The Dark Lord's Demise (27 page)

"Yes, it's over. I'm surprised you didn't run all the way back to
Nephesh. You're pretty brave. I suppose you've carried King Tigvah
into battle many times."

"I know of no city by the name of Battle."

"It's not it city, it's ... I mean you've gone into war with the king."

"Where is War? I do not know this city either."

"Philo! You're the king's horse, and you don't know what battle
and war are? What have you been doing all your life?"

The horse put his head down and tore off some more grass.
"Yng ldy, I have rched th' age of svn yrs. In thoz svn yrs no one has
nintioned to me th' wrds bttl or wr."

"Oh, don't talk with your mouth full. By the way, does Tigvah
know you can talk?"

"He has never inquired, and I have never had reason to inform
him. Normally I indulge in the common speech only with the stable hands and it few others. Among my own kind, of course, I talk
horse."

Lisa remembered the beautiful bay on which Queen Hisschi
rode. "Oh, you mean like with the queen's horse? He's beautiful."

Philo raised his head so rapidly he nearly knocked Lisa over.
"He, young lady, is a she." The horse's ears twitched and his big
lower lip flopped. Lisa had the distinct impression that Philo's long
face had turned red under his white hair. She could almost swear
the black snip on his nose glowed a rosy color.

"Why, Philo! Is the queen's horse a ... special friend of yours?"

"She is my stablemate, Lady Lisa. I will say no more."

Lisa teased, "What's her name?"

Philo switched his long silky tail. He stomped his forefeet.
Finally he managed to get out the name "Elizabeth." He stumbled
over it several times so it came out "Eliz-liz-liz-a-b-b-b-eth."

"That a beautiful name! It's like my name, Lisa. That's a shorter
form of Elizabeth."

"How nice. Now perhaps we can talk of other subjects."

"Don't worry. You're secret's safe with me. Both secrets-your
being able to talk and Elizabeth." Lisa patted the horse's side. Her
fingers touched the strange bump under his skin. She wanted to
ask the horse about it, but she thought she had caused him enough
embarrassment for one day.

The horse suddenly pivoted his ears in the direction of the trail.
Lisa stiffened with apprehension. Voices! Oh, it was Wes and
Kurt-and behind them, Andron and Dominicus! Apparently the
boys had met the soldiers on the trail, and the soldiers had wanted
to continue the journey. Lisa had wanted to give them a second
chance, but now that she saw them again, she felt uneasy. She wondered what wild excuse they had given for running away.

The soldiers strode ahead of the boys. They showed no sign of
remorse over their flight. As they passed by, Lisa called out, "We're
over here! Me and Philo!" All four jumped in surprise. A broad
smile spread over Dominicus's face, replaced immediately by a
look of concern. "Lady Lisa, are you unharmed? And you have found the king's horse! Uninjured, I hope? You may lead him back
if you wish. I believe he fancies you."

Andron said gruffly, "Come, we must make up for lost time
before nightfall."

"I shall take back my sword," said Dominicus. He held out his
hand for it. Lisa hesitated. How could she surrender the sword to
someone she didn't trust? On the other hand, it was difficult not to
give it back to its owner. She looked at her brothers. Wes pointed
upward in a subtle gesture. Lisa understood. Gaal is here! She gave
the sword back to Dominicus, and the party continued along the
trail, with Lisa leading Philo (though it was not clear who led
whom).

When they reached the site of the ogre attack, Kurt wanted to
stop and eat. Lisa was horrified. "How can you stand to eat right on
the spot where an ogre melted into the ground?"

"Take off your packs and get out some bread and cheese," Wes
said sharply. "Then we'll put our packs back on and eat as we go
along."

"There's good old Boss Wesley again," Kurt said. He slipped off
his pack and so did the others. The soldiers gave Wes resentful
looks.

"Do I get nothing?" complained the buzzard, who still sat in the
tree.

Andron snarled, "Go and find yourself a dead rodent. We do not
need your guidance. A blind man could not miss the path ahead.
By the way, if your eyesight is so fine, why did you not see the
approach of the monster and warn us?"

"As I told the young Regenskind, I cannot see through the forest
canopy. However, the forest will open up as you near the site of the
Cave of Gaal." He took off from the dead tree, leaving a black
feather to flutter to the earth behind him. At the buzzard's mention
of the Cave of Gaal, the children came to attention.

The Cave of Gaal was a place of safety from evil. It could appear
in any place. The children had found it in this same Forest of
Blackness and also in Poseidon's Kingdom at the bottom of the
sea. No matter where it was, its roof had an opening called the hole
where time is no more. If they scrambled up to sit on the edge of the opening and look into the sky, they would all view different scenes
from different times. Their voices even sounded funny to each
other, as though they came from across vast reaches of time as well
as space.

Lisa turned to the boys. "I saw a moon, remember? But Kurt, you
said there wasn't any. I heard the shrieks of the Qadar and saw
them coming through the sky, but you didn't. If I moved my head
just a bit closer to you, the Qadar vanished and so did the moon."

"And when you grabbed my head and twisted it around-by the
way, that hurt-I could see the moon and the Qadar."

Wes joined in: "I climbed up and right away I was in bright sunshine, even though it was night where both of you sat. It was weird.
But somehow it wasn't scary."

"We inched our way around the hole," Lisa recalled. "It was like
channel surfing. We each moved from scene to scene. There was
this island floating in a dark sea, with stairs going up to the clouds."

"Somehow we knew it was Anthropos," Wes mused.

"But Anthropos is no island," Dominicus protested. He listened
to this conversation with wonder and confusion. The children
ignored him. Kurt forgot he was hungry. He was absorbed in
remembrance. "We watched all kinds of battles in the air above the
island!"

"I thought I saw Uncle John," Wes said. "I mean Uncle John as a
boy, like old pictures we've seen of him."

Lisa covered her face with her hands as a particularly terrible
memory flashed into her mind. "I saw Gaal being murdered! It was
horrible! I wanted to help him, but I couldn't!"

Andron shouted an interruption. "Gaal murdered! How can this
be? Those are only stories told by the old ones. You fell asleep in a
cave and dreamed of the old stories of Anthropos."

The Friesens turned on the soldier with fierce defiance. In a
jumble of three voices they burst out, "They aren't just old stories!"
"Our Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor were there at the altar when
Gaal was killed! Well, she wasn't our Aunt Eleanor then." "It was
back when they were about our age." "And Gaal didn't stay dead!
They saw him come back to life!" "He got gored by an enormous
bull. Even as he was dying, he tore the horns off the bull. It turned into a giant, winged serpent, and he killed that!"

The two soldiers shook their heads-Dominicus in pity, Andron
in amusement. "Foolish stories!" Andron scoffed. "I would think
you had outgrown them. They are told to children to frighten them
and make them be good." At this the Friesens were amazed into
silence. Philo nudged Lisa with his big nose, but she pushed him
away.

"It happened," Wes said firmly. "It happened on the stone altar
in the city of Bamah. Gaal died and came back to life. After that
Kardia became king and married Suneidesis. They became Tiqvah's parents ..."

"Of course we know of Kardia and Suneidesis," said Dominicus
impatiently.

"I'm not finished. Kardia and his army pulled down the stone
circle that surrounded the altar and burned the sorcerer's temple.
We stood with Gaal and watched the evil city sink into the earth
and become a lake-the lake you call Lake Bamah."

"And I commanded it to fill with water!" Kurt added.

Dominicus and Andron roared with laughter. Kurt kicked at a
tree root in fury. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but didn't they
know it was true? Lisa said, "Never mind if it was Kurt or not. What
matters is that Gaal defeated his enemies. He trampled all over the
forces of Lord Lunacy."

Dominicus and Andron turned serious. Andron picked up his
pack and swung it onto his back. Dominicus did the same with his
pack. He had to shove away Philo, who was after the grain he knew
was there. "Let us be going," said Dominicus quietly.

For several hours they marched along in single file. Though the
sun did not penetrate deeply through the trees, the air was warm
and motionless. The hot, tense crew drank greedily from their
water bottles. Lisa squirted some water from her bottle into Philo's
mouth and spilled a lot in the process. Wes scolded her sharply for
the foolish waste. Kurt said that since they hadn't found water, that
proved they shouldn't have made the trip at all. Weariness, hunger,
thirst and darkness would soon force them to stop and camp.

Wes, in the lead, first caught the sound of a stream rushing over
rocks. "Water up ahead!" he called. In fifty yards the trail dropped down a gentle slope to a stream that emerged from the higher
woods. It cut the trail in two and bubbled onward to disappear into
trees and brush. On the other side of the stream was a level grassy
area, clear of trees except for a small one near the center.

The company stumbled down the slope, heaved off their packs
and dropped to their hands and knees by the water. A blanket of
cool air over the streambed refreshed them even before they
drank. Philo nearly stepped on several of them in his rush to drink,
while the human members of the party shoved each other for
space. The stream bed was rocky, and the water was clear and cold.

Wes straightened to a kneeling position, wiped his mouth and
pointed across the stream. "We'll camp over there," he said. They
complained only a little about wet cold feet as they waded across
the stream. Dominicus unfastened Philo's pack and slipped it off
him. Immediately the horse's knees buckled and he rolled in the
grass. Lisa heard him mutter something about his itchy back.

The children were almost too tired to pitch their tents. They
kicked a few stones out of the way and argued about how to set
their tents up. Wes suggested a fire. The others only moaned. They
had no food that needed to be cooked, and they hardly needed the
heat.

By the time they consumed a meal of bread, cheese and dried
fruits, it was nearly dark. They all took candles and flints and
crawled into their small tents. Dominicus and Andron were in one
tent, Kurt and Wes were in another, and Lisa was in a tent by herself. She wished she could manage to steal the swords of both soldiers, but she knew it was impossible.

Night sounds of tree frogs and insects merged with the bubble
of the stream and the deep breaths of five sleepers. A white horse
stood as a sentinel-when he didn't doze off himself.

Kurt was surprised at how well he had slept. He awoke feeling
quite rested. It was still dark out. He rolled over. He rolled over the
other way. No use-he was wide-awake and couldn't get back to
sleep. He wondered if the others were awake. If they were, they all
might as well get up and get an early start. They'd make better time
if they hiked in the cool. He whispered, "Wes! Are you awake?"

Wes's voice was tight: "Yeah. Wide-awake. I've been awake for
ages. What time is it?"

"I don't know. We must have slept really well. We did turn in
early."

Kurt heard Wes sit up. "No, Kurt. It's more than that. It's something odd. Get me the flint and candle."

Kurt felt around. He couldn't remember where he had put
them. He couldn't remember if he had put them anywhere. "You
must have them over by you, Wes."