“Yes!” he whispered in surprise.

It was so impossible that he hadn’t seen it before—but impossible only in his own world, not in Landover where magic was the norm! The missing unicorns, the unicorns no one had seen for centuries, their magic intact, were trapped in the wizards’ books! And the reason that there was nothing else in the books but the drawings of the unicorns was that the magic of the books was entirely that of the unicorns—magic that the wizards had stolen!

And harnessed to their own use?

He didn’t know. He started to say something to Dirk, then checked himself. There was no point in asking the cat if he was right; the cat would simply find a way to confuse him all over again. Figure it out for yourself, he admonished! The unicorns had been transformed by wizard magic into the drawings in the missing books—that would explain the disappearance of the unicorns for all these years, the reason that Meeks had sent the dream of the books to Questor, and the need Meeks had for the books. It would even explain Dirk’s reference to masks.

Or was he just reaching now?

He paused. There were a few other matters still lacking explanation, he realized. What about the black unicorn? Was it simply a white unicorn that had escaped from the books—the first book, perhaps, the one with the burned-out core? Why was it black now if it had been white before? Ash or soot? Ridiculous! Why had it appeared and then disappeared again at other times over the years if it were a prisoner in the wizards’ books? Why was Meeks so desperate to get it back now?

His hands twisted in knots. If one unicorn could break free, why couldn’t the rest?

His confusion began to compound. Meeks had hinted that Ben had done something to wreck his plans, but hadn’t said what. If that was so, it had to have something to do with the unicorns, black and white. But Ben hadn’t the foggiest idea what that something was.

He sat puzzling matters through without success as afternoon stretched toward nightfall and the sun disappeared westward. Shadows lengthened almost imperceptibly across the forest. Slowly, the darkness and mist of the Deep Fell crept out of their daytime confinement to link hands with those shadows and close about Ben and Dirk. The day’s warmth faded into evening chill.

Ben ceased his musings and concentrated on the slope of the hollows. Where were Fillip and Sot? Shouldn’t they have been back by now? He climbed to his feet and stalked to the edge of the pit. There was nothing to be seen. He walked its rim for several hundred yards in both directions, through patches of scrub and brush, peering into the gloom. No luck. A growing uneasiness settled through him. He hadn’t really believed the little gnomes were in any danger or he wouldn’t have sent them down alone. Maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe that was the way he had wanted to see it and not the way it was.