Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) (24 page)

“I never heard much about magic.”

“Oh, there isn’t much of it in civilized places. But we’re not in civilized places now. We’ll be all right, though, because Obst is with us. He’s a holy man, and magic won’t work against him. It says so in my book.”

Jack grinned at her. “But he doesn’t think much of your book!”

Ellayne put on a haughty look. “Just because he’s holy doesn’t mean he knows everything,” she said.

The path narrowed again, stickers snatched at their clothes, and they couldn’t talk anymore. The trees grew so close together, you could barely see the sky.

Jack plodded on, stung by how much he didn’t know. He’d never heard of werewolves, never read a book, and had no idea what magic was. It was all right for Obst to know so much: he was an old man and a scholar. But Ellayne was just a girl, and she knew all about things that Jack had hardly heard of. He felt like a fool.

Someday, he thought, when we come down from the mountaintop, I’ll get a roomful of books and read them all. He’d start by making Obst teach him the Scriptures.

It never entered his mind that there might be neither books nor teachers in the world after he’d rung the bell on Bell Mountain.

The little girl fell asleep before Martis could feed her.

They’d reached the trees before nightfall, and he cleared a space for camp and built a fire; but she didn’t wait to be fed before sinking into a deep sleep. He let her be.

Now there was no way he could bring her with him up the mountain, and he couldn’t sacrifice his mission by going back and finding someone to take care of her. Martis had never married, never had children of his own, and had no experience with children beyond having been a child himself, once upon a time. He never thought of his childhood, and had no clear memory of it.

As he sat by the fire and nibbled his bread, it struck him that he didn’t know some of the simplest things that even the most ordinary people knew. What do you do with a child?

It amazed him that he was even thinking along such lines. Of course the only thing to do was to leave her behind and continue on his journey. Whatever became of her afterward was none of his concern. If she went out on the plain and a big bird made a meal of her, what was that to him?

It was a thought that made his heart grow cold.

“There’s something wrong with me, Dulayl,” he told the horse, hobbled nearby. “I am an assassin. My calling in life is to kill men whom my master wishes dead. I’ve killed women, too. And I did it willingly because it made me indispensable to my master and the recipient of his trust. I am an extension of his power, which he exercises for the good of the state. Therefore I am good.”

And now, he thought, I’m talking to a horse.

Maybe it would be kinder to kill the girl while she slept. One sharp blow from his mace, and her troubles would be over. She would never know the terror of seeing the feathered mass loom over her, the great beak gaping for her—

He ground his teeth and ground his fists against his skull. What was the matter with him?

“There is a book missing.”

He lowered his hands. His mind must be going. To hear those words again, that was not good.

“That which was put away shall be brought to light.”

He turned. He wasn’t imagining it. Jandra lay on her back, speaking in her sleep. Her voice had power now—not at all the voice of an exhausted, thirsty child.

“My people shall hear all my words that are in the book.”

“What book?” Martis said. “What words?”

“My words. They shall hear my words, and they shall seek me.”

He crawled closer and bent over her. She was fast asleep; you could tell by looking at her.

“Who are you, child?” he said. “What are you talking about?”

But she spoke no more. She hiccupped once and rolled onto her side, snoring softly.

Martis sat back heavily, trying to reason with himself. The child was half-crazed with grief and hardship. In all probability, raiders had slaughtered her family. She was raving in her sleep. Her words meant nothing.

But they do
, argued another voice in his mind.
You know they do.

I have a mission to attend to, he argued back. There is no place in it for this. Tomorrow I ride on.

The birds will have her.

Biting back a cry, he turned away from her, threw himself down beside the fire, and buried his head in his blanket. Sleep took him unaware; and when next he was aware of anything, his eyes opened to the morning.

Martis rolled over, stiff and sore, and sat up.

The girl was gone.

He struggled to his feet, looked all around. He didn’t see her.

“Jandra!”

His call echoed in the stillness of the early morning. Dulayl awoke with a snort.

“Jandra, where are you?”

No answer he received but for a soft, mocking echo among the trees.

“Well,” he said to the horse, “she’s gone. The matter is out of my hands. I did her no harm, and my hands are clean.”

But who cared if his hands were clean? An astonishing claim to make, for a man in his profession! He laughed at himself.

All the same, he had a hollow feeling in his bowels, something he hadn’t experienced since his first kill. He hurried to eat, saddle his horse, find a trail, and be on his way.

It was easy enough to leave his camp behind. But whatever it was, that now resided in the pit of his stomach, traveled with him.

Jack would never have thought climbing Bell Mountain might be dull and tedious work. But it was.

It took them three more days to pass through the wooded approaches to the summit. Without the food the trappers gave them, their journey might have ended there. They found water enough, but the dried meat was all they had to eat.

“I’m not too familiar with this kind of country,” Obst admitted, “but certainly I expected to see more game than this. The trappers never wanted for deer or squirrels. Well, I suppose if we stopped traveling, we might catch something we could eat. Maybe we should stop, once the end of this forest is in sight.”

The growth was so dense that you couldn’t see animals even if you heard them. And often enough, you did—a heavy body crashing through a nearby thicket, hidden birds calling from the treetops, and owls hooting by night. Once they heard a cry that was like a great ox groaning, but Obst couldn’t say what that was.

At least Wytt ate well. He went out one night and came back with blood on the point of his stick. He caught bugs and munched on bits of fungi he plucked from rotten logs. And Ham found some of the plants to his liking.

Their third night on the trail, as they sat under their shelter with their campfire dying down, Ellayne said something that greatly troubled Jack.

“How much farther do you think he can go?” she asked. Her eyes pointed to Obst, who’d fallen asleep sitting up with his mouth open. “He looks terrible.”

“He’s tired, that’s all,” Jack said. “We’re tired, too. It must be hard for him to go in front all the time, finding the way.”

“Do you think it’ll be easy once we’re really going up the mountain?”

“How should I know? I’ve never climbed a mountain! I guess if King Ozias and a few of his men could drag a big old bell up to the top, we can get there, too.”

“It’s going to get cold, though. There’s always snow at the top.”

“If you don’t want to go, just say so!” Jack snapped. He was loud, but it didn’t wake Obst.

“Oh, don’t be a droop. Of course I’m going. We’ve gone too far to go back, anyhow. We might not even be able to go back.”

Jack had no answer to that. It made him think of Ashrof saying that anyone who tried to climb the mountain would freeze to death, or starve, or slip on the ice and fall off, or get eaten by a bear. He’d made it sound so hopeless, and now Ellayne was talking about Obst falling down dead on them before they got to the summit.

“When we come to the end of the woods,” he said, after thinking it over, “we’ll stop for a while. We’ll let Obst rest and get his strength back. We’ll set traps and get fresh meat. After that, it can’t be too much farther. And we have to go on. I’d rather die than turn back.”

After a long pause, Ellayne spoke again.

“I’m thinking of that picture of the world, that map in the ruins where I was lost, and how only a little bit of that whole big picture was Obann. All those seas and faraway countries that don’t even have names! If we do get to the top and ring the bell, do you think they’ll hear it even across the sea?”

Jack laughed. “Ozias put it there so God would hear it!” he said. “Not people across the sea. I hope God’s closer than that.”

But where exactly God might be, Jack hardly had words to frame the question.

As if to prove Ellayne right, Obst struggled all the next day. Jack, bringing up the rear, could hear him panting as he led the way. The only trails he could find seemed to fight him, forcing him to push hard with his staff and with his body. It was a warm day, too, and in the afternoon there were tiny flies that wanted nothing but to fly into your eyes and up your nose. Soon Jack and Ellayne were flailing at them, wasting energy.

“They’re horrible!” Ellayne cried. “Why don’t they go away?”

Obst went on for a little ways, then stopped and bent over. He seemed to be washing his hands, and then his face, but Jack couldn’t see what he was really doing.

He straightened up and turned to Ellayne.

“Take these leaves,” he said, offering her a handful. “Crush them in your hands and rub the juice on your face. It’ll keep off the flies.”

He plucked some more and passed them to Jack. The children followed his instructions. The juice from the leaves had a nasty, greasy feel and a strong smell that was not unpleasant—just strong.

“It smells almost like the mint that my aunt likes to put in her tea,” Ellayne said.

In a minute or two the flies ceased to trouble them. Obst put his hands to the small of his back, stretched, and sighed.

“Are you all right?” Jack said.

“Only feeling my years.” Obst smiled at him, but there were shadows under his eyes. “Let’s move on.”

Before long their trail widened, and Jack thought the light grew stronger. He looked up and saw big patches of blue sky, more sky than he’d seen for days. He even thought he felt a breath of wind.

A little farther and he could see gaps in the trees straight ahead, revealing strips of sky.

“We’re coming out of the woods!” he cried.

And soon they were out, entering a region of widely separated trees—most of them pines with beds of soft needles underneath—and huge, lichen-spotted boulders planted in the earth. In the near distance rose the bare, purple crags and palisades of the mountains, and a delicious breeze caressed their faces.

Ellayne waved her arms in the air and dashed ahead of Obst. “At last! Urrah!” she exulted.

Obst said nothing, only sank wearily onto a stone and closed his eyes.

“Finally!Room to move around!” Ellayne began to do a little dance. Just like a girl, Jack thought. His own legs were too tired for a dance.

Refreshed by the sunlight and the breeze, he let go of Ham’s lead and wandered, examining this place that was so different from the woods that had hemmed them in for days. One of the boulders caught his eye. It had a funny shape to it, tall and narrow, with straight sides. He walked up to stand in its shade.

Taking a closer look, he found something that surprised him.

“Obst!” he called. “Come and see this!”

The old man groaned and got up. Jack paid no heed to that, although he might have been alarmed if he could have seen how unsteady Obst was on his feet. But at the moment he had eyes only for the stone.

“What is it?”

Jack startled when Obst laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Look at this!” he said.

Obst looked. The rock was dark, discolored by moss. On its dark side, away from the sun, carved deeply into its surface, were designs that Jack thought must be writing. He couldn’t read this kind of writing, whatever it was, but he was sure he knew writing when he saw it.

“It is writing, isn’t it?” he said. “Can you read it?”

Obst’s fingers tightened on Jack’s shoulder, digging in.

“Yes. I can.”

Ellayne finally noticed what they were doing, left off her dancing, and joined them. “What are you looking at?” she said.

“Shh!” Jack answered.

Obst’s hand began to quiver. Jack turned from the rock and tugged at Obst’s robe.

“What is it? What does it say?” he cried.

Obst pointed with his staff. “Do you see that group of markings there—the ones enclosed in a kind of square? That is King Ozias’ name, written in characters so ancient that we know them only from the oldest fragments of the Scriptures.

“That much I can read for certain. As for the rest, I doubt that any man can read it fully. Just a character or two, that’s all I can recognize. And there’s the words for ‘the king’s road.’ But it doesn’t matter what else this inscription says. We now know for certain that King Ozias came this way. There’s no doubt of it! And that means we’re on the right path, too, and our quest is not in vain.”