Gaal the Conqueror (23 page)

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-short 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.