A Princess of Landover

“Think about it. I’m going to go talk to her alone and see if I can help.”

She left the room and, as always, his heart went with her.

He walked over to the window after she was gone and stared out at the countryside. His reflection was mirrored in the glass, and he looked at himself with critical disdain. His hair was graying at the temples, and the lines on his forehead and around his eyes were deepening. He was aging, although not so quickly as he had before coming over from his old world. Aging in Landover was slower, although he had never been able to take an accurate measure of its general rate of progress because it differed considerably from one species to the next. Some aged much more slowly than others. Some, like Mistaya, followed no recognizable pattern. Fairies, he had been told, did not age at all.

He should be fifty-eight or so by now, by normal Earth standards. But he looked and felt as though he were about fifteen years younger. It was most noticeable when he crossed back through the mists and saw his old friend and partner from the law firm, Miles Bennett. Miles looked years older than Ben did. Miles knew it, but never spoke of it. Miles was like that; he understood that life treated people differently.

Especially if you lived in Landover and you were Ben Holiday.

He remembered anew his own first impressions when he had come into Landover to take possession of the throne some twenty years ago. Culture shock did not begin to describe what he had experienced. All of his expectations of what being King would mean were dashed immediately. His castle was a tarnished ruin. His court consisted of a wizard whose magic wouldn’t work right, a scribe that had been turned into a dog and couldn’t be turned back into a man again, and a cook and runner who looked like evil monkeys but were actually creatures called kobolds.

And those were just the occupants of the castle.

Outside, there were knights, a dragon, a witch, trolls, G’home Gnomes, elves, and various other creatures of all types, shapes, and persuasions. There were demons housed underneath Landover in a hellish place called Abaddon that Ben had been forced to enter several times over the years. There were trees and plants and flowers that were incredibly beautiful and could kill you as quick as you could blink. There were cave wights and bog wumps and crustickers and cringe-inducing vermin you didn’t want to get within spitting distance of. Literally.

There was the castle herself, Sterling Silver, a living breathing entity. Formed of hard substances and infused with magic, she was created to be the caregiver for Landover’s Kings, seeing to their comfort and their needs, watching over them, linked to them as mother to a child. The life of the King was the life of the castle, and the two were inextricably joined.

Finally, there was the Paladin.

He stopped himself. Don’t go there, he told himself angrily. This isn’t the time for it.

But when was it ever the time? When did he ever want to think about the truth of who and what he was?

He shifted his gaze to the land beyond and his thoughts to his daughter’s return. He knew he could not just ignore what she had done, but he also knew that Willow was right when she said it would be a mistake for him to force Mistaya into something she had so clearly set herself against. Carrington was still a good idea, but maybe not right now. Given that admission, painful though it was, the problem remained of what to do with her. She would happily return to being tutored by Questor and Abernathy. And why not? Both were besotted with her and would let her do pretty much what she chose.

Which, in part, was why he had sent her off to boarding school in the first place, thinking it might help her to have some rules and some social interactions that didn’t involve a hapless wizard and a talking dog.

He returned to his chair. He was still sitting there thinking, mostly to no avail, when there was a knock on the door, and Questor Thews and Abernathy stepped through.

He gave them a critical once-over as they approached. Now, there’s the original odd couple, he thought.

He loved them to death, would have done anything for either one, and couldn’t possibly have succeeded as King of Landover without their help.

Still, you couldn’t ignore how odd they were.

Questor Thews was the court wizard, a trained conjurer whose principal duties included acting as adviser to the King and making his life simpler by the use of magical skills. Trouble was, Questor wasn’t very good at either, but especially the latter. Ben would give him credit for moments of helpful advice, with a few notable lapses, but the court wizard’s use of magic was another matter entirely. It wasn’t that he didn’t try or didn’t have good intentions; it was all in his execution. With the magic of Questor Thews, you never knew what you were going to get. Much of their time