by Lee Duigon
“It’s a shame,” said Hlah, the son of Spider, “not to harvest so great a crop of scalps. They’ll be back someday.”
“But not soon,” Helki said.
They found Szugetai beside the body of the mardar, dead, but with a smile on his face. No more than a dozen of King Ryons’ men had died in the assault, but there were hundreds of dead Easterners—some, oddly, without a mark on their bodies. Hlah thought they must have died of fear.
“What’ll we do with them?” asked Andrus. “It’d take a week to bury them all.”
But Helki gave that task to the hundreds of prisoners they’d taken. With one of the Wallekki subchiefs to translate for him, he addressed them in a group.
“It would serve you right, all of you, if I sold you for slaves and pocketed the money,” he said. “But King Ryons is my chief, and he’s merciful. So we’ll let you live and provide you with an escort out of our forest—once you’ve finished burying your friends. If you’re wise, you won’t come back.
“And one more thing you can do: you can take the head of your mardar with you and tell the world that King Thunder doesn’t have a future. Whether he comes over the mountains himself, or stays in his castle out beyond the lakes, the true God will find him out and deal with him.”
One of the captured Wal-Kallut was bold enough to ask a question: “Who shall we say has dared to speak thus?”
Helki pondered his answer for a moment.
“It doesn’t much matter who I am,” he said. “I’m just a man named Helki. It’s God your Great Man ought to be afraid of—the true God, who is Lord of all.”
The prisoners looked here and there at the shambles all around them, and many of them nodded. But Hlah cried out, “Helki, the flail of the Lord!” And all the men in Helki’s following took up the cry, to celebrate their triumph: “The flail of the Lord!” It made Helki uneasy to hear it, but he didn’t know how to stop them.
CHAPTER 39
How Occus Escaped
Occus continued to plead for the scrolls to be taken to his seminary, and Martis kept putting him off—never quite saying no, but never saying yes. They wrangled all through supper and into the night.
“If it’s money you want—and I agree that you deserve a reward—I’m sure my school will be generous,” Occus said.
“How generous?” Martis asked.
“I don’t know! Do I strike you as a man who has a lot of experience with money? You can discuss that with the preceptor of the seminary.”
Ellayne gave Jack a worried look. He knew what she was thinking: if Martis sold the scrolls, he might as well sell them, too. And the world would never see King Ozias’ message, buried in the ruins for ages, now to be buried again in a scholars’ library.
At last the two men agreed to sleep on it, and everyone lay down for the night. Jack lay on his back and fell asleep trying to count the stars.
A sharp jab in his arm and a shrill cry in his ear jarred him awake.
Wytt was back, along with several of the City Omah. The fire had just about died, and it was dark. The little hairy men were frantic, jumping up and down. Wytt jabbed Jack again, with his little pointed stick.
“Wake, wake!” he chirped. “City man hurt White-face, and he takes your things!”
Ellayne got up, too. They found Martis sprawled on his back with his forehead bleeding. Around him lay the fragments of an earthen jar.
“He took the scrolls!” Ellayne said.
“Can you stop him, Wytt?” Jack asked.
The Omah showed his teeth in something very like a grin. “Oh, yes! We can stop him.”
“Then let’s go. You look after Martis,” Jack told Ellayne.
The Omah all rushed off, Jack following. Ellayne ran after him, but he didn’t know that until she caught up to him.
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“Somebody had to bring a torch!” she said. “We can’t see in the dark like Wytt.”
They couldn’t keep up with the Omah, but they could follow them by the high-pitched squeals and squeaks they made. Occus must be hearing it, too, Jack thought. He’d get a nasty surprise when he saw what was making all the noise.
“You shouldn’t have left Martis,” Jack said.
“Well, what was I going to do for him?” Ellayne answered. “What do you do for someone who’s had his head bashed in?”
“You might have looked to see if he was still alive!”
“He is. Didn’t you hear him snoring?”
They couldn’t stop to argue. By moonlight, starlight, and torchlight, they tried to overtake the Omah. Their cries were always somewhere ahead of them, the criers out of sight. Jack and Ellayne scrambled up and down heaps of rubble. Jack fell once and cracked his elbow.
“I knew there was something wrong about that man,” Ellayne panted, as she helped him up.
“Martis wouldn’t have expected a little toad like that to clout him one,” Jack said. “Dear Lord, I hope he’ll be all right! What if he needs a doctor?”
“We’ll have to get him one, somehow. But I think—”
She never finished the sentence. Somewhere up ahead, in the dark, a man’s hoarse scream drowned out the shrilling of the Omah.
Jack and Ellayne rushed around the corner of a ruined wall. The screams had stopped, but the Omah were louder and shriller than ever.
They were amazed to find themselves only a stone’s throw from the water. There they saw two things. The first was a rowboat on the river, with a man in it paddling clumsily away from the bank. It could only be Occus, in Martis’ boat.
But the other thing they saw was a crowd of Omah hopping about, scolding, threatening, surrounding a strange beast that hissed and snapped at them. This was the sight that stopped them, skidding, in their tracks.
What was it? It had a long, flat head with long jaws full of pointed teeth, with long, sharp fangs up front. It was big, as big as a grown man, and it pounced and feinted on short, stout limbs. Behind it swung a long, stiff tail. You’d think it was some kind of giant lizard; but its body was covered with stiff, dark hair, and it had a pair of ridiculous little ears behind the corners of its mouth. And it dripped and slavered like a dog.
It kept lunging at the Omah, but they were too agile to be caught. Its eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
When it saw Ellayne’s torch, it froze for a moment, glared at her, and hissed like a snake. And then, with a leap, it scattered the Omah out of its way and scuttled off into the ruins. A few of the little men gave chase, chirping and squealing. And Jack and Ellayne could breathe again.
But Occus had the only boat.
“Burn it, he got away!” Jack said. “That’s trouble.”
“Here, here!” Wytt called. “Come see!”
Ellayne went first, Jack following her to the water’s edge where the boat must have been. Wytt was waiting for them, pointing at something with his stick.
Three scrolls lay on the ground. When Ellayne bent to pick one up, she saw something else.
“Look at this, Jack. There’s blood on the ground.”
“Snake-beast bit him: then he dropped your things,” Wytt said. “We came, the beast turned on us, and man went out on the water. Omah can’t catch him on water.”
“He’ll tell people about us,” Jack said, “and then the First Prester’s men will come looking for us.”
“Then we’d better not be here when they do,” Ellayne said. “Come on, let’s see if we can wake Martis. They’ll kill him if they find out who he is.”
“At least we’ve got the scrolls,” said Jack.
He was sitting up when they got back to camp, with his head in his hands. Wytt had to lead them back, or they never would have found their way.
“Are you all right?” Ellayne said.
“It’s my pride that’s hurt,” Martis said. “I never dreamed he’d have the nerve to hit me. I was careless.”
“He got away, Martis,” Jack said. “He tried to take some scrolls, but he dropped them and we g
ot them back. But he got away with your boat.”
“An animal bit him,” Ellayne said. “Something like a snake, with hair and legs.”
Martis sighed, and looked at the blood on his hands. “He was just coming up from the cellar when I woke,” he said. “I was a fool to buy him a ladder. I asked him what he was doing, and he picked up a jar and broke it over my head. I never even had a chance to stand up. I never thought he was the type to do it.”
“He’s going to tell them all about us, isn’t he?” Jack said.
“He wants the scrolls. He can’t get them without help. I suppose he thinks he can sell them to Lord Reesh, the more fool him.”
Jack clenched his fists. It was robbery, and he was furious.
“We can’t take them with us in the jars,” Martis said, “so I guess we’ll have to break the jars. We can wrap the scrolls in a blanket, and Ham can carry them.”
“You rest for a little while,” Ellayne said. “Jack and I will get the scrolls. It won’t take long. But you’re hurt. You’re going to need a bandage. Your head looks terrible.”
“It doesn’t feel very good, either,” Martis said.
CHAPTER 40
Lord Reesh’s Awakening
A chamberlain pulled the bed-curtains aside, and with profuse apologies, awoke Lord Reesh.
“Cusset criminal knave! What’s this?” The First Prester growled through his teeth and squinted his eyes against the feeble lamplight.
“Your pardon, Your Holiness! It is a messenger from my lord Judge Tombo, and the judge himself is on his way here to see you. The matter is very urgent.”
“What matter, flea-face?”
“My lord, I was not told.”
Knowing as he did that nothing short of a disaster would get his friend out of bed in the middle of the night, Reesh submitted to the circumstances. His servants dressed him in his warmest robe, gave him warmed wine to drink. When he asked, they informed him it was still two hours before sunup. His only consolation was that Tombo would be feeling even more miserable than he did.
The judge was waiting for him in his private office, with a heavy cloak thrown over his sleeping clothes. Reesh dismissed the servants and had them shut the door.
“You look wretched,” he said.
“That well, eh?” Tombo said. “Better than I feel, no doubt. But I have news that won’t wait.”
They both sat down.
“One of my patrols picked up a man in a boat that was grounded on the riverbank,” the judge said. “They heard him groaning, whimpering. He’d just come over from the Old City, and such were his rantings that my people thought it best to wake me. When I found out who he was, I thought it best to wake you.”
“So who was it? I’m not in the mood to guess!”
“Your favorite scholar, Occus of the archives. Remember him?”
“Of course I remember him! What in heaven’s name was he doing?”
“Fleeing from the Old City. He’s hurt rather badly and fallen into a fever. Some kind of dragon bit him, he says. He’s delirious, and they saw he might die suddenly.
“But he says he was in the Old City for several days, in the ruins of the Temple, with some people who’d discovered ancient scrolls. They were in a crypt beneath the Temple, a place that he says was part of the original Temple. These people brought him over because they couldn’t read the scrolls. I don’t know about such things. But Occus said it was a man and two boys.”
Reesh wasn’t sleepy anymore. What was a man with two boys doing in the ruins of the Temple?
“Did he describe them?”
Tombo shrugged. “He mostly carried on about the scrolls. Said they were priceless, genuine, they had to be copied and studied—on and on about it. Said they were written by King Ozias himself: the King Ozias in the Scriptures. Can such a thing be possible?”
What a question for such an hour of the morning! Reesh’s mind raced. He was glad he wasn’t standing.
“I’ll tell you what’s possible,” he said. “A nasty little plot by a nasty little insect of a scholar—that’s possible. He must have decided that the fragment of Scripture that I arranged for him to discover really was a fraud. That seems to be the consensus of opinion nowadays, behind closed doors in the scholarly community. I understand his colleagues have decided he’s a fraud.”
“I got the impression he was telling the truth about this, though,” Tombo said.
“About long-lost works by King Ozias? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Tombo reached under his cloak. “I thought you’d better see this for yourself,” he said, and produced a sheepskin, which he gently unrolled on Reesh’s desk. “The blood’s from Occus,” he explained. “He had this tucked into his belt. He said he lost the others when the dragon attacked him.”
“Dragons!” snorted Reesh. He bent over the sheepskin. He read the ancient scripts almost as easily as he could read his own writings, and he knew at a glance that this was truly writing that dated from Ozias’ time—or at least a flawless imitation. But how could this sheepskin possibly be so old, and be so well preserved? Surely forgers would have thought of that and aged it artificially.
“Can you read it?” Tombo asked.
“Yes, of course I can! Not that this miserable lamp’s much help. Do be quiet for a minute, will you?”
“So what does it say?”
Reesh squinted, ran a finger slowly over the printed words, and read aloud, translating as he went along:
“On the tenth day of the tenth month, I was taken up in the spirit and an angel of the Lord showed me a heavenly city that shone in the night like stars. But the angel said, Behold, the light of that city shall be extinguished, for they do wickedness therein. And he showed me the destruction of that city, by fire and great shakings, until I woke on my bed, sick and drenched with cold sweat, and bitter tears.
“Ah, Lord! I prayed. Why should you preserve my seed, but preserve no kingdom for him to inherit? You have showed me nothing but evil. But He said, The evil is in the hearts and minds of all the people, therefore my wrath burns hot against them. Their priests have corrupted themselves—”
Lord Reesh stopped reading. There was too much of Occus’ blood on the page. It would have to be cleaned off somehow.
“Send your men across the river—in force, and at once,” he said. “I want those scrolls, and I want Occus’ confederates. For the time being, I wish to question him.”
“My men are already getting set to cross the river,” Tombo said. “The ruins are too dangerous by night, which you know. They’ll leave at first light. As for Occus, if he’s still alive, you can have him. When I left, he was raving about imps of Hell coming up out of the ground and dancing all around him.”
“Let’s go see him now,” said Reesh.
Tombo’s carriage was waiting outside to take them to the justice building. This early in the morning, with a sharp chill in the air and only a faint hint of approaching dawn, the city of Obann slept. Reesh was thankful for that. He huddled under a thick blanket and ground his teeth.
Occus lay on a cot, breathing shallowly, attended by a city-paid physician.
“I don’t think he’ll last much longer. I’m sorry, my lords,” the healer said. “He’s burning up with fever. There must be some kind of poison in his blood.”
“Wake him,” Judge Tombo said. “We need to question him.”
“My lord, he’s much too weak—”
“I said wake him. Try.”
The doctor tried, and the patient died.
“Get your men across the river now,” Lord Reesh said. “I must have those scrolls.”
“But if they’re only counterfeit—”
“It doesn’t matter if they’re counterfeit!” Reesh cried. “Just get them!”
All the jars were broken, all the scrolls wrapped tightly in a blanket. Ham would have no trouble carrying that.
They worked fast, not bothering to load up with firewood or make a meal. Martis was obviously in pain,
but he didn’t let that slow him.
“Nothing would be worse than to fall into Lord Reesh’s hands,” he said. “Believe me, I know. Even if somehow he failed to learn who we really are, he’d kill us just the same. He’ll kill Occus, too. I could have told him that. The fool betrayed us for nothing. I never thought he would.”
“But why should he kill someone who tried to bring him the scrolls?” Ellayne said.
“Because he doesn’t want anyone to know about them. Weren’t you listening when Occus translated them for us?”
“All that about temples being destroyed—that must be it,” Jack said.
“To say nothing of the problems it’d pose for the oligarchs if the people started looking for a king!” Martis added. “But it’s all prophecy, and I don’t understand a tenth of it.”
“Obst would understand it,” Ellayne said. “But he’s all the way back in Lintum Forest.”
“Then that’s where we’ve got to go—isn’t it?” Jack said. “King Ozias’ mother hid him in the forest when he was a baby. He grew up there. Only thing is, how do we get there before they catch us?”
“I don’t know,” said Martis.
Ham was all packed up, with Wytt perched atop the load, screeching his farewells to the Omah of the ruins. Hidden in the dark and in the rubble, they answered him. Martis made Jack and Ellayne ride on Dulayl.
“Shouldn’t you be riding, not us?” Ellayne said. “How’s your head?”
“Better than it’ll be if Lord Reesh catches us. And I can still walk faster than the two of you.”
Lintum Forest was a long way off, Jack thought, as they began to pick their way amid the heaps of broken stone; and this time they wouldn’t dare stop in any of the cities. Once the First Prester’s men failed to find them in the ruins, they’d be scouring the countryside on horseback. Dulayl was a fine horse, but he couldn’t carry all three of them.
It always comes back to King Ozias, he thought, and to Lintum Forest.
