Remember, what you’re seeing is all a lie, he told himself. Just a lie.
But nothing happened. The medallion before him continued to reflect the image of Meeks. He fought down a renewed surge of panic and forced himself to remain calm. Something more was needed. Something.
His mind sifted, considering and discarding possibilities. He kept his eyes focused on the medallion. The mountain forest was still about him, the silence complete save for brief snatches of bird songs and the rustle of the wind through the leaves. He was right about this; he knew he was right. Break the first link, and the others would follow. The chain would fall apart. He would become himself again, the power of the Paladin would return, and his magic would be freed. He need only find a key…
He caught himself in midthought. Slowly his fingers eased along the length of chain to the medallion itself. Lightly they caressed the tarnished surface, then gathered the talisman into his palms. Its feel was abhorrent to him — but then Meeks would want it that way. His hands closed. He held the medallion, gripped it tightly, felt its surface, its graven image, and envisioned not Meeks, but the Paladin riding out of Sterling Silver, riding out at sunrise, riding to him…
Something began to happen. The medallion grew warm to the touch, and there was a barely perceptible change in its feel. He gripped it harder, the image he knew to be hidden there locked firmly in the forefront of his thoughts. He closed his eyes. The image was a beacon of whiteness that became his only light. The medallion burned, but he kept his grip on it. He could sense a shifting in its surface as if something were falling away, a skin being shed. Yes! The burning continued, then flared sharply, spread through the whole of his body, lifted away, and dissipated into air.
Coolness returned. Slowly he opened his eyes, then his fingers. He looked down at the medallion that nestled in his palm. It was bright and untarnished. He could see himself mirrored in its surface. The image of the Paladin glimmered back at him.
He permitted himself a huge, almost foolish smile. He had been right after all. The medallion had been his all along.
The chain that had bound him was broken!
Revelation
Willow stirred, consciousness returning as she made the slow, languid slide out of slumber. The sun was warm upon her skin, and tall grasses tickled her face. She blinked, squinted against the sudden brightness, and let her eyes close again. She had dreamed — or had she? She had flown on a cloud, riding wind currents that whipped and buffeted her and bore her over all the world as if she were a bird on wing. She blinked again, feeling the press of the earth against her back. She had been so free.
Then the drifting sensation slipped from her, and a sudden return of memory jarred her completely awake. She sat upright with a start. There had been no dream. There had been only the reality of her flight from Meeks, the winged demon, the others…
A shudder passed through her body. She forced her eyes open again, squinting against the sunlight. She sat within a wide clearing in a grove of hardwood trees and scattered pines almost within the shadow of Mirwouk.
The walls of the ancient fortress loomed behind her, jagged heights rough against the afternoon sky. Flowers dotted the hillside which spread away below her, their smells filling the still, humid air. The whole of the mountains about her were strangely silent.
Her eyes shifted. A dozen feet away, the black unicorn stood looking at her, the bridle of spun gold still fastened about its slender head.
“I rode you,” she whispered almost soundlessly.
The memory was a jumble of images and feelings that washed over her like ice water and shocked her with their intensity. She had barely known what she was doing when she had pulled herself atop the unicorn’s back, terrified by what was happening about her, frantic to escape its horror. Nothing was what it appeared — not Ben, not the stranger who claimed to be Ben, not that cat, nothing. There was fire and destruction all about — such hatred! She had only thought to flee, and something in the touch of the unicorn’s body against her own as it had surged past had drawn her after. Hands on the golden bridle, fingers locking in the mane, on the sleek body, and about the slender neck, her own face pressed close… The images stirred and vanished, feelings more than pictures, a whisper of need and want.