Gaal the Conqueror

by John White

  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."

  On the fifth day Pontificater, having been absent for several hours, returned to Bamah with the news that he had seen Gaal and that he had sent a message for John, Eleanor, Mab and Authentio. Pontificater was to take them to meet Gaal on the other side of the River Rure at sunset. And so it was.

  Gaal was waiting for them with a calm smile on his face. John cleared his throat. His face was flushed and he sounded apol ogetic. "I-I hope it doesn't sound ungrateful," he said, "but when do we go back to Canada?"

  "It is good that you ask. For the hour has come. Come with me to the hole where time is no more."

  He led them some distance away to a cave. Once inside they became aware of a rocky stairway that ascended to a wide opening in the roof of the cave. Though it was now dark outside, intense blue light fell round them from the opening. The light was like the falling of rain or snow, bathing and covering them. They began to glow, growing brighter every minute. First the glow was on the tops of their heads and their shoulders, resting on them like snow, but eventually it seemed to be all over them and even to be passing through them.

  "Whatever-?" Eleanor began.

  "This is the hole where time is no more," Gaal said.

  "Ah, yes! Time. A most interesting concept." Pontificater began.

  But Gaal had not finished. "It is here that we must part our ways." For a rare moment, Authentio's face fell.

  A tingle of excitement r
an up and down John's shining body, and he glanced up at his father. "Hope you change back-I mean, change back to being Dad, not Mab, when we leave!" he whispered. He noticed that Eleanor also stood close to his father.

  "Why is it called the hole where time is no more?" she asked, slipping her hand into the free hand of the seer.

  Gaal smiled. "It is a hole that links us with different times and even with a total absence of time. And through it we all must pass-" (a startled whinny escaped Pontificater) "-all, that is, except my loyal servant, Pontificater, and the good Authentio who has much yet to do for me in Anthropos." He turned to the beautiful winged horse. "I shall need you too-yes, and your descendants after you, throughout the history of Anthropos. The others will have to return to the place they came from, just as I return to mine."

  A strange and dreamy excitement seemed to possess them all. They stared up into the opening, beyond which they could see nothing but the falling light. Something seemed to be happening to time itself. Sometimes John thought that half an hour would pass between the time one person stopped speaking and the next person began. And at other times it seemed as though the whole conversation took place in a split second.

  But he was too excited and too dreamy to worry about the changing speed of time. He simply wondered at its strangeness. Movements seemed to take place with infinite slowness, though sometimes they took no time at all. He raised his own hand in front of him, wondering both at the glow that came from it and at the eternity it seemed to take to get from his side to a point level with his shoulder. He came to the conclusion that it was not actually moving slowly but that he was intensely aware of every microsecond of its ascent Yet when he decided to lower it, it seemed not to take any time at all. In fact it seemed to be at his side already, without having descended, so that he wondered whether he had actually raised it or had just dreamed that he had raised it.

  Gaal turned to John and to Eleanor. "Thank you for serving me here," he said with a warm smile. The smile was real, and it warmed John's heart. The voice seemed to echo a hundred times, adding to the dreamy sensation which he found impossible to shake. "You learned your lessons well and served me faithfully. You'll both be back someday to serve me again."

  "When?" John asked, his own voice also seeming too distant from him.

  "That," Gaal replied smiling, "is a matter of my secret counsels. You will know soon enough. And here-" he held out a small shining ball, no larger than a marble, to John.

  "It's a pross stone," John said delightedly. "Why are you giving it to me?"

  "Never mind. It will accomplish my purpose in ways you would never suspect." John stared at the little thing in the palm of his hand.

  Gaal smiled at Ian McNab. "As for you," he said, "you will henceforth serve me in the world you were born in."

  His smile extended to them all. "Now follow me," he said, turning to mount the rocky stairway. "I will go first. Wait on the rim of the hole and watch me until you lose sight of me. When your time comes to enter it, you will know what to do."

  They followed, their movements like the movements of dreamers. Ponty and Authentio brought up the rear. They found the rim Gaal spoke of and sat on it, dangling their legs back in the cave. Pontificater had to be content with poking his head through the hole. They could see nothing at first and were aware only of a blue mist and of one another's glowing bodies. But when Gaal stood on the rim and seemed to step into the mist it parted at once. A stairway of clear, shining sapphire soared upward to what seemed an infinite height. As they watched him Gaal began to climb.

  What followed was difficult to understand. None of them referred to it for years And all of them seem to have experienced it differently, though (and this is more confusing still) they would indignantly deny this if you put it to them like that. What is clear is that it had to do with Gaal, and what happened as they stared at him climbing the stairs.

  For John it was a story.

  A story you saw, John?

  Sort of-but oh, it was beautiful, so very, very beautiful.

  But you saw the story when you looked at Gaal?

  Sort of. It's hard to describe. It made me laugh and cry at the same time. But it didn't last long.

  How long did it last?

  Well, no time at all, actually. But that's the hard part to describe. You see, it was a very long story, tremendously long in fact. Yet it took no time to tell. I saw it-heard it in a flash. It was just there so to speak, like a scent, you know-a sort of smell ...

  Eleanor's account was equally puzzling. She tried to explain it years later and I was there, doing my best to understand.

  I was just watching him climb the stairway, as though he was music.

  As though he was music? I thought he was a person.

  Yes, of course, he is. I'm only telling you what happened. I sort of heard him, like a sound, such a beautiful, beautiful sound.

  You mean a note?

  Oh, not just one-many notes, hundreds of notes.

  What sort of notes?

  Oh, trumpets! Yes, trumpets-the long, silver kind. And the sound was like horses, lots and lots of horses. I just cried and cried.

  Like the thunder of many horses galloping?

  Well, yes-I mean, no-it wasn't really like that at all.

  But you could see the trumpets and the horses?

  No, no-I heard the sound. Gaal's sound.

  And Gaal was there all the time?

  Yes, of course he was. I was hearing him.

  And you could see him?

  Not really. I was hearing him more than seeing him. You can't see hundreds of notes.

  And how long did this go on?

  For years and years. I know that makes no sense. But that's how it was. It was beautiful.

  Perhaps the intervening years had made her forget what it was really like, though they were clear enough in their description of what followed next. The mists swirled in and then cleared again, and as like a curtain they swept aside, the three Canadians drew in a breath of surprise and relief. Before them was the starlit expanse of Black Sturgeon Lake with the windswept patches of snow separating areas of black ice. And the snow-clothed jack pines on the rocky shore seemed to call to them with the call of home.

  "Look, Ponty, that's where we live! Wouldn't you like to come with us?" Eleanor cried.

  He shook his horsey head. "Deeply as I-ahem-appreciate, er, how shall I say it ... ?"

  John who was nearest to him threw his arms round the gleaming horse's neck. "Don't bother. We understand. Anyway Gaal wants you. We'll sure miss you."

  Eleanor, also hugged his neck, and for once in his life, Pontificater could find no words. Likewise silent farewells were exchanged with Authentio with whom they had shared so much.

  They might have stayed there a long time, but Ian McNab's voice suddenly rang out in alarm. "The mists are closing again! Quick-grab my hands!"

  He tugged them through a misty curtain and at once their feet were planted on the same thin patch of snow from which they had left for Anthropos. The cave was gone. Ponty was gone. Authentio was gone too. Only the forest-fringed sweep of the lake remained. Their bodies glowed no longer, and their clothes were the clothes they had worn before they set out. Suddenly it seemed as though they had never left, as though they were taking up Canadian life exactly where they had left it. Which was precisely what they were doing.

  Eleanor giggled. "I'm little again," she said, "but that's OX I don't mind. But don't you boss me around, John McNab!"

  John was still clutching the pross stone. "I wonder why he gave it to me," he puzzled. Years passed before he found out.

  Slowly they began to make their way to the shore.

  And that really brings the story to an end. Eleanor went to stay in Winnipeg with her mother's sister, a woman she loved very dearly. Her mother often came to see her. Two years later her father died in a tragic accident, and her mother moved to Winnipeg where the three of them continued to live happily together.

  She
and John did return to Anthropos but not for many, many years. That, however, is part of another story altogether. If ever I have time, I'll write it all down.