Quest for the King (40 page)

"There is no place of perfect safety. I still debate in my mind the
wisdom of leaving the little king there. As far as I know, all the servants are loyal. But if even one of them is not, then all our work is
in vain. As it is, one unguarded word or action, and Ashleigh would
be swarming with the king's soldiers."

The prophet sighed. New lines of weariness showed in his muchwrinkled face. His eyes were deep-sunk and fatigued. "I wish I had
all knowledge, but I do not. No. There will be no absolute safety for
any of us now. We are committed to our plans, which are right, but
beyond the little king himself, no one's survival can now be guaranteed."

The company reached Ashleigh as darkness fell. They left the young
king, his parents, Shiyrah and Lady Roelane there before proceeding
to attack the temple. The queen, Lisa and Mary were to be part of the
task force-Lisa, since she was essential to its success, and Mary,
because she insisted on accompanying Lisa.

Lady Roelane worried about Mary, and said to the colonel, "She is
a child! You will be exposing her to very great danger!"

He replied, "Yes, but Risano visited me during the day as I slept.
He will be present at the battle, but invisible, and will protect all four
children from harm. He told me to arm the girls. It is the Emperor's
idea, apparently, that they gain confidence in combat. I will see to it
that both girls are armed with short swords and scabbards."

When they forded the Rure they were haunted by the cries of the
Qadar, but never once did they have the least suspicion that their own
movements were spotted by them. They settled in a forest clearing, where they rested and ate their meal as the sun rose. They were to
make the attempt on the temple that night.

The prophet addressed them while they ate. "The word of the
Emperor came to me as we traveled. The king's army has set out to
travel south, believing you are hiding somewhere near Karsch. Word
has reached them of the way you have dealt with the three units
dispatched to find you, and the army chiefs are alarmed at your power."

Colonel Integredad's eyes, weary with the responsibility of their
safety, lit up with joy. "Wonderful!" he cried.

"Wonderful indeed. However, your movements were spotted by a
peasant, who will tell them soon enough that you seem to be on your
way to Bamah."

"Which means the army will return-perhaps soon," the queen said
quietly.

"Possibly so, your majesty," the colonel said. "But clearly the army
will not have arrived by tomorrow night. We shall strike first!"

"You will still have the goblins to cope with," the prophet added,
"but you will defeat them."

"That's terrific!" Kurt enthused.

Wesley, his eyes shining, said, "Yeah. Though we may meet the
goblins, and will have the Qadar to deal with! Our cover will be over
then."

The moon rode high in the heavens as Colonel Integredad, well
ahead of his troops, approached the Bamah bridge with care. He
knew their watches from long experience, and knew that they drank
strong Bamah wine from a barrel by the guard house. He also knew
the officer in the guard house who, like the sentries on watch, drank
more than his share.

Integredad had planned well but was still anxious. Had the bright
young subaltern he had sent ahead succeeded in drugging the selltries' wine? Or had he been caught and killed? Expertly he reconnoitered, watching carefully, trying to spot the sentries. His mood lifted as he made them out, slumped over tables at each end of the bridge.
The subaltern had done his job well-and the next change of watch
was four hours away.

At that moment the subaltern himself quietly joined him. Standing
full in the moonlight and grinning, he asked, "Satisfied, sir? I have
bound and gagged them!"

"I am more than satisfied! You have done an excellent job, Grimeldo!"

The task force soon joined them, and the colonel signaled for the
troops to follow him across the bridge. Then, making sure that I1sa
was at his side, he ordered the troops to keep well under the high
bank of the Rure as they made their way north, lest they be spotted
from the city. They noted the low level of the Rure, where dried and
cracked mud spoke of the drought.

After they rounded a bend in the river, the colonel, the queen, Lisa
and Mary (who wanted to stay with Lisa) moved away from the bank
to find the forked tree-if it still was there. But they discovered a
difficulty-the banks were covered with an abundance of brambles,
pouring their thorns in cascades over them.

Lisa's heart beat suffocatingly. The banks looked very different. "It's
got to be around here somewhere, but I can see no forked tree. It used
to be clear. Everything was bare then." Her voice was hoarse and
shaky.

The queen looked at her sharply and seized her hands. "Why, you
are trembling, child! And your hands are cold!" She began to rub
Lisa's hands with her own. "This is hard for her, Colonel!"

Colonel Integredad nodded. "But essential, your majesty."

"You say it was a spot not unlike this?" the queen asked.

Lisa nodded. "But there's no forked tree. The opening was under
a bare forked tree-a sort of skeleton."

"Look again at the city walls," the colonel said kindly. "Do not
hurry. We still have a fair amount of time. You could try sayingwhatever it is you say-all along the bank."

Lisa did not know whether the words would work.

"Why not say them here?" he asked.

In a rather faint voice, Mary said, "Open in the name of Gaal!"

There was a pause. Nothing happened. Lisa knew the soldiers
would be looking at her. "Try again, dear, only louder."

Lisa took a deep breath. This time she almost shouted the words.
But there was no response. Hopelessness began to numb her inside,
and her mind seemed to be wrapped in fog. Her eyes glazed, and she
began to feel unreal. She followed the colonel and the queen further
north as though she were dreaming. She tried the command a second,
then a third time, but with no success.

A fourth time when the queen asked her she shook her head. "It
is not going to work," she said tearfully. "I-I must have offended
Gaal or something."

The queen pulled her to herself and held her. A moment later she
said, "Somehow I do not think so. Perhaps the shadows and their
spirits are having a crack at you. Anyway, tryjust once again-and let
it ring out!"

Again Lisa drew in a big breath. At the top of her lungs she yelled, "Open in the name of Gaal!"

This time it was different. Even as she shouted, Lisa felt something
happening inside and around her. She gasped, "It-it was real that
time! Something happened, I know it did!"

Yet, as far as they could see, nothing had. Yet all Lisa's uncertainty
seemed to have lifted off her like mist. "I know we can't see anything,"
she said, frowning a little, "But something just must have happenedthis time it was real!"

"There it is! Look a bit further up river!" Colonel Integredad cried. "I saw a wide gap open up in the bank! It is good you yelled, because
it is about a hundred yards further on."

They hurried their way up the river then, scrambling up the bank
and hacking at brambles with their swords. But swing as they might
with their sharp blades, they could make no dent in the brambles.

The queen nodded to herself. "I suspected as much. This is witchcraft. The brambles are not real. The Lord of Shadows does not know for certain that the entrance comes out by the river-they are much
more suspicious of the palace. But they determined that if it should
happen to be here, we would not find it."

"I might have a solution," said Lord Nasa of Chereb.

"Oh?"

"I entrusted the Sword of Geburah to Wesley, and I suspect he
could easily cut through the thorns. Like the Sword Bearer, he comes
from a world afar. Try your luck on them, Wesley!"

Wesley took the sword, and as Lord Nasa had suspected, he hardly
needed to use force, slicing his way toward the tunnel as easily and
effortlessly as if he merely were letting his body fall into a pool. The
brambles shrank bank, dissolving themselves as he advanced so that
a wide swath soon appeared between the tunnel and the river bank.

They led their horses up the bank, then mounted them and trotted
into the opening. Once inside, Lisa called "Close, close in the name
of Gaal!"

Colonel Integredad grinned hugely. "Excellent!" he cried. "And as
far as I can-tell, not a soul knows we are here!"

"Further in, there's a chasm with a log crossing it," Kurt said. "Uncle
John told us about it-and Lisa, you crossed it, didn't you? Its a bit
scary."

Lisa nodded. Now that her trial was over, she glowed with joy and
relief. They left the horses in charge of three or four of the soldiers
on the river side of the canyon.

From that point they proceeded on foot to the chasm. Lisa remembered how long and narrow the log was that bridged the canyon. She
was delighted and surprised to find that the span was now wide
enough for three soldiers to walk abreast. Why this was so she did not
know, but thanked the Emperor just the same.

Sooner than they realized, they reached the entrance to the temple.
It was part of the ornate carvings on the stone pillar. Lisa knew from
Uncle John's stories that though the wall of the pillar was very thick,
you could press the carving of the rose and a door to the temple would
open. She pressed the rose. To her relief, the door swung wide, and the entire task force poured into the dimness of the temple. The
column door swung back into place with a hollow boom.

For a moment they stood still, taking stock of their surroundings.
Moonlight flooded through high windows, revealing pillared and
empty temple spaces. The temple had no proper entrance. The far
end was simply a huge arched opening. It framed a moonlit altar on
a mound, creating the illusion that the altar was actually in the temple
entrance. It was in fact a hundred yards further into the open.

And there they saw dense masses of goblins crowding the mound. "The ones we encountered," said the prophet "You will fight themand by all means hate them, for they are the essence of Shadows. But
do not hate the king's soldiers, for they are merely deceived."

The colonel glanced at the queen, raising his eyebrows. "With your
majesty's permission?"

"Proceed with your plans, Colonel. If you have no objection, I will
stay beside you and, if it should prove necessary, fight at your side.
In the meantime, please give your orders."

"Very well, men. You all know your assigned tasks. Carry on!"

Unnoticed by the distant goblins, some of the soldiers seized barrels
of sacred anointing oils for the incense lamps and began systematically spraying the walls and temple furniture-pouring it in abundance at the base of the walls and the many wooden pillars.

Meanwhile, Duke Dukraz, Lieutenant Kosti and Lord Nasa, along
with a platoon of soldiers, established a guard around the pillar to
secure their line of retreat From the pillar, ranks of soldiers extended
behind the colonel, the queen and the children as they hurried to the
entrance.

And there the goblins spotted them, and their plan of attack
crumbled. The goblins rushed en masse to the temple, filling the area
with astonishing rapidity and numbers.

It was like being caught in a panicking football crowd, as those in
front were pushed forward by those behind. At first the goblins
seemed leaderless and showed no inclination to fight, but the colonel's party struggled merely to hold their ground against the crush. Goblins got in the way of the men preparing the fire, and members
of the task force began to lose sight of one another. The ranks holding the line forward of the pillar were disintegrated, broken up by the
sheer weight and pressure of goblin numbers. Within less than a
minute after the colonel gained the open archway, the goblins were
packed densely both inside the temple and outside it.