The Dark Lord's Demise (2 page)

Clack! Clack! Clatter! Crash!

The clash of sword against sword shattered the usual peace of
the old house. Both young fighters were determined to win. Their
faces were tight with concentration.

"Surrender!" Kurt hissed. He made a skillful feint and thrust.
His opponent, Wesley, sidestepped the blow and snarled, "Never!"

They faced each other in the narrow downstairs hallway. Wesley
had the advantage of height and strength, but Kurt was quick and
aggressive. Their brief standoff ended as Wesley attacked and
forced Kurt backwards down the hall.

Wes's voice rang out over the noise of battle. "You forget who it
is you have dared to challenge! I swung my sword bravely at the
Battle of Rinnar Heights! I slew the seven-headed serpent!"

"So goes your story!" Kurt sneered. "A seven-headed serpent! A
monster you claim appeared at first as a lady on horseback! Ha!"

Wesley's blade halted Kurt's in midswing. Wes shoved Kurt's
sword away. Both fighters paused and held their weapons before them in defensive posture. Quietly Wesley asked, "You dare to
doubt the word of a servant of Gaal? Gaal the Conqueror, Gaal the
Lord of Far and Near, Son of the Unchanging Changer?"

Kurt's eyes narrowed. "Do you think I am no less a servant of the
Lord Gaal?"

"Gaal accepts even the lowest of servants! Have I not served him
with more faithfulness than you?"

Kurt raised his voice along with his sword. "I risked my life in
Gaal's service! I fought the Great Rooster on the stone stairway
beneath the ice! The foul Lord Lunacy sent it there to kill us, but I
overcame my fears.. ."

"Only with the help of Gaal! Now he favors me over you!"

Again they went at each other with their swords. Kurt's pride was
stung. The insult gave him fierce new energy. He forced Wesley
backward along the hall toward a narrow flight of stairs that led
upward to a closed door. Wes could not risk a glance over his
shoulder. He misjudged where the stairs began. His heel hit the
bottom step, and he lost his balance and sprawled on his hack on
the sharp steps.

Kurt lowered his sword. "I will not slay my own brother when he
lies defenseless."

Wes jumped to his feet, sword in hand, and stood on the fourth
step above Kurt. "A foolish mistake! Now it is you who are defenseless!"

Kurt sized up the situation, then attacked viciously. Wes was
forced backward up the steps until his back was almost against the
closed doorway.

"You can flee no further! Surrender!" Kurt demanded. From
somewhere below, an alarm bell sounded. Both boys were startled
but kept their concentration. Over the noise Wesley sneered, "Summoning reinforcements, Kurt? They will never arrive in time!"

The door swung open. It hit Wesley in the back and knocked
him off balance. He lost his grip on his sword and grabbed for the
banister. The sword shot down the stairs past Kurt, who grabbed
for it, missed and nearly fell down the stairs himself. Kurt clutched
the banister but managed to hold onto his own sword. The raucous
alarm still sounded.

Kurt looked up at Wesley and let out a heartless laugh. "Now you
must surrender! You have no weapon!"

"Coward! Drop your own sword and I will fight you hand to
hand!"

"Oh, cut it out, you two! Can't you hear the smoke alarm?" The
boys' sister, Lisa, stood scowling in the doorway.

Kurt bowed. "Ah, Lady Lisa! Ordinarily I would not lower myself
to continue this battle against so unworthy an opponent. But for
your honor I will fight on!"

Lisa shoved Wes out of her way and stomped down the stairs
past Kurt. "My honor is just fine, thank you. I can't say much for the
honor of you guys if you let the roast burn up in the oven." At the
bottom of the stairs Lisa kicked away Wesley's sword, which was
only a stick of wood. "Wes, you're too old for pretend sword fights!"

Wes sat down on the top step. "I only did it because Kurt pestered me. He wanted to pretend we were in Anthropos. How else
was I supposed to get him off my back?"

Lisa disappeared into the kitchen. Kurt shrugged and said,
"Come on, let's see if we can help salvage the food." The two boys
followed their sister into the kitchen, Kurt still hanging onto his
wooden sword.

"Fan the air away from that thing!" Lisa shouted over the
screech of the smoke alarm. She shut off the oven. "This is the last
time Aunt Eleanor asks you to take care of dinner!"

Wes grabbed a dishtowel and flapped it at the smoke alarm
while Lisa opened the oven door. Smoke rolled out along with the
rich scent of roast beef. The meat was still this side of being
scorched. The heavy aroma made the children's stomachs rumble.

Kurt took a deep breath. "Ah! Roast boarwartz! My favorite delicacy!"

The howl of the alarm stopped. Wes quit swinging the dishtowel
and stared at Kurt. "You'd eat a boarwartz? They're the most yucky
goblins in all of Anthropos. Do you remember what the inside of a
goblin looks like? All green and slimy and-"

"Quiet!" Lisa thrust a long two-tined fork into the roast. "The
problem with you two is you're both suffering from a severe case of
nostalgia."

"Nostalgia?" Kurt repeated.

"She means we look back at the past too much," explained Wes.

"People who live in the past are no good for here and now,"
Lisa snapped at her brothers. "Why do you keep talking about
Anthropos? You know we're never going back."

Kurt tore a strip of tender meat from the top of the roast. "How
do you know we're not?" he challenged Lisa. She rapped him on
the knuckles with the fork, but the damage was done. Kurt
crammed the meat into his mouth. He sputtered, "It's hot!"

"That's what you get for sneaking a piece of boarwartz," said
Wes with a superior air. "By the way, I think Lady Lisa here is all
wrong about us not going back to Anthropos. I think the only question is when."

Lisa snatched the towel from Wes. "You guys were supposed to
put potatoes in to bake. Where are they? Did you let them burn up
in the oven? Come on, Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor could be
home any minute." She began to slice a loaf of brown bread she'd
made the night before.

Kurt managed to chew and swallow his chunk of meat and get
his voice back. "We never know when they'll be home anymore,"
he said. "One of them could decide to work late, or both of them.
Or one could show up early. And the potatoes are-well, I guess
we forgot. They're still in the bag. Uncooked. Sorry."

"Here," his brother offered. "I'll put some on to boil. They won't
take long if I cut them up. So, Lisa, why are you so sure we're not
going back to Anthropos?"

"Use your brain! It's been ages since we saw any messages on
the old TV sets in the attic. That's almost always the way we're
called. Through the old TV sets."

"You don't have to tell us how we get there, Miss Know-It-All,"
said Kurt. He pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down and laid his
swordstick across the table.

`.. ['hank you, Mr. Know-Everything," Lisa came back. "Anyway,
it's been almost a year since Caal summoned us. No, not that pot,
Wes, the bigger one."

"It's been over a year," Wes corrected her. "One year, one month
and four days. How could you forget? It was the day of Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor's wedding, and they just celebrated their first
anniversary."

"If you could call it a celebration. They kept snapping at each
other even while they got ready to go out for dinner." She jerked
open a drawer, slammed it shut and jerked open another one. "I
hated it! I wished they'd get out the door and go. Except they
weren't really happy when they came back either."

The room became quiet. The only sound was the tick-tick-tick of
the oven as it cooled. None of the three liked to remember that
evening. Now their minds were full of the ugly scene.

Wes concentrated on the potatoes. He preferred to drop the subject of his aunt and uncle's conflicts, but something urged him to
talk. "They fight about everything lately," he ventured. "Even the
dumbest things."

Quickly Kurt spoke up. "It's normal for people to disagree about
things. It doesn't necessarily mean anything serious." He tried to
sound casual, but his brother and sister heard the tremble in his
voice.

Wes shook his head. "I think the things they fight about are only
an excuse. Those things aren't the real problem. There's more
under the surface."

"It's so different from when they first got married," Lisa said
wistfully. "They're different. And I didn't say anything to you guys,
but last night I heard them talking and I'm afraid ..." Her voice
trailed off. She pulled out more drawers and rummaged around for
utensils. A drawer stuck, and she jerked at it violently.

Wes watched her for a while before he asked, "You're afraid of
what?"

"Nothing!"

"Something," he said quietly. Lisa didn't answer. He went on, "I
know what you were going to say."

"Okay, what was I going to say?"

"You're afraid they're having second thoughts about whether
they should have gotten married at all."

Kurt looked back and forth from Wes to Lisa. He stammered,
"What are you-what do you mean? You aren't saying they intend
to-I mean-"

Lisa nodded. "They're thinking they should split up. In fact, I'm
afraid they've already decided."

Though the oven door stood open, the temperature in the
kitchen seemed to drop several degrees. Lisa's words hung in the
air, along with the aroma of the roast. The scent of the meat was
comforting, but the words terrified the three of them.

Kurt felt sick. Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor ... not together anymore? It had happened to so many of their friends' parents. People
assumed the Friesens lived with their aunt and uncle because their
mother and father were no longer married. Sometimes people
even suspected the children had invented the story about their parents being in the Canadian Diplomatic Service. Fred and Jane Friesen were frequently on assignment in trouble spots around the
world. For safety their three children had gone to live with their
Uncle John McNab in the old house on Grosvenor Avenue, back
when he was still single.

Kurt's confused thoughts burst out into questions. "What'll happen to them? What'll happen to us? Will Uncle John stay here and
Aunt Eleanor move out? Or the other way around? Will we go live
with Dad and Mom somewhere halfway around the world or ... or
... or what?" He rocked back in his chair and shut his eyes tight. "I
want to go back to Anthropos. Right now."

"Too bad! You can't!" Lisa snapped.

Kurt talked on, eyes closed against the truth he did not want to
face. "I miss Gaal! I miss everybody! I miss the Matmon and the
Koach! I never got a chance to learn the wolf language the Koach
speak. I did learn a little. Listen!" His voice dissolved into a series
of yips, barks and wails.

Wes understood why Kurt wanted so desperately to change the
subject. For a moment lie played along. "No, it was more like this."
He added some yelps and growls.

Lisa covered her ears. "Knock it off, both of you! Howling and
barking won't help!" She ripped down a piece of paper that had
been taped to a kitchen cabinet door. "We're not in Anthropos;
we're in Winnipeg. We've got to do whatever we can to smooth
things over. First of all, let's finish our list of jobs." In a very official
voice she read: "Number one. Put on roast and potatoes 4:00 p.m. Number two. Dust downstairs. Number three. Vacuum rugs. Number four. Set table. Number five. Go meet new neighbor kid." She
looked up at the boys. "What new neighbor kid?"

"There's a new family down the street. I saw the moving van yesterday," Kurt answered.

"The new neighbor will have to wait," said Wes as he put the
potatoes on to boil. "Let's tackle the cleaning. Maybe it will help if
the place looks really good when they get home from work." He
got a handful of rags from a kitchen drawer.

Kurt dragged his feet as he followed his brother into the living
room. "We'd be done by now if I hadn't made you do that silly
sword fight," he moaned. He wished he could do something, anything, to set things right.

"That's all the more reason to get to work," Wes answered.
"Here, grab a dust rag."

Lisa pulled the heavy upright vacuum from the hall closet and
started in on the living room rug. Wes was relieved when the roar
of the vacuum made conversation impossible. He could be alone
with his own thoughts even while the three of them worked in the
same room. He dusted the fireplace mantle and the decorative
pieces on it. Most of the objects were from their parents' travels. All
three Friesens could recite the story behind each one.

High on the wall above the mantel hung what appeared to be
the prize artifact of Fred and Jane's travels. That was what the Friesens, and even Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor, let visitors think.
The truth was far more complex. The object was a magnificent
sword in a jeweled scabbard. The grip of its hilt was encased in
leather, while the rest of the hilt sparkled with inlaid gems.