Gaal the Conqueror (41 page)

Gaal did not move. He still held the ancient prophet's hands
and very gently he said, "Mab the prophet, and Ian McNab the
father of John, wake up! It's time to celebrate!"

Color crept into the pale and wrinkled face. The hands that
had been cold and lifeless a moment before grasped Gaal's
own hands. The dead man took in a breath and sighed. His
eyes flew open, clear with intelligent light. "Well, well, well. And who are you?" he said, smiling at Gaal. He struggled to his feet.

"Mab!" John cried. "Mab, oh, Mab! I mean, Dad!"

With surprising youthfulness the old man stood straight
Turning from Gaal the old seer took one long stride and seized
his son. John was crying, "Oh, Mab-Dad-I thought I'd lost
you! I thought-" By turns he sobbed and laughed convulsively. The blue-robed prophet held him close.

Their rejoicing and embracing continued for some time, but
before long the two of them were trying to catch up on each
other's news. Gaal then spoke. "Your task is not yet finished."

John looked surprised for a moment and then remembered.
"The treasures!" He glanced in embarassment at the sword in
the wall beside the picture, retrieved it and placed it in the
scabbard beside him. Then with something like his old spirit
he said, "Well, let's finish then." Tugging the old wizard by the
hand he led the group up the steps to the top floor of the tower.
Authentio, muttering the praises of Gaal to himself, hid the
Mashal Stone in his clothing. He picked up the treasure bag
and turned to follow the rest

The Garden Room was not at all as John remembered it. No
hillside opened out to them. Rather it was a plain room with
an oaken table in its center. Carefully they placed the treasures-the book, the key and the orb (inside its own chest) in
the center of the table. Solemnly John unhitched his belt and
placed the sword with its scabbard beneath the table, as Gaal
had instructed them.

For a moment they stood and stared. "I guess that's it," John
said, feeling strangely flat

Eleanor sighed. "I'm tired." She glanced shyly at Gaal.
"Let's-I mean, could we? Could we go down to the room with
all those cushions and things?" She drew in a deep breath and
sighed again. "Oh, Gaal, I could do with some sleep."

But down on the ground floor they had trouble settling down.
Indeed John and Mab talked quietly in a corner of the room
long after the others had gone to sleep. But eventually even the
father and son fell into slumber.

In the morning, conversations resumed at full pace. With
great formality Pontificater introduced Gaal and the old seer.
Eleanor said to John, "I remember you explaining about time
and saying your dad was hundreds of years old when he was
here. But I never expected him to look like this!"

Ian McNab, on the other hand was a little puzzled to account
for Eleanor herself. He said, "You realize you'll be back to your
own age when we-that is if we-get back"

Eleanor laughed. "I wonder what it will feel like."

Eventually Gaal said, "Come and eat with me."

He led them outside to the aroma of freshly baked bread and of cooking fish. Stones large enough to sit on were arranged
around a small wood fire. "Let me serve you," Gaal said.

Silver platters near the fire bore golden-crusted loaves of
bread. Fish were cooking in the hot coals of the fire. But in a
very short space, Gaal had served them each. They ate with
their fingers, which never became sticky or dirty. They resumed
talking all at once about Bamah, about Anthropos, about the
Circle of Light and most of all about the astonishing things that
Gaal had done. Gaal said little, his eyes glowing as he looked
from one to the other of them.

John's father sat next to John. He seemed to have the extraordinary ability to eat with one hand and keep his other arm
round John's shoulder. "How do you do it?" John asked.

"Well, as you see, I spit the bones back onto my plate. It's easy
with the big ones, but the little ones get lost in my beard when
I spit them out! I'll have to brush and comb my beard afterward."

"Just one thing," John said to Eleanor. "When we were trying
to frame Shagah and he sent us to that precipice overlooking
the ocean, how did you get us back?"

"Oh, that! It was the stone. I had a stone in my shoe, and
when I tried to toss it over the edge of the ledge it-it sort of
bounced back-you know just as though it had hit a glass
wall.99

"So?"

"Well, the distance between us and the invisible wall was
about the same as the distance had been between where we
were standing and where I remembered the real wall was. You
know-where we were trying to hang the picture. Suddenly it
came to me that we were still in the tower. We hadn't gone
anywhere."

"But the wind-and the sea below. .

"Just illusions, I guess. I remembered you telling me that the
Mashal Stone showed you things as they really were. So what with that and it making us invisible ..."

John stared at her. "That really was bright of you."

"Not really." She yawned.

Everyone agreed that they had never tasted so delicious a
meal. What they would like to have said, but were too embarrassed to say, was that eating with Gaal was something they
would never forget. When they had finished eating, Gaal left
them, with instructions to meet him in Bamah, flying away on
Ponticater's back.

"But how in the world do we get to Bamah?" Eleanor asked
when Gaal left.

Dismay was written on John's face. Mab, however, smiled and
planted his staff in front of him. For the first time John really
looked at it. "Oh, he said. "Oh, of course. I'd forgotten all about
your staff!" He looked at Authentio and Eleanor. "It works far
better than Shagah's magic!"

And so it proved. As they linked hands, and as John saw
again the blue light flood the old prophet's staff, he felt a
strange warmth. But it lasted only a moment as they were
pitched skyward among whirling stars and planets to find themselves seconds later in Bamah.

They arrived to find the damage from the earthquake, which
had looked bad enough from the air, was shockingly worse
when they wandered through the city on foot. The foursome
did not find a house left standing. Overnight the city had
turned into a wilderness of dusty rubble.

But cities are people rather than buildings. The inhabitants
were back, both Regenskind and matmon, some to stay, others
to gather what was left of their belongings before returning to
the villages from which they had been taken by the enchantment. Many presented a sorry sight. Weary men and women,
along with their children, rooted among the stones for their
chattels, their furniture and whatever belongings they could
rescue.

A few seemed profoundly grateful for the warning they had
received, filling the air with remarks such as, "Life is what
matters. You can always make a fresh start if you have life and
limb!" or "I was never one to worry about a house and furniture. So long as you have your strength, a bit of food to eat and
your family around you. That's all that counts."

Others were shocked and stunned, wandering through the
streets in a daze or sitting on the heap of ruins that once had
been their home, staring at nothing. The will to live had fled
them. Billingrath had already got to work and had reorganized
the ragtag group of guards who were instructed to care for the
dazed people, taking them where their families could find
them. Now reorganized, the red matmon were also busy dealing
with the dead and wounded. (A few of the inhabitants had
refused to be warned, and had suffered the consequences.)

Billingrath did something else. He posted notices throughout
the city saying that an important announcement would be
made in the town square on the third evening. John, Authentio,
Bomgrith and Mab were to help him with the meeting. A huge
multitude-nearly all Bamah's inhabitants, came to it. Billingrath boldly proclaimed that the members of the Circle of Light
were not the true rulers of Anthropos. They were to be defied,
not obeyed. Gaal was the true ruler and had conquered them,
and Gaal was alive and well. Billingrath himself had witnessed
Gaal's return from the shades of death. The other four described what had happened since. Billingrath also warned that
the Circle had indeed deceived the people, and apologized for
his own part in this.

One man cried, "How could Gaal be alive? He's dead! I saw
him die! And I haven't seen him walking around since. Have
you?" It was true that Gaal had not been seen by any of them
since they left the island.

"You can't defy Lord Lunacy and get away with it," called out
another.

"Hear me! I saw him alive the morning after the sacrifice and
battle!" Billingrath cried. "If he's dead, then let Lord Lunacy
produce his body and show us! Lord Lunacy cannot, for Lord
Lunacy knows he is alive! His body is a living, talking, powerful
body! Gaal is alive, I tell you!" Many of the Regenskind and the
matmon believed him, but many others grumbled and said it
was a lot of nonsense.

Soon people began to erect tents and crude shelters on the
hillside between the walls of Bamah and the River Rure, little
realizing that the little city of shacks and tents would one day
be a new capital of Anthropos. Gaal's followers no longer
needed to live secretly inside the city walls, so they too moved
onto the hillside. In any case the walls were themselves badly
damaged. The grumblers, the people who could not believe
that Gaal was alive, slowly relapsed into the shuffling state that
most of the inhabitants had shown when John and Eleanor had
first arrived in Bamah.

But where was Gaal? Some said they had seen him. John and
Eleanor were particularly puzzled. "How are we going to get
back?" John asked. "We've done everything we're supposed to.
We've taken the stuff back to the Tower of Geburah. Shagah's
been `castled.' I've given Authentio the Mashal Stone. And-"

"And Gaal's alive," Eleanor interrupted. "But where is he?"

"Last time I came here I had come through a sort of magic
door-and it just appeared again. But this time there was no
just falling through space. I wish Gaal would show up
and tell us what to do."