[Magic Kingdom of Landover 05] - Witches' Brew (30 page)

They rode double atop a still-skittish Jurisdiction, Willow in front, Ben behind. Bunion had retrieved the horse after a lengthy chase, and now they were traveling west again toward the Greensward. Ahead rose the black wall of an approaching thunderstorm. Behind lay the remains of the wurm and the sulfurous stench of ash and gases from the Fire Springs. Overhead, the sun beat down mercilessly, a blinding white-hot flame that turned the arid emptiness of the Eastern Wastelands into a furnace.

Rain will come as a welcome relief, Ben thought wearily, trying to distance himself from his growing thirst.

“And Rydall's creatures were in this book?” Willow asked in response, half turning to catch a glimpse of his face.

He nodded into her emerald hair, breathing the dusty
scent of it. “A giant that gained strength from its contact with the earth, a demon that could mimic the look and abilities of whatever foe it faced, and a robotic machine man, armored and indestructible.” He looked off into the sweltering distance, trying to make out the geography of the land against the blackness of the storm. “I don't remember the specific stories so much as the picture of the robot. It's right on the cover, and it's exactly the same as Rydall's. But they're all there. It's as if Rydall read the book!”

“But that isn't possible, is it?”

Ben sighed. “You wouldn't think so.”

Willow looked forward again. The land shimmered with heat and dust. Bunion was out there somewhere, scouting for further dangers. If he found any, he would try to find a way around them. Another confrontation in their present condition was unthinkable.

“Where is this book?” Willow asked.

“In the library with the others,” Ben answered. “It's one of several I brought over with me from my old life, books that I thought I might like to have. I remember why I picked that one in particular. I've had it since I was a boy, and it seemed to represent something of what I was hoping to find here in Landover—as if what wasn't real in my old life might be real in this one.” He shook his head. “I got my wish, didn't I?”

Willow was silent for a moment. “But how would Rydall know about it?”

Ben shrugged. “I can't imagine. It doesn't make sense. Why would he know about this book as opposed to any other book? Has he read through my whole library? Does his magic enable him to search out any book at random and read through it without even being there?” He swallowed against the dryness in his throat and kept his temper tightly in check. “What I keep coming back to, Willow, is how personal this all feels.
Rydall using my own things against me; striking out at my family and friends; kidnapping Mistaya, Questor, and Abernathy; attacking you and me, chasing us all over the place with this business of pitting his monsters against the Paladin; coming after me over and over again—I just don't get it. Supposedly it's about surrendering the throne to Landover, but it doesn't feel like Landover's got all that much to do with it”

Willow nodded without looking at him. “No,” she agreed, and was silent again.

They rode on through the afternoon until the storm met them as they approached the edge of the Greensward. Black clouds swept past, blotting out the sun and blue sky, and a driving, blinding rain enveloped and soaked them to the skin in moments. The dust and grime of their travel were washed from their bodies, and the air about them was cooled. Jurisdiction plodded on, head lowered against the sheets of rain and swirling wind, and soon Bunion reappeared to lead them down into a grove of maple trees that provided good shelter from the damp. They dismounted, stripped off their clothing, wrung it out, and hung it to dry by a fire that Bunion had somehow managed to start. Sitting cross-legged in a soft patch of grass beneath the canopy of the trees, they watched the storm swirl around them and pass on. Darkness descended, and the world beyond their encampment disappeared. They dressed again, chewed halfheartedly on stalks of Bonnie Blue, rolled into their travel cloaks, and quickly fell asleep.

When they woke, it was raining again, a slow, persistent drizzle that fell out of low, empty leaden skies. The whole of the land about them had gone gray and misty in the early-morning light. They mounted Jurisdiction once more and rode out into the weather. Bunion went on ahead, a small, spidery figure skittering into the gloom until he was lost from view. The summer
day was warm and filled with the smell of damp earth. Ahead, the Greensward stretched away in a patchwork of greens and browns, of tilled fields and grassy pastures, of mature forests and midseason plantings, all interspersed with rivers and lakes that in the rainy haze took on the look of molten metal, their surfaces stirred by the faint breezes that swept down across the flats.

By midday Bunion had returned with a second horse. He didn't offer an explanation of where he had gotten the beast, and Ben and Willow didn't ask. It was not a farm animal; it was a trained riding horse. Willow stood in front of the horse, a brown mare, and spoke to it encouragingly for a moment, then mounted smoothly and wheeled over beside Ben. She gave Bunion a smile and a wink, and the kobold was gone again.

They rode on through the rest of that day and most of the next. All the while it rained, leaving them wet clear through except for brief periods of dryness when they camped and were able to chase away the damp with the help of the fires Bunion always seemed to be able to construct. They passed Rhyndweir and several of the other castles of the Lords of the Greensward but did not stop to ask for shelter. Ben had no interest in seeing anyone, preferring to minimize the chance of further attacks from Rydall. Surprisingly, there were none. Since Rydall had found them in the Eastern Wastelands with the wurm, Ben had supposed he would be able to find them anywhere. Given the frequency and consistency of the attacks, he had expected another by now. On the other hand, Rydall had used up four of his promised seven challenges, so perhaps he was rethinking his strategy. Ben didn't consider it worth his while to ponder the matter further. He was simply grateful for the respite.

He used the time to think. With his travel cloak a shield against the elements, Willow a silent wraith riding
next to him, and the rain a curtain that shrouded everything in damp, gray silence, he shut himself away from his discomfort and tedium and concentrated on the puzzle of Rydall of Marnhull. He was beginning to consider possibilities he had not considered before. Some of this was prompted by his growing sense of desperation. He could feel time running out. Sooner or later Rydall was going to send a monster from which no one could save him—not the Paladin, not Strabo, not anyone. Sooner or later his defenses were not going to be strong enough, and the struggle to survive would be over. The only thing that could prevent that from happening was uncovering the secret behind Rydall, and Ben seemed to be no closer to doing that than ever. So he determined to quit thinking in predictable ways, to be more innovative, more daring. He had to stop being led around by Rydall. He had to refuse to follow the paths Marnhull's King left open to him and start opening a few of his own. There was a net being woven about Ben Holiday, and he could sense it tightening with every new strand laid out. He had to find a way to cut through the webbing.

His thinking, however, was prompted not so much by his desperation as by his realization that there were a few loose threads in Rydall's carefully woven net. First, there was Ben's growing certainty that Rydall's sending of monsters to do battle with the Paladin was part of a game that had far more to do with Ben than with Landover's throne. Second, there was his recognition that three of the four monsters had come from the stories in his
Monsters of Man & Myth
book. Three created in painstaking detail from the writer's descriptions, as if Rydall had copied the creatures directly from the book's pages. Three, but not the fourth. No, the fourth, a wurm, had come from somewhere else.

A witch's favorite magic, Strabo had informed him.

In Landover that meant Nightshade.

He had given no serious consideration before to the possibility that Nightshade might be involved in this. Why would he? Rydall was an outlander, a usurper of power, an interloper whose goals were directly at odds with Nightshade's. On the other hand, no one hated Ben Holiday and his family more than the witch did. Stripped of Rydall's obvious presence, this entire business felt very much like her work. The use of dark magic, the attack on family and friends, and the calculated effort to destroy him all smacked of Nightshade. While he had heard nothing from the witch in more than two years, he did not expect that she had forgotten her promise that she would never forgive him for what had happened to her in the Tangle Box. For what she had been made to feel for him when they had both been stripped of their identities. For what she viewed as the loss of her dignity.

What if there was no Rydall? Oh, there might be someone masquerading as Marnhull's King, but what if Rydall himself was a fiction? No one had ever heard of Rydall or Marnhull—not the River Master, not Kallendbor, not even Strabo, who had traveled everywhere. No one could find Rydall or Marnhull. There was no trace of Mistaya, Questor Thews, or Abernathy. There was no sign of an invading army. The only physical evidence of Rydall at any time in this entire episode had been presented when Marnhull's King and his black-cloaked companion had appeared at the gates of Sterling Silver.

So, Ben mulled, what if this whole business was an elaborate charade? Where, after all, was the one place in Landover that he hadn't searched since Mistaya had disappeared? Where was the one place he had ignored because it wasn't readily accessible to him and because it didn't seem reasonable to look there? Where was the one place none of them had looked?

The Deep Fell, where Nightshade made her home.

Ben Holiday's suspicions hardened. What had begun as a consideration of possibilities rapidly evolved into a careful sifting of facts. Nightshade as Rydall; it made as much sense as anything else he had envisioned. Or Nightshade as Rydall's black-cloaked companion, he amended. He remembered the way the hooded rider had studied him when he had come down onto the causeway to pick up the gauntlet, the intensity of that veiled gaze. He remembered the way both riders had looked upon Mistaya when she had climbed onto the ramparts.

His chest tightened, and his stomach turned to ice.

It was late on the third day of their journey home when they came in sight of Sterling Silver. The castle materialized through the gloom like a vision brought to life from a child's imagining, a gleaming, rain-streaked rise of spires and parapets that hardened into stone and mortar, timber and metal, pennants and flags as they closed on its island surround. They crossed the moat through a misty curtain and passed beneath the raised portcullis. Retainers scurried to take their horses and usher them inside out of the weather. Ben and Willow went wordlessly to their bedchamber, stripped off their sodden clothing, climbed into a tub of steaming water, and lay back to soak. When some of the ache and discomfort of their travel had been eased, they climbed out again, dried off, and dressed in fresh clothing.

Then Ben led Willow down to the library for a close look at his copy of
Monsters of Man & Myth
. It took only moments to locate it. It sat on the shelf exactly where he remembered leaving it. He pulled it out and looked at the cover. Sure enough, there was Rydall's robot. He thumbed through the pages and in short order found a drawing of the giant. Then he found the writer's description of the demon that could mimic any foe.

He showed the book to Willow. “You see? Exactly the same as Rydall's monsters.”

She nodded. “But how did he do it? How did he know about this book and these particular monsters? Ben,
I
didn't know about this book.
I
didn't even know it was here. We've never talked about it, not once. How did Rydall know?”

It was true, he realized. He had never taken it down and shown it to her before. They had never discussed it. There had never been any reason to do so. He had carried it over with him through the mists, unpacked it, placed it in the library, and forgotten it.

Until now. He stood close to the sylph, staring down at the book in silence. Without, the rain continued in dreary, unchanging monotony, the sound of its falling a soft patter on the stone. Ben felt strangely lulled, as if he might fall asleep at any moment. He was more tired than he wanted to admit, but he could not afford to sleep until he had unraveled the secret of Rydall and his monsters. Not until he had found a way to bring Mistaya home.

Mistaya
.

He stared at Willow in surprise. “You said you didn't know about this book. But do you know who did? Mistaya. I caught her reading it once, paging through it. I didn't say anything, didn't interrupt her. I don't think she even saw me watching. She was so small, and I didn't think she could even understand it …”

He trailed off, his mind racing. “Willow,” he said quietly, “I want you to listen to something. I want you to tell me what you think.”

Then he told her of his suspicion that Nightshade might be Rydall's creator and that the Witch of the Deep Fell might be behind everything that had happened to them. He gave her all his reasons, laid out all the possibilities, and provided all the underpinnings of
his conjecture. Willow listened intently, not interrupting, waiting for him to finish.

“The thing is,” he concluded worriedly, “Mistaya could have told Nightshade about the book, could have described the monsters, could even have drawn a picture. She's smart enough to have remembered. She probably understood a whole lot more than I gave her credit for.”

“But why would she do this?” Willow wanted to know instantly. “Why would she do anything to help the witch?”

Ben shook his head. “I don't know. I'm guessing about all this. But she has seen the book, and if Nightshade is Rydall, then it was Nightshade who kidnapped her. And has her now.”