Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! (19 page)

He thought about that as he took the lake skimmer back across to Sterling Silver. There were always risks in life. Life was meant to be lived like that because if it wasn’t, then what was the purpose of living it at all? Measuring the risks was important, of course, but experiencing them was necessary. It was the same thing he was always trying to explain to Miles. Sometimes you did things because they felt right. Sometimes you did things because …

He thought suddenly of the faces of those farmers and herdsmen and their families, those hunters and that beggar who had traveled to the Heart for his coronation. There had been a sort of desperate hope in those faces—as if those
people
wanted
to believe that he could be King. There had been only a few, of course, and he was hardly responsible to them, yet…

His thinking faltered as the lake skimmer grounded at the front gates of the castle. He stood up slowly, recapturing the thoughts, losing himself in them. He barely saw Abernathy appear in the shadow of the portcullis.

“Breakfast, High Lord?”

“What?” Ben was almost startled. “Oh, yes—that would be fine.” He climbed from the boat and moved quickly into the castle. “And send Questor to me right away.”

“Yes, High Lord.” The dog trailed after, nails clicking on the stone. “Did you enjoy your run?”

“Yes, I did—very much. Sorry I didn’t wait, but I didn’t think I needed anyone to go along just for that.”

There was a moment’s silence. Ben sensed the dog looking at him and glanced back. “I think I should tell you, High Lord, that Bunion was with you every step of the way. I sent him to make sure that you were properly looked after.”

Ben grinned. “I thought I saw something. But it wasn’t necessary for him to be there, was it?”

Abernathy shrugged. “That depends on how well you could have handled by yourself the timber wolf, the cave wight, and the bog wump that he dispatched when he caught them stalking after you in search of breakfast.” He turned off into an adjoining corridor. “And speaking of breakfast, yours is waiting in the dining hall. I will send for the wizard.”

Ben stared after him. Bog wump? Cave wight? Sweat beaded on his forehead suddenly. For Christ’s sake, he hadn’t seen or heard a thing! Was Abernathy trying to be funny?

He hesitated, then hurried on. He didn’t think Abernathy was the sort to make jokes about something like this. Apparently he had been in danger out there and hadn’t even known it.

He ate breakfast alone. Parsnip brought it to him and left. Abernathy did not reappear. Once, halfway through the
meal, he caught sight of Bunion standing in the shadows of an entry off to one side. The kobold grinned so that all of his teeth showed like whitened spikes and disappeared. Ben did not grin back.

He was almost finished when Questor finally appeared. He shoved his plate aside and told the wizard to sit down with him.

“Questor, I want to know exactly how things are now compared to how they were when the old King was alive. I want to know what worked then and what doesn’t work now. I want to figure out what has to be done to get things back to where they were.”

Questor Thews nodded slowly, brows knitting over his sharp eyes. His hands folded on the table. “I will try, High Lord, though some things may escape my immediate memory. Some of it, you already know. There was an army that served the King of Landover; that is gone. There was a court with retainers; only Abernathy, Parsnip, Bunion and myself remain. There was a treasury; it is depleted. There was a system of taxes and yearly gifts; it has broken down. There were programs for public works, social reforms and land preservation; they no longer exist. There were laws and the laws were enforced; now they are ignored or enforced selectively. There were accords and alliances and pacts of understanding between the peoples of the land; most have lapsed or been openly repudiated.”

“Stop right there.” Ben rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “Who among the King’s subjects stands allied with whom at this point?”

“No one stands allied with anyone, so far as I can tell. Humans, half-humans, fairy creatures—no one trusts anyone.”

Ben frowned. “And none of them has much use for the King, I gather? No, you needn’t answer that. I can answer it for myself.” He paused “Is there any one of them strong enough to stand up to the Mark?”

The wizard hesitated. “Nightshade, perhaps. Her magic
is very powerful. But even she would be hard pressed to survive a dual with the Mark. Only the Paladin possessed strength enough to defeat the demon.”

“What if everyone were to band together?”

Questor Thews hesitated longer this time. “Yes, the Mark and his demons might be successfully challenged then.”

“But it would take someone to unite them first.”

“Yes, it would take that.”

“The King of Landover could be that someone.”

“He could.”

“But just at the moment the King of Landover can’t even draw a crowd for his own coronation, can he?”

Questor said nothing. Ben and the wizard stared at each other across the table.

“Questor, what’s a bog wump?” Ben asked finally.

The other frowned. “A bog wump, High Lord?” Ben nodded. “A bog wump is a variety of forest wight, a spiney, flesh-eating creature that burrows in marshy earth and paralyzes its victims with its tongue.”

“Does it hunt in the early morning?”

“It does.”

“Does it hunt humans?”

“It might. High Lord, what…?”

“And Bunion—would he be a match for one of these bog wumps?”

Questor’s mouth snapped shut on the rest of whatever it was he was going to say. His owlish face crinkled. “A kobold is a match for almost anything alive. They are ferocious fighters.”

“Why are Bunion and Parsnip still here at Sterling Silver when everyone else in the court is gone?”

The owlish face crinkled into a complete knot. “They are here because they have pledged themselves to the service of the throne and its King. Kobolds do not take their pledges lightly. Once made, a pledge is never broken. So long as there is a King of Landover, Bunion and Parsnip will stay on.”

“Is it the same with Abernathy?”

“It is. This is his chosen service.”

“And you?”

There was a long pause. “Yes, High Lord, it is the same with me.”

Ben sat back. He didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes locking on Questor’s, his arms folding loosely across his chest. He listened in the silence for the whisper of the other’s thoughts and spun the webbing of his own.

Then he smiled reluctantly. “I have decided to stay on as Landover’s King.”

Questor Thews smiled back. “I see.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “I thought that you might.”

“Did you?” Ben laughed. “Then you were more certain than I. I only now made the choice.”

“If I might ask, Ben Holiday—what was it that decided you?”

The smile disappeared from Ben’s face. He hesitated, thinking momentarily of those few who had come to the Heart to witness his coronation. They were not so different, really, from the clients he had taken an oath to represent, and he not so different from the lawyer who had taken that oath. Perhaps he did owe them something after all.

He said nothing of that to Questor, though. He merely shrugged. “It was a balancing of the equities, I suppose. If I stay, it will cost me a million dollars—presuming, of course, that I can find a way to stay alive. If I go, it will cost me my self-respect. I would like to think that my self-respect is worth a million dollars.”

The wizard nodded. “Perhaps it is.”

“Besides, I don’t like quitting in the middle of something. It grates on me to think that Meeks chose me because he expected that I would do exactly that. I want very badly to disappoint him in his expectation. We have a saying where I come from, Questor: Don’t get mad, get even. The longer I stay, the better chance I have of finding a way to do that. It’s worth the risks involved.”

“The risks
are
substantial.”

“I know. And I don’t suppose anyone besides me would even think twice about taking them.”

Questor thought a moment. “Maybe not. But no one else stands in your shoes, High Lord.”

Ben sighed. “Well, in any case, the matter’s settled. I’m staying and that’s that.” He straightened slowly. “What I have to do now is to concentrate on finding ways of dealing with Landover’s problems before they bury me.”

Questor nodded.

“And the first of those problems is the refusal of any of the King’s subjects to recognize me as King. Or themselves as subjects. They have to be made to pledge to the throne.”

The other nodded one time more. “How will you do that?”

“I don’t know yet. But I do know one thing. No one is going to come here to make that pledge. The coronation would have brought them, were they at all willing. Since they refuse to come here, we’ll have to go there—there being wherever they are.”

Questor frowned. “I have reservations about such a plan, High Lord. It could prove very dangerous.”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t see that we have much choice in the matter.” He stood up. “Care to make a suggestion as to where we should start?”

The wizard sighed and stood up with him. “I suggest, High Lord, that we start at the beginning.”

There had been many who had pledged service to the Kings of Landover—families who for generations had fought in the armies of the High Lords and stood beside their thrones. There had been many who could point with pride to their record of loyal and faithful service. But none had served so well or so long as the Lords of the Greensward, and it was to them that Ben Holiday was advised he should go first.

“The barons trace their bloodlines back thousands of years—some to the time that Landover came into being,” Questor Thews explained. “They have always stood with the King. They formed the backbone of his army; they comprised the core of his advisors and court. Some of them were Kings of Landover themselves—though none in the last several hundred years. They were always the first to offer service. When the old King died, they were the last to depart. If you are to gain support anywhere, High Lord, it would be from them.”

Ben accepted the suggestion—although it was really less a suggestion than a caution, he thought—and departed Sterling Silver at dawn of the following day for the estates of the land barons. Questor Thews, Abernathy and the two kobolds went with him once again. Ben, the wizard and the scribe
rode horseback because the journey to the Greensward was a long one. The kobolds could have ridden, too, had they chosen to do so, but kobolds in general had little use for horses, being quicker of foot and stronger of wind than the best racer that had ever run, and so almost always traveled afoot. Besides, horses were unusually skittish when ridden by kobolds. Ben had no trouble understanding that. Anything that could dispatch a timber wolf, a cave wight, and a bog wump with such ease made him skittish, too.

It was a peculiar-looking group that departed that morning. Questor led the way, his tall, brightly cloaked figure slouched across an old gray that must have been ready for pasture years ago. Ben followed on Wishbone, a sorrel with the oddly shaped white blaze that gave him his name and a propensity for seizing the bit and bolting. He did that twice with Ben hanging on for dear life each time. Questor, after the second incident, whacked him hard across the nose and threatened magic in horse tongue. That seemed to bring Wishbone to his senses. Abernathy followed atop a white-faced bay gelding and carried the King’s standard with its by-now familiar insignia of the Paladin riding out from the castle at sunrise embroidered in scarlet on a field of white. It was strange indeed to see a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier with glasses and tunic riding a horse and holding a flag, but Ben kept the smile from his face, because Abernathy obviously saw nothing at all funny about it. Parsnip trailed, leading on a long set of guide ropes a pack train of donkeys with food, clothing, and bedding. Bunion had gone on ahead, sent by Questor to advise the land barons that the King of Landover wished a meeting.

“They will have no choice; they will have to receive you,” Questor declared. “Courtesy dictates that they not turn away a Lord whose stature is equal to or higher than their own. Of course, they would have to receive you if you were simply a traveler seeking shelter and food, too, but that is beneath you as King.”

“Very little is beneath me at this point,” Ben replied.

They rode out through the mists and shadows of the early morning, skirted the shores of the lake until they were turned east, then wound slowly to the valley rim. Several times Ben Holiday glanced back through the gray, watching the stark, colorless projection of Sterling Silver against the dawn sky, her towers, battlements, and walls ravaged as if by some nameless disease. He was surprised to discover that it was hard for him to leave her. She might appear as Castle Dracula to the naked eye, and he might find her loathsome to look upon, but he had felt the warmth of her and he had touched the life within. She had been kind to him. She had made him feel welcome. He found himself wishing that he could do something to help her.