fear from her voice as she answered. “I entered through the fairy mists and by mistake. I want no trouble. I want only to depart.”
Nightshade seemed surprised. “Through the fairy mists? Have you been imprisoned, too? But no. You were elsewhere in his dream, weren’t you?” She stopped talking, collecting herself. “Why would you come out here? Why would you come out at all, for that matter? The fairies release no one from the mists.”
Willow gave a moment’s thought to lying, but decided against it. The witch would know, her magic strong enough here in her lair to detect another’s deception.
“The fairies were forced to release me when the High Lord came to me in his dreams and set me free of their magic. They released me from the mists. They did not tell me where I would come out. Perhaps they sent me here as punishment”
Nightshade’s gaze lowered to the bundle she cradled in her arms. “What is that you carry?”
Willow’s arms tightened about the baby. “My child by the High Lord, newly born.”
Nightshade took a quick, harsh breath. “The play-King’s child? Here?" She laughed. “Fortune does indeed play strange games with us. Why do you carry the child about so? Did you carry it into the mists as well?” She stopped abruptly. “Wait I have heard nothing of this child. I have not been gone that long from Landover. I should know of this. Newly born, you say? Born where, then?”
“Here,” Willow answered softly.
Nightshade’s face twisted into something grotesque. “Born here, in my home? Holiday’s child? While I was locked in the fairy mists with him, trapped in that cursed box? Trapped with him, girl—did you know? Together for weeks, drained of memory, made over into creatures we did not even recognize. He came to you in a dream? Yes, he told me so. It was the dream that released him from his ignorance, that led him to divulge the truth about both of us.”
Her voice was a hiss. “Have you seen him since his return?” She smiled at Willow’s reaction. “Ah, you didn’t know he was back, then, did you? Back from his other life, a life with me, little sylph, in which I was his charge and he my protector. Do you know what happened between us while you were carrying his child?”
She paused, her eyes gleaming with expectation. “He bed me as if I were his—”
“No!” Willow’s voice was as hard as iron, the single word a forbidding that cut short the witch as surely as a cord about the throat.
“He was mine!” the witch of the Deep Fell screamed. “He belonged to me! I should have had him forever if not for his dream of you! I lost everything, everything but who I am, the power of my magic, the strength of my will! Those I have regained! Holiday owes me! He has stripped me of my pride and my dignity, and he has incurred a debt to me that he must pay!”
She was white with rage. “The child,” she whispered, "will satisfy that debt nicely.”
Willow went cold. She was shaking, her throat dry, her heart stopped. “You cannot have my child,” she said.
A smile played across Nightshade’s lips. “Cannot? What a silly word for you to use, little sylph. Besides, the child was born in my domain, here in the Deep Fell, so it belongs to me by right of law. My law.”
“No law condones the taking of a child from its mother. You have no right to make such a claim.”
“I have every right. I am mistress of the Deep Fell and ruler over all found here. The child was born on my soil. You are a trespasser and a foolish girl. Do not think you can deny me.”
Willow held her ground. “If you try to take my child, you will have to kill me. Are you prepared to do that?”
Nightshade shook her head slowly. “I need not kill you. There are easier ways when you have the use of magic. And worse fates for you than death if you defy me.”
“The High Lord will come after you if you steal his child!” Willow snapped. “He will hunt you to the ends of the earth!”
“Silly little sylph,” the witch purred softly. “The High Lord will never know you were even here.”
Willow froze. Nightshade was right. There was ho one who knew she was in the Deep Fell, no one who knew she had returned from the fairy mists. If she was to disappear, who could trace her footsteps? If her child was to vanish, who could say it had ever existed? The fairies, perhaps, but would they do so?
What was she to do?
“Someone will discover and reveal the truth, Nightshade,” she insisted desperately. “You cannot keep such a thing a secret forever! Not even you can do that!”
The witch gave a slow, disdainful shrug. “Perhaps not. But I can keep it a secret long enough. Holiday’s life is finite. In the end, I will be here when he is gone.”
Willow nodded slowly, understanding flooding through her. “Which is why you want his child, isn’t it? So that he will leave nothing of himself behind when he is dead. You would make the child yours and wipe away all trace of him in doing so. You hate him that much, don’t you?”
Nightshade’s thin mouth tightened. “More. Much, much more.”
“But the child is innocent,” Willow cried. “Why should the baby be made a pawn in this struggle? Why should it suffer for your rage?”
“The child will fare well. I will see to it.”
“It isn’t yours!”
“I grow tired of arguing, sylph. Give the child to me and perhaps I will let you go. Make another child, if you wish. You have the means.”
Willow shook her head slowly. “I will never give up my baby, Nightshade. Not to you, not to anyone. Stand aside for me. Let me pass.”
Nightshade smiled darkly. “I think not,” she said.
She was starting forward, arms lifting within her black robes, intent on taking the child by force, when a familiar voice spoke.
“Do as she asks, Nightshade. Let her pass.”
The witch stopped, as still as death. Willow looked around quickly, seeing nothing but the trees and misty gloom.
Then Edgewood Dirk stepped into view from one side, easing sinuously through the heavy brush, silver coat immaculate, black tail twitching slightly. He jumped up on the remains of a fallen tree and blinked sleepily.
“Let her pass,” he repeated softly.
Nightshade stiffened. “Edgewood Dirk. Who gave you permission to come into the Deep Fell? Who gave you the right?”
“Cats need no permission or grant of right,” Dirk replied. “Really, you should know better. Cats go where they wish—always have.”
Nightshade was livid. “Get out of here!”
Dirk yawned and stretched. “Shortly. But first you must let the Queen pass.”
“I will not give up ...!”
“Save your breath, Witch of the Deep Fell.” A hint of weary disdain crept into the cat’s voice. “The Queen and her baby will pass into Landover. The fairies have decided, and there is nothing more to say about it. If you are unhappy with their decision, why don’t you take it up with them?”
Nightshade shot a withering look at Willow, then turned to face the cat. “The fairies cannot tell me what to do!”
“Of course they can,” Edgewood Dirk said reasonably. “I have just done so for them. Stop fussing about this. The matter is settled. Now step aside.”
“The child is mine!”
Dirk gave one paw a short, swift lick and straightened. “Nightshade,” he addressed her softly. “Would you challenge me?”
There was a long pause as witch and prism cat faced each other in the half light of the Deep Fell. “Because if you would,” Dirk continued, “you must surely know that even if I fail, another will be sent to take my place, and another, and so forth. Fairies are very stubborn creatures. You, of all people, should know.”
Nightshade did not move. When she spoke, there was astonishment in her voice. “Why are they doing this? Why do they care so about his child?”
Edgewood Dirk blinked “That,” he purred softly, “is a good question.” He rose, stretched, and sat back down again. “I grow anxious for my morning nap. I have given this matter enough of my time. Let the Queen and the child pass. Now.”
Nightshade shook her head slowly, a denial of something she could not articulate. For an instant Willow was certain that she intended to lash out at Dirk, that she would fight the prism cat with every ounce of strength and every bit of magic she possessed.
But instead she turned to Willow and said softly, “I will never forgive this. Never. Tell the play-King.”
Then she disappeared into the gloom, a wraith simply fading away into the shadows. The baby woke, stirring in its mother’s arms, blinking sleepily. Willow glanced down into the cloak’s deep folds. She cooed softly to her child. When she looked up again, Edgewood Dirk was gone as well. Had he been with her all the way? The fairies had sent him once again, it appeared, although with the prism cat you could never be entirely certain. He had saved her life in any case. Or more to the point, saved her child. Why? Nightshade’s question, still unanswered. What was it about this child that mattered so to everyone?
Cradling the baby in her arms, she began to walk on once again.
It was nearing midmorning by the time Ben Holiday reached the country just south of the Deep Fell. He would never have gotten there that fast if Strabo had not offered to trade him a ride for possession of the Tangle Box. The dragon had wanted the box from the first, but Ben had refused to give it up, not convinced that it should be in anyone’s possession but his own.
“Let me have it, Holiday,” the dragon had argued. “I will keep it in a place no one can reach, in a fire pit deep within the Wastelands where no one goes.”
“But why would you want it at all?” Ben asked. “What would you do with it?”
The dragon had flown back from his assault on the demons. They were alone in the center of the meadow. Horris Kew slumped on the ground some yards away. Questor Thews and Abernathy had not yet reached them.
The dragon’s voice was wistful. “I would take it out and look at it from time to time. A dragon covets treasures and hoards precious things. It is all we have left from our old life—all I have left, now that I am alone.” Strabo’s horned head dipped close. “I would keep it hidden where it could never be found. I would keep it just for me.”
Ben had interrupted the conversation long enough to intervene between a sodden, angry Abernathy, who had just come rushing up, and a terrified Horris Kew, and assisted by Questor Thews had restored some small measure of peace between them. The conjurer had saved their lives, after all, he reminded his much-distressed scribe. He went on then to dismiss Kallendbor and his army, exacting an oath from the Lord of Rhyndweir to appear before him in one week’s time for an accounting of his actions. He ordered his Guard to disperse those people who had come looking for mind’s eye crystals and found a great deal more than they had bargained for, back to wherever it was they had come from.
Then he remembered Willow. He went immediately to the Landsview and found her just as she was climbing free of the Deep Fell. Nightshade’s domain, he thought in horror, and no place for the sylph. He was thinking of Nightshade’s parting words to him. He was thinking what the witch might do to Willow if she were given half a chance.
It was a two-day ride to the Deep Fell—far too long under the circumstances. So he struck a bargain with Strabo. A ride to the Deep Fell and back in exchange for the Tangle Box, if the dragon promised that no one else would ever set eyes on it and no one, including the dragon, would ever attempt to open it. Strabo agreed. He extended his firm and unbreakable promise. He gave his dragon’s oath. It was enough, Questor Thews whispered in a short aside. A dragon’s word was his bond.
So off Ben went aboard Strabo, winging through the storm winds and rain, finally passing out of black clouds and into blue skies. The sun shone anew on the land, spilling golden light across the grasslands and bills running north, cutting a swath of brightness through the fading dark.
“She is there, Holiday,” the dragon called back when they grew close, its sharp eyes finding the sylph much quicker than Ben’s.
They swooped down onto the crest of a hill, a scattering of woods running right and left. Willow appeared from across a meadow of wildflowers and Bonnie Blues, and Ben ran to meet her, heedless of everything else. She called to him, her face radiant, tears coming into her eyes once more.
He raced up to her and abruptly stopped, the bundle in her arms a fragile barrier between them. What was she carrying? “Are you all right?” he asked, anxious to be reassured that she was well, eager just to hear her voice.
“Yes, Ben,” she answered. “And you?”
He nodded, smiling. “I love you, Willow,” he said.
He could see her throat constrict “Come see our child,” she whispered.
He came forward a step, closing the small distance between them, expectation and disbelief racing through him. It was too quick, he thought. It was not yet time. She had not even looked pregnant. How could she have given birth so fast?
The questions vanished in the afterglow of her smile. “The baby?” he said, and she nodded.
She parted the folds of her cloak so he could see. He bent down and peered inside.
A pair of dazzling green eyes stared boldly back.
The interviewer sipped a pineapple-strawberry smoothie in the living room of Harold Kraft’s palatial Diamond Head home and looked out across the vast expanse of lanai and swimming pool to the only slightly vaster expanse of the Pacific Ocean. It was late afternoon, and the sun was easing westward toward the flat line of the horizon, the gradual change in the light promising yet another incredibly beautiful Hawaiian sunset. The granite floors of the living room and lanai glittered as if inlaid with flecks of gold, the stone ending at the pool, one of those knife-edge affairs that dropped into a spillover as if falling all the way to the ocean. A Jacuzzi bubbled invitingly at one end of the lanai. A bar and cooking area dominated the other end, complete with hollow coconut shells used for tropical drinks at the frequent parties the author gave.
The home was conservatively valued at fifteen million, although the price of real estate is always subject to what the market will bear and its measure is not an objective exercise. Homes around it had sold for ten million and up and lacked both the extensive grounds and the unrestricted view that took in most of Honolulu. Bare land went for five million in this neighborhood. The numbers were unimaginable for most people. The interviewer lived in Seattle in a home he had bought fifteen years ago for somewhat less than what Harold Kraft earned in a month.
Kraft wandered in from his study where he had gone to answer a private phone call, leaving the interviewer to sip his perfectly mixed drink and admire the view. He strolled over to the bar with a brief apology for taking so long, fixed himself an iced tea, crossed the room to the couch where the interviewer was patiently waiting, and sat down again. He was tall and slender with graying hair and a Vandyke beard, and he moved like a long, slow, elegant cat. He wore silk slacks and shirt and hand-tooled leather sandals. His tanned face was aquiline, and his sandy eyes were penetrating. There were rumors of reconstructive surgery and a rigorous training regimen, but that was fairly commonplace with the rich and famous.
“Good news,” he announced with a smile. “Since you’re here, I can share it with you. Paramount just bought rights toWizard . Two million dollars outright. They want Scan Connery for the title rote, Tom Cruise for the part of the Prince. What do you think?”
The interviewer smiled appreciatively. “I think you’re two million dollars richer. Congratulations.”
Kraft gave him a short bow. “Wait until the merchandising kicks in. That’s where the real money is.”
“Do you write your books with an eye toward movie sales?” the interviewer pressed. He wasn’t getting nearly enough out of Kraft to satisfy either himself or his magazine. Kraft had published three books in two years and dominated the bestseller lists for most of that time, selling more than five million copies in hardcover. But that was practically all anyone knew about him. For all his notoriety and success, he was still very much a mystery. He claimed to be in exile, but he wouldn’t say from where. He claimed to be a political refugee.
“I write to be read,” the author replied pointedly. “What happens after that is up to the consumer. Sure, I want to make money. But mostly I want to be happy.”
The interviewer frowned “That sounds a bit ...”
“Disingenuous? I suppose it does. But I’ve done a lot of things and been a lot of places, and I don’t have much to show for any of it. What I have is myself, and my writing is an extension of myself. It is very hard to separate the two, you know. A writer doesn’t just punch a clock and go home at the end of the day. He carries his work around with him, always thinking about it, always polishing it up like the family silver. If you’re not satisfied with it, you have to live with your dissatisfaction. That’s why I want to be happy about what I do. More important to be happy than to be rich.”
“Doesn’t hurt to be both,” the interviewer pointed out. “You’ve had an amazing string of successes. Do you ever think about what it was like before you were published?”
Kraft smiled. “All the time. But I sense an attempt at an end run. I have to remind you that try though you might, you won’t get me to talk about my earlier life. Ground rules for this interview, right?”
“So you’ve said, but my readers are quite curious about you. You must know that”
“I do. I appreciate the interest.”
“But you still won’t discuss anything about yourself before you were published?”
“I made a promise not to.”
“A promise to whom?”
“A promise to some people. That’s all I intend to say.”
“Then let’s discuss your characters and try coming into your life through the back door, so to speak.” The interviewer harbored hopes of publishing a book himself one day. He fancied himself very clever with words. “Are they based on real people from your old life? For instance, the misguided King of your magic land, his inept court wizard, and the snappish dog who serves as his scribe?”
Kraft nodded slowly. “Yes, they exist.”
“How about your protagonist the renegade wizard who saves the day in each book? Is there some of you in him?”
Kraft cleared his throat modestly. “A bit.”
The interviewer paused, sensing he was finally getting somewhere. “Have you ever dabbled in magic? You know, played at conjuring spells and the like? Has that been a part of your life?”
Harold Kraft was lost in thought for a moment. When he came back from wherever he had been, his face turned serious. “I’ll tell you what” he said. “I’m going to make an exception to my rule of never talking about my past and tell you something. There was a time when I did play about with magic. Small stuff, really—nothing serious. Except that once I did stumble quite inadvertently on something that turned out to be very dangerous indeed. My own life as well as those of others was threatened. I survived that scare, but I made a promise to certain people that I would never use ... that is, dabble, in magic again. I never have.”
“So the magic in your books, the conjuring and the invocations of spells and the like, has some basis in real life?”
“Some, yes.”
“And the tales you weave, those spellbinding stories of monsters and elves, of mythical creatures and wizards like your protagonist—do these have a basis in real life as well?”
Kraft slowly raised and then lowered one eyebrow. “A writer writes what he knows. Life experience enters in. It usually takes a different form than the reality, but it is always there.”
The interviewer nodded solemnly. Had he learned anything from this exchange? He wasn’t sure. It was all rather vague. Like Harold Kraft. He covered his confusion by checking the tiny tape recorder sitting on the coffee table. Still spinning. “Would it be fair to say that the adventures you write about in some way mirror your own life?” he tried again.
“It would be both fair and accurate, yes.”
“How?”
Kraft smiled. “You must use your imagination.”
The interviewer smiled back, trying not to grit his teeth. “Do you have other stories left to tell, Mr. Kraft?”
“Harold, please,” the author insisted with a quick wave of his hand. “Three hours together in the journalistic trenches entitles us to conclude our conversation on a first-name basis. And to answer your question, yes. I have other stories to tell and some time left to tell them, I hope. I’m working on one now.Raptor’s Spell is the title. Would you like to see the cover?”
“Very much.”
They rose and walked from the living room down a short hall to the study, which served primarily as Kraft’s office. Word processors and printers sat at various desks, and books and paper were piled all over the place. Framed book covers hung on the walls. A koa-wood desk dominated the center of the room. From the stacks of writing on the top of this desk, Kraft produced a colored photo and handed it over to the interviewer.
The photo showed a bird that was all black save for a crown of white feathers. The bird was in the act of swooping down on a malevolent being that resembled a mass of thistles. Lightning streaked from the bird’s extended claws. Dark things fled into a woods at the bird’s approach.
The interviewer studied the photo for a moment. “Very dramatic. Is the bird representative of someone from your earlier life?”
Horris Kew, who now called himself Harold Kraft, nodded solemnly. “Alas, poor Biggar, I knew him well,” he intoned with a dramatic flourish. And gave the photo a nostalgic kiss.