The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (93 page)

He sighed deeply. Well, he owed them something, certainly—but not this much. They were taking advantage of his friendship in a way that was totally unconscionable. They had traded on it to bring this latest complaint before him, deliberately circumventing the regular channels of a court administration he had worked hard to implement. They had brandished it like a fiery torch until he was hounded to this, his last sanctuary. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t do this every single time there was a complaint of any sort—which was every five minutes, it sometimes seemed—but, of course, they did. They didn’t trust anyone else to be fair and impartial. They wanted their “Great High Lord” and their “Mighty High Lord” to hear them out.

And hear them out, and hear them out …

“… a fair disposition would be a return of all things stolen and a replacement of all things damaged,” said Fillip.

“A fair disposition would be for you to order to our service several dozen trolls for a reasonable period of time,” said Sot.

“Perhaps a week or two,” said Fillip.

“Perhaps a month,” said Sot.

It would also help matters if they didn’t bring most of their problems on themselves, Ben thought darkly. It was difficult to be either objective or sympathetic
when he knew before the first word was out of their mouths that they were
at least
as guilty of causing the dilemma as whomever their latest complaint was to be lodged against.

Fillip and Sot rambled on. Their grimy faces twitched as they talked, their eyes squinting against the light, their fur wrinkled and worn. Their fingers curled and straightened as they gestured, and bits of dirt crumbled and broke away from beneath the nails where it was caked from digging. Their shabby clothes hung on them, leather and sackcloth, colorless save for a single incongruous red feather stuck in the headband of their caps. They were bits of wreckage that had somehow washed up on the shores of his life.

“Perhaps a tribute would help serve as recompense,” Fillip was saying.

“Perhaps a token gift of silver or gold,” Sot echoed.

Ben shook his head hopelessly. This was quite enough. He was about to cut them off when he was saved from the need to do so by the sudden, unexpected appearance of Questor Thews. His Court Wizard burst through the garden room doors as if catapulted by some giant sling, arms waving, white beard and long hair whipping about, gray robes with their colorful patches trailing after in what appeared to be a desperate effort to keep up with their wearer.

“I have done it, I have done it!” he proclaimed without any preliminaries. He was flushed with excitement, his owlish face made positively glowing by whatever it was that he had done. He seemed oblivious to the presence of the G’home Gnomes, who mercifully stopped their presentation in midsentence and simply stared at him open-mouthed.

“What is it that you have done?” Ben inquired mildly. He had learned to temper his enthusiasm where Questor was concerned, because it was often sadly misplaced. Questor accomplished on the average about one half of what he thought he had accomplished.

“The magic, High Lord! I have found the magic! Finally, I have found the means to …” He stopped, hands gesturing emphatically. “No, wait a moment! The others must hear this, too. All of our friends must be present. I have taken the liberty of sending for them. It should only be a few, brief … This is such a glorious … Ah, ah, here they are now!”

Willow appeared in the open door, stunning as always, more beautiful than all the flowers about her, her slender form a whisper of white silk and trailing lace as she slipped into the sunlit room. Her pale green face glanced toward Ben, and she smiled that special, secret smile that she reserved only for him. A fairy creature, she seemed as ephemeral as the warmth of the midday air. The kobolds, Bunion and Parsnip, trailed after, gnarled bodies skittering along, wizened monkey faces grinning doubtfully, all teeth and sharp angles. Fairy creatures, too, they had the look of something conjured from a nightmare. Abernathy came last, resplendent in his scarlet and gold Court
Scribe uniform, no fairy creature, but a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier who seemed to think he was human. He held his dog’s body erect and dignified, his soulful eyes darting at once to the hateful, carnivorous G’home Gnomes.

“I see no reason to be present in the same room as these loathsome creatures …” he began indignantly and was cut short by the sight of Questor Thews advancing on him with arms stretched wide.

“Old friend!” the wizard gushed. “Abernathy, the best of news for you! Come, come!”

He seized hold of Abernathy and propelled him into the center of the room. Abernathy stared at the wizard in disbelief, finally shaking himself free of the other entirely.

“Have you lost your mind?” he demanded, brushing at his garments to straighten them. His muzzle twitched. “And what is this old friend business? What are you up to now, Questor Thews?”

“Something you cannot begin to imagine!” The wizard was beaming with excitement as he rubbed his hands together and beckoned them all closer. They crowded in, and Questor’s voice lowered conspiratorially. “Abernathy, if you were to wish for that which you most desire in all the world, what would it be?”

The dog stared at him. Then he glanced momentarily at the G’home Gnomes, then back again. “How many wishes do I get?”

The wizard lifted his bony hands and brought them to rest gently on the other’s shoulders. “Abernathy.” He breathed the scribe’s name. “I have found the magic that will change you from a dog back into a man!”

There was stunned silence. Everyone knew the story of how Questor had used the magic to change Abernathy from a man into a dog to protect him from the old King’s spiteful son some years earlier, when that reprobate was in one of his more hateful moods, and then had been unable to change him back again. Abernathy had lived since then as an imperfect dog who retained human hands and speech, always with the hope that one day a way would be found to restore his human self. A chagrined Questor had searched in vain for that way, frequently claiming he would find it when he found certain books of magic hidden by Meeks on his departure from Landover. But the books had been destroyed while being recovered, and not much had been heard on the subject since.

Abernathy cleared his throat. “Is this simply an over-generous dose of your usual nonsense, wizard?” he asked cautiously. “Or can you really change me back?”

“I can!” Questor declared, nodding vehemently. He paused. “I think.”

Abernathy drew back. “You think?”

“Wait a minute!” Ben was out of his chair and between them with as much speed as he could manage, nearly tripping headfirst over a box of gardenias in
his effort to prevent bloodshed. He took a deep breath. “Questor.” He waited until the other’s eyes found his. “I thought that kind of magic was beyond you. I thought that when you lost the books of magic, you lost any way of even studying the arts mastered by your predecessors, let alone trying to …”

“Trial and error, High Lord!” the other interrupted quickly. “Trial and error! I simply expanded on what I already knew, taking matters a step further each time, learning a bit more as I went until I had learned it all. It has taken me until now to master the magic, but master it I have!”

“You think,” Ben amended.

“Well …”

“This is a waste of time—as usual!” Abernathy snapped, turned, and would have stalked away except that he was hemmed in by the G’home Gnomes, who had crowded close to hear better. Abernathy wheeled back. “The fact of the matter is, you never get
anything
right!”

“Rubbish!” Questor cried out suddenly, quieting them all. He straightened. “For ten long months I have worked on this magic—ever since the old books of magic were destroyed with Meeks, ever since then!” His sharp eyes locked on Abernathy. “I know how much this means to you. I have dedicated myself to mastering the magic that would make it possible. I have used the magic on small creatures with complete success. I have proven so far as it is possible to do so that it can be done. It only remains to try it with you.”

No one said anything for a moment. The only sound in the room was the buzz of a solitary bumblebee as it meandered from flower box to flower box. Abernathy frowned at Questor Thews in determined silence. There was disbelief reflected in his eyes, but it couldn’t quite mask the hope.

“I think we should give Questor the opportunity to finish his explanation,” Willow spoke up finally. She stood a pace or two back from the others, watching.

“I agree,” Ben added his approval. “Tell us the rest, Questor.”

Questor looked offended. “Rest? What rest? That is the whole of it, thank you—unless you expect technical details on how the magic works, which I am not going to give you, since you would not understand them anyway. I have developed a means to complete the transformation from dog to man and that is that! If you wish me to use the magic, I will! If not, I will dismiss the matter from my mind!”

“Questor …” Ben began soothingly.

“Well, really, High Lord! I work hard to discover a difficult and elusive magical process and I am greeted with insults, jeers, and accusations! Am I Court Wizard or not, I ask myself? There certainly seems to be some doubt!”

“I simply asked …” Abernathy tried.

“No, no, you need not apologize for the truth of your feelings!” Questor Thews seemed to relish thoroughly the role of martyr. “Throughout history,
all great men have been misunderstood. Some have even died for their beliefs.”

“Now, look here!” Ben was growing angry.

“That is not to say that I feel my own life is threatened in any way, you understand,” Questor added hastily. “I was simply making a point. Ahem! It only remains for me to repeat that the process is complete, the magic is found, and we can use it if you wish. Simply say so. You have all the facts.” He stopped suddenly. “Oh. Except one, that is.”

There was a collective groan. “Except one?” Ben repeated.

Questor tugged uncomfortably on one ear and cleared his throat. “There is one small matter, High Lord. The magic requires a catalyst for a transformation of this magnitude. I lack such a catalyst.”

“I knew it …” Abernathy muttered under his breath.

“But there is an alternative,” Questor continued hastily, ignoring the other. He paused and took a deep breath. “We could use the medallion.”

Ben stared at him blankly. “The medallion? What medallion?”

“Your medallion, High Lord.”

“My medallion?”

“But you would have to take it off and give it to Abernathy to wear during the transformation process.”

“My medallion?”

Questor looked as if he were waiting for the ceiling to fall in on him. “It would only be for a few moments, you understand—that would be all. Then you could have your medallion back.”

“I could have it back. Right.”

Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Questor, we spent weeks trying to get the damn thing back when it wasn’t really gone in the first place, and now you want me to take it off for real? I thought I was
never
supposed to take it off. Isn’t that what you yourself have told me on more than one occasion? Isn’t it?”

“Well, yes …”

“What if something goes wrong and the medallion is damaged or lost? What then?” A dark flush was beginning to creep up Ben’s neck. “What if … what if, for whatever reason, Abernathy
can’t
give it back? Great balls of fire! This is the most half-baked idea I ever heard, Questor! What are you thinking about, anyway?”

Everyone had sort of shrunk away from him during this explosion, and now Ben found himself alone amid the flower boxes with the wizard. Questor was standing fast, but looking none too comfortable.

“If there were another choice in the matter, High Lord …”

“Well, find one, confound it!” Ben cut him short. He started to elaborate,
then stopped, glancing instead at the others. “How much sense does this make to anyone else? Abernathy? Willow?”

Abernathy did not answer.

“I think you have to consider carefully what is at risk, Ben,” Willow said finally.

Ben put his hands on his hips, looked at them each in turn, then gazed out wordlessly into the gardens beyond. So he had to consider what was at risk, did he? Well, what was at risk was the thing that had made him King of Landover and kept him there. It was the medallion that summoned the Paladin, the knight-errant who served as the King’s champion and protector
—his
champion and protector on more than one occasion already. And it was the medallion that let him pass back and forth between Landover and other worlds, including the one he had come from. That’s what was at risk! Without the medallion, he was in constant danger of winding up as just so much dog meat!

He regretted that last comparison almost immediately. After all, what was also at risk was Abernathy’s permanent future as a canine.

He frowned blackly. What had begun as a fairly uneventful day was turning into a quagmire of unpleasant possibilities. His memory tugged at him. Ten months ago, he had been tricked into conveying the old wizard Meeks back into Landover when he had thought his worst enemy safely exiled. Meeks had then used his considerable magic to steal Ben’s identity and the throne and—most important of all—to convince Ben that he had lost the medallion. It had almost cost Ben his life—not to mention Willow’s—to discover what had been done to him and to defeat the old troublemaker once and for all. Now he was King again, safely ensconced at Sterling Silver, comfortably settled, the reins of kingship firmly in hand, his programs for a better life nicely under way, and here was Questor Thews playing around again with the magic!

Damn!

He stared at the flowers. Gardenias, roses, lilies, hyacinths, daisies, and dozens of variations of other familiar species along with a truckload of ground cover and flowering vines—all spread out before him like a vast patchwork quilt, scented and soft as down. It was so peaceful here. He didn’t get to enjoy the garden room that often. This was his first morning in weeks. Why was he being hounded like this?