The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (82 page)

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.

MIRWOUK AND FLYNT

W
illow 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, and 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 woven 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 give it to her. All the fairy songs, music, tears, and laughter 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 and 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. Forgo 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 reflection 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 her 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.

S
he 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.