Calling Ed Samuelson was something of a risk. He had to assume that Meeks knew Ed was his accountant and would be contacted eventually. Anticipating that contact, Meeks might have tapped the accountant’s phone. That was a somewhat paranoid assumption perhaps, but Meeks was no one to fool with. Ben only hoped that, if Meeks had decided on a phone tap, he had opted for one at Ed Samuelson’s office and not one at his home.
He called Ed, found him just finished with his evening meal, and spent the next ten minutes convincing him that it really was Ben Holiday who was calling. Once he got that job done, he warned Ed that no one — and that meant absolutely no one — was to know about this call. Ed was to pretend that he had never received it. Ed asked the same question he always asked when Ben made one of his bizarre requests: Was Ben in some sort of trouble? No, Ben assured him, he was not. It simply wasn’t convenient for anyone to know he was in town at the moment. He did plan on seeing Miles, he assured Ed. He did not think he would have time to see much of anyone else.
Ed seemed satisfied. He listened patiently while Ben explained what he wanted done. Ben promised he would stop by the office tomorrow about noon to sign the necessary papers if Ed could arrange to be there. Ed sighed stoically and said that would be fine. Ben said good night and placed the phone receiver back on its cradle.
Twenty minutes in the shower helped wash away the tension and the growing weariness. He came back out of the bathroom and crawled into his bed, a few of the magazines and newspapers stacked next to him. He started to read, gave it up, and let his thoughts drift and his eyes close.
Moments later, he was asleep.
He dreamed that night of the Paladin.
He was alone at first, standing on a pine-sheltered bluff looking down over Landover’s misted valley. Blues and greens mixed as sky and earth joined, and it was as if he could reach out and touch them. He breathed, and the air was fresh and chill. The clarity of the moment was stunning.
Then shadows deepened and closed down about him like night. Cries and whispers filtered through the pines. He could feel the shape of the medallion pressing against his palm as he clutched at it in anticipation. He had need of it once more, he sensed, and was glad. The being he kept trapped inside could be let loose again!
There was a darting movement to one side and a monstrous black shape surged forward. It was a unicorn, eyes and breath of fire. But it changed almost instantly. It became a devil. Then it changed again.
It was Meeks.
The wizard beckoned, a tall, stooped, menacing form, face scaled over like a lizard’s. He came for Ben, growing in size with each step, changing now into something unrecognizable. There was the smell of fear in Ben’s nostrils, the smell of death.
But he was the Paladin, the knight-errant whose strayed soul had found a home within his body, the King’s champion who had never lost a battle, and nothing could stand against him. He brought that other self to life with a frightening rush of elation. Armor closed about him, and the smell of fear and death gave way to the acrid smells of iron, leather, and oil. He was no longer Ben Holiday, but a creature of some other time and place whose memories were all of battle, of combat and victory, of fighting and dying. Wars raged in his mind, and there were glimpses of struggling behemoths encased in iron, surging back and forth against a haze of red: Metal clanged, and voices huffed and grunted in fury. Bodies fell in death, torn and broken.
He felt himself exhilarated!
Oh, God, he felt himself reborn!
The darkness broke against him, shadows reaching and clawing, and he went to meet them in a rage. The white charger he rode carried him forward like a steam engine driven by fires he could not begin to control. The pines slipped past him in a blur, and the ground disappeared. Meeks became a wraith he could not touch. He raced forward, flying out from the edge of the bluff into nothingness.