"No?"

"You are repeating me without need," Dirk sniffed.

"But if your nose told you all the rest, why can't it tell you that?" Ben demanded. "Is your nose always this selective?"

"Sarcasm does not become you, High Lord," Dirk admonished, head cocking slightly. "Besides, I deserve better than that. I am, after all, your sole companion and supporter in this venture."

"Which needs some explaining, I might point out," Ben snapped. "You persist in taunting me with what you know, then tell me only what you wish. I realize that you have a perfectly good excuse for this behavior, being a cat, but I hope I can impress on you how aggravating it is to me!" His temper was getting the better of him, and his voice was rising. "I simply asked how you could determine that Willow was here, that her mother danced, that she transformed, and yet not be able to tell me where ..."

"I don't know."

"... she might have gone after leaving ... What? You don't know? You don't know what?"

"I don't know why I don't know."

Ben stared once more.

"I should be able to read her passing from the clearing, but I can't," Dirk finished calmly. "It is almost as if it was deliberately hidden."

Ben took a moment to consider this new piece of information, then shook his head. "But why would she hide where she was going?"

Dirk did not answer. Instead, he hissed softly in warning and rose to his feet once more. Ben stood up with him and turned. The River Master's dark figure reappeared from out of the mist, striding the length of the clearing to where Ben waited. He was alone.

"Has Willow been here?" he asked abruptly.

Ben hesitated, then nodded. "Been and gone. The cat says her mother danced for her two nights ago."

There was anger reflected in the eyes of the water sprite, but he smoothed it away quickly. "She would appear to her daughter, of course," he murmured. "They share that bond. The dance would reveal truth in the fairy way, would show what was sought ..." He trailed off, as if thinking of something else, then straightened. "Have you determined where she has gone, High Lord?"

Again Ben hesitated, this time as much in surprise as out of caution. The River Master had called him High Lord. Had he now decided to accept Ben's claim? Ben met his steady gaze. "Her trail has been concealed from us," he said. "Hidden deliberately, the cat thinks."

The River Master glanced briefly at Dirk, frowning. "Perhaps." His chiseled face swung back on Ben. "But my daughter lacks the guile and her mother the means. The concealment, if there be one, comes from another source. There are some who would help her and not tell me. There are some." The anger in his eyes flared anew, then was gone. "Still, it hardly matters. I have the means to find her anyway. And anything else I wish."

Abruptly he turned, muttering. "Time slips away. The rain and the dark will hamper my efforts as it is. I must act quickly if I am to be effective." There was an urgency in his voice-and a determination. "I will not have these games played behind my back. I will know the meaning of the dream of the black unicorn and the golden bridle and I will know it whether Willow and her mother wish me to or not!"

He disappeared back into the forest in a rush, not bothering to see if Ben was following. He needn't have worried. Ben was right on his heels.

Edgewood Dirk stayed beneath the pine boughs and watched them go. After a moment, he began to clean himself.

The River Master had undergone such a complete transformation that Ben could scarcely believe it. One moment he was disinterested in the matter of his daughter and the black unicorn, the next he could not find out about them quickly enough. He strode back through the forest to the edge of the city, calling his guard to him as he went. Retainers appeared from everywhere, hanging at his side momentarily for their instructions, then disappearing back into the night. Like shadows, they came and disappeared again, a smattering of sprites, kelpies, naiads, and others-voiceless, momentary appendages to the dark figure of their lord. The River Master spoke rapidly and precisely, then turned away from each, his pace never slowing. He skirted almost furtively the boundaries of Elderew proper and turned back into the forest. Ben trailed after, all but forgotten.

The moments slipped by as they passed deeper into the forest trees, east and north of the city now. Nightfall had closed down so tightly that nothing beyond a dozen feet was visible. The rain washed over both of them in sheets, a steady downpour that showed little sign of abating. Thunder rolled out of the skies in long peals, and lightning split the clouds from somewhere distant. The worst of the storm had not reached them yet. It was still coming.

The River Master seemed oblivious. His concentration was absolute. Ben began to wonder what was going on and to grow uneasy.

Then they emerged from the trees onto a broad hillside clearing that stretched downward to a vast lake into which a pair of rivers fed at opposite ends. The rivers, swollen with rain water, cascaded down through rocky gorges that fell away from heights anchored by massive clusters of the giant redwood-like trees. The lake roiled with the pumping action, and the flare of new lightning danced and glimmered with a mix of torchlight from stanchions that ran the length and breadth of the hills in widening arcs and lit the whole of the slope. Ben slowed and stared out into the black. The lake country people seemed to be everywhere-or were there simply a few amid the vast number of torches? Wind whipped the rain into his eyes, and he could not tell.

The River Master turned, saw he was still there, and beckoned him forward to a shelf of rock that jutted out from the hillside and overlooked the rivers, the lake, and the weaving lines of torchlight. The fury of the storm broke over them as they stood on the unsheltered platform, pressed close against each other, their words almost lost in the howl of the wind.

"Watch now, High Lord!" the River Master shouted, his strange, chiseled face inches from Ben's. "I cannot command Willow's mother to dance for me as she danced for her daughter, but I can command her kindred! I will know what secrets are kept from me!"

Ben nodded mutely. There was a frenzy in the other's eyes that he had never seen before-a frenzy that hinted of passion.

The River Master signaled, and a sticklike being approached from out of the night, a creature so thin that it appeared to have been fashioned of dead-wood. Rough woolen clothing hung about its body, whipped by the wind, and green cornsilk hair ran from the crown of its head to the nape of its neck and along its spine and the backs of its arms and legs. Its features were formed of what looked to be a series of slits cut into the wood of its face. It carried a set of music pipes in one hand.

"Play!" the River Master commanded, one hand sweeping the valley slope. "Call them!"

The stick creature hunched down against the sodden earth, settled itself with its legs crossed before it, and brought the pipes to its lips. The music began softly, a sweet, lilting cadence that rocked in the troughs of momentary stillness left by lulls in the wind's deep howl. It meshed and blended with the sounds of the storm, weaving its way through the fabric like thread hand-sewn. It had the texture of silk, smooth and quiet, and it wrapped itself about the listeners like a blanket. Downward along the slope it carried, and there was the sense of something changing in the air.

"Hear it!" the River Master said in Ben's ear, exultant.

The player of the pipes lifted the pitch gradually, and the song rose higher into the fury of the storm. Slowly it transcended the dark and the wet and the chill, and the whole of their surroundings began to alter. The howl of the storm diminished as if blanketed away, the chill gave way to warmth, and the night brightened as if dawn had come already. Ben felt himself lifted as on a cushion of air. He blinked, disbelieving. Everything about him was changing-shape, substance, time, everything. There was a magic in the music that was greater than any he had ever encountered, a power that could alter even nature's great force.

Torchlight brightened as if the fires had been given new life, and the slope was lit with their glow. But there was a new glow as well, a glow that hung on the night air like incandescence. It radiated out across the slope and downward to the waters of the lake. The waters had gone still, the churning smoothed away as a mother's hand would smooth a sleeping child's ruffled hair. The glow danced at the water's edge, a living thing.

"There, High Lord-look!" the River Master urged.

Ben stared. Bits and pieces of the glow had begun to take shape. Dancing, whirling, lifting against the torchlight, they had begun to assume the forms of fairy creatures. Slight, airy things, they gathered strength from the glow and from the music of the pipes and took life. Ben knew them instantly. They were wood nymphs, the same as Willow's mother-childlike creatures as insubstantial as smoke. Limbs flashed and glistened nut-brown, hair tumbled waist-length, tiny faces lifted skyward. Dozens of them appeared as if from nowhere and danced and flitted at the shores of the mirrored lake in a kaleidoscope of movement.

The music heightened. The glow radiated the warmth of a summer's day, and colors began to appear in its brightness-rainbow shades that mixed and spread like an artist's brush strokes on canvass. Shape and form began to alter, and Ben felt himself transported to another time and place. He was young again, and the world was all new. The lifting sensation he had experienced earlier intensified, and he was floating free of the earth, free of gravity's pull. The River Master and the player of the pipes floated with him, birdlike in the sweep of sound and color. Still the wood nymphs danced below him, whirling with a new exhilaration into the glow, into the air. They spun outward from the shore's edge, skipping weightless across the waters of the still lake, their tiny forms barely touching the mirrored surface. Slowly they came together at the lake's center, forming intricate patterns as they linked briefly and broke away again, linked and broke away.

Above them, an image began to take shape in the air.

"Now it comes!" the River Master breathed from somewhere so distant that Ben could barely hear him.

The image came clear, and it was Willow. She stood alone at the edge of a lake-this lake-and held in her hand the bridle of spun gold that was the vision of her dream. She was clothed in white silk, and her beauty was a radiance that outshone even that created by the music of the player and the dance of the wood nymphs. Flushed with life, her face lifted against the colors that spun about her, and her long green tresses fanned out in the whisper of the wind. She held the bridle out from her as if it were a gift and she waited.

Beware! a voice warned suddenly, a voice so tiny as to be almost lost in the whirl of the vision. a voice warned suddenly, a voice so tiny as to be almost lost in the whirl of the vision.

Ben wrenched his eyes momentarily from Willow. From what seemed an impossible distance below, Edgewood Dirk stared up at him.

"What's wrong?" Ben managed to ask.

But the question was irretrievably lost in what happened next. The music had reached a fever pitch, so intense that it locked away everything. The world was gone. There was only the lake, the whirl of the wood nymphs, and the vision of Willow. Colors flooded Ben's vision with impossibly bright hues, and there were tears in his eyes. He had never known such happiness. He felt as if he were breaking apart inside and had been transformed.

Then something new appeared at the edge of the lake, beyond the nymphs and the vision of Willow-something at once both impossibly lovely and terrifying. Ben heard the muffled cry of the River Master. It was a cry of fulfillment. The whirl of sound and color shimmered and bent like fabric stretched, and the intrusion from without stepped gingerly into its weave.

It was the black unicorn.

Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. There was a burning in his eyes and a sudden, impossible sense of need. He had never seen anything as beautiful as the unicorn. Even Willow in the vision of the wood nymphs was but a pale shadow next to the fairy creature. Its delicate body seemed to sway with the music and the dance as it emerged from the dark into the sweep of color, and its horn glowed white with the magic of its being.

Then Dirk's warning came again, no more than a memory this time. Beware! Beware!

"What is happening?" Ben whispered.

The River Master turned back to him now, head swinging about in slow motion. The hard face was alive with feelings that danced across its chiseled surface in waves of light and color. He spoke, yet the words seemed to come not from his mouth, but from his mind. "I will have him, High Lord! I will have his magic for my own, and it will become a part of my land and my people! He must belong to me! He must!"

And Ben saw suddenly, through the blanket of pleasant feelings and through the music and the dance, the truth of what the River Master was about. The River Master had not summoned the piper and the wood nymphs for the purpose of discovering anything of Willow or her mother. His ambition was much greater than that. He had summoned piper and nymphs to bring him the black unicorn. He had used music and dance to create the illusion of his daughter and her bridle of spun gold to draw the unicorn to the lakeside where it might be taken. The River Master had believed Ben's story all right-but he had decided that the black unicorn would better serve his own purposes than the purposes of a dethroned and powerless King. He had taken Willow's dream and made it his own. This whole business was an elaborate charade-the piper and the wood nymphs and the instruments used to create it.

And, oh, God, it had worked! The black unicorn had come!

He watched the unicorn now in fascination, unable to turn away, knowing he must do something to prevent what was about to happen, but frozen by the beauty and intensity of the vision. The unicorn shone like a bit of flawless night against the sweep of colors that had drawn it in. It nodded its slender head to the call of the music and cried once to the vision of the girl with her golden bridle. It was a fairy-tale rendering brought to life, and the loveliness of it was compelling. Goat's feet pranced and lion's tail swished, and the unicorn stepped further into the trap.

I have to stop it! Ben felt himself trying to scream. Ben felt himself trying to scream.

And then the fabric through which the black unicorn had passed so easily seemed to shred at its center point high above the vision and the wood nymphs, and a nightmare born of other minds and needs thrust its way into view. It was a loathsome thing, a creature of scales and spikes, of teeth and claws, winged and coated in a black ooze that steamed at the warmth of the air. A cross between a serpent and a wolf, it forced its way in from the night and the storm and plummeted toward the lake, shrieking.

Ben went cold. He had seen this being before. It was a demon out of the netherworld of Abaddon-a twin to the monster once ridden in battle by the Iron Mark.

It came for them in a fury, then veered sharply as it caught sight of the black unicorn. The unicorn saw the demon as well and screamed a terrifying, high-pitched cry. The ridged horn glowed white-hot with magic, and the unicorn leaped sideways as the demon swept by it, talons raking the empty air. Then the unicorn was gone, fled back into the night, having disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

The River Master cried out in anguish and fury. The demon swung back around, and fire lanced from its open maw. The flames engulfed the piper and turned the stick like figure to ash. Sound and color dissipated into mist, and the night returned. Darkness flooded inward as the vision of Willow and the golden bridle collapsed. Ben stood once more on the shelf of rock beside the River Master, and the fury of the storm washed over them anew.

But the wood nymphs whirled on, still caught up in the frenzy of their dance. It was as if they could not stop. All about the lake's shores they spun, tiny bits of glowing light in the black and the wet. Torches fizzled and went dark, blown out by the rain and the wind, and only the light of the wood nymphs was left against the night. It drew the demon like a hunter to its prey. The monster swung back and down, sweeping the lake end to end, fire bursting from its throat and turning the helpless dancers to ash. The screams as they died were tiny shrieks that lacked real substance, and they disappeared as if candles snuffed. The River Master howled in despair, but could not save them. One by one they died, burned away by the demon as it passed back and forth across the night like death's shadow.

Ben was beside himself. He could not bear the destruction. But he could not turn away. He acted finally because the horror was too much to stand further. He acted without thinking, yanking the tarnished medallion from beneath his tunic as he would have in the old days, thrusting it out against the night, shouting in fury at the winged demon.

He had forgotten momentarily what medallion it was he wore.

The demon turned and glided toward him. Ben was suddenly conscious of Dirk at his feet, sitting motionless next to him. He was conscious now, too, of the fact that by drawing attention to himself he had just signed his own death warrant.

Then lightning flashed, and the demon saw clearly the medallion, Ben Holiday, and Edgewood Dirk. The beast hissed with the fury of steam released through a fissure in the earth, and swung abruptly away. It flew back into the night and was gone.

Ben was shaking. He didn't know what had happened. He only knew that for some unexplainable reason he was still alive. Below, the last of the wood nymphs had ceased finally to dance and disappeared back into forest, the loss of light from their passing leaving dark the whole of the lake and hills. Wind and rain lashed the emptiness that remained.

Ben stilled his hands. Slowly he placed the medallion back within his tunic. It burned against his skin.

The River Master had sunk to one knee. His eyes were fixed on Ben. "That thing knew you!" he cried in anger.

"No, it couldn't have ..." Ben began.

"The medallion!" the other cut him short. "It knew the medallion! There is a tie between you that you cannot explain away!" He rose to his feet, his breath a sharp hiss. "You have made me lose everything! You have cost me the unicorn! You have caused the destruction of my piper and my wood nymphs. You and that cat! I warned you about that cat! Trouble follows a prism cat everywhere! Look what you have done! Look what you have caused!"

Ben recoiled. "I haven't ..."

But the River Master cut him short once more. "I want you gone! I am no longer sure who you are and I no longer care! I want you gone from my country now-and the cat as well! If I find you here come morning, I will put you into the swamp in a place from which you will never escape! Now go!"

The fury in his voice defied argument. The River Master had been cheated of something he had wanted very badly and he had made up his mind that Ben was at fault. It made no difference that his wants had been selfish ones or that he had been deprived of something to which he had not been entitled in the first place. It was of no importance that he had misused Ben. All he could see was the loss.

Ben felt an odd emptiness within him. He had expected better of the River Master.

He turned without a word and walked away into the night.

EARTH MOTHER.

The rain and the chill turned Ben Holiday into a sodden, disheveled mess as he trudged back through the forest trees from the empty hillside and the angry River Master, and his appearance became an accurate reflection of his mood. The mix of emotions he had experienced from the music of the pipes, the dance of the wood nymphs, the vision of Willow and what followed was still tearing at him with all the savagery and persistence of a wolf pack. He could still feel twinges of the ecstasy and freedom of self that the music and dance had brought, but the predominant feelings were of dismay and horror.

The images played out in the dark solitude of his mind: the River Master, anxious to seize the black unicorn so that its magic might be his alone; that winged demon, burning the frail wood nymphs to ash as they whirled helplessly at the water's edge; Ben himself, instinctively holding forth the blackened image of Meeks as if it were a talisman that would somehow be recognized ...

And perhaps it was.

Damn, what had happened there? What was it that had happened? The winged creature had come for him to destroy him, then turned aside as if it had flown into a wall! Had it been the medallion, Ben, Edgewood Dirk, or perhaps something else entirely?

The River Master clearly thought it was the medallion. He was convinced that Ben was bound to the demon-and to Meeks-in some foul way that protected all three. Ben shivered. He had to admit to the possibility. The image of Meeks might have been enough to turn back the demon ...

He stopped. That was assuming that the demon had been sent by Meeks, of course. But wasn't it the only possibility that made sense? Hadn't Meeks invited the demons out of Abaddon in the first place when the old King died? Ben started walking again. Yes, it had to be Meeks. He must have sent the demon because he knew the River Master was close to capturing the black unicorn, and he wanted the unicorn for himself-for whatever reason. But that meant he must have had some way of knowing that the River Master was about to capture the unicorn, and that in turn meant that Ben's medallion might have provided such a way. Meeks had warned that the medallion would let him know what Ben was about. The medallion might have done exactly that. Ben might indeed have been responsible for the destruction of the wood nymphs.

The screams of the dying fairy creatures still echoed in the dark corners of his mind, a savage reminder. Until they died, he had not even thought of them as real-just bits and pieces of light with human images cast upon the glow; slender, lyrical figurines that would shatter like glass if dropped ...

The whole mixed and teased in his mind until at last he shoved all the pieces aside violently. His questions bred more questions, and there seemed to be answers for none of them. The rain beat down in a wet staccato, drumming, puddling in mud and grasses, and running across the pathway he followed in small rivers. He could feel the cold and the dark pressing in about him and he wished faintly for a moment's warmth and a spark of light. He walked; yet he was not really aware of where it was he was going. Away, he decided. Away from the River Master and the lake country, away from the one good chance he had of finding Willow before Meeks.

His boots slapped at the mud and damp. But where was he to go?

He cast about suddenly for Edgewood Dirk. Where was that confounded cat? It was always there when he didn't need it; where was it now that he did? Dirk always seemed to know which way to go. The cat seemed to know everything.

Dirk had even known what the River Master was trying to do with the music of the piper and the dance of the wood nymphs, Ben thought as he reflected on the events that had just taken place.

Beware, the cat had warned.

Convenient, that.

His thoughts twisted, and he found himself thinking again of the medallion. Had it really brought the demon? Had it really been responsible for the destruction of the wood nymphs and the piper? He couldn't live with that. Perhaps he ought simply to get rid of the thing. After all, what if it actually did work to the benefit of the wizard if Ben kept it on? Maybe that was exactly what Meeks wanted. The warning against trying to remove it might be a ruse. If he took it off, maybe he would be free of the wizard.

He stopped once more and reached down into his tunic. He placed his fingers about the chain from which the medallion hung and slowly lifted it free. Staring at it in the dark, seeing its muted, tarnished image glimmer in the brief flashes of lightning that streaked the forest skies, he had an incredibly strong urge to fling the unsettling piece of metal from him. If he did so, he might set himself free, redeem himself in part at least for the destruction of the wood nymphs. He might begin anew ...

"Ah, my dear High Lord, there you are-wandering about in the dark like some blind 'possum. I thought I had lost you completely."

Edgewood Dirk stepped delicately from the trees, his immaculate coat glistening with rain water, his whiskers drooping slightly with the damp. He walked over to a fallen log and sat down on the dampened bark with studied care.

"Where have you you been?" Ben snapped irritably. He hesitated, then let the medallion drop back into his tunic. been?" Ben snapped irritably. He hesitated, then let the medallion drop back into his tunic.

"Looking for you, of course," Dirk replied calmly. "It seems that you need a great deal of looking after."

"Is that so?" Ben was steamed. He was weary, frightened, disgusted, and a dozen other unpleasant things, but most of all he was sick and tired of being treated like a lost puppy by this damn cat. "Well, if ever there was someone suited to the task of looking after people, it's you, isn't it? Edgewood Dirk, caretaker of lost souls. Who else possesses such marvelous insight into human character? Who else discerns the truth of things with such remarkable consistency? Tell me again, Dirk-how is it that you know so much? Come on, tell me! How did you know what the River Master was doing back there before I did? How did you know he was summoning the unicorn? Why did you let me just stand there and be part of it? Those wood nymphs probably died because of me! Why did you let that happen?"

The cat stared at him pointedly for a moment, then began to wash. Ben waited. Dirk seemed oblivious to his presence.

"Well?" Ben said finally.

The cat looked up. "You do have a lot of questions, don't you, High Lord?" The pink tongue licked out. "Why is it that you keep looking to me for the answers?"