Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) (21 page)

“I must have gone round and round for hours, just following the twists and turns,” she said. “I was afraid I’d never find the way out. How did you find me?”

“Wytt tracked you down, then came back and showed us the way,” Jack said. “He must have sniffed your trail like a dog.”

A few more minutes and they were back on the plain, just short of the forested hills. Ham, tied to a bush, brayed a greeting to them.

“Why do you look so glum, Obst? Everything’s all right now,” Jack said.

The old man shook his head.

“I’m troubled because I don’t understand what we have seen,” he said. “I suppose I’m frightened by the vastness of the world. Why has God let us see it again, after hiding it from us for so many centuries?

“The men who made that map were wicked, ungodly, and powerful; and that maze was a seat of their power. It’s as if they’ve reached out across a gulf of time to touch our world today. I would much rather they didn’t touch us.”

“We’d do better to be afraid of those riders Ellayne saw,” Jack said. He untied Ham. “Let’s get to the woods and find some food, or we won’t be having any supper tonight.”

Having no track to follow, Martis wanted only to get across the plain as fast as he could. After all, he knew where the children were going; and now it seemed the hermit was going with them. It ought to be easy to find people who would remember seeing them.

He parted from Helki with a full pack of food and a full water bag, and marched all night. By dawn he could do no more; he had to stop and sleep. He made camp by rolling himself up in his blanket and sleeping in a rut. He dreamed of giant birds.

It wasn’t the outlaws that had scared him, although he knew they would have killed him. Many had tried to kill Martis. Few men in his profession lived to a ripe old age and died in bed. Someday a man he was trying to kill would kill him. He had long accepted that.

But to be snapped up like an insect! The thought of it made his flesh crawl; the dreams made him toss and turn. He had never in his life been so afraid of anything.

The fear of God is the seed of wisdom …

The verse from the Wisdom Songs flitted through his mind, and he angrily dismissed it. Scripture wouldn’t help him now. The fear of enormous killer birds is the beginning of wisdom, he thought, and better a troop of bodyguards than all the prayers in the world.

He crammed down a cheerless bit of food and drink, packed his blanket, and set out again. He hadn’t slept well enough, but it couldn’t be helped. He would have to keep walking until he gained the hills, then make straight for Bell Mountain. He might be able to get there ahead of the old man and the children. How fast could they go?

As dusk came on, he was still hiking when he heard the approach of horsemen.

He saw them, four of them, coming down the sloping ground straight for him. They must have seen him first. He knew they were Heathen by their headdresses. To try to escape them on foot would be futile, so he stood and waited for them.

Martis greeted the riders after the manner of their tribe, raising both palms and speaking the ritual words of welcome, “
Elamoon elakoom hessalaym, kawaan
.” Which was to say, “Greetings and blessings to you, my brothers.” Up close, he recognized the headbands of the Waal Kota, a fierce tribe very active in the slave trade.

“
Hessalym elkoom
,” answered one of the riders. “Who are you who greets us after the manner of a man?”

“One who has been a guest in the tents of the Waal Kota and sworn friendship with the chieftain Mway, son of Kalal.” Martis knew their language well and spoke it with a flair. “And he bade me say this, so that any of his braves will know I speak truth: the star of the War God adorns the chieftain’s hand.” For the Heathen set great store by the stars and planets, deeming them gods, and Mway wore a ruby ring that was a symbol of his hereditary chieftainship.

The leader of the riders dismounted and clasped Martis’ hand. “Well met, friend of the Waal Kota!” he said. He must have recognized Martis’ Temple insignia, but he ignored it. “I am Dulayl Sawak, son of Ayrah. How may I tell Chief Mway that I helped his friend?”

“At the moment, warrior, I am in sore need of a horse,” Martis said.

“Then you shall have mine.”

Martis bowed. It would have been a grave insult to have offered payment for the horse. It was a wiry little beast, bred for endurance in hot, dry country, dull brown with white tail and mane and a white star on its forehead. Indeed, it would have been insulting not to accept the gift—although now Dulayl Sawak would be put to the inconvenience of riding double with one of his men until they could steal another horse.

“Have you seen any other travelers on the way, Dulayl? I seek an old man accompanied by two children.”

“We have not. In truth, we go in haste and may have overlooked them.”

“If I may speed you on any errand you have in hand, warrior, you have but to speak.”

“We have nothing to ask of you,” Dulayl said. “We have only come to kill a certain man who broke his pledge, and then return.”

Martis found himself moved as Dulayl pressed the horse’s reins into his hand. Idolaters and moon-worshippers they were, and slavers and murderers to boot, but the well-mannered Heathen was a master of the noble gesture. And he knew how to honor friendships.

“Take care as you travel in this country, brothers,” Martis said. “There are strange beasts in the land. A gigantic bird killed and ate my horse.”

The riders muttered among themselves. Dulayl nodded.

“It is the same on our side of the mountains,” he said. “Last month a man came to my master’s tent, the only survivor of a caravan from the south. He swore there was a worm in the desert so venomous that even to look on it was death. All the camels died, and then the men. And I myself have seen a great beast, covered with long red hair, pull down a tree to eat the leaves. My men’s arrows bounced off it. I am not ashamed to say that I withdrew in haste. We shall indeed be careful, my friend.”

With much ceremony, after the manner of the Heathen, they parted, Martis heading northeast on his new horse, Dulayl and his men riding west. Martis was glad Reesh had several times made him his emissary to the tribes beyond the mountains. It was Lord Reesh’s policy for the Temple to have many dealings with the Heathen, in secret. The people of Obann would have thought it a great scandal, but it helped to keep the Temple prosperous and well-informed; and the people knew nothing of it.

As soon as he was in the saddle, Martis felt less fearful. Men weren’t meant to toil along on foot like ants, he thought. Now he was in command again, his old self. He kicked the horse into an easy trot and grinned up at the evening stars.

Helki had never before killed one of Squint-eye’s men. He’d beaten many of them, insulted more, and refused to pay dues; and Latt had sworn to kill him. Now he supposed Latt would have to try to fulfill that vow.

By first light the next morning, Helki decided to follow Martis over the plain. He rarely left Lintum Forest, so he knew the outlaws would spend days combing the woods for him. Let them think he’d gone away for good. He would return when they least expected him and kill a few more of them. Honest people would rejoice.

He cut down some long bunches of heather and set out with them clutched in his hand. Before nightfall he had occasion to use them.

Seeing three Heathen riders in the distance, Helki lay flat on his belly and held up the heather as a screen. They rode past, hardly fifty paces away, and never saw him. One of the horses had two riders, and Helki wondered about that. Had Martis’ giant bird come out onto the plain?

He let them pass out of sight, then got up and resumed his trek. Maybe it would be a good thing if he were present when Martis finally caught up to Obst and the children.

As for Obst and the children, they put all their effort into reaching the wooded hills and making a camp under the trees before night fell. Tomorrow they would rest, Obst said, and gather food.

“How far are we from Bell Mountain?” Jack asked, after they’d made a shelter and gotten a fire going.

“As the crow flies, not far at all,” Obst said. “But it’ll be all uphill from now on, and the closer we get to our goal, the harder the traveling. We won’t be able to see our way until we’re well up on the shoulders of the mountains.”

“Do you think we’ll find King Ozias’ bell?” Ellayne said.

“I do.”

“I wonder what things will be like by the time we come back down again,” Jack said. He was thinking, for no reason at all, of an impossible thing—that after the bell was rung, and God heard it, his own mother and father would be waiting for him when he came down from the mountain. Not ghosts, but alive again. But he kept that thought to himself.

“It’s better not to ask the Lord what He will do,” Obst said. “‘
Shall I hide from my beloved what I will do, lest it sear his heart and melt his eyes?
’ His is the power to unmake what He has made.”

Jack didn’t know how to argue with that. Would God send us up the mountain just so that nothing but terrible things would happen? That was what he should have said, but something kept him from saying it.

“Abombalbap met a knight who found a spear chained to a rock with a golden chain,” Ellayne said, “and on the rock it said in golden letters that whoever took that spear would ruin a kingdom with it. And that fool of a knight cut the chain and took the spear, and later on he met another knight and jousted with him and killed him with the spear.

“The knight who was killed turned out to be the only son of a good king who was old and sick, and so the king’s nephew became king after him—and he was an evil king. The whole kingdom went bad with him. And Abombalbap had to take the spear away from the evil king and throw it into the lake where the Elf Queen lived, to break the curse.”

She stopped to catch her breath. Obst shook his head at her.

“If the children of Obann knew the Scriptures half as well as they know nonsense like
Abombalbap
, we might not be on this mission,” he said. “But the whole nation has turned away from the Lord.”

“My father read me those stories from my book,” Ellayne said, “and my father is a good man. He’s the chief councilor in our village.”

Whatever Obst was going to say to that, he bit it back. But Jack could guess what it would have been, and he supposed Ellayne could, too.

These were much thicker, wilder woods than Lintum Forest. “I think Lintum’s older,” Jack said to Ellayne, as they followed Obst up a very narrow path. “I’ll bet it’s a lot easier to get lost up here.”

Obst paid no attention to their talk. After two days’ travel uphill—their first day in the forest, they gathered food and rested—he seemed to be tiring. Jack hadn’t thought anything of it, but Ellayne brought it up in a whisper.

“He’s old to be doing this,” she said. “Maybe too old.”

“Too old?”

“People get tired when they’re old. My Uncle Flaran used to be the fastest runner in the district—everybody says so. But now he can hardly run a step, and he says it hurts his heart to try. I wonder how old Obst is!”

“He’ll be all right,” Jack said. But of course he didn’t have a big family like Ellayne’s, and he didn’t know any old people who could tell him what they were like when they were young. The only old person he knew was his teacher, Ashrof; and he thought of Ashrof as someone who’d always been old.

He didn’t want to think about Obst being unable to go on, so he changed the subject. “The trees down in Lintum grow a lot taller,” he said, “and a lot farther apart. We heard a lot more birds there, too.”

“I’d rather be there than here,” Ellayne said. “There’s so much moss on the trees, and all that green goo on the rotten logs. And I don’t like the look of some of those big mushrooms. There’s something about these woods that wants to cover you up and never let you out.”

“Haven’t seen many animals, have we?” Jack said.