Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) Read online

  “They won’t be coming back—more’s the pity,” he said. He turned, and squatted on his heels in front of Martis. He wore a fantastic garment of patches and a wild mane of hair.

  “It’s too bad they roughed you up, stranger. But it could’ve been worse,” he said. “Hold out your hands, I’ll cut you loose.”

  Martis obeyed. He pulled a short-bladed knife from one of his boots and cut the hide thongs in one easy motion.

  “Who are you?” Martis said.

  “I found your horse and followed your trail. I wanted to ask you what happened to that horse and find out your business. We don’t see many strangers around here. My name’s Helki. This forest is my home. Latt’s pack can’t drive me out.”

  “Thank you for rescuing me. I thought you were another gang.”

  Helki snorted. “They’re cowardly scum,” he said. “The forest would be better off without ’em. Why don’t you have a drink of water, wash the blood off your face? Then you can tell me who you are and what you’re doing here. But first tell me about the horse.”

  While Martis washed, Helki picked up the dead man by the belt and tossed the body into the darkness under the trees; but he kept the dead man’s pack. He settled down by the fire and listened intently as Martis described his encounter with the bird.

  “I’ve seen its tracks,” he said, “so I knew it must be something like that. Though where it came from, I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. Now I reckon I will, soon enough.”

  Martis told him he was from the Temple at Obann, sent to inquire into reports of a hermit who performed miracles. Helki threw back his head and guffawed. His laughter echoed among the trees.

  “Haw! Who told you Obst does miracles? Unless you want to say it’s a miracle no wolf or bear has eaten him, the way he goes off woolgathering. He says God protects him, and it must be true. But what do you want with him? He’s a friend of mine.”

  “We only want to know if the miracle stories are true,” Martis said. “After all, a man who can work miracles deserves to be honored.”

  “I don’t think Obst cares about being honored.”

  Bort’s men had left two packs behind. Helki opened them now. “There’s some nice black bread here,” he said. “I wonder who they stole it from. Want some?”

  In spite of everything, Martis found he was hungry. When he chewed the tough, rich bread, he was relieved to discover he had no broken teeth.

  Eating gave him time to think about what to say. He didn’t want to make the giant suspicious of him. Helki struck him as a man who could be stabbed to the heart while he slept, and still be able to leap up and strangle his murderer before his heart stopped beating. He’d surprised the ten bandits, but Martis didn’t think the ten could have stood against him even if they’d had fair warning. Martis had a trained eye for such things.

  When they resumed their talk, Martis said, “I mean the hermit no harm. Men like him, if they turn out to be the real thing, make it easier for people to believe in God. It gives them hope. That’s why the Temple sent me to find him. We want to know what makes him holy.”

  “Sounds like a lot of foolishness to me,” Helki said. “Bort wouldn’t have punched you around just for saying that.”

  “He seemed to think the Temple was plotting to take over the dues paid to outlaws.”

  “He also seemed to think you’re a pretty dangerous man.”

  “I think you’ll agree that this has been a pretty dangerous trip for me,” Martis said. “I was chosen because my master had some hope I’d survive.”

  “You might—if you turn around and go back to where you came from. You might as well. Obst has gone away. We won’t be seeing him for a while.”

  “Yes, I’d already heard that. I was hoping to catch up to him.”

  Helki fished for another piece of bread. He talked while he was chewing it, but Martis understood him well enough.

  “If you stay around here, Latt’s boys will catch up to you. They might even try to catch up to me. They’ll kill you if they catch you, and they’ll take their time about it, too.

  “Obst asked me to stay here and look after things while he went on with those two kids. You know about them?” Martis nodded. “He didn’t tell me where they’re going. If I’d gone with them, you’d probably be dead by this time tomorrow. So I reckon I’d better stay here like I promised, in case anything else happens. But you—either go home or head for the mountains. That’s where I think Obst is going. You’d better cross the plain as soon as you can walk. Maybe God will protect you, too.”

  “Do you believe in God?” Martis asked—just because he wished to know.

  The giant nodded. “Obst taught me to believe.”

  “So you believe because he taught you?” Reesh would be interested in this, if Martis ever returned to Obann to tell him about it.

  Helki grinned. “Ask me about the forest. I can’t answer questions about God. Don’t know how. But if you can walk, I’d start out tonight if I was you. If you get a good head start on them, they won’t know how to track you across open country.”

  “I’d feel safer if you came with me,” Martis said. “I have money. I can pay you.”

  “Not me,” Helki said. “Tomorrow I’ll start looking for the giant bird that ate your horse. That’s something I want to see.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Ellayne Discovers the Rest of the World

  Ellayne found it hard to believe Jack had seen a giant bird in the night while she and Obst were sleeping. But she had to believe it when he found some of the bird’s tracks in a bare patch where the ground was muddy. The bird’s feet were a great deal bigger than her own, but they made the same kind of tracks that ordinary little birds make in the snow.

  “I’ve never seen this creature,” Obst said. “It must be taller than a man! All the more reason for us to get off the plain as fast as we can.”

  He set them a hard pace for that day’s traveling. The forested hills were closer now; you’d almost think you could reach out and touch them. Although you couldn’t say by how much the land was sloping generally upward, Ellayne felt it in her legs. When you turned and looked back, you could see how much higher you were than Lintum Forest in the south.

  Jack and Ellayne soon had to open their coats. “It’s getting warm,” Jack said. “I think this must be the warmest day we’ve had since we started.”

  “Spring’s late this year, but it’s here at last,” Obst said. “Very soon now, everything that’s grey and yellow on this plain will turn bright green, and you’ll see flowers in every color you can think of. See, the trees are in bud. They look red, or greenish, from a distance—not grey. The new leaves will be out before we get to Bell Mountain. And any night now we ought to hear frogs and toads calling from the little pools where the underground water seeps to the surface. Indeed, it’s been spring for at least two weeks.”

  “My father says the weather’s getting colder every year,” Ellayne said.

  “That’s been true for the past seven years,” Obst said. “I have wondered what it means, but God has hidden it from me. Yet the land has by no means become less fruitful. If anything, it’s more so. You should have seen the blueberries last year! And wait until you taste the wild apples. They get sweeter every year. It’s all a puzzle to me.”

  They hiked on and on. Wytt hopped onto the donkey and rode, clinging to the baggage. Ham rolled his eyes and twitched his ears, but after a few minutes learned to ignore his passenger.

  As hard as they pushed themselves, day’s end still found them short of the tree-clad hills and obliged to make camp in the open.

  “We have enough food left for our supper tonight and a good breakfast tomorrow. After that, we’ll have to find some more,” Obst said.

  He found them a hollow to camp in, protected by a screen of heather. Wytt speared a big beetle for his dinner. He toasted it over the fire, and Ellayne shut her eyes while he ate it, but couldn’t shut out the crunching sounds. Jack thought that was f
unny.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s much food to be found out here,” she said.

  “We’ll find enough,” Obst said. “It’s all a matter of knowing where to look for it. There are always edible bulbs, birds’ eggs and the birds themselves, and plump little animals to be flushed out of hiding. We won’t go hungry.”

  After their meal he told them how the Temple was first built by the Great King, Kai, to be the center of his kingdom and draw all the people there to worship God on holy days, and how the Lord’s prophet, Akan, warned him that unless the people maintained a righteous spirit, the Temple would someday become a barrier between them and their God.

  “The Temple has never been what righteous Kai intended it to be,” the hermit said (and at about this time, toads began to sing nearby—to Ellayne’s delight). “Two hundred years later, the Heathen burned it to the ground when hordes of them came over the mountains; for the people of Obann had turned away from God and sought only their own pleasures. And they worshipped idols that their merchants brought home from the islands.

  “After this they repented, and the Lord drove out the Heathen, and King Aban-sor rebuilt the Temple and made it grander than it was. But in those days when the kingdom finally came to an end and the rebellious nation drove King Ozias from his throne, there were insurrections and wars among the clans; and this time the people of Obann themselves threw down the Temple. It wasn’t built again until a thousand years passed, and the Empire rose and fell.

  “It is written that this last and greatest Temple, too, shall be destroyed and shall not be built again until the Lord Himself shall build it, to stand forever.”

  He fell silent. Ellayne listened to the music of the toads, but Jack was quick with a question, getting it out before Obst could fall into one of his spells.

  “I don’t understand!” Jack said. “If God’s going to make the world come to an end, where will He put the new Temple?”

  Obst smiled, but not happily. “I believe He will first create a new world,” he said. Jack shook his head, but Obst sank down into a sleep.

  Soon Jack was asleep, too; but not Ellayne.

  How could the Temple possibly be something that kept people away from God? She wondered and wondered about it. The Temple was all the people had. How many people could go out and be holy hermits like Obst? It was all very well for him to study the Scriptures. But when he recited verses from the Old Books, the language didn’t make a lick of sense to her. What good would it do to read the Scriptures if you couldn’t understand the language? So if they didn’t have the Temple, and the chamber houses, and the presters to lead the prayers, and the reciters to give advice and teach school, the people would have had nothing at all. She knew what her father would say about that: he’d say Obst was crazy.

  Unable to sleep, Ellayne got up to see if she could find the toads. There had to be one of those little pools nearby, and she wanted to see it. She’d always loved the little brown and grey toads that turned up in her mother’s kitchen garden.

  She tried to locate them by the sound of their singing, but soon discovered it wouldn’t be so easy. Her ears played tricks on her. If the toads were calling for mates, it seemed silly for them to throw their voices. Well, maybe it didn’t fool other toads.

  She kept turning to fix the position of the clump of bushes that marked the camp. The fire having died out, that was all she had to keep from getting lost. But here the land dipped up and down, and whenever she went down, she lost sight of the bushes. But she always found them when she came up again.

  Ah! There it was—a little pool of water at the bottom of a swale, with starlight spattered on its surface.

  She had to be careful where she put her feet. As she approached the water, toads hopped in the grass, getting out of her way. She couldn’t see them clearly, but she heard them: swish, thump, swish, thump.

  And there they were, scores of them, sitting in the puddle, chirping and trilling. Ellayne smiled, and squatted for a better look.

  They hopped into and out of the pool, splishing and splashing, blowing themselves up into little balls to force out their music. Ellayne could have grabbed twenty of them as they hopped around her—but she didn’t, of course. She’d only come to watch them. The grass was alive with them.

  But then she heard something else that drove all thoughts of toads out of her head—

  A snort, a clop of hooves and a jingle of harness, and men’s soft voices talking.

  Ellayne turned, slipping to her hands and knees, and looked up. She saw several riders silhouetted against the night sky, men in flapping cloaks and tall headdresses. The wind carried their speech down to her: she couldn’t understand a word of it.

  Heathen?A raiding party from across the mountains? She’d heard her father speak of such things. They came looking for slaves and for illegal trade with no tax paid to the state. And they were between her and the camp. If they saw her, she would never see her home again.

  Ellayne crept farther down the swale, avoiding the pool, looking for a place to hide. The riders halted to talk among themselves.

  There was no place to hide. No, wait—beyond the pool, the land sloped farther down. There were low trees casting dense, dark shadows, exactly what she needed. She aimed for the darkest of the shadows, thankful for the noise made by the toads.

  It was waiting for her, a pit of darkness framed by two old bits of wall. She’d be safe there, if only she could reach the place before the riders happened to look in her direction.

  Ellayne passed between the ruined walls and found herself on a hard-packed path sloping downward into deeper darkness.

  “Wa-la-la-hruuu!” she heard a rider cry. And not waiting to see whether that meant they’d spotted her, she turned and fled into the dark.

  Down and down she went, expecting at any moment to hear the horses’ hooves behind her. Once she ran into a wall and had to turn to the left. That taught her to go slowly. She knew she’d entered ruins.

  Overhead, she saw the stars. It was a relief to know she wasn’t underground. Again and again walls rose up in front of her, forcing her to change direction. And as she heard nothing of the riders, her panic died away until at last she dared to stop and listen.

  Nothing. They must not have seen her after all. From where she was now, she couldn’t even hear the toads. Which meant, she supposed, that she’d gone farther into the ruins than she should have.

  Now all she wanted was to get back to camp and go to sleep, so she turned and tried to retrace her steps.

  It was impossible.

  “Idiot! You got lost!” she muttered to herself.

  It was too silly for words. There was the open sky, right over her head. And there she was, between two walls that were too smooth to climb. It was that smooth stone that one so often encountered in these ruins. The walls were too high for her to jump up and grasp the top. If only she had a little something to stand on, so she could climb to the top of the wall and see the way out.

  Ellayne tried to find the way, but the endless corridors led around and around, this way and that, and nowhere in particular. By the time her legs were too tired to go another step, her situation no longer struck her as silly.

  She slumped down against the cold stone wall, seated on the hard stone floor, hungry and thirsty and ready to cry. She felt tears running down her cheeks. There was no way out of this. She would have been better off whistling to the riders and walking right up to them. Unexpectedly came a memory of her mother tucking her into bed when she was sick, and feeding her nice, hot broth a spoonful at a time. The tears flowed faster.

  “God,” she said, “I don’t know how to pray, but Obst says all we have to do is talk to You, and You’ll hear us. I hope You’re listening! I’m lost in here, and they don’t know where I am, and I can’t get out!”

  Once she started, she just kept going—talking to God as if He were another person sitting there across from her: another person, listening. She poured out her heart to Him. />
  She must have fallen asleep praying because the next thing she knew, her mouth was dry, she was stiff and sore all over, the sky above was as blue as the stones in her mother’s turquoise bracelet, and she could see.

  Not that there was all that much to see: just the bare stone, as clean as if it had been swept. Here and there she could make out ghostly traces of writing on the walls, too faded to be read.

  She got up slowly, achingly. There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink; and if she stayed where she was, she would die.

  It was a ruin, burn it! There must be someplace where the wall had fallen down, where she could climb out. All she had to do was to keep going until she found it. Once she got back out on the plain, even the water that the toads lived in would be as good as a long drink from the freshest, cleanest, coldest spring.

  Ellayne forced herself down the empty corridor. She must have covered miles last night, she thought. Her legs ached, and she didn’t dare think about how hungry and thirsty she was. Just keep going, she thought. There had to be a way out.

  She wondered what kind of place this was in ancient times. Why was there no roof? If it had had a roof once, and the roof had fallen in, the floor ought to be covered with rubble.

  And suddenly she emerged into a wide open space.

  Most of it was still in shadow. Surrounded by walls, the space had more entrances from more different directions than Ellayne could count. And it was huge. A strong man might throw a stone from one side to the other, but she couldn’t. Everyone in Ninneburky might assemble there, with space left over.

  What was this place? Ellayne forgot to be tired or thirsty, pondering its mystery.

  Slowly, gingerly, she walked out toward the middle of the empty space. It felt like she was the last person left in all the world. She tried not to make noise, but even her light little steps echoed hollowly.

  As her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she could see that there was some kind of decoration on the smooth stone pavement—something painted, perhaps. She’d have to wait until the sun was higher in the sky before she could see it clearly.