Witches’ Brew by Terry Brooks

He waited. Kallendbor was silent for a moment. “I do not need to take children as hostages to do battle with my enemies,” he managed finally.

He seemed to have trouble speaking the words. Ben wondered why. “Then you will send for me if you hear anything that will help me find Mistaya?” he pressed.

Kallendbor’s face closed down, flat and expressionless. There was a hard look in his eyes. “You have my word that I will do whatever I can to see your daughter safely home. I can promise no more.”

Ben nodded slowly. “I will take you at your word.”

There was a long, harsh silence. Then Kallendbor shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said, “If you are ready, I will show you to your rooms.”

For the moment at least they had each had enough of the other.

Midnight came and went. Rain poured down out of the heavens, brought to the grasslands by thunderheads that had broken free of the barrier of the mountains and had crossed in the dark. Lightning seared the black skies in white-hot streaks that dazzled and stunned. Below Rhyndweir’s walls the turgid waters of the Anhalt and the Piercenal churned against their banks, swollen and clogged with debris.

Ben Holiday slept uneasily. Twice already he had awakened and risen to look about. Silence had woken him the first time, the storm’s fury the second. Both times he had crossed to the doorway and stood listening, then had walked to the windows of the bedchamber tower and looked down. They were housed in the west tower in rooms reserved for important visitors, high up in the palace, away from the household staff and other guests. From their windows it was well over a hundred feet to the rocks of the bluff and the waters of the Anhalt. From their door it was a long climb down a winding set of stairs past several other floors and unoccupied rooms to the hall that led back to the main part of the castle. As was the custom, the rooms selected for the High Lord of Landover were separate and secure, offering but a single approach.

On this night, however, Ben could not stop thinking that they also offered only one way out.

Still, he was safe here. Bunion kept watch just outside the door, and the Ardsheal roamed the stairs and hall below. Without, lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and the wind howled across the plains, a vast immutable force. But the storm did not penetrate to where Ben and Willow slept, save for the sound of its passing, and there was nothing else to make the High Lord wakeful.

Yet he was.

And when the heavy thudding came from the stairs and Bunion shrieked in warning, he was already awake and sitting up in the bed. Willow lifted herself beside him instantly, her face stricken, her eyes wide. The iron-bound oak door flew inward, splintered into shards that barely managed to hang together from the shattered bindings. Something huge and dark filled the doorway, tearing at the stone walls that hindered its passage. Bunion clung to the thing, ripping at it with teeth and claws, but it didn’t even seem to notice the kobold. Into the bedchamber it came, hammering apart stone and mortar, shredding the lintels and the last of the mangled door. Lightning flashed and lit up the monstrous apparition as Ben and Willow stared in disbelief.

It was a giant encased in metal from head to foot.

My God, Ben thought in stunned surprise, it’s a robot!

Iron creaked and groaned as it swung toward them, arms lifting, fingers grasping. The creature was formed of metal plates and fastenings. A robot! But there were no robots in Landover, no mechanical men of any kind! No one here had ever even heard of such a thing!

Willow screamed and tumbled from the bed, looking for room to maneuver. Ben scrambled back, slipped on the bedding, and fell. His head cracked hard on the wooden headboard, and his eyes were filled with bright lights and tears. “Ben!” he heard Willow scream, but he could not make himself respond. He knew he should do something, but the blow to his head had shaken him so that he could not think what it was.