by Lee Duigon
The last glimpse Fnaa got of the limp body dangling from the rope was of some white things floating away from it, fluttering down to the street, where people ran to pick them up. Then Chagadai laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke something Gholish into his ear, which Fnaa didn’t understand. But Gurun did.
“He says it’s not a real body,” she translated. “He urges you to show no fear at all.”
“I’m not afraid,” Fnaa said. He was confused, not frightened. “But let’s not stay here.”
Gurun signaled to the knights, the banner-bearer, and the crier. They cleared the way and got the procession moving again. Fnaa waved to the people, but knew better than to smile. No one had to tell him that the strange incident at the warehouse had upset the people’s mood.
“What’s it all about?” he wondered.
“We’ll find out later,” Gurun said. “Someone has already hauled the dummy back onto the roof. But don’t let the people see you gawking at it.”
By mid-afternoon Gallgoid’s men had collected some of the white things that had fluttered down from the warehouse roof. They were pieces of white cloth with messages written on them. These he displayed to the chiefs and Gurun at the end of the day. For the benefit of the chiefs who could not read Obannese (most of them), Gallgoid read the messages aloud.
“They are short, my lords, but to the point,” he said. “For instance: ‘No Temple, no God in Obann!’ And ‘The Lord’s New Temple has risen in the East.’ And ‘Your prayers are not heard, Obann.’
“I myself knew of this,” said Gallgoid, “when I was in Lord Reesh’s service. Lord Reesh was to be First Prester at the New Temple, built by the Thunder King at Kara Karram. This was to replace the Temple in Obann. This Temple was to be subservient to the Thunder King. But someday, Lord Reesh said, the Thunder King would die, and then the New Temple would come into its own. It would become the Temple for the whole world, on both sides of the mountains.”
Shaffur, the Wallekki chieftain, scowled. “What do we care for the words of a traitor?” he said.
“My lord, I admit I was a traitor,” Gallgoid answered. “I helped Lord Reesh betray our Temple to the Heathen. Prester Orth was also his confederate. It’s because I was a traitor that I know things that will serve you now.
“Lord Reesh and the Thunder King were killed in the avalanche at the Golden Pass. There is a new Thunder King now, claiming to be the same King Thunder that we knew before, the man at the Golden Pass being but a servant. To the people of Obann he offers his New Temple in the place of the one that was destroyed. You’ll hear much more of this, as time goes by. What effect it will have on the people of this city, no one knows.”
Chief Zekelesh spoke up. “Where is the king? He should be here, if only just to listen and to learn.”
“He is having his supper,” said Gurun.
Uduqu, chief of the Abnaks, rose from his chair. “I’ll go see him,” he said. “It did my heart good to see him go riding today. Anyhow, I don’t know what we can do about those messages. Who can understand city people?”
“My lord, I’ll try to find out who wrote them,” Gallgoid said. “Whatever you decide to do about it then, it would best be done quietly.”
“Call me when the fighting starts,” said Uduqu.
One thing Fnaa liked about being king was that they fed you well. This evening he dined on fresh-caught catfish from the river and honey-cakes and watered wine. He had his meal on a table in his bedchamber with his mother supposedly waiting on him, but, once the door was shut, dining with him to keep him company. He told her about his ride through the city. He knew the matter troubled her, but for his sake she put on a good face. “Just some fool playing a stupid prank,” she said.
They were just about finished with their supper when Gurun came in with Uduqu.
Of all the king’s councilors, Uduqu was the one Fnaa feared the most. They sang a song about him in the city, of how he’d cut two men in half with one sweep of a sword. There were those who swore they saw him do it. Long ago, some enemy warrior had tried to break out Uduqu’s brains with an axe; the wound healed in a way that made the tattooed face even more fearsome to behold. Fnaa’s supper shifted in his stomach when he saw him. But Uduqu sat down on the king’s bed as if it were his own.
“I don’t know about Your Majesty,” he said, “but sometimes I miss my old deer-hide tent, and sitting around the fire with the other chiefs, smoking tree-beans like we did when we were boys. Those were good days, weren’t they?”
Fnaa wished the old Abnak would leave. What was he doing here? But Uduqu didn’t leave.
“I remember how you used to sass us—and you were still a slave!” he said. “Poor Obst, he would just about faint every time you did it. But it always made us laugh, and we all agreed that you were talking like an Abnak. Don’t you remember?”
He had to say something; so Fnaa said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Uduqu. “How could you remember those things? You’re not Ryons.”
Those words made for a perfect stillness in the room. Fnaa could not have answered if his life depended on it. The corners of his mother’s mouth went tight.
“My lord—” Gurun started to say; but when Uduqu looked her in the eye, she couldn’t finish.
“I want to know where King Ryons is,” he said. “I’m mighty fond of that boy, and he’s our king—God gave him to us. This boy here—” he jerked his head at Fnaa—“fooled me for a while. But you couldn’t keep it up forever. He looks like Ryons as one pea looks like another, but looks aren’t everything.”
Fnaa saw Gurun’s face go pale. He hadn’t thought she could be afraid of anything, but she was afraid now.
Dakl got up from the little table and bowed her head to Uduqu.
“My lord,” she said, “you mustn’t blame the queen for anything. True, this is not King Ryons, but my own son. Let your anger fall on us, and not Queen Gurun.”
“Ha! Who said I was angry?” Uduqu answered. He grinned at Gurun. “You ought to know I’d never think you’d do anything against the king. I know you wouldn’t harm a hair on his head, no more than I would. But tell me why this boy is here, and not the king! At my age, I know how to keep a secret; and I’ll lift the scalp of any man who twitches a finger against you. And will you two women please sit down!”
Fnaa and Dakl let Gurun tell the tale, all of it. Uduqu listened without interrupting.
“So, as you can see,” she finished, “the city is full of treason. I was afraid of what might happen if it became known the king was missing. Where he has gone, no one knows. Obst said he went willingly and took his dog, Cavall, with him.”
Uduqu rubbed the knotted scar on his forehead. “So Obst knew about this, and he didn’t tell me,” he said. “But what about Gallgoid? Does he know, too?”
“If he does, I have not told him,” Gurun said.
“You were wise, girl. This city is a hornets’ nest, and easily stirred up. But someone has to find the king, and I don’t see anyone trying to do it.”
“No one knows where to look. And Obst says we must wait for God to give us guidance.”
Uduqu spent some moments pondering. “Chagadai ought to be told,” he said. “Otherwise he’ll figure it out for himself, sooner or later. But if we can’t trust the Ghols, we can’t trust anyone.”
“It seems to me,” said Gurun, “that God took Ryons out of this city to protect him, that he was in danger here.”
“Which means that I’m in danger now!” Fnaa blurted out.
“I think,” said Uduqu, “that probably we all are.”
Chapter 18
“By Commandment of the First Prester”
Now that he had an Obannese wife and a baby son on the west side of the mountains, Hlah the son of Spider found himself on the eastern slopes, scouting in the service of King Ryons.
Hlah was one of that Heathen army that converted to belief in God and fought against the Th
under King. Until he fell sick, got well again, married, and had a child, it had been his dream to return to the Abnaks’ country and proclaim God there. He was there now, but for a different purpose: to try to find out the enemy’s plans. For no one believed the Great Man in the East would ever leave Obann at peace.
Every rumor led him on and on toward Silvertown. When he crossed back over to the west side of the mountains, he would be there. A Heathen army occupied the place, having captured the city and gutted it with fire.
“You’ll have to go to Silvertown,” a Wallekki trader told him, days ago. “Then you’ll see why the northern clans don’t rise against King Thunder—much as they would like to!”
The Abnaks had risen. There were no more mardars in the foothills to compel obedience to the Thunder King. Up and down the valley of the Green Snake River, the Fazzan tribes had thrown off the yoke. King Thunder’s invasion of Obann, and the disaster of it, had shaken his power over many nations.
But not here. On the mountain paths that led to Silvertown, Hlah saw bodies hanged from trees; and on some of the trees were nailed placards. Upon them, in Obannese, were written messages, most of them concluding with the words, “By Commandment of the First Prester.”
Now Hlah knew that First Prester was the title of the highest official of the Temple in Obann. There was no more Temple in Obann, and no First Prester. But the dead bodies warned him to proceed cautiously. As an Abnak and a hunter, Hlah stayed off the paths and melted into the underbrush, becoming invisible and silent whenever he heard a cart or a squad of warriors coming.
At the top of the pass he came upon a woman weeping by a tree. Above her dangled the body of a man. The woman waved a leafy branch, trying to keep the ravens off the man. Because she was all alone and he was curious, Hlah stepped out of the woods. He picked up a stick, threw it, and clouted a raven. He roared at them and they flew away. They’d be back, but not immediately.
“May God uphold you,” he said to the woman. Hlah spoke perfect Obannese, with a mountain accent.
“Thank you.” She wiped tears from her eyes. Her face was dirty. She waved at the body. “This was my husband,” she said. She wanted to say more, but couldn’t.
Hlah read the placard on the tree. “Behold: This one rebelled against the Temple. Hanged by Commandment of the First Prester.”
“There is no First Prester anymore,” Hlah said. “How can this thing be?”
The woman shook her head. “There’s a New Temple somewhere in the East. That’s what they say. There’s a man in Silvertown who calls himself First Prester—a monster who delights in the Heathen and drinks the blood of his own people.” She took a closer look at Hlah. “But who are you, that you look like an accursed Abnak and yet show kindness to me?”
“I serve God,” Hlah said. “The Temple in the East is not a temple to the Lord, and any man who pretends to be First Prester is worse than a Heathen. God will punish them, who do such things.”
“God has forgotten us,” the woman said.
She couldn’t tell him any more; she wouldn’t leave the tree; and there was nothing he could do for her, so Hlah went on his way to Silvertown. He would have to go some distance down the mountain. This he accomplished in two more days, taking care that no one should see him.
Finally he looked down on Silvertown. He’d seen it once before, a prosperous city with a stout stone wall, the center of Obann’s mining operations in the mountains.
Now it was a sprawling jumble of huts and tents and the frames of burned-out buildings. Some half-baked effort had been made to restore the wall, resulting in a haphazard pile of stones. Most of them were raised around a log fort of some kind, which looked new and clumsily constructed.
Above all else it was an army camp, and a big one. Hlah recognized the standards of half a dozen Wallekki clans flapping from poles. He smelled their stabled horses and their cooking fires.
He saw Zephites in their horned helmets that made them look like bulls, and black men from the distant South with their short spears and cowhide shields, and warriors from assorted nations around the Great Lakes—many thousands of men, all told. It was fear of this army, he thought, that held the Wallekki in submission. It could just as easily march east as west.
One thing he didn’t see was any sign of Abnaks. But there were gangs of Obannese men toiling on the tracks that led west, laboring to improve them into roads fit for the great machines of war. The whole scene reminded him of a very busy ant hill.
Where, he wondered, was the new First Prester? How had he become First Prester? He would have to talk to people, to find out. But with the Abnaks in revolt against the Thunder King, it wouldn’t do for him to get too close to the city. Some of the warriors down there were Zamzu, eaters of men. Hlah had seen them do it.
He spent many more minutes studying the place, fixing everything in his memory. Then, staying away from the paths, he began his trek down the mountain.
At the same time, Martis was in the tent city at Cardigal, buying provisions for the rest of his journey to Obann. He would have to talk to Gurun before he could begin searching for Jack and Ellayne. She might know something that could help him find them. She would at least know why they’d gone to Obann in the first place.
As he turned from a stall where he’d just bought oats for Dulayl, his horse, a little girl accosted him. She was younger than Ellayne and carried an earthen cup in her hand.
“Give to the New Temple, mister?” she said.
“What new temple is that?” he asked; but apparently she didn’t know, because she only shrugged.
“Here, you!” said the man who sold the oats. “Don’t you go bothering people with that nonsense!” And the little girl turned and ran away.
“What was she talking about?” Martis asked.
“Oh, that’s one of Prester Lodivar’s little beggars,” the man said. “They say there’s a New Temple being built, way out in Heathen lands—as if anyone could have a proper temple there! Wicked foolishness, I call it.”
“Cardigal’s prester is doing this?” Martis wondered.
The man spat on the ground. “He may be some folks’ prester, but he’s none of mine,” he said. “We had our own prester—and a fat lot of good he was to us—ran away from town when the Heathen came, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. This fellow Lodivar, I don’t know where he comes from. But the Temple’s burned down and there’s no First Prester, so I don’t know who could’ve sent him here. Sent himself, I guess. And now he’s raking in money from travelers and such who don’t know any better. If you ask me, he’s just a common cheat who ought to be horsewhipped out of town.”
Martis would have liked to learn more, but he’d already stayed too long in Cardigal. He fed a ration of oats to Dulayl and continued his ride to Obann.
The fine weather held; Perkin was excellent company; and Ryons was enjoying himself. Perkin was teaching him how to use a sling, and Ryons, in dribs and drabs, told Perkin of all the adventures he’d had since that day Obst was first brought to the Heathen camp where Ryons was a slave. From time to time he worried about the friends he’d left behind in Obann, but there was nothing he could do about that. Besides, he’d gotten to the point where he could touch Baby without cringing. Cavall didn’t seem to think much of that, but he was too wise to start a jealous confrontation with a giant bird.
“There’s just one thing that troubles me,” said Perkin. “That hawk up there—it’s been following us for three days. Every time I look up, there it is. It’s not natural for a hawk to do that.”
It would have elated Ryons to know it was his own hawk, Angel, watching over him at Queen Gurun’s command. But of course she was too high up in the sky for him to recognize her.
“It can’t hurt us, can it?” he said.
“Not unless you believe those old stories about witches being able to spy on people by looking through the eyes of birds! No, it can’t hurt us. But I don’t like it when I don’t understand a thing. The plain lo
oks peaceful,” Perkin said, “but it’s not. You have to be careful out here.”
“I know.” Ryons remembered a beast he called a death-dog. He and Cavall had met it on their way to Obann. It would have killed them both, had it not been scared away by the bellow of the great beast that God had sent to guard him—the great beast that he rode to the rescue of Obann. He wondered where the great beast was now.
At midday they climbed a high hill that looked eastward, and Perkin pointed to a smudge on the horizon.
“Lintum Forest,” he said. “Another three days’ march will get us there.”
“Then we’ll look for Helki,” Ryons said.
“The man who killed the giant, I heard about that. Wish I’d seen it.”