She turned to Ben. “That was why the black unicorn was so frightened of me at first. Even in its need, it was terrified. I felt its fear each time I came close and again, later, when I touched it. It believed me to be a tool of the wizards that had imprisoned it. It couldn’t know the truth. It was not until the very end that it seemed to understand that I was not in service to Meeks.”
“Which brings us to the present,” Ben announced, straightening. “Meeks had gained possession of the books of magic in his turn and had used them as had all the wizards before him. But then the old King died and everything started to fall into ruin. The black unicorn hadn’t escaped for a very long time — perhaps centuries — and there hadn’t been any need for the golden bridle in all those years. I don’t think even the wizards before Meeks had paid a whole lot of attention to it for a while because it was apparently before Meeks’ time that it was stolen for the first time by Nightshade. Later it was stolen by Strabo and then went back and forth between the two after that. Meeks knew where it was, I suppose, but the books of magic were safely under his control, and the witch and the dragon didn’t know the real purpose of the bridle in any case. The trouble started when Meeks went over to my world to recruit a new King for Landover and hid the books of magic in his absence. I suppose he thought he wouldn’t be gone long enough for anything to happen to them, but things didn’t work out that way. When I didn’t come crawling back to give up the medallion and the Iron Mark didn’t finish me off, Meeks suddenly found himself trapped over there with the books of magic still hidden over here. The magic that imprisoned the unicorns weakened once more in his absence, and the spirit part — the black unicorn — burned free of the pages of its book and escaped.”
“So that was why my half-brother sent the dreams!” Questor exclaimed, new understanding beginning to reflect on his owlish face. “He had to get back across into Landover, recover the missing books, and find the golden bridle — and quickly! If he didn’t, the black unicorn might find a way to free all the white unicorns — its physical selves — and the magic would be lost!”
“And that is exactly what it tried to do,” Willow confirmed. “Not only this time, but every time it managed to break free. It tried to find the one magic it believed stronger than the magic of the wizards — the Paladin! Always before, it was caught so quickly that it never had any real chance. It knew the Paladin was the King’s champion, but it would never even manage to reach the King. This time it was certain it could — except that there was no King to be found. Meeks was quick to act, once he discovered the unicorn had escaped. A dream was used to lure Ben out of Landover before the unicorn could reach him. Then Meeks crossed back with him and altered his appearance so that no one — including the black unicorn — could recognize him.”
“I think it might have recognized me if it hadn’t been imprisoned for so long,” Ben interjected. “The older fairy creatures such as Nightshade and Strabo could recognize me. But the unicorn had forgotten much of its magic while it was bound.”
“It might have lost much as well through the wizards’ use of it,” Willow added.
“Meeks told me that night in my bedchamber, when he used his magic to change me, that I messed up his plans in some way,” Ben went on, returning to the matter of his lost identity. “Of course, I didn’t have any idea what it was that I had done. I didn’t know what he was talking about. The truth was that everything I had done was inadvertent. I didn’t know that the books contained stolen magic and that, if he weren’t within Landover, the magic might be lost. I was just trying to stay alive.”