Wizard at Large (25 page)

Ben Holiday turned the rental car into the drive of 2986 Forest Park, brought it to a stop, shut down the engine, and set the brake. He glanced briefly at Miles, who looked a little like what Bear Bryant used to on the sidelines, and then at Willow, who smiled at him through a mask of weariness and pain. Ben smiled back. It was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

They left the car and walked to the front stoop of the small, well-kept ranch home and knocked on the door. Ben could hear the sound of his pulse in his ears and he shifted his feet anxiously.

The door opened, and a lanky, bearded man with hollow eyes and a guarded look stood facing them. He was holding a can of beer in one hand. “Yeah?” His eyes fastened on Willow.

“Davis Whitsell?” Ben asked.

“Yeah?” WhitselFs voice was a mix of fear and mistrust. He couldn't stop staring at the sylph.

“Are you the man who has the talking dog?”

Whitsell continued to stare.

“The one who called Hollywood Eye?” Ben persisted.

Willow smiled. Davis Whitsell forced his eyes away. “You from the Eye?” he asked cautiously.

Miles shook his head. “Hardly, Mr. Whitsell. We're from…”

“We represent another concern,”Ben interrupted quickly. He glanced about the empty neighborhood momentarily. “Do you suppose we could step inside and talk?”

Whitsell hesitated. “I don't think…”

“You could finish your beer that way,”Ben interjected. “You could let the lady rest a moment, too. She's not feeling very well.”

“I don't have the dog anymore,”the other said suddenly.

Ben glanced at his companions. The uncertainty and concern mirrored in their faces was undisguised. “Could we come inside anyway, Mr. Whitsell?” he asked quietly.

Ben thought he was going to say no. He seemed right on the verge of saying it, closing the door, and putting them out of his life. Then something changed his mind. He nodded wordlessly and stepped aside.

When they were inside, he closed the door behind them and went over to sit in a well-worn easy chair. The house was dark and still, the blinds drawn, and the ticking of the old clock at the head of the hall the only sound. Ben and his companions sat together on the sofa. Whitsell took a long pull at his beer and looked at them. “I told you the dog was gone,”he repeated.

Ben exchanged a quick glance with Miles. “Where did he go?” he asked.

Whitsell shrugged, trying hard to be nonchalant. “I don't know.”

“You don't know? You mean he just left?”

“Sorta. What difference does it make?” Whitsell leaned
forward. “Who are you, anyway? Who do you represent? The Inquirer or something?”

Ben took a deep breath. “Before I tell you that, Mr. Whitsell, I have to know something from you. I have to know if we're both talking about the same dog. We happen to be looking for a very particular dog—a dog that really does talk. Did this dog really talk, Mr Whitsell? I mean, really talk?”

Whitsell suddenly looked very frightened. “I don't think we should continue this,”he said abruptly. “I think you should go.”

None of them moved. Willow wasn't even paying attention to him. She was making a strange, birdlike sound —a sound Ben had never heard before. It brought a tiny black poodle out from under the couch with a whine and into her lap as if they had been friends all their lives. The dog nuzzled the girl and licked her hand, and the girl stroked the animal fondly.

“She's been badly frightened,”Willow said softly, to no one in particular.

Whitsell started to get up, then sat back again. “Why should I tell you anything?” he muttered. “How do I know what you want?”

Miles was drumming his fingers on his knee impatiently. “What we want is a little cooperation, Mr. Whitsell.”

They stared at each other for a moment. “You from the police?” Whitsell asked finally. “Some special branch, maybe? Is that what this is all about?” He seemed to think better of the question almost before he had finished asking it. “What am I thinking here? Police don't use girls with green hair, for Pete's sake!”

“No, we're not police.”Ben stood up suddenly and walked about for a minute. How much should he tell this man? Whitsell had his eyes fixed on Willow again, watching
the little dog nuzzle into the girl as she continued to pet it.

Ben made his decision. “Was the dog's name Aber nathy?”

He stopped walking and looked directly at Whitsell. The other man blinked in surprise. “Yeah, it was,”he said. “How did you know that?”

Ben came back and sat down again. “My name is Ben. This is Miles and Willow.”He pointed to the other two. “Abernathy is our friend, Mr. Whitsell. That's how we know. He's our friend, and we've come to take him home.”

There was a long moment of silence as they studied each other wordlessly, and then Davis Whitsell nodded. “I believe you. Don't know why, exactly, but I do. I just wish I could help you.”He sighed. “But the dog's… but Aber-nathy's gone.”

“Did you sell him, Mr. Whitsell?” Miles asked.

“No, hell, no!” the other snapped angrily. “I never planned anything like that! I was just gonna make a few bucks off that interview with the Eye, then send him to Virginia, the way he wanted. Wasn't no harm gonna come to him. But it was the chance I'd waited for all my life, don't you see, the chance to get a little recognition, get off the circuit, maybe, and…”

He had leaned forward in the chair, but now he trailed off, spent, and slumped back again. “It doesn't matter now, I guess. The point is, he's gone. Someone took him.”

He took another long pull on his beer and put it down carefully on the table beside him, back into a glistening ring of condensation that the bottom of the can had formed earlier. “You're really who you say you are?” he asked. “You're really friends of Abernathy?”

Ben nodded. “Are you?”

“Yeah, though maybe you wouldn't know it from all that's happened.”

“Why don't you tell us about it?”

Whitsell did. He started at the beginning, telling them about how he had gone to Franklin Elementary to do his show, how the little girl Elizabeth—hell, he didn't even know her last name—had come up to him, asked his help. He told them about the dog, about Abernathy, coming to his door that night, a genuine talking dog walking upright like a man, saying the little girl sent him, that he needed to get back to Virginia for some reason or other, and that he couldn't use a phone because there wasn't any. Whitsell hadn't believed a word of it. But he had agreed to help anyway, hiding Abernathy out in his home, packing Alice off to her mother's, then trying to line up that interview with the Hollywood Eye so he could raise enough money to pay the cost of sending the dog to Virginia and maybe make a few bucks for himself in the bargain.

“But I got fooled,”he admitted sourly. “I was tricked out of the house. When I got back, Abernathy was gone, and poor old Sophie was stuffed in the freezer, half froze!” His gaze shifted momentarily to Willow. “That's why she's so skittish, Miss. She's a very sensitive animal.”He looked back then at Ben. “I can't prove it, of course, but I know sure as I sit here that the same fellow that had your friend caged up in the first place found out about what I was doing and took him back again! Trouble is, I don't even know who he is. Not sure I want to, man like that.”

Then he seemed to realize how that sounded and reddened. He shook his head. “Sorry. Fact is, I could find out about him from the school, find out the little girl's last name, where she lives. She'd know the man's name. Hell, I'll do it right now, mister, if you think it'll help that dog! I feel terrible about this whole business!”

“Thanks anyway, but I think we already know the name of the man,”Ben said quietly. “I think we know where he is, too.”

Whitsell hesitated, surprised.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?”

Whitsell frowned. “No, I guess not. You think you can do something to help the dog—uh, Abernathy?”

Ben stood up without answering, and the others followed suit. Sophie jumped down from Willow's lap and nuzzled her legs through her dress. The hem lifted slightly, and Whitsell caught a brief glimpse of silky emerald hair on the back of the sylph's slender ankle.

“Thanks for your help, Mr. Whitsell,”Miles was saying.

“Look, you want me to go with you, maybe help out?” the other offered suddenly, surprising them. “This seems like pretty dangerous stuff, but I want to do my part…”

“No, I don't think so,”Ben said. They moved toward the door.

Davis Whitsell followed. “I'd be worried about that little girl, too, if I were you,”he added. Sophie had returned to his side now, and he picked her up. “She might have been found out.”

“We'll look into it. She'll be all right.”Ben was already thinking about what to do next.

Whitsell saw them to the door and outside. The late afternoon sun was sinking rapidly below the horizon, the dusk turning the light silver. Shadows from shade trees and utility poles dappled and ribbed the neighborhood houses. A man with an insurance sign pasted on the side of his car was just pulling into a driveway down the block, the crunch of his tires on the gravel sharp in the stillness.

“I'm sorry about all this,”Davis Whitsell told them. He hesitated, then reached out to shake hands with the men, as if needing some small reassurance that they believed him. “Look, I don't know who you are or where you're from or what all this is about. But I do know this much. I never wanted anything bad to happen to Abernathy. Tell him that, will you? The little girl, too.”

Ben nodded. “I'll tell them, Mr. Whitsell.”

He was hoping as he said it that he would have the chance.

In the country of Landover, the wizard Questor Thews was hoping much the same thing. He was not, however, optimistic.

Following their escape from the castle fortress of Rhyndweir, Questor, the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip, and the G'home Gnomes Fillip and Sot had journeyed south and east once more to the sanctuary of Sterling Silver. Questor and the kobolds had gone home because there really didn't seem to be any alternative now that the trail of the missing bottle had come to an end. Questor still hadn't been able to fathom who might have stolen the bottle from Kallendbor; until he could figure that out, he really hadn't any idea where he ought to start looking again. Besides, affairs of state had been left alone for several days now and needed looking after in the High Lord's absence.

The G'home Gnomes tagged along because they were still too frightened after their ordeal with the band of trolls to do anything else.

A message from the Lord Kallendbor in the form of a threat of immediate reprisal for the imagined theft of the bottle almost beat Questor back to the castle, but the wizard was undaunted. Kallendbor was hardly likely to challenge the power of the High Lord—unless, of course, he was to discover that Holiday was missing, heaven forbid!—however irritated he was about losing the bottle. Questor penned off a strongly worded reply on realm stationery repeating once again that he was in no way responsible for the theft of the bottle, nor were any of those in his company, and that any hostile response would be dealt with severely. He stamped it with the High Lord's seal and dispatched it. Enough was enough.

During the next twenty-four hours, he met with a delegation of other Lords from the Greensward to address their
grievances, including Strehan's concerning the destruction of his tower by Kallendbor, advised the newly formed judicial council on establishment of courts to enforce the King's Rule, studied irrigation charts that would enable farmers to cultivate portions of the arid eastern expanses of the valley, and heard ambassadors and others from all parts of the realm. He did this as representative of and advisor to the High Lord, assuring all that the King would give immediate attention to their concerns. No one questioned his word. Everyone still assumed that Holiday was somewhere in the valley, and Questor was not about to suggest otherwise. Everything went smoothly, and that first day expired without incident.

The first signs of trouble appeared with the next. Reports began to drift in of disturbances from all corners of the valley, a random scattering of raindrops that quickly grew into a downpour. Crag Trolls were suddenly, unex-plainably skirmishing, not only with G'home Gnomes, but also with outlying residents of the Greensward, with ko-bolds and sprites, and even with each other. The lake country claimed it was being inundated with fouled water from the Greensward and infested by plant-eating rats. The Greensward complained that it was under siege from a flurry of small dragons that were burning crops and livestock alike. Fairy folk and humans were setting on one another as if fighting were a newly discovered form of recreation. As fast as Questor read one report, two more came in. He went to bed that night exhausted.

The third day was even worse. The reports had accumulated overnight, and on waking he was deluged. Everyone seemed to be at odds with everyone else. No one knew exactly why. There was hostility at every turn. No one knew what was causing it. Dissatisfaction quickly grew into a demand for action. Where was the High Lord? Why wasn't he dealing with this mess personally?