Quest for the King (23 page)

"Sure. That's exactly what he does. That's what everybody does.
Him too."

"Who, Mary? You were not talking of Gaal, surely."

"I sure was!"

"That's what he does! Don't let him fool you!"

Lady Roelane drew a deep breath in again. "Mary, something must
have happened-you would not be talking like this without a cause.
Tell me why you think Gaal `uses' people."

"It would take a long time."

"We have all the time you need. We do not even have to finish
talking today, so start telling me the whole story."

Mary sighed. For several minutes she said nothing, and then, just
as Lady Roelane had done, she took a deep breath. "O.K It's like this.
I used to be ugly-even uglier than I am now."

"Mary, that is absurd. You are not ugly, and you must not say that
you are. It is not true. You have the loveliest eyes, especially when they
are not troubled. Sometimes they are extraordinarily beautiful."

"I'm fat. An' Lisa keeps bugging me about it."

"Lisa?"

"Lisa Friesen. I live at Uncle John's with the Friesens."

"Well, possibly you are heavier than you need to be, but that does
not make you ugly."

"Only thin people are beautiful in our world."

"Then it is a world of great folly, not a world in which I would care
to live. There must be a lot of needless suffering in it if you are
despised because you are too heavy."

"You're thin!"

"But I hope I do not remain thin! I want to bear children. And after
childbearing I will be buxom."

"Buxom?"

Lady Roelane laughed. "Fat-at any rate, fatter than I am now!"

Mary thought for a moment, then said, "Well, kids used to make fun
of me, especially for my zits-pimples, y'know, an' the witch promised
to make me beautiful."

"And did she?"

"Oh-did she ever!"

"Tell me about it."

Mary told how the witch had given her three horrid crystals to
swallow that made her very beautiful. But as she admired herself in
a mirror the witch had told her to stay away from, someone else
appeared there who mocked her. Rather than seeing a reflection, it
was more like looking through a window. It scared Mary deeply.

Lady Roelane thought, and then said, "I do not think it was a girl
on the far side of the mirror, but some kind of spirit being, perhaps
a shadow spirit."

Mary nodded. "I know. I just didn't want to say it."

"And do you mean that you trusted the witch after that?"

Mary shook her head. "All I wanted to do was to get away from her.
You can't trust witches either." She paused, and the tone of her voice
changed completely. "No-you can't trust anyone, not anyone! I trust
you. You're nice, but, well, you're too innocent, too ready to trust people."

"You mean I trust Gaal."

"Yeah. See, I trusted him. But I don't trust anyone now. Not anyone.
Gaal should have left me my Uncle John. I'll never trust him again."

"You will not trust witches and sorcerers?"

"Of course not. I trust ME, you know, like Julie Andrews sings in
The Sound of Music, `I have confidence in me!' "

Lady Roelane shook her head. She placed her hands on Mary's
shoulders and looked into her eyes, still shaking her head. "I have
never met a girl like you, Mary. Some older people, yes! But that
someone who is little more than a child should talk as you do ..."

"I've learned from real life," Mary said. "An' I'm smart Everyone
says I have a high I.Q. Well, I'm gonna use it to get what I want. An'
nobody, not even you, is going to stop me."

"Mary, you amaze me! As for me, I may not be quite so innocent
as you think. I have reasons for trusting Gaal, and the last person I
would ever trust is myself. In this life you have to trust someone bigger
and stronger than yourself, because if you serve Gaal-and even if
you do not-the elemental spirits of the universe are far stronger than
you. Believe me, Mary, the spirit world is powerful, far more powerful
than any human being."

Mary said, "But if you can't trust either side, then you have no
choice. Who else is there to trust but myself-me?"

Lady Roelane continued as if she had not heard. "Think of the
mirror and the spirit behind it. How did it get there? Did you really
think you could get away with keeping that false beauty?"

"Gaal wouldn't let me keep it anyway. He was jealous."

"Oh, Mary, it is not that way. Either you serve Gaal or you serve the
Lords of Shadows. That is the only choice you have. You simply have
to serve someone. Take your pick."

She raised her eyebrows. "I'll just have to take my chances." She
shrugged, suppressing her terror.

Lady Roelane shook her head. "Mary, Mary-you do not know how
lovely Gaal is."

"Sure I do. At least, I know how lovely he can seem. I sobbed my eyes out after seeing that thing behind the mirror. I was scared just
like when I came in here. An' then Gaal came. Oh, it was so lovely!"

Her thoughts seemed far away, and Lady Roelane continued to
look at her, waiting for her to go on. "He took me somewhere," Mary
resumed, "I dunno where it was, mebbe here in Anthropos. I was
sitting at the foot of a tree at night an' he started to produce the
northern lights. I've never seen them so clearly, only suddenly it
wasn't just the northern lights anymore."

"What was it?"

"It was-spirits-dancing in the sky." She struggled for words.
"Huge spirits leaping and turning somersaults in what he said was
worship. Or was it me who saw it that way?"

"If he said so, then it was."

"... an' it went on, and on, and on. Then dawn came, a dawn like
no other dawn I'd ever seen. An' the sun rose. We walked together
and the stones were leaping round his feet. I heard a tree weeping
for joy, because he was there ..."

Mary's face was alight for a moment before bitterness and sadness
swept over her. "He said the same sort of things you are saying."

"Why can you not trust him, Mary?"

"Because he's not to be trusted."

" Y? 99

"Because he doesn't give you power. An' I need power. You can get
power out of the other side. Mind you it's risky, and you can't play safe.
But I'll just have to take my chances." A noble sort of feeling was
filling her, a feeling that she was someone lifting her head before a
cruel universe. She was pitifully small, but bold and unafraid.

"Gaal gives power, Mary. He gives it to all his people."

"You have to do whatever he says to get power from him. He makes
it conditional. " She felt proud of the word.

"No, Mary, he gives it as a free gift. You do not even have to be
good just forgiven."

Mary shook her head. "It may seem like that, but it's not."

"Mary, what would you do if you had lots and lots of power? What would you do with all that power?"

"I'd make sure nobody would boss me around. I'd do whatever I
wanted."

"Bad things? Good things?"

"There's no difference?"

"I see. So just what would you do?"

Mary thought. "Well, I wouldn't mind bossing some people
around!"

"Some people? How many?"

Mary giggled. "Mebbe I'd have a crack at ruling the universe!"

"Seriously?"

"Why not? It would be fun!"

"Do you think Gaal would allow that? He seems to think that he and
the Emperor rule."

Mary's face changed. "Gaal again. Look, I wouldn't want to have
anything to do with Gaal. I'd be in charge of my little area-I have
a right to live life the way I want! Surely I can do that! I'll go my way
an' he can go his!"

"And if he chose not to let you? Could you take him on, Mary?"

The bitterness flooded Mary again. "He's come to me twice since
I've been here. He says horrible things about my real mother. He says
he brought me here, an' that I didn't come by my own magic. He says
he'll never let me go."

"And is the risk worth the terror you have experienced more than
once already?"

A light began to flood the room, and both of them saw it. Mary
leaped to her feet. "If this is him ..."

The light continued to grow. A shape was becoming apparent inside it, and Mary's face flushed. "GO AWAY!" she shrieked. "Go
away-an' NEVER COME BACK!"

Slowly the figure became less distinct. The light began to fade, and
then disappeared altogether.

Silence filled the room, and Mary herself stood wordless for some
time. When next she spoke, her tone revealed none of her feelings. "Mebbe he'll not come back-ever again."

That night Mary dreamed the most vivid and lovely dream she had
ever dreamed. At least it began as a lovely dream. Lovely would not
have been the best word to describe it as it went on. She was on a
sailing ship, like the vessel on which she had once sailed on the
amazing voyage from Mirmah's kingdom back to the Playsion harbor
of Chalash. But there was no crew now. Mary was alone on a ship that
sailed across an inconceivably blue sea, one whose waters reflected
the deep shades of the sky above her head. The ship sailed by magic,
its sails billowing in an unfelt breeze, and left a wake of boiling white
to fade into the sea behind. The sun warmed her, while a light breeze
from ahead cooled her. Only the solitude gave her the faintest feeling
that all was not perfect. It would have been nicer to have someone.

"The Friesen kids must be somewhere around. Surely King Kardia
must be on board, or Tiqvah-or somebody."

She made her way below decks, wandering down empty corridors,
through vast unoccupied holds, into cabins where beds were perfectly
made. But no, there was not a soul on board. The more she wandered,
the lonelier she grew. And as she wandered, she knew that there was
someone she specially wanted to find, but whom at the same time she
feared to find. Yet on she searched, looking for the one she both
desired and dreaded. While she wandered, she grew aware that the
gentle swaying of the swells had increased considerably. Soon she was
losing her balance, stumbling against the bulkheads. She fought her
way up to the deck again and found the scene had changed.

Most of the sails had been furled by an invisible hand, and instead
of running before a gentle breeze, the ship was now running into an
ever more furious gale. Still driven by an unseen power, the ship was
surging into the wind. Ahead of them, the sky was covered by a black
cloud that seemed intent on destroying everything in its path. Mary
bent her head, leaning into the wind that threatened to sweep her off
her feet. It came in swirling gusts, so that one moment she was fighting her way into it, and the next was running forward to maintain her balance as it slackened.

In the dream her feelings deepened and intensified, engulfing her
from the inside out She spread her arms to the wind as though she
were trying to hug it, crying aloud, "I never realized it till now. I love
you, love you!" Tears streamed down her cheeks as she sobbed again
and again, "I'm scared of you, and I thought I hated you, but I don't.
I love you! Oh, I love you so much!"

She moved to the bow of the vessel, as far forward as she could get.
The vast black bank of clouds rapidly approached the ship, and dark,
mountainous waves rose ahead of them, ascending to a terrifying
height. Mary's body shook, and her muscles turned to water. The first
wave rose high above them and then crashed down on the deckcrushing her under its appalling weight, choking her as she tried to
breathe, chilling her to the bone. The weight pressed her into the
timbers of the deck, and swept her helplessly backward to smash
against the mainmast.

Coughing and spluttering, bruised and bleeding, she struggled to
her feet, only to see a second wave, vaster by far than the first, a
veritable mountain of a wave, bearing down on them. Yet she spread
her arms to welcome it. How she loved that wave! Greater than the chill
of the icy wave was the great burning inside her, a burning she could
no longer control, a burning that made her cry out, "Come to me!
Come and destroy me if that's what it takes! I don't care anymore! I
love you, love you! I didn't know it. You're all I want!" She knew now
that Gaal was in the storm, in some mysterious way was the storm. And
though the storm terrified her more than anything she had ever seen
or experienced, her love for him as she now saw him-even as a
storm-made her careless of death itself.

The mountain of water fell, smashing the ship and turning it to
matchwood. There was no deck left beneath her, and her life was
being pressed out by the water itself. She could not breathe against
the blackness that shrouded her.

Then came a great stillness. "I guess I'm dead," she thought.

She woke at that moment to find herself back in her bed. In the faint gray of the dawn, she could perceive the outline of the guard
house beyond the courtyard. She sat up, shivering a little in the cold,
the emotion of the dream still churning inside her. She began to weep
in quiet despair, with no sobs this time.

The dream needed no interpretation. "I didn't know I loved him,"
she said miserably. "The dream was dead on. 'Cos deep down I really
do love him. I know now. I'd do anything for him, go anywhere. I was
crazy to say he uses people. But now it's too late. I told him to go and
never come back. "

She wrapped her arms round her knees, hugging them to herself.
Finally, in quiet desperation, she sighed. "Well, I don't care. I'll go an'
see the sorcerers today. There's nothing left now. Mebbe that's what
I meant to do in the end."