The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (128 page)

Questor had been studying Elizabeth and Abernathy while Miles was speaking, but now suddenly he started. “Straighten things out!” he exclaimed. “That gives me an idea!” He wheeled and hurried up the aisle to where Michel Ard Rhi and the others still crouched behind the gallery seats. “Let me see,” the wizard muttered to himself. “I think I still remember how this works. Ah!”

He muttered a few quick words, added a few curt gestures, and pointed, one after the other, to Chief Deputy Wilson, to the second deputy, to Michel’s two henchmen, to Martin, and finally to Lloyd Willoughby of Sack, Saul, and McQuinn. All immediately assumed a rather blissful look and settled to the floor sound asleep.

“There!” Questor rubbed his hands together briskly. “When they wake up, they will have had a very pleasant rest and all this will seem a rather vague dream!” He beamed at Miles. “That should make your task somewhat easier!”

Ben glanced at Miles, who was studying the vacant look on Willoughby’s
face suspiciously. The sirens had settled underneath the Courts Building, and a spotlight was playing about the ragged opening in the wall.

“Questor, we have to get out of here!” Ben called sharply. He picked up Willow and cradled her in his arms. “Bring Michel and let’s go!”

“Oh, no, High Lord!” Questor shook his head adamantly. “We can’t have Michel Ard Rhi running about Landover again! He was much too much trouble the last time he was there. I believe he will do better here, in your world.”

Ben started to object, but Questor was already approaching Michel, who was on his feet again and backed up against the courtroom wall. “Stay away from me, Questor Thews,” he was snarling. “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Michel, Michel, Michel!” Questor sighed wearily. “You were always such a pathetic excuse for a Prince, and it seems you have not changed. You appear determined to bring unpleasantness into the lives of everyone around you. I simply don’t understand it. In any case, you are going to have to change—even if I have to help you.”

Michel crouched. “Don’t come near me, you old fool. You play tricks with your magic that might fool others, but not me! You always were a charlatan, a pretend wizard who couldn’t
begin
to do real magic, a ridiculous clown everyone …”

Questor made a short chopping motion, and the words ceased to come out of Michel Ard Rhi’s mouth, even though he continued trying to speak. When he realized what had been done to him, he reeled back in horror.

“We can all improve ourselves in this life, Michel,” Questor whispered. “You just never learned how.”

He made a series of intricate motions and spoke softly. There was a wisp of golden dust that flew from his fingers and settled onto Michel Ard Rhi. The exiled Prince of Landover shrank back, then stiffened, and his eyes seemed to catch sight of something very far away, something that none of the others could see. He relaxed, and there was a strange mix of horror and understanding mirrored in his face.

Questor turned away and started back down the aisle. “Should have done that a long time ago,” he muttered. “Simple sort of magic, best kind there is. Strong enough to last, too, even in this barbaric world of nonbelievers.”

He stopped momentarily as he reached Abernathy and Elizabeth, and he put his gnarled hands on the little girl’s shoulders. “I am sorry, Elizabeth, but Abernathy is right. You cannot come with us. You belong here, with your father and your friends. This is your home, not Landover. And there is a reason for that, just as there is a reason for most of what happens in life. I won’t pretend that I understand all of what that reason is, but I understand a bit of it. You believe in the magic, don’t you? Well, that is surely part of why you are here. Every world needs someone who believes in the magic—to make certain that it isn’t forgotten by those who don’t.”

He bent to kiss her forehead. “See what you can do, will you?”

He continued down the aisle past Ben. “Do not worry, High Lord. She will have no further problem with Michel Ard Rhi, I assure you.”

“How do you know that?” Ben asked. “What did you do to him?”

But the wizard was already through the gate and climbing back up on the dragon. “I’ll explain later, High Lord. We really have to be going now. Right this instant, I think.”

He motioned back up the aisle, and Ben could see that the wall of foliage blocking the courtroom entry was beginning to fade. In moments, the entry would be clear again.

“Get out of here, Doc!” Miles whispered roughly. “Good luck!”

Ben clutched the other’s arm for a moment, then released him and carried Willow through the courtroom debris to where Strabo had swung about to face the opening in the wall. The dragon eyed Ben malevolently, hissed, and showed all of his teeth. “Ride me, Holiday,” he invited menacingly. “It will be the last chance you will ever have to do so.”

“Strabo. I would never have believed it,” Ben marveled.

“I care nothing for what you believe,” the dragon snarled. “Quit wasting my time!”

Ben cradled Willow tightly against him and started to mount. “It must have taken a small miracle for Questor to …” He stopped at the sudden sound of approaching helicopters, their rotors whipping through the night.

Strabo’s lips curled back. “What is that I hear?” he hissed.

“Trouble,” Ben answered, and hitched his way up quickly behind Questor. Willow opened her eyes briefly and closed them again. Ben squeezed her shoulders and pulled her close. “Hurry up, Abernathy!”

Elizabeth was hugging the dog once more. “I still want to go with you!” she whispered fiercely. “I still do!”

“I know,” he whispered back, then broke free roughly. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Good-bye.”

The others were calling out to him. He was halfway through the shattered gallery gate to join them when he heard Elizabeth call frantically, “Abernathy!” He turned at once. “Come back? Please? Someday?”

He paused, then nodded. “I promise, Elizabeth.”

“Don’t forget about me!”

“I won’t. Not ever.”

“I love you, Abernathy,” she said.

He smiled, tried to respond, then simply licked at his nose and hurried away. He was crying when he pulled himself up behind Ben. “Sorry, High Lord,” he said softly.

“Home, dragon!” Questor Thews cried.

Strabo hissed in response and lifted clear of the shattered courtroom.

Wind blew and dust swirled with the beating of the great beast’s wings; the lights that remained flickered and went out, and the dragon seemed to fill the whole of the night. A thing out of legend and bedtime tales, he was real for yet another instant to the man and the child who watched. Then he flew through the opening in the wall and was gone.

Miles walked back up the aisle to where Elizabeth was staring out into the dark. He stood there with her in silence, smiling as he felt her hand come up to take his own.

S
trabo burst through the opening in the wall of the Courts Building five stories up and nearly collided with a helicopter. Machine and beast veered away from each other, slicing through the chill night air and the narrow beams of several spotlights situated in the streets below. Neither was sure of what the other had encountered, each a dark shape against the city, and the confusion was evident. The helicopter disappeared skyward with a roar of its engine. Strabo dropped down between the buildings, flattening out.

There were screams from the people in the streets.

“Climb, dragon!” Questor Thews cried frantically.

Strabo soared skyward once more, arcing between a pair of tall buildings, steam rolling off his scaled hide. Ben and his companions clung to him for dear life despite the fact that Questor’s magic strapped them all securely in place. The helicopter roared back around the corner of a building, lights searching. A second ship followed. Strabo shrieked.

“Tell him not to use his fire on them!” Ben cried to Questor in warning, picturing flaming ships and buildings and Miles and Elizabeth in jail.

“He can’t!” Questor shouted back, head bent close. “His magic is as limited in this world as my own! He has only a little fire and he must save it if we are to make the crossover!”

Ben had forgotten. Strabo needed his fire to open a passage back into Landover. That was how he had brought them out of Abaddon when the demons had trapped them there.

They dodged and twisted, but the helicopters followed. Strabo rounded the corner of a building and shot out toward the bay. Wharfs, piers and jettys, shipyards with their dry docks and containers of freight, giant cranes that looked like goose-necked dinosaurs, and a kaleidoscope of vessels of all sizes and shapes passed away underneath. Ahead, far beyond, loomed a massive range of mountains. Below, the lights of the city winked and flashed.

A ship whistle sounded with a shriek, frightening them all with its closeness. Strabo shuddered, twisted left, and began to climb. Ben squinted. Something huge loomed close behind, dropping rapidly, small red and green lights blinking.

“A jet!” he cried in frantic warning. “Look out, Questor!”

Questor screamed something to Strabo, and the dragon whipped aside, just as the huge airplane dropped past on its path of descent. Engines roared, the wind screamed, and every other sound disappeared into white silence.

Strabo came around again and started back for the city, blackened teeth showing.

“No!” Questor howled. “Climb, dragon—take us home!”

But Strabo was too infuriated. He wanted someone or something to fight. Steam blew in jets from his nostrils and there were strange, frightening sounds emanating from his throat.

He passed back over the harbor and spotted the helicopters. He roared in challenge, and now fire burned redly from his jaws.

Ben was wild. “Turn him, Questor! If he uses up all his fire, we’ll be trapped here!”

Questor Thews shouted in warning at the dragon, but Strabo ignored him. He went straight for the helicopters, slashed between them so that they were forced to veer frantically aside to avoid a collision, then sped back into the midst of the city buildings. Spotlights whipped across the sky in search of them. Ben was certain he could hear people screaming. He was certain he could hear gunfire. Strabo, heaven help them, was flying blind.

Then, just when it appeared that matters were completely out of control, the dragon seemed to remember himself. With a shriek that froze the entire night into stillness, Strabo suddenly shot skyward. Ben, Questor, Abernathy, and Willow were thrust back viciously. Wind whipped and tore at them, threatening to unseat them, chilling them to the bone. Sound and sight disappeared in a vortex of motion. Ben held his breath and waited for them all to disintegrate. That was how this chase was going to end, he decided. They were simply going to come apart. There wasn’t any doubt of it.

He was wrong. Strabo shrieked a second time and suddenly breathed out a rush of fire. The air seemed to melt and the sky to open. A jagged hole appeared, black and empty, and they flew into it.

The blackness swallowed them. There was a flare of light and a surge of heat. Ben closed his eyes, then slowly opened them again.

A scattering of colored moons and solemn, twinkling stars brightened the night like a child’s picture book. Mountain walls rose all about and trailers of mist played hide-and-seek through craggy peaks and great, silent trees.

Ben Holiday let his breath escape in a slow hiss of relief.

They were home.

STOPPER

T
he little company spent the remainder of that night on the western slope of the valley just north of the Heart. They settled themselves in a grove of fruit trees mixed with a scattering of crimson-leaved maples, the smell of berries and apples mingling with hardwood bark and new sap in the cool night air. Cicadas hummed, crickets chirped, night birds called from near and far, and the whole of the valley whispered in the softest cadence that all was well. Sleep was an old and valued friend on such a night. For all but one of the worn and harried members of the little company, it came easily.

Ben Holiday alone remained awake. Even Strabo slept, curled up some distance off within the shelter of a low ravine, but Ben stayed awake. Sleep would not come for him. He leaned back against Willow and waited for the dawn, troubled and anxious. Willow was a tree now. She had made the transformation moments after they had eased her down off the back of the dragon, barely conscious. She had tried to reassure Ben with a quick squeeze of one hand and a momentary smile, and then she was changing. Ben remained unconvinced. He stayed awake next to her, wishing that it was not just in his imagination that he could seem to hear the sound of her breathing grow steadily stronger, smoother, deeper in tone. He knew she believed the transformation was necessary, that whatever the nature of the illness that had ravaged her in his world, whatever the form of the poison that attacked her, the soil of her own world would heal her. Maybe yes, maybe no, Ben thought. He had seen it work before, but that was before. He continued to keep an uneasy watch.