The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (20 page)
Read The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) Online
Authors: Lee Duigon
Their chieftains held council under the evening stars, everyone being too exhausted to raise the big black tent, planting their tribal standards on the middle of the hilltop. That was where the parade ended for Obst and Ryons, and they were allowed to come down from their litters.
“For a thousand years our poets will sing of this day!” Shaffur said. “You, boy, are a slave no longer, but a chieftain with a seat in the council of chiefs. You shall have a chieftain’s share of all the spoils, a fine tent of your own, and a horse of your own choosing.”
“Take one of mine,” Szugetai said, grinning. “Mine are the best!”
“As for you, old man,” Shaffur said to Obst, “your god has delivered us from the Thunder King, just as you said he would. So you must tell him that all of us, by the vote of all the chieftains in this council, have decided to become his people. We will not worship any other gods, except to pay honor to our ancestors, as is only right and proper. You shall teach us how to serve this god, and we’ll be faithful to him. We don’t think those Zeph will be the last army that the Great Man sends against us.”
They all cheered, but Obst pitied their ignorance. How could he begin to make them understand?
“My chieftains,” he said, “God has indeed protected you this day. But you’re like babes and children in your understanding.”
“That’s why we need you to teach us!” Spider said. “We’re going to need your god: we’ve just wiped out an army of our allies. Everyone in this country will be against us now, westmen and Easterners alike. We came here to sack great cities; now it’ll be a good job just to stay alive.”
“We can’t turn around and go home,” Szugetai said. “There’s a bigger army coming in behind us, say our scouts. Besides, I’m angry with myself that I ever agreed to serve the Thunder King and for groveling before his mardar! It wasn’t our fault that your god struck down the mardar, but King Thunder tried to destroy us—and he’ll try again.”
He was still spattered all over with dried blood, with dust plastered to his face. He looked ready to collapse on the spot. But now he raised his voice.
“Tell your mighty god that we’ll go wherever he sends us and do whatever he commands. We are his people now! If he didn’t want us, he wouldn’t have sent you to us. He wouldn’t have shown the boy how we ought to fight our battle. If we are only children, then let this god be our father!”
“So be it,” Obst agreed; and how he ought to carry on from there, he couldn’t imagine.
What the Blind Man Saw
The road from Cardigal that ran along the south bank of the river carried very little traffic. When Jack looked across the river, he saw masses of carts and people slogging along the road. But that road linked Cardigal to the New City; the south road led only to the ruins of the old.
Spring was here, at least: a little cooler than normal, but a lot greener. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere—purple kiss-me-not, crocuses in white and yellow, duchess’ doilies in pale blue, and little red babies’ buttons, bright red, peeking out from the grass. Birds sang from every tree, and here and there smoke curled from the chimneys of widely scattered farmhouses. And yet the travelers had the road to themselves.
“You’d never guess there was a war on, or anything wrong at all,” Ellayne said.
“All you have to do is look across the river,” Martis said.
“Is it true that if you keep going west, you’ll reach the sea?” Jack asked. Martis nodded. “How far is it, and how long would it take to get there? I’d like to see it.”
“From Obann to the coast is about half-again as far as from Cardigal to Obann, so it wouldn’t take us all that long. But I doubt you’ll find your cellar anywhere along the seashore.”
“In King Ozias’ time, people used to sail the sea in ships,” Ellayne said. “How come there are no more ships?”
“No one knows,” Martis said.
“Abombalbap met a magician who came from an island in the sea, in a ship,” Ellayne said; she was young enough to believe in most of Abombalbap’s adventures. “Do you have to be a magician to be able to sail the sea?”
“No—of course not. But some scholars believe that when the Empire was destroyed, there was some great horror that came from the sea: something so terrible, no one recorded what it was. But certainly the coast is richly endowed with ruins. Today there’s no city nearer to the sea than Durmurot, and even they don’t have any business with the ocean.”
They were still talking about the sea when they saw three men coming from the west, an old man supported on each arm by two younger ones. All three were on their way to growing beards, and their clothes were dirty. When they saw Martis and the children coming, they stopped to wait for them. Jack thought they looked like beggars, and in this he was at least partly right.
“God’s blessing on you, travelers,” one of the young men greeted them. “Do you have any food to spare—not for us but for our master, who is old?”
“We haven’t much to spare,” said Martis. “Why don’t you ask at one of those farmhouses?”
“Tell them, Odys,” said the old man. “Let us not beg the bread of deception.”
“That’s from one of King Ozias’ Sacred Songs,” Ellayne said, recognizing the phrase.
“And if I’m not mistaken,” Martis said, “you’re of the Temple, you three.”
“Not anymore!” said Odys. “We’ve been put out of the Temple—I mean, our master was, and my brother and I couldn’t let him go alone. He’s blind.”
“He was prester in the town of Wusk, a long way’s walk from here,” said Odys’ brother. “I was sexton in our chamber house, and my brother was reciter. We can’t ask for food at any farmhouse because we’re banned.”
Jack didn’t know what that meant, but Ellayne gave a little gasp.
“May I ask why you were banned?” Martis said.
“For disobedience,” the blind man said.
“Cuss that!” growled Odys, the reciter. “Prester Konn is too forbearing. They banned us because he wouldn’t let their damnable false Scripture be preached in our chamber house. The Temple made him resign, and then they banned him.”
“I want to hear about this,” Martis said. “Why don’t we sit down under that oak tree over there? We’ll give you the food you need. We’re not banned, so we can get more from a farmer.”
He never told them that he was a servant of the Temple, too. Once they had some bread to chew on and water to drink, they told their story freely.
“The Temple came out with a long-lost fragment of the Prophecy of Batha the Seer,” Odys said. “The synod approved it and required it to be preached in every chamber house; and further, they required us to preach against the so-called false prophets of these days.”
“What false prophets?” Martis asked.
“Oh, the poor devils you find in the streets of every city, every town—old slaves, children of paupers, broken-down old tosspots. All spouting Scripture and speech that sounds like Scripture even if you can’t make any sense of it. The Temple hates them like poison. And so someone in Obann cooked up this fragment that miraculously turned up in the archives—all this pap about how God commands us to destroy the Heathen from sea to sea.”
“Prester Konn may be blind, but he saw through this,” said Odys’ brother, the reciter. His name was Pagget. “He’s seen for years the growing corruption of the Temple—”
“Enough, enough!” The old man silenced him. “We have nothing to boast of. The temple is ordained of God. Don’t try to tear it down.”
“Too bad we can’t!” Odys said. “Well, we knew there’d be trouble when Prester Jod stepped down. But they wouldn’t dare ban him. He’s too big for them, and everyone in Durmurot loves and honors him. There’d be riots if they banned him. But Prester Konn, in a little nowhere town like Wusk—him they banned.”
“They’re the ones who are blind,” Pagget said. “They don’t see how many chamber houses—little ones like ours, all throughout the country—will serve God before they serve the Temple.”
The banned prester quieted them with a loud sigh.
“Brothers, you’ll weary these travelers with your complaints,” he said. “Besides, we’ve hindered them. They have a journey to perform, do they not?”
He turned to Jack, with sightless eyes; but Jack had a powerful feeling that they weren’t sightless, but saw things no one else could see. It made him shiver.
“We’re going to Obann, sir,” he said.
“Yes,” said Konn, “for God has sent you. I rejoice and give thanks that I have met you, all three—for God has chosen you. Go on your way valiantly and full of confidence: for God is with you.” And he made the sign of blessing over them.
When they parted, Ellayne opened the lining of her coat and gave the men some of her money. It was the first money she’d parted with since she’d left Ninneburky.
“Be careful with that money,” Martis said, when they were on their way again. “We may have great need of it someday.”
“We haven’t been anyplace where I could spend it,” Ellayne said. “It’s funny, carrying money all over the world and never spending it. But I wanted to help that poor blind man. How did the Temple ever get to be so wicked? It’s supposed to be good!”
“I’m living proof it isn’t,” Martis said.
“And old men like Obst and Prester Konn are proof it is!” Jack said. “He said God chose all three of us—even you, Martis!”
“Two children and an assassin.” God’s ways were truly unfathomable, Martis thought.
Wytt crawled out from his hiding place among the baggage on Ham’s back and hopped onto Ellayne’s shoulder: he didn’t let strangers see him, if he could help it. She reached up and petted him, glad he was there. It was a daunting thing to be chosen by God. She’d supposed they were finished with their work, once they’d climbed the mountain. Now she wondered if it would ever be finished.
How God Spoke
to the Heathen
It wasn’t long before the people in Lintum Forest got to know of the great battle on the plain. Some of the Zephites reached the forest and got lost in it. Most of them were killed by outlaws. With Latt gone, the country at first grew more lawless and more dangerous, not less. Helki’s men captured one of the fugitives, but no one could make head nor tail of his language. Someone killed the captive when Helki wasn’t looking.
After that, he had to fell two more men with his staff before all of Latt’s followers would accept him as their chief. To find work for them, he sent scouts out onto the plain, with orders to find out who the Zeph were and what had happened to them. One of these parties returned with a tattooed Abnak, who greeted two or three of Latt’s former lieutenants by name when he arrived at their camp. He spoke a passable Obannese.
“Where’s Latt Squint-eye?” he asked, when he was brought before Helki. “I have a message for him.”
“There have been some changes here,” Helki said. “Latt’s dead and gone; I’ve taken his place.”
“Then my message is for you. I am Hlah, son of Spider, chief of the Abnaks in the host of many nations.”
“I’m Helki, son of a man who never told my mother his name.” He already knew from Latt’s men that this was the Heathen army that had come down from the mountains. Latt had agreed to alert them to the approach of any force from Obann, and they had acknowledged him King of Lintum Forest. “What’s your business here?”
“Only this: we ask your leave to take refuge in the forest, should we ever need to. We promise to harm none of the people who are under your protection; and if you should ever have need of us, send word, and we will come.”
Before he agreed, Helki made Hlah tell him about the battle. It was Heathen against Heathen, which surprised all the outlaws who heard it.
“Every hand is raised against us now,” Hlah said. “Another army is crossing the mountains after us, by way of Silvertown, so we can’t go back the way we came. We have not yet met any of the westmen’s armies, but they’ll fight us when we do.
“The East is being emptied of fighting men, all coming over the mountains, host after host. This is the doing of the Great Man, who says he is a god who takes other gods captive. But our teacher says he is a false god. The real God has allowed him to be a scourge and a destroyer; but he, too, will be destroyed when God has had enough of him.
“Our teacher told me to tell you that our host now serves the true God, who made the heavens and the earth, and to offer you friendship in His name. I have spoken.”
Andrus, standing close beside Helki, said, “It’s a trick—they’re Heathen.”
Helki ignored him. “Who is this teacher of yours?” he asked.
“An old man from the West who speaks and understands all tongues. When he prayed, God struck down the mardar, the servant of the Great Man, who commanded our chieftains. No one could save him. Our teacher is a man of miracles. He says God sent him to us, and we believe him.”
Helki’s thoughts raced. He’d been worrying about how to control the outlaws and stop them from preying on the settlers. Maybe he could do it with a Heathen army. The outlandishness of the idea appealed to him.
“How am I to believe you now serve God?” he asked. “I never heard the like of it before.”
“We’ll give you hostages—the sons of chiefs,” said Hlah. “Besides, we have sworn to obey the westmen’s God. I can’t speak for others, but we Abnaks don’t lie. Everybody knows that.”
Helki nodded. The Abnaks had a bad name for cruelty, but no one ever said they were liars.
“I reckon we’ll talk some more, after I’ve had some time to think it over,” he said. “But don’t be deceived: there is no King of Lintum Forest. There’s only a lot of people who want to survive the war and be left alone.”
Hlah grinned at him. “Anyone who survives this war will have done well!” he said.
Helki couldn’t sleep that night. What was he to do? He liked to live alone and go his own way. All he’d ever meant to do was kill Latt so the forest could have peace. He would find people to take care of Jandra and then go back to wandering. Spring was his favorite season in the woods, and he was missing it. How had all this happened to him?
He woke Andrus. “I want you to do something for me,” he said; and it galled him to say it. “I want you to hurry back to the castle and fetch me Jandra, as quick as you can. One of the women ought to come back with you to take care of her.”
“What do you want Jandra for?” the young man wondered. “This is no place for a little girl.”
“She’ll be all right. Just go get her.”
It was too dark to see the look on Andrus’ face, but Helki could imagine it.
“All right—I promised to obey you, so I’ll go. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”
So do I, thought Helki.
He made Hlah stay until Andrus could return. “I think I’d like to go back with you and talk with your chieftains face to face,” he said. “I’d like to meet your teacher, too.”
“No one would object to that,” the Abnak said.
The whole camp was astounded the next day when a worn-out Andrus arrived with Jandra and a fair-haired young woman named Abgayle. Not the least of their astonishment was due to the hideous toothed bird that Jandra carried in her arms, and its penchant for hissing at anyone who got too close. The outlaws kept their distance and indulged in a lot of superstitious muttering.
“Daddy!” Jandra put her bird down and ran to Helki for a hug and a kiss.
“Your daughter?” Hlah asked.
“She thinks so.” Helki picked her up, and the bird stalked jealously around his ankles. “But sometimes she’s also my teacher, although usually I can’t understand what she’s trying to teach me.”
Hlah pointed to the bird. “I saw one of those, once, just before we all went off to war. The shaman said it was an omen, but he couldn’t say what it was an omen of. How is a child your teacher?”
“God sometimes speaks through her. If He does it again, I want to hear it. I was thinking maybe your teacher might be able to explain some of these things to me.”
“These are interesting times we live in,” Hlah said.
Helki decided to take the whole band with him to meet the Heathen chiefs. A following of sixty men might make him look like someone to be taken seriously: he could always say he had many, many more. Besides, he didn’t trust them so far as to leave them to their own devices in the forest.
“You’re not afraid to come with us?” he asked Abgayle.
“My own baby was born dead. She’d be just about Jandra’s age, if she’d lived. I’ll stay with Jandra.”
“What about your husband?”
“He died, too. Chopping down a tree, and it fell on him.”
She’d been lucky not to have been carried off by outlaws, Helki thought. He told Andrus to stay close to her at all times: “And don’t be slow to use your knife on any man who troubles her.”
“As long as that thing is with her, I don’t think anybody will,” Andrus said, meaning Jandra’s bird.
It was a long day’s march to the Heathen camp, which had been moved closer to the forest and fortified with a ditch. They might have camped atop the hill where they’d won their battle, but no one wanted the labor of burying the enemy dead.
Helki had never seen so many men in one place before. But this was very far from being the biggest army to come out of the East, Hlah told him. “All the armies coming after us are bigger,” he said.
Jandra had not yet spoken any words of prophecy, intelligible or otherwise. She prattled with Abgayle, talked baby-talk to her bird, and was delighted whenever Helki carried her. He wondered if she’d just gone back to being an ordinary little girl. If so, he envied her. He wished he and everybody else could go back to being what they were.
Riders came out to escort them into the camp, over a bridge of split logs laid side by side. These were lean, brown-skinned men with long spears and tall headdresses. Helki recognized them as Wallekki. The last time he’d seen Wallekki horsemen in Obann, they were heading home with slaves.
“Horses!” Jandra cried, pointing at them. Helki was carrying her. The bird hopped along beside him; it always stayed close to her.
“It might not be easy, getting out of here alive,” one of the outlaws said.
“Pretend you’re not afraid,” Helki told him.
The camp was a confusion of tents and lean-tos of all shapes and sizes. A military man wouldn’t have seen much hope of defending it in any organized way. But to Helki it looked like the army didn’t mean to stay there very long. He wondered how they got themselves organized at all.
“We have twelve chieftains who decide everything—thirteen, if you count Chief Ryons,” Hlah said. “But we’re never sure of what to do from day to day. We don’t have a mardar to command us anymore. Not that anybody wants one.”
He led them to a big black tent in the middle of the camp, where the chieftains were assembled in their council. Helki’s men grew more uneasy with every step they took. Helki put Jandra down, and Abgayle took her hand.
“Whatever happens, stay close to me,” he said.
“I don’t feel any temptation to go exploring on my own,” she said. “Jandra, sweeting, why don’t you carry your bird?” It fluffed and rattled its dirty purple feathers as Jandra picked it up.
There wasn’t room in the tent for all of Helki’s men. As much as he would have preferred to have Andrus with him, Helki left him outside to be in charge of the others. “See that they stick together and behave themselves,” he said. He picked a dozen to go in with him as his bodyguard.
He was unused to being in enclosed places. He didn’t like the uncertain light inside the tent and the way the smell of unwashed bodies blended with the smell of burning lamps. Warriors of a dozen nations stepped aside, making a lane for him and Abgayle, Jandra and her bird, with the bodyguard following close behind.
Twelve chieftains sat on stools—or rather, twelve chieftains and a small boy dressed up as a chieftain with a gold chain around his neck and feathers in his hair. But Helki ignored them all, the moment he clapped eyes on someone else.
“Obst!” he cried, so surprised, he almost dropped his staff. “Well, I’ll be burned!” And he let loose a great bellow of a laugh. “Whoever would have thought you were a man of miracles!”
Obst rose up from his stool among the chieftains. He’d been expecting Latt Squint-eye. To see Helki in Latt’s place left the old man speechless.
“Aren’t you going to say you’re glad to see me?” Helki said. “By thunder, I’m glad to see you!”
“Teacher, do you know this man?” demanded a Wallekki chief.
“Know him? My chieftains, God is good to us beyond my hopes!” The old man’s eyes filled with tears. He crossed over to Helki and threw his arms around his neck, weeping for joy. Helki patted his back and said, “There, there.” The chieftains waited patiently until Obst collected himself. At last he released Helki and turned back to them.
“Yes, warlords, I know this man,” he said. “This is Helki the Rod—my friend, and the strongest and most valiant man in all of Lintum Forest.”
“This is our teacher,” Hlah said; but Helki had already guessed that.
“What are you doing here, Obst? What happened to those two kids who were with you? I’ve never been so surprised to see anybody, not in all my life.”