Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves Read Online Free PDF Page A

"Circumstances are at last felicitous, Jack, and I have come to take you to the otherworld. It is time for you to step away from this sunlit world, and past time for you to claim your heritage."
    Felicitous for whom? was John's first reaction, but the mention of John's heritage stirred up the confusion of feelings he'd been suffering since he first learned that he was an elf. His true world was the twilight land of the otherworld, but it was a world of which he knew little more than what he'd read in books and heard in songs and stories. How much of what he believed about it was true, how much false? He knew that legends had a basis in fact. Bear was proof of that—what greater legend was there than that of King Arthur? Bear, as Artos, was the basis of that legend, and he was as real as anyone John had ever met. The world had more to it than Horatio's philosophies. There was magic in the world, growing all the time. There was magic in John, too, and it was growing, though slowly. Dr. Spae's teaching helped, but she had as tenuous a grip as he did on the distinction between the reality of the magic-touched world and the fallacies of tradition. Bennett, bom and raised a prince of Faery, knew. And now, it appeared, he was offering that knowledge to John.
    What was in it for Bennett? There had to be something.
    So Bennett was finally ready to take him to the other-world. So what? Might Bennett finally be ready to be the father he ought to have been all along? So what to that, too. It was past time for fatherly concern. "I can get there on my own."
    Nodding, Bennett said, "Yet you cannot partake of your patrimony on your own. An unguided ramble into our realm will not gain you that. I hold out to you what should have been yours all along."
    "I don't want anything from you." Even as he said it, John knew that it wasn't true. He wanted something from Bennett, ill light. He wanted satisfaction for the years spent living a lie. he wanted compensation for the loss of his home and Imuily, even if they hadn't really been his. But most of all, In wanted answers—honest answers—about his elven legacy. He knew so little, and most of that from other sources than Bennett. Hell, John couldn't even see his own true face, thanks to "protective" spells that Bennett had hi ranged.
    "Jack, I know we have not had the best of relationships, but we have both been constrained by circumstances beyond our control. We have before us a chance to amend the mistakes that have separated us. This is a time not to look to the past, but to look to the future. Yours can be a brilliant future." Bennett waved a hand to take in their surroundings. "You deserve much more than this."
    John wanted to believe. But... "And you're going to provide it?"
    "Indeed I will. After a fashion. I can set you in your place as a prince of Faery. The rest will depend on you, as it always has. But as to the opportunity and the starting place, I not only can but must provide it. It is not proper that I withhold that which is yours by right."
    "You've done a pretty good job of withholding up till now."
    Bennett sighed dramatically. "As I have told you before, that was not my choice."
    "So you say."
    "Though I find your questioning my word offensive, I can understand why you might doubt my veracity. The plain fact is that there is much of which you are ignorant, and you will remain ignorant so long as you remain content to dwell in the sunlit world. You cannot afford to remain ignorant."
    "I've already learned all I care to from you." Lots about deceit, for example.
    "Perhaps. But survival requires learning more than one cares to. Surely you wish to go on living."
    "I'll survive."
    "You have powerful enemies."
    "Yeah? Like who?"
    "This is not a time for names," Bennett responded.
    More likely not a time to suit Bennett. If there really were any enemies. "Well, I'm not worried. I have powerful friends."
    "Oh? Like who?" Bennett asked, echoing John's own disbelieving question. He shook