The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (85 page)

Then the black unicorn trumpeted, a high, eerie call, and everyone turned. The fairy beast stamped and its nostrils flared, the bridle of spun gold dancing against the sunlight with each toss of its delicate head. Magic flashed in its ridged horn. The unicorn was a thing of impossible beauty and it drew
the eyes of all gathered like moths to the light. It shuddered, but held its ground against the weight of their stares. It seemed to be searching for something.

Slowly Willow turned from the unicorn and began to look about as well. Her gaze was curiously empty.

Ben wasn’t sure what was happening, but he decided almost instantly not to wait to find out. “Willow!” he called to the sylph, and her eyes fixed on him. “Willow, it’s me, Ben!” He came forward a few steps, saw the lack of recognition in her eyes, and stopped. “Listen to me. Listen carefully. I know I don’t look like myself. But it
is
me. Meeks is responsible for everything that’s happened. He’s come back into Landover and stolen the throne. He’s changed me into this. Worse, he’s made himself look like me. That’s not me over there—that’s Meeks!”

She turned now to look over at Meeks, saw Ben’s face and body, and gave a quick gasp. But she saw the demon as well. She took a step forward, stopped, and stepped slowly back again.

“Willow, it’s all right,” Meeks called out to her in Ben’s voice. “Bring the unicorn to me. Pass me the reins of the bridle.”

“No!” Ben yelled frantically. “No, Willow!” He came forward another few steps, stopping quickly as Willow started to back away. “Willow, don’t do it. Meeks sent the dreams—all of them. He has the medallion. He has the missing books of magic. Now he wants the unicorn! I don’t know why, but you can’t let him have it! Please!”

“Willow, be careful of what you see,” Meeks warned in a quiet, soothing voice. “The stranger is dangerous, and the magic he wields confuses. Come over to me before he reaches you.”

Ben was beside himself. “Look at whom I’m with, for God’s sake! Questor, Abernathy, Bunion, Parsnip, Fillip, and Sot!” He turned and beckoned to those behind him. But no one came forward. No one seemed quite sure that they should. Ben felt a hint of desperation creep into his voice as he faced Willow anew. “Why would they be with me if I’m not who I say I am? They know the truth of things!” He wheeled about once more, anger in his voice. “Damn it, Questor, say something to her!”

The wizard hesitated, seemed to consider the advisability of doing what Ben asked, then straightened. “Yes, he speaks the truth. He is the High Lord, Willow,” he said finally.

There were muttered hissings and murmurings of agreement from the others, including a few pleas of “Save us, great High Lord, Mighty High Lord” from the G’home Gnomes, who were hiding now behind Questor’s robes.

Ben turned back. “Willow, come over here quickly! Please! Get away!”

But now Meeks had come forward several paces and he was smiling Ben’s most reassuring smile. “Willow, I love you,” he told her. “I love you and I want
to protect you. Come here to me. What you see from the stranger is all illusion. He has no support from our friends; they are just false images. You can see the truth of things if you look. Do you see me? Am I anyone different from the one I always was? What you are hearing are lies! Remember the dream! You must pick up the reins of the bridle and bring the black unicorn to me to be safe from the dangers that threaten! These illusions pretending friendship are the dangers of your dream! Come to me now and be safe!”

Willow was looking first one way and then the other, confusion evident in her face. Behind her, the black unicorn stamped and snorted delicately, a bit of shadow caught in the sunlight, bound in place by ties no one else could see. Ben was frantic. He had to do something!

“Show me the rune stone!” Willow called out suddenly, head jerking from Ben to Meeks and back again. “Let me see the stone I gave you!”

Ben went cold. The rune stone, the milky-colored talisman that warned of danger when it threatened. “I don’t have it!” he called back helplessly. “I lost it when …”

“I have it right here!” Meeks announced in triumph, cutting him short. The wizard reached beneath his robes and brought forth the rune stone—or something that appeared to be the rune stone—glowing bright red. He held it up for inspection.

“Ben?” Willow asked softly, some of the hope coming back into her face. “Is it you?” Ben felt his stomach lurch as the girl started away from him.

“One moment!” Questor Thews called suddenly, and everyone turned. “You must have dropped this, High Lord,” he advised officiously, coming forward a step or two more, the G’home Gnomes shaken free momentarily from his robes. He held out the rune stone Willow had given Ben—at least, his magic made it
seem
like the stone—and let everyone have a good look. The stone glowed crimson.

Ben had never been more grateful to the wizard in his life. “Thank you, Questor,” he breathed quietly.

Willow had stopped again. Slowly, she backed away from them all, the indecision returned. There was fear now in her face as well. “I do not know which of you is Ben,” she told them quietly. “Perhaps neither of you.”

Her words lingered in the sudden stillness that followed. A frightening tension settled down across the sunlit meadow with its chessboard of frozen figures, each ready to move in a different direction, each poised to strike. Willow pressed back toward the black unicorn, eyes shifting from one set of playing pieces to another, waiting. Behind her, the unicorn had gone still.

I have to do something, Ben told himself once more and wondered frantically what it ought to be.

Then out of the woods strolled Edgewood Dirk. The cat might have been out for an afternoon walk, sauntering with an unconcerned air from the trees,
picking its way delicately through the scrub grass and flowers, head and tail held high as it stepped, eyes looking neither right nor left. It paid no attention to any of them. It seemed almost to have stumbled onto things by accident. Dirk walked directly to the center of the clearing, stopped, glanced casually around at those assembled, and sat down.

“Good day,” he greeted them.

Meeks let out a shriek that brought them all out of their boots and flung back his cloak. The Ben Holiday disguise shimmered like a reflection in the waters of a pond disturbed by a thrown stone and began to disintegrate. Willow screamed. The wizard’s clawed hands lifted and extended, and green fire lanced wickedly toward Edgewood Dirk. But the cat had already begun to change, the small furry body growing, shimmering, and smoothing until it was as crystalline as a diamond. The wizard fire struck it and broke apart, scattering like refracted light into the sunlit air, showering the trees and grass and scorching the earth.

Ben was racing desperately toward Willow by this time, yelling like a madman. But the sylph was already beyond his reach. Eyes frantic, she had pressed herself back against the black unicorn and seized the golden bridle that bound the fairy creature. The unicorn was stamping and rearing, crying out its own high-pitched, eerie call, and darting back and forth in small dashes. Willow clung to the beast as a frightened child would to its mother, grappling with it, being dragged along as it went—away from Ben.

“Willow!” he howled.

Meeks was still after Edgewood Dirk. The shards of flame from his first attack had barely been scattered when the wizard struck once more. Fire gathered and arced from his hands in a massive ball, rolling and tumbling through the air to explode into the cat. Dirk arched and shuddered, and the flaming ball seemed to absorb itself into the crystalline form. Then the fire exploded out again, hurtling itself back toward the wizard in a shower of flaming darts. Meeks threw up his cloak like a shield, and the darts deflected everywhere. Some burned into the hide of the demon crouching behind the wizard and it roared and surged skyward with a rasp of fury.

Smoke and fire burned everywhere, and Ben stumbled on blindly through the haze. Behind him, his companions called out. Overhead, the winged demon blocked the sun, its shadow darkening the meadow like an eclipse. The black unicorn sprang forward with a scream, and Willow flung herself atop it. She might have done so out of instinct or out of need, but the result was the same—she was carried away. The unicorn darted past Ben so quickly he barely saw it. He reached for it, but he was far too slow. He had a brief glimpse of Willow’s lithe form clinging to its back, and then both disappeared into the trees.

Then the winged demon attacked. It dropped like a stone toward the meadow, diving from the empty skies, flames bursting from its maw. Ben
dropped flat and covered his head. From the corner of one eye, he watched as Dirk shimmered, hunched down against the force of the fire, absorbed it, and thrust it back. Flames hammered into the demon and sent the monster catapulting back. Steam and smoke clogged the meadow air.

Meeks struck again, and Edgewood Dirk repelled the assault. The demon struck, and the cat flung the fire back once more. Ben rose, dropped, rose again, and staggered blindly through the carnage. Shouts and cries reached out to him, and visions floated through the haze before his watering eyes. His hands groped and struggled to hold something, anything—and finally fastened on the medallion.

White heat burned into his palms. For just an instant, he thought he saw the Paladin appear, a faint image somewhere in the distance, a silver, armor-clad figure astride the great white charger.

Then the vision was gone again, a vision that had been impossible in any case. No medallion, no Paladin—Ben knew that. His throat constricted and he choked as the fires of wizard and demon continued to hammer down on Edgewood Dirk and be flung back again. Flowers and grasses burned to black ash. Trees shook and their leaves wilted. The whole world seemed to be in flames.

And finally the meadow itself seemed to explode upward in one vast, heaving cough, steam and fire ripping through everything. Ben felt himself hurtled skyward like a bit of deadwood, flying in a graceless scattering of arms and legs, spinning like a pinwheel.

This is it, he thought just before he tumbled earthward. This is how it all ends.

Then he struck with jarring force and everything went dark.

CAT’S PAW

B
en Holiday came awake again in a deeply shaded forest glade that smelled of moss and wild flowers. Birds sang in the trees, their songs bright and cheerful. A small stream wound through the center of the clearing from the woodlands and disappeared back into them again. There was a stillness that whispered of peace and solitude.

Ben was lying on a patch of grass staring up into a network of branches set against the cloudless sky. A glimpse of the sun peeked through the leaves. He pushed himself carefully upright, aware that his clothes were singed and his hands and arms covered with soot. He took a moment to check himself, feeling about for permanent injuries. There were none—only bumps and bruises. But he looked as if he had rolled through half-a-dozen campfires.

“Feeling better, High Lord?”

He turned at the sound of the familiar voice and found Edgewood Dirk sitting comfortably atop a large, mossy rock, paws tucked carefully away. The cat blinked sleepily and yawned.

“What happened to me?” Ben asked, realizing that this clearly wasn’t where he had started out; this wasn’t the meadow where he had lost consciousness. “How did I get here?”

Dirk stood up, stretched, and sat down again. “I brought you. It was quite a trick, actually, but I have gotten rather good at using energy to transport inert objects. It did not seem advisable to leave you lying about in that burned-out meadow.”

“What about the others? What about Willow and …”

“The sylph is with the black unicorn, I imagine. I wouldn’t know exactly where. Your companions were scattered in every which direction. That last explosion sent them all flying. Such magic is best left unused. Too bad Meeks cannot understand that.”

Ben blinked away a final rush of dizziness and studied the cat. “He knew who you were, didn’t he?”

“He knew
what
I was.”

“Oh. How is that, Dirk?”

The cat seemed to consider the question. “Wizards and prism cats have crossed paths a few times before, High Lord.”

“And not as friends, I gather?”

“Not usually.”

“He seemed frightened of you.”

“He is frightened of many things.”

“He’s not alone in that respect. What happened to him?”

“He lost interest in the fight and flew off on his pet demon. He has gone for the books of magic, I would guess. He believes he requires their power. Then he will be back. He will hunt you all down this time out, I think. You had better prepare yourself.”

Ben went cold. Slowly he straightened himself, feeling the kinks in his body loosen. “I have to find the others,” he began, trying to think his way through the wall of fear and desperation that quickly settled in. “Damn! How am I supposed to do that?” He started up, slowed as a dizziness swept through him, and dropped back to one knee. “How am I supposed to help them at all, for that matter? I would have been finished back there if not for you. This whole business has gotten completely out of hand. I’m no better off than I was the day Meeks had me thrown out of the castle. I still don’t know why it is that no one can recognize me. I still don’t have any idea how Meeks got hold of the medallion. I still don’t know what he wants with the black unicorn. I don’t know one thing more than I ever did about what is going on!”