The Black Unicorn (14 page)

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.

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 midmorning 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 recognize
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.