The Dark Lord's Demise (11 page)

Lisa felt the bonds come off her hands at last. She rubbed her
wrists and enjoyed her freedom for a couple of seconds before
rough hands hurled her into a dank foul-smelling space. She stumbled and fell against it slimy wall. Quickly she pushed herself away
and nearly tripped over Betty, who had landed on her hands and
knees on it skimpy layer of straw.

A clanging sound caused Lisa to turn and see that she and Betty
were in a cell with a barred door. Torches flamed in wall brackets
in the corridor outside. They sent uneven waves of light and
shadow across the mildewed walls. Metal jangled against metal. A jailer with deep lines in his face had just locked the girls in. He rattled a heavy ring filled with keys as though they proved his importance.

Lisa grabbed the bars of the cell door. Again she felt like an
actress in a bad movie, but she didn't care. "What's going to happen to us?" she demanded.

The jailer looked at her with a mix of scorn and amusement.
"Killed a swarm of flying monsters, did you? You look too young for
a feat like that."

"I didn't! My brother Wes did it! I mean, he didn't know what he
was doing!" Lisa held onto the bars tighter and tried to think what
to say and how much to say. Anything that sounded like a confession-or an implication of Wes-would be dangerous.

The jailer glanced left and right along the corridor. He leaned
closer to the bars. "If your brother did what you say, he's a brave
man. I was put on duty once guarding the royal hives. Never was
more terrified. Give me a battle with a boarwartz any day."

Lisa sensed a possible ally. She leaned closer to the bars and
lowered her voice. "Can you tell me what will happen to us?"

The jailer stepped away from the door, pulled out a small knife
and cleaned under his filthy fingernails. "Cases like yours are
brought to trial fairly quick. The queen has no patience for treachery and treason."

Betty scrambled to her feet and grabbed the bars next to Lisa.
"They can't convict us, can they? There may be enough evidence
against Wes, but not the rest of us. Least of all me! I never planned
to come here. I never heard of this place before!" Betty's voice rose
to near hysteria.

Lisa took hold of her companion's arm and said, "Take it easy!
Screaming won't help!" Lisa apologized to the jailer. "Sorry, you'll
have to forgive my-my neighbor here." (She couldn't bring herself to call Betty "friend.") "Please, could we send a message to my
two brothers? I'm sure they're in a cell nearby."

The jailer snorted a laugh. "Do you take me for an idiot? III was
caught, they'd have my head."

"Well, we certainly wouldn't want that, " Lisa assured him. She
hoped he meant it figuratively.

"I'll tell you one thing." The jailer put away his knife and leaned
in close to the bars. "Don't try to escape. If you're caught, they'll have
your heads." He drew his forefinger slowly across his throat. Lisa
recalled how the soldier at the city gate used the same gesture for
any farmer who harbored the king's bees. She shivered. After all
that she had witnessed so far in Nephesh, this time she knew to
take the warning literally.

Distant voices and the clang of metal on metal drifted down the
corridor from the direction in which Wes and Kurt had disappeared. The jailer glanced toward the sounds, mumbled something
about supper and left. Now nothing moved in the corridor except
the unpredictable dance of the torchlight. The jailer had hardly
been a comfort, but without him Lisa felt lonely and lost.

Betty let out a tragic wail. "I hope he meant supper for us and
not just for himself!" She glared at Lisa. "So this is your wonderful
land of Anthropos. I think it's rotten!"

"Right now, so do I," Lisa admitted. "Something's very wrong.
It's like justice and fairness don't exist anymore. I can't imagine
Tigvah reigning in a kingdom of injustice." She scratched her
head. Already she felt little creepy things crawling over her. She
hoped it was her imagination. "People seem to talk about this
Queen Hisschi more than about King Tiqvah. I wonder if the
queen runs things."

Betty growled, "I hate this place. It's your fault I'm here. I wasn't
doing anything but minding my own business."

"You were fooling around with the Sword of Geburah! Not to
mention trespassing in our attic! And by the way, if you hadn't
smarted off to the Commander, he wouldn't have blown up at us
and thrown us in here!"

"I didn't smart off. I told the truth. I decided the stings weren't
real and-"

Lisa covered her ears. "Never mind! I don't want to hear it.
Come on, let's sit down. If we can find anywhere decent to sit." The
girls sat on the least dirty straw they could find, which was still
filthy. Betty hugged her knees and sniffled. In it moment she
asked, "What had that old guy done that was so terrible?"

"I have a funny feeling he didn't do anything. I think it was a false charge like ours. Maybe he offended the wrong people, and
somebody's out to get him. Listen, I'm-I'm sorry I got mad at you
about what you said to the Commander. I forget that you don't
know how Anthropos works and how Gaal summons us here."

Betty scooted away from Lisa. "Gaal, Schmall! I'm tired of hearing about Gaal! If he's so great, why doesn't he show up right now
and get us out of here?"

Lisa sighed. "I agree with that. But listen, I think he will show up
and help us. Remember when we were out on the lake on the raft,
and I said I saw fog? I'm sure Gaal was there. He came close to let
us know he's with us."

"Oh yeah? Then how come I couldn't see him?"

"Probably because you don't know him yet. Of course, Wes and
Kurt didn't see the fog either. I can't explain that. But I know Gaal
was there." Lisa looked around the miserable cell. A new thought
came into her mind. It sent a warm feeling through her. "You know,
in a way, he's here with us right now-even though we can't see
him."

"He's here? You mean he's invisible?" Betty sat up straight and
glanced all around at the cell walls. She looked scared and excited
at the same time. Lisa thought about Gaal right there, unseen, and
it made her a little scared and excited too. Betty asked, "So what's
he going to do?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, it'll be the right thing. And at the
right time." She frowned. "I think the big question isn't what Gaal
is going to do-he'll take care of that-but what are we going to
do Lisa forced herself to shift a little closer to Betty. "See, Gaal
and the Changer never summon Wes and Kurt and me unless we
have a mission here, a job to do. I know something is wrong in
Anthropos. The way Charaban pleaded his innocence and they
didn't even look at his papers. The way everybody's suspicious of
everybody."

Slowly Betty said, "So this Changer wants you to fix all that." She
looked straight at Lisa and asked rather sharply, "Do you believe
you can?"

"Sure! Well, maybe not all of it. We can't make every problem
disappear the way our bee stings disappeared. Which reminds me, what were you talking about when you said you can decide things
aren't real?"

Again Betty's mood altered. She became upbeat and positive. "It
has to do with our powers to change what's real. All of us make
what's real-or unmake it. I learned about it from some girls at my
other school where we lived before. We had our own group. We
studied things like that. I became sort of an expert, if I do say so
myself. After it while the others looked to me as the leader."

Lisa didn't want to listen to Betty brag about her influence and
popularity. Still, they needed some diversion from this miserable
cell. "So what kinds of things did you and your group dot"

Betty settled down on the straw. Now she was on familiar
ground. "Well, we all believed that nothing has to stay the way it is
or the way it seems. We believed that we have all power inside us to
change the world. Do you know what I mean?"

"No. You're talking nonsense." Lisa dismissed Betty's ideas with
a toss of her head. Change the world? Sure, there were things Lisa
wanted to see changed. If she could snap her fingers and keep her
family together, that would be great. It doesn't work that way, she
thought. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

"Look here," Betty said, "you talk about exactly the same thing
when you talk about the Changer."

Lisa sat up straighter. "How can you mention the Changer in
the same breath with your weird ideas?"

"You told me you've been sent on a mission to change bad
things to good things. Don't you believe that's possible?"

Lisa felt dizzy. This was too much! On top of hunger and
exhaustion, she had to try to figure out Betty Riggs's strange
notions. They didn't sound right, but she wasn't sure why. She said,
"Things can be changed for the better, but only in the power of
Gaal."

"And Gaal is good, right? Well, I believe it's in our power-every
one of us-to change bad stuff to good stuff simply by what we
decide. Of course, there's more to it than that. What we think is bad
and good may really be the same thing after all. But I think that's
too advanced for you."

Lisa was fed up. "Okay, let's test your great ideas. Why don't you decide the bars on that door aren't real and make them go away!"
She meant it as a challenge to prove Betty wrong. A crazy thought
crossed her mind: What if she really can do it? What would I do if the
bars melted away right now?

Betty stared at the cell door. In the unsteady light Lisa saw her
mouth contort and tremble. "I've tried," she admitted, "I've been
trying all along. It doesn't work. I don't know why. I don't know!"
Her voice climbed toward hysteria again. Lisa patted Betty's shoulder and tried to calm her. Meanwhile her own gaze traveled back
to the bars of the door that kept them prisoner. If only ....

Like the two girls, Kurt and Wes had been thrown together into a
cell. Their jailer was not one to make conversation. With a sneer,
he left them as soon as he locked the door. They were tired, hungry, thirsty and disoriented. At the same time, they were ecstatic.
Their hands were finally unbound! Even better, for the first time in
many hours they could talk with no fear of being overheard by
"official" ears. Wes motioned Kurt toward the back of the cell.

"Smells even worse back here than by the door," Kurt griped.

"I know, but that jailer could come back any time."

Kurt choked a little from the stench of the cell. "What do you
think is going on? Everything's weird. It's like a police state where
everybody's afraid of everybody."

"I think that's exactly what it is. But how can it be, if Tiqvah is
king?" Wes tried to imagine Tiqvah as an unjust ruler. Many years
(in Anthropos time) had passed since they last saw him. Who
knows what might have happened to change the young prince's
heart? Still, he had been a follower of the Shepherd. Wes added, "People here seem to know Gaal."

"They know about Gaal," Kurt pointed out.

Wes thought about what his brother had just said and nodded.
"You're right. They use funny phrases like `by the hair of Gaal,' but
do they know him and serve him? They don't act like it. And what
about that old prisoner who said they arrested him because he worships Gaal?"

"I know one thing. That Commander is a tyrant. I sure hope we
don't meet up with him again."

Wes paced back and forth across the back of the cell. "He acts
like a monster with no heart. Of course, we don't know all the facts.
Maybe that old prisoner really was a subversive. Maybe the Commander was only doing his duty." Kurt gave his brother a skeptical
look. Wes even doubted his own words. He shoved the Commander and the hall of inquiry from his mind. Instead he remembered the lakeshore where the Matmon had arrested them. "Kurt,
listen! When the raft was pulling away from shore, I saw a white
pigeon."

Wes had his brother's full attention. Kurt asked, "You mean like
we've seen in Anthropos before?"