The Dark Lord's Demise (40 page)

"Yes, but I thought we could see ourselves. I thought we could
see each other. I just thought nobody else could see-could see-"
She started to panic with the strangeness of it all. Wes berated himself: We should have practiced after all. Being invisible really throws you
the first couple of times. He reached for the door to the wharf, but it
lay just outside the span of the gold thread.

The Matmon stumped down the stairs on his short legs. The
children froze. He took a quick look around the square room.
Then he passed within inches of Kurt and jerked open the door to
the wharf. Cold damp air rushed up from below. The Matmon
went down the stairs, leaving the door open behind him.

"What'll we do?" Betty whispered frantically.

"We'll keep quiet!" Wes hissed back. Fast footsteps echoed as the
Matmon ran back up from the wharf. Again he narrowly missed
colliding with the children. He threw open the door to the courtyard and called, "Enemy intruders! Seal off all doors! They are
somewhere on the island!"

As one, the four children ran for the stairs to the wharf. The
garish red light from the walls and steps lit their way. But it is hard
enough to run down clamp stone stairs in a group when you can
see each other and see your own feet. Running downstairs when
you and your companions are invisible is asking for disaster. Someone tripped-they couldn't tell who-and they all stumbled
together in a heap. The gold thread snapped. All four of the children popped into view. The Mashal Stone clattered clown the steps
like a pebble down it stony hillside.

They listened in horror for the splash, but there was none. The
stone must have come to rest on the wharf. They scrambled on
down the stairway. "At least we can see ourselves now," Kurt muttered.

"If we can just see the stone!" said Wesley. They looked and felt
all around the base of the stairs. Gold thread still trailed from their
necks.

Above them frantic voices shouted, "Search the tower!" "Bring
torches!" "I)id they enter the courtyard?"

Kurt said, "Lisa! Open the book!"

"There's no time to read from it!"

"Open it! The light may help!"

Lisa pulled the Book of Wisdom from her belt and opened it.
Blue light like lightning shot out and arched above their heads.
She tried to see the words on the pages, but they made no sense.
Then Betty exclaimed, "Over there! Wes, beyond you! Glowing
blue!"

Wes turned and saw a tiny spot of brilliant blue. It was further
away from the stairs than they had expected the stone to land. Its
glow seemed to reflect the light of the Book of Wisdom. Wes
crawled to it. His hand closed over it. "Got it! Where's the string?"
Kurt dragged the gold thread off his own neck and tried to poke it through the hole while Wes held the stone. He fumbled it twice.

"Never mind that now," Lisa said. "Let's get on the raft!" She
tucked away the Book of Wisdom.

Someone above called out, "Strange voices from the wharf.
They seek to escape! Perhaps they have seized the Lady Betty!"

Kurt clutched the Mashal Stone and the cord. Lisa, Betty and he
tumbled onto the raft. With shaking hands Wes untied the painter
and jumped on. The raft pitched wildly with his weight. He and
Lisa grabbed two of the paddles, thrust them against the stone
wharf and pushed off. The paddle blades slipped on the wet stone.
They tried again. This time the raft slid away toward the tunnel
opening. Wes and Lisa dug in. The third paddle lay unused while
Kurt fumbled with the stone.

"Give me that!" Betty ordered. "You paddle! You know how and I
don't!"

Kurt gladly obliged, picked up the third paddle and dug in on
Lisa's side. The raft lurched forward into the tunnel. Betty's fingers
worked quickly. Lisa whooped, "We're going to make it!" Then she
cried, "Betty! Where did Betty go?"

"You're gone too!" said Betty's voice. She had threaded the gold
cord through the stone, tied the cord in a loop and tried to toss it
over all four of them. They were too far apart on the raft. She had
succeeded only in catching herself and Lisa. She said, "Hey, this
invisibility stuff is fun. Once you get used to it, that is."

The raft was a strange sight as it made its way down the glowing
red tunnel. It appeared to carry two boys who both paddled furiously. Behind one of the boys, a third paddle moved by itself. Kurt
remarked, "At least if they're after Betty, they won't know she's on
this raft."

The end of the tunnel loomed ahead as a half-circle of darkness. Wes said, "Lisa, use your paddle as a rudder again. Kurt and I
will shoot us straight out of the tunnel. Wait about ten paddle
strokes and then cut us sharply to port. Okay, Kurt, dig in!"

The raft emerged from the tunnel into the dark waves and wind
of Lake Nachash. Ominous as the red light had been, it was
unnerving to lose it and head out onto black water under open
black sky. Lisa concentrated on counting paddle strokes. At ten she shoved the tiller-paddle over hard. The raft turned neatly. It
rocked some but rode the waves well.

Betty asked, "What's that line of fires on the far shore? Do they
have bonfires every night at the royal lodge?"

Hazilon should have spotted the false image first, but he was
busy figuring out how to separate the queen's soldiers from the followers of Gaal. The crowd made so much noise that he did not
hear the first loud exclamation. Even when many voices called
their Shepherd's name, he barely noticed. After all, "Gaal" was on
the lips of everybody here. Then he caught the fresh excitement in
the voices. He leaped to his feet. A smile, a genuine smile this time,
spread over his face.

The followers of Gaal surged toward the cliff. Arms jabbed up
from the crowd. They pointed to the sky over the lake. Their mingled shouts formed into one word repeated over and over: "Gaal!"

Hazilon ran to the back edge of the crowd. He looked above
their milling, bobbing heads to the place where their hands
pointed. White heaps of clouds, tinged with the red of sunset, hung
high above the water. Among them rode another white form that
was not cloud. It had the shape of a man in a long robe. He
stretched out his arms in welcome. His feet stood on the air. His
face-Hazilon grimaced. Was that the best the Dark Lord could
do? At least the face contorted into something like a stiff smile.

The crowd moved closer to the cliff's edge. They cheered. They
wept. Koach howled long, unearthly cries. Soldiers of Queen Hisschi fell on one knee or covered their faces. Hazilon watched in
awe. Never had he witnessed such emotion. He was almost afraid
of it.

Charaban found himself dangerously near the edge of the cliff
when the crowd surged forward. He was furious! The false Gaal
had fooled him for only a few seconds. As a soldier in Kardia's
army, he had seen Gaal more than once. The queen had to be
behind this! With the force of very old habit, Charaban reached
for a sword at his side. Of course, there was none. The crowd
shoved him and threw him off balance. He tried to limp to a safer spot. His leg buckled beneath him. As he fell, strong hands caught
him and helped him away from the cliffs edge. He looked up into
the concerned face of the young official from the hall of inquiry.

When Charaban was steady on his feet again, the official asked,
"Is that truly Gaal? I have never seen him."

"That is no more Gaal than I am!" Charaban roared. The young
official drew back in surprise. He sputtered, "Then what-why-"

"They released me from prison with no explanation. Then I
heard that Gaal had appeared and told us to come here. If I had
seen that mockery there, I would gladly have stayed in prison! Ali
well, perhaps it was further away and more convincing." He looked
around at the crowd with pity. "It deceives most of them. Help me
warn them that danger is here. Though I cannot guess what the
Dark Lord hopes to gain by this charade."

The answer came quickly. Hazilon, near the woods, first felt the
distant vibration. It rose to a hum, then a roar. Terrified birds shot
out of the woods. Trees shook. The weaver bee swarm burst from
the forest and rolled over the priest's head in a raging mass. It was
far larger than the swarm that had attacked Betty and the Friesens
when they first arrived in Anthropos. Thousands of bees flooded
onto the grounds of the royal lodge.

Hazilon crouched low and hoped Lunacy spoke the truth when
he promised to protect him. Aloud he said, "I am a fool! Lord
Lunacy-speak the truth? He lured these people to their deaths
with false promises!"

In seconds the crowd noise altered. Happy shouts changed to
screams. Cries of "Gaal! Gaal!" became shrieks of "Bees!" Frantic
trampling of feet jumbled with the roar of the swarm. The bees
halted, circled briefly and fanned out in a semicircle to cut off the
crowd from escape into the woods. Regenskind and Matmon
screamed, "Gaal, help us!" and raised their hands to the image.
Koach sent up spine-tingling howls. The robed man in the sky continued to smile benignly. His arms were still extended, but he
offered no help. With a heightened roar, the bees advanced. The
soldiers and followers of Gaal could flee in only one directionthe high cliff above Lake Nachash.

Hazilon turned away. Bad enough to watch the monsters at work. But to watch them kill hundreds of innocents while they
screamed for mercy! He shook the idea from his mind. This mob
did not matter. He could spare no sympathy for them. They were
only bait to lure the Enemy here. Then the real work would begin,
when Hazilon joined all Lunacy's forces to battle the real Gaal.

He listened harder. The crowd no longer screamed. They
cheered! Had they truly lost their minds? He straightened from his
protective crouch and looked toward the cliff. His eyes grew wide.
He fell on his knees on the soft ground of the field.

A white pigeon descended along a column of'brilliant blue light.
The blue column was like a shaft of sunlight from high up, though
the sun itself was about to set. Neither did the column come from
anywhere near the false Gaal. The pigeon fluttered rapidly downward to a point above the heads of the tallest people in the crowd.
It hovered there between Gaal's followers and the bees. Its wings
worked constantly. The bees stopped their advance. They zipped
around in tight little circles. A few bees darted at the pigeon and
ricocheted away as though they had hit a glass wall. The Gaal followers took a few cautious steps toward the bees. Smiles lit their
faces.

Hazilon watched the scene in disbelief: a line of vicious weaver
bees spinning in little circles, a single hovering white bird, hundreds of amused faces, and a white-robed man who stood in the
sky and smiled a vacant smile.

The crowd began to laugh, joke and shove each other in glee.
Small clusters of weaver bees darted away into the forest. More and
more flew off until the few remaining bees gathered in a tight little
swarm. The pigeon fluttered its wings a bit faster. The swarm took
off into the trees. Above Lake Nachash, the false image began to
fade, exactly as haze burns off in the sun. It was still smiling and
holding out stiff arms when it disappeared.

The crowd cheered and stamped their feet. The shaft of blue
light narrowed to nothing and was gone. The pigeon flew to the
ruined cottage and settled onto its roof as the sun slid below the
horizon. Chilly breezes began to blow up from the lake. Several
Marmon dragged dead limbs from the woods and started a line of
bonfires along the cliff top. Gaal's followers and the royal soldiers sat or stood around the fires and talked about what these strange
events could mean.

On the Island of Geburah the Lord of Darkness watched from
the southern wall of the fortress. He picked up a loose chunk of
stone and hurled it far into Lake Nachash. Everything had gone
wrong! The Enemy had sent that detestable bit of fluff to do his
work. Was he too cowardly to show up and rescue his followers?
Lunacy's thin lips compressed into a hard angry line. Perhaps the
Hated One did not think the weaver bees were worthy opponents.
Perhaps he would not come unless he had more challenging foes.
Lunacy would be glad to provide them.