Gaal the Conqueror

by John White

  Eleanor frowned. "How long was it that the paper-"

  "What paper?"

  "The last message from Authentio. How long did he say we could be in the wood without having to stay here forever? Golly I never thought something like that could happen."

  "Ten days. At least ... " A look of alarm crossed John's face. "At least I think that's what he said. But you know he said that it would take that long if we didn't get hung up by any enchantments. And we have."

  Without realizing it they quickened their pace. Eleanor's face wore a worried look. "You know, I haven't given a thought to our need to hurry until right now. It must be the enchantment again. How many days have we been in the forest?"

  John frowned. He was never good at remembering how many days things took. "We left Rapunzel's tower on the third morning and got to the Gaal tree beyond -the garden that same night. So that would be three days."

  "And then we wasted a day after I danced all night," Eleanor began gloomily.

  "But we set out after lunch the following day, which would be day five."

  "Then today must be day eight!" Eleanor cried in dismay. "How far do we have to go yet?"

  John frowned for several minutes, muttering to himself from time to time. At length he said, "I reckon we didn't do more than twelve miles or so the first day, and mebbe twenty miles the third day. We've really pushed it since we got over the garden enchantment, so perhaps we could have added another fifty. Even so, we haven't done a hundred miles yet."

  "How far did Authentio say it would be?"

  "A hundred and fifty miles."

  "So we've at least fifty more miles to go and after today we'll only have two more days left."

  They had tired as the afternoon had worn on, but now fear poured new strength into their limbs.

  "How could we have forgotten?" Eleanor cried. "I never thought about how time was passing, never since I wore the jewels. I've worried about other things, but the need to hurry went clean out of my head."

  "Out of mine too," John said. "I can't figure it out. You'd think it would have been in our minds all the time."

  "Well, it hasn't been. And I say again that it's part of the enchantment. Just think. We'd never have realized the danger if you hadn't started talking about how to avoid the enchantments, and what they were all about. They're designed to trap us here. That's it! That's what they're for! And they've nearly succeeded."

  John's mind was in a whirl, a whirl in keeping with the urgency with which his legs were carrying him forward. It was late afternoon and the sun could sometimes be glimpsed through the trees on their left. By this time they would commonly have been searching for a Gaal tree, but for a while there was no thought of stopping. Slowly the sun sank toward the horizon on their left, lost from view behind the mass of trees.

  "Let's finish off our sandwiches and sit for a few minutes," John said at length. "We've got some serious planning to do."

  He eased himself down beside the stream, pulled off his boots and dipped his feet (hose along with them) in the stream. Eleanor sat beside him and did the same.

  "The thing that worries me," John said, his mouth full of sandwich, "is that we don't know exactly how many miles we have to go. If we had been doing scout's pace we could have timed ourselves and be pretty sure of the distances. But now we're only guessing. It could be as little as forty miles or as much as sixty. We won't actually know where we are until we reach the other edge of the forest."

  Eleanor said nothing for a moment, staring at the water with a troubled frown. "Is there no way we can be sure?" she asked after a few moments of silence. Again and again they went over their calculations, but it was clear that they were both guessing at distances, and their guesses were far from being reliable.

  "So we daren't take it easy. We'll have to push on as hard as we can for as long as we can."

  "You mean go on walking all through the night?"

  "It crossed my mind. Mebbe we could just push on until we're tired enough to take a brief nap under the trees."

  "What about those trees that wade through the earth to surround travelers?"

  John's face flooded with dismay. "I'd forgotten about them. We'd have to take turns to keep watch, I suppose."

  It was an unpleasant prospect. Hardly waiting to swallow their sandwiches, they pulled themselves together and set out again, walking rapidly at first and later, as the hours passed, with a sort of dogged determination not to give way to fatigue. From time to time they glanced round for moving trees. "They're only supposed to move when we're asleep,"John said, but even so he had a creepy feeling that a group of them were following at a distance. He said nothing to Eleanor, hoping it was only his imagination.

  Darkness fell. For hour after hour they continued, fear lending strength to their limbs. They stumbled frequently, but starlight of the early part of the night, and later the moonlight, enabled them to follow the path without too much difficulty. But eventually even the strength that came from fear was exhausted. They dragged one foot after the other until they saw dawn breaking and knew it would soon be safe to rest since the wading trees moved only during the hours of darkness.

  By sunrise they were cold, hungry and thirsty, and incredibly weary. Unable to find a Gaal tree they drank from the stream and lay down on a bed of pine needles. In no time they sank into an exhausted slumber.

  John woke at noon to see that they were surrounded once again, not by elm trees, but by the bars of a cage. It was a cage identical with the one that had imprisoned them beside Rapunzel's tower, except that this cage had no door. John struggled to his feet and seized the bars. Their bundles, which contained the treasures, lay ten yards away beyond their reach. "Eleanor," he cried, "Eleanor, we're trapped! Eleanor, wake up! We're in Shagah's cage again."

  Eleanor sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees, and staring in front of her with a puzzled frown. "There must be some mistake," she said slowly. "It should have been the elm trees. But whatever it is, it's Shagah. I guess he's got us this time." Her voice was flat and weary.

  "You're right." John's voice was weary. "But goodness only knows what we've done to deserve being caught this time. Just when we looked as though we could make it. It's not fair!"

  Eleanor continued to nurse her knees and to frown. "There's something odd about it," she said slowly. "I mean something wrong about it."

  John ignored her. He was trembling, partly with fear and partly with fury. Why had it happened? They had driven themselves to exhaustion the night before, and they deserved a better break than to be imprisoned in this way. Where was Gaal? Of what use were his brave words and counsel in a situation like this? His previous mood of bitterness and self-pity threatened to overcome him again.

  "There's something about this ... I ought to know what it is," Eleanor said, her frown of concentration deepening. "It's like we've been here before."

  "Well, we have, silly!"

  "No, that's not what I meant."

  John gave up on Eleanor and gripped the bars of the cage just as he had done in their prison by Rapunzel's tower. Not only his knuckles, but both hands blanched. He made no attempt to bend the bars as he had done before, knowing how futile that would be.

  "I know!" Eleanor sounded excited. "I've just remembered. Don't you remember what Gaal said about the cage?" John turned and stared at her. "Listen," she continued, "you remember how he made the bars of the cage disappear? He called it a guilt cage, and he said that no other guilt cage could hold us."

  John frowned, "It rings a bell, but •.. "

  "And he also said we might find ourselves inside another one, even though we had not been trapped by an enchantment, but that if we were simply to walk through the bars ... and you asked him if he meant between them. But he said that the bars were not solid, and that they were just, well, like a dream. We were supposed to act as though the bars were not there."

  John hated to say it, but he had to. "Eleanor, this is no dream cage. Feel the bars. They're solid. There's
no way we can walk through them."

  "John don't you see? This is an enchantment. If we act as if the bars are not there and just walk ahead, then the enchantment will not hold us. It's a guilt cage. It has to be."

  John shook his head. "Just come and touch them, Eleanor."

  "No, I won't. I might think the way you do if I touched them. Looking at them is bad enough."

  "Don't you trust your own eyes?"

  "Yes. But I trust Gaal more."

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Eleanor rose to her feet. "I'm going to close my eyes," she said. "I think it'll be easier that way. And I'm going to walk right through them."

  "Eleanor, don't be silly. You'll hurt yourself."

  "Promise me you won't get in my way."

  John said, "You really are crazy," but hardly understanding why he did so, and still holding the bars of the cage, he closed his eyes and turned away from looking at her.

  For a moment Eleanor, whose eyes were also closed, hesitated. "I'm awfully scared," she said. "But I've got to try. And this time I'm not doing it just to prove something."

  Then John heard her footsteps and began to count them in his mind. "One, two, three, four (she should hit the bar about her sixth step) five, six, seven (it's wider than I thought) eight, nine, ten-she's stopped." He opened his eyes. Eleanor was standing outside the cage staring at him.

  "I did it!" she shrieked. "It worked! It was just like he said! They're not real, John! It's just a dream cage. Try it!"

  Dazed, John stared at her. "I don't believe it. It didn't happen." He was still gripping the steel bars.

  "Come on! Try it!" Eleanor's eyes were dancing.

  "I can't." John said. "You've got the magic, I guess. This time I haven't. You're better at it than I am. I just don't know how to do it. If I had Mab's staff it would be different."

  "There isn't anything to know," Eleanor cried. "I don't have any magic. What Gaal says is true. They may look real and feel real, but they're just what you're making them."

  John took two steps away from the bar and closed his eyes. He took a step forward and opened them again crying, "Eleanor I can't! Even before I get to them I cringe inside. It's just as if I feel myself crashing into them. I can't do it."

  "John, there are no bars there! I don't even see them now. They've disappeared. You're standing in the open already. Try again. There really are no bars. Stop believing in them. Last time the bars were real. This time they aren't."

  John was angry and confused. "Don't mock me, Eleanor. And don't wait for me either. Time's precious. Get going!"

  "Don't be crazy. I can't go without you. I'm coming back for you."

  John stared at her through the bars. She was smiling as she advanced, and as she passed through the bars a second time they became nothing more than shadows passing over her body. She grabbed John's hand. "Come," she said.

  Stunned with wonder he let her lead him, and though he cringed a little, he felt nothing as they walked out into the open. When he turned around to look, there was no cage behind them-only a bed of pine needles among the trees. "I can't believe it!" he breathed. "They were so real, so solid."

  He turned to look at Eleanor's smiling face. "That was astounding!" he said, almost weeping from relief. "And thanks, Eleanor. That was amazing!"

  Then he paused. "I should have known," he continued. "I saw so much of the Changer's power last time I was here. I thought I knew how it worked. In fact I thought it was me that was working it. I guess you found the real secret. It's not us at all. He does the work when we do what he says."

  Any reasonable boy or girl would have had to struggle with aching bones and weariness after the grueling march of the previous day and night. But such was the strength that fear put into their limbs, that they seemed to walk with the vigor of young mountain goats-at least for the first two hours. Or perhaps it was that their eager and excited discussion of what had happened distracted their minds from their weary muscles. However, after two hours not only their muscles, but also their stomachs cried with loud and protesting voices and were heard.

  "You know my legs are like lead. In fact every muscle in my body-"

  "And I'm hungry!"

  "That's right! I completely forgot that since we didn't sleep in a Gaal tree we wouldn't be able to make our daily ration of sandwiches. What on earth are we going to do?"

  For the previous half-hour John's anxiety had been rising steadily. Their danger was becoming painfully clear. Without food they would be unlikely to travel fifty miles in time to escape from the enchantment. Even with food they would face an exhausting ordeal. But he did not want Eleanor to share or even to know about his growing panic. "In books they look for wild berries and roots, or else they hunt game with bows and arrows," John thought aloud.

  "Hm! I'm not sure I'd trust the fruit in an enchanted forest. And I don't like the idea of killing and skinning animals. Eeugh! Dad does it and I hate it."

  Eleanor seemed light-hearted, and John struggled to match her mood but failed. "We don't have time to do anything like that anyway," he said nervously. "Hunting takes time-to say nothing of making bows and arrows. We've only got till midnight tomorrow to get out of here, and we still don't know how much farther we have to go." Fear like a steel band tightened round his heart.

  John tripped over a root. For the first time in his life he swore. In fact a stream of curses flowed from his lips with a fluency that shocked him. Some boys at his Canadian school swore, but this was the first time he had ever done so. Eleanor's eyes widened as she stared at him. "I never heard you talk like that before. It-it doesn't suit you. You sounded like my dad when you did that."

  John said nothing. His legs felt more like lead than ever, but he struggled on grimly for several more minutes. Then he tripped again. This time he stopped walking, turned and sat down deliberately with his back to a red cedar, muttering curses under his breath. Eleanor sat down wearily beside him. She could see that his face was pale and that his hands trembled.

  "Do you often swear?"

  John shook his head. "I never did till now," he said quietly. Panic was still rising inside him.

  "Are you scared?"

  Suddenly John threw aside all attempt to conceal his feelings, and exploded with a yell of rage. "How can I be expected to get you through this-this-this wretched place? We're not machines! The Changer must know how we feel. Where is he now? Where's Gaal?" His voice sank in disgust. "I bet they don't even care."

  Eleanor said nothing, glancing sideways at him from time to time. Eventually she said, "It's not your fault, you know." John snorted, opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed it again without saying anything. Eleanor tried again. "Hey, I'm your friend! We're together in this."

  John drew in a breath slowly. He was trying to think of the occasion when he had seen Gaal beside Rapunzel's tower. Slowly something Gaal had said came back into his mind. He had talked about a real war, hadn't he? He had even said that there would be casualties in a real war. War. Were they part of a war in some way? Did evil powers have something to lose? Somehow the memory of what Gaal had said, rather than frightening him more, began to revive courage and steadiness in him. The danger they faced was indeed real. But the issues were bigger than himself and Eleanor, and yet they were contributing somehow. He knew he was still frightened. But in a war one had to fight, and the way to fight would be to do all they could to get out of the forest.

  Would they make it? Perhaps not. But he was going to give it all he had. However, he still was too embarrassed to share his feelings with Eleanor. And even now the panic still threatened to swell inside him. He was ashamed that he had shown fear in front of a girl. His right hand was groping into a pocket and he pulled from inside his tunic the little round pross stone he had been carrying ever since he had been in Anthropos the first time. He stared at its milky opalescence wondering whether the time had come to use it.

  "What is it?" Eleanor asked.

  "It's called a pross stone-sh
ort for proseo comai. I'm not sure how it works. If you want something badly you're supposed to `let your longing go through it.' Mebbe it connects you with Gaal or with the Changer in some way. I don't really know."

  "Sounds mysterious. How do you `let your longing go through it'?"

  "I don't know that either. I've never tried. Let me think a minute." He held the stone in his open palm, resting his hand in the palm of his other hand in an effort to control his trembling, and stared at it frowning deeply. "Why don't you put your hands over the top of the stone, and we both think of Gaal and the Changer and food? My `longing' is pretty intense when I think of food."

  Eleanor said nothing but did as John had suggested. For the first time he noticed that her hands were shaking too. They were cold and clammy as they rested on his. Then for about a couple of minutes they both sat staring at their hands, and trying to think about Gaal (which was strangely difficult) and about food (which was extremely easy). The stone grew warm, then hot as they struggled to concentrate. Eventually John said, "O.K I think that's enough." Eleanor moved her hands.

  "Wow! Look at the way it shines!"

  "Something's happening."

  "But what?" They stared at the stone, fascinated by its glow.

  "It's beginning to fade now."

  "Think we should try again?"

  "I don't know. I don't see a food hamper lying round anywhere. But, I'm not sure what's supposed to happen," John said. "Last time it never happened immediately. It always happened later, sometimes days later."

  "But we need food now."

  "Well, let's try again, and let's talk this time." They brought their hands together again, concealing the stone, and John said, "We're hungry. Please could you send food. I mean we'll get weak, and we're scared of getting trapped in the forest."

  "And please send the food now," Eleanor added.

  She removed her shaking hands and again they stared eagerly. But the glow had faded completely and with it their hopes. "I remember now," John said. "You can only use each stone once." Wearily they got to their feet. "But it did glow the first time-and it glowed really bright."