The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (19 page)

“Wait, my friend!” Kyo held up his hand. “I have only told you the worst. Now hear the best!

“My master the Thunder King is wise, and he appreciates your wisdom. He will not spare this temple. But he will build another temple, a grander one: not here, but in the East, within sight of his own castle at Kara Karram.

“He will not spare this temple, nor this city, but he will spare your lives. He desires that you carry on in your office as First Prester at his new temple, along with such members of your priesthood as you deem worthy to be saved along with you. All shall be there as it was here. For my master understands that if he would own the God of Obann, he must own the God’s Temple.

“You will let us into the city, as arranged; and we will take it and destroy it, as my master has commanded. But it will be my business to rescue you and your companions and conduct you safely to Kara Karram, where you will be installed as my master’s servants in a new temple to the God of Obann. There, under my master and yours, you will enjoy such authority, and safety, and luxury as you are accustomed to. Do you accept?”

Orth’s mind reeled. What would Reesh say? To refuse the offer meant death; but to accept it meant death for everyone else in the city. And yet those people would die whether Reesh accepted it or not—so which was worse? Orth was overwhelmed, he couldn’t think. But Reesh could.

“Mardar Kyo,” said the First Prester, “you must give me time to think about your master’s offer! This is not something to be decided on the spot! It has taken me very much by surprise.”

“Yes, of course,” Kyo said. “My master understands, and grants you all the time you need, within reason. But he will not bargain with you! Accept his offer, and live; or reject it, and die.” He smiled; not a pleasant smile, Orth thought. “But I am hoping that you will accept it. My master values wisdom in his servants. You will prosper, serving him.”

“My servant will tell you when I have my answer for you, Mardar.”

Kyo bowed. “Then our business for this night is concluded,” he said. “We will meet again.”

“Yes,” said Reesh: “one more time, at least.”

When Kyo departed, escorted by Gallgoid, and he was left alone in the little chamber with Lord Reesh, Orth never felt more alone in all his life. He took pride in his wisdom; but now, when he needed it most, it deserted him. He stood like a fool struck dumb, while Lord Reesh sank into his chair, pale and sweating.

“My lord First Prester!” Orth said. “This upsets all our plans. What are we to do?”

Reesh shook his head. “No,” he said. “No—it doesn’t overthrow them, but it changes them.” Orth could barely hear him, and had to lean over him to catch his words. “I said it was madness, but now I see there’s reason in it. The Thunder King has a deep and subtle mind, deeper than I thought.

“He knows he cannot go back on his spoken word and still be a god among the Heathen. But he also knows that merely destroying the Temple is not enough. He must destroy the Temple, and yet he must preserve it. Yes, there’s reason in it.”

“But surely, Excellency—”

“Be silent!” Reesh snapped at him, and there was fire in his eyes. Orth stepped back, alarmed. “Don’t be a fool! Is there anything that matters but the survival of the Temple? And this is survival—the only kind of survival we can get.”

“But, Excellency, they have tried and tried to take the city, with nothing to show for it but dead warriors—”

“They will take the city!” Reesh snarled. “They will! They’ve dug a ditch around it, and soon they’ll put up walls, and no food, no men, will be able to get in to us. They can easily stop all traffic on the river. Sooner or later they will starve us out. And there will be pestilence among us, too, if history is any guide.

“Obann will fall. Nothing can save the city. Do you think I’d stoop to dicker with barbarians if there was any hope for us? There is no hope!”

“But, my lord,” said Orth, “how can we trust these Heathen to keep their word to us? Once they’re inside the walls, what’s to stop them from killing us along with everybody else? Why should they honor any promises, once they have what they want?”

Lord Reesh did not like to be wrong about people. He’d chosen Orth as his successor because he was sure of him. Now doubt crept into his mind. Maybe if he leaned too hard on Orth for support, the man would break. Yet he had no one in mind to take Orth’s place: it was too late to find someone else.

“It’s time we went to bed,” he said. “There is only one choice open to us, but we needn’t make it hastily. We must choose so that long after we’re dead and gone, there will still be the Temple. I thought you understood that.”

What Orth understood best of all was that he didn’t want to die at the hands of men like Mardar Kyo, or be burned to death in the destruction of the Temple. Indeed, that was all he understood.

“I do, my lord First Prester,” he said. “I do.”

Soon the army would have to cross the river, somehow. Helki had his scouts out looking for boats, but there weren’t many to be had. The Heathen had taken most of them to Obann.

More important than boats, the scouts were on the lookout for any sign of movement by the enemy. Having sent out one army against him, it stood to reason that they’d send another. Yet as far as the scouts could tell, every man of them was now on the north side of the river, sitting in siege around Obann.

Helki conferred with the chieftains. Having left their big black tent behind at the castle, they held their council in the open air, after another day’s march.

“If we press ourselves a little,” Helki said, “we can be at Obann in another three days—or at least across the river from it. But I’m thinking maybe we ought to delay our crossing, maybe pass the city by as if we were headed for someplace much farther down the river. Maybe not cross until we’re quite a good ways west of the city, and then approach it from that direction.”

“That only puts it off,” said Shaffur, frowning.

“We should have brought the little girl with us,” Chief Zekelesh said. “We need a prophet to tell us what we ought to do.”

They were all discontented because they didn’t know what next to do and Helki couldn’t tell them, nor had Obst found any answer in the scrolls.

“My lords and brethren,” said Obst, “I understand your trouble. We’ve come so far from our safe place in Lintum Forest, but God has given us no sign by which we might know what to do. Therefore we must wait for one.”

“We might be able to recruit some more men farther west,” said Hennen, captain of the spearmen from Caryllick.

“Not enough to matter!” Shaffur said.

“What kind of sign might God send us, old man?” Spider, chief of the Abnaks, asked. “Or are we to wait until old age does to me what none of my enemies could do?”

Obst could only shrug. He knew the Scriptures, but nothing of the art of war.

“God will find a way to speak to us, so that all will understand,” he said. “We must trust in Him.”

“Well, it’s too late to stop trusting Him now,” said Spider. “We’re like a badger that has come out of his hole and gone too far to get back—and yet he knows a bear is stalking him.”

His son, Hlah, said, “Yes, Father—but badgers can bite, and so can we.”

This saying lightened the chieftains’ mood, and in the end they decided to pass by Obann and not cross the river until they’d marched much farther west.

“It might at least give the bear something to think about,” Helki said.

There are ruins of ancient ports along the Great Sea, but no inhabited cities. In the dim chaos following the destruction of the Empire, people stopped living in cities by the sea, and never came back. The Commentaries are silent as to the reason why. It can only be said that Obannese people dread the sea and will not live within sight of it.

Going downriver, Durmurot was the westernmost of the great cities of Obann. It stood a few miles east of where the river broke up into many streams, each seeking its own way to the sea. Men ventured into the North Mire and the South Mire, on either side of the river delta, to trap muskrat and mink and collect turtles for rich men’s soup; but no towns or farms were to be found west of Durmurot.

Lord Gwyll’s son had his country house a day’s journey upriver from Durmurot, and that was where Rhianna went with Nanny Witkom and the rest of her servants. There she prayed three times a day for the safety of her husband and for victory in his defense of the city. It was a pleasant place, with red tile roofs and white stucco walls, a showplace garden, and stables for horses and carriages. But Nanny didn’t like it there, and didn’t stay.

The third day after their arrival, she was sitting in the sun beside a pond full of ornamental fish and lily pads, when she heard a deep, sonorous voice gently calling her name.

“Here I am, Lord,” she said, for she knew it was the voice of no mortal man. It was a voice that wrapped around you like a down quilt comforter on a winter night.

“You are old, my child,” said the voice, “but you are not yet out of strength, and I will give you more strength as you need it. My child, will you go back to Obann, if I ask?”

“Gladly, Lord!”

“Then go, Nanny. And I shall be with you.”

That was all. Nanny for a few moments went short of breath. A few yards away, one of the gardeners was pruning a cherry tree. He must not have heard anything. Had she fallen asleep sitting up and had a dream?

“Poppycock!” she said to herself. “I know what a dream is, and that was no dream.” Besides, they’d told her often enough that she had “spells,” as they called them, in which she would carry on and say things she ought not to say, thinking she was a prophet speaking messages from God. That was why they’d had to take her away from Obann.

Nanny never remembered anything she said or did during one of her spells, but this experience she would remember—“Burned if I don’t!” She didn’t care if the gardener obviously hadn’t heard the voice. She had, and she would obey.

How easy it was to fool them all and sneak away! Nobody paid any attention to her. Rhianna, poor thing, was distracted by worry for her husband; she wouldn’t be herself until she felt Gwyll’s arms around her once again. Allyk had enlisted as a captain in the Durmurot militia and was not at home much, and his servants had no interest in their master’s old nanny from Obann. To them she was only a feeble old lady with her wits a little addled.

But she was not as feeble as all that. In fact, she felt quite a bit better now than she had for months. So it was a simple matter for her to assemble a bag of provisions and spare clothes without anybody noticing, and select a donkey from the stables—Allyk could well spare it—and take off early in the morning before anyone else was up.

The way to Obann was an easy one. All you had to do was follow the road that ran parallel to the river. Nanny had no fear of getting lost, and there were no robbers in this civilized part of the country. All she had to do was ride the donkey and find shelter for the night at the most likely-looking farmhouse.

“Ah! But what if they come after us, to bring us back?” she said to the donkey. “Well, my sweet, it’ll be all day before they even notice poor old Nanny’s gone; and then they won’t know where to look. And if they come this way, asking questions, who’s going to remember seeing us? Besides which, we’re on the Lord Almighty’s business, you and I. He won’t let them stop us.”

Nanny had always liked donkeys and was perfectly contented with the company of this one. What with the fine weather and the cooling promise of an early autumn in the air, she asked for nothing better than what her God had given her. She didn’t even ask what she was to do when she got back to Obann.

Jack and Ellayne took Ham, their donkey, with them when they ran away from Gilmy. But unlike Nanny Witkom, they didn’t use the road.

“There’ll be Heathen riders galloping up and down the road all day, that’s for sure,” Jack said. “This is a dumb enough thing to be doing, without asking to be captured.”

“Well, our army will have to cross the river sometime soon,” Ellayne said. “We ought to be able to find them when they do—if they don’t find us first.”