“Thanks for reminding me.” Ben reached for a plate and shoveled food onto it from the platters. Bread with jam, eggs, and fruit. “Well, we’ll get to it, all of it. There’s plenty of time.” He put the plate down in front of him, his mind already skipping ahead to the matters Abernathy had listed. Why, in the name of sanity, did anyone feel compelled to steal from the larder? It wasn’t as if there was a food shortage. “If Willow isn’t down here in a few minutes, I’ll go up and get her. And Bunion can find Questor, wherever he’s …”
At that a door was flung open at the far end of the hall leading up from the lower entry inside the castle gates, and Questor Thews appeared.
“This is the last straw, simply the last!” he declared furiously.
He strode to the table without a pause, muttering with such vehemence that those gathered were left staring. The Court Wizard wore his trademark gray robes decorated with brightly colored patches of cloth and wrapped at the waist with a crimson sash, a ragtag scarecrow figure, tall and thin, all sticks and wisps of flying beard and hair. It was immediately apparent that he might have dressed and groomed himself better—at least to the extent of new robes and a trim about the ears, as Ben had tried to suggest on more than one occasion—but he saw no reason to change what he was comfortable with and so did not. He was mild and gentle and not given over easily to fits of pique, and it was strange to see him so agitated now.
He came to a halt before them and threw back his robes as if to shed himself of whatever it was that so burdened him this beautiful summer morning. “He’s back!” he announced.
“Who’s back?” Ben asked.
“Back and not a bit repentant for anything he’s done! There is not the least shame in him, not the least! He comes up to the gate as bold as you please and announces he’s here!” Questor’s face was reddening as he spoke, turning dangerously crimson. “I thought we’d seen the last of him twenty some years ago, but like the proverbial bad penny, he’s turned up anew!”
“Questor.” Ben tried to get a word in edgewise. “Who are you talking about?”
Questor’s gaze was fierce. “I’m talking about Horris Kew!”
Now Abernathy was on his feet as well. “That trickster! He wouldn’t dare come back! He was exiled! Questor Thews, you’ve been out in the sun too long!”
“Feel free to walk down and have a look for yourself!” Questor gave him a chilly smile. “He presents himself as a supplicant, come to ask forgiveness from the High Lord. He wants the ban of exile lifted. He wants back into Landover!”
“No!” Abernathy’s exhortation came out as something very close to a growl. He wheeled on Ben, bristling. “High Lord, no! Do not see him! Refuse him entrance! Send him away immediately!”
“I wouldn’t send him away if I were you!” Questor snapped, crowding forward to stand next to the dog. “I’d have him seized and thrown into the deepest, darkest prison I could find! I’d lock him up and throw away the key!”
Willow had come down the stairs and into the room and was now seating herself next to Ben. She gave him a questioning stare as she listened, but he could only shrug to indicate his own lack of understanding.
“Hold up a minute,” he interjected finally. Bunion was the only one who wasn’t giving any indication of what he thought, sitting across from Ben with that disconcerting grin on his face. “I’m not following any of this. Who is Horris Kew?”
“Your worst nightmare!” Abernathy sniffed, as if that explained everything.
Questor Thews was only slightly more eloquent. “I’ll tell you who he is. Horris Kew is the biggest troublemaker who ever lived! A conjurer of a very minor sort, one with just enough magic to get into mischief. I thought we were rid of him, but I should have known better! Abernathy, remember the cow episode?”
“The cow episode?” Ben asked.
Consumed by his tirade, Questor wasn’t listening. “Horris claimed he was trying to establish communication with the cows to permit better control over their milking habits, and things got out of hand. His conjuring efforts drove the poor beasts to a frenzy. They broke loose country-wide and trampled down the entire wheat harvest and several towns in the bargain. It was the same with the chickens. The next thing you know he’s subverted the evolutionary process, and they’re flying like birds and dropping eggs all over the place.”