by Lee Duigon
Wytt let out a shriek, and something else whooped back at him, and the brambles thrashed noisily, and an animal hopped out with Wytt in hot pursuit. It turned to snarl at him, and Jack knocked it over with a stone—he was really too close to miss. Wytt leaped onto it and skewered its side with his stick.
“We’ve got our supper!” Jack cried, overjoyed because he hadn’t missed his shot.
“What did you get?” Ellayne asked, bringing up the rear with the donkey.
Jack wasn’t sure. He bent over for a closer look. The animal lay quivering, breathing out its last breath. Wytt chattered at it. Ellayne came up while Jack was still trying to decide what it was.
“What kind of peculiar animal is that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Jack said.
It was about the size of a big tomcat, but with long hopping back feet like a rabbit’s, and long ears like a rabbit’s, too. But it had a long, straight tail, and no animal Jack knew had a tail like that, and short forelegs—and a long, delicate snout that was the last thing to stop moving when it died. Its soft brown fur was dappled with white spots down the back and flanks, like a fawn’s.
“I’ve never seen a picture of anything like this,” Ellayne said. “Do you think it’s safe to eat?”
“We don’t have much choice. I don’t much care for that dried meat we found in Hesket’s pack. I wonder if this is some kind of rabbit.”
“With a nose like that?And a long tail?”
“It hopped like a rabbit.”
“Then I hope it tastes like one.”
Jack picked up the carcass; no point in killing it if they weren’t going to eat it.
“It’s a pretty thing, whatever it is,” Ellayne said.
While the children hiked along the edge of Lintum Forest, with the mountains before them, Ashrof sat quietly in his own front room. The prester had told him not to come back to the chamber house, so he had nowhere to go.
But that wasn’t what he was thinking about.
Ashrof had lied to everyone—to the man from Obann, to the prester, to the chief councilor, and even to Jack. He’d lied by not telling anyone, not even Jack, that he’d had the dream, too. He’d heard Bell Mountain sing.
Lord Reesh would have understood why Ashrof hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about the dream. Reesh knew the verse in the Book of Prophet Ika. The least among you shall dream dreams: the boy and the maiden, the shepherd and the slave, the widow, the fatherless, and the old who are no more honored by the young. Ashrof knew it well, and knew its meaning.
It was the call of God.
He shall visit His people with judgment.
It means the end of everything, Ashrof thought. No recovery this time. We’ve had a thousand years, since God brought down the Empire, to put our house in order, and we haven’t done so. We’ve put aside the Scriptures, and the Temple is an empty house, devoid of faith. We spent a hundred years rebuilding it, and it’s empty. We’ve had a thousand years to bring the people back to God, and we’ve only let them drift further and further away.
Ashrof never doubted Jack would get to the top of Mount Yul and find Ozias’ bell and ring it. What would happen then? Would the earth crack wide open and swallow itself? Would the sky be shattered into pieces?
I should not have tried to hold him back, Ashrof thought, shouldn’t have lied to him. He was going to go up no matter what I said because God had called him. I should have told him the truth. My poor Bucket. He’s gone anyway, and he’ll never come back.
May God forgive my weakness. My long life has made me but a coward.
Jack and Ellayne had the long-snouted creature for supper: sweet, firm meat, and plenty of it. Wytt gorged himself on tail meat, eaten raw. They were all in a good mood now.
“I just thought of something,” Jack said. “As long as we can see Bell Mountain, we can never lose our way. And as it’s the highest mountain, and the only one with a cloud on top, we’ll never lose it. It’d be too bad to climb the wrong mountain!”
Night at the edge of the forest was a lot livelier than night on the plain. Owls hooted in the trees, and somewhere, farther into the woods, but not too far, a chorus of frogs broke out.
“Spring’s here for good, if frogs are calling,” Jack said. “Cold for spring, but the frogs wouldn’t be out if it were still winter. You know, back home there’s a boggy place not far from the river where you can’t put your foot down at night without stepping on a frog.”
“So that’s what it is!” Ellayne said. “I always thought it was night birds when I listened to it from my bed. I never knew it was frogs. No one ever told me.”
“They come out in the spring to lay their eggs.”
Talking about frogs and birds, and spring and summer, they fell asleep early. But they woke early, too—jarred out of sleep by another kind of noise.
Jack was having a silly dream in which he was back home in his bed, watching a mob of fat hogs squeezing into his room, grunting and whuffling. When he opened his eyes, his room was gone, but he still heard the hogs.
Beside him Ellayne was already sitting up, staring out at the plain. Above her, tethered to a sapling, the donkey snorted nervously. Ellayne clutched Jack’s arm and pointed. He sat up and looked.
“What are they?” she whispered.
The light was grey and watery with wispy drifts of mist rising from the grey grass of the plain; the sun had not yet risen over the mountains.
Out on the plain loomed large, dark forms. They were big—at least as big as bulls, Jack thought. But they weren’t any kind of cattle. They had high, bulky shoulders; and backs that sloped down; forelegs quite a bit longer than their hind legs; and long, horsey heads. There were at least half a dozen of them, and they grunted and rumbled as they came. For once Wytt was quiet; he perched on Ellayne’s lap, his little flat nose wrinkling feverishly.
“They’re coming our way!” Ellayne said. “What’ll we do?”
They came on slowly but steadily, with a very peculiar gait—it almost seemed to Jack that they were walking on their knuckles. One of them paused at a sapling; reached up with a long, powerful foreleg; and grappled the stem with a set of huge, curved, heavy claws. It pulled the tree down easily and devoured the leaves at the top.
The donkey began to tug against his tether.
“We’d better get out of their way—as far out as we can,” Jack said.
They got up and hurriedly collected their things. Breakfast would have to wait. Jack got a firm grip on the donkey’s lead before untying him from the tree. The poor beast rolled its eyes and showed the whites, gamely fighting off panic. “Easy now, easy, boy!” Jack said.
The big animals came closer. One sweep of those claws, Jack thought, and we’ve had it.
Leading the donkey, they fled into the forest, following whatever paths and openings presented themselves. It was dark under the trees, easy to bump into things. But they kept on until they couldn’t hear the grunting and the rumbling anymore. They listened for the sound of heavy bodies in the underbrush; but it was quiet now, except for the song of birds greeting the new day, and sunlight had begun to find its way to the forest floor.
“I think we’ve lost them,” Jack said.
“Did you see those claws?”
They’d come to a stop in a small clearing with brambles all around and a few enormous old oaks towering above them.
“What kind of animal has claws like that?” Ellayne said. “I suppose a bear might, but those things weren’t bears—were they? I don’t want to run into any bears!”
“Then you shouldn’t have come to the forest,” said a man.
The children startled. There stood a man at the opposite end of the clearing, barely twenty paces from them, looking like he’d been there all along.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m all alone, and I serve God.”
He wore a coarse cloth robe that reached down to his ankles, and sturdy leather sandals on his feet. He carried no weapon. His face w
as almost hidden in a squirrel’s nest of grey hair and beard; but his blue eyes, Ellayne thought, looked frank and kindly.
“My name is Obst,” he said. “I live alone out here in a cabin I built with my own hands. I came here many years ago to meditate and pray. You needn’t be afraid of me.”
That’s what Hesket would’ve said, Jack thought. But now he had Hesket’s big knife handy in the donkey’s pack.
The man smiled at them. He spoke gently.
“Come,” he said, “even a hermit is happy to have visitors sometimes. Come to my house and rest a spell. I’m sure you’ve had a long journey.”
“How do we know you’re really a hermit, and not an outlaw?” Jack said.
Obst laughed. “I don’t know how to answer that! You must take me as you find me, I suppose. If you’d rather I left you alone, I shall. I can only say that I am what I appear to be and that I’ll help you if I can.”
“Let’s go with him, Jack,” Ellayne said. “Hermits are often very wise.”
“As to that, Miss, I couldn’t say. You’ll decide for yourselves how wise I am,” Obst said.
He did look harmless, Jack thought. He looked around for Wytt, but didn’t see him. Well, that was all right: the Omah would stay close and help them if they needed him.
“We’ve already met one outlaw,” Jack said.
“I look forward to hearing all about it.”
Jack made up his mind. “All right—we’ll come with you,” he said. Obst reminded him of Ashrof, and that made Jack warm to him.
CHAPTER 17
The Man Who Missed God
Obst’s cabin blended into the woods around it, almost as if it had grown there, and not been built. Jack didn’t even see it at first. Moss grew on the door, creepers clung in sheets to the walls, and plants grew all over the roof—green grass and even a few small saplings.
“It’s beautiful!” Ellayne said. “But why do you let those plants grow over it?”
“Winter nights have gotten colder since I first came here,” Obst said, “and the summer days are hot. But inside my house, it never gets too cold or too hot. I find it very snug and cozy when snow covers it.”
“How long have you lived here?” she asked.
He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t think I can tell you that,” he said. “A long time—that’s all I know. I long ago stopped counting the days, the months, the years. All I can say for sure is that Lord Folcwan was First Prester when I came out here. I don’t remember what year it was. But come inside now. I’ll leave the door ajar, and you can hitch your donkey to it.”
The cabin had two windows, so it wasn’t too dark inside. There was only one room, but it was almost as much space as Van had in the four rooms of his house, Jack thought. This space had a hard dirt floor, swept clean, and a stone hearth and stone chimney. Bunches of herbs dangled from the beams that supported the ceiling, and in one corner lay a deep pile of fresh ferns that Jack supposed was the hermit’s bed. What the walls were made of, he couldn’t tell; they were plastered with clay.
There was a table with a chair and a three-legged stool. Obst must have made them himself. Jack saw tools hanging from pegs on the wall, and in another corner, an axe and a broom. There were also shelves on the wall, and these held clay jars, mugs, and plates—unpainted, unglazed, obviously made by the hermit as he needed them.
“Are you hungry?” Obst asked.
“We haven’t had our breakfast,” Jack said.
“Then you might enjoy my squirrel and mushroom stew. I’ll heat it up for us. Sit down wherever you please.”
Ellayne sat on the bed of ferns. Jack tried the chair, and found it solid and sturdy. Obst had an iron kettle on a tripod in the fireplace. He started a low fire under it with his tinderbox, and the smoke went up the chimney.
“We didn’t have our breakfast,” Jack said, “because some big animals were coming straight for our camp.” He described them as best he could. “We never saw animals like that before, and they scared us off. What were they?”
Obst stirred the contents of the pot. “Yes—fierce-looking, aren’t they?” he said. “They live in the forest by day and venture out onto the plain by night. They’re harmless—although I once saw one disembowel a bear that had attacked them. Those claws can kill.
“As to what they are—well, I don’t think anybody knows. Very few people live in these parts. I never saw those animals until a year or two ago, or maybe three, and I don’t know where they came from. They seem to like it here, so I suppose they’ll stay. There is no name for them. I’ve come to think of them as knuckle-bears because they look a little like bears and walk on their knuckles so as not to dull their claws. I’ve grown accustomed to them, and they to me.”
The stew was beginning to smell good, much better than anything I could cook over a campfire, Jack thought.
“Aye, there’s been many a change in the world lately,” Obst said as he stirred. “Animals that no one has a name for, and not all of them peaceful like the knuckle-bears—that’s only part of it. But finding the pair of you in my woods, two children alone, was the biggest surprise I’ve had in a long time. Where do you come from?”
Jack didn’t want Ellayne telling any daft stories that came out of her books, so he tried to get in first with “Up north.” But at the same time he spoke, she said, “Obann City.” He glared at her, and her cheeks reddened.
“Can’t agree on what to tell me, eh?” Obst said. “It shows you have reason to be cautious, and that you don’t quite trust me. Very cautious indeed—a girl trying to look like a boy.” That jolted Ellayne. “You don’t trust me. Well, I don’t blame you for that. Here, your stew’s ready.”
He spooned them each a generous portion in brown clay bowls that had hardened with his fingerprints still on them: an artistic potter he was not. He had no table utensils; Jack had to fish his own out of his pack. But the stew was warm and hearty, and the hermit insisted that they eat as much as they liked.
“I can always make more,” he said. “Here in the forest, I want for nothing. There’s a spring of sweet water nearby, and my snares are never empty. There’s always plenty of food, once you’ve learned how to get it. I’ll stay here until I come to the end of my days.”
“But don’t you get lonely?” Ellayne asked. “Don’t you miss your family and your friends? And just being around other people?”
Obst leaned against his plastered wall.
“We all miss something in our lives,” he said. “Yes—I still miss people. Sometimes I miss them very much. That’s why I’m glad you’re here. But when I lived among people in the city, I missed God. And that was worse than missing people.”
Traveling on horseback, Martis made good time across the empty land. Only it wasn’t as empty as he’d expected.
Unlike the children, he didn’t camp on the hilltops at night. He knew they weren’t natural hills, but all that remained of giant ruins, which more than a thousand years of rain, wind, ice, and the heat of the sun had ground down into the semblance of hills. But he did like to climb them to get a better view of what lay ahead.
No people inhabited this vast land, but he was surprised to find so many animals and birds. These included many kinds he’d never seen before, and he was a well-traveled man.
He knew from reports Lord Reesh had received that the few people living in the Northern Wilds had seen strange animals. No one crossed the River Winter anymore, not even the most intrepid fur trappers. They couldn’t stand the cold winters and the heavy snows, and the fierce beasts that were multiplying in those regions. And this winter, some of the beasts came south, crossing the frozen river. There were tales of huge, fearsome shapes half-seen through the grey curtain of a blizzard. As far as Martis knew, no one had been killed. “Because they ran away too fast!” Lord Reesh said.
These southern plains attracted no settlers, no trappers: people didn’t even cross them. There were no stories coming out of this country. When the Empire fell, God blasted it; an
d people stayed out of it.
So Martis was surprised to see long-legged birds hunting snakes and rodents in the grass, and animals like mice the size of dogs. Clearly God hadn’t blasted the country forever. From where Martis sat in his saddle, it didn’t look blasted. He wondered what Reesh would say about it. Maybe some settlers ought to be sent here.
Martis didn’t tarry. If the children he sought were still alive, they would cross the empty country until they came up against Lintum Forest, and then turn east toward the mountains. There was no other way that they could go. Any hope he had of picking up their trail would have to wait until he reached the forest. There were people there. Eventually someone would see the children and tell him about them.
He rode on, careful not to overtax his horse.
Before the children could finish their breakfast, it began to rain. You could tell at a glance that it was going to be one of those rains that went on and on all day.
“You won’t want to be traveling in this,” said the hermit. “Unload your donkey while I fix him a shelter where he won’t be too uncomfortable.”
What else could they do? Jack arranged Hesket’s blanket and a few other things so he could sit on it comfortably—and reach quickly under the pile and pull out the big knife, if he had need of it. Outside, right next to the cabin, Obst tied down some little trees to form a leafy canopy under which the donkey could rest without getting too wet. When he came back in, he shut the door but left the windows open.
“I can shutter them if the weather gets very bad,” he said, “but I don’t think it will. This is a spring rain, good for growing things. We’ll keep the fire going and have some more stew later.”