The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (81 page)

“Willow,” he whispered.

He spoke her name once and was asleep.

H
e dreamed of Willow while he slept, and the dream was a revelation that shocked him, even in his slumber. He searched for the sylph through the forests, hills, and plains of Landover, a solitary quest that drew him on as a magnet would iron. The country through which he traveled was familiar and yet foreign, too, a mix of sunshine and shadows that shimmered with the inconsistency of an image reflected on water. There were things that moved all about him, but they lacked face and form. He hunted alone, his search a seemingly endless one that took him from one end of the valley and back again, swift and certain in its pace but fruitless nevertheless.

He was driven by an urgency that surprised him. There was a need to find the sylph that defied explanation. He was frightened for her without understanding the reason for his fear. He was desperate to be with her, yet his desperation lacked cause. It was as if he were captive to his emotions and they determined his course where reason could not. He could sense Willow’s presence as he searched, a closeness that teased him. It was as if she waited behind each tree and beyond each hill, and he need only journey a bit further to find her. Weariness did not slow him as he traveled; strength of purpose carried him on.

After a time, he began to hear voices. They whispered to him from all about, some in warning, some in admonishment. He heard the River Master, distrustful yet of who Ben was, strangely anxious that the daughter he could not quite love and who could not quite love him be found. He heard the Earth Mother, asking him to repeat again the promise he had made to her to find and protect Willow, insistent that he honor it. He heard that solitary, defeated hunter speak once more in hollow tones of the black unicorn, of the touch that had stolen away his soul. He heard Meeks, his voice a dark and vengeful hiss that promised ruin if the girl and the golden bridle should escape him.

Still he went on.

And then he heard Edgewood Dirk.

It was the voice of the prism cat that slowed him, aware suddenly of how frantic his search for Willow had become. He stopped, his breath ragged in his ears, his chest pounding. He stood within a forest glade that was cool and solitary, a mix of shadows and light, of boughs canopied overhead and moss grown thick underfoot. Dirk sat upon a knoll within that glade, prim and sleek and inscrutable.

“Why do you run so, High Lord Ben Holiday?” Dirk asked quietly.

“I must find Willow,” he replied.

“Why must you find her?” Dirk pressed.

“Because danger threatens her,” he answered.

“And is that all?”

He paused. “Because she needs me.”

“And is that all?”

“Because there is no one else.”

“And is that all?”

“Because …”

But the words he searched for would not come, as elusive as the sylph herself. There were words to be spoken, he sensed. What were those words?

“You work so hard to orchestrate your life,” Dirk declared almost sadly. “You work so hard to fit all the pieces together, a vast puzzle you must master. But you fail to understand the reason for your need to do so. Life is not simply form, High Lord; life is feeling, too.”

“I feel,” he said.

“You govern,” Dirk corrected. “You govern your kingdom, your subjects, your work, and your life. You organize—here as you once organized there. You command. You command as King as you commanded as lawyer. Court-of-law stagecraft or royal-court politics—you are no different now than you were then. You act and you react with quickness and skill. But you do not feel.”

“I try.”

“The heart of the magic lies in feeling, High Lord. Life is born of feeling, and the magic is born of life. How can you understand either life or magic if you do not feel? You search for Willow, but how can you recognize her when you fail to understand what she is? You search with your eyes for something they cannot see. You search with your senses and your body for what they cannot find. You must search instead with your heart. Try now. Try, and tell me what you see.”

He did, but there was a darkness all about him that would not let him see. He drew deep inside himself and found passages through which he could not travel. Obstructions blocked his way, shapeless things that lacked clear definition. He tried furiously to push past them, groping, reaching …

Then Willow was before him, a misty vision suddenly remembered. She was lithe and quicksilver as she passed, her face stunning in its beauty, her body a whisper of his need. Forest green hair tumbled down about her slender shoulders and fell to her waist. White silk draped and clung like a second skin. Her eyes met his, and he found his breath drawn from him with a sharpness that hurt. She smiled, warm and tender, and her whisper was soundless in his mind. There was no danger that threatened her, no sense of urgency about her. She was at peace with herself. She was at rest.

“Why do you run so, High Lord Ben Holiday?” Dirk repeated from somewhere within the shadows.

“I must find Willow,” he answered again.

“Why must you find her?”

“Because …”

Again, he could not find the words. The shadows began to tighten. Willow began to fade back into them.

“Because …”

She faded further, a memory disappearing. He struggled frantically to find the words he needed to say, but they eluded him still. The sense of urgency returned, quick and hard. The danger to the sylph became real once more, as if somehow resurrected by his indecision. He tried to reach out to her with his hands, but she was too far away, and he was too rooted in place.

“Because …”

The shadows were all about, cloaking him now in their blackness, smothering him in their endless dark. He was drawing back out of himself. Dirk was gone. Willow was little more than a patch of light and color against the black, fading, fading …

“Because …”

Willow!

He came awake with a start, jerking upright from his place of rest, his underarms and back damp with sweat. Night shrouded the eastern wastelands in silence. Clouds masked the skies, though the rain had ceased to fall. Ben’s companions slept undisturbed all about him—all except Bunion. Bunion was already gone, his search for Willow begun.

Ben took a deep breath to steady himself. His dream of Willow was still sharp and certain in his mind. He exhaled.

“Because … I love her,” he finished.

Those were the words he had searched for. And he knew with frightening certainty that the words were true.

H
e was awake for a time after that, alone with his thoughts in the dark silence of the night. After a while, though, he tired and dropped back off to
sleep. When he awoke again, it was nearing dawn, the eastern sky behind the valley rim brightening with faint streaks of gray and gold. Bunion had not returned. The others still slept.

He rolled over on his back, glanced about the storm-dampened campsite, and then blinked in surprise. Edgewood Dirk rested comfortably on a thick bough of the fir just a few feet above his head, paws tucked under his sleek body, eyes squinched closed against the light.

The eyes slipped open as Ben stared. “Good morning, High Lord,” the cat offered.

Ben pushed himself up on his elbows. “Good morning, nothing. Where have you been?”

“Oh, here and there.”

“More there than here, it seems!” Ben snapped, a great deal of pent-up anger coming quickly to the fore. “I could have used a little help back there in the Deep Fell when you so conveniently disappeared! I was lucky the witch didn’t do away with me on the spot! And then I was dragged off to Strabo’s den and offered to him as a snack! But all that made precious little difference to you, did it? Thanks for nothing!”

“You are quite welcome,” Dirk replied calmly. “I would remind you once again, however, that I signed on as a companion, not as a protector. Besides, it appears you have suffered no harm in my absence.”

“But I might have, damn it!” Ben couldn’t help himself. He was sick of the cat appearing and disappearing like some wraith. “I might have been fried in dragon oil for all the good you’d have done me!”

“Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and the have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.” Dirk yawned. “You would do better to forget flogging dead horses and try rounding up a few live ones.”

Ben glared. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you have something more important on your mind than chastising me for imagined wrongs.”

Ben paused, remembering suddenly his dream, the search he had undertaken, the golden bridle, the black unicorn, Meeks, and all the rest of the puzzle he still didn’t understand. Ah, and Willow! Thoughts of the sylph pushed all others aside. I love her, he told himself, trying the words on for size. He found them unexpectedly comfortable.

“There are those who theorize that our dreams are simply manifestations of our subconscious thoughts and desires,” Dirk mused, as if delivering an offhand dissertation. “Dreams do not often portray accurately the events upon which those thoughts and desires are formed, but they do demonstrate quite vividly the emotions behind them. We find ourselves involved in bizarre situations and disjointed events, and our tendency is often to dismiss the dream out-of-hand—a self-conscious response. But hidden within the thrashings of our subconscious
is a kernel of truth about ourselves that needs to be understood—truth that sometimes we have refused to recognize while awake and now demands recognition while we sleep.”

He paused for dramatic effect. “Love is sometimes such a truth.”

Ben pushed himself upright, stared at this cat turned philosopher a moment, and then shook his head. “Is all this in reference to Willow?” he asked.

Dirk blinked. “Of course, sometimes dreams lie and the truth can be found only in waking.”

“Like with my dream of Miles?” Ben found the cat’s conversation needlessly convoluted. “Why don’t you just say what you mean for once?”

Dirk blinked again. “Because I am a cat.”

“Oh. Sure.” The standard answer again.

“Because some things you simply have to figure out for yourself.”

“Right.”

“Something you have not proven very adept at doing, I’m afraid.”

“Certainly not.”

“Despite my continuing efforts.”

“Hmmmmm.” Ben experienced an almost uncontrollable urge to throttle the beast. To suppress the feeling, he glanced about instead at his still sleeping companions. “Why isn’t anyone but me awake yet?” he demanded.

Dirk glanced about with him. “Perhaps they are simply very tired,” the cat suggested amiably.

Ben gave him a hard look. “What did you do—employ a bit of magic? Fairy magic? As Questor did with me? You did, didn’t you?”

“A bit.”

“But why? I mean, why bother?”

Dirk rose, stretched, and jumped down next to Ben, pointedly ignoring him. He began to wash himself and continued to do so until he had cleaned himself thoroughly, fur carefully ruffled and smoothed back in place again.

Then he faced Ben, emerald eyes gleaming in the faint dawn light. “The problem is, you do not listen. I tell you everything you need to know, but you do not seem to hear any of it. It really is distressing.” He sighed deeply. “I let your companions sleep to demonstrate to you one final lesson about dreams. So much of your understanding of what has happened depends on your understanding of how dreams work. Watch, now, what occurs when your friends awake. And try to pay attention this time, will you? My patience wears exceedingly thin.”

Ben grimaced. Edgewood Dirk settled back on his haunches. Together they waited for something to happen. After a moment, Questor Thews stirred, then Abernathy, and finally the gnomes. One by one, they blinked the sleep from their eyes and sat up.

Then they saw Ben, and more especially, Dirk.

“Ah, good morning, High Lord. Good morning, Dirk,” Questor greeted brightly. “Slept well the both of you, I hope?”

Abernathy muttered something about all cats being night creatures and not needing sleep anyway, even prism cats, and how it was a waste of time to worry about any of them.