Yet here he was, and there it was, and what was the explanation for it, if it wasn’t what Questor Thews said it was? It looked, smelled, and felt real. It had the look of something real — but at the same time it had the look of something completely foreign to his world, something beyond anything he had ever known or even heard about this side of King Arthur.
This land was a fantasy, a mix of color and shape and being that surprised and bewildered him at every turn — and frightened him, as well.
But already his initial skepticism had begun to erode. What if Landover truly was another worid? What if it was exactly what Meeks had promised?
The thought exhilarated him. It left him stunned.
He glanced surreptitiously at Questor. The tall, stooped figure marched dutifully next to him, gray robes dragging through the grasses, patched with the scarfs and sashes and pouches of gaily colored silk, his whitish hair and beard fringing the owlish face. Questor certainly seemed to feel at home.
His gaze wandered back over the sweep of the valley, and he consciously opened a few heretofore padlocked doors in the deep recesses of his mind. Perhaps logic and common sense ought to take a backseat to instinct for a while, he decided.
Still, a few discreet questions wouldn’t hurt.
“How is it that you and I happen to speak the same language?” he asked his guide suddenly. “Where did you learn to speak English?”
“Hmmmnun?” The wizard glanced over, preoccupied with something else.
“If Landover is in another world, how does it happen that you speak English so well?”
Questor shook his head. “I don’t speak English at all. I speak the language of my country — at least, I speak the language used by humans.”
Ben frowned. “But you’re speaking English right now, damn it! How else could we communicate?”
“Oh, I see what you mean.” Questor smiled. “I am not speaking your language. High Lord — you are speaking mine.”
“Yours?”
“Yes, the magic properties of the medallion that permit you passage into Landover also give you the ability to communicate instantly with its inhabitants, either by spoken word or in writing.” He rumbled through one of the pouches momentarily and withdrew a faded map. “Here, read — something of this.”
Ben took the map from him and studied the details. The names of towns, rivers, mountain ranges and lakes were all in English.
“These are written in English!” he insisted, handing the map back again.
Questor shook his head. “No, High Lord, they are written in Landoverian — the language of the country. They only appear to be written in English — and only to you. I speak to you now in Landoverian as well; but it seems to you as if your own language. The medallion’s fairy magic permits this.”
Ben thought it through for a moment, trying to decide what else he should ask on the matter of language and communication, but decided in the end that there really was nothing further to ask. He changed subjects.
“I’ve never seen anything like those trees,” he informed his guide, pointing to the odd-looking blue pin oaks. “What are they?”
“Those are Bonnie Blues.” Questor slowed and stopped. “They grow only in Landover as far as I know. They were created of the fairy magic thousands of years ago and given to us. They keep back the mists and feed life into the soil.”
Ben frowned dubiously. “I thought sun and rain did that.”
“Sun and rain? No, sun and rain only help the process. But magic is the life source of Landover, and the Bonnie Blues are a very strong magic indeed.”
“Fairy magic, you said — like the magic that enables us to communicate?”
“The same. High Lord. The fairies gave the magic to the land when they created it. They live now in the mists about us.”
“The mists?”
“There.” Questor pointed in a sweeping motion to the mountains that ringed the valley, their peaks and forests shrouded in gray. “The fairies live there.” He glanced once more at Ben. “Did you see faces in the mist when you passed through the forest from your world to ours?” Ben nodded. “Those were the faces of the fairies. Only the pathway you walked upon belongs to both worlds. That was why I was concerned that you had strayed too far from it.”