“Why must you find her?”
“Because …”
Again, he could not find the words. The shadows began to tighten. Willow began to fade back into them.
“Because …”
She faded further, a memory disappearing. He struggled frantically to find the words he needed to say, but they eluded him still. The sense of urgency returned, quick and hard. The danger to the sylph became real once more, as if somehow resurrected by his indecision. He tried to reach out to her with his hands, but she was too far away, and he was too rooted in place.
“Because …”
The shadows were all about, cloaking him now in their blackness, smothering him in their endless dark. He was drawing back out of himself. Dirk was gone. Willow was little more than a patch of light and color against the black, fading, fading …
“Because …”
Willow!
He came awake with a start, jerking upright from his place of rest, his underarms and back damp with sweat. Night shrouded the eastern wastelands in silence. Clouds masked the skies, though the rain had ceased to fall. Ben’s companions slept undisturbed all about him—all except Bunion. Bunion was already gone, his search for Willow begun.
Ben took a deep breath to steady himself. His dream of Willow was still sharp and certain in his mind. He exhaled.
“Because … I love her,” he finished.
Those were the words he had searched for. And he knew with frightening certainty that the words were true.
He was awake for a time after that, alone with his thoughts in the dark silence of the night. After a while, though, he tired and dropped back off to sleep. When he awoke again, it was nearing dawn, the eastern sky behind the valley rim brightening with faint streaks of gray and gold. Bunion had not returned. The others still slept.
He rolled over on his back, glanced about the storm-dampened campsite, and then blinked in surprise. Edgewood Dirk rested comfortably on a thick bough of the fir just a few feet above his head, paws tucked under his sleek body, eyes squinched closed against the light.
The eyes slipped open as Ben stared. “Good morning, High Lord,” the cat offered.
Ben pushed himself up on his elbows. “Good morning, nothing. Where have you been?”
“Oh, here and there.”
“More there than here, it seems!” Ben snapped, a great deal of pent-up anger coming quickly to the fore. “I could have used a little help back there in the Deep Fell when you so conveniently disappeared! I was lucky the witch didn’t do away with me on the spot! And then I was dragged off to Strabo’s den and offered to him as a snack! But all that made precious little difference to you, did it? Thanks for nothing!”
“You are quite welcome,” Dirk replied calmly. “I would remind you once again, however, that I signed on as a companion, not as a protector. Besides, it appears you have suffered no harm in my absence.”
“But I might have, damn it!” Ben couldn’t help himself. He was sick of the cat appearing and disappearing like some wraith. “I might have been fried in dragon oil for all the good you’d have done me!”
“Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and the have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.” Dirk yawned. “You would do better to forget flogging dead horses and try rounding up a few live ones.”
Ben glared. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you have something more important on your mind than chastising me for imagined wrongs.”
Ben paused, remembering suddenly his dream, the search he had undertaken, the golden bridle, the black unicorn, Meeks, and all the rest of the puzzle he still didn’t understand. Ah, and Willow! Thoughts of the sylph pushed all others aside. I love her, he told himself, trying the words on for size. He found them unexpectedly comfortable.
“There are those who theorize that our dreams are simply manifestations of our subconscious thoughts and desires,” Dirk mused, as if delivering an offhand dissertation. “Dreams do not often portray accurately the events upon which those thoughts and desires are formed, but they do demonstrate quite vividly the emotions behind them. We find ourselves involved in bizarre situations and disjointed events, and our tendency is often to dismiss the dream out-of-hand—a self-conscious response. But hidden within the thrashings of our subconscious is a kernel of truth about ourselves that needs to be understood—truth that sometimes we have refused to recognize while awake and now demands recognition while we sleep.”
He paused for dramatic effect. “Love is sometimes such a truth.”
Ben pushed himself upright, stared at this cat turned philosopher a moment, and then shook his head. “Is all this in reference to Willow?” he asked.
Dirk blinked. “Of course, sometimes dreams lie and the truth can be found only in waking.”
“Like with my dream of Miles?” Ben found the cat’s conversation needlessly convoluted. “Why don’t you just say what you mean for once?”
Dirk blinked again. “Because I am a cat.”
“Oh. Sure.” The standard answer again.
“Because some things you simply have to figure out for yourself.”
“Right.”
“Something you have not proven very adept at doing, I’m afraid.”
“Certainly not.”
“Despite my continuing efforts.”
“Hmmmmm.” Ben experienced an almost uncontrollable urge to throttle the beast. To suppress the feeling, he glanced about instead at his still sleeping companions. “Why isn’t anyone but me awake yet?” he demanded.
Dirk glanced about with him. “Perhaps they are simply very tired,” the cat suggested amiably.
Ben gave him a hard look. “What did you do—employ a bit of magic? Fairy magic? As Questor did with me? You did, didn’t you?”
“A bit.”
“But why? I mean, why bother?”
Dirk rose, stretched, and jumped down next to Ben, pointedly ignoring him. He began to wash himself and continued to do so until he had cleaned himself thoroughly, fur carefully ruffled and smoothed back in place again.
Then he faced Ben, emerald eyes gleaming in the faint dawn light. “The problem is, you do not listen. I tell you everything you need to know, but you do not seem to hear any of it. It really is distressing.” He sighed deeply. “I let your companions sleep to demonstrate to you one final lesson about dreams. So much of your understanding of what has happened depends on your understanding of how dreams work. Watch, now, what occurs when your friends awake. And try to pay attention this time, will you? My patience wears exceedingly thin.”
Ben grimaced. Edgewood Dirk settled back on his haunches. Together they waited for something to happen. After a moment, Questor Thews stirred, then Abernathy, and finally the gnomes. One by one, they blinked the sleep from their eyes and sat up.
Then they saw Ben, and more especially, Dirk.
“Ah, good morning, High Lord. Good morning, Dirk,” Questor greeted brightly. “Slept well the both of you, I hope?”
Abernathy muttered something about all cats being night creatures and not needing sleep anyway, even prism cats, and how it was a waste of time to worry about any of them.
Fillip and Sot eyed Dirk as they would a long-awaited dinner and showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Ben stared in bewilderment, the conversation continuing on about him as if the cat’s presence were perfectly normal. No one seemed surprised that the cat was there. Questor and Abernathy were behaving as if his appearance was entirely expected. The gnomes were behaving the way they had at their first encounter with Dirk; neither seemed to remember what their eagerness to make Dirk a meal had cost them.
Ben listened a moment as the others talked and bustled about, then glanced in confusion at the cat. “What …?”
“Their dreams, High Lord,” Dirk whispered, interrupting. “I let them discover me in their dreams. I was real to them there, so I am real to them here. Don’t you see? Truth is sometimes simply what we perceive it to be—in waking
or in dreams.”
Ben didn’t see. He had paid close attention, he had listened as instructed, and he still didn’t see. What was the point of all this and what did it have to do with him?
But there was no more time to consider the matter. A shout from Abernathy—or rather a sort of bark—captured the attention of all. The boughs at the edge of the grove of fir parted and who should appear but Parsnip! Bunion had him in tow, both of them soaked through by the storm, both grimacing ear to ear those wicked, toothy grins. Ben froze. Parsnip was supposed to be guarding Willow! Shaking off his paralysis, he hastened forward with Questor and Abernathy to greet the wiry little creatures, stopped short at the hard, suspicious look directed at him by Parsnip—who, after all, had no idea yet who he was—and finally backed off a step at Questor’s urging. Questor and Bunion conversed briefly back and forth in the rough, guttural language of the kobolds with occasional interjections by Parsnip, and then Questor turned hurriedly to Ben.
“Parsnip has kept watch over Willow since she left Sterling Silver, High Lord—just as you commanded—until yesterday. She dismissed him without reason. When he wouldn’t leave her, she used the fairy magic and slipped away. Even a kobold can’t stay with a sylph when she doesn’t wish it. She has the golden bridle, and … and she searches for the black unicorn.” He shook his owlish features at the look on Ben’s face and tugged worriedly at his white beard. “I know. I don’t understand this last either, High Lord, and neither does Parsnip. Apparently she has decided not to take the bridle to you as her dream instructed!”
Ben fought off the sudden lurch in his stomach. What did this mean, he wondered? “Where is she now?” he asked instead.
Questor shook his head. “Her trail leads north into the Melchor.” He hesitated. “Bunion says she appears to be traveling toward Mirwouk!”
Mirwouk? Where the missing books of magic had been hidden? Why would she go there? Ben felt his frustration increase.
“There is more, High Lord,” Abernathy interjected solemnly, ignoring the warning tug on his tunic sleeve from Questor. “Strabo and Nightshade are at hunt—presumably for you, Willow, and the bridle. And a demon—a huge, flying thing, a thing that answers to no one, it seems—is rumored to scour the whole of the valley. Bunion saw it last night.”
“Meeks’ pet,” Ben whispered, remembering suddenly the monster that had appeared at the dance of the River Master’s nymphs and destroyed them. His face tightened. Edgewood Dirk and the matter of dreams were forgotten. He thought now only of Willow. “We have to reach her before they do,” he announced, his voice sounding hollow in his ears as he fought down the fear that raced through him. “We have to. We’re all she has.”
Everyone reacted. Abernathy barked sharply at the G’home Gnomes and turned the kobolds about once more. Questor put a reassuring hand on Ben’s arm. “We will find her, High Lord. You can depend upon it.”
Quickly they departed into the wastelands, the stranger who was High Lord, the wizard and the scribe, the kobolds and the gnomes.
Edgewood Dirk sat quietly and watched them go.
Willow felt the glare of the midday heat on her face through breaks in the forest trees and was suddenly thirsty. She made her way gingerly around an outcropping of rock that jutted from the ever-steepening slope, climbed to a shelf of tall grass and brush that disappeared ahead into a grove of deeply shaded fir, and paused to look back. Landover spread away below, an irregular checkerboard of fields and forests, hills and plains, rivers and lakes, swatches of blues and greens with brush strokes of pastel interspersed like webbing. Sunlight poured down over the valley from a cloudless blue sky and deepened the colors until they blinded with their brilliance.
Willow sighed. It seemed impossible that anything could be wrong on a day such as this.
She was deep within the Melchor now, past the threshold of hardwood forests, past the higher plateau of pine-wooded foothills, a fair distance up into the main peaks. The sun was sharp and hot this day where the shade failed to screen away its light, and the climb was thirsty work. Willow carried no water with her; she relied on her instincts to find what she needed. Her instincts had failed her these past few hours since leaving the foothills, but now she sensed water to be close again.
Nevertheless, she stayed where she was a moment longer and looked out across the valley in silent contemplation. Far, far distant to the south she could just catch a glimpse of the misted island that was Sterling Silver, and she thought of Ben. She wished he were here with her or that she understood why it was that she wasn’t there with him. She looked out across the valley and felt as if she were all alone in the world.
What was she doing here?
She felt burdened by the weight of the woolen-bundled harness she wore draped across her right shoulder, and she shrugged it off and let it drop into her hands. A burst of sunlight flashed sharply from a stray bit of trapping that slipped from beneath the covering folds. The bridle of spun gold clinked softly. She covered it over and shifted it to her other shoulder. The bridle was heavy, the woven threads and fastenings more cumbersome than she would have believed. She adjusted it carefully and straightened. She had been fortunate that the dragon had agreed to give it to her. All the fairy songs, music, tears, and laughter had been potent magic indeed. Strabo had been charmed. She was still surprised that the ploy had been successful. She was still mystified that she had known somehow that it would be. Dreams, visions, and hunches—such were the vicissitudes that had driven her these past few days, a stray leaf blown by the wind.
Last night it had been a dream again. She frowned at its memory, her smooth, lovely face lined with worry. Last night, the dream had been of Ben.
A breath of wind swept back her waist-length hair and cooled her skin. She remembered her need to drink, but stayed yet another moment to think of her High Lord. The dream had been strange again, a mix of real and surreal, a jumble of fears and hopes. She had come upon the black unicorn once more, the creature hidden in woods and shadows, no demon this time but a hunted thing, frightened and alone. She had feared it, but wept at its terror. What frightened it was uncertain, but the look it spared her was unmistakable. Come to me, it had whispered. Put aside your plan to carry back the bridle of spun gold to Sterling Silver and your High Lord. Forego your race from the demon you fear me to be and seek instead the truth of what I am. Willow, come to me.
A single look had said all that, so clear, so certain—a dream, and yet real. So she had come, trusting to her fairy instincts as she had always trusted, believing that they alone of all her senses could not be deceived. She had abandoned the call of the first dream that would have taken her to Ben and gone instead in search of …
Of what? Truth?
“Why are the dreams so different?” she questioned softly. “Why am I made so confused?”
Sunlight sparkled off distant waters and forest leaves rippled in the passing wind, but no answers came. She breathed the air deeply and turned away. The shadows of the forest drew her to them, and she let herself be swallowed. Mirwouk was near, she realized in surprise—not more than several miles distant, just beyond the peak she climbed. The fact registered briefly and was forgotten. The broad swath of midday sunlight faded into a scattering of narrow bands, and the shade was cool on her heated skin. She worked her way back into the forest trees, massive fir and pine, seeking the water she knew was hidden there. She found it quickly, a small stream trickling down out of the rocks into a pool and meandering from there to a series of shallows and runs. She laid the bridle carefully on the ground next to her and bent to drink. The water was sweet and welcome to her dry throat. She knelt a long time in the stillness.
The seconds slipped away into minutes. When she lifted her head again, the black unicorn stood across from her.
Her breath caught in her throat and she froze. The unicorn was no more than a dozen paces off, half within shadow, half within pale, filtered sunlight. It was a vision of grace and wonder, slender body as ephemeral
as a reflection of love remembered, presence as glorious as a rainbow’s sweep. It did not move, but simply regarded her. Ebony body with goat’s feet and lion’s tail, eyes of green fire, immortal life—all the songs of all the bards through all the ages of the world could not begin to express what the unicorn truly was.
Willow felt a rush of emotion tear through her, stripping bare her soul. She felt her heart begin to break with the ecstasy of it. She had never seen a unicorn and never thought it would be like this. There were tears in her eyes, and she swallowed uncontrollably against what she was feeling.
“Oh, you beautiful thing,” she whispered.
Her voice was so soft that she believed only she could hear her words. But the unicorn nodded in response, and the ridged horn shone brightly with magic. The green eyes fixed upon her with new intensity and flared from some inner well of being. Willow felt something seize hold within her. Her hand groped blindly the earth next to her and came to rest at last upon the bridle.
Oh, I must have you, she thought. I must make you mine!
But the eyes held her and she could not move to act upon her need. The eyes held her, and they whispered of something remembered from the dream.
Come to me, they said. Seek me.
She felt herself flush with the heat of that memory and then go cool. She saw the memory reflected in her eyes, in her mind, and in her heart. She looked across the tiny stream of water as it rushed and gurgled over the rocks in the forest stillness, and the stream was a river she could not bridge. She listened to the singing of birds in the trees, a mingling of songs that cheered and heartened, and the sound became the voice of all her secrets revealed.
She felt magic rage within her in waves of insistence she had never known could exist. She no longer belonged to herself; she belonged now to the unicorn. She would have done anything for it. Anything.
Then, in the next instant, it was gone, disappearing so suddenly and so completely that it might never have been Indeed, she wondered—had it? Willow stared at the space the black unicorn had occupied, an emptiness of mingled light and shadow, and she fought against the sharpness of her pain.