The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain) Read online

  Orth stared at him, then threw back his head and laughed out loud, laughed until he cried. The whole marsh rang with it.

  “Mad as a magpie!” Hlah thought. “And therefore very holy. Like as not the people will kill me and make him their shaman.”

  It wasn’t an easy night. Several times the madman woke Hlah, babbling in some language that sounded like Obannese but which Hlah couldn’t understand. He wondered if maybe it was praying of some kind. Hadn’t Obst said the Scriptures were in an ancient language? Maybe this poor devil knew the Scriptures. That would make him useful.

  The next day Hlah spent collecting food for another two or three days’ traveling. He’d changed his plans for traveling along the Imperial: from what he’d heard along the way, the upper reaches of the river swarmed with enemies—including an intact army that had not yet descended into Obann. That was what had convinced him to follow the Chariot instead.

  He knew enough to dig up edible roots that would tide them over for a while, and he was lucky enough to snare a plump animal that was probably edible. It looked like a beaver without a beaver’s tail.

  The second night in the cottage was as bad as the first, but the morning was worse. After a meager breakfast, Hlah said, “Well, friend, let’s be on our way. It’s a long journey to the Abnaks’ country, and we want to be over the mountains before the snow falls.”

  “Mountains!” cried Orth. And then ensued a struggle. He sprang at Hlah, reaching for his throat. He was a big man, and out of his senses—no easy job subduing him. Hlah had to knock him down and wrestle him, tie his hands behind his back, and gag him.

  “Behave yourself!” he said. “It’s for your own good. You can’t just stay here and die. As for your angel, and your curses—if an angel really wanted you, don’t you think it could come after you here in the marshes? You might as well come with me and help me to serve God. My people will surely take you for a holy man.”

  Orth glared at him, but when Hlah yanked the rope, he had no choice but to go along with him.

  Maybe it was right, he thought. After all, there was no escaping God’s wrath. It didn’t matter whether he crossed the mountains or not. He’d betrayed the Temple—how could he look for anything good to happen to him?

  He surrendered to God’s judgment.

  CHAPTER 21

  Lord Reesh’s New Disciple

  A few days after Tim and Osker left for Obann, the scouts brought dire news to Jocah’s Creek.

  Hamber, the town where the villagers used to go to services at the chamber house, had been taken, ravaged, and was in the hands of enemies. And it was only fifteen miles down the creek.

  “Zamzu are there now,” Shingis said, “big men, very strong. They eat man’s flesh. We see maybe five, maybe six times our number. They make slaves of town people. Some they eat. They make the people dig deep ditch all around, so no one can get in or out. Maybe someday they come here.”

  “What are Zamzu?” Gurun asked.

  “Men from south shores of Great Lakes. All peoples fear them. They had a giant, but we hear a man killed him. No giant in Hamber—just plenty big men. Thunder King likes Zamzu very much.”

  “If they do come here,” asked Gurun, “can we defend ourselves?”

  Shingis grinned. “Best defense—run away!” he said. “You pray Obann God to keep Zamzu away from here. If they come, I don’t know.”

  It wasn’t long before the entire village had the news. Old women wailed. Men gathered in small groups, nervously whispering.

  “Counting some of the older men and bigger boys,” Loyk said, “this village has forty-four able-bodied men, none of them warriors. Add to that the twenty Blays, and we have sixty-four. Not much good against at least a hundred fighting men! And no militia anywhere! What are we to do?”

  He was asking Gurun, as if she were a hero in the Scriptures and not a girl who was a stranger in the country. “Just a year ago,” she thought, “I was telling bedtime stories to my littlest brother. Now I am to be Elilah the Fox, whose strategy was better than an army! How would I know how to save this village?”

  “Shingis says we ought to run away,” Loyk went on, “but where could we go? Our farms are all we have. If we lose them, we’ll never own anything again. And the old women and the little children—how far can they go? Such things have never happened in my time—or anybody else’s.”

  Gurun wished her father and his friends were here: strong men, who would know just what to do. She didn’t!

  “We shall have to pray,” she said. “Pray that God will fight for us, if it ever comes to that. Remember the story of Ishik the Old. In his day, three nations of the Heathen came up against the children of Geb, with an army of a thousand thousands. Ishik had two thousand men, no more. But the prophet told them to stand fast and see what the Lord would do for them.”

  Loyk nodded. “I know. The three nations turned on one another and slaughtered themselves to the last man. But that was in ancient times.”

  “God has not changed since ancient times,” Gurun said.

  God does not change, but the world does. Even as Gurun and Loyk made ready to pray, Lord Reesh was admiring one of those changes.

  When they quit the fens along the Chariot, the First Prester and his escort made excellent time on a new road hewed out of the wilds by order of the Thunder King. Multitudes of slaves labored on it—including many of Reesh’s own countrymen, pressed into servitude.

  Down from the mountain pass it ran, through the forested foothills, on a course parallel to the river. Mardar Kyo said it would someday run all the way down to the junction of the Chariot and the Imperial; and its purpose was to speed Heathen armies into the heart of Obann.

  “This is the kind of work that has long needed doing!” the First Prester said to his servant, Gallgoid, who now rode with him in the coach. “For centuries the people of Obann were content to let the river be their road; but it was not so in ancient times. The Empire had roads that went all the way out to the Great Lakes and were useable in every kind of weather.”

  “They’ve chewed up a lot of pretty countryside, though,” Gallgoid said.

  “Don’t talk like a farmer. I tell you, whatever else he may be, the Thunder King has vision. This road should have been built two hundred years ago.”

  It was as yet but a raw swathe hacked through the landscape, with heaps of chopped-down trees on either side of it. Gangs of men toiled to smooth and harden it, rolling heavy logs back and forth upon its surface. In many places trees were piled for burning, and a haze of smoke lay over the land. The ashes would be mixed with water and used to harden the road’s surface. Eventually it would be given a permanent surface of crushed stone mixed with lime, Kyo said.

  “You must learn to reach back into the past to find the future of mankind,” Reesh told his servant. “I know it will be hard for you: I had you trained as an assassin, not a scholar. But you’ve heard me speak of the great days of the Empire. Those days must come again! That’s what I’ve been working for. That’s the reason for everything I’ve done.”

  Gallgoid nodded. He’d seen his master’s collection of relics from the Empire. He knew the mountains that dotted Obann’s plains were the remains of great cities.

  Reesh flayed himself for investing so much in Orth as his successor, a man whose nerve broke as soon as he was separated from the city. At least Gallgoid wouldn’t lose his nerve. But was his mind agile enough, his vision broad enough, to become his lord’s disciple—maybe even to become First Prester after him?

  “The purpose of the Temple is to lead men to the future, Gallgoid. We must become again what once we were—the masters of the earth. We must be free to work out our own destiny—free from the constraints of hunger, weather, distances, and time. Free from the countless petty idiocies in which the human race muddles along from day to day, accomplishing nothing, getting nowhere.”

  Gallgoid made no reply. Reesh continued: “But to be free, we must have power. Power to feed ourselves, re
gardless of the vagaries of rain and drought and frost. Power to go where we wish to go, when we please, regardless of how far away the destination, regardless of the weather. Power to channel human labor, and direct it. The men of the Empire had such power. So must we.”

  Gallgoid nodded. Reesh didn’t like his taciturnity.

  “Talk to me!” Reesh said. “Tell me your thoughts. I can’t teach you if you won’t talk.”

  “I was only thinking,” the assassin answered slowly, “that if we had that kind of power, we’d have no need of God. We’d be kind of like gods ourselves.”

  “Yes. We would.” Reesh sighed. “Do you believe in God, Gallgoid?”

  He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Never gave it much thought, my lord. But I suppose I do.”

  “How do you reconcile your belief in God with your work as an assassin?”

  After a long pause, Gallgoid said, “I never let it trouble me. You’re the First Prester, God’s servant. I obey your commands. You would know better than I would what was right or wrong. I really never had to think about it much.”

  “When I die,” said Reesh, “and you take my place in the new Temple, you’d better be able to think—long and hard and cleverly! It’d be well for you to get into the habit of it now.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Cold Wind

  Ellayne felt the pull of Ninneburky, of home—her father and mother, and her brothers, her own bed, her books. It pulled on her with every step they took through Oziah’s Wood. When they came out of the forest, they would be almost within sight of the town.

  One day it rained. It was just a gentle rain at first, but then it came down harder, and after a while there was nothing for it but to stop and put up a shelter. The rangers had given them a sheet of waterproofed canvas for a roof, and Martis soon had a fire going. Wytt came out from behind some bushes and nestled in Ellayne’s arms.

  “Wish we had some ale,” Jack said.

  “What rot!” Ellayne answered. “You’re too young to drink ale. I’ve had wine, though—lovely golden wine, shipped all the way up the river from Durmurot, where it’s sunny all the time. Sunshine in a bottle, my father calls it—”

  “Peace!” said Martis. “What’s the use of wishing for things we can’t get? Be happy we have a little tea left over and some of that venison jerky. Would you like a sip of tea, Chillith?”

  Chillith didn’t answer. He sat staring into the distance, where there was nothing to see but rain-soaked tree trunks. He showed no sign that he heard anything that anyone said.

  “Obst gets like that sometimes, when he’s praying.” Jack spoke in a whisper. “But Obst’s lips move when he prays. And he says God speaks to him, but not in words.”

  “How could he be praying? He’s a heathen,” Ellayne said. “He wouldn’t know how to pray. He doesn’t believe in God.”

  “Let him be,” said Martis.

  Three of them had tea, while Chillith never stirred. He sat there like a rock. Rain pattered on the canvas. Ham and Dulayl stood tethered to a tree, bearing the weather patiently. Chillith’s silence put a damper on conversation.

  How long they sat like that, Jack didn’t know. But at last Chillith sighed and shifted his position.

  “Are you all right?” Jack said.

  “We are not going to go to the Temple, after all,” Chillith said. “We shall see the Thunder King’s face, but not at Kara Karram. He will not stay there, for God has called him west, and he must come.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ellayne said; but Wytt leaped out of her arms and chattered loudly. He snatched up his little sharp stick and brandished it over his head and started prancing all around.

  “It’s a war dance—he’s doing a war dance!” Jack said. “He’s all excited, but he isn’t saying why. He’s all keyed up.”

  Martis shook Chillith’s shoulder. “What did you mean, just now?” he said. “Can you explain it?”

  “Maybe,” Chillith said. You would swear he saw something, something big, pushing aside the trees just a few yards from their shelter; and yet they knew he couldn’t see at all. “The Thunder King swore he would take Obann, but he failed. Soon all the peoples of the East will know it.

  “Now he will have to come in person and make good his oath, or everyone will know he was defeated by the God of Obann. He cannot allow it. He has never been defeated anywhere, by anyone, but has always conquered. He must conquer Obann and destroy the city. Your God has put it in his mind. He must go to Obann.”

  “I knew it!” Jack said. “I knew the war couldn’t be over yet.”

  “So if we’re not going out to that Temple at wherever-it-is,” Ellayne said, “where do we go? And why is Wytt doing a war dance? There’s no fighting in Oziah’s Wood.”

  “No—not yet,” Martis said. “But there may be, and maybe sooner than we’d think.”

  “The Thunder King knew it when his armies failed before the city,” Chillith said. “He will have seen it through his mardars’ eyes.”

  “I don’t believe he can do that,” Jack said. “That’d be magic, and there’s no such thing as magic.”

  “Nevertheless, he does it,” Chillith said. “I was a mardar. Someday, had I proved worthy, I would have been presented to the Thunder King, and he would have given me power to be his eyes and ears, and to hear his voice from a thousand miles away. Our own Griff gods could never do that, but he does.”

  “Maybe he’s doing it with you now,” Martis suggested; but Chillith shook his head.

  “It is your God who speaks,” he said; and then Jack noticed the Griff was shivering from head to foot.

  As it rained on Oziah’s Wood and on the slopes of the mountains, very strange weather indeed poured out of the north—across the River Winter, down into the lands west of Obann City. Over warm and sunny lands, it snowed.

  It snowed on Jocah’s Creek, too. It was unheard-of, so early in the season. Villagers stood outside and watched. Their children ran up and down, playing in it.

  Gurun looked up into the pearl-grey heavens. Snowflakes melted on her cheeks.

  “Distraction,” said Loyk. “It’s good for the soul.”

  “This is a gentle snow,” Gurun said. “In my country the snow usually comes down sideways, driven by a howling wind.”

  “This snow comes a month too early,” Loyk said.

  The Blays’ scouts were out, along with most of the young men of the village. They had need to be. The day before, they’d surprised a lone Zamzu scout not fives miles from the village. They killed him and concealed the body; but as Shingis said, the man would be missed and others would come looking for him. “They come, big trouble for us,” he said. So they were scouting energetically. If they could spot the Zamzu early, Shingis hoped to stage an ambush some distance from the village. But what twenty or thirty men could do against a hundred, Gurun didn’t know. Not much, she supposed.

  Meanwhile Tim and Osker were overdue: they should have been back from Obann two days ago. That was another thing to worry about.

  “Soon the creek will freeze,” Loyk said. “It’ll be a hard winter. The bandits will be hungry, and we have food. If we beat them one day, they’ll be back the next.”

  “At home we sometimes have bandits,” Gurun said, “but they don’t live too long. They raid two or three times. Then men like my father exert themselves, and raise the district, and soon the raiders are put down. They are outlaws, so they may be killed on sight. That’s what happens to them. Can’t the villages work together to do the same?”

  “Our people don’t know how to fight,” Loyk said. “In all my life, there’s never been a need for it.”

  “There is need now,” Gurun said. Beyond that, there was nothing to be said. The girl and the old man stood side by side and watched it snow.

  There was no snow south of the Imperial River—just a cold north wind that combed the yellowed grasses of the plains.

  Here and there, few and far between, huge birds stalked in search of prey. Too bi
g to fly, they ran as fast as horses and took down sheep and cattle with their great, hooked beaks. They were a new thing in the country. No one knew where they came from and no human language had a name for them.

  There were other creatures, too, that had no proper names. Along the fringe of Lintum Forest lived the hulking knuckle-bears, who grazed on the plain by night and melted back into the forest in the morning, walking on their knuckles to protect their long, sharp claws. Because the land was sparsely inhabited, few people had ever seen them.

  But everyone in Obann knew there were creatures stirring in the world that didn’t belong there, some great, some small. The cities were full of prophets, but no one understood their prophecies. As word spread of the destruction of the Temple, congregations drifted away from the chamber houses, and reciters had no one to recite to.

  King Ryons, maybe ten years old, maybe eleven, lay awake in his bed, listening to the wind. It was the first real bed he’d ever slept in, and there was a Ghol slumped against the door of the bedchamber, snoring; but the slightest movement of the door would have him on his feet in an instant, dagger drawn, ready to defend the boy he called his father.

  Ryons had crossed the great plain from Lintum Forest to Obann, all alone but for Cavall. He knew the spirit of God had walked beside him all the way, and that the great beast that had no name had watched over him from afar, patiently following him until the time came for it to set him on its back and save the city. Ryons had seen the great birds from a distance, and something even more fearsome up close. It was a giant, striped, huge-headed predator—a death-dog—that would have eaten both him and Cavall in just a few gulps. But when the great beast bellowed, the death-dog turned and fled.