Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! (10 page)

There was a long moment of silence. Then Questor Thews stepped back again, one hand rubbing at his ear thoughtfully. “Well,” he said. “Well, indeed.” He looked surprised. More than that, he looked pleased. He pursed his lips once again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and hunched his shoulders. “Well,” he said a third time.

Then the look was gone as quickly as it had come. “We really do have to start walking now, High Lord,” he said quickly. “The day is getting on and it would be best if we were to reach the castle before nightfall. Come along, please. It is a good distance off.”

He shambled down through the meadow, a tall, ragtag, slightly stooped figure, his robes dragging through the grasses. Ben watched dumbly for a moment, glanced hastily about, then hitched up the duffel over one shoulder and followed reluctantly after.

They passed from the high meadow and began their descent toward the distant bowl of the valley. The valley stretched
away below them, a patchwork quilt of farmlands, meadows, forests, lakes and rivers, and swatches of marsh and desert. Mountains ringed the valley tightly, forested and dark, awash in a sea of deep mist that strung its trailers down into the valley and cast its shadow over everything.

Ben Holiday’s mind raced. He kept trying to fit what he was seeing into his mental picture of the Blue Ridge. But none of it worked. His eyes wandered across the slopes they were descending, seeing orchard groves, seeking out familiar fruit trees, finding apple, cherry, peach, and plum, but a dozen other fruits as well, many of a color and size completely unfamiliar to him. Grasses were varied shades of green, but also crimson, lavender and turquoise. Scattered through the whole of the strange collection of vegetation were large clumps of trees that vaguely resembled half-grown pin oaks except that they were colored trunk to leaf a brilliant blue.

None of it looked anything at all like the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia or the mountains of any other part of the United States that he had ever heard about.

Even the cast of the day was strange. The mist lent a shadowed look to the whole of the valley, and it reflected in the color tones of the earth. Everything seemed to have developed a somewhat wintry look—though the air was warm like a midsummer’s day and the sun shone down through the clouds in the sky.

Ben savored cautiously the look, smell, and feel of the land, and he discovered in doing so that he could almost believe that Landover was exactly what Questor Thews had said that it was—another world completely.

He mulled this prospect over in his mind as he kept pace with his guide. This was no small concession that he was being asked to make. Every shred of logic and every bit of common sense that he could muster in his lawyer’s mind argued that Landover was some sort of trick, that fairy worlds were writer’s dreams and that what he was seeing was a pocket of merry old England tucked away in the Blue
Ridge, castles and knights-in-armor included. Logic and common sense said that the existence of a world such as this, a world outside but somehow linked to his own, a world that no one had ever seen, was so farfetched as to be one step short of impossible: Twilight Zone; Outer Limits. And one step short only because it could be argued that anything after all was
theoretically
possible.

Yet here he was, and there it was, and what was the explanation for it, if it wasn’t what Questor Thews said it was? It looked, smelled, and felt real. It had the look of something real—but at the same time it had the look of something completely foreign to his world, something beyond anything he had ever known or even heard about this side of King Arthur. This land
was
a fantasy, a mix of color and shape and being that surprised and bewildered him at every turn—and frightened him, as well.

But already his initial skepticism had begun to erode. What if Landover truly was another world? What if it was exactly what Meeks had promised?

The thought exhilarated him. It left him stunned.

He glanced surreptitiously at Questor. The tall, stooped figure marched dutifully next to him, gray robes dragging through the grasses, patched with the scarfs and sashes and pouches of gaily colored silk, his whitish hair and beard fringing the owlish face. Questor certainly seemed to feel at home.

His gaze wandered back over the sweep of the valley, and he consciously opened a few heretofore padlocked doors in the deep recesses of his mind. Perhaps logic and common sense ought to take a backseat to instinct for a while, he decided.

Still, a few discreet questions wouldn’t hurt.

“How is it that you and I happen to speak the same language?” he asked his guide suddenly. “Where did you learn to speak English?”

“Hmmmmm?” The wizard glanced over, preoccupied with something else.

“If Landover is in another world, how does it happen that you speak English so well?”

Questor shook his head. “I don’t speak English at all. I speak the language of my country—at least, I speak the language used by humans.”

Ben frowned. “But you’re speaking English right now, damn it! How else could we communicate?”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” Questor smiled. “I am not speaking your language, High Lord—you are speaking mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes, the magic properties of the medallion that permit you passage into Landover also give you the ability to communicate instantly with its inhabitants, either by spoken word or in writing.” He fumbled through one of the pouches momentarily and withdrew a faded map. “Here, read something of this.”

Ben took the map from him and studied the details. The names of towns, rivers, mountain ranges and lakes were all in English.

“These are written in English!” he insisted, handing the map back again.

Questor shook his head. “No, High Lord, they are written in Landoverian—the language of the country. They only appear to be written in English—and only to you. I speak to you now in Landoverian as well; but it seems to you as if your own language. The medallion’s fairy magic permits this.”

Ben thought it through for a moment, trying to decide what else he should ask on the matter of language and communication, but decided in the end that there really was nothing further to ask. He changed subjects.

“I’ve never seen anything like those trees,” he informed his guide, pointing to the odd-looking blue pin oaks. “What are they?”

“Those are Bonnie Blues.” Questor slowed and stopped. “They grow only in Landover as far as I know. They were
created of the fairy magic thousands of years ago and given to us. They keep back the mists and feed life into the soil.”

Ben frowned dubiously. “I thought sun and rain did that.”

“Sun and rain? No, sun and rain only help the process. But magic is the life source of Landover, and the Bonnie Blues are a very strong magic indeed.”

“Fairy magic, you said—like the magic that enables us to communicate?”

“The same, High Lord. The fairies gave the magic to the land when they created it. They live now in the mists about us.”

“The mists?”

“There.” Questor pointed in a sweeping motion to the mountains that ringed the valley, their peaks and forests shrouded in gray. “The fairies live there.” He glanced once more at Ben. “Did you see faces in the mist when you passed through the forest from your world to ours?” Ben nodded. “Those were the faces of the fairies. Only the pathway you walked upon belongs to both worlds. That was why I was concerned that you had strayed too far from it.”

There was a moment’s silence. “What if I had?” Ben asked finally.

The stooped figure pulled the gray robes free from a trailer of scrub on which they had caught. “Why, then you might have wandered too deep into the fairy world and been lost forever.” He paused. “Are you hungry, High Lord?”

“What?” The question startled Ben. He was still thinking about his brush with the fairy world and the possibility that one could wander lost in it forever. Until now, this world into which he had come had seemed fairly safe.

“Food and drink—it occurs to me that you may not have had either for some time.”

Ben hesitated. “Not since this morning, as a matter of fact.”

“Good. Come this way.”

Questor walked past him down the slope to a small cluster of Bonnie Blues at the edge of an oak grove. He waited for
Ben to join him, then reached up and tore free a branch from one of the trees. The branch broke cleanly and soundlessly. The wizard knelt, grasped the base of the branch with one hand, and with the other stripped it of its leaves. The leaves tumbled into the lap of his robe.

“Here, try one,” he offered, holding out one of the leaves. “Take a bite of it.”

Ben took the leaf, examined it, then cautiously bit into it and chewed. His face brightened with surprise. “It tastes like … like melon.”

The other nodded, smiling. “Now the stalk. Hold it like this.” He held the broken end upright. “Now suck on it-there, at the break.”

Ben did as he was told. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he whispered. “It tastes like milk!”

“It is the staple of human existence in the valley,” Questor explained, chewing a leaf himself. “One can live on only the Bonnie Blues and a small amount of drinking water, if one has nothing else—and there are those who do not. It wasn’t always so, but times have changed …”

He trailed off, distracted. Then he glanced at Ben. “The Bonnie Blues grow wild everywhere in the valley. Their reproductive capacity is amazing—even now. Look there— look at what has happened.”

He pointed to the tree where the limb had been broken off. Already, the break was healing over and beginning to bud anew.

“By morning, a new limb will have begun to grow. In a week’s time, it will be exactly as we found it—or should be.”

Ben nodded without comment. He was thinking about Questor’s carefully phrased qualifications. “Times have changed … Their reproductive capacity is amazing—even now … In a week’s time, it will be exactly as we found it—or should be.” He studied the Bonnie Blues behind the one the wizard had chosen. They seemed to be flourishing
less successfully, signs of wilt on their leaves and a drooping to their limbs. Something was distressing them.

Questor interrupted his thoughts. “Well, now that we have sampled the Bonnie Blues, perhaps something a bit more substantial would be in order.” He rubbed his hands together briskly. “How would you like some ham and eggs, some fresh bread, and a glass of ale?”

Ben turned. “Are you hiding a picnic basket in one of those pouches?”

“A what? Oh, no, High Lord. I will simply conjure up our meal.”

“Conjure …? Ben frowned. “You mean use magic?”

“Exactly! After all, I am a wizard. Now, let me see.”

The owlish face screwed up, the shaggy brows narrowing. Ben leaned forward. He had eaten nothing since breakfast, but he was more curious than hungry. Could this odd-looking fellow really do magic?

“A bit of concentrated thought, fingers extended so, a quick motion thus, and … hah!”

There was a flash of light, a quick puff of smoke, and on the ground before them lay half a dozen scatter pillows, tasseled and embroidered. Ben stared in amazement.

“Oh, well, we will need something to sit upon while we eat, I suppose.” The wizard brushed the matter aside as if it were of no consequence. “Must have turned the fingers a bit too far right … Now let me see, once again, a bit of thought, fingers, a quick motion …”

Again the light flashed, the smoke puffed, and on the ground before them appeared a crate of eggs and an entire pig dressed out and resplendent with an apple in its mouth.

Questor glanced hurriedly at Ben. “The magic is fickle on occasion. But one simply tries harder.” He stretched forth his sticklike arms from his robes. “Here, now, watch closely. Thoughts concentrated, fingers turned, a quick motion, and …”

The light flashed brighter, the smoke puffed higher, and from out of nowhere a massive tressel table laden with food
enough for an army materialized before them. Ben jumped back in surprise. Questor Thews could certainly do magic as he claimed, but it appeared his control of it was rather limited.

“Drat, that is not what I… the thing of it is, that…” Questor was thoroughly agitated. He glared at the table of food. “I am simply tired, I imagine. I will try once again …”

“Never mind,” Ben interrupted quickly. He had seen enough of the magic for one sitting. The wizard looked over, displeased. “I mean, I’m really not that hungry after all. Maybe we should just go on.”

Questor hesitated, then nodded curtly. “If that is your wish, High Lord—very well.” He gave a quick motion with one hand, and the pillows, the pig, the crate of eggs and the entire tressel table with its meal disappeared into air. “You see that I have the magic at my command when I wish it,” he announced stiffly.

“Yes, I see that.”

“You must understand that the magic I wield is most important, High Lord.” Questor was determined to make his point. “You will have need of my magic if you are to be King. There have always been wizards to stand behind the Kings of Landover.”

“I understand.”

Questor stared at him. He stared back. What he understood above everything, he thought to himself, was that, except for this half-baked wizard, he was all alone in a land he knew almost nothing at all about and he had no desire to alienate his one companion.

“Well, then.” Questor’s ruffled feathers seemed suddenly back in place. He looked almost sheepish. “I suppose that we should continue on to the castle, High Lord.”

Ben nodded. “I suppose we should.”

Wordlessly, they resumed their journey.

The afternoon wore on; as it did so, the mists seemed to thicken across the land. The cast of the day dimmed, shadows
gathered in dark pools, and the color of the fields, meadows, forests and the lakes and rivers scattered through them lost all hint of vibrancy. There was a sullen feel to the air as if a storm might be approaching, though clearly none was. The sun still shone, and no wind stirred the leaves of the trees. Another moon hung suspended against the skyline, newly risen from beneath the mists.

Ben was still wondering what he had gotten himself into.