by Lee Duigon
He gave Zo some fresh-baked bread stuffed with shredded chicken, and a cup of mead. The mardar had never tasted mead before—it is made with fermented honey—and pronounced it excellent. After they had exchanged a few more civilities, Zo got up again, drew a knife, and cut the cords that bound the box.
“You’ll have to be careful with this,” he said. “Also, try to keep it a secret for as long as you can.”
The box was stuffed full of a kind of dried moss, which Zo pulled out by the handful and tossed aside. When it lay in heaps on the floor, he reached into the box and took out a much smaller one, which he placed gingerly on Goryk’s tea table.
What was it? A dull black cube about the size of a militiaman’s helmet, one face of it sported what looked like the flared mouth of a trumpet. “Examine it closely,” Zo said, “but don’t touch it yet.”
On another face of the cube Goryk saw a tiny arm protruding from a vertical slot, and two round, white lumps nestled in black rings.
“What is it?”
“Our master has explored the mighty secrets of the ancients. This is one of them,” the mardar said. “Inside this box is imprisoned a devil, in such a way that it cannot get out. This little arm and these two buttons, here, compel the devil to do your bidding, and to cease. It has great powers, but it is the slave of whoever holds this box.”
Goryk had never heard of such a thing. Had he been a real prester, and studied at a seminary and read the Commentaries, he would have known something of the power of the ancients: power that led them to destruction in the Day of Fire. As it was, he didn’t believe in devils. But he realized that Mardar Zo, and their lord the Thunder King, knew infinitely more than he did about such things, so he kept an open mind.
“What can it do?” he asked.
“At your command,” said Zo, “the devil will wail at your enemies so loudly and so horribly that they will be afraid to advance against you. But if they do, then at your command, the devil will shoot forth a great and terrible light—a light so fierce, that it will strike blind anyone who looks at it. With this power, you, standing alone, can put a small army to flight.”
“Have you seen it do these things?”
Zo nodded. “I myself have commanded the devil in this box. With it I put down a rebellion on one of the islands in the Lake of Islands. Rebels dove from their boats and drowned, rather than stand against the devil’s power. Now all the islands are quiet and obedient.
“Now you may pick up the box. But be careful not to touch the arm or the buttons.”
Goryk was careful indeed. To his amazement the box weighed next to nothing. Its smooth casing felt like no kind of metal he had ever touched before.
“Do not ever try to open the box!” Zo said. “No one can do it. But if you were to handle this thing carelessly or to abuse it, the result would be disastrous to you.”
“I’ll never do that,” Goryk said.
“The little arm commands the devil to wail. If you push the arm up, you will hear a kind of click, and then the noise. The farther up you push the arm, the louder the devil will wail—loud enough to drive a strong man mad. Push it back down, until it clicks again, and he will be silent.
“If you press the top button, blinding light will instantly flash out of the horn, which you will have pointed at your enemies. Don’t point it at your friends! Press the lower button, and the light will be cut off instantly.”
Goryk set the box back on the table. Not for a moment did he think Zo might be lying or exaggerating.
“Use it only in great need, comrade,” Zo said. “Our master says that sometimes these objects, because they are so unthinkably old, may cease to function. The power inside them finds a means to escape.”
“I’ll be very cautious with it; I promise you.”
“Come next spring, our master will send you fresh troops from the East. He knows you need them, and they’ll be yours to command. In the meantime, whatever else may happen, you will have this devil to protect you.”
Awe crept into Goryk’s mind. Whatever doubts he had about his wisdom in siding with the Thunder King, those fled away. But one question remained.
“Why didn’t our master send some of these with the army that besieged Obann last summer?” he asked. “A few of these would have been better than a thousand catapults.”
Zo gently touched the top of the box. “There are not many of these things surviving from the ancient days,” he said. “They’re hard to find, and the power has already escaped from most of them that are found. And then it takes time to discover how to command the power.
“Last year, nothing like this was available. But as time goes on, there will be more—maybe even many more. So our master has assured me.”
“With this power in our hands,” said Goryk, “there will be no defense against us.”
Chapter 52
A Confession to the Conclave
Hlah and May and the baby had accepted Preceptor Constan’s invitation to stay at his house. Early in the morning, he called for them.
“Your friend Sunfish wants to see you,” he said. “We are going to the conclave today, but he wants to see you first.”
“Is he well?” asked May. To her it sounded like their friend wished to speak to them before he died.
“He has remembered who he is,” Constan said.
They couldn’t get much more out of him as they rode to Orth’s house in a coach that Prester Jod had sent for them. Jod was already there, waiting for them in the morning room with Sunfish.
Sunfish wore today the ragged homespun clothes in which he’d traveled from the hills, but his hair and beard were washed and trimmed. He was really quite a handsome man, May thought: very distinguished-looking, even in the worn-out clothes. She wondered why she’d never noticed it before.
Sunfish embraced them. Tears glinted in his eyes.
“My friends!” he said. “I can never repay you for all you’ve done for me. The days I lived with you were the happiest days of all my life; and because of them, I find myself at peace with God. No man can receive a greater gift than that! I wanted to be sure I told you that, in case we never meet again.”
“Why should we never meet again?” Hlah said.
“There’s no time to discuss it,” Prester Jod said quietly. “The three of us must be off to the conclave now. My coach will take you back to Constan’s house.”
May wanted to protest; but Hlah sensed there was something brewing which he and May were not supposed to know about, so he quieted her with a squeeze of her elbow. They said their good-byes. May kissed Sunfish’s cheek, and Sunfish kissed the baby.
“I’ll never be able to think of you as Prester Orth,” she said, “but always just as Sunfish. Our Sunfish.”
“I hope you’ll never call me by any name but that,” Orth said. “You know, as Prester Orth, I thought I had all that any man could want. But I didn’t have true friends. I was a much richer man as Sunfish than I ever was as Orth.”
“We must be going,” Jod said.
In Lintum Forest the sun rose to find most of the Hosa sleeping the sleep of weary men. But their sentries were awake and watchful, exhausted though they were.
Ryons slept, too, with a rolled-up sack for a pillow, but woke when Cavall barked sharply. Cavall kept on barking, waking many of the Hosa, who were not very happy about it. But Ryons noticed that he wagged his tail and grinned, so there was nothing to be afraid of. Besides, he was surrounded by brave men who’d sworn their oaths to him.
Angel called from up in a tree, then flew down to perch on his arm.
And Helki stepped out of the woods.
The sentries cocked their spears. Ryons cried, “Stop!” And Xhama, now on his feet, commanded the guards to stand at ease.
“I come in peace!” Helki called, grinning.
“That’s my friend—that’s Helki!” Ryons said.
“We receive you in peace, O Helki!” Xhama answered in Tribe-talk. “We who were your enemies are now your
friends, and Ryons is our king.”
“It’s true, Helki!” Ryons added.
Past the amazed sentries strode Helki, with his rod.
“I know it’s true, Your Majesty,” he said. “Angel led me straight to this camp, and we got here in time to watch the celebration. But I thought I’d better wait till morning to show myself.”
He walked up to Ryons, knelt, and kissed his hand. The Hosa who saw it clapped their approval. Word spread throughout the camp that their enemy had come—but as a friend.
“Well, Your Majesty!” Helki said. “It looks like I won’t have to rescue you after all. Looks like you’ve rescued yourself! King Ozias himself couldn’t have done any better.”
That was saying too much, Ryons thought. “It was all with God’s help,” he said.
“You have given us a miserable time in this forest, Helki the Rod,” Xhama said.
“I had to,” Helki said. “But that’s over now, and I’m here to make amends. I reckon I can best do that by finding your men some food.”
“We are hungry,” Xhama said, “but not yet starving.”
“No one starves in the forest, if he knows its ways. My boys will bag some venison for you. Meanwhile, there’s a nice stand of wild blackberries not a quarter-mile from here and bean-bushes that have just come into season. You’ll be all right.”
Soon there were foragers at work, and Helki sat down with Ryons and Xhama to discuss what to do next.
“There are still the Zamzu to be dealt with,” Xhama said.
“We’ll deal with them, all right,” said Helki. “They’re slow, though. You’ll have time for more rest and a good feed, and then we’ll catch up to them. After that, we’ll all go back to Carbonek where the king’s throne is.”
The Hosa would do well at Carbonek, Ryons thought, being farmers as well as fighting men. They could clear more land and plant more crops.
“I don’t know much about these things,” Helki said, “but as I see it, Your Majesty, you really are a king—our king, of God’s own choosing. You didn’t stay in the thicket like I told you, but I’m proud of you.”
Ryons didn’t know what to say to that. It made him blush. But Xhama said, “Our king, too, Helki—and his God shall be our God.”
Presters, reciters, preceptors, scribes, scholars, and servants packed the Great Hall. Many of them recognized Orth when he came in, and babbled questions and comments at each other. It broke up the debate they’d started over who should be the next First Prester.
Jod pushed his way to the dais and spoke to the conclave’s president. After repeatedly pounding his gavel and calling for silence, the president finally made himself heard.
“Your attention, brethren! Prester Jod begs leave to speak to you on a matter of great importance.”
Jod ascended to the podium. “I only wish to introduce a man who is already well-known to you,” he said. “What he has to say to you, he speaks of his own free will—and against my own advice, I add. All I ask is that you hear him out. Prester Orth, the podium is yours.”
It shocked them into silence, to see Orth up there in rags. Most of them had seen him and heard him speak many times before, and he’d never appeared in any but the costliest and most fashionable attire. They knew him as a great man, the likely successor to Lord Reesh—as a man whose favor some of them had worked hard to cultivate. What was he doing, dressed as a beggar?
“My lords and brethren,” he said, “I come before you only to make my confession. After you’ve heard it, do what seems best to you.
“My lords, I am a traitor—to you, to my country, to our Temple, and to God. I have sinned a great sin, and God punished me for it by taking away my senses for a year. Now He has restored them, so that you can punish me.”
Jod stole a glance at Constan. The preceptor’s face was serene, revealing nothing of his thoughts. Jod admired him for that.
“Because I desired to succeed Lord Reesh as First Prester,” Orth said, “I created counterfeit Scripture and arranged for it to be ‘discovered’ by an unsuspecting scholar. I saw to it that my own false verses were authenticated. It was Lord Reesh’s intent that those spurious verses of Batha the Seer were to counteract the dire warnings of various prophets in Obann.
“Working with Lord Reesh, I betrayed our city to the Heathen. We let their warriors into the Temple through a secret passage, while we escaped via the same. We made a covenant with the Thunder King, your enemy. In return for the destruction of Obann, the Temple was to survive, with Lord Reesh continuing as First Prester and myself as his successor. That our plan failed was due to divine intervention, God Himself having chosen to show mercy to this city, and no thanks to us.”
Except for the sound of Orth’s voice, stark silence reigned in the Great Hall. It was the silence of incredulity, Jod thought. The delegates didn’t want to accept what Orth was telling them. They were waiting for it to turn out to be something quite different from what it seemed.
“Deluded by our vanity and sinful pride,” Orth said, “we convinced ourselves that we were the Temple of the Lord and the future of Obann. Let the city and the Temple fall. The Thunder King promised to give us a New Temple. We would rule it: Lord Reesh first, then I.
“Such was my orgulity! My folly! As if I were anything without the Temple! As if the Temple were anything without God! But in my delusion, the Temple was God—and I was the Temple. So the sinful man makes himself God in his own mind.”
Jod studied the faces in the crowd. They hated Orth’s words; they hated him; and yet he held them spellbound.
But what will happen, Jod asked himself, when this pent-up hate breaks forth in all its fury?
At Prester Jod’s townhouse, he’d left his servants under orders to obey Gurun in all things, and to be ready to transport her and the king and their people out of the city the moment she requested it—“or even before she asks,” he said, “if you see any sign of a disturbance breaking out in the city.” The king and queen were to be carried all the way to Jod’s estate at Durmurot, and there protected against all who might harm them.
Shingis came into the morning room to report that his Blays were all on guard around the house, but that so far all seemed peaceful.
“What do you think, my lady, is going to happen?” he said. Unable to manage Tribe-talk except in a kind of pidgin, he spoke in his own language. God had given Gurun the gift of understanding foreign languages, and being understood.
“I think we are going to leave this city very soon—maybe even today,” she said. “Prester Jod fears there will be trouble. But he is a great man, and we should be safe under his protection.”
Shingis bowed his head. “Wherever you go, we’ll go with you,” he said. The Blays were so far from their homeland, they’d given up all hope of ever seeing it again. Gurun thanked him, and he left the room.
General Hennen was the only one in the palace who’d been told the king and queen had gone to Jod’s house. Gurun hadn’t been able to contact Gallgoid, but she knew he would find out all about it sooner or later—if he hadn’t already. Meanwhile, she’d advised Hennen to pull his own troops out of the city and try to rejoin the rest of King Ryons’ army as soon as he could.
“We must be guided by the prophecy, General,” she said. “The throne of King Ozias is to be established not in this city, but in Lintum Forest. The Lord has spoken it.”
“Then that’s where I’ll go,” Hennen said, “and five hundred good spearmen with me.”
For the time being, there was nothing to do but wait in Prester Jod’s drawing room. Fnaa found it irksome.
“If we’re going to go, I wish we could go now!” he said. “As long as I’m not going to be king anymore and live in the palace, we might as well be going.”
Uduqu laughed. “You liked being king, did you?” he said.
“Well, it was better than being a slave in Vallach Vair’s house. Gurun, why can’t we go now? That prester said we could, if we wanted to.”
“Y
ou may get your wish sooner than you think,” Gurun said. In truth, she had a longing to go to Durmurot. It was the city in Obann that was closest to the sea, and over the sea lay Fogo Island, her home.
“I think the boy’s right,” Uduqu said. “There’s nothing left for us to do in this city. Why don’t we make tracks for Durmurot? If need be, we can always come back.”
Maybe it was wiser, Gurun thought, to start such a journey before there was trouble in the city, and not after it began. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to get out during a disturbance.
She rang for Jod’s butler.
“Make ready the carriage,” she told him, “and tell the prester when he comes—and no one else!—that we’ve gone to Durmurot.” She smiled at Uduqu. “As you say,” she added, “we can always come back.”
