The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  “How do you know this?”

  “Better I don’t tell you. But I know. And there’s more,” Gallgoid said. “During the conclave, amid all the excitement, certain persons are to disappear. The Abnak chief, Uduqu, is to be discreetly murdered. They’ll say he went off to join the army. Your prophet—the little girl, Jandra—and her nurse are also to be disposed of.”

  “They would murder a child?” With a great effort, Gurun didn’t raise her voice.

  “It might be awkward for them if the prophet were to reappear,” Gallgoid said. “They don’t want any prophets in Obann.”

  Gurun shook her head. Knowing the Scriptures as she did, she knew there was no end to human wickedness. But to encounter so much of it in real life was a shock.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” she said.

  He nodded. “You, too, my lady, are to disappear. They’ll say you returned to your own country, over the sea. But they mean to murder you.”

  Somehow that was less appalling than the idea of murdering a child. “Anyone else?” said Gurun.

  “Preceptor Constan. And a few more, but no one you know.”

  “What about the king?”

  “He’ll be allowed to live a little longer,” Gallgoid said. “The Thunder King wants him. For the time being, they’ll keep him here in Obann. The poor boy is a simpleton, and they think they can make good use of him. But once their position is secure, they’ll send him East.

  “Meanwhile, they’re not sure how to manage the conclave. They would prefer to have the First Prester that the Thunder King has provided, this Goryk Gillow. The conclave would prefer to elect a new one. So far, Merffin has not decided what to do.”

  Several moments passed before Gurun spoke again.

  “What shall we do?” she said.

  “I think the wisest course would be to get you all out of the city before the conclave opens. Send you to Lintum Forest and place you under Helki’s protection.”

  “Can you do it?

  “Yes. It won’t be easy, but I can.”

  Gurun thought hard. “Then there is something I must tell you now—something you don’t know,” she said. She took a deep breath. “The king who is here in the palace, the simpleton, is not a fool. He is only pretending. But he is not King Ryons, either. That, too, is a pretense. He is here because the real King Ryons went away, and we don’t know where.”

  The spy grinned as he listened to the tale of the lost king and his substitute. When Gurun finished telling it, he bowed.

  “I salute you, lady!” he said. “I suspected you were keeping a secret from me, but I never dreamed it was such a thing as this. You’ve outdone me in deception—very well done indeed!”

  “I want you to save Fnaa, too,” she said.

  “I will. But thinking he was truly King Ryons, my plans called for him to stay here longer than the rest of you.”

  “He must not!” said Gurun. “With Uduqu and Jandra and me all gone to Lintum Forest, who would protect him?”

  “I will,” Gallgoid said. “With my life.”

  “And Preceptor Constan?”

  Gallgoid shrugged. “He would never consent to leave Obann. He wouldn’t miss the conclave, and there’s no prying him loose from his work. I’ll do whatever I can, but I think God will have to protect him.”

  “And what if something happens to you?” Gurun asked.

  “Oh, I’m safe,” Gallgoid said. “I’m only a minor clerk in the palace, whose work is so obscure as to be beneath anyone’s notice.”

  Among the first to arrive in the city for the conclave, and among the most important, was Prester Jod from Durmurot, Obann’s westernmost city. Lord Reesh had once accepted Jod’s resignation, but after the destruction of the Temple and the disappearance of Lord Reesh, the western clergy had restored Jod to his post. It wasn’t strictly by the rules, but they wouldn’t hear of choosing anyone else.

  “You’ll be elected First Prester,” Constan told him, “if you allow someone to nominate you.”

  Jod had come to the seminary that day to see the work being done on the scrolls. He walked with the preceptor from desk to desk as the copyists labored on what would someday become new books of Scripture for all the people of Obann.

  “I won’t deny I’ve been thinking about a nomination,” Jod said. He was a big, handsome man, well-known for his integrity. He would be an ideal First Prester. “I’ve been praying about it, too.”

  “With you as First Prester, our work here will be secure from meddling,” Constan said.

  “That’s one of the few reasons I would have for wanting to be First Prester—to make sure God’s word goes out to all the people: even to the Heathen.”

  Constan nodded. He and Jod agreed.

  “The trouble, of course, is that many will want a return to the old ways. They will insist on it.”

  “The old ways are over and done with,” Jod said. “They were not God’s ways. I’ll try to make the conclave see that.”

  Constan had heard rumors of the Thunder King’s New Temple in the East. So had Jod, but decided not to speak of it: not until he had a better sense of what the conclave thought of it. The whole idea was monstrous, he thought; but he had already found a few presters who seemed receptive to it. But many of them wanted there to be two Temples: one in Obann, the other in the East, and both Temples under their control.

  “Tread carefully,” Jod reminded himself, “when you tread among fools.”

  Chapter 44

  How to Pack a Chamber House

  Although the river was carrying them along at a good clip, Hlah paddled the canoe steadily. May sat in the prow with the baby in her arms, facing her husband. Between them, with an arm flailing over the side, lay Sunfish. Every few minutes, he groaned. Occasionally he sputtered broken bits of Scripture.

  “Is he going to die on us?” May said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Who knows?” Hlah frowned and kept on paddling. “He was almost this bad when I first found him lost in the marshes, starving and babbling and shivering. He came out of it, by and by. Maybe he’ll come out of this.”

  “He needs a doctor. Maybe we shouldn’t press on all the way to Obann.”

  “My people would say he was in a shamanistic trance, communing with some god. But when a shaman comes out of his trance, he remembers everything. Anyhow, he needs a prophet, not a doctor. Besides, the best doctors must be in Obann City.”

  Suddenly Sunfish gave a great cry and sat up, rocking the canoe. He opened his eyes wide and looked around, confused.

  “Easy, Sunfish! You almost tipped the canoe!”

  “I’m sorry, Hlah.”

  “How do you feel?” May asked.

  “Tired,” Sunfish said. “Oh, so very tired!”

  “You looked like you were having a bad dream.”

  “That’s just what it feels like,” he said. “Only when I wake up, I can’t remember anything about the dream. Just crowds and faces and lots of people talking all at once. I wish it would stop.”

  For no reason at all, the baby giggled. That brought a weary smile to Sunfish’s face.

  “Another two or three days on the river,” Hlah said, “and we’ll be in Obann. We’ll be in time for that conclave.”

  “Conclave,” muttered Sunfish; and by the look on his face, you’d think he’d been invited to the conclave, and dreaded it. You’d think he knew all about it.

  But that was impossible, Hlah thought.

  As the king’s army approached Lintum Forest from the north, Looth, the Attakott, was troubled.

  “We’ve been right up to the edge of the forest,” he told the other chieftains, “and we haven’t met any of Helki’s scouts. He should have men on the plain, watching the approaches to the forest. That’s what we used to do, when we were with him. But he has no one there.”

  “My riders haven’t seen any of his people, either,” Shaffur said.

  “Nor mine,” said Chagadai.

  The chiefs decided t
o march the army faster. Helki was too good a general, they knew, to neglect to post scouts outside the forest.

  “He’s come to a bad end, finally,” Shaffur said. “I always thought he would.”

  “He may be having trouble,” Chief Buzzard said, “with no men left to spare for scouting duties. But we’ll know better when we get there.”

  So they picked up their pace, and Obst prayed hard for Helki’s safety. He’d known Helki for a long time. There was always someone trying to kill Helki: “And they haven’t done it yet,” Obst thought. But now Helki had people depending on him, and he couldn’t just vanish into the trees as he used to. He would have to defend those people, somehow.

  Goryk Gillow waited for news of the conclave.

  If the king’s councilors in Obann had their way, if they could get the clergy to agree with them, he would rise high in the favor of the Thunder King. The New Temple would be the only Temple. If the conclave rejected him and elected another First Prester, it hardly mattered. They would never find their way out of the trap he’d laid for them.

  He sent messages to Kara Karram to keep his master informed: first by specially trained birds—a secret shared by all the mardars—and then by relay riders. But the success or failure of the plan was his responsibility.

  And that fatzing fool, Wusu, was putting it all in jeopardy! Goryk had to wait for news from that quarter, too. If Wusu came to grief in Lintum Forest, it might inspire a mutiny among the troops left at Silvertown. Goryk had asked his master for reinforcements, but they would be a long time getting there. Meanwhile his collection of Wallekki and Griffs and Dahai—not to mention scores of Obannese who’d joined him—went about their duties grumbling, and even deserted in little dribs and drabs. In the absence of Wusu and the Zamzu, they weren’t easy to control. They were Heathen and didn’t care a jot for Goryk’s new chamber house or his pretensions as First Prester.

  He kept the people working on the city’s defenses, embellishing the chamber house, and growing crops to feed the army. Silvertown was a mining center, and not much for agriculture. There was never enough food to go around, and the people resented having to feed a Heathen army while they themselves went hungry. Carts came every day with provisions from the east side of the mountains, but only just enough to stave off famine.

  He had but one man to confide in, a former Obannese sergeant named Iolo, who’d been drummed out of the service for drunkenness just before the city fell. Goryk made him a captain, and his aide. Since then, oddly, Iolo had given up drinking. It didn’t do much for his temper, and most people in Silvertown took pains to avoid him.

  “You shouldn’t worry so much, First Prester,” Iolo said. They were watching the work on the main gate, which was almost finished. For some reason Iolo’s face reminded Goryk of a gnarled tree stump. “Everything’s coming along just fine.”

  “Ever since I made assemblies compulsory at the chamber house, more and more people have been sneaking off and not coming back,” Goryk said. Anyone who didn’t attend assembly was whipped. “But in case they send someone from Obann to negotiate, I want them to see a packed chamber house full of people enthusiastically reciting prayers. I’m sure they’ll send someone, sooner or later.”

  “Don’t you ever get a bit uneasy, leading those prayers? And you not even ordained?”

  Goryk laughed. “If God were going to strike me down for blasphemy, Iolo, He would have done it by now!”

  Wytt still hadn’t found the Forest Omah. He needed their help, so he went farther afield to seek them. It never came into his head to explain what he was going to do. One morning he didn’t come when Ellayne called him, and that was that. But they knew he wanted to find the other Omah.

  “I guess he’s out looking for them,” Jack said.

  “I do wish he wouldn’t just go off without a word,” Ellayne fumed. “I know it’s his way and all, but I’ll never get used to it.”

  “Never mind,” Martis said. He was already saddling and bridling Dulayl. “The thing for us to do is to get to Helki’s castle. I don’t like the three of us wandering around by ourselves. It’s dangerous.”

  A funny thing for an assassin to say, Jack thought.

  Trusting that Wytt would always be able to follow their trail, they resumed their search for Carbonek. They’d been there before, but they were now approaching it from the west and didn’t know the way. Martis hoped to find settlers or hunters who would show them, but so far they hadn’t seen another human being—only footprints here and there. That the makers of the prints never showed themselves put Martis on his guard for enemies.

  They hiked all day and made camp, with nothing left for supper except some berries they’d gathered along the way. That was another reason they missed Wytt. He usually found food for them.

  They were just getting their fire going when Dulayl, hobbled and tethered to a fallen tree, snorted and whinnied. Out came Martis’ short sword, ready in his hand. He drew it so smoothly, you couldn’t hear a whisper from the sheath.

  “Who’s there?” he called. “Show yourselves!”

  “That we will, traveler,” someone answered from amid the trees. “But unless you want to get stuck full of arrows before you’re three seconds older, you’d better drop that sword.”

  Martis complied; he had no choice. And out of the forest stepped half a dozen men in rags of brown and green, with bows in their hands and arrows ready to let fly. They were obviously outlaws, Jack thought. Helki must not have been able to rid the forest of them all. Or, worse, they’d been able to come back.

  “Do you see what I see, Totta?” said one of the bowmen. “A boy with dark hair—looks like we’ve found that lost king everybody’s looking for! The big boss will be pleased.”

  “This is not King Ryons!” Martis said. “He’s just my grandson, and his name is Jack.”

  But none of the outlaws believed him.

  Chapter 45

  How Jack Became a King, Almost

  As soon as they entered the forest, Mardar Wusu began to have trouble between the Zamzu and the Hosa. And the Obannese outlaws who guided them had trouble with both.

  Everyone feared and loathed the Zamzu, eaters of men. The Zamzu knew it, and in their arrogance, taunted the Hosa.

  “We are warriors—not old women to be mocked!” Xhama complained to the mardar. “The Zamzu say that when we are deep inside the forest and the food runs out, they will eat us one by one: but they will not eat our hearts because they think we’re cowards. But they will find that our spears are very sharp!”

  Wusu despised the thick accent with which the Hosa chieftain spoke Tribe-talk. He despised him for complaining. Wusu was not a fool, but now he behaved like one.

  “Can’t you stand a little teasing?” he answered.

  “We don’t like being in the forest. You can’t see even a single spear-cast ahead in any direction because of all the trees. It is not a good place to make war.”

  “Stop your whining,” Wusu said, “or I’ll feed you to the Zamzu with my own hands.”

  He was fool enough to take Xhama’s sullen silence for submission. But Xhama was wise enough to realize that from now on the Hosa would have to take care of themselves because their general didn’t know how to keep good order in an army. “We shall keep good order among ourselves,” he told his men, “and be ready for whatever happens next.”

  Traveling swiftly, Helki and his few rangers found the army when it was only two days’ slow march into the forest; and its scouts had not found him. Keeping a safe distance, Helki led his men around the army, to its rear.

  “Let’s start a little fire behind them and give them a scare,” he said. “The wind is just right, so they’ll have to hurry to stay ahead of the flames. And it’s going to rain this evening, so we won’t have to worry about burning the whole place down around us.” And to Ryons, “You stick close to me, Your Highness! We don’t want you stumbling into the fire.”

  Ryons watched in fascination as the men started
a fire and skillfully steered it in the right direction. He’d seen a grass fire once, from which his Wallekki tribe had to flee in much disorder. He’d almost been left behind. But Helki made this forest fire his servant, and by mid-afternoon it was roaring after the Heathen and chasing them deeper into the woods. Angel flew overhead, and by her cries and movements, Helki always knew just where Wusu’s army was.

  “How do you do it?” Ryons wondered.

  “I know the ways of hawks,” Helki said, “and she was my hawk before I gave her to you. She and I work well together.”