by Lee Duigon
“What about Baby?” Ryons asked. The thought of the killer bird cooped up in a boat made him uneasy.
“Baby and Perkin shall travel in my boat, my king—and you and Cavall, too. Baby is a good bird. I’ll sing him a Fogo Island lullaby, and that will keep him calm and peaceful.”
Obst stroked his beard. “There are more lakes and greater lakes than this one, Gurun.”
“We’ll cross them all, O man of God! By the time we cross the last of them, I’ll have made sailors of you all.”
With their number now swollen to three thousand, Foxblood and his Abnak warriors marched on the enemy stronghold in the lowlands. As the Battle of Looth’s Hill was being won in the north, they were still a few marches distant from their own great battle with the Zamzu.
Feeding three thousand fighting men, along with an uncounted number of childless women who were following their men, was no easy thing to do in Abnak country, where there are no tilled fields, no storehouses. The women gathered in baskets everything edible that they could pick or dig up. Hunters fanned out for miles around the main body of the host, felling deer, spearing fish. They also had provisions they’d captured from the enemy. Somehow everyone had enough to eat.
“I’d almost call that a miracle,” Foxblood said to Orth, “only these past two or three years, the land has been more fruitful than anyone can remember.”
Orth nodded. “It’s the same in Obann,” he said. “Even with the war, we’ve had better crops, better hauls of fish, more lambs and calves and colts being born, more chicks hatched—all since King Ozias’ bell rang on Bell Mountain. And the cloud that always used to hide the summit blew away that morning and has not returned.
“There is a Scripture that sheds light on this. The Lord spoke to Prophet Ika, ‘Behold, I and I alone make all things new. As I renew the seasons every year, and call forth the new grass, and bring forth each new generation of both men and beasts, so will I make for my people a new heaven and a new earth, when the old have passed away.’ All life is the work of His hands.”
It was nighttime, and they sat around a fire with some of Foxblood’s chiefs. A few of these, as they rested, smoked tree-beans and blew rings into the air. But Orth politely declined their invitation to join them in that pastime.
“Your Scriptures speak to me,” said Foxblood, “although never in my life have I ever thought of such a thing as a whole new earth. Someday I would like to know those Scriptures.”
“Someday you will,” said Orth.
“One more battle to fight, First Prester; one more battle to win. And then I’m thinking we should send you home—get you back across the mountains well before the start of winter. You’ve been a great help to us, but I know you have duties to carry out in Obann. I wouldn’t want them saying we kidnapped you.”
This touched on something that Orth had been deeply pondering the past few days.
“I’m not so sure my place is in Obann anymore,” he said. “I know a man”—he meant Prester Jod—“who would be a better First Prester than I can ever be. I’ve been wondering whether God has called me to remain here in the East, to plant His word and water it and see it grow. Not only here, among the Abnaks, but in other countries, too.
“I believe now that the destruction of the Temple in Obann was God’s way of breaking the chains that kept His word bound there, as in a prison. I connived in that destruction; I was a traitor. The burden of that sin was so heavy that for a time it overthrew my mind. I was like a beast when Hlah found me starving in the marshes. But my sin, which I meant for evil, God meant for good—and great good has come of it. And there will be more to come. I must have faith and let the Lord lead me step by step, one step at a time: I don’t know where. But He does.”
To this Foxblood made no reply. But, of course, he didn’t need to.
CHAPTER 43
A Weapon Against the Past
When Roshay Bault came home again, he sent out his best men as scouts to see when Chutt would come down from the Golden Pass and where he would go from there. A few of them were to venture up the Thunder King’s road and look for Martis and the children.
“Martis will keep them safe,” Vannett said, “and that man, Trout, seems very capable. Besides, they have that little creature with them. Ellayne says he’s better than any two men. I must take her word for it.”
“We have to make sure we can defend the town, if Chutt decides to come our way,” the baron said. “I won’t let him and his Wallekki through the gates. I don’t expect him to start a civil war—not yet!—but it’s best to be prepared.”
“You were wise to walk away from the gold, Roshay.”
The baron kissed his wife. “Not everyone will think so,” he said.
Guided by Wytt, Ellayne and her companions made their way down the mountain without incident. They didn’t hurry. Trout needed time to collect food that Martis and the children could eat. Game abounded in these woods. Trout’s snares kept them fed on roasted squirrel, wood-hens that didn’t fly, and one or two animals that none of them had ever seen before. It took them a whole week to get all the way down to the plain, and then the baron’s scouts found them and brought them home to Ninneburky just as King Ryons’ men were about to return to Lintum Forest.
The scouts had seen no sign of Chutt and his Wallekki. They must still be at the top of the pass, loading their wagons with gold.
“If only we could have some word from Ryons!” Ellayne said, more than once. “It’s as if he’s vanished out of the world.”
Fnaa and Trout departed with the king’s army. By and by, Ellayne and Jack had time to sit with Enith behind the baron’s stables and tell her all about their adventure in the mountains.
“I wish I could have gone with you,” Enith said. “I would have liked to have seen all that gold!”
“You won’t like seeing all the trouble that it causes, when it comes back down,” Jack said. “The baron thinks they’re going to use it to start a war and take King Ryons’ throne away from him. He says we’ll have to be ready for just about anything.”
“The king is out there, somewhere. Maybe anywhere, maybe nowhere—with just half his little army,” said Ellayne. “There’s no news of him, no messages from him. He must be too far away by now to send a message. Maybe the birds in the air have seen him. I wonder if we ever will, again.”
“Oh, well!” Enith said, trying to keep Ellayne from getting too gloomy. “While you were away, the baroness read me the rest of that story about the glass bridge.” Ellayne already knew the story, but Enith told Jack what he’d missed. “It’s a strange story, isn’t it?” she added. “Imagine having to walk across a bridge of glass! Doesn’t make much sense, does it? I wonder why anyone would ever make up a story like that.”
“But wait—it does make sense!” Jack said. It had suddenly dawned on him. “It does, if you know how to look at it. Crossing the glass bridge that might fall to pieces on you any moment—isn’t that what Ryons and Obst and Gurun are doing?”
“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Ellayne cried. “You shouldn’t even think it.”
“But what if the bridge doesn’t fall to pieces?” Jack answered. “What if they do cross over, just like in the story? All the way to Kara Karram!”
Ellayne thought it over. “I wonder,” she said, “if we’ve all been walking on a glass bridge, all this time. Ever since you and I—well, you know.” She remembered just in time that she mustn’t tell Enith about the journey to Bell Mountain: that was still a secret. She shook her head and sighed. “That was a daft thing we did, Jack.”
“Maybe—but we did it,” Jack said.
“What are you two talking about?” Enith demanded. But they wouldn’t tell her.
As for Wytt, he spent the day under the back porch with some bacon scraps from the kitchen to share with the old rat. The rat was glad to see him. While they were gone, a big brown snake had crept under the porch and forced the rat to hide outside, among the shrubbery, for several days. H
appily, the snake chose to move on.
Wytt told the rat that there was something worse than a snake under a huge pile of wood atop a mountain—which the rat couldn’t grasp, not having any notion of what a mountain might be, but nevertheless shivered at the thought of it. They then abandoned the subject and enjoyed the rest of the bacon.
The half of Ryons’ army returned to Carbonek without having drawn a sword or thrown a spear. Carbonek had had peace while they were gone: Helki’s scouts, trained by him in person, forced the remaining outlaw bands to keep their distance. Still, the people of Carbonek missed their king and were distressed to have no word of him.
Fnaa’s mother, Dakl, when she’d finished fussing over her only child, threw her arms around Trout’s neck and kissed him.
“Be careful,” Trout said. “Among my people, when a woman kisses a man as you’ve kissed me, it means she wishes to become his wife.”
“And is that such a bad idea?” said Dakl. So Trout returned the kiss, and told her that, according to the custom of the Abnaks, they were married.
“Does that make you my father?” Fnaa said.
“No,” said Trout. “But I’ve gotten into the habit of looking after you, and I guess I’ll keep on doing it. Maybe I can teach you some sense.”
The warriors had a feast that night to celebrate their homecoming and to hail Trout and Dakl as man and wife. There was still plenty of food on the tables when Abgayle rushed in to interrupt them.
All you chiefs,” she said, “and everyone else who’s here—come before King Ryons’ throne, now.”
It wasn’t a real throne, but only a throne-shaped stone that had long ago broken loose from the ruined castle. What purpose it had once served, no one knew. It still bore some trace of ancient writing, which not even Obst could read. Ryons always sat on this stone when his chieftains assembled for a council.
Tonight, under the late summer stars, Jandra sat upon the throne—not as a little girl playing a game, but as a queen: straight and still, with a dignity that commanded silence. The chiefs lined up before her, the warriors and the settlers in a quiet mass behind them.
“Hear the word of the Lord,” she spoke, and her voice was no child’s, but that of a grown woman. “Behold, I shake the earth; I raise up kings and cast them down. I give honor and majesty to great men, and I take it away. I kill, and I make alive: I am the Lord.
“To my servant Ozias and to his seed, forever, I give the kingship of Obann: his throne shall be established here; it shall not be moved. If his seed keep my commandments and observe my laws, my servant Ozias shall never lack a man to sit before me on his throne. But if they turn from me, and go after other gods, I shall uproot what I have planted, and pull down what I have built. But I shall preserve his line, as I have preserved it in the hidden places of the earth; and of his blood I shall bring forth a man to be my son: the glory of Obann, and a savior to the nations of the earth; I will give him the Heathen for his inheritance. You shall hear of him again.
“As Ozias is my servant, so shall you be his servants, and mine. I shall delight in you, and never fail you or forsake you. Stand with him, and I will stand with you. I am the Lord.”
Jandra’s eyes closed, and she slumped on the king’s throne, a little girl asleep.
Martis didn’t sleep that night. He lay awake, his thoughts stretching out all the way to Kara Karram, the castle of the Thunder King.
He believed in his heart that Ryons would get there—Ryons, Obst, and Gurun, with as many of their people who weren’t killed along the way. The Thunder King might call up ten thousand men to crush them, or tens of thousands: of course he would, thought Martis. He had but to stamp his foot and the king of Obann would be destroyed like an insect. But as obvious as that seemed, Martis didn’t believe it. With his own eyes Ryons would see the New Temple and the fortress where the Thunder King kept the Heathen’s idols as his trophies, so that he could be their god.
It wasn’t the Thunder King’s armies that chilled Martis’ soul. It wasn’t the armies that would devour Obann’s king.
The last danger would come roaring out of the past, the ancient past.
In the Temple at Obann—it seemed so long ago, and yet it wasn’t—Lord Reesh had a whole roomful of bits and pieces from the past. They inflamed his imagination, but they were only scraps and relics. They had no power in them.
But the Thunder King had burrowed more deeply into the ancient times and found things that did have power. He must have many such pieces because he’d given some to his agents. Jack and Ellayne had taken one. It had made music and showed a picture of a woman with unnaturally large eyes. When Ellayne tried to make it do more, it had destroyed itself.
The Thunder King’s false First Prester, the traitor, Goryk Gillow, brought an ancient item with him to Obann. When its power was let loose, it ate up the whole palace in a colossal gout of flame. It, too, destroyed itself.
But they wouldn’t all destroy themselves, Martis thought. Surely the Thunder King had kept the best of them for himself at Kara Karram. There was no imagining what he might have in his possession, nor what those things could do.
Many years ago, when the first Thunder King rose up in a country far to the east of Kara Karram, the Heathen said he had a sword that belonged to the War God, and with this he conquered nations. It had not been seen since the Thunder King occupied Kara Karram, but doubtless he still had it. Had its ancient power been exhausted? Or was he only waiting for a certain time to use it again—when Ryons stood before his castle?
“I should have gone east with Ryons,” Martis thought. But how could he have done that when he’d sworn an oath to God to devote the rest of his life to protecting God’s servants, Jack and Ellayne, who’d climbed Bell Mountain and rung the bell of King Ozias?
Such thoughts tormented him all night. In the morning, the baron sent for him.
Gallgoid was at the baron’s house. He’d come along, riding on a mule. When Martis arrived, Roshay ushered them into his private study and shut the door.
“I’ve already told Gallgoid of all that happened at the Golden Pass and that Lord Chutt now has King Thunder’s gold,” Roshay said. “But Gallgoid has something to tell us that we didn’t know.”
The chief spy nodded. “There is something else in those ruins,” he said, “that may be worth more than all the gold. There is the gold mask of the Thunder King. He was wearing it when the avalanche buried his hall. He always wore it when he sat before his mardars. It must be there still, buried with him.
“If we can get it, we can use it against him. It will be proof that the Thunder King’s a mortal man, and neither god nor devil. It may be enough to make his whole empire crumble.”
“Have you seen this mask?” said Martis.
“I was never admitted into the hall. But Lord Reesh saw it many times and described it to me.”
“And Chutt is unaware of its existence,” Roshay said.
“I mean to get it, my lord. I know it’s there.”
“It won’t be easy,” Martis said.
“For Lord Reesh’s two favorite spies and assassins, it shouldn’t be impossible,” said Gallgoid. “We dare this in the service of King Ryons.”
“And of God,” the baron said.
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