The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (5 page)

Commentators didn’t even know what the ancients meant by “hairy ones.” Some sort of mythological creature, Lord Reesh would have said, like a dragon or a unicorn. “Scripture is full of folklore and mythology,” he used to say. He believed hardly a word of it. And yet here it is, Martis thought, a mythological creature, right before my eyes. Just like the bell on Bell Mountain.

The thought that the Scripture might be true, cover to cover, he found a dreadful one. Some of it was true, no doubt; but the rest of it was only stories. The Children of Geb escaping from the Deluge on stepping-stones across the sea, which God raised up for them, sinking each one as the fugitives passed over; the wicked King of Kesh, whose sorcerers built him a golden colossus that could talk; the Hundred Mighty Men who were slain by treachery, but whom God raised up again—surely these and all the rest were only stories. Every scholar said so.

But at least in respect to the existence of the hairy ones, it seemed the scholars were all wrong. And where, Martis wondered, does that leave us?

In this frame of mind he toiled down the mountain, leading his horse, Dulayl, and the children’s donkey, Ham, while Jack and Ellayne raced ahead after their little hairy friend.

“It beats me how Obst could have come so far,” Jack said. “He was so sick, and he was sure he was going to die.”

“Well, he must’ve gotten better,” Ellayne said. “Maybe hearing the bell made him better.”

“I don’t see how hearing a bell could make anybody well again. Especially a bell that’s supposed to mean the world is coming to an end.”

Ellayne spun around and glared at him. “I’m sick of your saying that!” she cried. “The world hasn’t come to an end, has it? But what do you know? You’re just a carter’s brat; you’ve never been to school. You just say it because you heard Obst say it, and poor old Ashrof, back home. And maybe they were wrong! Why should God need someone like you to ring a bell so He can end the world? He could end it anytime He wanted to!”

Martis intervened. “Ellayne—shush! I strongly advise both of you not to raise your voices. There are Heathen scouting parties on this mountain.”

Ellayne then remembered the murdered men they’d found on their way up, trappers killed by savages, and fell silent instantly.

“I can’t help it that my father died and my mother married a fool who drives a cart for the town council,” Jack said. “That doesn’t make me stupid.”

“It doesn’t make you smart, either.”

Much of the afternoon went by before the two were speaking to each other again. Then they had to stop and gather nuts and mushrooms for a meager supper, and the camp they made on the trail had little to offer in the way of comfort.

In the morning Wytt picked up Obst’s trail again, and they followed it for most of the day until Wytt stopped and jabbed the stony ground with his stick, squealing and clicking.

“What’s he saying?” Martis asked. How the children could understand the Omah was beyond him.

Jack shook his head. “He’s saying Obst met somebody here, two men, and went off with them.”

“Let me have a look.”

Martis knelt. His eyes were not as keen as Wytt’s, and his nose was no help to him; but he had experience enough to see in the earth and foliage ample proof that Wytt was right.

“Obst has been captured by the Heathen,” he said. “Look here: the Heathen sew their moccasins together, and they don’t use nails, as we do; so there are no marks of nails in the earth. No sign of a struggle, either. He went with them peacefully.”

“What will they do to him?” Ellayne said.

Martis shrugged. They would probably kill him; what use would they have for an old man? But he didn’t tell the children that.

“The Heathen are spying out the ways across the mountains. There’s going to be a war,” he said. “So anyone they meet, they won’t let go again.”

“Then people have to be warned!” Jack said.

“The Temple already knows, Jack. This war has been brewing for some time. On their side of the mountains, the Heathen have been coming together, making treaties, swearing oaths, preparing armies. It’s going to be a big war. You can be sure the oligarchs are doing everything they can to make ready for it.”

Jack was astounded. For how long had the Temple known? Why hadn’t the rulers of Obann said anything to the people? But Ellayne said, “What about Obst, though? We ought to try to rescue him.”

“They’d only capture us, too,” Martis said. “And then, war or no war, they would probably sell you to the Temple—if they didn’t sell you away out East, as slaves.

“We have to get off this mountain as fast as we can and find a safe place to hide. Lord Reesh will not forget you. And the war will not spare you, if you get in its way.”

“But we can’t just leave Obst with the Heathen!”

“Ellayne, would he want you to come to grief on his account?” Martis answered her. “But be comforted by this. I know the Heathen. I’ve spent some time with them. I count a few of them among my friends. It was a Heathen tribesman who gave me this horse, after my own was devoured by a giant bird.

“They are not all bad. They understand, as well as we do, such things as generosity, hospitality, and honor. They might be gentler with Obst than you expect.”

And they might be much more savage with him, too, he thought. But he didn’t say it to the children.

Obst’s captors took him to a camp farther down the mountain. A dozen scouts were there, mostly tattooed Abnaks, with a tall Wallekki in command. This man agreed that Sharak and Hooq must take their prisoner all the way down to the big camp, where war-bands were gathering to come over the mountains.

“Take him down first thing in the morning,” said the captain of the scouting party.

“Why don’t we just lift his scalp here and now?” said one of the Abnaks. “Why should they have all the fun down below?”

“If anyone’s scalp is lifted, it’ll be yours!” Hooq answered him. “This is our prisoner, no one else’s. And if you weren’t such a fool, you would see he is a rare kind of shaman who speaks all languages.”

“It’s not hard to learn our language,” said another scout. “There are many westmen traders and trappers who have learned it.”

Hooq flourished his hatchet. “I tell you,” he said, “this old man speaks even the speech of birds and knows the thoughts of trees!”

No one but Obst found this statement very remarkable. Had he known the Heathen customs better, he would have known that the Abnaks, poorest of all the Heathen peoples in lands and possessions, were the most richly endowed in the gift of the imagination. All the other nations knew this, and knew better than to put much stock in anything an Abnak said, once he was excited. But no one would call an Abnak man a liar, unless he wanted a fight to the death.

“I know a language he can’t speak!” said a man with a tattoo of a snake slithering over his eyebrows. “My mother was a slave, and she was sold many times, each time farther east. So I was born in the land of Chardzhu, on the far shore of the Lake of Islands.”

He stepped up to Obst and addressed him—in words that Obst heard in simple Obannese. “I think you’re a fraud, old man, lying to save your worthless skin. If you can understand me, answer me in the language of Chardzhu. But I don’t think you can.”

Obst spread his hands helplessly. “How can I explain it, except as a gift from God? I have understood every word you’ve said; but to my ears, you have spoken in the speech we use west of the mountains. And that’s the only language I know. That each of you hears my words in his own tongue is a miracle of God.”

The man’s jaw dropped; but they were all amazed.

“By all the holy serpents, he spoke Chardzhu!” the snake-man swore. “And yet he claims he doesn’t!”

“I told you he’s a shaman,” Hooq said.

Poor Obst wasn’t even sure what a shaman was: some kind of witch, perhaps.

“What’s this god he speaks of?” a scout demanded. “There are as many gods as there are acorns in the forest. Which one gives him the power to speak all tongues?”

“But, my friends, hear me!” Obst said. He was the tallest man there, and when he raised his arms over his head, he towered over them. “It’s not a question of which god; for there is only One. The One God, the True God, has chosen me to speak to you.

“You all heard the bell on Bell Mountain. It rang two days ago. And you were meant to hear it.

“God, who made the world, has decided to unmake it. But before He does, He wishes for all men to know Him, and to save the souls of all who might be saved. That bell rang for you, my friends. It was telling you to turn to God, to acknowledge Him the one and only God, so that you may inherit the new world He creates in place of this one. But the time is short! That’s what the bell was telling you.”

The Heathen stared at Obst and at each other.

“What’s a soul?” asked one of the Abnaks.

“It must be shaman talk,” said another.

“Now you can all see why he must be taken down below,” said the Wallekki who commanded them. This time all the men agreed.

And so Obst, who wanted only to be a hermit living all alone in Lintum Forest, became a missionary to the Heathen.

Coming down from the mountain, even with Martis to help them, took Jack and Ellayne several days. They had to stop, too, to gather food. Jack was lucky enough to bag a squirrel with his slingshot, and in one of their snares they caught an animal the likes of which none of them had ever seen before.

It was about the size of a small dog, the color of a fawn, but with white stripes instead of spots, and feet with little toes instead of hooves. Along the top of its neck stood a stiff mane of bristly black hair; and it had large, liquid eyes. Ellayne had to turn away when Martis killed it.

“I’ve been in these mountains before,” he said, “but I’ve never seen one of these.”

Wytt stood over it and chattered. “He thinks it’s a horse,” Jack said. “Well, it’d be about the right size horse for him. Maybe if we could catch one alive, he could learn to ride it.”

“What do the Scriptures say about all these new kinds of animals coming along?” Ellayne said. “Remember the knuckle-bears!”

“And the giant bird I saw that night,” Jack said, “and that great beast that ate a knuckle-bear.”

“I’ve seen the birds, too,” Martis said. He was thinking of the monster bird that killed his horse and devoured it, and the birds that chased him and Dulayl across the plain and nearly caught them: only the Heathen horse’s speed saved them.

He had never been so afraid of anything in all his life. But now, coming down from the mountain, those creatures seemed less fearsome. The black, mind-paralyzing terror that had almost unseated his reason—he’d lost that. He didn’t think he would ever be afraid like that again.

“I don’t know the Old Books much better than you do,” he said. “I can’t think of any verse or fascicle that speaks of such things.”

“It doesn’t make much sense for God to bring a lot of new animals into the world if He’s going to destroy it soon,” Ellayne said. It was all very confusing, Jack thought.

They had the striped animal for supper, and found its meat sweet and succulent.

“I think we’d be wise to make for Lintum Forest and get there as fast as we can,” Martis said. “We can keep to the fringes of the forest if we decide to go on to Obann. We don’t know when the war will break out, and we don’t want to be caught on the open plains when it does.”

“My father was in the militia,” Jack said. “He fought the Heathen.”

Jack’s father died right after Jack was born, so Jack had never known him. He envied Ellayne her family: her father and mother were still alive, and she had brothers. That they lived in a fine big house, and her father was chief councilor of Ninneburky, he didn’t envy. But he supposed that was why Ellayne refused to believe the world was soon to end: it must have been a very happy world for her.

And yet she’d left it all behind to journey to Bell Mountain with him. No one else would have.

“Martis,” Ellayne said, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. I hope you don’t mind. How old are you? You have a young man’s face, but your beard is as white as snow. Was it always white?”

Martis’ hand went involuntarily to his chin. “White? My beard is white?” he said. “But it should be brown, like the hair on my head.”

“It’s white now,” Jack said.

Well, how long had it been since he’d looked into a mirror? Martis shrugged. “It was brown when I went up the mountain,” he said.

“Abombalbap once met a young prince whose hair turned snow-white after he spent a night in the Accursed Tower,” Ellayne said. The old stories of Abombalbap were her chief source of knowledge concerning adventures.

“Never mind,” Martis said. “This’ll make it harder for Lord Reesh’s new assassin to recognize me if he sees me.”