by Terry Brooks
Cradling the baby in her arms, she began to walk on once again.
It was nearing midmorning by the time Ben Holiday reached the country just south of the Deep Fell. He would never have gotten there that fast if Strabo had not offered to trade him a ride for possession of the Tangle Box. The dragon had wanted the box from the first, but Ben had refused to give it up, not convinced that it should be in anyone’s possession but his own.
“Let me have it, Holiday,” the dragon had argued. “I will keep it in a place no one can reach, in a fire pit deep within the Wastelands where no one goes.”
“But why would you want it at all?” Ben asked. “What would you do with it?”
The dragon had flown back from his assault on the demons. They were alone in the center of the meadow. Horris Kew slumped on the ground some yards away. Questor Thews and Abernathy had not yet reached them.
The dragon’s voice was wistful. “I would take it out and look at it from time to time. A dragon covets treasures and hoards precious things. It is all we have left from our old life—all I have left, now that I am alone.” Strabo’s horned head dipped close. “I would keep it hidden where it could never be found. I would keep it just for me.”
Ben had interrupted the conversation long enough to intervene between a sodden, angry Abernathy, who had just come rushing up, and a terrified Horris Kew, and assisted by Questor Thews had restored some small measure of peace between them. The conjurer had saved their lives, after all, he reminded his much-distressed scribe. He went on then to dismiss Kallendbor and his army, exacting an oath from the Lord of Rhyndweir to appear before him in one week’s time for an accounting of his actions. He ordered his Guard to disperse those people who had come looking for mind’s eye crystals and found a great deal more than they had bargained for, back to wherever it was they had come from.
Then he remembered Willow. He went immediately to the Landsview and found her just as she was climbing free of the Deep Fell. Nightshade’s domain, he thought in horror, and no place for the sylph. He was thinking of Nightshade’s parting words to him. He was thinking what the witch might do to Willow if she were given half a chance.
It was a two-day ride to the Deep Fell—far too long under the circumstances. So he struck a bargain with Strabo. A ride to the Deep Fell and back in exchange for the Tangle Box, if the dragon promised that no one else would ever set eyes on it and no one, including the dragon, would ever attempt to open it. Strabo agreed. He extended his firm and unbreakable promise. He gave his dragon’s oath. It was enough, Questor Thews whispered in a short aside. A dragon’s word was his bond.
So off Ben went aboard Strabo, winging through the storm winds and rain, finally passing out of black clouds and into blue skies. The sun shone anew on the land, spilling golden light across the grasslands and hills running north, cutting a swath of brightness through the fading dark.
“She is there, Holiday,” the dragon called back when they grew close, its sharp eyes finding the sylph much quicker than Ben’s.
They swooped down onto the crest of a hill, a scattering of woods running right and left. Willow appeared from across a meadow of wildflowers and Bonnie Blues, and Ben ran to meet her, heedless of everything else. She called to him, her face radiant, tears coming into her eyes once more.
He raced up to her and abruptly stopped, the bundle in her arms a fragile barrier between them. What was she carrying? “Are you all right?” he asked, anxious to be reassured that she was well, eager just to hear her voice.
“Yes, Ben,” she answered. “And you?”
He nodded, smiling. “I love you, Willow,” he said.
He could see her throat constrict. “Come see our child,” she whispered.
He came forward a step, closing the small distance between them, expectation and disbelief racing through him. It was too quick, he thought. It was not yet time. She had not even looked pregnant. How could she have given birth so fast?
The questions vanished in the afterglow of her smile. “The baby?” he said, and she nodded.
She parted the folds of her cloak so he could see. He bent down and peered inside.
A pair of dazzling green eyes stared boldly back.
BESTSELLER
The interviewer sipped a pineapple-strawberry smoothie in the living room of Harold Kraft’s palatial Diamond Head home and looked out across the vast expanse of lanai and swimming pool to the only slightly vaster expanse of the Pacific Ocean. It was late afternoon, and the sun was easing westward toward the flat line of the horizon, the gradual change in the light promising yet another incredibly beautiful Hawaiian sunset. The granite floors of the living room and lanai glittered as if inlaid with flecks of gold, the stone ending at the pool, one of those knife-edge affairs that dropped into a spillover as if falling all the way to the ocean. A Jacuzzi bubbled invitingly at one end of the lanai. A bar and cooking area dominated the other end, complete with hollow coconut shells used for tropical drinks at the frequent parties the author gave.
The home was conservatively valued at fifteen million, although the price of real estate is always subject to what the market will bear and its measure is not an objective exercise. Homes around it had sold for ten million and up and lacked both the extensive grounds and the unrestricted view that took in most of Honolulu. Bare land went for five million in this neighborhood. The numbers were unimaginable for most people. The interviewer lived in Seattle in a home he had bought fifteen years ago for somewhat less than what Harold Kraft earned in a month.
Kraft wandered in from his study where he had gone to answer a private phone call, leaving the interviewer to sip his perfectly mixed drink and admire the view. He strolled over to the bar with a brief apology for taking so long, fixed himself an iced tea, crossed the room to the couch where the interviewer was patiently waiting, and sat down again. He was tall and slender with graying hair and a Vandyke beard, and he moved like a long, slow, elegant cat. He wore silk slacks and shirt and hand-tooled leather sandals. His tanned face was aquiline, and his sandy eyes were penetrating. There were rumors of reconstructive surgery and a rigorous training regimen, but that was fairly commonplace with the rich and famous.
“Good news,” he announced with a smile. “Since you’re here, I can share it with you. Paramount just bought rights to Wizard. Two million dollars outright. They want Sean Connery for the title role, Tom Cruise for the part of the Prince. What do you think?”
The interviewer smiled appreciatively. “I think you’re two million dollars richer. Congratulations.”
Kraft gave him a short bow. “Wait until the merchandising kicks in. That’s where the real money is.”
“Do you write your books with an eye toward movie sales?” the interviewer pressed. He wasn’t getting nearly enough out of Kraft to satisfy either himself or his magazine. Kraft had published three books in two years and dominated the bestseller lists for most of that time, selling more than five million copies in hardcover. But that was practically all anyone knew about him. For all his notoriety and success, he was still very much a mystery. He claimed to be in exile, but he wouldn’t say from where. He claimed to be a political refugee.
“I write to be read,” the author replied pointedly. “What happens after that is up to the consumer. Sure, I want to make money. But mostly I want to be happy.”
The interviewer frowned. “That sounds a bit …”
“Disingenuous? I suppose it does. But I’ve done a lot of things and been a lot of places, and I don’t have much to show for any of it. What I have is myself, and my writing is an extension of myself. It is very hard to separate the two, you know. A writer doesn’t just punch a clock and go home at the end of the day. He carries his work around with him, always thinking about it, always polishing it up like the family silver. If you’re not satisfied with it, you have to live with your dissatisfaction. That’s why I want to be happy about what I do. More important to be happy than to be rich.”
“Doesn’t hurt to be both
,” the interviewer pointed out. “You’ve had an amazing string of successes. Do you ever think about what it was like before you were published?”
Kraft smiled. “All the time. But I sense an attempt at an end run. I have to remind you that try though you might, you won’t get me to talk about my earlier life. Ground rules for this interview, right?”
“So you’ve said, but my readers are quite curious about you. You must know that.”
“I do. I appreciate the interest.”
“But you still won’t discuss anything about yourself before you were published?”
“I made a promise not to.”
“A promise to whom?”
“A promise to some people. That’s all I intend to say.”
“Then let’s discuss your characters and try coming into your life through the back door, so to speak.” The interviewer harbored hopes of publishing a book himself one day. He fancied himself very clever with words. “Are they based on real people from your old life? For instance, the misguided King of your magic land, his inept court wizard, and the snappish dog who serves as his scribe?”
Kraft nodded slowly. “Yes, they exist.”
“How about your protagonist, the renegade wizard who saves the day in each book? Is there some of you in him?”
Kraft cleared his throat modestly. “A bit.”
The interviewer paused, sensing he was finally getting somewhere. “Have you ever dabbled in magic? You know, played at conjuring spells and the like? Has that been a part of your life?”
Harold Kraft was lost in thought for a moment. When he came back from wherever he had been, his face turned serious. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to make an exception to my rule of never talking about my past and tell you something. There was a time when I did play about with magic. Small stuff, really—nothing serious. Except that once I did stumble quite inadvertently on something that turned out to be very dangerous indeed. My own life as well as those of others was threatened. I survived that scare, but I made a promise to certain people that I would never use … that is, dabble, in magic again. I never have.”
“So the magic in your books, the conjuring and the invocations of spells and the like, has some basis in real life?”
“Some, yes.”
“And the tales you weave, those spellbinding stories of monsters and elves, of mythical creatures and wizards like your protagonist—do these have a basis in real life as well?”
Kraft slowly raised and then lowered one eyebrow. “A writer writes what he knows. Life experience enters in. It usually takes a different form than the reality, but it is always there.”
The interviewer nodded solemnly. Had he learned anything from this exchange? He wasn’t sure. It was all rather vague. Like Harold Kraft. He covered his confusion by checking the tiny tape recorder sitting on the coffee table. Still spinning. “Would it be fair to say that the adventures you write about in some way mirror your own life?” he tried again.
“It would be both fair and accurate, yes.”
“How?”
Kraft smiled. “You must use your imagination.”
The interviewer smiled back, trying not to grit his teeth. “Do you have other stories left to tell, Mr. Kraft?”
“Harold, please,” the author insisted with a quick wave of his hand. “Three hours together in the journalistic trenches entitles us to conclude our conversation on a first-name basis. And to answer your question, yes. I have other stories to tell and some time left to tell them, I hope. I’m working on one now. Raptor’s Spell is the title. Would you like to see the cover?”
“Very much.”
They rose and walked from the living room down a short hall to the study, which served primarily as Kraft’s office. Word processors and printers sat at various desks, and books and paper were piled all over the place. Framed book covers hung on the walls. A koa-wood desk dominated the center of the room. From the stacks of writing on the top of this desk, Kraft produced a colored photo and handed it over to the interviewer.
The photo showed a bird that was all black save for a crown of white feathers. The bird was in the act of swooping down on a malevolent being that resembled a mass of thistles. Lightning streaked from the bird’s extended claws. Dark things fled into a woods at the bird’s approach.
The interviewer studied the photo for a moment. “Very dramatic. Is the bird representative of someone from your earlier life?”
Horris Kew, who now called himself Harold Kraft, nodded solemnly. “Alas, poor Biggar, I knew him well,” he intoned with a dramatic flourish.
And gave the photo a nostalgic kiss.
WITCHES’ BREW
To Lisa.
For always being there.
&
To Jill.
Because you must never give up
on yourself.
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
—J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
CONTENTS
Mistaya
Rydall of Marnhull
Haltwhistle
Spell Cast
Challenge
Seduction
Bumbershoot
Graum Wythe Redux
What You See
Ardsheal
Nightshade’s Tale
Juggernaut
Dragon Sight
Wurm
Poggwydd
Concealments
Specter
Dog Dreams
Venom
Holiday Heart
Specimen
MISTAYA
The crow with the red eyes sat on a branch in the towering old white oak where the leafy boughs were thickest and stared down at the people gathered for their picnic in the sunny clearing below. That was what Holiday called it, a picnic. A brightly colored cloth was spread out on the lush spring grass, and the contents of several baskets of food were being emptied onto it. The food, if you were human and possessed of an appetite, would have pleased and delighted, the crow supposed. There were platters of meats and cheeses, bowls of salad and fruit, loaves of bread, and flasks of ale and chilled water. There were plates and napkins set around for each participant and cups for drinking and utensils for eating. A vase of wildflowers had been placed at the center of the feast.
Willow was doing most of the work, the sylph with the emerald tresses and small, lithe form. She was animated, laughing and talking with the others as she worked. The dog and the kobold helped her: Abernathy, who was Landover’s Court Scribe, and Parsnip, who did most of the castle’s cooking. Questor Thews, the ragtag white-bearded wizard, wandered about looking in amazement at sprigs of new growth and strange wildflowers. Bunion, the other kobold, the dangerous one, the one who could spy out almost anything, patrolled the clearing’s perimeter, ever watchful.
The King sat alone at one end of the bright cloth. Ben Holiday, High Lord of Landover. He was staring out into the trees, lost in thought. The picnic was his invention, something they did in the world from which he came. He was introducing it to the others, giving them a new experience. They seemed to be enjoying it more than he was.
The crow with the red eyes sat perfectly still within the concealment of the branches of the old oak, cognizant of the adults but really interested only in the child. Other birds, some more dazzling in their plumage, some more sweet with their song, darted through the surrounding woods, flitting from here to there and back again, mindless and carefree. They were bold and heedless; the crow was purposefully invisible. No eye but the child’s would b
e cast; no attention but the child’s would be drawn. The crow had been waiting more than an hour for the child to notice it, for its unspoken summons to be heeded, for its silent command to be obeyed, and for the brilliant green eyes to be drawn upward into the leafy shadows. The child was walking about, playing at this and that, seemingly aimless but already searching.
Patience, then, the crow with the red eyes admonished. As with so much in life, patience.
Then the child was directly below, the small face lifting, the dazzling green eyes seeking and abruptly finding. The child’s eyes locked on the crow’s, emerald to crimson, human to bird. Words passed between them that did not need speaking, a silent exchange of thoughts on being and having, on want and loss, on the power of knowledge and the inexorable need to grow. The child stood as still as stone, staring up, and knew there was something vast and wondrous to be learned if the proper teacher could be found.
The crow with the red eyes intended to be that teacher.
The crow was the witch Nightshade.
Ben Holiday leaned back on his elbows and let the smells of the picnic lunch bring a growl to his empty stomach. Breakfast had been hours ago, and he had been careful to refrain from eating anything since. Thank goodness the wait was almost over. Willow was unpacking the containers and setting them out, aided by Abernathy and Parsnip. Soon it would be time to eat. It was a perfect summer day for a picnic, the sky clear and blue, the sun warming the earth and the new grasses, chasing memories of winter’s chill into the past once more. Flowers were blooming, and leaves were thick again in the trees. The days were stretching out farther as midsummer neared, and Landover’s colored moons were chasing each other for increasingly shorter periods of time across the darkened heavens.
Willow caught his eye and smiled at him, and he was instantly in love with her all over again, as if it were the first time. As if they were meeting in the midnight waters of the Irrylyn and she was telling him how they were meant for each other.