Then Questor and Abernathy were off, speeding down four-and five-lane highways, zipping around other vehicles, barely missing all sorts of obstacles and barriers. They crossed a bridge, turned down a rampway, sped along a two-lane roadway at a slightly slower speed, and wheeled into a parking area next to a brown brick building with a sign that read “King County Animal Shelter.”
They gave Elizabeth’s money to the cab driver, stepped back onto solid ground with an unmistakable sense of relief, and headed inside. The walk diverged, and there were entries at either end. They went left through a door to a desk where a bored-looking employee sent them outside again and down the walk to the other door. At the second desk a young woman in a uniform looked up expectantly as they entered.
“Professor Adkins? Mr. Drozkin?” she greeted them.
Questor recognized an opportunity when he saw one. He smiled and nodded. The young woman looked relieved. “Do you have any idea what this thing is?” she asked. “No one here has ever seen anything like it. It’s giving us fits! I’ve tried everything—we all have—but we can’t even get close. After the police brought it in, I removed the restraints and it tried to take my hand off. And it eats everything! Do you know what it is?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” Questor Thews said. “Can we have a look?”
“Of course; right this way.” She was eager to accommodate them, to rid herself of the burden of Poggwydd. Abernathy understood perfectly.
She brought them around the counter to a heavy metal door, which she unlocked and swung open. From there she led them down a hallway into an area of cages. At the far end was Poggwydd, slumped down at the back of the largest cage. His clothing was torn, and his fur was caked with grime and sweat. Cuts and scratches marked him from head to foot, and his tongue was hanging out. He looked, even for a G’home Gnome, decidedly miserable.
When he saw them, he leapt to his feet and attacked the cage with a vengeance that was astonishing. He shook and rattled and bit at the heavy wire in a frenzy, trying to get at them.
“He’s gotten even worse!” the young woman declared in astonishment. “I’d better tranquilize him right now!”
“No, let’s wait on that, please,” Questor interrupted hurriedly. “I’d like simply to observe him for now. I don’t want him sedated. Can you leave us for a few minutes … I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Beckendall. Lucy Beckendall.” She reached out her hand, and he shook it cordially, not bothering with an introduction on his end because he had already forgotten who he was supposed to be.
“A few minutes?” he repeated helpfully. “We can just stand here and have a good long look.”
Poggwydd was racing up and down the wire, showing all his teeth, shaking his fist, desperately trying to speak.
“Of course,” she agreed. “I’ll be right outside. Just call if you need me.”
They waited until she went back through the heavy door and closed it securely behind her. Questor looked at Abernathy, then stepped close to the cage.
“Stop that!” he snapped at Poggwydd. “Behave yourself and listen to me! Do you want out of there or not?”
Poggwydd, worn out anyway, dropped to the floor and stood glaring at him. It was very close and antiseptic in the room. Abernathy pictured himself locked away in there for a full day and was suddenly sympathetic toward the Gnome in spite of himself.
“Now, listen!” Questor addressed Poggwydd firmly. “There is no point in leaping about like that! We came for you as soon as we could, as soon as we found out where you were!”
Poggwydd gestured toward his mouth in frustration.
“Oh, of course, you want to say something,” Questor furrowed his brow fiercely. “Just keep your voice down when you speak so you can’t be heard or I’ll silence you again. Understood?”
The G’home Gnome nodded blackly. Questor spoke some words in a low voice, made a gesture, and Poggwydd’s voice came back with a gasp.
“You certainly took your time!” he said. “I might have died in here! Those people are animals!”
Questor inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. “I apologize. But now here we are. We have come to get you out and take you back to Landover.”
The Gnome’s face scrunched into a mass of angry wrinkles. “Well maybe I don’t want to go! Maybe I’ve had quite enough of you, Questor Thews! And your friend!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You want to stay in there?”
“No, I don’t want to stay in here! I want out! But once I’m out, I want to go back on my own. I can find my own way better than you, I’m willing to bet!”
“You couldn’t find your way out of an open field, much less another world! Whatever are you talking about?”
“Leave him, Questor Thews!” Abernathy snapped. “We’ve wasted enough time!”
The three of them began arguing heatedly and were still at it when abruptly the metal door opened and Lucy Beckendall stepped into view. All three went instantly silent. She stared from one to the other, almost certain she had heard the creature in the cage speaking.
“There is some sort of mix-up here,” she announced, looking uncomfortable and wary. “I have two gentlemen at the reception desk who had identified themselves as Professor Adkins from the University of Washington and Mr. Drozkin from the Woodland Park Zoo. They have shown me their ID cards. Do you have any identification to offer?”
“Of course,” Abernathy declared quickly, smiling and nodding. Drat!
He walked quickly down the line of cages, reaching into his pocket, fumbling, and shaking his head. When he reached Lucy Beckendall at the door, he placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, shoved her back through the opening, and yanked the door closed once more. “Questor Thews!” he bawled, bracing himself against the door as pounding immediately began without. “Help!”
The wizard pulled up his sleeves, raised his skinny arms, and sent an electric blue clot of magic zapping into the lock. The lock and handle melted and fused in place.
“There, they won’t be getting in that way!” he declared in satisfaction.
“And we won’t be getting out, either!” Abernathy stalked back down the walkway. “So you had better know what you are going to do next!”
Questor Thews wheeled on Poggwydd. “There is only one way out, Mr. Poggwydd—with us, back to Landover. If we leave you, they’ll have you back in this cage in a matter of minutes. Who will help you then? Now, I’m sorry you’re in this mess, but it isn’t our fault. And we don’t have time to debate the matter.” The pounding without had given way to a violent hammering, metal on metal where the lock was fused. Questor’s mouth tightened, and his bony finger jutted at the Gnome. “Just think what they’ll do to you! Experiments! Tests! Potions of all sorts! What’s it to be, Poggwydd? Landover and freedom or a cage for the rest of your life?”
Poggwydd licked his grimy lips, his eyes bright with fear. “Get me out! I’ll go with you! I won’t make any more trouble, I promise!”
“Good choice,” Questor muttered. “Step back from the door.”
The G’home Gnome scurried into a back corner. Questor gestured and twisted with his hands, and the door sprang open. “Out!” the wizard snapped.
Poggwydd crawled out meekly and hunkered down like a beaten dog. “Stop that!” Questor ordered. “There’s nothing wrong with you! Stand up!”
Poggwydd straightened, his lower lip quivering. “I don’t want to see that little girl again! Or her mud puppy, either! Not ever!”
Questor ignored him, already at work marking a circle on the concrete floor with the heel of his boot. When he was done, he motioned the Gnome and Abernathy inside. They stood close together in the heat and silence as the wizard took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to concentrate.
“I hope you know what you are doing,” Abernathy said quietly, unable to help himself.
“Hush!” the wizard snapped.
Outside, the hammering had been replaced by a large number
of voices. Reinforcements, Abernathy thought dismally. Then something heavy rammed into the door. They were trying to break it down! The frame and hinges shook with the force of the blows. Mortar cracked and sifted downward. Whoever was out there would be inside pretty quickly.
Questor began to speak the words of the spell slowly, clearly, deliberately. He had gone somewhere deep inside himself to concentrate, and he seemed oblivious to the hammering and shouting. Just as well, Abernathy thought. It would be just like the wizard to become distracted and get the spell wrong. What would he end up being then? A radish? He looked at Poggwydd. The G’home Gnome had his head lowered and his eyes shut tight. His arms were clasped about his scrawny body. Well, of course, Abernathy thought. We are all afraid.
Questor droned on, sweat beading his forehead. Abernathy could see the tension in his face. Changing me back again, he thought. And hating every moment of it. Abernathy experienced a sudden urge to cry out, to stop him from what he was doing, to make him do something else. But he suppressed that urge, his decision made, his fate accepted. He looked down at himself, wanting to remember everything about how he looked, not wanting to have to wonder again later. It hadn’t been so bad being a dog, really. Not so bad.
Light surged upward about them, filling the circle from floor to ceiling, encasing them in its bright cylinder. Questor’s voice rose, the words snapping like blankets hung in the wind. Poggwydd whimpered. Abernathy thought of Elizabeth. He was glad she wasn’t there to see this happen. It was better that she remember him as he was supposed to be.
The light brightened into a blinding radiance. Abernathy felt himself melting away. The feeling was not unexpected. He had experienced it once before, more than twenty years ago.
He closed his eyes and let it happen.
VENOM
It took Ben and Willow the better part of two days to reach the Deep Fell. They left at sunrise on the first, accompanied by Bunion and an escort of two dozen King’s Guards, and made their way north and east out of the hill country to the edge of the Greensward. From there they turned directly north and followed the line of the forested hills toward the witch’s lair. The summer heat continued, sticky and damp against their skin, a shimmer of cellophane in the sun’s glare. There was little wind to offer relief. There was little shade. Their pace was slow and steady, and they rested the animals and themselves often. All about, the countryside was sultry and still.
They camped where the waters of the Anhalt emerged from the hill country on the long journey down out of the mountains west. They sat on a low bluff above the river, having crossed before sunset, and watched the fading light turn purple and pink. To the east herons and cranes flew low above the sluggish waters, fishing for dinner.
“We’ll be there by tomorrow noon,” Ben declared after a long silence, anxious to engage an unusually quiet Willow in some form of conversation. “Then we’ll know.”
The sylph’s voice was a soft, resigned sigh. “I already know. Nightshade has her. I can sense it. She wanted Mistaya from the very beginning, and she finally found a way to get her.”
Her shoulder was touching Ben’s as they stared off into the approaching dark, but the distance between them was frightening. All day long she had been withdrawing, closing herself away. Now she was someplace where no one could reach her if she did not wish it. Ben had waited patiently for her to work out whatever was disturbing her, hoping it wasn’t him.
He cleared his throat. “She probably thinks of Mistaya as her property. Mistaya is payment for the debt she thinks she is owed for what befell her in the Tangle Box.”
Willow was silent for a moment. “If it was only a matter of debt or even a claim to property, she would have stolen Mistaya away and been done with it. She would have ransomed her back or killed her, intending to hurt us by doing so. Instead, she concocted this elaborate scheme involving Rydall of Marnhull and his monsters. Mistaya is the prize to be won or lost, but she is something more as well. I think Nightshade has another use for her.”
Ben looked at her. “What use?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with Mistaya’s magic. She was born in the Deep Fell, so perhaps they share something from that. Or maybe it is something darker. Perhaps she seeks to turn Mistaya’s thinking so that it mirrors her own.”
“No, Mistaya would never let that happen.” Ben went cold all the way to his toes. “She is too strong.”
“No one is stronger than Nightshade. Her hate drives her.”
Ben went silent, a swell of horror rising inside at the prospect of Mistaya becoming like Nightshade. His good sense told him it could never happen. His emotions said otherwise. The two warred within him as he watched the shadows lengthen across the land, darkening the river and the hills.
“She would do that to hurt us, wouldn’t she?” he said finally. “She would.” He took a deep breath. “But how does that explain the Rydall charade?”
“Rydall gives her time to work on Mistaya. Rydall occupies us, keeps us at a distance and off balance. We don’t realize the truth of things until it is too late.”
Her eyes were empty and lost when he looked into them. “You’ve been thinking on this all day, haven’t you?” he asked quietly. “That’s why you’re so far away from me.”
She looked at him. Her smile was wan. “No, Ben. I have been preparing myself for tomorrow. There is a good chance I will lose Mistaya. Or you. Or even both. It isn’t easy to accept the possibility, but it is there nevertheless.”
“You won’t lose either of us,” he promised, putting his arm about her, drawing her close, knowing even as he did that he had just made a promise he might not be able to keep.
They slept poorly, made restless by anticipation of what lay ahead, of what they might find. They rose at sunrise, ate a quick breakfast, and were under way before the sun had fully crested the horizon in the mountains to the east. This day was steamy and suffocating as well, and they moved through it like swimmers on a sluggish tide. Bunion scouted ahead, keeping a wary eye out for any more of Rydall’s monsters. Two remained to be faced, and Nightshade might choose now to unleash them. If indeed the witch was Rydall. Some doubt remained in Ben’s mind, even if Willow was convinced. But by now he was doubting everything.
Ahead, the land stretched away in a ragged carpet of burned-out grasses and patchwork forest green, the line between foothills and plains blurred by the heat. He listened to the sounds of leather and traces as the horses plodded ahead resolutely. What would he do when they reached the Deep Fell? Would he go down into the hollow? Would he send the Paladin? How would he confront the witch? How would he learn the truth about Mistaya?
He glanced at Willow, riding beside him in silence. What he read in her face suggested that he had better find his answers soon.
Nightshade knew of their coming long before they were in view. She had known of it almost from the moment they had left Sterling Silver and had kept careful watch over their progress. The confrontation she had envisioned from the beginning was fated at last to take place. Somehow Holiday had figured it out. She did not know how he had done it, but he clearly had. He was coming to the Deep Fell, and he would be doing that only if he knew the truth.
The seeming inevitability of things did not escape her. The Ardsheal had failed her, just as all the other creatures she had sent had failed her. Under Rydall’s agreement she had two monsters left to send, but time had run out on that game and only one chance remained for her now. She had enjoyed playing with Holiday, seeing him struggle, watching him suffer as he fought one monster after another in an effort to survive long enough to rescue his beloved daughter. She had enjoyed breaking him down a little at a time, leaving him physically and emotionally drained by forces he did not even begin to understand. How could he know that it was Mistaya’s own magic working against him? How could he realize what that would do to him? It had been satisfying, but the greatest satisfaction of all was yet to come.
The anticip
ation of it kept her anger and frustration in check, for although she would not admit it even to herself, she was disappointed that Holiday was still alive. Her expenditure of time and effort, of magic and power, could not be dismissed out of hand even with the argument that all was as expected. Nightshade hated to lose, hated to be denied anything, even where she could rationalize that it must necessarily be so. She wanted Holiday dead, and postponement of that result, whatever the justification, was difficult to bear.
Still, she had made her plan and believed it to be foolproof. Mistaya was hers yet, her unwitting tool, and she would be put to the use intended before this business was done. It was better, perhaps, that it happen now, before any more time passed. Mistaya was growing unmanageable, increasingly reluctant to engage in the practice of magic that Nightshade decreed, suspicious of the role in which she had been cast. It was bad enough that she had refused to help create another monster after the robot had failed. It was unbearable that she should dare to leave the hollow. Yet Nightshade had persisted. One more time she had found a way to use Mistaya, joining the girl’s magic with her own to bring the Ardsheal back from the dead so that it could be sent against Holiday, but it had required great cunning and subterfuge on the witch’s part to conceal the truth of what she was about. It would be difficult to deceive Mistaya again.