Quest for the King (34 page)

"It'd be easier ahead," Lisa said slowly. "We'll only have to pass
Lord Nasa and Lady Roelane-an' they're quite a ways behind the
column."

Without making their intentions obvious, the two girls gradually
drew level with, then well ahead of, the couple absorbed in their own
conversation.

After a few moments Mary said, "But I can't renounce my real
parents. I don't even remember my mother, an' I don't know a thing
about my father. I don't even know whether I've got brothers and
sisters."

"I know. Its a shame, it really is. I'm so sorry, Mary. But it's not them
you have to renounce. It's what they were mixed up with. You're
saying you're not on the side they were on. Why don't you say the
words out loud?"

Mary drew in a deep breath, then said, "My heart's beating so hard
I feel it might pop out of my mouth any minute!"

Lisa groped for her hand. "Why, your hands are like ice!"

"I know. I'm real scared for some reason. I feel chicken-but I'm
going to do it!"

"Mary! You're shaking like a leaf!"

"I feel like-like they're all round me!"

"They can't touch you, Mary. I won't let them!"

"Just hang on to me, Lisa."

"Sure!"

Again Mary breathed in deeply. Then she said loudly, her voice
shaking and almost unrecognizable, "I'm sorry about what my mother
did, and her mother before her. I choose a different lord. I hereby
declare I no longer belong to any of the lords the priests worship."
Then she said, "Oh, Gaal, Gaal! Where are you?"

"I'm sure he's here, Mary."

For a few moments there was silence. Then Mary said, "Yeah, I
know." She sounded on the verge of tears.

Then they both noticed. The column of blue fire, still far ahead of
them, grew taller and brighter for several moments. As it grew, the
calm inside of Mary grew as well. Lisa laughed softly. Slowly, then, the
column returned to its former size.

In the darkness, not able to express what she was really feeling,
Mary hugged her cousin. Lisa responded in kind, her warmth and
softness telling Mary that Lisa, too, had difficulty in putting deep
feelings into words. "Now we know Gaal was here. And you've almost stopped shaking!"

Then Mary sighed. "I wish I knew where Uncle John and the old
lady were-in what century, I mean. You've no idea how scary it was
to find the limousine empty when we got to the hotel."

"I bet!" (Lisa's eager enthusiasm was another way of saying, "I'm
with you. I really do understand about everything.")

"An' when I saw that Lord Nasa had the Sword of Geburah-"

"He does?"

"-I thought he'd know where to find him. But he obviously
doesn't. He knows it belongs to the Sword Bearer, but that's all he
knows."

"Hm!" Lisa was silent for a moment. Then she said, "They're reallike, neat. I like them."

Mary laughed. "Y'know, I told Kurt that when I traveled with them,
I did my darnedest not to like them! But I gave up in the end." Slowly
they let themselves drop back to join the others.

After some time Lord Nasa said, "The road seems to have narrowed. We are walking on grass half the time!" Yet still ahead of them
the column of blue light drew them after itself. They proceeded for
an hour or more as dawn slowly grayed the eastern sky. The outline
of low hills grew clearer. Moorland surrounded them, and on either
side they could see scattered copses of woodland. Then as the eastern
sky grew rosy, they saw that something they had begun to suspect was
true. They had drifted from the roadway and were following little
more than a path. It was wide enough for two of them to ride abreast,
but it was obviously not a road. Or if it was, it was a little-used road,
for grass covered much of it.

The column of light was slowly being transformed into one of
smoke, though they could still discern the glow of blue light within
it. Quite suddenly it stopped and then disappeared.

"Whither now?" Belak asked.

"I have no idea," Lord Nasa answered, frowning. "There seems to
be no side path."

A sinking feeling gripped Mary. "So what do we do?" she asked.

"I think we sit down and wait," Lady Roelane said, smiling. And
that, though not without misgiving, is what they did.

Mary glanced at the others. "Belak!" she cried. "Your proper color
is back!"

Belak grinned. "It happened last night I saw myself in a mirror as
I was leaving my room."

"You look better-like yourself, I mean."

"I am myself again-and quite happy about it, too."

When the hunting party reached the edge of the forest at sunset,
they found themselves on the edge of moorland. Alleophaz kept
touching his skin and saying, "It feels the same as it always has!"

"Nevertheless, it is back to its usual color. You are as handsome as
ever!" Gerachti cried, laughing.

"I can see that you are. But I will believe it when I see myself in
a mirror. The sight of that ghastly pink face in streams will haunt me
forever!"

The Koach leader announced that the time had come for them to
leave.

"But we have no idea how to find the king!" Captain Integredad
complained. "He may be in Karsch, or he may not. In any case, the
last thing we want to do is to draw attention to ourselves by making
inquiries."

"Have no fear," Kai said. "The prophet assured me that you would
have special guidance from this point." And with that they disappeared into the forest. The three men looked at one another in bewilderment, and the two boys looked from one to another of the men.
Finally, Alleophaz laughed and said, "This is a strange adventure!"
Kurt frowned. "I wish we had the ancient book"

"What book was than" Alleophaz asked.

Wesley answered, "He means the book of the ancient laws and
customs of Anthropos, with the songs and prophecies and so on. It was
a big old book, it was the book Kurt was talking about when-"

"-when I tried to explain how I followed the column, and why I looked at the rocks and ancient trees," finished Kurt "You were listening, Lord Alleophaz-in the cabin overlooking the road-remember?"

Alleophaz nodded.

"Queen Suneidesis used to read it to us," Kurt mused. "But I keep
forgetting it hasn't happened yet."

Gerachti said, "I do not understand all these twists in time, but I
do suspect it is time to make camp. I do not know what the captain
thinks, but I think we should build a fire and have some food. Then
if nothing turns up tonight, we can sleep here. I must say this business
of not knowing our next move makes me nervous. I am used to having
everything planned out ahead of time."

Captain Integredad agreed. "But I suppose you cannot always do
that when you are dealing with supernatural beings."

Kurt said, "I think it's fun-though it is scary. We've gotten a bit
used to it coming here to Anthropos."

Alleophaz smiled. "I am not sure I will ever get used to it at my age!"

"Nor I," Gerachti agreed.

They were up at daybreak the next morning, and as they ate breakfast, the sun rose. The weather was still clear and dry, and the night
sky turned from dark blue to gray, then to ruddy gold in the east and
a deepening blue in the west. The ground was baked and dry, and
the grass was dying. There was no sign of rain.

During packing Kurt said, "I'm not sure, but I think I can see the
column."

"Where?" several voices asked.

Kurt pointed. `Just to the right of that very tall cedar." One by one
they straightened their backs, for most of them had been bending
over equipment.

"You know, you might be right," Wesley agreed.

"I see absolutely nothing," Gerachti muttered.

"I-I am not sure," Alleophaz hesitantly declared. The captain
stared but was silent. When he did speak he said, "What shall we do?"

"I see no point in moving if we are uncertain," Gerachti asserted.

"We could ask it to become clearer, " Kurt said, frowning.

"Ask it?" Captain Integredad seemed to be puzzling aloud. "How
can you ask an it?"

There was a pause as they all continued to stare in the direction
Kurt had first pointed. "You know," Alleophaz said at length, "some
of us have long had the feeling that it is more than an it. It seems
almost like a person, like a comforting friend."

Kurt called aloud, "If you can hear us, we'd-er-we'd like you to
become clearer!"

They continued to stare. "I still see nothing-" Gerachti began, but
he was interrupted by Wesley, who said, "Hold on! Hold on a minute!
It is getting clearer."

"Aha!" Captain Integredad cried. "It is like last time! I just needed
eyes to see! Yes, I can see it now."

Slowly the column of smoke grew clearer to them. Alleophaz asked
musingly, "Is the change in the column-or in us?"

But nobody answered him, for a growing excitement began to fill
them all. "This is fun!" Kurt declared.

"I can see it clearly now," Gerachti said. "And looking back, I wonder if I could not see it all along. I was just frightened of making a
fool of myself. When will I learn?"

"But to realize it was there all along fills me with joy!" Alleophaz
exulted. "I thought we had lost it. But it certainly seemed to go away.
Whatever happened, it knew where we were, and now it has found
us►»

It was a merry party that set out moments later, relief and new hope
flooding their veins. "I wonder if we'll get there today?" Kurt pondered.

"Yeah, but what do we do when we find him?" Wesley puzzled.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Wes," Kurt replied.

The moorland was interesting. Soon they grew accustomed to the
wiry tufts of grass beneath their feet and the copses strewn here and
there. Frequently they encountered blazing gold gorse bushes, riotously mixed with brilliant, reddish-purple heather. The sky arched its blue canopy far above their heads, and the clear air tasted like wine
and filled their limbs with vigor.

They had ridden for less than fifteen minutes before Captain Integredad said, "Hello! We are joining some sort of track!" They followed the grassy pathway up a rise, and saw the rest of their party
sitting beside the track on the other side.

Lord Nasa spotted them, and they hallooed and ran down the short
slope to greet them.

Later, the column led them beyond any but the barest sign of a trail.
Yet still they trod on the same wiry grass on the rise and fall of
moorland. Then they saw opening up before them a chasm, where
the column dropped down a series of steps out of their sight. For a
moment they paused, uncertain. Then, following one by one, they
entered a steep valley in which a small stream flowed. But the column
had disappeared. There was no sign of it.

"Wherever is it?"

"It's gone!" Kurt cried in distress. "What happened?"

Lisa said, "Surely we saw it come down here!"

Alleophaz murmured, "Something has gone wrong."

In the silence that followed, Lady Roelane said, "No. I am sure
there has been no mistake. Look just a little above us on our right.
I believe there is a cave of some sort in the rock."

They turned and saw a vertical opening where limestone rocks
jutted from the hillside. A faint light seemed to come from deep within
the narrow opening. A sheep was tethered near the entrance.

"Is this IT?"

"Is it a cave?"

They paused, staring. Alleophaz broke the silence. "Come. Perhaps
someone is within. We must do what we came to do." Drawing a deep
breath, he withdrew from one of his panniers a small, cloth-wrapped
bundle. Gerachti did the same. They dismounted and loosed their
beasts to feed.

The travelers approached the cave entrance and saw a heavy door standing open as if ready to receive them. Lord Nasa called, "Is
anyone at home? We come to visit the child king."

A woman appeared at the cave mouth. She wore a brown, hooded
cape over a simple white dress. Her widely spaced eyes appraised the
visitors, showing fear. On her very youthful face they could also read
signs of suffering gladly endured.

"My name is Mehta, and my husband is Ish," she said quietly. "Tell
me of this child."

Alleophaz replied, "Three of us-we darker ones-are philosophers from Glason. Your servant dreamed of the coming of the child
while we were still in Glason. We also dreamed of a meeting with
three children from worlds afar, who now accompany us." He pointed
to the Friesens. "It has taken us nearly two years to get here." He
nodded toward the others. "Lord Nasa of Chereb and the Lady Roelane come to represent her majesty, the queen of Anthropos-Playsion,
who knew of the young king's birth by the ancient prophecies. While
his majesty the reigning king may wish the young king harm, our own
wish is to render him our deepest homage."

"I, as you have heard, am Lord Nasa of Chereb, and very honored
to be here. The young lady, Mary, came with my wife and me. She
longs to pay homage to his little majesty. Captain Integredad is a loyal
subject of the queen."

A man they assumed to be Ish joined Mehta, looking at the visitors
over her shoulder. "Who are they, and what do they want?" he asked
her. There was a muttered exchange between them.

The man pushed past her and stood in front of her. Like his wife,
he surveyed the crowd before him carefully. For a few moments nobody spoke. Then the man said, "Apparently you have spoken courteously to my wife. But we have been warned in visions of the night
about the Playsion king to whom her majesty is married. Do you
intend to return to him?"

Alleophaz shook his head. "We are of one mind about this, for not
one of us trusts the king. How matters at the palace will turn out is
not clear. The priests, under their leader, Shagah, are becoming more powerful than the king."

Husband and wife glanced at each other. The man said, "You are
sure you were not followed here?"

Lord Nasa said, "It seems unlikely. I know every visitor to Karsch
is watched, but we left before any could question us."