Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) (19 page)

“There’s much more money in miracles.”

Bort smashed Martis’ cheek with the back of his hand, knocking him onto his back, rousing a laugh from the men. Stunned, Martis offered no resistance when Bort pulled him back up by the hair. The pain was like a fire in his scalp.

“You’d have killed me and Tumm if we’d given you the chance, that night in the cabin,” Bort said. “A man like you doesn’t come all the way out here to chase after moonshine.”

Martis looked him in the eye. “A man like me will be the death of you, fat boy. The Temple will see to that.”

Bort’s fist crashed into his nose. Martis fell again. This time Bort let him lie there. Overhead, the stars were coming out. Martis felt blood seeping thickly from his nose.

“Better save some of that for Latt, fat boy,” one of the men said. The others laughed.

This was going to be bad, Martis thought. Because the Temple alone collected tax in every part of the country, it was the only apparatus of the government that had enemies everywhere. Some of these hated the Temple out of all proportion to the offense. Martis had encountered it many times before. Temple-hating was a passion, for which the tax was only an excuse.

“They hate us because they crave from us more than we can give them,” Lord Reesh often said. “They hunger for God, and we can’t give them God. We give them a reason to think of themselves as a nation and some hope of there maybe being something better than this life in this world. If they understood their own desire, they would hate us even more. Let us be thankful that they don’t understand.”

Reesh was right. It’s why the hermit has nothing to fear from these ferocious men, Martis thought—but I do.

“Get up, you. I’m talking to you,” Bort said. This time he pulled Martis up by the front of his shirt.

And then something happened.

Some deep voice roared, “The rod! The rod!” It was like a bull’s bellow. All the outlaws went into a panic, and Bort let go of Martis’ shirt and scrambled to his feet.

Everyone was moving, yelling. A man went down like a sack of grain and lay still. By firelight all Martis could see was that the camp was under attack. Another gang of outlaws? A man screamed and stumbled past, almost into the fire, clutching at an injured arm. Martis saw Bort scuttle into the forest, followed by others. Taken totally by surprise, they didn’t even try to resist. They only fled the scene, and it didn’t take them long to do it.

Besides Martis himself, there was only one man left—a giant of a man who stood erect with his powerful shoulders thrown back, breathing like a blacksmith’s bellows, with a staff in one hand planted on the ground like a conquering army’s standard. He faced the woods. Martis heard the outlaws thrashing in the undergrowth as they fled.

“Come back any time you please!” the giant roared. “Tell your chief that Helki the Rod has beaten you—Helki the Rod! Ha, ha!”

What lunatic was this, who single-handedly attacked ten men and routed them like mice? He stood on guard, still breathing hard, until the noise of the bandits’ retreat diminished into silence.

“They won’t be coming back—more’s the pity,” he said. He turned, and squatted on his heels in front of Martis. He wore a fantastic garment of patches and a wild mane of hair.

“It’s too bad they roughed you up, stranger. But it could’ve been worse,” he said. “Hold out your hands, I’ll cut you loose.”

Martis obeyed. He pulled a short-bladed knife from one of his boots and cut the hide thongs in one easy motion.

“Who are you?” Martis said.

“I found your horse and followed your trail. I wanted to ask you what happened to that horse and find out your business. We don’t see many strangers around here. My name’s Helki. This forest is my home. Latt’s pack can’t drive me out.”

“Thank you for rescuing me. I thought you were another gang.”

Helki snorted. “They’re cowardly scum,” he said. “The forest would be better off without ’em. Why don’t you have a drink of water, wash the blood off your face? Then you can tell me who you are and what you’re doing here. But first tell me about the horse.”

While Martis washed, Helki picked up the dead man by the belt and tossed the body into the darkness under the trees; but he kept the dead man’s pack. He settled down by the fire and listened intently as Martis described his encounter with the bird.

“I’ve seen its tracks,” he said, “so I knew it must be something like that. Though where it came from, I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. Now I reckon I will, soon enough.”

Martis told him he was from the Temple at Obann, sent to inquire into reports of a hermit who performed miracles. Helki threw back his head and guffawed. His laughter echoed among the trees.

“Haw! Who told you Obst does miracles? Unless you want to say it’s a miracle no wolf or bear has eaten him, the way he goes off woolgathering. He says God protects him, and it must be true. But what do you want with him? He’s a friend of mine.”

“We only want to know if the miracle stories are true,” Martis said. “After all, a man who can work miracles deserves to be honored.”

“I don’t think Obst cares about being honored.”

Bort’s men had left two packs behind. Helki opened them now. “There’s some nice black bread here,” he said. “I wonder who they stole it from. Want some?”

In spite of everything, Martis found he was hungry. When he chewed the tough, rich bread, he was relieved to discover he had no broken teeth.

Eating gave him time to think about what to say. He didn’t want to make the giant suspicious of him. Helki struck him as a man who could be stabbed to the heart while he slept, and still be able to leap up and strangle his murderer before his heart stopped beating. He’d surprised the ten bandits, but Martis didn’t think the ten could have stood against him even if they’d had fair warning. Martis had a trained eye for such things.

When they resumed their talk, Martis said, “I mean the hermit no harm. Men like him, if they turn out to be the real thing, make it easier for people to believe in God. It gives them hope. That’s why the Temple sent me to find him. We want to know what makes him holy.”

“Sounds like a lot of foolishness to me,” Helki said. “Bort wouldn’t have punched you around just for saying that.”

“He seemed to think the Temple was plotting to take over the dues paid to outlaws.”

“He also seemed to think you’re a pretty dangerous man.”

“I think you’ll agree that this has been a pretty dangerous trip for me,” Martis said. “I was chosen because my master had some hope I’d survive.”

“You might—if you turn around and go back to where you came from. You might as well. Obst has gone away. We won’t be seeing him for a while.”

“Yes, I’d already heard that. I was hoping to catch up to him.”

Helki fished for another piece of bread. He talked while he was chewing it, but Martis understood him well enough.

“If you stay around here, Latt’s boys will catch up to you. They might even try to catch up to me. They’ll kill you if they catch you, and they’ll take their time about it, too.

“Obst asked me to stay here and look after things while he went on with those two kids. You know about them?” Martis nodded. “He didn’t tell me where they’re going. If I’d gone with them, you’d probably be dead by this time tomorrow. So I reckon I’d better stay here like I promised, in case anything else happens. But you—either go home or head for the mountains. That’s where I think Obst is going. You’d better cross the plain as soon as you can walk. Maybe God will protect you, too.”

“Do you believe in God?” Martis asked—just because he wished to know.

The giant nodded. “Obst taught me to believe.”

“So you believe because he taught you?” Reesh would be interested in this, if Martis ever returned to Obann to tell him about it.

Helki grinned. “Ask me about the forest. I can’t answer questions about God. Don’t know how. But if you can walk, I’d start out tonight if I was you. If you get a good head start on them, they won’t know how to track you across open country.”

“I’d feel safer if you came with me,” Martis said. “I have money. I can pay you.”

“Not me,” Helki said. “Tomorrow I’ll start looking for the giant bird that ate your horse. That’s something I want to see.”

Ellayne found it hard to believe Jack had seen a giant bird in the night while she and Obst were sleeping. But she had to believe it when he found some of the bird’s tracks in a bare patch where the ground was muddy. The bird’s feet were a great deal bigger than her own, but they made the same kind of tracks that ordinary little birds make in the snow.

“I’ve never seen this creature,” Obst said. “It must be taller than a man! All the more reason for us to get off the plain as fast as we can.”

He set them a hard pace for that day’s traveling. The forested hills were closer now; you’d almost think you could reach out and touch them. Although you couldn’t say by how much the land was sloping generally upward, Ellayne felt it in her legs. When you turned and looked back, you could see how much higher you were than Lintum Forest in the south.

Jack and Ellayne soon had to open their coats. “It’s getting warm,” Jack said. “I think this must be the warmest day we’ve had since we started.”

“Spring’s late this year, but it’s here at last,” Obst said. “Very soon now, everything that’s grey and yellow on this plain will turn bright green, and you’ll see flowers in every color you can think of. See, the trees are in bud. They look red, or greenish, from a distance—not grey. The new leaves will be out before we get to Bell Mountain. And any night now we ought to hear frogs and toads calling from the little pools where the underground water seeps to the surface. Indeed, it’s been spring for at least two weeks.”

“My father says the weather’s getting colder every year,” Ellayne said.

“That’s been true for the past seven years,” Obst said. “I have wondered what it means, but God has hidden it from me. Yet the land has by no means become less fruitful. If anything, it’s more so. You should have seen the blueberries last year! And wait until you taste the wild apples. They get sweeter every year. It’s all a puzzle to me.”

They hiked on and on. Wytt hopped onto the donkey and rode, clinging to the baggage. Ham rolled his eyes and twitched his ears, but after a few minutes learned to ignore his passenger.

As hard as they pushed themselves, day’s end still found them short of the tree-clad hills and obliged to make camp in the open.

“We have enough food left for our supper tonight and a good breakfast tomorrow. After that, we’ll have to find some more,” Obst said.

He found them a hollow to camp in, protected by a screen of heather. Wytt speared a big beetle for his dinner. He toasted it over the fire, and Ellayne shut her eyes while he ate it, but couldn’t shut out the crunching sounds. Jack thought that was funny.

“It doesn’t look like there’s much food to be found out here,” she said.

“We’ll find enough,” Obst said. “It’s all a matter of knowing where to look for it. There are always edible bulbs, birds’ eggs and the birds themselves, and plump little animals to be flushed out of hiding. We won’t go hungry.”

After their meal he told them how the Temple was first built by the Great King, Kai, to be the center of his kingdom and draw all the people there to worship God on holy days, and how the Lord’s prophet, Akan, warned him that unless the people maintained a righteous spirit, the Temple would someday become a barrier between them and their God.

“The Temple has never been what righteous Kai intended it to be,” the hermit said (and at about this time, toads began to sing nearby—to Ellayne’s delight). “Two hundred years later, the Heathen burned it to the ground when hordes of them came over the mountains; for the people of Obann had turned away from God and sought only their own pleasures. And they worshipped idols that their merchants brought home from the islands.

“After this they repented, and the Lord drove out the Heathen, and King Aban-sor rebuilt the Temple and made it grander than it was. But in those days when the kingdom finally came to an end and the rebellious nation drove King Ozias from his throne, there were insurrections and wars among the clans; and this time the people of Obann themselves threw down the Temple. It wasn’t built again until a thousand years passed, and the Empire rose and fell.

“It is written that this last and greatest Temple, too, shall be destroyed and shall not be built again until the Lord Himself shall build it, to stand forever.”

He fell silent. Ellayne listened to the music of the toads, but Jack was quick with a question, getting it out before Obst could fall into one of his spells.

“I don’t understand!” Jack said. “If God’s going to make the world come to an end, where will He put the new Temple?”

Obst smiled, but not happily. “I believe He will first create a new world,” he said. Jack shook his head, but Obst sank down into a sleep.

Soon Jack was asleep, too; but not Ellayne.

How could the Temple possibly be something that kept people away from God? She wondered and wondered about it. The Temple was all the people had. How many people could go out and be holy hermits like Obst? It was all very well for him to study the Scriptures. But when he recited verses from the Old Books, the language didn’t make a lick of sense to her. What good would it do to read the Scriptures if you couldn’t understand the language? So if they didn’t have the Temple, and the chamber houses, and the presters to lead the prayers, and the reciters to give advice and teach school, the people would have had nothing at all. She knew what her father would say about that: he’d say Obst was crazy.

Unable to sleep, Ellayne got up to see if she could find the toads. There had to be one of those little pools nearby, and she wanted to see it. She’d always loved the little brown and grey toads that turned up in her mother’s kitchen garden.

She tried to locate them by the sound of their singing, but soon discovered it wouldn’t be so easy. Her ears played tricks on her. If the toads were calling for mates, it seemed silly for them to throw their voices. Well, maybe it didn’t fool other toads.