The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) Read online

  Wytt could find water by sniffing the air for it. Sometimes he seemed to find it by watching birds in the sky or studying the aimless maneuverings of insects.

  However he did it, without him, they would have died of thirst. Those plains south of the great river and west of Lintum Forest, which in good times fed the whole country, were now depopulated. The Heathen were coming; the people had fled, deserting their villages, abandoning their farms. They took all their livestock with them. Worse, they stopped up the wells so the enemy couldn’t drink from them. So there was no water, except where Wytt found it seeping from the ground or bubbling up in little springs. Neither Jack nor Ellayne had the slightest idea where to look for water in a country where there were no people.

  “It’s funny,” Martis mused, as they trekked on eastward. “This is Obann, my own country; but if I go any distance from the river, I discover that I don’t know Obann very well. Traveling along the river, you don’t have to worry about finding water.”

  Finding food was easier. There were peach orchards coming into fruit, blackberry patches, and plenty of rabbits running wild. The young ones were not as cautious as they would have been, had people and dogs remained in the country. Borrowing Jack’s slingshot, Martis had some success providing them with meat.

  “It’s so beautiful out here!” Ellayne said. Mounted on Dulayl with Jack, she had a good view of the plain in bloom—rippling waves of green grass, purple heather, pools of deep yellow where goldflowers clustered, and red and pink and white and powder-blue queens-slippers, babyblossoms, daisies, and bluebells. “But the barns and farmhouses look sad. Where did all the people go?”

  “To Obann,” Martis said, “to hide behind the walls and to other towns farther west.”

  But Jack had something else on his mind. “I’ve been thinking and thinking,” he said, “about those scrolls.” He meant the ones they’d found in the cellar of the First Temple, in the ruins of Old Obann. “I can’t see why God had King Ozias write them, and then keep them hidden for all those years and years with no one to read them.”

  “Two thousand years,” Martis put in.

  “But why write them if no one’s going to read them?” Jack said.

  “Obst is going to read them,” Ellayne said. “That’s why God sent us to find them in the first place. And we did it!”

  “I just wonder what it’s all about. I wonder what the scrolls really say. That scholar of yours, Martis—the one who tried to steal them from us—said he couldn’t understand them. What if no one can understand them?”

  Hiking over the plains all day, talking made the time pass faster, and they did a lot of it. Martis had never done so much talking in his life. He wouldn’t have believed it possible to have such talks with children. Idiot, he chided himself: whatever gave you the idea that children couldn’t talk? It was certainly more pleasurable than talking with Lord Reesh, who only told you what he thought you needed to know.

  “You’re asking the wrong man, Jack,” he said. “I grew up on the city streets—what could I know of Scripture? And then I went into the service of the Temple, where nobody believes the Scriptures. I don’t think many of them even believe in God.”

  “But it’s the Temple!” cried Ellayne. “What are they all doing there, if they don’t believe in God?”

  “That’s the Temple,” Martis said. “Anyhow, we’re taking these Scriptures to people who will believe in them. That’s an errand I can believe in.”

  They did not know that Cardigal had fallen, nor that Caristun, to the north beside the river, and Caryllick, to the south, had stood off terrible attacks. These would have fallen, too, had the enemy stayed longer. But now the Thunder King’s mardars were abandoning lesser projects and driving all the armies on to Obann. By keeping to the middle of the plain, Jack and his friends stayed clear of those armies.

  Martis estimated they were halfway to Lintum Forest. “We’d be there by now if we had another horse,” he said.

  As the end of the day drew near, they saw something that surprised them, a little wisp of smoke rising in the distance. Martis made the children dismount.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go on ahead and see what that is.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Ellayne said.

  “More dangerous not to know.” Martis swung into the saddle and trotted off. Jack and Ellayne sat down by Ham. Wytt climbed up on top of the donkey’s pack and sniffed the air.

  “What’s out there, Wytt?” Jack asked.

  Wytt chattered: one man with a little fire, he reported. He didn’t seem agitated. “If he’s not scared, then I won’t be,” Jack said. “I’m hungry, though. Wish we had some chicken!”

  “You’ve gotten skinnier,” Ellayne said. “Or maybe taller.”

  “Taller? Do you think so?”

  “Boys do grow.”

  Jack thought it over. Had they really been wandering around so long that he’d had time to grow? At least six months, he thought. It seemed an age ago that he’d been living in a little house in Ninneburky with Van, his stepfather. Van used to say Jack was small for his age—which never stopped him from working Jack like a slave.

  “I wonder what they’re doing back home,” he said. They knew, of course, that Ninneburky had miraculously survived a savage attack by a Heathen army from the north, that Ellayne’s father, Chief Councilor Roshay Bault, had organized the defense. But people got killed even in successful battles. Jack wondered if anyone he knew had died in the defense of the town.

  “They’re fine,” Ellayne said. “The Heathen came and my father beat them. He probably has all the men working to make the walls stronger, in case the Heathen come again.”

  “Do you really think I’m taller?”

  “Stand still a minute. We’ll see.”

  Ellayne stood in front of him, up close, and put her hand on top of her head, and slid it forward to touch the middle of Jack’s forehead.

  “You weren’t that much taller than me when we started out,” she said. “Burn it, I wish I’d grow! Do you think I have, any?”

  Jack could only shrug. “I can’t tell,” he said; and Ellayne sniffed at him. “Boys don’t notice anything,” she said.

  “Well, you’re stronger—I’ve noticed that,” he answered. “You can walk or ride all day and not get tired.”

  “Oh, I’m tired, all right! And I want my supper.”

  A few minutes later, Martis returned.

  “It’s all right—it’s only a refugee from Cardigal. Cardigal has fallen,” he said. “But he’s found a nice place to camp, and he won’t mind our company.”

  Indeed, the man looked badly in need of company. His face was dirty, his clothes dirtier. He had a fire, but that was all he had: nothing to eat.

  “I was hoping you’d have something!” he said. “I haven’t had a bite of meat or bread, or a sip of milk or wine, since I got away from the city. And I’ve lost track of how many days that is.”

  His name was Ivor. He had a shop in Cardigal where he sold cheese and pies and pastries. Trekking over the plain was hard on him.

  “I don’t imagine there’s anything left of my shop, not with the whole city burned down.” He shuddered hard; his whole body shook. “Magic! That’s what it was—black magic, like in one of those stories from the old days. Heathen magic!”

  “Surely not,” said Martis.

  “Surely so! You weren’t there, so you don’t know. But I know. I know what I saw and heard. Merciful God! But God wasn’t there to help us, was He? The whole city went up in flames.”

  Martis comforted him with some of their water. He was in a bad way, shaking all over. They had some peaches from an orchard, and gave him one. He wolfed it down so fast, he almost swallowed the pit. But it did seem to do him some good.

  “Now what’s all this about magic?” Martis asked.

  Ivor licked the last of the peach juice off his dirty fingers.

  “Fire’s one thing,” he said. “We were prepared for fire. They had machi
nes that pitched fireballs into the city.

  “But this was magic fire! Nobody could put it out. Water didn’t do no good. Wherever the fire landed, it grabbed hold and burned. And some of those fireballs—I saw this with my own eyes—had faces in them, and open mouths that screamed as they sailed over our walls. Say what you like: we all saw it. Not that there’s many of us left alive to tell the tale.

  “They had a magician with their army, a sorcerer. He rode up to the main gate and told the soldiers on the walls that unless we surrendered the city to him right away and let ourselves be sold into slavery, the magic of the Thunder King would reach out from the East and destroy us. But the captains wouldn’t listen. And so they threw their magic hellfire at us, and we couldn’t put it out.

  “All the people had to run for it, or else be burned alive. They killed all the soldiers. I don’t know how, but I got away. Just kept running and running until I couldn’t run anymore, and no one ever chased me. Been wandering around by myself ever since.

  “There was a prophet in the city. I don’t know what happened to him. He just disappeared one day. But while he was there, he told us it was the end of the world, rung in by God’s own bell. I guess he was right!”

  Jack was about to blurt out, “But we rang the bell!” Martis must have read his mind; his hand shot out, grabbed Jack’s shoulder, and squeezed it hard enough to hurt. Jack winced, but didn’t speak. He understood that with the Temple’s servants looking for them, it was better not to mention their mission to Bell Mountain. Martis had explained that to them often enough.

  “Magic!” Ellayne said, shaking her head. “How can anyone fight against magic?”

  “There’s no such thing as magic,” Jack said, rubbing his sore shoulder. He could not have told you why he said that.

  “You didn’t see the faces in the fire, boy,” said Ivor.

  Wytt chose that moment to emerge from the pack on Ham’s back and utter a loud chirp. Ivor would have run away if Martis hadn’t caught him.

  “What is it? Great heavens, what is that?”

  “Easy, easy—he won’t hurt you,” Martis said. “As a matter of fact, he’s a friend of ours, and he’s been very helpful. Jack, why don’t you and Wytt see if you can find us something to eat, while there’s still some daylight left? Take the slingshot.”

  Jack nodded. He could see Ivor was terrified of Wytt.

  “All right,” he said, getting up. “Come on, Wytt.” And over his shoulder, “But I still say there’s no such thing as magic. If there were, it’d be in the Scriptures, and everyone would know about it.”

  Martis and Ellayne calmed down Ivor, which took some doing.

  “There’s all kinds of crazy animals out here,” the shopkeeper said. “Just yesterday I saw a bird as big as a horse, and thankful I am that it didn’t see me! But it’s the end of the world, just like the prophet said. I wonder what happened to him.”

  Ellayne, who’d grown up on stories of Abombalbap and his adventures, read to her at bedtime by her father, believed in magic. Abombalbap was always running into witches and magicians. So she believed Ivor, even if Jack didn’t. More fool Jack, she thought.

  “Grandpa,” she said to Martis, “you’ve been to Heathen lands. Do they use a lot of magic there?”

  He shook his head. “None that I ever saw. But some of the Wallekki believe that in the deserts to the south of them, there are certain spirits that can be made to do a man’s bidding, if he knows the secret spells by which he might command them. Then again, those may be just stories, nothing more. The Heathen like tall tales.”

  Martis was at a loss. Although a servant of the Temple, he knew very little of the Scriptures. But if there were such a thing as magic, he thought, Lord Reesh would have known about it—and known how to use it, too. He wondered what kinds of things Lord Reesh knew but never spoke of to his servants. But it was not something he cared to discuss in front of Ivor.

  By and by Jack and Wytt returned, the boy dragging the carcass of an animal that was too big for him to carry.

  “Praise God, I was lucky!” he cried. “We’re going to have a good supper tonight! At least I think we will: I don’t know what kind of animal this is. But we saw a bunch of them feeding in some berry bushes, and I made a good shot with my slingshot. I got this one, and the others ran away.”

  He dragged the carcass to the fire. It was a plump little animal, dog-sized, with four stubby little hooves on each foot and sparse fur, pale brown and dappled with white spots.

  “Another new one!” Ivor said. “But I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s meat.”

  “And enough for all five of us,” Ellayne said, her mouth already watering, “not forgetting Wytt.”

  CHAPTER 5

  News from the East

  Lord Reesh knew things that no one else in Obann knew, and many of those things he kept to himself. He kept some of them even from the council of ruling oligarchs and from the governor-general of Obann, Lord Ruffin.

  Nevertheless, he was an old man and he had doubts as to his ability to outlive the present war. Because the Temple had to live on after him, he summoned to his private bedchamber tonight the man he had decided must succeed him.

  “I pray you are well, First Prester,” said the visitor.

  “I’d not be in my bed so early if I were well!” Reesh said. “Lately I’ve been feeling my age, Orth. My supper doesn’t agree with me, and I have an aching in my bones. But I didn’t summon you here to be my doctor.

  “Hear me, Orth. I’ve chosen you to be the next First Prester. Don’t try to look surprised. I know you aren’t.”

  Orth permitted himself a satisfied half-smile. He was a handsome man, powerfully built, in the prime of middle age, with a black spade beard that showed no hint of grey. He ought to last a long time as First Prester, Reesh thought. But he hadn’t chosen Orth for good looks or his potential for longevity. Orth was a man who, like Reesh himself, understood that the Temple came first—always.

  “In the days to come,” said Reesh, “I will give you documents to read that are the exclusive property of the Temple, to be seen by no one but the First Prester. The exigencies of war, and my own uncertain health, require that you be permitted to see them sooner than would otherwise be allowed. If I should die suddenly, during a military crisis, you would have no time to study them.”

  Orth nodded. He understood there was no need for him to speak.

  “It has always been necessary,” Reesh said, “for the Temple to have intelligence of events in distant countries; and so I have many servants sojourning among the Heathen in the East. As regularly as possible, they send me reports.

  “Some of these reports, owing to the turbulence of the present time, have been delayed and were late in reaching me. I suspect some never reached me at all. But I have them now, and I have studied them; and what I’ve read suggests to me that our city may not stand, after all. There is a chance that the city of Obann might fall.”

  Both men kept silence, Reesh waiting for Orth to speak, Orth pondering what he ought to say. It was warm in Reesh’s bedchamber, the darkness relieved only by the light of a few candles, and quiet. It might have been the only private room in all the world. The window was closed and shuttered, with heavy velvet drapes drawn over it. Orth sweated; but Reesh was one of those old men who found it hard to keep warm, even when no one else was cold.

  “Supposing the Temple were to survive the fall of the city,” Orth said slowly, “what will the people think of all our preaching about victory? If the people don’t believe our preaching anymore, the Temple will be worth nothing.”

  It was Orth who, at Lord Reesh’s behest, composed some verses of counterfeit Scripture and arranged for it to be discovered by a scholar in the archives. The scholar was now dead, and the pseudo-scripture had been preached in every chamber house in the land. Pretending to be the words of God, Orth’s verses exhorted the people to conquer the Heathen nations once and for all, promising a glorious victory. Reesh
and Orth were the only men who knew of the imposture. Those presters who suspected the verses were not genuine had either resigned from the Temple or else held their peace.

  “What makes you think the city might fall, First Prester?” Orth asked. “What have you learned that you didn’t know before?”

  Reesh waved a flabby hand as if it wearied him to speak of such things. But he answered.

  “The numbers alone bode ill for us. There are nations risen up in arms that have never crossed the mountains before. It’s every clan of the Wallekki, every tribe of Abnaks, the Fazzan, the Zephites, and peoples from the East whom you’ve never heard of before, all the way out to the Great Lakes and beyond. Their strength is inexhaustible.

  “We’ve had barbarian invasions before: many of them. What makes this one different is that one will, one mind, directs them. The Thunder King, the Great Man—he commands them, one and all. And they obey.”

  “Why do they obey?” Orth asked.

  “Because they fear him. They believe he has the powers of a god.” Reesh shook his head. “These are people who worship rocks and rivers, who carve idols out of wood and bow down to them. The Thunder King has taken away their idols. He stores them in his castle and calls them his prisoners. At the same time, he sends his most trusted servants among them—mardars, he calls them—to awe them with magical demonstrations and fill them with a fear of him.”

  Orth couldn’t repress a laugh. “My lord! We don’t believe in magic!”

  But Reesh didn’t laugh. “We aren’t unsophisticated pagans,” he said. “Besides which, a thousand years ago, there were things done in this world that even an oligarch would call magic, if he could see them done today.

  “I believe the Thunder King has learned how to do some of those things. He may learn more before he’s through! For the men of those old days were giants, Orth. They knew how to raze a city to the ground in the blink of an eye: the plains are dotted with giant shapeless mounds that used to be such cities. They sailed the seas in ships and had conveyances that would carry them across the sky like birds. And they had the ability to speak to one another over vast distances, even as you and I speak across my bed.