Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) (16 page)

“I see you hold this hermit in high esteem—otherwise you’d have helped yourselves to all his wine,” Martis said. He took a sip and found it better than good. “How has he earned your respect? Tell me all about him. The Temple is very interested in him.”

Bort sat by the fire. “We all like Obst,” he said. “He’s a healer, and he doesn’t ask questions or take sides. His house is a safe place for anyone who visits it. All he asks is peace, so there’s no fighting, no killing here. If men have a quarrel, and they end up here, they set it aside for a little while. More often than not, Obst patches it up between them. We think a lot of him for that. Makes life easier for everyone.”

Humbug, Martis thought. “I can hardly wait to meet him,” he said. “If I set out after him tomorrow, do you think I might catch up?”

“Ought to catch up easily, you being on horseback and him with two children to take care of.”

Martis took care to reveal nothing beyond a mild curiosity about the children. But this was splendid news! His mission was all but accomplished. He’d found them. Now all he had to do was follow them up Bell Mountain and see what they found at the summit.

“Are they safe with the hermit?” he asked.

“Safe enough,” Bort said. “He has a safe-conduct from Latt. But that won’t stop someone from grabbing the kiddies, someone who doesn’t care what Latt thinks of it. I admit there’s some like that.”

“Funny about that donkey, though,” Tumm said.

“Donkey? What donkey?”

“Oh, the kiddies had a donkey that looked like one that belongs to a friend of ours, Hesket the Tinker,” Bort said. “Obst said it belonged to the kids. I’d say they must’ve stolen it from Hesket, only you couldn’t steal as much as a wink from him. He’s the best thief in the country. Anyhow, Obst wouldn’t steal, not even from a thief.”

Martis didn’t tell them that their friend the thief lay dead on the plain. The children must have picked up the donkey as it wandered loose without a master.

They were prospering, he thought. They’d acquired a beast of burden and a guide. As a pupil of Lord Reesh, Martis did not attribute this to God’s watchful benevolence. But there was such a thing as good luck, and it seemed these children had it.

By and by, as the fire in Obst’s hearth burned down, the three men unrolled their blankets for sleep. Martis closed his eyes but kept his ears open, pretending to slumber. He could tell by the sound of him that Bort was pretending, too—although Tumm did drop off, soon enough. Martis wondered if all three of them would still be alive by the morning. He knew he would be.

As the night wore on, his thoughts wandered to the old volume of Scripture that the hermit kept on his shelf, and from there to older books that Reesh had in his private library, relics of the days of the Empire.

“There are secrets in these books, Martis,” the First Prester said, when he showed them to his servant. “I’ve kept these secrets, and you must keep them, too. They are secrets of a glorious age—glorious days that will come again, if we do our work well.”

The books contained marvels, he said: things that the world had forgotten. His eyes glowed as he spoke of them.

“Ships that traveled to the farthest isles without the need of sails. Enormous carriages propelled by fire. Weapons to demolish a city’s walls in an instant.

“And things that seem impossible—miraculous! Things we haven’t yet begun to understand. The ancients built devices that were capable of flight, like birds. And they knew a way to speak to one another over great distances as easily as I’m speaking to you.

“It was all lost, Martis, destroyed in the ruination of the Empire. But we can find it again, if we can unlock the secrets contained in these books.”

Very, very quietly—but still making enough noise to interrupt Martis’ reverie—Bort and Tumm got up and collected their blankets. Martis had his knife in his hand, but he didn’t need it. Almost soundlessly, the two outlaws crept out of the cottage and retreated into the woods.

Then Martis permitted himself to sleep.

Obst said they would have to collect more food before they could move on and that this was a good part of the forest for it. He showed Jack and Ellayne where to dig for edible bulbs while he went off to set snares. “A pity you couldn’t have come during berry season,” he said.

He’d just gone off, and the children were poking sticks into the ground to loosen the roots, when a deep voice behind them said, “Hello! What’s this?”

It was a great big man, a huge man, and they hadn’t heard him coming: not a whisper of a leaf against his thighs, not the least crackle from the dead leaves on the forest floor. He stood right behind them, with a long staff in one hand and the other on his hips, tall, with wide shoulders and a barrel chest. He wore clothes that seemed to be made of nothing but patches, and no two of them the same color. His fair hair was a thicket, complete with burrs and bits of leaf.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my woods?” he said. “Speak up!” And he shook his staff at them.

Jack’s tongue froze. Obst had told them not to speak to anyone they met. But where was Obst?

“Please, sir—we’re looking for the Seven Hags,” Ellayne said. “Have you seen them?”

The huge man stared at her for a second, then threw back his head and laughed. He sounded like two houses being banged together.

“Oh! You mean
those
Seven Hags!” he said. “Why, they’ve all gone off with Abombalbap. Gone off to visit the Chief Giant in his castle!”

He was more frightening when he laughed, Jack thought. What sane man would laugh so loud? And if he wasn’t the chief giant of these parts, who was?

“Burn me if I don’t know a princess when I see one, even when she travels in disguise,” he said, when at last he’d stopped guffawing. “Quick, now, princess—where do you come from, and what’s your business with the Seven Hags?”

Before Ellayne could answer, his face suddenly went grim and he spun around as fast as lightning. His staff made a terrifying
swoosh
! as it clove the air.

It missed Obst’s skull by a finger’s width.

“Ha!” he cried. “That was pretty good sneaking, Obst, but not good enough. I had you pegged, old man—just waiting for you to come closer.”

“Almost too close, Helki,” said the hermit.

“No—I knew it was you all along,” the huge man said. “I’ve been watching you all morning. Never knew I was here, did you? Admit it!”

“Not until you laughed. There’s no one who can touch you for woodcraft, and that’s the truth. But I hope you haven’t terrified these children.”

“Me—frighten children? Don’t be daft. I was just having a little fun with ’em. They’ll tell you so themselves.”

Obst came up and clapped the big man’s shoulder. “Children, this is Helki—Helki the Rod, we call him. He looks ferocious, but he wouldn’t hurt you. He’s not even an outlaw.”

“He knows about the Seven Hags,” Ellayne said. “I thought they were only in my storybook.”

“I don’t know about books,” said Helki, “but Lintum Forest is full of stories, and I reckon I know burnt-near all of ’em. They’re part of the place, like the trees. I can show you the spot where King Ozias was born and a great hole in the ground that used to be the castle where the Enchantress kept Abombalbap prisoner for a year and a day.

“But even better, I can show you the carcass of a buck I killed just yesterday, and Obst won’t have to bother to set snares if you want to eat. That is, if you’d like to visit my camp. It’s not far.”

Helki led them to his camp, moving silently through narrow places along the path where the children and their donkey made a noisy thrashing. He didn’t hurry, but his strides were so long that even Obst had to hustle to keep up. In half an hour they were at a clearing where a deer hung on a makeshift tripod to be cleaned and a lean-to stood over a bed of green ferns. A pile of firewood lay beside a circle of blackened stones.

“Sit down. Start a fire if you’d like a cup of tea. I’ll cut some venison for you,” Helki said. “And then, Obst, you can tell me who these children are and what you’re doing with them.”

There were logs to sit on. Obst got the fire going. He brewed some tea that Helki had in his pack. “Good stuff,” Helki said, “from beyond the mountains and away down south.” It had an aroma that made Jack think of apple blossoms, and a flavor that he couldn’t place. “Almonds,” Helki said; but Jack didn’t know what almonds were.

Helki stood a log on end and sat on it. “Well,” he said, “tell me your tale.”

“I’d rather not,” Obst said, “except to say that what I’m doing, I do in God’s service. You understand.”

The giant nodded. “I reckon I do. All right, so be it. But I’ll tell you one thing. You’ll have to cut the girl’s hair a bit closer if you want anyone to take her for a boy.”

“I cut it,” Jack said.

“You’re no barber, then, my lad,” Helki said. Jack looked up at his wild thicket of hair, with the burrs caught in it, and wondered what he knew of barbers.

The aroma of the tea lured Wytt out of hiding. He hopped up to Ellayne and sniffed the steam coming from her cup, then looked up at Helki and chittered at him.

Helki chittered back, and whistled; and Wytt answered him; and they went back and forth while Jack and Ellayne stared at them, astonished.

“Are you talking to him?” Ellayne cried.

“You can’t rightly call it talk—not like people talk,” Helki said. “But it’s more than any animal can do. In his way, he was telling me that he’s your friend, and I’d better be nice to you or I’ll have to answer to him; and I told him I’m your friend, too, just like he is.”

“But how did you learn to talk to Omahs?” Jack said.

“There’s a great heap of ruins south of the forest. I go there sometimes. There’s a tribe of these little hairy people living there. I made friends with ’em years ago. If you’re careful about listening, you learn to understand ’em by and by.”

He shook his head. Jack noticed, for the first time, that Helki’s eyes weren’t quite the same color: two different shades of green.

“You do see some funny things when you’re up in the ruins,” he said. “Makes you wonder what those places used to be and what happened there. But the little people can’t tell you. They don’t know.”

Helki fed them with fresh venison, roasted over the fire, and gave them some rabbits to take with them.

“I ought to go with you. I can protect you,” he said. “I’ve been seeing queer animals lately. There’s a striped beast with jaws that would snap a man in two with one bite.”

“We saw it!” Jack said. “It was carrying half of a knuckle-bear in its mouth. What is it?”

“Wish I knew,” Helki said. “I’ve seen some tracks, too, that don’t match up with anything I know. Maybe they’re coming over the mountains. Or maybe they’re just coming up out of the ground.

“But beasts are only beasts. It’s men you ought to fear. There’s those hereabouts who’d be better off for a taste of this.” And he balanced his heavy staff on a fingertip.

“I have a safe-conduct from Squint-eye,” Obst said.

“I wouldn’t trust to that.”

“If you want to help us, Helki, I’d be thankful if you stayed in this region of the forest and kept your eyes and ears open. Try to discover where the beasts are coming from. Keep track of unusual things. That’s what I’d be doing, if I could. I can’t ask anyone else to do it. They don’t understand the forest like you do. Their eyes don’t see; their ears don’t hear. You understand.”

“Reckon I do.”

Obst reached out and squeezed his arm. “And for the Lord’s sake, stay alive!” he said. “Stop looking for trouble.”

Helki threw back his head and laughed like thunder.

After they had hiked some distance, Ellayne asked the hermit, “Why didn’t you want him to come with us? He’s strong!”

“He’s also as mad as a bat,” Obst said. “If he were with us, everyone else in the forest would know it, and he’d want to fight with every one of them.”

“With that big stick?” Jack said.

“It’s all he needs. But someday someone will put an arrow in his back, or poison him, or fifty men will overwhelm him—if Helki doesn’t kill Latt first.”

They walked on. Another day, Obst said, and they’d turn aside, leave the forest, and make for the hills.

Coming out of the forest and onto the plains again and seeing the mountains from a new angle, it struck Jack for the first time that a mountain was a formidable thing, and it might not like to be climbed.

Up rose Bell Mountain with its crown of clouds, Mount Nevereen huddled up against it, and various sharp, snowcapped crags standing like a bodyguard around it. How could they hope to climb up to the clouds? From this unfamiliar angle, the peaks looked like a hostile army pausing to take one last look at a doomed city before destroying it. Jack could almost believe the mountains were watching them as they toiled along like insects, just waiting for them to get close enough to be crushed.

“Had we gone all the way to Silvertown,” Obst was saying, “we would have found trails to take us along the skirts of the mountains, practically up to the shoulders of Bell Mountain itself. There are mines and lumber camps scattered throughout the hills, but all paths lead to Silvertown.