The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (14 page)

But there were passes in the mountains, and these had been scouted out carefully. The widest of them opened just above Silvertown, a place fortified with a wall of fitted stone. The strongest division would have to take that route and either capture the city or else pass it by. Obst saw no siege equipment in the army: the Heathen could only take a walled city by surprise or treachery.

He traveled with the big division that was aimed at Silvertown. The Abnaks, in whose custody he was, provided him with a conical deer-hide tent that did not leak, all the food and drink he wanted, and even some new clothes for Ryons, decent clothes that would keep him warm at night. They offered Obst a donkey to ride, but he had no need of it.

“For an old fellow, you’ve got strong legs,” Uduqu said, after two days’ uphill marching. “Some of the young bucks from the flat lands are already half done-in.”

“God has been good to me,” Obst said. “He gives me strength.”

The old subchief had a sharp mind, and on the second night out, with Obst as a guest for supper in his tent, he asked a sharp question. That there were several other subchiefs present, all smoking beans and keenly interested in the answer, made the question seem even sharper.

“One thing puzzles me,” Uduqu said. “You serve the westman’s god; he isn’t known on our side of the mountains. And you’ve said he will protect us. But here we are, marching into his country to make war on his people. You’d think he’d protect them, not us.”

There was always the chance that these people might kill him if they didn’t like the answer to a question, and Obst knew it.

“It’s hard to explain, brave one,” he said, feeling gingerly for words. “My people worship Him in the Temple and in a thousand chamber houses; but God created the Abnaks, too, and all the nations of the earth. Your people don’t know Him, but nevertheless He gives you what you need to live. Food and water, the land you live on, the air you breathe—”

“But we give him nothing in return,” said a one-eyed chief with a dreadful white scar across his scalp. “What kind of a god is that? Even the littlest of our gods, in the littlest tree, likes a wee bowl of beer now and then.”

“You have asked a question that God answered thousands of years ago, and men wrote it down in a book to remember it,” Obst said. “What does the newborn babe give his father and his mother? What repayment can he make to them? And yet they will starve so he can eat: behold, a mother will lay down her life for her child. The Lord loves you as a father loves his firstborn son, and as a mother loves her suckling babe.”

Those men, who would just as soon take a man’s scalp as get up in the morning, puffed on their beans and pondered the verse. They all had mothers and fathers, and most had children of their own. And they were a long way from their children, their families, their homes.

“The westmen should not have kept this god to themselves,” said one.

“But they are his people,” said another. “No wonder they’re so rich. This god gives them walled cities and all the good land between the mountains and the sea.”

“Why does he love them so much better than he loves us?” Uduqu asked. “Why hasn’t he given us cities and wide lands and gold?”

Obst faltered, but Ryons took up the question:

“Mighty warriors—what a simple thing to say! Could you live in those cities and still be Abnaks?

“I journeyed with my former master to a city once, when we were in a caravan. The people there, those who weren’t slaves, shut themselves up in smelly houses and lived in fear of thieves. Too cowardly to fight for themselves, they had to hire warriors to protect them. If a god ever put the Abnaks in such cities, they wouldn’t thank him for it. Has he not put you where you’re free and proud, and given you the things you like best—game to hunt, fish to catch, other tribes to fight with? Who would you rather be than yourselves?”

Obst held his breath: the boy had gone too far. But then the chief with the great scar on his scalp laughed so hard he coughed.

“Ho, ho! Who’s the wise man in this tent?” he gasped. “The westman’s god must love us dearly—otherwise, he never would have made us Abnaks!”

The chiefs all laughed and praised Ryons for his answer. Obst could breathe again.

Much later, when they were back in their own tent and bundling up for the night, Obst admonished the boy.

“You mustn’t be so bold with the chiefs, Ryons! They’re dangerous men, and if you anger them, how could I protect you?”

“Pooh, my master—pooh! I know them better than you do. Abnaks like a little sass. Besides, they’re all afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me? I doubt it!”

“For one so old, you don’t know much,” Ryons said. “All the nations have gods, but there are only two kinds of gods—the kind men are afraid of, and hate, and the kind they only laugh at. They’re afraid of your god, so they’re afraid of you.”

“I don’t see how they can be afraid of God, when they don’t know Him—although to know Him and not fear Him would be not to know Him at all.”

“They know he killed the mardar; they saw it with their own eyes. They were very afraid of the mardar because he served a terrible god. But your god killed the mardar, so he must be a very terrible god, too. Besides, they’re still terrified of the Great Man: so they need your god to protect them from him.”

Obst sighed. Being a hermit was much more to his taste than being a missionary.

“In ancient days,” he said, “God spoke to the people all the time through oracles and prophets. He gave them laws, and when their enemies oppressed them, He raised them up deliverers. He blessed their crops and their herds, and chastised them when they were wicked. People lived every day with God in their midst, as if He were a father to them.

“But things are different nowadays. That’s why I became a hermit: so I could live alone in the woods and seek my God.

“We have our great Temple in Obann, and it rules a thousand chamber houses strewn all over the country. It collects fees, trains presters and reciters, buys and sells land: the name of the Lord is on everybody’s lips. But it’s only a name. As the prophet said, ‘These people swear by My name, but know Me not.’ For all the little regard they have for Him, for all they leave Him out of their reckonings, He might as well be one of the Abnaks’ tree-spirits, content with a little pot of beer—if He even gets that much.”

“His people must be great fools, then,” Ryons said.

“They are indeed,” said Obst. “That’s why, at long last, God required the bell on Bell Mountain to be rung, ringing in the last days of the world. I suspect that’s why He has moved the nations of the East to come together and invade the West. The day of God’s wrath is at hand.”

“What do you mean, ‘the last days of the world’?”

“Why, just what I say—the end of it all.”

“I think that’s very silly,” Ryons said. “If God went to all the trouble of making the whole world, as you say He did, and it turned out so badly that He got sick of it, that’d mean He didn’t know what He was doing in the first place. I wouldn’t bother with a God like that. Good night!” And he rolled over in his blanket, without giving Obst a chance to rebuke him.

While Jack, Ellayne, and Martis made their way to the northwest corner of the forest so they could cross the plain to Caristun, and while Obst toiled up the mountain pass with the Heathen host, Helki got his refugees to safety and prepared to make war.

“How does one man make a war?” Sairy demanded. “You’d better stay here with us.”

In the heart of Lintum Forest, at a place known only to Helki and the woodland Omah, stood the remains of a castle. No one knew how old it was, and much of it was ruined; but there was enough left of it to testify that it had been a very grand building in its time. The settlers had never seen anything like it. The roofs had fallen in, one or two towers lay in jumbles of mossy stones, and nature had long since filled in the moat. But it had been built to defy the worst that man could do to it, the walls were thick and strong, and much of it—with a little work—could still be used as shelter. A nearby spring provided drinking water; and although city people would have starved here, the settlers knew how to wrest a living from the forest.

“There’s enough room in this place for a hundred of us,” Sairy said. “Hadn’t you better stay? Someday the war will be over, and Latt Squint-eye will get his comeuppance.”

“He’ll get his because I aim to give it to him,” Helki said. “I’ll come back here whenever I can, with tools, weapons, and like as not more people. But someday soon Latt’s going to get careless; and when he does—” He spun his rod in his hands and made it whistle.

The seventeen-year-old boy, Andrus, said, “Take me with you! I’m good in the woods, and you’ll need help.”

“I reckon not,” said Helki. He looked to the boy’s father, Ival, but Ival only shrugged. “The lad’s heart is set on it,” he said. “But I’ll stay here to help the lasses with the heavy work.”

Sairy’s husband, Davy, spoke from his litter. “It’s time the honest men of this country stood up to Squint-eye and his kind! There must be hundreds of young, able-bodied men in these parts who are ready to do it.”

“I’ll do everything you tell me to, and I won’t be a bother,” Andrus said. “But Goodman Davy’s right. This fight belongs to all of us, not just you.”

Helki thought it over. The forest was full of settlers; no one knew how many. The outlaws bullied them. Maybe it was time for a change. But he was used to doing things alone, without help. Was he ready for a change?

“All right, boy, you can come along,” he said. “If we could get the honest men together into war-bands, it might be something for the robbers to fret about at night. Are you any good with a bow and arrows?”

The boy grinned. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had, Helki thought, the makings of a mighty man. He had fair hair, blue eyes, and strong white teeth. Helki liked him.

“I’m good enough, I guess!” he said. “I’d show you, if I had my longbow with me.”

“We’ll find you one soon enough.”

The last thing Helki did before setting out was to say good-bye to Jandra. “Daddy Helki’s got to go and do some work, peeper,” he said. “You stay here with Mama Sairy, and she’ll take good care of you. And you’ve got your bird and plenty of the little hairy men to play with.” Omah liked ruins, and there were many of them living in and around the castle. Helki had gotten these Omah to agree to protect and help the humans. He was surprised at how easily they’d agreed.

“Daddy go?” Jandra said. She didn’t quite understand.

“Yes—but I’ll be back again. So you be a good girl!”

She gave him a hard little hug around the neck and a loud kiss on the cheek. He was glad she made no prophetic utterances.

He soon found that young Andrus really was a good woodsman. The boy moved quietly through the underbrush, knew the meaning of most of the bird calls, and skillfully read the stories told by scuffed leaf-litter, bruised earth, and broken twigs. He quickly learned how to summon the Omah and make friends with them.

“A lot of folks live here all their lives,” Helki said, “and still don’t know the woods are full of little people. Or else they think it’s fairies.”

“I never knew there were so many,” Andrus said.

“Well, there are—only they know how to stay out of sight. And that’s what we’re going to do. Find out where Latt makes his camps, how many men he has, what paths he likes to use. He’s not to know we’re within a hundred miles of him. No fighting, no killing, if we can help it. That comes later.”

“Just like hunting a panther, eh?”

“Latt’s more dangerous,” Helki said.