The Dark Lord's Demise

by John White

  He flipped his fingers in a gesture toward the back of the room. Guards in dark tunics seized the children and dragged them toward the door where the old man had disappeared. The next moments were chaos. Their captors forced them down a dim corridor past a row of barred doors. From behind the doors came violent curses, bewildered questions and demands for freedom. The further they went, the more miserable and desperate were the calls. Abruptly one of the guards pulled the girls to a stop, while another urged the boys on down the dark hallway. Lisa screamed out, "Wes! Kurt!" but they were gone.

  Lisa felt the bonds come off her hands at last. She rubbed her wrists and enjoyed her freedom for a couple of seconds before rough hands hurled her into a dank foul-smelling space. She stumbled and fell against it slimy wall. Quickly she pushed herself away and nearly tripped over Betty, who had landed on her hands and knees on it skimpy layer of straw.

  A clanging sound caused Lisa to turn and see that she and Betty were in a cell with a barred door. Torches flamed in wall brackets in the corridor outside. They sent uneven waves of light and shadow across the mildewed walls. Metal jangled against metal. A jailer with deep lines in his face had just locked the girls in. He rattled a heavy ring filled with keys as though they proved his importance.

  Lisa grabbed the bars of the cell door. Again she felt like an actress in a bad movie, but she didn't care. "What's going to happen to us?" she demanded.

  The jailer looked at her with a mix of scorn and amusement. "Killed a swarm of flying monsters, did you? You look too young for a feat like that."

  "I didn't! My brother Wes did it! I mean, he didn't know what he was doing!" Lisa held onto the bars tighter and tried to think what to say and how much to say. Anything that sounded like a confession-or an implication of Wes-would be dangerous.

  The jailer glanced left and right along the corridor. He leaned closer to the bars. "If your brother did what you say, he's a brave man. I was put on duty once guarding the royal hives. Never was more terrified. Give me a battle with a boarwartz any day."

  Lisa sensed a possible ally. She leaned closer to the bars and lowered her voice. "Can you tell me what will happen to us?"

  The jailer stepped away from the door, pulled out a small knife and cleaned under his filthy fingernails. "Cases like yours are brought to trial fairly quick. The queen has no patience for treachery and treason."

  Betty scrambled to her feet and grabbed the bars next to Lisa. "They can't convict us, can they? There may be enough evidence against Wes, but not the rest of us. Least of all me! I never planned to come here. I never heard of this place before!" Betty's voice rose to near hysteria.

  Lisa took hold of her companion's arm and said, "Take it easy! Screaming won't help!" Lisa apologized to the jailer. "Sorry, you'll have to forgive my-my neighbor here." (She couldn't bring herself to call Betty "friend.") "Please, could we send a message to my two brothers? I'm sure they're in a cell nearby."

  The jailer snorted a laugh. "Do you take me for an idiot? III was caught, they'd have my head."

  "Well, we certainly wouldn't want that, " Lisa assured him. She hoped he meant it figuratively.

  "I'll tell you one thing." The jailer put away his knife and leaned in close to the bars. "Don't try to escape. If you're caught, they'll have your heads." He drew his forefinger slowly across his throat. Lisa recalled how the soldier at the city gate used the same gesture for any farmer who harbored the king's bees. She shivered. After all that she had witnessed so far in Nephesh, this time she knew to take the warning literally.

  Distant voices and the clang of metal on metal drifted down the corridor from the direction in which Wes and Kurt had disappeared. The jailer glanced toward the sounds, mumbled something about supper and left. Now nothing moved in the corridor except the unpredictable dance of the torchlight. The jailer had hardly been a comfort, but without him Lisa felt lonely and lost.

  Betty let out a tragic wail. "I hope he meant supper for us and not just for himself!" She glared at Lisa. "So this is your wonderful land of Anthropos. I think it's rotten!"

  "Right now, so do I," Lisa admitted. "Something's very wrong. It's like justice and fairness don't exist anymore. I can't imagine Tigvah reigning in a kingdom of injustice." She scratched her head. Already she felt little creepy things crawling over her. She hoped it was her imagination. "People seem to talk about this Queen Hisschi more than about King Tiqvah. I wonder if the queen runs things."

  Betty growled, "I hate this place. It's your fault I'm here. I wasn't doing anything but minding my own business."

  "You were fooling around with the Sword of Geburah! Not to mention trespassing in our attic! And by the way, if you hadn't smarted off to the Commander, he wouldn't have blown up at us and thrown us in here!"

  "I didn't smart off. I told the truth. I decided the stings weren't real and-"

  Lisa covered her ears. "Never mind! I don't want to hear it. Come on, let's sit down. If we can find anywhere decent to sit." The girls sat on the least dirty straw they could find, which was still filthy. Betty hugged her knees and sniffled. In it moment she asked, "What had that old guy done that was so terrible?"

  "I have a funny feeling he didn't do anything. I think it was a false charge like ours. Maybe he offended the wrong people, and somebody's out to get him. Listen, I'm-I'm sorry I got mad at you about what you said to the Commander. I forget that you don't know how Anthropos works and how Gaal summons us here."

  Betty scooted away from Lisa. "Gaal, Schmall! I'm tired of hearing about Gaal! If he's so great, why doesn't he show up right now and get us out of here?"

  Lisa sighed. "I agree with that. But listen, I think he will show up and help us. Remember when we were out on the lake on the raft, and I said I saw fog? I'm sure Gaal was there. He came close to let us know he's with us."

  "Oh yeah? Then how come I couldn't see him?"

  "Probably because you don't know him yet. Of course, Wes and Kurt didn't see the fog either. I can't explain that. But I know Gaal was there." Lisa looked around the miserable cell. A new thought came into her mind. It sent a warm feeling through her. "You know, in a way, he's here with us right now-even though we can't see him."

  "He's here? You mean he's invisible?" Betty sat up straight and glanced all around at the cell walls. She looked scared and excited at the same time. Lisa thought about Gaal right there, unseen, and it made her a little scared and excited too. Betty asked, "So what's he going to do?"

  "I don't know. Whatever it is, it'll be the right thing. And at the right time." She frowned. "I think the big question isn't what Gaal is going to do-he'll take care of that-but what are we going to do Lisa forced herself to shift a little closer to Betty. "See, Gaal and the Changer never summon Wes and Kurt and me unless we have a mission here, a job to do. I know something is wrong in Anthropos. The way Charaban pleaded his innocence and they didn't even look at his papers. The way everybody's suspicious of everybody."

  Slowly Betty said, "So this Changer wants you to fix all that." She looked straight at Lisa and asked rather sharply, "Do you believe you can?"

  "Sure! Well, maybe not all of it. We can't make every problem disappear the way our bee stings disappeared. Which reminds me, what were you talking about when you said you can decide things aren't real?"

  Again Betty's mood altered. She became upbeat and positive. "It has to do with our powers to change what's real. All of us make what's real-or unmake it. I learned about it from some girls at my other school where we lived before. We had our own group. We studied things like that. I became sort of an expert, if I do say so myself. After it while the others looked to me as the leader."

  Lisa didn't want to listen to Betty brag about her influence and popularity. Still, they needed some diversion from this miserable cell. "So what kinds of things did you and your group dot"

  Betty settled down on the straw. Now she was on familiar ground. "Well, we all believed that nothing has to stay the way it is or the way it seems. We believed that we have
all power inside us to change the world. Do you know what I mean?"

  "No. You're talking nonsense." Lisa dismissed Betty's ideas with a toss of her head. Change the world? Sure, there were things Lisa wanted to see changed. If she could snap her fingers and keep her family together, that would be great. It doesn't work that way, she thought. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

  "Look here," Betty said, "you talk about exactly the same thing when you talk about the Changer."

  Lisa sat up straighter. "How can you mention the Changer in the same breath with your weird ideas?"

  "You told me you've been sent on a mission to change bad things to good things. Don't you believe that's possible?"

  Lisa felt dizzy. This was too much! On top of hunger and exhaustion, she had to try to figure out Betty Riggs's strange notions. They didn't sound right, but she wasn't sure why. She said, "Things can be changed for the better, but only in the power of Gaal."

  "And Gaal is good, right? Well, I believe it's in our power-every one of us-to change bad stuff to good stuff simply by what we decide. Of course, there's more to it than that. What we think is bad and good may really be the same thing after all. But I think that's too advanced for you."

  Lisa was fed up. "Okay, let's test your great ideas. Why don't you decide the bars on that door aren't real and make them go away!" She meant it as a challenge to prove Betty wrong. A crazy thought crossed her mind: What if she really can do it? What would I do if the bars melted away right now?

  Betty stared at the cell door. In the unsteady light Lisa saw her mouth contort and tremble. "I've tried," she admitted, "I've been trying all along. It doesn't work. I don't know why. I don't know!" Her voice climbed toward hysteria again. Lisa patted Betty's shoulder and tried to calm her. Meanwhile her own gaze traveled back to the bars of the door that kept them prisoner. If only ....

  Like the two girls, Kurt and Wes had been thrown together into a cell. Their jailer was not one to make conversation. With a sneer, he left them as soon as he locked the door. They were tired, hungry, thirsty and disoriented. At the same time, they were ecstatic. Their hands were finally unbound! Even better, for the first time in many hours they could talk with no fear of being overheard by "official" ears. Wes motioned Kurt toward the back of the cell.

  "Smells even worse back here than by the door," Kurt griped.

  "I know, but that jailer could come back any time."

  Kurt choked a little from the stench of the cell. "What do you think is going on? Everything's weird. It's like a police state where everybody's afraid of everybody."

  "I think that's exactly what it is. But how can it be, if Tiqvah is king?" Wes tried to imagine Tiqvah as an unjust ruler. Many years (in Anthropos time) had passed since they last saw him. Who knows what might have happened to change the young prince's heart? Still, he had been a follower of the Shepherd. Wes added, "People here seem to know Gaal."

  "They know about Gaal," Kurt pointed out.

  Wes thought about what his brother had just said and nodded. "You're right. They use funny phrases like `by the hair of Gaal,' but do they know him and serve him? They don't act like it. And what about that old prisoner who said they arrested him because he worships Gaal?"

  "I know one thing. That Commander is a tyrant. I sure hope we don't meet up with him again."

  Wes paced back and forth across the back of the cell. "He acts like a monster with no heart. Of course, we don't know all the facts. Maybe that old prisoner really was a subversive. Maybe the Commander was only doing his duty." Kurt gave his brother a skeptical look. Wes even doubted his own words. He shoved the Commander and the hall of inquiry from his mind. Instead he remembered the lakeshore where the Matmon had arrested them. "Kurt, listen! When the raft was pulling away from shore, I saw a white pigeon."

  Wes had his brother's full attention. Kurt asked, "You mean like we've seen in Anthropos before?"

  "It looked like it. For some reason it stayed on shore and didn't fly out to the raft. But I'm sure it means we really are on a mission for Gaal, and he's going to help us."

  "But what's our mission? It must have something to do with how messed up things are in Anthropos. What exactly is messed up in Anthropos? Remember when we were being paraded through the streets? Everybody looked like life was going great. Nobody looked poor or unhappy. Even the stray cats were fat."

  "Yeah, you're right. Everything looked fine on the outside. But now we're seeing the inside or maybe the underside. People get arrested and thrown into prison because they made the wrong people mad. Or in our case because some Matmon wanted to be heroes or wanted somebody to blame for letting their bees escape."

  "It's like we hit into a shiny apple and found out the core is rotten." Kurt knew it wasn't a very original comparison, but it fit the situation. "Speaking of apples, I'm hungry. Don't they have to feed the prisoners? Isn't that a right of the accused or something?"

  Wes laughed, though there was no humor in his laugh. "I don't think the accused have any rights anymore in Anthropos. One thing I do know-we have got to see King Tiqvah. It's got to be in our favor that he knows us."

  Kurt kicked at a wad of straw. "Wes, it was thirty years ago in Anthropos time. Why should he believe we knew him when he was our age? The Commander will have already told him we're liars or crazy or both."

  "I'm sure Tiqvah understands about Anthropos time. And about other worlds."

  Hunger and thirst made Kurt more and more cranky. "What if he doesn't? What if nobody ever told him? His father's dead and maybe his mother is too." That idea jolted Wes. The beautiful and wise Queen Suneidesis ... dead? He couldn't imagine Anthropos without her.

  Kurt's anxiety focused into anger. "This is all that dumb Betty's fault! She was never supposed to come with us. And then she made that Commander mad. I hate her!"

  "Hold on! It doesn't do any good to hate anybody. And I don't see how it's all her fault. Anyway, she's in the same boat we are right now."

  "Or at least she was on the same raft," Kurt answered. The two boys managed to giggle before a metallic clang startled them into seriousness. They retreated into a corner of the cell.

  "Stay back!" warned their guard as he unlocked the door. He carried a wooden tray covered with an upside-down wood bowl like a dome. He set the tray on the straw-littered floor and locked the door with a decisive clunk. "Supper," he grunted and went away. He left the impression that he preferred to let the prisoners starve.

  "I'm not hungry after all," Kurt moaned. Of course, he was hungry, but he didn't want to see what was under that cover. He knew it was garbage worse than what Anthropos farmers fed their pigs.

  "Come on, Kurt," Wes urged him. "We've got to eat. Even bad food will give us some strength." Wes walked over to the tray, which was lit by unsteady light from the corridor.

  "Don't open it, Wes! It'll stink up the whole place!"

  Wes lifted the tray's crude wooden cover. He quickly set it down again. He thought he must be hallucinating from hunger and exhaustion. Slowly he lifted the cover and looked again. Now he was sure that his eyes-and nose-told him the truth.

  Kurt joined his brother and stared at the food. Thick slices of roast beef! Piles of mashed potatoes smothered in gravy! A loaf of fresh-baked bread with butter melting over its top and running down its sides in streams! It was the food they would have had in the kitchen on Grosvenor Avenue. Tears of gratitude blurred the boys' eyes. Kurt asked, "Who did this for us? It can't be that jailer guy. He doesn't care about us."

  Wes answered, "It's Gaal! Hasn't he always fed us and taken care of us when we're on a mission for him?"

  They spent no more time on questions. They dug in with wooden forks and spoons that looked newly carved.

  "Look over there by the wall," Kurt mumbled through a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

  "Don't talk with your mouth full," ordered Wesley, whose mouth was also full.

  "It's a bucket of water and a dipper. I hadn't noticed it before. If I'd seen it earlier, I'd have figured th
e water was all slimy, but now I wonder ... Wes! It's clean and cold and delicious!"

  Both boys gulped down dipper after dipper of water. They let it spill from the dipper and run down their chins and necks. Then they finished their food. Wes started to wipe his mouth on his sleeve but stopped. He couldn't appear before King Tiqvah with gravy on his shirt! Carefully he wiped his mouth with his fingers and did a few swipes of his hands against his trousers. He remarked, "I hope the girls are being treated as well as we are."

  At that moment Lisa and Betty crouched on the floor of their cell, eating a similar meal and drinking from a similar bucket of water. Yet their reactions were quite different. Lisa happily dug into the food and chattered to Betty about how Gaal had given them a meal exactly like what they left behind in the kitchen on Grosvenor Avenue. Betty wrinkled her nose and picked at the food. When she drank, she clenched her teeth as though to strain out dirt. Finally she spit out a mouthful of water and went into a coughing spell. She managed to ask, "Lisa! How can you stand this?"

  "Stand what? Delicious food and clean cold water?"

  "It's pig slop."

  "Betty!"

  "Pig slop! I wish you'd never dragged me here! I wish I'd never seen you people! This is what I get for being friendly and trying to be a good neighbor!" Betty drew up her legs and muttered over and over how much she hated everything. Lisa didn't know what to say. She finished the food in silence.

  When the jailer came to retrieve the girls' tray, he whispered, "I tried my best to sneak you a morsel of decent food. This was all I could do."

  Lisa beamed at him. "You did wonderfully. Thank you." The jailer gave her a puzzled look before he withdrew with the tray and locked the cell door.