by Lee Duigon
“These are God’s own words to us,” Orth said, “and for too long have they gone unheard. From now on, God’s word shall be preached in all the chamber houses of Obann—not what men have said about it, but the word itself.”
In his wonderful, deep voice that carried to the farthest fringes of the crowd, he spoke of his vision of the Temple—a new Temple, not made with human hands, but one that would be everywhere. Because people living this far east had seldom had a chance to see the great Temple in Obann, they were more receptive to the vision than the people of the city.
Every day the baroness read to Ellayne and Jack from their own copy of the Scriptures, the gift of Queen Gurun. But when Lord Orth recited Scripture, it was like thunder rolling in the hills.
“My house shall be the house of prayer for all the nations on the earth,” he quoted from the Prophet Enwy. “O people, rejoice—for we shall see the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy. First to the Tribes of the Law, the many peoples who became one people of Obann, and then to the peoples of the mountains, and then to the peoples of the East—God’s word goes forth to save, to heal, to conquer. As King Ozias wrote, ‘to bring sight to the blind, and hope to the hopeless, salvation to the lost, and wisdom to the simple.’ We won’t live to see the end of this great thing, but we are here for the beginning.”
Ysbott the Snake stood unnoticed in the crowd.
“Words, words, words!” he thought. “Will this fellow never make an end of words? What’s his temple and his book to me?”
Ysbott was waiting for something; he didn’t know what. Once or twice since his arrival in Ninneburky, he thought he’d seen the baron’s daughter in the street. He’d seen the baron several times, Roshay Bault, striding around in his own importance, who would hang him if he ever got the chance. Once Roshay passed him almost close enough to touch, but never even looked at him. Ysbott nearly laughed out loud.
“All in good time—all in good time!” he thought. Some lucky chance was bound to come his way. And then he would have his revenge, and maybe more.
The First Prester had dinner at the baron’s house.
It was just as well for the baroness and the cook that they didn’t know Lord Orth used to be famous in Obann for the sumptuousness of his table, second only to Lord Reesh in that respect. As it was, Lanora outdid herself to produce a feast: leek soup, leg of lamb, fresh fish from the river, with sweet iced cakes for dessert and the baron’s best beer to wash it down. Vannett fluttered in and out of the kitchen all afternoon, trying to make sure everything was perfect. “Oh me, I’m trying, I’m trying!” wailed Lanora. They didn’t know First Prester Orth was now famous for the simplicity of his meals and for always having places at his table for the city’s poor. More than a few of Obann’s needy citizens could say they’d had supper with the First Prester of the Temple.
He was a nice man, Ellayne thought, and certainly a noble-looking one. Enith, she knew, would have given her eyeteeth to have been there; she was bound to ask a hundred questions about what the First Prester said, and did, and what he ate, and how he liked it. Ellayne wished she could tell him all about the climbing of Bell Mountain and impress him. Jack must have read her mind, the way he kept shooting warning looks at her.
When the meal was mostly finished, and everyone was just filling in the corners with dessert, Roshay Bault launched into more serious talk. But first he cautioned his daughter.
“You’re going to need to know about these things, Ellayne, if you’re going to be a help to me,” he said. “You, too, Jack. But even more, you’ll have to learn to keep such matters to yourselves. If you can’t, you’ll be no use to me.” He looked sternly at Ellayne. “And then you might as well go off to finishing school! I hope that’s understood.”
Ellayne just nodded. She knew when her father was in no mood to be teased.
“My lord First Prester,” Roshay said, “I understand you intend to visit the people in the mountains. I can see why you wish to do that—but is it wise? There’s no telling when war might break out up there. It won’t be safe for you to be there when it does.”
“It’s necessary, my lord Baron,” said the First Prester. “Someday soon we must build chamber houses in that country, where the people can go to hear God’s word. They’ve been neglected much too long. Abnaks will be coming in, more and more of them, and they will need to hear it, too. The king has given them leave to cross over.”
“I’m not looking forward to having to ride up there with my troops to rescue you.”
“I wouldn’t want you to. They’ll be needed to defend the towns along the river.”
Roshay told him of the Zephite army that came down and almost captured Ninneburky.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that God Himself saved us, when we were at the end of our strength,” he said. “But for that, this town would be nothing but a heap of charred timbers today and all the people killed or sold into Heathen slavery. You’d understand if you had seen it, my lord. As for me, I pray I’ll never again see anything like it.”
“Baron, you cannot contain the spirit of God. He has heard the bell ring on Bell Mountain. He has restored to us the Lost Book of Ozias. He has done away with the old Temple to make place for the new. His spirit is on the move, and we cannot hold it back. We’d be very wrong to try. And very foolish, too.”
Under the table, Jack squeezed Ellayne’s hand good and hard. The way the First Prester spoke, you could understand that these were great matters, to be taken seriously. “If we hadn’t climbed Bell Mountain,” Jack thought, “someone else would have. God would have called someone else because it was time.” And now was not the time for a couple of kids to be bragging about themselves! But of course Ellayne had more sense than that and said nothing at all.
“It will be the spirit of the Lord, and not our armies, that decides the events of this age,” Orth said. “He honors and He blesses us by letting us take part in them, but the work is the work of His hands.”
Baron Bault sighed, but did not speak. Even Ellayne looked solemn.
“Well,” said Vannett, breaking the silence, “I hope you’ll be careful, my lord First Prester! Obann can ill afford to lose you.”
Orth gave her such a look that made Jack wonder; you’d think he had been stabbed.
“Thank you, Lady Bault,” Orth said, “but I am the least of God’s servants. He will raise up a better man in my place. But I will be careful, and I have friends in the mountains who will always take good care of me. Have no fear on my account.”
Lord Orth set out for the mountains the very next day. He and his escort crossed the river on the baron’s ferry, with the townsfolk cheering on the riverbank. Off in the east loomed the mountains, waiting for him.
Ninneburky then went back to its everyday business, and Ellayne answered questions from Enith until she could have gagged the girl. And you had to be careful when you were answering Enith’s questions: she knew her friends were part of something secret, and she never gave up trying to tease the secret out of them.
“I have an idea,” Jack interrupted. “Why don’t you read us more of that story about Abombalbap and the glass bridge?” He turned to Enith. “Unless you don’t care about it anymore.”
“Don’t care?” Enith said. “I’ve been wondering about it all this time!”
Ellayne ran off to get the book, and they settled down with it behind the stables. Wytt found them there and climbed onto Ellayne’s shoulder.
“He doesn’t understand those stories—does he?” Enith wondered.
“He doesn’t see any point to them,” Ellayne said, as she opened the book and found her place. “He just likes to listen.” She began to read.
“Abombalbap sat long pondering how he might get across the bridge. By no means, he thought, could he ride across on his horse; and surely, if he went on foot, the weight of his armor would be the ruin of him. Forsooth, he said, a man might hardly run over that bridge naked, but it would shatter under him.
> “And as he pondered, there came another knight on a black horse, having a red shield. Sir, he said, I would joust with you for the honor of being first across yon bridge, to save the damsel from her prison. But Abombalbap said, Nay, I will not joust with you: for it seems to me that no knight may cross that bridge, however valiant he might be.
“Well, said Brandyle, for that was the knight’s name, I am no dastard, to hang back when brave deeds beckon. It seems to me that speed and courage will carry a good knight across any bridge in this world, and I will essay the adventure.
“I would not, if I were you, said Abombalbap, for this is no bridge of any worldly kind. It is a bridge magical and sorcerous and may not be crossed by dint of any speed of horse or hardihood of man. But Brandyle laughed him to scorn and said, Fie, you sluggard knight! You shall see me achieve what you durst not attempt.
“Then Brandyle drew his sword and set spurs to his horse, and cried a great cry, and galloped with all possible speed upon the bridge. But before he could advance the length of the horse’s body, the bridge shattered into a thousand thousand shining shards that glistened in the sun like specks of ice and flew away in all directions; and man and horse cried out grievously in great despair as together they fell. Long time they cried before Abombalbap could hear them cry no more.
“Poor Brandyle! he said and stood up to see if there were aught that he might do. And no sooner was he on his feet than, in the blink of an eye, the glass bridge once again spanned the gulf between him and the island of the castle: for it was replenished in an instant by a mighty magic, and it was as whole again as ever it was before.”
Here Ellayne replaced the marker and closed the book.
“You’re not stopping!” cried Enith.
“It’s a long story,” Ellayne said, “and you’ll like it better if you don’t get it all at once.”
“But how is Abombalbap ever going to rescue the princess if he can’t get across the bridge?” The story had gone to Enith’s heart.
“Nobody could ever make a glass bridge, anyhow,” Jack said. And yet it seemed to him, for no reason he could think of, that Lord Orth, of all people, would have liked this story and would have had something shrewd to say about it. Obst always said there was no such thing as magic, and Jack agreed with him. But Orth surely would have said something that the children never would have thought of by themselves. “Too bad we didn’t get a chance to read it to him,” Jack thought.
CHAPTER 9
The Army on the March
Taking his time about it, Helki wended his way back from the Golden Pass.
The forest that clung to the skirts of the mountains was not like Lintum Forest, and Helki wished to know it better. Its trees weren’t as tall as the trees of Lintum Forest, but there were more of them, packed more densely together. It was an older forest, dark, disorderly. In olden time noblemen had castles in Lintum, and little villages sprang up around them. That had never happened here. Hunters and trappers came, but left no mark on the country. No one could farm the rocky ground, and no one wanted to live so close to the Abnaks. The few settlements that had been lately founded here, in the wake of the Thunder King’s invasion, lived close to the bone indeed. Game was plentiful enough, if you had the skill to catch it, and there were wild berries, edible mushrooms—and some that had better not be eaten—and roots to be collected. The settlers wouldn’t starve, but they would never know abundance.
From Hlah, on his way back from the pass, Helki learned that the king had opened the country to the Abnaks—not that any power in Obann could have kept them out.
“I hope they’ll behave themselves,” Helki said. “Old habits die hard.”
“The men will settle their women and children,” Hlah said, “and then go back across the mountains to take scalps. My people will never surrender their own country to the Thunder King. If they have to stay here for seven generations, they’ll never stop fighting.”
“What I want to know,” said Helki, “is whether the Thunder King has any scouts this side of the mountains.”
Hlah shook his head. “None that ever come back to him alive,” he said.
So that was good, thought Helki. The mountains would conceal the movements of King Ryons’ army. He hoped the king’s advisers would find a way to convince the enemy that the army was still in Lintum Forest, poised to rescue Silvertown, should the Heathen attack it again. But everyone was saying they were too busy with the Abnaks.
“We should get to the Golden Pass without much trouble,” he thought. “But what we’re going to do when we come down, God only knows.”
With little more than half his army, King Ryons was on the march. They were out of Lintum Forest and making good time across the plains, bound for Ninneburky and the river.
They sang as they marched. The Ghols made music deep down in their throats and sounded hardly human. The Hosa chanted songs of war, beating time with spear on shield. Wallekki riders sang epic tales of ancient feuds, breaking into endless verses on the genealogy of heroes. But from time to time they all came together to sing the army’s anthem.
“His mercy endureth forever!”
This was the best part of the adventure, Ryons thought—hearing his men praise God in their triumphal discord of unrelated languages. Some who knew no better might have thought they were stirring themselves up for a riot, but Ryons by now was used to it. If you listened carefully, you might pick up a subtle melody that unified the chaos. Ryons sang along with them, sometimes trying (and failing) to imitate his Ghols, but mostly singing in the Wallekki dialect he’d learned growing up as a slave in their camps. He’d had no mother then, no father.
The verses of the anthem came and went, made up on the march by men as words came to them.
“We washed our spears at Silvertown!” rumbled the Hosa. “O-hoo, o-hoo! God lent us might! We march all day and camp at night, under the stars of heaven!”
And the Griffs sang this:
“The Great Man took away our gods—
“Weep no more, O Griffs!
“The Father of Gods has made you strong:
“You’re men again, not children—
“Weep no more, O Griffs!”
Alongside Ryons’ horse trotted Cavall, grinning, with his red tongue hanging out. Overhead flew his hawk, Angel, honored by the Hosa as the hero of the Battle of the Brickbats, when they captured Silvertown. And behind him, led by Perkin the wanderer, stalked Baby—raised by Perkin from a chick that sat on the palm of his hand, but now grown taller than a man, with a beak that could crush a horse’s skull in a single bite. Baby had grown accustomed to the army and no longer snapped at men and horses.
“Is it not good, Father, to be out under the open sky again?” said Chagadai, who rode at Ryons’ right hand. Ryons was young enough to be his grandson, but it was the Ghols’ custom to call him their father. “Lintum Forest has been good to us, but it’s still no place for horsemen.”
Ryons was thinking how happy he’d be to go back to the forest when all of this business was over and done with, but he didn’t say so. “It won’t be so good, once we get into a battle,” he answered.
“Bah! Is that any way to talk, for the king who routed single-handed a whole host of enemies at the very gates of Obann?”
“It wasn’t me. It was that great beast that picked me up and put me on its back.”
Chagadai laughed. “If you were my child,” he said, “I wouldn’t let you anywhere near a battle—not at your age! But God has made you king, and we have to make the best of it.”
A little ways off rode Gurun, sitting tall and straight in the saddle, fair and noble in a gown of bluest blue, her mind concentrated on the task of not falling off the horse. Around her trotted eighteen Blays, stout little men, expert slingers from a country even farther east than the Ghols’—all that remained of three or four hundred that had marched into Obann for the Thunder King. They didn’t look like tireless runners, but they were.
“Look at that gi
rl, there,” said Chagadai. “She’s not afraid of battle! And I’m sure she’s never seen one.”
“That’s why she’s not afraid,” thought Ryons. But he doubted Gurun was afraid of anything.
Not being human himself, it never entered Wytt’s mind to look down on humans’ shortcomings. He accepted it as their nature to be practically blind, deaf, without a sense of smell, and almost as helpless as a newborn Omah, pink and hairless. If Wytt had had the habit of wondering about such things, he might have speculated endlessly on what humans were like when they were born.
Wytt knew that Ysbott the Snake was nearby—not that he knew the man’s name or cared to know it. Nor had his eyes seen through Ysbott’s disguise, because to an Omah, one adult male human being looks as much like another as any pair of starlings would look to a human. But Ysbott’s scent was in the air, just the faintest whiff of it, and Wytt remembered it as the scent of an enemy. It belonged to the man who’d kidnapped Jack, not so long ago, and whom Wytt had stabbed in the cheek while he was sleeping. Wytt found a house where that scent was particularly strong, but didn’t go in because there was an unfriendly cat on the premises.
