But Questor Thews was having none of it. Again, he brushed himself off and got back to his feet. “Laugh at me, will you, dragon?” he snapped. “Laugh at a master practitioner of the magic arts? Very well then—laugh this off!”
Both hands lifted and wove rapidly through the air. Strabo was preparing to send forth another jet of flame when a cloudburst broke immediately overhead and torrents of rain cascaded over him. “Now, stop that!” he howled, but in seconds he was drenched snout to tail. His flame fizzled into steam, and he ducked his head into one of the pools of fire to escape the downpour. When he came up again for air, Questor made a second gesture and the rain ceased.
“There, you see?” the wizard said to Abernathy, nodding in satisfaction. “He won’t be quite so quick to laugh next time!” Then he turned back once more to the dragon. “Rather amusing yourself!” he called over.
Strabo flapped his leathered wings, shook himself off, and glared. “It appears that you will continue to make a nuisance of yourself, Questor Thews, until I either put an end to you or listen to whatever it is that you feel compelled to say. I repeat, I am in a charitable mood tonight. So say what it is you feel you must and be done with it.”
“Thank you very much!” Questor replied. “May we come down?”
The dragon plopped his head back on the edge of the crater and stretched out again. “Do what you please.”
Questor beckoned to his companions. Slowly, they made their way down the side of the ravine and through the maze of craters and rocks until they were twenty yards or so from where the dragon reposed. Strabo ignored them, eyes lidded, snout inhaling the fumes and fires of the crater on which he rested.
“You know I hate water, Questor Thews,” he muttered.
“We have come here to learn something about unicorns,” Questor announced, ignoring him.
Strabo belched. “Read a book.”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Several. But they lack the information about unicorns that you possess. Everyone knows that unicorns and dragons are the oldest of fairy creatures and the oldest of enemies. Each of you knows more of the other than anyone else, fairy or human. I need to know something of unicorns that no one else would.”
“Whatever for?” Strabo sounded bored again. “Besides, why should I help you? You serve that detestable human who tricked me into inhaling Io Dust and then made me pledge never to hunt the valley or its people so long as he remained King! He is still King, isn’t he? Bah! Of course he is—I would have heard otherwise! Ben Holiday, Landover’s High Lord! I would make a quick meal of him, if he were ever to set foot in the springs again!”
“Well, it is highly unlikely that he will. Besides, we are here about unicorns, not about the High Lord.” Questor thought it prudent not to dwell on the subject of Ben Holiday. Strabo had taken great pleasure in ravaging the crops and livestock of the valley before the High Lord had put a stop to it. It was a pleasure the dragon would dearly love to enjoy again—and well might one day the way Holiday was behaving lately. But there was no reason to give the dragon any encouragement.
He cleared his throat officiously. “I assume that you have heard about the black unicorn?”
The dragon’s eyes snapped open and his head lifted.
“The black unicorn? Of course. Is it back again, wizard?”
Questor nodded sagely. “For some time now. I am surprised that you didn’t know. There was quite an effort put forth to capture it.”
“Capture it? A unicorn?” Strabo laughed, a series of rough coughs and hisses. His massive body shook with mirth. “The humans would capture a unicorn? How pitiful! No one captures a unicorn, wizard—even you must know that! Unicorns are untouchable!”
“Some think not.”
The dragon’s lip curled. “Some are fools!”
“Then the unicorn is safe? There is nothing that can ensnare it, nothing that can cause it to be held?”
“Nothing!”
“Not maidens of certain virtue nor silver moonlight captured in a fairy net?”
“Old wives’ tales!”
“Not magic of any sort?”
“Magic? Well …” Strabo seemed to hesitate.
Questor took a chance. “Not bridles of spun gold?”
The dragon stared at the wizard voicelessly. There was, Questor Thews realized in surprise, a look of disbelief on the creature’s face.
He cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Not bridles of spun gold?’ ”
And it was at that moment that Nightshade, the stranger who believed himself Ben Holiday, and two sorry-looking G’home Gnomes appeared abruptly out of a swirl of mist not a dozen feet away.
There was an endlessly long moment in which everyone stared at everyone else. It was impossible to tell who was most surprised. Eyes shifted, fixed, and shifted again. Tall forms crouched and robes billowed. The dragon’s hiss of warning mingled with that of the witch. Abernathy growled in spite of himself. Night had closed down upon the little still life in a black mantle that threatened to engulf them all. In the silence, there was only the crackle and spit of the flames as they danced across the cratered pools of blue liquid.
“You are not welcome here, Nightshade,” Strabo whispered finally, his rough voice a rasp of iron. He rose up from the edge of the crater on which he had been resting in a guarded crouch, claws digging into the stone until it cracked and broke. “You are never welcome.”
Nightshade laughed mirthlessly, her pale face streaked with shadow. “I might be welcome this time, dragon,” she replied. “I have brought you something.”
Questor Thews realized suddenly that the two G’home Gnomes standing next to the witch and the stranger who thought himself Ben Holiday were none other than Fillip and Sot! “Abernathy …!” he exclaimed softly, but the dog was already saying, “I know, wizard! But what are they doing here?”
Questor had no idea at all. Questor had no idea about any of what was happening.
Strabo’s massive head lifted and the long tongue licked out. “Why would you bother to bring me anything, witch?”
Nightshade straightened gracefully, her arms folding in about her once more. “Ask me first what it is that I bring,” she whispered.
“There is nothing you could bring me that I would wish. There is no point in asking.”
“Ah, even if what I bring is that which you most desire in all the world? Even if it is that dear to you?”
Ben Holiday was frantically trying to decide how he was going to get out of this mess. There were no friends to be found in this bunch. Questor, Abernathy, and Bunion believed him an impostor and a fool. Fillip and Sot, if they still believed anything about him at all, were interested by this time only in escaping with their hides intact. Nightshade had kept him alive this long strictly for the purpose of striking a bargain with Strabo, who would be only too happy to do away with him for her. He cast about desperately, looking for a way out that apparently didn’t exist.
Strabo’s tail thrashed within a pool of fire and sent a shower of liquid flames skyward against the dark. Ben flinched. “I tire of games this night,” the dragon snapped. “Get to the point!”
Nightshade’s eyes glimmered crimson. “What if I were to offer you Landover’s High Lord, the one they call Holiday? What if I were to offer you that, dragon?”
Strabo’s snout curled and the crusted face tightened. “I would accept that gift gladly!” the dragon hissed.
Ben took a tentative step backward and found he could not. The G’home Gnomes were still fastened to him like leg irons. They were shaking and mumbling incoherently and preventing him quite effectively from making any quick moves. When he tried surreptitiously to pry them free, they just clung to him all the tighter.
“The High Lord is at Sterling Silver!” Questor Thews declared suddenly, anger showing in his owlish face. “You have no power over him there, Nightshade! Besides, he would rid the valley of you in a moment if you were to show yourself!”
“Really?” Nightshade drew th
e word out lovingly, teasingly. Then she came forward a step, one long finger impaling Questor on its shadow. “When I have finished my business here, wizard—when your precious High Lord is no more—then will I deal with you!”
Ben fixed a pleading gaze on his friends. Get out of here! he tried to tell them.
Nightshade swung back again to Strabo. One clawed hand fastened on Ben’s arm and dragged him forward. “Here is the one the foolish wizard believes so safe from me, Strabo! Ben Holiday, High Lord of Landover! Look closely now! Magic has been used! Look beneath the exterior of what you first see!”
Strabo snorted derisively, belched a quick burst of flame, and laughed. “This one? This is Holiday? Nightshade, you are mad!” He leaned closer, the ooze dripping from his snout. “This one doesn’t even begin to look like … No, wait—you are right, there is magic at work here. What has been done …” The massive head dipped and raised, and the eyes blinked. “Can this be so?”
“Look closely!” Nightshade repeated once again, thrusting Ben before her so hard his head snapped back.
Everyone was looking at Ben now, but only Strabo saw the truth. “Yes!” he hissed, and the massive tail thrashed once more in satisfaction. “Yes, it is Holiday!” The jaws parted and the blackened teeth snapped. “But why is it that only you and I …?”
“Because only we are older than the magic that does this!” Nightshade anticipated and answered the question before the dragon could complete it. “Do you understand how it has been done?”
Ben, prize exhibit that he was, wanted nothing more than to hear the answer to that question. He had accepted the fact that he was not going to get out of this in one piece, but he hated to think he was going to die without ever knowing how he had been undone.
“But … but that’s not the High Lord!” Questor Thews declared angrily, sounding suddenly as if he were trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. “That cannot be the High Lord! If this is … is … then, the High Lord is …”
He trailed off, a strange look of understanding crossing his face, a look of disbelief shredded by horror, a look that screamed soundlessly a single name—Meeks! Bunion was hissing and pulling at his arm, and Abernathy was muttering frantically about how all this could explain someone-or-other’s odd behavior.
All three were pointedly ignored by the dragon and the witch.
“Why would you give him to me?” Strabo was demanding of Nightshade, wary now of what was being offered.
“I said nothing of ‘giving’ you anything, dragon,” Nightshade replied softly. “I wish to trade him.”
“Trade him, witch? You hate him more than I! He sent you into the fairy world and almost destroyed you. He marked you with the magic! Why would you trade him? What could I possess that you would want more than Holiday?”
Nightshade smiled coldly. “Oh, yes, I hate him. And I wish him destroyed. But the pleasure shall be yours, Strabo. You need only give me one thing. Give me back the bridle of spun gold.”
“The bridle?” Strabo’s response came with a hiss of disbelief. He coughed. “What bridle?”
“The bridle!” Nightshade snapped. “The bridle that you stole from me while I was helpless to prevent it. The bridle that is rightfully mine!”
“Bah! Nothing you possess is rightfully yours—least of all the bridle! You yourself stole it from that old wizard!”
“Be that as it may, dragon, the bridle is what I wish!”
“Ah, well, of course, if that is what you wish …” The dragon seemed to be hedging. “But surely, Nightshade, there are other treasures that I possess that would serve you better than such a simple toy! Suggest something else, something of greater worth!”
The witch’s eyes narrowed. “Now who is it that plays games? I have decided on the bridle and it is the bridle that I shall have!”
Ben had been momentarily forgotten. Nightshade had released him and he had slipped back behind her again, the gnomes still clinging to his legs. As he listened to the bartering, he caught Questor Thews studying him with renewed interest. Abernathy peered over the magician’s shoulder through smoke-streaked glasses, and Bunion peered from behind a fold of robe. All were clearly trying to decide how he could be someone other than what he appeared. Ben gritted his teeth and motioned them frantically away with a shake of his head. For crying out loud, they were all going to end up fried!
“It is simply that I fail to see why the bridle is of such interest to you,” Strabo was saying, neck curving upward into the dark so that he loomed over the witch.
“And I fail to see what difference it makes!” Nightshade snapped, straightening up a bit further herself. Firelight danced across her marble face. “I fail to see why you make such an issue of returning what is mine to begin with!”
Strabo sniffed. “I need explain nothing to you!”
“Indeed, you need not! Just give me the bridle!”
“I think not. You wish it too badly.”
“And you wish Holiday not enough!”
“Oh, but I do! Why not accept a chest of gold or a fairy scepter that changes moonbeams into silver coins? Why not take a gemstone marked with runes that belonged to the Trolls when the power of magic was theirs as well—a gemstone that can give truth to the holder?”
“I don’t want truth! I don’t want gold or scepters or anything else you hold, you fat lizard!” Nightshade was genuinely mad now, her voice rising to a near scream. “I want the bridle! Give it to me or Holiday will never be yours!”
She edged forward threateningly, leaving Holiday and the G’home Gnomes half-a-dozen paces behind her. It was the closest to freedom that Ben had been since his capture at the Deep Fell. As the voices of the witch and dragon grew more strident, he began to think that maybe—just maybe—there might be a way out of this yet.
He pried Fillip forcibly from his right leg, held him dangling from the crook of his arm, and began to work Sot free from his left.
“One last time, dragon,” Nightshade was saying. “Will you trade me the bridle for Holiday or not?”
Strabo gave a long sigh of disappointment. “I am afraid, dear witch, that I cannot.”
Nightshade stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then her lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. “You don’t have the bridle anymore, do you? That is why you won’t trade it to me! You don’t have it!”
Strabo sniffed. “Alas, quite true.”
“You bloated mass of scales!” The witch was shaking with fury. “What have you done with it?”
“What I have done with it is my concern!” Strabo snapped in reply, looking more than a bit put upon. He sighed again. “Well, if you must know, I gave it away.”
“You gave it away?” The witch was aghast.
Strabo breathed a long, delicate stream of fire into the night air and followed it with a trail of ashy vapor. The lidded eyes blinked and seemed momentarily distant. “I gave it to a fairy girl who sang to me of beauty and light and things a dragon longs to hear. No maiden has sung to me in many centuries, you know, and I would have given much more than the bridle for a chance to become lost again in such sweet music.”
“You gave the bridle away for a song?” Nightshade spoke the words as if trying to convince herself that they had meaning.
“A memory means more than any tangible treasure.” The dragon sighed once more. “Dragons have always had a weakness for beautiful women, maidens of certain virtue, girls of grace and sweet smiles. There is a bond that joins us. A bond stronger than that of dragons and wizards, I might add,” he addressed Questor Thews in a quick aside. “She sang to me, this girl, and asked me in return for the bridle of spun gold. I gave it to her gladly.” He actually seemed to smile. “She was quite beautiful, this sylph.”
Ben started. A sylph? Willow!
The dragon’s head dipped solemnly toward Ben. “I helped give her back her life once,” he intoned. “Remember? You commanded it, Holiday. I flew her out of Abaddon to her home in the lake country where she could
be healed. I didn’t mind that so much—the saving of her life. I hated you, of course—you forced me to submit to you. But I rather enjoyed saving the sylph. It reminded me of the old days when saving maidens was routine work for a dragon.”
He paused. “Or was it devouring them? I can never remember which.”
“You are a fool!” Nightshade spat.
Strabo cocked his head as if thinking it over. Then his snout split wide to reveal all of his considerable teeth. “Do you really think so? A fool? Me? A bigger fool than you, witch? So big a fool as to venture unprotected into the lair of my worst enemy?”
The silence was palpable. Nightshade was a statue. “I am never unprotected, dragon. Beware.”
“Beware? How quaint.” Strabo suddenly coiled like a spring. “I have endured patiently your venomous assault on my character; I have allowed you to speak what you wished. Now it is my turn. You are a skinny, pathetic excuse for witchhood who believes herself far more powerful than she is. You come into my home as if you belong here, order me about, call me names, demand things you have no right to demand, and think you can go right out again. You mistake yourself, Nightshade. I might, had I the chance to do it over again, keep the bridle of spun gold so that I could trade it to you for Holiday. I might. But I regret nothing that I have ever done, and this least of all. The bridle is gone, and I do not wish it back again.”
He bent forward slowly. The rough voice changed to a slow hiss. “But look—Holiday is still here, witch! And since you brought him expressly for me, I rather think I ought to keep him! Don’t you?”
Nightshade’s fingers were like claws as they lifted before her lean face. “You will take nothing more from me, dragon—not now, not ever!”
“Ah, but you have only yourself to blame. You have made the prospect of destroying Holiday so tempting that I cannot resist your lure! I must have him! He is mine to destroy, bridle or no! I think you had best give him to me—now!”
Flames burst from the maw of the dragon and engulfed Nightshade. At the same moment, Ben ripped Sot free at last of his left leg and flung himself sideways to escape the backlash of heat and fire. Questor Thews was moving as well, all arms and legs as he galloped toward Ben. Bunion sprinted past him, ears flattened back. Abernathy went down on all fours and scurried for the safety of the bushes.