Gaal the Conqueror (22 page)

They rose late the next morning. John said his head felt as
though it was inside a paper bag, and Eleanor complained of
being "stiff and sore all over." The atmosphere was strained.
Nothing had been said the night before when they faced each
other outside. They had stared at each other wordlessly, until
Eleanor turned and made her way into the Gaal tree, closing
her room door behind her with never a word.

In spite of their feelings they set out after lunch, and for the
remainder of that day and for the following two days they continued to walk through the enchanted forest beside the stream.
Eleanor remained silent about what had happened. She
seemed pleasant enough, though often she looked worried.
John, suspecting it had to do with the dancing and with the way
he had torn off her jewels, tried to find out what was bothering
her, but gave up after a few unsuccessful attempts. He realized there was no point in trying to introduce the topic of fear until
Eleanor herself did.

Toward evening they found a third note from Authentio
pinned to a tree. It was weather-beaten and torn, and they had
difficulty reading it. It told them that Authentio was sure that
Shagah was focusing all of his attention on the northern forest
("He must mean that this is the northern forest," Eleanor said)
and that it was essential that they be out of it in ten days, or
they would have little chance of escaping from it at all.

"Sounds grim," John murmured, folding the paper and stuffing it into a pocket in the fold of his cape. "I hope Authentio
himself is all right."

Their journey was clearly still dangerous. Twice during the
first two days of walking they were challenged by further enchantments, once with an invitation from a wizard, and on the
afternoon of the second day by a false Gaal tree. John recognized the wizard as a follower of Qhahdrun. The false Gaal tree
was easy enough to spot. For one thing the door was open, and
for another, the greek statue lady stood outside, inviting them
to enter.

Eventually Eleanor reintroduced the subject of fear. "Mebbe
I was wrong about what happened in the garden," she said. "In
fact I think I've known it ever since I came to. You know, after
you tore off my jewels."

Still John said nothing. By now they had resumed their way.

"It wasn't just the jewels," she continued.

"No?" John said cautiously.

"Well, in a way it was. You must admit they looked absolutely
terrific. I can't help but wish they could have been real."

"Yeah."

"But it was the feeling they gave me. I felt there was nothing
I couldn't do-as though I was a bigger person, more important."

John continued to make the kind of noises you make to let someone know you are still listening to them.

"I just couldn't have cared less about my father. I seemed to
have armor all round me."

"You called it hate and said you hated him. Do you?"

"I don't know. I feel ... mixed up inside when I think about
him. It's true that I'm not scared of him like I used to be, but
..." She sighed a long sigh, then said, "When I think-oh,
shucks I don't know what to think."

They continued to walk in silence.

"I don't hate him," she said at length. "I probably did when
I was so scared of him, but not any longer. But I get awfully mad
when I think about him sometimes. And I still wish he'd, well,
like me-I mean in the way my mom does."

"Doesn't he?" John asked. "Like when he's sober."

Eleanor shook her head. "Mostly he acts like I'm not even
there. And at other times he acts weird. But I don't want to talk
about it. Listen, am I different than I was when I was wearing
the jewels? I feel different."

John nodded. "You sure are. I like you better this way."

"But I don't like being scared."

"Are you scared right now?"

"No. But I got scared in the garden."

"Yeah, I know. You were real scared then. I'm not sure why
it was so bad, but I have an idea."

"What?"

"I think it was part of the enchantment. At the tower the
enchantment was really aimed at me. But I think the garden
one was aimed at you."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I guess that Shagah must have known Gaal had dealt
with your fear. You were a basket case before-like you said,
a puppy with your tail between your legs. So before we went
down into the garden, when you were sort of crazy with fearI think that was an enchanted fear." He paused and frowned in concentration. "Yeah, the more I think about it the surer I
feel. But you know, even so you conquered it. The trouble was
you went too far."

"Hml"

For several minutes they walked in silence. Eventually Eleanor said, "You mean about fear being useful sometimes."

Again John nodded. "Danger should scare us. People who
are never scared of danger must be dumb."

"It's horrid to feel scared. I hate it!"

"Of course you do. Everybody does."

"Everybody except you. You don't get scared."

"Oh, yes, I do! I already told you I was scared of going
beyond your footprints in the snow. I knew what would happen.
And I was scared."

"O.K then. You were scared and yet you did the very thing
you were scared of. How is that different from me plucking the
rose?"

"There was no need for you to pluck the rose. Especially in
an enchanted garden. But there was a real need for me to step
beyond those footprints. I had to find you. You had disappeared. You could have been in terrible danger. So I had to
take a risk and come here."

Eleanor held his arm and stopped walking, so that he was
pulled around to face her. Her face was flushed. "I see what
you were saying now. And thanks. I mean for coming. I'm not
sure that I really realized before. Thanks. Thanks a lot."

Her face, filled with tenderness, was close to his and a mixture of embarrassment and panic seized him. Hurriedly he
detached his arm and turned to resume his way, hardly knowing why he did so, but saying, "Don't be a goose! It was nothing.
Anyone would have done it."

For another hour they walked, both seeming to be deep in
thought. At length John said, "I can't help wondering about
these, these enchantment things. The last two were pretty easy, but the first two caught us. In fact we nearly got caught at the
pool where all the skeletons were. I wish there was some way
of knowing beforehand."

"You don't think Gaal arranges the enchantments?"

"Well, no, obviously not. But he must know about them. And
there's one thing they all have in common."

"Oh?"

"They're all, well, nice!"

"Nice? Bread and water in a prison-nice? Skeletons by a
pool? Dancing till your bones ache and not being able to stop?"

John laughed. "In the end they're not, no. In any case I guess
nice is the wrong word. But at first they all offered us something
desirable. We were dying of thirst and the pool offered us a
drink. I can't really explain the tower thing, but I know I just
ached to touch it and climb it."

Eleanor nodded. "And in the garden I wanted to get rid of
fear-all of it-not just the part Gaal had taken away. The
jewels were sure nice." She sighed a deep sigh.

"But there's something else. Whatever it is they seem to offer
always seems to deflect us from our purpose of getting through
the wood quickly enough to do what we're supposed to do."

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.