Ben nodded hastily. “I understand.”
The paw lowered again. “I hope so. Now I will say this one more time. The magic you struggle against is magic of deception — a mirror that alters in its reflection truths and makes them half-truths and lies. If you can see past the mirror, you can set yourself free. If you can set yourself free, you can help your friends. But you had better get busy!”
He stretched, turned, walked several paces away, and turned back again. The forest glade was quiet now; even the birds in the trees had gone still. Sunlight continued to shine out of the skies from overhead, casting the dappled shadows of the leaves and branches across the clearing beneath, leaving Ben and Dirk spotted and striped.
“The dark wizard is frightened of you, Ben Holiday,” Dirk advised softly. “He knows you to be close to the answers you need to break free, and he will try to destroy you before that can happen. I have given you the means to find the answers that will defeat him. Use those means. You are an intelligent man. You have been a man who has spent his life ordering other men’s lives. Man of law, man of power — order now your own!”
He moved soundlessly to the glade’s edge, never looking back. “I have enjoyed our time together, High Lord,” he called back. “I have enjoyed our travels. But they are over for now. I have other places to be and other appointments to keep. I will think of you. And one day, perhaps, I will see you again.”
“Wait, Dirk!” Ben called after, coming suddenly to his feet, fighting against the continuing dizziness.
“I never wait, High Lord,” the cat replied, now almost lost in shadow. “Besides, there is nothing more I can do for you. I have done everything I can. Good luck to you.”
“Dirk!”
“Remember what I told you. And try listening to cats once in a while, would you?”
“Dirk, damn it!”
“Good-bye.”
And with that Edgewood Dirk disappeared into the forest and was gone.
Ben Holiday stared after the cat for a long time following its departure, half expecting that it would return. It didn’t, of course, just as he had known all along somewhere deep inside that it wouldn’t. When he finally accepted the fact, he quit looking for it and began to panic. He was all alone for the first time since being cast out of Sterling Silver — all alone and in the worst predicament of his life. He was without his identity or his medallion, and he had no idea at all how to regain either. Edgewood Dirk, his protector, had deserted him. Willow had disappeared with the black unicorn, still believing him. the stranger he appeared to be. His friends were scattered to heaven-knew-where. Meeks had gone for the books of magic and would return shortly to put an end to him.
And here he sat, waiting for it to happen.
He was stunned. He could not seem to think clearly.
He tried to reason, to think what he should do next, but everything seemed to jumble up, the problems and needs fighting for equal time in his thoughts. He rose, his motions mechanical, his eyes dead, and walked to the edge of the little stream. He glanced once more after Dirk, saw only empty forest, and turned back again, a feeling of bleak resignation settling through him. He knelt down beside the stream and splashed water on his soot-blackened face, rubbing it into his eyes. The water was like ice, and it sent a shock through his system. He splashed some more on, throwing it up over his head and shoulders, letting the cold galvanize him.
Then he sat back, the water dripping off his face, his eyes looking down into the stream.
Reason it through, he admonished himself. You have all the answers. Dirk said you had all the answers. So what in the hell are they?
He resisted an almost overwhelming urge to leap up and charge off into the trees. He forced himself to stay put. Action would have been more immediately gratifying — the sense of doing something, anything, better than just sitting around. But running about heedlessly wasn’t what the situation called for; thinking was. He had to know what he was doing, had to understand once and for all what had happened.