Unless he hadn’t!

There was a sudden, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Oh, God!

Unless he was still wearing it!

Something had nudged his thinking a step farther than it had gone before. He could almost see the cutters working on his chains. Self-deception, Dirk had said. Magic of his own making, the River Master had said. Damn! He felt his breath begin to come in short, ragged gasps of excitement; he could hear his chest pounding. It made sense. It was the only answer that had ever made sense. Meeks couldn’t take the medallion from him unless he removed it himself, but he couldn’t remember removing it, and the reason he couldn’t remember removing it was because he never had removed it!

Meeks had simply made him think so.

But how?

He tried to think it through a step at a time. His hands were shaking with excitement, the medallion spinning in their grip. He still wore the medallion of the High Lords of Landover; he simply hadn’t realized it. Was that possible? His mind raced ahead, exploring the possibilities, whispering to him in a quick, urgent voice. He still wore the medallion! Meeks had simply disguised it somehow, made him think it wasn’t the real medallion, just a substitute. That would explain why Meeks hadn’t simply finished him off in his bedchamber. Meeks was afraid that the Paladin might still appear—that the disguise was too new, too thin perhaps. That’s why the wizard had let him go after giving him the strange warning about not taking off the substitute medallion. He had expected Ben to question that warning sooner or later. He had hoped Ben would take off the medallion and throw it away, thinking he was breaking free. Then Meeks would have had the medallion for good!

His mind spun. The language, he thought suddenly! How could he still communicate in the language of Landover if he wasn’t wearing the medallion? Questor had told him long ago that the medallion was the reason he could understand the land’s language, could write it, and could speak it! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? And Questor—Questor had always wondered how Meeks got the medallion back from failed candidates for the kingship who refused to return it voluntarily. He would have done it something like this! He would have tricked them into taking it off, thinking they had already lost it!

My God! Could all this be possible?

He took a deep breath to steady himself. Could it be anything else? He tacked on a negative answer immediately. It was the only answer that made any sense. The winged demon hadn’t broken off the attack on the River Master’s nymphs at Elderew because of Dirk; it had flown off because it had seen the medallion held in Ben’s hands and been frightened of its power. The demon had recognized the truth when Ben couldn’t. Magic had disguised the truth from Ben—magic Meeks had employed that night in his bedchamber—an old magic, Ben thought suddenly. That was what Nightshade had said to Strabo. That was why only the witch and the dragon could recognize it!