The Black Unicorn
by
Terry brooks


Prologue

B- .. - B

The black unicorn stepped from the morning mists, almost as if born of
them, and stared out over the kingdom of Landover.

Daybreak hovered at the crest of the eastern horizon, an intruder that
peeked from its place of concealment to catch a glimpse of night's
swift departure.  The silence seemed to deepen further with the
appearance of the unicorn as if that one small event in that one tiny
corner was sensed somehow throughout the whole of the valley. 
Everywhere sleep gave way to waking, dreams to being, and that moment
of transition was as close as time ever came to being frozen.

The unicorn stood near the summit of the valley's northern rim, high in
the mountains of the Melchor, close to the edge of the world of fairy.
Landover spread away before it, forested slopes, and bare rock crags
dropping toward foothills and grasslands, rivers and lakes, forests and
scrub.  Color glimmered in hazy patches through the fading dark where
streaks of sunlight danced off morning dew.  Castles, towns, and
cottages were vague, irregular shapes against the symmetry, creatures
that hunkered down in rest and breathed smoke from dying embers.

There were tears in the eyes of green fire that swept the valley end to
end and glittered with newfound life.  It had been so long!

A stream trickled down and collected in a basin of rocks a dozen yards
from where the unicorn stood.  A tiny gathering of forest creatures
crouched at the edge of that pool and stared in awe at the wonder that
had materialized before them a rabbit, a badger, several squirrels and
voles, an opossum and young, a solitary toad.  A cave wight melted back
into the shadows.  A bog wump flattened back into its hole.  Birds sat
motionless upon the branches of the trees.  All were stilled.  The only
sound was the ripple of the stream over mountain rock.

The black unicorn nodded its head in recognition of the homage being
paid.  Ebony body gleamed in the half light, mane and fetlocks
shimmering like silk thrown in the wind.  Goat's feet shifted and
lion's tail swished, restless movements against the backdrop of the
still-life world.  The ridged horn knifed the darkness, shining faintly
with magic.  There had never before been a thing of such grace and
beauty in all of creation as the unicorn and never would be again.

Dawn broke sharply over the valley of Landover, and the new day was
begun.  The black unicorn felt the sun's heat on its face and lifted
its head in greeting.  But invisible chains still bound it, and the
cold of their lingering presence dispelled almost instantly the
momentary warmth.

The unicorn shivered.  It was immortal and could never be killed by
mortal things.  But its life could be stolen away all the same.  Time
was the ally of the enemy who had imprisoned it.  And time had begun to
move forward again.

The black unicorn slipped like quicksilver through shadows and light in
search of its freedom.

E'

&

Dreaips...

B.

"I had a dream last night," Ben Holiday announced to his friends at
breakfast that morning.

He might as well have been giving a weather report.  The wizard Questor
Thews did not appear to hear him, his lean, owlish face furrowed in
thought, his gaze directed some twenty feet above the breakfast table
at an invisible point in space.  The kobolds Bunion and Parsnip barely
looked up from eating.  The scribe Abernathy managed a look of polite
curiosity, but for a shaggy-faced dog whose normal look was one of
polite curiosity, that was not particularly difficult.

Only the sylph Willow, just come into the dining hall of castle
Sterling Silver and seated next to him, showed any real interest a
sudden change of expression that was oddly disquieting.

"I dreamed about home," he continued, determined to pursue the matter.
"I dreamed about the old world."

"Excuse me?"  Questor was looking at him now, apparently returned from
whatever planet he had been visiting.  "Excuse me, but did I hear you
say something about..  . ?"

"Exactly what did you dream about the old world, High Lord?"  Abernathy
interrupted impatiently, polite curiosity become faint disapproval. He
looked at Ben meaningfully over the rims of his eyeglasses.  He always
looked at him like that when Ben mentioned anything about the old
world.

Ben forged ahead.  "I dreamed about Miles Bennett.  You remember my
telling you about Miles, don't you my old law partner?  Well, I dreamed
about him.  I dreamed that he was in trouble.  It wasn't a complete
dream; there wasn't a true beginning or end.  It was as if I came in
halfway through the story.  Miles was in his office, working, sorting
through these papers.  There were phone calls coming in, messages being
delivered, people in the shadows where I couldn't see them clearly. But
I could see that Miles was practically frantic.  He looked terrible. 
He kept asking for me.  He kept wondering where I was, why I wasn't
there.  I called out to him, but he didn't hear me.  Then there was a
distortion of some sort, a darkness, a twisting of what I was seeing. 
Miles kept calling, asking for me.  Then something came between us, and
I woke up."

He glanced briefly at the faces about him.  They all were listening
now.  "But that doesn't really tell you everything," he added quickly.
"There was a sense of... some impending disaster lurking behind the
whole series of images.  There was an intensity that was frightening.
It was so ... real."

"Some dreams are like that, High Lord," Abernathy observed, shrugging.
He pushed the eyeglasses back on his nose and folded his forelegs
primly across his vested chest.  He was a fastidious dog.  "Dreams are
frequently manifestations of our subconscious fears, I've read."

"Not this dream," Ben insisted.  "This was more than your average,
garden-variety dream.  This was like a premonition."

Abernathy sniffed.  "And I suppose the next thing you are going to tell
me is that on the strength of this emotionally distressing, but
rationally unfounded, dream you feel compelled to return to your old
world?"  The scribe was making no effort to conceal his distress now,
his worst fears about to be realized.

Ben hesitated.  It had been more than a year since he had passed into
the mists of the fairy world somewhere deep in the forests of the Blue
Ridge Mountains twenty miles southwest ofWaynesboro, Virginia, and
entered the kingdom of Landover.  He had paid a million dollars for the
privilege, answering an advertisement in a department store catalogue,
acting more out of desperation than out of reason.  He had come into
Landover as King, but his acceptance as such by the land's inhabitants
had not come easily.  Attacks on his claim to the throne had come from
every quarter.  Creatures whose very existence he had once believed
impossible had nearly destroyed him.  Magic, the power that governed
everything in this strangely compelling world, was the two-edged sword
he had been forced to master in order to survive.  Reality had been
redefined for him since he had made his decision to enter the mists,
and the life he had known as a trial lawyer in Chicago, Illinois,
seemed far removed from his present existence.  Still, that old life
was not completely forgotten, and he thought now and then of going
back.

His eyes met those of his scribe.  He didn't know what answer to give.
"I admit that I am worried about Miles," he said finally.

The dining hall was very quiet.  The kobolds had stopped eating, their
monkey faces frozen in those frightening half grins that showed all
their considerable teeth.  Abernathy was rigid in his seat.  Willow had
gone pale, and it appeared that she was about to speak.

But it was Questor Thews who spoke first."  "A moment, High Lord," he
advised thoughtfully, one bony finger placed to his lips.

He rose from the table, dismissed from the room the serving boys who
stood surreptitiously on either side, and closed the doors tightly
behind them.  The six friends were alone in the cavernous dining hall.
That apparently wasn't enough for Questor.  The great arched entry at
the far end of the room opened through a foyer to the remainder of the
castle.  Questor walked silently to its mouth and peered about.

Ben watched curiously, wondering why Questor was being so cautious.
Admittedly, it wasn't like the old days when there were only the six of
them living at Sterling Silver.  Now there were retainers of all ages
and ranks, soldiers and guardsmen, emissaries and envoys, messengers
and assorted others that comprised his court, all stumbling over one
another and into his private life when it was least convenient.  But it
wasn't as if the subject of his going back to the old world hadn't been
discussed openly before and by practically everyone.  It wasn't as if
the people of Landover didn't know by this time that he wasn't a native
Landoverian.

He smiled ruefully.  Ah, well there was no harm in being cautious.

He stretched, loosening muscles still tightened from sleep.  He was a
man of ordinary appearance, his height and build medium, his weight
evenly distributed.  His movements were quick and precise; he had been
a boxer in his youth and still retained much of his old skill.  His
face was brown from sun and wind with high cheekbones and forehead, a
hawk nose, and a hairline that receded slightly at the corners.  Age
lines were beginning to show at the corners of his eyes, but the eyes
themselves were brilliant blue and icy.

His gaze shifted ceiling ward  Morning sunlight streamed through high
glass windows and danced off polished wood and stone.  The warmth of
the castle seeped through him, and he could feel her stir restlessly.
She was always listening.  He knew that she had heard him speak of the
dream and was responding with a measure of discontent.  She was the
mother who worried for her brash, incautious child.  She was the mother
who sought always to keep that child safe beside her.  She didn't like
it when he talked of leaving.

He glanced covertly at his friends: Questor Thews, the wizard whose
magic frequently misfired, a ragtag scarecrow of patchwork robes and
tangled gestures; Abernathy, the court scribe become a soft-coated
Wheaten Terrier through Questor's magic and left that way when the
magic couldn't be found to change him back again, a dog in gentleman's
clothing; Willow, the beautiful sylph who was half woman, half tree, a
creature of the fairy world with magic of her own; and Bunion and
Parsnip, the kobolds who looked like big-eared monkeys in knickers, a
messenger and a cook.  He had found them all so strange in the
beginning.  A year later, he found them comfortable and reassuring and
felt protected in then presence

He shook his head.  He lived in a world of dragons and witches, of
gnomes, trolls, and other strange creatures, of living castles and
fairy magic.  He lived in a fantasy kingdom in which he was King.  He
was what he had once only dreamed of being.  The old world was long
past, the old life gone.  Odd, then, that he still thought of that
world and life so frequently, of Miles Bennett and Chicago, of the law
practice, of the responsibilities and obligations he had left behind.
Threads from the tapestry of last night's dream entwined within his
memory and tugged relentlessly at him.  He could not forget easily, it
seemed, what had comprised so many years of his life ... Questor Thews
cleared his throat.

"I had a dream last night as well, High Lord," the wizard declared,
returned from his reconnaissance.  Ben's eyes snapped up.  The tall,
robed figure hunched down over his high-backed chair, green eyes clear
and distant.  The bony fingers of one hand scratched the bearded chin,
and the voice was a wary hiss.  "My dream was of the missing books of
magic!"

Ben understood the other's caution now.  Few within

Landover knew of the books of magic.  The books had belonged to
Questor's half-brother, the former court wizard of Landover, a fellow
Ben had known in the old world as Meeks.  It was Meeks, in league with
a disgruntled heir to the throne, who had sold Ben the kingship of
Landover for one million dollars certain that Ben would fall victim to
one of any number of traps set to destroy him, certain that when Ben
was finally dispatched the kingship would become his to sell again.
Meeks had thought to make Questor his ally, the promise of knowledge
from the hidden books of magic the carrot used to entice his half
brother to his cause.  But Questor and Ben had become allies instead,
eluding all the traps that Meeks had set and severing the old wizard's
ties with Landover for good.

Ben's eyes fixed Questor's.  Yes, Meeks was gone but the books of magic
still remained concealed somewhere within the valley .. .

"Did you hear what I said.  High Lord?"  Questor's eyes sparkled with
excitement.  "The missing books magic gleaned by wizards of Landover
since the dawn of her creation!  I think I know where they are!  I saw
where they were in my dream!"  The eyes danced.  The voice dropped to a
whisper.  "They are hidden in the catacombs of the ruined fortress of
Mirwouk, high in the Melchor!  In my dream, I followed after a torch
that no hand carried, followed it through the dark, through tunnels and
stairways to a door marked with scroll and runes.  The door opened;

there were blocks of stone flooring and one marked with a special sign.
It gave at my touch and the books were there!  I remember it all... as
if it really happened!"

Now it was Ben's turn to look dubious.  He started to say something in
reply and stopped, not knowing what to say.  He felt Willow stir
uneasily beside him.

"I did not know whether to speak of my dream or not, to be honest with
you," the wizard confided, his words coming in a rush.  "I thought
maybe I should wait until I was able to discover if the dream was false
or true be fore I said anything.  But then you spoke of your dream, and
I ..."  He hesitated.  "Mine was like yours, High Lord.  It was not so
much a dream as a premonition.  It was strangely intense, compelling in
its vividness.  It was not frightening like yours; it was .. .
exhilarating!"

Abernathy, at least, was not impressed.  "All this could be the result
of something you ate, wizard," he suggested rather unkindly.

Questor seemed not to hear him.  "Do you realize what it would mean if
I were to have the books of magic in my possession?"  he asked eagerly,
hawk face intense.  "Do you have any idea of the magic I would
command?"

"It seems to me you command quite enough already!"  Abernathy snapped.
"I would remind you that it was your command or lack thereof over magic
that reduced me to my present state some years back!  There is no
telling what damage you might cause if your powers were enhanced
further!"

"Damage?  What of the good I might accomplish?"  Questor wheeled on the
other, bending close.  "What if I were to find a way to change you back
again!"

Abernathy went still.  It was one thing to be skeptical another to be
foolishly so.  He wanted nothing more in all the world than to be human
again.

"Questor, are you sure about this?"  Ben asked finally.

"As sure as you.  High Lord," the wizard replied.  He hesitated.  "Odd,
though, that on a single night there should be two dreams ..."

"Three," Willow said suddenly.

They stared at her Que,stor, his sentence unfinished;

Ben, still trying to grasp the significance of Questor's revelation;
Abernathy and the kobolds speechless.  Had she said .. . ?

"Three," she repeated.  "I, too, had a dream and it was strange and
disturbing and perhaps more vivid than either of yours."

Ben saw the disquieting expression again, more pronounced more intense.
He had been preoccupied before and had not paid close attention. 
Willow was not given to exaggeration.  Something had shaken her.  He
saw a worry in her eyes that bordered on fear.  "What was it that you
dreamed?"  he asked.  She did not speak immediately.  She seemed to be
remembering.  "I was on a journey through lands that were both familiar
and at the same time foreign.  I was in Landover and yet I was
somewhere else.  I was seeking something.  My people were there, dim
shadows that whispered urgently to me.  There was a need for haste, but
I did not understand why.  I simply went on, searching."

She paused.  "Then daylight passed away into darkness, and moonlight
flooded a woods that rose all about me like a wall.  I was alone now. I
was so frightened I could not call for help even though I felt I must. 
There was a mist that stirred.  Shadows crowded so close that they
threatened to smother me."  Her hand crept over Ben's and tightened. 
"I needed you, Ben.  I needed you so badly I could not stand the
thought of not having you there.  A voice seemed to whisper within me
that if I did not complete my journey quickly, I would lose you.

Forever."

Something in the way Willow spoke that single word chilled Ben Holiday
to the bone.

"Then suddenly a creature appeared before me, a wraith come from the
mists of the predawn night."  The sylph's green eyes glittered.  "It
was a unicorn, Ben, so dark that it seemed to absorb the white moon's
light as a sponge would absorb water.  It was a unicorn, but something
more.  It was not white as the unicorns of old, but ink black.  It
barred my passage, its horn lowered, hooves pawing at the earth.  Its
slender body seemed to twist and change shape, and I saw it was more
demon than unicorn, more devil than fairy.  It was blind in the manner
of the great marsh bulls, and it had their fury.  It came for me, and I
ran.  I knew, somehow, that I must not let it touch ii me that if it
were to touch me I was lost.  I was quick, but the black unicorn
followed close behind.  It wanted me.  It meant to have me."

Her breath came quickly, her slender body tense with the emotions that
raged within.  The room was deathly still.  "And then I saw that I held
in my hands a bridle of spun gold real gold threads drawn and woven by
the fairies of the old life.  I didn't know how I had come to possess
that bridle; I only knew that I mustn't lose it.  I knew that it was
the only thing in the world that could harness the black unicorn."

The hand tightened further.  "I ran looking for Ben.  The bridle must
be taken to him, I sensed, and if I did not reach him with it quickly,
the black unicorn would catch me and I would be .. ."

She trailed off, her eyes fastened on Ben's.  For an instant, he forgot
everything she had just told him, lost in those eyes, in the touch of
her hand.  For an instant, she was the impossibly beautiful woman he
had come upon bathing naked in the waters of the Irrylyn almost a year
ago, siren and fairy child both.  The vision never left him.  He
recaptured it each time he saw her, the memory become life all over
again.

There was an awkward silence.  Abernathy cleared his throat.  "It seems
to have been quite a night for dreams," he remarked archly.  "Everyone
in the room but me appears to have had one.  Bunion, how about you? Did
you dream about friends in trouble or books of magic or black unicorns?
 Parsnip?"

The kobolds hissed softly and shook their heads in unison.  But there
was a wary look to their sharp eyes that suggested they did not wish to
treat the matter of these dreams as lightly as Abernathy did.

"There was one thing more," Willow said, still looking only at Ben.  "I
came awake while I ran from the thing that hunted me black unicorn or
devil.  I came awake,

but I felt certain the dream had not ended that there was still
something more to come."

Ben nodded slowly, his reverie broken.  "Sometimes we dream the same
dream more than once ..."

"No, Ben," she whispered, her voice insistent.  Her hand released his.
"This dream was like yours more premonition than dream.  I was being
warned, my High Lord.  A fairy creature is closer to the truth of
dreams than others.  I was being shown something that I am meant to
know and I have not yet been shown all."

"There are stories of sightings of a black unicorn in the histories of
Landover," Questor Thews advised suddenly.  "I remember reading of them
once or twice.  They happened long ago, and the reports were vague and
unconfirmed.  The unicorn was said to be a demon spawn a thing of such
evil that even to gaze once upon it was to become lost..."

The food and drink of their breakfast sat cooling on plates and in cups
on the table before them, forgotten.  The dining hall was still and
empty, yet Ben could sense eyes and ears everywhere.  It was an
unpleasant feeling.  He glanced briefly at Questor's somber face and
then back at Willow's once more.  Had he been told of her dream and
perhaps even of Questor's as well and not experienced his own, he might
have been inclined to dismiss them.  He did not put much stock in
dreams.  But the memory of Miles Bennett in that darkened office,
nearly frantic with worry because Ben was not there when he was needed,
hung over him like a cloud.  It was as real as his own life.  He
recognized a similar urgency in the narrative of the dreams of his
friends, and their insistence simply reinforced a nagging conviction
that dreams as vivid and compelling as theirs should not be dismissed
as the byproducts of last night's dinner or a collection of overactive
subconsciousnesses.  "Why are we having these dreams?"  he wondered
aloud.

"This is a land built on dreams.  High Lord," Questor Thews replied.
"This is a land where the dreams of fairy world and mortal world come
together and are channeled one to the other.  Reality in one is fantasy
in the other except here, where they meet."  He rose, spectral in his
patchwork robes.  "There have been instances of such dreams before,
frequently in scatterings of up to half a dozen.  Kings and wizards and
men of power have had such dreams throughout the history of
Landover."

"Dreams that are revelations or even warnings?"

"Dreams that are meant to be acted on, High Lord."

Ben pursed his lips.  "Do you intend to act on yours, Questor?  Do you
intend to go in search of the missing books of magic just as your dream
has advised?"

Questor hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought.

"And should Willow seek out the golden bridle of her dream?  Should I
return to Chicago and check out Miles Bennett?"

"High Lord, please a moment!"  Abernathy was on his feet, a decidedly
harried look about him.  "It might be wise to think this matter through
a bit more carefully.  It could be a very grave mistake for the lot of
you to go running off in search of... of what may very well turn out to
be a collection ofgastrically induced falsehoods!"

He faced Ben squarely.  "High Lord, you must remember that the wizard
Meeks is still your greatest enemy.  He cannot reach you as long as you
stay in Landover, but I am certain he lives for the day you are foolish
enough to venture back into the very world in which you left him
trapped!  What if he discovers that you have returned?  What if the
danger that threatens your friend is Meeks himself?"

"There is that chance," Ben agreed.

"Yes, there most certainly is!"  Abernathy pushed his glasses firmly
back on his nose, his point made.

He glanced now at Questor.  "And you should be wise enough to
appreciate the dangers inherent in any attempt to harness the power of
the missing books of magic power that was the tool of wizards such as
Meeks!  There were rumors long before you and I came into being that
the books of magic were cast in demon iron and conjured for evil use.
How can you be certain that such power will not consume you as quickly
as fire would a piece of dried parchment?  Such magic is dangerous,
Questor Thews!

"As for you " He turned quickly to Willow, cutting short Questor's
attempts at protest.  " yours is the dream that frightens me most.  The
legend of a black unicorn is a legend of evil even your dream tells you
that much!  Questor Thews failed to advise in his recitation of the
histories of Landover that all those who claimed to have seen this
creature came to a sudden and unpleasant demise.  If there is a black
unicorn, it is likely a demon strayed from Abaddon and best left
alone!"

He finished with a snap of his jaws, rigid with the strength of his
conviction.  His friends stared at him.  "We are only surmising," Ben
said, attempting to sooth his agitated scribe.  "We are only
considering possible alternatives ..."

He felt Willow's hand close again about his own.  "No, Ben. Abernathy's
instincts are correct.  We are past considering alternatives."

Ben fell silent.  She was right, he knew.  Not one of the three had
said so, but the decision had been made all the same.  They were going
on their separate journeys in pursuit of their separate quests.  They
were resolved to test the truth of their dreams.

"At least one of you is being honest!"  Abernathy huffed.  "Honest
about going if not about the danger of doing so!"

"There are always dangers .. ."  Questor began.

"Yes, yes, wizard!"  Abernathy cut him short and focused his attention
on Ben.  "Have you forgotten the projects presently underway, High
Lord?"  he asked.  "What of the work that requires your presence to see
it i5

to completion?  The judiciary council meets in a week to consider the
format you have implemented for hearing grievances.  The irrigation and
road work at the eastern borders of the Greensward is set to begin,
once you have surveyed the sta kings  The tax levy requires an
immediate accounting.  And the Lords of the Greensward are to visit
officially three days from now!  You cannot just leave all that!"

Ben glanced away, nodding absently.  He was thinking all at once of
something else.  Just when was it he had decided that he would leave?
He couldn't remember making the decision.  It was almost as if somehow
the decision had been made for him.  He shook his head.  That wasn't
possible.

His eyes shifted back to Abernathy.  "Don't worry.  I won't be gone
long," he promised.

"But you cannot know that!"  his scribe insisted.

Ben paused, then smiled an entirely unexpected smile.  "Abernathy, some
things must take precedence over others.  Landover's business will keep
for the few days it will take me to cross over to the old world and
back again."  He rose and walked to stand close to his friend.  "I
can't let this pass.  I can't pretend the dream didn't happen and that
I'm not worried for Miles.  Sooner or later, I would have to go back in
any case.  I have left too many matters unfinished for too long."

"Such matters will keep better than those of this kingdom, should you
fail to return.  High Lord," his scribe muttered worriedly.

Ben's smile broadened.  "I promise I will be careful.  I value the
well-being of Landover and her people as much as you."

"Besides, I can manage affairs of state quite nicely in your absence,
High Lord," Questor added.

Abernathy groaned.  "Why is it that I feel no reassurance whatsoever at
such a prospect?"

Ben cut off Questor's response with a cautionary gesture

tare.  "Please, no arguing.  We need each other's support."  He turned
to Willow.  "Are you determined in this as well?"  Willow brushed back
her waist-length hair and gave him a studied, almost somber look.  "You
already know the answer to that question."

He nodded.  "I suppose I do.  Where will you start?"  "The lake
country. There are some there who may be able to help me."

"Would you consider waiting for me until I return from my own journey
so that I might go with you?"

The sea green eyes were steady.  "Would you wait instead for me,
Ben?"

He squeezed her hand gently in reply.  "No, I guess not.  But you are
under my care, nevertheless, and I don't wish you to go alone.  In
fact, I don't wish either Questor or you to go alone.  Some sort of
protection may prove necessary.  Bunion will go with one of you, and
Parsnip with the other.  No, don't argue with me," he continued
quickly, seeing words of protest forming on the lips of the sylph and
the wizard both.  "Your journeys could prove dangerous."

"And yours as well, High Lord," Questor pointed out.  Ben nodded. 
"Yes, I realize that.  But our circumstances are different.  I can take
no one with me from this world into the other at least not without
raising more than a few eyebrows and it is in the other world that such
danger as might threaten me awaits.  I will have to be my own protector
on this outing."

Besides, the medallion he wore about his neck was protection enough, he
thought.  He let his fingers stray down the front of his tunic to the
medallion's hard outline.  Ironically, Meeks had given him the
medallion when he had sold him the kingship the key to the magic that
was now his.  Only the bearer could be recognized as King.  Only the
bearer could pass through the fairy mists from Landover to the worlds
beyond and back again.  And only the bearer could summon and command
the services of the invincible armored champion known as the Paladin.

He traced the image of the knight-errant riding out from the gates of
Sterling Silver against the sunrise.  The secret of the Paladin was his
alone.  Even Meeks had never understood the full extent of the
medallion's power or its connection with the Paladin.

He smiled tightly.  Meeks had thought himself so clever.  He had used
the medallion to pass over into Ben's world and then let himself be
trapped there.  What the old wizard wouldn't give to get that medallion
back now!

The smile faded.  But that would never happen, of course.  No one but
the bearer could remove the medallion once it was in place and Ben
never took it off.  Meeks was no longer any threat to him.

Yet somewhere at the back of his mind, almost buried in the wall of
determination that buttressed everything to which he committed himself,
a tiny fragment of doubt tugged in warning.

"Well, it appears that there is nothing I can say on the matter that
will change your minds," Abernathy declared to the room at large,
drawing Ben's attention back again.  The dog peered at him over the
rims of his glasses, pushed the spectacles farther up on his nose, and
assumed the posture of a rejected prophet.  "So be it.  When will you
depart.  High Lord?"

There was an awkward silence.  Ben cleared his throat.  "The quicker I
go, the quicker I can return."

Willow rose and stood before him.  Her arms went about his waist,
drawing him close.  They held each other for a moment as the others
watched.  Ben could feel something stir in the sylph's slender body a
kind of shiver that whispered of unspoken fears.

"I imagine it would be best if we all got about our business," Questor
Thews said quietly.

No one replied.  The silence was enough.  Dawn was i8

already stretching into midmoming and there was a shared need to make
use of the day ahead.

"Come back safe to me, Ben Holiday," Willow spoke into his shoulder.

Abernathy heard the admonishment and glanced away.  "Come back safe to
us all," he said.

Ben did not waste any time in setting out.

He retired directly to his bedroom after departing the dining hall and
packed the duffel he had brought with him from the old world with the
few possessions he felt he would need.  He changed back into the navy
blue sweat suit and Nikes he had worn over.  The clothes and shoes felt
odd after Landover's apparel, but comfortable and reassuringly
familiar.  He was going back at last, he thought as he changed.  He was
finally going to do it.

He went from the bed chamber down a set of back stairs and through a
number of private halls to a small courtyard just off the front gates
where the others waited.  The mo ming sun shone from a cloudless blue
sky against the white stone of the castle, flashing in blinding streaks
where it caught the silver trim.  Warmth eased from the earth of the
island on which Sterling Silver sat and gave the day a lazy feel.  Ben
breathed the freshness of the day and felt the castle stir in response
beneath his feet.

He locked hand to wrist firmly with the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip,
returned Abernathy's stiff, formal bow, embraced Questor, and kissed
Willow with a passion usually reserved for deepest night.  There was
not much talking.  All the talking had already been done.  Abernathy
again warned against Meeks, and this time Questor cautioned him as
well.

"Be careful, High Lord," the wizard advised, one hand gripping Ben's
shoulder as if to hold him back.  "Though shut in a foreign world, my
half-brother is not entirely shorn of his magic.  He is still a
dangerous enemy.  Watch out for him."

Ben promised he would.  He walked with them through the gates, past the
sentries stationed on day watch and down to the shore's edge.  His
horse waited on the far bank, a bay gelding he had named Jurisdiction.
It was his private joke that wherever he traveled on horseback, he
always had Jurisdiction.  No one other than himself understood what he
was talking about.

A squad of mounted soldiers waited there as well.  Abernathy had
insisted that within the kingdom, at least, Landover's King would not
travel without adequate protection.

"Ben."  Willow came to him one final time, her hands pressing something
into his.  "Take this with you."

He glanced down covertly.  She had given him a smooth, milky-colored
stone intricately marked with runes.

Willow closed his hands back about it quickly.  "Keep the stone hidden.
It is a talisman often carried by my people.  If danger threatens, the
stone will heat and turn crimson.  That way you will be warned."

She paused, and one hand reached up to stroke his cheek softly.
"Remember that I love you.  I will always love you."

He smiled reassuringly, but the words bothered him as they always did.
He didn't want her to love him not so completely, not so
unconditionally.  He was frightened of what that meant.  Annie had
loved him like that his wife, Annie, now dead, apart of his old life,
his old world, killed in that car accident that sometimes seemed as if
it had happened a thousand years ago, but more often seemed to have
happened yesterday.  He wasn't willing to risk embracing that kind of
love and losing it a second time.  He couldn't.  The prospect terrified
him.

A sudden twinge of sadness passed through him.  It was strange, but
until he met Willow he had never dreamed he might experience again
those feelings he had shared with Annie .. .

He gave Willow a brief kiss and shoved the stone deep into his pocket.
The touch of her hand lingered on his face as he turned away.

Questor took him across in the lake skimmer and waited until he was
mounted.  "Keep safe, High Lord," the wizard bade him.

Ben waved back to them all, took a final look at the spires of Sterling
Silver, wheeled Jurisdiction about, and galloped away, with the squad
of soldiers in tow.

Morning slipped into midday and midday into afternoon as Ben rode
westward toward the rim of the valley and the mists that marked the
boundaries of the fairy world.  Late-year colors carpeted the
countryside through which he passed in bright swatches.  Meadows were
thick with grasses of muted greens, blues, and pinks, and with white
clover dotted crimson.  Forest vegetation still retained much of its
new growth.  Bonnie Blues, the trees that were a staple of life within
the valley with their offering of drink and food, grew in clusters
everywhere half-grown pin oaks colored a brilliant blue against the
various shades of forest green.  Two of Landover's eight moons hung low
against the northern horizon, visible even in daylight one peach, the
other a pale mauve.  Harvesting was underway in the fields of the small
farms scattered about the countryside.  Winter's week-long stay was
still a month distant.

Ben drank in the smell, taste, sight, and feel of the valley as if
sampling a fine wine.  Gone was the mistiness and wintry gray blight
that had marked the land when he had first come over and the magic had
been dying.  The magic was well now, and the land was whole.  The
valley and her people were at peace.

Ben was not.  He set a steady pace as he traveled, but not a quick one.
The need for haste he had felt earlier had given way to a strange
anxiety at the thought of actually leaving.  This would be his first
trip out of Landover since his arrival, and although the idea of
leaving had not bothered him before, it was beginning to bother him
now.  A nagging concern lurked about the edges and corners of his
determination that once he left Landover he would not be able to come
back again.

It was ridiculous, of course, and he tried valiantly to beat it down,
seeking to convince himself that he was experiencing the same
misgivings any traveler encountered at the beginning of a trip away
from home.  He tried arguing that he was a victim of his friends'
repeated warnings and humming "Brigadoon" to lighten the mood.

Nothing helped, however, and he finally gave it up.  Some things you
simply had to put up with until they lost their grip on you.

It was midafternoon when his party reached the lower slopes of the
valley's western rim.  He left the soldiers there with the horses and
instructions to set up camp and wait for his return.  He might be gone
as long as a week, he told them.  If he wasn't back by then, they were
to return to Sterling Silver and advise Questor.  The captain of the
squad gave him a funny look, but accepted the orders without argument.
He was used to his King going off on strange errands without his guard
although usually he had one of the kobolds or the wizard in tow.

Ben waited for the captain's salute, then slung the duffel bag over one
shoulder and began the hike up the valley slope.

It was nearing sunset when he reached the summit and crossed toward the
misted forest line that marked the boundaries of the fairy wprid.
Daytime's warmth was slipping rapidly toward evening's cool, and his
elongated shadow trailed after him like a grotesque silhouette.  There
was a deep, pervasive stillness in the air, and he felt a sense of
something hidden.

Ben's hand strayed to the medallion that hung about his neck, and his
fingers closed about it firmly.  Questor had told him what to expect.
The fairy world was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and all of
its many doorways to the worlds beyond were settled within.  The way
back was whatever way he chose to go and it could be found at whatever
point he chose to enter.  All he need do was fix in his mind his
destination and the medallion would see him to the proper passageway.

That was the theory, at least.  Questor had never had the opportunity
to test it.

The mist swirled and stirred within the great forest trees, its
trailers twisting like snakes.  The mist had the look of something
alive.  There's a cheerful thought, Ben chided himself.  He stopped
before the mist, regarded it warily, took a deep breath to steady
himself, and started in.

The mist closed about him instantly and the way back became as
uncertain as the way forward.  He pushed on.  A moment later, a tunnel
opened before him the same vast, empty, black hole that had brought him
across from the old world a year earlier.  It burrowed through mist and
trees and disappeared into nothingness.  There were sounds in the
tunnel, distant and uncertain, and shadows dancing at its rim.

Ben's pace slowed.  He was remembering what it had been like when he
had passed through this tunnel the last time.  The demon known as the
Mark and his black, winged carrier had come at Ben from out of nowhere;
by the time he had decided they were real, they had very nearly
finished him.  Then he had practically stumbled over that sleeping
dragon .. .

Slender shapes darted at the fringes of the darkness within the trees
and mist.  Fairies.

Ben quit remembering and forced himself to walk more quickly.  The
fairies had helped him once, and he should have felt comfortable among
them.  But he did not.  He felt alien and alone.

Faces materialized and vanished again in the mists, sharp-eyed and
angular with hair the consistency of willow moss.  Voices whispered,
but the words were indistinct.  Ben was sweating.  He hated being in
the tunnel; he wanted out of there.  Ahead, the darkness pressed on.

Ben's fingers still clutched the medallion in a death grip, and he
thought suddenly of the Paladin.

Then the darkness before him brightened to dusky gray, and the tunnel's
length shortened to less than fifty yards.  Indefinable shapes swayed
unevenly in the half-light, an interlacing of spider webs and bent
poles.  Voices and movement in the walls of the tunnel gave way to a
sharp hissing.  A sudden wind rose and howled sharply.

Ben peered ahead into the gloom.  The wind whipped at him from the
edges of the tunnel's end and carried the hissing sound into his face
with a wet, stinging rush.

And there was something else .. .

He stepped from the tunnel's shelter into a blinding rainstorm and
found himself face to face with Meeks.

a' a

B.

Ben Holiday froze.  Lightning streaked from skies leaden and packed
with low-hanging clouds that shed their rain in torrents.  Thunder
boomed, reverberating across the emptiness, shaking the earth beneath
with the force of its passing.  Massive oak trees rose all about like
the staked walls of some huge fortress, their trunks and leaf-bare
limbs glistening blackly.  Shorter pine and fir bristled in clumps
through the gaps left by their taller sisters, and the rugged slows of
the Blue Ridge Mountains lifted darkly agair - , uyiny invisible
horizon.

The spe ural figv " Meeks stood pinned against this backdrop.  He stood
without moving, tall and bent and old, white hair grizzled, craggy face
as hard as iron.  He looked almost nothing of the man Ben remembered.
That man had been human; this man had the look of an enraged animal.
Gone were the pressed woolen slacks, corduroy jacket, and loafers the
trappings of civilization that had complemented an urbane, if gruff
sales representative of a highly respected department store.  Those
reassuringly familiar business clothes had been replaced by robes of
gunmetal blue that billowed like sailcloth and seemed to absorb the
light.  A high collar jutted from the shoulders to frame a ghastly,
pitted face twisted by fury that bordered on madness.  The empty sleeve
of his right arm still hung limp.  The black leather glove that covered
his left hand was yet a claw.  But each was more noticeable somehow, as
if each were a scar left bare for viewing.

Ben's throat constricted sharply.  There was a tension in the old man
that was unmistakable the tension of an attacker poised to strike.

My God, he has been waiting for me, Ben thought in shock.  He knew I
was coming!

Then Meeks started for him.  Ben took one step back, his right hand
tightening frantically about the medallion.  Meeks was almost oh top of
him.  The wind shifted, and the sounds of the storm echoed through the
mountains with renewed sharpness.  The rain swept back against his
face, forcing him to blink.

When he looked again, Meeks was gone.

Ben stared.  Meeks had disappeared as completely as if he had been a
ghost.  Rain and darkness cloaked the whole of the surrounding
forestland in a shroud of gray wetness.  Ben glanced about hurriedly,
disbelief twisting his face.  There was no sign of Meeks.

It took only a moment for Ben to regain his scattered thoughts.  He
caught sight of the dim outUnt of a pathway directly before him and
started for H. He ri vcd' quickly ahead through the trees,
followff.g.^ltc pathway's curve as it wound down the mountainside and
away from the time passage that had brought him back to his old world
from Landover.  And he was indeed back of that much he was certain.  He
was back in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, deep in the George
Washington National Forest.  This was the same pathway that had brought
him into Landover more than a year ago.  If he followed it far enough,
it would take him down out of the mountains to Skyline Drive, a
turn-around with the black number 13 stenciled on a green sign, a
weather shelter, and most important of all a courtesy telephone.

He was soaked through in moments, but he kept moving steadily ahead,
the duffel clutched tightly under one arm.  His mind worked rapidly.
That wasn't Meeks he had seen, hadn't even looked like the old Meeks,
had been barely recognizable, for Pete's sake!  Besides, Meeks wouldn't
have just disappeared like that if it had really been him, would he?

Doubt tugged sharply at his mind.  Had he simply imagined it all, then?
Had it all been some sort of mirage?

Belatedly, he thought of the rune stone that Willow had given him.
Slowing, he fished through the pocket of his jacket until he found the
stone and brought it out into the light.  It was still milky in color
and gave off no heat.  That meant no magic threatened him.  But what
did that tell him about the phantom vision of Meeks?

He pushed ahead, slipping on the damp, water-soaked earth, pine boughs
slapping at his face and hands.  He was aware suddenly of how cold it
was in these mountains, the chill settling through him with an icy
touch.  He had forgotten that late autumn could be unpleasant, even in
western Virginia.  Illinois could be frigid.  It might even be snowing
in Chicago .. .

He felt something catch in his throat.  Shadows moved through the mist
and rain, darting and sliding from view.  Each time, he saw Meeks. 
Each time, he felt the wizard's gloved hand reaching for him.

Just keep moving, he told himself.  Just get yourself to that phone.

It seemed to take much longer, but he reached the courtesy phone some
thirty minutes later, climbing down from among the trees and crossing
the parkway to the weather shelter that housed it.  He was soaked to
the skin and freezing, but he felt none of it.  The entirety of his
concentration was focused on the Plexiglas-enclosed black and silver
metal box.

Please let it be working, he prayed.

It was.  Rain beat down on the shelter roof in a steady thrum, and mist
and gloom closed tightly about.  He thought he heard footsteps.  He
rummaged through his duffel for the coins and credit card he still
carried in his wallet, rang information for the name of a limo service
out of Waynesboro, and called for a car to come up and get him.  It was
all done in a matter of minutes.

He sat down then to wait on the wooden bench fastened to the side of
the shelter.  He was surprised to discover that his hands were
shaking.

By the time the limo reached him and he was safely inside, he had
regained his composure enough to reason through what had happened to
him.

He no longer thought that he had imagined the appearance of Meeks. What
he had seen had been real enough.  But it hadn't been Meeks he had
seen; it had been an image of Meeks.  The image had been triggered by
his crossing back through the time passage.  He had been meant to see
the image.  It had been placed there at the tunnel's end so that he
would see it.

The question was, why?

He hunched down in the backseat of the limo as it sped down the parkway
toward Waynesboro and considered the possibilities.  He had to assume
that Meeks was responsible.  No other explanation made any sense.  So
what was Meeks trying to accomplish?  Was he trying to warn Ben off to
chase him back through the time passage?  That didn't make any sense.
Well, no, the warning part did.  Meeks was arrogant enough to want to
let Ben know that he was aware of his coming back.  But there had to be
more to it than that.  The image must have been placed there to
accomplish something else as well.

He had his answer almost immediately.  The image had not only warned
Ben of Meeks; it had warned Meeks of Ben!  The image was a device to
alert the wizard that Ben had come back from Landover!

It made perfect sense.  It was only reasonable to expect that Meeks
would employ some contrivance magic or otherwise to warn him when
Landover's failed Kings crossed back into their old world with the
medallion.  Once alerted, Meeks could then come after them .. .

Or, in this case, after him.

It was late afternoon when the driver deposited him at the front steps
of a Holiday Inn in downtown Waynesboro, the rain still falling, the
daylight completely gone.  Ben told the fellow he was on vacation and
had hiked the parkway north from Staunton until the bad weather forced
him to abandon the plan and call for help.  The driver looked at him as
if he were nuts.  The weather had been like this for better than a
week, he snapped.  Ben shrugged, paid him in cash, and hurried
inside.

On his way to the front desk, he paused long enough to check the date
on a newspaper someone had left lying on a table in the lobby.  It read
Friday, December 9. It was ten days more than a year since he had first
walked through the time passage from the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia into Landover.  Time in the two worlds did indeed pass
synchronously.

He booked a room for the night, sent out his clothes to be cleaned and
dried, took a steaming-hot shower to warm himself, and ordered dinner
sent in.  While he waited for the meal and his clothes, he called the
airport for reservations to Chicago.  There was nothing until morning.
He would have to fly to Washington, then transfer to Chicago.  He
booked the reservation, billed it to his credit card, and hung up.

It was while he was eating dinner that it occurred to him that using a
credit card to pay for his air fare wasn't exactly the smartest thing
he could have done.  He was sitting on the edge of his bed in front of
the TV, the tray balanced on his lap, a Holiday Inn towel wrapped about
him, and the room temperature at about eighty.  His clothes were still
out.  Tom Brokaw was giving the news, and it suddenly struck Ben that
in a world of sophisticated communications a computerized credit-card
trace was a relatively simple matter.  If Meeks had gone to the trouble
of placing that image at the opening of the time passage to warn of
Ben's return, then he would almost certainly take the matter a step
further.  He would know that Ben would attempt a visit to Chicago.  He
would know that Ben would probably elect to fly.  A credit-card trace
would tell him the airline flight, date of travel, and destination.  He
could be waiting when Ben stepped off the plane.  That possibility
ruined what was left of the meal.  Ben put the tray aside, clicked off
the TV, and began to consider more carefully what he was up against.
Abernathy had been right.  This was turning out to be more dangerous
than he had imagined.  But he really didn't have any choice.  He had to
go back to Chicago and see Miles long enough to discover whether there
was any truth to his dream.  Meeks would probably be waiting for him
somewhere along the line.  The trick was to avoid bumping into him.

He permitted himself a brief smile.  No problem.  He had his clothes
back by nine o'clock and was asleep by ten.  He awoke early, had
breakfast, shouldered the duffel, and caught a cab to the airport.  He
flew to Washington on the previous night's reservation, then canceled
the balance of the ticket, walked over to another airline, booked a
seat to Chicago on standby under an assumed name, paid for this ticket
with cash, and was airbom before noon.

Let's see Meeks pick up on that one, he thought to himself.

Eyes closed, he leaned back in his seat and reflected on the strange
set of circumstances that had taken him away from his home in Chicago
to Never-Never Land.  The memories made him shake his head reprovingly.
Maybe, like Peter Pan, he had just never grown up.  He had been a
lawyer then, a damn good one, one from whom great things were expected
by those who were the movers and shakers in the business.  He was in
practice with his friend and longtime associate Miles Bennett, a shared
partnership in which the two complemented each other like old shoes and
work jeans Ben the outspoken, audacious trial lawyer.  Miles the
steady, conservative office practitioner.  Miles often deplored Ben's
judgment in taking cases, but Ben always seemed to land on his feet
despite the heights from which he insisted on jumping.  He had won more
courtroom battles than the average bear battles in which his corporate
opponents had thought to bury him under an avalanche of money-backed
rhetoric and paperwork, legal dodges, delays, and gamesmanship of all
sorts.  He had so surprised Miles after his victory in the Dodge City
Express case that his partner had begun referring to him as Doc
Holiday, courtroom gunfighter.  He smiled.  Those had been good,
satisfying times.  But the good times faded when Annie died.  The
satisfaction disappeared like quicksilver.  His wife had died in a car
accident, three months pregnant, and he seemed to lose everything after
that.  He turned reclusive, shunning everyone but Miles.  He had always
been something of a loner and he sometimes thought that the death of
his wife and baby had just reinforced what was always there.  He began
to drift, the days running together, their events merging
indecipherably.  He sensed that he was slowly supping away from
himself.

It was difficult to know what might have happened had he not come
across the bizarre offering in the Rosen's Department Store Christmas
Wishbook for the purchase of the throne of the kingdom ofLandover.  He
had thought it ridiculous at first a fantasy kingdom with wizards and
witches, dragons and damsels, knights and knaves for sale for one
million dollars.  Who would be foolish enough to believe that?  But the
desperate dissatisfaction he was experiencing in his life had led him
to take the chance that something in this impossible fantasy might be
real.  Any risk was worth taking if it could bring him back to
himself.

3i

He had shelved his doubts, packed his bags, and flown to Rosen's New
York office to see what was what.

He was required to undergo an interview in order to complete the sale.
The interviewer had been Meeks.

The familiar image of Meeks flashed instantly to mind the tall, old man
with the whispered voice and dead eyes, a veteran of wars Ben could
only imagine.  The interview was the only time they had ever met face
to face.  Meeks had found him an acceptable candidate to be Landover's
King not to succeed as Ben had believed, but to fail.  Meeks had
convinced him to make the purchase.  Meeks had charmed him like a snake
its prey.

Meeks had also underestimated him.

He let his eyes slip open again and he whispered, "That's right, Ben
Holiday he did underestimate you.  Now be sure that you don't
underestimate him."

The plane touched down at Chicago O'Hare shortly after three, and Ben
caught a cab into the city.  The driver talked all the way in, mostly
about sports: the Cubs' losing season, the Bulls' playoff hopes with
Jordan, the Blackhawks' injury problems, the Bears at 13 and 1. The
Chicago Bears?  Ben listened, replying intermittently, a small voice at
the back of his mind telling him there was something wrong with this
conversation.  He was nearly downtown before he figured out what it
was.  It was the language.  He understood it, even though he had
neither heard it nor spoken it for more than a year.  In Landover, he
heard, spoke, wrote, and thought Landoverian.  The magic made it
possible for him to do so.  Yet here he was, back in his old world,
back in good old Chicago, listening to this cab driver speak the
English language or a reasonable facsimile thereof as it were the most
natural thing in the world.

Well, maybe that's exactly what it was, he thought and smiled.

He had the cab driver deposit him at the Drake, unwilling to return to
his old penthouse apartment or to contact any friends or acquaintances
just yet.  He was being careful now.  He was thinking about Meeks.  He
checked in under an assumed name, paid cash in advance for one night,
and let the bellhop guide him to his room.  He was increasingly
grateful for the fact that he had decided to carry several thousand
dollars in cash as a precaution when he had crossed into Landover a
year ago.  The decision had been almost an afterthought, but it was
turning out to be a sound one.  The cash was saving him from using the
credit card.

Leaving the room with the cash and the billfold in one pocket of his
running suit, he took the elevator down, left the hotel, and walked
several blocks to Water Tower Place.  He shopped, bought a sport coat
and slacks, dress shirts, tie, socks and underwear, and a pair of dress
loafers, paid cash, and headed back again.  There was no point in being
conspicuous, and a running suit and Nikes in the middle of the downtown
Chicago business district was far too conspicuous.  He simply didn't
look the type.  Sometimes appearances were everything particularly in
the short view.  That was exactly why he hadn't brought any of his
friends with him.  A talking dog, a pair of grinning monkeys, a girl
who became a tree, and a wizard whose magic frequently got the better
of him would hardly escape notice on Michigan Avenue!

He regretted the superficial characterization of his friends almost
immediately.  He was being needlessly flip.  Odd as they might be, they
were genuine friends.  They had stood by him when it counted, when it
was dangerous to do so, and when their own lives were threatened.  That
was a whole lot more than you could say for most friends.

He bowed his head against a sudden gust of wind, frowning.

Besides, wasn't he as odd as they?

Wasn't he the Paladin?

He shoved the thought angrily to the darkest corners of his mind and
hurried to catch the crossing light.

He bought several newspapers and magazines in the hotel lobby and
retired to his room.  He ordered room service and killed time waiting
for his dinner by skimming the reading material to update himself on
what had been happening in the world during his absence.  He stopped
long enough to catch an hour of world and local news, and by then his
meal had arrived.  He continued reading through the dinner hour.  It
was closing in on seven o'clock by this time, and he decided to call Ed
Samuelson.

There were two reasons for Ben's return to Chicago.  The first was to
visit with Miles and discover whether the dream about his friend had
been accurate.  The second was to set his affairs in order permanently.
He had already decided that the first would have to wait until morning,
but there was no reason to put off the second.  That meant a call to
Ed.

Ed Samuelson was his accountant, a senior partner in the accountancy
firm ofHaines, Samuelson & Roper, Inc.  Ben had entrusted management of
his estate an estate that was considerable in size to Ed before he had
left for Landover.  Ed Samuelson was exactly the sort of person one
would hope for in an accountant discreet, dependable, and
conscientious.  There had been times when he thought Ben clearly mad in
his financial judgment, but he respected the fact that it was Ben's
money to do with as he chose.  One of those times had been when Ben
decided to purchase the throne of Landover.  Ed had liquidated the
assets necessary to collect the one million dollar purchase price and
had been given power of attorney to manage the balance of Ben's assets
while Ben was away.  He had done all this without having the faintest
idea what Ben was about.

Ben had not told him then and he had no intention of telling him now.
But he knew Ed would accept that.

Calling Ed Samuelson was something of a risk.  He had to assume that
Meeks knew Ed was his accountant and would be contacted eventually.
Anticipating that contact,

Meeks might have tapped the accountant's phone.  That was a somewhat
paranoid assumption perhaps, but Meeks was no one to fool with.  Ben
only hoped that, if Meeks had decided on a phone tap, he had opted for
one at Ed Samuelson's office and not one at his home.

He called Ed, found him just finished with his evening meal, and spent
the next ten minutes convincing him that it really was Ben Holiday who
was calling.  Once he got that job done, he warned Ed that no one and
that meant absolutely no one was to know about this call.  Ed was to
pretend that he had never received it.  Ed asked the same question he
always asked when Ben made one of his bizarre requests: Was Ben in some
sort of trouble?  No, Ben assured him, he was not.  It simply wasn't
convenient for anyone to know he was in town at the moment.  He did
plan on seeing Miles, he assured Ed.  He did not think he would have
time to see much of anyone else.

Ed seemed satisfied.  He listened patiently while Ben explained what he
wanted done.  Ben promised he would stop by the office tomorrow about
noon to sign the necessary papers if Ed could arrange to be there.  Ed
sighed stoically and said that would be fine.  Ben said good night and
placed the phone receiver back on its cradle.

Twenty minutes in the shower helped wash away the tension and the
growing weariness.  He came back out of the bathroom and crawled into
his bed, a few of the magazines and newspapers stacked next to him.  He
started to read, gave it up, and let his thoughts drift and his eyes
close.

Moments later, he was asleep.

He dreamed that night of the Paladin.

He was alone at first, standing on a pine-sheltered bluff looking down
over Landover's misted valley.  Blues and greens mixed as sky and earth
joined, and it was as if he could reach out and touch them.  He
breathed, and the air was fresh and chill.  The clarity of the moment
was stunning.

Then shadows deepened and closed down about him like night.  Cries and
whispers filtered through the pines.  He could feel the shape of the
medallion pressing against his palm as he clutched at it in
anticipation.  He had need of it once more, he sensed, and was glad.
The being he kept trapped inside could be let loose again!

There was a darting movement to one side and a monstrous black shape
surged forward.  It was a unicorn, eyes and breath of fire.  But it
changed almost instantly.  It became a devil.  Then it changed again.

It was Meeks.

The wizard beckoned, a tall, stooped, menacing form, face scaled over
like a lizard's.  He came for Ben, growing in size with each step,
changing now into something unrecognizable.  There was the smell of
fear in Ben's nostrils, the smell of death.

But he was the Paladin, the knight-errant whose strayed soul had found
a home within his body, the King's champion who had never lost a
battle, and nothing could stand against him.  He brought that other
self to life with a frightening rush of elation.  Armor closed about
him, and the smell of fear and death gave way to the acrid smells of
iron, leather, and oil.  He was no longer Ben Holiday, but a creature
of some other time and place whose memories were all of battle, of
combat and victory, of fighting and dying.  Wars raged in his mind, and
there were glimpses of struggling behemoths encased in iron, surging
back and forth against a haze of red: Metal clanged, and voices huffed
and grunted in fury.  Bodies fell in death, torn and broken.

He felt himself exhilarated!

Oh, God, he felt himself reborn!

The darkness broke against him, shadows reaching and clawing, and he
went to meet them in a rage.  The white charger he rode carried him
forward like a steam engine driven by fires he could not begin to
control.  The pines slipped past him in a blur, and the ground
disappeared.  Meeks became a wraith he could not touch.  He raced
forward, flying out from the edge of the bluff into nothingness.

The sense of exhilaration vanished.  Somewhere in the night, there was
a frightening scream.  He realized as he fell that the scream was his
own.

The dreams left him after that, but he slept poorly for the remainder
of the night anyway.  He rose shortly after dawn, showered, called room
service for breakfast, ate, dressed in the clothes he had bought
yesterday, and caught a cab out front of the hotel shortly after nine.
He took his duffel bag with him.  He did not think he would be
returning.

The cab took him south on Michigan Avenue.  It was Saturday, but the
streets were already beginning to clog with Christmas shoppers anxious
to beat the weekend rush.  Ben sat back in the relative seclusion of
the cab and ignored them.  The joys of the approaching holiday were the
furthest thing from his mind.

Traces of last night's dream still whispered darkly to him.  He had
been badly frightened by that dream and by the truths that it
contained.

The Paladin was a reality he had not fully come to grips with.  He had
become the armored knight only once and then as much by chance as by
intention.  It had been necessary to become the Paladin in order to
survive, and he had therefore done what was necessary.  But the
transformation had been a frightening thing, a shedding of his own
skin, a crawling into someone else's someone or something.  The
thoughts of that other being were hard and brutal, a warrior's
thoughts, a gladiator's.  There was blood and death in those thoughts,
an entire history of survival that Ben could only begin to comprehend.
It frankly terrified him.  He could not control what this other thing
was, he sensed not entirely.  He could only become what it was and
accept what that meant.

He was not sure he could ever do that again.  He had not tried and did
not wish to try.

And yet a part of him did just as in the dream.  And a part of him
whispered that someday he must.

He had the cab take him to the offices of Holiday & Bennett, Ltd.  The
offices were closed on Saturdays, but he knew Miles Bennett would be
there anyway.  Miles was always there on Saturdays, working until noon,
catching up on all the dictating and research that he hadn't gotten to
during the week, taking advantage of the absence of those bothersome
interruptions that seemed to dog him during regular business hours.

Ben paid the cab driver to drop him at the end of the block across the
street from his destination, then stepped quickly into the doorway of
another building.  Pedestrians passed him by, oblivious to what he was
about, caught up in their own concerns.  Traffic moved ahead at a rapid
crawl.  There were cars parked on the street, but no one seemed to be
keeping watch in them.

"Doesn't hurt to be careful," he insisted softly.

He stepped back out of the doorway, crossed the street with the light,
moved up the block, and pushed through the storm glass doors to the
lobby of his building.  He saw nothing out of place, nothing odd.

He hurried to an open elevator, stepped inside, punched the button to
floor fifteen, and watched the doors slide closed.  The elevator
started up.  Just a few moments more, he thought.  And if Miles wasn't
there for some reason, he would simply track him down at his home.

But he hoped he wouldn't have to do that.  He sensed that he might not
have the time.  Maybe it was the dream, maybe it was simply the
circumstances of his being here but something definitely felt wrong.

The elevator slowed and stopped.  The doors slid open, and he stepped
into the hallway beyond.

His breath caught sharply in his throat.  Once again, he was face to
face with Meeks.

Questor Thews brushed at the screen of cobwebs that hung across the
narrow stone entry of the ruins of the castle tower and pushed inside.
He sneezed as dust clogged his nostrils and muttered in distaste at the
damp and dark.  He should have had the sense to bring a torch .. .

A spark of fire flared next to him, and flames leaped from a brand.
Bunion passed the handle of the light to Questor.

"I was just about to use the magic to do that for myself!"  the wizard
snapped irritably, but the kobold just grinned.

They stood within the Falling walls of Mirwouk, the ancient fortress
Questor had seen in his dream of the missing books of magic.  They were
far north of Sterling Silver, high within the Melchor, the wind
whipping about the worn stone to howl down empty corridors, the chill
settling through stale air like winter's coming.  It had taken the
wizard and the kobold the better part of three days to get here, and
their travel had been quick.  The castle had welcomed them with yawning
gates and vacant windows.  Its rooms and halls stood abandoned.

Questor pushed ahead, searching for something that looked familiar. The
late afternoon was settling down about them, and he had no wish to be
wandering about this dismal tomb after dark.  He was a wizard and could
sense things hidden from other folk, and this place had an evil smell
about it.

He groped about for a time, then thought he recognized the passageway
he had entered.  He followed its twist and turn, eyes peering through
the gloom.  More cobwebs and dust hindered his progress, and there were
spiders the size of rats and rats the size of dogs.  They scurried and
crawled, and he had to watch for them at every step.  It was decidedly
annoying work.  He was tempted to use his magic to turn the lot of them
into dust bunnies and let the wind sweep them away.

The passageway took a downward turn, and the shape of its walls altered
noticeably.  Questor slowed, peering at the stonework.  Abruptly, he
straightened.

"I recognize this!"  he exclaimed in an agitated whisper.  "This is the
tunnel I saw in my dreams!"

Bunion took the torch from his hand without comment and led the way
down.  Questor was too excited to argue the matter and followed quickly
after.  The passage broadened and cleared, free of webbing, dust,
rodents, and insects.  There was a new smell to the stone, a kind of
sickly-fragrant musk.  Bunion kept up a brisk pace, and sometimes all
that Questor could see before him was the halo of the torch.

All was just as it had been in the dream!

The tunnel went on, angling deeper into the mountain rock, a coil of
hollowed corridors and curving stairs.  Bunion stayed in front, eyes
sharp.  Questor was practically breathing down his neck.

Then the tunnel ended at a stone door marked with scroll and runes.
Questor was shaking with excitement by now.  He felt along the markings
and his hands seemed to know exactly where to go.  He touched something
and the door swung open with a faint grating sound.

The room beyond was massive, its floor constructed of granite blocks
polished smooth.  Questor led the way now, following the vision inside
his head, the memory of his dream.  He walked to the center of the
chamber, Bunion at his side, the sound of their footfalls a hollow
echo.

They stopped before a piece of granite flooring on which the sign of a
unicorn had been carved.

Questor Thews stared.  A unicorn?  One hand tugged uneasily at his
chin.  Something was wrong here.  He did not recall anything about a
unicorn in his dream.  There had been a sign cut into the stone, but
had the sign been that of a unicorn?  It seemed a rather large
coincidence ... For just an instant, he considered turning about,
walking directly back the way he had come, and abandoning the entire
project.  A small voice inside whispered that he should.  There was
danger hidden here; he could sense it, feel it, and it frightened
him.

But the lure of the missing books was too strong.  He reached down, and
his fingers traced the ridges of the creature's horn again, almost of
their own volition.  The block stirred and slid aside, fitting into a
neatly constructed chute.

Questor Thews peered downward into the hole that was left.

There was something there.

Nightfall draped the lake country in shadows and mist, and the light of
colored moons and silver stars was no more than a faint glimmer as it
reflected off the still surface of the Irrylyn.  Willow stood alone at
the shoreline of a tiny inlet ringed in cottonwood and cedar, the
waters of the lake lapping at her toes.  She was naked, her clothes
laid carefully upon the grass behind her.  A breeze blew softly against
her pale green skin, wove its careless way through the waist-length
emerald hair, curled and ribboned, and ruffled the fetlocks that ran
the length other calves and forearms.  She shivered with the touch. She
was a creature of impossible beauty, half human, half fairy, and she
might have been a descendant of the sirens of myth who had lured men to
their doom on the rocks of ancient seas.

Night birds called sharply from across the lake, their cries echoing in
the stillness.  Willow's whistle called back to them.

Her head lifted and she sniffed the air as an animal might.  Parsnip
was waiting patiently for her in the campsite fifty yards back, the
light of his cooking fire screened by the trees.  She had come alone to
the Irrylyn to bathe and to remember.

She stepped cautiously into the water, the lukewarm liquid sending a
delicious tingle through her body.  It was here that she had met Ben
Holiday, that they had seen each other for the first time, naked as
they bathed, stripped of all pretentions.  It was here that she had
known that he was the one who was meant for her.

Her smile brightened as she thought back on how it had been the wonder
of the moment.  She had told him what was to be, and while he had
doubted it still doubted it, in truth she had never faltered in her
certainty.  The fates of her birth, told in the fairy way by the manner
of entwining of the bedded flowers of her seeding, could never lie.

Oh, but she loved the outlander Ben Holiday!

Her child's face beamed and then clouded.  She missed Ben.  She worried
for him.  Something in the dream they had shared troubled her in a way
she could not explain.  There was a riddle behind these dreams that
whispered of danger.

She had said nothing of it to Ben because she had read in his voice
when he told her of his dream that he had already decided he would go.
She knew then that she could not turn him from his purpose and should
not try.  He understood the risks and accepted them.  The urgency of
her concern paled beside the strength of his determination.

Perhaps it was for that reason that in telling him of her dream she had
not told him all.  Something in her dream was different than in his or
Questor Thews'.  It was a subtle thing and difficult to explain, but it
was there nevertheless.

She crouched in the shallows, emerald hair fanning out across her
shoulders like a shawl.  Her finger traced patterns on the still
surface, and the memory of the dream returned.  The wrong feeling was
in the texture of the dream, she thought.  It was in the way it played
against her mind.  The visions had been vivid, the events clear.  But
the telling was somehow false as if it were all something that could
happen in a dream, but not in waking.  It was as if the memory was a
mask that hid a face beneath.

She ceased her tracing motion and rose.  What face was it, she
wondered, that lay concealed beneath that mask?

The frown that clouded her face deepened, and she wished suddenly she
had not been so accepting of Ben's decision.  She wished she had argued
his going after all or that she had insisted that he take her along.

"No, he will be well," she whispered insistently.

Her eyes lifted skyward and she let the moonglow warm her.  Tomorrow
she would seek the advice of her mother, whose life was so close to
that of the fairy creatures in the mists.  Her mother would know of the
black unicorn and the bridle of spun gold and would guide her; soon she
would be back again with Ben.

She stepped further out into the darkened lake, let the waters close
about her, and drifted at peace.

Shadows a. a

The second appearance of Meeks did not elicit in Ben Holiday the panic
that the first had.  He did not freeze;

he did not experience the same sense of confusion.  He was surprised,
but not stunned.  After all, he.  had a better idea of what to expect
this time around.  This was just another apparition of the outcast
wizard tall, stooped, cloaked in the robes of gunmetal blue, white hair
grizzled, face craggy and sallow, black leather glove lifted like a
claw, but an apparition nevertheless.

Wasn't it?

Meeks started for him, and suddenly he wasn't so sure.  The pale blue
eyes were alive with hatred, and the hard features seemed to twist into
something not quite human.  Meeks closed on him, gliding down the
empty, fluorescent-lit corridor soundlessly, growing huge in the
silence.  Ben stood his ground with' difficulty one hand searching out
the reassuring bulk of the medallion beneath his shirt.  But what
protection did the medallion offer him here?  His mind raced.  The rune
stone, he thought suddenly!  The stone would tell him if he was
threatened!  His free hand rummaged frantically in his pants pocket,
fumbling for the stone as the robed figure loomed closer.  Despite his
re solve, Ben took a quick step backward.  He could not find the
stone!

Meeks was directly in front of him, dark and menacing.  Ben flinched as
the wizard blocked the light..  .

And then he looked up and found himself alone in the deserted corridor,
staring into empty space, listening to the silence.

Meeks was gone another substanceless apparition.

He had found the rune stone, nestled in the corner of his pants pocket,
and he pulled it into the light.  It was blood red and burned at the
touch.

"Damn!"  he muttered, angry and frightened both at once.

He took a moment to gather his wits, scanning the hallway swiftly to be
certain that he had missed nothing.  Then he straightened, finding
himself in a sort of defensive halfcrouch, and stepped away from the
elevator doors.  Nothing moved about him.  It appeared he really was
alone.

But what was the reason for this second vision?  Was this another
warning?  Was it a warning row Meeks or to Meeks?

What was going on?

He hesitated only a moment before turning sharply left toward the glass
doors that fronted the offices of Holiday & Bennett, Ltd.  Whatever was
going on, he felt it wise to keep moving.  Meeks had to know that
eventually he would come to Miles.  That didn't mean that Meeks was
there or even anywhere close.  The apparition might be just another
signal to warn him of Ben's coming.  If Ben were quick enough, he would
be there and gone before Meeks could do anything about it.

The lights in the office lobby were off.  He pulled at the handle on
the entry doors and found them locked.  That was normal.  Miles never
unlocked the front doors or turned on the lights when he worked alone.
Ben had come prepared for that.  He pulled out his office key and
inserted it into the lock.  The lock turned easily, and the door
opened.  Ben stepped inside, pocketed the key, and let the door close
behind him.

A radio was playing softly in the silence Willie Nelson, the kind of
stuff Miles liked.  Ben looked down the inner hallway and saw a light
shining out of Miles' office.  He grinned.  The old boy was at home.

Maybe.  A new wave of doubt and mistrust washed over him, and the grin
faded.  Better safe than sorry, he cautioned himself, worrying that old
chestnut as if it were a spell to cast out evil spirits.  He shook his
head.  He wished there was some way to be sure about Meeks .. .

He eased his way silently down the hall until he stood before the
lighted doorway.  Miles Bennett sat alone at his desk, hunched over his
law books, a yellow pad crammed with notes open beside him.  He had
come to work wearing a coat and tie, but the knot in the tie had been
pulled loose, and the coat had been shed in favor of rolled-up sleeves
and an open collar.  He glanced up as he sensed Ben's presence, and his
eyes widened.

"Holy Saint Pete!"  He started up, then eased back down again.  "Doc is
that really you?"

Ben smiled.  "It's me all right.  How are you doing, buddy?"

"How am I doing?  How am I doing?"  Miles was incredulous.  "What the
hell kind of question is that?  You go trou ping off to Shangri-La or
whatever, you're gone better than a year, no one hears a word from you,
then one day back you come right out of nowhere and you want to know
how / am?  Pretty damn cheeky.  Doc!"

Ben nodded helplessly and groped for something to say.  Miles let him
struggle with it a moment, then laughed and pushed himself to his feet,
a big, rumpled teddy bear in business clothes.

"Well, come on in, Doc!  Don't stand out there in the hallway like the
prodigal son returned even if that's what you are!  Come on in, have a
seat, tell me all about it!  Damn, I can't believe it's really you!"

He hastened around the desk, his big hand extended, took Ben's, and
pumped it firmly.  "I'd just about given up on you, you know that? Just
about given up.  I thought something had happened to you for certain
when I didn't hear anything.  You know how your mind works overtime in
this business anyway.  I began imagining all sorts of things.  I even
considered calling the police or someone, but I couldn't bring myself
to tell anyone my partner was off chasing little people and dragons!"

He was laughing again, laughing so hard his eyes were tearing, and Ben
joined in.  "They probably get calls like that all the time."

"Sure, that's what makes Chicago the great little town it is!"  Miles
wiped his eyes.  He wore a rumpled blue shirt and dress pants.  He
looked a little like a giant Smurf.  "Hey, Doc it's good to see you."

"You, too.  Miles."  He glanced around.  "Doesn't appear that anything
has changed since I left."

"Naw, we keep the place a living shrine to your memory."  Miles glanced
around with him, then shrugged.  "Wouldn't know where to start anyway,
the place is such a monumental piece of art deco."  He smiled, waited a
moment for Ben to say something, and, when Ben didn't, cleared his
throat nervously.  "So, here you are, huh?  Care to tell me what
happened out there in fairyland, Doc?  If it's not too painful to
relate, that is.  We don't have to discuss it if you'd rather .. ."

"We can discuss it."

"No, we don't have to.  Forget I asked.  Forget the whole business."
Miles was insistent now, embarrassed.  "It's just such a surprise to
have you come waltzing in like this .. . Hey, look, I've got something
for you!  Been saving this for when we got together again.  Look, got
it right here in the drawer."  He hastened back around behind the desk
and rummaged quickly through the bottom drawer.  "Yeah, here we go!"

He pulled out a bottle of Glenlivet, still sealed, and plopped it on
the desk.  Two glasses followed.

Ben shook his head and smiled with pleasure.  His favorite scotch.
"It's been a long time, Miles," he admitted.

Miles broke the seal, uncorked the bottle, and poured two fingers into
each glass.  He pushed one across the desk to Ben, then lifted his own
glass in salute.  "To crime and other forms of amusement," he said.

Ben touched glasses with him, and both drank.  The Glenlivet was smooth
and warm going down.  The two old friends took seats across the desk.
Willie Nelson continued to sing through the momentary silence.

"So you gonna tell me or what?"  Miles asked finally, changing his mind
once more.

"I don't know."

"Why not?  You don't have to be coy with me, you know.  You don't have
to feel embarrassed if this thing didn't turn out the way you
expected."

Memories flooded Ben's thoughts.  No, it surely hadn't turned out the
way he had expected.  But that wasn't the problem.  The problem was in
deciding how much he should tell Miles.  Landover wasn't something that
could be easily explained.  It was sort of like the way it was when you
were a kid and your parents wanted to know about Susie at the freshman
sock hop.

It was like telling them that Santa Claus really did exist.

"Would it be enough if I told you that I found what I was looking for?"
he asked Miles after a moment's thought.

Miles was silent for a moment.  "Yeah, if that's the best you can do,"
he replied finally.  He hesitated.  "Is that the best you can do,
Doc?"

Ben nodded.  "It is just now."

"I see.  Well, what about later?  Can you do better later?  I'd hate to
think that this was the end of it and I'd never learn anything more.
Because I don't think I could stand that.  You left here in search of
dragons and damsels in distress, and I told you you were crazy.  You
believed all that hype about a kingdom where magic was real and
fairy-tale creatures lived, and I told you it was impossible.  See,
Doc, I need to know which of us was right.  I need to know if dreams
like yours are still possible.  I have to know."

Disappointment reflected in the roundish face.  Ben felt sorry for his
old friend.  Miles had been in on this business from the beginning.  He
was the only one who knew that Ben had spent a million dollars to
purchase a fantasy kingdom that sane men knew couldn't possibly exist.
He was the only one who knew that Ben had gone off in search of that
kingdom.  He knew how the story started, but he didn't know how it
ended.  And it was eating at him.

But there was more to consider here than Miles' discomforting
curiosity.  There was his safety.  Sometimes knowledge was a dangerous
thing.  Ben still didn't know how great a threat Meeks posed to either
of them.  He still didn't know how much truth there was to his dream.
Miles appeared to be well, but... "Miles, I promise I'll tell you
everything one day," he answered, trying to sound reassuring.  "I can't
tell you exactly when, but I promise you'll know.  It's a difficult
thing to talk about sort of the way it used to be about Annie.  I could
never talk about her without..  . worrying about what I said.  You
remember, don't you?"

Miles nodded.  "I remember, Doc."  He smiled.  "Have you made peace
with her ghost finally?"

"I have.  Finally.  But it took a lot of time, and I went through a lot
of changes."  He paused, remembering when he had stood alone in the
mists of the fairy world and come face to face with the fears he had
harbored deep within himself that somehow he had failed his dead wife.
"I guess talking about where I've been and what I've found there will
take a little time and help as well.  I still have to work a few things
through ..."

He trailed off, the glass of scotch twirling through his fingers on the
desk before him.

"It's all right.  Doc," Miles said quickly, shrugging.  "It's enough
just having you back again and knowing you're all right.  The rest will
come later.  I know that."

Ben stared at the scotch for a moment, then lifted his eyes to Miles.
"I'm only here for a short time, buddy.  I can't stay."

Miles looked uncertain, then forced a quick grin.  "Hey, what are you
telling me?  You've come back for something, haven't you?  So what was
it?  You missed the Bulls' nose dive last winter, the Cubs' el foldo
this spring, the marathon, the elections, all the rest of the vintage
Chicago season.  You want to catch a Bears game?  The monsters of the
midway are thirteen and one, you know.  And they still serve Bud and
nachos at the food stands.  What do you say?"

Ben laughed in spite of himself.  "I say it sounds pretty good.  But
that's not what brought me back.  I came back because I was worried
about you."

Miles stared at him.  "What?"

"I was worried about you.  Don't make that sound like such an
astounding event, damn it.  I just wanted to be sure you were all
right."

Miles took a long pull on the scotch, then eased back carefully in the
padded desk chair.  "Why wouldn't I be all right?"

Ben shrugged, "I don't know."  He started to continue, then caught
himself."  "Oh, what the hell you already think I'm nuts, so what's a
few more pecans in the fruitcake.  I had this dream.  I dreamed you
were in real trouble and you needed me.  I didn't know what the trouble
was, only that it was my fault that you were in it.  So I came back to
find out if the dream was true."

Miles studied him a moment the way a psychiatrist might study a prize
patient, then drained off the rest of his scotch and tipped forward in
the chair once more.  "You are nuts, Doc you know that?"

"I know."

"Fact is, your conscience must be working overtime."

"You think so?"

"I do.  You're just feeling guilty because you bailed out on me in the
middle of the pre-Christmas season court rush, and I was left with all
those damn cases!  Well, I've got news for you!  I took care of those
cases, and office routine never skipped a beat!"  He paused, then
grinned.  "Well, maybe half a beat.  Proud of me.  Doc?"

"Yeah, sure.  Miles."  Ben frowned.  "So there aren't any problems at
the office nothing wrong with you, nothing that needs me back here?"

Miles rose, picked up the Glenlivet, and poured them each another
finger.  He was smiling broadly.  "Doc, I hate to tell you this, but
things couldn't be better."

And right then and there, Ben Holiday began to smell a rat.

Fifteen minutes later he was back on the streets.  He had visited with
Miles just long enough to avoid giving the impression that anything was
seriously wrong.  He had stayed even when everything inside him was
screaming that he ought to run for his life.

Taxis were at a premium Saturday mornings, so he caught a bus south to
Ed Samuelson's office for his noon meeting.  He sat alone two seats
from the back, clutched the duffel to him like a child's security
blanket, and tried to shake the feeling that there were eyes everywhere
watching him.  He sat hunched down in his suit and dress coat and
waited for the chill to steal from his body.

Think like a lawyer, he admonished himself!  Reason it through!

The dream had been a lie.  Miles Bennett was not in trouble and had no
need of his assistance.  Maybe the dream had only been his sense of
guilt at leaving his old

5i friend behind working overtime.  Maybe it was only coincidence that
Questor and Willow had experienced similar dreams on the same night. He
didn't think so.  Something had triggered those dreams something or
someone.

Meeks.

But what was his enemy up to?

He left the bus at Madison and walked several doors down to Ed
Samuelson's building.  The eyes followed after him.

He met with his accountant and signed various powers of-attorney and
trust instruments enabling management of his affairs to continue in his
absence for as long as several years.  He didn't anticipate being gone
that long, but you never knew.  He shook Ed's hand, exchanged
good-byes, and was back out the door at 12:35 P.M.

This time he waited until he found a taxi.  He had the driver take him
directly to the airport and caught a 1:30 P.M. flight on Delta to
Washington.  He was in the nation's capital by 5:00 P.M. and an hour
later caught the last flight out that night on Allegheny to Waynesboro.
He kept his eyes open for Meeks the whole time.  A man in a trench coat
kept looking at him on the flight from Chicago.  An old woman selling
flowers stopped him in the main terminal at National.  A sailor with a
duffel bumped him as he turned away too quickly from the Allegheny
ticket counter.  But there was no sign of Meeks.

He checked the rune stone twice on the flight from Washington to
Waynesboro.  He checked it almost as an afterthought the first time and
reluctantly once after.  Both times it glowed blood red and burned at
the touch.

He did not go any farther that night.  He was desperate to continue on
the need for haste was so strong he could barely control it but reason
overcame his sense of urgency.  Or maybe it was fear.  He did not
relish venturing into the Blue Ridge in the dark.  It was too easy to
become lost or hurt.  And it was likely that Meeks would be waiting for
him at the entrance to the time passage.

He slept poorly, rose at daybreak, dressed in the warmup suit and
Nikes, ate something he couldn't remember later what it was and called
the limo service to pick him up.  He stood in the lobby with his duffel
in hand and kept an uneasy watch through the plate glass windows. After
a moment, he stepped outside.  The day was cold and gray and
unfriendly; the fact that it was dry offered what little comfort there
was to be found.  The air smelled bad and tasted worse, and his eyes
burned.  Everything had an alien look and feel.  He checked the rune
stone half-ado zen times.  It still glowed bright red.

The limo arrived a short time later and sped him on his way.  By
midmoming he was hiking back up into the forested mountains of the
George Washington National Park, leaving Chicago, Washington,
Waynesboro, Miles Bennett, Ed Samuelson, and everything and everyone
else in this world in which he now felt himself a stranger and a
fugitive far behind.

He found the mists and oaks that marked the entrance to the time
passage without incident.  There was no sign of Meeks not in the flesh,
not as an apparition.  The forest was still and empty; the way forward
was clear.

Ben Holiday fairly ran to gain the tunnel's entrance.

He stopped running on the other side.

Sunshine streamed down out of lightly clouded skies and warmed the
earth with its touch.  Brightly colored meadows and fruit orchards
spread down valley slopes like a quilt of patchwork swatches.  Flowers
dotted the landscape.  Birds flew in dashes of rainbow silk.  The
smells were clean and fresh.

Ben breathed deeply, chasing the spots that danced before his eyes,
waiting for the strength that had been sapped by his flight to return.
Oh, yes, he had run.  He had flown!  It frightened him that he had
allowed himself to panic like that.  He breathed, deep and slow,
refusing to look back again at the dark and misted forests that rose
like a wall behind him.  He was safe now.  He was home.

The words were a litany that soothed him.  He let his eyes lift skyward
and pass down again across the length and breadth of Landover,
comforted by the unexpected sense of familiarity he experienced.  How
strange that he should feel this way, he marveled.  His passing back
was like the passing from winter's slow death to spring's life.  Once
he would never have believed he could feel this way.  Now it seemed the
most logical thing in the world.

It was closing on midday.  He walked down from the valley's rim to the
campsite where he had left his escort.  They were waiting for him and
accepted his return without surprise.  The captain greeted him with a
salute, brought Jurisdiction around, got his men mounted, and they were
on their way.  From a world of jet liners and limousines to a world of
walking boots and horses Ben found himself smiling at how natural the
transition seemed.

But the smile was a brief one.  His thoughts returned to the dreams
that Questor, Willow, and he had shared and the nagging certainty that
something was very wrong with those dreams.  His had been an outright
lie.  Had those of Questor and Willow been lies as well?  His was tied
in some way to Meeks he was almost certain of it.  Were those of
Questor and Willow tied to Meeks as well?  There were too many
questions and no answers in sight.  He had to get back to Sterling
Silver quickly and find his friends.

He reached the castle before nightfall, pressing for a quicker pace the
entire way.  He scrambled down from his horse, gave the escort a
hurried word of thanks, called for the lake skimmer, and crossed
quickly to his island home.  Silver spires and glistening white walls
beamed down at him, and the warmth of his home-mother reached out to
wrap him close.  But the chill within him persisted.

Abernathy met him just inside the ante way resplendent in red silk
tunic, breeches and stockings, white polished boots and gloves,
silver-rimmed glasses, and appointment book.  There was irritation in
his voice.  "You have returned none too soon, High Lord.  I have spent
the entire day smoothing over the ruffled feelings of certain members
of the judiciary council who came here expressly to see you.  A number
of problems have arisen with next week's meeting.  The irrigation
fields south of Waymark have sprung a leak.  Tomorrow the Lords of the
Greensward arrive, and we haven't even looked at the list of concerns
they sent us.  Half-a-dozen other representatives have been sitting
about ..."

"Nice to see you again, too, Abernathy," Ben cut him off in
mid-sentence.  "Are either Questor or Willow back yet?"

"Uh, no, High Lord."  Abernathy seemed at a momentary loss for words.
He trailed along silently as Ben moved past him toward the dining hall.
"Did you have a successful trip?"  he asked finally.

"Not very.  You're certain neither has returned?"

"Yes, High Lord, I am certain.  You are the first one back."

"Any messages from either?"

"No messages, High Lord."  Abernathy crowded forward.  "Is something
wrong?"

Ben did not slow.  "No, everything is fine."

Abernathy looked uncertain.  "Yes, well, that is good to know."  He
hesitated a moment, then cleared his throat.  "About the judiciary
council's representatives, High Lord..  . ?"

Ben shook his head firmly.  "Not today.  I'll see them tomorrow."  He
turned toward the dining hall and left Abernathy at the door.  "Let me
know the minute Questor or Willow returns no matter what I'm doing."

Abernathy pushed his glasses further up his long nose and disappeared
back down the passageway without comment.

Ben ate a quick meal and climbed the stairs to the tower that held the
Landsview.  The Landsview was a part of the magic of Sterling Silver, a
device that gave him a quick glimpse into the happenings of Landover by
appearing to allow him to fly the valley end to end.  It was a circular
platform with a silver guard rail that looked out from the tower
through an opening in the wall that ran ceiling to floor.  A lectern
fastened on the guard rail at its midpoint.  An aged parchment map of
the kingdom was pinned to the lectern.

Ben stepped up onto the platform, fastened both hands firmly to the
guard rail, fixed his eyes upon the map, and willed himself northward.
The castle disappeared about him an instant later, and he was sailing
through space with only the silver railing and the lectern for support.
He sped far north to the mountains ofMelchor, swept across their
heights and down again.  He sped south to the lake country and Elderew,
the home city of the people of the River Master.  He crisscrossed the
forests and hills from one end of the lake country to the other.  He
found neither Questor Thews nor Willow.

An hour later, he gave it up.  His body was drenched with sweat from
the effort, and his hands were cramped from gripping the railing.  He
left the tower of the Landsview disappointed and weary.

He tried to soak the weariness and disappointment away in the waters of
a steaming bath, but could not come entirely clean.  Images ofMeeks
haunted him.  The wizard had lured him back with that dream of Miles;
Ben was certain of it and was also certain that the wizard had some
plan in mind to gain revenge on him for Meeks' exile.  What Ben was not
certain about was what part the dreams of his friends played in all
this and what danger they might be in right now because of it.

Night descended, and Ben retired to his study.  He had already decided
to send out search parties for both his missing friends by morning.
Everything else would have to wait until he solved the mystery of the
dreams.  He was becoming increasingly convinced that something was
terribly wrong and that he was running out of time to set it right
again.

Evening deepened.  He was immersed in catching up on the paperwork that
had piled up during his absence when the door to his study flew open, a
sudden gust of wind scattered the stacks of documents he had arranged
carefully on the work table before him, and the gaunt figure of Questor
Thews stalked out of the darkness into the light.

"I have found them, High Lord!"  Questor exclaimed with an elaborate
flourish of one arm, a canvass-wrapped bundle clutched to his chest
with the other.  He crossed to where Ben was working and deposited the
bundle on the table with a loud thump.  "There!"

Ben stared.  A rather bedraggled Bunion trudged through the door behind
him, clothes torn and muddied.  Abernathy appeared as well, nightshirt
twisted and nightcap askew.  He shoved his glasses in place and
blinked.

"It was all just exactly as the dream promised," Questor explained
hurriedly, hands working at the canvass wrapping.  "Well, not quite as
promised.  There was the matter of the demon imp hidden in the
stonework.  A nasty surprise, I can tell you.  But Bunion was its
equal.  Took it by the throat and choked the life out of it.  But the
rest was just as it was in the dream.  We found the passages in Mirwouk
and followed them to the door.  The door opened, and the room beyond
was covered with stonework.  One stone had the special markings.  It
gave at the touch, I reached down and ..."

"Questor, you found the missing books?"  Ben asked incredulously,
cutting him short.

The wizard stopped, stared back at him in turn, and frowned.  "Of
course I found the books, High Lord.  What do you think I have been
telling you?"  He looked put upon.  "Anyway, to continue, I was about
to reach down for them I could see them in the shadows when Bun ion
pulled me back.  He saw the movement of the imp.  There was a terrific
struggle between them .. . Ah, here we are!"

The last fold of canvass fell back.  A pair of massive, aged books
nestled amid the wrappings.  Each book was bound in a leather covering
that was scrolled in runes and drawings, the gilt that had once
inscribed each marking worn to bits and tracings.  Each book had its
corners and bindings layered in tarnished brass, and huge locks held
the covers sealed.

Ben reached down to touch the cover of the top book, but Questor
quickly seized his hand.  "A moment, High Lord, please."  The wizard
pointed to the book's lock.  "Do you see what has happened to the
catch?"

Ben peered closer.  The catch was gone, the metal about it seared as if
by fire.  He checked the catch on the second book.  It was still
securely in place.  Yes, there was no doubt about it.  Something had
been done to the first book to break the lock that sealed it.  He
looked back at Questor.

"I have no idea, High Lord," the wizard answered the unasked question.
"I brought the books to you exactly as I found them.  I have not
tampered with them; I have not attempted to open them.  I know from the
markings on the covers that they are the missing books of magic. 
Beyond that, I know no more than you."  He cleared his throat
officiously.  "I ... thought it proper that you be present when I
opened them."

"You thought it proper, did you?"  Abernathy growled, hairy face
shoving into view.  He looked ridiculous in his nightcap.  "What you
mean is you thought it safer\ You wanted the power of the medallion
close at hand in case this magic proved to be too much for you!"

Questor stiffened.  "I have significant magic of my own, Abernathy, and
I assure you that..."

"Never mind, Questor," Ben cut him short.  "You did the right thing.
Can you open the books?"

Questor was rigid with indignation by now.  "Of course I can open the
books!  Here!"

He stepped forward, hands hovering over the first of the aged tomes.
Ben moved back, his own hands closing on the medallion.  There was no
point in taking any chances with this sort of ... Questor touched the
fastenings, and green fire spit sharply from the metal.  Everyone
jumped back quickly.

"It would appear that you have underestimated the danger of the
situation once again!"  Abernathy snapped.

Questor flushed, and his face tightened.  His hands came up sharply,
sparked, then came alive with a fire of their own a brilliant crimson
fire.  He brought his fire down slowly to the metal fastenings, then
held it there as it slowly devoured the green fire.  Then he brushed
his hands together briskly, and both fires were gone.

He gave Abernathy a scornful look.  "A rather insignificant measure of
danger, wouldn't you say?"

He reached again for the fastenings and pulled the metal clasp free.
Slowly he opened the book to the first page.  Aging yellow parchment
stared back at him.  There was nothing there.

Ben, Abernathy, and Bunion pressed forward about him, peering down
through the shadows and half-light.  The page was still empty.  Questor
thumbed to the second page.  It was empty as well.  He thumbed to the
third.  Empty.

The fourth page was empty, too, but its center was seared slightly as
if held too close to a flame.

"I believe it was you who used the word insignificant, wizard?"
Abernathy goaded.

Questor did not reply.  There was a stunned look on his face.  Slowly
he began to leaf through the book, turning one blank page after
another, finding each sheet of yellowed parchment empty, but
increasingly seared.  Finally pages began to appear that were burned
through entirely.

He thumbed impulsively to the very center of the book and stopped.

"High Lord," he said softly.

Ben peered downward at the ruin that lay open before him.  A fire had
burned the center of the book to ashes, but it was as if the fire had
somehow been ignited from within.

High Lord and wizard stared at each other.  "Keep going," Ben urged.

Questor paged through the remainder of the book quickly and found
nothing.  Each sheet of parchment was just like the others empty save
for where the mysterious fire had burned or seared it.

"I do not understand what this means, High Lord," Questor Thews
admitted finally.

Abernathy started to comment, then changed his mind.  " Perhaps the
answers lie in the other book," he suggested wearily.

Ben nodded for Questor to proceed.  The wizard closed the first book
and set it aside, gloved his hands in the red fire, brought them
carefully down, and drew free the green fire that protected the lock on
the second book.  It took somewhat longer this time to complete the
task, for the lock was still intact.  Then, the fires extinguished, he
released the lock and cautiously opened the book.

The outline of a unicorn stared back at him.  The unicorn was drawn on
parchment that was neither yellowed nor seared, but pristine white. The
unicorn was standing still, its silhouette perfectly formed by dark
lines.  Questor turned to the second page.  There was a second unicorn,
this one in motion, but drawn the same way.  The third page revealed
another unicorn, the fourth still another, and so on.  Questor leafed
quickly through the entire book and back again.  Each page of the book
appeared new.  Each page held a unicorn, each drawn in a different
pose.

There were no writings or markings of any kind other than the drawings
of the unicorns.

"I still do not understand what this means."  Questor sighed,
frustration etched into his lean face.

"It means these are not the books of magic you believed them to be,"
Abernathy offered bluntly.

But Questor shook his head.  "No, these are the books.  The dream said
so, the markings on the bindings say so, and they appear as the old
stories described them.  These are the missing books, all right."

They were silent for a moment.  Ben stared thoughtfully at the books,
then glanced about until his eyes found the shadowy figure of Bunion
peering from behind Questor.  The kobold grinned ominously.

Ben looked back again at the books.  "What we have here," he said
finally, "is one book with unicorns drawn on every page and another
book with no unicorns drawn anywhere, but a burned-out center.  That
has to mean something, for Pete's sake!  Questor, what about Willow's
dream of a black unicorn?  Couldn't the unicorns here have something to
do with that?"

Questor considered the possibility for a moment.  "I do not see any
possible connection, High Lord.  The black unicorn is essentially a
myth.  The unicorns drawn here are not inked in black, but sketched
deliberately in white.  See how the lines define the features?"  He
turned a few pages of the second book to illustrate his point.  "A
black unicorn would be shaded or marked in some way to indicate its
color..."

He trailed off, brows knitting tightly in thought.  His bony fingers
traced the seared lock on the first book delicately.  "Why has this
lock been broken and the other left intact?"  he asked softly, speaking
to no one in particular.

"There have not been any unicorns in the valley since its inception,
according to the histories of the Kings of Landover," Abernathy
interjected suddenly.  "But there were unicorns once a whole raft of
them.  There was a legend about it, as a matter of fact.  Now let me
think .. . Yes, I remember.  Just wait here a moment, please."

He hurried from the room, nails clicking on the stone, nightshirt
trailing.  He was back a few moments later, a book of the royal
histories of Landover cradled in his arms.  The book was very old and
its covers worn.

"Yes, this is the one," the scribe announced.  He placed it next to the
books of magic, thumbed through it quickly, and stopped.  "Yes, right
here."  He paused, reading.  "It happened hundreds of years ago very
close to the time of the valley's creation.  The fairies dispatched a
large gathering of unicorns into our valley from out of the mists. 
They sent them here for a very particular reason.  It seems that they
were concerned about a growing disbelief in the magic in many of the
outlying worlds worlds such as your own, High Lord " The scribe
extended him a disapproving look.  " and they wished to give some sign
to those worlds that the magic did indeed still exist."  He paused,
frowning as he squinted at the aged writing.  "I think I have that
right.  It is difficult to read this clearly because the language is
very old."

"Perhaps it is your eyes that are old," Questor suggested, none too
kindly, and reached for the book.

Abernathy snatched it away irritably.  "My eyes are twice what yours
are, wizard!"  he snapped.  He cleared his throat and went on.  "It
appears, High Lord, that the fairies sent the unicorns as proof to the
disbelieving worlds that the magic was still real.  One unicorn was to
travel to each of these worlds out of Landover through the time
passages."  He paused again, read some more, then closed the book with
a bang.  "But, of course, that never happened."

Ben frowned.  "Why not?"

"Because all the unicorns disappeared, High Lord.  They were never seen
again by anyone."

"Disappeared?"

"I remember that story," Questor declared.  "Frankly, it always struck
me as a rather strange story."

Ben frowned some more.  "So the fairies send a raft of white unicorns
into Landover and they all disappear.  And that's the last of the
unicorns except for a black unicorn that may or may not be real and
appears only occasionally from God knows where.  Except now we also
have the missing books of magic that contain nothing about magic at all
just a lot of drawings of unicorns and some halfbumed empty pages."

"One lock broken and one still sealed," Questor added.

"Nothing about Meeks," Ben mused.

"Nothing about changing dogs back into men," Abernathy huffed.

They stared at one another in silence.  The books lay open on the table
before them two of magic that didn't seem very magical at all and one
of history that told them nothing historically useful.  Ben's
uneasiness grew.  The further they followed the threads of these
dreams, the more confused matters got.  His dream had been a lie;

Questor's had been the truth.  The source of their dreams had been
different..  .

Apparently.

But maybe not.  He was not sure of anything just now.  It was growing
late.  The trip back had been a long one, he was tired, and the fatigue
dulled his thinking.  There wasn't enough time, and he didn't have
enough energy to reason it all through tonight.  Tomorrow would be soon
enough.  When morning came, they would search out Willow; once they
found her, they would pursue this matter of the dreams until they
understood exactly what was going on.

"Lock up the books, Questor.  We're going to bed," he declared.

There was muttered agreement from all quarters.  Bunion went off to the
kitchen to clean up and eat.  Abernathy went with him, carrying the
aged history.  Questor scooped up the books of magic and carted them
out wordlessly.

Ben watched them go, left alone in the shadows and half-light.  He
almost wished he had asked them to stay while he forced himself to work
on this puzzle a bit longer.

But that was foolish.  It would all keep.

Reluctantly, he trudged off to sleep.

apd Ni^htrpares

Later, Ben Holiday would remember how ill-conceived his advice to
himself had been that night.  He would remember the words clearly.  It
will all keep.  Tomorrow will be soon enough.  He would remember those
words as he ate them.  He would reflect bitterly on the undiscerning
reassurance he had allowed himself to take from them.

That was the beauty of hindsight, of course.  It was always
twenty-twenty.

The trouble began almost immediately.  He retired directly to his bed
chamber from the study, slipped on a nightshirt, and crawled beneath
the covers.  He was exhausted, but sleep would not come.  He was keyed
up from the day's events, and the mystery of the dreams played about
like a cornered rat in his mind.  He chased the rat, but he couldn't
catch it.  It was a shadow that eluded him effortlessly.  He could see
its outline, but could not grasp its form.

Its eyes glowed crimson in the darkness.

He blinked and shoved himself up on his elbows.  The rune stone that
Willow had given him shone fire red on the nightstand where he had
placed it.  He blinked, aware suddenly that he must have been nearly
asleep when the light had brought him back.  The color of the stone
meant danger threatened just as it must have threatened during the
whole of the trip back.  But where was the danger to be found, damn it?
He rose and walked about the room like a creature stalking prey.  There
was nothing there.  His clothes still lay draped over the chair where
he had thrown them; his duffel still occupied its spot on the floor by
the dressing room.  He stood in the center of the room for a moment and
let the warmth of the castle's life reach out to him.  Sterling Silver
responded with a deep, inner glow that wrapped him from head to foot.
She was undisturbed.  He frowned.  Perhaps the stone was mistaken.

It was distracting, in any case, so he covered it with a towel and
climbed back into his bed.  He waited a moment, closed his eyes, opened
them again, closed them a second time.  The darkness cloaked him and
did not tease.  The rat was gone.  Questions and answers mixed and
faded in the night.  He began to drift.

He might have dreamed for a time, then.  There were images of unicorns,
some black, some white, and the slender, timeless faces of the fairies.
There were images of his friends, both past and present, and of the
dreams he had envisioned for his kingdom and his life.  They ran
through his subconscious, and their fluid motion lulled him as the
rolling of an endless sea.

Then a curious fire flared to sudden life within his mind, disrupting
the flow.  Hands reached from out of nothingness, and fingers clasped
the chain about his neck his hands, his fingers.  What were they
doing?

And suddenly there was an image ofMeeks!

The image appeared from out of a black mist, the wizard a tall,
skeletal form cloaked in gunmetal blue with a face as rough and hard as
raw iron.  He loomed over Ben as if he were death come for its latest
victim, one sleeve empty, the other a black claw that reached down,
down .. .

Ben jerked awake with a start, kicking back the bedclothes, sweeping
blindly at the dark with one hand.  He blinked and squinted.  A
candle's flame lit one corner of the room, a solitary pinprick of
white-gold against a haze of crimson fire given off by Willow's rune
stone as it blazed in frantic warning on the nightstand, the towel that
had covered it gone.  Ben could feel the presence of the danger it
signaled.  His breath came in sharp gasps, and it was as if a giant
hand pressed down upon his chest.  He fought to push it off, but his
muscles would not obey.  His body seemed locked in place.

Something moved in the dark something huge.

Ben tried to shout, but the sound was no more than a whisper.

A figure materialized, scarlet light covering it like blood.  The
figure stood there and, in a voice that sounded of nails on slate,
whispered, "We meet again, Mr.  Holiday."

It was Meeks.

Ben could not speak.  He could only stare.  It was as if the image that
had haunted him during his visit to the old world had somehow managed
to follow him back into this one.  Except that this was no image.  He
knew it instantly.  This was real!

Meeks smiled thinly.  He was quite human in appearance now, the
predatory look vanished.  "What no clever words of greeting, no brave
admonishments, not even a threat?  How unlike you, Mr.  Holiday.  What
seems to be the matter?  Cat got your tongue?"

The muscles of Ben's throat and face tightened as he struggled to
regain control of himself.  He was paralyzed.  Meeks' flat, terrifying
eyes bound him with cords he could not break.

"Yes, yes, the will is there, isn't it, Mr.  Holiday but the way is so
dark!  I know that feeling well!  Remember how it was when you left me
last?  Remember?  You taunted me in the vision crystal my sole link
with this world and then you shattered it!  You broke my eyes, Mr.
Holiday, and you left me blind!"  His voice had be 6?

come a hiss of fury.  "Oh, yes, I know what it is like to be paralyzed
and alone!"

He moved forward a step farther and stopped, his gaunt, craggy face
bent against the crimson light of the rune.  He seemed impossibly huge.
"You are a fool, play King do you know that?  You thought to play games
with me and you did not even bother to understand that it was I who
made all the rules.  I am the games master, little man, and you are but
a novice!  I made you King of this land; I gave you all that it had to
offer.  You took that from me as if you were entitled to it!  You took
it as if it belonged to you!"

He was shaking with anger, the fingers of his gloved hand knotted in
front of his robes in a clawed fist.  Ben had never been so terrified
in his life.  He wanted to shrink down into himself, to crawl beneath
the covers once more.  He wanted to do anything anything that would let
him escape this terrible old man.

Then Meeks straightened, and abruptly the anger in his face was
replaced by cold indifference.  He looked away.  "Well, it hardly
matters now.  The game is over.  You have lost, Mr.  Holiday."

Sweat ran down Ben's rigid back.  How could this have possibly
happened?  Meeks had been trapped in the old world; he had been denied
any possible entrance into Landover as long as Ben held the
medallion!

"Would you like to know how I got here, Mr.  Holiday?"  Meeks seemed to
have read his mind.  The wizard swung slowly back on him.  "It was
simple, really.  I let you bring me."  He saw the look in Ben's eyes
and laughed.  "Yes, Mr.  Holiday that's right.  You were responsible
for bringing me back again.  What do you think of that?"

He came forward until he was standing next to the bed.  His craggy face
bent close.  Ben could smell the stench of him.  "The dreams were mine,
Mr.  Holiday.  I sent them to you to you, my half-brother, and the
sylph.  I sent them.  Not all of my powers were lost in the destruction
of the crystal!  I could still reach you, Mr.  Holiday!  In your sleep!
I could bridge the two worlds through your subconscious!  My foolish
half-brother forgot to think of that in cautioning you against me.
Dreams were the only tools I needed to take control of you again.  How
vivid the imagination can be!  Did you find the dream I sent you
compelling, Mr.  Holiday?  Yes, of course you did.  Your dream was sent
to bring you to me, and bring you to me it did!  I knew you would come
if you thought your friend Mr.  Bennett needed you.  I knew you must
come.  It was simple after that, Mr.  Holiday.  The image at the end of
the time passage was magic that alerted me to your return and let me
trace your movements.  It settled down within you, and you were never
free of me after!"

Ben's heart sank.  He should have known that Meeks would use the magic
to keep track of him in some way.  He should have known the wizard
would leave nothing to chance.  He had been a fool.

Meeks was smiling like the Cheshire Cat.  "The second image was an even
more interesting ploy.  It diverted you from what I was really about.
Oh, yes, I was there with you, Mr.  Holiday!  I was behind you!  While
you were preoccupied with my image, 7 slipped down into your clothing,
a thing no bigger than a tiny insect.  I concealed myself upon you and
I let you carry me back into Landover.  The medallion allows only your
passage, Mr.  Holiday yet if I am a part of you, it also allows
mine!"

He was hidden within my clothing, Ben thought in despair, with me all
the way back, and I never realized it.  That was why the rune stone
glowed in warning.  The threat was always there, but I couldn't see
it!

"Ironic, isn't it, Mr.  Holiday you bringing me back as you did?"  The
skin on Meeks' cheeks and forehead was pulled back with the intensity
of his smile, and his face was like a skull.  "I had to come back, you
know.  I had to come back immediately because of your damnable,

insistent meddling!  Have you any idea of the trouble you have caused
me?  No no, of course not.  You have no idea.  You do not even know
what I am talking about.  You understand nothing!  And, in your
ignorance, you have very nearly destroyed what it has taken years to
create!  You have disrupted everything you and your campaign to become
King ofLandover!"

He had worked himself into a rage again, and it was only with great
effort that he brought himself back under control.  Even so, the words
spit from him like bile.  "No matter, Mr.  Holiday, no matter.  This
all means nothing to you, so there is no point in belaboring it.  I
have the books now, and there is no further damage that you can do.  I
have what I need.  Your dream has given me mastery of you, my
half-brother's dream has given me mastery of the books, and the sylph's
dream will give me ..."

He stopped sharply, almost as if he had erred.  There was a curious
uneasiness in the pale, hard eyes.  He blinked and it was gone.  One
hand brushed the empty air in dismissal."  "Everything.  The dreams
will give me everything," he finished.

The medallion, Ben was thinking frantically.  If I could only manage to
put my hands on the medallion .. .

Meeks laughed sharply.  "There is undoubtedly much that you wish to say
to me, isn't there, Mr.  Holiday?  And surely much that you wish to
do!"  The craggy face shoved close before his own once more.  The hard
eyes bored into him.  "Well, I will give you your chance, play-King.  I
will give you the opportunity that you were so quick to deny me when
you smashed the crystal and exiled me from my home!"

One bony finger crooked before Ben's frozen eyes.  "But first I have
something to show you.  I have it right here, looped safely about my
neck."  His hand dipped downward into the robes.  "Look closely, Mr.
Holiday.  Do you see it?"

He withdrew his hand slowly.  There was a chain gripped tightly in the
fingers.  Ben's medallion hung fastened at its end.

Meeks smiled in triumph as he saw the look of desperation that flooded
Ben's eyes.  "Yes, Mr.  Holiday!  Yes, play-King!  Yes, you poor fool!
It is your precious medallion!  The key to Landover and it belongs to
me now!"  He dangled it slowly before Ben, letting it twirl to catch
the mixed light of blazing rune stone and candle's flame.  His eyes
narrowed.  "Do you wish to know what happened to separate you from the
medallion?  You gave it to me in a dream I sent you, Mr.  Holiday.  You
took the medallion off and passed it to me.  You gave the medallion to
me willingly.  I could not take it by force, but you gave it to me!"

Meeks was like a giant that threatened to crush Ben tall, dark, looming
out of the shadows.  His breath hissed.  "I think there is nothing I
can tell you that you do not already know, is there, Mr.  Holiday?"

He made a quick gesture with his hand, and the invisible chains that
held Ben paralyzed dropped away.  He could move again and speak.  Yet
he did neither.  He simply waited.

"Reach down within your nightshirt, Mr.  Holiday," the wizard
whspered.

Ben did as he was told.  His fingers closed on a medallion fastened to
the end of a chain.  Slowly he withdrew it.  The medallion was the same
shape and size as the one he had once worn the one Meeks now possessed.
But the engraving on the face was changed.  Gone was the Paladin,
Sterling Silver, and the rising sun.  Gone was the polished silver
sheen.  This medallion was tarnished black as soot and embossed with
the robed figure of Meeks.

Ben stared at the medallion in horror, touched it disbelievingly, then
let it drop from his fingers as if it had burned him.

Meeks nodded in satisfaction.  "I own you, Mr.  Holiday.  You are mine
to do with as I choose.  I could simply

7i destroy you, of course but I won't.  That would be too easy an end
for you after all the trouble you have caused me!"  He paused, the
smile returning hard, ironic.  "Instead, Mr.  Holiday, I think I will
set you free."

He moved back a few steps, waiting.  Ben hesitated, then rose from the
bed, his mind working frantically to find a way out of this nightmare.
There were no weapons close at hand.  Meeks stood between him and the
bedroom door.

He took a step forward.

"Oh, one thing more."  Meeks' voice stopped him as surely as if he had
run into a wall of stone.  The hard, old face was a mass of gullies and
ridges worn by time.  "You are free but you will have to leave the
castle.  Now.  You see, Mr.  Holiday, you do not belong here anymore.
You are no longer King.  You are, in fact, no longer even yourself."

One hand lifted.  There was a brief sweep of light and Ben's nightshirt
was gone.  He was dressed in laborer's clothing rough woolen pants and
tunic, a woolen cloak, and worn boots.  There was dirt on him and the
smell of animals.

Meeks studied him dispassionately.  "One of the common folk, Mr.
Holiday that is who you will be from this day forward.  Work hard and
you may find a way to advance yourself.  There is opportunity in this
land even for such as you.  You will not be King again, of course.  But
you may find some other suitable occupation.  I hope.  so I would hate
to think of you as destitute.  I would be most distressed if you^ were
to suffer inconvenience.  Life is a long time, you know."

His gaze shifted suddenly to Willow's rune stone.  "By the way, you
will not be needing that any more, will you?"  His hand lifted, and the
rune stone flew from the nightstand into his gloved palm.  His fingers
closed, and the stone shattered into dust, its red glow winking out
abruptly.

He looked back again at Ben, his smile cold and hard.  "Now where were
we?  Oh, yes we were discussing the matter of your future.  I can
assure you that I will monitor it with great interest.  The medallion
with which I have supplied you will tell me all I need to know.  Be
careful you do not try to remove that medallion.  A certain magic
protects against such foolishness a magic that would shorten your life
rather considerably if it were challenged.  And I do not want you to
die, Mr.  Holiday not for a long, long time."

Ben stared at the other man in disbelief.  What sort of game was this?
He measured quickly the distance to the bedroom door.  He could move
and talk again; he was free of whatever it was that had paralyzed him.
He had to try to escape.

Then he saw Meeks watching him, studying him as a cat might a cornered
mouse, and fear gave way to anger and shame.  "This won't work, Meeks,"
he said quietly, forcing the edge from his voice.  "No one will accept
this."

"No?"  Meeks kept the smile steady.  "And why is that,

Mr.  Holiday?"

Ben took a deep breath and a couple of steps forward for good measure.
"Because these old clothes you've slapped on me won't fool anyone!  And
medallion or no medallion, I'm still me and you're still you!"

Meeks arched his eyebrows quizzically.  "Are you certain of that, Mr.
Holiday?  Are you quite sure?"

There was a tug of doubt at the back of Ben's mind, but he kept it from
his eyes.  He glanced sideways at the floor-length mirror to catch a
glimpse of himself and was relieved to find that physically, at least,
he was still the same person he had always been.

But Meeks seemed so certain.  Had the wizard changed him in some way
that he couldn't see?

"This won't work," he repeated, edging closer to the door as he spoke,
trying to figure out what it was that

Meeks knew that he didn't because there most certainly was something ..
.

Meeks' laughter was sharp and acrid.  "Why don't we see what works and
what doesn't, Mr.  Holiday!"

The gloved hand swept up, the fingers extended, and green fire burst
from the tips.  Ben sprang forward with a lunge, tumbling past the dark
form of the wizard, rolling wildly to dodge the fire, and scrambling
back to his feet.  He reached the closed door in a rush and had his
fingers on the handle when the magic caught up with him.  He tried to
scream, but couldn't.  Shadows wrapped him, smothered him, and the
sleep that wouldn't come earlier couldn't now be kept away.

Ben Holiday shuddered helplessly and dropped slowly into blackness.

B"

B.

Ben came awake again in shadows and half-light, eyes squinting through
a swirl of images that rocked like the flotsam and jetsam an ocean's
waters tossed against a beachhead.  He lay on a pallet of some sort,
the touch of its leather padding cool and smooth against his face.  His
first thought was that he was still alive.  His second was to wonder
why.

He blinked, waiting for the images to stop moving and take definite
shape.  The memory of what had happened to him recalled itself with
painful intensity.  He could feel again the anger, frustration, and
despair.  Meeks had returned to Landover.  Meeks had caught him
unprepared, smashed the rune stone given him by Willow, stripped him of
his clothing, turned the dark magic on him until consciousness was
gone, and .. .

Oh, my God!

His fingers groped down the front of his tunic, reached inside, and
withdrew the medallion that hung from its chain about his neck.
Frantically, he held it up to the twilight, the warnings already
whispering urgently in his mind, the certainty of what he would find
already taking shape in his thoughts.  The carved metal face of the
medallion seemed to shimmer.  For an instant, he thought he saw the
familiar figure of the Paladin riding out of Sterling Silver against
the rising sun.  Then the Paladin, the castle, and the sun were gone,
and there was only the cloaked form of Meeks, black against a surface
tarnished with disuse.

Ben swallowed against the dryness he felt in his throat, his worst
fears realized.  Meeks had stolen the medallion of the Kings of
Landover.

A sense of desperation flooded through him, and he tried to push
himself to his feet.  He was successful for a moment, a small rush of
adrenaline giving him renewed strength.  He stood, the swirl of images
steadying enough that he could recognize something of his surroundings.
He was still within Sterling Silver.  He recognized the room as a
sitting chamber situated at the front of the castle, a room reserved
for waiting guests.  He recognized the bench on which he had been
lying, with its rust-colored leather and carved wooden feet.  He knew
where he was, but he didn't know why just as he didn't know why he was
still alive .. .

Then his strength gave out again, his legs buckled, and he crumpled
back onto the bench.  Wood scraped and leather creaked, the sounds
alerting someone who waited without.  The door opened inward.  Gimlet
eyes glittered from out of a monkey face to which large ears were
appended.

It was Bunion!

Bunion stepped into view and peered down at him.

Ben had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life.  He would
have hugged the little kobold if he could have found the strength to do
so.  As it was, he simply lay there, grinning foolishly and trying to
make his mouth work.  Bunion helped him back onto the bench and waited
for him to get the words out.

"Find Questor," he managed finally.  He swallowed again against the
dryness, the inside of his mouth like chalk.  "Bring him.  Don't let
anyone know what you're doing.  And be careful.  Meeks is here in the
castle!"

Bunion stared at him a moment longer, an almost puzzled look on his
gnarled face, then turned and slipped from the room wordlessly.  Ben
lay back again, exhausted.  Good old Bunion.  He didn't know what the
kobold was doing there or even what he was doing there, for that matter
but it was exactly the piece of good fortune he needed.  If he could
find Questor quickly enough, he could rally the guard and put an end to
any threat Meeks might pose.  Meeks was a powerful wizard, but he was
no match for so many.  Ben would regain the stolen medallion, and Meeks
would regret the day he ever even thought about sneaking back into
Landover!

He closed his eyes momentarily, marshaling what inner resources he
could, then pushed himself upright once more.  His eyes swept the room.
It was empty.  Candlelight from a wall bracket and a table dish chased
the shadows.  Light from without crept through the crack beneath the
closed door.  He stood, bracing the backs of his legs against the bench
for support.  He was still dressed in the peasant garb with which Meeks
had clothed him.  His hands were black with grime.  Cute trick, Ben
thought but it won't work.  I'm still me.

He took a dozen deep breaths, his vision steadying, his strength
rebuilding.  He could feel the warmth of the castle reaching out from
the flooring through his battered work boots.  He could feel the
vibrancy of her life.  There was an urgency to her touch that was
disturbing.  She seemed to sense the danger he was in.

Don't worry; it's going to be all right, he reassured her silently.

Footsteps approached and the door opened.  Questor Thews stood there
with Bunion.  He hesitated, then entered the room wordlessly.  The
kobold followed, closing the door behind them.

"Questor, thank God you're here!"  Ben blurted out.

He started forward, hands reaching out in greeting.  "We have to act
quickly.  Meeks is back here, now, somewhere in the castle.  I don't
know how he managed it, but he stole the medallion.  We have to alert
the guard and find him before ..."

He came to an abrupt stop half-a-dozen feet from his friend, his words
trailing off into silence.  The wizard's hands were still at his sides
not extended to receive his own.  The owlish face was hard, and the
bushy eyebrows furrowed.

Questor Thews was looking at Ben as if he had never seen his King
before in his life.  Ben stiffened.  "Questor, what's the matter?"  The
wizard continued to stare at him.  "Who are you?  "

"Who am I?  What do you mean, who am I?  It's me, Ben!"

"Ben?  You call yourself Ben?"  "Of course, I call myself Ben!  What
else would I call myself?  That's my name, isn't it?"  "Apparently you
believe so."

"Questor, what are you talking about?  I believe so because it is
so!"

Questor Thews frowned.  The lines about his brows furrowed even more
deeply.  "You are Ben Holiday?  You are Landover's High Lord?"

Ben stared back at him speechlessly.  The disbelief in the other's
voice was unmistakable.  "You don't recognize me, do you?"  he
ventured.

The wizard shook his head.  "I do not."

Ben felt a sharp sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.  "Look,
it's just the clothes and the dirt, for Pete's sake!  Look at me! Meeks
did this changed the clothes, messed me up a bit.  But it's still
me!"

"And you are Ben Holiday?"

"Yes, damn it!"

Questor studied him a moment, then took a deep breath.  "You may
believe yourself to be Ben Holiday.

You may even believe yourself to be High King of Landover.  But you are
not.  I know because I have just come from the King and he was not you!
You are an intruder in this castle.  You are a spy and possibly even
worse.  You have entered uninvited, you have listened in on
conversations that were private, you have attacked the High Lord in his
bedchamber, and now you are claiming to be someone you clearly are not.
If the choice were mine, I would have you imprisoned at once!  It is
only because the High Lord has ordered your release that you are free
now.  I suggest you go quickly.  Seek help for your affliction,
whatever it is, and stay far, far away from here!"

Ben was stunned.  He could not think of what to do.  He heard himself
telling Meeks, "Medallion or no medallion, I'm still me and you're
still you!"  He heard Meeks reply, "Are you certain of that?"

What had been done to him?

He turned quickly to Bunion, searching for some hint of recognition in
the kobold's sharp eyes.  There was none.  He rushed past them both to
a mirror that hung upon the wall next to the doorway.  He peered
through the hal flight at his image reflected in the glass.  It was his
face!  He was exactly the same as he had always been!  Why couldn't
Questor and Bunion see that?

"Listen to me!"  He wheeled on them, frantic.  "Meeks has come back
from the old world, stolen the medallion, and somehow disguised from
everyone but myself who I am!  I look the same to me, but not to
you!"

Questor folded his arms across his chest.  "You look different to
everyone but yourself?"

It sounded so ridiculous that for a moment Ben just stared at him.
"Yes," he replied finally.  "And he has made himself appear as me!
Somehow he has stolen my identity.  I didn't attack him in his
bedchamber!  He attacked me in mine!"  He came forward a step, eyes
darting from one face to the other.  "He sent the dreams, don't you
see?  He arranged all of this!  I don't know why, but he did!  This is
part of his revenge for what we did to him!"

There was irritation in Questor's eyes, indifference in Bunion's.  Ben
felt his grip on the situation slipping.  "You can't let him do this,
damn it!  You can't let him get away with this!"  His mind raced.
"Look, if I'm not who I say I am, how do I know all that I do?  How do
I know about the dreams mine of Miles Bennett, yours of the missing
books of magic.  Willow's of the black unicorn!  For God's sake, what
about Willow?  Someone has to warn her!  Listen, damn it!  How do I
know about the books you brought in last night the ones with the
unicorns?  I know about those.  I know about the medallion, about .. .
Ask me something!  Go on, ask me anything!  Test me!"

Questor shook his head solemnly.  "I do not have time for these games,
whoever-you-are.  You know what you know because you are a spy and
learned these things by spying.  You listened to our conversations and
you adapted them to your own purposes.  You forget that you already
confessed all this to the High Lord when he caught you sneaking about
his bedchamber.  You admitted everything when pressed.  You are
fortunate you were not dispatched by the guard when you attempted to
flee.  You are fortunate you ..."

"I did not flee anything!"  Ben shouted in fury.  He tried to reach out
to Questor, but Bunion interceded at once and kept him away.  "Listen
to me!  I am Ben Holiday!  I am High Lord ofLandover!  I..."

The doors opened and guards appeared, alarmed by the frenzy in his
vojce.  Questor beckoned, and they seized hold of his arms.

"Don't do this!"  he screamed.  "Give me a chance ..."

"You have been given that chance!"  Questor Thews interjected coldly.
"Take advantage of it and leave!"

Ben was dragged from the room struggling, still screaming his identity,
still protesting what had been done to him,

8o while his mind spun with anger and frustration.  He caught a glimpse
of a tall, dark-robed figure standing in the distance, watching. Meeks!
He screamed louder, trying to break free.  One of the guards cuffed
him and he saw stars.  His head drooped and his voice trailed away.  He
had to do something!  But what?  What?

The robed figure disappeared.  Questor and Bunion were left behind. Ben
was dragged through the entry to the castle gates and beyond the walls.
The bridge he had rebuilt after he had assumed the throne was bright
with torchlight.  He was dragged across it.  When he reached the far
side, he was thrown to the ground.

"Good night, your Majesty," one of the guards mocked.

"Come visit again soon," said another.

They walked away laughing.  "Next time we'll have his ears," one
said.

Ben lay upon the ground momentarily, head spinning.  Slowly he pushed
himself upright and looked back across the bridge at the castle lights.
He stared at the towers and battlements as they glistened silver in the
light of Landover's eight moons and listened to the fading sound of
voices and the heavy thud of the gates being closed.

Then all was silent..

He still could not believe that this was happening to him.

"Mother!"  Willow whispered, and there was excitement and longing in
her voice.

Moonlight draped the great forests of the lake country in a mix of
rainbow colors, its cool brightness a beacon against the shadows.
Parsnip was encamped somewhere far back within those shadows, patiently
awaiting her return.  Elderew lay distant, the city of the River Master
wrapped in silence, her inhabitants asleep.  Elderew was Willow's home
and the River Master was her father, but it was neither her home nor
her father that she had come to see this night.

It was the wood nymph who danced before her like a vision out of
fairy.

Willow knelt at the edge of a clearing surrounded by aging pines and
watched the magic unfold.  Her mother spun and leaped through the
night's stillness, light and ephemeral, born of air and blown on the
wind.  She was a tiny thing, little more than a wisp of life.  White
gauze clothed her, transparent and weightless, and the pale green skin
of her child's body glimmered beneath the covering.  Waist-length
silver hair rippled and shimmered with each movement she made, a
trailer of white fire against the night's dark.  Music that she alone
could hear swept her on.

Willow watched in rapture.  Her mother was a wild thing, so wild that
she could not live among humans, even the once-fairy people of the lake
country.  She had bonded briefly to Willow's father, but that had been
long ago.  They had bonded once only, her father nearly driven mad with
need for the wood nymph he could not have, and then her mother had
disappeared back into the forests again.  She had never come back.
Willow had been born of that brief union, her father's constant
reminder of the fairy being he forever wanted and could never have. His
impossible longing aroused in him both love and hate.  His feelings for
Willow had always been ambivalent.

Willow understood.  She was a sylph, an elemental.  She was the child
of both her parents, her constant water sprite father and her mercurial
wood nymph mother.  Her father's domesticity gave her stability, but
she was imbued with her mother's wildness as well.  She was a creature
of contradictions.  Amorphous, she was both flesh and plant.  She was
human in the greater part of the moon's cycle and plant briefly in the
cycle's apex a single night each twenty-day.  Ben had been shocked to
see her transformation that first night.  She had changed from human to
tree in this very clearing, feeding on the energy implanted by her
mother in the earth where she danced.  Ben had been shocked, but she
was what she was, and he had come to accept that.  One day he would
even love her for it, she believed.  It was not so with her father. His
love was conditional and always would be.  He was still a captive of
the insatiable need her mother aroused in him.  Willow only seemed to
emphasize the weight of the chains that bound him.

So Willow had not come to her father in her effort to understand the
dream of the black unicorn.  She had come instead to her mother.

Her mother spun closer, whirling and twisting with grace and strength
that defied understanding.  Although wild and captive in her own way to
desires she could not resist, her mother loved her nevertheless without
condition, without measure.  She came when Willow needed her, the bond
that linked them so strong that they could often sense each other's
thoughts.  They spoke now in the silence of their minds, trading images
of love and want.  The bonding grew stronger, an entwining that
expanded thoughts into words .. .

"Mother," Willow whispered a second time.

She felt herself dream.  Her mother danced, and she saw in the
balletic, frenzied movements the vision that had brought her.  The
black unicorn appeared once more, a creature of exquisite, terrible
beauty.  It stood before her in the dark wood of which she had first
dreamed, slender shape shimmering in moonlight and shadows, in the
manner of a wraith.  Willow shook to see it so.  One moment it was a
creature of fairy, the next a demon of Abaddon.  Its spiraled horn
flared and its hooves pawed the forest earth.  Head lowered, it feinted
with a quick rush, then backed cautiously away.  It seemed trapped with
indecision.

What bothers it so?  Willow wondered in surprise.  She looked down
suddenly and the answer lay cradled in her hands.  She was holding
again the bridle of spun gold.  It was the bridle that kept the unicorn
at bay; she knew it instinctively.  She caressed it and felt the weave
and draw of the threads run smooth against the touch of her fingers.  A
strange rush of emotions coursed through her.  Such power the bridle
offered!  It could make the unicorn hers, she sensed.  There were no
unicorns left in all the world, none but in fairy, where she might
never go again, none but this one only, and it might be hers if she
wished it.  All she need do was to stretch out her hand .. .

But, no, she cautioned abruptly, if she were to touch this creature for
even the briefest instant, she would be lost to herself.  She knew
that; she had always known that.  She must take the bridle to Ben
because it belonged to him .. .

And then the unicorn's head lifted, all beauty and grace.  The dark
face was perfectly symmetrical, the long mane blown like silk on a
whisper of wind.  There was fear in its eyes, fear of something other
than the sylph and her bridle of spun gold, fear of something beyond
her comprehension.  Willow was paralyzed with the horror of it.  The
eyes of the black unicorn threatened to engulf her.  The dream closed
about. She blinked rapidly to break the spell and caught for just an
instant something more than fear in the creature's eyes.  She saw an
unmistakable plea for help.

Her hands lifted, almost of their own volition, and she held the bridle
before her like a talisman.

The black unicorn, snorted, an indelicate, frightened sound, and the
shadows of the wood seemed to shimmer in response.  Abruptly, the dream
faded into vapor and the unicorn was gone.  Willow's mother danced
alone again in the pine-sheltered clearing.  The wood nymph spun one
final time, a bit of moonlight against the dark, slowed in her
pirouette, and flitted soundlessly down to where her daughter knelt.

Willow sank back upon her heels in exhaustion, the strength drained
from her by the effort she had given over to the dream.  "Oh, Mother,"
she murmured and clasped the slender, pale green hands.  "What have I
been shown?"  Then she smiled gently and there were tears in her eyes
and on her cheeks.  "But there is no purpose in asking you, is there?
You know no more of this than I. You dance only what you feel, not what
you know."

Her mother's delicate features changed in a barely perceptible manner a
lowering of her eyes, a slight twisting of her mouth.  She understood,
but could not help.  Her dance was a conduit to knowledge, but not its
source.  The magic worked that way with elementals.

"Mother."  Willow clasped the pale hands more tightly, drawing strength
from their touch.  "I must know the reason for these dreams of the
unicorn and the bridle of gold.  I must know why I am being shown
something that both lures and frightens me as this does.  Which vision
am I to believe?"

The small hands tightened back on her own, and her mother answered in a
brief, birdlike sound that echoed of the forest night.

Willow's slender form bent close, and something like a chill made her
shiver.  "There is one in the lake country who can help me understand?"
she asked softly.  "There is one who might know?"  Her face grew
intense.  "Mother, I must go to him!  Tonight!"

Again her mother responded, quick, eerie.  She rose and spun swiftly
across the clearing and back again.  Her hands beckoned frantically.
Tomorrow, they said.  Tonight is taken.  It is your time.

Willow's face lifted.  "Yes, Mother," she whispered obediently.

She understood.  She might wish it otherwise and indeed had done so
more than once before but she could not deny the fact of it.  The
twenty-day cycle was at its end; the change was upon her.  The need was
already so strong that she could barely control herself.  She shivered
again.  She must hurry.

She thought suddenly of Ben and wished he were there with her.

She stood up and walked to the clearing's center.  Her arms lifted
skyward as if to draw in the colored moonlight.  A radiance enveloped
her, and she could feel the essence of her mother emanating from the
earth upon which she had danced.  She began to feed.

"Stay close to me, Mother," she pleaded as her body shimmered.  Her
feet arched and split into roots that snaked downward into the dark
earth, her hands and arms lengthened into branches, and the
transformation began.

Moments later it was finished.  Willow had disappeared.  She had become
the tree whose namesake she bore and would stay that way until dawn.

Her mother sank down next to her, a child's ghost slipped from the
shadows.  She sat motionless for a time.  Then her pale, slender arms
wrapped about the roughened trunk that harnessed her daughter's life
and held it tight.

Dawn was approaching.  Landover's moons were fading away, one after the
other, and night's shadows were giving ground before a broadening
golden hue that edged its way slowly out of the eastern horizon.

Questor Thews stalked the halls of Sterling Silver, a skeletal, ragtag
figure in his gray robes with the colored sashes, looking for all the
world as if he had lost his best friend.  He rounded a corner near the
front entry hall and bumped up against Abernathy.

"Taking an early constitutional?"  the scribe inquired archly.

Questor grunted and the furrows lining his forehead deepened.  "I find
I cannot sleep, and I do not for the life of me know why that is. There
is reason enough to be tired, heaven knows."

Abernathy's shaggy face revealed nothing of what he thought of that. 
He shrugged and turned to walk next to the wizard.  "I understand
someone was caught breaking into the High Lord's bedchamber this
evening someone who claimed to be the King."

Questor grunted a second time.  "A madman.  He was lucky to be
released.  But the High Lord ordered it.  "Put him across to the
mainland," he said.  I would not have been so generous about the matter
had the decision been mine, I assure you."

They walked a bit further.  "Odd that the High Lord simply released
him," Abernathy remarked finally.  His nose twitched.  "He usually
finds better uses for his enemies."

"Hmmmmmm."  Questor didn't seem to hear.  He was shaking his head at
something.  "It bothers me that the man knew so much about the dreams.
He knew of the books of magic, of the High Lord's visit back, of the
unicorn .. ."  He trailed off momentarily.  "He seemed to know
everything.  He seemed so sure of himself."

Neither spoke for a time.  Questor led the way up a stairwell to a walk
overlooking the outer parapets at the front of the castle.  Below, the
bridge which connected the island to the mainland stretched out across
the lake, misted and empty.  Questor peered through the fading gloom to
the far shore, scanning the water's edge.  His owlish face tightened
like a drawn knot.

"The stranger appears to be gone," he said finally.

Abernathy glanced at him curiously.  "Did you expect anything else?" 
he asked.

He waited in vain for an answer to his question.  Questor continued to
stare out across the lake and said nothing.

a' a a. a

The new day did not find Ben Holiday standing about the gates of
Sterling Silver with his nose pressed up against the timbers as might
have been expected.  It found him hiking his way south into the lake
country.  He walked quickly and purposefully.  By the time the sun had
crested the rim of the valley east above the mists and tree line, he
was already half-a-dozen miles into his journey and determined to
complete at least a dozen more before the day was finished.

The decision to leave had not been an easy one.  It had taken him a
long time to make it.  He had sat out there in the dark and the chill,
staring back at the lights of the castle and wondering what had hit
him, so stunned he didn't even move for the first half hour; he just
sat there.  His emotions ran the gamut from shock to fear to anger and
back again.  It was like a bad dream from which you are certain you
will escape even after the time for escape is long past.  He recounted
the events of the night over and over again in his mind, trying to
construct some rational explanation for their being, to discover some
purpose to their order.  He failed.  It all came down to the same thing
Meeks was in and he was out.

It was with a sense of desperation that he finally acknowledged that
what had happened to him was for real.  He had given up a life and a
world that were familiar and safe to come into Landover; he had risked
losing everything he had on the chance that he would find something
better.  Obstacles had confronted him at every turn, but he had
overcome them.  He had gained in reality what most found only in
dreams.  Now, just when he had begun to feel comfortable with what he
had, just when it seemed the worst was past, everything he had
struggled so hard to find had been snatched away from him, and he was
faced with the distinct possibility that he would end up losing it
all.

It wasn't possible.  It wasn't fair.  But it was a fact, and he hadn't
been a successful trial lawyer for all those years in the old world by
avoiding the reality of facts.  So he choked down his desperation, got
over being too stunned to move, swept away the anger and the fear, and
forced himself to deal with his situation.  His repeated replays of
what had happened to him failed to yield the information he might have
wished.  Meeks had tricked him into returning to the old world, and he
had carried the wizard back with him into Landover.  Meeks had done
that by sending him a false dream about Miles.  But Meeks had also sent
the dreams of the missing books of magic and the black unicorn to
Questor Thews and Willow.  Why had he done that?  There had to be a
reason.  The dreams were all tied together in some way; Ben was certain
of it.  He was certain as well that something had forced Meeks to
choose this particular time to return to Landover.  His diatribe in the
bedchamber had made that clear.  In some way Ben had messed up his
plans and it was more than simply the thwarting of the wizard's sale of
the throne of Landover to others or the exiling of the wizard from his
home world.  It was something else something of far greater importance
to Meeks.  The wizard's anger at Ben was fueled by events and circum
stances that Ben hadn't yet uncovered.  They had compelled Meeks to
return almost out of desperation.

But Ben had no idea why.

He did know that, despite what should have been adequate provocation,
Meeks hadn't killed him when he could have.  That was puzzling. Clearly
Meeks hated him enough to want him to suffer awhile as an outcast, but
wasn't it a bit risky letting him wander around loose? Sooner or later
someone was going to see through the deception and recognize the truth
of things.  Meeks could not assume his identity and Ben remain a
stranger to everyone indefinitely.  There had to be some way to counter
the magic of that vile amulet Meeks had stuck him with, and he would
surely search it out eventually.  On the other hand, maybe what he
accomplished in the long run didn't matter.  Perhaps time was something
he didn't have.  Maybe the game would be over for him before he
understood all the rules.

The possibility terrified him.  It meant he had to act quickly if he
didn't want to risk losing the chance of acting at all.  But what
should he do?  He had stared back across the lake at the dark shape of
the castle and reasoned it through.  He was wasting his time here where
he was a stranger to everyone even to his closest friends.  If neither
Questor nor Bunion recognized him, there was little chance anyone else
at Sterling Silver would.  Meeks was King of Landover for the moment;
he would have to concede that much.  It grated on him like sand rubbed
on raw flesh, but there was nothing to be done about it.  Meeks was Ben
and Ben himself was some fellow who had slipped uninvited into' the
castle and tried to cause trouble.  If he attempted to break in a
second time, he would undoubtedly wind up in worse shape than he was in
now.

Maybe Meeks was hoping for that.  Maybe he was expecting it.  Ben did
not want to chance it.

Besides, there were better alternatives to choose from.  Admittedly he
did not know exactly what Meeks was about, but he knew enough to know
how to cause the wizard problems if he could act fast enough.  Meeks
had sent three dreams, and two of them had already served their
purposes.  Meeks had regained entry into Landover through Ben, and he
had used Questor to bring him the missing books of magic.  Make no
mistake, Ben admonished himself Meeks had those books by now as surely
as the sun would rise in the east.  That left only the third dream to
be satisfied the dream sent to Willow of the black unicorn.  Meeks was
looking for something from that third dream as well; he had let a hint
of it slip in his anger.  He was looking for the golden bridle that
would harness the black unicorn and he fully expected Willow to bring
it to him.  And why shouldn't she, after all?  The dream had warned her
that the unicorn was a threat to her, that the bridle was the only
thing that would protect her, and that she must bring the bridle to
Ben.  That was exactly what she would think she was doing, of course,
once she found the bridle except that it would be Meeks disguised as
Ben who would be waiting to greet her.  But if Ben could reach the
sylph first, he could prevent that from happening.  He could warn
Willow, and perhaps the two of them could discover the importance of
the bridle and the unicorn to the wizard and throw a monkey wrench into
his plans.

So off Ben went, heading south, the difficult decision made.  It meant
forgoing his responsibilities as King of Landover and conceding those
responsibilities to Meeks.  It meant abandoning the problems of the
judiciary council, the irrigation fields south of Waymark, the always
impatient Lords of the Greensward, the tax levy, and all the others who
still waited for an audience with Landover's High Lord. Meeks could act
in his place with impunity in the days ahead or fail to act, as the
case might be.  It meant abandoning Sterling Silver and leaving his
friends, Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds.  He felt like a traitor
and a coward going this way.  A part of him demanded that he stay and
fight.  But Willow came first.  He had to find her and warn her.  Once
that was accomplished, he could turn his attention to exposing Meeks
and setting things right.

Unfortunately, finding Willow would not be easy.  He was traveling down
into the lake country because that was where Willow had said she would
go to begin her search for the unicorn and the golden bridle.  But
Willow had been gone almost a week, and that search might have taken
her anywhere by now.  Ben would appear a stranger to everyone, so he
could not trade on his position as Landover's King to demand help.  He
might be ignored totally or not even be allowed into the lake country.
If that happened, he was in trouble.

On the other hand, it was difficult to imagine being in worse trouble
than he was in already.

He walked all that day, feeling better about himself as he went, for no
better reason than the fact that he was doing something positive and
not simply sitting around.  He wound his way southward out of the
lightly forested hill country around his island home into the more
densely grown woods that comprised the domain of the River Master.  The
hills smoothed to grasslands, then thickened to woods damp with
moisture and heavy with shadow.  Lakes began to dot the countryside,
some no larger than marshy ponds, some so vast they stretched away into
mist.  Trees canopied and closed about, and the smell of damp permeated
the failing light.  A stillness settled down about the land as dusk
neared, then began to fill slowly with night sounds.

Ben found a clearing by a stream feeding down out of the distant hills
and made his camp.  It was a short project.  He had no blankets or
food, so he had to content himself with the leaves and branches from a
stand of Bonnie Blues and the spring water.  The fare was filling, but
hardly satisfying.  He kept thinking that something was moving in the
shadows, watching him.  Had the lake country people discovered him? 
But no one showed.  He was quite alone.

Being so alone eroded his confidence.  He was all but helpless when you
got right down to it.  He had lost his castle, his knights, his
identity, his authority, his title, and his friends.  Worst of all, he
had lost the medallion.  Without the medallion, he did not have the
protection of the Paladin.  He was left with only himself to rely upon,
and that was precious little against the dangers posed by Landover's
denizens and their mercurial forms of magic.  He had been lucky to
survive his arrival in Landover when he had enjoyed the benefit of the
medallion's protection.  What was he to do now without it?

He stared off into the dark, finding the answers as elusive as the
night's shadows.  What distressed him most was the fact that he had
lost the medallion to Meeks.  He could not figure out for the life of
him how that could have happened.  No one was supposed to be able to
take the medallion from him.  That meant he must have given it over
willingly.  But how had Meeks compelled him to do something so
stupid?

He finished his meager dinner and was still brooding over the turn of
events that had brought him to this sorry state when he saw the cat.

The cat was sitting at the edge of the clearing, perhaps a dozen feet
or so away, watching him.  Ben had no idea how long the cat had been
there.  He hadn't seen it until now, but it was keeping perfectly
still, so it might have been occupying that same spot for some time.
The cat's eyes gleamed emerald in the moonlight.  Its coat was
silver-gray except for black paws, face, and tail.  It was a slender,
delicate thing seemingly out of place in the forest wild.  It had the
look of a strayed house pet.

"Hello, cat," Ben ventured with a wry smile.

"Hello, yourself," the cat replied.

Ben stared, certain that he must not have heard correctly  Had the cat
spoken?  He straightened.  "Did you say something?"  he asked
cautiously.

The cat's gleaming eyes blinked once and fixed on him, but the cat said
nothing.  Ben waited a few moments, then leaned back again on his
elbows.  It wasn't as if it were surprising to imagine that the cat
might have said something, he told himself.  After all, the dragon
Strabo spoke;

and if a dragon could speak, why not a cat?

"Too bad you can't talk," he muttered, thinking it would be nice to
share his misery with someone.

The night brought a chill with it, and he shivered briefly in the rough
work clothes.  He wished he had a blanket or a fire to help ward off
the damp; or better, that he were back in his own bed at the castle.

He glanced over again at the cat.  The cat hadn't moved.  It simply sat
there, staring back at him.  Ben frowned.  The cat's steady gaze was a
bit unnerving.  What was a cat doing out here in the woods alone like
this anyway?  Didn't it have a home?  The emerald eyes gleamed
brightly.  They were sharp and insistent.  Ben shifted his own gaze to
the shadowed woods.  He wondered again how he was going to find Willow.
He would need help from the River Master and he hadn't the foggiest
idea as to how he would convince that being of his true identity.  His
fingers brushed the tarnished medallion that hung about his neck,
tracing the outline of Meeks.  The medallion certainly wouldn't be of
any help.

"Maybe the River Master's magic will help him recognize me," he thought
aloud.

"I wouldn't count on'it, if I were you," someone replied.

He started and looked quickly in the direction of the speaker.  There
was no one there but the cat.

Ben's eyes narrowed.  "I heard you that time!"  he snapped, irritated
enough that he didn't care how foolish he sounded.  "You can speak,
can't you?"

The cat blinked and answered.  "I can when it pleases me."

Ben fought to regain his composure.  "I see.  Well, you might at least
have the courtesy to announce the fact instead of playing games with
people."

"Courtesy has nothing to do with the matter, High Lord Ben Holiday.
Playing games is a way of life with cats.  We tease, we taunt, and we
do exactly as we please, not as others would have us do.  Playing games
is an integral part of our personae.  Those who wish to have any sort
of relationship with us must expect as much.  They must understand that
participation in our games is necessary if they wish communication on
any level."

Ben stared at the cat.  "How do you know who I am?"  he asked
finally.

"Who else would you be but who you are?"  the cat replied.

Ben had to stop and think that one through a minute.  "Well, no one,"
he said finally.  "But how is it that you can recognize me when no one
else can?  Don't I look like someone else to you?"

The cat lifted one dainty paw and washed it lovingly.  "Who you look
like counts for little with me," the cat said.  "Appearances are
deceiving, and who you look like might not be who you really are.  I
never rely on appearances.  Cats can appear as they choose.  Cats are
masters of deception and masters of an art cannot be deceived by
anyone.  I see you for who you really are, not who you appear to be.  I
have no idea if how you appear just now is how you really are."

"Well, it isn't."

"Whatever you say.  I do know that however you might appear, you are in
any case Ben Holiday, High Lord of Landover."

Ben was silent a moment, trying to decide just what it was he was
dealing with here, wondering where on earth this creature had come
from.

"So you know who I am in spite of the magic that disguises me?"  he
concluded.  "The magic doesn't fool you?"

The cat studied him a moment, then cocked its head, reflecting.  "The
magic wouldn't fool you either, if you didn't let it."

Ben frowned.  "What do you mean by that?"

"Much and little.  Deception is mostly a game we play with
ourselves."

The conversation was turning a bit oblique.  Ben sat back wearily. "Who
are you, Mr.  Cat?"  he asked.

The cat stood up and came forward a few feet, then sat back down again,
prim and sleek.  "I am a great many things, my dear High Lord.  I am
what you see and what you don't.  I am real and imagined.  I am
something from the life you have known and something from dreams of
life you have not yet enjoyed.  I am quite an anomaly, really."

"Very insightful," Ben grunted.  "Could you be a bit more precise,
perhaps?"

The cat blinked.  "Certainly.  Watch this."

The cat shimmered suddenly in the dark, glowing as if radioactive, and
the sleek body seemed to alter shape.  Ben squinted until his eyes
closed, then looked again.  The cat had grown.  It was four times the
size it had been, and it was no longer just a cat.  It had assumed a
slightly human face beneath cat's ears, whiskers, nose and fur, and its
paws had become fingers.  It swished its tail expectantly as it stared
at him.

Ben started half-a-dozen questions and gave up.  "You must be a fairy
creature," he said finally.

The cat grinned an almost-human grin.  "Exactly so!  Very well
reasoned, High Lord!"

"Thank you so much.  Would you mind awfully telling me what sort of
fairy creature you are?"

"What sort?  Well, um .. . hmmmmm.  I am a prism cat."

"And what is that?"

The grin disappeared.  "Oh, I don't think I can explain it not even if
I wanted to, which I really don't.  It wouldn't help you to know
anyway, High Lord.  You wouldn't understand, being human.  I will tell
you this.  I am a very old and very rare sort of cat.  I am but one of
just a few still remaining.  We were always a select breed and did not
propagate the species in the manner of common animals.  It is that way
with fairy creatures you have been told this, haven't you?  No?  Well,
it is that way.  Prism cats are rare.  We must spread ourselves quite
thin to accomplish our purposes."

"And what purpose is it that you are trying to accomplish here?"  Ben
asked, still trying to make some sense out of all the verbiage.

The cat flicked its tail idly.  "That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Oh you.  On your .. . intrinsic self-worth."

Ben stared at the cat wordlessly.  Things were becoming a bit too
muddled for him to stay with this conversation.  He had been assaulted
in his own home and bounced out like a stranger.  He had lost his
identity.  He had lost his friends.  He was cold and he was hungry.  He
felt as if any intrinsic self-worth he might possess rated just about
zero.

The cat stirred slightly.  "I am deciding whether or not I shall be
your companion for a time," the creature announced.

Ben grinned faintly.  "My companion?"

"Yes.  You certainly need one.  You don't see yourself to be who you
really are.  Neither does anyone else, apparently, save for me.  This
intrigues me.  I may decide to stay with you long enough to see how it
all turns out for you."

Ben was incredulous.  "Well, I'll say one thing for you.  You're a
different sort whether cat, human, fairy, or whatever.  But maybe you'd
better think twice about sticking with me.  You might be letting
yourself in for more than you can handle."

"Oh, I rather doubt that," the cat replied.  "I seldom encounter
anything that difficult these days."

"Is that so?"  Ben's patience slipped a notch.  This cat was
insufferable!  He hunched closer to the prim creature.  "Well, try this
on for size, Mr.  Cat.  What if I were to tell you that there is a
wizard named Meeks who has stolen my identity, my throne, and my life
and consigned me to exile in my own land?  What if I were to tell you
that I intend to get all of that back from him, but that to do so I
need to find a sylph who in turn searches for a black unicorn?  And
what if I were to tell you that there is every chance that I and anyone
brash enough to offer to help me in this endeavor will be disposed of
most unpleasantly if found out?"

The cat said nothing.  It simply sat there as if considering.  Ben
leaned back, both satisfied and disgusted with himself.  Sure, he could
congratulate himself for having laid all of his cards on the table and
setting the cat straight.  But he had also just destroyed the one
chance he might have had of finding someone to help him.  You can't
have it both ways, he admonished himself.

But the cat seemed unperturbed.  "Cats are not easily discouraged once
they have decided on something, you know.  Cats are quite independent
in their behavioral patterns and cannot be cajoled or frightened.  I
fail to see why you bother trying such tactics with me, High Lord."

Ben sighed.  "I apologize.  I just thought you ought to know how
matters stand."

The cat stood up and arched its back.  "I know exactly how matters
stand.  You are the one who is deceived.  But deception needs only to
be recognized to be banished.  You have that in common with the black
unicorn, I think."

Once more, Ben was surprised.  He frowned.  "You know of the black
unicorn?  There really is such a creature?"

The cat looked disgusted.  "You search for it, don't you?"

"For the sylph more than the unicorn," Ben answered hastily.  "She had
a dream of the creature and of a bridle of spun gold that would hold
it; she left to search for both."  He hesitated, then plunged ahead.
"The dream of the unicorn was sent by the wizard.  He sent other dreams
as well to me and to Questor Thews, another wizard, his half-brother. I
think that in some way the dreams are all tied together.  I am afraid
that Willow the sylph is in danger.  If I can reach her before the
wizard Meeks .. ."

"Certainly, certainly," the cat interrupted rather rudely.  There was a
bored look on its face.  It sat down again.  "It appears I had better
come with you.  Wizards and black unicorns are nothing to be fooling
about with."

"I agree," Ben said.  "But you don't appear to be any better equipped
than I to do what needs to be done.  Besides, this isn't your problem.
It's mine.  I don't think I would feel comfortable risking your life as
well as my own."

The cat sneezed.  "Such a noble expression of concern!"  Ben could have
sworn he caught a hint of sarcasm, but the cat's face revealed nothing.
The cat circled briefly and sat down again.  "What cat is not better
equipped than any human to do anything that needs to be done?  Besides,
why do you persist in thinking of me as simply a cat?"

Ben shrugged.  "Are you something more?"

The cat looked at him for a long time, then began to wash.  It licked
and worried its fur until it had groomed itself to its satisfaction.
All the while, Ben sat watching.  When the cat was at last content, it
faced him once more.  "You are not listening to me, my dear High Lord.
It is no wonder that you have lost yourself or that you have become
someone other than who you wish to be.  It is no wonder that no one but
I can recognize you.  I begin to question if you are worth my time."

Ben's ears burned at the rebuke, but he said nothing.  The cat blinked.
"It is cold here in the woods; there is a chill in the air.  I prefer
the comfort of a hearth and fire.  Would you like a fire, High Lord?"

Ben nodded.  "I'd love one but I don't have the tools."

The cat stood and stretched.  "Exactly.  But I do, you see.  Watch."

The cat began to glow again, just as it had before, and its shape
within the glow grew indistinct.  Then suddenly there was a crystalline
glimmer, and the flesh and blood creature of a moment earlier
disappeared completely and was replaced by something that looked as if
it were a large glass figurine.  The figurine still retained the
appearance of a cat with human features, but it moved as if liquid.
Emerald eyes blazed out of a clear body in which moonlight reflected
and refracted ofiF mirrored surfaces that shifted like tiny plates of
glass.  Then the light seemed to coalesce in the emerald eyes and
thrust outward like a laser.  It struck a gathering of deadwood a dozen
feet away and ignited it instantly into a blazing fire.

Ben shielded his eyes, then watched as the fire diminished until it was
manageable the size ofacampfire.  The emerald eyes dimmed.  The cat
shimmered and returned to its former shape.  It sat back slowly on its
haunches and regarded Ben solemnly.  "You will recall now, perhaps,
what I told you I was?"  it said.

"A prism cat," Ben responded at once, remembering.

"Quite right.  I can capture light from any source even so distant a
source as the land's eight moons.  I can then transform such light into
energy.  Basic physics, actually.  At any rate, I have abilities
somewhat more advanced than your own.  You have seen but a small
demonstration of those abilities."

Ben nodded slowly, feeling a bit uneasy now.  "I'll take your word for
it."

The cat moved a bit closer to the fire and sat down again.  The night
sounds had died into stillness.  There was a sudden tension in the air.
"I have been places others only dream about and I have seen the things
that are hidden there.  I know many secrets."  The cat's voice became a
whisper.  "Come closer to the fire, High Lord Ben Holiday.  Feel the
warmth."  Ben did as he was told, the cat watching.  The emerald eyes
seemed to flare anew.  "I know of wizards and missing books of magic. I
know of black unicorns and white, some lost, some found.  I even know
something of the deceptions that make some beings seem other than what
they are."  Ben started to interrupt, but the cat hissed in warning.
"No, High Lord just listen!  I am not disposed to converse so freely on
most occasions, so it would behoove you to let me finish!  Cats seldom
have anything to say, but we always know much!  So it is in this
instance.  I know much that is hidden from you.  Some of what I know
might be useful, some not.  It is all a matter of sorting out.  But
sorting out takes time, and time requires commitment.  I give
commitment to things but rarely.  You, however, as I said, intrigue me.
I am thinking about making an exception.  What do you think?"

Ben wasn't sure what he thought.  How could this cat know about black
unicorns and white?  How could he know about missing books of magic?
How much of this was just talk in general and how much specific to him?
He wanted to ask, but he knew as surely as it was night that the cat
was not about to answer him.  He felt his questions all jumble together
in his throat.

"Will you come with me, then?"  he asked finally.  The cat blinked.  "I
am thinking about it."  Ben nodded slowly.  "Do you have a name?"  The
cat blinked once more.  "I have many names, just as I am many things.
The name I favor just now is Edgewood Dirk.  But you may call me
Dirk."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance.  Dirk," Ben said.

"We shall see," Edgewood Dirk answered vaguely.  He turned and moved a
step or two closer to the fire.  "The night wearies me; I prefer the
day.  I think I shall sleep now."  He circled a patch of grass several
times and then settled down, curling up into a ball of fur.  The glow
enveloped him momentarily, and he was fully cat once more.  "Good
night, High Lord."

"Good night," Ben replied mechanically.  He was still taut with the
emotions that Dirk had aroused in him.  He mulled over what the cat had
said, trying to decide how much the creature really knew and how much
he was generalizing.  The fire crackled and snapped against the
darkness, and he moved closer to it for warmth.  Whatever the case,
Edgewood Dirk might have his uses, he reasoned and stretched his hands
toward the flames.  If only this strange creature were not so mercurial
.. .

And suddenly an unexpected possibility occurred to him.

"Dirk, did you come looking for me?"  he asked.

"Ah!"  the cat replied softly.

"Did you?  Did you deliberately seek me out?"

He waited, but Edgewood Dirk said nothing more.  The stillness of a few
moments earlier began to fill again with night sounds.  The tension
within him dissipated.  Flames licked against the deadwood and chased
the forest shadows.  Ben stared over at the sleeping cat and
experienced an odd sense of serenity.  He no longer felt quite so
alone.

He breathed deeply the night air and sighed.  No longer alone?  Who did
he think he was kidding?

He was still trying to decide when he finally fell asleep.

Healer Sprite a.

Ben Holiday awoke at dawn and could not figure out where he was.  His
disorientation was so complete that for several moments he could
remember nothing of the events of the past thirty-six hours.  He lay on
grasses damp with morning dew in a clearing in a forest and wondered
why he wasn't in his own bed at Sterling Silver.  He glanced down his
body and wondered why he was wearing such shabby clothing.  He stared
off into the misted trees and wondered what in the hell was going on.

Then he caught sight of Edgewood Dirk perched on a fallen log, sassy
and sleek, preening with studied care as he licked himself, all the
while studiously ignoring his human company.  Ben's situation came back
to him then in a rush of unpleasant memories, and he found himself
wishing rather ruefully that he had remained ignorant.

He rose, brushed himself off, drank a bit of spring water, and ate a
stalk from the Bonnie Blues.  The fruit taste was sweet and welcome,
but his hunger for more substantial fare was to go unassuaged for yet
another meal.  He glanced once or twice in Dirk's direction, but the
cat went on about the business of washing himself without noticing.
Some things obviously took precedence over others.

When Dirk was finally finished, he rose from his sitting position,
stretched, and said, "I have decided to come with you."

Ben refrained from saying what he was tempted to say and simply
nodded.

"For a while, at least," Dirk added pointedly.

Ben nodded a second time.  "Do you know where it is that I intend to
go?"  he asked.

Dirk gave him one of those patented "must you be such an idiot?"  looks
and replied, "Why?  Don't you?"

They departed the campsite and walked in silence through the early
morning hours.  The skies were gray and oppressive.  A heavily clouded
sun lifted sluggishly from out of the tree line, its mist-diffused
light sufficiently bright to permit small patches of dull silver to
chase the shadows and dot the pathway ahead like stepping stones across
a pond.  Ben led, Dirk picking his way carefully a yard or two behind.
There were no forest sounds to keep them company; the woods seemed
empty of life.

They reached the Irrylyn at midmoming and followed its shoreline south
along a narrow footpath that wound through forest trees and deadwood.
Like the woods surrounding, the lake seemed lifeless.  Clouds hung low
across its waters, and there was no wind.  Ben's thoughts drifted.  He
found himself reliving his first meeting with Willow.  He had come-to
the lake country seeking the support of the River Master in his effort
to claim Landover's throne.  Willow and Ben had chanced upon each other
bathing naked at night in the warm, spring-fed waters of this lake.  He
had never seen anyone as beautiful as the sylph.  She had given back to
him feelings he had thought dead and gone.

He shook his head.  The memory left him oddly sad, as if it were an
unpleasant reminder of something forever lost.  He stared out across
the gray, flat surface of the Irrylyn and tried to recapture the
moment.  But all he found were ghosts at play in the mists.

They broke away from the lake at its southern end and moved back into
the forest.  It was beginning to spit rain.  The small patches of gray
sunlight disappeared and shadows closed about.  The character of the
woods underwent a sudden and distinct change.  The trees turned gnarled
and damp, monstrous sentinels for a surreal world of imaginary wraiths
that slipped like smoke through a mist that shrouded everything. Sounds
returned, but they were more haunting than comforting, bits and pieces
of life that sprinkled the gloom with hints of what lay hidden. Ben
slowed, blinking his eyes, wiping the water from his face.  He had made
the trip down into the lake country on several occasions since that
first meeting with Willow, but each time it had been in the company of
the sylph or Questor Thews, and one of the fairy people had always met
them.  He could find his way as far as the Irrylyn by himself, but he
could not find his way much farther than that.  If he expected to find
the River Master and his people, he was going to have to have some help
and he might not get it.  The lake country people lived in Elderew,
their home city, hidden somewhere in these forests. No one could find
Elderew without help.  The River Master could either bring you in or he
could leave you out the choice was his.

He walked a bit farther, saw the path before him disappear completely,
and stopped.  There was no indication of where to go next.  There was
no sign of a guide.  The forest about him was a sullen wall of damp and
gloom.

"Is there a problem of some sort?"

Edgewood Dirk appeared next to him and sat down gingerly, flinching as
the rain struck him.  Ben had forgotten the cat momentarily.  "I'm not
sure which way to go," he admitted reluctantly.

"Oh?"  Dirk looked at him, and Ben could have sworn the cat shrugged.
"Well, I suggest we trust to our instincts."

The cat stood up and padded silently ahead, moving slightly left into
the mist.  Ben stared after the beast momentarily, then followed.  Who
knew?  Maybe the cat's instincts were worth trusting, he thought.  They
certainly couldn't be any worse than his own.

They picked their way slowly ahead, slipping through the massive trees,
ducking low-hanging branches with mossy trailers, stepping over rotting
logs, and skirting marshy patches of black ooze.  The rain quickened,
and Ben felt his clothing grow damp and heavy.  The forest and the mist
thickened and wrapped about him like a cloak; everything disappeared
outside a ten-foot sweep.  Ben heard things moving all about him, but
saw nothing.  Dirk kept padding steadily on, seemingly oblivious.

Then abruptly a shadow detached itself from the gloom and brought them
to a halt.  It was a wood sprite, lean and wiry, small as a child, his
skin browned and grainy, his hair thick and dark, grown like a mane
down the back of his neck and arms.  Dressed in nondescript,
earth-colored clothing, he seemed as much a part of the forest as the
trees and, had he wished, might have disappeared as quickly as he had
come.  He said nothing as he glanced first at Ben, then at Dirk.  He
hesitated as he caught sight of the cat, seemed to consider something,
then beckoned them forward.

Ben sighed.  Halfway home, he thought.

They walked ahead silently, following a narrow trail that wound
snakelike through vast, empty stretches of swamp.  Fog rolled over the
still surface of the water, clouds of impenetrable gray.  A thin sheet
of rain continued to fall.  Shapes darted and glided wraithlike through
the gloom, some with faces that were almost human, some with the look
of forest creatures.  Eyes blinked and peered out at him, then were
gone sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, pixies, elementals of all forms.
The fairy worlds of dozens of childhood stories came suddenly to life,
an impossible mix of fantasy and truth.  As always, it left Ben filled
with wonder and slightly afraid.

The path he followed was unfamiliar to him.  It was like that whenever
he came to Elderew; the River Master always brought him in a different
way.  Sometimes he passed through water that rose to his waist;
sometimes he passed along marshy earth that sucked eagerly at his
boots.  Whichever way he came, the swamp was always close about, and he
knew that to stray from any of the paths would bring a quick end to
him.  It always bothered him that not only could he not find his way
in, but he could not find his way out again either.  That meant he was
trapped here if the River Master did not choose to release him.  That
would not have been a consideration in the past.  After all, he had
been Landover's King and he had possessed the power of the medallion.
But all that was changed now.  He had lost both his identity and the
medallion.  He was just a stranger.  The River Master could do as he
chose with a stranger.

He was still thinking about his dilemma when they entered a great stand
of Cyprus, brushed aside curtains of damp moss trailers, wove past
massive gnarled roots, and emerged at last from the marsh.  Ben's boots
found firmer ground, and he began a short climb up a gentle slope.  The
mist and gloom thinned, cyprus gave way to oak and elm, fetid smells
dissipated, and the sweeter scent of open woodlands filled the morning
air.  Colors reappeared as garlands of rain-soaked flowers strung along
hedges and roped from sway bars lined the path.  Ben felt a tinge of
relief.  The way forward was familiar again.  He quickened his pace,
anxious that the journey be done.

Then the slope crested, the trees parted at the path's end, and there
he was.  Elderew stretched away before him, the city of the lake
country fairies.  The great, open air amphitheater where the people
held their festivals stood in the foreground, gray and empty in the
rainfall.  Massive trees framed its walls, the lower branches connected
by sawn logs to form seats, the whole ringing an arena of grasses and
wild flowers.  Branches interlaced overhead to create a leafy roof, the
rain water dripping from its eaves in a steady trickle.  Beyond, trees
twice the size of California's giant redwoods rose over the
amphitheater against the clouded horizon and cradled in their branches
the city proper a broad cluster of cottages and shops interconnected by
an intricate network of tree lanes and stairways that stretched from
forest earth to treetop and down again.

Ben stopped, stared, and blinked away the rain that ran down his
forehead into his eyes.  He realized suddenly that he was gaping like
the country boy come to the city for the first time.  It reminded him
of how much a stranger he really was in this land even after having
lived in it for over a year, even though he was its King.  It
underlined in bold strokes the precariousness of his situation.  He had
lost even the small recognition he had enjoyed.  He was an outsider
stripped of friends and means, almost completely reliant on the charity
of others.

The River Master appeared from a small stand of trees to one side,
flanked by half-a-dozen guards.  Tall and lean, his strange scaled skin
gleaming with a silver cast where it shone beneath his forest green
clothing, the lord of the lake country fairies stalked forward
determinedly.  His hard, chiseled face did not evidence much in the way
of charity.  His demeanor, normally calm and unhurried, seemed brusque.
He said something to the guide in a dialect Ben did not recognize, but
there was no mistaking the tone.  The guide stepped back quickly, his
small frame rigid, his eyes turned away.

The River Master faced Ben.  The silver diadem about his forehead
flashed dully with rain water as he tilted his head up.  Coarse, black
hair rippled along the back of his neck and forearms.  There were to be
no preliminaries.  "Who are you?"  he demanded.  "What are you doing
here?"

Ben had anticipated some resistance, but nothing like this.  He had
expected that the River Master wouldn't rec io8

ognize him, and, sure enough, he hadn't.  But that didn't explain why
the ruler of the once-fairy people was being so deliberately
unfriendly.  The River Master was surrounded by guards, and they were
armed.  He had left the members of his family behind where always
before he had gathered them about him to receive visitors.  He had not
waited for Ben to reach the amphitheater, the traditional greeting
place for visitors.  And his voice reflected undisguised anger and
suspicion.  Something was dreadfully wrong.

Ben took a deep breath.  "River Master, it's me, Ben Holiday," he
announced and waited.  There wasn't even a hint of recognition in the
other's dark eyes.  He forged ahead.  "I know I don't look like myself,
but that's because something has been done to me.  A magic has been
used to change my appearance.  The wizard who served the old King's
son, the one who abandoned Landover he calls himself Meeks in my world
has returned and stolen both my identity and the throne.  It's a long
story.  What's important is that I need your help.  I have to find
Willow."

The River Master stared, obviously surprised.  "You are Ben Holiday?"

Ben nodded quickly.  "I am even though I don't appear to be.  I'll try
to explain.  I traveled back to ..."

"No!"  The River Master cut him short with an irritated chop of one
hand.  "There is only one explanation I wish to hear from you whoever
you are.  I wish to know why you brought the cat."

Now it was Ben's turn to stare.  Rain water tricked steadily down his
face, and he bunked it from his eyes.  "The cat?"

"Yes, the cat!  The prism cat, the fairy creature who sits next to you
why did you bring it here?"  The River Master was a water sprite and
there were gills directly below his chin at either side of his throat.
He was so agitated now that the gills fluttered uncontrollably.

Surprised, Ben glanced at Dirk, who sat a dozen paces away and washed
his paws with what appeared to be total disinterest in the conversation
taking place.  "I don't understand," he replied finally, looking back
again at the River Master.  "What's the problem with .. . ?"

"Am I not making myself clear to you?"  the River Master interrupted
once more, rigid with anger now.

"Well, no, not..."

"The cat, I asked you what is the cat doing here?"

Ben gave up trying to be diplomatic.  "Now look.  I didn't bring the
cat; the cat chose to come.  We have a nice working arrangement I don't
tell him where to go or what to do, and he doesn't tell me.  So why
don't you quit being difficult and tell me what's going on.  The only
thing I know about prism cats is that they can start campfires and
change shape.  Obviously you know something more."

The River Master's face tightened.  "I do.  And I would think that the
High Lord of Landover would make it his business to know as well!"  He
came forward a step.  "You still claim that you are the High Lord,
don't you?"

"I most certainly do."

"Even though you look nothing like Ben Holiday at all, you wear a
workman's clothing, and you travel without retainers or standard?"

"I explained all that..."

"Yes, yes, yes!"  The River Master shook his head.  "You certainly have
the High Lord's boldness, if nothing else."

He seemed to consider the matter for a moment, saying nothing.  The
guards about him and the chastened guide were like statues.  Ben waited
impatiently.  A handful of faces appeared from behind the trunks of
surrounding trees, materializing through the rain and gloom.  The River
Master's people were growing curious.

Finally, the River Master cleared his throat.  "Very well.  I don't
accept that you are Landover's High Lord,

but whoever you are, allow me to explain a few things about the
creature with whom you travel.  First, prism cats are fairy creatures
true fairy creatures, not exiles and emigrants like the people of the
lake country.  Prism cats are almost never seen beyond the mists.
Second, they do not normally keep company with humans.  Third, they are
uniformly unpredictable; no one pretends to understand fully what they
are about.  And fourth, wherever they journey, they bring trouble.  You
are fortunate that you were allowed into Elderew at all in the company
of a prism cat.  Had I known that you traveled with one, I would almost
certainly have kept you out."

Ben sighed wearily, then nodded.  Apparently superstitions about cats
weren't confined to just his world.  "Okay, I promise to keep all that
in mind in the future," he replied, fighting to keep the irritation
from his voice.  "But the fact remains you did not keep me or the cat
out, so here we are and whether you believe that I am High Lord of
Landover or not doesn't really matter a rat's whiskers.  I still need
your help if I..."

A sudden gust of rain blew into his face, and he choked on what he was
about to say next.  He paused, shivering within the cold and damp of
his clothing.  "Do you suppose that we could continue this discussion
somewhere dry?"  he asked quietly.  The other man studied him silently,
his expression unchanged.

"River Master, your daughter may be in great danger,"

Ben whispered.  "Please!"

The River Master continued to study him a moment longer, then beckoned
him to follow.  A wave of one hand dismissed the guide.  The faces of
the watching villagers disappeared just as quickly.  They walked a
short distance through the trees to a gazebo like shelter formed of
sculpted spruce, the guards trailing watchfully.  A pair of, benches
sat within the shelter facing each other over a S broad, hollowed stump
converted to a planter of flowers.

Terry Brooks in

The River Master seated himself on one bench, and Ben took the other.
The rain continued to fall all about them, a soft, steady patter on the
forest trees and earth, but it was dry within the shelter.

Dirk appeared, jumped up beside Ben, settled down with all four paws
tucked away, and closed his eyes sleepily.

The River Master glanced at the cat with renewed irritation, then
squared around to Ben once more.  "Say what you would," he advised.

Ben told him the whole story.  He felt he had nothing to lose in doing
so.  He told him about the dreams, the journeys embarked upon by
Questor, Willow, and himself, the discovery of the missing books of
magic, the unexpected appearance of Meeks, the theft of both his
identity and the medallion, and his exile from Sterling Silver.  The
River Master listened without comment.  He sat there as if he had been
carved from stone, unmoving, his eyes fastened on Ben's.  Ben finished,
and the lord of the lake country people remained a statue.

"I don't know what else I can say to you," Ben said finally.

The River Master responded with a barely perceptible nod, but still
said nothing.

"Listen to me," Ben pleaded.  "I have to find Willow and warn her that
this dream of the black unicorn was sent by Meeks and I don't think I
can do that without your help."  He paused, suddenly reminded of a
truth that he still had difficulty acknowledging even to himself.
"Willow means a great deal to me, River Master.  I care for her; you
must know that.  Now tell me has she been here?"

The River Master pulled his forest cloak closer about him.  The look in
his eyes was distant, "I think perhaps you are who you claim to be," he
said softly.  "I think perhaps you are the High Lord.  Perhaps."

He rose, glanced from his shelter at the guards who ringed them,
motioned all but one of them away, and came over to stand next to Ben.
He bent down, his strange, wooden face right next to Ben's.  "High Lord
or fraud, tell me the truth now how is it that you come to travel with
this cat?"

Ben forced himself to stay calm.  "It was a matter of chance.  The cat
found me at the edge of the lake country last night and suggested his
company might be useful.  I'm still waiting to find out if that's
true."

He looked down at Dirk momentarily, half expecting the cat to confirm
what he had said.  But Dirk sat there with his eyes closed and said
nothing.  It occurred to Ben suddenly that the cat hadn't said a word
since they had arrived in Elderew.  He wondered why.

"Give me your hand," the River Master said suddenly.  He reached down
with his own and clasped Ben's tightly.  "There is one way in which I
may be able to test the truth of your claim.  Do you remember when you
first came to Elderew and we walked alone through the village and
talked of the magic of the lake country people?"  Ben nodded.  "Do you
remember what I showed you of the magic?"

The pressure of his grip was like an iron bar.  Ben winced, but did not
try to pull away.  "You touched a bush stricken with wilt and healed
it," he replied, his eyes locked on those of the other man.  "You were
attempting to show me why the lake country people could manage on their
own.  Later, you refused to give your pledge to the throne."  He paused
deliberately."  "But you have given it since, River Master and you have
given it to me."

The River Master studied him a moment, then pulled him effortlessly to
his feet.  "I have said that you could be Ben Holiday," he whispered,
his hard face bent close.  "I believe it possible."  He placed both of
Ben's hands in his own.  "I do not know how your appearance was
altered, but if magic changed you to what you are, then magic can be
used to change you back again.  I possess the power to heal much that
is sickened and distressed.  I will use that power to help you if I
can."  The scaled hands tightened harder about Ben's.  "Stand where you
are and do not move."

Ben took a quick breath.  The River Master's grip warmed his own, and
the chiseled features lowered into shadow.  Ben waited.  The other's
breathing slowed and a sudden flush spread through Ben's body.  He
shivered at the feeling, but remained stationary.

Finally the River Master stepped back.  There was a hint of confusion
in the dark eyes.  "I am sorry, but I cannot help you," he said
finally.  "Magic has indeed been used to alter your appearance.  But
the magic is not of another's making it is of your own."

Ben stared.  "What?"

"You have made yourself who and what you are," the other said.  "You
must be the one to change yourself back again."

"But that doesn't make any sense!"  Ben exploded.  "I haven't done a
thing to change what I look like it was Meeks!  I watched him do it! He
stole the medallion of the Kings of Landover and gave me ... this!"

He yanked the tarnished image of Meeks from his tunic and thrust it out
angrily, almost as if to snap it from its chain.  The River Master
studied it a moment, touched it experimentally, then shook his head.
"The image graven here is clouded in the same manner as your
appearance.  The magic at work is again of your own making."

Ben's jaw tightened, and he snatched the medallion back again.  The
River Master was talking in riddles.  Whatever magic was at work was
most assuredly not of Ben's making.  The River Master was either
mistaken or misled or he was deliberately trying to confuse Ben because
he still didn't trust him.

The River Master seemed to read his mind.  He shrugged.  "Believe me or
don't the choice is yours.  What I tell you is what I see."  He paused.
"If this new ii4

medallion you wear was given to you by your enemy, perhaps you should
discard it.  Is there a reason you keep it?"

Ben sighed.  "Meeks told me that the medallion would let him know what
I was about.  He warned that a certain magic protects against trying to
remove it a magic that could kill me."

"But is that so?"  the other asked.  "Perhaps the wizard lied,"

Ben hesitated before replying.  He had considered that possibility
before.  After all, why should he believe anything Meeks told him?  The
problem was that there was no way to test the truth of the matter
without risking his life.

He lifted the tarnished medallion before him experimentally.  "I have
given it some thought..  he began.

Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Edgewood Dirk stir.  The
cat's head lifted, and the green eyes snapped open.  It was almost as
if the cat had roused himself from his near-comatose state for the
express purpose of seeing what Ben would do.  The strange eyes were
fixed and staring.  Ben hesitated, then slowly lowered the medallion
back inside his tunic.  "I think maybe I need to give it some more
thought," he finished.

Dirk's eyes slipped closed again.  The black face lowered.  Rain beat
down steadily in the momentary stillness, and a long peal of thunder
rolled across the lake country from somewhere east.  Ben experienced a
strange mix of frustration and anger.  What sort of game was the cat
playing now?

The River Master moved back to the other bench and remained standing.
"It appears I cannot help you after all," he advised.  "I think that
you had better go you and the cat."

Ben saw his chance for any help slipping away.  He rose quickly.  "At
least tell me where to find Willow," he begged.  "She said she was
coming here to the lake country to learn the meaning of her dream.
Surely she would come to you for help."

The River Master studied him silently for a moment, considering in his
own mind things hidden from Ben, then shook his head slowly.  "No, High
Lord or pretender whichever you are she would not."

He came partway around the stump once more, then stopped.  Wind blew
sharply at his cloak, and he pulled it close to ward away the chill of
the rain.  "I am her father, but not the parent from whom she would
seek help when it was needed.  I was never that.  I have many children
by many wives.  Some I am closer to than others.  Willow has never been
close to me.  She is too much like her mother a wild thing who seeks
only to sever ties, not to bind them.  Neither seeks companionship from
me; neither ever did.  The mother came to me only once, then was gone
again, back into the forest..."

He trailed off, distracted.  "I never even knew her name," he continued
after a moment.  "A wood nymph, no more than a tiny bit of silk and
light, she dazzled me so that names were of no consequence for that one
night.  I lost her without ever really having had her.  I lost Willow,
I think, because of what that did to me.  I begrudged the mother her
freedom, and Willow was forced to live with my anger and resentment.
That caused her to slip gradually from me, and there was no help for
it.  I loved her mother so much that I could neither forgive nor forget
what she had done to me.  When I gave Willow permission to live at
Sterling Silver, I severed the only tie that still bound us.  She
became forever her own woman and my daughter no longer.  Now she sees
me as a man who has more children than he can ever truly be father to.
She chooses not to be one of those."

He turned away, lost perhaps in memories.  His confession was a strange
one, Ben thought told simply and directly, but without a trace of
emotion.  There had been no inflection in the River Master's voice, no
expression no

in his face.  Willow meant much to him, and yet he could demonstrate
nothing of it he could only relate the fact of its being.  It made Ben
wonder suddenly about his own feelings for the sylph and question what
they were.

The River Master stared out into the rain for a time, motionless,
silent, and then he shrugged.  "I could heal so much, but not that," he
said quietly.  "I did not know how."  Suddenly he looked back again at
Ben and it was as if he were seeing him for the first time.  "Why is it
that I tell this to you?"  he whispered in surprise.

Ben had no idea.  He kept silent as the River Master stared at him as
if mystified by his even being there.  Then the lord of the lake
country people seemed simply to dismiss the matter.  His voice was flat
and cold.  "You waste your time with me.  Willow will go to her mother.
She will go to the old pines and dance."

"Then I will search for her there," Ben said.  He rose to his feet. The
River Master watched him, silent.  Ben hesitated.  "You need not send a
guide with me.  I know the way."

The River Master nodded, still silent.  Ben started away, walked a
dozen paces from the shelter, stopped, and turned.  The single
remaining guard had faded back into the trees.  The two men were alone.
"Would you like to come with me?"  Ben asked impulsively.

But the River Master was staring out into the rain again, lost in its
dull silver glitter, lost in its patter.  The gills on his neck slowed
to a barely perceptible flutter.  The hard, chiseled face seemed
emptied of life.

"He doesn't hear you," Edgewood Dirk said suddenly.  Ben glanced down
in surprise and found the cat at his feet.  "He has gone inside of
himself to discover where he's been.  It happens like that sometimes
after revealing something so carefully guarded for so long."

Ben frowned.  "Carefully guarded?  Do you mean what he said about
Willow?  About her mother?"  The frown ii7

deepened as he knelt next to the cat.  "Dirk, why did he tell me all
that?  He's not even sure who I am."

Dirk looked over at him.  "There are many forms of magic in this world,
High Lord.  Some come in large packages, some in small.  Some work^
with fire and strength of body and heart..  . and some work with
revelation."

"Yes, but why .. . ?"

"Listen to me, High Lord!  Listen!"  Dirk's voice was a hiss.  "So few
humans listen to anything a cat has to say.  Most only talk to us. They
talk to us because we are such good listeners, you see.  They find
comfort in our presence.  We do not question and we do not judge.  We
simply listen.  They talk, and we listen.  They tell us everything!
They tell us their innermost thoughts and dreams, things they would
tell no other.  Sometimes, High Lord, they do all this without even
understanding why!"

He was still again, and suddenly it occurred to Ben that Dirk wasn't
speaking in general terms, but in very specific ones.  He wasn't
talking about just everyone, but about someone definite.  His eyes
lifted to find the solitary figure of the River Master.

And then he thought suddenly about himself.

"Dirk, what..  . ?"

"Shhhhhh!"  The cat hushed him into silence.  "Let the stillness be.
High Lord.  Do not disturb it.  If you are able, listen to its voice
but let it be."

The cat moved slowly off into the trees, picking his way gingerly over
the damp, water-soaked forest earth.  Rain fell in steady sheets out of
skies clouded over from horizon to horizon, a gray ceiling canopied
above the trees.  Silence filled thergaps left by the sound of the
rain, cloaking the city of Elderew, the houses and tree lanes, the
walkways and parks, and the vast, empty amphitheater that loomed behind
the still-motionless figure of the River Master.  Ben listened as Dirk
had said he should and he could almost hear the silence speak.

But what was it saying to him?  What was it that he was not

supposed to learn?  He shook his head hopelessly.  He didn't know.

Dirk had disappeared into the haze ahead of him, a pale gray shadow.
Abandoning his efforts to listen further, Ben hurried after.

Dapce

That there was something inordinately peculiar about Edgewood Dirk was
no longer a matter for debate with Ben Holiday.  You might have argued
that all cats were somewhat peculiar and that it should come as no
surprise therefore that a cat out of the fairy world would turn out to
be even more peculiar than your average feline, but Ben would have
disagreed.  The sort of peculiar exhibited by Dirk went far beyond
anything encountered in oh, say Alice in Wonderland or Dick
Whittington, Dirk lent a whole new meaning to the word, and the most
aggravating part of all was the fact that, try as Ben might, he could
not decipher what it was that the beast was about!

In short, who was this cat, and what was he doing here with Ben?

He would have loved to find immediate answers to his questions, but
time did not permit it.  The cat was leading the way once more
presumptuous beast that it was and he was forced once again to hurry
after.  Rain pelted his face in a quickening downpour, and the wind
gusted in chill swipes.  Nightfall was approaching and the weather was
growing worse.  Ben was drenched, cold, hungry, and discouraged,
despite his resolve to continue, and he found himself wishing fondly
for a warm bed and dry clothes.

But he was unlikely to find either just now.  The River Master was
barely tolerating his presence as it was, and he must use the time that
remained to him to try to find Willow.

He passed through the city of Elderew, head bent against the weather,
another of dusk's faceless shadows, then plunged into the forest
beyond.  The lights of cottages and homes disappeared behind him, and
the darkness closed about in a wet, rain-sodden curtain.  Trailers of
mist floated past like kite tails broken free from their winged flyers,
touching and rubbing, forming into gradually thickening sheets.  Ben
ignored it all and pushed on.  He had gone to the old pines often
enough to know the way blindfolded.

He arrived at the clearing moments later several steps behind Edgewood
Dirk.  He glanced about expectantly, but there was nothing to be found.
The clearing sat empty, ringed by the old pines, ancient sentinels of
the forest, as damp and cold as the rest of the land.  He cast about
briefly for tracks or other signs of Willow's passing, but there was
nothing to indicate whether the sylph had been there or not.

Edgewood Dirk paced the clearing once, sniffing at the earth, then
retreated to the shelter of a pine's spreading boughs and sat down
daintily.  "She was here two nights ago.  High Lord," he announced.
"She was seated close to where you stand while her mother danced, then
let the change take her.  She left at dawn."

Ben stared at the cat.  "How do you know all this?"

"A good nose," Dirk advised disdainfully.  "You should cultivate one.
It can tell you all sorts of things you would miss otherwise.  My nose
tells me what your eyes cannot tell you."

Ben moved over and hunched down in front of the cat, ignoring the water
that dripped off the pine's branches and ran down his face in steady
streams.  "Does your nose tell you where she has gone now?"  he asked
quietly.

"No," the cat answered.

"No?"

"You are repeating me without need," Dirk sniffed.

"But if your nose told you all the rest, why can't it tell you that?"
Ben demanded.  "Is your nose always this selective?"

"Sarcasm does not become you, High Lord," Dirk admonished, head cocking
slightly.  "Besides, I deserve better than that.  I am, after all, your
sole companion and supporter in this venture."

"Which needs some explaining, I might point out," Ben snapped.  "You
persist in taunting me with what you know, then tell me only what you
wish.  I realize that you have a perfectly good excuse for this
behavior, being a cat, but I hope I can impress on you how aggravating
it is to me!"  His temper was getting the better of him, and his voice
was rising.  "I simply asked how you could determine that Willow was
here, that her mother danced, that she transformed, and yet not be able
to tell me where .. ."

"I don't know."

"..  . she might have gone after leaving .. What?  You don't know? You
don't know what?"

"I don't know why I don't know."

Ben stared once more.

"I should be able to read her passing from the clearing, but I can't,"
Dirk finished calmly.  "It is almost as if it was deliberately
hidden."

Ben took a moment to consider this new piece of information, then shook
his head.  "But why would she hide where she was going?"

Dirk did not answer.  Instead, he hissed softly in warning and rose to
his feet once more.  Ben stood up with him and turned.  The River
Master's dark figure reappeared from out of the mist, striding the
length of the clearing to where Ben waited.  He was alone.

"Has Willow been here?"  he asked abruptly.

Ben hesitated, then nodded.  "Been and gone.  The cat says her mother
danced for her two nights ago."

There was anger reflected in the eyes of the water sprite, but he
smoothed it away quickly.  "She would appear to her daughter, of
course," he murmured.  "They share that bond.  The dance would reveal
truth in the fairy way, would show what was sought ..."  He trailed
off, as if thinking of something else, then straightened.  "Have you
determined where she has gone, High Lord?"

Again Ben hesitated, this time as much in surprise as out of caution.
The River Master had called him High Lord.  Had he now decided to
accept Ben's claim?  Ben met his steady gaze.  "Her trail has been
concealed from us," he said.  "Hidden deliberately, the cat thinks."

The River Master glanced briefly at Dirk, frowning.  "Perhaps."  His
chiseled face swung back on Ben.  "But my daughter lacks the guile and
her mother the means.  The concealment, if there be one, comes from
another source.  There are some who would help her and not tell me.
There are some."  The anger in his eyes flared anew, then was gone.
"Still, it hardly matters.  I have the means to find her anyway.  And
anything else I wish."

Abruptly he turned, muttering.  "Time slips away.  The rain and the
dark will hamper my efforts as it is.  I must act quickly if I am to be
effective."  There was an urgency in his voice and a determination.  "I
will not have these games played behind my back.  I will know the
meaning of the dream of the black unicorn and the golden bridle and I
will know it whether Willow and her mother wish me to or not!"

He disappeared back into the forest in a rush, not bothering to see if
Ben was following.  He needn't have worried.  Ben was right on his
heels.

Edgewood Dirk stayed beneath the pine boughs and watched them go. After
a moment, he began to clean himself.

The River Master had undergone such a complete trans formation that Ben
could scarcely believe it.  One moment he was disinterested in the
matter of his daughter and the black unicorn, the next he could not
find out about them quickly enough.  He strode back through the forest
to the edge of the city, calling his guard to him as he went. Retainers
appeared from everywhere, hanging at his side momentarily for their
instructions, then disappearing back into the night.  Like shadows,
they came and disappeared again, a smattering of sprites, kelpies,
naiads, and others voiceless, momentary appendages to the dark figure
of their lord.  The River Master spoke rapidly and precisely, then
turned away from each, his pace never slowing.  He skirted almost
furtively the boundaries of Elderew proper and turned back into the
forest.  Ben trailed after, all but forgotten.

The moments slipped by as they passed deeper into the forest trees,
east and north of the city now.  Nightfall had closed down so tightly
that nothing beyond a dozen feet was visible.  The rain washed over
both of them in sheets, a steady downpour that showed little sign of
abating.  Thunder rolled out of the skies in long peals, and lightning
split the clouds from somewhere distant.  The worst of the storm had
not reached them yet.  It was still coming.

The River Master seemed oblivious.  His concentration was absolute. Ben
began to wonder what was going on and to grow uneasy.

Then they emerged from the trees onto a broad hillside clearing that
stretched downward to a vast lake into which a pair of rivers fed at
opposite ends.  The rivers, swollen with rain water, cascaded down
through rocky gorges that fell away from heights anchored by massive
clusters of the giant redwood like trees.  The lake roiled with the
pumping action, and the flare of new lightning danced and glimmered
with a mix of torchlight from stanchions that ran the length and
breadth of the hills in widening arcs and lit the whole of the slope.
Ben slowed and stared out into the black.  The lake country people
seemed to be everywhere or were there simply a few amid the vast number
of torches?  Wind whipped the rain into his eyes, and he could not
tell.

The River Master turned, saw he was still there, and beckoned him
forward to a shelf of rock that jutted out from the hillside and
overlooked the rivers, the lake, and the weaving lines of torchlight.
The fury of the storm broke over them as they stood on the unsheltered
platform, pressed close against each other, their words almost lost in
the howl of the wind.

"Watch now, High Lord!"  the River Master shouted, his strange,
chiseled face inches from Ben's.  "I cannot command Willow's mother to
dance for me as she danced for her daughter, but I can command her
kindred!  I will know what secrets are kept from me!"

Ben nodded mutely.  There was a frenzy in the other's eyes that he had
never seen before a frenzy that hinted of passion.

The River Master signaled, and a sticklike being approached from out of
the night, a creature so thin that it appeared to have been fashioned
of deadwood.  Rough woolen clothing hung about its body, whipped by the
wind, and green corn silk hair ran from the crown of its head to the
nape of its neck and along its spine and the backs of its arms and
legs. Its features were formed of what looked to be a series of slits
cut into the wood of its face.  It carried a set of music pipes in one
hand.

"Play!"  the River Master commanded, one hand sweeping the valley
slope.  "Call them!"

The stick creature hunched down against the sodden earth, settled
itself with its legs crossed before it, and brought the pipes to its
lips.  The music began softly, a sweet, lilting cadence that rocked in
the troughs of momentary stillness left by lulls in the wind's deep
howl.  It meshed and blended with the sounds of the storm, weaving its
way through the fabric like thread hand-sewn.  It had the texture of
silk, smooth and quiet, and it wrapped itself about the listeners like
a blanket.  Downward along the slope it carried, and there was the
sense of something changing in the air.

"Hear it!"  the River Master said in Ben's ear, exultant.  The player
of the pipes lifted the pitch gradually, and the song rose higher into
the fury of the storm.  Slowly it transcended the dark and the wet and
the chill, and the whole of their surroundings began to alter.  The
howl of the storm diminished as if blanketed away, the chill gave way
to warmth, and the night brightened as if dawn had come already.  Ben
felt himself lifted as on a cushion of air.  He blinked, disbelieving.
Everything about him was changing shape, substance, time, everything.
There was a magic in the music that was greater than any he had ever
encountered, a power that could alter even nature's great force.

Torchlight brightened as if the fires had been given new life, and the
slope was lit with their glow.  But there was a new glow as well, a
glow that hung on the night air like incandescence.  It radiated out
across the slope and downward to the waters of the lake.  The waters
had gone still, the churning smoothed away as a mother's hand would
smooth a sleeping child's ruffled hair.  The glow danced at the water's
edge, a living thing.

"There, High Lord look!"  the River Master urged.  Ben stared.  Bits
and pieces of the glow had begun to take shape.  Dancing, whirling,
lifting against the torchlight, they had begun to assume the forms of
fairy creatures.  Slight, airy things, they gathered strength from the
glow and from the music of the pipes and took life.  Ben knew them
instantly.  They were wood nymphs, the same as Willow's mother
childlike creatures as insubstantial as smoke.  Limbs flashed and
glistened nut-brown, hair tumbled waist-length, tiny faces lifted
skyward.  Dozens of them appeared as if from nowhere and danced and
flitted at the shores of the mirrored lake in a kaleidoscope of
movement.

The music heightened.  The glow radiated the warmth of a summer's day,
and colors began to appear in its brightness rainbow shades that mixed
and spread like an artist's brush strokes on canvass.  Shape and form
began to alter, and Ben felt himself transported to another time and
place.  He was young again, and the world was all new.  The lifting
sensation he had experienced earlier intensified, and he was floating
free of the earth, free of gravity's pull.  The River Master and the
player of the pipes floated with him, birdlike in the sweep of sound
and color.  Still the wood nymphs danced below him, whirling with a new
exhilaration into the glow, into the air.  They spun outward from the
shore's edge, skipping weightless across the waters of the still lake,
their tiny forms barely touching the mirrored surface.  Slowly they
came together at the lake's center, forming intricate patterns as they
linked briefly and broke away again, linked and broke away.

Above them, an image began to take shape in the air.

"Now it comes!"  the River Master breathed from somewhere so distant
that Ben could barely hear him.

The image came clear, and it was Willow.  She stood alone at the edge
of a lake this lake and held in her hand the bridle of spun gold that
was the vision of her dream.  She was clothed in white silk, and her
beauty was a radiance that outshone even that created by the music of
the player and the dance of the wood nymphs.  Rushed with life, her
face lifted against the colors that spun about her, and her long green
tresses fanned out in the whisper of the wind.  She held the bridle out
from her as if it were a gift and she waited.

Beware!  a voice warned suddenly, a voice so tiny as to be almost lost
in the whirl of the vision.

Ben wrenched his eyes momentarily from Willow.  From what seemed an
impossible distance below.  Edgewood Dirk stared up at him.

"What's wrong?"  Ben managed to ask.

But the question was irretrievably lost in what happened next.  The
music had reached a fever pitch, so intense that it locked away
everything.  The world was gone.  There was only the lake, the whirl of
the wood nymphs, and the vision of Willow.  Colors flooded Ben's vision
with impossibly bright hues, and there were tears in his eyes.  He had
never known such happiness.  He felt as if he were breaking apart
inside and had been transformed.

Then something new appeared at the edge of the lake, beyond the nymphs
and the vision of Willow something at once both impossibly lovely and
terrifying.  Ben heard the muffled cry of the River Master.  It was a
cry of fulfillment.  The whirl of sound and color shimmered and bent
like fabric stretched, and the intrusion from without stepped gingerly
into its weave.

It was the black unicorn.

Ben felt his breath catch in his throat.  There was a burning in his
eyes and a sudden, impossible sense of need.  He had never seen
anything as beautiful as the unicorn.  Even Willow in the vision of the
wood nymphs was but a pale shadow next to the fairy creature.  Its
delicate body seemed to sway with the music and the dance as it emerged
from the dark into the sweep of color, and its horn glowed white with
the magic of its being.

Then Dirk's warning came again, no more than a memory this time.
Beware!

"What is happening?"  Ben whispered.

The River Master turned back to him now, head swinging about in slow
motion.  The hard face was alive with feelings that danced across its
chiseled surface in waves of light and color.  He spoke, yet the words
seemed to come not from his mouth, but from his mind.  "I will have
him, High Lord!  I will have his magic for my own, and it will become a
part of my land and my people!  He must belong to me!  He must!"

And Ben saw suddenly, through the blanket of pleasant feelings and
through the music and the dance, the truth of what the River Master was
about.  The River Master had not summoned the piper and the wood nymphs
for the purpose of discovering anything of Willow or her mother.  His
ambition was much greater than that.  He had summoned piper and nymphs
to bring him the black unicorn.  He had used music and dance to create
the illusion of his daughter and her bridle of spun gold to draw the
unicorn to the lakeside where it might be taken.  The River Master had
believed Ben's story all right but he had decided that the black
unicorn would better serve his own purposes than the purposes of a
dethroned and powerless King.  He had taken Willow's dream and made it
his own.  This whole business was an elaborate charade the piper and
the wood nymphs and the instruments used to create it.  And, oh, God,
it had worked!  The black unicorn had come!

He watched the unicorn now in fascination, unable to turn away, knowing
he must do something to prevent what was about to happen, but frozen by
the beauty and intensity of the vision.  The unicorn shone like a bit
of flawless night against the sweep of colors that had drawn it in.  It
nodded its slender head to the call of the music and cried once to the
vision of the girl with her golden bridle.  It was a fairy-tale
rendering brought to life, and the loveliness of it was compelling.
Goat's feet pranced and lion's tail swished, and the unicorn stepped
further into the trap.

/ have to stop it!  Ben felt himself trying to scream.  And then the
fabric through which the black unicorn had passed so easily seemed to
shred at its center point high above the vision and the wood nymphs,
and a nightmare born of other minds and needs thrust its way into view.
It was a loathsome thing, a creature of scales and spikes, of teeth and
claws, winged and coated in a black ooze that steamed at the warmth of
the air.  A cross between a serpent and a wolf, it forced its way in
from the night and the storm and plummeted toward the lake,
shrieking.

Ben went cold.  He had seen this being before.  It was a demon out of
the netherworld of Abaddon a twin to the monster once ridden in battle
by the Iron Mark.

It came for them in a fury, then veered sharply as it caught sight of
the black unicorn.  The unicorn saw the demon as well and screamed a
terrifying, high-pitched cry.  The ridged horn glowed white-hot with
magic, and the unicorn leaped sideways as the demon swept by it, talons
raking the empty air.  Then the unicorn was gone, fled back into the
night, having disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

The River Master cried out in anguish and fury.  The demon swung back
around, and fire lanced from its open maw.  The flames engulfed the
piper and turned the sticklike figure to ash.  Sound and color
dissipated into mist, and the night returned.  Darkness flooded inward
as the vision of Willow and the golden bridle collapsed.  Ben stood
once more on the shelf of rock beside the River Master, and the fury of
the storm washed over them anew.

But the wood nymphs whirled on, still caught up in the frenzy of their
dance.  It was as if they could not stop.  All about the lake's shores
they spun, tiny bits of glowing light in the black and the wet. Torches
fizzled and went dark, blown out by the rain and the wind, and only the
light of the wood nymphs was left against the night.  It drew the demon
like a hunter to its prey.  The monster swung back and down, sweeping
the lake end to end, fire bursting from its throat and turning the
helpless dancers to ash.  The screams as they died were tiny shrieks
that lacked real substance, and they disappeared as if candles snuffed.
The River Master howled in despair, but could not save them. One by
one they died, burned away by the demon as it passed back and forth
across the night like death's shadow.

Ben was beside himself.  He could not bear the destruction.  But he
could not turn away.  He acted finally because the horror was too much
to stand further.  He acted without thinking, yanking the tarnished
medallion from beneath his tunic as he would have in the old days,
thrusting it out against the night, shouting in fury at the winged
demon.  He had forgotten momentarily what medallion it was he wore.

The demon turned and glided toward him.  Ben was suddenly conscious of
Dirk at his feet, sitting motionless next to him.  He was conscious
now, too, of the fact that by drawing attention to himself he had just
signed his own death warrant.

Then lightning flashed, and the demon saw clearly the medallion, Ben
Holiday, and Edgewood Dirk.  The beast hissed with the fury of steam
released through a fissure in the earth, and swung abruptly away.  It
flew back into the night and was gone.

Ben was shaking.  He didn't know what had happened.  He only knew that
for some unexplainable reason he was still alive.  Below, the last of
the wood nymphs had ceased finally to dance and disappeared back into
forest, the loss of light from their passing leaving dark the whole of
the lake and hills.  Wind and rain lashed the emptiness that remained.
Ben stilled his hands.  Slowly he placed the medallion back within his
tunic.  It burned against his skin.

The River Master had sunk to one knee.  His eyes were fixed on Ben.
"That thing knew you!"  he cried in anger.  "No, it couldn't have .. ."
Ben began.

"The medallion!"  the other cut him short.  "It knew the medallion!
There is a tie between you that you cannot explain away!"  He rose to
his feet, his breath a sharp hiss.  "You have made me lose everything!
You have cost me the unicorn!  You have caused the destruction of my
piper and my wood nymphs.  You and that cat!  I warned you about that
cat!  Trouble follows a prism cat e very where!  Look what you have
done!  Look what you have caused!"

Ben recoiled.  "I haven't .. ."

But the River Master cut him short once more.  "I want you gone!  I am
no longer sure who you are and I no longer care!  I want you gone from
my country now and the cat as well!  If I find you here come morning, I
will put you into the swamp in a place from which you will never
escape!  Now go!"

The fury in his voice defied argument.  The River Master had been
cheated of something he had wanted very badly and he had made up his
mind that Ben was at fault.  It made no difference that his wants had
been selfish ones or that he had been deprived of something to which he
had not been entitled in the first place.  It was of no importance that
he had misused Ben.  All he could see was the loss.

Ben felt an odd emptiness within him.  He had expected better of the
River Master.

He turned without a word and walked away into the night.

a'

Earth Mother a.

The rain and the chill turned Ben Holiday into a sodden, disheveled
mess as he trudged back through the forest trees from the empty
hillside and the angry River Master, and his appearance became an
accurate reflection of his mood.  The mix of emotions he had
experienced from the music of the pipes, the dance of the wood nymphs,
the vision of Willow and what followed was still tearing at him with
all the savagery and persistence of a wolf pack.  He could still feel
twinges of the ecstasy and freedom of self that the music and dance had
brought, but the predominant feelings were of dismay and horror.

The images played out in the dark solitude of his mind:

the River Master, anxious to seize the black unicorn so that its magic
might be his alone; that winged demon, burning the frail wood nymphs to
ash as they whirled helplessly at the water's edge; Ben himself,
instinctively holding forth the blackened image of Meeks as if it were
a talisman that would somehow be recognized .. .

And perhaps it was.

Damn, what had happened there?  What was it that had happened?  The
winged creature had come for him to destroy him, then turned aside as
if it had flown into a wall!

i33

Had it been the medallion, Ben, Edgewood Dirk, or perhaps something
else entirely?

The River Master clearly thought it was the medallion.  He was
convinced that Ben was bound to the demon and to Meeks in some foul way
that protected all three.  Ben shivered.  He had to admit to the
possibility. The image of Meeks might have been enough to turn back the
demon... He stopped.  That was assuming that the demon had been sent by
Meeks, of course.  But wasn't it the only possibility that made sense? 
Hadn't Meeks invited the demons out of Abaddon in the first place when
the old King died?  Ben started walking again.  Yes, it had to be
Meeks.  He must have sent the demon because he knew the River Master
was close to capturing the black unicorn, and he wanted the unicorn for
himself for whatever reason.  But that meant he must have had some way
of knowing that the River Master was about to capture the unicorn, and
that in turn meant that Ben's medallion might have provided such a way.
Meeks had warned that the medallion would let him know what Ben was
about. The medallion might have done exactly that.  Ben might indeed
have been responsible for the destruction of the wood nymphs.

The screams of the dying fairy creatures still echoed in the dark
corners of his mind, a savage reminder.  Until they died, he had not
even thought of them as real just bits and pieces of light with human
images cast upon the glow; slender, lyrical figurines that would
shatter like glass if dropped .. .

The whole mixed and teased in his mind until at last he shoved all the
pieces aside violently.  His questions bred more questions, and there
seemed to be answers for none of them.  The rain beat down in a wet
staccato, drumming, puddling in mud and grasses, and running across the
pathway he followed in small rivers.  He could feel the cold and the
dark pressing in about him and he wished faintly for a moment's warmth
and a spark of light.  He walked;

yet he was not really aware of where it was he was going.  Away, he
decided.  Away from the River Master and the lake country, away from
the one good chance he had of finding Willow before Meeks.

His boots slapped at the mud and damp.  But where was he to go?

He cast about suddenly for Edgewood Dirk.  Where was that confounded
cat?  It was always there when he didn't need it; where was it now that
he did?  Dirk always seemed to know which way to go.  The cat seemed to
know everything.

Dirk had even known what the River Master was trying to do with the
music of the piper and the dance of the wood nymphs, Ben thought as he
reflected on the events that had just taken place.

Beware, the cat had warned.

Convenient, that.

His thoughts twisted, and he found himself thinking again of the
medallion.  Had it really brought the demon?  Had it really been
responsible for the destruction of the wood nymphs and the piper?  He
couldn't live with that.  Perhaps he ought simply to get rid of the
thing.  After all, what if it actually did work to the benefit of the
wizard if Ben kept it on?  Maybe that was exactly what Meeks wanted.
The warning against trying to remove it might be a ruse.  If he took it
off, maybe he would be free of the wizard.

He stopped once more and reached down into his tunic.  He placed his
fingers about the chain from which the medallion hung and slowly lifted
it free.  Staring at it in the dark, seeing its muted, tarnished image
glimmer in the brief flashes of lightning that streaked the forest
skies, he had an incredibly strong urge to fling the unsettling piece
of metal from him.  If he did so, he might set himself free, redeem
himself in part at least for the destruction of the wood nymphs.  He
might begin anew .. .

i35

"Ah, my dear High Lord, there you are wandering about in the dark like
some blind 'possum.  I thought I had lost you completely."

Edgewood Dirk stepped delicately from the trees, his immaculate coat
glistening with rain water, his whiskers drooping slightly with the
damp.  He walked over to a fallen log and sat down on the dampened bark
with studied care.

"Where have you been?"  Ben snapped irritably.  He hesitated, then let
the medallion drop back into his tunic.

"Looking for you, of course," Dirk replied calmly.  "It seems that you
need a great deal of looking after."

"Is that so?"  Ben was steamed.  He was weary, frightened, disgusted,
and a dozen other unpleasant things, but most of all he was sick and
tired of being treated like a lost puppy by this damn cat.  "Well, if
ever there was someone suited to the task of looking after people, it's
you, isn't it?  Edgewood Dirk, caretaker of lost souls.  Who else
possesses such marvelous insight into human character?  Who else
discerns the truth of things with such remarkable consistency?  Tell me
again, Dirk how is it that you know so much?  Come on, tell me!  How
did you know what the River Master was doing back there before I did?
How did you know he was summoning the unicorn?  Why did you let me just
stand there and be part of it?  Those wood nymphs probably died because
of me!  Why did you let that happen?"

The cat stared at him pointedly for a moment, then began to wash.  Ben
waited.  Dirk seemed oblivious to his presence.

"Well?"  Ben said finally.

The cat looked up.  "You do have a lot of questions, don't you, High
Lord?"  The pink tongue licked out.  "Why is it that you keep looking
to me for the answers?"

"Because you seem to have them, damn it!"

"What seems to be and what actually is are quite different, High Lord a
lesson you have yet to learn.  I have instinct and I have common sense;
sometimes I can discern things more easily than humans.  I am not,
however, a vast reservoir of answers to questions.  There is a
difference."  He sneezed.  "Besides, you mistake the nature of our
relationship yet again.  I am a cat and I don't have to tell you
anything.  I am your companion in this adventure, not your mentor.  I
am here at my own sufferance and I can leave when I choose.  I need
answer to no one least of all you.  If you desire answers to your
questions, I suggest you find them yourself.  The answers are all there
if you would make the necessary effort to look for them."

"You could have warned me!"

"You could have warned yourself.  You simply didn't bother.  Be
grateful that I chose to intervene at all."

"But the wood nymphs ..."

"Why is it," the cat cut him short, "that you continually insist on
asking for things to which you are not entitled?  I am not your deus ex
machinal"

Ben choked back whatever he was about to say next and stared.  Deus ex
machinal "You speak Latin?"  he asked in disbelief.

"And I read Greek," Dirk answered.

Ben nodded, wishing as he did that he might solve even a small part of
the mystery of the cat.  "Did you know ahead of time that the wood
nymphs were going to be destroyed?"  he asked finally.

The cat took its time answering.  "I knew that the demon would not
destroy you."

"Because ?"

"Because you are the High Lord."

"A High Lord no one recognizes, however."

"A High Lord who won't recognize himself."

Ben hesitated.  He wanted to say, "I do, but my appearance has been
changed and my medallion has been stolen, and so on and so forth."  But
he didn't because this was a road they had traveled down already.  He
simply said, "If the demon couldn't recognize me, then how did you know
he wouldn't destroy me?"

Dirk almost seemed to shrug.  "The medallion."

Ben nodded.  "Then I think I should get rid of the medallion.  I think
the medallion caused what happened back there the appearance of the
demon, the destruction of the wood nymphs, all of it.  I think I should
chuck it as far away as I can, Dirk."

Dirk rose and.  stretched.  "I think you should see what the mud puppy
wants first," he said.

His gaze shifted and Ben's followed.  Rain and gloom almost hid the
small, dark shape that crouched a dozen feet away on a scattering of
pine needles.  It was an odd looking creature, vaguely reminiscent of a
beaver with long ears.  It stared back at him with eyes that glowed
bright yellow in the dark.

"What is it?"  he asked Dirk.

"A wight that scavenges and cleans up after other creatures a sort of
four-legged housekeeper."

"What does it want?"

Dirk managed to look put upon.  "Why ask me?  Why not ask the mud
puppy?"

Ben sighed.  Why not, indeed?  "Can I do something for you?"  he asked
the motionless shape.

The mud puppy dropped back down on all fours and started away, turned
back momentarily, started away, and turned back again.

"Don't tell me," Ben advised Dirk.  "It wants us to follow."

"Very well, I won't tell you," Dirk promised.

They followed the mud puppy through the forest, angling north once more
away from the city ofElderew and the people of the lake country.  The
rain lessened to a slow drizzle, and the clouds began to break,
allowing some light to seep through to the forestland.  The chill
continued to hang in the air, but Ben was so numb with cold already
that he no longer noticed.  He plodded after the mud puppy i38

in silence, wondering vaguely how the creature got its name, wondering
where they were going and why, what he should do about the medallion,
and most of all what he should do about Dirk.  The cat trailed after
him, picking its way with cautious steps and graceful leaps, avoiding
the mud and the puddles, and working very hard at keeping itself
clean.

Just like your typical cat, Ben thought.

Except that Edgewood Dirk was anything but a typical cat, of course,
and it didn't matter how long or how hard he protested otherwise.  The
real question was, what was Ben going to do about him?  Traveling with
Dirk was like traveling with that older person who always made you feel
like a child and kept telling you not to be one.  Dirk was obviously
there for a reason, but Ben was beginning to wonder if it was a reason
that would serve any useful purpose.

The hardwood trees of the high forest began to give ' way to swamp as
they approached the far north boundary of Elderew.  The land began to
slope away, and mist to ^ appear in long, winding trailers.  The gloom
thickened and the chill dampness turned to a clinging warmth.  Ben was
not comforted.  <

The mud puppy continued on without slowing.  '

"Do these creatures do this sort of thing often?"  Ben whispered at
last to Dirk.  "Ask you to follow them, I mean?"

"Never," Dirk responded and sneezed.

Ben scowled back at the cat.  I hope you catch pneumonia, he thought
darkly.

They passed down into the murk, into stands of cypress and willow and
thickets of swamp growth that defied de- J script ion or
identification. Mud sucked at his boots and^ water oozed into the
impressions they left.  The rain abated completely, and there was a
sullen stillness. Ben wondered what it felt like to be dry.  His
clothing felt as if it were weighted with lead.  The mist was quite
heavy now, and his vision was reduced to a distance of no more than a
few feet.  Maybe we've been brought here to die, he decided.  Maybe
this is it.

But it wasn't "it" or anything else of immediate concern; it was simply
a trek through the swamp that ended at a vast mudhole.  The mud puppy
brought Ben and Dirk to the mudhole, waited until they were at its
edge, and then disappeared into the dark.  The mudhole stretched away
into the mist and dark for better than fifty feet, a vast, placid
sinkhole that belched air bubbles from time to time and evidenced no
interest in much else.  Ben stared out at the mudhole, glanced down at
Dirk, and wondered what was supposed to happen next.

He found out a moment later.  The mudhole seemed to heave upward at its
center most point, and a woman rose from the depths to stand upon its
surface.

"Good morning, High Lord," she greeted.

She was naked, it appeared, although it was hard to be certain because
she was plastered from head to foot with mud, and it clung to her as if
it were a covering.  There was a glimmer of light from her eyes as they
fastened on him; but, except for the eyes, there was only the shape of
her beneath the mud.  She rested on the surface of the sinkhole as if
weightless, relaxed and quite at home.

"Good morning," he replied uncertainly.

"I see that you have a prism cat traveling with you," she said, her
voice oddly flat and resonant.  "Quite a stroke of good fortune.  A
prism cat can be a very valuable companion."

Ben was not sure he agreed with that assessment, but held his tongue.
Dirk said nothing.

"I am known as the Earth Mother, High Lord," the woman continued.  "The
name was given to me some centuries ago by the people of the lake
country.  Like them, I am a fairy creature bound to this world.  Unlike
them, the choice to come was mine, and it was made at the time of the
beginning of the land when there was need for me.

I am the soul and spirit of the earth.  I am Landover's gardener, you
might say.  I keep watch over her soil and the things that grow upon
it.  The province of protection and care of the land is not mine alone,
because those who live upon its surface must share responsibility for
its care but I am an integral part of the process.  I give possibility
from beneath and others see that possibility to fruition."  She paused.
"Do you understand, High Lord?"

Ben nodded.  "I think I do."

"Well, some understanding is necessary.  The earth and I are
inseparable; it is part of my composition, and I am one with it.
Because we are joined, most of what happens within Landover is known to
me.  I know of you especially, because your magic is also a part of me.
There is a bond between Landover's High Lord and the land that is
inseparable.  You understand that as well, don't you?"

Ben nodded again.  "I have learned as much.  Is that how you know me
now, even with my appearance altered?"

"I know you as the prism cat knows you, High Lord;

I never rely on appearances."  There was the vaguest hint of laughter,
not unkind.  "I watched you arrive in Landover and I have followed you
since.  You possess courage and determination; you lack only knowledge.
But knowledge will come in time.  This is a land not easily
understood."

"It is a bit confusing just now," Ben agreed.  Already he liked the
Earth Mother a whole lot better than he liked Edgewood Dirk.

"Confusing, yes.  But less so than you believe."  She shifted slightly
within the swirl of mist, her opaque form featureless and immutable.
Her eyes glistened wetly.  "I had the mud puppy bring you to me so that
I could give you some information about Willow."

"You've seen her?"  Ben demanded.

"I have.  Her mother brought her to me.  Her mother and I are close in
the manner of true fairy creatures and the earth.  We share the magic.
Her mother is ill-used by the River Master, who thinks only to possess
her and not to accept her for what she is.  The River Master seeks to
dominate in the manner of humans, High Lord a great failing that I hope
he will come to recognize in time.  Possession of the land and her
gifts is not meant to be.  The land is a trust to be shared by all of
finite lives and never to be taken for private use.  But that has never
been the way of things not in Landover, not in all the worlds beyond.
The higher orders seek to dominate the lower;

all seek to dominate the land.  An Earth Mother's heart is often broken
in that way."

She paused.  "The River Master tries, and he is better than some.
Still, he, too, seeks domination in other, less obvious ways.  He would
use his magic to turn the land pure without understanding that his
vision is not necessarily true.  Healing is needed, High Lord, but not
all healing is advisable.  Sometimes the process of dying and
regeneration is intrinsic to development.  A recycling of life is a
part of being.  No one can predict the whole of the cycle, and a
tampering with any period can be harmful.  The River Master fails to
see this just as he fails to see why Willow's mother cannot belong to
him. He only sees what needs are immediately before him."

"Such as his need for the black unicorn?"  Ben interjected
impulsively.

The Earth Mother studied him closely.  "Yes, High Lord the black
unicorn.  There is a need that none can resist not even you, perhaps."
She was silent a moment.  "I digress.  I brought you here to tell you
of Willow.  I have felt you with her, and the feeling is good.  There
is a special bond between you that promises something I have long
waited for.  I wish to do what I may to preserve that bond."

One dark arm lifted.  "Listen, then, High Lord.  Willow's mother
brought her to me two days ago at dawn.  Willow would not go to her
father for help, and her mother could not give her what she needed. She
hoped that I could.  Willow has dreamed twice now of the black unicorn
once when she was with you, once after.  The dreams are a mix of truth
and lies, and she cannot separate * the one from the other.  I could
not help her with that;

dreams are not a province of the earth.  Dreams live in the air and in
the mind.  She asked then if I knew whether the black unicorn was a
thing of good or evil.  I told her that it would be both until the
truth of it was clearly understood.  She asked if I could show her that
truth.  I told her that truth was not mine to give.  She asked me then
if I knew of a bridle of spun gold.  I told her that I did.  She has
gone to find it."

"Where?"  Ben asked at once.

The Earth Mother was silent again for a moment, as if debating
something with herself.  "High Lord, you must promise me something,"
she said finally.  "I know you are troubled.  I know you are afraid.
Perhaps you will even become desperate.  The road you travel now is a
difficult one.  But you must promise me that whatever befalls you and
however overwhelming your feelings because of it, your first concern
will always be for Willow.  You must promise that you will do whatever
it lies within your power to do to keep her safe."

Ben hesitated a moment before replying, puzzled.  "I don't understand.
Why do you ask this?"

The Earth Mother's arms folded into her body.  "Because I must High
Lord.  Because of who I am.  That has to be answer enough for you."

Ben frowned.  "What if I cannot keep this promise?  What if I choose
not to keep it?"

"Once the promise is given, it must be kept.  You will keep it because
you have no choice."  The Earth Mother's eyes blinked once.  "You give
it to me, remember, and a promise given to me by you cannot be broken.
The magic binds us in that way."

Ben weighed the matter carefully for several long mo i43

ments, undecided.  It wasn't so much the idea of committing himself to
Willow that bothered him; it was the fact of the promise itself.  It
was a foreclosure of all other options without knowing yet what those
options might be, a blind vow that lacked future sight.

But then again, that was how life often worked.  You didn't always get
the choices offered to you up front.  "I promise," he said, and the
lawyer part of him winced.

"Willow has gone north," the Earth Mother said.  "Probably to the Deep
Fell."

Ben stiffened.  "The Deep Fell?  Probably?"

"The bridle was a fairy magic woven long, long ago by the land's
wizards.  It has passed through many hands over the years and been all
but forgotten.  In the recent past, it has been the possession of the
witch Nightshade.  The witch stole it and hid it with her other
treasures.  She hordes the things she finds beautiful and brings them
out to view when she wishes.  But Nightshade has had the bridle stolen
from her several times by the dragon Strabo, who also covets such
treasures.  The theft of the bridle has become something of a contest
between the two.  It was last in the possession of the witch."

A lot of unpleasant memories surged to the fore at the mention of
Nightshade and the Deep Fell.  There were a good many places that Ben
did not care to visit again soon in the Kingdom of Landover, but the
home of the witch was right at the top of the list.

But, then, Nightshade was gone, wasn't she, into the fairy world .. .
?

"Willow left when I told her of the golden bridle, High Lord," the
Earth Mother interrupted his thoughts.  "That was two days ago.  You
must hurry if you are to catch her."

Ben nodded absently, already aware of a lightening of the sky beyond
the swamp's unchanging murk.  Dawn was almost upon them.

"I wish you well, High Lord," the Earth Mother called.

She had begun to sink back into the swamp, her shape changing rapidly
as she descended.  "Find Willow and help her.  Remember your
promise."

Ben started to call back to her, a dozen unanswered questions on his
lips, but she was gone almost at once.  She simply sank back into the
mudhole and disappeared.  Ben was left staring at the empty, placid
surface.

"Well, at least I know which way Willow's gone," he said to himself.
"Now all I have to do is find my way out of this swamp."

As if by magic, the mud puppy reappeared, slipping from beneath a
gathering of fronds.  It regarded him solemnly, started away, turned
back again, and waited.

Ben sighed.  Too bad all of his wishes weren't granted so readily.  He
glanced down at Dirk.  Dirk stared back at, him.  '

"Want to walk north for a while?"  he asked the cat.

The cat, predictably, said nothing.

Hunt

They were four days gone from Elderew, east and slightly south
ofRhyndweir in the heart of the Greensward, when they came upon the
hunter.

"Black it was, like the coal brought down out of the north mines, like
some shadow that hasn't ever seen the daylight.  Sweet mother!  It came
right past me, so close that it seemed I might reach out and touch it.
It was all grace and beauty, leaping as if the earth couldn't hold it
to her, speeding past us all like a bit of wind that you can feel and
sometimes see, but never touch.  Oh, I didn't want to touch it, mind. I
didn't want to touch something that .  pure.  It was like watching fire
clean, but it burns you if you come too close.  I didn't want to come
too close."

The hunter's voice was quick and husky with emotions that lay all too
close to the surface of the man.  He sat with Ben and Dirk in the
early' evening hours about a small campfire built in the shelter of an
oak grove and a ridgeline.  Sunset scattered red and purple across the
western horizon, and blue-gray dusk hovered east.  The close of the day
was still and warm, the rain clouds of four nights past a memory. Birds
sang their evening songs in the trees, and the smell of flowers was in
the air.

Ben watched the hunter closely.  The hunter was a big, rawboned man
with sun-browned, weathered skin and calloused hands.  He wore
woodsman's garb with high leather boots softened by hand for comfort
and stealth, and he carried a crossbow and bolts, long bow and arrows,
a bolo, and a skinning knife.  His face was long and high boned a mask
of angles and flat planes with the skin stretched tightly across and
the features strained by the tension.  He had the look of a dangerous
man; in other times, he might have been.

But not this night.  This night he was something less.

"I'm getting ahead of myself," the man muttered suddenly, an
admonishment as much as a declaration.  He wiped at his forehead with
one big hand and hunkered down closer to the flames of the campfire as
if to draw their warmth.  "I almost wasn't there at all, you know.  I
was almost gone to the Melchor hunting bighorn.  Had my gear all packed
and ready when Dain found me.  He caught up with me at the crossroads
out, running like his woman had found out the worst, calling after me
like some fool.  I slowed and waited, and that made me the real fool.
"There's a hunt being organized," he said.  "The King himself has
called it.  His people are out everywhere, drawing the best and the
quickest to net something you won't believe.  A black unicorn!  Yea,
it's so," he says.  "A black unicorn that's to be hunted down if it
takes all month, and we have to chase the beast from valley's end to
valley's end.  You got to come," he says.  "They're giving each man
twenty pieces a day and food and, if you're the one who snares him,
another five thousand!""

The hunter laughed sullenly.  "Five thousand pieces.  Seemed like the
best chance I'd ever get at the time more money than I'd see in ten
years work any other way.  I looked at Dain and wondered if he'd lost
his mind, then saw the way his eyes were lit and knew if was all real,
that there was a hunt, that there was a bounty of five i47

thousand, that some fool King or otherwise believed there was a black
unicorn out there to be caught."

Ben glanced momentarily at Dirk.  The cat sat a few feet from him, eyes
fixed intently on the speaker, paws curled up underneath so that they
didn't show.  He hadn't moved or spoken since the hunter had come
across their tiny camp and asked if he might share their meal.  Dirk
was to all outward appearances a normal cat.  Ben couldn't help
wondering what he might be thinking.

"So we went, Dain and me us and another two thousand of the same mind.
We went to Rhyndweir where the hunt was to begin.  The whole plain
between the split in the rivers was packed tight with hunters camped
and waiting.  There was beaters and drivers, there was the Lord
Kallendbor and all the other high-and-mighty landsmen with all their
knights in armor and foot soldiers.  There was horses and mules, wagons
loaded down with provisions, carriers and retainers, a whole sea of
moving parts and sounds that would have frightened any other prey from
ten miles distant!  Mother's blood, it was a mess!  But I stayed on
anyway, still thinking about the money, but thinking about something
else now, too thinking about that black unicorn.  There wasn't any such
creature, I knew but what if there was?  What if it was out there?  I
might not catch it, but.  Lord, just to see it!

"That same evening we were all called before the castle gates.  The
King wasn't there; his wizard was the one they call Questor Thews.  He
was a sight!  Patchwork robe and sashes made him look like a scarecrow!
And there was this dog with him, that dressed like you and me and
walked on his hind legs.  Some said he could talk, but I never heard
it.  They stood up there with the Lord Kallendbor and whispered to him
things no one else could hear.  The wizard had a face like chalk looked
scared to death.  Not Kallendbor, though not him.  He never looks
afraid of anything, that one!  Sure as death itself and ready to
pronounce judgment.  He called out to us in that big,

booming voice you could hear for a mile on those plains.  He called out
and told us that this unicorn was a real live beast and it could be
tracked and caught like any other beast.  There were enough of us and
we would have it or know the reason why!  He gave us our places and the
line of sweep and sent us off to sleep.  The hunt was to begin at
dawn."

The hunter paused, remembering.  His eyes looked past Ben in the
growing darkness to some point distant in time and place from where
they sat now; "It was exciting, you know.  All those men gathered
together like that a hunt greater than any I had ever heard tell. There
were to be Trolls north along the Melchor and a number of the fairy
tribes south above the lake country.  They didn't seem to think the
unicorn would be south of there don't know why.  But the plan was to
start on the eastern border and drive west, closing the ends north and
south like a huge net.  Beaters and horsemen would work from the
east;

hunters and snares would set up west in moving pockets.  It was a good
plan."

He smiled faintly.  "It started right on schedule.  The line east began
to move west, clearing out everything in its path.  Hunters like myself
set up in the hill country where we could see everything that moved in
the grasslands and beyond.  Some rode chaser all along the front and
ends, flushing whatever was hidden there.  It was something, all those
men, all that equipment.  Looked like the whole valley was gathered in
that one huge hunt.  Looked like the whole world.  The line came west
all that day from the wastelands to Rhyndweir and beyond beaters and
chasers, horsemen and foot soldiers, wagon loads of provisions going
back and forth from castles and towns.  Don't know how they got it
organized so fast and still made it work but they did.  Never saw a
thing, though.  Camped that night in a line that stretched from the
Melchor down to Sterling Silver.  Campfires burned north to south like
a big, winding snake.  You could see it from the hills where Dain and I
were set up with the other hunters.  We stayed out of the main camps.
We're more at home up there anyway can see as well at night as in day
and had to keep watch so that nothing sneaked past in the dark.

"The second day went the same.  We got to the western foothills at the
edge of the grasslands, but saw nothing.  Camped again and waited.
Watched all that night."

Ben was thinking of the time he had wasted since leaving Elderew just
to get this far north.  Four days.  The weather had slowed his travel
in the lake country, and he had been forced to skirt east of Sterling
Silver to avoid an encounter with the guard his guard because they
might recognize him as the stranger that the King had ordered out of
the country.  He had been forced to travel afoot the entire way,
because he had no money for horses and was not yet reduced to stealing.
He must have missed the hunt by less than twenty-four hours.  He was
beginning to wonder what that had cost him.

The hunter cleared his throat and continued.  "There was some
unpleasantness by now among the men," he advised solemnly.  "Some felt
this was a waste of time.  Twenty pieces a day or not, no one wants to
be part of something foolish.  The Lords were having their say, too,
griping that we weren't doing our share, that we weren't watching as
close as we should, that something might have sneaked through.  We knew
that wasn't the case, but that wasn't something they wanted to hear. So
we said we'd try harder, keep looking.  But we wondered among ourselves
if there was anything out there to look for.

"The third day we closed the line west to the mountains, and that's
when we found it."  The hunter's eyes had suddenly come alive, bright
in the firelight with excitement.  "It was late afternoon, the sun
screened away by the mountains and the mist, and the patches of forest
we searched in that hill country were thick with shadows.  It was the
time of day when everything seems a little un clear, when you see
movement where there is none.  We were working a heavy pine grove
surrounded by hardwood and thick with scrub and brush.  There were six
of us, I think, and you could hear dozens more all about, and the lines
of beaters shouting and calling from just east where the line was
closing.  It was hot in the hills odd for the time of day.  But we were
all worn down to the bone and weary of chasing ghosts.  There was a
feeling that this hunt had come down to nothing.  Sweat and insects
made the work unpleasant now; aches and pains slowed us.  We had shoved
away thoughts of the unicorn beyond completing the hunt and getting
home again.  The whole business was a joke."

He paused.  "Then suddenly there was movement in the pine just a shadow
of something, nothing more than that.  I remember thinking that my eyes
were playing tricks on me yet another time.  I was going to say
something to Dain; he was working just off to my left.  But I held my
tongue too tired, maybe, to want to say anything.  I just sort of
stopped what I was doing there in the brush and the heat and I watched
the place of the movement to see if there was going to be any more."

He took a deep breath, and his jaw tightened down.  "There was this
darkening of the little sunlight that remained then as if clouds had
screened it away for a moment.  I remember how it felt.  The air was
all hot and still;

the wind had died down into nothing.  I was looking, and the brush came
apart and there it was the unicorn, all black and fluid like water.  It
seemed so tiny.  It stood there staring at me I don't know how long.  I
could see the goat's feet, the lion's tail, the mane that ran down its
neck and back, the fetlocks, that ridged horn.  It was just as the old
stories described it but more beautiful than they could ever make it.
Sweet mother, it was glorious!  The others saw it, too, a few of them
anyway.  Dain caught a glimpse; another two said they saw it close up.
But not as close as me, Lord!  No, I was right next to it, it seemed! 
I was right there!

"Then it bolted.  No, not bolted it didn't flee like that.  It bounded
up and seemed to fly right past me; all that motion and grace, like the
shadow of some bird in flight cast down on the earth by the sun
passing.  It came by me in the blink of an eye whisk!  and it was gone.
I stood there looking after it, wondering if I'd really seen it,
knowing I had, thinking how marvelous it was to view, thinking it truly
was real..."

He choked on the words as they tumbled out one after the other,
released from his throat in a rush of strange emotion.  His hands were
raised before him, knotting with the intensity of the telling of his
story.  Ben quit breathing momentarily, awed by what he was seeing, not
wanting to break the spell.

The hunter's eyes lowered then, and the hands followed.  "I heard later
that it flew right into the teeth of the chase.  I heard it went past
the whole mess of them like wind through a forest of rooted trees.
Dozens saw it.  There was a chance to hold it, maybe but I kind of
wonder.  It came right over the nets.  There was a chase, but but you
know what?"  The eyes lifted again.  "The unicorn came right up against
the Lords of the Greensward and the King's men right up against them,
sweet mother!  And the wizard the very one that organized all this
conjured up some nonsense and it rained flowers and butterflies all
over everything.  The chase broke up in the confusion, and the unicorn
was gone before you could spit!"  He smiled' suddenly  "Flowers and
butterflies can you imagine that?"

Ben smiled with him.  He could.

The hunter drew up his knees then and hugged them.  The smile
disappeared.  "That was it, then.  That was all she wrote.  The hunt
was done.  Everyone sort of broke up and went away after that.  There
was some talk of continuing, of taking the whole line back east again,
but it never came to anything.  No one wanted any part of that.  It was
like the heart had gone out of the chase.  It was like everyone was
glad the unicorn got away.  Or maybe it was just that no one thought it
could ever be caught anyway."

The hard eyes lifted.  "Strange times we live in.  The King sacked the
wizard and the dog, I hear.  Threw them out the minute he heard what
had happened.  Just dismissed them out of hand for what the wizard had
done or what he thought he'd done.  I don't think the wizard could have
done much one way or the other anyway.  Not with that creature, not
with it.  No one could have.  It was too much a ghost for anything
mortal, too much a dream .. ."

There were sudden tears in the hunter's eyes.  "I think I touched it,
you know, when it went past me.  I think I touched it.  Sweet mother, I
can still feel the silk of its skin brushing me, like fire, like ... a
woman's touch, maybe.  I had a woman touch me once that way, long ago.
The unicorn felt like that.  Now I can't forget it.  I try to think of
other things, try to be reasonable about the fact of it having happened
at all, but the sense of it stays with me."  He tightened his face
against what he was feeling.  "I been looking for it on my own since I
left, thinking maybe one man could have better luck than a whole
hunting party.  I don't want to catch it exactly; I don't think I
could.  I just want to see it again.  I just want to maybe touch it one
more time just once, just for a moment..."

He trailed off again.  The campfire sparked suddenly in the stillness,
a sharp crackling.  No one moved.  Darkness had settled down across the
valley, and the last daylight had dropped from view.  Stars and moons
had appeared, their light faint and distant, their colors muted.  Ben
glanced down at Edgewood Dirk.  The eat had his eyes closed.

i53

"ljust want to touch it once more," the hunter repeated softly.  "Just
for a moment."

He stared vacantly at Ben.  The ghost of who and what he had been was
swallowed in the silence that followed.

That same night Willow dreamed again of the black unicorn.  She slept
huddled close to the faithful Parsnip in a gathering of pine at the
edge of the Deep Fell, concealed within a covering of boughs and
shadows.  Her journey north from Elderew was five days gone.  She was
now only hours ahead of Ben Holiday.  The hunt for the black unicorn
had delayed her for almost a day as it swept the hill country west of
the Greensward and turned her east.  She had no idea what the hunt was
about.  She had no idea that Ben was searching for her.

The dream came at midnight, stealing into her sleep like a mother to
her slumbering child's room, a presence that was warm and comforting.
There was no fear this time, only sadness.  Willow moved through forest
trees and grassland spaces, and the black unicorn watched, as if a
ghost come from some nether region to trail the living.  It appeared
and faded like sunshine from behind a cloud, now in the shade of a
massive old maple, now in the lea of a copse of fir.  It was never all
visible, but only in part.  It was black and featureless save for its
eyes and its eyes were a mirror of all the sadness that ever was and
would ever be.

The eyes made Willow cry, and her tears stained her cheeks as she
slept.  The eyes were troubled, filled with pain she could only
imagine, haunted beyond anything she had believed possible.  The black
unicorn of this dream was no demon spawn; it was a delicate, wondrous
creature that somehow had been terribly misused .. .

She came awake with a start, the image of the unicorn clearly etched in
her mind, its eyes fixed and staring.  Parsnip slept next to her,
undisturbed.  Dawn was still hours away, and she shivered with the
night's chill.  Her slim i54

body trembled at the whisper of the dream's words in her memory, and
she felt the magic of their presence in her fairy way.

This dream was real, she realized suddenly.  This dream was the
truth.

She straightened back against the pine's roughened trunk, swallowed the
dryness in her throat, and forced herself to consider what the dream
had shown her.  Something required it the eyes of the unicorn, perhaps.
They sought something from her.  It was no longer enough to think
simply of retrieving the golden bridle and carrying it to Ben.  That
was the command of her first dream, the dream that had brought her on
this quest but the truth of that dream was now in doubt.  The unicorn
of that dream was entirely different than the unicorn of this.  One was
demon, the other victim.  One was pursuer, the other .  hunted?  She
thought perhaps so.  There was a need for help in the unicorn's eyes.
It was almost as if it was begging her for that help.

And she knew she must give it.

She shuddered violently.  What was she thinking?  If she even came
close to the unicorn, she could be lost.  She should forget this
madness!  She should go to Ben .. .

She let the unfinished thought trail off, huddled down against the
night and the stillness, and wrestled with her indecision.  She wished
her mother were there to comfort her or that she could seek again the
counsel of the Earth Mother.

She wished most of all for Ben.

But none of them was there.  Except for Parsnip, she was alone.

The moments slipped by.  Suddenly she rose, a soundless shadow, left
Parsnip asleep in the gathering of pines, and disappeared silently into
the Deep Fell.  She went not on reason, but on instinct, without doubt
or fear, but with certainty that all would be well and she would be
kept safe.

By dawn, she had returned.  She did not have the golden bridle in her
possession, but she knew now where it was.  Her fairy senses had told
her what even the Earth Mother could not.  The bridle had been stolen
yet again.

She woke Parsnip, gathered together her few things, cast a brief glance
back at the dark bowl of the hollows, and started walking east.

Thieves a.

When Ben Holiday and Edgewood Dirk awoke the following morning, the
hunter was gone.  Neither had heard him leave.  He had departed without
a word, disappearing so completely that it was almost as if he had
never been.  Even his face was just a vague memory for Ben.  It was
only his story of the hunt for the black unicorn that lingered on,
still vivid, still haunting.

Breakfast was a solemn affair.  "I hope he finds what he's looking
for," Ben muttered at one point.

"He can't," Dirk replied softly.  "It doesn't exist."

Ben was beginning to wonder about that.  The black unicorn seemed as
elusive as smoke and about as substantive.  The unicorn was seen, but
never for more than a few moments and never as more than a fleeting
shadow.  It was a legend that had assumed a scant few of the trappings
of reality, but which remained for all intents and purposes little more
than a vision.  It was altogether possible that a vision was all the
unicorn was some strayed bit of magic that took form but never body. In
Landover, you never knew.

He thought about asking Dirk, but then decided against it.  Dirk
wouldn't give him a straight answer if he knew one, and he was tired of
playing word games with the cat.

He decided to change the subject.  
"Dirk, I've been giving some
thought to what the Earth Mother told us about the golden bridle," he
said when breakfast was finished.  "She told Willow that it was last in
the possession of Nightshade, but she didn't say anything about what
had become of the witch since I sent her into the fairy mists."  He
paused. "You knew I had done that, didn't you?  That I had sent
Nightshade into the mists?"

Dirk, seated on an old log, shifted his front paws experimentally.  "I
knew."

"She sent my friends into Abaddon, and I decided to give her a taste of
her own medicine," he went on by way of explanation.  "I was given lo
Dust by the fairies, a powder that, if breathed, made you subject to
the commands of the one who fed you the Dust.  I used it later on the
dragon Strabo, too, as a matter of fact.  At any rate, I used it on
Nightshade first and caused her to change herself into a crow and fly
off into the mists."  Again he paused.  "But I never knew what happened
to her after that."

"This rather boring recapitulation is leading somewhere, I trust?" Dirk
sniffed.

Ben flushed.  "I was wondering whether or not Nightshade had found her
way out of the mists and back into the Deep Fell.  It might help if we
knew that before we waltzed blindly on in."

Dirk took a long moment to clean his face, causing Ben's flush to
heighten further with impatience.  At last the cat looked up again.  "I
have not been down into the Deep Pell myself in quite some time, High
Lord.  But I understand that Nightshade might well be back."

Ben took a moment to let the news sink in.  The last thing he needed
just now was an encounter with Nightshade.  He no longer had the
medallion to protect him if indeed it could protect him anyway from a
creature as evil as the witch.  If she recognized him, he was dead.

Even if she didn't, she was hardly likely to welcome him with open
arms.  And she was hardly likely to welcome Willow either especially
once she learned what the sylph was after.  She wasn't about to hand
over the golden bridle, however convincing the arguments Willow might
offer.  She would probably turn Willow into a toad and turn him into a
toad.  He thought wistfully of the lo Dust and wished he had just a
single handful.  That would even the odds considerably.

His eyes fixed intently on Dirk.  "What do you think about a quick trip
back into the fairy world?"  he asked abruptly.  "I did it once; I
could do it again.  The fairies would recognize me, magic or no magic.
Maybe they could help me change back again.  At the very least, they
could give me another pod of the lo Dust to use on Nightshade.  After
all, I promised the Earth Mother I would do my best to look after
Willow, and I can't look after her if I can't look after myself."

Dirk studied him a moment, blinked and yawned.  "Your problem is not
one anyone else can help you with least of all the fairies."

"Why not?"  Ben snapped, irritated with the cat's insufferable
smugness.

"Because, in the first place, the magic that has changed you is your
own as you have been told at least half-ado zen times now.  And in the
second place, the fairies won't necessarily help you just because you
ask.  The fairies involve themselves in people's lives when and where
they choose and not otherwise."  The prim muzzle wrinkled
distastefully.  "You knew that before you asked the question, High
Lord."

Ben fumed silently.  The cat was right, of course he had known.  The
fairies hadn't interceded in Landover's problems when he had first come
into the valley and the tarnish and the Iron Mark had threatened, and
they were unlikely to do so now.  He was King, and the problems facing
him were his.

So how was he going to solve them?

"C'mon," he ordered suddenly, springing to his feet.  "I have an idea
that might work."  He pulled on his boots, straightened his clothing,
and waited for Dirk to ask what the idea was.  The cat didn't. Finally,
he said, "Don't you want to know the details?"

The cat stretched and jumped down from its perch to stand next to him.
"No."

Ben ground his teeth and silently swore that, all right then, it would
be a cold day somewhere damn hot before he would say another word about
it!

They walked north through the early morning, skirting the grasslands of
the Greensward, veering slightly east toward the foothills that lay
below the Melchor.  Ben led, but as usual Dirk seemed to know where
they were going anyway and often traveled a parallel course, picking
his way through the high grasses, seemingly oblivious to what Ben was
about.  Dirk continued to be a mystery without a solution, but Ben
forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand rather than dwell on
Dirk, because dwelling on Dirk just made him nuts.  It was easier to
accept the cat the way one accepted changes in the weather.

The grasslands were still marked from the passing of the hunt.  Booted
feet had flattened portions of the tall grass and broken down the
scrub.  Debris from the provision wagons littered the plains, and the
ashes of huge campfires scarred the multicolored meadows.  The
Greensward had the look of a giant picnic ground at the close of July
fourth.  Ben wrinkled his nose in distaste.  Meeks was already using
the land selfishly again.

There were other signs of misuse as well.  Signs of the wilt that had
marked the valley in his early days in Landover had returned to the
plants and trees signs that could only have been brought about by a
lessening of the power of the King's magic.  When there was no King in
Landover, the land lost strength; he had learned that on his first
visit.  Meeks was not the true King, despite any outward appearance,
and Landover was beginning to show the effects The signs were tiny yet,
but they would grow worse.  Eventually, the tarnish would return to
Sterling Silver and the whole valley would begin to sicken.  Ben
pressed ahead at a quicker pace, as if somehow speed might help.

A caravan of traders traveling north into the Melchor to obtain metal
implements and weapons from the Trolls crossed their path around
midday, and they shared lunch.  The gossip was all connected with the
hunt for the black unicorn and the strange events of the past few days.
The King had gone into seclusion, refusing to see anyone, even the
Lords of the Greensward.  Public works projects had been put on hold,
judicial and grievance councils had been dismissed, envoys had been
sent home from Sterling Silver, and everything in general had come to a
dead halt.  No one knew what was happening.  There were rumors of
demons flying the night skies, monstrous things that carried off
livestock and stray children in the manner that the dragons once had. 
There were even rumors that the King himself was responsible, that he
had made some devil's bargain to give the demons of Abaddon their way
in Landover if they in turn would bring him the unicorn.

Everything seemed to revolve around the unicorn.  The King had let it
be known in no uncertain terms that he meant to have the creature, and
the one who brought it to him would be hugely rewarded.

"If you can catch smoke, you're a rich man," one trader joked, and the
others all laughed.

Ben didn't laugh.  He took his leave hastily and continued north at an
even quicker pace.  Things were getting out of hand, and a good part of
that was clearly his fault.

By midafternoon, he was in the country of the G'home Gnomes.

The G'home Gnomes were a burrow people he had encountered during his
early days as Landover's King.  They were small, furry, grimy creatures
that looked something like overgrown moles.  They were scavengers and
thieves and they couldn't be trusted any farther than your pet dog
could be with the evening roast.  As a matter of fact, they couldn't be
trusted with your pet dog, because they considered dogs, cats, and
other small domesticated animals quite a delicacy.  Abernathy
considered the G'home Gnomes cannibals.  Questor Thews considered them
trouble. Everyone considered them a nuisance.  The appellation "G'home
Gnome" came from the almost universally expressed demand of those who
had the misfortune to come in contact with them: "Go home, gnome!"  Two
of these gnomes, Fillip and Sot, had made a pilgrimage to Sterling
Silver to seek Ben's aid in freeing some of their people from Crag
Trolls after the Trolls had carted the unfortunates away for stealing
and eating a number of their pet tree sloths.  Ben had almost lost his
life in that venture, but the G'home Gnomes had proven to be among the
most loyal of his subjects if not the most reformed.

And Fillip and Sot had once confided to him that they knew the Deep
Fell as they knew the backs of their hands.

"That's exactly the kind of help we need," Ben told Dirk, despite his
vow not to tell the cat anything.  "Nightshade will never be persuaded
to give up the bridle willingly.  Willow has to know that, too but that
won't stop her from trying.  She'll probably be direct rather than
circumspect; she's too honest for her own good.  Whatever the case, if
she's gone into the Deep Fell, she's likely in trouble.  She'll need
help.  Fillip and Sot can let us know.  They can sneak down without
being seen.  If Willow or Nightshade is there, they can tell us.  If
the bridle is there, perhaps they can steal it for us.  Don't you see?
They can go where we can't."

"Speak for yourself," Dirk replied.

"Do you have a better plan?"  Ben snapped back immediately.

Dirk was oblivious to his anger.  "I have no plan," he answered.  "This
is your problem, not mine."

"Thank you very much.  I gather you wouldn't consider undertaking this
reconnaissance and theft yourself then?"

"Hardly.  I am your companion, not your lackey."

"YOU are a pain, Dirk."

"I am a cat, High Lord."

Ben terminated the discussion with a scowl and stalked off toward the
burrow community.  The G'home Gnomes lived in towns in the same manner
as prairie dogs, and sentinels warned of his approach long before he
could see anything.  By the time he reached the town, there wasn't a
G'borne Gnome anywhere just a lot of empty-looking holes.  Ben walked
to the center of the town, seated himself on a stump and waited.  He
had been here a number of times since becoming King, and he knew how
the game was played.

A few minutes later, Dirk joined him.  The cat curled up beside him
without a word and closed its eyes against the late afternoon sun.

Shortly after that, a furry face poked up from one of the burrows. Eyes
squinted weakly against the daylight, and a wrinkled nose sniffed the
air tentatively.

"Good day, sir," the gnome addressed Ben and tipped his battered
leather cap with its single red feather.

"Good day," Ben replied.

"Out for a walk, are you, sir?"

"Out for a healthy dose of fresh air and sunshine.  Good for what ails
you."

"Yes, oh yes indeed, good for what ails you.  Must be careful of colds
that settle in the throat and chest during the passing of fall."

"Certainly must.  Colds can be tricky."  They were dancing on
eggshells, and Ben let the music play itself out.  The G'home Gnomes
were like this with strangers scared to death.  One always tested you.
If you posed no threat, the rest came out.  If any menace was sensed,
you never saw more than the one.  "I hope your family is well?"  Ben
went on, trying to sound casual.  "And your community?"

"Oh, quite well, thank you, sir.  All quite well."

"That's good to hear."

"Yes, good to hear."  The gnome glanced about furtively, looking to see
if Ben was alone, looking to see if he was hiding anything.  "You must
have walked quite a distance north from the Greensward, sir.  Are you a
craftsman?"

"Not exactly."

"A trader, then?"

Ben hesitated a moment and then nodded.  "On occasion, I am."

"Oh?"  The gnome's squint seemed to deepen.  "But you do not appear to
have any wares with you this trip, sir."

"Ah!  Well, sometimes appearances are deceiving.  Some trading wares
can be quite small, you know."  He patted his tunic.  "Pocket-sized."

The gnome's front teeth flashed nervously out of its grimy face.  "Yes,
of course that is so.  Could it be that you are interested in trading
here, sir?"

"Could be."  Ben set the hook and waited.

The gnome did not disappoint him.  "With someone in particular?"

Ben shrugged.  "I have done some business in the past with two members
of your community Fillip and Sot.  Do you know them?"

The gnome blinked.  "Yes, Fillip and Sot live here."

Ben smiled his most disarming smile.  "Are they about?"

The gnome smiled back.  "Perhaps.  Yes, perhaps.  Would you wait a
moment, please?  Just a moment?"

He ducked back into his burrow and was gone.  Ben waited.  The minutes
slipped past and no one appeared.  Ben kept his place on the stump and
tried to look as if he were enjoying himself.  He could feel eyes
watching him from everywhere.  Doubts began to creep into his mind.
What if Fillip and Sot took a look at him and decided he was no one
they had ever seen?  After all, he wasn't the Ben Holiday they knew any
longer.  He was a stranger and not a particularly well-dressed one
either.  He glanced down at his clothing, reminded of his sorry state.
He made a rather shabby-looking trader, he thought ruefully.  Fillip
and Sot might decide he wasn't worth their bother.  They might decide
to stay right where they were.  And if he couldn't get close enough to
talk to them, he wasn't about to have any success obtaining their
help.

The afternoon shadows lengthened.  Ben's patience simmered like hot
water over an open fire.  He glanced irritably at Edgewood Dirk.  No
help was there.  Eyes closed, paws tucked under, breathing slowed to
nothing, the cat might have been sleeping or it might have been
stuffed.

The burrow holes continued to yawn back at him in empty disinterest.
The sun continued to slip into the western hills.  No one appeared.

Ben had just about decided to throw in the towel when a furry,
dirt-lined face poked up suddenly from a burrow opening not a dozen
yards away, closely followed by a second directly beside it.  Two
snouts sniffed the late afternoon air warily.  Two pairs of weakened
eyes peered cautiously about.

Ben heaved a sigh of relief.  They were Fillip and Sot.

The squinting eyes fixed on him.

"Good day, sir," said Fillip.

"Good day, sir," said Sot.

"Good day, indeed."  Ben beamed, sitting up straight again on the
stump.

"You wish to trade, sir?"  asked Fillip.

"You wish to trade with us?"  asked Sot.

"Yes.  Yes, I most certainly do."  Ben paused.  "Would you gentlemen
mind coming over here?  That way I can be certain you understand what
it is that I have to trade."

The G'home Gnomes glanced at each other, then emerged into the fading
sunlight.  Stout, hairy bodies were clothed in what looked like
Salvation Army rejects.  Bearded, ferretlike faces with tiny, squinted
eyes and wrinkled noses tested the air like weather vanes directed by
the wind.  Dirt and grime covered them from head to foot.

Fillip and Sot without a doubt.

Ben waited until they had stopped just a few feet in front of him,
beckoned them closer still, then said, "I want you to listen to me very
closely, do you understand?  Just listen.  I'm Ben Holiday.  I'm High
Lord ofLandover.  A magic has been used to change my appearance, but
that's only temporary.  I'll change myself back sooner or later.  When
I do, I'll remember who helped me and who didn't.  And I need your help
right now."

He glanced from one furry face to the other.  The gnomes were staring
at him voicelessly, eyes squinting, noses testing.  They looked for a
moment at each other, then back again at Ben.

"You are not the High Lord," said Fillip.

"No, you are not," agreed Sot.

"Yes, I am," Ben insisted.

"The High Lord would not be here alone," said Fillip.

"The High Lord would come with his friends, the wizard, the talking
dog, the kobolds, and the girl Willow the pretty sylph," said Sot.

"The High Lord would come with his guards and retainers," said
Fillip.

"The High Lord would come with his standards of office," said Sot.

"You are not the High Lord," repeated Fillip.

"No, you are not," repeated Sot.

Ben took a deep breath.  "I lost all those things to a bad wizard the
wizard who brought me into Landover in the first place, the wizard we
saw in the crystal after we freed ourselves from the Crag Trolls
remember?  You were the ones who came to Sterling Silver to ask my help
in the first place.  I went with you to help you free your people from
the Trolls the same gnomes who had eaten the furry tree sloths that
were the Trolls' favorite pets.  Now if I'm not the High Lord, how do I
know all this?"

Fillip and Sot looked at each other again.  They looked a bit uncertain
this time.

"We don't know," admitted Fillip.

"No, we have no idea," agreed Sot.

"But you are not the High Lord," repeated Fillip.

"No, you are not," agreed Sot.

Ben took another deep breath.  "I smashed the crystal against some
rocks after we discovered its purpose.  Questor Thews admitted his part
in its use.  You were there, Abernathy and Willow were there, the
kobolds Bunion and Parsnip were there.  Then we went down into the Deep
Fell.  You took Willow and me in.  Remember?  We used lo Dust to turn
Nightshade back into a crow and fly her into the fairy mists.  Then we
went after the dragon Strabo.  Remember?  How could I know this if I'm
not the High Lord?"

The gnomes were shifting their feet as if fire ants had crawled into
their ruined boots.

"We don't know," Fillip said again.

"No, we don't," Sot agreed.

"Nevertheless, you are not the High Lord," repeated Fillip.

"No, you are not," repeated Sot.

Ben's patience slipped several notches despite his resolve.  "How do
you know that I'm not the High Lord?"  he asked tightly.

Fillip and Sot fidgeted nervously.  Their small hands wrung together,
and their eyes shifted here and there and back again.

"You don't smell like him," said Fillip finally.

"No, you smell like us," said Sot.

Ben stared, then flushed, then lost whatever control he had managed to
exercise up to this point.  "Now you listen to me!  I am the High Lord,
I am Ben Holiday, I am exactly who I said I was, and you had better
accept that right now or you are going to be in the biggest trouble of
your entire lives, bigger even than when you stole and ate that pet dog
at the celebration banquet after the defeat of the Iron Mark!  I'll see
you hung out to dry, damn it!  Look at me!"  He wrenched the medallion
from his tunic, covering the face and the image of Meeks with his palm,
and thrust it forward like a weapon.  "Would you like to see what I can
do to you with this?"

Fillip and Sot collapsed prone upon the earth, tiny bodies shaking from
head to foot.  They went down so fast it looked as if their feet had
been yanked from beneath them.

"Great High Lord!"  cried Fillip.

"Mighty High Lord!"  wailed Sot.

"Our lives are yours!"  sobbed Fillip.

"Yours!"  sniffled Sot.

"Forgive us, High Lord!"  pleaded Fillip.

"Forgive us!"  echoed Sot.

Now that's much better, Ben thought, more than slightly astonished at
the rapid turnabout.  A little intimidation seemed to go a whole lot
further than a reasonable explanation with the G'home Gnomes.  He was a
bit ashamed of himself for having had to resort to such tactics, but he
was more desperate than anything.

"Get up," he told them.  They climbed to their feet and stood looking
at him fearfully.  "It's all right," he assured them gently.  "I
understand why this is confusing, so let's just put it all behind us.
All right?"  Two ferretlike faces nodded as one.  "Fine.  Now we have a
problem.  Willow the pretty sylph may be in a lot of trouble, and we
have to help her the same way she helped us when the Crag Trolls had us
in their pens.  Remember?"  He was using that word "remember" a lot,
but dealing with gnomes was like dealing with small children.  "She's
gone down into the Deep Fell in search of something, and we have to
find her to be certain that she's all right."

"I do not like the Deep Fell, High Lord," complained Fillip
hesitantly.

"Nor I," agreed Sot.

"I know you don't," Ben acknowledged.  "I don't like it either.  But
you two have told me before that you can go down there without beeing
seen.  I can't do that.  All I want you to do is to go down there long
enough to look around and see if Willow is there and to look for
something that I need that's hidden down there.  Fair enough?  Just
look around.  No one has to know you're even there."

"Nightshade came back to the Deep Fell, High Lord," announced Fillip
softly, confirming Ben's worst fears.

"We have seen her, High Lord," agreed Sot.

"She hates everything now," said Fillip.

"But you most," added Sot.

There was a period of silence.  Ben tried to imagine for a moment the
extent of Nightshade's hatred for him and could not.  It was probably
just as well.

He bent close to the gnomes.  "You've been back to the Deep Fell,
then?"  Fillip and Sot nodded miserably.  "And you weren't seen, were
you?"  Again, the nods.  "Then you can do this favor for me, can't you?
You can do it for me and for Willow.  It will be a favor that I won't
forget, I can promise you that."

There was another long moment of silence as Fillip and Sot looked at
him, then at each other.  They bent their heads close and whispered.
Their nervousness had been transformed into agitation.

Finally they looked back at him again, eyes glinting.

"If we do this, High Lord, can we have the cat?"  asked Fillip.

"Yes, can we have the cat?"  echoed Sot.

Ben stared.  He had forgotten Dirk momentarily.  He glanced down at the
cat, and then back at the gnomes.

<

^

"Don't even think about it," he advised.  "That cat is not what it
seems."

Fillip and Sot nodded reluctantly, but their eyes remained locked on
Dirk.

"I'm warning you," Ben said pointedly.

Again the gnomes nodded, but Ben had the distinct feeling that he was
addressing a brick wall.

He shook his head helplessly.  "Okay.  We'll sleep here tonight and
leave at daylight."  He took an extra moment to draw their attention.
"Try to remember what I just said about the cat.  All right?"

A third time the gnomes nodded.  But their eyes never left Dirk.

Ben ate another Spartan meal of Bonnie Blues, drank spring water, and
watched the sun sink into the horizon and night settle over the valley.
He thought of the old world and the old life and wondered for the first
time in a long time whether he might have been better off staying where
he was instead of coming here.  Then he pushed his maudlin thoughts
aside, wrapped himself in his travel cloak, and settled down against
the base of the stump for an uncomfortable night's rest.

Dirk hadn't moved from the stump top.  Dirk looked dead.

Sometime during the night there was a shriek so dreadful and so
prolonged that it brought Ben right up off the ground.  It sounded as
if it were almost on top of him; but when he finally got his bearings
and peered bleary-eyed about the campsite, all he found was Dirk
crouched down atop the stump with his hackles up and a sort of steam
rising from his back.

In the distance, something or someone whimpered.

"Those gnomes are persistent to the point of stupidity," Dirk commented
softly before settling back down again, eyes glistening in the night
like emerald fire.

The whimpering faded and Ben lay back down as well.

So much for his well-intentioned advice to Fillip and Sot.  Some
lessons had to be learned the hard way.

That same night found an altogether different scene unfolding some
miles south of Rhyndweir at an abandoned stock pen and line shack
perched on a ridgeline that overlooked the eastern expanse of the
Greensward.  A sagging roof and shutter less windows marked the line
shack as a derelict, and the stock pen was missing rails in half-ado
zen spots.  Shadows draped the whole in a web of black lace.  A
white-bearded scarecrow and an Ozian shaggy dog, both decidely unkempt,
bracketed a brightly burning campfire built a dozen yards or so from
the line shack and hurtled accusations at each other with a vehemence
that seemed to refute utterly the fact that they had ever been best
friends.  A wiry, monkey-faced creature with elephant ears and big
teeth watched the dispute in bemused silence.

"Do not attempt to ask my understanding of what you have done!"  the
shaggy dog was saying to the scarecrow.  "I hold you directly
responsible for our predicament and am not inclined to be in the least
forgiving!"

"Your lack of compassion is matched only by your lack of character!"
the scarecrow replied.  "Another man or dog would be more charitable, I
am sure!"

"Ha!  Another man or dog would have bidden farewell to you long ago!
Another man or dog would have found decent company in which to share
his exile!"

"I see!  Well, it is not too late for you to find other company decent
or not if such is your inclination!"

"Rest assured, it is under consideration right now!"

The two glowered at each other through the red haze of the campfire,
their thoughts as black as the ashes of the crumbling wood.  The
monkey-faced watcher remained a mute spectator.  Night hung about all
three like a mourner's shroud, and the ridgeline was spectral and
still.

Abernathy shoved his glasses further back on his nose and picked up the
argument once more, his tone of voice a shade softer.  "What I find
difficult to understand is why you let the unicorn get away, wizard.
You had the creature before you, you knew the words that would snare
it, and what did you do?  You called down a thunder burst of
butterflies and flowers.  What kind of nonsense was that?"

Questor Thews tightened his jaw defiantly.  "The kind of nonsense that
you, of all people, should understand."

"I am inclined to think that you simply panicked.  I am compelled to
believe that you simply failed to master the magic when you needed to.
And what do you mean, 'the kind of nonsense that I should
understand'?"

"I mean, the kind of nonsense that gives all creatures the chance to be
what they should be, despite what others think best for them!"

The scribe frowned.  "One moment.  Are you telling me that you
intentionally let the unicorn escape?  That the butterflies and the
flowers were not accidental?"

The wizard pulled on his chin whiskers irritably.  "Congratulations on
your astute, if belated, grasp of the obvious!  That is exactly what I
am telling you!"

There was a long silence between them as they studied each other.  They
had been traveling together since daybreak, inwardly seething at the
turn of events that had brought them to this end, outwardly distanced
from each other by their anger.  This was the first time that the
subject of the unicorn's escape had been discussed openly.

The moment of testing passed.  Questor looked away first, sighed, and
pulled his patchwork robes closer about him to ward off the deepening
night chill.  His face was worn and lined from worry.  His clothing was
dusty and torn.  Abernathy looked no better.  They had been stripped of
everything.  Their dismissal had come immediately after the High Lord
had learned of their failure to capture the black unicorn.  The High
Lord had given them no chance to explain their actions nor had he
offered any explanation

17-2

for his.  They had been met on their return to Sterling Silver by a
messenger, who had delivered a curt handwritten directive.  They were
relieved of their positions.  They could go henceforth where they chose
but they were never to return to the court.

Bunion, apparently given his choice in the matter, went with them.  He
had offered no reason.

"It was not my intention when we began the hunt to allow the unicorn to
escape," Questor continued softly.  "It was my intention that it be
captured and delivered to the High Lord just as he had ordered.  I
believed it a dangerous undertaking because the black unicorn has long
been reported a thing of ill fortune.  But, then again, the High Lord
has shown an extraordinary capacity for turning ill fortune to his
advantage."  He paused.  "I admit I was bothered by his insistence on
the unicorn's immediate capture and by his refusal to explain that
insistence to us.  Yet I still intended that the unicorn be taken."  He
took a deep breath.  "But when I saw the beast before me in that wood,
standing there when I saw what it was .. . I could not allow it to be
taken.  I don't know why, I just couldn't.  No, that is not true I do
know why.  It wasn't right.  I could feel inside me that it wasn't
right.  Didn't you sense it, too, Abernathy?  The unicorn was not meant
to belong to the High Lord.  It was not meant to belong to anyone."  He
glanced up again uncertainly.  "So I used the magic to see that it
wouldn't.  I let it escape."

Abernathy snapped at something that flew past him, then shoved his
dust-encrusted glasses back on his nose and sneezed.  "Well, you should
have said so sooner, wizard, instead of letting me think that your
magic had simply bested you once again.  This, at least, I can
understand."

"Can you?"  Questor shook his head doubtfully.  "I wish I could.  I
have acted against the wishes of the High Lord when I am sworn to his
service, and the only reason I can give is that serving him in this
instance felt wrong.  He was right to dismiss me from the court."

i73

"And me also, I suppose?"

"No, he should not have dismissed you.  You had no part in what
happened."

"The fact of the matter is, he was wrong to dismiss either of us!"

Questor shrugged helplessly.  "He is the High Lord.  Who are we to
question his judgment?"

"Humph!"  Abernathy snorted derisively.  "The hunt was an ill-advised
exercise of judgment, if ever there was one.  He knew the history of
the black unicorn.  We told him the beast would not be trapped in a
hunt, and he completely ignored us.  He has never done that before,
wizard.  I tell you, he is obsessed with this beast.  He thinks of
nothing else.  He has spoken of Willow only once and that a tirade over
her failure to return to him with the golden bridle.  He ignores his
duties, he keeps to his rooms, and he confides in no one.  Not a single
mention has been made of the books of magic since you returned them to
him.  I had hoped that the High Lord might give at least some brief
consideration into looking for a way to use them to return me to my
former self.  Once, the High Lord would have done so without even
having to think about it .. ."

The scribe trailed off self-consciously, glowering at the flames of the
little fire.  "Well, no matter.  The point is, he is not himself these
days, Questor Thews.  He is not himself."

The wizard's owlish face twisted thoughtfully.  "No."  He glanced
momentarily at Bunion and was surprised to find the kobold nodding in
agreement.  "No, he most certainly is not."

"Hasn't been since .. ."

"Since we discovered that impostor in his bed chamber?"

"Since then, yes.  Since that night."

They were silent again for a moment.  Then their eyes met, and they
were startled by what they found mirrored there.  "Is it possible that
..."  Abernathy began uncertainly.

"That the impostor was the High Lord?"  Questor finished.  He frowned
his deepest frown.  "I would not have thought so before, but now ..."

"There is no way we can be certain, of course," Abernathy interrupted
quickly.

"No, no way," Questor agreed.

The fire crackled and spit, the smoke blew across them with a shift in
the wind, and sparks danced into the ashes.  From somewhere far away, a
night bird sounded a long, mournful cry that brought shivers down
Questor's spine.  He exchanged quick glances with Abernathy and
Bunion.

"I hate sleeping out-of-doors," Abernathy muttered.  "I don't like
fleas and ticks and crawly things trying to assume occupancy of my
fur."

"I have a plan," Questor said suddenly.

Abernathy gave him a long, hard look, the kind he always gave when
confronted with a pronouncement he would just as soon live without.  "I
am almost afraid to ask what it is, wizard," he responded finally.

"We will go to the dragon.  We will go to Strabo."

Bunion's teeth gleamed in a frightening grin.  "That is a plan?"
demanded Abernathy, horrified.

Questor leaned forward eagerly.  "But it makes perfect sense that we
should go to Strabo.  Who knows more about unicorns than dragons?  Once
they were the greatest of enemies the oldest adversaries in the world
of fairy.  Now the black unicorn is the last of his kind, and Strabo
the last of his.  They share a common cause, a natural affinity! 
Surely we can learn something of the unicorn from the dragon enough
perhaps to unravel its mystery and to discover its purpose in coming to
han dover

Abernathy stared in disbelief.  "But the dragon doesn't like us,
Questor Thews!  Have you forgotten that?  He will roast us for a midday
snack!"  He paused.  "Besides, what i75

good will it do to learn anything more about the unicorn?  The beast
has caused us trouble enough as it is."

"But if we understand its purpose, we might discover a reason for the
High Lord's obsession," Questor replied quickly.  "We might even find a
way to reinstate ourselves at court.  It is not inconceivable.  And the
dragon will not cause us harm.  He will be happy to visit with us once
he has learned our purpose in coming.  Do not forget, Abernathy, that
dragons and wizards share a common background as well.  The nature and
duration of our professional relationship has always dictated a certain
degree of mutual respect."

Abernathy's lip curled.  "What a lot of nonsense!"  Questor barely
seemed to hear him.  There was a faraway look in his eye.  "There were
games played between wizards and dragons in the old days that would
challenge the faint of heart, I can tell you.  Games of magic and games
of skill."  He cocked his head slightly.  "A game or two might be
necessary here if Strabo chooses to be obdurate.  Theft of knowledge is
a skill I have mastered well, and it would be fun to test myself once
more ..."  "You are mad!"  Abernathy was appalled.

But Questor's enthusiasm was not to be dampened.  He came to his feet,
excitement in his eyes as he paced the circle of the fire.  "Well, no
matter.  What is necessary must be done.  I have made my decision.  I
shall go to the dragon."  He paused.  "Bunion will go with me, won't
you, Bunion?"  The kobold nodded, grinning ear to ear.  The wizard's
hands fluttered.  "There, it is settled.  I am going.  Bunion is going.
And you must come with us, Abernathy."  He stopped, hands lowering,
tall form stooping slightly as if from the weight of his sudden frown.
"We must go, you know.  After all, what else is there for us to do?"

He stared questioningly at the scribe.  Abernathy stared back, sharing
the look.  There was a long silence while doubt and uncertainty waged a
silent war with self-esteem i?6

in the old friends' eyes.  There were shadows of times they had
believed past come back to haunt their present, and they felt those
shadows closing inexorably about.  They could not permit that. Anything
was better than waiting for such suffocating darkness.

The ridgeline was still again" a dark spine against a sky of stars and
moons that seemed cold and distant.  The line shack and the stock pen
were the bones of an aging earth.

"Very well," Abernathy agreed, sighing his most grievous sigh.  "We
will all be fools together."

No one spoke up to dispute him.

B"

E.

Sunrise found Fillip and Sot present and accounted for as promised.
They were standing a good twenty yards away when Ben came awake, a pair
of motionless, squat shadows in the fading dark, their travel packs
strapped to then backs their caps with solitary red feathers set firmly
in place.  They appeared bushes at first glance; but after Ben rose to
stretch muscles cramped from the chill and the hard earth, they came
forward a few tentative steps and gave anxious greetings.  They seemed
more nervous than usual and kept peering past him as if they expected
an onslaught of Crag Trolls at any moment.

It took Ben a moment to realize that they were not on guard against
Trolls, but against Edgewood Dirk.

Dirk, for his part, ignored them.  He was sitting on the tree stump
washing when Ben thought to look for him, his silky coat smooth and
glistening as if damp from mo ming dew.  He did not glance up or
respond to Ben's good morning.  He went on about the business of
cleaning himself until he was satisfied that the job was properly
completed, then settled down to the contents of a bowl of spring water
that Ben had provided.  Ben hadn't thought about it before, but Dirk
never seemed to eat much.  What he survived on was something of a
mystery, but it was a mystery that Ben chose to leave unsolved.  He had
enough puzzles to deal with without adding another.

They departed shortly after waking, Ben and Dirk leading depending on
how you defined the word "leading," for once again Dirk seemed to know
where Ben was going almost before he did.  The gnomes trailed.  Fillip
and Sot clearly wanted no part of Edgewood Dirk.  They stayed well back
of the cat and watched him the way you would a snake.  Fillip was
limping noticeably and Sot appeared to have burned a good portion of
the fur off his wrists and the backs of his hands.  Neither had
anything to say about their injuries, and Ben let them be.

They traveled through the morning at a steady pace, the sun shining
brightly from out of a cloudless sky, the smell of wild flowers and
fruit trees scenting the air.  Signs of the wilt prevailed.  They
remained small but noticeable, and Ben thought again of Meeks in his
guise, of the demons come back out of Abaddon at his bidding, of the
lessening of magic in the land, and the stealing of its life.  There
was a renewed urgency tugging him along, a sense that time was slipping
from him too quickly.  He was no closer than he had ever been to
discovering what had been done to him.  He still had no idea why the
black unicorn had come back into Landover or what its importance was to
Meeks.  He knew only that there was a tie connecting all that had
happened and he had to un knot it if he were ever to straighten this
mess out.

Thinking of that led him to think once again about Edgewood Dirk.  It
continued to grate on him that the cat chose to remain such an enigma
when he could obviously explain himself.  Ben was reasonably sure by
now that Dirk had not simply stumbled across him that first night in
the lake country, but had deliberately sought him out.  He was also
reasonably sure that Dirk was staying with him for a reason and not
simply out of curiosity.  But Dirk was not about to explain himself to
Ben until he felt like it;

and given the cat's peculiar nature, that explanation was i79

likely to be offered along about the twelfth of never.  Still, it
seemed abhorrent to Ben simply to accept the beast's presence without
making any further effort whatsoever to learn something of what had
brought it to him in the first place.

As morning lengthened toward noon and the shadow of the Deep Fell began
to grow visible, he decided to take another crack at the cat.  He had
been busy during the trek, mulling over the possibility of a common
link between the various unicorns he had encountered since his dream.
There were, after all, quite a number of them.  There was the black
unicorn.  There were the sketched unicorns contained in the missing
books of magic correction, one of the missing books of magic; the other
was burned-out shell.  And there were the fairy unicorns that had
disappeared centuries ago on their journey through Landover to the
mortal worlds.  It was the legend of the fairy unicorns that concerned
him just now.  He already believed that there must be a link between
the black unicorn and the drawings contained in the books of magic.
Otherwise, why had Meeks sent dreams of both?  Why did he want them
both so badly?  The real question was whether they also had some
connection with the missing fairy unicorns.  He realized that it would
be something of a coincidence if there actually were a connection among
the three, but he was beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be an even
bigger coincidence if there weren't.  Magic tied all three in a single
bond, and he would have bet his life that it was some sort of control
over the magic that Meeks was after.

So.  Enough debate.  Maybe solving one of the little puzzles would aid
in solving the big one.  And maybe just maybe Edgewood Dirk would be
less reticent to help .. .

"Dirk, you've been a lot of places and seen a lot of things."  He
opened the conversation as casually as he could manage, not giving
himself a chance to dwell further on it.  "What do you think about this
legend of the missing fairy unicorns?"

The cat didn't even look at him.  "I don't think about it at all."

"No?  Well what if you did think about it?  You said you knew something
of the missing, white unicorns when we first met, didn't you?"

"I did."

"About the unicorns the fairy people sent into the other worlds?  The
ones who somehow disappeared?"

"The very same."  Dirk sounded bored.

"So what do you think happened to them?  How did they disappear?"

"How?"  The cat sniffed.  "They were stolen, of course."

Ben was so astonished at getting a straight answer for a change that he
failed to follow up on it for a moment.  "But..  . stolen by whom?"  he
managed finally.

"By someone who wanted them, High Lord who else?  By someone who had
the ability and means to capture them and hold them fast."

"And who would that have been?"

Dirk sounded irritated.  "Now who do you think that would have been?"

Ben hesitated, considering.  "A wizard?"

"Not a wizard wizards^ There were many in those days, not simply one or
two as there are now.  They had their own guild, their own association
loosely formed.  but effective when it chose to be.  The magic was
stronger then in Landover, and the wizards hired out to anyone who
needed their skills most and could best afford it.  They were powerful
men for a time until they chose to challenge the King himself."

"What happened?"

"The King summoned the Paladin, and the Paladin destroyed them.  After
that, there was only one real wizard permitted and he served the
King."

Ben frowned.  "But if the unicorns were stolen by the wizards, what
happened to them after the wizards were .  disposed of?  Why weren't
they set free?"

"No one knew where they were."

"But shouldn't someone have looked for them?  Shouldn't they have been
found?"

"Yes and yes."

"Then why weren't they?"

Dirk slowed, stopped, and blinked sleepily.  "The question no one asked
then is the one you fail to ask now, High Lord.  Why were the unicorns
stolen in the first place?"

Ben stopped as well, thought momentarily, and shrugged.  "They were
beautiful creatures.  The wizards wanted them for themselves, I
suppose."

"Yes, yes, yes!  Is that the best you can do?"

"Well, uh .. ."  He paused again, feeling very much a fool.  "Why can't
you just explain it to me, damn it?"  he demanded, exasperated.

Dirk eyed him steadily.  "Because I don't choose to," he said softly.
"Because you have to learn how to see things clearly again."

Ben stared at him momentarily, glanced back at the G'home Gnomes who
were watching from a safe distance back, and folded his arms across his
chest wearily.  He had no idea what Dirk was talking about, but it
didn't do any good to argue with the cat.

"All right," he said finally.  "Let me try again.  The wizards
discovered that the fairies were sending unicorns through Landover into
the mortal worlds.  They stole the unicorns for themselves instead.
They stole them because" He stopped, remembering suddenly the missing
books and the drawings.  "They stole the unicorns because they wanted
their magic!  That's what the drawings in that book mean!  They have
something to do with the missing unicorns!"

l82

Edgewood Dirk cocked his head.  "Do you really think so, High Lord?"

He was so genuinely curious that Ben was left not knowing what to
think.  He had expected the cat to agree with him, but the cat looked
as surprised as he!

"Yes, I really think so," he declared at last, wondering nevertheless.
"I think the missing unicorns and the missing books are tied together
and the black unicorn has something to do with both."

"That does stand to reason," Dirk agreed.

"But how were the unicorns stolen?  And how could the wizards steal
their magic?  Weren't the unicorns as powerful as the wizards?"

"I am told so," Dirk agreed once more.

"Then what happened to them?  Where are they hidden?"

"Perhaps they wear masks."

"Masks?"  Ben was confused.

"Like your own.  Perhaps they wear masks, and we cannot see them."

"Like my own?"

"Would you mind not repeating everything I say?"

"But what are you talking about, for Pete's sake?"

Dirk gave him a "Why bother asking me?"  look and sniffed the late
morning air as if the answers he sough;

might be found there.  The black tail twitched.  "I find J am quite
thirsty.  High Lord.  Would you care to join ms.  for a drink?"

Without waiting for a response, he stood and trotted off into the trees
to one side.  Ben stared after him a moment then followed.  They walked
a short distance to a pool fed from a small rapids and bent to drink. 
Ben drank rapidly, more thirsty than he had expected.  Dirk took his
time, dainty to the point of annoyance lapping gently pausing
frequently, carefully keeping the water from his paws.  Ben was
conscious of Fillip and Sot in the background watching, but paid them
no mind.  His attention was given over entirely to the cat and to what
Dirk was going to say next because he most certainly was going to say
something or Ben was as mistaken as he had ever been in his life!

Ben was not mistaken.  A moment later, Dirk sat back on his haunches
and glanced over.  "Look at yourself in the water, High Lord," he
ordered.  Ben did and saw a dilapidated version of himself, but himself
nevertheless.  "Now look at yourself out of the water," Dirk continued.
Ben did and saw ragged clothes and cracked boots, dirt and grime, an
unshaved, unkempt, unwashed body.  He could see nothing of his face.
"Now look at yourself in the water again look closely."

Ben did, and this time he saw the image of himself shimmer and change
into the image of someone he did not recognize, a stranger whose
clothes were the same ones he wore.

He looked up sharply.  "I don't look like me anymore not even to
myself!"  There was a hint of fear in his voice that he could not
disguise, even though he tried.

"And that, my dear High Lord, is because you are beginning to lose
yourself," Edgewood Dirk said softly.  "The mask you wear is becoming
you!"  The black face dipped closer.  "Find yourself, Ben Holiday,
before that happens.  Take off your mask, and perhaps then you can find
a way to unmask the unicorns as well."

Ben looked back hurriedly at the pool of water and to his relief found
his old face back again in the reflection of the waters.  But the
definition of his features seemed weak.  It was almost as if he were
fading away.

He looked up again for Dirk, but the cat was already trotting away,
scattering the fearful gnomes before him.  "Best hurry, High Lord," he
called back.  "The Deep Fell is no place to be looking for oneself
after nightfall."

Ben climbed slowly to his feet, not only more confused than ever but
also frightened now as well.  "Why do I ask that damn cat anything?" he
muttered in frustration.

But he already knew the answer to that question, of course.  He shook
his head at matters in general and hastened after.

By midafternoon, they had reached the Deep Fell.

It was unchanged and, unchanging a dark, impenetrable smudge on an
otherwise brightly sunlit expanse of forestland, hunched down against
the earth in the manner of a creature in hiding, tensed to flee or
strike.  Shadows and mist played hide and seek in its sprawling depths,
crawling with slow, irregular movements over trees and swamp and murk.
Nothing else could be seen.  What life forms there were lay in wait,
pawns in a hard and vicious game of survival that rewarded only the
quick and the strong.  Sounds were muted and colors shaded gray.  Only
death was at home within the Deep Fell, and only death was immutable.
Ben and his companions could sense that truth.  Standing at the hollows
rim, they stared downward into its darkness and thought their separate
thoughts.

"Well, we might as well get at it," Ben muttered finally.  He was
remembering the last time he had come into the Deep Fell and the
terrifying illusions that Nightshade had created to keep him out the
illusions of endless swamp, lizards, and worse.  He was thinking of his
encounter with the witch an encounter that had almost cost him his
life.  He was not looking forward to a repeat performance.

"Well," he said again, the word trailing off into silence.

No one was paying any attention to him.  Dirk sat next to him, eyes
lidded and sleepy-looking as he basked in a small patch of sunlight and
watched the movement of the mists in the Deep Fell.  Fillip and Sot
stood a good dozen yards left, well away from the cat and the hollows.
They were whispering in small, anxious voices.

He shook his head.  "Fillip.  Sot."

The G'home Gnomes cringed away, pretending not to hear him.

"Get over here!"  he snapped irritably, his patience with gnomes and
cats in general exhausted.

The gnomes came sheepishly, tentatively, edging forward with uneasy
looks at Dirk, who as usual paid them no heed.  When they were as close
as they were going to get without being dragged, Ben knelt down to face
them, his eyes finding theirs.

"Are you certain that Nightshade is down there?"  he asked quietly.

"Yes, High Lord."

"She is, High Lord."

Ben nodded.  "Then I want you to be careful," he told them quietly.
This was no time for impatience or anger, and he suppressed both.  "I
want you to be very careful, all right?  I don't want you to do
anything that will place you in any real danger.  Just go down there
and look around.  I need to know if Willow is there or even if she's
been there earlier.  That's first.  Find out any way you can."

He paused, and the wide brown eyes of the gnomes shifted uneasily.  He
waited a moment, captured them again with his own.  "There is a bridle
made out of spun gold," he continued.  "Nightshade has it hidden down
there somewhere.  I need that bridle.  I want you to see if you can
find it.  If you can, I want you to steal it."

The brown eyes widened suddenly to the size of saucers.  "No, it's all
right, don't be afraid," Ben soothed quickly.  "You don't have to steal
it if the witch is anywhere about only if she's not or if you can take
it without her knowing.  Just do what you can.  I'll protect you."

That was probably the worst lie he had told in his entire life; he
didn't really have any way to protect them.  But he had to do something
to reassure them or they would simply bolt at the first opportunity.
They might do that anyway, but he was hoping the majesty of his office
would hold them in thrall just long enough to get this job done.

"High Lord, the witch will hurt us!"  Fillip declared.

"Hurt us badly!"  Sot agreed.

"No, she won't," Ben insisted.  "If you're careful, she won't even know
you're down there.  You've been down there before, haven't you?"  Two
heads nodded as one.  "She didn't see you then, did she?"  Two heads
nodded again.  "Then there's no reason she will see you this time
either, is there?  Just do as I told you and be careful."

Fillip and Sot looked at each other long and hard.  There was enough
doubt in their eyes to float a battleship.  Finally, they looked back
again at Ben.

"Just go down once," said Fillip.

"Just once," echoed Sot.

"All right, all right, just once," Ben agreed, casting an anxious
glance at the fading afternoon sun.  "But hurry, will you?"

The gnomes disappeared reluctantly into the hollows gloom.  Ben watched
them until they were out of sight, then sat back to wait.

As he waited, he found himself thinking about Edgewood Dirk's repeated
references to masks.  He wore a mask.  The missing unicorns wore masks.
That's what the cat had said, but what did the cat mean?  He propped
himself up against the base of a tree trunk some dozen yards from where
Dirk basked in the sunlight and tried to reason it through.  It was,
after all, about time he reasoned something through.  Lawyers were
supposed to be able to do that; it was indigenous to their profession.
King or no in Landover, he was still a lawyer with a lawyer's habits
and a lawyer's way of thinking.  So think, he exhorted himself!
Think!

He thought.  Nothing came.  Masks were worn by actors and bandits.  You
wore them to disguise yourself.  You put them on and then you took them
off when you were done with the disguise.  But what did that have to do
with him?  Or the unicorns?  None of us are trying to disguise
ourselves, he thought.  Meeks is trying to disguise me.  Who's trying
to disguise the unicorns?

The wizards who took them, that's who.

The answer came instantly to him.  He shifted upright.  The wizards
stole the unicorns and then hid them by disguising them.  He nodded. It
made sense.  So how did they disguise them?  With masks?  What, turned
them into cows or trees or something?  No.  He frowned.  Start over
again.  The wizards took the unicorns how did they do that so they
could steal their magic.  The wizards wanted the magic for their own.
But what would they do with it?  What use would they find for it? Where
was the magic now?

His eyes widened.  There were no longer any other true wizards besides
Meeks.  The source of his power was in the missing but now found books
of magic, the books that were supposedly a compilation of the magics
acquired by wizards down through the years the books with the drawing
of the unicorns!  Sure, the unicorns in the books or the one book, at
least were drawings of the missing unicorns!

But why make drawings?

Or are they the unicorns themselves?

"Yes!"  he whispered in surprise.

It was so impossible that he hadn't seen it before but impossible only
in his own world, not in Landover where magic was the norm!  The
missing unicorns, the unicorns no one had seen for centuries, their
magic intact, were trapped in the wizards' books!  And the reason that
there was nothing else in the books but the drawings of the unicorns
was that the magic of the books was entirely that of the unicorns magic
that the wizards had stolen!

And harnessed to their own use?

He didn't know.  He started to say something to Dirk, then checked
himself.  There was no point in asking the cat if he was right; the cat
would simply find a way to confuse him all over again.  Figure it out
for yourself, he admonished!  The unicorns had been transformed by
wizard magic into the drawings in the missing books that would explain
the disappearance of the unicorns for all i88 THE BLACK UNICORh these
years, the reason that Meeks had sent the dream of the books to
Questor, and the need Meeks had for the books.  It would even explain
Dirk's reference to masks.

Or was he just reaching now?

He paused.  There were a few other matters still lacking explanation,
he realized.  What about the black unicorn) Was it simply a white
unicorn that had escaped from the books the first book, perhaps, the
one with the burned out core?  Why was it black now if it had been
white before?  Ash or soot?  Ridiculous!  Why had it appeared and then
disappeared again at other times over the years if it were a prisoner
in the wizards' books?  Why was Meeks so desperate to get it back
now?

His hands twisted in knots.  If one unicorn could break free, why
couldn't the rest?

His confusion began to compound.  Meeks had hinted that Ben had done
something to wreck his plans, but hadn't said what.  If that was so, it
had to have something to do with the unicorns, black and white.  But
Ben hadn\ the foggiest idea what that something was.

He sat puzzling matters through without success a afternoon stretched
toward nightfall and the sun disappeared westward.  Shadows lengthened
almost imperceptibly across the forest.  Slowly, the darkness and mist
of the Deep Fell crept out of their daytime confinement to link hands
with those shadows and close about Ben and Dirk.  The day's warmth
faded into evening chill.

Ben ceased his musings and concentrated on the slope of the hollows.
Where were Fillip and Sot?  Shouldn't the' have been back by now?  He
climbed to his feet arm stalked to the edge of the pit.  There was
nothing to be seen.  He walked its rim for several hundred yards in
both directions, through patches of scrub and brush, peering into the
gloom.  No luck.  A growing uneasiness settled through him.  He hadn't
really believed the little gnomes were in any danger or he wouldn't
have sent them down alone.  Maybe he had been mistaken.  Maybe that was
the way he had wanted to see it and not the way it was.

He stalked back to his starting point and stood staring at the smudge
of the Deep Fell helplessly.  The dangers of the hollows had never
bothered the gnomes before.  Had something changed that?  Damn it, he
should have gone with them!

He glanced over at Dirk.  Dirk appeared to be sleeping.

Ben waited some more because he didn't have much choice.  The minutes
dragged interminably.  It was growing darker.  It was becoming
difficult to distinguish things clearly as the twilight deepened.

Then suddenly there was movement at the hollows rim.  Ben straightened,
came forward a step, and stopped.  A mass of brush parted, and Fillip
and Sot pushed their way into view.

"Thank heavens you're all..  Ben started and trailed off.

The G'home Gnomes were rigid with fear.  Paralyzed.  Their furry faces
were twisted into masks of foreboding, their eyes bright and fixed.
They looked neither right nor left nor even at Ben.  They stared
straight ahead and saw nothing.  They stood with their backs to the
mass of brush and held hands in the manner of small children.

Ben rushed forward, frightened now.  Something was dreadfully wrong.
"Fillip!  Sot!"  He knelt down before them, trying to break whatever
spell it was that held them fast.  "Look at me.  What happened?"

"7 happened, play-King!"  an unpleasantly familiar voice whispered.

Ben looked up, past the frozen gnomes, at the tall, black shape that
had materialized behind them as if by magic and found himself face to
face with Nightshade.

a" a

Witch apd Dra^op, Dra^op apdWitch

B..Bi

Ben stared voicelessly into the cold green eyes of the witch and, if
there had been some place to run, he would have been halfway there
already.  But there was no running away from Nightshade.  She held him
fast simply by the force of her presence.  She was a wall that he could
neither scale nor get around.  She was his prison.

Her voice was a whisper.  "I never believed it possible that you would
be so foolish as to come back here."

Foolish, indeed, he agreed silently.  He forced himself to reach out to
the terrified gnomes and draw them to him, away from the witch.  They
fell into him like rag dolls, shaking with relief, burying their furry
faces in his tunic.

"Please help us.  High Lord!"  was the best Fillip could manage, his
own voice a whisper.

"Yes, please!"  echoed Sot.

"It's all right," Ben lied.

Nightshade laughed softly.  She was just as Ben remembered her tall and
sharp-featured, her skin as pale and smooth as marble, her hair jet
black, save for a single streak of white down its center, her lean,
angular frame cloaked all in black.  She was beautiful in her way,
ageless in appearance, a creature who had somehow come to terms with
her mortality.  Yet her face failed to reflect the emotions that would
have made her complete.  Her eyes were depthless and empty.  They
looked ready to swallow him.

Well, I asked for this, he thought.

Nightshade's laughter died away then, and there was the barest hint of
uncertainty in her eyes.  She came forward a step, peering at him.
"What is this?"  she asked softly.  "You are not the same ..."  She
trailed off, confused.  "But you must be; the gnomes have named you
High Lord .. . Here, let me see your face in the light."

She reached out.  Ben was powerless to resist.  Fingers as cold as
icicles fastened on his chin and tilted his head to the moonlight.  She
held him there a moment, muttering.  "You are different yet the same,
too.  What has been done to you, play-King?  Or is this some new game
you seek to play with me?  Are you not Holiday?"  Ben could feel Fillip
and Sot shivering against his body, tiny hands digging into him.  "Ah,
there is magic at work here," Nightshade whispered harshly, fingers
releasing his face with a twist.  "Whose magic is it?  Tell me, now
quickly!"

Ben fought back an urge to scream, fought to keep his voice steady.
"Meeks.  He's come back.  He's made himself King and changed me into ..
. this."

"Meeks?"  The green eyes narrowed.  "That pathetic charlatan?  How has
he found magic enough to accomplish this?"  Her mouth twisted with
disdain.  "He lacks the means to tie his own shoes!  How could he
manage to do this to you?"

Ben said nothing.  He didn't have an answer to give her.

There was a long moment of silence as the witch studied him.  Finally,
she said, "Where is the medallion?  Let me see it!"

When he didn't immediately respond, she made a quick motion with her
fingers.  Despite his resolve, he found himself withdrawing the
tarnished emblem from his tunic for her inspection.  She stared at it a
moment, then stared again at his face, then slowly smiled the smile of
a predator eyeing dinner.

"So," she whispered.

That was all she said.  It was enough.  Ben knew instantly that she had
figured out what had been done to him.  He knew that she understood the
nature of the magic that had changed him.  Her realization of it was
infuriating to him.  It was worse than being held like this.  He wanted
to scream.  He had to know what she had learned, and there was no way
in the world that she was going to tell him.

"You are pathetic, play-King," she went on, her voice still soft but
insinuating now as well.  "You have always been lucky, but never smart.
Your luck has run out.  I am almost tempted to leave you as you are.
Almost.  But I cannot forget what you did to me.  I want to be the one
to make you suffer for that!  Are you surprised to see me again?  I
think perhaps you are.  You thought me gone forever, I imagine gone
into the world of fairy to perish.  How foolish of you."

She knelt down before him so that her eyes were level with his.  There
was such hate that he flinched from it.  "I flew into the mists,
play-King just as you commanded that I must, just as I was bidden.  The
lo Dust held me bound to your command, and I could not refuse.  How I
despised you then!  But I could do nothing.  So I flew into the mists
but I flew slowly, play-King, slowly!  I fought to break the spell of
the lo Dust as I flew; I fought with all the power that I could
summon!"

The smile returned again, slow and hard.  "And I did break the spell
finally.  I shattered it and turned back again.  Too late, though,
play-King, much too late for I was already within the fairy mists and
there was damage done to me!  I hurt as never before; I was scarred by
the pain of it!  I escaped with my life and little else.  It took me
months to regain even the smallest part of my magic, I lay within the
swamp, a creature in hiding, as helpless as the smallest reptile!  I
was broken!  But I would not give in to the pain and the fear; I
thought only of you.  I thought only of what I would do to you once I
had you in my hands again.  And I knew that one day I would find a way
to bring you back to me ..."

She paused.  "But I never dreamed it would happen so soon, my foolish
High Lord.  What great good fortune!  It was the change that brought
you to me, wasn't it?  Something about the change but what?  Tell me,
play-King.  I will have it from you anyway."

Ben knew this was so.  There was no sense in trying to keep anything
from the witch.  He could see in the empty green eyes what was in store
for him.  Talking was the only thing that was keeping him alive, and as
long as he was alive he had a chance.  Chances at this point were not
to be tossed aside lightly.

"I came looking for Willow," he answered, pushing the gnomes behind him
now.  He wanted them out of the way just in case.  He had to keep his
eyes open for the right opportunity.  The gnomes, however, continued to
cling to him like Velcro.

"The River Master's daughter?  The sylph?"  Nightshade's look was
questioning.  "Why would she come here?"

"You haven't seen her?"  Ben asked, surprised.  Nightshade smiled
unpleasantly.  "No, play-King.  I have seen no one but you you and your
foolish burrow people.  What would the sylph want with me?"

He hesitated, then took a deep breath.  "The golden bridle."

There, it was out.  Better to tell her and see if he could learn
anything than to play it cute.  Fencing with Nightshade was too
dangerous.

Nightshade looked genuinely surprised.  "The bridle?  But why?"

"Because Meeks wants it.  Because he sent Willow a dream about the
bridle and a black unicorn."  Quickly he told the witch the story of
Willow's dream and of the sylph's decision to try to learn what she
could of the bridle.  "She was told that the bridle was here in the
Deep Fell."  He paused.  "She should have arrived here ahead of me."

"A pity she didn't," Nightshade replied.  "I like her little better
than I like you.  Destroying her would have given me almost as much
satisfaction as destroying you."  She paused, thinking.  "The black
unicorn, is it?  Back again?  How interesting.  And the bridle can hold
it fast, the dream says?  Yes, that could be possible.  After all, it
was created by wizard magic.  And it was a wizard I stole it from years
back ..."

Nightshade laughed.  She studied him, a cunning look creeping into her
eyes.  "These pathetic burrow people who belong to you were they sent
to steal the bridle from me?"

Fillip and Sot were trying to crawl inside Ben's skin, but Ben was
barely aware of them.  He was thinking of something else altogether. If
Meeks had Once possessed the bridle, then that meant the wizard
probably once used it might even have used it to hold captive the black
unicorn.  Had the unicorn somehow escaped then?  Was the dream Meeks
had sent to Willow designed to regain possession of the bridle so that
the unicorn could be recaptured?  If so, what did the unicorns in the
missing books of magic have to do with .. .

"Do not bother answering, play-King," Nightshade interrupted his
thoughts.  "The answer is in your eyes.  These foolish rodents crept
into the Deep Fell for just that reason, didn't they?  Crept into my
home like the thieves they are?  Crept down on their little cat's
paws?"

The mention of cat's paws reminded him suddenly of Edgewood Dirk. Where
was the prism cat?  He glanced around before he could think better of
it, but Dirk was nowhere to be seen.

"Looking for someone?"  Nightshade demanded at i95

once.  Her eyes swept the darkened forest behind Ben like knives.  "I
see no one," she muttered after a moment.  "Whoever it is you look for
must have abandoned you."

Nevertheless, she took a moment to make certain that she was right
before turning back to him.  "Your thieves are as pathetic as you,
play-King," she resumed her attack.  "They think themselves invisible,
but they remain unseen only when I do not wish to see them.  They were
so obvious in their efforts on this misadventure that I could not fail
to see them.  The minute they were mine, they called for you.  "Great
High Lord; mighty High Lord!"  How foolish!  They gave you up without
my even having to ask!"

Fillip and Sot were shaking so hard Ben was in danger of being toppled.
He put a hand on each to try to offer some sort of reassurance.  He
felt genuinely sorry for the little fellows.  After all, they were in
this mess because of him.

"Since you have me, why not let the gnomes go?"  he asked the witch
suddenly.  "They're foolish creatures, as you say.  I tricked them into
helping me.  They really didn't have a choice.  They don't even know
why they're here."

"Worse luck for them."  Nightshade dismissed the plea out of hand." "No
one goes free who stands with you, play King  Her face lifted, black
hair sweeping back.  Her eyes scanned the darkness once more.  "I no
longer like it here.  Come."

She rose, a black shadow that gained in size as she spread her arms.
Her robes billowed out like sailcloth.  There was a sudden wind through
the trees, cold and sharp, and mist from the Deep Fell lifted to wrap
them all.  Moons and stars vanished into its murk, and there was a
sudden sense of lifting free, of floating.  The G'home Gnomes clutched
Ben tighter than ever, and he in turn held them for lack of something
better to hold.  There was a whooshing sound and then silence.

Ben blinked against the cold and the mist, and slowly ig6

the light returned.  Nightshade stood before him, smiling coldly.  The
smells of swamp and mist hung thick on the air.  Torchlight revealed a
row of stanchions and the bones of tables and benches scattered across
an empty court.

They were somewhere within the Deep Fell, down in Nightshade's home.

"Do you know what is to happen to-you now, play King  she asked
softly.

He had a pretty good idea.  His imagination was working overtime on the
possibilities despite his efforts to restrain it.  His chances appeared
to have run out.  He wondered fleetingly why it was that Willow hadn't
gotten here before him.  Wasn't this where the Earth Mother had told
her to go?  If she wasn't here, where was she?

He wondered what had become of Edgewood Dirk.

Nightshade's sudden hiss jarred him free of his thoughts.  "Shall I
hang you to dry like apiece of old meat?  Or shall I play games with
you awhile first?  We must take our time with this, mustn't we?"

She started to say something more, then paused as a new thought struck
her.  "But, no I have a much better idea!  I have a much grander and
more fitting demise in mind for you!"

She bent into him.  "Do you know that I no longer have the golden
bridle, play-King?  No?  I thought not.  It was stolen from me.  It was
stolen while I was too weak to prevent it, still recovering from the
hurt that you caused me!  Do you know who has the bridle now?  Strabo,
play King  The dragon has the fairy bridle, the bridle that rightfully
belongs to me.  How ironic!  You come to the Deep Fell in search of
something that isn't even here!  You come to your doom pointlessly!"

Her face was only inches from his own, skin drawn tight against the
bones, the streak in her black hair a silver slash.  "Ah, but you give
me a chance to do something I could not otherwise do!  Strabo dotes on
things made of gold, though he has no use for them except as baubles!

i97

He has no true appreciation of their worth especially the bridle with
its magic!  He would never give it back to me, and I cannot take it
from him while he keeps it hidden within the Fire Springs.  But he
would trade it, play-King.  He most certainly would trade it for
something he values more."

Her smile was ferocious.  "And what does he value more in all the world
than a chance to gain his revenge against you?"

Ben couldn't imagine.  Strabo had been a victim of the lo Dust as well,
and he had left Ben with the promise that one day he would repay him.
Ben felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.  This was like being
pushed from the frying pan into the fire.  He tried to keep the witch
from seeing what he was feeling and failed.

Nightshade's smile broadened in satisfaction.  "Yes, play-King I will
be most content to leave the means of your destruction to the
dragon!"

She brought her hands up in a sharp swirl of motion, mists rising as if
bidden, chill wind returning in a rush.  "Let us see what fun Strabo
will have with you!"  she cried, and her voice was a hiss.

The G'home Gnomes whimpered and fastened once again on his pant legs.
Ben felt himself floating and watched the hollows begin to disappear ..
.

The eastern wastelands lay empty and desolate in the fading afternoon
light as Questor Thews, Abernathy, and Bunion worked their way steadily
ahead through tangled brush and deadwood, over ridgelines and down
ravines, across brief stretches of desert, and around swamp and bog.
They had walked all day, pushing aside fatigue and uneasiness in equal
measure, determined to reach the home of the dragon by nightfall.

It was going to be close.

Nothing lived in the wastelands of Landover nothing but the dragon.  He
had adopted the wastelands as his home when driven from the mists of
fairy centuries ago.  The wastelands suited the dragon fine.  He liked
it there.  His disposition found proper solace in the devastation
wrought by nature's whims, and he kept the whole of the vast expanse
his own.  Shunned by the other inhabitants of the valley, he was an
entirely solitary being.  He was the only creature in the valley with
the exception of Ben Holiday who could cross back and forth between
Landover and the mortal worlds.  He could even venture a short distance
into the fairy mists.  He was unique the last of his kind and quite
proud to be so.

He was not particularly fond of company a fact not lost on Questor,
Abernathy, and Bunion as they hurried now to reach the beast before it
got any darker.

It was dusk nevertheless by the time they finally arrived at their
destination.  They climbed to the crest of a ridgeline that was
silhouetted against the coming night by a brightness that flickered and
danced as if alive and found themselves staring down into the Fire
Springs.  The Springs were the dragon's lair.  They were settled within
a deep, misshapen ravine, a cluster of craters that burned steadily
with blue and yellow fire amid tangled thickets and mounds of rock and
earth.  Fed by a liquid pooled within the craters, their flames filled
the air with smoke, ash, and the raw stench of burning fuel.  A
constant haze hung across the ravine and the hills surrounding, and
geysers lifted periodically against the darkness with booming coughs.

They saw the dragon right off.  It slouched down within the center of
the ravine, head resting on a crater's edge, long tongue licking
placidly at a scattering of flames.

Strabo didn't move.  He lay sprawled across a mound of earth, his
monstrous body a mass of scales, spikes, and plates that seemed almost
a part of the landscape.  When he breathed, small jets of steam exhaled
into the night His tail was wrapped around a rock formation that rose
behind him, and his wings lay back against his body.  His i99

claws and teeth were blackened and bent, grown from leathered skin and
gums at odd angles and twists.  Dust and grime covered him like a
blanket.

One red eye swiveled in its socket.  "What do you want?"  the dragon
asked irritably.

It had always amazed Ben Holiday that a dragon could talk, but Ben was
an outlander and didn't understand the nature of these things.  It
seemed perfectly normal to Questor and Bunion that the dragon should
talk, and even more so to Abernathy, being a soft-coated Wheaten
Terrier who himself talked.

"We wish to speak with you a moment," Questor advised.  Abernathy
managed an affirming nod, but found himself wondering at the same time
why anyone in his right mind would wish to speak with something as
awful as Strabo.

"I care nothing for what you wish," the dragon said with a huff of
steam from both nostrils.  "I care only for what I wish.  Go away."

"This will only take a moment," Questor persisted.

"I don't have a moment.  Go away before I eat you."

Questor flushed.  "I would remind you to whom you are speaking!  There
is some courtesy owed me, given our long association!  Now, please be
civil!"

As if to emphasize his demand, he took a meaningful step forward, a
scarecrow figure in tattered sashes that looked like nothing so much as
a bundle of loosely joined sticks silhouetted against the light. Bunion
showed all his teeth in a frightening grin.  Abernathy pushed his
glasses further up on his nose and tried to calculate how quickly he
could reach the safety of the darkened brush at the base of the ravine
behind him.

Strabo blinked and lifted his head from the crater fire.  "Questor
Thews, is that you?"

Questor puffed out.  "It most certainly is."

Strabo sighed.  "How boring.  If you were someone of consequence, you
might at least prove a brief source of ai-.;" e."nent.  But you are not
worth the effort it would take m; :> rise and devour you.  Go away."

i',"- ?stor stiffened.  Ignoring Abernathy's paw on his s!"  '.Jer, he
came forward another step.  "My friends and I ; : -; journeyed a lo"-^
way to speak with you and spc :< ,"ith you we wiUi If you choose to
ignore the long and lonorable associate1 :1between wizards and dragons,
that is your loss!  But yo'-i do us both a great disservice!"

"You seem rather ill-tempered tonight," the dragon re pSi-'ci.  His
voice reverberated in a long hiss, and the serpentine body shifted
lazily against the rocks and craters, tail ^J'ashing liquid firs from a
pool.  "I might point out that."u izar ds have done nothing for dragons
in centuries, so I see little reason to dwell on any association that
might once have existed.  Such nonsense!  I might also point out that
"while there is no question about my status as a draa'm, there is
certainly some question about yours as a v.i?a.rd."

"I will not be drawn into an argument!"  Questor snapped, rather too
irritably.  "Nor will I depart until you have heard me out!"

Strabo spit at the sulfurous air.  "I ought simply to eat you, Questor
Thews you and the dog and that other thing, whatever it is.  A kobold,
isn't it?  I ought to breath a bit of fire on you, cook you up nicely,
and eat you.  Bur I am in a charitable mood tonight.  Leave me and I
will forgive your unwelcome intrusion into my home."

"Perhaps we should reconsider ..."  Abernathy began, but Questor
shushed him at once.

"Did the dog say something?"  the dragon asked softly.

"No and no one is leaving!"  Questor announced, planting his feet
firmly.

Strabo blinked.  "No?"

His crusted head swung abruptly about and flame jetted from his maw.
The fire exploded directly beneath Questor Thews and sent him flying
skyward with a yelp.  Bunion and Abernathy sprang aside, scrambling to
get clear of flying rocks, earth, and bits of flame.  Questor came down
again in a tangled heap of robes and sashes, his bones jarred with the
impact.

Strabo chuckled, crooked tongue licking the air.  "Very entertaining,
wizard.  Very amusing."

Questor climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, spit out a mouthful of
dirt, and faced the dragon once more.  "That was entirely uncalled
for!"  he declared, struggling to regain his lost dignity.  "I can play
such games, too!"

His hands clapped sharply, pointed and spread.  He tried to do
something with his feet as well, but he lost his footing on the loose
rock, slipped, and sat down with a grunt.  Light exploded above the
craters and a shower of dry leaves tumbled down over Strabo, bursting
instantly into flames from the heat.

The dragon was in stitches.  "Am I to be smothered in leaves?"  he
roared, shaking with mirth.  "Please, wizard spare me!"

Questor went rigid, owlish face flushed with anger.

"Maybe we should come back another time," Abernathy ventured in a low
growl from his position behind a protective mound of earth.

But Questor Thews was having none of it.  Again, he brushed himself off
and got back to his feet.  "Laugh at me, will you, dragon?"  he
snapped.  "Laugh at a master practitioner of the magic arts?  Very well
then laugh this off!"

Both hands lifted and wove rapidly through the air.  Strabo was
preparing to send forth another jet of flame when a cloudburst broke
immediately overhead and torrents of rain cascaded over him.  "Now,
stop that!"  he howled, but in seconds he was drenched snout to tail.
His flame fizzled into steam, and he ducked his head into one of the
pools of fire to escape the downpour.  When he came up again for air,
Questor made a second gesture and the rain ceased.

"There, you see?"  the wizard said to Abernathy, nod ding in
satisfaction.  "He won't be quite so quick to laugh next time!"  Then
he turned back once more to the dragon.  "Rather amusing yourself!"  he
called over.

Strabo flapped his leathered wings, shook himself off.  and glared. 
"It appears that you will continue to make a nuisance of yourself,
Questor Thews, until I either put an end to you or listen to whatever
it is that you feel compelled to say.  I repeat, I am in a charitable
mood tonight.  So say what it is you feel you must and be done with
it."

"Thank you very much!"  Questor replied.  "May we come down?"

The dragon plopped his head back on the edge of the crater and
stretched out again.  "Do what you please."

Questor beckoned to his companions.  Slowly, they made their way down
the side of the ravine and through the maze of craters and rocks until
they were twenty yards or so from where the dragon reposed.  Strabo
ignored them, eyes lidded, snout inhaling the fumes and fires of the
crater on which he rested.

"You know I hate water, Questor Thews," he muttered.

"We have come here to learn something about unicorns," Questor
announced, ignoring him.

Strabo belched.  "Read a book."

"As a matter of fact, I did.  Several.  But they lack the information
about unicorns that you possess.  Everyone knows that unicorns and
dragons are the oldest of fairy creatures and the oldest of enemies.
Each of you know" more of the other than anyone else, fairy or human. I
need to know something of unicorns that no one else would,"

"Whatever for?"  Strabo sounded bored again.  "Besides, why should I
help you?  You serve that detestable human who tricked me into inhaling
lo Dust and then made me pledge never to hunt the valley or its people
so long as he remained King!  He is still King, isn't he?  Bah!  Of
course he is I would have heard otherwise!  Ben Holiday Landover's High
Lord!  I would make a quick meal of him, if he were ever to set foot in
the springs again!"

"Well, it is highly unlikely that he will.  Besides, we are here about
unicorns, not about the High Lord."  Questor thought it prudent not to
dwell on the subject of Ben Holiday.  Strabo had taken great pleasure
in ravaging the crops and livestock of the valley before the High Lord
had put a stop to it.  It was a pleasure the dragon would dearly love
to enjoy again and well might one day the way Holiday was behaving
lately.  But there was no reason to give the dragon any
encouragement.

He cleared his throat officiously.  "I assume that you have heard about
the black unicorn?"

The dragon's eyes snapped open and his head lifted.  "The black
unicorn? Of course.  Is it back again, wizard?"

Questor nodded sagely.  "For some time now.  I am surprised that you
didn't know.  There was quite an effort put forth to capture it."

"Capture it?  A unicorn?"  Strabo laughed, a series of rough coughs and
hisses.  His massive body shook with mirth.  "The humans would capture
a unicorn?  How pitiful!  No one captures a unicorn, wizard even you
must know that!  Unicorns are untouchable!"

"Some think not."

The dragon's lip curled.  "Some are fools!"

"Then the unicorn is safe?  There is nothing that can ensnare it,
nothing that can cause it to be held?"

"Nothing!"

"Not maidens of certain virtue nor silver moonlight captured in a fairy
net?"

"Old wives' tales!"

"Not magic of any sort?"

"Magic?  Well ..."  Strabo seemed to hesitate.

Questor took a chance.  "Not bridles of spun gold?"

The dragon stared at the wizard voicelessly.  There was, Questor Thews
realized in surprise, a look of disbelief on the creature's face.

THE BLACK UNICORM

He cleared his throat.  "I said, "Not bridles of spur gold?""

And it was at that moment that Nightshade, the stranger who believed
himself Ben Holiday, and two sorry-looking G'home Gnomes appeared
abruptly out of a swirl of mist not a dozen feet away.

B"

fire apd

SpUT)

E.

There was an endlessly long moment in which everyone stared at everyone
else.  It was impossible to tell who was most surprised.  Eyes shifted,
fixed, and shifted again.  Tall forms crouched and robes billowed.  The
dragon's hiss of warning mingled with that of the witch.  Abernathy
growled in spite of himself.  Night had closed down upon the little
still life in a black mantle that threatened to engulf them all.  In
the silence, there was only the crackle and spit of the flames as they
danced across the cratered pools of blue liquid.

"You are not welcome here, Nightshade," Strabo whispered finally, his
rough voice a rasp of iron.  He rose up from the edge of the crater on
which he had been resting in a guarded crouch, claws digging into the
stone until it cracked and broke.  "You are never welcome."

Nightshade laughed mirthlessly, her pale face streaked with shadow.  "I
might be welcome this time, dragon," she replied.  "I have brought you
something."

Questor Thews realized suddenly that the two G'home Gnomes standing
next to the witch and the stranger who thought himself Ben Holiday were
none other than Fillip and Sot!  "Abernathy .. . !"  he exclaimed
softly, but the

2do

dog was already saying, "I know, wizard!  But what are they doing
here?"

Questor had no idea at all.  Questor had no idea about any of what was
happening.

Strabo's massive head lifted and the long tongue licked out.  "Why
would you bother to bring me anything,

witch?"

Nightshade straightened gracefully, her arms folding in about her once
more.  "Ask me first what it is that I bring," she whispered.  
"There
is nothing you could bring me that I would wish.  There is no point in
asking."

"Ah, even if what I bring is that which you most desire in all the
world?  Even if it is that dear to you?"

Ben Holiday was frantically trying to decide how he was going to get
out of this mess.  There were no friends to be found in this bunch.
Questor, Abernathy, and Bunion believed him an impostor and a fool.
Fillip and Sot, if they still believed anything about him at all, were
interested by this time only in escaping with their hides intact.
Nightshade had kept him alive this long strictly for the purpose of
striking a bargain with Strabo, who would be only too happy to do away
with him for her.  He cast about desperately, looking for a way out
that apparently didn't exist.

Strabo's tail thrashed within a pool of fire and sent a shower of
liquid flames skyward against the dark.  Ben flinched.  "I tire of
games this night," the dragon snapped.  "Get to the point!"

Nightshade's eyes glimmered crimson.  "What if I were to offer you
Landover's High Lord, the one they call Holiday?  What if I were to
offer you that, dragon?"

Strabo's snout curled and the crusted face tightened.  "I would accept
that gift gladly!"  the dragon hissed.

Ben took a tentative step backward and found he could not.  The G'home
Gnomes were still fastened to him like leg irons.  They were shaking
and mumbling incoherently and preventing him quite effectively from
making, any quick moves.  When he tried surreptitiously to pry them
free, they just clung to him all the tighter.

"The High Lord is at Sterling Silver!"  Questor Thews declared
suddenly, anger showing in his owlish face.  "You have no power over
him there, Nightshade!  Besides, he would rid the valley of you in a
moment if you were to show yourself!"

"Really?"  Nightshade drew the word out lovingly, teasingly.  Then she
came forward a step, one long finger impaling Questor on its shadow.
"When I have finished my business here, wizard when your precious High
Lord is no more then will I deal with you!"

Ben fixed a pleading gaze on his friends.  Get out of here!  he tried
to tell them.

Nightshade swung back again to Strabo.  One clawed hand fastened on
Ben's arm and dragged him forward.  "Here is the one the foolish wizard
believes so safe from me, Strabo!  Ben Holiday, High Lord ofLandover!
Look closely now!  Magic has been used!  Look beneath the exterior of
what you first see!"

Strabo snorted derisively, belched a quick burst of flame, and laughed.
"This one?  This is Holiday?  Nightshade, you are mad!"  He leaned
closer, the ooze dripping from his snout.  "This one doesn't even begin
to look like .  No, wait you are right, there is magic at work here.
What has been done ..."  The massive head dipped and raised, and the
eyes blinked.  "Can this be so?"

"Look closely!"  Nightshade repeated once again, thrusting Ben before
her so hard his head snapped back.

Everyone was looking at Ben now, but only Strabo saw the truth.  "Yes!"
he hissed, and the massive tail thrashed once more in satisfaction.
"Yes, it is Holiday!"  The jaws parted and the blackened teeth snapped.
"But why is it that only you and I .. . ?"

"Because only we are older than the magic that does this!"  Nightshade
anticipated and answered the question before the dragon could complete
it.  "Do you understand how it has been done?"

Ben, prize exhibit that he was, wanted nothing more than to hear the
answer to that question.  He had accepted the fact that he was not
going to get out of this in one piece, but he hated to think he was
going to die without ever knowing how he had been undone.

"But ... but that's not the High Lord!"  Questor Thews declared
angrily, sounding suddenly as if he were trying to convince himself as
much as anyone else.  "That cannot be the High Lord!  If this is ... is
... then, the High Lord is ..."

He trailed off, a strange look of understanding crossing his face, a
look of disbelief shredded by horror, a look that screamed soundlessly
a single name Meeks!  Bunion was hissing and pulling at his arm, and
Abernathy was muttering frantically about how all this could explain
someone-or-other's odd behavior.

All three were pointedly ignored by the dragon and the witch.

"Why would you give him to me?"  Strabo was demanding of Nightshade,
wary now of what was being offered.

"I said nothing of 'giving' you anything, dragon," Nightshade replied
softly.  "I wish to trade him."

"Trade him, witch?  You hate him more than I!  He sent you into the
fairy world and almost destroyed you.  He marked you with the magic!
Why would you trade him?  What could I possess that you would want more
than Holiday?"

Nightshade smiled coldly.  "Oh, yes, I hate him.  And I wish him
destroyed.  But the pleasure shall be yours, Strabo.  You need only
give me one thing.  Give me back the bridle of spun gold."

"The bridle?"  Strabo's response came with a hiss of disbelief.  He
coughed.  "What bridle?"

"The bridle!"  Nightshade snapped.  "The bridle that you stole from me
while I was helpless to prevent it.  The bridle that is rightfully
mine!"

"Bah!  Nothing you possess is rightfully yours least of all the bridle!
You yourself stole it from that old wizard!"

"Be that as it may, dragon, the bridle is what I wish!"

"Ah, well, of course, if that is what you wish ..."  The dragon seemed
to be hedging.  "But surely, Nightshade, there are other treasures that
I possess that would serve you better than such a simple toy!  Suggest
something else, something of greater worth!"

The witch's eyes narrowed.  "Now who is it that plays games?  I have
decided on the bridle and it is the bridle that I shall have!"

Ben had been momentarily forgotten.  Nightshade had released him and he
had slipped back behind her again, the gnomes still clinging to his
legs.  As he listened to the bartering, he caught Questor Thews
studying him with renewed interest.  Abernathy peered over the
magician's shoulder through smoke-streaked glasses, and Bunion peered
from behind a fold of robe.  All were clearly trying to decide how he
could be someone other than what he appeared.  Ben gritted his teeth
and motioned them frantically away with a shake of his head.  For
crying out loud, they were all going to end up fried!

"It is simply that I fail to see why the bridle is of such interest to
you," Strabo was saying, neck curving upward into the dark so that he
loomed over the witch.

"And I fail to see what difference it makes!"  Nightshade snapped,
straightening up a bit further herself.  Firelight danced across her
marble face.  "I fail to see why you make such an issue of returning
what is mine to begin with!"

Strabo sniffed.  "I need explain nothing to you!"  "Indeed, you need
not!  Just give me the bridle!"  "I think not.  You wish it too badly."
"And you wish Holiday not enough!"

"Oh, but I do!  Why not accept a chest of gold or a fairy scepter that
changes moonbeams into silver coins?  Why not take a gemstone marked
with runes that belonged to the Trolls when the power of magic was
theirs as well a gemstone that can give truth to the holder?"

"I don't want truth!  I don't want gold or scepters or anything else
you hold, you fat-lizard!"  Nightshade was genuinely mad now, her voice
rising to a near scream.  "I want the bridle!  Give it to me or Holiday
will never be yours!"

She edged forward threateningly, leaving Holiday and the G'home Gnomes
half-a-dozen paces behind her.  It was the closest to freedom that Ben
had been since his capture at the Deep Fell.  As the voices of the
witch and dragon grew more strident, he began to think that maybe just
maybe there might be a way out of this yet.

He pried Fillip forcibly from his right leg, held him dangling from the
crook of his arm, and began to work Sot free from his left.

"One last time, dragon," Nightshade was saying.  "Will you trade me the
bridle for Holiday or not?"

Strabo gave a long sigh of disappointment.  "I am afraid, dear witch,
that I cannot."

Nightshade stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then her Ups peeled
back from her teeth in a snarl.  "You don't have the bridle anymore, do
you?  That is why you won't trade it to me!  You don't have it!"

Strabo sniffed.  "Alas, quite true."

"You bloated mass of scales!"  The witch was shaking with fury.  "What
have you done with it?"

"What I have done with it is my concern!"  Strabo snapped in reply,
looking more than a bit put upon.  He sighed again.  "Well, if you must
know, I gave it away."

"You gave it away?"  The witch was aghast.

Strabo breathed a long, delicate stream of fire into the night air and
followed it with a trail of ashy vapor.  The lidded eyes blinked and
seemed momentarily distant.  "I gave it to a fairy girl who sang to me
of beauty and light and things a dragon longs to hear.  No maiden has
sung to me in many centuries, you know, and I would have given much
more than the bridle for a chance to become lost again in such sweet
music."

"You gave the bridle away for a song?"  Nightshade spoke the words as
if trying to convince herself that they had meaning.

"A memory means more than any tangible treasure."  The dragon sighed
once more.  "Dragons have always had a weakness for beautiful women,
maidens of certain virtue, girls of grace and sweet smiles.  There is a
bond that joins us.  A bond stronger than that of dragons and wizards,
I might add," he addressed Questor Thews in a quick aside.  "She sang
to me, this girl, and asked me in return for the bridle of spun gold. I
gave it to her gladly."  He actually seemed to smile.  "She was quite
beautiful, this sylph."

Ben started.  A sylph?  Willow!

The dragon's head dipped solemnly toward Ben.  "I helped give her back
her life once," he intoned.  "Remember?  You commanded it.  Holiday.  I
flew her out of Abaddon to her home in the lake country where she could
be healed.  I didn't mind that so much the saving of her life.  I hated
you, of course you forced me to submit to you.  But I rather enjoyed
saving the sylph.  It reminded me of the old days when saving maidens
was routine work for a dragon."

He paused.  "Or was it devouring them?  I can never remember which."

"You are a fool!"  Nightshade spat.

Strabo cocked his head as if thinking it over.  Then his snout split
wide to reveal all of his considerable teeth.  "Do you really think so?
A fool?  Me?  A bigger fool than you, witch?  So big a fool as to
venture unprotected into the lair of my worst enemy?"

The silence was palpable.  Nightshade was a statue.  "I am never
unprotected, dragon.  Beware."

"Beware?  How quaint."  Strabo suddenly coiled like a spring.  "I have
endured patiently your venomous assault on my character; I have allowed
you to speak what you wished.  Now it is my turn.  You are a skinny,
pathetic excuse for witch hood who' believes herself far more powerful
than she is.  You come into my home as if you belong here, order me
about, call me names, demand things you have no right to demand, and
think you can go right ovA again.  You mistake yourself, Nightshade.  I
might, had I the chance to do it over again, keep the bridle of spur.
gold so that I could trade it to you for Holiday.  I might But I regret
nothing that I have ever done, and this least of all.  The bridle is
gone, and I do not wish it back again."

He bent forward slowly.  The rough voice changed to a slow hiss.  "But
look Holiday is still here, witch!  And since you brought him expressly
for me, I rather think 1 ought to keep him!  Don't you?"

Nightshade's fingers were like claws as they lifted be fore her lean
face.  "You will take nothing more from me, dragon not now, not
ever!"

"Ah, but you have only yourself to blame.  You have made the prospect
of destroying Holiday so tempting thaI cannot resist your lure!  I must
have him!  He is mine to destroy, bridle or no!  I think you had best
give him to me now!"

Flames burst from the maw of the dragon and engulfed Nightshade.  At
the same moment, Ben ripped Sot free at last of his left leg and flung
himself sideways to escape the backlash of heat and fire.  Questor
Thews was moving as well, all arms and legs as he galloped toward Ben.
Bunion sprinted past him, ears flattened back.  Abemath\, went down on
all fours and scurried for the safety of the bushes.

Ben surged back to his feet, still carrying the wailing gnomes.
Strabo's fire exploded skyward into the black,

filling the air with a shower of sparks and rock.  Nightshade stood
unharmed in their center, black robes flying like drying bedclothes
caught in the wind, pale face lifted, arms gesturing.  Fire burst from
her fingers and hammered into a surprised Strabo.  The dragon flew
backward, tumbling into a cratered pool.

"High Lord!"  Questor Thews cried out in warning.

Nightshade whirled just in time to be caught by the full force of a
magical gesture from the magician that swept the witch up in a blinding
flurry of snowflakes.  Nightshade swatted at them angrily, screamed,
and threw fire back at him.  Shards of flame hissed past Ben as he
flung himself down again, smothering the gnomes.  The fur on
Abernathy's hind end caught fire, and the scribe disappeared up the
slope of the Fire Springs with a yelp.

Then Strabo surfaced once more from the crater into which he had
fallen, roaring in fury.  Uncoiling his serpentine body with a lunge,
he sprayed the whole of the Springs with fire.  Nightshade swung back
on him, shrieking with equal fury, spraying fire of her own.  Ben was
on his feet and running for his life.  The fire swept over him, a wall
of heat and red pain.  But Questor was there now, hands gesturing
desperately, and a shield of some impenetrable plastic substance
appeared out of nowhere to slow the fire down.  Ben kept his arms
locked about the struggling, whimpering G'home Gnomes and scrambled
desperately to escape the pursuing flames.  Bunion's tough arms closed
about his waist and helped haul all three toward the lip of the
cratered valley.  Questor followed, calling out in encouragement.

Moments later, they reached the rim of the Fire Springs and stumbled
from the heat and smoke into the cooling scrub.  Coughing and gasping,
they collapsed in a tangled knot.  Abernathy joined them from out of
the dark.

Behind them, the witch and the dragon continued their private battle
uninterrupted, their shrieks and roars filling the night.  They hadn't
even realized yet that the object of their struggle had escaped.

Ben glanced hurriedly at his companions.  White eyes blinked back at
him through the dark.  No sense in resting now, they all seemed to
agree.  It wouldn't take long for the witch and the dragon to realize
what had happened.

Stumbling to their feet once again, they disappeared swiftly into the
night.

Search

B.

It was sometime after midnight when Ben and his companions finally
broke off their flight.  The skies had gone black with thunderheads
that rolled eastward out of the grasslands.  Moons and stars
disappeared as if blown from the heavens by the sudden winds, thunder
rumbled in long booming peals, and lightning laced the skies.  The
rains came swiftly, hard and chill, sweeping broom like across the
wastelands.  There was barely time to find shelter in a thick copse of
fir before the whole of the land surrounding had turned invisible in a
wash of impenetrable mist and damp.

The company sat beneath the massive boughs of the center most fir and
peered out through the curtain of needles at the downpour.  Wind rushed
in stinging swipes through the trees and scrub, and water cascaded
down.  Everything faded away amid the steady sounds, and the stand of
trees became an island in the gloom.

Ben sat back against the fir's massive trunk after a while and stared
at the others, eyes shifting from one face to the next.  "I am Ben
Holiday, you know," he said finally.  "I really am."

They looked questioningly at one another and back again at him.

216 THE BLACK UNICOIW

"Save us, mighty High Lord," said Fillip after a moment, the words a
toneless whimper.

"Yes, save us," begged Sot.

They looked like drowned rats, fur grimy and matted down by the rain,
clothing ragged and torn.  Their fingers reached tentatively for his
legs.

"Stop that," he admonished wearily.  "There is nothing to save you
from.  You're all right now."

"The dragon .. ."  began Fillip.

"The witch ..."  began Sot.

"Far back and not about to go hunting for us in this.  By the time they
finish trying to set fire to each other and think to wonder what
happened to us, the rain will have washed away any trace of where we
went."  He tried to sound more confident than he felt.  "Don't worry.
We'ii be fine."

Bunion showed all his teeth and hissed.  He looked at Ben as he might
an errant bog wump.  Abernathy didn't seem to want to look at Ben at
all.

Questor Thews cleared his throat.  Ben glanced expectantly at him, and
the wizard seemed suddenly un certain of what to say.  "This is rather
difficult," he said finally.  He squinted at Ben.  "You say you are
indeed the High Lord?  The witch and the dragon were correct in
believing you so?"

Ben nodded slowly.

"And the story you told us at Sterling Silver that was all true?  You
were changed somehow by magic?  You have lost the protection of the
medallion?"

Ben nodded a second time.

"And Meeks has returned and taken your place and made himself appear as
you?"

Ben nodded a third time.

Questor's lean features squinched down so hard against each other he
appeared to be in danger of causing per manent damage "But how?"  he
demanded finally.  "How did all this happen?"

Ben sighed.  "That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, I'm
afraid."

Briefly he recounted again his confrontation with Meeks in his
bedchamber and his transformation into the stranger he appeared to them
to be.  He took them to the moment of his decision to travel south in
search of Willow.  "I've been hunting for her ever since," he
concluded.

"See I told you!"  Abernathy snapped.

Questor stiffened and he peered down his long nose at the scribe. "Told
me what?"  he demanded, owlish face tightening even further.

"That the High Lord wasn't acting like the High Lord!"  Abernathy
fairly barked.  "That something was definitely wrong!  That nothing was
what it should be!  In fact, wizard, I told you a good deal more than
that, if you would bother taking time enough to remember any of it!" 
He shoved his rain-streaked glasses back on his nose.  "I told you that
these dreams would bring nothing but trouble.  I told you to forget
about chasing after them!"  He wheeled suddenly on Ben, a prophet whose
visions had come to pass.  "I warned you as well, didn't I?  I told you
to stay in Landover where you belonged!  I told you Meeks was too
dangerous!  But you wouldn't listen, would you?  Neither of you would
listen!  Now look where we are!"

He sneezed, shook himself furiously, and showered everyone with water.
"Sorry," he muttered, sounding not the least so.

Questor sniffed.  "I trust you feel better now?"

Ben decided to head off any further squabbling.  "Abernathy is right.
We should have listened to him.  But we didn't, and what's done is
done.  We have to put all that behind us.  At least we're back together
again."

"A lot of good that's going to do us!"  Abernathy snapped, still
miffed.

"Well, it might do us some good."  Ben tried his best

2l8

to sound positive.  "The six of us together might be able to accomplish
something more than I could alone."

"The six of us?"  Abernathy eyed the G'home Gnomes with disdain.  "You
count two more than I, High Lord.  In any case, I am still not
convinced that you really are the High Lord.  Questor Thews is much too
quick to believe.  We have already been fooled once; it is possible
that we are being fooled again.  How do we know that this isn't just
another charade?  How do we know that this isn't another of Meeks'
tricks?"

Ben thought about it a moment.  "You don't, I guess.  You have to take
my word for it.  You have to trust me and trust your instincts."  He
sighed.  "Do you think Meeks could fool both Strabo and Nightshade that
badly?  Do you think I would be hanging about claiming to be High Lord
if I really weren't?"  He paused.  "Do you think I would still be
wearing this?"

He reached down inside his tunic front and produced the tarnished
medallion.  The image of Meeks gleamed wetly, caught in a flash of
distant lightning.

"Why are you still wearing it?"  Questor asked quietly.

Ben shook his head."  "I'm afraid to get rid of it.  If Meeks is right
and throwing off the medallion will finish me, then who would be left
to warn Willow?  She doesn't know any of what's happened.  She doesn't
know that the dreams were sent by Meeks or the danger she's in.  I care
too much for her, Questor.  I can't abandon her.  I can't take the
chance that she'll fall into the same trap I did and have no one to
help her out."

They were all silent for a moment, studying him.

"No, High Lord you can't," Questor agreed finally.  The wizard looked
over at Abernathy.  "The real Ben Holiday wouldn't even think of such a
thing, would he?"  he asked pointedly.  "Not the real Ben Holiday."

Abernathy considered the possibility silently for a moment, then
sighed.  "No, I suppose he wouldn't."  He glanced at Bunion, who nodded
his monkey face approvingly.  "Very well.  The others accept you as
High Lord;

I shall do so as well."

"I appreciate that," Ben assured his scribe.

"But I still think that you are no better off with four of us..  He
glanced once more at the G'home Gnomes.  " .. or six of us or however
many of us can be counted on than you were by yourself!  What is it
that six of us are supposed to do that you could not do alone?"

The others looked at him expectantly.  He stared past them into the
haze of rain and darkness, drew his legs up to his chest to ward off
the growing chill, and tried to come up with something.  "Find Willow,"
he said finally.  "Protect her."

They stared at him voicelessly.

"Look.  The third dream is the key to everything that's happened, and
the bridle is the key to the dream.  Willow has the bridle now we know
that.  Strabo gave it to her.  She has it, but what will she do with
it?"

"What, Mighty High Lord?"  asked Fillip eagerly.

"Yes, what?"  echoed Sot.

"She will take it to you, High Lord," Questor answered quickly.  Then
he paused.  "Or at least to the one she believes to be you."

"That's right, Questor," Ben whispered.  "That's what the dream told
her she must do and that's what she'll do.  She'll take the bridle to
me.  But I won't be me.  I'll be Meeks.  Or he'll be Meeks the one
she'll run to.  And then what happens to her?"

"We have to reach her first," Questor insisted quietly.

"As soon as it stops raining," Abernathy added.

Ben nodded.  "Six of us will have a better chance than one."

"Bunion will have a better chance than ten times six," Abernathy
interjected, sneezing again.  "I think I am catching cold," he
muttered.

"For once, Abernathy is right!"  Questor exclaimed, ignoring the
reproving look the dog gave him.  "A kobold can track faster and
farther than any human.  If there is any sign of the girl.  Bunion will
find it."  He looked over at the kobold, who showed all of his teeth in
response, "Indeed, Bunion will find her for us you may depend upon it."
He shrugged.  "As soon as it stops raining, of course".

Ben shook his head.  "We can't wait that long.  We don't have .. ."

"But we have to," the wizard interrupted gently.

"But we can't..  ."

"We must."  Questor took his arm and held it.  "There can be no
tracking done in a storm such as this one, High Lord.  There would be
no signs to follow."  His owlish face bent close and there was sudden
warmth in his eyes.  "High Lord, you have come a long way since
Sterling Silver.  You have clearly suffered much.  Your physical
appearance, however distorted it might be, does not he.  Look at
yourself.  You are worn to the bone.  You are exhausted.  I have seen
beggars who looked healthier than you.  Abernathy?"

"You look a wreck," the dog agreed.

"Well, bad enough, at any rate."  The wizard tempered the other's
assessment with a smile.  "You need to rest.  Sleep now.  There will be
time enough later to begin the hunt."

Ben shook his head vigorously.  "Questor, I'm not tired.  I can't..
."

"I think you must," the wizard said softly.  A honey hand passed
briefly before Ben's face, and his eyes grew suddenly heavy.  He could
barely keep them open.  He felt a pervasive weariness slip within his
body and weigh him down.  "Rest, High Lord," Questor whispered.

Ben fought the command, struggled to rise, and found he could not.  For
once, the wizard's magic was working right on the first try.  Ben was
slipping back against the rough trunk of the fir, downward into a bed
of needles His companions drew close.  Abernathy's furry, bespeckled
face peered at him through a gathering of shadows.  Bunion's teeth
gleamed like daggers.  Fillip and Sot were vague images that wavered
and voices that murmured and seemed to draw steadily farther away.  He
found comfort in their presence, strength, and reassurance his friends,
all there with him except Parsnip and Willow!

"Willow," he whispered.

He spoke her name once and was asleep.

He 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 ofLandover, 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 be come.  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 spoke" he sensed.  What were those
words?

"You work so hard to orchestrate your life," Dirk dc dared 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.

He 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 eat 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.

Fillip and Sot eyed Dirk as they would a long-awaited dinner and showed
not the slightest trace of fear.

Ben stared in bewilderment, the conversation continuing on about him as
if the cat's presence were perfectly normal.  No one seemed surprised
that the cat was there.  Questor and Abernathy were behaving as if his
appearance was entirely expected.  The gnomes were behaving the way
they had at their first encounter with Dirk; neither seemed to remember
what their eagerness to make Dirk a meal had cost them.

Ben listened a moment as the others talked and bustled about, then
glanced in confusion at the cat.  "What..  . ?"

"Their dreams, High Lord," Dirk whispered, interrupting.  "I let them
discover me in their dreams.  I was real to them there, so I am real to
them here.  Don't you see?  Truth is sometimes simply what we perceive
it to be in waking or in dreams."

Ben didn't see.  He had paid close attention, he had listened as
instructed, and he still didn't see.  What was the point of all this
and what did it have to do with him^

But there was no more time to consider the matter.  A shout from
Abernathy or rather a sort of bark captured the attention of all.  The
boughs at the edge of the grove of fir parted and who should appear but
Parsnip' Bunion had him in tow, both of them soaked through by the
storm, both grimacing ear to ear those wicked, toothy grins.  Ben
froze.  Parsnip was supposed to be guarding Willow!  Shaking off his
paralysis, he hastened forward with Questor and Abernathy to greet the
wiry little creatures, stopped short at the hard, suspicious look
directed at him by Parsnip who, after all, had no idea yet who he was
and finally backed off a step at Questor's urging.  Questor and Bunion
conversed briefly back and forth in the rough, guttural language of the
kobolds with occasional interjections by Parsnip, and then Questor
turned hurriedly to Ben.

"Parsnip has kept watch over Willow since she left Sterling Silver,
High Lord just as you commanded until yesterday.  She dismissed him
without reason.  When he wouldn't leave her, she used the fairy magic
and slipped away.  Even a kobold can't stay with a sylph when she
doesn't wish it.  She has the golden bridle, and .. . and she searches
for the black unicorn."  He shook his owlish features at the look on
Ben's face and tugged worriedly at his white beard.  "I know.  I don't
understand this last either, High Lord, and neither does Parsnip.
Apparently she has decided not to take the bridle to you as her dream
instructed!"

Ben fought off the sudden lurch in his stomach.  What did this mean, he
wondered?  "Where is she now?"  he asked instead.

Questor shook his head.  "Her trail leads north into the Melchor."  He
hesitated.  "Bunion says she appears to be traveling toward Mirwouk!"

Mirwouk?  Where the missing books of magic had been hidden?  Why would
she go there?  Ben felt his frustration increase.

"There is more, High Lord," Abernathy interjected solemnly, ignoring
the warning tug on his tunic sleeve from Questor.  "Strabo and
Nightshade are at hunt presumably for you.  Willow, and the bridle. And
a demon a huge, flying thing, a thing that answers to no one, it seems
is rumored to scour the whole of the valley.  Bunion saw it last
night."

"Meeks' pet," Ben whispered, remembering suddenly the monster that had
appeared at the dance of the River Master's nymphs and destroyed them.
His face tightened.

Edgewood Dirk and the matter of dreams were forgotten.  He thought now
only of Willow.  "We have to reach her before they do," he announced,
his voice sounding hollow in his ears as he fought down the fear that
raced through him.  "We have to.  We're all she has."

Everyone reacted.  Abernathy barked sharply at the G'home Gnomes and
turned the kobolds about once more.  Questor put a reassuring hand on
Ben's arm.  "We will find her.  High Lord.  You can depend upon it."

Quickly they departed into the wastelands, the stranger who was High
Lord, the wizard and the scribe, the kobolds and the gnomes.

Edgewood Dirk sat quietly and watched them go.

Mirwoul^ aid Ftypt a. a

Willow felt the glare of the midday heat on her face through breaks in
the forest trees and was suddenly thirsty.  She made her way gingerly
around an outcropping of rock that jutted from the ever-steepening
slope, climbed to a shelf of tall grass and brush that disappeared
ahead into a grove of deeply shaded fir, and paused to look back.
Landover spread away below, an irregular checkerboard of fields and
forests, hills and plains, rivers and lakes, swatches of blues and
greens with brush strokes of pastel interspersed like webbing. Sunlight
poured down over the valley from a cloudless blue sky and deepened the
colors until they blinded with their brilliance.

Willow sighed.  It seemed impossible that anything could be wrong on a
day such as this.

She was deep within the Melchor now, past the threshold of hardwood
forests, past the higher plateau of pine wooded foothills, a fair
distance up into the main peaks.  The sun was sharp and hot this day
where the shade failed to screen away its light, and the climb was
thirsty work.  Willow carried no water with her; she relied on her
instincts to find what she needed.  Her instincts had failed her these
past few hours since leaving the foothills, but now she sensed water to
be close again.

Nevertheless, she stayed where she was a moment longer and looked out
across the valley in silent contemplation.  Far, far distant to the
south she could just catch a glimpse of the misted island that was
Sterling Silver, and she thought of Ben.  She wished' he were here with
her or that she understood why it was that she wasn't there with him.
She looked out across the valley and felt as if she were all alone in
the world.

What was she doing here?

She felt burdened by the weight of the woolen-bundled harness she wore
draped across her right shoulder, ana she shrugged it off and let it
drop into her hands.  A burst of sunlight flashed sharply from a stray
bit of trapping that slipped from beneath the covering folds.  The
bridle of spun gold clinked softly.  She covered it over and shifted it
to her other shoulder.  The bridle was heavy, the wove?  threads and
fastenings more cumbersome than she would have believed.  She adjusted
it carefully and straightened She had been fortunate that the dragon
had agreed to givi it to her.  All the fairy songs, music, tears, and
laughtci had been potent magic indeed.  Strabo had been charmed She was
still surprised that the ploy had been successful She was still
mystified that she had known somehow that it would be.  Dreams,
visions, and hunches such were the vicissitudes that had driven her
these past few days, a stray leaf blown by the wind.

Last night it had been a dream again.  She frowned at its memory, her
smooth, lovely face lined with worry Last night, the dream had been of
Ben.

A breath of wind swept back her waist-length hair anU cooled her skin.
She remembered her need to drink, but stayed yet another moment to
think of her High Lord The dream had been strange again, a mix of real
and surreal, a jumble of fears and hopes.  She had come upon the black
unicorn once more, the creature hidden in woods and shadows, no demon
this time but a hunted thing, frightened and alone.  She had feared it,
but wept at its terror.  What frightened it was uncertain, but the look
it spared her was unmistakable.  Come to me, it had whispered.  Put
aside your plan to carry back the bridle of spun gold to Sterling
Silver and your High Lord.  Forego your race from the demon you fear me
to be and seek instead the truth of what I am.  Willow, come to me.

A single look had said all that, so clear, so certain a dream, and yet
real.  So she had come, trusting to her fairy instincts as she had
always trusted, believing that they alone of all her senses could not
be deceived.  She had abandoned the call of the first dream that would
have taken her to Ben and gone instead in search of ... Of what?
Truth?

"Why are the dreams so different?"  she questioned softly.  "Why am I
made so confused?"

Sunlight sparkled off distant waters and forest leaves rippled in the
passing wind, but no answers came.  She breathed the air deeply and
turned away.  The shadows of the forest drew her to them, and she let
herself be swallowed.  Mirwouk was near, she realized in surprise not
more than several miles distant, just beyond the peak she climbed.  The
fact registered briefly and was forgotten.  The broad swath of midday
sunlight faded into a scattering of narrow bands, and the shade was
cool on her heated skin.  She worked her way back into the forest
trees, massive fir and pine, seeking the water she knew was hidden
there.  She found it quickly, a small stream trickling down out of the
rocks into a pool and meandering from there to a series of shallows and
runs.  She laid the bridle carefully on the ground next to her and bent
to drink.  The water was sweet and welcome to her dry throat.  She
knelt a long time in the stillness.

The seconds slipped away into minutes.  When she lifted her head again,
the black unicorn stood across from her.

Her breath caught in her throat and she froze.  The unicorn was no more
than a dozen paces off, half within shadow, half within pale, filtered
sunlight.  It was a vision of grace and wonder, slender body as
ephemeral as a re flection of love remembered, presence as glorious as
a rainbow's sweep.  It did not move, but simply regarded her.  Ebony
body with goat's feet and lion's tail, eyes of green fire, immortal
life all the songs of all the bards through all the ages of the world
could not begin to express what the unicorn truly was.

Willow felt a rush of emotion tear through her, stripping bare her
soul.  She felt her heart begin to break with the ecstasy of it.  She
had never seen a unicorn and never thought it would be like this. There
were tears in her eyes, and she swallowed uncontrollably against what
she was.  feeling.

"Oh, you beautiful thing," she whispered.

Her voice was so soft that she believed only she could hear her words.
But the unicorn nodded in response, and the ridged horn shone brightly
with magic.  The green eyes fixed upon her with new intensity and
flared from some inner well of being.  Willow felt something seize hold
within her.  Her hand groped blindly the earth next to hr and came to
rest at last upon the bridle.

Oh, I must have you, she thought.  I must make you mine!

But the eyes held her and she could not move to act upon her need.  The
eyes held her, and they whispered of something remembered from the
dream.

Come to me, they said.  Seek me.

She felt herself flush with the heat of that memory and then go cool.
She saw the memory reflected in her eyes, in her mind, and in her
heart.  She looked across the tiny stream of water as it rushed and
gurgled over the rocks in the forest stillness, and the stream was a
river she could not bridge.  She listened to the singing of birds in
the trees, a mingling of songs that cheered and heartened, and the
sound became the voice of all her secrets revealed.

She felt magic rage within her in waves of insistence she had never
known could exist.  She no longer belonged to herself; she belonged now
to the unicorn.  She would have done anything for it.  Anything.

Then, in the next instant, it was gone, disappearing so suddenly and so
completely that it might never have been.  Indeed, she wondered had it?
Willow stared at the space the black unicorn had occupied, an emptiness
of mingled light and shadow, and she fought against the sharpness of
her pain.

Had she seen the unicorn?  Truly seen it?  Had it been real?

The questions left her dazed.  She could not move.  Then, slowly,
purposefully, she rose to her feet, shouldered again the golden bridle,
and moved with quiet determination in search of her answers.

She searched all that day.  Yet she did not search so much as follow,
for there was a sense of being led that she could not explain.  She
climbed through the tangle of rocks and trees and scrub that carpeted
the uneven heights of the Melchor and sought a thing that might not
even be.  She thought she saw the black unicorn several times more,
brief flashes only an ebony flank, an emerald eye, a ridged horn
shining with magic.  It did not occur to her that her efforts might be
misdirected.  She chased quite deliriously and without regret.  She
knew that the unicorn was there, just beyond her reach.  She could feel
it waiting for her; she could sense it watching.  She did not know its
purpose, but she was certain of its need.

Nightfall found her less than a mile west of Mirwouk, exhausted, still
alone.  She had traversed the forest all about the aging, crumbling
fortress.  She had retraced her own steps several times.  She was no
nearer the black unicorn than she had been when she had first spied it,
but she was as determined as ever that she would catch up to it.  At
dawn, she would try again.

She lay down within a sheltering of birch, hugged the bridle of spun
gold within its woolen covering close against her breast, and let the
cool night air wash over her.  Slowly the heat of the day faded, and
her exhaustion slipped away.  She slept undisturbed and dreamed once
more.

Her dream this night was of dozens of white unicorns chained and
fettered and begging to be set free.  The dream was like a fever that
would not break.

From shadows close at hand, eyes of green fire kept watch through the
night.

Ben Holiday and his companions spent that night within the Melchor as
well, although they were still some distance from Mirwouk and Willow.
They were camped just above the foothills leading into the mountains
and lucky to be that far.  It had taken them the better part of the day
just to get out of the wastelands, and they had trekked on through the
late afternoon and evening to reach the base of the mountains.  Ben had
insisted.  The kobolds had found Willow's tracks near sundown, and Ben
thought they might catch up to her yet that day.  It was only after
complete darkness had set in and Questor had pleaded with Ben to be
reasonable that the search was temporarily abandoned.

It resumed at daybreak, and the little company found itself less than a
mile below Mirwouk by midmorning.  It was then that matters began to
grow confusing.

The confusion was manifold.  In the first place, Willow's trail was
leading toward Mirwouk.  Since she wasn't carrying the golden bridle to
Ben or Meeks disguised as Ben it was somewhat uncertain what it was
that she was doing with it.  Possibly she was searching for the black
unicorn, although that didn't make much sense, since in her dream the
black unicorn had been a demon creature that threatened her, and she
still didn't know that the dream had been sent by Meeks.  Whatever she
was doing.

she was definitely going toward Mirwouk, and Mirwouk was where
Questor's dream had taken him in search of the missing books of wizard
magic and where, in fact, the missing books had been found.

In the second place, the kobolds had discovered that twice already
Willow's tracks had retraced themselves.  Sylphs were fairy creatures
and not in the habit of getting lost, so that meant either she was
searching for something or following something.  But there was no
indication at all of what that might be.

In the third place, Edgewood Dirk was still among the missing.  No one
had seen the cat since they had departed their shelter of two nights
earlier, following Bunion's return with Parsnip and the news of
Willow's tracks.  Ben hadn't paid much attention to Dirk's absence
until now, too caught up in his search for Willow really to notice. 
But confronting these other puzzles had led him almost without thinking
to look around for Dirk, perhaps in the vain hope of getting a straight
answer from the beast for once; but Dirk was nowhere to be found.

Ben took it all in stride.  There wasn't much any of them could do to
clear up the confusion just now, so he simply ordered them to press
on.

They crossed Willow's tracks a third time within a stone's throw of
Mirwouk, and this time the kobolds hesitated.  The new trail was
fresher than the old.  Should they follow it?

Ben nodded and they did.

By midday, they had circled Mirwouk almost completely and crossed
Willow's tracks yet a fourth time.  Now she was moving away from the
aged fortress.  Bunion studied the tracks for several minutes, his face
almost pressed up against the earth in his effort to read the markings.
He announced finally that he couldn't tell which tracks were more
recent.  All seemed quite fresh.

The members of the little company stood staring at each other for a
moment, undecided.  Sweat lay in a thin sheen across the faces of Ben
and Questor, and the G'home Gnomes were whining that they were thirsty.
Abernathy was panting.  Dust covered all of them like a mist.  Eyes
squinted against the glaring light of the sun, and faces grimaced and
tightened with discomfort.  They were all weary and cross and they were
all sick and tired of running around in circles.

Though anxious to continue, Ben was nevertheless reluctantly
considering the idea of a lunch break and a brief rest when a crashing
sound brought him sharply about.  The crashing sound was of stone
breaking and falling.  It was coming from the direction of Mirwouk.

He looked at the others questioningly, but no one seemed anxious to
venture an opinion.

"Couldn't hurt to check it out at least," Ben declared and resolutely
started off to investigate, the others trailing with various degrees of
enthusiasm.

They picked their way upward through the tangle of scrub and trees,
watching the crumbling walls and towers of Mirwouk appear through
breaks in the branches and rise up before them.  Parapets loomed
against the skyline, ragged and broken, and shutter less windows gaped
emptily.  Bats darted past in shadowy bursts and cried out sharply.
Ahead, the crashing sounds continued almost as if something was trapped
and trying to break free.  The minutes slipped away.  The little
company approached the sagging gates of the fortress and drew to a
halt, listening.

The crashing sounds had stopped.

"I don't like this one bit," Abernathy announced darkly.

"High Lord, perhaps we ought to..  Quest or Thews began, then stopped
as he saw a look of disapproval cross Ben's face.

"Perhaps we ought to have a look," Ben finished.

So they did, Ben leading, the kobolds a step behind, the others
trailing.  They passed through the gates, crossed the broad outer
courtyard beyond, and slipped into the passageway that ran from the
secondary wall to the inner courtyard and the main buildings.  The
passageway was long and dark and it smelled of rot.  Ben wrinkled his
nose in distaste and hurried ahead.  There was still only silence.

Ben reached the end of the tunnel a dozen steps ahead of everyone and
was thinking to himself that he might have been smarter to send Bunion
ahead to look things over when he caught sight of the stone giant.  It
was huge and ugly, a featureless, rough-hewn monstrosity that looked
like the beginning stages of some novice sculptor's efforts at a
tribute to Hercules.  It appeared to be just a grotesque statue at
first, standing there in the middle of the inner courtyard amid a pile
of stone rubble.  But then the statue moved, turning with a ponderous
effort that sounded of rock grating on rock, and it became immediately
apparent that this particular statue was very much alive.

Ben stared in bewilderment, not quite certain yet what to do.  A sudden
tumult rose from the tunnel behind him, and the others of the company
emerged in a rush and practically ran over him in their haste to get
clear.  The G'home Gnomes were no longer whining; they were howling
like injured cats.  Abernathy and Questor were both yelling at once,
and the kobolds were hissing and showing all their teeth in an
unmistakable display of hostility.  It took Ben a moment to realize
that they weren't responding to anything they saw at this end of the
tunnel but to something they had seen at the other.

Ben peered hurriedly past the frenzied group, neck craning.  A second
stone giant had entered the passageway and was lumbering toward them.

Questor grasped his elbow as if he might strangle it.  "High Lord, that
is a Rynt!  It will smash us to dust if we let it get close enough .. .
!  Ecchhh!"  He saw the second one now, as it, too, lumbered forward.
"Two of them!  Run, High Lord this way!"

The kobolds were already moving, leading the pack of them across the
courtyard to an entryway that disappeared into the fortress proper. The
first Flynt had joined the second and both were in pursuit, shambling
giants that moved like bulldozers.

The company burst through the entryway and galloped up a flight of
stairs.

"What's a Flynt?"  Ben demanded of Questor as they fled.  "I don't
remember your telling me anything about Flynts!"

"I probably didn't tell you anything, High Lord," Questor acknowledged,
breathing hard now.  His robes tangled in his feet and he almost went
down.  "Drat!"  He straightened, moving quickly on.  "Flynts are
aberrations a creation of old magic, stone monsters brought to life.
Very dangerous!  They were sentinels of this fortress once, but I
thought they were all destroyed centuries ago.  Wizards created them.
They don't think, they don't eat, they don't sleep, they barely see or
smell but they hear everything.  Their intended purpose was to keep
intruders out of Mirwouk, but of course that was a long time ago, so
who knows what they think their purpose might be now?  They seem rather
intent on just smashing things.  Ugh!"  He slowed momentarily and
somehow managed to look genuinely thoughtful.  "Odd that I didn't come
across them when I was here last."

Ben rolled his eyes and pulled the wizard ahead.

They reached the top of the stairwell and emerged on a parapet roof
about the size of a tennis court.  Rubble littered the playing surface.
There were no referees in sight and only one other way out a second
stairwell at the far end.  The company broke for it as one.

When they reached it, they found it blocked with enough timber and
stone to build a set of bleachers.

"Wonderful!"  Ben groaned.

"I told you I didn't like this!"  Abernathy declared with a bark that
surprised everyone.

The Flynts emerged from the far stairwell, lookea slowly about, and
began to lumber toward them.  Bunion and Parsnip moved protectively in
front of the others.

Now it was Ben's turn to grab Questor.  "The kobolds can't stop those
things, damn it!  Dredge up some magic!"

Questor moved hurriedly forward, robes flying, tall figure swaying as
if he might topple over.  He muttered something unintelligible, lifted
his arms skyward, and brought them down in a grand sweep.  Funnel
clouds sprang up from out of nowhere, picked up the loose rubble, and
hurtled it at the approaching stone monsters.  Unfortunately, the
funnel clouds also hurtled some of it back at Questor.  The rubble
bounced harmlessly off the Flynts.  It did not bounce harmlessly off
Questor; the wizard went down in a heap, unconscious and bleeding.

Ben and the kobolds rushed to pull the wizard back from further harm.
The Flynts still lumbered forward, stone blocks and rubble cracking
like deadwood beneath their massive feet.

Ben knelt anxiously.  "Questor!  Get up!  We need you!"  He slapped the
fallen wizard's face desperately, rubbed his wrists, and shook him.
Questor didn't move.  His owlish face was pale beneath the blood.

Ben leaped back to his feet.  Individually, perhaps, the members of the
little company were swift and agile enough to evade these stone
monsters.  Perhaps.  But that was before Questor's injury.  No one
would get away trying to carry out the wizard, and they were certainly
not about to leave him.  Ben seized the medallion frantically and let
go just as quickly.  Useless.  He was Meeks' creation now, his
medallion a worthless imitation.  There could be no help from the
magic; there could be no summons to the Paladin.

But he had to do something!

"Abernathy!"

The dog's cold nose shoved into his ear, and he jerked away.  "High
Lord?"

"These things can't see, taste, or smell but they can hear, right? Hear
anything?  Anything even close to Mirwouk, maybe?"

"I am given to understand that the Flynts can hear a pin drop at fifty
paces, though I often ..."

"Never mind the editorials!"  Ben pulled the dog about to face him,
furry features held close, glasses glinting with sunlight.  "Can you
hit high C?"

Abernathy blinked.  "High Lord?"

"High C, damn it can you howl loud enough to hit high C?"  The Flynts
were no more than a dozen paces off.  "Well, can you?"

"I don't see .. ."

"Yes or no!"

He was shaking his scribe.  Abernathy's muzzle drew back, and he barked
right in Ben's face.  "Yes!"

"Then do it!"  Ben screamed.

The whole roof seemed to be shaking.  The G'home Gnomes had fastened
themselves to Ben once more, crying, "Great High Lord, mighty High
Lord" in chorus and wailing like lost souls.  The kobolds were crouched
in front of him, ready to spring.  The Flynts looked like tanks bearing
down.

Then Abernathy began to howl.

He hit high C on the first try, a frightening wail that drowned out the
G'home Gnomes and expanded the grimaces on the faces of the kobolds
into a whole new dimension.  The wail lifted and spread, cutting
throug;' everything with the tenacity ofgastrically induced stress The
Flynts stopped in their tracks and their massive hands came up against
the sides of their heads with a crash as they tried in vain to shut out
the sound.  It came at them relentlessly Ben would never have believed
Abernathy capable of such sustained agony and all the while, the}
battered at themselves.

Finally, the pounding proved to be too much, and the Flynts simply
shattered and fell apart.  Heads, arms, torsos, and legs collapsed into
piles of useless rock.  The dust rose and settled again, and nothing
moved.

Abernathy stopped howling, and there was a moment of strained silence.
The scribe straightened and glared at Ben with undisguised fury.  "I
have never been so humiliated, High Lord!"  he snarled.  "Howling like
a dog, indeed!  I have debased myself in a way I would not have thought
possible!"

Ben cleared his throat.  "You saved our lives," he pointed out simply.
"That's what you did."

Abernathy started to say something more, stopped, and simply continued
to glare voicelessly.  Finally he took a deep breath of air, exhaled,
straightened some more, sniffed distastefully, and said, "When we get
those books of magic back, the first thing you will do with them is
find a way to turn me back into a human being!"

Ben hastily masked the smile that would have been his undoing. "Agreed.
 The first thing."

Hurriedly they picked up Questor Thews and carried him back down the
stairway and out of Mirwouk.  They encountered no further Flynts.
Perhaps the two they had escaped had been the last, Ben thought as they
hastened back into the trees.

"Still, it is odd that Questor didn't see them the first time," he
repeated the wizard's observation to no one in particular.

"Odd?  Not so odd if you consider the possibility that Meeks put them
there after he had the books, expressly to prevent anyone from coming
back into the fortress!"  Abernathy huffed.  He would not look at Ben.
"Really, High Lord I would have thought you could figure that one out
by yourself!"

Ben endured the admonishment silently.  He could have figured it out by
himself, but he hadn't, so what was there to say?  What he couldn't
figure out now was why Meeks would bother placing guards at Mirwouk.
After all, the missing books of magic were already in his possession!

He dropped that question into the hopper with all the other unanswered
questions and concentrated on helping the others lay Questor on a patch
of shaded grass.  Parsnip wiped away the dust and blood from the
wizard's face and brought him out of his stupor.  Questor recovered
after a brief period of treatment, Parsnip patched up his injuries and
the little company was back on its feet, once more.

"This time we follow Willow's tracks however many of them there are
until we find her!"  Ben declared resolutely.

"we find her," Abernathy muttered.

But no one heard him and off they went again.

B'

t3

Discovery

B.

The heat of the midday sun settled down across the forests of the
Melchor in a suffocating blanket and turned its cooling shadows tepid
and dank.  Morning breezes died away and the air grew thick and still.
Insects hummed their toneless songs, leaves hung limp from their
branches, and the warm-blooded life of the woodland lay patient and
quiet.  There was a slowing of time and purpose.

Willow paused at the base of a giant white oak, the weight of the spun
gold bridle tugging relentlessly downward on her shoulders where it lay
draped across them.  A bright sheen of sweat coated the pale green skin
of her face and hands, and her lips parted slightly as she worked
harder to catch her breath.  She had been walking since sunrise,
following the black unicorn as it came and went in wisps of dream and
shadow, trailing after as if she were a stray bit of dust drawn on in
the wake of its passing.  She had traveled the whole of the Melchor
about Mirwouk half-a-dozen times over, crossing and recrossing her
trail time after time, a senseless journey of whim and chance.  She was
west of Mirwouk now, scarcely a mile from the aged fortress, but she
was barely aware of it, and it would have made no difference to her had
she taken the time to think about it.  She had long since ceased to
care about anything but the subject of her search; all else had become
irrelevant.

She must find the unicorn.  She must know its truth.

She let her eyes glaze slightly with the memory of last night's dream
and wondered anew at its meaning.

Then she drew herself upright and continued on, a frail and tiny bit of
life amid the giant trees of the mountain forest, a child strayed.  She
worked her way slowly through a grove of fir and pine clustered so
thick that the boughs interlocked, barely glanced at a stand of Bonnie
Blues beyond, and pressed upward along a gentle slope that led to a
meadow plateau.  She picked her way with careful steps, remembering
wearily that she had passed this way before once, twice, more?  She
wasn't certain It didn't matter.  She listened to the sound of her
heart pounding through her neck and in her ears.  It was very loud.  It
was almost the only sound in the forest.  It became the measure of each
step she took.

How much farther?  she wondered as the heat pressed down.  When am I to
stop?

She crested the meadow line paused in the shadow of a long-limbed
crimson maple, and closed her eyes against the uncertainty.  When she
opened them again, the black unicorn stood facing her.

"Oh!"  she breathed softly.

The unicorn stood at the center of the meadow, framed in a splash of
unclouded sunlight.  It was ink black, so perfectly opaque that it
might have been sculpted from midnight's shadows.  It faced her, head
lifted, mane acd tail limp in the breeze less air, a statue carved out
of ageless ebony.  The green eyes regarded her steadily and within
their depths called to her.  She breathed the sullen heat into her
lungs and felt the scorch of the sun's brightness.  She listened.  The
eyes of the unicorn spoke soundlessly, images caught and reflected from
dreams remembered and visions lost.  She listened, and she knew.

The chase was over.  The black unicorn would run from her no longer. It
was to this time and place that she had been brought.  It only remained
for her to discover why.

She came forward tentatively, still half expecting with every step she
took that the unicorn would disappear, that it would bolt and run.  It
did not.  It simply stood there motionless, dreamlike.  She slipped the
bridle from her shoulders and held it loosely in her hands before her,
letting the unicorn see it clearly.  Sunlight danced off the traces and
fastenings, brilliant flashes that pierced the forest shadows.  The
unicorn waited.  Willow passed from the shade of the crimson maple into
the meadow's sunshine, and the sweltering heat enveloped her.  Her sea
green eyes blinked away a sudden film of moisture, and she shook back
her long hair.  The unicorn did not move.

She was only a dozen feet from the creature when abruptly she slowed
and then stopped.  She could not go on.  Waves of fear, suspicion, and
doubt washed through her, a mingling of whispers that cried out in
sudden warning.  What was she doing?  What was she thinking?  The black
unicorn was a creature of such ill fortune that no one who had come
close to it had been seen again!  It was the demon of her dreams!  It
was the nightmare that had pursued her in her sleep, hunting her as
death would!

She felt the weight of the fairy creature's eyes settle on her.  She
felt its presence as she would a sickness.  She struggled to break and
run and could not.  Desperately, she fought against the emotions that
threatened to consume her and banished them.  She took deep, long
breaths of the sullen midday air and forced herself to look into the
creature's emerald eyes.  She kept her gaze fixed.  There was no hint
of sickness or death in those eyes no hint of demon evil.  There was
gentleness and warmth and need.

She came forward another few steps.

Then something new slowed her.  There was a flash of intuition that
swept her mind momentarily, quick and certain.  Ben was near, come in
search of... of what?

"Ben?"  she whispered, waiting.

But there was no one.  She was alone with the unicorn She did not look
away from the creature, but she sense.  nevertheless that they were
alone.  She wet her lips ar'-, came forward again.

And again she stopped.  Her breast heaved.  "I cannoi touch you," she
murmured to the flawless, impossible wondrous fairy thing.  "I cannot.
It will be the end of me if I do."

She knew it was so.  She knew it instinctively, the was she had always
known.  No one could touch a unicorn; n" one had that right.  It
belonged to a realm of beauty that no mortal creature should ever
attempt to transcend, h had wandered into Landover, a bit of some
rainbow broken off from its dark storm's end arc, and it should never
be held by hands such as hers.  Memories of legends apc1 songs
whispered in snatches of warning.  She felt tears start down her cheeks
and her breath catch in her throa*

Beautiful thing, I cannot..  .

But she did.  Almost before she realized what was happening, she was
covering those last few paces in quick, mechanical steps, moving
without thinking about what she was doing, reaching out to the midnight
creature, and placing the bridle of spun gold gently, carefully about
ii1 waiting head.  She brushed its silken face with her finger as she
worked, and the touch was electric.  She felt the" whisper of its mane
against the backs of her hands, and the sensation was rife with wonder.
Fresh images spears, unbidden into her thoughts, jumbled and not yet
understandable, but irresistible nevertheless.  She touched ths,
unicorn freely now, reveling in the sensations it caused within her.
She could not seem to help herself.  She could not stop.  She was
crying anew, her emotions all uncovered, brought close to the surface
of her being.  Tears ran down her cheeks as she began to sob
uncontrollably.

"I love you," she cried desperately, her hands falling away at last
when the bridle was in place.  "Oh, I love you so much, you beautiful,
wondrous thing!"

The black unicorn's horn shone white with magic as it held her gaze,
and there were tears now in its eyes as well.  For a single moment,
they were joined.

Then the moment was gone, and the world beyond intruded with a rush.  A
huge, dark shadow passed overhead and settled earthward at the
clearing's far edge.  In the same instant, a familiar scattering of
voices called her name frantically from the clearing's other end.  Her
dreams took life, their images suddenly, terrifyingly all about.
Whispers of the warnings that had brought her to this moment turned
abruptly to screams of dismay in her mind.

She felt the black unicorn shudder violently next to her and watched
the white magic of its horn flare.  But it did not bolt into the woods.
Whatever happened next, it would run no further.

So be it.  Neither would she.

Woodenly, she turned to discover their fate.

Ben Holiday burst from the trees into the meadow and stopped so
abruptly that the others of the little company who followed after
stumbled into him in their eagerness to keep up and knocked him forward
another few steps.  They were all yelling at once, calling out to
Willow in warning where she stood at the meadow's center, the black
unicorn at her side.  The shadow of the winged demon had passed
overhead a moment earlier, a monstrous cloud against the sun.  It was
only the worst of luck that could have brought them all together at
this same place and time, but the worst of luck seemed to be the only
luck Ben could count on.  He had tracked Willow to this meadow after
escaping the Flynts, believing the worst to be behind him.  Now the
demon had found them. He saw again in his mind the River Master's
doomed nymphs as the demon burned them to ash and he thought of his
promise to the Earth Mother to protect Willow.  But he was helpless to
do that.  How was he going to protect Willow without the medallion?

The demon flew overhead a second time, but it did not attack the sylph
or the unicorn or even Ben's little group.  Instead, it settled slowly
earthward at the clearing's far edge, leathered wings folding in
against its body, breath steaming with a hiss.  Ben squinted against
the sunlight There was a rider atop the demon.  The rider was Meeks.

And Meeks, of course, appeared to everyone watching to be Ben.

Ben heard muttered whispers of surprise and confusion from those
crowded up behind him.  He watched himself climb slowly down from the
demon; and even he had to admit that Meeks looked exactly like him. His
companions quit yelling, momentary indecision settling in.  Ben could
feel their eyes bore into his back and could sense the clouds of doubt
gathering.  He had told them who he was and they had believed him, more
or less, until now.  But actually seeing Ben Holiday standing there in
that clearing across from them was something else altogether.. .

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 afew 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.

THE BLACK UNICOR ,\

2^2

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 asa
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 fl airing 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.

a" a

Cat's Paw a. a

Ben 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!"

Dirk yawned anew.  "Don't you?"

Ben didn't hear him.  "I'll tell you one thing.  I can't handle this by
myself.  I never could.  There isn't any point in kidding myself; I
have to have help.  I'm going to do what I should have done in the
first place.  I'm going into the mists, medallion or no medallion, and
find the fairies.  I'll do what I did before.  I'll find them and ask
them for a magic that will let me stand up to Meeks.  They helped me
with Nightshade; they'll help me with Meeks.  They have to."

"Ah, but that's not true, is it?"  Dirk asked softly.  "The fairies
help only when they choose.  You know that, my dear High Lord.  You
have always known that.  You cannot demand their aid; you can only wish
for it.  The choice of giving or withholding it is always theirs."

"It doesn't matter."  Ben shook his head stubbornly.  "I'm going into
the mists.  When I find them, I'll..  ."

"If you find them," Dirk interrupted.

Ben paused, then flushed.  "It would be nice to have some encouragement
from you for a change!  What makes you think I won't find them?"

Dirk regarded him for a moment, then sniffed the air.  All about, the
birds continued to sing indifferently.  "Because they don't want you to
find them.  High Lord," the cat said finally.  He sighed.  "You see,
they have already found you."

There was a long moment of silence as Ben and the cat stared at each
other, eyes locked.  Ben cleared his throat.  "What?"

Dirk's eyes lidded to half-mast.  "High Lord, who do you think sent
me?"

Ben sat back down slowly, crossed his legs before him, and dropped his
hands into his lap.  "The fairies sent you?"  The cat said nothing.
"But why?  I mean, why you, Dirk?"

"You mean, why a cat?  Why not a dog?  Or a lion or a tiger?  Or
another Paladin, for that matter?  Is that what you mean?"  Dirk's fur
ruffled on the nape of his neck and down the arch of his back.  "Well,
a cat is all that you need or deserve, my dear High Lord!  More, in
point of fact!  I was sent to arouse your consciousness to make you
think!  I was not sent to provide salvation!  If you want salvation,
you will have to find it within yourself!  That is the way it has
always been and that is the way it will always be!"

He stood up, jumped down from the rock, and strode deliberately up to
an astonished Ben.  "I am tired of pussyfooting around with you.  I
have told you everything you need to know to counteract the magic that
has been used against you.  I have done everything but shove your nose
in the truth of matters, and that I cannot do!  That is forbidden!
Fairy kind never reveal truth to mortal creatures.  But I have kept you
safe on your journey when you needed keeping safe, though you haven't
needed it nearly so often as you believed.  I have watched over you and
guided you when I could.  Most important of all, I have kept you
thinking and that in turn has kept you alive!"  He paused.  "Well, all
that is finished now.  Your time for thinking is just about up!"

Ben shook his head quickly.  "Dirk, I can't just .. ."

"Let me finish!"  the cat snapped.  "When in the world will humans
learn to start listening to cats?"  The green eyes narrowed.  "The
fairies sent me to help you, High Lord, but they left it to me to
choose the means.  They did not advise me on what I was to do or say. 
They did not tell me why it was that they believed I could help.  Such
is not the way of the fairies nor is it the way of cats!  We do as we
choose in any case and live our lives as we must.  We play games
because that is who we are.  Cat games or fairy games, it is all very
much the same. Ours, High Lord, is a much different world from your
own!"

One paw lifted.  "Hear me well, then.  No one is entitled to be given
answers to the problems that beset them.  No one is given life on a
silver platter cat or King!  If you wish to know the truth of things,
you must find it out for yourself.  If you wish to understand what
puzzles you, reason it through for yourself.  You believe yourself
mired in insolvable dilemmas.  You believe yourself incapable of
breaking free.  Your identity is gone, your kingdom stolen.  Your
enemies beset you, your friends are lost.  It is a chain of
complications in which the links are joined, Ben Holiday.  Cut free a
single link, and the chains fall apart!  But you are the one who
carries the cutters not me, not anyone else.  That is what I have been
trying to tell you from day one!  Do you understand?"

Ben nodded hastily.  "I understand."

The paw lowered again.  "I hope so.  Now I will say this one more time.
The magic you struggle against is magic of deception a mirror that
alters in its reflection truths and makes them half-truths and lies. If
you can see past the mirror, you can set yourself free.  If you can set
yourself free, you can help your friends.  But you had better get
busy!"

He stretched, turned, walked several paces away, and turned back again.
The forest glade was quiet now; even the birds in the trees had gone
still.  Sunlight continued to shine out of the skies from overhead,
casting the dappled shadows of the leaves and branches across the
clearing beneath, leaving Ben and Dirk spotted and striped.

"The dark wizard is frightened of you, Ben Holiday,"

Dirk advised softly.  "He knows you to be close to the answers you need
to break free, and he will try to destroy you before that can happen. I
have given you the means to find the answers that will defeat him. Use
those means.  You are an intelligent man.  You have been a man who has
spent his life ordering other men's lives.  Man of law, man of power
order now your own!"

He moved soundlessly to the glade's edge, never looking back.  "I have
enjoyed our time together, High Lord," he called back.  "I have enjoyed
our travels.  But they are over for now.  I have other places to be and
other appointments to keep.  I will think of you.  And one day,
perhaps, I will see you again."

"Wait, Dirk!"  Ben called after, coming suddenly to his feet, fighting
against the continuing dizziness.

"I never wait, High Lord," the cat replied, now almost lost in shadow.
"Besides, there is nothing more I can do for you.  I have done
everything I can.  Good luck to you."

"Dirk!"

"Remember what I told you.  And try listening to cats once in a while,
would you?"

"Dirk, damn it!"

"Good-bye."

And with that Edgewood Dirk disappeared into the forest and was gone.

Ben Holiday stared after the cat for a long time following its
departure, half expecting that it would return.  It didn't, of course,
just as he had known all along somewhere deep inside that it wouldn't.
When he finally accepted the fact, he quit looking for it and began to
panic.  He was all alone for the first time since being cast out of
Sterling Silver all alone and in the worst predicament of his life.  He
was without his identity or his medallion, and he had no idea at all
how to regain either.  Edgewood Dirk, his protector, had deserted him.
Willow had disappeared with the black unicorn, still believing him. the
stranger he appeared to be.  His friends were scattered to
heaven-knew-where.  Meeks had gone for the books of magic and would
return shortly to put an end to him.

And here he sat, waiting for it to happen.

He was stunned.  He could not seem to think clearly.  He tried to
reason, to think what he should do next, but everything seemed to
jumble up, the problems and needs fighting for equal time in his
thoughts.  He rose, his motions mechanical, his eyes dead, and walked
to the edge of the little stream.  He glanced once more after Dirk, saw
only empty forest, and turned back again, a feeling of bleak
resignation settling through him.  He knelt down beside the stream and
splashed water on his soot-blackened face, rubbing it into his eyes.
The water was like ice, and it sent a shock through his system.  He
splashed some more on, throwing it up over his head and shoulders,
letting the cold galvanize him.

Then he sat back, the water dripping off his face, his eyes looking
down into the stream.

Reason it through, he admonished himself.  You have all the answers.
Dirk said you had all the answers.  So what in the hell are they?

He resisted an almost overwhelming urge to leap up and charge off into
the trees.  He forced himself to stay put.  Action would have been more
immediately gratifying the sense of doing something, anything, better
than just sitting around.  But running about heedlessly wasn't what the
situation called for; thinking was.  He had to know what he was doing,
had to understand once and for all what had happened.

Links in a chain, Dirk had said.  All his problems were links in a
chain, all locked together.  Cut one, and the chain would fall apart.
Okay.  He would do that.  He would cut that link.  But which link
should he cut?

He looked down into the waters of the stream, staring at the rippling
reflection of his image.  A distorted version of Ben Holiday's face
glimmered back at him.  But it was he, not someone else, not the
stranger everyone else saw.  What was it that made others see him
differently?  A mask, Dirk had said and he was disappearing into it. He
stared at himself for a long moment, then looked up again, focusing on
a random gathering of wild flowers several yards beyond, seeing them
and seeing nothing.

Magic of deception, Dirk had said.

Whose magic?  Whose deception?

His own, the River Master had said.  The River Master had offered to
help, had tried in fact, but in the end couldn't.  The magic at work
was magic of Ben's own making, the River Master had said and only he
could act to break its hold.

But what magic had he used?

He tried to think it through, but couldn't.  Nothing would come.  He
rocked back on his heels beside the little stream, hunched down in the
shadows of the mountain glade and let his mind wander freely for a
moment.  It all went back to that night in his bedchamber in Sterling
Silver when Meeks had appeared before him from out of nowhere.  That
was when everything had gone wrong and he had lost the medallion.
Something grated at the memory, and he grasped futilely at it.  He had
lost the medallion, he had lost his identity, he had lost his magic, he
had lost his kingdom.  A chain of links that needed breaking, he
thought.  He recalled his shock at finding the medallion gone.  He
remembered his fear.

A sudden thought struck him, and a memory stirred.  The fairies had
said something to him once about fear.  It had been the only time they
had spoken to him, long ago now, back when he had gone into the mists
in search of the lo Dust, back when he had first come into Landover and
been forced to fight to gain recognition for his right to the throne
just as he was fighting now.  What was it they had said?  Fear has many
disguises.  You must learn to recognize them when next they come for
you.

He frowned.  Disguises?  Masks?  Not much difference between the two,
he mused.  He had wondered what the words had meant.  He found himself
wondering again now.  At the time, he thought they had referred to his
impending encounter with the Iron Mark.  But what if they had referred
to what was happening to him now to the fear he was experiencing over
the loss of the medallion?

Could the fairies have foreseen that loss so long ago?  Or was the
warning simply generic, simply .. .

About the magic of this land?

Self-consciously, he reached within his tunic and brought forth the
medallion he now wore, the medallion Meeks had given him, its face
graven with the dark wizard's harsh visage.  It all began here the
questions, the mysteries, a jumble of events that had swept him away
from everything sane into this mire of fear and doubt.  How could it
have happened, he wondered for at least the hundredth time?  How could
he have lost the medallion without knowing it?  How had Meeks gotten
the medallion from him when only he could remove it?  It didn't make
sense!  Even if he had removed it, why couldn't he remember removing
it?

Unless he hadn't!

There was a sudden, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.  Oh,
God!

Unless he was still wearing it!

Something had nudged his thinking a step farther than it had gone
before.  He could almost see the cutters working on his chains.
Self-deception, Dirk had said.  Magic of his own making, the River
Master had said.  Damn!  He felt his breath begin to come in short,
ragged gasps of excitement; he could hear his chest pounding.  It made
sense.  It was the only answer that had ever made sense.  Meeks
couldn't take the medallion from him unless he removed it himself, but
he couldn't remember removing it, and the reason he couldn't remember
removing it was because he never had removed it!

Meeks had simply made him think so.

But how?

He tried to think it through a step at a time.  His hands were shaking
with excitement, the medallion spinning in their grip.  He still wore
the medallion of the High Lords of Landover; he simply hadn't realized
it.  Was that possible?  His mind raced ahead, exploring the
possibilities, whispering to him in a quick, urgent voice.  He still
wore the medallion!  Meeks had simply disguised it somehow, made him
think it wasn't the real medallion, just a substitute.  That would
explain why Meeks hadn't simply finished him off in his bedchamber.
Meeks was afraid that the Paladin might still appear that the disguise
was too new, too thin perhaps.  That's why the wizard had let him go
after giving him the strange warning about not taking off the
substitute medallion.  He had expected Ben to question that warning
sooner or later.  He had hoped Ben would take off the medallion and
throw it away, thinking he was breaking free.  Then Meeks would have
had the medallion for good!

His mind spun.  The language, he thought suddenly!  How could he still
communicate in the language of Landover if he wasn't wearing the
medallion?  Questor had told him long ago that the medallion was the
reason he could understand the land's language, could write it, and
could speak it!  Why hadn't he thought of that before?  And Questor
Questor had always wondered how Meeks got the medallion back from
failed candidates for the kingship who refused to return it
voluntarily.  He would have done it something like this!  He would have
tricked them into taking it off, thinking they had already lost it!

My God!  Could all this be possible?

He took a deep breath to steady himself.  Could it be anything else? He
tacked on a negative answer immediately.  It was the only answer that
made any sense.  The winged demon hadn't broken off the attack on the
River Master's nymphs at Elderew because of Dirk; it had flow ii off
because it had seen the medallion held in Ben's hands and been
frightened of its power.  The demon had recognized the truth when Ben
couldn't.  Magic had disguised the truth from Ben magic Meeks had
employed that night in his bedchamber an old magic, Ben thought
suddenly.  That was what Nightshade had said to Strabo.  That was why
only the witch and the dragon could recognize it!

But how did the magic work?  What was needed to break its spell?  Was
it this same magic that had changed his identity?

The questions tumbled over one another in their efforts to be answered.
Deception that was the key word, the word Dirk had used repeatedly.
Meeks must have used his magic to deceive Ben into believing the
medallion he wore was another than his own.  And Ben had believed the
deception to be the truth.  He had let the deception become his own.
Damn!  He had built his own prison!  Meeks must have caused him to
dream that he had given up the medallion, and he had convinced himself
of its truth!

In which case, shouldn't he be able simply to ... He couldn't finish
the thought.  He was afraid to finish it, afraid he might be wrong.  He
took another deep breath.  It didn't matter that he finish it.  It
mattered only that he test it.  He would have to test it to know for
sure.

He stared down again into the stream, watching his face shimmer and
change with the movement of the water.  His mask, he thought not to
him, but to everyone else.  He steadied himself, then held the
medallion out before him, hands grasping the chain, the visage of Meeks
dangling and spinning slowly, reflecting the sunlight in small
glimmerings of dull silver.  He slowed his breathing deliberately, his
heartbeat, and time itself.  He focused his gaze on the tarnished
image, watching the spinning motion slow, watching until the medallion
was almost perfectly still.  He shoved the image he was seeing from his
mind and substituted in its place a picture from his memory of the
Paladin riding out from the gates of Sterling Silver against the
sunrise.  He looked past the tarnish and the wear and envisioned
polished silver.  He gave himself over to his vision.

Remember, what you're seeing is all a lie, he told himself.  Just a
lie.

But nothing happened.  The medallion before him continued to reflect
the image of Meeks.  He fought down a renewed surge of panic and forced
himself to remain calm.  Something more was needed.  Something.

His mind sifted, considering and discarding possibilities.  He kept his
eyes focused on the medallion.  The mountain forest was still about
him, the silence complete save for brief snatches of bird songs and the
rustle of the wind through the leaves.  He was right about this; he
knew he was right.  Break the first link, and the others would follow.
The chain would fall apart.  He would become himself again, the power
of the Paladin would return, and his magic would be freed.  He need
only find a key .. .

He caught himself in mid thought  Slowly his fingers eased along the
length of chain to the medallion itself.  Lightly they caressed the
tarnished surface, then gathered the talisman into his palms.  Its feel
was abhorrent to him but then Meeks would want it that way.  His hands
closed.  He held the medallion, gripped it tightly, felt its surface,
its graven image, and envisioned not Meeks, but the Paladin riding out
of Sterling Silver, riding out at sunrise, riding to him .. .

Something began to happen.  The medallion grew warm to the touch, and
there was a barely perceptible change in its feel.  He gripped it
harder, the image he knew to be hidden there locked firmly in the
forefront of his thoughts.  He closed his eyes.  The image was a beacon
of whiteness that became his only light.  The medallion burned, but he
kept his grip on it.  He could sense a shifting in its surface as if
something were falling away, a skin being shed.  Yes' The burning
continued, then flared sharply, spread through the whole of his body,
lifted away, and dissipated into air.

Coolness returned.  Slowly he opened his eyes, then his fingers.  He
looked down at the medallion that nestled in his palm.  It was bright
and untarnished.  He could see himself mirrored in its surface.  The
image of the Paladin glimmered back at him.

He permitted himself a huge, almost foolish smile.  He had been right
after all.  The medallion had been his all along.

The chain that had bound him was broken!

B'

Revelatiop ta.  3

Willow stirred, consciousness returning as she made the slow, languid
slide out of slumber.  The sun was warm upon her skin, and tall grasses
tickled her face.  She blinked, squinted against the sudden brightness,
and let her eyes close again.  She had dreamed or had she?  She had
flown on a cloud, riding wind currents that whipped and buffeted her
and bore her over all the world as if she were a bird on wing.  She
blinked again, feeling the press of the earth against her back.  She
had been so free.

Then the drifting sensation slipped from her, and a sudden return of
memory jarred her completely awake.  She sat upright with a start.
There had been no dream.  There had been only the reality of her flight
from Meeks, the winged demon, the others .. .

A shudder passed through her body.  She forced her eyes open again,
squinting against the sunlight.  She sat within a wide clearing in a
grove of hardwood trees and scattered pines almost within the shadow of
Mirwouk.  The walls of the ancient fortress loomed behind her, jagged
heights rough against the afternoon sky.  Flowers dotted the hillside
which spread away below her, their smells filling the still, humid air.
The whole of the mountains about her were strangely silent.  -270

Her eyes shifted.  A dozen feet away, the black unicorn stood looking
at her, the bridle of spun gold still fastened about its slender
head.

"I rode you," she whispered almost soundlessly.

The memory was a jumble of images and feelings that washed over her
like ice water and shocked her with their intensity.  She had barely
known what she was doing when she had pulled herself atop the unicorn's
back, terrified by what was happening about her, frantic to escape its
horror.  Nothing was what it appeared not Ben, not the stranger who
claimed to be Ben, not that cat, nothing.  There was fire and
destruction all about such hatred!  She had only thought to flee, and
something in the touch of the unicorn's body against her own as it had
surged past had drawn her after.  Hands on the golden bridle, fingers
locking in the mane, on the sleek body, and about the slender neck, her
own face pressed close .. . The images stirred and vanished, feelings
more than pictures, a whisper of need and want.

Her breath came in a small gasp.  She had mounted the black unicorn
without thinking, and her flight for that indeed was what it had been
had been magical.  There had been no sense of place or time; there had
been only an acute sense of being.  The unicorn had done more than
carry her away from that meadow.  The unicorn had carried her away from
herself, down inside herself to see all about who and what she was and
might be, until the thought of it had left her dazed and filled with
wonder.  The unicorn had shown her a texture and meaning to life that
she would never have believed possible.  Just its touch had been
enough; nothing more was needed.  There were tears in her eyes as she
remembered how it had felt.  The images were strangely clouded now, but
the emotions she had experienced remained sharp and clear.  How
glorious it had been!

She brushed at the tears and let her gaze meet that of

1-J2

the watching unicorn.  It still waited on her.  It did not run as it
might have, perhaps as it should.  It simply waited.

But what was it waiting for?  What did it want from her?

Confusion swept through her.  The truth of the matter was that she
didn't know.  She looked into the emerald eyes of the black unicorn and
wished the fairy creature could tell her.  She needed to know.  Here it
was, this wondrous being, waiting almost resignedly while she pondered,
waiting on her once more and she didn't have any idea at all what she
should do.  She felt helpless and afraid.  She felt herself a fool.

But she knew she could not afford such feelings, and she blocked them
roughly from her mind.  Meeks might still hunt them probably did.  That
cat, whatever it was, would not delay the wizard long.  He would come
after her, after the unicorn, after them both.  Meeks wanted the black
unicorn; the stranger had been right about that.  That meant that the
stranger might have been right about the dreams as well.

And that, in turn, meant that the stranger might really be Ben.

A twinge of desperate longing raced through her, but she brushed it
quickly aside.  There was no time to consider the possibility now.  The
black unicorn was in immediate danger, and she had to do something to
help it.  It was clearly waiting on her, depending on her, and
expecting something from her.  She had to find out what.

There was only one way.  She knew it instinctively.  She would have to
touch the unicorn, expose herself to its magic.  She would have to open
herself to its vision.

She breathed deeply, slowly, trying to steady herself.  The sudden fear
she experienced made her queasy.  She was proposing the unthinkable. No
one touched a unicorn and was ever herself again.  No one.  Oh, yes,
she had touched the fairy creature already a brushing against its body
as she slipped the golden bridle in place and a clinging as she rode it
to safety from that meadow.  But both times she had been barely aware
of what she was doing;

it had all been something from a brief, wondrous dream that might never
have been.  What she would do now was entirely different, willful and
deliberate, and she would be risking everything she was.  The legends
were uniform.  Unicorns belonged to no one but themselves.  Touch one
and you were lost.

Yet she was going to do it anyway.  The decision had already been made.
The black unicorn was more than a legend out of tales a thousand years
old, more than the dream that had drawn her on, more even than the
reality of its physical being.  It was an inescapable want that was an
integral and undeniable part of her, a mystery that she must solve. The
emerald eyes of the creature reflected her most secret urgings. She
could keep nothing of herself hidden.  Her own body betrayed her, its
need for the unicorn an irresistible force.  There was desire in her
that surpassed anything she had ever known.  The dangers that the black
unicorn might pose, imagined or real, paled beside such desire. She had
to solve its puzzle, whatever the cost.  She had to know its truth.

She went hot and cold and she felt feather light as she rose and
started forward.  She was trembling, the horror and the anticipation
mixing within her in equal measures, driving her reason from her, and
leaving only her need.

Oh, Ben, she thought desperately!  Why aren't you here?

The black unicorn waited patiently, an ebony statue in the dappled
shadows, eyes locked on Willow's.  There was a curious sense of its
both not and always being mirrored in the sylph as if it were her most
carefully guarded wish, projected into being from her mind.

"I have to know," she whispered to the unicorn as she stood at last
before it.

Slowly, her hands came up.

The meadow, once grassy and bright with wild flowers,

lay in ruins, a charred, smoking stretch of barren earth amid the
forest trees.  Questor Thews stood at its edge and peered futilely
through the haze.  He was covered with dust and ash, his tall, stooped
figure more ragtag in appearance than ever, gray robes and colored
silks singed and torn, harlequin leather boots scuffed and smudged.
That last exchange of magic between Meeks, the demon, and Edgewood Dirk
had sent him flying.  The wind had been knocked from him, and he'd
found himself resting rather precariously in the branches of an aged
crimson maple, an object of great delight for the squirrels and birds
nesting there.  Abernathy, the kobolds, and the gnomes were nowhere to
be seen.  Ben Holiday, Willow, and the black unicorn had disappeared.
Questor had climbed down from that maple and gone searching for them
all.  He hadn't found a one.

Now his wanderings had brought him back to where he had last seen any
of them.  And none of them appeared to be here either.

He sighed deeply, his owlish face lined with worry.  He wished he knew
more of what was going on.  He accepted now that the stranger who
claimed to be Ben Holiday was in fact who he said he was; the man who
appeared to be Ben Holiday was in fact Meeks.  The dreams Willow, Ben,
and he had experienced had been, in fact, the creations of his
half-brother, all part of some bigger plan to gain control over
Landover and the magic.  But acceptance of all this gained him nothing.
He still didn't know what the black unicorn had to do with anything nor
did he understand yet what plan Meeks was trying to implement. Worst of
all, he didn't have any idea at all how to find any of this out.

He rubbed his bearded chin and sighed again.  There had to be a way, of
course.  He just had to figure it out.

"Hmmmmm," he mused thoughtfully.  But his thinking produced nothing.

He shrugged.  Well, there was nothing more to be accomplished by
standing about.

He started to turn away and found himself face to face with Meeks.  His
half-brother had reverted to his normal form, a tall, craggy figure
with grizzled white hair and hard, dead eyes.  Dark blue robes cloaked
his body like a shroud.  He stood less than a dozen yards away, just a
step or two back in the trees from the clearing's edge.  The
black-gloved hand of his one good arm cradled the missing books of
magic close against his chest.

Questor Thews felt his stomach lurch.

"I have waited a long time for this moment," Meeks whispered.  "I have
been very patient."

Dozens of random thoughts rushed through Questor's mind and were gone,
leaving only one.  "I am not frightened of you," he said quietly.

His half-brother's face was unreadable.  "You should be, Questor.  You
think yourself a wizard now, but you are an apprentice still.  You will
never be more than that.  I have power you never even dreamed could
exist!  I have the means to do anything!"

"Except catch the black unicorn, it appears," Questor answered
bravely.

The dead eyes flickered briefly with rage.  "You understand nothing not
you, not Holiday, not anyone.  You play a game you cannot win and you
play it poorly.  You are a distraction to be removed."  The pale,
creased face was a death mask.  "I have endured exile and a disruption
of my plans all brought about by you and this play King and neither of
you understands yet what it is that you have done.  You are
pathetic!"

The dark robes seemed to twitch where the right sleeve hung empty.
"Your time in this world and life is just about over, half-brother. You
stand alone.  That prism cat no longer threatens me.  Holiday is
helpless and abandoned.  The sylph and the black unicorn have nowhere
left to run.

Your other friends are already mine all but the dog, and the dog is of
no consequence."

Questorfelt his heart sink.  The others were prisoners all but
Abernathy?

Meeks smiled now, a cold, empty smile.  "You were the last possible
threat to me, Questor.  And now I have you."

Questor stiffened, anger pushing back his fear.  "You do not have me
yet!  Nor will you ever have me!"

The other's laugh was soundless.  "Won't I?"

His head inclined slightly, and dozens of shadows slipped from behind
the trees all about him.  The shadows materialized with the light into
small, crooked children with pointed ears, wizened faces, and scaled
bodies.  Pig snouts sniffed the forest air and serpent tongues slipped
between rows of sharpened teeth.

"Demon imps!"  Questor exclaimed softly.

"Rather a few too many for you to do much about, wouldn't you say?" His
half-brother's words hissed at him with undisguised pleasure.  "I don't
care to waste my time with you, Questor.  I prefer to leave you to
them."

The demon imps had completely surrounded Questor, eyes bright and
anxious, tongues licking their snouts.  Meeks was right.  There were
too many.  Nevertheless, he held his ground.  There was no point in
trying to run.  His only chance was to catch them off guard .. .

They had closed to within half-a-dozen yards, a tight circle of ugly
little faces and sharp teeth, when Questor whirled about, hands
pinwheeling, and sent them all flying with a burst of magic.  Smoke and
steam geysered from out of nowhere, flinging them away, and Questor was
loping desperately back into the concealing shadows of the forest,
leaping over the squirming, momentarily blinded demon imps as if they
were mud puddles.  Squeals of rage chased after him.  The demon imps
were up and skittering in pursuit almost instantly.  He whirled to face
them.  Again he sent an explosion of magic into their midst, and again
they were scattered.  But there were so many!  They came at him from
everywhere, cluttering and squealing, grasping at his robes.  He tried
to defend himself, but it was too late.  They were all over him,
pulling at him, pinning his arms to his body.  He swayed with the
weight of them and toppled over.

Clawed hands fastened to his clothing, then to his throat.  He began to
choke, unable to breathe.  He struggled valiantly, but there were
dozens holding him down.  Flashes of light danced before his eyes.

He had just a momentary glimpse through the tangle of demon imps of a
smiling Meeks standing over him before he blacked out.

Willow's hands were inches from the black unicorn's delicate ebony head
when she heard a faint rustling of leaves and brush, the sound of
someone approaching through the trees.  She drew back quickly from the
unicorn, startled, wary.

A moment later, a shaggy head pushed out from the foliage and peered
about intently through eyeglasses knocked partially askew by a veil of
interlocking pine boughs.

It was Abernathy.

"Willow, is that you?"  the scribe asked in disbelief.

He shoved past the remaining branches and stepped into the clearing.
His dress clothes were in shreds, the greater part of his tunic torn
from his body.  His boots were gone completely.  His fur was singed and
his face looked as if it had been shoved into an ash pit.  He was
panting heavily, and his tongue licked out at his black nose.

"I have had better days, I want you to know," he declared.  "I may have
had worse, but I cannot remember when.  First, I traipse all over
creation in search of you and this .. . this animal for heaven knows
what reason, because I surely do not, then we find, not just you and
it, but Meeks and his demon as well, then the cat appears and there is
a pointless exchange of magic that seems to do little more than fire up
a whole section of the forest, and finally we are all scattered to the
four winds and no one can find anyone!"

He gulped a chestful of air, gave out a long sigh and glanced about.
"Have you seen any of the others?"

Willow shook her head, distracted.  "No, none of them."  Her thoughts
were of the unicorn, of the need that consumed her, of her desire to
reach out and touch .. .

"What are you doing here?"  Abernathy asked suddenly, the sound of his
voice startling her.  The scribe saw her consternation.  "Is something
wrong, Willow?  What are you doing with the unicorn?  You know how
dangerous that creature is.  Come away, now.  Come over and let me look
at you.  The High Lord would want..."

"Have you seen him?"  she demanded sharply, the mention of Ben a
lifeline for which she quickly grasped "Is he close?"

Abernathy shoved his glasses further up his nose.  "No, Willow I
haven't seen him.  He was lost with the rest of us."  He paused.  "Are
you all right?"

The lifeline disappeared.  She nodded without speaking.  She felt the
heat of the afternoon sun, the swelter of the day, and the closeness of
the air.  She was in a prison that threatened to bury her.  The sounds
of birds and insects faded into silence, the presence of Abernathy lost
meaning, and her desire for the black unicorn consumed her anew.  She
turned from the scribe and began to reach again for the beast.

"Wait!"  Abernathy fairly shouted.  "What are you doing, girl?  Do not
touch that creature!  Don't you realize what will happen to you?"

"Stay away from me, Abernathy," she replied softly, but hesitated
nevertheless.

"Are you as mad as the rest of them?"  the dog snapped angrily.  "Has
everyone gone crazy?  Doesn't anyone but me understand what is
happening?  The dreams are a lie, Willow!  Meeks brought us to this
place, tricked us into serving his interests, and made fools of us all!
That unicorn is probably something that belongs to him!  You cannot
know what its purpose might be!  Do not touch it!"

She glanced quickly back at the dog.  "I have to.  I need to."

Abernathy started forward, saw the look of warning in the sylph's green
eyes, and quickly stopped.  "Willow, do not do this!  You know the
stories, the legends!"  His voice dropped to a whisper.  "You will be
lost, girl!"

She stared silently at him for a long moment, then smiled.  "But that
is exactly the point, Abernathy.  I am already lost."

Her hands came up swiftly and fastened about the neck of the black
unicorn.

It was as if a cold fire swept through her.  The fire burned from her
hands into her arms and down her body.  She stiffened against its feel
and shuddered heavily.  She threw back her head and gasped for breath.
She heard Abernathy call out frantically from behind her and then lost
track of him.  He was there, but no longer visible to her.  She could
see nothing now but the face of the unicorn before her, a disembodied
shape against a backdrop of space.  The fire consumed her, mingled with
her desire, and turned it into unrestrained passion.  She was losing
control of herself, beginning to come apart.  A moment longer, and she
would cease to be herself entirely.

She tried to remove her hands from the fairy creature's neck and found
she could not.  She was joined to the unicorn.  She was one with it.

Then the ridged horn began to glow white with magic, and a jumble of
images ripped through her mind.  There was a place of empty coldness.
There were chains and fire, tapestries of white on which unicorns
bounded and leaped, dark-robed wizards, and spells being cast in
endless succession.  There was Meeks, Ben, and the Paladin.

And finally there was a cry of such terror and longing that it
shattered the images as if they had been formed of glass.

Set me free!

The pain of that cry was too much for her to bear.  She screamed, and
her scream jerked her sharply backward, tearing her free at last of the
unicorn.  She stumbled and almost fell would have fallen, had not
Abernathy's arms come quickly about her to hold her upright.

"I saw!"  she gasped and could speak no more.

But the sound of her scream still echoed through the trees.

B'

Coipbat

The scream reached Ben Holiday as he knelt alone in the forest beside
the tiny stream, restored to himself at last, the medallion
ofLandover's High Lords a brilliant silver wonder cradled gingerly,
unbelievingly within the cup of his hands.  The scream rose out of the
trees, a thin, high wail of anguish and fear, and lingered like the
whistle of the wind through canyon drops in the still mountain air.

Ben's head jerked up, his neck craning.  There was no mistaking that
cry.  It was Willow's.

He leaped to his feet, hands closing possessively over the medallion,
eyes searching the forest shadows as if whatever threatened the sylph
might be waiting there for him as well.  A mix of fear and horror raced
through him.  What had been done to Willow?  He started forward,
stopped, whirled about desperately, and realized that he could not
trace the direction of the scream.  It seemed to come from everywhere
at once.  Damn!  Meeks would hear that scream as surely as he Meeks and
that winged demon.  Perhaps Meeks already had .. .

He was holding the medallion so tightly that it was cutting into his
palms.  Willow!  A vision of the sylph blossomed in his mind, a frail
and beautiful creature whose life was his special charge.  He recalled
again the words of the Earth Mother investing him with responsibility
for seeing that she stayed safe and his promise to keep her so.  His
emotions tore at him and left him ragged and frantic.  Truths to which
he had not yet given heed flayed his soul.

The truths all reduced to one.

He loved Willow.

He experienced a warm rush of surprise and frantic relief.  All this
time he had denied his feelings, unable to come to terms with them.  He
had wanted no one close to him again, not after Annie, his dead wife.
Love brought responsibility and the possibility of hurt and loss.  He
had wanted none of it.  But the feelings had remained as such feelings
do because they had never been his to deny in the first place.  The
reality of their existence had been forced upon him that first night
out in the eastern wastes after fleeing Strabo and Nightshade revealed
in a dream in his dialogue with Edgewood Dirk on the reason for the
urgency of his hunt for Willow.

Why do you run so?  Why must you hurry so?  Why must you find Willow?
Dirk had asked.

Because I love her, he had answered.

And so he did but had not allowed himself until this moment to think on
it, to reason on it, and to consider what it meant.

Seconds was all it took to do so now.  The thoughts, the reasonings,
and the considerations all passed through his mind in a smattering of
time that was barely measurable.  It was as if everything that had
taken so long to reach resolution was compressed down into a single
instant.

But that instant was enough.

Ben never hesitated.  There was a time when he would have, a time that
now seemed a thousand years gone.  He released the medallion with its
silver-engraved image and let it fall against his chest, the sunlight
sending shards of brightness into the dappled forest.

He called the Paladin to him.

Light flared and brightened at the edge of the little glade, chasing
the shadows and gloom.  Ben's head lifted in recognition, and there was
excitement in his eyes.  He had thought never to do this again, wished
it in fact, prayed it might never be necessary.  Now he was anxious for
it.  A part of him was already beginning to break away.

The Paladin appeared out of the light.  His white charger stamped and
snorted.  His silver armor glittered, its harness and traces creaking.
His weapons hung ready.  The ghost of another age and life was
returned.

Ben felt the medallion begin to burn against his chest, ice and fire
first, then something else altogether.  He felt himself separating,
drawing out of his own body.

Willow!  he heard himself scream her name once in the silence of his
mind.

It was his last thought.  A flare of silver light burst from the
medallion and streaked across the glade to where the Paladin waited. He
felt himself carried with it to merge with the body of the King's
knight-errant.  Armor clamped all about, fastening and tightening,
closing down.  An iron shell encased him, and the memory of who and
what he had been was gone.  The Paladin's memory became his, a rush of
images and thoughts that spanned a thousand other times and places, a
thousand other lives all of a warrior whose battle skills had never
been surpassed, a champion who had never been defeated.

Ben Holiday disappeared.  He had become the Paladin.

He was aware momentarily of the ragged figure that stood statue like at
the edge of the little stream, bearded and unkempt, a worn and battered
shell.  He knew it to be Landover's King and dismissed the matter.

Wheeling his white charger about, he surged through the brush and scrub
into the forest trees and was gone.

Willow's scream brought Meeks almost instantly.  He appeared from the
shadow of Mirwouk's crumbling walls astride his winged demon, dark
robes flying against the sunlit afternoon skies.  The demon plummeted
to the hill side with a hiss, settling heavily within a gathering of
pines at its far edge.  Its leathered wings folded in against its
wolf-serpent body, and its nostrils flared with small bursts of fire.
Steam rose off its back.

Meeks slid slowly down the sealed neck, hard eyes fixed on the black
unicorn as it stamped and snorted frantically some fifty feet away.  He
cradled in the grasp of his good arm the missing books of magic.

Abernathy pulled a still-shaken Willow protectively behind him.  "Stay
back from us, wizard!"  he ordered bravely.

Meeks ignored him.  His eyes were on the unicorn.  He came forward a
few steps, glanced briefly at Willow and Abernathy, looked again at the
unicorn, and then stopped.  He seemed to be waiting for something.  The
unicorn danced and shuddered as if already caught, but still it did not
flee.

"Willow, what is happening here?"  Abernathy growled urgently.

The sylph could barely stand.  She shook her head woozily, her words
nearly inaudible.  "I saw," she repeated.  "The images, the whole .. .
of it.  But there are so many, I cannot..  ."

She was making no sense at all, still in shock, it appeared.  Abernathy
helped her over to a patch of flowered grass and sat her gently down.
Then he turned back to Meeks.

"She cannot hurt you, wizard!"  he called out, drawing the hard eyes
instantly.  "Why not let her go?  The unicorn is yours if you wish it,
although I cannot imagine why you would.  Heaven knows, it has been a
thing of misfortune for all who have encountered it!"

Meeks kept looking at him, but said nothing.

"The others will be here in moments, wizard!"  Abernathy declared. "You
had best hurry away!"

Meeks smiled coldly.  "Come over to me a moment, scribe," he invited
softly.  "Perhaps we can discuss it."

Abernathy hesitated, glanced briefly back at Willow, took a deep
breath, and started across the clearing.  He was so frightened that he
could barely make himself move.  The last thing in the world he wanted
to do was walk over there to the wizard and his pet demon, and yet here
he was doing just exactly that.  He straightened himself bravely,
determined to see this thing through.  He really hadn't any choice in
the matter.  He had to do something to help the girl, and this appeared
to be the only option open to him.  The day was warm and still; it was
a wonderful day for just about anything other than this.  Abernathy
moved as slowly as he could and prayed that the others would arrive
before he was turned into the wizard's latest burnt offering.

When he was a dozen paces from Meeks, he stopped.  The wizard's craggy
face was a mask of cunning and false warmth.  "Closer, please," Meeks
whispered.

Abernathy knew then that he was doomed.  There wasn't going to be any
escape for him.  He might be able to delay matters for a few moments,
but that would be all.  Still, even a few moments might help Willow.

He came forward half-a-dozen paces and stopped again.  "What shall we
discuss?"  he demanded.

The cold smile was gone.  "Why not the possibility that your friends
will be here to help you in the next few moments?"

He gestured briefly with the books, and a ring of twisted little
figures appeared from out of the trees surrounding the clearing.  The
figures were everywhere, encircling them.  Ugly, piggish faces with
sharp teeth and serpents' tongues snorted and squealed anxiously in the
silence.  Abernathy felt the hair on the back of his spine arch.  A
dozen of the little monsters pushed Questor Thews, Bunion, Parsnip, and
the G'home Gnomes from out of the trees.  All were gagged and securely
bound in chains.

286 THE BLACK UNICORI\

Meeks turned.  The smile was back.  "It appears that your friends will
not be much help to you after all.  But it was good of you to wait
until they could join us."

Abernathy saw his last, faint hope of being rescued disappear.

"Run, Willow!"  he shouted.

Then, growling savagely, he launched himself at Meeks.  He did it with
the somewhat vague notion of catching the wizard off-guard and knocking
free those precious books of magic.  He almost got away with it.  Meeks
was so busy orchestrating the arrival of his small army ol minions that
it never occurred to him the dog might decide to fight back.  Abernathy
was on top of him almost before he realized what was happening.  But
the magic Meeks commanded was as quick as thought, and he called it to
his use instantly.  Green fire surged up from the books of magic, and a
screen of flame hammered into Abernathy.  The soft-coated Wheaten
Terrier tumbled backward head over-heels and lay still, smoke rising
lazily from his singed fur.  The screen of fire protecting Meeks and
the books of magic flared and died.

The wizard stared back across the clearing to where Willow sat slumped
upon the ground and the black unicorn waited.

"At last," he whispered, his voice a slow hiss.

He beckoned curtly to the waiting demon imps and the ring began to
tighten.

Silence descended across the little clearing almost as if nature had
put a finger to her lips and said "hush" to the world.  There was a
moment of time in which everything slowed.  Meeks waited impatiently as
the circle of demon imps crept forward.  His winged demon snorted,
nostrils steaming.  Willow sat with her head bent, still stunned, her
long hair cascading down about her like a veil.  The black unicorn
moved close, a step at a time only, a shadow out of darkness woefully
lost in daylight.  Its muzzle drooped and brushed the sylph's arm
gently.  The white magic of its horn had gone dark.

Then a sudden rush of wind broke over the mountain heights and whistled
through the trees.  The unicorn's head jerked up, its ears perked
forward, and its horn flared brighter than the sun.  It heard the
sounds that no one else could sounds for which it had listened for
centuries.

Trees, brush, and scrub exploded from the wall of the forest at its
northern edge as if torn free by some massive fist.  Wind howled
through the opening left, and light burst free in a brilliant white
flash.  Meeks and his winged demon shrank back instinctively, and the
demon imps threw themselves down upon the earth squealing.

A rumble of thunder turned to a pounding of hooves, and the Paladin
rode out from his twilight existence into battle.

Meeks gave a howl of rage and disbelief.  His demon imps were already
scattering to the four winds, terror sweeping them away as if they were
dried leaves at the end of a broom.  The demon imps wanted no part of
the Paladin.  Meeks turned, the books of magic clutched tightly to his
dark robes by the leather-gloved hand.  He shrieked something
unintelligible to the monster behind him, and the creature surged
forward, hissing.

The Paladin swerved slightly, white charger barely slowing as it turned
to meet the demon.

Fire burst from the demon's maw, engulfing the approaching horse and
rider.  But the Paladin broke through the wall of flames and came on, a
battle lance lowered into place.  The demon breathed its fire once
more, and again the flames washed over the knight-errant.  Willow's
head lifted, and she saw the silver knight and horse disappear in the
fire.  Sudden realization rushed through her.  If the Paladin was here,
so was Ben!

Rames pyramided off the clearing's grasses and scorched the sheltering
trees.  Everything wilted momentarily in a white-hot heat.  But then
the Paladin was clear of the flames once more, his charger and armor
covered with ash and smoking.  He was almost on top of the demon now,
battle lance set.  Too late the demon realized the danger as it spread
its wings and tried to lift itself skyward.  The Paladin's lance ripped
through scales and armored plates and pierced its massive chest.  The
wolf-serpent screamed and surged back, the battle lance breaking off
within it.  It tried to rise, a weak, fluttering effort it could not
manage.  Then its heart gave out, and it fell earthward.  It crashed
into the scorched grasses, shuddered, and lay still.

The Paladin broke off the attack while the demon was in its death
throes, swerving to stay clear of the struggling monster.  Then he
wheeled back again, drew forth the great broadsword, and spurred his
white charger tow aid Meeks to finish the fight.

But this time Meeks was ready for him.

The hard, craggy old face tightened down in concentration, the wizard's
thin lips drawing back until his teeth showed.  Whatever magic he yet
commanded, he was calling on it now.

Wicked green light flared at a point midway between the approaching
knight-errant and the waiting wizard.  Meeks cried out and stiffened.
His head shot back and the green light exploded in shards.

From out of the fire appeared a line of armored skeletons atop
fleshless steeds, half goat, half snake.  Willow counted.  Three, four,
five there were six altogether.  The skeletons held broadswords and
maces in their gloveless, bony hands.  Helmetless death's-heads smiled
in frozen grimace.  Riders and carriers both were as black as night.

They turned as one and came at the Paladin in a rush.  The Paladin rode
to meet them.

Willow watched the battle unfold from close beside the black unicorn.
Her senses had returned to her now; her thoughts were clear.  She saw
the Paladin and the black riders come together in a clash of iron, saw
the dust swirl up from the impact, and saw one of the black riders go
down in a pile of shattered bones.  The fighters wheeled and struck at
each other, and the sounds were terrifying.  She shrank from the
conflict, her thoughts focused not on the Paladin, but on Ben.  Where
was he?  Why wasn't he here?  Why wasn't Landover's High Lord close to
his champion?

Another black rider went down, the bones of its skeleton body snapping
apart, crunching like deadwood beneath the hooves of the Paladin's
horse.  The Paladin broke away, whirled and struck down a third rider,
the great broadsword flashing silver light as it swung through its
deadly arc.  The remaining riders converged, weapons hammering at him,
clanging and sparking off his armor, thrusting him back.

Willow pushed to her knees.  The Paladin was in danger of being forced
down.

Then small bursts of green fire flared over the bones of the three
black riders that had fallen, and six new skeletons rose out of the
smoky haze to join their fellows.  Willow felt her stomach tighten with
cold.  They had doubled their strength.  There were too many now for
the Paladin.

She lurched to her feet, determination giving her strength.  Questor,
the kobolds, and the gnomes were still bound and helpless.  Abernathy
was still unconscious.  Meeks had disabled them all.  There was no one
left to help the Paladin but her.

No other left to help Ben.

She knew what she must do.  The black unicorn stood quietly next to
her, emerald green eyes fixed on her own.  There was intelligence there
that was unmistakable.  She could read in those eyes what she must do,
and it mirrored what she already knew in her heart.

She took a deep breath, stretched out her arms, and embraced the
unicorn once more.

The magic rushed through her instantly, quick and anxious.  The
unicorn's delicate body shuddered with release.  and the images began.
They surged into the watershed ol the sylph's mind, jumbling together.
Willow jerked back from their intensity, wanted to scream, and fought
back against the urge.  Her need was less this time, her desire more
manageable.  She struggled to master it.  The images slowed then,
straightened into an orderly succession, and came on anew.  The mix of
pain and anguish that had accompanied them lessened, and their
brightness dimmed into something bearable.

She began to recognize what she was seeing.  Her fingers caressed the
silky, delicate neck of the unicorn as the magic joined them.

A voice cried out.

Fairy-kind!  Set me free!

The voice belonged to the unicorn and to nothing.  Something of the
unicorn was real; something else was not.  The images appeared and
faded in Willow's mind.  and she watched them pass.  The black unicorn
sought freedom.  It had come in search of that freedom.  It believed it
would find it through..  . why?  .. . through Ben!  The High Lord could
set it free because the High Lord commanded the magic of the Paladin,
and only the Paladin was strong enough to counteract the magic that
bound it, the magic that Meeks wielded but then there was no High Lord
to be found and the unicorn had been left alone in this land,
searching, and Willow had come instead, searching too, bearing the
golden bridle the wizards had made to snare it when it first broke free
long ago.  The unicorn was frightened of Willow and the bridle,
uncertain of her purpose, and it fled from her until it realized that
she was good, that she could help, and that she could take it to the
High Lord and set it free.  Willow would know the High Lord even in his
disguise, when the High Lord himself did not know .. .

The images came quicker now, and Willow fought again to slow them so
their meaning would not be lost.  Her breath came quickly, as if she
had run a great distance, and there was a bright sheen of sweat on her
face.

The voice cried out in her mind again.

The High Lord's power was lost to him and therefore lost to me!  I
could not be set free!

The voice was almost frantic.  The images whispered urgently.  The
dreams that had brought Willow in search of it were a mix of truth and
lies, dreams from both wizard and fairies .  , .  Fairies!  Her dreams
were sent by the fairies?  ... All must come together so that truths
could be revealed and the power needed could be summoned so that
Paladin and wizard could meet and the stronger prevail, the stronger
that was also the good, and then the books of magic could be, finally
and forever, could be and must be ... Something intruded, other images,
other thoughts imprisoned within the black unicorn for countless
centuries.  Willow stiffened and her arms locked about the sleek neck.
She felt the scream rising within her once more, uncontrollable this
time, madness!  She saw something new in the images.  The black unicorn
was not a single life, but many!  Oh, Ben!  she cried soundlessly.
There were lives in the images that struggled and could not break free,
that yearned for things she could not understand in worlds she could
not imagine.  She shook with the emotions that ripped through her.
Souls imprisoned, lives held fast, magics torn away and used wrongly
Ben!

Then there was a sudden image of the missing books of magic, locked
within a dark, secret place, a place filled with the smell of something
evil.  There was an image of fire burning outward from one of those
books, burning with the intensity of life being born anew, and from out
of that fire and that book leaped the black unicorn,

2<)2

free once more, racing from the dark into the light.  searching .. .

The voice cried out one final time.

Destroy the books!

The cry was one of desperation.  The cry was almost a shriek.  It
blocked away the images; it consumed everything with its urgency: The
pain it released was intolerable.

Willow's scream finally broke free, rising up against the sounds of
battle.  The sylph tore away from the black unicorn and stumbled back,
almost blacking out with the intensity of what she had experienced. She
dropped to her knees, head bent against a wave of nausea and cold. She
thought she must die and knew in the same instant she would not. She
could sense the black unicorn shuddering uncontrollably beside her.

The words of that final cry were a whisper on her lips.

Destroy the books!

She rose to a half-crouch and screamed them out across the battleground
of the little clearing.

The words were like tiny wafers of paper caught in a windstorm.  The
Paladin did not hear them, consumed by the fury of the battle he
fought.  Meeks did not hear them, the whole of his concentration given
over to directing the magic he had called upon to save himself. Questor
Thews, Bunion, Parsnip, Fillip, and Sot, abandoned by their demon imp
captors, were lying bound and gagged at the clearing's far edge.

Only Abernathy heard.

The dog was semiconscious, and the words seemed to come to him from
somewhere out of the darkness of his own thoughts.  He blinked hazily,
heard the words echo heard then the sounds of the frightening conflict
taking place about him, and forced his eyes all the way open.

The Paladin and the black riders whirled and struck out at each other
at the clearing's center, a kaleidoscope of movement and sound.  Willow
and the black unicorn were small, trapped figures at the clearing's far
end.  He could see nothing of his other friends.

He panted, his tongue licking out at his nose, and he felt dull, aching
pain working its way through his battered body.  He remembered what had
been done to him and where he was.

Slowly, he twisted himself about so that he could see better.  Meeks
stood almost next to him.  Caught up in the battle between the Paladin
and the black riders, the wizard had come forward the half-dozen paces
that had separated him from the dog.

The words whispered once more in Abernathy's mind.  Destroy the
books!

The dog tried to get to his feet and found his body would not respond.
He sank back.  Other thoughts intruded.  Destroy the books?  Destroy
his one chance of ever becoming human again?  How could he even
consider such a thing?

Another black rider went down, and there was the sound of breaking
bones.  The Paladin was hemmed in on all sides, armor blackened by ash
and rent by sword and axe.  He was losing the battle.

Abernathy knew what it would mean for all of them if he did and quit
thinking about his own problems.  He tried to rise again and found now
that he could but not all the way.  His muzzle drew back in a grimace
of frustration.

Then Meeks shifted his feet one further time, and suddenly his leg was
inches from Abernathy's head.  The wizard wore soft shoes; the leg was
exposed.  Abernathy's grimace turned to a snarl.  He had just been
given one last chance.

He launched himself headfirst at Meeks, his jaws closed over the
wizard's ankle, and he bit down hard.  Meeks gave out a shriek of
mingled pain and astonishment, his hands flew out, and the books of
magic flew up.

Everything happened at once after that.  There was a streak of black
light that shot across the clearing, past the

Paladin and the skeleton riders, past the clouds of dust and bursts of
green fire.  The black unicorn sped quicker than thought.  Meeks jerked
his leg frantically, trying to free himself from Abernathy's jaws,
groping at the same time for the airborne books.  Abernathy would not
let go.  Willow cried out, and Abernathy bit down harder.  Then the
black unicorn had reached them.  It leaped into the air, its horn
flaring white with the magic, speared the tumbling books, shattered
their bindings like glass, and scattered their pages everywhere.

Down fluttered the loose pages, those with the drawings of the unicorns
mingling with those whose centers were charred from that inner fire.
Meeks screamed and yanked free at last of Abernathy's jaws.  Green fire
burst from his outstretched hands and hammered into the unicorn as it
soared, knocking it askew.  The unicorn twisted in midair, and white
fire arced from its ridged horn into the wizard.  Back flew Meeks.
Green fire exploded into the unicorn, and white fire hammered into
Meeks.  The fires raced back and forth between unicorn and wizard, the
level of intensity rising with each new burst.

The Paladin whirled swiftly at the clearing's center, broadsword arcing
in a circle that cut apart the remaining black riders and scattered
their bones.  It was a perfunctory task now; the black riders were
already disintegrating.  The magic that had sustained them had gone out
of their hollow forms.  They crumbled instantly and were gone.

Then the Paladin was racing toward the unicorn and the wizard.  But the
Paladin could not reach them in time.  The fire had engulfed Meeks, the
magic too strong even for him.  He shrieked one final time and exploded
into smoke.  The black unicorn was engulfed in the same moment, the
fire all about.  Stricken, it arched skyward, leaped into the air and
was gone.

The Paladin, too, disappeared.  It rode into a sudden burst of white
light, the light washing away ash and dust and healing silver armor
until it shone like new all in an instant's time and knight-errant and
light simply faded away.

Abernathy and Willow stared at each other voicelessly across the
charred, empty forest clearing.

Then it happened.

They all saw it Willow and Abernathy as they crouched upon the scorched
hillside, still stunned from the fury of the battle just completed;
Questor, the kobolds, and the G'home Gnomes as they struggled futilely
to sit upright, still secured by the bonds that the demon imps had used
to restrain them; and even Ben Holiday as he stumbled breathlessly from
the forest trees after having run all the way from the place of his
transformation, not knowing what had brought him, knowing only that he
must come.  They saw it, and they held their collective breath in
wonder.

It began as a wind that disturbed the mountain stillness, just a
whisper at first, then a rush of sound like the roar of an ocean.  The
wind sprang up from the earth upon which the pages of the broken books
of magic now lay, stirring dust and ash, whipping at the few tiny
shards of green flame that still flickered in the meadow grasses.  It
lifted skyward in the shape of a funnel, catching up those scattered
pages in a snowstorm of white.  The pages that were burned became
suddenly healed, their ragged edges closing, their yellowed surfaces
turning pristine white once more.  The pages that were filled with the
drawings of the unicorns mixed and joined with them until none was
distinguishable from the others.  A wall of pages rose up across the
skyline, crackling and snapping madly as the wind whipped them through
the air.

Then the pages began to change.  The drawings began to shimmer and
flex, and abruptly the unicorns came alive.  No longer frozen in still
life, they began to race about the funnel's edge.  There were hundreds
of them,

all white, all in motion, a blur of power and speed.  The pages and
bindings of the books of magic were gone now;

there were only the unicorns.  They flew through the air and cried out
in ecstasy against the roar of the wind.

Free they seemed to be saying!  Free!

Then the runnel broke apart and the unicorns scattered, flooding the
skies above the mountain clearing in a rush of graceful, delicate
bodies like fireworks exploding in an impossibly beautiful shower.  The
unicorns spread out across the skyline buoyed by the magic of their
transformation then soared into the distance.  Their cries lingered
after them momentarily, then faded into silence.

The mountains had gone still again.

B"

B.

"There never was any black unicorn," Willow said.

"There was, but it was only a deception," Ben said.

Questor Thews and Abernathy, Bunion and Parsnip, and Fillip and Sot
looked at each other in confusion.

They sat within the shade of a great, old oak at the edge of the meadow
clearing, the lingering smell of scorched earth a pungent reminder of
all that had befallen.  The last of the shards of green flame had
flickered out, but trailers of smoke and particles of dust and ash
still floated weightless through the sun-streaked afternoon air.
Abernathy had been dusted off, the others had been freed of their
bonds, and the Six of them were gathered about Ben and Willow, who were
trying to explain what had happened.  It wasn't easy because neither of
them knew everything yet, so they were piecing the story together as
they went.

"It might be easier if we start at the beginning," Ben offered.

He hunched forward, legs crossing before him.  He was ragged and dirty,
but at least they all recognized him now.  Removing his own deception
of who and what he was had removed theirs as well.

"A long time ago, the fairies sent the white unicorns into Landover on
a journey to certain of the mortal worlds.  We know that much from the
histories.  The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies
possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic
was in danger of failing altogether.  After all, there has to be some
belief in the magic however small for any world to survive.

"But the unicorns disappeared.  They disappeared because the wizards of
Landover waylaid and imprisoned them.  They wanted the unicorns' magic
for their own use.  Remember, Questor, when you told me that the
wizards were once a powerful guild that hired out back before the King
sent the Paladin to dispose of them?  Well, I'm betting a major part of
that magic came from the imprisoned unicorns magic that the wizards
siphoned off.  I don't know what magic they possessed to trap the
unicorns in the first place a deception of some sort, I'd guess.  That
seems to be their favorite trick.  At any rate, they caught them up,
changed them into drawings, and trapped them in those books."

"But not whole," Willow said.

"No, not whole," Ben agreed.  "This is where it gets interesting.  The
wizards separated the body from the spirit of each unicorn in making
the transformation.  They imprisoned the body in one book and the
spirit in the other!  That weakened the unicorns and made them easier
to hold.  The body without the spirit is never as strong.  The wizards'
magic was potent enough to imprison each separately; the trick was to
prevent them from joining again."

"Which was the danger Meeks faced when the black unicorn escaped,"
Willow added.

"Right.  Because the black unicorn was the collective spirit of the
imprisoned white unicorns!"  Ben furrowed his brow.  "You see, so long
as the wizards could maintain the strength of the magic that bound the
books, the unicorns could not break free and the wizards could drain
the unicorns' magic as well and put it to their own use.

Even after Landover's King sent the Paladin to crush the wizards' guild
years ago, the books survived.  They were probably kept hidden for a
time.  Even later, the wizards still remaining, those now in service to
the King, were careful not to let anyone know the real source of their
power.  And the books were passed down from wizard to wizard until at
last they came to Meeks."

He touched his index finger to his lips.  "But in the meantime there
was a problem with the unicorns.  Every so often, they escaped.
Something would happen, the wizards would relax their vigilance, and
the unicorns would break free.  It didn't happen often, of course,
because the wizards kept close watch over the books.  But now and
again, it did.  Each time, it was the spirit part of the imprisoned
unicorns that managed to escape the magic of the spirit always being
stronger than that of the body.  The spirit would burn its way free of
the pages of the book of magic that bound it and escape.  But it lacked
a true physical presence.  It was only a shadow formed of need and
will, a silhouette given momentary substance and life and not much
more."  He glanced quickly at Willow for confirmation, and she nodded.
"And because it was black in color, being only a shadow, it was
generally assumed to be something evil rather than something good.
After all, whoever heard of a black unicorn?  The wizards, I am
certain, spread the story that the black unicorn was an aberration a
dangerous thing, perhaps even a demon.  They probably set a few
examples to reinforce the belief.  That kept everyone away from it
while the wizards worked at getting it back again."

"The bridle of spun gold was used for that purpose," Willow
interjected, picking up the story.  "The wizards employed their magic
to create the bridle after the first escape.  The bridle was a magic
that could draw and hold the black unicorn, giving the wizards time to
imprison it anew.  It was always caught quickly; it was never free for
long.  It was sent back again into the books of magic, the burned pages
were restored, and all was as it had been.  The wizards took no
chances. The books were their greatest magic, and they could not risk
damage to or loss of them."

She turned to Ben.  "That was why the black unicorn was so frightened
of me at first.  Even in its need, it was terrified.  I felt its fear
each.  time I came close and again, later, when I touched it.  It
believed me to be a tool of the wizards that had imprisoned it.  It
couldn't know the truth.  It was not until the very end that it seemed
to understand that I was not in service to Meeks."

"Which brings us to the present," Ben announced, straightening." "Meeks
had gained possession of the books of magic in his turn and had used
them as had all the wizards before him.  But then the old King died and
everything started to fall into ruin.  The black unicorn hadn't escaped
for a very long time perhaps centuries and there hadn't been any need
for the golden bridle in all those years.  I don't think even the
wizards before Meeks had paid a whole lot of attention to it for a
while because it was apparently before Meeks' time that it was stolen
for the first time by Nightshade.  Later it was stolen by Strabo and
then went back and forth between the two after that.  Meeks knew where
it was, I suppose, but the books of magic were safely under his
control, and the witch and the dragon didn't know the real purpose of
the bridle in any case.  The trouble started when Meeks went over to my
world to recruit a new King for Landover and hid the books of magic in
his absence.  I suppose he thought he wouldn't be gone long enough for
anything to happen to them, but things didn't work out that way.  When
I didn't come crawling back to give up the medallion and the Iron Mark
didn't finish me off, Meeks suddenly found himself trapped over there
with the books of magic still hidden over here.  The magic that
imprisoned the unicorns weakened once more in his absence, and the
spirit part the black unicorn burned free of the pages of its book and
escaped."

"So that was why my half-brother sent the dreams!"  Questor exclaimed,
new understanding beginning to reflect on his owlish face.  "He had to
get back across into Landover, recover the missing books, and find the
golden bridle and quickly!  If he didn't, the black unicorn might find
a way to free all the white unicorns its physical selves and the magic
would be lost!"

"And that is exactly what it tried to do," Willow confirmed.  "Not only
this time, but every time it managed to break free.  It tried to find
the one magic it believed stronger than the magic of the wizards the
Paladin!  Always before, it was caught so quickly that it never had any
real chance.  It knew the Paladin was the King's champion, but it would
never even manage to reach the King.  This time it was certain it could
except that there was no King to be found.  Meeks was quick to act,
once he discovered the unicorn had escaped.  A dream was used to lure
Ben out of Landover before the unicorn could reach him.  Then Meeks
crossed back with him and altered his appearance so that no one
including the black unicorn could recognize him."

"I think it might have recognized me if it hadn't been imprisoned for
so long," Ben interjected.  "The older fairy creatures such as
Nightshade and Strabo could recognize me.  But the unicorn had
forgotten much of its magic while it was bound."

"It might have lost much as well through the wizards' use of it,"
Willow added.

"Meeks told me that night in my bedchamber, when he used his magic to
change me, that I messed up his plans in some way," Ben went on,
returning to the matter of his lost identity.  "Of course, I didn't
have any idea what it was that I had done.  I didn't know what he was
talking about.  The truth was that everything I had done was
inadvertent.  I didn't know that the books contained stolen magic and
that, if he weren't within Landover, the magic might be lost.  I was
just trying to stay alive."

"A moment, High Lord."  Abernathy was shaking his head in confusion.
"Meeks sent three dreams yours to provide him a way back into Landover,
Questor Thews' to give him possession of the missing books of magic,
and Willow's to regain for him the stolen bridle.  The dreams worked as
they were intended except for Willow's.  She found the bridle, but she
failed to bring it back to you as the dream had told her she must.  Why
so?"

"The fairies," Willow said.

"The fairies," Ben echoed.

"I said that first morning that my dream seemed incomplete, that I felt
I was to be shown more," Willow explained.  "There were other dreams
after that; in each, the unicorn appeared to be less a demon, more a
victim.  The fairies sent those dreams to guide me in my search and to
teach me that my fears were false ones.  Gradually, I came to realize
that the first dream was somehow a lie, that the black unicorn was not
my enemy, that it needed help, and that I must provide that help. After
the dragon gave the bridle of spun gold to me, I was persuaded further
by dreams and visions that I must go in search of the unicorn myself if
I were ever to discover the truth of matters."

"The fairies sent Edgewood Dirk to me."  Ben sighed.  "They wouldn't
intervene to help me directly, of course they never do that for anyone.
Answers to our difficulties must always come from within; they expect
us to solve our own problems.  But Dirk was the catalyst that helped me
to do that.  Dirk helped me to discover the truth about the medallion.
Meeks had instigated the deception that led me to believe I had lost
it.  Dirk helped me see that / was the one fostering that deception,
and that if I could recognize the truth of things, others could as well
which is exactly what happened."

"Which is why the Paladin was able to reach us in time, apparently,"
Questor said.

"And why the books of magic were finally destroyed and the unicorns
freed," Willow added.

"And why Meeks was defeated," Abernathy finished.

"That's about it," Ben agreed.

"Great High Lord!"  exclaimed Fillip fervently.

"Mighty High Lord!"  echoed Sot.

Ben groaned.  "Please!  Enough already!"

He looked imploringly at the others, but they all just grinned.

It was time to leave.  No one much cared for the idea of spending
another night in the Melchor.  It was agreed they would be better
offsetting up camp in the foothills-below.

So they trudged wearily down out of the mountains through the fading
daylight, the sun sinking behind the western rim of the valley in a
haze of scarlet and gray.  As they walked, Willow dropped back next to
Ben, and her arm locked gently about his.

"What do you think will become of the unicorns?"  she asked after a
moment.

Ben shrugged.  "They'll probably go back into the mists, and no one
will ever see them again."  
"You do not think they will go on to the
worlds to which they were sent?"

"Out of Landover?"  Ben shook his head.  "No, not after all they've
been through.  Not now.  They'll go back home where it's safe."

"It isn't safe in your world, is it?"

"Hardly."

"It isn't very safe in Landover, either."

"No."

"Do you think it is any safer in the mists?"  Ben thought about that a
moment.  "I don't know.  Maybe not."

Willow nodded.  "Your world has need of unicorns, doesn't it?  The
magic is forgotten?"

"Pretty much."

"Then maybe it doesn't matter that it isn't safe there.  Maybe the need
outweighs the danger.  Maybe at least one unicorn will decide to go
anyway."

"Maybe, but I doubt it."  Willow's head lifted slightly.  "You say it,
but you do not mean it."

He smiled and did not reply.

They reached the foothills, passed through a broad meadow of
red-spotted wildflowers to a stretch of fir, and the kobolds began
scouting ahead for a campsite.  The air had gone cool, and the
approaching twilight gave the land a muted, silvery sheen.  Crickets
had begun to chirp, and geese flew low across a distant lake.  Ben was
thinking about home, about Sterling Silver, and the warmth of the life
that waited there for him.

"I love you," Willow said suddenly.  She didn't look at him, facing
straight ahead as she spoke the words.

Ben nodded.  He was quiet a moment.  "I've been meaning to say
something to you about that.  You tell me you love me all the time, and
I can never say it back to you.  I've been thinking lately about why
that is, and I guess it's because I'm afraid.  It's like taking a
chance you don't have to take.  It's easier to pass it by."

He paused.  "But I don't feel that way right now, right here.  I feel
altogether different.  When you say you love me, I find I want to say
it back to you.  So I guess I will.  I love you, too, Willow.  I think
I always did."

They walked on, not speaking.  He was aware of the increased pressure
of her arm about his.  The day was still and restful, and everything
was at peace.

"The Earth Mother made me promise to look after you, you know," Ben
said finally.  "That's part of what started me thinking about us.  She
made me promise to keep you safe.  She was most insistent."

He could feel Willow's smile more than see it.  "That is because the
Earth Mother knows," she said.

He waited for her to say something more, then glanced down.  "Knows
what?"

"That one day I shall bear your child, High Lord."

Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly

"Oh."

Epilogue

It was two days before Christmas.

Southside Chicago was chill and dreary, the snowfall of the previous
night turned gray and mushy on walks and streets, the squarish highrise
projects and tenements vague shadows in a haze of smoke and mist. Steam
rose out of sewer grates in sudden clouds as sleet pelted down. Not
much of anything was moving.  Cars crawled by like prehistoric beetles,
headlights shining their luminous yellow eyes.  Pedestrians ducked
their heads against the cold, their chins buried in scarves and
collars, their hands jammed into coat pockets.  Late afternoon watched
an early evening's approach in gloomy silence.

The corner of Division and Elm was almost deserted.  Two boys with
leather jackets, a commuting businessman, and a carefully dressed
woman, headed home from shopping, stepped from a bus, and started
walking in different directions.  A shop owner paused to check the
locks on the front door of his plumbing business as he prepared to
close up for the day.  A factory worker on the seven to-three shift
ducked out of Barney Pub after two beers and an hour of unwinding to
begin the trudge two blocks home to his ailing mother.  An old man
carrying a load of groceries shuffled along a sidewalk path left in the
snow by a trail of icy footprints.  A small child engulfed by her
snowsuit played with a sled by the steps other apartment home.

They ignored each other with casual indifference, lost in their own
private thoughts.

The white unicorn flew past them like a bit of strayed light.  It sped
by as if its sole purpose in being was to circle the whole of the world
in a single day.  It never seemed to touch the ground, its graceful,
delicate body gathering and extending in a single fluid motion as it
passed.  All the beauty in the world all that was or could ever be was
captured by its movement.  It was there and gone in an instant.  The
watchers caught their breath, blinked once, and the unicorn had
disappeared.

There followed a moment of uncertainty.  The old man's mouth dropped
open.  The child put down her sled and stared.  The two boys ducked
their heads and muttered urgently.  The businessman looked at the shop
owner and the shop owner looked back.  The carefully dressed woman
remembered all those magical stories of fairies she still enjoyed
reading.  The factory worker thought suddenly of Christmas as a
child.

Then the moment passed, and they all moved on.  Some walked more
quickly, some more slowly.  They glanced over at the misted, empty
street.  What was it they had seen?  Had it really been a unicorn?  No,
it couldn't have been.  There were no such things as unicorns not
really.  And not in cities.  Unicorns lived in forests.  But they had
seen something.  Hadn't they seen something?  Hadn't they?  They walked
on, silent, and there was a warmth within each of them at the memory of
what they had experienced.  There was a feeling of having been a part
of something magical.

They took that feeling home with them.  Some of them kept it for a
time.  Some of them passed it on.

