The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  Some moments dragged on before he answered. Ellayne jumped up and down where she stood, to get some feeling back into her feet.

  “Well,” he said, “it may be that if I don’t tell you, I’ll never get a chance to tell anyone.” He looked Chillith in the eye, forgetting Chillith couldn’t see him.

  “There is no Thunder King,” he said.

  CHAPTER 51

  How the Thunder King Prospered

  “What! But Lord Reesh saw him—you said he saw him!” Ellayne’s cry resounded up and down the deserted road.

  “The whole East serves the Thunder King,” said Chillith.

  “They serve what they can see,” Gallgoid said. “But what they see is a cheat. It’s all lies. But people are so afraid of the Thunder King, they’ll believe anything.

  “There was a Thunder King, once upon a time. He conquered many nations and he claimed to be a god. People believed him. But it’s all the mardars. All lies. The real King Thunder died some twenty years ago. The mardars put up another and said it was the same man. Why not? The Great Man lived behind a mask. His name alone was worth any number of armies. People believed he and his mardars worked evil miracles. They never saw the man behind the mask. So they never knew it was a different man, and the mardars kept on conquering.”

  Chillith shook his head. “The Thunder King sees and hears through his mardars. He sends his thoughts into their minds. His power flows through them.”

  “More lies,” said Gallgoid. “The mardars do whatever they please, and they say it was a commandment from the Thunder King. They make their own plans and tell everyone that they received those plans from their god. Their servants put poison in the water, and the mardars say it was an evil spell. They’re adept at poisoning whole herds of cattle without the owners knowing it. They tell no end of lies, and people believe them.”

  “But our gods—my people’s gods are gone,” said Chillith. “The Thunder King took them away.”

  Gallgoid sighed. “Your gods were never real, my friend.”

  Chillith sat in silence. His sightless eyes shone. He’s going to cry, Ellayne thought: which meant that he believed this stranger. But was that wise? All those mighty armies that had poured out of the East—that was no cheat.

  No one said anything. Somewhere off in the distance, a crow cawed. Ellayne studied Gallgoid’s face, but all she saw there was a cold and tired man.

  How much time passed, who could say? Ellayne couldn’t understand how the mardars could get together and deceive the whole world. Who had ever heard of such a thing? What about the magic that the mardars did? She’d heard so much about it. They knew what their master was thinking, even if he was a thousand miles away. But Jack always said there was no such thing as magic. Could he be right?

  Chillith stood up suddenly.

  “I see!” His voice was like a thunderclap. “I see!” He spoke some words to Gallgoid in a foreign language: Griffish, probably. Before Ellayne could ask him what he’d said, Gallgoid seized her by the arms and held her tightly, held her close.

  “What is this? Let me go! What are you doing?” She struggled, but there was no getting loose.

  “Peace, peace, Ellayne—be quiet, and listen to me,” Chillith said. Something in the way he said it compelled her to be still. “Dear friend, this is where we part. I shall go up alone to that golden hall and confront the Thunder King. I won’t need a guide anymore. I see.”

  “I don’t believe you! You’re always saying that!” Ellayne shouted. “If you can really see, tell me what color Gallgoid’s blanket is. Tell me what he looks like!”

  Chillith smiled at her. “Not that kind of seeing,” he said. “God took that kind of sight away from me because I wasn’t using it properly. Now He has given me another kind of seeing, by which I know that this man’s words are true and by which I shall be led to where I’m going. This man will go with you, back down the mountain. King Thunder’s hall is no place for you.”

  “But they’ll kill you!” Ellayne said. Now she was crying, and the tears froze on her cheek.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But through me the true God will destroy them.” He kissed her forehead. “Good-bye—it was a good day for me when I met you. Help Gallgoid down the mountain with his news. All the world must hear it.”

  Words stuck in her throat; she couldn’t answer. She watched in numb silence as Chillith picked his way back to the road, parting the brush with his staff. Once on the road, he headed into the East with long, strong strides—just as if he could really see. He steered a straight course right up the middle of the road.

  “Griffs are great walkers. He’ll be better going uphill than I am going down,” Gallgoid said.

  “Let me go!”

  “I had to promise him I wouldn’t. Besides, I’m nearly worn out. I need you to help me off this mountain.” He squeezed her shoulders, but not hard enough to hurt. “Don’t you think the people in Obann deserve to hear the truth? There’s nobody but you and me to tell it.”

  Eventually Ellayne gave in, because she had to, and with Lord Reesh’s servant holding her hand so that she couldn’t get away, they turned back downhill.

  Wytt was watching: she could be sure of that, he always watched. Sooner or later he’d do something about this. It might be dangerous for Gallgoid to go to sleep at night.

  But before anything like that could happen, they met Jack and Martis coming up.

  While Ellayne and Chillith were making their way up the mountain, Hlah was recovering from an illness. A few days before, a raging fever struck him down. The little community of refugees, dreading they might lose him, put him to bed in their newly finished log cabin. And first they had to build a bed.

  When he came to his senses, he discovered that some surprising things had happened while he was sick.

  “It’s been quite wonderful,” Sunfish, once Prester Orth, told him as he lay in bed. “The hunters you’ve trained did their best, but it wasn’t good enough. But Ootoo heard about it and sent us three freshly killed deer—plenty for everybody. And a couple of his men came to see you, although you were too sick to know they were here.”

  More wonderful than that, Hlah thought, was the young refugee woman who tended him night and day—mopping the sweat from his face, spooning broth into him whenever she could, and trying to calm him when he thrashed. Hers was the first face he saw when his eyes worked again. May, her name was.

  “You’ll be all right now,” she said, smiling down at him. “Everyone’s been praying for you.” And her hand was over his.

  Hlah smiled back. “I’m glad God granted those prayers,” he said. It was funny, he thought: May had been around the camp all along, and he’d never noticed until now how beautiful she was.

  In the spring they were married, Sunfish reciting the service over them. Nor was theirs the only such marriage in those hills. It was the beginning of a whole new people, half-Abnak, half-Obannese,who dwelt among the wooded hills on the west side of the mountains: hunters, trappers, settlers, and traders who believed in God and did their best to live in peace.

  Wytt came running up first. He’d gone back and found them, and Jack and Martis hurried after him, huffing and puffing. Ellayne recognized them from a distance—who else, after all, could they be?—twisted her hand loose from Gallgoid’s and ran to meet them. She threw her arms around Jack’s neck: she really couldn’t help it. Nor could he help hugging her, but not for long.

  “That was some trick—sneaking off without us!” he said. “I ought to brain you.”

  “Just try it!” she answered. “Anyway, I knew you’d come, so it wasn’t really going without you.”

  They might have had an argument, only then Gallgoid trudged down to join them, and when he saw Martis, he stopped in his tracks.

  “Martis!” he said. “For a moment there, I didn’t know you.”

  “Gallgoid,” Martis answered.

  “We all thought you were dead.”

  “Disappointed?” Martis asked.
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  Something between the two men made the children forget their own quarrel. “You know this man?” Jack asked Martis. Ellayne remembered that she hadn’t told Gallgoid anything about herself—including the fact that she’d been traveling all over Obann with another assassin from the Temple.

  “What are you doing with Ellayne?” Martis said; and to Ellayne, “Has he hurt you?”

  “I only just met him, Martis. Chillith sent me away with him. He’s going up alone—and the Thunder King’s up there!”

  “Up where?” Jack said.

  “Up on top of the mountain, stupid—up there!” Ellayne pointed up the road. “They’ll kill him when he gets there. Can’t we do something to save him?”

  “Whoa!” Martis put up his hand. “First some explanations, please!” He pointed at Gallgoid. “You first.”

  It took some doing, to get the explanations out. Ellayne had already heard Gallgoid’s story, but it was just as hard to believe the second time around. Martis admitted to being the children’s protector, but Gallgoid wouldn’t let it go at that.

  “Lord Reesh sent you out to kill these children, didn’t he?” he said. “He often spoke of it. He couldn’t believe you failed. We all heard King Ozias’ bell. That’s how he knew you’d failed him.

  “But never mind that! Obann must be told that there is no Thunder King—that it’s all lies. That’s why I have to get down from this mountain. Never mind your poor blind man. No one can save him.”

  “We can try!” Ellayne said.

  Martis ignored her. “Your master, Lord Reesh, must think you’ve failed him, too, Gallgoid.”

  “Reesh is an old man who doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It may be that he matters to me,” said Martis.

  In the end he and the children and Wytt went up and Gallgoid went down, alone. They gave him some of their food to help him on his way. Gallgoid grinned at Martis.

  “It’ll be too bad if I don’t make it,” he said. “But maybe it’s better if you and I don’t travel very far together.”

  “He may not get there, Martis,” Ellayne said, a few minutes after they’d lost sight of Gallgoid. She’d had her way, but now she didn’t feel quite right about it.

  “He’s stronger than he looks,” Martis answered.

  “But didn’t you believe him—about the Thunder King?” Jack said.

  “No one in his right mind would ever believe Gallgoid. And Lord Reesh has a very subtle mind. He could invent a story like that. But it may be Reesh isn’t up there, after all—and never was. But we’ll see what we can do for Chillith.”

  Against the habit of a lifetime, Martis felt friendship for the Griff. Maybe they could find some way to save him. With Wytt to scout for them, Martis had little fear of being taken by surprise by any enemy.

  But also in his heart, despite his refusal to take anything said by Gallgoid as the truth, was a desire to see if Reesh was really there at the end of the road. And if he was … he left the thought unfinished.

  “He didn’t seem like such a bad man to me—Gallgoid,” Ellayne said.

  “He’s an assassin. A creature of Lord Reesh. And a most artful and resourceful liar.”

  “So were you, Martis,” Jack said.

  To that he had no answer.

  CHAPTER 52

  The Last Stage of the Journey

  As Gallgoid said, the Griffs are great walkers. You’d believe it if you could see Chillith striding along, straight up the road. He never stopped; he never slowed: just kept putting one foot after the other, over and over again. He barely felt the cold.

  He didn’t see as you see, with your eyes. He saw things he had done wrong in his life and things he’d done right, things he’d thought beautiful, or good, and other things he’d thought sad, ugly, or shameful. But most of all he saw himself, in his mind’s eye, as proceeding down a wide and shining path with a great light at the end. That light drew him on his way and would not let him go. Nor did he want to be released from it. He wanted to come to the source of the light.

  He went faster than Martis could go with two children to hold him back, but Wytt caught up to him before long.

  Wytt understood that Ellayne and the others were following this man, trying to catch up to him. Maybe he understood more than they knew. Instead of trying to delay Chillith or distract him, Wytt ran far ahead of him and made sure the way was clear. He found nothing a lone man on foot ought to fear. The snow was deeper the higher up you went, but it wouldn’t be too deep for a tall man like Chillith.

  Wytt kept going until he saw a high wall stretched across the pass, at the top of the mountain. Some effort had been made to clear the snow so that the gates in the wall could be opened and shut freely; but the snow had defeated that effort, and now the gates had to stay open or no one would be able to get them open again.

  This was not a nice place, Wytt decided. The mountains were heaped high with snow, and the grey sky promised more to come. Certain scents in the air, issuing from behind the wall, made Wytt’s hackles rise. He wrinkled his face and bared his tiny fangs—at what, he didn’t know.

  This must be where the tall black-haired man was going. He wouldn’t have any trouble getting there, and Wytt left him to it. Chillith never saw or heard him pass as he scampered back down the mountain.

  “We’ll have to stop soon and find a place to camp,” Martis said. Most of the afternoon was gone, and they were tired. But they’d picked up Chillith’s tracks, and it would now be very easy to follow him.

  That was when Wytt came back and told them they were almost to the end of the road, where there was a wall across the pass.

  “Bad things there,” he reported.

  “Can we catch up to Chillith before he gets there?” Martis said. “He must be nearly there already.”

  “Wytt says he’ll be there very soon,” Ellayne said. And once Chillith went behind that wall, she thought, that was that: no one could help him then.

  “We could keep going. It isn’t far,” Jack said. “I’m not tired. We could at least see what’s what—and maybe we could do something to help Chillith.”

  “Are you crazy?” Ellayne said. “The Thunder King’s up there. What do you think will happen if they catch us?”

  “You’re the one who wanted to follow Chillith in the first place!”

  Martis interrupted. “We should make camp,” he said, “and I’ll go up alone at night, with Wytt.”

  “Why should they catch us?” Jack said. “Wytt says nobody comes out of that place because of all the snow. We won’t get there till after dark. Who’s going to see us?” He hated the idea of turning back after they’d come so far, without at least seeing if there was a chance to rescue Chillith. “Besides,” he added, “it’s too cold to camp. We’d only be awake all night, shivering.”

  It was lame reasoning, and Martis knew it; but he gave in. He felt a powerful urge to push on. Lord Reesh was there—Reesh, his master and his teacher: Lord Reesh, who’d taught him lies.

  “We can go a bit farther,” he said. “But tell Wytt to keep a sharp lookout. We may have to hide in a hurry.”

  Just before dark, Gallgoid met Helki coming up the mountain. Actually he met Cavall first, and being unarmed, and much too weary to do anything else, he stood perfectly still while the great hound paced back and forth in front of him, sniffing the air and showing his teeth. Moments later, Helki came up—a daunting figure of a man, with his wild thatch of hair and a hawk perched on his shoulder.

  Helki saw a man who’d just about used up all his strength and needed rest and a fire. He hadn’t planned to stop until midnight, but now he would have to.

  “Stranger, I’m looking for a man and a girl, and another man with a boy,” he said. “They’re friends of mine, and I wonder if you’ve seen them.”

  “I have,” said Gallgoid, “all four of them, earlier today. You’ll find them farther up the road.” He might have said more, but just then his knees buckled. Helki had to help him up.

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sp; “Can’t just leave you here, I reckon,” he said. He led the man a few steps into the woods. Here many trees, chopped down to build the road, still lay where they’d been dragged out of the way; many more had been carted off for timber. Helki found a place where two large trunks lay at an angle to each other, creating a nook protected from the wind. He cleared the snow away, cleared off the topmost layer of wet leaves, and used all the skill he had to get a fire going. No one else in Obann could have done it.

  He fed Gallgoid—just yesterday Angel caught two squirrels, and Cavall ran down a plump white hare—and revived him enough to get his story out of him. That took some time.

  “I’d better hustle up this hill before my friends get into something that they can’t get out of,” Helki said. “You’ll have to go on alone, tomorrow, my friend. But it won’t be so bad. There’s a small army coming up the road behind me. Just mention my name, and they’ll take care of you.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Gallgoid said. “This fire and the fresh meat was all I needed.”

  “Keep feeding the fire, and you’ll be fine.” Helki suddenly stood up. “Let’s go, Cavall!” he said.

  CHAPTER 53

  How Chillith Delivered a Message to the Thunder King

  Lord Reesh sat alone in his cabin all day, with no one to talk to and nothing but his thoughts for company. They were not good company.

  In the evening Kyo’s servant escorted Reesh to the banquet hall. There as always sat King Thunder on his throne, immovable, with his face behind the golden mask. Below his throne, the monster cat tested its chain. The beast was restless. Its green eyes glared at the mardars assembled around their banquet tables. To Reesh it seemed the monster paid particular attention to him, as if marking him in its memory. He wondered if Gallgoid had been fed to the beast. Having dined on the servant, maybe the creature longed to thrust its butcher-knife fangs into the master.