Maybe they had, he mused. Maybe he should have told them to go on home and forget about him. They probably wouldn’t have done that, though. They still took their pledge to him quite seriously.
He reflected momentarily on all the help they had given him — a pair of larcenous, grimy little cannibals. Who woold have thought it? Silently, he wished them well.
Strabo flew into the coming night, passing from the eastern wasteland to the fringes of the Greensward and then west. The daylight failed completely, darkness descended, and Landover’s moons began to shine. They were all visible on this night — white, peach, washed-out mauve, burnt rose, sea green, beryl, turquoise, and jade — their colors unobstructed by the mists that shrouded the valley below. They were like giant balloons, Ben thought and wondered where the party was.
The minutes slipped rapidly past. Strabo’s massive body undulated rhythmically beneath Ben as the leathered wings beat against the night winds and carried them westward. Ben gripped the reins and harness and hung on for dear life. Air currents buffeted and chilled him. Landover was a vast bowl of steaming soup over which he hung suspended. He was exhilarated by the sensation of flying like this, but he was frightened, too. He hadn’t liked horseback riding and he didn’t like dragon riding any better. The dragon kept a steady pace and that helped, but Ben still distrusted the situation. He knew the Io Dust could wear off at any time and that would be the end of him.
“This is a foolish venture!” Strabo called back to him moments later, as if reading his thoughts. The crusted, misshapen head swung about, eyes glinting. “All this for a handful of humans!”
“My friends!” Ben shouted in reply, the wind whipping the words back into his face.
“Your friends mean nothing to me!”
“Fair enough — you mean nothing to them! Except Questor Thews, I suppose — he thinks you special!”
“The wizard? Pah!”
“Just do what I told you to do!” Ben ordered.
“I hate you, Holiday!”
“Sorry — I don’t care!”
“You will! Sooner or later, I’ll get free of you and when I do you’ll be sorry you ever decided to use me this way!”
The head swung back again, the cold, mechanical voice dying into the rush of the wind. Ben said nothing. He gripped the reins and the harness straps tighter.
They flew deep into the Greensward toward the center of the valley. Ben did not know where they were going. He knew the dragon was taking him to Abaddon, but he had no idea where Abaddon was. Abaddon was the netherworld of Landover, but its gates were time passages of the sort that had brought him from his own world. They were not, however, the same time passages. They were not to be found within the mists that ringed the valley. They were hidden somewhere within the valley, Strabo had told him — somewhere only the demons and the dragon could reach…
Strabo slowed suddenly and began a long sweep back that became a widening circle. Ben looked down. The valley was a shroud of mist and gloom. Strabo’s wings spread wider, and the dragon began to bank sharply on the night winds.
“Hold tight to me, Holiday!” the dragon cried back to him.
Strabo dipped suddenly and started down. Wings flattened back and the long neck stretched forward. They began to pick up speed as the dragon’s dive steepened. The wind rushed past Ben Holiday’s ears in a vicious roar that drowned out everything. The ground began to come into focus, a shapeless blur sharpening with the passing of each second they dropped. Ben was cold all the way through. They were going too fast! They were going to dive right into the middle of the Greensward!
Then abruptly the dragon fire exploded from Strabo’s throat, a huge, brilliant arc of crimson flame. The air seemed to melt before it, cellophane that wrinkled and expanded at its edges, leaving a jagged hole. Ben squinted against the rush of the wind and saw the blackness of the hole open out of the night. Dragon fire died away, but the hole remained. They were passing through it, flying into the empty dark. Landover disappeared; the misted Greensward was gone. There was a sucking noise as the hole closed behind them and then sudden stillness.
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