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FAIRY

Everything disappeared at once. The mists closed about like a shroud, and Ben Holiday was alone. The corridor tunneled ahead, coiling snakelike through pairs of torches that gave off dim halos of light in a haze of shadows and gloom. Ben followed it blindly. He could barely see the passage walls against which the halos cast their feeble glow, blocks of stone charred by flame and stained by damp. He could hear only faintly the sound of his boots as they thudded against the flooring. He could see or hear nothing else.

He walked for a long time, and the fear which had already taken seed within him spread like a cancer. He began to think about dying.

But the corridor ended finally at an iron-bound, wooden door with a great curved handle. Ben did not hesitate. He gripped the handle and twisted. The door opened easily, and he stepped quickly through.

He was standing in an elevator facing forward. A panel of lighted buttons to the right of the closed doors told him he was going up.

He was so astonished that for an instant he could only stare at the doors and the buttons. Then he wheeled about, searching for the door through which he had passed. It was gone. There was only the rear wall of the elevator, simulated oak with dark plastic trim. He felt along the edges with his fingers, testing for a hidden latch. There was none.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and a janitor got on.

“Morning,” he greeted pleasantly and punched button eight.

Ben nodded wordlessly. What in the hell was going on? He stared at the control panel, finding it oddly familiar. He glanced hurriedly about the interior and realized that he was on the elevator that serviced the building where his law offices were situated.

He was back in Chicago!

His mind spun. Something had gone wrong. Something must have gone wrong. Otherwise, what was he doing here? He braced himself against the wall railing. There was only one explanation. He had gone back through the mists completely; he had passed right through the fairy world into his own.

The elevator stopped at eight, and the janitor got off. Ben stared after him as the doors slipped closed. He had never seen the man before in his life, and he thought he knew all of the help that serviced the building—by sight, if not by name. They cleaned the offices on Sundays; that was the only time they were permitted to ride the elevators. He was always there, too, catching up on his paperwork. But he didn’t know this man. Why didn’t he?

He shook his head. Maybe it was someone new, he decided—someone the building supervisor had just hired. But new help wouldn’t work the offices on Sunday alone, not when they had access to … He caught himself. He smiled, suddenly giddy. Sunday! It must be Sunday if the janitors were using the elevators! He almost laughed. He hadn’t thought to ask the day of the week since he had crossed into Landover!

The elevator began to rise. He saw the panel buttons blink in front of him and watched them climb toward fifteen. The elevator was taking him to his office. But he hadn’t punched the button, had he? He glanced down in confusion and jumped. He was no longer wearing the clothes he had worn when Nightshade had sent him into the mists. He was wearing the running suit and Nikes he had worn when he had gone into the Blue Ridge.

What was happening?

The elevator stopped at fifteen, the doors slid open and he stepped out into the hallway. A jog left and he was at the glass doors that fronted the lobby to the offices of Holiday and Bennett, Ltd. The doors were open. He pushed through and stepped inside.

Miles Bennett turned from the reception desk, a sheaf of papers in his hands. He saw Ben, and the papers slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor. “Doc!” he whispered.

Ben stared. It was Miles who stood before him, but not the Miles he had left behind. This Miles was a shell of that other man. He was no longer simply heavy; he was bloated. His face was florid in the manner of a man who drinks too much. His dark hair had gone gray and thin. Worry lines marked his face like an etching.

The shock faded from his partner’s eyes and was replaced with undisguised rancor. “Well, well—Doc Holiday.” Miles spoke his name with distaste. “Goddamn if it isn’t old Doc.”

“Hello, Miles,” he greeted and stuck out his hand.

Miles ignored it. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe its really you. I thought I’d never see you again—thought no one ever would. Goddamn. I thought you long since gone to hell and shoveling brimstone, Doc.”

Ben smiled, confused. “Hey, Miles, it hasn’t been that long.”

“No? You don’t call ten years a long time? Ten goddamn years?” Miles smiled as he saw the stunned look on Ben’s face. “Yeah, that’s right, Doc—ten years. Not a living soul has heard a word from you in ten years. No one—me, least of all, your goddamn partner, in case you’d forgot!” He stumbled over the words, swallowing. “You poor, dumb jerk! You don’t even know what’s happened to you while you’ve been off in your fairy world, do you? Well, let me clue you in, Doc. You’re broke! You’ve lost everything!”

Ben felt a chill settle through him. “What?”

“Yeah, everything, Doc.” Miles leaned back against the desk top. “That’s what happens when you’re presumed legally dead—they take everything away and give it to your heirs or to the state! You remember your law, Doc? You remember how it works? You remember anything, goddamn it?”

Ben shook his head disbelievingly. “I’ve been gone ten years?”

“You always were a quick study, Doc.” Miles was sneering openly at him now. “The great Doc Holiday, courtroom legend. How many cases was it you won, Doc? How many shoot-outs did you survive? Doesn’t much matter anymore, does it? Everything you worked for is gone. It’s all gone.” The veins on his cheeks were red and broken. “You don’t even have a place with this firm anymore. You’re just a collection of old stories I tell the young bucks!”

Ben wheeled about and looked at the lettering over the glass entry doors. It read, Bennett and Associates, Ltd. “Miles, it seemed like only a few weeks …” he stammered helplessly.

“Weeks? Oh, damn you to hell, Doc!” Miles was crying. “All those dragons of the law you thought you’d slay, all those witches and warlocks of injustice that you thought you’d take on and straighten out—why the hell didn’t you stay here and do it? Why’d you leave here for your goddamn fairy land? You weren’t a quitter before, Doc. You were too stubborn to quit. Maybe that’s why you were such a good lawyer. You were, you know. You were the best I’d ever seen. You could have done anything. I’d have given my right arm just to help you do it, too. I admired you that much. But, no, you couldn’t survive in the same world with the rest of us. You had to have your own goddamn world! You had to jump ship and leave me with the rats! That’s what happened, you know. The rats came out of their holes and took over—the rats, sniffing around the old cheese. I couldn’t handle it alone! I tried, but the clients wanted you, the business couldn’t function without you, and the whole goddamn mess went down the tubes!”

He sobbed. “Look at you, damn you! You don’t look like you’ve aged a day! And look at me—a boozed-up, burned-out wreck …” He shoved forward, neck muscles straining against the collar of his shirt. “You know what I am, Doc? I’m dead weight, that’s what I am. I’m something that takes up space—something the younger bucks are trying to find a way to shove quietly out the door!” He sobbed again. “And one day, they’re gonna do it, Doc! They’re gonna shove me right out of my own damn office …”

He broke down completely. Ben felt sick inside as he watched his old friend’s composure disintegrate completely. He wanted to step forward, to go to him, but he was unable to move. “Miles …” he tried.

“Get out, Doc,” the other cut him short, his voice breaking. He motioned roughly with his arm. “You don’t belong here. They took everything you had long ago. You’re a dead man, Doc. Get the hell out!”

He left the reception room in a rush and stumbled down the hall into his office. Ben stood rooted in place for an instant, then followed. When he reached Miles’ office, the door was closed. He grasped the handle and stepped inside.

Mist swirled past his face …

The mist disappeared. He stood in an orchard of apple trees ripe with fruit. Green grasses waved gently in the summer breeze, and the smell of honeysuckle was in the air. A pasture fenced with board rail painted white was visible in the distance, and horses grazed in its enclosure. A stables sat close by, and a sprawling ranch house of brick and stained fir overlooked it all from a tree-shaded knoll.

He wheeled about in shock, already knowing that Miles, the office, and the elevator would all be gone. They were. There was nothing left. Had he imagined them? Had he imagined everything? The terrible confrontation with Miles was still replaying itself hatefully in his mind, the emotions it had triggered razor sharp as they cut against his memory. Had he imagined the whole thing?

He glanced quickly down at his clothing. The running suit and Nikes had been replaced by slacks, a short-sleeved shirt and loafers.

What in the hell was happening?

He fought to control the fear that raced through him and brought what was left of his common sense to bear. Had he jumped through time, he wondered? He didn’t think so. But he might have imagined that he had. It could have all been just an illusion. It hadn’t seemed an illusion, but it could have been. The mists could have blinded him. His passage through the fairy world could have deceived him somehow. He could have gone nowhere at all. But if he had gone nowhere and if everything he had seen was an illusion, then what was he seeing now … ?

“Ben?”

He turned, and there was Annie. She looked exactly as he remembered her, a small, winsome girl with huge brown eyes, button nose, and shoulder-length auburn hair. She was dressed in white, a summer frock with ribbons at the waist and shoulders. Her skin was pale and freckled, and the air about her seemed to shimmer in the flush of the sun’s midday light.

“Annie?” he whispered in disbelief. “Oh, my God. Annie, is it really you?”

She smiled then, that unaffected little-girl smile she always gave him when she found something amusing in his expression, and he knew that it truly was her. “Annie,” he repeated and there were tears in his eyes.

He started toward her, the tears almost blinding him, but her hands came up quickly in warning. “No, Ben. Don’t touch me. You mustn’t try to touch me.” She stepped back a pace, and he stopped, confused. “Ben, I’m not alive anymore,” she whispered, tears in her own eyes. She tried to smile through them. “I’m a ghost, Ben. I’m only an image of what you remember. If you try to take hold of me, I will disappear.”

He stood before her, confused all over again. “What … what are you doing here if you’re a ghost?”

She laughed gaily and it was as if he had never lost her. “Ben Holiday! Your memory is as selective as ever. Don’t you remember this place? Look about you. Don’t you know where we are?”

He glanced about, seeing again the pastureland, the stables, the horses, the ranch house on the knoll—and suddenly he did remember. “Your parents’ home!” he exclaimed. “This is your parents’ country home, for Christ’s sake! I’d forgotten about it! I haven’t been out here for … oh, I don’t remember how long!”

Her laughter crinkled the corners of her eyes. “It was your special hideaway when the rigors of city life became too much. Remember? My parents used to kid you about being a city boy who didn’t know a horse’s front end from its hind. You used to say there wasn’t much difference. But you loved it here, Ben. You loved the freedom it gave you.” She glanced about wistfully. “That’s why I still come here, you know. It reminds me of you. Isn’t that odd? We spent so little time here, but still it’s the place that reminds me most of you. I think it was the sense of freedom it seemed to give you that made me feel so good about it—that more so than my own love of the country.”

She wheeled about, pointing back toward the ranch. “Remember the dormer passageways that connected the sleeping rooms through their closets? We used to laugh about those, Ben. We used to talk about gremlins living there—as in the movie. We used to threaten to board them up if anything strange ever happened while we were staying over. You said we’d own that house someday, after my parents were gone, and then we’d board them up for sure!”

Ben nodded, smiling. “Annie, I did always love it here—always.”

She folded her arms across her breast, her smile fading. “But you didn’t keep the house, Ben. You don’t even come back to visit.”

He winced at the pain in her eyes. “Your parents were gone, Annie. It … hurt too much to come back after losing you, too.”

“You should have kept the home, Ben. You would have been happy here. We could have still been with each other here.” She shook her head slowly. “At least you should have come to visit. But you never came even once. You still don’t come. I wait for you to come, but you never do. I miss you so much, Ben. I need to have you by me … even though I can’t touch you or hold you as I once did. Just having you near helps me …” She trailed off. “I can’t make you see me in the city, Ben. You don’t see anything there. I don’t like the city. If I must be a ghost, I would much prefer to haunt the country where everything is fresh and green. But it is no good living here either when you never come.”

“I’m sorry, Annie,” he apologized quickly, anxiously. “I never thought that it would be possible for me to see you again. I would have come had I known that you were here.”

She smiled. “I don’t think you would have, Ben. I don’t think I mean anything to you anymore. Even your coming now was an accident. I know what you are about in your life. Ghosts have better sight than the living. I know that you have chosen to leave me and travel to another world—a world where I will become only a memory. I know of the girl you have met. She is very pretty—and she loves you.”

“Annie!” He almost reached for her in spite of the warning. He had to force his hands to remain at his sides. “Annie, I don’t love this girl. I love you. I have always loved you. I left because I couldn’t stand what was happening to me with you gone! I thought I had to try something or I would lose everything that was left of me!”

“But you never came looking for me, Ben,” she insisted, her voice soft and filled with hurt. “You gave up on me. Now I’ve lost you forever. You’ve gone into this other world, and I can never have you back. I can’t come to you there. I can’t have you close to me like this and I need that, Ben. Even a ghost needs the closeness of the one she loves.”

Ben felt his grip on his emotions start to slip. “I can still come back, Annie. I have the means to do so. I don’t have to stay in Landover.”

“Ben,” she whispered, her brown eyes sad and empty. “You no longer belong in this world. You chose to leave it. You can’t come back. I know that you have spoken with Miles Bennett. What he told you was true. Ten years have passed, Ben. You’ve nothing to come back to. Everything you once had is gone—your possessions, your position with the firm, your standing with the bar, everything. You made a choice ten years ago, and you have to accept the fact that it’s too late to change it now. You can never come back.”

Ben’s struggled in vain to respond. This was madness! How could it be happening? Then he caught himself sharply. Maybe it wasn’t happening. Maybe it was all part of the illusion he had suspected before, a trick of the mists and the fairy world, none of it real. The enormity of that possibility stunned him. Annie seemed real, damn it! How could she not be?

“Daddy?”

He turned. A small child stood a dozen feet away in the shadow of a giant apple tree, a little girl no more than two, her tiny face a mirror of Annie’s. “This is your daughter, Ben,” he heard Annie whisper. “Her name is Beth.”

“Daddy?” the little girl called to him, and her small arms reached up.

But Annie intercepted her, pulled her back, and held her close. Ben dropped slowly to one knee, his tall form stooped over, his arms folded against his chest to stop himself from shaking. “Beth?” he repeated dully.

“Daddy,” the little girl said again, smiling.

“She lives with me, Ben,” Annie told him, swallowing against her own pain. “We visit the country, and I try to teach her what life would have been like for her if …”

She couldn’t finish. She bent her head into Beth’s shoulder, hiding her face. “Don’t cry, Mommy,” the little girl said softly. “It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right, and Ben knew that it never would be again. He felt himself breaking apart inside, needing to be with them, wanting to hold them both, unable to do anything but stand there helplessly.

“Why did you leave us, Ben?” Annie was asking again, her eyes searching his. “Why did you cross over into that other world when we needed you so badly in ours? You should never have quit on us, Ben. Now we’ve lost you—and you’ve lost us. We’ve lost each other forever!”

He was on his feet then, a cry breaking from his throat, stumbling blindly toward where they knelt, arms outstretched. He saw Beth’s small arms trying to reach back.

Mist swirled past his face …

He stumbled, pitched forward, and fell sprawling to the ground. There was a moment of dizziness as he fought to regain the breath that had been knocked from his body. A rush of cool air swept over him, and the sunlight was gone. He blinked against the dusk that closed about, and his hands clutched at an earth turned barren and hard.

Annie and Beth—where were his wife and child?

Slowly he pushed himself back to his feet. He stood at the rim of a valley that was shrouded in mist and twilight. The valley had the look of a dying creature whose death had been a long and painful ordeal. Forests were stripped of their leaves and vines, the limbs and trunks of the trees gnarled and rotting. Plains had turned wintry, the grasses stunted, the flowers sapped of their color. Mountains crested against the misted skyline, but their slopes were stark and barren. A scattering of dwellings and castles hunched down against the earth, ill-kept and worn. Steam rose from lakes and rivers turned foul, their waters sluggish with filth.

Ben caught his breath in horror. He recognized the valley. It was Landover. He looked down at his clothing. It was the clothing that he had been wearing when he had gone down into the Deep Fell.

“No!” he whispered.

Annie and Beth were forgotten. He searched frantically for some sign of life upon the ravaged land. He sought out movement about the dwellings and castles, but found none. He sought out Sterling Silver and found only an empty island in a lake of black water. He sought out the Deep Fell, Rhyndweir, the lake country, the Melchor, and all of the landmarks he had come to know. Each time, he found nothing but devastation. Everything had disappeared.

“Oh, my God!” he breathed.

He stumbled forward, breaking quickly into a run as he dashed down the slope of the hillside, still searching for something of the valley he had left behind him when he had ventured into the fairy world. Grasses rustled dry and stiff against his legs as he ran, and the brittle branches of dying scrub snapped off their stems like gunshots. He passed a stand of Bonnie Blues turned black, their leaves withered and curled. He scanned the trees of the nearest fruit grove and found them bare. No birds flew against the twilight. No small animals scattered at his approach. No insects hummed or darted past.

He grew quickly winded and slowed to a staggering halt. The valley lay blackened and empty before him. Landover was a graveyard.

“This can’t be …” he started to protest softly.

Then a shadow materialized within the mist before him. “So Landover’s King has finally found his way back to us,” a caustic voice greeted.

The speaker stepped into view. It was Questor Thews, the gray robes and gaily colored silk scarves shredded and soiled, the white hair and beard ragged and unkempt. One leg was gone, and he hobbled forward on a crutch. Welts and scars marked his face and arms. His fingers were black with disease, and his eyes were bright with fever.

“Questor!” Ben whispered, horrified.

“Yes, High Lord, Questor Thews, once court wizard and advisor to the Kings of Landover, now a homeless beggar wandering in a land where only the forgotten still live. Are you pleased to see me so?”

His voice was so bitter that Ben shrank from it. “Pleased? Why would I be pleased?” he managed finally. “What happened, Questor?”

“What happened, High Lord? Do you truly not know? Look about you, then. That which you see is what happened! The land died for lack of the magic which a King could have given it! The land died. When the land died, her people died as well. There is nothing left, High Lord—everything is gone!”

Ben shook his head in confusion. “But how could that happen … ?”

“It could happen because Landover’s King abandoned her!” the other cut him short, fury and pain in his voice. “It could happen because you were not here to prevent it! You were off in the fairy world in pursuit of your own ends, and we were left to manage as best we could! Oh, we tried to find you and bring you back; but once within the fairy world, you were lost to us. I warned you, High Lord. I told you that no one could go safely into the fairy world. But you did not listen to me. No, you listened only to your own foolish reasoning and you wandered into that world of mists and dreams and were lost to us. You were gone an entire year, High Lord. An entire year! No one could find you. The medallion was lost. All hope of finding a King was lost. It was the finish for us!”

He stumbled closer, hunching brokenly against the crutch. “The magic faded quickly, High Lord; the poison spread. Soon the creatures of the land, human and otherwise, began to sicken and die. It happened so fast that no one could defend against it—not the River Master with all his healing magic, not Nightshade with all her power. Now all are dead or scattered. Only a few remain—a few like me! We live only because we cannot manage to die!” His voice shook. “I thought that you would come back to us in time, High Lord. I kept hoping that you would. I was a fool. I believed in you, when I should have known you were not worth believing in!”

Ben shook his head sharply. “Questor, don’t …”

A mottled hand brushed his protest aside. “It remains only for the Mark and his demons to come now, High Lord. There is no one left to stand against them, you see—no one. All are dead. All are destroyed. Even the strongest could not survive the passing of the magic.” He shook his head in anguish. “Why did you not come back to us sooner, High Lord? Why did you stay gone so long when you knew you were needed? I loved this land and her people so! I thought it was the same with you. Oh, if I had strength enough left in me, I would take this crutch and …”

His body trembled, and he lifted the crutch threateningly. Ben stepped back in horror, but Questor could lift the crutch only inches, and the effort brought him to ground, a collapsed rag doll. Tears streamed down his ravaged face.

“I hate you so much for what you have done!” he cried. Slowly his face lifted. “Do you know how much I hate you? Do you have any idea? Let me show you!” There was madness in his eyes. “Do you know what became of your beloved sylph after you abandoned her? Do you know what became of Willow?” His face was a mask of fury. “Do you remember her need to nourish within the land’s once fertile soil? Look down into the valley, close by that lake! Look down where the shadows lie deepest! Do you see that twisted, blackened trunk with its roots rotted away into … ?”

Ben could listen no more. He turned and ran. He ran without thinking, consumed with anger and horror that he could not control, desperate to escape the words of this hateful old man who blamed him for all that had happened. He ran, heedless of direction, pushing mindlessly forward through shadows and mist. Screams echoed after him, whether from within his own mind or outside, he could not tell. His world was collapsing about him like a house of cards brought down by an errant wind. He had lost everything—his old world, his new, his old friends, his new, his past, and his future. Familiar faces pushed in about him—Miles, Annie, Questor—their accusing voices whispering of his failures, hurt and anger in their eyes. Words pummeled him, insidious warnings of the losses he had caused.

He ran faster, his own cries strident against the beating of his heart.

Then suddenly he quit moving altogether. He was still running, but the ground had been taken out from under him and he was suspended in air. There was sudden pain. He jerked about violently, searching for the cause …

Taloned feet had fastened on his shoulders, digging deep into clothing and flesh. A massive, twisted form hovered above him, scaled body smelling fetid and rank, the disease of the land sunk deep within it. Ben stared upward wildly, and Strabo’s maw gaped open as the dragon reached down for him.

He screamed.

Mist swirled past his face …

It was happening again. Time and place were shifting. He closed his eyes instantly and kept them closed. The act was accomplished almost before the directive was issued. Something was terribly wrong. His instincts told him so. His instincts told him that the swift changes of time and place that he had been experiencing were impossible. They seemed to be happening, but in reality they were not. They were illusions or dreams or something very close. Whatever they were, they were taking over his life and tearing him apart. He had to stop them now before he was destroyed.

He hid quietly in the darkness of his mind, eyes tightly shut, his voice stilled. He forced himself to concentrate on the sound of his heart beating within his body, on the feeling of the blood coursing through his veins, on the silence that shrouded him. Be at rest, he whispered. Be at peace. Do not give way to what seems to be happening.

Slowly he regained control of himself. But still he kept his eyes closed. He was afraid that if he opened them some new horror would await. He must understand what had been happening to him first.

Meticulously, he reasoned it through. He had gone nowhere, he decided. He was still within the fairy world, still within the mists. Nor had ten years or even one year lapsed. They couldn’t have. The shifts in time and place were illusions brought about by the fairy world or its inhabitants or his reaction to either or both. What he needed to do now was to discover what was causing this. He just needed to understand why.

He built the foundation for his understanding one block at a time. Nothing he had seen was real—that was his beginning premise. If nothing was real, then everything must be false, and if everything was false, there had to be a reason for it taking the form that it had. Why was he seeing these particular visions? He retreated deep into his mind, down into its blackest, most silent regions, where there was nothing beyond the sound of his own thinking. Questor, Miles, and Annie—why had he seen them depicted as he had? He let himself relax in the inky darkness. Willow had warned him of the dangers of the fairy world. What was it that the sylph had said? She had said that in the fairy world reality was a projection of emotion and thought. She had said that there was no reality, no substantive truth apart from what you were. If that were so, what he had seen was what he had projected from within himself. What he had seen was a manifestation of his emotions …

He took a long, slow breath and let it out again. His understanding was beginning to take shape. His visions were the creation of his emotions—but which emotions? He replayed in his mind what he had seen of Miles, Annie and Beth, and Questor Thews. All had been angered or disappointed by what he had caused them to suffer. All had blamed him for their misfortunes. Illusions, but that was the way he had seen them. He had seen them as victims of his own poor judgment and inaction. Why had he seen them so? His mind raced through the possibilities, and suddenly he had his answer. He was afraid that what he had envisioned might really happen! He was afraid that it might all be true! Fear! Fear was the emotion that had shaped his thinking!

It made perfect sense. Fear was the strongest emotion of all. Fear was the least controllable emotion. That was why he had jumped through time and space to witness the horrors that had seemed to befall his friends and loved ones—the fear was breathing life into his worst imaginings. He had been frightened that he would fail in what he had undertaken from the moment he had made his decision to cross into Landover. The natural result of such a failing would be the scenarios he had just experienced. He would be cut off from his old life entirely with no chance to return, he would be stripped of all that he had believed he would gain in his new life, and he would fail his friends and family alike. He would be a man who had lost everything.

A sense of relief rushed through him. Now he understood. Now he knew what to do. If he could control his emotions, he could prevent the nightmares. If he could shut off the fear, conscious or subconscious, he could bring himself back into the present. It was a tall order, but it was his only chance.

He took several long moments to collect his thoughts and to focus them on the task at hand. He told himself to remember the kind of lawyer he had once been, to remember the courtroom skills that had made him so. He told himself to remember that everything he had experienced before was a lie, an imagining of his own making. He pictured instead the world he had seen when traveling through the time passage that had brought him to Landover—the forest with its shroud of mist.

Then slowly he opened his eyes. The forest was back again, deep, solitary, primeval. Mist swirled gently through its trees. Faint visions danced upon the mists, but they did not trouble him. The nightmares were gone, the lies banished. His reasoning had not failed him. He breathed deeply, letting himself drift through the cool, peaceful darkness, in and out of the substanceless visions. Cautiously, he began to search for the magic he had come here to find, for the Io Dust. He thought he caught glimpses of silver and midnight-blue, but nothing whole. He continued to drift, and suddenly he was fragmenting like ice shattered on stone. He was breaking apart, splitting into separate pieces that would not rejoin. Frantically, he forced the feeling down within himself to feel the solidity of the earth beneath his feet.

The sense of dissipation faded. The mist closed about.

He was no longer alone. Voices whispered.

—You are welcome, High Lord of Landover—

—You have found yourself and in doing so you have found us—

He struggled to speak, but found he could not. Faces crowded close, lean and sharp, their features somehow muddied in the twilight. They were the faces he had seen when he had crossed into Landover through the time passage. They were the faces of the fairies.

—Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost, High Lord. Believe it saved, and it may be. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing. Visions born of hope give birth to our success—

—What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it. Can you give life to the dreams that live within you, High Lord? Look into the mists and see—

Ben stared deep into the mists, then watched them swirl and part before him. A land of incredible beauty appeared, sunlight spreading out across it like a golden mantle. Life flourished in the land, and it was filled with boundless energy. There was excitement and promise beyond anything he would have believed possible. He felt himself cry out at the sight and feel of it.

Then slowly the vision faded and was gone. The voices whispered.

—Another time and place for such visions, High Lord. Another life. Bondings such as this must wait their birthings—

—You are a child among elders, High Lord, but you are a child who shows promise. You have seen the truth behind the lies that would deceive you and know it to be your own. You have earned the right to discover more—

Then show me, he wanted to shout! But he could not, and the voices whispered on.

—You have unmasked the fear that would have destroyed you, High Lord. You have shown great presence. But fear has many disguises and assumes many forms. You must learn to recognize them. You must remember what they truly are when next they come for you—

Ben’s throat worked soundlessly. He didn’t understand. What was the fairy’s meaning?

—You must go back now, High Lord. Landover needs your help. Her King must be there to serve her—

—But you may take with you that which you came to find—

Ben saw a bush materialize within the mist before him—a bush of midnight-blue with silver leaves. He felt something pressed into the palm of each hand. He looked down and found that he was holding a pair of oblong pods.

The voices whispered.

—Io Dust, High Lord. Inhale it, and you belong to the giver until released. A single breath is all it takes. But beware. The witch Nightshade seeks the dust for uses of her own and plans to share nothing of it with you. Once you have secured it for her, you will have no further value—

—Be quicker than she, High Lord. Be swift—

Ben nodded mutely, determination etched into the lines of his face.

—Go now. One day only has been lost to you—but that day must remain lost. To bring you back more quickly would cause you harm that could not be repaired. Understand, therefore, that things must necessarily be as you find them—

—Come back to us, High Lord, when the magic is found again—

—Come back to us when the need is there—

—Come…—

—… back—

Voices, faces, and slender forms faded into the mist and were gone. The mist drew back in a tight swirl and disappeared.

Ben Holiday blinked in disbelief. He stood once more in the twilight of the Deep Fell, a pod of Io Dust gripped tightly in each hand. He glanced about cautiously and found that he was alone. Fragments of his imagined encounters with Miles, Annie, and Questor Thews darted momentarily through his memory, cutting like tiny knives. He winced at the pain they caused and quickly brushed them away. They had never been real. They had been lies. His meeting with the fairies had been the only truth.

He lifted the pods of Io Dust and stared thoughtfully at them. He could not help himself. He began to smile like the Cheshire Cat. He had done the impossible. He had gone into the fairy world and, despite everything, he had come out again.

He felt as if he had been reborn.