The Dark Lord's Demise

  The Sword Bearer

  Gaal the Conqueror

  The Tower of Geburah

  The Iron Sceptre

  The Quest for the King

  The Dark Lord's Demise

  WITH DALE & SANDY LARSEN

  THE ARCHIVES OF ANTHROPOS

  Cover Illustration by Vic Mitchell

  Interior Illustrations by Jack Stockman

  Cartouche and Lettering by Roberta Polfus

  1 The Sword on the Wall 7

  2 A Stranger Arrives 19

  3 The Secret Upstairs 28

  4 Ina Fog 35

  5 Winged Assault 42

  6 To Nephesh-in Bonds 54

  7 The Hall of Inquiry 62

  8 The Light in the Cell 74

  9 An Open Door 82

  10 The Royal Couple 90

  11 A Roomful of Children 98

  12 In the Royal Council Chamber 108

  13 Strange Eagles 118

  14 The Garden of Roses 126

  15 Lisa's Warning 140

  16 The Journey Begins 148

  17 Lunacy's Plan 155

  18 Campsite by the Stream 166

  19 Darkness Descends 173

  20 Forward Together 182

  21 Flight Through the Forest 189

  22 The Queen and the Princess 199

  23 Parade Past the Tree 209

  24 Confusion at the Lodge 219

  25 Across Lake Nachash 230

  26 To Stay Forever 240

  27 The Image in the Air 248

  28 The Boiling Lake 257

  29 Battles on the Cliff 266

  30 The Dome of Blue Light 276

  31 The Bayith and Beyond 284

  Clack! Clack! Clatter! Crash!

  The clash of sword against sword shattered the usual peace of the old house. Both young fighters were determined to win. Their faces were tight with concentration.

  "Surrender!" Kurt hissed. He made a skillful feint and thrust. His opponent, Wesley, sidestepped the blow and snarled, "Never!"

  They faced each other in the narrow downstairs hallway. Wesley had the advantage of height and strength, but Kurt was quick and aggressive. Their brief standoff ended as Wesley attacked and forced Kurt backwards down the hall.

  Wes's voice rang out over the noise of battle. "You forget who it is you have dared to challenge! I swung my sword bravely at the Battle of Rinnar Heights! I slew the seven-headed serpent!"

  "So goes your story!" Kurt sneered. "A seven-headed serpent! A monster you claim appeared at first as a lady on horseback! Ha!"

  Wesley's blade halted Kurt's in midswing. Wes shoved Kurt's sword away. Both fighters paused and held their weapons before them in defensive posture. Quietly Wesley asked, "You dare to doubt the word of a servant of Gaal? Gaal the Conqueror, Gaal the Lord of Far and Near, Son of the Unchanging Changer?"

  Kurt's eyes narrowed. "Do you think I am no less a servant of the Lord Gaal?"

  "Gaal accepts even the lowest of servants! Have I not served him with more faithfulness than you?"

  Kurt raised his voice along with his sword. "I risked my life in Gaal's service! I fought the Great Rooster on the stone stairway beneath the ice! The foul Lord Lunacy sent it there to kill us, but I overcame my fears.. ."

  "Only with the help of Gaal! Now he favors me over you!"

  Again they went at each other with their swords. Kurt's pride was stung. The insult gave him fierce new energy. He forced Wesley backward along the hall toward a narrow flight of stairs that led upward to a closed door. Wes could not risk a glance over his shoulder. He misjudged where the stairs began. His heel hit the bottom step, and he lost his balance and sprawled on his hack on the sharp steps.

  Kurt lowered his sword. "I will not slay my own brother when he lies defenseless."

  Wes jumped to his feet, sword in hand, and stood on the fourth step above Kurt. "A foolish mistake! Now it is you who are defenseless!"

  Kurt sized up the situation, then attacked viciously. Wes was forced backward up the steps until his back was almost against the closed doorway.

  "You can flee no further! Surrender!" Kurt demanded. From somewhere below, an alarm bell sounded. Both boys were startled but kept their concentration. Over the noise Wesley sneered, "Summoning reinforcements, Kurt? They will never arrive in time!"

  The door swung open. It hit Wesley in the back and knocked him off balance. He lost his grip on his sword and grabbed for the banister. The sword shot down the stairs past Kurt, who grabbed for it, missed and nearly fell down the stairs himself. Kurt clutched the banister but managed to hold onto his own sword. The raucous alarm still sounded.

  Kurt looked up at Wesley and let out a heartless laugh. "Now you must surrender! You have no weapon!"

  "Coward! Drop your own sword and I will fight you hand to hand!"

  "Oh, cut it out, you two! Can't you hear the smoke alarm?" The boys' sister, Lisa, stood scowling in the doorway.

  Kurt bowed. "Ah, Lady Lisa! Ordinarily I would not lower myself to continue this battle against so unworthy an opponent. But for your honor I will fight on!"

  Lisa shoved Wes out of her way and stomped down the stairs past Kurt. "My honor is just fine, thank you. I can't say much for the honor of you guys if you let the roast burn up in the oven." At the bottom of the stairs Lisa kicked away Wesley's sword, which was only a stick of wood. "Wes, you're too old for pretend sword fights!"

  Wes sat down on the top step. "I only did it because Kurt pestered me. He wanted to pretend we were in Anthropos. How else was I supposed to get him off my back?"

  Lisa disappeared into the kitchen. Kurt shrugged and said, "Come on, let's see if we can help salvage the food." The two boys followed their sister into the kitchen, Kurt still hanging onto his wooden sword.

  "Fan the air away from that thing!" Lisa shouted over the screech of the smoke alarm. She shut off the oven. "This is the last time Aunt Eleanor asks you to take care of dinner!"

  Wes grabbed a dishtowel and flapped it at the smoke alarm while Lisa opened the oven door. Smoke rolled out along with the rich scent of roast beef. The meat was still this side of being scorched. The heavy aroma made the children's stomachs rumble.

  Kurt took a deep breath. "Ah! Roast boarwartz! My favorite delicacy!"

  The howl of the alarm stopped. Wes quit swinging the dishtowel and stared at Kurt. "You'd eat a boarwartz? They're the most yucky goblins in all of Anthropos. Do you remember what the inside of a goblin looks like? All green and slimy and-"

  "Quiet!" Lisa thrust a long two-tined fork into the roast. "The problem with you two is you're both suffering from a severe case of nostalgia."

  "Nostalgia?" Kurt repeated.

  "She means we look back at the past too much," explained Wes.

  "People who live in the past are no good for here and now," Lisa snapped at her brothers. "Why do you keep talking about Anthropos? You know we're never going back."

  Kurt tore a strip of tender meat from the top of the roast. "How do you know we're not?" he challenged Lisa. She rapped him on the knuckles with the fork, but the damage was done. Kurt crammed the meat into his mouth. He sputtered, "It's hot!"

  "That's what you get for sneaking a piece of boarwartz," said Wes with a superior air. "By the way, I think Lady Lisa here is all wrong about us not going back to Anthropos. I think the only question is when."

  Lisa snatched the towel from Wes. "You guys were supposed to put potatoes in to bake. Where are they? Did you let them burn up in the oven? Come on, Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor could be home any minute." She began to slice a loaf of brown bread she'd made the night before.

  Kurt managed to chew and swallow his chunk of meat and get his voice back. "W
e never know when they'll be home anymore," he said. "One of them could decide to work late, or both of them. Or one could show up early. And the potatoes are-well, I guess we forgot. They're still in the bag. Uncooked. Sorry."

  "Here," his brother offered. "I'll put some on to boil. They won't take long if I cut them up. So, Lisa, why are you so sure we're not going back to Anthropos?"

  "Use your brain! It's been ages since we saw any messages on the old TV sets in the attic. That's almost always the way we're called. Through the old TV sets."

  "You don't have to tell us how we get there, Miss Know-It-All," said Kurt. He pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down and laid his swordstick across the table.

  `.. ['hank you, Mr. Know-Everything," Lisa came back. "Anyway, it's been almost a year since Caal summoned us. No, not that pot, Wes, the bigger one."

  "It's been over a year," Wes corrected her. "One year, one month and four days. How could you forget? It was the day of Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor's wedding, and they just celebrated their first anniversary."

  "If you could call it a celebration. They kept snapping at each other even while they got ready to go out for dinner." She jerked open a drawer, slammed it shut and jerked open another one. "I hated it! I wished they'd get out the door and go. Except they weren't really happy when they came back either."

  The room became quiet. The only sound was the tick-tick-tick of the oven as it cooled. None of the three liked to remember that evening. Now their minds were full of the ugly scene.

  Wes concentrated on the potatoes. He preferred to drop the subject of his aunt and uncle's conflicts, but something urged him to talk. "They fight about everything lately," he ventured. "Even the dumbest things."

  Quickly Kurt spoke up. "It's normal for people to disagree about things. It doesn't necessarily mean anything serious." He tried to sound casual, but his brother and sister heard the tremble in his voice.

  Wes shook his head. "I think the things they fight about are only an excuse. Those things aren't the real problem. There's more under the surface."

  "It's so different from when they first got married," Lisa said wistfully. "They're different. And I didn't say anything to you guys, but last night I heard them talking and I'm afraid ..." Her voice trailed off. She pulled out more drawers and rummaged around for utensils. A drawer stuck, and she jerked at it violently.

  Wes watched her for a while before he asked, "You're afraid of what?"

  "Nothing!"

  "Something," he said quietly. Lisa didn't answer. He went on, "I know what you were going to say."

  "Okay, what was I going to say?"

  "You're afraid they're having second thoughts about whether they should have gotten married at all."

  Kurt looked back and forth from Wes to Lisa. He stammered, "What are you-what do you mean? You aren't saying they intend to-I mean-"

  Lisa nodded. "They're thinking they should split up. In fact, I'm afraid they've already decided."

  Though the oven door stood open, the temperature in the kitchen seemed to drop several degrees. Lisa's words hung in the air, along with the aroma of the roast. The scent of the meat was comforting, but the words terrified the three of them.

  Kurt felt sick. Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor ... not together anymore? It had happened to so many of their friends' parents. People assumed the Friesens lived with their aunt and uncle because their mother and father were no longer married. Sometimes people even suspected the children had invented the story about their parents being in the Canadian Diplomatic Service. Fred and Jane Friesen were frequently on assignment in trouble spots around the world. For safety their three children had gone to live with their Uncle John McNab in the old house on Grosvenor Avenue, back when he was still single.

  Kurt's confused thoughts burst out into questions. "What'll happen to them? What'll happen to us? Will Uncle John stay here and Aunt Eleanor move out? Or the other way around? Will we go live with Dad and Mom somewhere halfway around the world or ... or ... or what?" He rocked back in his chair and shut his eyes tight. "I want to go back to Anthropos. Right now."

  "Too bad! You can't!" Lisa snapped.

  Kurt talked on, eyes closed against the truth he did not want to face. "I miss Gaal! I miss everybody! I miss the Matmon and the Koach! I never got a chance to learn the wolf language the Koach speak. I did learn a little. Listen!" His voice dissolved into a series of yips, barks and wails.

  Wes understood why Kurt wanted so desperately to change the subject. For a moment lie played along. "No, it was more like this." He added some yelps and growls.

  Lisa covered her ears. "Knock it off, both of you! Howling and barking won't help!" She ripped down a piece of paper that had been taped to a kitchen cabinet door. "We're not in Anthropos; we're in Winnipeg. We've got to do whatever we can to smooth things over. First of all, let's finish our list of jobs." In a very official voice she read: "Number one. Put on roast and potatoes 4:00 p.m. Number two. Dust downstairs. Number three. Vacuum rugs. Number four. Set table. Number five. Go meet new neighbor kid." She looked up at the boys. "What new neighbor kid?"

  "There's a new family down the street. I saw the moving van yesterday," Kurt answered.

  "The new neighbor will have to wait," said Wes as he put the potatoes on to boil. "Let's tackle the cleaning. Maybe it will help if the place looks really good when they get home from work." He got a handful of rags from a kitchen drawer.

  Kurt dragged his feet as he followed his brother into the living room. "We'd be done by now if I hadn't made you do that silly sword fight," he moaned. He wished he could do something, anything, to set things right.

  "That's all the more reason to get to work," Wes answered. "Here, grab a dust rag."

  Lisa pulled the heavy upright vacuum from the hall closet and started in on the living room rug. Wes was relieved when the roar of the vacuum made conversation impossible. He could be alone with his own thoughts even while the three of them worked in the same room. He dusted the fireplace mantle and the decorative pieces on it. Most of the objects were from their parents' travels. All three Friesens could recite the story behind each one.

  High on the wall above the mantel hung what appeared to be the prize artifact of Fred and Jane's travels. That was what the Friesens, and even Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor, let visitors think. The truth was far more complex. The object was a magnificent sword in a jeweled scabbard. The grip of its hilt was encased in leather, while the rest of the hilt sparkled with inlaid gems.

  Wes had to stand on a chair to reach the sword. He told himself it would be easier to polish all its stones if he got the sword down from the wall. Carefully he lifted the heavy scabbard off its wall hooks. In truth, he could have dusted it perfectly well from the chair, but he longed to hold the sword once again. His fingers itched to unsheathe the blade and feel the sword's warmth and weight in his hand. He ached to hear it hum with energy and see it shoot blue rays of fire.

  This was the Sword of Geburah, forged from iron thunderbolts before time began. The sword brought victory in battle, but only if the bearer fought in the service of Gaal. Uncle John had been the original Sword Bearer.

  John's story actually began not in Anthropos or in Canada but in England, where lie lived in a poor area and was picked on by the other boys. He had never known his real parents; his grandmother raised him, but she died on his thirteenth birthday. John was terrified of what would happen to him. Then an unseen person called the Changer-the Unchangeable Changer-summoned John through a mysterious gray door into a place called Anthropos.

  Anthropos was not simply another country like the ones where Fred and Jane Friesen served, but a different world. In Anthropos, John was no longer merely an orphaned boy afraid of an uncertain future. He became the Sword Bearer, entrusted with the miraculous Sword of Geburah. People in Anthropos, at least those in rebellion against the Mystery of Abomination, had been waiting for the Sword Bearer to arrive. (Instead of "people" we should say "beings," because the inhabitants of Anthropos
were of all types, including talking animals and dwarflike creatures called Matmon.)

  John fulfilled his mission in Anthropos when he killed the Goblin Prince with the Sword of Geburah. Along the way he met a good wizard named Mab, who turned out to be Ian McNab, the father John had never known. When John and his father returned together to this world, they found themselves on a boat bound for Canada. Several years later, when John was in his teens, the Changer again summoned him to Anthropos, this time to aid an unhappy young girl named Eleanor. The Changer had called her to Anthropos to face her fears and to learn to trust him.

  Wesley gazed at the sword and sighed. A few times here in the house in Winnipeg they had dared to slide a few inches of the blade from its scabbard. It looked like ordinary steel. It never flashed blue fire or vibrated with a life of its own. Apparently its unnatural power worked only in Anthropos.

  Lisa's voice interrupted Wes's thoughts. "If only we could kill off all our troubles with the Sword of Geburah," she said. He realized the roar of the vacuum had stopped.

  He agreed. "Yeah, if only! We could kill these problems like so many goblins. Watch them melt into it pool of green slime. Too bad the sword doesn't work that way."

  Lisa stared at a framed photograph on an end table that showed a smiling couple in wedding clothes. The bride and groom were unusual in several ways. Both were middle-aged. Their hair was wet as though they had walked through a rainstorm. The bride wore a typical long white gown, and the groom's gray top hat and morning suit were normal enough. But the groom had a sword strapped to his left side. It was the same jeweled Sword of Geburah that Wesley had lifted from the wall.

  Kurt joined Lisa to look at the photo. "Just think, Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor actually disappeared from their limo in Hong Kong! The Changer called them to Anthropos between the wedding and the reception!"

  "When we went to Anthropos later that same day, we didn't recognize them because they were a very young lord and lady," Lisa recalled. "When we all came back a long time later, I mean in Anthropos time, it was still their wedding day in Hong Kong." Lisa smiled at the memory. Her smile faded quickly. "They look so happy."