by Terry Brooks
A weapon! He needed a weapon!
Through the blur of his tears he saw the robot fling Bunion away as if the kobold were made of paper. Massive iron feet thudded in heavy cadence as the monster closed on the bed, reached down for the footboard, and tore it away. The bed dropped with a lurch, and Ben rolled free, trying to gain his feet. Bunion attacked again, and this time the robot slapped him away so hard that the kobold struck the wall with an audible crunch, crumpled to the floor, and lay still.
“Ben, call the Paladin!” Willow cried out, throwing loose bedding and broken pieces of wood at the monster in a futile effort to slow it.
Then the Ardsheal appeared, flying through the doorway out of the darkness beyond, slamming into their attacker from behind. The force of the blow caused the robot to sway momentarily before turning back. The Ardsheal closed fearlessly with the giant, grappling with it in an effort to bring it down. Lightning flashed once more, outlining the combatants as they fought for footing across the chamber floor. Willow darted past them, trying to reach Ben. Ben was on his feet, leaning dazedly against the far wall. Blood ran down his temple. He groped for the medallion so that he could summon the Paladin, but to his horror he couldn’t find it. The medallion and the chain that had bound it about his neck were gone!
Back against the stone wall crashed the robot and the Ardsheal, locked together in mortal combat, caught up in their terrible struggle like great bears. The Ardsheal fastened its hands on one of the robot’s great metal forearms and wrenched at it with terrific force. There was a frightening screech of metal giving way, and suddenly the lower arm and hand separated and fell to the floor with a crash. Instantly the robot wrapped both arms about the Ardsheal, locked its good hand to the remnants of its shattered arm, and tightened its arms in a crushing grip. The Ardsheal stiffened and threw back its head. Something inside it broke with an audible series of snaps.
Willow grabbed up a piece of the shattered door, charged forward with a cry, and slammed the makeshift club across the robot’s face. The robot did not seem to notice, still concentrating all its efforts on the Ardsheal. Able to see again, Ben surged forward, his head clear. He pulled Willow away, snatched up a large piece of the bedding, threw it over the robot’s head, and yanked back on the ends. The metal giant twisted its head, then started to swing about, still grasping the stricken Ardsheal.
But one boot caught on the bedding, and it tripped. To regain its balance, it was forced to release its grip.
Instantly, the Ardsheal broke free. A dark liquid ran from its mouth and nose, and its joints looked to have come loose from their pinnings. Yet it did not seem to feel its injuries. It attacked anew, hammering into the robot with both fists and knocking it backward toward the open windows. As the robot reeled away, the Ardsheal catapulted into it with a ferocious charge that carried both combatants into the metal-barred opening. Stone and mortar gave way beneath their combined weight, and the iron bars broke loose. The window frame and part of the surrounding wall shattered.
Then the Ardsheal locked itself about the robot, drove it through the opening, and both creatures tumbled out into the night.
Ben and Willow reached the rain-swept opening a moment later, too late to see them fall but in time to hear them smash against the rocks below and tumble into the river. Rain drenched their faces and shoulders as they leaned out into the dark, peering down. Lightning flashed, revealing the water-slick castle walls, the empty rocks, and the surging river. Nothing moved on the rocks. Nothing could be seen in the river.
Ben drew Willow back into the room and hugged her close. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he could feel her drawing in great gulps of air.
“Damn Rydall!” he swore in her ear, trying to keep from shaking.
Her fingers dug into his arm as she nodded in fierce, voiceless agreement.
DRAGON SIGHT
It was afterward that Ben discovered he was still wearing the medallion. He looked down and there it was, hanging by its chain from his neck. For a moment he couldn’t believe it. He held it up and stared at it. The familiar graven image of the Paladin riding out of Sterling Silver at sunrise glimmered back. He had been so certain he had lost it. He had looked for it, and it wasn’t there.
“Ben, what’s wrong?” Willow asked quickly, seeing the look on his face.
He shook his head, letting the medallion fall back into place. “Nothing. I was just …”
He trailed off, confused. The blow on the head when he had stumbled must have stunned him worse than he thought. But he had been so sure! He had reached for the medallion, and it hadn’t been there!
Willow let the matter drop, moved to the clothes chest, and brought out clean robes. Seconds later a contingent of palace guards came charging up the stairs, weapons at the ready, responding finally to the attack. Ben and Willow were working on Bunion by then and ignored them. The kobold was banged up considerably but otherwise appeared to be all right. Kobolds are tough little fellows, Ben thought admiringly, relieved that his friend had not been seriously injured, thinking that almost anyone else would have been killed.
The palace guards poked around the room, stared out through the gap in the wall into the rain-streaked night, and mostly looked uncomfortable with the fact that they were forced to be there at all. It was a reflection on them that the attack had almost succeeded, and they were wary of both the High Lord’s and Kallendbor’s reactions to their failure to prevent it.
Ben, for his part, was too preoccupied to concern himself with casting blame; he was still mulling over the suddenness of the assault and the circumstances that had surrounded it. But Kallendbor, bare-chested and broadsword in hand when he burst into the room, was less charitable. After hearing a shortened version of the attack from Ben, he berated everyone within shouting distance. Then he dispatched one search party to the riverbanks below to discover if any trace of the Ardsheal or Rydall’s monster could be found. Others he sent throughout the castle to make certain nothing else threatened. Ben, Willow, and Bunion were moved to other rooms, and guards were ordered to keep close watch over them for the remainder of the night. Obviously ill at ease with what had happened and anxious to avoid staying longer in their company, Kallendbor bid them a gruff good night and went off to sleep.
An exhausted Willow and Bunion were quick to follow.
Ben, however, stayed awake for a long time thinking about this latest monster. Two things bothered him, and he could reconcile neither.
The first was how the creature had gotten into the castle in the first place. How had it managed to slip past Kallendbor’s guards and the Ardsheal as well? Something that big and cumbersome should never have been able to do so. It should not even have gotten past the front gates. Unless, of course, it hadn’t come through them in the first place but had gotten into the palace by use of magic, which was the only conclusion that made any sense. And that made him wonder—although admittedly this was more of a stretch—if magic had also been used during the attack to make him think the medallion was lost. Otherwise, why hadn’t he been able to find it—even stunned by the blow to his head, even in the frenzy of the moment—when it was hanging right there around his neck?
The second thing bothering him was that something was vaguely familiar about that robot, and he didn’t see how that could be. There weren’t any robots in Landover or even, so far as he knew, any idea of what robots were. So he must have seen it in his old world in a movie or a comic or some such, since even there robots were still mostly conceptual. He raked through his memories in an effort to recall where, but nothing came to mind.
When he finally fell asleep close to morning, he was still trying unsuccessfully to place it.
Willow woke him sometime around midmorning. The skies were clear again; the rains had moved east. He lay quietly for a moment, watching her sitting next to him, looking down, smiling in that particularly wonderful way, and he made an impulsive decision. Willow was suffering from Mistaya’s loss and Rydall’s threat as much
as he was. It was wrong to keep his thinking to himself. So he told her all of it, even part of what he had never revealed before to anyone: that the medallion and the Paladin were linked, that the one summoned the other to the defense of the High Lord. They were alone in the room, Bunion having gone off much earlier on business of his own, the nature of which he had not disclosed. Willow listened carefully to everything Ben had to say, then took his hands and held them:
“If the medallion was tampered with,” she said quietly, sitting close on the bed beside him, “then whoever did so would have to know that it provides your link to the Paladin.” She stared at him steadily a moment. “Who, besides me, would know that?”
The answer was no one. Not even Questor Thews, and after Ben he knew more than anyone about the medallion. Most knew that it marked and belonged to whoever ruled Landover as High Lord. A few knew that it allowed its wearer passage through the fairy mists. Only Ben, and now Willow, knew that it summoned the Paladin.
He was almost persuaded at that moment to tell her everything about the medallion, the last of his secrets, the whole of the truth. He had told her how it linked him to the Paladin, how it allowed him to summon the High Lord’s champion. Why not tell her as well how the Paladin and he were joined, how the Paladin was another side of himself, a darker side that took form when he was brought to combat? He had thought to tell her several times now. It was the last secret he kept from her about the magic, and the burden of it suddenly seemed almost unbearable.
Yet he kept silent. He was not ready. He was not certain. The immensity of such a revelation could have unexpected results. He did not want to test Willow’s commitment to him by giving up so terrible a truth. He was afraid even now, even after so long, that he might lose her.
“Where do we go now, Ben?” she asked suddenly, interrupting his thinking. “You do not intend to remain here longer, do you?”
“No,” he replied, relieved to be able to move on to another subject. “Kallendbor does not appear to have any help to give us, so there’s no reason to linger. We’ll leave as soon as I dress and we have something to eat. Where’s Bunion, anyway?”
The kobold returned to the bedchamber just as Ben finished washing and putting on his clothes. Willow’s bandage from the previous night, which had been applied to the worst of his injuries, a severe head cut, was gone. Bunion had been able to retain a strong scent from the robot, and he had gone down the stairway, backtracking its progress from the previous night. It had been a short trip. Much of the scent had been obliterated by the trampling of guards up and down the stairs, but there was enough left to determine that Rydall’s monster had materialized out of nowhere on the landing of the floor just below their own. Ben looked at Willow, then back at Bunion. They all knew what that meant.
Bunion also advised them that a thorough search of the Anhalt and its banks by Kallendbor’s soldiers had revealed no trace of either their attacker or the Ardsheal.
They summoned breakfast and ate it in their room, then had their belongings gathered and went down to the main hall. Kallendbor met them there, stern-faced and subdued from the previous night’s events. Ben advised him that they were leaving, and there was veiled relief in the other’s eyes. Ben had expected as much, since they were hardly friends under the best of circumstances. He offered his thanks for the other’s hospitality and made him promise anew that he would send word if he learned anything of Mistaya or Rydall. Kallendbor walked them to the palace doors, where their horses were already saddled and waiting. Ben smiled to himself. Kallendbor would never make a good poker player.
They mounted and rode out the fortress gates and back through the town. They crossed the bridge over the Anhalt and headed southwest, retracing their steps in the direction of Sterling Silver. Willow gave Ben a questioning look, wondering anew at his plans, but he just cocked an eyebrow and said nothing. It was not until they were well beyond the castle and deep into the grasslands beyond that he swung Jurisdiction about and stopped.
“I didn’t want Kallendbor to see where we were really going,” he offered by way of explanation.
“Which is?”
“East, to the Wastelands, to the one other creature who might know something of Mistaya.”
“I see,” Willow replied quietly, way ahead of him by now.
“He’ll talk to you. He likes you.”
She nodded. “He might.”
They worked their way back toward the Anhalt and followed it for the remainder of the day. By nightfall they had reached the beginning of the Wastelands. They camped there, taking shelter in a grove of ash on a hill that provided a good view in all directions of the surrounding countryside. They ate dinner cold. Bunion offered to stand watch for the entire night, but Ben would not hear of it. The kobold needed his rest as well, particularly if he was to be of any use when the next attack came—and there was no longer any pretense that it wouldn’t. Since they were all dependent on one another, they would share the responsibility, he insisted.
There were no monsters this night, and Ben slept undisturbed. By morning he was feeling revitalized. Willow seemed rested, too. All three were anticipating what lay ahead. Even Bunion had figured it out. He went on ahead to scout while Ben and Willow followed at a more leisurely pace. They left the Greensward behind and entered the Wastelands. The day was cloudy and gray once again, but there did not appear to be any immediate threat of rain. Even without sunshine the air was hot and dry, the ground parched and cracked, and the country about them empty of life and as still as death.
By midday they were deep into the Wastelands, and Bunion came back to report that the Fire Springs were directly ahead and that Strabo the dragon was at home.
“If anyone knows of Rydall, it will be Strabo,” Ben said to Willow as they rode into the craggy hills surrounding the Springs. “Strabo can go anywhere he wishes, and he may have flown through the fairy mists into Marnhull at some point. It’s worth asking, in any case. As long as you’re the one who does the asking.”
Strabo did not much care for Holiday, although they were somewhat closer now after their shared experience in the Tangle Box. But the dragon genuinely liked Willow. He was fond of declaring that dragons had always had a soft spot for beautiful maidens, even though from time to time he thought that he was mistaken in this and that it was eating them that dragons really enjoyed. Too vain to admit his confusion, he had allowed himself to be charmed by the sylph on several occasions. Still, each visit to the Fire Springs was a new and uncertain experience, and Strabo the dragon was nothing if not temperamental.
When they were close enough to feel the heat of the pits, long after they had spied the smoke and inhaled the smell, they dismounted, tethered the horses, and proceeded on foot. It was a difficult walk over rugged, barren hills and across rock-strewn gullies. Bunion led the way as always, but he stayed close to them now. They had gone on for some minutes when they heard the crunching of bones. Bunion glanced over his shoulder and showed all his teeth in a humorless smile.
The dragon was feeding.
Then they crested a ridge, and there it was.
Strabo lay coiled about the mouth of one of the Springs, his forty-foot bulk as black as ink, all studded with spines and spikes, his sinewy body gnarled and sleek by turns. He was lunching on the remains of what appeared to have been a cow, although it was hard to tell since the dragon had reduced the carcass to legs and part of one haunch. Wicked blackened teeth glimmered as it gnawed on a large bone, stripping it of a few last shreds of flesh. Yellow eyes hooded by strange reddish lids focused on the bone, but as the newcomers topped the rise and came into view, its massive horned head lifted and swung about.
“Company?” it hissed none too pleasantly. The yellow eyes widened and blinked. “Oh, Holiday, it’s only you. How boring. What do you want?” The voice was low and guttural, marked by a sibilant hiss. “Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess. You want to know about this cow. You’ve come all the way from the comforts of your shiny little castle
to reprimand me about this cow. Well, save your breath. The cow was a stray. It wandered into the Wastelands, and that made it mine. So no lectures, please.”
It always surprised Ben that the dragon could talk. It went counter to everything life experience had taught him in his old world. But then, there were no dragons in his old world, either.
“I don’t care about the cow,” Ben advised. He had made Strabo promise once upon a time that he would give up stealing livestock.
The dragon’s maw split wide, and it laughed after a fashion. “No? Well, in that case I’ll confess that perhaps it wasn’t quite inside the boundaries of the Wasteland when I took it. There, I feel much better. The truth shall set you free.” The eyes narrowed again. “Well, well. Is that the pretty sylph with you, Holiday?” He never called Ben “High Lord.” “Have you brought her to me for a visit? No, you would never be that considerate. You must be here for some other reason. What is it?”
Ben sighed. “We’ve come to ask—”
“Wait, you’re interrupting my dinner.” The dragon’s nostrils steamed, and it gave a rough cough. “Politeness in all things. Please take a seat until I’ve finished. Then I’ll hear what you have to say. If you keep it brief.”
Ben looked at Willow, and reluctantly they sat down on the knoll with Bunion and waited for Strabo to complete his dinner. The dragon took his time, crunching up every single bone and devouring every last shred of flesh until nothing remained but hooves and horns. He made a deliberate production out of it, smacking his lips and grunting his approval with every bite. It was an endless performance, and it produced the intended effect. Ben was so impatient by the time the dragon had finished that he could barely contain his temper.