Kettle or Dagbert or Sehor Alvaro. And where was Gabriel?
"Have we won?" Charlie asked miserably, for how could they have won if his uncle was dead?
"Not yet, Charlie," said Lysander.
And then Charlie saw on the other side of the field a mounted knight in shining armor. He wore a green cloak, and the plume on his helmet swirled in the air like the fronds of poisonous green hemlock. His mount was a great black stallion that snorted a fiery breath and cleaved the air with hooves of white-hot iron.
The enchanter's army stood in a row behind him. But the stone creatures lay in motionless heaps between the two groups. Felled by whom? Charlie wondered.
Had the Torssons' lightning bolts pummeled them to pieces, or had Eric, their animator, finally been struck down?
"Come, Charlie!" Alice raised him to his feet.
"What's going to happen?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the prancing stallion and its green-swathed rider.
"We're finished, that's what," said Olivia.
Alice darted her a fierce look. "No."
But Olivia looked at the huddled shapes lying around the field.
The leopards were moving among the bodies, pawing and crying to them.
"Without Mrs. Kettle and Mr. Yewbeam... and without... without..." She choked on her words, and the great bird beside her rubbed its head against her sleeve.
"We must do our best," said Alice. "We cannot permit him to take the city so easily. We cannot allow him to carry us back to a life not worth living. We cannot."
"Never," said a determined-looking Dr. Saltweather.
"No!" Tancred and Lysander agreed, their faces stern and resolute.
But Charlie could see tears glistening in Alice's eyes, and he knew that she was not entirely certain of the outcome of the battle.
An awful laughed rolled across the grass: a victorious and deathly rumble.
The enchanter's voice boomed in their ears as though he were standing beside them.
"Go home!" he roared. "It's finished. The city is mine."
"No," Alice whispered.
"No," they whispered in unison, though they had all begun to wonder why they stood there waiting to die.
The enchanter kicked his horse, and the great beast came galloping toward them. They tried to hold the line, but Runner Bean and the rottweilers began to howl. They sank onto their bellies and wriggled away. And who could blame them?
On came the enchanter, his army moving after him. The group took a step back, then another.
"Why?" Charlie asked himself. Where were the bolts of lightning and the spirit ancestors? Why did the giant bird crouch beside her friend? Why wasn't Billy talking to the dogs? Why were the tears falling freely down Alice's cheeks?
They were paralyzed, Charlie realized. So we are lost.
All at once a brilliant shaft of light struck a path across the heath. The leopards leaped up, their ears pricked forward, and the black stallion reared as though the light was a lethal thread of wire before him.
The leopards bounded toward the source of light, and on a hill at the edge of the field Charlie saw the brilliant flash of a sword, held by a knight on a white horse. The leopards reached the horse as it began to gallop down the hill; the knight's red cloak flew out behind him and the leopards came leaping after it.
The enchanter turned his horse. Again came the chilling laugh. "At last!" he roared. "We'll put an end to this."
At the bottom of the hill the Red Knight reined in his mount. And now they confronted each other, the Red Knight and the Green, with a few hundred yards between them. They drew' their swords and began to advance.
Suddenly, Charlie found he was running, propelled by the worst fear he had ever known. He could hear his friends calling him back, but he couldn't stop.
He had to get between the two horses.
For he knew that the Red Knight was a man. He might have a magic cloak and an unbeatable sword, but he was not a magician, so how could he defeat a being whose very fingers were laced with deathly enchantments?
Charlie was too late. With a clash of steel the knights met in battle.
Charlie dropped to his knees and the leopards surrounded him, nudging his shoulders and purring into his ears. Did they know something that he didn't?
The fighting was fast and furious. Every trick, every bit of sorcery was dredged from the enchanter's mind and used against his adversary. His weapon was by turns red-hot and ice-cold. He rained spikes on the Red Knight's helmet and sharpened bolts onto his chain mail, while the black stallion snorted fire into the white mare's eyes.
The Red Knight was beginning to tire. His head fell forward and he swayed from side to side, lowering his sword. The Green Knight prepared to come in for the kill.
"No!" cried Charlie and again he ran. With all his strength he leaped for the stallion's harness, dragging at its head. The enchanter lifted his weapon.
"Cursed boy!" he roared. And then suddenly he gasped, as the Red Knight's unbeatable sword struck home, clean through the thick breastplate and into the Green Knight's heart.
The stallion reared and the enchanter rolled off its back. He hit the ground with a noise like the clash of giant cymbals, the sword still buried in his heart.
Charlie lay back in the grass. Above him the fog was rising and he could see blue sky and a brilliant sun. The ghostly army seemed to have vanished with the fog, and the Piminy Street gang were limping away; their heads were low and their gaudy costumes in rags. They looked so pathetic, Charlie felt almost sorry for them.
When he sat up he saw that his fallen friends were not fatally injured. Alice Angel was lifting his uncle's head. Fidelio had gotten to his feet. The leopards were moving around the injured, purring and nudging them back to life.
Lysander and Tancred came racing over to Charlie. "He's gone!" cried Lysander.
"Not a trace," said Tancred. "Truly dead!"
It was true. There was no sign of the enchanter, though the unbeatable sword lay where he had fallen, and a black stallion chomped the grass beside it.
"But the Red Knight!" said Charlie, standing up.
He lay on his back, only a few feet away. The white mare stood over his body.
Now and then she nuzzled the battered helmet, snorting encouragingly. Blood seeped through the chain mail on the knight's chest and arms. It trickled from beneath his helmet. Was he already dying when he made that fatal thrust into the enchanter's heart? Charlie ran over to him. "What should we do?" He looked at his friends.
"Better take off the helmet!" Lysander suggested.
Charlie was afraid. Suddenly he didn't want to know the identity of the Red Knight. The spell would be ended. And if the knight was dead? But I must know, he thought. He knelt in the grass and gently pulled off the helmet.
A familiar face smiled up at him.
Charlie couldn't speak. His astonishment, his joy was too great. He could feel the others gathering behind him, murmuring. "It can't be!" "Is it, really?" "Why didn't we know?"
"Dad!" Charlie breathed.
22. THE SEAT OF EVIL
The city had not been entirely deserted. Officer Singh and Officer Wood arrived at the field soon after the battle had ended. More police arrived.
Ambulances parked at the edge of the grass, and medical teams ran over to the injured.
Lyell Bone was lifted onto a stretcher and carried to an ambulance. Charlie was allowed to travel with him. Just before the doors were closed, Officer Singh approached Charlie and asked how he felt. "You've got a lot of nasty bruises, lad," he said. He looked intently at Charlie, as though he had a particular interest in him.
"I'm OK," said Charlie. "I'm just worried about my dad. And my mom, she ought to know what's happened."
"She does," said Officer Singh. "I've just given her a call."
Charlie was puzzled. "You know where she is? But how?"
"Ah," said the policeman. "She'll have to tell you that herself."
Charlie's mother was waiting for him at the hospital, and after she hugged him half to death they went to wait in the hallway while Lyell's wounds were dressed.