Gaal the Conqueror (42 page)

On the fifth day Pontificater, having been absent for several
hours, returned to Bamah with the news that he had seen Gaal
and that he had sent a message for John, Eleanor, Mab and
Authentio. Pontificater was to take them to meet Gaal on the
other side of the River Rure at sunset. And so it was.

Gaal was waiting for them with a calm smile on his face. John
cleared his throat. His face was flushed and he sounded apol ogetic. "I-I hope it doesn't sound ungrateful," he said, "but
when do we go back to Canada?"

"It is good that you ask. For the hour has come. Come with
me to the hole where time is no more."

He led them some distance away to a cave. Once inside they
became aware of a rocky stairway that ascended to a wide opening in the roof of the cave. Though it was now dark outside,
intense blue light fell round them from the opening. The light
was like the falling of rain or snow, bathing and covering them.
They began to glow, growing brighter every minute. First the
glow was on the tops of their heads and their shoulders, resting
on them like snow, but eventually it seemed to be all over them
and even to be passing through them.

"Whatever-?" Eleanor began.

"This is the hole where time is no more," Gaal said.

"Ah, yes! Time. A most interesting concept." Pontificater began.

But Gaal had not finished. "It is here that we must part our
ways." For a rare moment, Authentio's face fell.

A tingle of excitement ran up and down John's shining body,
and he glanced up at his father. "Hope you change back-I
mean, change back to being Dad, not Mab, when we leave!" he
whispered. He noticed that Eleanor also stood close to his father.

"Why is it called the hole where time is no more?" she asked,
slipping her hand into the free hand of the seer.

Gaal smiled. "It is a hole that links us with different times and
even with a total absence of time. And through it we all must
pass-" (a startled whinny escaped Pontificater) "-all, that is,
except my loyal servant, Pontificater, and the good Authentio
who has much yet to do for me in Anthropos." He turned to
the beautiful winged horse. "I shall need you too-yes, and
your descendants after you, throughout the history of Anthropos. The others will have to return to the place they came from, just as I return to mine."

A strange and dreamy excitement seemed to possess them all.
They stared up into the opening, beyond which they could see
nothing but the falling light. Something seemed to be happening to time itself. Sometimes John thought that half an hour
would pass between the time one person stopped speaking and
the next person began. And at other times it seemed as though
the whole conversation took place in a split second.

But he was too excited and too dreamy to worry about the
changing speed of time. He simply wondered at its strangeness.
Movements seemed to take place with infinite slowness, though
sometimes they took no time at all. He raised his own hand in
front of him, wondering both at the glow that came from it and
at the eternity it seemed to take to get from his side to a point
level with his shoulder. He came to the conclusion that it was
not actually moving slowly but that he was intensely aware of
every microsecond of its ascent Yet when he decided to lower
it, it seemed not to take any time at all. In fact it seemed to be
at his side already, without having descended, so that he wondered whether he had actually raised it or had just dreamed
that he had raised it.

Gaal turned to John and to Eleanor. "Thank you for serving
me here," he said with a warm smile. The smile was real, and
it warmed John's heart. The voice seemed to echo a hundred
times, adding to the dreamy sensation which he found impossible to shake. "You learned your lessons well and served me
faithfully. You'll both be back someday to serve me again."

"When?" John asked, his own voice also seeming too distant
from him.

"That," Gaal replied smiling, "is a matter of my secret counsels. You will know soon enough. And here-" he held out a
small shining ball, no larger than a marble, to John.

"It's a pross stone," John said delightedly. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"Never mind. It will accomplish my purpose in ways you
would never suspect." John stared at the little thing in the palm
of his hand.

Gaal smiled at Ian McNab. "As for you," he said, "you will
henceforth serve me in the world you were born in."

His smile extended to them all. "Now follow me," he said,
turning to mount the rocky stairway. "I will go first. Wait on the
rim of the hole and watch me until you lose sight of me. When
your time comes to enter it, you will know what to do."

They followed, their movements like the movements of
dreamers. Ponty and Authentio brought up the rear. They
found the rim Gaal spoke of and sat on it, dangling their legs
back in the cave. Pontificater had to be content with poking his
head through the hole. They could see nothing at first and
were aware only of a blue mist and of one another's glowing
bodies. But when Gaal stood on the rim and seemed to step into
the mist it parted at once. A stairway of clear, shining sapphire
soared upward to what seemed an infinite height. As they
watched him Gaal began to climb.

What followed was difficult to understand. None of them
referred to it for years And all of them seem to have experienced it differently, though (and this is more confusing still)
they would indignantly deny this if you put it to them like that.
What is clear is that it had to do with Gaal, and what happened
as they stared at him climbing the stairs.

For John it was a story.

A story you saw, John?

Sort of-but oh, it was beautiful, so very, very beautiful.

But you saw the story when you looked at Gaal?

Sort of. It's hard to describe. It made me laugh and cry at the
same time. But it didn't last long.

How long did it last?

Well, no time at all, actually. But that's the hard part to describe. You see, it was a very long story, tremendously long in fact. Yet it took no time to tell. I saw it-heard it in a flash. It
was just there so to speak, like a scent, you know-a sort of
smell ...

Eleanor's account was equally puzzling. She tried to explain
it years later and I was there, doing my best to understand.

I was just watching him climb the stairway, as though he was
music.

As though he was music? I thought he was a person.

Yes, of course, he is. I'm only telling you what happened. I
sort of heard him, like a sound, such a beautiful, beautiful
sound.

You mean a note?

Oh, not just one-many notes, hundreds of notes.

What sort of notes?

Oh, trumpets! Yes, trumpets-the long, silver kind. And the
sound was like horses, lots and lots of horses. I just cried and
cried.

Like the thunder of many horses galloping?

Well, yes-I mean, no-it wasn't really like that at all.

But you could see the trumpets and the horses?

No, no-I heard the sound. Gaal's sound.

And Gaal was there all the time?

Yes, of course he was. I was hearing him.

And you could see him?

Not really. I was hearing him more than seeing him. You
can't see hundreds of notes.

And how long did this go on?

For years and years. I know that makes no sense. But that's
how it was. It was beautiful.

Perhaps the intervening years had made her forget what it
was really like, though they were clear enough in their description of what followed next. The mists swirled in and then
cleared again, and as like a curtain they swept aside, the three
Canadians drew in a breath of surprise and relief. Before them was the starlit expanse of Black Sturgeon Lake with the windswept patches of snow separating areas of black ice. And the
snow-clothed jack pines on the rocky shore seemed to call to
them with the call of home.

"Look, Ponty, that's where we live! Wouldn't you like to come
with us?" Eleanor cried.

He shook his horsey head. "Deeply as I-ahem-appreciate,
er, how shall I say it ... ?"

John who was nearest to him threw his arms round the
gleaming horse's neck. "Don't bother. We understand. Anyway
Gaal wants you. We'll sure miss you."

Eleanor, also hugged his neck, and for once in his life, Pontificater could find no words. Likewise silent farewells were
exchanged with Authentio with whom they had shared so
much.

They might have stayed there a long time, but Ian McNab's
voice suddenly rang out in alarm. "The mists are closing again!
Quick-grab my hands!"

He tugged them through a misty curtain and at once their
feet were planted on the same thin patch of snow from which
they had left for Anthropos. The cave was gone. Ponty was
gone. Authentio was gone too. Only the forest-fringed sweep of
the lake remained. Their bodies glowed no longer, and their
clothes were the clothes they had worn before they set out.
Suddenly it seemed as though they had never left, as though
they were taking up Canadian life exactly where they had left
it. Which was precisely what they were doing.

Eleanor giggled. "I'm little again," she said, "but that's OX
I don't mind. But don't you boss me around, John McNab!"

John was still clutching the pross stone. "I wonder why he
gave it to me," he puzzled. Years passed before he found out.

Slowly they began to make their way to the shore.

And that really brings the story to an end. Eleanor went to stay in Winnipeg with her mother's sister, a woman she loved
very dearly. Her mother often came to see her. Two years later
her father died in a tragic accident, and her mother moved to
Winnipeg where the three of them continued to live happily
together.

She and John did return to Anthropos but not for many,
many years. That, however, is part of another story altogether.
If ever I have time, I'll write it all down.