The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  “I’ve been thinking very hard,” he said, “and it may be that I have an idea, in very general terms, of what we must do.

  “This Heathen confederacy is under one of their holy men from the Great Lakes. They say he works miracles. We will say he has a mission to destroy the Temple and all Obann with it; I don’t think we’ll be guilty of exaggerating.

  “We will say that God Himself rang the bell to alert us to our peril and assure us of His aid, if only we do our part. We will say the world is not going to end, but our world, Obann, could end—if the people are not faithful to their Temple and their state, courageous in battle, and willing to endure grievous hardships.

  “We will say this is a time of testing, the hardest test there ever was: so that through us God might show His power and His might. If we are worthy, we will emerge from the test renewed and blessed.

  “This time, we shall say, the Heathen must be subdued forever, and all their filthy, false idolatries wiped out. We shall say God is angry because we have allowed the Heathen to flourish and let them alone on their side of the mountains. This time, we shall say, victory shall not be declared until our armies have crossed the mountains, thrown down all the Heathen idols, and planted our standards on the far shores of the lakes.”

  Reesh ran out of breath, and stopped. He was surprised to find Judge Tombo grinning at him.

  “They were wise to choose you as First Prester,” Tombo said. “We’ll restore the Empire yet.”

  CHAPTER 4

  How the Scouts Captured a Madman

  Obst started down the mountain two days before his friends, and they were not fated to catch up to him.

  He felt strong; he made good time. His legs felt twenty years younger, forty years stronger. If the path he followed hadn’t been so steep, so twisty, so strewn with stones and tree roots, and so hemmed in on either side by briars and undergrowth, he would have skipped down the mountain.

  Paying little attention to where he was going—as long as it was downhill, it couldn’t matter much—Obst had but little idea of where he was. Feeling strong and fresh was a great distraction. He drank in the clean, cool air, reveled in the song of birds and the chattering of squirrels. A blue jay followed him for some distance, scolding raucously. Under his breath, he prayed.

  “Thank you, God, for giving me one more piece of work to do! Thank you for revealing to me, once again, the beauty of this world you have created, and now must uncreate. I trust in you, O Lord: use me to save souls before it’s too late.”

  So occupied, he almost rammed into two men who suddenly stepped out into the path ahead of him. He stopped just short of a collision.

  They stared at him. He stared at them. He knew, of course, that they were Heathen, guessed they must be scouting the ways across the mountains. But that was all he knew about them. The one was short, powerful, with dark skin covered with interlaced tattoos, and a shaved head with a single hank of thick black hair hanging down one side. He wore buckskin leggings and a string of many-colored beads around his neck, nothing more. The other was taller, without tattoos, dressed in brightly patterned woolen garments, bearded, with long hawk-feathers woven into his hair. Both clutched weapons in their hands: the tattooed man a hatchet, the feathered man a short spear.

  “Excuse me, friends!” Obst said. “I didn’t see you until it was almost too late.”

  “Who are you?” demanded the one with the feathers. “Who are you, westman who speaks the language of the Wallekki?”

  The other glared at his companion. “Wallekki? Nay, he spoke Abnak!”

  But Obst had spoken in the only language he knew, besides the archaic language of the Scriptures, the everyday speech of Obann. It amazed him to hear these Heathen speaking it, too.

  He knew the Wallekki and the Abnaks were two different Heathen nations. There were many more, each with its own language or dialect, each with its own set of idols and distinctive way of life. He also knew they’d invented a common language, called Tribe-talk, with which the different nations could communicate. But what he heard from these two was Obannese, pure and simple.

  The Wallekki menaced him with the spear. “Speak up, old man! Who are you, and what are you doing on the mountain, and how did you learn to speak Wallekki?”

  “Abnak!” said the other. “Tell us, or you die here.”

  “Warriors, there’s no call to be angry with me,” Obst said. “I’m nobody special—just an ordinary servant of God coming down from the top of the mountain. Well, almost the top. Didn’t you hear the bell when it rang two days ago?”

  The two Heathen exchanged worried glances. “Aye, we heard it,” said the Abnak. “Even as I hear you speaking Abnak as if you were born to it.”

  “A bell, you say?” exclaimed the other. “There is no bell here.”

  “But surely you know the name we give the mountain,” Obst said. “I don’t know what name you have for it, but we call it Bell Mountain. That’s because there is a bell on top of it, erected two thousand years ago by King Ozias. He hung it there so that, someday, someone would come along and ring it, and God would hear it. That was the bell you heard. Someone has rung it, and God has heard it.”

  It was not surprising that these Heathen men knew nothing of King Ozias’ bell.

  “This is madness,” said the spearman. “When he speaks, I hear every word of it in Wallekki; and yet you hear it in Abnak. But he can’t speak two languages at once.”

  “And when you speak,” Obst said, “I hear only the language of Obann!”

  “We speak to each other in Tribe-talk,” said the Abnak. “I know not one word of your silly westmen talk.”

  “Nor I,” the Wallekki said.

  Obst understood, then, what had happened. It was all he could do, not to leap on the men and embrace them: but that would have been dangerous.

  “Oh, it’s wonderful!” he cried. His feet felt like dancing. “You wouldn’t know this, my friends, but it’s all in Holy Scripture: God has given me the means to talk to you and to understand you when you speak to me. It’s not my doing, but God’s. For I assure you that I can’t speak a word of any of your languages, no more than you can speak mine. Nevertheless we understand each other! It is a gift from God.”

  “We had better take him back with us alive,” the Wallekki said to the Abnak. “We have a proverb, ‘Leave the fighting to the men, and the gods to the priests.’ If we kill him here, the priests will ask us questions we can’t answer.”

  “It’s bad luck to kill a madman,” said the Abnak, “and this old man is surely mad. Or else he is a shaman among his own kind. But it’s bad luck to kill a shaman, too.”

  “I’m only too happy to go with you fellows,” Obst said. “God has given me a message to deliver to your people. If you heard the bell, you need to hear the message, too.

  “My name is Obst, by the way. I don’t think I’m mad, and I know I’m not a shaman. For most of my life I’ve been a hermit. My home was in Lintum Forest, a long way from here.”

  “We know where Lintum Forest is,” growled the Abnak. But the Wallekki introduced himself: “My name is Sharak, son of Ahal, the son of Eebra …” He went on for an impressive number of generations, while his companion scowled.

  “And I am Hooq, the son of no one in particular,” the tattooed man said. “But I have washed my hatchet many times in the blood of Abnak’s enemies.”

  “Of which I am not one,” said Obst.

  CHAPTER 5

  Obst Becomes a Missionary

  Wytt’s keen senses—not to mention his being so close to the ground—soon picked up Obst’s trail.

  “How did you come to have him as a traveling companion?” Martis asked the children, as they all followed the little hairy man. Martis had a scab on his hand where Wytt stabbed him the first time they met. He had not yet told the children about that meeting.

  “Oh, we met him when we camped in some ruins one night,” Ellayne said. “There must have been hundreds of them on that hilltop, but
you would never know they were there. Anyhow, we gave Wytt some of our food, and he just befriended us.”

  “They’re in the Old Books, you know,” Jack said. “They’re Omah, which means ‘hairy ones.’ Obst told us all about it. God says, ‘I shall give your cities to the hairy ones.’”

  Martis knew that verse, and others. The tiny man, the size of a large rat, completely covered with brown fur—the sight of it still made him uneasy.

  Commentators didn’t even know what the ancients meant by “hairy ones.” Some sort of mythological creature, Lord Reesh would have said, like a dragon or a unicorn. “Scripture is full of folklore and mythology,” he used to say. He believed hardly a word of it. And yet here it is, Martis thought, a mythological creature, right before my eyes. Just like the bell on Bell Mountain.

  The thought that the Scripture might be true, cover to cover, he found a dreadful one. Some of it was true, no doubt; but the rest of it was only stories. The Children of Geb escaping from the Deluge on stepping-stones across the sea, which God raised up for them, sinking each one as the fugitives passed over; the wicked King of Kesh, whose sorcerers built him a golden colossus that could talk; the Hundred Mighty Men who were slain by treachery, but whom God raised up again—surely these and all the rest were only stories. Every scholar said so.

  But at least in respect to the existence of the hairy ones, it seemed the scholars were all wrong. And where, Martis wondered, does that leave us?

  In this frame of mind he toiled down the mountain, leading his horse, Dulayl, and the children’s donkey, Ham, while Jack and Ellayne raced ahead after their little hairy friend.

  “It beats me how Obst could have come so far,” Jack said. “He was so sick, and he was sure he was going to die.”

  “Well, he must’ve gotten better,” Ellayne said. “Maybe hearing the bell made him better.”

  “I don’t see how hearing a bell could make anybody well again. Especially a bell that’s supposed to mean the world is coming to an end.”

  Ellayne spun around and glared at him. “I’m sick of your saying that!” she cried. “The world hasn’t come to an end, has it? But what do you know? You’re just a carter’s brat; you’ve never been to school. You just say it because you heard Obst say it, and poor old Ashrof, back home. And maybe they were wrong! Why should God need someone like you to ring a bell so He can end the world? He could end it anytime He wanted to!”

  Martis intervened. “Ellayne—shush! I strongly advise both of you not to raise your voices. There are Heathen scouting parties on this mountain.”

  Ellayne then remembered the murdered men they’d found on their way up, trappers killed by savages, and fell silent instantly.

  “I can’t help it that my father died and my mother married a fool who drives a cart for the town council,” Jack said. “That doesn’t make me stupid.”

  “It doesn’t make you smart, either.”

  Much of the afternoon went by before the two were speaking to each other again. Then they had to stop and gather nuts and mushrooms for a meager supper, and the camp they made on the trail had little to offer in the way of comfort.

  In the morning Wytt picked up Obst’s trail again, and they followed it for most of the day until Wytt stopped and jabbed the stony ground with his stick, squealing and clicking.

  “What’s he saying?” Martis asked. How the children could understand the Omah was beyond him.

  Jack shook his head. “He’s saying Obst met somebody here, two men, and went off with them.”

  “Let me have a look.”

  Martis knelt. His eyes were not as keen as Wytt’s, and his nose was no help to him; but he had experience enough to see in the earth and foliage ample proof that Wytt was right.

  “Obst has been captured by the Heathen,” he said. “Look here: the Heathen sew their moccasins together, and they don’t use nails, as we do; so there are no marks of nails in the earth. No sign of a struggle, either. He went with them peacefully.”

  “What will they do to him?” Ellayne said.

  Martis shrugged. They would probably kill him; what use would they have for an old man? But he didn’t tell the children that.

  “The Heathen are spying out the ways across the mountains. There’s going to be a war,” he said. “So anyone they meet, they won’t let go again.”

  “Then people have to be warned!” Jack said.

  “The Temple already knows, Jack. This war has been brewing for some time. On their side of the mountains, the Heathen have been coming together, making treaties, swearing oaths, preparing armies. It’s going to be a big war. You can be sure the oligarchs are doing everything they can to make ready for it.”

  Jack was astounded. For how long had the Temple known? Why hadn’t the rulers of Obann said anything to the people? But Ellayne said, “What about Obst, though? We ought to try to rescue him.”

  “They’d only capture us, too,” Martis said. “And then, war or no war, they would probably sell you to the Temple—if they didn’t sell you away out East, as slaves.

  “We have to get off this mountain as fast as we can and find a safe place to hide. Lord Reesh will not forget you. And the war will not spare you, if you get in its way.”

  “But we can’t just leave Obst with the Heathen!”

  “Ellayne, would he want you to come to grief on his account?” Martis answered her. “But be comforted by this. I know the Heathen. I’ve spent some time with them. I count a few of them among my friends. It was a Heathen tribesman who gave me this horse, after my own was devoured by a giant bird.

  “They are not all bad. They understand, as well as we do, such things as generosity, hospitality, and honor. They might be gentler with Obst than you expect.”

  And they might be much more savage with him, too, he thought. But he didn’t say it to the children.

  Obst’s captors took him to a camp farther down the mountain. A dozen scouts were there, mostly tattooed Abnaks, with a tall Wallekki in command. This man agreed that Sharak and Hooq must take their prisoner all the way down to the big camp, where war-bands were gathering to come over the mountains.

  “Take him down first thing in the morning,” said the captain of the scouting party.

  “Why don’t we just lift his scalp here and now?” said one of the Abnaks. “Why should they have all the fun down below?”

  “If anyone’s scalp is lifted, it’ll be yours!” Hooq answered him. “This is our prisoner, no one else’s. And if you weren’t such a fool, you would see he is a rare kind of shaman who speaks all languages.”

  “It’s not hard to learn our language,” said another scout. “There are many westmen traders and trappers who have learned it.”

  Hooq flourished his hatchet. “I tell you,” he said, “this old man speaks even the speech of birds and knows the thoughts of trees!”

  No one but Obst found this statement very remarkable. Had he known the Heathen customs better, he would have known that the Abnaks, poorest of all the Heathen peoples in lands and possessions, were the most richly endowed in the gift of the imagination. All the other nations knew this, and knew better than to put much stock in anything an Abnak said, once he was excited. But no one would call an Abnak man a liar, unless he wanted a fight to the death.

  “I know a language he can’t speak!” said a man with a tattoo of a snake slithering over his eyebrows. “My mother was a slave, and she was sold many times, each time farther east. So I was born in the land of Chardzhu, on the far shore of the Lake of Islands.”

  He stepped up to Obst and addressed him—in words that Obst heard in simple Obannese. “I think you’re a fraud, old man, lying to save your worthless skin. If you can understand me, answer me in the language of Chardzhu. But I don’t think you can.”

  Obst spread his hands helplessly. “How can I explain it, except as a gift from God? I have understood every word you’ve said; but to my ears, you have spoken in the speech we use west of the mountains. And that’s the only languag
e I know. That each of you hears my words in his own tongue is a miracle of God.”

  The man’s jaw dropped; but they were all amazed.

  “By all the holy serpents, he spoke Chardzhu!” the snake-man swore. “And yet he claims he doesn’t!”

  “I told you he’s a shaman,” Hooq said.

  Poor Obst wasn’t even sure what a shaman was: some kind of witch, perhaps.

  “What’s this god he speaks of?” a scout demanded. “There are as many gods as there are acorns in the forest. Which one gives him the power to speak all tongues?”

  “But, my friends, hear me!” Obst said. He was the tallest man there, and when he raised his arms over his head, he towered over them. “It’s not a question of which god; for there is only One. The One God, the True God, has chosen me to speak to you.

  “You all heard the bell on Bell Mountain. It rang two days ago. And you were meant to hear it.

  “God, who made the world, has decided to unmake it. But before He does, He wishes for all men to know Him, and to save the souls of all who might be saved. That bell rang for you, my friends. It was telling you to turn to God, to acknowledge Him the one and only God, so that you may inherit the new world He creates in place of this one. But the time is short! That’s what the bell was telling you.”

  The Heathen stared at Obst and at each other.

  “What’s a soul?” asked one of the Abnaks.

  “It must be shaman talk,” said another.

  “Now you can all see why he must be taken down below,” said the Wallekki who commanded them. This time all the men agreed.

  And so Obst, who wanted only to be a hermit living all alone in Lintum Forest, became a missionary to the Heathen.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Horse for Wytt

  Coming down from the mountain, even with Martis to help them, took Jack and Ellayne several days. They had to stop, too, to gather food. Jack was lucky enough to bag a squirrel with his slingshot, and in one of their snares they caught an animal the likes of which none of them had ever seen before.