Gaal the Conqueror (37 page)

"You trust the pipes of Pan?" the serpent hissed gently.

There was almost an arrogance in Shagah's tone as he replied. "My wounded lord, to whom I shall ever show gratitude
and loyalty, you yourself taught me the arts by which even the
god Pan became subject to me. He does my bidding. He does
it perfectly. He has destroyed them both. Of this I am confident."

"Yet the treasure is still not ours, and I sense it still exists in
Anthropos. Indeed I have smelled it for days in and around
Bamah. What say you to that, Shagah?"

"I say that my lord is as perceptive as ever. Ah, my lord, Gaal
may have won this round of the battle against you, but you will
win in the end! And as for the treasure, it will be in my hands
today. Like your lordship, I smell it. And I have made provision
to draw it after me to Geburah. The spell is complete, the invocation uttered, the sacrifice-to your lordship of coursealready offered. The treasure will be in the Tower of Geburah
today-under my control."

"And if the children live still?"

"If the children live still they will be drawn to their deaths
in Geburah, the tower built by your former master." He
laughed, and the laugh was deep and warm with macabre
mirth. John shuddered.

The snake looked down on the skull cap. There was no
change in its expression. Finally it said softly, "Yes, my former
Master-from whom I stole the Keys of Torment and Death,
keys I no longer possess. You are quite right-my former Master and your own Maker."

"Quite so. Soon to be our lamented former Master and Maker. The Changer changed, as it were."

"Is that why you plan to move your quarters to the Tower of
Geburah?" the snake hissed. "For if so I would remind you that
the Changer has not yet been changed, and Gaal is at present
very much alive-cursed be his name!"

Shagah laughed long and merrily. Then he said, "Of course
the move is not without risk."

The two lapsed into momentary silence. Behind the screen
the watchers carefully eased their positions. John's thoughts
were still on Lord Lunacy and Shagah. Their conversation had
appeared congenial. Neither the tone of their voices nor what
they said was hostile. Yet the atmosphere between them seemed
charged with hate. Why, John wondered, could the sorcerer
seem so cool and confident before the Lord of Evil? Before he
had clearly been bullied by Lunacy.

Shagah broke the silence. "For a Regenskind, Gaal's powers
were extraordinary."

"So are your own."

"But mine have taken centuries of painful and dangerous
labor to acquire. I have risked death at your own hands a
thousand times."

"You have done extraordinarily well, Shagah. You have come
very far." The remark sounded more like a threat than a compliment. Yet the sorcerer seemed unperturbed.

"The children could be your undoing yet," Lord Lunacy continued, swaying gently. "Somehow I am less convinced of their
death than you are. The prophesies indicate that they are the
ones who will imprison you in your own picture."

"Time will tell." The atmosphere was electric.

"You play the game well, Shagah. It is a joy to match wits with
you. I trained you for my pleasure. Now tell me-why do you
go today to Geburah?"

"You say that I do not know that the boy is dead, and I cannot
afford to take risks. I shall be there to meet him should he
arrive. From my divinations, divinations you yourself taught me,
I perceive he would arrive-if indeed he were still
before or just after the death of Gaal. That death has now
passed-not altogether as planned. Therefore, if the children
still live they will probably arrive today. And what a shock awaits
them there!"

"You will take your books and instruments with you?"

"I will draw the contents of both these rooms after me, once
I arrive, and I shall ensconce myself in all the rooms except the
Garden Room."

"Very good! A sorcerer's sorcerer whose spells have style!
You will go there first and then call your furnishings to follow
you. And you go today-indeed within moments." It was a statement, not a question, but Shagah nodded.

"Your picture will go too? You know it is not entirely safe."

"I know it is at once my refuge and my Achilles heel. My
refuge because it enables me to `castle' myself for millennia. My
Achilles heel, because I still face either Gaal or you when I
awake."

"Your Achilles heel is that once the picture is in the Sword
Bearer's hands you will never take refuge in it. If you so much
as touch it when he has it you will perish forever."

"As you say, my Lord."

"Let me try to fathom your thinking about Geburah. It is the
gateway of power from the throne of the Changer. Correct?"

"Correct." The answer came with confidence.

"It is, therefore, a highly dangerous place for a headquarters."

"Likewise correct"

"Then your objective must be correspondingly important."

Silence followed. After about two minutes Shagah answered,
and this time when he spoke the malevolence in his voice was
chilling. "My hope is to destroy the tower, to interrupt the flow
of power. For that my arrangements are complete. Either now
or centuries in the future, the tower will be destroyed."

"Admirable. But what powers have we against a tower built
by Himself? We are not dealing with any ordinary tower."

"Quite so. But as you yourself know it can be destroyed by
one of the human beings who so enchant him. It can be destroyed-or at least very seriously damaged by human
treachery, by human unbelief. And if I wait ten thousand years
I will find someone-someone of the household of the Sword
Bearer, if not the Sword Bearer himself, in whom I can plant
the seeds of treachery."

"And then your power will be as great as my own?"

"Never as great, Lordship. You know yourself that it would
be impossible."

"But you would have very great power."

"If I do not meet my end."

The serpent was smiling, its eyes glittering dangerously.
"Magnificent! Absolutely magnificent! It has the bold simplicity
of genius. There is more to you than I have given you credit
for. Go then, and we will see which of us survives longer."

The skull-capped head vanished, and the Lord Lunacy began
to fade from view. As he did so he murmured, "But a greater
genius and a greater boldness belongs to me. Checkmate will
come in time, Shagah. You serve my pleasure well."

For several minutes John, Authentio and Eleanor never
moved, scarcely daring to breathe. "I think they've gone," John
said at length. "Even the throne has disappeared. The room's
empty."

Carefully they made their way back through the first room. "Wasn't that something!" Eleanor breathed. "I mean about us
being dead-"

By this time they had reached the door that they had passed
through without seeing. John tried the handle.

"Made me feel great. But listen, I'm not sure how we're going
to get out." By this time John, who had had no success with the
door, was frowning and looking worried. "We mustn't get stuck
in here," he murmured.

"Let me try, my lord. Gaal would not imprison us here." He
tried to twist the door handle with all his strength. "It's locked,"
he muttered.

For the next hour, with increasing anxiety, they sought to
leave Shagah's strange dwelling place. They searched for keys,
tried the treasure key, tried kicking the door ("But not too hard
in case we find ourselves flying through space. Remember
we're up near the ceiling,") tried saying, "Open in the name of
Gaal," and looked for an invisible step on this side of the door.

Then it happened. The floor began to tremble. "Earthquake!"John cried.

But it was no earthquake. "We're moving-and I think it's
some sort of magic," Eleanor said breathlessly. The walls dissolved around them and stars appeared. Slowly things began to
turn upside-down.

"Oh, how great is Lord Gaal!" Authentio cried.

They were going somewhere, and certainly they were going "by
magic," but the going was clearly not the same as when Mab
had been there. The magic seemed less powerful. For one thing
the journey was in slow motion, and for another, it was never
very clear whether they were among the stars or were traveling
swiftly up the Rure Valley on a sunny morning. They could see
the two scenes at the same time, the one through the other,
sometimes one scene clearer than the other.

At first the city of Bamah lay like a map below them. For the
first time they were able to see the terrible destruction the
earthquake had produced. In the center of the city and on the
broad expanse of the hilltop, the temple seemed to grow like
a poisonous fungus. A circle of massive stones crowned the
hilltop and surrounded both the temple and the altar that faced
its main entrance. "It is an evil, evil place," Authentio said. "But it will never again rule us quite as it did."

John tried to focus his mind on the Rure Valley, to see whether they would follow the Rure or the Nachash which connected
to it. By focusing on the Anthropos scene he was not so likely
to get dizzy. To focus on a whirling night sky full of stars and
moons gave him the sensation that he was going head over
heels again and again.

Fortunately they were traveling together, so close together
that Eleanor reached out to seize both John's and Authentio's
hands. "What's happening?" she asked anxiously.

"It's a sort of magic travel."

"Where are we going?"

"Gosh-I wish I knew," John said.

"Who's-I mean who 'magicked' us?"

John shook his head. "I don't know."

"Surely it is Gaal who is doing it," Authentio protested.

"I don't think so-it's just-I don't know just not quite
right."

For several minutes they floated silently over the sunlit Rure
while the dark skies, heavenly bodies and a totally different
sense of space whirled around and over them. "What's that?"
Eleanor asked suddenly, pointing with her free hand."

"It looks like a book. Gosh, I wonder ... "

"And there's another-"

"Look! There's a whole flock of them over there!"

"A flock of books?"

"Oh, a bevy, a school-whatever you like. But I did say
books."

In spite of her bewilderment and anxiety Eleanor giggled.
"Anyway you're right. There are a lot of them."

"They are the books of magic from the room that belongs to
Shagah," Authentio said.

"I wonder if.... No, that would be absurd, but it could explain-"

"What, my lord?"

"Well, remember what Shagah said about drawing his things
after him?"

"Sort of," Eleanor said.

"I got the picture of his going to the Tower of Geburah and
then calling all his furniture to him by magic."

"Goodness! Oh, my! Do you really think ... ?"

"I'm not sure. But Authentio's right. Those do look like Shagah's books, and I think we're being drawn by Shagah's magic
to Geburah. Talk about taking the adventure that comes to us!
Anyway, it looks that way. We're beginning to follow the River
Nachash. See? It joins the Rure right below us, and we're just
beginning to follow the left fork-which is the Nachash."