The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (24 page)

“I blew it, Questor,” he said to the other as they huddled in the dark and listened to the rainfall drum on the old barn’s roof.

“Hmmmmm?” Questor’s attention was concentrated on wiping dirt and
blood from the numerous cuts and abrasions Ben had suffered during his fight with Kallendbor.

“I screwed up. I mishandled the whole thing. I let Kallendbor trick me into accepting his stupid challenge. I lost my composure; I let the entire affair get out of hand.” He sighed and leaned back against the stall side. “I should have done a better job of arguing my case. Some lawyer, right? Some King!”

“I think you handled matters rather well, High Lord.”

Ben looked at him skeptically. “You do?”

“It was obviously intended that you should fail in your attempt to gain a pledge from the Lords of the Greensward unless you were willing to gain that pledge on their terms. Had you agreed to marry a daughter of one of their households, the pledge would have been yours. You would have had a wife and a dozen in-laws for the balance of your reign as King—a reign that would have been considerably shorter than you would have liked.” The wizard shrugged. “But you knew what they intended as well as I, didn’t you?”

“I knew.”

“So you were right to refuse the offer, and I think you showed great composure under the circumstances. I think that if the game had been allowed to continue, you might have beaten him.”

Ben laughed. “I appreciate the vote of confidence. I notice, however, that you left nothing to chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you ignored my order not to use the magic and conjured up that image of the Paladin when it looked as if I was going down for the count!”

The owlish face studied him, a faint outline in the dark. Questor set aside the bloodied cloths. “I did nothing of the sort, High Lord. That
was
the Paladin.”

There was a long silence. “Then he has come three times now,” Ben whispered finally, his bewilderment evident. “He came when I was caught in the time passage with the Mark, he came when the demons appeared at the coronation, and now he has come to the Greensward. But he seems just exactly what you called him, Questor—a ghost! He looks as if he’s only an image made of light! What is he really?”

The other shrugged. “Maybe what he appears—maybe something more.”

Ben hunched his knees up close against his body, trying to stay warm. “I think that he’s out there. I think that he’s trying to come back again.” He looked at Questor for confirmation.

Questor shook his head. “I do not know, High Lord. Maybe so.”

“What was it that brought him in the past? There must be something you can tell me about him—about why and how he appeared to the old King.”

“He appeared when he was summoned,” the other replied. “The summons has always come from the wearer of the medallion. The medallion is a part of
the magic, High Lord. There is a link between it, the Kings of Landover, and the Paladin. But only the Kings of Landover have ever fully understood what that link was.”

Ben pulled the medallion from beneath his tunic and studied it. “Maybe if I rub it, or talk to it, or just grasp it—maybe that will bring the Paladin. What do you think?”

Questor shrugged. Ben tried all three and nothing happened. He tried wishing for the Paladin’s appearance, hands clutched about the medallion so tightly he could feel the impression of its carved surface. Nothing happened.

“I suppose I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.” He sighed and dropped the medallion back down the front of his tunic, feeling it catch on the chain that lay looped about his neck. He looked up through a hole in the barn roof as the wind rattled the shingles against their fastenings. “Tell me about the dragon and the Lords of the Greensward.”

The wizard’s stooped form bent closer still. “You heard most of it from Kallendbor yourself. The Lords of the Greensward are at war with Strabo. The dragon is their nemesis. He has preyed upon them for the better part of twenty years—ever since the old King died. He burns their crops and their buildings; he devours their livestock and occasionally their thralls. He hunts their lands at will, and they are powerless to stop it.”

“Because the dragon is part of the magic—isn’t that it?”

“Yes, High Lord. Strabo is the last of his kind. He was a creature of the world of fairy until his exile thousands of years ago. He cannot be harmed by mortal weapons, only by the magic from which he was created. That was why Kallendbor felt safe in challenging you to rid him of the dragon—he believes you a fraud. A true King of Landover would command the magic of the medallion and could summon the Paladin to do his bidding.”

Ben nodded. “It all comes back to the Paladin, doesn’t it? Tell me, Questor, why is it that the dragon hunts the Greensward as he does?”

The wizard smiled. “He is a dragon.”

“Yes, I know. But he didn’t always hunt like this, I gather—at least, not while the old King lived.”

“True. He kept to his own land in times previous. Perhaps he feared the old King. Perhaps the Paladin kept him there until the old King was dead. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Ben grunted irritably and leaned back against the stall side. His entire body hurt. “Why is it that you can’t manage an answer to any of these questions, damn it? You’re supposed to be the court wizard and my personal advisor, but you don’t seem to know much of anything!”

Questor looked away. “I do the best I can, High Lord.”

Ben immediately regretted his words. He touched the other on the shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry I said that.”

“I was away from the court when the old King was alive, and my half-brother and I were never close. Had we been close, perhaps I could have learned at least some of the answers to your questions.”

“Forget it, Questor. I’m sorry I said anything.”

“It has not been easy for me either, you know.”

“I know, I know.”

“I have had to master the magic practically alone. I have had no tutor, no master to instruct me. I have had to preserve the throne of Landover while shepherding about a flock of Kings who were frightened by the sight of their own shadow and who wanted nothing more challenging than the spectacle of knights at a joust!” His voice was rising. “I have given everything that I have so that the monarchy might endure, even while beset by miseries that would break the back of an ordinary …”

Abernathy’s growl interrupted rudely. “Please, wizard, enough of your soliloquies! We are already bored to tears by this account of your sufferings and can bear no more!”

Questor’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click of his teeth.

Ben smiled in spite of himself. It hurt his face to do so. “I hope that I do not number among those unfortunate Kings you have just described, Questor,” he said.

The other’s baleful gaze was still turned on Abernathy. “Hardly.”

“Good. Tell me one thing more, then. Can we rely on Kallendbor to be as good as his word?”

Questor looked back now. “About the dragon—yes. He swore an oath.”

Ben nodded. “Then we must find a way to get rid of the dragon.”

There was an endless moment of silence. Ben could sense the others looking at each other in the dark. “Any ideas as to how we go about doing that?” he asked.

Questor shook his head. “It has never been done.”

“There is a first time for everything,” Ben replied lightly, wondering as he said it just whom it was he was trying to convince. “You said that it would take magic to rid us of the dragon. Who could help us find that magic?”

Questor considered. “Nightshade, of course. She is the most powerful of those come from the world of fairy. But she is as dangerous as the dragon. I think we might have better luck with the River Master. He, at least, has proven loyal to the Kings of Landover in the past.”

“Is he a creature of magic?”

“He was, once upon a time. He has been gone from the world of fairy for centuries. Still, he retains something of the knowledge of the old ways and may have help to offer. It was to him that I would have suggested we go next—even if the Lords of the Greensward
had
given their pledge.”

Ben nodded. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow we travel to the country of the
River Master.” He stretched, hunched down into his blankets, hesitated a moment and said, “This may not count for much, but I want to thank you all for standing by me.”

There was a mutter of acknowledgment and the sound of the others rolling into their bed coverings. Everything was silent for a moment except for the sound of the rain falling and the soft rush of the wind.

Then Abernathy spoke. “High Lord, would it be asking too much that we refrain from camping out in barns after tonight? I think there are fleas in this straw.”

Ben smiled broadly and drifted off to sleep.

D
aybreak brought an end to the rain, and a glimmer of sunshine appeared through the haze of mist and clouds that lingered on. The little company resumed the journey through the valley of Landover, this time turning south for the country of the River Master. They traveled all day, Ben, Questor and Abernathy on horseback, the kobolds afoot. Once again, Bunion went ahead to announce their coming. They passed from the lowland estates of the Lords of the Greensward at midafternoon, leaving behind their broad, open stretches of meadow and farmland, and by dusk were deep into the rolling hill country of the River Master.

The color of life was different here, Ben saw. The cast of things was brighter and truer—as if the failing of the magic had not penetrated so deeply. It was a country of lakes and rivers nestled within hollows and valleys, of orchards and woods scattered on gentle slopes, of grasses and ferns that shimmered in the wind like the waves of some ocean. The mists were thicker in the hill country, trapped in pockets like harnessed clouds, stirring and wending their way from hollow to valley and back again. But the greens of grasses and trees and the blues of lakes and rivers were brighter than in the Greensward, and the splashes of pinks, crimsons, and lavenders did not have that wintry tone that marked so distinctly the plains. Even the Bonnie Blues seemed not so blighted, though darkening spots still marred their beauty.

Ben asked Questor why this was.

“The River Master and those who serve him are closer to the old ways than most. Bits and pieces of the magic are still theirs to command. What magic they still retain they use to keep the earth and waters of their homeland clean.” Questor gave a cursory glance about and then shrugged. “The River Master’s magic protects against a failing of the land’s magic only marginally. Already, signs of wilt and graying are evident. The River Master and his followers fight a holding action at best. The land will fail here in the end as it fails everywhere else.”

“All because Landover has no King?” Ben still found the corrolation between the two difficult to accept.

“Had
no King, High Lord—no King for twenty years.”

“The thirty-two failures don’t count for much, I gather?”

“Against a failing of the magic of the sort you see now? Nothing. You will be the first to count for anything.”

Maybe yes, maybe no, Ben thought grimly, reminded of his lack of success with the Lords of the Greensward. “I really don’t understand—doesn’t anyone recognize the problem? I mean, the land is dying all about them and it’s all because they can’t get together long enough to settle on a King!”

“I do not think they perceive matters quite that way, High Lord,” Abernathy said quietly, edging forward on his horse.

Ben glanced back. “What do you mean?”

“He means that the connection between the loss of a King and the failing of the land’s magic is one that only I have made,” Questor interrupted, obviously irritated with the scribe. “He means that no one else sees the problem the same way I do.”

Ben frowned. “Well, what if they’re right and you’re wrong?”

Questor’s owlish face tightened into a knot. “Then everything you and I are trying to do is a colossal waste of time! But it happens that they are not right and I am not wrong!” Questor glared back at Abernathy momentarily and then faced forward. “I have had twenty years to consider the problem, High Lord. I have observed and studied; I have employed what magic I command to test my theory. It is with some confidence that I tell you that Landover must have a King again if it is to survive!”

He was so adamant in his defense that Ben remained silent. It was Abernathy who spoke first.

“If you have finished momentarily with your attempt at self-vindication, Questor Thews, perhaps you will allow me to get a word in edgewise to explain what I really meant when I said others do not perceive matters as we.” He looked down at Questor over the rims of his glasses, while the wizard stiffened in his saddle but refused to turn. “What I
meant
was that the lack of perception on the part of others was not as regards the problem, but the solution to it. Most see quite clearly that the failing of the magic came about with the death of the old King. But none agree that coronation of a new King will necessarily solve the problem. Some believe restrictions should be placed on the solution sought. Some believe another solution altogether should be sought. Some believe no solution should be sought at all.”