Quest for the King (29 page)

Kurt sidled his horse next to Mary's. She had not looked at any of the others, shielding herself by sticking close to Lord and Lady Nasa.

"Hi, Mary!"

"Hi."

He wondered how to start talking. Her distress had haunted his
dreams and worried him into wakefulness before daylight. Now her
very silence sealed his own lips.

He tried again. "Guess you've been having a rough time."

"Uh-huh."

"I-I'm probably not much use-but if there is anything I could
do..."

She stole a glance at him. "You're nice." A few moments later, she
sighed softly. "No, I guess there's nothing anyone can do. Roly-I
mean Lady Roelane-tries to help, but it's no use."

"She seems a nice person. Lady Roelane, I mean."

"She is. She's great:'

For several minutes they rode side by side without saying any more.
Then slowly, Mary began to talk, first about the witches' club at school,
and then about Uncle John's wedding, her resentment of the marriage, her dismay at the typhoon and her fears at finding the limousine empty. "It was awful, Kurt, and now-wherever can he be?"

Kurt shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Mary continued to unburden herself, telling of her arrival in Anthropos, of her desire (which she now called "crazy") to make Uncle
John like her better than he liked "that old woman." She described
their journey from the tower.

"Is that the same tower Uncle John described?" Kurt asked.

"It must be."

She told of her struggle not to let the couple influence her, her
growing admiration of them, and her dreams about Gaal. Finally she
described what Shagah had told her.

Kurt was shocked. "Oh, Mary-that's awful. I don't wonder you feel
bad. But I'm sure you're wrong about Gaal. See, I joined the other side
too. I didn't have ancestors who were into the kinds of things yours
were, but I wanted to be .a sorcerer. An' I chose Shagah's side."

He told her all about Inkleth and the events in the Tower of Geburah. Mary said, "Y'know, you told me that before. But I'd forgotten."
She sighed. "It's no use, though. Gaal went away. The light faded and
disappeared."

"It may look bad," Kurt said, "but I'll never forget the way he talked
to me afterward. He sure was stern at first, but man was he ever kind
in the end! He made you feel you were the only person in the world
where he was concerned."

Mary sighed but said nothing more except, "Thanks, Kurt." Kurt
looked at her and thought, "She's changed. She's more like she was
in Anthropos last time."

The sun rose and began burning away the mist. The fog disappeared in a rosy glow, and before long patches of sunlight broke
through the trees. Although the track wound onward in a confusing
fashion, it headed roughly east, so that the sunlight was either behind
them or on their left side for the most part. Then, as they entered a
forest glade, Captain Integredad ordered a halt for breakfast.

"We might as well enjoy this weather while it lasts," he said. "For
some reason the rains have not come yet this year. But we can expect
them any day."

Breakfast consisted of cold meat, newly baked bread, butter, milk
and Anthropos wine. As food and sun warmed them, they began to
remove their cloaks. As they mounted their horses again, Kurt noticed
the column of smoke waiting for them on the cart track. "The column!" He cried out, pointing. "Look, there it is! How many of us can
see it?"

"It has come back!" Gerachti called out exultantly.

Alleophaz smiled broadly. "It is like greeting an old friend!"

Lord and Lady Nasa, Belak and the Friesens were all delighted to
see it clearly. Captain Integredad stared in the direction they were
pointing, a frown on his honest face. "I can see a bit of what looks
like mist," he said slowly, "but it is not what you describe. I am not
really sure I am looking at anything."

"Just keep watching it," Kurt said. "You have to learn to look prop erly, but it's a marvelous guide. I wonder if we'll be going to Karsch
after all!"

For once the captain seemed a little nervous. "If the column is a
guide from somewhere above, I would like one of you to ride beside
me. It is as yet far from clear to me, and any orders from the High
Emperor must be obeyed at once."

"I'll come with you," Lisa called eagerly.

Kurt moved his horse over to Mary's again. "Can you see it?" he
asked her eagerly.

Mary shook her head. "Would you expect me to?" she asked bitterly.
"I belong to the other side, don't forget."

Kurt shook his head. "I don't-can't-believe it," he said, "ancestral curse or no. All the things that happened to you last time we were in
Anthropos would make no sense that way. Gaal doesn't give up. You
don't want to belong to the dark side, do you?"

Mary shook her head. "Not any more. Honestly, Kurt, I'll never be
able to explain why I joined the witches' club. I used to like it," she
sighed. "Well, I thought I did. It must have been that curse that was
on me. But I can't make Gaal accept me back, especially after I asked
him to go away and never return."

Moments later they resumed riding. Captain Integredad and Lisa,
who were leading, were soon deep in conversation. Knowing something of their origin, the captain began to ask Lisa about her previous
visits. So Lisa described their journey through the television (it took
a long time for her to explain TV to him) into an Anthropos jail and
her rescue from the altar in the temple courtyard.

The captain sighed, remaining silent for several minutes. Then he
began to tell her about his daughter. "It is not just witchcraft. It is the
Lord of Shadows behind witchcraft, the spirits of gloom. Their sole
aim seems to be to destroy, to ruin the lives of their victims. The
sorcerer Shagah is really a fool, but I know he has enormous powerdevilish power, power that I fear."

"Me too," Lisa muttered grimly.

"But he is only a pawn in the hands of the big players-those Lords of the Shade. And they themselves, I suspect, are no more than pawns
between your Emperor's finger and thumb. When the dark spirits
have finished with Shagah, they will kill him like an old and useless
dog. But in the meantime they allow him to have power. You know,
I would not be surprised if the spirits of darkness have something to
do with this unnatural weather. Usually the rains would swamp us
long before now."

Lisa was silent for some time, trying to envisage the worlds of shadow revealed by the captain's words. Eventually she said, "It must be
awful."

"It is horrid. Three years ago my own daughter was murderedmurdered, I say-and on the same altar that you were chained to. The
pigeon rescued you. Nobody rescued my daughter, and I knew nothing about it until a week past her death."

"Oh, how dreadful!"

"The vultures had her for food, and her bones were tossed onto
the giant heap of bones they call `sacred' and `holy because it is made
up of sacrificial victims. You could have wound up there yourself."

Lisa shuddered. "Mary's into witchcraft. An' I've been mad with her
about it. Surely we're deceived only if we want to be deceived. I keep
saying that she's wrong, but mebbe I'm being too harsh."

"You were deceived yourself, were you not?" Integredad asked. "You have just finished telling me that you let Hocoino teach you to
hate, and that you found part of you wanted to hate and enjoyed the
idea of revenge."

Lisa blushed and fell silent for a little while. Finally she said, "I
guess I'm the same as her in a way. Kurt doesn't actually say that, but
I know he's mad at me because of how I feel."

"Mary has talked to me. I am very afraid for her. If something does
not happen soon she may share the fate of my daughter."

They rode in silence for several minutes. The captain screwed up
his eyes from time to time. "You know, it must be the column that I
see. But tell me, is it turning aside?"

Lisa looked. "You're right-it has. I wonder why."

Just then it disappeared into the trees. As they gained the point
where it had vanished, they saw a narrow path on their right and
could dimly see the column moving ahead along it. Soon the whole
party was following the pathway single file.

Gerachti's old fears began to arise. "This will lead nowhere," he
muttered to Alleophaz, who laughed.

"I seem to remember you saying something like that when Kurt was
in the lead," he said.

But the change in Gerachti was real. He laughed ruefully. "I guess
old habits die hard, and I suppose I will never like half-hidden forest
trails. But I now admit freely that the column has proved a reliable
guide."

They entered a wide meadow, and when they were about halfway
across it, the column simply dissolved into the air without a trace. "How strange!" Lady Roelane said. "So what do we do now?"

"We wait here until the Emperor sends his next messenger," her
husband replied.

They had not long to wait. Alleophaz suddenly called out a warning. "Wolves!" he called. "Three of them! Over on our left by the treesone large white, and two smaller gray ones."

"They're not wolves. They're the Koach," Wesley said. "The queen
said we'd see them. They're talking wolves. The white one's just like
Garfong. It must be an ancestor of his. If we stay still they may approach us. They're quite safe!"

The three philosophers from Glason stiffened but, having learned
from previous experience, waited tensely to see what would happen.
The wolves did exactly what Wesley had said. They did not lope or
run, but walked like dogs walking toward their own masters. They
halted ten yards from Captain Integredad.

The white-furred leader opened his mouth. At first it seemed to
them all that they heard a howl, but it was no howl. It was the oldest
language of all. Immediately, and without any awareness of what was
happening, they began to hear the sounds in their own language.
"You must be Captain Integredad. Welcome to the woods. We know all about the coming of the true `once and future king.' We have been
sent to lead you to the Prophet of the Woods, for the way is difficult
and hard to follow. You will have to dismount from your animals and
lead them, but we will stay with you." He turned, and the three Koach
headed back in the direction from which they had come.

Captain Integredad stared at their retreat, shaking his head and
saying, "By my sword and shield! This is the strangest matter I have
yet encountered!"

They dismounted at the edge of the meadow where the Koach
disappeared among the trees. There followed a long and bewildering
journey which lasted an hour or more. They never saw a path as they
proceeded downward, yet they had a sense that they were following
a way that was invisible to them, that they were not merely pressing
through trackless trees and undergrowth but were following a definite
route

One or more of the Koach could always be seen. Once they crossed
a marsh in the thickest, densest mist imaginable, treading on tufts of
grass. A Koach guided the first of them from tuft to tuft, then each
person in turn directed the one who followed. The horses seemed to
be enchanted, showing absolutely no fear and stepping from one tuft
to another with perfect ease. "I have never seen anything like this
before," Alleophaz said. "It is certainly nothing like our experience
in the Playsion woods."

After the mist-enshrouded marsh they climbed a steep slope
through thick undergrowth, still traveling the real but invisible track.
Finally, after struggling up the slope for more than half an hour, they
emerged in a glade before a cave.

Sitting on a rock at the entrance of the cavern was an old, old man,
thin and astonishingly wrinkled. His long white hair and beard flowed
mingling almost to his feet, but what they noticed most about him
were his eyes. They did not even observe their color, so vibrant were
they with life-a laughing, glorious, powerful life that caught them up
at once in the fun of it, so that they wanted to laugh along with him,
or cry with tears of joy.

Yet the old man looked so fragile, so paper thin, almost transparent,
that they wondered how he could sustain the power of that life without being blown away into nothing. This, clearly, was the Prophet of
the Woods.

"I have heard the word holy," Alleophaz mused. "Is this what the
word means?" But then he shook his head. "No, what he has is
beyond mere power. He is possessed by Anther's holiness!"

The three Koach stood before the ancient man. "We have brought
them to you, 0 Prophet of the Woods!" they said. "Call for us when
you need us again." With that they turned and vanished into the trees.

Rather than rising to his feet when he stood, the Prophet of the
Woods seemed to float to them. It was as if his body were sustained
by some unearthly power that held him gently and firmly, and in
which he was utterly at rest. "Welcome, friends," he said in a voice
with the musical depth of a pipe organ, "but look well at the table on
my right." At one side of the cavern entrance a table had been prepared with twelve places. They glanced at it in wonderment. There
was no food on it. But where could the old man get food for so many
guests?

"Can you see the food I have prepared for you there?" he continued.

Embarrassed, some of them shook their heads, while others said
simply, "No," or "We cannot!"

Mary said, "There isn't any food there!"

Alleophaz said, "Kind sir, I see nothing but fine silverware, including large silver platters and immense bowls. But of food and drink I
see no sign."

The old man smiled and replied, "Yet the food is there. The
Changer has already seen to that! It is good food and solid, but you
fail to perceive it. My great-great-granddaughter, Shiyrah, will come in
a moment and sing to you. She is herself a song, one that will quicken
your faith and remove the scales from your unseeing eyes."