“Wait!” Abernathy fairly shouted. “What are you doing, girl? Do not touch that creature! Don’t you realize what will happen to you?”
“Stay away from me, Abernathy,” she replied softly, but hesitated nevertheless.
“Are you as mad as the rest of them?” the dog snapped angrily. “Has everyone gone crazy? Doesn’t anyone but me understand what is happening? The dreams are a lie, Willow! Meeks brought us to this place, tricked us into serving his interests, and made fools of us all! That unicorn is probably something that belongs to him! You cannot know what its purpose might be! Do not touch it!”
She glanced quickly back at the dog. “I have to. I need to.”
Abernathy started forward, saw the look of warning in the sylph’s green eyes, and quickly stopped. “Willow, do not do this! You know the stories, the legends!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You will be lost, girl!”
She stared silently at him for a long moment, then smiled. “But that is exactly the point, Abernathy. I am already lost.”
Her hands came up swiftly and fastened about the neck of the black unicorn.
It was as if a cold fire swept through her. The fire burned from her hands into her arms and down her body. She stiffened against its feel and shuddered heavily. She threw back her head and gasped for breath. She heard Abernathy call out frantically from behind her and then lost track of him. He was there, but no longer visible to her. She could see nothing now but the face of the unicorn before her, a disembodied shape against a backdrop of space. The fire consumed her, mingled with her desire, and turned it into unrestrained passion. She was losing control of herself, beginning to come apart. A moment longer, and she would cease to be herself entirely.
She tried to remove her hands from the fairy creature’s neck and found she could not. She was joined to the unicorn. She was one with it.
Then the ridged horn began to glow white with magic, and a jumble of images ripped through her mind. There was a place of empty coldness. There were chains and fire, tapestries of white on which unicorns bounded and leaped, dark-robed wizards, and spells being cast in endless succession. There was Meeks, Ben, and the Paladin.
And finally there was a cry of such terror and longing that it shattered the images as if they had been formed of glass.
Set me free!
The pain of that cry was too much for her to bear. She screamed, and her scream jerked her sharply backward, tearing her free at last of the unicorn. She stumbled and almost fell—would have fallen, had not Abernathy’s arms come quickly about her to hold her upright.
“I saw!” she gasped and could speak no more.
But the sound of her scream still echoed through the trees.
The scream reached Ben Holiday as he knelt alone in the forest beside the tiny stream, restored to himself at last, the medallion of Landover’s High Lords a brilliant silver wonder cradled gingerly, unbelievingly within the cup of his hands. The scream rose out of the trees, a thin, high wail of anguish and fear, and lingered like the whistle of the wind through canyon drops in the still mountain air.
Ben’s head jerked up, his neck craning. There was no mistaking that cry. It was Willow’s.
He leaped to his feet, hands closing possessively over the medallion, eyes searching the forest shadows as if whatever threatened the sylph might be waiting there for him as well. A mix of fear and horror raced through him. What had been done to Willow? He started forward, stopped, whirled about desperately, and realized that he could not trace the direction of the scream. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Damn! Meeks would hear that scream as surely as he—Meeks and that winged demon. Perhaps Meeks already had …
He was holding the medallion so tightly that it was cutting into his palms. Willow! A vision of the sylph blossomed in his mind, a frail and beautiful creature whose life was his special charge. He recalled again the words of the Earth Mother investing him with responsibility for seeing that she stayed safe and his promise to keep her so. His emotions tore at him and left him ragged and frantic. Truths to which he had not yet given heed flayed his soul.
The truths all reduced to one.
He loved Willow.
He experienced a warm rush of surprise and frantic relief. All this time he had denied his feelings, unable to come to terms with them. He had wanted no one close to him again, not after Annie, his dead wife. Love brought responsibility and the possibility of hurt and loss. He had wanted none of it. But the feelings had remained—as such feelings do—because they had never been his to deny in the first place. The reality of their existence had been forced upon him that first night out in the eastern wastes after fleeing Strabo and Nightshade—revealed in a dream in his dialogue with Edgewood Dirk on the reason for the urgency of his hunt for Willow.
Why do you run so? Why must you hurry so? Why must you find Willow? Dirk had asked.
Because I love her, he had answered.
And so he did—but had not allowed himself until this moment to think on it, to reason on it, and to consider what it meant.
Seconds was all it took to do so now. The thoughts, the reasonings, and the considerations all passed through his mind in a smattering of time that was barely measurable. It was as if everything that had taken so long to reach resolution was compressed down into a single instant.
But that instant was enough.
Ben never hesitated. There was a time when he would have, a time that now seemed a thousand years gone. He released the medallion with its silver-engraved image and let it fall against his chest, the sunlight sending shards of brightness into the dappled forest.
He called the Paladin to him.
Light flared and brightened at the edge of the little glade, chasing the shadows and gloom. Ben’s head lifted in recognition, and there was excitement in his eyes. He had thought never to do this again, wished it in fact, prayed it might never be necessary. Now he was anxious for it. A part of him was already beginning to break away.
The Paladin appeared out of the light. His white charger stamped and snorted. His silver armor glittered, its harness and traces creaking. His weapons hung ready. The ghost of another age and life was returned.
Ben felt the medallion begin to burn against his chest, ice and fire first, then something else altogether. He felt himself separating, drawing out of his own body.
Willow! he heard himself scream her name once in the silence of his mind.
It was his last thought. A flare of silver light burst from the medallion and streaked across the glade to where the Paladin waited. He felt himself carried with it to merge with the body of the King’s knight-errant. Armor clamped all about, fastening and tightening, closing down. An iron shell encased him, and the memory of who and what he had been was gone. The Paladin’s memory became his, a rush of images and thoughts that spanned a thousand other times and places, a thousand other lives—all of a warrior whose battle skills had never been surpassed, a champion who had never been defeated.
Ben Holiday disappeared. He had become the Paladin.
He was aware momentarily of the ragged figure that stood statuelike at the edge of the little stream, bearded and unkempt, a worn and battered shell. He knew it to be Landover’s King and dismissed the matter.
Wheeling his white charger about, he surged through the brush and scrub into the forest trees and was gone.
Willow’s scream brought Meeks almost instantly. He appeared from the shadow of Mirwouk’s crumbling walls astride his winged demon, dark robes flying against the sunlit afternoon skies. The demon plummeted to the hillside with a hiss, settling heavily within a gathering of pines at its far edge. Its leathered wings folded in against its wolf-serpent body, and its nostrils flared with small bursts of fire. Steam rose off its back.
Meeks slid slowly down the scaled neck, hard eyes fixed on the black unicorn as it stamped and snorted frantically some fifty feet away. He cradled in the grasp of his good arm the missing books of magic.
Abernathy pulled a sti
ll-shaken Willow protectively behind him. “Stay back from us, wizard!” he ordered bravely.
Meeks ignored him. His eyes were on the unicorn. He came forward a few steps, glanced briefly at Willow and Abernathy, looked again at the unicorn, and then stopped. He seemed to be waiting for something. The unicorn danced and shuddered as if already caught, but still it did not flee.
“Willow, what is happening here?” Abernathy growled urgently.
The sylph could barely stand. She shook her head woozily, her words nearly inaudible. “I saw,” she repeated. “The images, the whole … of it. But there are … so many, I cannot …”
She was making no sense at all, still in shock, it appeared. Abernathy helped her over to a patch of flowered grass and sat her gently down. Then he turned back to Meeks.
“She cannot hurt you, wizard!” he called out, drawing the hard eyes instantly. “Why not let her go? The unicorn is yours if you wish it, although I cannot imagine why you would. Heaven knows, it has been a thing of misfortune for all who have encountered it!”
Meeks kept looking at him, but said nothing.
“The others will be here in moments, wizard!” Abernathy declared. “You had best hurry away!”
Meeks smiled coldly. “Come over to me a moment, scribe,” he invited softly. “Perhaps we can discuss it.”
Abernathy hesitated, glanced briefly back at Willow, took a deep breath, and started across the clearing. He was so frightened that he could barely make himself move. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was walk over there to the wizard and his pet demon, and yet here he was doing just exactly that. He straightened himself bravely, determined to see this thing through. He really hadn’t any choice in the matter. He had to do something to help the girl, and this appeared to be the only option open to him. The day was warm and still; it was a wonderful day for just about anything other than this. Abernathy moved as slowly as he could and prayed that the others would arrive before he was turned into the wizard’s latest burnt offering.
When he was a dozen paces from Meeks, he stopped. The wizard’s craggy face was a mask of cunning and false warmth. “Closer, please,” Meeks whispered.
Abernathy knew then that he was doomed. There wasn’t going to be any escape for him. He might be able to delay matters for a few moments, but that would be all. Still, even a few moments might help Willow.
He came forward half-a-dozen paces and stopped again. “What shall we discuss?” he demanded.
The cold smile was gone. “Why not the possibility that your friends will be here to help you in the next few moments?”
He gestured briefly with the books, and a ring of twisted little figures appeared from out of the trees surrounding the clearing. The figures were everywhere, encircling them. Ugly, piggish faces with sharp teeth and serpents’ tongues snorted and squealed anxiously in the silence. Abernathy felt the hair on the back of his spine arch. A dozen of the little monsters pushed Questor Thews, Bunion, Parsnip, and the G’home Gnomes from out of the trees. All were gagged and securely bound in chains.
Meeks turned. The smile was back. “It appears that your friends will not be much help to you after all. But it was good of you to wait until they could join us.”
Abernathy saw his last, faint hope of being rescued disappear.
“Run, Willow!” he shouted.
Then, growling savagely, he launched himself at Meeks. He did it with the somewhat vague notion of catching the wizard off-guard and knocking free those precious books of magic. He almost got away with it. Meeks was so busy orchestrating the arrival of his small army of minions that it never occurred to him the dog might decide to fight back. Abernathy was on top of him almost before he realized what was happening. But the magic Meeks commanded was as quick as thought, and he called it to his use instantly. Green fire surged up from the books of magic, and a screen of flame hammered into Abernathy. The soft-coated Wheaten Terrier tumbled backward head-over-heels and lay still, smoke rising lazily from his singed fur. The screen of fire protecting Meeks and the books of magic flared and died.
The wizard stared back across the clearing to where Willow sat slumped upon the ground and the black unicorn waited.
“At last,” he whispered, his voice a slow hiss.
He beckoned curtly to the waiting demon imps and the ring began to tighten.
Silence descended across the little clearing—almost as if nature had put a finger to her lips and said “hush” to the world. There was a moment of time in which everything slowed. Meeks waited impatiently as the circle of demon imps crept forward. His winged demon snorted, nostrils steaming. Willow sat with her head bent, still stunned, her long hair cascading down about her like a veil. The black unicorn moved close, a step at a time only, a shadow out of darkness woefully lost in daylight. Its muzzle drooped and brushed the sylph’s arm gently. The white magic of its horn had gone dark.
Then a sudden rush of wind broke over the mountain heights and whistled through the trees. The unicorn’s head jerked up, its ears perked forward, and its horn flared brighter than the sun. It heard the sounds that no one else could—sounds for which it had listened for centuries.
Trees, brush, and scrub exploded from the wall of the forest at its northern edge as if torn free by some massive fist. Wind howled through the opening left, and light burst free in a brilliant white flash. Meeks and his winged demon shrank back instinctively, and the demon imps threw themselves down upon the earth squealing.
A rumble of thunder turned to a pounding of hooves, and the Paladin rode out from his twilight existence into battle.
Meeks gave a howl of rage and disbelief. His demon imps were already scattering to the four winds, terror sweeping them away as if they were dried leaves at the end of a broom. The demon imps wanted no part of the Paladin. Meeks turned, the books of magic clutched tightly to his dark robes by the leather-gloved hand. He shrieked something unintelligible to the monster behind him, and the creature surged forward, hissing.
The Paladin swerved slightly, white charger barely slowing as it turned to meet the demon.
Fire burst from the demon’s maw, engulfing the approaching horse and rider. But the Paladin broke through the wall of flames and came on, a battle lance lowered into place. The demon breathed its fire once more, and again the flames washed over the knight-errant. Willow’s head lifted, and she saw the silver knight and horse disappear in the fire. Sudden realization rushed through her. If the Paladin was here, so was Ben!
Flames pyramided off the clearing’s grasses and scorched the sheltering trees. Everything wilted momentarily in a white-hot heat. But then the Paladin was clear of the flames once more, his charger and armor covered with ash and smoking. He was almost on top of the demon now, battle lance set. Too late the demon realized the danger as it spread its wings and tried to lift itself skyward. The Paladin’s lance ripped through scales and armored plates and pierced its massive chest. The wolf-serpent screamed and surged back, the battle lance breaking off within it. It tried to rise, a weak, fluttering effort it could not manage. Then its heart gave out, and it fell earthward. It crashed into the scorched grasses, shuddered, and lay still.
The Paladin broke off the attack while the demon was in its death throes, swerving to stay clear of the struggling monster. Then he wheeled back again, drew forth the great broadsword, and spurred his white charger toward Meeks to finish the fight.
But this time Meeks was ready for him.
The hard, craggy old face tightened down in concentration, the wizard’s thin lips drawing back until his teeth showed. Whatever magic he yet commanded, he was calling on it now.
Wicked green light flared at a point midway between the approaching knight-errant and the waiting wizard. Meeks cried out and stiffened. His head shot back and the green light exploded in shards.
From out of the fire appeared a line of armored skeletons atop fleshless steeds, half goat, half snake. Willow counted. Three, four, five—there were six altogether. The skeletons
held broadswords and maces in their gloveless, bony hands. Helmetless death’s-heads smiled in frozen grimace. Riders and carriers both were as black as night.
They turned as one and came at the Paladin in a rush. The Paladin rode to meet them.
Willow watched the battle unfold from close beside the black unicorn. Her senses had returned to her now; her thoughts were clear. She saw the Paladin and the black riders come together in a clash of iron, saw the dust swirl up from the impact, and saw one of the black riders go down in a pile of shattered bones. The fighters wheeled and struck at each other, and the sounds were terrifying. She shrank from the conflict, her thoughts focused not on the Paladin, but on Ben. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? Why wasn’t Landover’s High Lord close to his champion?
Another black rider went down, the bones of its skeleton body snapping apart, crunching like deadwood beneath the hooves of the Paladin’s horse. The Paladin broke away, whirled and struck down a third rider, the great broadsword flashing silver light as it swung through its deadly arc. The remaining riders converged, weapons hammering at him, clanging and sparking off his armor, thrusting him back.
Willow pushed to her knees. The Paladin was in danger of being forced down.
Then small bursts of green fire flared over the bones of the three black riders that had fallen, and six new skeletons rose out of the smoky haze to join their fellows. Willow felt her stomach tighten with cold. They had doubled their strength. There were too many now for the Paladin.
She lurched to her feet, determination giving her strength. Questor, the kobolds, and the gnomes were still bound and helpless. Abernathy was still unconscious. Meeks had disabled them all. There was no one left to help the Paladin but her.
No other left to help Ben.
She knew what she must do. The black unicorn stood quietly next to her, emerald green eyes fixed on her own. There was intelligence there that was unmistakable. She could read in those eyes what she must do, and it mirrored what she already knew in her heart.