Nightshade was engulfed. The strange mix surrounded and consumed her in the blink of an eye. She had time for a single quick scream, and then she was gone.
For a moment afterward no one moved. They stood rooted in place, half expecting the Witch of the Deep Fell to reappear. But she did not, and then Haltwhistle came up to Mistaya where she stood transfixed before the smoldering bit of earth where the witch had stood. The mud puppy looked up at the little girl with soulful eyes and slowly wagged his tail. Mistaya broke into tears.
Her father came up, knelt, and put his hands on her slender shoulders, bracing her and looking into her eyes. “It’s all right, Mistaya,” he told her. “It’s all right.” And then he drew her close and held her against him.
Willow took her then, holding her as well, rocking her, telling her that it was over now, that she was safe. As she did so, Ben rose and walked to where Rydall lay sprawled in a crumpled heap on a patch of barren ground within a ring of King’s Guards. He dropped to one knee beside the fallen King, lifted the black visor, and peered down at the face inside. Blood-filled eyes blinked up at him from beneath a shock of red hair.
Ben Holiday shook his head bleakly. “Kallendbor,” he whispered.
The Lord of the Greensward coughed weakly. Blood streaked his face and beard and leaked in a steady stream from his mouth. “I should… have killed you that first day… on the drawbridge. I… should never have listened to… the witch.”
He drew one last breath, sighed, and went still. His eyes stared sightlessly into space. Ben closed the visor once more. Kallendbor had never been able to accept the way things had worked out, it seemed. Only Ben’s death would have satisfied him. He must have been desperate indeed to have allied himself with Nightshade. Now Ben knew how the robot had managed to get so close to them at Rhyndweir without being detected. Now he knew how the witch had been able to use her magic to make him think he had lost the medallion. Kallendbor had arranged it all. Nightshade must have told him Ben was coming, and he had laid his trap for Landover’s King and waited for him to die. Now the Lord of Rhyndweir himself lay dead, and there would probably never be any real understanding of the madness that had allowed it to happen.
He rose and walked back toward his family, but Mistaya was already crouched over Questor Thews, surrounded by the others, her small face intent with concentration.
“He can’t die,” she was saying as Ben came up and dropped to his knee beside her. “This is my fault. All my fault. I have to make it right. I have to.”
Ben looked at Willow, and she lifted her stricken eyes to meet his. Questor Thews was not breathing. His heart had stopped. There was nothing anyone could do for him.
“Mistaya, he came out of love for you,” Abernathy said softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “We all did.”
But Mistaya was barely listening. She reached down impulsively and seized Questor’s limp hand. “I learned something from Nightshade that might help,” she murmured fiercely. “She taught me how to heal. Even the dead, sometimes. Maybe I can heal Questor. I can try, anyway. I have to try.”
She rocked back on her heels and closed her eyes. Ben, Willow, Abernathy, and Bunion exchanged hesitant, wary glances. Mistaya was calling on the magic Nightshade had revealed, and nothing good had ever come of that. Don’t use it, Ben wanted to say, but knew he mustn’t. The sun beat down on them, and the air was thick and humid with its heat. All about, the grasslands were still, as if nothing rived there or what little did waited as they did to see what would transpire. Mistaya shuddered, and a bright shimmer ran from her body down her arm and into Questor Thews. The wizard lay motionless and unresponsive. Twice more the shimmer of light passed from Mistaya’s body into Questor’s. The little girl’s eyes fluttered wildly, and her head drooped forward, her hair spilling down around her face. Again Ben thought to intervene, and again he kept himself from doing so. She had a right to do what she could, he told himself. She had a right to try.