A witch’s favorite magic, Strabo had informed him.
In Landover that meant Nightshade. He had given no serious consideration before to the possibility that Nightshade might be involved in this. Why would he? Rydall was an outlander, a usurper of power, an interloper whose goals were directly at odds with Nightshade’s. On the other hand, no one hated Ben Holiday and his family more than the witch did. Stripped of Rydall’s obvious presence, this entire business felt very much like her work. The use of dark magic, the attack on family and friends, and the calculated effort to destroy him all smacked of Nightshade. While he had heard nothing from the witch in more than two years, he did not expect that she had forgotten her promise that she would never forgive him for what had happened to her in the Tangle Box. For what she had been made to feel for him when they had both been stripped of their identities. For what she viewed as the loss of her dignity.
What if there was no Rydall? Oh, there might be someone masquerading as Marnhull’s King, but what if Rydall himself was a fiction? No one had ever heard of Rydall or Marnhull—not the River Master, not Kallendbor, not even Strabo, who had traveled everywhere. No one could find Rydall or Marnhull. There was no trace of Mistaya, Questor Thews, or Abernathy. There was no sign of an invading army. The only physical evidence of Rydall at any time in this entire episode had been presented when Marnhull’s King and his black-cloaked companion had appeared at the gates of Sterling Silver. So, Ben mulled, what if this whole business was an elaborate charade? Where, after all, was the one place in Landover that he hadn’t searched since Mistaya had disappeared? Where was the one place he had ignored because it wasn’t readily accessible to him and because it didn’t seem reasonable to look there? Where was the one place none of them had looked?
The Deep Fell, where Nightshade made her home. Ben Holiday’s suspicions hardened. What had begun as a consideration of possibilities rapidly evolved into a careful sifting of facts. Nightshade as Rydall; it made as much sense as anything else he had envisioned. Or Nightshade as Rydall’s black-cloaked companion, he amended. He remembered the way the hooded rider had studied him when he had come down onto the causeway to pick up the gauntlet, the intensity of that veiled gaze. He remembered the way both riders had looked upon Mistaya when she had climbed onto the ramparts. His chest tightened, and his stomach turned to ice. It was late on the third day of their journey home when they came in sight of Sterling Silver. The castle materialized through the gloom like a vision brought to life from a child’s imagining, a gleaming, rain-streaked rise of spires and parapets that hardened into stone and mortar, timber and metal, pennants and flags as they closed on its island surround. They crossed the moat through a misty curtain and passed beneath the raised portcullis. Retainers scurried to take their horses and usher them inside out of the weather. Ben and Willow went wordlessly to their bedchamber, stripped off their sodden clothing, climbed into a tub of steaming water, and lay back to soak. When some of the ache and discomfort of their travel had been eased, they climbed out again, dried off, and dressed in fresh clothing.
Then Ben led Willow down to the library for a close look at his copy of Monsters of Man & Myth. It took only moments to locate it. It sat on the shelf exactly where he remembered leaving it. He pulled it out and looked at the cover. Sure enough, there was Rydall’s robot. He thumbed through the pages and in short order found a drawing of the giant. Then he found the writer’s description of the demon that could mimic any foe.
He showed the book to Willow. “You see? Exactly the same as Rydall’s monsters.”
She nodded. “But how did he do it? How did he know about this book and these particular monsters? Ben, I didn’t know about this book. I didn’t even know it was here. We’ve never talked about it, not once. How did Rydall know?”