Gaal the Conqueror (3 page)

"What about the Mashal Stone? You may need its powers."

"I always carry it in my pocket-you know that. The pross
stone too." His eyes shone with a fevered mixture of excitement
and fear.

Ian McNab seemed strangely calm. "I suppose you'll need me
to stay so that you have someone to come back to. And we can't
leave Eleanor there alone-even though I suspect the Changer
has some business with her. Yes, son, go. These footprints seem
like an open invitation."

"I'll stay here and wait. If you don't come back, and I think
you're in trouble I'll ..."

"No, Dad, no! NO!" John's face was white and scared.

Ian McNab sighed as his son clutched him convulsively. "You
must let me decide what to do. I won't come unless I have to.
So off you go, son! Find her quickly and bring her back."

John looked puzzled. "Unless you have to? How do you
mean? How would you know you had to?"

Ian McNab looked long into the eyes of his son. "I'll know,"
he said eventually. "Was I not once Mab the Seer? I have not
completely lost the powers of perception I had in Anthropos.
I'll know all right. For one thing something tells me that in a
life-and-death crisis you will call out my name-and I'll hear
you. But let's not think about that now."

"But Dad, you'd die!"

Ian McNab placed his hands on either side of John's face
and once again looked deep into his eyes. "Hey, stop that!
That's a bridge we may never cross. In any case it's a bridge the
Changer probably controls. Let's focus on the job at hand. Off
you go now."

John straightened himself and released his father. " 'Bye,
Dad!" He hesitated a moment. "There'll be no need for you to
follow. Really there won't." His voice shook a little. For a moment he looked as if he would embrace his father again. Then,
evidently changing his mind, he turned on his heel and advanced to the point where the footprints stopped. He turned his
head to look back once, smiling nervously. Then as he took a
final step his body was wiped clean from space as though it had
been a chalk drawing wiped from a blackboard. Ian McNab was
left to stand alone on a patch of snow on a frozen lake, staring
at two sets of footprints that led nowhere.

No sooner had John stepped beyond the last footprint than the
ice-covered lake vanished. He was somewhere else. Total blackness wrapped him round. For a moment he froze, wondering
where he was and what he should do next. He did not have
long to wait, for the ground under his feet tilted, pitching him
forward. He struggled to keep his balance and failed, throwing
his arms out to protect himself. But to his horror there seemed
to be nothing in front of him. He found himself falling, screaming as his body hurtled downward, spinning head over heels.

His fall ended as suddenly as it had started. A dozen scratching twigs and branches received him into their embrace, and
daylight burst over him. He opened his eyes to catch a glimpse
of gray sky through a lacework of leaves. Twisting his head in
panic, he saw to his great relief that he was only three or four
feet from the ground. He half rolled and half wriggled to free dom, tumbling awkwardly onto wet grass. Pulling himself to his
feet, he saw that his Canadian clothes were gone. Instead he
was wearing leather boots, a loose woolen garment that was
something like a pair of trousers, an equally loose linen shirt
gathered at the wrists, belted and falling to just above his knees.
To complete the outfit a heavy woolen blue cloak fell from his
shoulders.

The sword-belt round his waist supported a sword and scabbard, and with growing excitement he snatched at the jeweled
hilt, pulling the sword out to look at it. It was the Sword of
Geburah, the sword he had worn on his previous visit to Anthropos, and as he stared at it relief flooded his body. He had
done the right thing. Everything would work out. Evidently he
was expected.

But where exactly was he? He replaced the sword and stared
around him, gasping at the stunning picture he saw, a symphony in gray and green. Five hundred feet below him was
what looked like a narrow lake, or perhaps a narrow arm of the
sea. Jade-green water rested calmly between steep mountainous
slopes clothed with evergreens. The tops of the mountains were
hidden. Gray clouds formed a ceiling several hundred feet
above where he stood, and a light rain fell.

From one side he heard the excited yelp of a dog, and before
he knew what was happening, it was leaping up at him, licking
his face as though it knew him. "Hey, quit it!" he cried, pushing
the dog down and away from him. "I hate licks-what is it you
want?"

The dog had turned and was barking at him, running a few
paces from him, turning and barking again. It was a lean, shorthaired, nondescript black dog, with a white patch between its
eyes and over its forehead. Each time it turned it half crouched,
puppylike, wagging its tail with such enthusiasm that its whole
rear end wagged too.

"You want me to follow you? I guess I might as well."

Instantly the dog turned and began trotting toward the trees,
the rear end askew, so that the hind legs did not follow the
front legs but constantly seemed to be trying to catch up with
them and pass them. But they never did. John watched the
unstable arrangement fascinated, wondering that the creature
never tripped over itself.

Soon they were following a narrow trail among pines, firs
and cedars. Massive trunks crowded round them while undergrowth spilled wetness on them as they passed. For about
twenty minutes they wound their way along the trail. John's
pants were itchy, and before long he began to smell of warm
wet wool. Then quite suddenly they emerged into a narrow
glade.

The dog made for a spot near a rather large rock a hundred
yards away on the right-hand side of the glade and began to
dig. As John got closer, he began to realize that the dog was not
digging near a rock at all but near a round stone well. John
looked inside but saw nothing and John sighed. "I thought you
might be some kind of messenger," he said, half to himself and
half to the dog. "Instead, you're only showing me where you
hid your bone."

Almost as though it understood him, the dog turned and
looked at him. Then it barked once, turned and resumed its
furious digging. John stood and watched. "Who's your master?
And where do you live?" he asked.

Again the dog turned. But this time it cringed in terror. It
trembled and its eyes were wide and staring. Then with a loud
yelp it leaped toward the trees, its tail between its legs. Before
John could follow, a booming voice startled him from behind.
"Excuse me! Do you realize you're trespassing? At times I have
had to breathe fire on trespassers. I wouldn't like ..."

John turned around to look and terror seized him also. Ten
yards behind him a dragon reared its scaly head. Flight would
have been as useless as it was impossible. His legs had become unstable columns of fluid. Had the dragon spoken? His mouth
was dry, and he felt foolish as well as terrified as he said, "I'm
sorry. I wasn't meaning to trespass. It was the dog.. ."

"Ah, yes. Dogs," the dragon said, its huge body writhing elegantly. "Always good for an excuse, aren't they? Who are you,
anyway?"

John hesitated for a moment. Then, remembering what he
had done when last he was in Anthropos he said, "I'm the
Sword Bearer."

"Hm. The Sword Bearer indeed. You do have a sword-but
who knows? Let me see.... If you are the Sword Bearer they
say that when you draw your sword it will throw off a kind of
blue light."

John's heart sank. "Not always," he managed to say. "It depends."

"Aha! A complication. So it might, and on the other hand it
might not. You wouldn't be stalling, would you? You say, `It
depends.' Depends on what, may I ask?"

"Well, it mostly shines when there are evil things around, like
goblins. Sometimes it shines on special occasions ..."

"That could make it rather difficult for you, couldn't it?"

"Well, if I'm evil, your sword will shine. But then, if I'm evil,
there's no saying what I might do to you."

Something about the things the creature said reassured him.
Relief made John take a deep breath. He still felt scared, but
only in the way some schoolteachers can make you feel when
you suspect you're in the wrong but you can't quite understand
what they're driving at. It wasn't what could be called real dragon fear.

"But if I'm not evil," the dragon continued, "and if your
sword doesn't shine, then I'll think you're making your story up.
And even good dragons get upset when boys tell them lies. So
draw your sword!"

John took another breath. "Look, I'm not lying. I am the
Sword Bearer, and this is the Sword of Geburah. I can't prove
it. And it may not light up when I it ..."

"Well, then draw it, and let me see what the fates have
brought into my path." Slowly and reluctantly, hoping against
hope that it would shine, John began to pull it from the scabbard. And even when only an inch of the blade showed, it
emitted penetrating blue rays. Relieved, he pulled it out the rest
of the way and waved it in the air. It flamed dazzlingly, pulsing
with light and humming with energy. Uncertain of how dangerous the dragon was, John did not replace the sword in its scabbard. He could not tell what the dragon was thinking, and for
several seconds it gazed at him without saying anything. When
it did speak, it seemed to be delivering a lecture.

"The Sword Bearer, now. First appeared in response to a
prophecy. Arrived on the planet from regions unknown around
the end of the sixth century and disappeared a year or so after
getting rid of the Tower of ... what's its name? The Tower of
Geburah."

"No, no, you've got it wrong," John protested. "I got rid of the
Lord Lunacy's tower."

The dragon was not looking at him, but talking about him
as if he were not there. "But didn't the Goblin Prince kill him
in the cave beneath the Tower?"

"Of course notl I wouldn't be here if I were dead, would I?
I killed him-or it. The Goblin Prince was a thing, not a person."

The dragon continued as if it never heard him. "And the
fellow Mab, now, vanished about the same time the Sword
Bearer did, didn't he?"

"Yes-he's my father."

The dragon lost his lecturing manner. "Your father indeed?
Well, well, well-how did you manage that? When and under
what circumstances did he sire you?"

"I don't understand."

"No. Probably not. You look too young, even if you are several millennia old. Tell me, Sword Bearer, what brings you here
now?"

Several millennia. The words startled him. Several millennia!
Did that mean that in Anthropos time it was thousands of years
since he had left? Anthropos history would have advanced
enormously during the few months he had spent in Canada.
His anxiety began to mount again. There would be nobody he
knew, nobody who could help him find the girl. The dragon
was still staring at him, waiting for an answer to its question.
But he had forgotten what the question was.

He looked up at the creature, its enormous, scaly body towering above him, and said in a thin and foolish voice, "I'm not
that scared of you anymore, but are you really safe? I mean,
what about breathing fire?"

"Safe? No, I don't suppose I'm safe. I'm not in the least safe.
Who ever heard of a safe dragon? And what was the dog digging for?"

"The dog?" He had forgotten about the small black dog with
the white patch on its forehead.

"Yes, the dog. The dog you were following. It was digging."

"Oh, yes. I suppose it had buried a bone."

"I don't think so."

"How do you mean?"

The situation was absurd. He had come to rescue a girl. Why
was he holding an Alice-in-Wonderland conversation with a
dragon about a strange dog and a bone?

"It comes here often, and digs in the same place alwaysright next to the Holy Enchanted Well. Sometimes the hole gets
quite deep. I want to know what's at the bottom of the hole. I've
tried to talk to it, but the creature gets scared and runs off." The
dragon paused, then sighed a cloud of acrid smoke.