He shoved his thoughts aside as they stepped through a massive oak and iron-pinioned door into a small courtyard with a chapel set at its center. The chapel was as dingy and discolored as the rest of Sterling Silver, yet the mists gathered less thickly here, and traces of sunlight still fell upon the stone and wood of roof and walls and the stained glass of high, arched windows. They crossed the courtyard to the chapel steps, climbed to scrolled oak doors that were matched and pegged in iron pins and pushed their way inside.
Ben peered through the failing light. Floors, ceiling, and walls were trimmed in white and scarlet, the colors faded, the whole of the chapel’s dim interior musted and gray. There was no altar; there were no pews. Coats of arms hung upon the walls with shields and weapons propped below, and a single kneeling pad and arm rest faced forward toward a dais that occupied the very center of the room. A solitary figure stood upon the dais. It was the knight on the medallion.
Ben started. He thought for an instant that the knight was alive and at watch. Then he realized that it was only an armored shell occupying the dais and that nothing living was kept within.
Questor started forward into the chapel. “Come, High Lord.”
Ben followed, eyes fixed on the figure on the dais. Abernathy trailed them. The suit of armor was chipped and battered as if from many battles, the polish gone, the metal stained almost black by the Tarnish. A huge broadsword was sheathed in a scabbard at one hip, and a mace with a wedge-shaped head hung from its leather harness at the other. A great iron-tipped lance rested butt downward from the grip of one metal hand. All three weapons were as debilitated as the armor and crusted over with dirt and grime. There was a crest on the metal breastplate and on the shield that rested beside the lance — an emblem that depicted the sun rising over Sterling Silver.
Ben took a deep breath. He could be certain as he stood before it that the armor was only a shell. Yet he was certain, too, that this was the same armor that had been worn by the knight who had twice now intervened in his encounters with the Mark.
“He was called the Paladin,” Questor said at his elbow. “He was the King’s champion.”
Ben looked over. “He was, was he? What happened to him?”
“He disappeared after the death of the old King, and no one has seen him since.” The sharp eyes met Ben’s. “Until now, that is.”
“It seems, then, that you no longer think I was imagining things when I came through the time passage.”
“I never thought that, High Lord. I simply feared that you had been deceived.”
“Deceived? By whom?”
They faced each other in silence. Abernathy scratched at one ear.
“This pregnant pause in your digression suggests that some vast and terrible secret is about to be revealed,” Ben said finally. “Does this mean I am about to learn the rest of what you still haven’t told me?”
Questor Thews nodded. “It does.”
Ben folded his arms across his chest. “Fine. But let’s have all of it this time, Questor — not just part of all of it like before. No more surprises saved for later, okay?”
The other nodded one time more. “No more surprises, High Lord. In fact, it was your mistrust of me that prompted my request that Abernathy join us. Abernathy is court historian as well as court scribe. He will be quick enough to correct me if I should misspeak myself.” He sighed. “Perhaps you will have more faith in his word than in mine.”
Ben waited. Questor Thews glanced momentarily at the suit of armor and then looked slowly about the empty chapel. He seemed lost within himself. The silence deepened as the seconds slipped away, and the haze of twilight spread its shadows further into the failing light.
“You may begin whenever you are ready,” Abernathy growled impatiently. “Dinner cools on the table while we stand about.”
“I find it difficult to know where to begin,” Questor snapped. He turned to Ben once more. “It was a different time, you know — twenty years ago. The old King ruled and the Paladin was his champion, as he had been champion of; the Kings of Landover since the dawn of her creation. He was born of the magic, created by the fairy people as Landover herself was created, drawn from the mists of their world to become a part of this. No one has ever seen his face. No one has ever seen him other than like this — clad in the suit of armor you see before you, metal head to foot, visor drawn and closed. He was an enigma to all. Even my half-brother found him a puzzle with no solution.”