Quest for the King (44 page)

Mary blushed and nodded. With unaccustomed awkwardness she
said, "But all of you have been awfully kind-your majesty and the
colonel especially."

The queen nodded. "We must not delay, but go to our kind hosts
in Glason to commence our government in exile."

With many other expressions of gratitude and farewell, the soldiers,
the colonel and her majesty, half turning and waving, disappeared in
twos and threes. Then the picture of Glason faded, and they were able
to see the normal bushes and trees behind the two huge oak trees.

"So now what?" Wesley asked, puzzled.

"I don't know," Lisa replied.

Just then the tall figure of Risano appeared beside them. He smiled
down upon them. "I have an apology to make to you all, especially
to Mary."

Mary looked sharply at him, but said nothing. The others looked
surprised.

"I had no intention of deceiving you, but knew that if Mary were
to get on with Lady Roelane, I would have to make Lady Roelane
much younger than she actually is. So I persuaded her husband and
her-against their better judgment-to go along with my wishes. You
can see the result."

"You're changing!" Mary said suddenly, addressing Lady Roelane. "Roly-what's happening to you?"

Lady Roelane smiled. "I am not sure. I would need a mirror-but
I think my husband and I must be reverting to form!"

" `Reverting to form'?" Kurt almost shouted. "What form?"

"They're both getting older," Mary said quietly. "I'm beginning to
clue in." Suddenly she flung herself with a sob at Lady Roelane. "Oh,
I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know!" she repeated between
her sobs. Then, "Oh, I'm so glad! I don't want to leave you-not ever!"

She untangled herself and looked up into the older woman's face. "Then you're not-Lady Roelane-at least-you're also-Mrs.-erMcNab!"

The former Lady Roelane smiled and pulled Mary to herself again. "I'd rather you called me Aunt Eleanor, dear. And I'm not going to
leave you. Not ever."

"I don't care!" Mary cried. "I don't care how old you are! You're
you, an' I know you now. You're not changing, you're the same as
you've always been. I know you now. Oh, what a fool I was!"

The other children's mouths hung open. "It's Uncle John," Wesley
breathed as he stared at Lord Nasa of Chereb. Slowly the former Lord
Nasa and his wife were becoming a middle-aged couple.

"Let's just say I have been back to Anthropos many times," said John, "but I haven't told you about them all. I am the Sword Bearer,
but I am also known here as Lord Nasa of Chereb. I may tell you the
full story some other time."

Risano interrupted them, smiling. "It is time for you to resume your
normal clothing."

Instantly they did. Cries of surprise erupted, and Wesley and Lisa
burst into laughter. Uncle John was still wearing his gray top hat and
morning suit, and Aunt Eleanor wore her wedding dress. Wesley
handed him the Sword of Geburah with its scabbard. "You'd better
take this. It looks better with a morning suit than with jeans."

Kurt gazed at him, shaking his head slowly. "So that's how come you
had the Sword of Geburah! I never even wondered about it."

Lisa joined Mary and Aunt Eleanor in a triad of hugging, saying,
"Of all things! I would never have guessed, you were such a perfect
lady-oh, drat! I've put my big foot in it now!"

Aunt Eleanor laughed. "Well, I do try!"

Risano said, "Now-look again at the gateway!"

They turned to look, and instead of bushes they saw buildings in
the street of a modem city. "Darling-it's Canton Road!" Aunt Eleanor cried.

"You can get through the store to the hotel," Mary added.

Then, without even stopping to bid Risano farewell, almost as
though they were in a dream, they began to walk toward the two oak
trees.

The Friesen parents were sitting glumly in the small lounge of their
luxury suite when there came a knock at the door behind them.

"You answer it, darling," Fred said.

Jane opened the door. "Oh! Oh, my! Fred-I feel faint!"

Uncle Fred leaped to his feet in time to see a man wearing a top
hat, a morning suit and bearing a sword at his left side seize Jane by
an elbow and steer her to a chair. The top hat fell from his head as
he did so. Fred stood rooted to the spot as Eleanor entered, arrayed
in a white wedding dress, with Mary clinging to her. Behind them, his
own children entered the room.

The room rotated slowly round him as he sat down. Aunt Eleanor,
a ministering angel in white, sat beside him. "I'm so sorry, Fred. We
should have known what a shock it would be. We were just anxious
to tell you we were all right."

After a minute he gained his breath. "We saw it all," he said slowly, as his wife nodded confirmation. "At least we saw a battle scene, in
which you were fighting with horrible creatures, and we realized it
wasn't play-acting, or just television, but horrible reality. I-I guess I
owe my children an apology. You too, John and Eleanor. And Mary
more than anybody."

"Oh, Uncle Fred," Mary cried, "if anybody owes apologies, I do. I
behaved so badly at lunch that day, ages ago when-"

"It was this lunch time, dear," said Jane, who seemed to be recovering
from her shock "You left just a few hours ago for Shah Tin."

"You mean, it's still-how do I say it-today?"

"It's the time thing again," Wesley said wonderingly.

"Of course," Lisa and Kurt echoed.

"You mean you saw the battle, Dad?" Kurt grinned.

"Yes-and for a little while we were actually there. But you didn't
seem able to see us," their mother told them.

Her husband rose to his feet slowly, pausing to make sure he was
no longer dizzy, and went to the kitchen. He returned with a frozen
hailstone. You can imagine the excitement that followed, the expressions of wonder, the cries of, "You mean, you actually-" "But I don't
understand-" and "O-o-oh, I see!"

Wesley said, "Dad."

"Yes, Wesley?"

"Does this mean it's-I just want to be sure-but does this mean
it's O.K. now to talk about Anthropos?"

His father sighed. "I've been a little stupid. Well, more than a little. It's taken a lot to change me, but-to answer your question-yes, of
course it's all right."

Tired or not, they sat around for a long time. Jane ordered coffee
and sandwiches from room service, and they continued talking well
into the night.

Once, when the conversation began to lag, Kurt said, "I wonder
what will happen to the queen. Uncle John, you probably know. After
all, you and Aunt Eleanor were there after that."

For a moment John McNab said nothing. Everyone was looking at him. When he spoke again his tones were mysterious. "She grew old
over the years it took to form an Anthropos-Playsion government in
exile. It's even possible you may see her again."

"And the duke and Captain Integredad?"

John nodded. "You just may see all three of them-the queen, the
colonel and the duke. So you'll have to find out what happens for
yourselves." And nothing they could say or do would get another word
on the subject from him.

Fred shook his head. "This Gaal business is solemn stuff."

"Solemn, but filled with joy and glory," Uncle John said.

"Will we return?" Lisa asked. "Alleophaz was hoping we might get
to visit Glason."

"Over my dead body!" her father protested.

John laughed. "She belongs to Gaal now," he said. "We may none
of us ever go to Anthropos again. In any case, Lisa really doesn't get
to decide things like that herself. She can rebel against Gaal, of
course-"

Fred McNab groaned. "This is terrible. It's all so new!" He shook
his head again, sighing. "I'm not exactly relishing the taste of humble
pie-it must be an acquired taste."

Will any of them return? I don't know. Like them, we'll have to wait
and see. But if they do, I'll let you know.

I have five children, all of them now grown. When they were small I used
to read to them the children's books that had once meant so much to me.
One favorite, I remember, was Wind in the Willows, and there were so many
others. Among them was C. S. Lewis's Narnia series. At that time Lewis was
pioneering a new genre in children's stories reflecting the author's own experience of God in allegorical form.

I had quickly found that when a parent reads to his or her children, the
attraction children have to television is overcome. I only had to ask them, "Do
you want me to read to you?" to have them jump up immediately, forgetting
TV.

One day I realized the children, even the youngest of them, were reading
far beyond what I was reading to them, and I told them they were too old
to be read to. At that point something happened which in retrospect seems
to have provided another generation of children with reading pleasure. My
own children ganged up on me and came with the request that since I wrote
books for adults, I could write them for children too. (Of course their assumption was incorrect!) "We won't bug you anymore," they said, "if only you'll
write a book for us. But it has to be just like Narnia!"

So, intrigued, I decided I'd have a crack at it. I conceived the possibility of
getting through the television (ours was old-fashioned by modem standards).
I wrote, and then read them my opening chapter of what eventually turned
into The Tower of Geburah. They asked, "What happens next?"

Unfortunately, I had no idea. Then began a hand-to-mouth experience, a
learning-by-doing. For instance, I had never thought of a plot, but had
plunged right in. Clearly there had to be a plot, and I had to invent one. But
I quickly found that my plot would not work. My characters (based, very
approximately, on three of my own children) were stronger than the plot, and
insisted on having their own way. In addition, I had to keep two plots going
together, the inner plot of what was to happen in Anthropos, and the outer plot of real life. And since the inner plot was itself allegorical, it had to
correspond, at least as far as I could make it, to real truth.

I am not saying I succeeded in what I was attempting, for I am very conscious of the lack of quality in what I wrote. I think I got better as time went
on, but I still have to rely heavily on editorial suggestions. In any case I never
succeeded in approaching Lewis's superb writing.

At some point I told either Andy Le Peau or Jim Sire of InterVarsity Press
that I was writing a story for my children, and they asked to see it. Since IVP
had not then published children's books, I hardly expected them to take a
professional interest in what I was doing. In any case I had severe doubts
about the story's worth. One can hope, but as with all the books I have ever
written, there are moments of feeling, "This is the greatest thing I have ever
done! People will be wild about this book!" And those despairing moments
of "I give up! This is hopeless, absolutely hopeless. I don't have what it takes
anymore!"

IVP, however, seemed to like The Tower of Geburah, and it was published.
People said (quite accurately), "He's just trying to copy Lewis." I was. This was
what my children wanted. That is, I was trying to copy Lewis at first, but I soon
ceased to. Copying gets you nowhere. You have to make any genre your own
for it to work.