Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! (35 page)

The little company took a short break at mid-morning, settling themselves beside a spring grown thick with reeds, lilies, and cypress. The spring had a greenish-brown cast to
it and nothing growing near looked healthy. Bunion set off in search of drinking water. It had begun to rain again, and the others clustered in twos and threes beneath the branches of the trees. Ben waited for a time, then caught Willow’s eye and took her aside where they could be alone.

“Willow,” he said gently. He knew this was going to be difficult. “I have been thinking about your coming with us into the Deep Fell—and wherever else we end up going. I don’t think that you should go any further. I think that you ought to return to your home in Elderew.”

She looked at him steadily. “I do not want to return home, Ben. I want to stay with you.”

“I know that. But I think that it is too dangerous for you to do so.”

“It is no more dangerous for me than it is for you. It may be that you will have need of my help again. I will stay.”

“I will write a letter explaining to your father that I wished you with me until now so that you will not be in trouble with him,” he went on. “I will come later to explain it to him myself.”

“I don’t want to go, Ben,” she said again.

The green cast of her face was darkened by the shadows of the cypress, and she seemed to Ben almost a part of the tree. “I appreciate your willingness to take the same risks that I take,” he said, “but there is no reason for you to do so. I cannot allow it, Willow.”

Her face tilted back slightly, and now there was sudden fire in her green eyes. “You have nothing to say about it, Ben. The decision is mine.” She paused, and it seemed as if she were staring right through him. “Why not tell me what is really on your mind, High Lord of Landover.”

He stared back at her in surprise, then slowly nodded his agreement. “Very well. I’m not sure how to say this. If I could keep you with me and be honest with myself, I think I would do so. But I cannot. I don’t love you, Willow. It may be that the fairy people discover love in a single sighting, but it doesn’t happen that way with me. I don’t believe in
what the vines and the portents told you about how this would happen. I don’t believe that you and I are meant to be lovers. I think you and I are meant to be friends, but I can’t let you risk your life for me because of that!”

He stopped, feeling her hands catch up his own and gently hold them.

“You still do not understand, do you, Ben?” she whispered. “I belong to you because that is what is meant to be. It is truth woven in the fabric of the land’s magic, and though you may not see it, nevertheless it will come to pass. I feel love for you because I love in the way of the fairies—at first sighting and by promise. I do not expect that of you. But you will come to love me, Ben. It will happen.”

“Maybe so,” he acknowledged, gripping her hands tightly in response in spite of himself, finding her so desirable that he could almost admit that she might be right. “But I do not love you now. I find you the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I find myself wanting you so badly that I have to fight back the need for you.” He shook his head. “But, Willow, I cannot believe in the future that you seem to see so clearly. You don’t belong to me! You belong to yourself!”

“I belong to nothing if I do not belong to you!” she insisted fiercely. Her face leaned close to his. “Are you frightened of me, Ben? I see fear in your eyes, and I do not understand it.”

He took a deep breath. “There was someone else, Willow—someone who truly belonged to me and I to her. Her name was Annie. She was my wife, and I loved her very much. She was not as beautiful to look at as you, but she was pretty and she was … special. She died two years ago in an accident and I… I haven’t been able to forget her or to quit loving her or or to love anyone else.”

His voice broke. He hadn’t realized it would be so difficult talking about Annie after all this time.

“You have not told me why are you afraid, Ben,” Willow pressed, her voice gentle, but insistent.

“I don’t know why I’m afraid!” He shook his head, confused,
“I don’t know. I think it’s because when Annie died I lost something of myself—something so precious that I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back again. Sometimes I think I can’t feel anymore. I just seem to pretend …”

There were sudden tears in her eyes, and he was shocked. “Please don’t cry,” he asked her.

Willow smiled bitterly. “I think you are afraid to let yourself love me, because I am so different from what she was,” the sylph said softly. “I think you are afraid that if you let yourself love me, you will somehow lose her. I wouldn’t want that. I want what you were and are and will be—all that is you. But I cannot have that because you are afraid of me.”

He started to deny it, then stopped. She was right when she said that he was frightened of her. He saw her in his mind as she danced in the clearing of aged pines at midnight, changing from sylph to willow tree, rooting in the soil that her mother had danced upon. The transformation repelled him still. She was not human; she was something beyond and apart from that.

How could he ever love a creature so different from Annie …?

Her fingers brushed at the tears that were slipping now from his own eyes. “I am life of the magic and subject to its will, Ben. So must you be; so will you be. Earth mother and heaven father made us both, and the land binds us.” She bent forward and kissed him on his check. “You will lose your fear of me and one day you will love me. I believe that.” Her breath was soft against his face. “I will wait for as long as that takes, Ben, but I will not leave you—not if you beg me, not if you command me. I belong to you. I belong with you. I will stay with you, though the risk is ten times as great as it is now. I will stay, though my own life be given up for yours!”

She rose, a rustle of long hair and clothing in the mid-morning stillness. “Do not ever ask me to leave you again,” she told him.

Then she walked quickly away. He stared after her wordlessly and knew that he would not.

The little company arrived at the Deep Fell shortly before midday. The rain had passed and the day brightened, though clouds still screened the whole of the sky. The smell of damp hung thick in the air, and the morning chill had sharpened.

Ben stood with his companions at the edge of the Deep Fell and stared downward. All but the rim of the bowl was screened away by a blanket of mist. The mist hung over everything, swirling sluggishly across a scattering of tree tops and ridges that poked through the haze like jagged bones from a broken corpse. Scrub choked the rim and upper slopes of the hollows, brambles and thickets that were wintry and stunted. Nothing moved in the pit. No sound came out of it. It was an open grave that waited for an occupant.

Ben eyed it uneasily. It was frightening to look upon— the more so from its edge than from the safety of the Landsview. It appeared monstrous to him, a sprawling, misshapen chasm carved from the earth and left to gather rot. He glanced momentarily at a stand of Bonnie Blues that grew close to the rim. They were blackened and withered.

“High Lord, it is not too late to rethink your decision,” Questor advised softly, standing at his elbow.

He shook his head wordlessly. The decision had been made.

“Perhaps we should wait until morning,” Abernathy muttered, glancing uneasily at the clouded sky.

Ben shook his head a second time. “No. No more delays. I’m going in now.” He turned to them, glancing from one face to the next as he spoke. “I want you to listen carefully and I don’t want any arguments. Fillip and Sot will go with me as guides. They say that they know the Deep Fell. I will take one other. The rest of you will wait here.”

“High Lord, no!” Questor exclaimed in disbelief.

“You would trust yourself to those … those cannibals!” Abernathy raged.

“You may have need of our protection!” Questor went on.

“It is madness for you to go alone!” Abernathy finished.

The kobolds hissed and bared their teeth in unmistakable disapproval, the G’home Gnomes chittered and shrank from the conflict, and the scribe and the wizard kept arguing, both at the same time. Only Willow said nothing, but she stared at Ben so hard that he could feel it.

He put up his hands to quiet them. “Enough, already! I told you that I didn’t want any arguments, and I don’t! I know what I’m doing. I’ve thought it through pretty carefully. We’re not going to have a replay of what happened in the Melchor. If I don’t come out when I should, I want someone free to come in after me.”

“It may be far too late for you by then, High Lord,” Abernathy pointed out bluntly.

“You said you were taking one other, High Lord,” Questor interjected quickly. “I assume you meant me. You may have need of my magic.”

“I may, indeed, Questor,” he agreed. “But not unless I run into trouble with Nightshade and need my chestnuts pulled out of the fire. You’re staying here with Abernathy and the kobolds. I’m taking Willow.”

The sylph’s hard stare turned to one of surprise.

“You would take the girl?” Questor exclaimed. “But what protection can she offer you?”

“None.” Ben watched her eyes turn introspective. “I’m not looking for protection. I’m looking for common ground. I don’t want the witch to think the King of Landover
needs
protection, and that is what she is likely to think if I descend on her with all of you. Willow is not so threatening. Willow is a fairy creature like the witch. They share a common background, and together Willow and I may be able to find the means to enlist Nightshade to our cause.”

“You do not know the witch, High Lord!” Questor insisted vehemently.

“You certainly do not!” Abernathy agreed.

Willow came forward then, and she took his arm gently. “They may be right, Ben. Nightshade is not likely to offer her help simply because of me. She cares nothing more for the lake country people than for the court at Sterling Silver. She cares nothing for anyone. This is very dangerous.”

He noticed that she did not offer to remain behind. She had already stripped away boots and forest cloak and stood next to him, barefoot in a pair of short pants and sleeveless tunic. “I know,” he answered her. “That is why Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds will remain here—to come to our rescue if we need it. If we all go in at once, we all risk falling victim to the same treachery. But if the strongest of us remain behind, the chances of rescue are improved.” He looked at the others. “Do you understand?”

There was a general grumbling of acknowledgment. “I respectfully submit that this whole idea is both dangerous and foolish, High Lord,” Abernathy declared.

“I would prefer to be there to advise you,” Questor argued.

Ben nodded patiently. “I respect your feelings, but I’ve made up my mind. Whatever risk there is, I don’t want anyone sharing it with me who doesn’t have to. If I could do this myself without endangering anyone, that’s what I would do. Unfortunately, I can’t.”

“No one has ever asked you to, High Lord,” Questor replied quietly.

Ben met his eyes. “I know. I could not have had better friends than you have been.” He paused. “But this is where it all ends, Questor. You have done for me all that you can. Time and choices are running out. I have to make something happen if I wish to be Landover’s King. I have that responsibility—to you, to the land, and to myself.”

Questor said nothing. Ben glanced briefly at the others. No one spoke. He nodded and reached for Willow’s hand. He fought back against the chill that had suddenly settled through him.

“Lead on,” he ordered Fillip and Sot.

Together, they started down into the pit.

It was like stepping off into a pool of blackened, fouled water. The mist rose to greet them, lapping anxiously at their boots. It climbed to their thighs and curled to their waists. It tugged at their shoulders and finally their necks. A moment later, they were submerged in it completely. Ben had to suppress a sudden urge to hold his breath against its suffocating tide.

His hand gripped Willow’s tightly.

The mist was an impenetrable screen, closing about them as if a blanket that would smother them. It clung to their skin with fingers of damp insistence, and its touch was an itch that scratching would not cure. The smell of rotting wood and earth filled the air, permeating the mist, giving it the texture of toxic liquid splashed upon the skin. An unpleasant warmth issued out of it, as if something huge were trapped within the murk and sweating in terror as its life-blood was sucked steadily away.

Ben sensed the terror to be his own, and he fought back against it. The back and underarms of his tunic were damp, and his breathing was ragged. He had never been so frightened. It was worse than when the Mark had come for him in the time passage. It was worse than his encounter with
the dragon. It was a fear of something felt and not seen. His feet picked their way mechanically down the scrub-choked slope; he was barely aware of their movement. He could see the stocky forms of the gnomes a few feet ahead of him as they doggedly worked their way forward. He could see Willow beside him, her green-skinned form ghostlike, the corn-silk hair on her head, calves and forearms trailing out behind her as if stirred by the mist. He could see bits and pieces of the scrub and rock about him, and of trees and ridges somewhere far ahead. He saw them and was blind to them. It was what he could not see and could only feel that commanded the focus of his attention. It was what was hidden that he seemed suddenly to see best.