“Questor…” Ben began soothingly.
“Well, really, High Lord! I work hard to discover a difficult and elusive magical process and I am greeted with insults, jeers, and accusations! Am I Court Wizard or not, I ask myself? There certainly seems to be some doubt!”
“I simply asked…” Abernathy tried.
“No, no, you need not apologize for the truth of your feelings!” Questor Thews seemed to relish thoroughly the role of martyr. “Throughout history, all great men have been misunderstood. Some have even died for their beliefs.”
“Now, look here!” Ben was growing angry.
“That is not to say that I feel my own life is threatened in any way, you understand,” Questor added hastily. “I was simply making a point. Ahem! It only remains for me to repeat that the process is complete, the magic is found, and we can use it if you wish. Simply say so. You have all the facts.” He stopped suddenly. “Oh. Except one, that is.”
There was a collective groan. “Except one?” Ben repeated.
Questor tugged uncomfortably on one ear and cleared his throat. “There is one small matter, High Lord. The magic requires a catalyst for a transformation of this magnitude. I lack such a catalyst.”
“I knew it…” Abernathy muttered under his breath.
“But there is an alternative,” Questor continued hastily, ignoring the other. He paused and took a deep breath. “We could use the medallion.”
Ben stared at him blankly. “The medallion? What medallion?”
“Your medallion, High Lord.”
“My medallion?”
“But you would have to take it off and give it to Abernathy to wear during the transformation process.”
“My medallion?”
Questor looked as if he were waiting for the ceiling to fall in on him. “It would only be for a few moments, you understand—that would be all. Then you could have your medallion back.”
“I could have it back. Right.”
Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Questor, we just spent weeks trying to get the damn thing back when it wasn’t really gone in the first place, and now you want me to take it off for real? I thought I was never supposed to take it off. Isn’t that what you yourself have told me on more than one occasion? Isn’t it?”
“Well, yes…”
“What if something goes wrong and the medallion is damaged or lost? What then?” A dark flush was beginning to creep up Ben’s neck. “What if… what if, for whatever reason, Abernathy can’t give it back? Great balls of fire! This is the most half-baked idea I ever heard, Questor! What are you thinking about, anyway?”
Everyone had sort of shrunk away from him during this explosion, and now Ben found himself alone amid the flower boxes with the wizard. Questor was standing fast, but looking none too comfortable.
“If there were another choice in the matter, High Lord…”
“Well, find one, confound it!” Ben cut him short. He started to elaborate, then stopped, glancing instead at the others. “How much sense does this make to anyone else? Abernathy? Willow?”
Abernathy did not answer.
“I think you have to consider carefully what is at risk, Ben,” Willow said finally.
Ben put his hands on his hips, looked at them each in turn, then gazed out wordlessly into the gardens beyond. So he had to consider what was at risk, did he? Well, what was at risk was the thing that had made him King of Landover and kept him there. It was the medallion that summoned the Paladin, the knight-errant who served as the King’s champion and protector—his champion and protector on more than one occasion already. And it was the medallion that let him pass back and forth between Landover and other worlds, including the one he had come from. That’s what was at risk! Without the medallion, he was in constant danger of winding up as just so much dog meat!
He regretted that last comparison almost immediately. After all, what was also at risk was Abernathy’s permanent future as a canine.
He frowned blackly. What had begun as a fairly uneventful day was turning into a quagmire of unpleasant possibilities. His memory tugged at him. Ten months ago, he had been tricked into conveying the old wizard Meeks back into Landover when he had thought his worst enemy safely exiled. Meeks had then used his considerable magic to steal Ben’s identity and the throne and—most important of all—to convince Ben that he had lost the medallion. It had almost cost Ben his life—not to mention Willow’s—to discover what had been done to him and to defeat the old troublemaker once and for all. Now he was King again, safely ensconced at Sterling Silver, comfortably settled, the reins of kingship firmly in hand, his programs for a better life nicely underway, and here was Questor Thews playing around again with the magic!