The Black Unicorn (33 page)

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.

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.