A Princess of Landover

by Terry Brooks

  “Oh, my favorites!” Strabo enthused. “Crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. And all that iron is fuel for my inner child.” He glanced at Mistaya. “I have to go now, Princess. I need a snack after all that flying. Good luck to you.”

  He wheeled away, spread his wings, and soared off into the sky, Mistaya and her captors forgotten in an instant. Already they could hear the rumble of his internal furnace as the bellows heated the flames to cooking temperature.

  Mistaya was so shocked by the dragon’s abrupt and unexpected departure that for a moment she just stood there. How could he leave like that, right in the middle of rescuing her?

  Then Laphroig looked over at her and His Eminence did the same, and she realized how much danger she was in.

  She brought up her hands in a warding motion. “Don’t even think about it. This wedding is over. Just stay right where you are. I’m not your prisoner now, and if you try to make me one, I’ll fry you where you stand.”

  “I think that it is dragons who fry people, Princess,” His Eminence purred, his fingers flexing. “In any case, you are no match for me, free or not. You are young and inexperienced, and you are alone. Thom can’t help you, either. His brother will see to him while I see to you.”

  The oblong head bobbed and a smile played across the odd face. “I would let you go if I didn’t think you already knew too much for your own good. Best if you come back inside and remain as my guest until your father gets here.”

  Mistaya kept one eye on his hands, the other on Laphroig. “My father isn’t coming. Didn’t you know?”

  “Oh, I think maybe he is. I sent him a message.”

  She didn’t know if he was lying or not, but it wasn’t something she wanted to chance. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not helping you trap my father by staying. We’re leaving.”

  Laphroig stepped forward quickly. “You’ll leave when I say you can leave, you little snot-nosed whelp! You’re mine, wedding or not, and I will do with you as I wish. By the time the dragon finds out what’s been done, it will be too late. Crabbit, I will deal with you and your lying ways later. For now, bind her hands and my brother’s, too, and get out of my way.”

  To emphasize the point, he produced a wicked looking dagger from beneath his robes and held it in a way to suggest that he was ready to use it on any one of them should they give him reason.

  His Eminence looked taken aback. “Who do you think you are, issuing orders to me, Laphroig? I am not one of your lackeys.”

  He shifted away slightly, putting himself at the same distance from Laphroig as he was from Mistaya. “I’ve had enough of you, Lord of Rhyndweir. I think perhaps it is time for you to take your leave. You can do so voluntarily or I will help you on your way. Mr. Pinch? Do you have the crossbow pointed at his back?”

  “I do, Mr. Crabbit,” the other replied from just behind Laphroig. “As you instructed me to do earlier when I warned you that he was a snake in the grass and not to be trusted.”

  Laphroig smiled. “A crossbow won’t do the job, Crabbit. I am armored against such weapons. And before you can work a spell, I will have this dagger through your throat. Now do as I say and stop playing games.”

  Mistaya was at a loss as to how to proceed. The standoff had pitted them against one another. If one attacked, the others would retaliate. She took two steps back and bumped into Thom.

  “Get behind me, Mistaya,” he whispered in her ear.

  She shook her head. “Stay out of this.”

  “I won’t. I can help.”

  “Not with this.” She didn’t dare take her eyes off His Eminence and Laphroig to look at him. “Please, Thom.”

  “Princess,” His Eminence called out suddenly, “what of your promise not to try to escape? Does that mean nothing to you? Have you abandoned your word and your honor, as well?”

  “I kept my word,” she replied. “I said I wouldn’t do anything during the wedding. The wedding is off, so I am released from my promise.”

  “Some of us might argue with you.”

  “I think we are beyond arguing, Your Eminence.”

  Although she was pretty sure by now that talking was the only thing keeping her would-be captors at bay. She had to find a way to break this off without provoking an attack, and then she had to find a way for both Thom and herself to leave.

  She wondered suddenly what had happened to Edgewood Dirk. She had thought the Prism Cat would be there to help her at this point. But it appeared he had abandoned her in the same way as Strabo. She regretted anew that she hadn’t done a better job of keeping loyal Haltwhistle at her side. He would never have left her.

  “Haltwhistle,” she whispered to herself in a voice so low that even Thom, standing right next to her, couldn’t hear.

  “Lord Laphroig,” His Eminence called. “Let’s put our differences aside long enough to deal with the Princess. She remains our common enemy and the lure by which we might still trap her father. You and I can settle up later, once she is incapacitated.”

  Laphroig seemed to be thinking it over, and now Rufus Pinch was turned toward her, too, crossbow pointed. Mistaya saw her window of opportunity slipping away. She had to do something, and she had to do it right now.

  Suddenly she saw Haltwhistle standing just at the edge of the trees behind His Eminence and Laphroig, hackles raised. She took a long moment to register his presence, to make certain she wasn’t mistaken. But there he was, good old Haltwhistle, not an apparition but the real thing.

  She took a deep breath. “Haltwhistle,” she whispered a second time, and the sound of his name almost made her cry.

  “Mr. Pinch?” His Eminence called softly.

  In the next instant, everyone moved at once. Pinch released the trigger on the crossbow, Laphroig flung the dagger, and His Eminence leveled a dark charge of magic with lightning quickness. Mistaya retaliated with her own magic, already waiting at her fingertips, to protect both Thom and herself, and as she did so she felt Thom slam into her, knocking her aside. As all of this was happening, she saw Haltwhistle’s hackles turn to frost and his magic lance out in a sudden rush.

  Dagger, crossbow bolt, and magic seemed to arrive at the same moment, exploding in front of her in a cloud of smoke. The force of the explosion sent her sprawling, so she didn’t see clearly what happened next, except that the confluence of magic and dagger and crossbow bolt seemed to rebound from her own defenses and carom away, sharp flashes indicating results she could not make out. She found herself sprawled on the ground, the stench of His Eminence’s powerful magic raw and pungent in her nostrils, the heat of it layered against her skin. She lay stunned for a moment, entangled with Thom, who had also been upended by the attack. Struggling to disengage, she tried to peer through the clouds of smoke and the mix of random flashes to see what had happened, but everything was obscured.

  As she scrambled to her feet, she took a deep breath of air that was suddenly sharp and bitter and assailed her mouth and nostrils with suffocating power. She tried to fight it off, failed, and lost consciousness.

  She came awake with a blinding headache. Everything seemed hazy and a bit vague, as if she were viewing it through gauzy curtains.

  “Mistaya!” Thom whispered from somewhere far away. She felt his hand squeeze her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She wasn’t entirely sure, but at least she could breathe again. She opened her eyes and looked into his. “Are you?”

  “The dagger missed me,” he replied.

  She wasn’t so sure how that could be. Right at the last, he had tried to save her and put himself in the path of the blade. It hadn’t looked to her, in the split second she’d had to witness the attack by his brother, that it could have missed him. But maybe her magic had deflected it.

  Haltwhistle nudged into view through the haze, his hackles lowered again, his coat smooth. Things must be all right after all, she thought. She sat up slowly and smiled. “Good old Haltwhistle. I’m so sorry for not taking better care of you. I won’t
do that ever again.”

  The mud puppy’s beaver tail wagged eagerly as he sat down close by, but safely out of reach. If he didn’t think there was any danger, there probably wasn’t. With Thom helping, Mistaya climbed back to her feet, searching for her adversaries, the last wisps of smoke wafting away on the breeze.

  Then she saw Laphroig. He was standing approximately where she had last seen him, one arm raised in the follow-through of a throwing motion, his face twisted with anger. He wasn’t moving.

  Chances are he wouldn’t ever move again.

  He had been turned to stone.

  She looked farther around the clearing. But there was no sign of Craswell Crabbit and Rufus Pinch.

  “What happened here?” Thom asked quietly.

  Mistaya didn’t know. It was entirely possible, she decided, that she never would.

  DEMONS AT THE GATES

  Mistaya and Thom conducted a hurried search of the grounds but failed to find any trace of Crabbit and Pinch. Their complete disappearance suggested that the pair might have been vaporized or spirited away to some other corner of the Kingdom. After all, a collision of magic as powerful as those commanded by herself, His Eminence, and Haltwhistle could result in almost anything.

  Nor was there much she could do about The Frog. She was not particularly adept at reversing magic spells, and the one that had turned him to stone was no exception. She decided it was best to leave him as he was and see if Questor could do anything to help.

  She was about to suggest to Thom that they search within Libiris itself just to make certain Crabbit and Pinch hadn’t somehow gotten past them when a huge squalling sound from inside the building signaled that whatever the fate of those two villains, something else was clearly amiss. With Thom at her side, she charged back through the front doors toward the entry into the Stacks, tracing the cacophonous noise to its source.

  They had not yet reached their destination when dozens of frantic Throg Monkeys came pouring out, flinging their arms wildly and howling as if they had lost their minds. Some few made it all the way out of the building and disappeared into the woods, but most seemed to lose their sense of direction before they reached the outside. As Mistaya and Thom entered the Stacks, they could see dozens more of the little monsters charging about, racing up and down the aisles, climbing shelving units, clinging to the ceiling rafters, and generally milling around to no recognizable purpose.

  Then Mistaya saw it. From the rear of the chamber, back in the deep gloom where the wall had been broken through, a wicked crimson light was pulsing to the steady rhythm of a coarse and ominous chanting.

  The demons of Abaddon were trying to break out on their own.

  “Thom, stay here!” she shouted and raced down the closest aisle for the darkness ahead.

  Thom apparently had no thought of obeying. He caught up with her in nothing flat. “You wait!” he called over to her as he sped past, flashing his familiar grin.

  She was furious with him and at the same time scared. He had no business going back there like this! He had risked an encounter with magic once and it had almost killed him. Now he was risking another. The demons of Abaddon would brush him aside like a fly. What was wrong with him?

  Well, she knew the answer to that one before she finished the thought. He was doing it for her, because he cared for her and was trying once again to protect her. It made her chest ache with pride; it made her want to do the same for him. She increased her pace, flying through the near darkness, darting from one pool of shadows to the next, dodging errant Throg Monkeys and books that lay scattered about. All the while the air throbbed with the sound of the chanting and the invisible pulse of demon magic. She had no idea what she was going to do, only that she had better do something or all of her efforts would have been for nothing.

  Her worst fears were realized as the rear wall of the Stacks came into view. The hole opened in the building wall by the theft of the books of magic and the release of their power was clearly outlined by the crimson light. The hole was enlarged anew, a torn, aching wound filled with the dark shapes of the demons and their minions, all grouped around the black-cloaked form that held the red leather book. This demon, the largest of them all, led the chanting, holding up the book to the glow of torch flames so that the others could see, crimson light leaping off the pages as the reading stole the magic of the words and turned it back against the hapless building. Throg Monkeys too scared to flee were crouched in the shadows just on the other side of the opening, eyes wide. The scene was a bizarre tableau, all the characters frozen in place against the ebb and flow of the crimson light.

  Now Thom slowed, uncertain what to do. He glanced over at Mistaya, searching for direction, but she had none to give. There was a screen of clear light across the opening; she could see a distension where the demons pressed up against it. It was all that held them back, and it was being stretched more thinly as the magic eroded the library walls and widened the opening. Mistaya’s gamble in tricking the Throg Monkeys into returning the stolen books had worked for a time, but something had gone wrong. Either the demons had discovered her ruse or her battle with His Eminence had triggered this new response. Whatever the case, the demons weren’t waiting any longer to break free.

  They were coming out now.

  Mistaya stood a dozen yards away, squarely in their path, and summoned a conjuring of storm-strength repulsion that she had learned from Questor Thews. She brought it to her fingers and threw it at the demons, a white-hot explosion that knocked them backward into the tunnel, turning them into a sprawling dark mass of arms, legs, teeth, and claws.

  But in the process of stopping their advance, she had destroyed the thin membrane that held them at bay.

  She stared. She couldn’t believe how foolish she had been. She had acted impulsively, out of haste and fear; she had responded to the danger without thinking things through.

  Already the demons were back on their feet, a knot of twisted dark faces and feral eyes searching her out. She summoned an iron-infused blocking spell, throwing it up across the opening, and they were stopped short. But only for a few precious moments, she knew; the spell would not last.

  They plunged ahead again in seconds, the big demon with the red leather book leading the way. He held the book clutched close against his chest, claws gripping it tightly. Following in his wake, the foremost invaders cleared the tunnel opening and were suddenly inside the library before her third casting—this one a combination of tornado-force wind and hurricane rain—threw back the entire pack once more.

  She dropped to one knee, nearly exhausted by her efforts. She had used the best of the conjurings she had learned from Questor. She had nothing left to try.

  She caught herself. She did have another weapon: one of the deadly incantations she had learned from the witch Nightshade, one that would burn the demons to ash, that would steal the life from them with a certainty that was frightening even to think about.

  It would stop them—if she could use it. If she could react as Nightshade had taught her and not think of what it meant.

  But, no, she wouldn’t do that. Not even against creatures like these. Not even to save Libiris.

  Then she saw the book. The leather cover glistened, shards of wicked red light seeping from between the pages even though its covers were closed. The book was lying on the floor just inside the library where the big demon must have dropped it when her spell struck.

  Thom had seen it, too, and he was already racing toward it.

  “Thom, no!” she screamed.

  Too late. He was already there, just ahead of the demons that had regrouped inside the tunnel and were charging for the opening once more. Thom snatched up the book and stood frozen in place. The demons were almost on top of him, tearing at the space that separated them, claws eager for something more substantive. Mistaya waited for him to run, to drop the book, to save himself. But he just stood there, holding his ground against the onrush.

  “Thom!” she screamed
in desperation. “Throw me the book!”

  He glanced back at her, his face bloodless.

  “Throw me the book, Thom!” she repeated, gesturing wildly.

  For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, abruptly, he turned from her and flung the book over the heads of the demons, a whirling, spinning missile.

  Mistaya understood at once what he was trying to do: turn the demons around, using the book as a lure to send them back into the tunnel. He was trying to save her.

  Mistaya reacted instinctively, doing something entirely un expected, even to herself, something she had sworn she would never do.

  She summoned one of Nightshade’s spells.

  Her hands a blur, her voice a hiss, she dispatched a chaser bolt of killing green fire, one that could have incinerated the demons but here was meant for something else. It caught the red leather book in midflight over the heads of the demons and broke through its protective magic. The leather covers flew open, the pages tore free, and the book disintegrated into hundreds of pieces that scattered everywhere. The demons tried to snatch them out of the air, but some burst into flames and others eluded their grasp and flew away like tiny birds. The demons howled and gave chase, but their efforts were futile.

  Mistaya didn’t wait. As soon as she saw that the book had lost its power, she put her magic to work creating a healing spell that would close the breach in the library wall. Weaving her fingers, she spoke words of power and brought the spell to life, spinning it out toward the opening. It wasn’t as strong or complete as she would have liked, but it was enough. Libiris, freed from the book’s wounding magic, was already healing on her own, able once more to begin repairing the breach. Mistaya could see the results—the rent smoothing and tightening, the hole narrowing, the wall strengthening anew.