That being the case, there simply wasn't any time to come up with the sort of elaborate, foolproof plan they might otherwise have envisioned. Abernathy and the little girl were in immediate danger. Willow was growing steadily sicker from the environment into which she had willingly placed herself in order not to be separated from Ben. God only knew what was happening back in Landover with the Darkling still on the loose and Questor Thews trying to govern. Ben seized hold of the first reasonable plan that came to mind.
It was going to take an awful lot of luck to make it work.
“Don't forget about Willow,”he reminded Miles suddenly.
“I won't. But I don't see how she's going to have any better luck than you.”He glanced quickly back over his shoulder. “There's bound to be lights all over the place, Doc.”
Ben nodded. He was worried about that, too. How effective would Willow's magic be when she needed it? What if it failed her entirely? Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have thought twice about it; he knew that, like all the fairy folk, the sylph could move about freely without being seen. But that was in Landover and that was when she was well. Willow was so weak, so drained by the attack on her system! She desperately needed the nurturing soil and air of her own world. She needed to make the transformation. But she couldn't do it here in this world. She had already told him so. Too many of the chemicals in the soil and air were toxins to her system. She was trapped in her present form until Ben could find a way to get her back to Landover again.
He tightened the muscles of his jaw. It was pointless to dwell on it. There would be no help for her until he regained the medallion—no help for any of them.
He turned his attention to the plan. It had been a fairly simple matter to have the rented limo and driver sent north out of Seattle to the little motel in Bothell that they had quickly made their base of operations. It had been equally simple to bribe the driver to part with the limo and his coat and cap for a few hours while he waited in the motel room and watched TV. After all, five hundred dollars was a lot of money. And it hadn't been too tough to track down the clothes Ben needed.
Finding Michel Ard Rhi had been easier yet. “Oh, sure, that nut that lives out in the castle!” the manager of the motel had eagerly volunteered when Ben asked. “Gramma White or some such, it's called. Looks like something out of King Arthur. Sits back in there behind the winery off 522. Can't even see it from the road. Guy runs it like a prison. Doesn't allow anyone close. As I said, a nut case! Who else would live in a castle in the middle of nowhere?” Then he had drawn Ben a map.
Finding the nut case was one thing; arranging to see him on short notice and at night was something else. Ben had made the call. He had spoken with a man whose sole position with Ard Rhi, it appeared, was to prevent people like Ben from disturbing his boss. Ben had explained that he was only in Seattle that one night. He had explained that the timing was quite important. He had even suggested that he was used to doing business at night. Nothing helped. Ben had talked money, opportunity, ambition, everything he could think of to persuade the man. The man was a stone. He had left the phone twice, presumably to confer with his boss, but each time he had returned as implacable as before. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps another day. Definitely not tonight. Mr. Ard Rhi never meets with anyone at night.
Finally, Ben had used Abernathy's name and alluded none too subtly to his own strong connection with certain government agencies. If he were not permitted to speak to Mr. Ard Rhi and speak with him now, personally, this night, he would have to consider turning the matter over to one of those agencies, and Mr. Ard Rhi might not find it so easy to refuse them.
That did the job. Grudgingly, the secretary had advised him that he would have his appointment. But must it be at night? It must, Ben insisted. There had been a pause, more background conversation, heated words. Very well, a few minutes only, nine o'clock sharp at Graum Wythe. The phone had gone dead. At the close of things, the secretary's voice had sounded very dangerous indeed. But that hadn't mattered to Ben. His meeting with Michel Ard Rhi had to take place at night, or the entire plan was out the window.
Miles slowed the limo abruptly, distracting Ben from his thoughts, wheeled left at a pair of stone block pillars with globe lights, and proceeded down a narrow, single-lane road that disappeared back into the trees. What little light there was from the headlamps of other cars, from the distant windows of solitary houses, and from the reflection of ground light off the clouded skies disappeared. The lights of the limo were lonely beacons in the gloom.
They drove on, a long, solitary journey through the night. The woods gave way to the vineyards, acres of small, gnarled vines planted in endless rows. The minutes slipped away.
Ben thought of Willow, hidden in the trunk of the car, carefully wrapped in blankets. He wished he could check on her, make certain she was all right. But they had agreed. No chances were to be taken. Once they had left Bothell, there was to be no stopping until…
Ben blinked.
Lights flared ahead from beyond the wooded hill they climbed—triggered, it seemed, by their approach. As they topped the rise, the spires of Graum Wythe lifted starkly before them. Though still far distant, they could see the castle clearly. Flags and pennants blew sharply in the night wind, their insignia unidentifiable in the shadows. A drawbridge had already begun to lower across a moat, and a portcullis was being raised. Breastworks and spiked fences crisscrossed the open countryside surrounding the castle, dark scars on the grassland. The limo crawled down the roadway toward a set of massive iron gates that opened through a long, low stone wall that ran for miles in either direction.
Ben took a deep breath and shivered in spite of himself. How grotesque the castle seemed!
The iron gates swung open soundlessly to admit them, and Miles eased the limo through. He had quit talking, rigid in the driver's seat. Ben could imagine what he was thinking.
The roadway wound snakelike toward the castle, brightly lit and flanked by deep culverts. That's probably so nobody wanders off by mistake, Ben thought darkly. For the first time since he had conceived this venture, he began to have doubts. Graum Wythe hunkered down before him like some huge beast, all alone in the empty countryside with its towers, parapets, guards, spotlights, and sharp wire. It looked less like a castle than a prison. He was going into that prison and he was going in unprotected.
The full realization of where he was struck him suddenly, a frightening and certain truth that left him shaken. He was such a fool! He thought of himself as still being in a world of glass high-rises and jetliners. But Graum Wythe wasn't part of that world; it was part of another. It was part of a life he had bought into when he had purchased his kingship nearly two years ago. There wasn't anything from the modern world out here. He could dress in suits and ride in limos and know that cities and highways were all around him, and it wouldn't make one bit of difference. This was Landover! But the Paladin was not here to rescue him. Questor Thews was not here to advise him. He had no magic to aid him. If anything went wrong, he was probably finished.
The car reached the end of the winding roadway and pulled onto the lowered drawbridge. They passed over the moat, under the portcullis, and into a courtyard with a turn-around drive that looped ahead to the main entry. Manicured lawns and flower gardens failed to make up for the towering stoneblock walls and iron-grated windows.
“Charming,”Miles whispered from the front.
Ben sat quietly. He was calm now, quite composed. It was like old times, he told himself. It was like it had been when he was a lawyer. He was simply going into trial court one more time.
Miles pulled the limo to a stop at the top of the drive, got out, and walked around to open the door for Ben. Ben stepped out and glanced around. The walls and towers of Graum Wythe loomed all about him, casting their shadows against the blaze of lights that flooded the yard. Too many lights, Ben thought. Guards patrolled the entries and the walls, faceless, black-garbed figures in the night. Too many of them as well.
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A doorman appeared through the heavy brass and oak doors of the main entry and stood waiting. Miles closed the car door firmly and leaned close.
“Good luck, Doc,”he whispered. Ben nodded. Then he went up the steps and disappeared into the castle.
The minutes slipped past. Miles waited by th back door of the limo for a time, then walked around to the driver's door, stopped, and glanced casually about. The castle doors were closed again and the doorman gone. The courtyard was deserted—discounting, of course, the spotlights that lit it up bright as day and guards that patrolled the walls all around it. Miles shook his head. He reached in the car under the dash and popped the trunk, trying hard not to think about what he was doing, trying to appear nonchalant. He walked back to the trunk, lifted the lid, reached in, and took out a polishing cloth. He barely glanced at the blanketed, huddled shape in one corner. Leaving the trunk open, he moved to the front of the car and began wiping down the windshield.
A pair of black-uniformed guards walked out of the shadows from one corner of the building and stopped, watching him. He kept polishing. The guards carried automatic weapons.
Willow will never make it, he thought dismally.
The guards strolled on. Miles was sweating. He released the hood latch, then moved to the front of the car and looked in, fiddling with nothing. He had never felt so entirely alone and at the same time so completely observed. He could feel eyes on him everywhere. He glanced surreptitiously from beneath the hood. Who knew how many of those eyes would catch Willow trying to sneak past?
He finished with the phony engine inspection and dropped the hood back in place. There hadn't been a sign of movement anywhere. What was she waiting for? His cherubic face grimaced. What did he think she was waiting for, for God's sake? She was waiting for a power outage!
That damn Doc and his harebrained schemes!
He walked back around the car to the trunk, half-determined to find a way to call the whole thing off, certain the whole plan was already shot to hell. He was utterly astonished when he glanced in the trunk and found Willow gone.
Standing inside the front entry, the doorman patted Ben down for weapons and, presumably, wires. There weren't any to be found. Neither man said a word.
When the search was finished, Ben followed the doorman along a cavernous, vaulted corridor past suits of armor, tapestries, marble statues, and oil paintings in gilt-edged frames to a pair of dark oak doors that opened into a study. A genuine study, mind you, Ben thought—not a little room with a few shelves and bookcases and a reading chair, but a full-blown English-style study with dozens of huge, stuffed leather reading chairs and companion tables of the sort you saw in those old Sherlock Holmes movies in mansions where the characters retired to take brandy and cigars and talk murder. A fire blazed in a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, the embers of charred logs smoldering redly beneath the iron grate. A pair of latticed windows looked out into gardens that featured sculpted hedges and wrought-iron benches and were disturbingly deep.
The doorman stepped aside to let Ben enter, pulled the study doors closed behind him, and was gone.
Michel Ard Rhi was already on his feet, materializing from out of one of the huge stuffed chairs as if he had miraculously taken form from its leather. He was dressed entirely in the stuff, a sort of charcoal jumpsuit complete with low boots, and he looked as if he were trying to do Hamlet. But there was nothing funny about the way he looked at Ben. He stood there, a tall, rawboned figure, his shock of black hair and his dark eyes shadowing the whole of his face, his features pinched with displeasure. He did not come forward to offer his hand. He did not invite Ben in. He simply viewed him.
“I do not appreciate being threatened, Mr. Squires,”he said softly. Squires was the phony name Ben had given over the phone. “Not by anyone, but especially not by someone looking to do business with me.”
Ben kept his poise. “It was necessary that I see you, Mr. Ard Rhi,”he replied calmly. “Tonight. It was obvious that I was not going to be able to do so unless I found a way to change your mind.”
Michel Ard Rhi studied him, apparently considering whether to pursue the matter. Then he said, “You have your meeting. What do you want?”
Ben moved forward until he was less than a dozen paces from the other. There was anger in the sharp eyes, but no sign of recognition. “I want Abernathy,”he said.
Ard Rhi shrugged. “So you said, but I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Let me save both of us a little valuable time,”Ben continued smoothly. “I know all about Abernathy. I know what he is and what he can do. I know about Davis Whit-sell. I know about Hollywood Eye. I know most of what there is to know about this matter. I don't know what your interest is in this creature, but it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't conflict with mine. My interest is paramount, Mr. Ard Rhi, and immediate. I don't have time to wait for sideshows and the like.”
The other man studied him, a hint of shrewdness displacing the anger. “And your interest is… ?”
“Scientific.”Ben smiled conspiratorially. “I operate a specialized business, Mr. Ard Rhi—one that investigates the functioning of life forms and explores ways to make them better. My business operates somewhat covertly. You'll not have heard of either its name or mine. Uncle Sam aids in funding, and we exchange favors from time to time. Do you understand?”
A nod. “Experiments?”
“Among other things.”Another smile. “Could we sit down now and talk like businessmen?”
Michel Ard Rhi did not smile back, but indicated a chair and sat down across from Ben. “This is all very interesting, Mr. Squires. But I can't help you. There isn't any Aber-nathy. The whole business is a lie.”
Ben shrugged as if he expected as much. “Whatever you say.”He leaned back comfortably. “But if there were an Abernathy, and if he became available, then he would be a most valuable commodity—to a number of interested parties. I would be prepared to make a substantial offer for him.”
The other man's expression did not change. “Really.”
“If he were undamaged.”
“He doesn't exist.”
“Supposing.”
“Supposing doesn't make it so.”
“He would be worth twenty-five million dollars.”
Michel Ard Rhi stared. “Twenty-five million dollars?” he repeated.
Ben nodded. He didn't have twenty-five million dollars to spend on Abernathy, of course. He didn't have twenty-five million dollars, period. But then he didn't really expect that any amount of money could purchase his friend—not before Michel Ard Rhi had his hands on the medallion.
What he was doing was buying time.
So far, it hadn't cost him much.
Willow slipped noiselessly along the dimly lit passageways of Graum Wythe, little more than another of night's shadows. She was tired, the use of the magic that kept her concealed a drain on her already diminished strength. She felt sick inside, a pervasive queasiness that would not be banished. At times she was so stricken she was forced to stop, leaning back in dark corners and waiting for her strength to return. She knew what was wrong with her. She was dying. It was happening a little at a time, a little each day, but she recognized the signs. She could not survive outside of her own world for more than a short time— especially not here, not in an environment where the soil and the air were unclean and poisoned with waste.
She had not told Ben. She did not intend to. Ben had enough to concern him, and there was nothing he could do for her, in any case. Besides, she had known the risk when she had decided to come with him. Any fault was her own.
She breathed the close air of the castle, nauseated by its taste and smell. Her skin was pale and damp with perspiration. She forced herself from her hiding place and continued swiftly on. She was on the second floor and close to where she needed to go now. She could sense it. She must hurry, though. Ben could give her only a few minutes.
She reached a single door at the bend in the hall
and pressed her ear against it, listening. There was breathing within.
It was the little girl, Elizabeth.
She placed her hand on the latch. It was for this reason that they had come to Graum Wythe at night—so that they could be certain the little girl would be there.
She pressed down on the latch until it gave, pushed the door open, and slipped inside. Elizabeth was in her nightdress, propped up in her bed on one elbow, reading a book. She started when Willow appeared, her eyes going wide.
“Who are you?” she breathed. “Oh! You're all green!”
Willow smiled, closed the door behind her, and held a finger to her lips. “Shhh, Elizabeth. It is all right. My name is Willow. I am a Mend of Abernathy.”
Elizabeth sat bolt upright in the bed. “Abernathy? You are?” She pushed the covers back and scrambled out of the bed. “Are you a fairy? A fairy princess, maybe? You look like one, you're so beautiful! Can you do magic? Can you…”
Willow moved her finger to the little girl's lips. “Shhhhh,”she repeated softly. “We do not have much time.”
Elizabeth frowned. “I don't understand. What's wrong? Oh, I bet you don't know! Abernathy's gone! He's not here anymore! Michel had him locked in a cage in the cellars, but I sneaked him out and sent him…”
“Elizabeth,”Willow interrupted gently. She knelt down next to the little girl and took her hands. “I have to tell you something. I am afraid Abernathy did not escape after all. Michel found him and brought him back.”