The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  CHAPTER 40

  A Message from the Thunder King

  Shingis and the Blays didn’t know what to do with themselves. They were treated as Gurun’s personal retainers, so no one gave them any work to do. They ate and slept in a building next door to the palace along with many of King Ryons’ warriors. Those men were Wallekki, Abnaks, Fazzan, and Griffs, none of whom spoke the Blays’ language: so they had no one to talk to. Time hung heavily on their hands. After a few days of this, Shingis finally got into the palace to see Gurun.

  They took him to a little room with pictures painted on the walls and ceiling, and a window looking out over the rooftops of the city. Never in his life had he seen anything like it. On the ceiling were painted clouds and the sun. He couldn’t see the point of that. And Gurun was in a bright yellow dress that made her look like a flower. He shook his head.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “We go back soon to Jocah Creek?” he said. “Nice place, nice people—not so different from Blays’ country. Not like this city.”

  “I liked Jocah’s Creek, too,” Gurun said. “But I don’t know when I can go back. My filgya told me to stay with the king. You and your men can go back to Jocah’s Creek, if you like.”

  “No, no! We stay with you. Who else will pray for us?”

  “You don’t need me to pray for you, Shingis. You can pray for yourselves. Just talk to God, and He will hear you.”

  But that idea unsettled him. She could see it in his face. The Blays had been Heathen, worshipping idols. These had to be offered food before they could be prayed to. And then the Thunder King took them away, and the Blays had no gods. Gurun wondered if they would ever get over it. Would they ever understand that they belonged to the real God now? But then, she thought, the people of Obann didn’t seem to grasp that any better than the Blays. What good had their Temple done them?

  “It is strange, to be in such a city as this,” she said, “as strange for me as it is for you. Look at this dress they gave me! It’s beautiful, but it’s much more than I need. In all the islands of my homeland there is no dress like this. Everything in Obann is so grand! It’s like being in a dream.”

  “Some of us, we are afraid of this place,” Shingis said. “Everything too big: it might all fall down, someday.”

  “I know,” Gurun said, thinking of her home and family. “Tell the men, Shingis, that I will come and see them tonight after supper. We will all pray together. I would like that.”

  “I, too,” he said.

  While she was talking with Shingis in the palace, Gurun missed something that happened just outside the city, under the walls.

  Three horsemen rode up to the East Gate. It was still being repaired, and there were guards on duty, but the horsemen didn’t try to enter the city. They stopped before the gate, and one of them produced a brass bugle and blew a challenge on it. The workmen stopped working, and the sergeant of the guard came out to confront the horsemen.

  “Our business is with the King of Obann,” said the rider in the middle, a tall man in a black cloak, on a black horse. “Let him come and hear a message from our master the Thunder King.”

  “Maybe you’d like to hear a message from my archers,” said the sergeant.

  “We are heralds. It is not lawful to harm us.”

  Ryons was at his lessons when Obst came for him. One look at Obst’s face told him that he brought bad news.

  “It’ll be necessary for Your Majesty to be brave,” he said. “Three men are at the East Gate, claiming to be heralds of the Thunder King. I’ve seen them and spoken with them; I believe them. They will speak their message to no one but you. I’ll go with you, and I’ve sent for Hennen, Uduqu, and Shaffur. You won’t be alone.”

  Ryons shuddered. Once before, in Lintum Forest, he’d faced one of the Thunder King’s messengers. Then the message was that the Thunder King would put out Ryons’ eyes and cast him into a prison for the rest of his life.

  Obst remembered that. “Be brave, my king,” he said. “You have brave men all around you to protect you—and better than that, you have God’s protection.”

  Ryons stood up. “At least I’ll get some fresh air!” he said. “I’ll listen to the message, Obst. But will I have to answer it?”

  “Who knows? But you are king in this city—no one can force you to say anything.”

  For the first time in a long time, Ryons took Obst’s hand, and they walked out of the palace hand in hand. Obst was the teacher: he would know what to say, Ryons thought, even if no one else did.

  “God won’t let them put my eyes out,” he said to himself. Aloud he asked, “Where’s Gurun?”

  “I don’t know, Sire.”

  “I want someone to ask her to come to the gate with us.”

  “As you wish, King Ryons.” Obst bade a servant to find Gurun and bring her to the king; but they couldn’t stop to wait for her.

  Standing on the wall over the gate, with Obst at his right hand and Uduqu, Hennen, and Shaffur at his left, Ryons looked down on the three messengers. Two of them he recognized as Wallekki; but the tall man in black looked Obannese. How could that be?

  By now the whole wall was lined with people, all of them waiting to hear the message from the Thunder King. Ryons wondered how far the messengers had had to come. Much of Obann, especially to the east of the city, still swarmed with invaders.

  “So this is the king of Obann—the boy king!” said the man in black. “What kind of nation has a boy for a king? Couldn’t you find a man?”

  “He was man enough to shatter your king’s army,” said Uduqu. “It took us a long time to bury all the dead.”

  “Since when do Abnaks speak from Obann’s city walls? Why don’t you let the boy king speak for himself, Abnak?”

  Ryons knew he had to answer, with so many of his people watching him. For a moment he forgot he was a king, and answered as Ryons the slave-boy would have answered, when he was under Obst’s protection.

  “They told me you had a message for me,” he said, “but I haven’t heard you say anything yet. Why so bashful?”

  “Then hear this—king!” The herald raised himself straighter in the saddle and pulled a roll of parchment from under his cloak. From this he read:

  “To Ryons, who is called the king of Obann, from the god, the Thunder King, master of the nations—

  “Come East, little king, to the foothills of the mountains, to the headwaters of the River Chariot. Come East, with whatever following you can raise, and we shall look upon one another face to face.

  “Let the city of Obann know that if you will come to me, I will break down the city of Obann and burn it with fire; but the people of the city I will remove alive, and settle them in other cities, and let them live.

  “But if you will not come to me, little king, then I shall come to you; and I shall destroy the people of this city, man, woman, and child. I will come with my full power and leave no soul living in this place.

  “Trust not in the God of Obann, for I am a god who conquers gods; and your God shall join all the other gods in my captivity.”

  The herald rolled up the parchment. “Those are the words of my master and yours, the Thunder King,” he said. “Do as he bids you. Why should all the people die because of you?”

  The crowd along the wall was silent. They remembered the vast armies that the Thunder King had sent against them in the summer. But General Hennen spoke up sharply, his words shattering the stillness like the crack of a whip.

  “What is your name, fellow? Unless my eyes and ears deceive me, you’re a man of Obann, the same as any man within these walls.”

  “I am,” the herald answered. “I was at Silvertown when the Thunder King destroyed it. I made my submission to him, and he took me into his service. Goryk Gillow is my name.”

  “And in addition to being a traitor to your country,” Hennen said, “do you believe this mere Heathen man to be a god? That would make you both an apostate and a fool.”
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br />   “Do you think so?” Goryk said. “It’s not my god’s temple that lies in ruins, is it?”

  “Enough!”

  Obst’s roar was like the sound of a mountain splitting in two. “You have delivered your foolish and abominable message, and now you may go.”

  “And what about my answer, greybeard?”

  At that moment a soldier helped Gurun up onto the ramparts, and she stood there in her yellow dress, and the rays of the sun were like a golden fire on her hair. Goryk looked up at her and turned pale. Without another word, he wheeled his black horse sharply and spurred off into the east. His two Wallekki comrades were hard-put to catch up to him.

  Ryons stared at Gurun. “He was afraid of you!” he said.

  “Was that the messenger?” she asked. “What did he say?”

  “Never mind that now,” said Obst. “Come, we must call the chiefs together. Rumor is a fire that burns quickly in this city! You come, too, Gurun.” He smiled at her. “He truly was afraid of you. I saw it, too.”

  Before the chiefs could meet together, a vast crowd gathered around the palace. Many had heard the herald’s message, and spread it in the blink of an eye and the flap of a lip, from one end of the city to another. You could hear them through the thick stone walls, a sound like a swarm of bees buzzing.

  “Why are they so fearful?” Gurun said. She sat beside Ryons at a table, where they were waiting for the rest of the chiefs. Hennen, Uduqu, and Shaffur were already there. At the head of the table sat Obst, with his eyes closed and his lips moving silently. “And what is Obst doing?”

  “That’s how he prays,” Ryons said; he’d seen it many times before. “Two men could jump on the table right now and have a sword fight, and he wouldn’t know it. He’s talking to God, and God speaks to him. He is a very holy man.”

  “The people are afraid because they don’t want to die,” Hennen said. “This summer, it took a miracle to save them. I don’t suppose they can expect another miracle.”

  Chief Zekelesh of the Fazzan came in, and a man named Hawk whose skin was dark, almost black. Chiefs of Griffs and Attakotts and other peoples Gurun had never heard of: they came in and took seats at the table.

  “The question’s a simple one,” said Hennen. “Do we stay, or do we go?”

  “Stay!” Shaffur growled. “Do they think we’re simpletons? It’s a trick to get us out into the open, so they can destroy us.”

  “But it’s a subtle trick,” Hennen said. “If we stay, it may look like we value the king above the people. It will look like we’re afraid.”

  Chief Zekelesh spoke some impassioned words in a language no one understood. Uduqu jogged his elbow and pointed to Obst. With the translator unavailable, so to speak, Zekelesh fell silent.

  Ryons listened to the muffled noise of the crowd. It must have been very loud indeed, if they could hear it in here.

  “It is shameful for a man to say he is a god,” Gurun spoke up. “You may be sure God will destroy this Thunder King.”

  “It seems we have a new member of the council of chieftains!” Shaffur interrupted. “I don’t remember when she was elected.”

  “Obst asked her to come—and I want her, too,” Ryons said. “Please, Chief Shaffur—didn’t you see that herald’s face when he saw her?”

  “And he fled like a berry-picker from a she-bear!” Uduqu added, grinning.

  At that moment Obst’s eyes opened and he slipped in his chair with a grunt. With another grunt he pulled himself up straight. All of the chiefs had seen him pray before.

  “Did God answer you?” Uduqu asked.

  “Not in the way I expected,” Obst said. He looked at Ryons. “The Lord wishes to see what the king would do.”

  Shaffur shook his head. He would never get used to asking a boy for a decision—not that Ryons blamed him.

  Gurun said, “Is it right to force him to decide?”

  Obst shrugged. “He is God’s chosen.” He looked at Ryons. “Maybe tomorrow, Sire, after prayer and meditation, and a good night’s sleep?”

  But Ryons already knew what he should do, and what God wanted. Indeed, he’d known it as soon as he heard the herald speak.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Listen to those people outside! But it’s not to please them. I don’t know how to say it right, but we can’t just wait here for the Thunder King. There won’t be another great beast to chase away his army this time.”

  Uduqu nodded. “Yes—that would happen only once.”

  Ryons struggled to explain himself. It wasn’t so long ago that he was a slave, an orphan, of less value than a goat. But then Obst came, speaking tongues, and God struck down a mardar just as he was about to study Ryons’ entrails for omens of the future. Everything since then, Ryons thought, had been a miracle. Sometimes he imagined himself and his men as a herd driven by God with sure and certain wisdom. The herd didn’t know where it was going, but the shepherd did. And sheep should trust their shepherd.

  “I have God’s promise to protect me,” Ryons said. “I believe He will. He always has. And the Thunder King is not a god. I don’t know what’ll happen if I go to see him—but neither does he.”

  Chief Zekelesh stood up and slammed his wolf’s-head hat on the table. He spoke passionately; and Obst translated.

  “What can we accomplish sitting here?” he said. “How are we ever to see our homes again—or make new homes—just by sitting here? I say that if any man is fool enough to offend the true God, we do ourselves dishonor if we don’t go out to fight him! What is the point of talking and talking about it, when we all know what to do?”

  The chiefs, all except Shaffur the Wallekki, pounded the table and growled their assent.

  “He really is a king!” thought Gurun.

  But Ryons thought, “How far will we get, I wonder? It’s a long way back to the mountains.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Of Gallgoid, and Helki

  Up in the Golden Pass it was snowing steadily, day and night. A multitude of slaves kept clear all the area around the Thunder King’s golden hall, the other halls and cabins, the great gates, and the new road down the mountain. But up above the hall, snow piled up on the shoulders of the mountains. Without the unending toil of the slaves, neither man nor beast could have used the pass until well into the spring.

  In the great hall the mardars had a banquet every night, with the silent Thunder King presiding behind his mask of gold. Armies of slaves from forty nations labored night and day to keep supplies coming up the mountain from the East: the banqueters wanted for nothing. Roasted fowl and pork and beef, rich soups, sweet dainties, sparkling wine—all kept the mardars in a happy mood.

  “Why so glum, First Prester?” Mardar Kyo asked Lord Reesh one night when they sat down to feast, after praying to the Thunder King. “We are warm, well-fed, and comfortable. Indeed, we occupy the center of the world.”

  “It’s my age,” said Reesh, which was a lie.

  In truth he hated being in that hall. He hated the infernal cat chained to the Thunder King’s throne, hated the way its green eyes always sought him out and watched him the whole time he feasted. Reesh had always had a cultivated palate. He appreciated good food and was a connoisseur of wines. But with that glaring monster contemplating him as a meal, even the fine fare tasted as bland as peasants’ porridge.

  He hated the unnatural silence of the Thunder King, who never said a word; but most of all he hated the fear that had settled over his own heart like a skin of ice. All the mardars said the Thunder King read their thoughts as plainly as if they spoke to him. Against his lifelong skepticism, Lord Reesh found himself beginning to believe it.

  His servant Gallgoid certainly believed it. Gallgoid spent most of the day conversing with the mardars’ servants. He spoke several Heathen languages and was quickly learning more. Reesh wondered what he got up to during the day. When he helped his master to bathe and dress for the banquet every evening, Gallgoid talked about the things he’d heard during the day—talked wi
thout really saying anything, Reesh thought.

  “I don’t know how it’s done, the Thunder King getting into his mardars’ heads, but everybody knows he does it,” Gallgoid said. “Wherever a mardar is, he might as well be there, too. The Thunder King knows everything they know, and he knows as soon as they do. Everybody up here has seen it done a thousand times.”

  “Do you believe him to be a god?” Lord Reesh demanded, as he sat in a hot bath that couldn’t seem to warm his bones and Gallgoid laid out his clothes—an assassin serving as a valet.

  “Well, he can’t be, can he?” Gallgoid said. “Not unless the Scriptures are all wrong. But he does things that no ordinary man can do. They all say so. But what about you, my lord? What do you think? You’ve seen him face to face, and I haven’t.”

  “He’s a man,” said Reesh. That bordered on being a lie. There was a part of him that couldn’t believe the Thunder King was just a man. “A god wouldn’t sit on a chair.”

  “Well, my lord, you never believed in the real God,” the assassin said.

  “It’s my age,” Reesh grumbled. Maybe, he thought, this last year of his life had simply been too much for him, and his mind, tricked by the feebleness of his body, was playing tricks on him. He’d never been on top of a mountain before, and it had been many years since he’d traveled any distance from the Temple. Yes, that was it—too much stress and strain on an old man.

  He wasn’t sinking into a foolish belief in the Thunder King’s divinity. And a cat, no matter the length of its fangs nor the width of its shoulders, was just a cat—just an animal. Neither it nor its master could eavesdrop on his thoughts.

  And Gallgoid, he thought, never answered my question, did he? Burn the fellow! He never let you know what he was thinking: a desirable trait in an assassin, but an annoyance in a servant.

  Farther west, below the mountains, it wasn’t snowing anywhere near as hard. Between the Imperial River and King Oziah’s Wood, Helki and his men were fighting.