The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (122 page)

F
inally, dusk found Ben, Miles, and Willow back once more on 522 headed north out of Woodinville toward Graum Wythe. They were in the rental car this time, the limo long since dispatched back to Seattle. Ben was driving, Willow was beside him in the passenger seat, and Miles sat in back. The wind whistled and the weaving shadows of branches played along the car’s dark shell like devil’s fingers. The skies were slate gray, turning black as the final twinge of daylight slipped rapidly away.

“Doc, this isn’t going to work,” Miles said suddenly, breaking what had been a seemingly interminable stretch of silence.

It was like a replay of yesterday. Ben grinned, though Miles couldn’t see it. “Why not, Miles?”

“Because there are too many things that can go wrong, that’s why. I know I said the same thing about last night’s plan and you still got away with it, but that was different. This plan is a hell of a lot more dangerous! You realize, of course, that we don’t even know if Abernathy is down there in those dungeons or cages or whatever! What if he’s not there? What if he’s there, but you can’t get to him? What if they’ve changed the locks or hidden the keys, for God’s sake? What do we do then?”

“Come back tomorrow and try again.”

“Oh, sure! Halloween will be over! What are we supposed to do? Wait for Thanksgiving and go in as turkeys? Or maybe Christmas and go down the chimney like Santa and his elves?”

Ben glanced around. Miles looked pretty funny sitting there in that gorilla suit. But, then, he looked pretty funny himself in the shaggy dog outfit that made him look somewhat like Abernathy. “Relax, Miles,” he said.

“Relax?” Ben could practically see him turning red inside the heavy suit. “What if they count heads, Doc? If they count heads, we’re dead!”

“I told you how to handle that. It will work just the way we want it to. By the time they figure out what’s happened, we’ll be long gone.”

They rode on in silence until they reached the stone pillars with the lighted globes and Ben wheeled the car left down the wooded, private road. Then Willow said, “I wish we didn’t have to take Elizabeth with us.”

Ben nodded. “I know. But we can’t leave her behind—not after this. Michel Ard Rhi will know she was involved. She’s better off out of there. Her father will understand after Miles has talked to him. They’ll be well looked after.”

“Humphhh!” Miles grunted. “You’re crazy, Doc, you know that? No wonder you like living in fairyland!”

Willow slumped back in the seat and closed her eyes again. Her breathing was ragged. “Are you sure you can do this?” Ben asked quietly. The sylph nodded without replying.

They drove through the vineyards and finally the electric sensor that triggered the floodlights. When they reached the low stone wall, the iron gates were open and Graum Wythe’s drawbridge and portcullis were already in operation. The castle looked massive and forbidding against the mix of low-hanging clouds and distant mountains, the outline of its towers and parapets hazy with the mist and rain. The wipers of the car clicked back and forth, blurring and clearing in brief intervals the sweep of the land ahead. Ben eased the rental car down the winding roadway, unable to escape the feeling that he had somehow managed to forget something.

They crossed the drawbridge, the tires thumping on the timbers, passed through the maw of the castle gates, and pulled around the drive. Lights blazed through the mist and gloom, but the guards they had seen the previous night were not in evidence. Doesn’t mean that they’re not out there, though, Ben thought and swung the car in close to the entry.

They stepped out quickly and hastened into the shelter of the front entryway, Ben holding Willow close to keep her from slipping. They knocked and waited. The door opened almost at once, and the doorman was there to greet them. He blinked in surprise.

What he saw was a gorilla, a shaggy dog, and a young woman dyed green from head to foot.

“Evening,” Ben greeted through the dog suit. “We’re here to pick up Elizabeth for her Halloween party at the grade school. I’m Mr. Barker, this is my wife Helen, and this is Mr. Campbell.” He made the introductions quickly so the names wouldn’t register, and they didn’t.

“Oh.” The doorman was not a conversationalist. He beckoned them inside, however, and they gladly went. They stood in the entryway, brushing off stray drops of rain and looking guardedly about. The doorman studied them momentarily, then went to a phone and called someone. Ben held his breath. The doorman put the phone down and returned.

“Miss Elizabeth asked if one of you could help her with her costume,” he said.

“Yes, I can help,” Willow offered, right on cue. “I know the way, thank you.”

She disappeared up the winding stairway and was gone. Ben and Miles sat down on a bench in the entryway, oversized bookends from a curio shop. The doorman studied them some more, probably trying to figure out how any sane adult could be talked into dressing up like that, then turned down the hall and disappeared from view.

Ben felt the heat of the two costumes he was wearing turn his back and underarms damp.

So far, so good, he thought.

W
illow tapped lightly on Elizabeth’s bedroom door and waited. Almost immediately, the door was opened by a small clown with frizzy orange hair, a white face, and an enormous red nose. “Oh, Willow!” Elizabeth whispered, grasping her hand and pulling her urgently inside. “It’s all going wrong!”

Willow took her shoulders gently. “What’s going wrong, Elizabeth?”

“Abernathy! He’s all … strange! I went down to the cellars this afternoon after school to see if he was all right—you know, to make certain he was still there. I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I was worried, Willow!” The words practically tumbled over one another. “I sneaked out of my room. I made sure no one saw me, then went down through the passage in the walls to the cellars. Abernathy was there, locked in one of those cages, all chained up! Oh, Willow, he looked so sad! He looked all ragged and dirty. I whispered to him, called to him, but he didn’t seem to know who I was. He just … he sounded like he couldn’t talk right! He said a bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense and he couldn’t seem to sit up or move or anything!”

The blue eyes glistened with tears. “Willow, he’s so sick! I don’t know if he can even walk!”

Willow felt a mix of fear and uncertainty wash through her, but she forced it quickly away. “Do not be afraid, Elizabeth,” she said firmly. “Show me where he is. It will be all right.”

They slipped from the room into the empty hall, the tiny clown and the emerald fairy. An old clock ticked in the silence from one end, and the sound of very distant voices echoed faintly. Elizabeth took Willow to a cluttered broom closet. Closing the door behind them, she produced a flashlight, then spent a few seconds pushing at the back wall until a section of it swung open. Silently, they went down the stairs that lay beyond, navigating through several twists and turns, two landings, and one short tunnel, until at last they reached another section of wall, this one with a rusted iron handle fixed to it.

“He’s right through here!” Elizabeth whispered.

She took hold of the handle and pulled. The wall eased back, and the rush of stale, fetid air caused Willow to gasp. Nausea washed through her, but she swallowed against it and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Willow, are you all right?” Elizabeth asked urgently, her brightly colored clown’s face bent close.

“Yes, Elizabeth,” Willow whispered. She couldn’t give in now. Just a little longer, she promised herself. Just a little.

She peered through the opening in the wall. Cages lined a passageway,
shadowed cells of rock and iron bars. There was movement in one. Something lay there twitching.

“That’s Abernathy!” Elizabeth confirmed in a small, frightened voice.

Willow took a moment longer to check the corridor beyond for other signs of movement. There were none. “Are there guards?” she asked softly.

Elizabeth pointed. “Down there, beyond that door. Just one, usually.”

Willow pushed her way out into the cellar passage, feeling the nausea and weakness surge through her once more. She went to the cage that held Abernathy and peered in. The dog lay on a pile of straw, his fur matted and soiled, his clothes torn. He had been sick, and the discharge clung to him. He smelled awful. There was a chain fastened about his neck.

The medallion hung there as well.

Abernathy was mumbling incoherently. He was talking about everything and nothing all at once, his speech slurred, his words fragments of witless chatter. He has been drugged, Willow thought.

Elizabeth was handing her something. “This is the key to the cage door, Willow,” she whispered. She looked very frightened. “I don’t know if it fits the chain on his neck!”

Her clown nose fell off, and she picked it up hurriedly and pushed it back into place. Willow took the key from her and started to insert it into the cage door lock.

It was at that same moment that they heard the latch on the door at the end of the corridor begin to turn.

M
ichel Ard Rhi came down the front hallway past the entry and paused momentarily as he saw the gorilla and the shaggy dog sitting there on the waiting bench. It was apparent that he wasn’t sure what to make of them. He looked at them, and they looked back. No one said anything.

Ben held his breath and waited. He could feel Miles go rigid beside him. Suddenly, Michel seemed to realize what they were doing there. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The Halloween party at the school. You must be here for Elizabeth.”

A phone rang somewhere down the hall.

Michel hesitated, as if he might say something more, then turned and walked away quickly to answer it. The shaggy dog and the gorilla glanced at each other in silent relief.

T
he guard pushed his way wearily through the cellar door and came down the corridor of iron cages, boots clumping heavily on the stone block. He was dressed in black and wore an automatic weapon and a ring of keys at his belt. Elizabeth shrank further into the darkness behind the hidden section of wall
where she was concealed, peering out through the tiny crack she had left open.

Willow was still out there in the corridor. But where? Why couldn’t she see her?

She watched the guard pause at Abernathy’s cage, check the door perfunctorily to make certain it was locked, then turn and walk back again the way he had come. As he passed her hiding place, the keys at his belt suddenly came free. Elizabeth blinked in disbelief. The snap that held them seemed to loosen of its own accord and all at once the keys were gone. The guard completed his walk down the corridor, pushed back through the metal door, and disappeared.

Elizabeth slipped quickly from her hiding place. “Willow!” she called in a muffled hiss.

The sylph appeared out of nowhere at her side, the ring of keys in one hand. “Hurry, now,” she whispered. “We do not have much time.”

They went back to Abernathy’s cage, and Willow opened the door with the key Elizabeth had given her earlier. They hastened inside, moving to the incoherent dog and kneeling beside him. Willow bent close. The scribe’s eyes were dilated and his breathing was rapid. When she tried to lift him, he sagged helplessly against her.