Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! (9 page)

When he opened his eyes again, he sat alone in a clover meadow.

Sunshine seeped down through rifts in a clouded sky, bathing the meadow with bits and pieces of its warmth. Ben blinked and squinted through its brightness. The misted forest with its shadowed tunnel was gone. The apparitions were gone as well—that black thing, the battered knight, even the dragon.

Ben straightened. What in the hell had happened to them? He brushed at the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Hadn’t they been real after all?

He swallowed hard. No, of course they weren’t real! they couldn’t have been! They were just some sort of mirage!

He glanced about quickly. The meadow in which he sat spread away before him in a carpet of muted greens, blues and pinks, a mix of colors he had never seen in grasses. The clover was white, but touched with crimson spots. The meadow dropped downward into a sprawling valley which rose again miles distant in a wall of mountains that formed a dark barrier against the skyline. Behind him, the trees of a forest loomed blackly against a mountain slope. Trailers of mist hung over everything.

The apparitions had been somewhere in the trees behind him, he thought suddenly. Where had they disappeared to?

And where was he?

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. He was still shaken from his ordeal in the forest tunnel, frightened by the dark things that had come at him, bewildered that he was sitting here in this meadow. He took several deep breaths to steady himself. Whatever it was that had seemed to threaten him in that forest, he was all right now. He was back in the Blue Ridge. He was in Virginia, some twenty miles or so below Waynesboro, a few miles in from the parkway that ran through the George Washington National Forest.

Except that…

He glanced about once again, more carefully this time. Something wasn’t quite right. The weather was wrong, for one thing. It was too warm for late November in the Virginia mountains. He was sweating beneath his running suit and he shouldn’t have been doing that, even with the scare he had just experienced. The air had been cooler than this by at least thirty degrees before he had entered that tunnel in the forest.

The clover was wrong, too. There shouldn’t be clover blooming in November—especially clover that looked like this, white with crimson spots, like a polka-dot flower. He looked back at the forest. Why were there still leaves as green as summer’s new growth on the trees? The leaves should be colored with autumn’s touch. The only green should be on the pines and spruce.

He shoved himself hurriedly to one knee. A mix of panic and excitement crept through him. The sun was directly overhead, exactly where it ought to be. But in the distant skies two spheres hung low against the horizon—one faintly peach, the other a sort of washed-out mauve. Ben started. Moons? Two of them? No, they had to be planets. But when had the planets of his solar system ever been so clearly visible to the naked eye?

What in the hell was going on?

He sat back slowly, forcing himself to remain calm. There
was a logical explanation for all of this, he reasoned, fighting back against a mix of panic and excitement. The explanation was simple. This was what he had been promised. This was Landover. He glanced about at the green meadow with its spotted clover, at the summer trees of the forest, at the odd-looking spheres hanging above the horizon, and he nodded sagely. There was nothing to worry about. This was just more of the special effects he had experienced in the forest tunnel. This was only a broader projection of such effects within a pocket of land hidden away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He wasn’t sure how it had been managed— especially in the middle of a national forest—but he was sure of what it was. He had to admit that it was pretty amazing. The valley with its summer temperatures could have been a lucky discovery, but the odd flowers, the spheres that looked like planets or moons, and the apparitions in the forest tunnel must have taken some effort and scientific know-how to create.

He came to his feet, slowly rebuilding his confidence. His experience in the forest had unnerved him badly. That black thing and the knight had seemed almost real. The knight’s horse had felt very real when it galloped past, knocking him from the trail into the shadows. And he could still feel the breath of the dragon on his face. He might almost have believed …

He stopped short. His gaze, wandering across the floor of the valley below as he puzzled matters through, had caught sight of something.

It was a castle.

Ben stared. A huge swatch of green dominated the central portion of the valley, a checkerboard of meadows and fields dissected by meandering rivers. The castle stood at the near end of that checkerboard. An odd haze that hung over the whole of the valley had obscured his vision at first. But now he was beginning to pick things out, to see things clearly.

One of those things was the castle.

The castle was some miles distant from where he stood,
swathed in mist and shadows beyond a deep forest. It sat upon an island in the middle of a lake, forest and hills all about, patches of mist floating past like clouds dropped down to earth. It was a dark and forbidding citadel, appearing almost ghostlike within the swirling haze.

He squinted against the muted light of the sun to see more clearly. But the mist closed suddenly, and the castle was gone.

“Damn!” he muttered softly.

Had that been an apparition as well—another of Landover’s special effects? A faint suspicion was beginning to gnaw at him. Was it possible that all of these special effects were not special effects at all? He felt a twinge of the panic and excitement return. What if everything he was seeing was real?

A voice boomed out behind him, and he jumped a foot.

“Well, then, here you are, wandering about in this meadow—not at all where you were supposed to be. Did you stray from the pathway? You look a bit fatigued, if you don’t mind my saying so. Are you all right?”

Ben turned at once. The speaker stood about ten feet behind him—a bizarre caricature of some pop artist’s gypsy. He was a tall man, well over six feet, but so lean as to be almost sticklike. A mop of curling white hair hung down over large ears, wisps of it mingling with beard and brows of the same color and kind. Gray robes cloaked the scarecrow form, but they were decorated with an array of brilliant sashes, cloth pouches, and jewelry that left the wearer looking something like a fragmented rainbow pinned against a departing thunderstorm. Soft leather boots too big for the feet curled up slightly at the toes and a hawklike nose dominated a pinched and owlish face. A gnarled walking stick guided the way as he came a step closer.

“You are Ben Holiday, aren’t you?” the fellow asked, a sudden glint of suspicion in his eyes. A massive crystal dangled from a chain about his throat, and he stuffed it rather
self-consciously into the recesses of his robes. “You do have the medallion?”

Ben didn’t care for the look. “Who are you?” he replied trying to put the other man on the defensive.

“Ah, I asked you first.” The other smiled amiably. “Courtesy dictates that you answer first.”

Ben stiffened, a touch of impatience in his voice at being forced to play this cat-and-mouse game. “Okay. I’m Ben Holiday. Now who are you?”

“Yes, well, I will have to see the medallion.” The smile broadened slightly. “You could be anyone, after all. Saying that you are Ben Holiday doesn’t necessarily make it so.”

“You could be anyone, too, couldn’t you?” Ben asked in reply. “What gives you the right to ask me anything without first telling me who you are?”

“I am the one sent to meet you, as it happens—assuming, of course, that you are who you claim. Could I see the medallion?”

Ben hesitated, then pulled the medallion from beneath his clothing and, without removing it, held it out for examination. The tall man leaned forward, peered momentarily at the medallion and nodded.

“You are indeed who you claim. I apologize for questioning you, but caution is always well advised in these matters. And now for my own introduction.” He bowed deeply from the waist. “Questor Thews, wizard of the court, chief advisor to the throne of Landover, your obedient servant.”

“Wizard of the …” Ben glanced sharply about one time more. “Then this
is
Landover!”

“Landover and nowhere else. Welcome, High Lord Ben Holiday.”

“So this is it,” Ben murmured, his mind racing suddenly. He looked again at the other. “Where are we exactly?”

Questor Thews seemed puzzled. “Landover, High Lord.”

“Yes, but where is Landover? I mean, where is Landover in the Blue Ridge? It must be close to Waynesboro, am I right?”

The wizard smiled. “Oh, well, you are no longer in your world. I thought you understood that. Landover bridges any number of worlds—a kind of gateway, you might say. The mists of the fairy realm connect her to your world and the others. Some bridge closer, of course, and some don’t even have the barrier of the mists. But you will learn all that soon enough.”

Ben stared. “I’m not in my world? This isn’t Virginia?”

Questor Thews shook his head.

“Or the United States or North America or Earth? None of it?”

“No, High Lord. Did you think that the fairy-tale kingdom you bought would be in your world?”

Ben didn’t hear him, a desperate obstinacy seizing hold. “I suppose that those planets in the sky over there aren’t fake, either? I suppose that they’re real?”

Questor turned. “Those are moons, not planets. Landover has eight of them. Only two are visible in the daylight hours, but the other six can be seen as well after dusk during most of the year.”

Ben stared. Then he shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe any of this. I don’t believe one word of it.”

Questor Thews looked at him curiously. “Why do you not believe, High Lord?”

“Because a place like this can’t exist, damn it!”

“But you chose to come here, didn’t you? Why would you come to Landover in the first place, if you did not believe that it could exist?”

Ben had no idea. He was no longer certain why it was that he had come. He was certain of only one thing—that he could not bring himself to accept what the other man was saying. Panic flooded through him at the very thought that Landover could be somewhere other than on Earth. He had never dreamed that it would be anywhere else. It meant that all of his ties with his old life were truly severed, that everything he had once known was really gone. It meant that he was alone in an alien world …

“High Lord, would you mind if we walked while we carry on this conversation?” the wizard interrupted his thoughts. “We have a good distance to cover before nightfall.”

“We do? Where are we going?”

“To your castle, High Lord.”

“My castle? Wait a minute—do you mean that castle that I saw just before you appeared, the one in the middle of the lake on an island?”

The other nodded. “The very place, High Lord. Shall we be on our way?”

Ben shook his head stubbornly. “Not a chance. I’m not going anywhere until I find out exactly what’s going on. What about what happened to me in the forest! Are you telling me all that was real? Are you telling me there actually was a dragon sleeping back there in the trees?”

Questor shrugged nonchalantly. “There could have been. There is a dragon in the valley—and he often naps at the fringes of the mists. The mists were his home once.”

Ben frowned. “His home, huh? Well, what about that black, winged thing and its rider?”

The wizard’s shaggy brows lifted slightly. “A black, winged thing, you say? A thing that seemed a nightmare, perhaps?”

Ben nodded his head anxiously. “Yes—that was what it seemed.”

“That was the Iron Mark.” The other pursed his lips. “The Mark is a demon lord. I am surprised he would come after you there in the mists. I would have thought…” He stopped, smiled a quick smile of reassurance and shrugged. “A demon strays into Landover now and again. You happened to come across one of the worst.”

“Come across it, my aunt Agatha!” Ben flared. “It was hunting me! It chased me down that forest tunnel and would have had me if not for that knight!”

This time Questor Thews’ brows lifted a good deal further. “Knight? What knight?” he demanded quickly.

“The knight—the one on the medallion!”

“You saw the knight on the medallion, Ben Holiday?”

Ben hesitated, surprised at the other’s sharp interest. “I saw him in the forest, after the black thing came at me. He appeared in front of me and rode at the black thing. I was caught between them, but the knight’s horse side-swiped me and knocked me from the trail. The next thing I knew I was sitting here in this meadow.”

Questor Thews frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, the horse knocking you from the pathway would account for your appearance here rather than at your appointed destination …” He trailed off, then came slowly forward, bending close to look into Ben’s eyes. “You might have imagined the knight, High Lord. You might have only thought to see him. Were you to think back on it, you might see something entirely different.”

Ben flushed. “Were I to think back on it, I would see exactly the same thing exactly.” He kept his gaze steady. “I would see the knight on the medallion.”