Witches’ Brew by Terry Brooks

“So no one has heard of Rydall?” Ben repeated once again. He kept coming back to that same question. “You’re sure?”

“High Lord, this man is a stranger to Landover,” Questor Thews assured him. “There is no Rydall and no Marnhull anywhere within our borders.”

“Nor, for all we know, anywhere without, either!” Abernathy snapped heatedly. “Rydall claims to have come through the fairy mists, but we have only his word for that. No one can penetrate the mists, High Lord. The fairies would not permit it. Only magic allows passage, and only the fairies or their creatures possess it. Rydall does not seem one of those to me.”

“Perhaps, like me, he possesses a talisman that allows passage,” Ben suggested.

Questor bent forward with a frown. “What of that black-cloaked companion? I told you I sensed magic in that pair, but it was probably not Rydall’s. Perhaps the other is a creature of magic, a fairy being of the same sort as the Gorse. Such a being could secure passage.”

Ben thought back to the Gorse, the dark fairy that had been released and brought back into Landover at the time of Mistaya’s birth. A creature of that sort was certainly capable of negotiating the fairy mists and visiting as much misery as possible on any who stood in its way.

“But why would a creature of such power serve Rydall?” he asked abruptly. “Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Perhaps the fairy creature is in his thrall,” Willow offered quietly. “Or perhaps things are not as they appear, and it is Rydall in fact who serves.”

“If the black-cloaked one has the magic, it might be so and still appear otherwise,” Questor mused. “I wish I could have penetrated their disguise.”

Ben leaned back in his chair. “Let’s review this a moment. These two, Rydall and his companion, appear out of nowhere. One of them, or maybe both, possesses magic—considerable magic, they claim. But we don’t know what that magic does. What we do know is that they want an unconditional surrender of the throne of Landover and that they seem confident that they will have it one way or the other. Why?”

“Why?” Questor Thews repeated blankly.

“Put it another way,” Ben continued. He pushed back his plate and looked at the wizard. “They made a demand, offering no evidence that it should be given any serious consideration. They revealed no magic of the sort that might intimidate, and they showed nothing of their vaunted army. They simply made a demand and then rode off, giving us three days to consider. To consider what? Their demand that we have already rejected? I don’t think so.”

“You think they intend to offer us some demonstration of their power,” Willow surmised.

Ben nodded. “I do. They haven’t given us three days for nothing. And they made a fairly obvious threat on leaving. Rydall was too quick to back away from his demand for immediate surrender. Why make it if you don’t intend to enforce it? Some sort of game is being played here, and I don’t think we know all the rules yet.”

The others nodded soberly. “What should we do, High Lord?” Questor asked finally.

Ben shrugged. “I wish I knew.” He thought about it for a moment. “Let’s use the Landsview, Questor, to see if there is any sign of Rydall or his army in Landover. We can make a thorough search. I don’t want to alarm the people by giving out word of this threat until we find out if it is real, but it might not hurt to increase our border patrols for a few days.”

“It might not hurt to increase our watch here as well,” Abernathy growled, straightening himself. “The threat, after all, seems directed at us.”

Ben agreed. Since no one had anything further to offer, they adjourned from the table to begin the day’s work, much of which was already set by an agenda that had been in place for weeks and had nothing to do with Rydall and his threats. Ben went about his business in calm, unperturbed fashion, but his apprehension about Marnhull’s King remained undiminished.

When there was time, Ben went up into the castle’s highest tower, a small circular chamber in which the wall opened halfway around from floor to ceiling, to look out across the land. A railing rose waist-high along the edge to guard against falls, and a silver lectern faced out from the center of the railing into the clouds. Thousands of intricately scrolled runes were carved into the metal. This was the Landsview. He closed the door to the room and locked it, then pulled a worn map of Landover from a chest and crossed to the lectern. He spread the map across its reading surface and fastened it in place with clips.