by Lee Duigon
Reesh picked up a tiny figurine, a perfect little miniature horse with all four legs intact, although the tail was broken off. The little horse was a bright and cheerful pink, and where the tail used to be, you could see it was actually pink through and through. Orth’s hands trembled as he studied it.
“Think of it,” Reesh said. “These things are a thousand years old, at least, and they’ve been dug up from the ground. All that time they lay there, no effort being taken to protect them. And yet there’s no pitting, no rot; and once you clean them off, the color is as fresh and bright as ever. The only thing that can hurt this material is fire. Then it melts.
“I have many more such specimens. I’ve had to set aside a separate storeroom for them. Some are obviously instruments of various kinds, although no one knows what use was made of them. Others are obviously pieces of something bigger and more complicated, now mostly lost.
“And of course there are all sorts of metal objects, more or less corroded, whose purposes I can’t even guess, no matter how hard I study them. And I do study them—intently. For they have something important to tell me.”
“What do they tell you, my lord?”
Reesh retreated to one of the two soft, padded chairs in the room, and sat down. At this point in his life, he couldn’t stand for long. But Orth remained beside the table, captivated by the objects on it.
“Like any educated man, Orth, you know that certain fragments of writing have survived from those days,” Reesh said. “With great difficulty, we can read some of it. There are even scraps and shreds of printed paper.
“Plus there are traditions—some recorded in the New Books and the Commentaries, some just old wives’ tales—that add to the picture. A determined scholar can amass a fair amount of information, using all these sources.”
“Yes,” Orth agreed, absentmindedly stroking the smooth surface of the wheel, which he had not yet put down. “Yes, I know my lord. It’s said the men of those days traveled in coaches without horses, and spoke to one another over great distances, and called down fire from Heaven that could destroy an enemy city in an instant. It’s said they knew how to fly through the air like birds and travel under the sea like fish.
“But it’s also said they were abominable sinners, addicted to every kind of wickedness; and God wiped out their glory.”
Reesh sighed. “That’s as may be,” he said. “Who can know the mind of God? I don’t pretend to.
“But it’s obvious from these few poor relics, and the traditions, that they were a great and glorious people indeed. Compared to them, we’re savages.”
“Yes, First Prester.”
“Do you know what I believe our mission is upon this earth?” said Reesh; and his eyes grew hard and fierce. “It is nothing less than to make the steep, arduous, dangerous climb back up to the pinnacle of that glory, prester. To rekindle its flame. To be mighty, as the men of the Empire were mighty. To rediscover all their secrets, and make use of them!
“These days, a man is considered old if he lives to be sixty. A man is deemed to be well-off if he isn’t starving and his roof doesn’t leak. But it was not always so; nor will it always be so forever.
“Of course, if we are to climb any distance at all up the pinnacle of glory, we first have to survive this latest invasion of the Heathen. That’s why you’re here, Orth. Sit down.”
Orth returned the wheel to its place and took the other chair. Reesh judged the man prepared for what was coming next.
“It goes without saying that the Temple must survive,” he said. “Therefore, I wish you to compose some new Scripture to ensure that it survives. You’re a strong scholar and the most eloquent man I know. Will you do it?”
Orth was shocked—but not as shocked as another man might have been. He forced a smile.
“Are you asking me to tamper with the holy Scriptures, First Prester? That might be construed as sacrilege. Perhaps even blasphemy.”
“Hah! You’re not a child, Orth. You know it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has been done. And it’s in the greatest and noblest cause—Obann’s survival.”
“I am familiar with numerous verses of Scripture that are said to be interpolations,” Orth replied. “Said to be, my lord, but not proved to be. The people, and the ordinary presters and reciters, accept them all as genuine. But in our own time, no one has dared to do this.”
Reesh waved the objection aside. “Interpolations—bah! There are those who say the whole thing is an interpolation. That there never was a King Ozias; that various unidentified men, not he, wrote the sacred songs attributed to him; that the great prophets were schools of nameless prophets, each adding something of his own to another man’s work. There are those who say all those things and more—wise, learned men, of unimpeachable integrity, the finest scholars in the land. No one but a peasant or a hermit, or some other kind of poor, ignorant creature, believes Scripture to be nothing but the pure and infallible Word of God.”
“But there are many who believe that, my lord. Some of them are scholars, too.”
“But you’re not one of them, are you?”
“I’ve never considered it, my lord.”
“Then consider this,” Reesh said. “I’m an old man, and sooner more likely than later, I’ll die. When I do, the Temple will need a new First Prester; and my recommendation will carry much weight with the presters, when they have to choose one. I thought I might recommend you, Prester Orth. But the First Prester’s first duty is to see to the survival and advancement of the Temple. Do I make myself clear?”
“Very clear, my lord. And I am honored.” Orth stood up and made obeisance. “But if we suddenly discover a hitherto-neglected piece of Scripture, won’t these same wise scholars be suspicious?”
Reesh smiled. “You can leave them to me,” he said.
Orth bowed again. “I am yours to command, my lord,” he said.
CHAPTER 16
A Prophet Speaks to Jack
Helki found Sairy’s husband, and there was enough life left in him to offer hope that he’d recover soon, under his wife’s care. Ellayne watched, fascinated, as Sairy mashed leaves and roots, gathered by Helki, into a poultice that would dull pain and speed healing.
Before many days had passed, Helki found himself responsible for half a dozen more people who’d been run off their homesteads by the outlaws and were wandering helplessly in the forest. The group included two able-bodied men (a father and his seventeen-year-old son), three more women who’d been separated from their families, and an old woman who’d been living alone.
“What am I going to do with all of you?” Helki wondered. “There’s not enough room in the cave for everybody, and there must be dozens more of you out in the woods.”
“We’ll build a fort,” the man suggested.
“Latt will only burn it down,” said Helki. “No—the only thing is to send you all deeper into the forest, much deeper. I know some good places where nobody goes. It won’t be easy to get there—we’ll have to carry Davy on a litter—but I reckon we can make it. And then I’ll come back here and see if I can’t put a stop to Latt.”
Jack had been hoping just to stay at Helki’s cave for a while. Maybe he could learn to be a woodsman. But now no one would be staying at the cave.
“We’ll set out first thing tomorrow morning,” Helki said. “It’ll take five days to get to where I want to go. You’d all better rest while you can.”
“What do you think we should do?” Jack asked Martis, later in the day. “Should we go with Helki? Deep in the forest we’ll be safe, he says.”
They were sitting on a log together, some twenty paces from the cave. Nearby, Ellayne was playing with the little girl, Jandra: they were trying to make a doll’s house with twigs. Jandra’s hideous pet looked on, bobbing its head. Ellayne had gotten over her aversion to it. For all its hissing, it never bit anyone.
“It seems a better plan than anything I’ve thought of,” Martis said. “But I had my heart s
et on Obann. What the forest is to Helki, the city is to me.”
“They’d catch us there,” said Jack, “sooner or later.”
They were still talking it over when Jandra abruptly abandoned her game, stood up, and walked over to stop right in front of Jack. Her face had no expression on it, none at all.
“There is a book missing,” she said, in that voice that wasn’t her own.
“What book?” Jack said. “Burn it, that’s what you say to Helki all the time, isn’t it? Well, I wish you wouldn’t say it to me.”
She didn’t hear him. She looked right into his eyes, not seeing him. Or maybe she saw something Jack didn’t know was there.
“I have said the throne belongs to Ozias,” she said. “Beneath the great cellar is a greater cellar. There you will find what is lost. There, in Obann: in the desolation of Obann.”
Jack’s short hairs stood on end. Why was she saying these things to him, and what did they mean? Ellayne came up to join them, but Martis waved her to silence.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack said.
“Prepare the kingdom for Ozias,” Jandra said. And then her eyes rolled, and shut, and she would have collapsed if Ellayne hadn’t caught her.
“She’s fallen asleep,” Ellayne said. “She fell asleep standing up! What all did she say to you, Jack?”
“I don’t know! It made no sense!”
“But it does make sense, though,” Martis said. “The desolation of Obann—that’s the old city, the ruins on the south bank of the river. And everyone knows there are pieces of the Scripture missing.”
“Oh, that’s stupid!” Ellayne said. She couldn’t hold Jandra up anymore, so she lowered her gently to the ground. The child slept on. “How would she know anything about it? She’s just a little kid.”
“Yes, but that’s in Scripture, too!” said Martis. He smiled thinly. “Have you never heard that verse from Prophet Cadok—‘out of the mouths of infants ye shall hear wisdom?’ I may not be a scholar, but I know that much.
“It’s prophecy, Jack. Out of the mouth of this infant, God has spoken to you. He’s told you what He wants you to do. Go to the ruined city and find something that is missing.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in anything like that!” Jack said. “And what was all of that stuff about Ozias? King Ozias died a thousand years ago.”
“Two thousand, in fact.”
“But the Old Books don’t say how he died, or where—do they?” said Ellayne.
“The last the Scripture tells us of Ozias, he was on his way to Bell Mountain. He was never seen again. So no one knows where he died or how.”
“But I’m supposed to prepare a kingdom for him?” Jack said. “That’s just crazy talk.”
“So might anyone have said of you, when you told of your dreams about Bell Mountain,” Martis said. “And yet the bell was there, just as you dreamed it.”
“Even I thought it was crazy,” Ellayne said. Jack glared at her; this was news to him. “I went along for the adventure and because I didn’t want to be sent away to school. But then I had the dream, too, and it didn’t turn out to be crazy.”
“I don’t mind going to Obann,” Jack said. “I’m not afraid. I just thought God was done with us. We did our bit. We rang the bell.”
“You also thought the world was going to end,” Ellayne said, “and it’s still here. Maybe King Ozias didn’t die. Maybe he’s going to come back.”
“He’d be two thousand years old,” Jack said. For a fleeting moment, he felt like giving Ellayne a good hard shove.
“I think we’d better leave such matters to the theologians,” Martis said. “And I think I’d better put this little girl to bed.” He got up and carried Jandra into the cave.
“We shouldn’t worry about it,” Ellayne said. “If we could get to the top of Bell Mountain, we ought to be able to get to Obann.”
“I like it here,” Jack said.
But of course, if God really wanted him to go to Obann, he would have to go.
“The closest town to the forest is Caristun. I’ve been there,” Helki said.
“I went there with Van once, on his cart,” Jack said. “It has a stone wall.”
“From there we might be able to get a boat down the river to Obann,” Martis said.
“Although once the Heathen are across the mountains, there might not be any boats available to common folk. But there’s always the road by the river—if it’s not too crowded by then with troops or refugees.”
They’d gone off some distance from the cave so they could talk privately. It was almost sundown, but Jandra was still asleep.
“Getting through the forest shouldn’t be too hard for you—not with Wytt and some of the Forest Omah to scout the way,” Helki said. Ellayne held Wytt cuddled in her arms. He chirped once, when Helki mentioned his name. “Getting across the plain to Caristun—well, if the Heathen haven’t got that far yet, you’ll be all right. But I kind of wish you’d stay, if you can make sense out of some of the things Jandra says. If God is using her to talk to me, I’d like to understand Him. Wish old Obst were here. Maybe he’d know what she meant by calling me ‘the flail of the Lord.’”
“But that’s easy,” Martis said. “In the Book of Disorder, that was the nickname given to Vannon.”
“Vannon the farmer?” Ellayne said. She remembered her lessons. “The one who killed a hundred Burners with only a cow-prod?”
“Burners?” Jack said. His own lessons hadn’t taken him that far.
“They were terrible people who used to throw children into the fire as a sacrifice to some devil they worshipped,” Ellayne said, showing off her knowledge. “But Vannon and the Tribes of the Law wiped them out and destroyed their city.”
“Sounds like a man I could admire,” Helki said. “Too bad Latt Squint-eye doesn’t live in a city.”
Martis sighed. “We have entered a very strange time,” he said. “God has been silent for so long, no one believes in Him anymore—even if they think they do. I didn’t believe, until I reached the summit of Bell Mountain.”
“Folks hereabouts believe in God,” said Helki. “You must’ve spent too much time in the Temple.”
Ellayne couldn’t sleep that night. Like everyone else, she had a bed of ferns inside the cave. The cave had gotten crowded, and a couple of the sleepers around her snored.
She envied Jack. He was the one who’d first had the dream that sent them to Bell Mountain, and now he had another mission, to Obann. Who was he, that God should speak to him? He didn’t even know the story of Vannon and the Burners.
Just getting to Obann, if the war started soon, would be an achievement. And then they’d have to find a great cellar underneath another cellar, somewhere in the sprawling ruins of Old Obann. If God was so powerful, why didn’t He do some of these things Himself?
Outside, choruses of peeper-frogs sang around the little ponds and puddles that dotted the woods. Inside the cave, men and women snored. Tomorrow Helki would take the refugees to a safe place in the middle of the forest, but Ellayne and Jack and Martis would be on their own again.
Beside her, Jack rolled onto his back and groaned. He mumbled something that sounded like “Ozias.” Was it another of his dreams? She would have liked to wake him up and ask him, but she didn’t. Let him lie there rustling his ferns, she thought: served him right.
Helki was going to be a hero, like Vannon, and Jack was going to find some great secret that had been lost for a thousand years. But I do just as much as he does, Ellayne thought: why doesn’t God speak to me, too?
She felt very much put-upon, and it kept her up all night.
CHAPTER 17
The Wise Man in the Tent
Getting a large army over a range of high mountains is by no means easy. The army would have to be split into groups. If the groups were too large, they might not be able to feed themselves. If they were too small, they would be a tempting target for an enemy.
But
there were passes in the mountains, and these had been scouted out carefully. The widest of them opened just above Silvertown, a place fortified with a wall of fitted stone. The strongest division would have to take that route and either capture the city or else pass it by. Obst saw no siege equipment in the army: the Heathen could only take a walled city by surprise or treachery.
He traveled with the big division that was aimed at Silvertown. The Abnaks, in whose custody he was, provided him with a conical deer-hide tent that did not leak, all the food and drink he wanted, and even some new clothes for Ryons, decent clothes that would keep him warm at night. They offered Obst a donkey to ride, but he had no need of it.
“For an old fellow, you’ve got strong legs,” Uduqu said, after two days’ uphill marching. “Some of the young bucks from the flat lands are already half done-in.”
“God has been good to me,” Obst said. “He gives me strength.”
The old subchief had a sharp mind, and on the second night out, with Obst as a guest for supper in his tent, he asked a sharp question. That there were several other subchiefs present, all smoking beans and keenly interested in the answer, made the question seem even sharper.
“One thing puzzles me,” Uduqu said. “You serve the westman’s god; he isn’t known on our side of the mountains. And you’ve said he will protect us. But here we are, marching into his country to make war on his people. You’d think he’d protect them, not us.”
There was always the chance that these people might kill him if they didn’t like the answer to a question, and Obst knew it.
“It’s hard to explain, brave one,” he said, feeling gingerly for words. “My people worship Him in the Temple and in a thousand chamber houses; but God created the Abnaks, too, and all the nations of the earth. Your people don’t know Him, but nevertheless He gives you what you need to live. Food and water, the land you live on, the air you breathe—”
