by Lee Duigon
At High Market Square, where once the city’s rulers hanged a prophet, a crowd had gathered to hear First Prester Orth dedicate a memorial stone to all the prophets. A delegation of the city’s clergy sat behind him on the platform as he spoke.
“Let this stone be a witness against us to our sin,” he was saying, “and call us to perpetual repentance. For we have been no better than our fathers, who slew the prophets in their time.
“Hear the Scripture: ‘Thus saith the Lord: If my people humble themselves before Me, and repent, and depart from their evil ways, I will take their sins away, and heal them.’ This is our hope, our only hope.”
Behind him, silent, unmoving, sat Preceptor Constan, who directed the immense project of making the Scriptures available to all the people. Since the winter, the presters and reciters in the city, and throughout Obann, had been preaching to the people from the Holy Scriptures, from the Old Books themselves. This was a new thing. Copies of the books were being sent to all the chamber houses in Obann, as fast as Constan’s scribes and seminary students could copy them. Thus were the people to be instructed not in men’s word anymore, but in God’s. Copies were now being made in a few of the other cities. Most of the people of Obann had never heard the actual Scriptures—not in all their lives.
Constan wondered how many of them knew that Orth had been Lord Reesh’s chief confederate in betraying the city to the Heathen—a scheme that was thwarted only by the sudden arrival of King Ryons and the giant beast. Orth had confessed his sin to the College of Presters. They would not let him confess it to the people. But the people know, thought Constan: they must surely know by now. What kept them from rising up against the presters, Constan didn’t know. The city was like a lion crouching in the tall grass, unseen, before springing on its prey with a paralyzing roar.
God’s will be done, he thought. His only concern was to do his duty by God’s word.
“We cannot undo our sins,” Orth said. “But that is not what God asks of us. All He requires of us is to trust in His mercy and to keep His commandments. Let us pray.”
He led the people in a prayer patterned after Ozias’ Song of Confession. Whatever else they thought of Orth, Constan reflected, they couldn’t help responding to his rich and mellow voice, his fine appearance, and his newfound but self-evident piety. Even now the sun struck silver off the silver sprinkling in his sable hair and beard. Constan himself was most often likened to a boulder—massive, grey, immovable. But he felt no jealousy on that account. Orth, he believed, was the only man who could be First Prester in this troubled age. The college had elected him, but God had chosen him.
CHAPTER 2
How Jack Wenton a Journey
The Imperial River flows from one end of Obann to the other, from the mountains to the sea. It is the great highway of Obann, carrying trade and travelers, connecting Obann’s multitude of towns and villages that grow along its banks.
Baron Roshay Bault, from his home in Ninneburky, had lumber interests in the foothills, supervised by his two grown sons, Dib and Josek. The lumber came down the river in rafts, to be bought up, bit by bit, in the towns along the river.
If you have read the other books that tell of these matters, you will know that Roshay was the chief councilor of Ninneburky, before he became the baron, and the father of Ellayne, the girl who climbed Bell Mountain. She climbed it with Jack, the town carter’s stepson, and Jack now lived with her in the baron’s house. Ellayne’s father taught Jack the use of numbers and money, and her mother, Vannett the baroness, taught him to read.
“Someday, if you have a bent for it, you may join my sons in the family lumber business,” Roshay said to Jack. “You have a good head for figures and a fair amount of common sense, and a man must make an honest living. I doubt you would want to be a carter like your stepfather.”
After all the adventures he and Ellayne had had, Jack very much relished the prospect of being in the lumber trade. So he was overjoyed when, one day in the middle of the spring, the baron said it was time he made a trip upriver to see the lumber camps.
“And what about me?” Ellayne cried.
Her father smiled slyly at her. “Making you stay here,” he said, “is the surest way I can think of to keep the pair of you out of trouble. If I let you go together, you’ll get up to something—you have a bad habit of disappearing on me! Anyhow, if you stay here, I’ll be sure Jack will come back.”
She blushed deeply.
When they set out for Bell Mountain, Jack was small for his age. Now he was a little taller than Ellayne. In those days he wore old clothes that he patched himself and only got his hair cut when old Ashrof could do it. Ashrof now was the prester of the chamber house in Ninneburky, and Jack got his hair cut by the barber. The baron and his wife clothed him in nice, serviceable clothes and put good shoes on his feet. But otherwise he hadn’t changed much.
Ellayne had gotten used to wearing her hair cut short while she was on adventures, so as to pass for a boy. Enough time had gone by that that defense wasn’t so convincing anymore. She still liked boys’ games and had nagged Martis into teaching her the art of sword fighting, but with her hair long and shining golden in the sun, you would never mistake her for a boy of any kind.
Sometimes she was tempted to ask Jack, “Do you think I’m pretty?” But it always seemed like such a lame thing to say, and she was sure he would only make a face at her, if she said it.
For the time being, all she wanted was to travel up the river in the boat with Jack and Martis. (Martis, you will remember, had taken an oath to protect them.) But no amount of sulking would persuade her father to give in, and when the day came for them to depart, all she could do was say good-bye. Any separation from Jack made her quite uneasy, and he didn’t like it, either. But neither of them said so.
“You’re going to have a lot of fun without me, aren’t you?” she said, as Jack helped Martis load the boat. A third man, Herger, one of her father’s foremen, already waited in the stern, holding his paddle. Ellayne wouldn’t show her feelings in front of him, so she took refuge in appearing to be angry.
“I’ll take good care of him,” said Martis—who for most of his life had been Lord Reesh’s most reliable assassin. “We’ll keep him too busy to have fun.”
Jack pretended that he didn’t care.
Martis in front, and Herger in the back, paddled the boat, with Jack sitting in the middle. Whenever the men stopped paddling, the boat would drift backward; so if they really needed to rest, they would have to tie up somewhere.
“I’ll be surprised if I can raise my arms tonight,” Martis said, after a few hours’ work.
“You’ll get used to it before you know it,” Herger answered. He’d been rowing up and down the river for many years—a quiet, bulky, blue-eyed man with a sandy beard just beginning to show grey. Martis’ beard had turned snow-white on the summit of Bell Mountain.
“Is Ninneburky the last town until we reach the hills?” Jack asked.
“That it is—the last proper town with a wall, I mean,” said Herger. “It’ll be a while before we sleep in beds again or eat our supper at a table.”
The baron had sent Martis on the trip because Martis was a killer, albeit he looked more like a clerk. Not that any of Roshay Bault’s men had had trouble on the river, but when King Ryons broke the siege of Obann City, thousands of Heathen warriors scattered in all directions. Some of them were still at large, living from hand to mouth as brigands. They seldom hunted along the river, where there was always a chance of them running into Obannese militia. But the baron judged it best to take no chances and never sent anyone alone to the logging camps.
“I don’t mind camping out,” Jack said. “I’ve done a lot of it, and in much wilder country than this.”
“That’s exactly what my cousin Ekbert used to say, before some Abnaks scalped him.”
“We’re at peace with the Abnaks now,” said Jack. “Martis and I had friends among the Abnaks.”
“
So did Cousin Ekbert.”
They passed the blackened stumps of some docks burned by the Heathen when they came that way.
“Were you in Ninneburky when the Zeph attacked?” Jack asked.
“That I was—and I hope I never see the like of it again!” Herger spat into the river for good luck. “Life is chancy enough, without having to worry about wars and battles coming down on you.”
Martis didn’t join the conversation. Jack knew him well enough to know why: he was always thinking of any trouble that might lie ahead, and what to do when they ran into it.
The talk petered out; the men saved their strength for paddling, and Jack enjoyed the scenery. Even more than the scenery, he enjoyed being on the river with the men, being one of them. Someday he’d be a grown man, too. That was something to look forward to.
Ahead of them towered the mountains, and Bell Mountain with its peak laid bare. For untold centuries a veil of cloud had hidden it, but after Jack and Ellayne climbed to the top and rang King Ozias’ bell, God’s hand took the cloud away.
“We did it!” Jack thought. In spite of all the dangers he and Ellayne had passed through afterward, that moment, when they rang the bell, remained to him as though it were but yesterday.
Later in the afternoon, well before sundown, Herger said it was time for them to land and make camp at a good place that he knew. “The water’s quiet there,” he said, “and a nice little creek runs through it. A little later on in the year, there’ll be blackberries. It’s one of those places where the trees don’t quite run up to the river, and you can count the stars to make you fall asleep.”
“How far have we come from Ninneburky?” Jack asked.
“As the crow flies, not so far,” said Herger. “But as the ox draws the cart along the road, about a day and a half’s journey. It’s shorter by water, of course. The road loops around some of the woodier spots.”
“Any villages nearby?” Martis asked.
“Not for miles—no one to disturb us.”
Directed by Herger, they paddled toward a bend in the south bank of the river, a quiet little cove with a lush stand of cattails. A large silvery fish jumped just ahead of them, making Jack wish they’d brought fishing gear. Overhead, a pair of wild geese honked as they flew into the west.
“I don’t hear any blackbirds in the cattails,” Martis said.
“You will,” said Herger.
A few yards from shore, Martis got out with the rope to pull the boat aground. The water came up to his knees. He had just set foot on land when harsh cries broke out from the trees.
“Hi-yi, hi-yi! Yahaa!”
Men charged them, waving clubs and knives, rushing straight at them.
“Back! Back onto the river!” Martis yelled.
But they didn’t make it back. Martis stumbled with a splash, and almost fell. Herger was so startled that his paddle slipped from his hands into the water. And by then the men were right on top of them.
The men were wild, and there were too many of them for Martis. Four of them swarmed over him. One he felled with a sharp little knife that appeared as if by magic in his hand. But the other three piled into him and they all went down together. Clubs rose and fell.
Four men laid hands on the boat, violently tipping it back and forth. Herger dove into the water and swam strongly back toward the middle of the river. Freed of his weight, the boat turned over. Jack fell out. Before he could swim a stroke, rough hands seized him and dragged him to the land.
He saw Martis float out into the current, motionless and bleeding.
A hairy, dirty man, streaming with the water, brandished his cudgel and rejoiced.
“We’ve got him!” he roared. “We’ve got the king!”
CHAPTER 3
Ysbott the Snake
“Doesn’t much look like a king, though, does he?” said one of the attackers. They spoke in Obannese, so Jack knew they weren’t Heathen. Who were they? (“And Martis is dead; Martis is dead—they killed him,” rolled around and around in his mind.)
“Never mind what he looks like. Let’s get out of here,” another man said.
“What about Snive?”
Two men pulled their fallen comrade out of the water. “He’s dead,” one of them said. So Martis had at least gotten one of them! Jack hugged the thought.
“Nothing we can do for him, then. Come on.”
They tied Jack’s hands and gagged him. The biggest man picked him up, and they all trotted into the woods.
They kept going for an hour after sundown, until they finally reached a campsite where another man was waiting by a fire. Here they stopped. Jack’s porter set him roughly on his feet and tore the gag from his mouth.
The man by the fire stood up. He was long-haired, long-moustached, crudely shaven, sharp-nosed, and clad in buckskins.
“So you got him!” he said. “Well done! We’ve succeeded where the mardar and his lovely army failed.”
“What is this?” Jack cried. “Who are you?” He had many more questions, but he couldn’t get them out, all at once. He was sore all over and could hardly stand.
The long-haired man performed a mockery of a bow.
“Ysbott the Snake at your service, Your Royal Majesty!”
“What royal majesty?” Jack said. “You’ve made a big mistake!”
“Oh, I don’t think so—King Ryons,” Ysbott answered. Now Jack remembered the name. This was one of the outlaw chiefs that Helki was trying to drive out of Lintum Forest. Well, they were out of the forest now. Ysbott and his men were a long way from home.
“You see,” said Ysbott, “it’s you and your friends who’ve made a mistake, Your Majesty. You let my men live, who captured you when you came to Lintum Forest to join up with Helki.
“I’ll admit you gave my lads a good scare—showing off your witchcraft and putting the curse of the Little People on us. But I am Ysbott, and I don’t scare so easily. When Helki sent you off to hide in Ninneburky, I made it my business to follow you. We had to be very patient, watching over that tedious little town for months on end. We were all set to come in and grab you out of the baron’s house—and then you went a-boating. That was a mistake! But your loss is our gain. Silvertown and the Thunder King will pay handsomely for you.”
Jack remembered now. Some outlaws captured them, but Ellayne made those men surrender by dazzling them with magic—something left over from the ancient times, Martis said: not really magic at all, but strange and frightening enough to convince anyone who didn’t know better. Later they’d let the men go, hoping they’d tell tales that would make the outlaws shun Helki’s settlement at Carbonek. But now their mercy had come back to bite them, Jack thought, and Martis was dead. It took all his strength, but Jack refused to weep in front of these murderers.
“I’m not the king,” was all he would say.
“Who but the king would have a witch to guard him,” Ysbott said, “and the Little People to protect his castle in the forest? Now Helki has a boy at Carbonek who he says is the king, but he’s not fooling us.”
“I’m not the king! I’ve lived in Ninneburky all my life. Anybody there can tell you that.”
“We followed you to Ninneburky from the forest, when you and the girl and the man left,” said Ysbott. “I know perfectly well who you are, Your Highness. And it’s not wise to keep insulting me with silly lies.”
I’m done for, Jack thought. I can’t get out of this. They’ve killed Martis, and there’s no one to help me.
“I’m hungry,” said one of Ysbott’s men.
But Martis wasn’t dead. The men who were trying to kill him got in each other’s way, and he was only stunned. He came to before he drowned, and had the wit to float on his back without moving, letting the river carry him out of danger. He was too weak to swim, nor did he dare to cry out after Herger. When he felt sufficiently recovered, he paddled slowly to a stand of tall grass at the river’s edge. By then Herger was long gone, swimming with the current. Martis crawled ashore and c
aught his breath.
Herger knew the river, knew where to find help. Martis trusted him to get back to Ninneburky and tell the baron what had happened. His own task would be to follow after Jack and rescue him, as soon as he was fit to walk.
It would have to wait until the morning. Not even Martis could follow a trail after dark.
Jack had friends who would risk anything to save him, but they were far away.
King Ryons and his army, along with Helki and Obst, were at Carbonek in Lintum Forest. Helki himself, or King Ryons’ wiry little Attakotts, would have no trouble running down Ysbott’s men. But none of them knew, and they had many other things to keep them busy.