Gaal the Conqueror (9 page)

"And the plans you had for the forest, Shagah?"

The trembling sorcerer drew in a breath. In spite of his fear
a note of defiance again sounded in his voice. "The forest will
be watched with unusual care, my lord. The path that winds
through it will be the obvious route to take should his lordship
the Sword Bearer come here to Bamah. I have been preparing
the forest over the centuries, precisely with him in mind. It is
now ready."

A slow smile darkened the beautiful face of the Lord Lunacy.
"My association with the Sword Bearer goes back a long way,"
he said. "It will give me special pleasure to watch you deal with
him. Please me in this, Shagah, and there will be no limit to the
powers you enjoy."

Instantly he was gone, and the sorcerer was left alone. He
stared for a moment at the littered floor where books and manuscripts lay in confusion. For several minutes he cursed savagely, until a smile was added to the fear that still showed from his
eyes. "You little know, my Lord Lunacy. Kill Gaal if you must.
But the boy-and the treasure-will be mine. And I will take
them to the Tower of Geburah myself where neither the High
Emperor nor you will be able to touch me. And though I wait
ten thousand years, I by the treasure will conquer the world that
is Anthropos. And you will perish, immortal though you may
be."

John said little during breakfast, but by the end of the meal he
realized he had no other choice-he would have to go to Bamah. "How far is it?" he asked at length.

"We'll have to walk, and it's about a month's journey southeast of here," Authentio said, "-at least at your lordships'
pace-not far from the Great Bridge on the River Rure. My
village is halfway between here and Bamah."

"At our pace?" John asked as if he had been offended.

"Authentio is a runner," Eleanor said. "He once did a fiveweek run. He runs from one end of Anthropos to the other
carrying messages on behalf of Gaal. Gaal's enemies are always
after him!"

John looked enviously at Authentio's lean, muscular fitness.
A month of walking! Well, the sooner they got started the better. It would have been pleasanter had Ponty been able to accompany them. Even though he irritated John, he was a reassuring sort of person to have around. But it was not to be.

"My work here is ended," the dragon said solemnly. "It gives
me a certain satisfaction to announce that I have fulfilled those
very grave responsibilities that were entrusted to me, and have
seen that the treasure is in the right hands. Gaal instructed me
to report to him in Bamah when my work was done. I shall
leave while there is still light."

"Ponty, why can't you just carry us all? It'd be a lot easier than
walking," John suggested.

"Young sir," replied the dragon, "I am a dragon, not a public
conveyance. I do not carry riders around as if I were a flying
horse. In any case, my scales are hard and meticulously polished. Riding a dragon is nothing like riding a horse. How
would you like to slide off my back and fall thousands of feet
to your deaths?"

It was not long thereafter that the dragon left, soaring into
the clear morning air as they waved and shouted good-by. Authentio turned to John and Eleanor. "The journey to the plateau above us is rugged and steep," he said. "There are no
paths, but once we are on the plateau it should not be difficult.
We must leave as soon as possible. It will not take Shagah or
his minions long to find us. After we reach my village, you two
will have to go on to Bamah. Perhaps I will be able to come
with you all the way-I'm not sure."

They set out an hour later. They left the jeweled orb in its
box, placing it with an iron key in a leather bag, which Eleanor,
in spite of the weight, carried over her shoulder. John carried
the book, which was heavier still. Authentio secured it to John's
shoulders with straps. He himself carried their other provisions
in two bundles suspended from the long pole which he carried
Chinese fashion over his shoulders. These contained a cooking
pot, tinders, provisions, a water bag, cords for snares and fish
hooks. His bow was slung across his back, while a quiver of arrows hung from his left shoulder.

Their first job was to climb out of the steep valley that walled
in the fjord. That was the difficult part, and at times both John
and Eleanor were nearly in despair, wondering how they would
ever survive a month of walking. Once they were free of the
rock face, they avoided the village by clambering steeply up
through the forest.

Authentio was cheerful and encouraged them. "This is
hard," he kept saying. "But it is only for today. Let us rest as
often as you wish." Shortly before sunset the trees became
thinner, and they ate their meal at the edge of the plateau
where there were fewer and smaller trees than those that
hugged the sides of the fjord. "Less rainfall up here," Authentio
said. What trees there were seemed to be gathered into copses.

They spent their first night in such a copse. Authentio found
a hollow for them and showed them the drifts of dry leaves that
could be found here and there. They made an unusual bed, but
since the hollow was deep, they were reasonably warm. But
neither John nor Eleanor slept much that night, and Authentio
snored.

After that their routine for the next two weeks scarcely varied.
The plateau was not perfectly flat (which was the way John had
always pictured them in his mind) but was a rolling grassy plain,
surrounded everywhere by distant snow-covered peaks. "It extends almost all the way to Bamah," Authentio told them. "Further on it becomes a desert, and after the desert it becomes
forested again." Authentio was expert in living off the land.
Small rabbitlike creatures abounded (cunies, Authentio called
them), and he laid snares for them at night, baking them in a
coat of mud and clay the next morning, so that their skin came
off with the baked clay once they had cooked in the fire. These
became their staple diet, along with a few birds, and abundant
berries and nuts, and occasional fish from the brackish ponds
and shallow lakes that littered the plateau.

Often he would tell them stories of Anthropos, but again and
again returned to the matter of Gaal and the Lord Lunacy. "It
happened in my grandfather's time," he said one day. "People
had forgotten about the Changer and were paying greater and
greater heed to sorcerers and wizards, consulting them and
giving them money. Then-and no one knows quite how it
happened, except that Shagah was responsible-their masters,
the Angeli, came. We think it was Shagah who brought the
Angeli down. They made slaves of half of the Regenskind and
the matmon."

"You mean they put that weird spell on them?" Eleanor
asked.

"Yes, my lady. That's how Bamah was built. They brought
many of them from their villages and put them to work."

"They are hard workers too," said John.

Eleanor said, "And I think they're really sweet."

"You've seen them?" John asked

"Like dwarfs. Or gnomes, you know? They're short and squat
and have long beards. And they live for ages!"

There was a long pause during which they continued to walk
over the uneven turf. Eventually John said slowly, "Shagah
brought the Angeli down. What does that mean?"

"My lord, I do not really understand what the words mean,"
Authentio said doubtfully. "Sometimes we say he called them
down. It has to do with the dark arts."

"Does that mean he has a lot of power?"

"He has always had more power than any of the other sorcerers. He kept discovering more ways to gain it, but I don't
believe he knew what he was doing, or where the power came
from. He was just experimenting with it. Then in the middle of
a new sorcery, the Angeli suddenly came sweeping down. It is
my belief that he called them down by accident. The Angeli
have a ruler, who also is here."

"You mean the Lord Lunacy?" John asked.

"How did you know?"

"I met him more than once when I was here last."

Authentio stared at John, his eyes wide with astonishment,
but for a few moments he said nothing. At length he murmured, "Lord Lunacy is a particular foe of Gaal. He has his
guards looking for him. But they have been instructed not to
arrest him-yet."

"You all keep talking about Gaal." John hesitated. "Who is he
exactly?"

Authentio shrugged. "He's a Regenskind."

"Where's he from?"

"Somewhere in Anthropos, my lord. I have no certain knowledge. It is said that he will break the power of the Lord Lunacy
in mortal combat. That is why he is his sworn foe."

"Is that what makes him so special?"

Authentio smiled broadly. "You would have to meet him
yourself, to talk with him, to look into his eyes." He shook his
head, still smiling, but would say no more.

So day after day went by. Soon the blisters they acquired in
the first two days healed, and their muscles no longer ached.
The weather remained mild, and they slept well under the stars
at night. Whenever they came to a lake, they would clean themselves up.

They grew to know and to enjoy Authentio. "How old are
you?" John asked him admiringly one morning.

"I have lived nineteen summers, my lord."

"Do you have a sweetheart?" Eleanor asked. (In Eleanor's
day, those in Canada talked about sweethearts and fiancees, not
girlfriends or boyfriends.)

Authentio was clearly puzzled. "What is that?"

"I mean, are you engaged or anything?"

"It has to do with marriage, my lady?" Authentio flushed a
little.

"Yes."

He smiled shyly. "The elders of my village will choose a wife
for me. I am to wait until I have completed twenty summers."

"Hm! I don't think I'd like that," Eleanor said. "I mean, I
wouldn't want someone to choose for me and make me marry."
The discussion that followed went on for an hour or two. "Do
you live alone or with your parents?" Eleanor asked at length.

"My father died two years ago. I live with my mother. People
call her the widow Illith."

"What's she like?"

"She is small and gentle. But she has the wisdom of the ages
locked beneath her little thatch of gray hair."

Gradually they forgot about Shagah as nature around them
and the clear air they breathed constantly invigorated and renewed their spirits. Evil and terror seemed distant and hard to
believe in. But their thirteenth night (Eleanor was sure it was
not a coincidence, but John said she was being silly) proved to
be terrifying.

In a small wooded area they had built a fire and had distributed themselves evenly around it to sleep. Sleep came quickly
and seemed to all of them to be deep and dreamless. It was
there that moonlight eventually rested on them. But the moonlight rested likewise on the sinister activity around them. Had
they been able to observe what was taking place, they would
have seen the elm trees waking and stretching their sleepy
limbs. Then they would have seen the slow approach of the
elms, elms that from all sides waded across patches of moonlight and shadow toward the sleepers. The trees had pulled
their roots up a little from the earth so that now partly clear,
they looked like people wading in deep water. They moved
slowly and ponderously toward the trio.

They sang soothingly as they came, in a low, moaning chant,
to which the rest of the forest trees responded, some with creakings and others with groaning. An oak tree nearby groaned,
"Waken, young ones, waken, waken lest death surprise you!" John stirred, turned over and went on sleeping. He was cold,
but neither the cold nor the sounds awoke him. Other trees
slowly bent their boughs, straining at their own roots as if to
intercept and impede the elms. The forest was aroused, awake
and in urgent motion. But since only the elm trees were free
to wade through the earth, their progress toward the three
sleepers was unhindered.

Or almost so. Two or three times there were clashes of bough
against bough, as oak or fir or beech bent forward to seize the
moving elms with their own limbs. But the elms would bend
backward, sometimes almost to the ground, evading the grasp
of the older trees.