Ben glanced away, nodding absently. He was thinking all at once of something else. Just when was it he had decided that he would leave? He couldn’t remember making the decision. It was almost as if somehow the decision had been made for him. He shook his head. That wasn’t possible.
His eyes shifted back to Abernathy. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long,” he promised.
“But you cannot know that!” his scribe insisted.
Ben paused, then smiled an entirely unexpected smile. “Abernathy, some things must take precedence over others. Landover’s business will keep for the few days it will take me to cross over to the old world and back again.” He rose and walked to stand close to his friend. “I can’t let this pass. I can’t pretend the dream didn’t happen and that I’m not worried for Miles. Sooner or later, I would have to go back in any case. I have left too many matters unfinished for too long.”
“Such matters will keep better than those of this kingdom, should you fail to return. High Lord,” his scribe muttered worriedly.
Ben’s smile broadened. “I promise I will be careful. I value the well-being of Landover and her people as much as you.”
“Besides, I can manage affairs of state quite nicely in your absence, High Lord,” Questor added.
Abernathy groaned. “Why is it that I feel no reassurance whatsoever at such a prospect?”
Ben cut off Questor’s response with a cautionary gestare. “Please, no arguing. We need each other’s support.” He turned to Willow. “Are you determined in this as well?”
Willow brushed back her waist-length hair and gave him a studied, almost somber look. “You already know the answer to that question.”
He nodded. “I suppose I do. Where will you start?”
“The lake country. There are some there who may be able to help me.”
“Would you consider waiting for me until I return from my own journey so that I might go with you?”
The sea green eyes were steady. “Would you wait instead for me, Ben?”
He squeezed her hand gently in reply. “No, I guess not. But you are under my care, nevertheless, and I don’t wish you to go alone. In fact, I don’t wish either Questor or you to go alone. Some sort of protection may prove necessary. Bunion will go with one of you, and Parsnip with the other. No, don’t argue with me,” he continued quickly, seeing words of protest forming on the lips of the sylph and the wizard both. “Your journeys could prove dangerous.”
“And yours as well, High Lord,” Questor pointed out.
Ben nodded. “Yes, I realize that. But our circumstances are different. I can take no one with me from this world into the other — at least not without raising more than a few eyebrows — and it is in the other world that such danger as might threaten me awaits. I will have to be my own protector on this outing.”
Besides, the medallion he wore about his neck was protection enough, he thought. He let his fingers stray down the front of his tunic to the medallion’s hard outline. Ironically, Meeks had given him the medallion when he had sold him the kingship — the key to the magic that was now his. Only the bearer could be recognized as King. Only the bearer could pass through the fairy mists from Landover to the worlds beyond and back again. And only the bearer could summon and command the services of the invincible armored champion known as the Paladin.
He traced the image of the knight-errant riding out from the gates of Sterling Silver against the sunrise. The secret of the Paladin was his alone. Even Meeks had never understood the full extent of the medallion’s power or its connection with the Paladin.
He smiled tightly. Meeks had thought himself so clever. He had used the medallion to pass over into Ben’s world and then let himself be trapped there. What the old wizard wouldn’t give to get that medallion back now!
The smile faded. But that would never happen, of course. No one but the bearer could remove the medallion once it was in place — and Ben never took it off. Meeks was no longer any threat to him.