The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

Back in Obann, in his private chamber within the seminary library, Preceptor Constan sat as still as stone. Occasionally one of his eyelids flickered. He hardly seemed to breathe.

  On his desk before him, half-unrolled, lay one of the Lost Scrolls discovered by those children from Ninneburky in the ruins of the First Temple, in Old Obann across the river. Constan and his scholars were copying these: first an exact copy, in the original paleography and language, and then another copy in the script in use today. After that, the seminary planned to translate the text into modern Obannese. The language had changed much since King Ozias’ time, ages ago.

  According to what was written in the scrolls, Ozias returned to Obann as an old man, made his dwelling in the ruins, and there received the Word of God, which he wrote down in his own hand. Many of the scholars didn’t believe that. Many were their theories as to who else might have written them and why. But Constan believed. He hadn’t, at first.

  A student came into the room and spoke to him. Constan didn’t answer. Used to his master’s ways, the young man gently but firmly jogged his shoulder.

  “Preceptor, it’s almost dinnertime.”

  Constan looked up.

  “Go to the palace,” he said, “and find Obst. Tell him to come here at once. I need him.”

  “But your dinner—”

  “At once,” Constan said. The young man shrugged and went to do his bidding.

  How long he waited for Obst, Constan didn’t know. It might have been some minutes, or it might have been hours. The preceptor had his mind on more important things, and however long he waited, he never stirred from his chair. Nor did he hear Obst when he came in and spoke his name.

  “You sent for me, Preceptor. What is it?” Obst said. He found a stool and sat down. The noise it made scraping the floor caused Constan to look up at him.

  “I have read something in this scroll,” said Constan, “and I want you to hear it. Listen:

  “‘On the fourth day of the fifth month the word of the Lord came to me. And He said, Ozias; and I said, Here I am. And the Lord said, Behold, I have ordained destructions for this people of Obann, the Tribes of the Law, which law they break and treat as nothing; but the time will come when they will have learned all they can from chastisement and destruction. And the wise will keep this wisdom in their hearts, but my people will not hear them, nor cease from their iniquities. Nevertheless, when I have satisfied my wrath, I will save them.

  “‘In those days I shall raise up my righteous servant, and he shall grow up as a branch from the root of Ozias the king; and he shall bear the iniquities of all the sons and daughters of men, and all the nations. For their sake he shall be broken like a reed and poured out like water, so that the law might be fulfilled; but I shall raise him again, and he shall reign over all my people forever. By him shall the children of men be reconciled to me, and I will be their God in the midst of them forever.

  “‘And I said, When, O Lord? And the Lord said, I have determined the time from the beginning of the world, before I made the heavens and the earth; but it is not for any man to know the time. And I swooned in my bed, and was as a dead man for three nights and three days: for the spirit of the Lord exhausted my flesh.’”

  Constan looked up from the scroll. “Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

  Obst spread his hands. “It’s prophecy,” he said. “There are echoes of it elsewhere in the Scriptures.”

  “It sheds light on what the Old Prophets told the Children of Geb, when God brought them to this land from the sinking of Caha.”

  Obst nodded. He knew the verse Constan was thinking of, from the Book of Beginnings. It was a saying by the Lord Himself, when the elders of the tribes received the law by the shore of the Great Sea, where the people rested from their crossing.

  “Sin shall continue,” he recited, “but not forever. For my righteousness shall prevail upon the earth, and it shall move among you in the flesh.”

  “No one has ever known what that verse means,” said Constan. “But there have been destructions. Shall there not be salvation, too? And what will the people do, when this prophecy is read to them in every chamber house in Obann?”

  Obst didn’t know what they would do. He sighed. “Once upon a time in my life,” he said, “I thought I understood the Scriptures. I believed that when Ozias’ bell on Bell Mountain rang, God would end the world: that He would unmake the work of His hands and wipe it out. I was sure of it—and look how wrong I was! So it may not be useful to ask me what I think of anything in Scripture.”

  “My question is,” said Constan, “whether we are living in the time when the seed of King Ozias will fulfill this prophecy, or is that time yet to come?”

  It jolted Obst when he suddenly saw what the preceptor was getting at.

  “Do you mean Ryons—our King Ryons?” he cried. “Could he be the righteous servant in the prophecy, of the root of King Ozias? For Ozias is his ancestor.” Obst reeled inwardly as memories flooded his mind—of Ryons as a slave boy, undernourished and unwashed, without even a name to call his own; of a boy sassing the chiefs of the Abnaks because he knew they liked it; of the child who was his only friend when first he came among the Heathen. “But he’s just a boy! A good boy, but hardly God’s own righteous servant.”

  Constan shook his head. “I’m not thinking about him,” he said. “I’m thinking that these verses, if let loose on the people of Obann at this time, will be like a torch thrown into a loft full of dry hay.” He rubbed his face wearily. “But I will not suppress these Scriptures.”

  He was right, Obst thought: there was no telling how the people would react. But then, of course, there was no telling what would happen when Ozias’ bell was rung. God commanded it, and Jack and Ellayne obeyed. Would he have done the same? He wondered.

  “I agree, Preceptor,” he said. “We must proclaim God’s word as it is given to us. The consequences will be up to Him.”

  “As they always are,” said Constan. “But it comforts me to know that it’ll be some time yet before we can do it.”

  Without much difficulty, Hlah led the refugees from Silvertown to his own home settlement. There were several like it now in this part of the hills: Obannese who’d escaped from slavery and Abnaks who’d revolted from the Thunder King and couldn’t get back to their homeland. They all lived like Abnaks now, hunting and gathering. Abnaks raise no crops, but neither do they starve. There was plenty of food for new arrivals, and soon they had their own cabins, too.

  Uwain, the reciter, was a help to Hlah: he could write. Together they composed an urgent letter to Baron Roshay Bault, who would send it on to the king and his advisers:

  “Know, my masters, that the Thunder King has built a New Temple at Kara Karram by the Great Lakes, and that in Silvertown he has raised up a base and treacherous person, one Goryk Gillow, as his own First Prester. This Goryk oppresses and spoils the people for many miles around, for he has a strong Heathen army in Silvertown to enforce his will. But those of our people who accept him as First Prester, he rewards richly and with flattery.

  “The chamber house in Silvertown having been destroyed when the Heathen took the city, this Goryk has appointed some of his vilest creatures to be presters and reciters, and he is building a new chamber house, of timber, not stone. For the time being he has ordained assemblies out of doors, in which he preaches his abominable lies and blasphemies, all in the service of the Thunder King: which false and wicked king he declares to be God’s vicar on the earth and threatens the people with God’s wrath unless they submit to the Thunder King. Such outrageous things should not be spoken in Obann.

  “The people resist as best they can; but unless the king can send an army to drive out the Heathen and recapture Silvertown, we fear this province of Obann will be lost.”

  Hlah dispatched his two best runners to carry the message to Ninneburky. And by then Uwain had something else to discuss with him.

  “This man Sunfish, who ministers to your people, has
the most wonderful command of Scripture that I ever heard of,” the reciter said. “He must have studied it for many years; and yet in some ways he seems as simple as a child. Who is he? How did he come to be here?”

  “I don’t know who he is. I found him starving in the wilderness.” Hlah told Uwain how he brought the wreck of a man to safety and gave him the name of Sunfish because he couldn’t remember his own name. “He’s our teacher, and the people love him.”

  “I see how much they love him,” said Uwain. “Strangely, though, I can’t stop thinking that I know him from somewhere else.”

  “There’s only one like Sunfish,” Hlah said. “Who can he possibly remind you of?”

  “I don’t know! No one I can think of.”

  But some years ago Uwain once traveled to Obann City as an assistant to Prester Yevlach, in a great conclave of presters. It was the only time he’d ever visited the great city: not an experience he was likely to forget.

  He was in the great nave under the vast dome of the Presters’ Palace, in the Temple, when Prester Orth preached to the assembled clergy of all the land of Obann. The beauty of Orth’s speaking voice, the force and clarity of his message, his powerful presence and handsomeness of person—these remained bright in Uwain’s memory.

  Sunfish wore rags and skins, not the gorgeous robes that Orth wore; and his hair had grown into a shaggy mane, and his beard into an unruly cascade reaching halfway down his chest, as opposed to Orth’s impeccable and expensive grooming. So it was hardly strange that Uwain didn’t recognize him. But there was something about Sunfish that haunted the reciter.

  Sunfish treated him with great respect, as if Uwain were the chief prester of a major city; and Uwain was present when Sunfish told Hlah about the dream that troubled him.

  “May told me that there is no Temple anymore, that the Temple was destroyed,” Sunfish said. “So how am Ito preach to all those people in the Temple, if there is no Temple? I was going to ask you, Hlah, to take me there!”

  Of course Hlah couldn’t do that, and Sunfish walked away shaking his head as if some fear were growing in his heart. They overheard him muttering, “God wills it! God wills it!”

  “What do you think of that?” Hlah asked Uwain.

  “I hope he hasn’t had a vision of the Thunder King’s temple of blasphemy,” Uwain said. “But he’s never heard of that place, has he?”

  “Not from me,” said Hlah.

  Chapter 26

  A Message for Martis

  Goryk Gillow was no fool. He took the lands, the goods, and the persons of those who resisted him, but not for himself. He gave them to those who acknowledged him as First Prester and obeyed him as such.

  His supporters and their slaves were building a new chamber house in Silvertown. It would be finished well before the winter. Goryk lived in a modest house that had once belonged to someone else. Every morning he conferred there with the mardar who commanded the Thunder King’s army in Silvertown. This was a man named Wusu who came from the land of the Dahai, south of the Great Lakes. Wusu used to distinguish himself by painting the lower half of his face bright blue; but for the sake of his campaign to win over the populace for the Thunder King and the New Temple, Goryk had convinced him not to do it anymore. Wusu still performed human sacrifices, but not in public. Goryk had told the people that the army of King Thunder had discontinued that custom. That they didn’t entirely believe it didn’t trouble him.

  Today Wusu was in a bad mood because some of Goryk’s rangers had returned from Lintum Forest with the news that Helki the Rod still lived.

  “I have a big enough army to go into that forest and drive him out,” the mardar grumbled. “Were you not so high in favor with my master the Thunder King, I’d do it. Sending men after Helki by the handful is foolishness.”

  The complaint was long-standing. When one of King Thunder’s armies invaded the forest last year, Helki made the survivors carry back the head of their mardar. Nothing would suit Wusu but Helki’s head on a pole in the middle of Silvertown.

  “Mardar, we may yet agree to send the whole army,” Goryk answered. “But the people here are not yet broken to the bridle, and we need your strength to keep them under.”

  “You’ll never tame them, as long as they have Helki’s name to invoke.”

  Still, both men knew what had happened to the first army that went into Lintum Forest. Ten thousand men went in, and only half of them came out again. Why Wusu’s ten thousand should fare any better was not clear to Goryk. One more defeat in Lintum Forest, he thought, and the whole country would rise against them.

  “We’re doing good work here, Mardar, in the service of our master,” he said. “Every day more people surrender to us. They want the Temple, and Obann can’t give them the Temple anymore. Our master can.

  “We shall teach them that to obey our master is to obey their God. You must understand that the God of Obann is not like other people’s gods. You can’t uproot Him from His place and carry him to Kara Karram as our master’s slave and prisoner. But if we act in this God’s name, as our master has commanded us to do, we will in time become the masters of this people. And then our lord King Thunder will rule all the nations from the sea in the West to the sea in the East, for which he will reward us richly.”

  Wusu frowned. “I sacrificed a slave last night and read the future in his entrails. There is danger for us here, First Prester.” There was a hint of disrespect in his pronunciation of the title. “Danger that will come to us from Lintum Forest.”

  “Don’t let the people know you’re still performing sacrifices,” Goryk said.

  Wusu bowed his head. “So I can’t see the look on his face!” Goryk thought.

  “I obey our master’s commandments,” said the mardar.

  “So do I,” said Goryk. “Always!”

  In spite of the deep fascination provided by the light-giving item for which they had no name, Jack found himself a bit gloomy the day after their escape from Noma; and Ellayne noticed it.

  “What’s the matter, Jack?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t feel so good.” He shrugged.

  “Are you upset because you hit Noma with that rock?”

  “Well … yes! I mean, what if I’d killed him?”

  “You didn’t,” Ellayne said.

  “If I hurt him bad enough, he still could die.”

  Ellayne didn’t like to see him like this. Besides, his sense of guilt was contagious. She hadn’t stopped him, after all. She patted his back.

  “What’s done is done,” she said. “And what about soldiers? They kill people all the time.”

  “They don’t sneak up on them while they’re sleeping and bash ’em with a rock!”

  “Well, then, if it’s eating you up so badly, you ought to pray about it.” A snatch of remembered Scripture came to her. “King Ozias said you can confess your sins to God, and He’ll forgive you. Why don’t you do that?”

  “I’m not even sure I sinned,” Jack said. “I don’t know if I did right or wrong.”

  “No—but God knows,” said Ellayne. “Leave it up to Him. That’s what Obst would say.”

  They were camping in a gully for the day. Jack climbed out and went to sit by himself behind some bushes for a while. Wytt was going to follow him, but Ellayne asked him to stay. The Omah found a little spot of moist ground and probed it with his stick, looking for worms. Ellayne looked the other way.

  “We’re not soldiers,” she told herself, “but there is a war going on, and we’re in it. Noma was on the other side. Jack did right to take the magic from him. It was the only thing to do!” And before she knew it, she was praying, too.

  By and by Jack came back to the gully. He seemed to be in better spirits. He sat down beside Ellayne and took the light-giver out of his pocket.

  “Don’t play with that!” Ellayne said.

  “I don’t think it’s dangerous.”

  “You don’t know anything about it!”

  Jack hel
d it up in his fingertips. You could see through it, like glass; but it wasn’t glass. “There really isn’t much to it,” he said. “It weighs hardly anything. It doesn’t get very hot when it makes light. Doesn’t make any noise, either.”

  Ellayne had never touched the cusset thing, and didn’t plan to. There was a spell on it; she was sure of that. She flinched when Jack made the light go on and off. For all he knew, fire would suddenly shoot out of it and burn them up.

  She startled when Wytt sprang to his feet and squealed. “Horses coming—fast!”

  That could only mean one thing. Jack thrust the light-giver deep into his pocket. They flattened themselves to the floor of the gully. Wytt disappeared into the grass. Maybe the riders would pass without seeing them.

  But then Jack noticed that their little campfire was still sending up a wisp of smoke. They hadn’t even needed one! Frantically he stamped on it, even as they heard the pounding of the horses’ hooves, which suddenly stopped.