The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain) (36 page)

How could it possibly be true? Ellayne didn’t want to believe it, even though Martis had often said what an evil man the First Prester was. But how could he be a wicked man and be First Prester? How could God allow it? Ellayne’s mind reeled. Finally she could contain herself no longer.

“If the First Prester is such an evil man, and he did all those terrible things,” she cried, “then why did you stay with him so long? How could you help him let the Heathen into your own city?”

Gallgoid answered with a bitter smile. “I was his servant, little maid,” he said. “I was very good at what I did for him, and it was a good life for me. I was his assassin. If he ordered me to kill a man, I did it. Why not? He was First Prester, not I. He was the ruler of the Temple: the Temple served God, and I served Lord Reesh. Whatever he did was right. That’s what I thought.”

Chillith nodded. “So I served my master the Thunder King,” he said. “But what happened at the top of the mountain at the golden hall? Let him tell his tale, Ellayne.”

“Not much happens up there,” Gallgoid said. “It’s been snowing every day, and it’s all the slaves can do to shovel it clear. Quite a few of King Thunder’s mardars are up there, waiting for the spring when they can lead fresh armies down to Obann.

“Every night they gather in the hall and have a banquet. I was never allowed in, but my lord had to dine with the mardars every evening. The Thunder King granted my lord a private audience—trying to convince him that he really is a god. He sits on a throne above the banquet tables, and they all have to pray to him before they eat. I didn’t think much of that, but Lord Reesh prayed with all the others.

“But all day long, unless you were a mardar, or a slave who had to shovel snow, there was nothing, not a cusset thing, to do. Lord Reesh sat in his cabin and stewed. So I decided to occupy my time with something else.”

He paused. Telling the tale seemed to have given him back some of his strength.

“What did you do?” asked Chillith.

“What I’m best at, aside from killing people—sneaking around and not being noticed and keeping my ears open.

“The mardars have many servants. They eat in another hall and tend the mardars’ horses in the stables—and they talk. I never spoke to anyone except in Obannese, and they didn’t know I could understand them when they spoke to each other. They use Tribe-talk for that, and I speak Tribe-talk. I also speak Abnak, Griffish, and two or three dialects of Wallekki.

“So I listened, and I learned. I found cracks in certain walls and put my ear to them. I spied on the mardars and their servants. There’s nothing to do up there but talk, you see.

“And what I learned, I decided everybody ought to know. I now knew something that I had to bring back down the mountain. I waited for my best chance and escaped. It was snowing like mad that night. They chased me, but not very far. And I’ve been going and going ever since. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t make it back down to Obann, until you two came along.”

“Oh, stop shilly-shallying!” Ellayne cried out. “Tell us—what was this great thing you found out? What is it?”

Some moments dragged on before he answered. Ellayne jumped up and down where she stood, to get some feeling back into her feet.

“Well,” he said, “it may be that if I don’t tell you, I’ll never get a chance to tell anyone.” He looked Chillith in the eye, forgetting Chillith couldn’t see him.

“There is no Thunder King,” he said.

“What! But Lord Reesh saw him—you said he saw him!” Ellayne’s cry resounded up and down the deserted road.

“The whole East serves the Thunder King,” said Chillith.

“They serve what they can see,” Gallgoid said. “But what they see is a cheat. It’s all lies. But people are so afraid of the Thunder King, they’ll believe anything.

“There was a Thunder King, once upon a time. He conquered many nations and he claimed to be a god. People believed him. But it’s all the mardars. All lies. The real King Thunder died some twenty years ago. The mardars put up another and said it was the same man. Why not? The Great Man lived behind a mask. His name alone was worth any number of armies. People believed he and his mardars worked evil miracles. They never saw the man behind the mask. So they never knew it was a different man, and the mardars kept on conquering.”

Chillith shook his head. “The Thunder King sees and hears through his mardars. He sends his thoughts into their minds. His power flows through them.”

“More lies,” said Gallgoid. “The mardars do whatever they please, and they say it was a commandment from the Thunder King. They make their own plans and tell everyone that they received those plans from their god. Their servants put poison in the water, and the mardars say it was an evil spell. They’re adept at poisoning whole herds of cattle without the owners knowing it. They tell no end of lies, and people believe them.”

“But our gods—my people’s gods are gone,” said Chillith. “The Thunder King took them away.”

Gallgoid sighed. “Your gods were never real, my friend.”

Chillith sat in silence. His sightless eyes shone. He’s going to cry, Ellayne thought: which meant that he believed this stranger. But was that wise? All those mighty armies that had poured out of the East—that was no cheat.

No one said anything. Somewhere off in the distance, a crow cawed. Ellayne studied Gallgoid’s face, but all she saw there was a cold and tired man.

How much time passed, who could say? Ellayne couldn’t understand how the mardars could get together and deceive the whole world. Who had ever heard of such a thing? What about the magic that the mardars did? She’d heard so much about it. They knew what their master was thinking, even if he was a thousand miles away. But Jack always said there was no such thing as magic. Could he be right?

Chillith stood up suddenly.

“I see!” His voice was like a thunderclap. “I see!” He spoke some words to Gallgoid in a foreign language: Griffish, probably. Before Ellayne could ask him what he’d said, Gallgoid seized her by the arms and held her tightly, held her close.

“What is this? Let me go! What are you doing?” She struggled, but there was no getting loose.

“Peace, peace, Ellayne—be quiet, and listen to me,” Chillith said. Something in the way he said it compelled her to be still. “Dear friend, this is where we part. I shall go up alone to that golden hall and confront the Thunder King. I won’t need a guide anymore. I see.”

“I don’t believe you! You’re always saying that!” Ellayne shouted. “If you can really see, tell me what color Gallgoid’s blanket is. Tell me what he looks like!”

Chillith smiled at her. “Not that kind of seeing,” he said. “God took that kind of sight away from me because I wasn’t using it properly. Now He has given me another kind of seeing, by which I know that this man’s words are true and by which I shall be led to where I’m going. This man will go with you, back down the mountain. King Thunder’s hall is no place for you.”

“But they’ll kill you!” Ellayne said. Now she was crying, and the tears froze on her cheek.

“Maybe,” he said. “But through me the true God will destroy them.” He kissed her forehead. “Good-bye—it was a good day for me when I met you. Help Gallgoid down the mountain with his news. All the world must hear it.”

Words stuck in her throat; she couldn’t answer. She watched in numb silence as Chillith picked his way back to the road, parting the brush with his staff. Once on the road, he headed into the East with long, strong strides—just as if he could really see. He steered a straight course right up the middle of the road.

“Griffs are great walkers. He’ll be better going uphill than I am going down,” Gallgoid said.

“Let me go!”

“I had to promise him I wouldn’t. Besides, I’m nearly worn out. I need you to help me off this mountain.” He squeezed her shoulders, but not hard enough to hurt. “Don’t you think the people in Obann deserve to hear the truth? There’s nobody but you and me to tell it.”

Eventually Ellayne gave in, because she had to, and with Lord Reesh’s servant holding her hand so that she couldn’t get away, they turned back downhill.

Wytt was watching: she could be sure of that, he always watched. Sooner or later he’d do something about this. It might be dangerous for Gallgoid to go to sleep at night.

But before anything like that could happen, they met Jack and Martis coming up.

While Ellayne and Chillith were making their way up the mountain, Hlah was recovering from an illness. A few days before, a raging fever struck him down. The little community of refugees, dreading they might lose him, put him to bed in their newly finished log cabin. And first they had to build a bed.

When he came to his senses, he discovered that some surprising things had happened while he was sick.

“It’s been quite wonderful,” Sunfish, once Prester Orth, told him as he lay in bed. “The hunters you’ve trained did their best, but it wasn’t good enough. But Ootoo heard about it and sent us three freshly killed deer—plenty for everybody. And a couple of his men came to see you, although you were too sick to know they were here.”

More wonderful than that, Hlah thought, was the young refugee woman who tended him night and day—mopping the sweat from his face, spooning broth into him whenever she could, and trying to calm him when he thrashed. Hers was the first face he saw when his eyes worked again. May, her name was.

“You’ll be all right now,” she said, smiling down at him. “Everyone’s been praying for you.” And her hand was over his.

Hlah smiled back. “I’m glad God granted those prayers,” he said. It was funny, he thought: May had been around the camp all along, and he’d never noticed until now how beautiful she was.

In the spring they were married, Sunfish reciting the service over them. Nor was theirs the only such marriage in those hills. It was the beginning of a whole new people, half-Abnak, half-Obannese,who dwelt among the wooded hills on the west side of the mountains: hunters, trappers, settlers, and traders who believed in God and did their best to live in peace.

Wytt came running up first. He’d gone back and found them, and Jack and Martis hurried after him, huffing and puffing. Ellayne recognized them from a distance—who else, after all, could they be?—twisted her hand loose from Gallgoid’s and ran to meet them. She threw her arms around Jack’s neck: she really couldn’t help it. Nor could he help hugging her, but not for long.

“That was some trick—sneaking off without us!” he said. “I ought to brain you.”

“Just try it!” she answered. “Anyway, I knew you’d come, so it wasn’t really going without you.”

They might have had an argument, only then Gallgoid trudged down to join them, and when he saw Martis, he stopped in his tracks.

“Martis!” he said. “For a moment there, I didn’t know you.”

“Gallgoid,” Martis answered.

“We all thought you were dead.”

“Disappointed?” Martis asked.

Something between the two men made the children forget their own quarrel. “You know this man?” Jack asked Martis. Ellayne remembered that she hadn’t told Gallgoid anything about herself—including the fact that she’d been traveling all over Obann with another assassin from the Temple.

“What are you doing with Ellayne?” Martis said; and to Ellayne, “Has he hurt you?”

“I only just met him, Martis. Chillith sent me away with him. He’s going up alone—and the Thunder King’s up there!”

“Up where?” Jack said.

“Up on top of the mountain, stupid—up there!” Ellayne pointed up the road. “They’ll kill him when he gets there. Can’t we do something to save him?”

“Whoa!” Martis put up his hand. “First some explanations, please!” He pointed at Gallgoid. “You first.”

It took some doing, to get the explanations out. Ellayne had already heard Gallgoid’s story, but it was just as hard to believe the second time around. Martis admitted to being the children’s protector, but Gallgoid wouldn’t let it go at that.

“Lord Reesh sent you out to kill these children, didn’t he?” he said. “He often spoke of it. He couldn’t believe you failed. We all heard King Ozias’ bell. That’s how he knew you’d failed him.