The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (43 page)

“Quite a feeling, isn’t it?” Constan said.

Exhilarated, the prester made his way home to his Obann townhouse. There he was surprised to find swarthy little men, armed, standing guard before his door. His aide stood on the steps, helplessly spreading his palms.

“Who are these people?” Jod asked. “Why are they here?”

“Queen Gurun’s bodyguard, my lord. There are more of them in the house and a few more in the stables. And the queen awaits you in your drawing room. The king is with her.”

He would have said more, but Jod pushed past him and hurried to the drawing room.

Gurun and the boy king were there, along with a scar-faced barbarian and a single handmaid. As word of colossal size leaned against Jod’s favorite couch.

“Your Majesty! My lady! To what do I owe this honor to my house?” Jod cried.

“Your pardon, my lord Prester,” Gurun said, “but we beg leave to stay with you until the conclusion of the conclave.” She turned to the big man with the scalp lock and the shaven head. “This is Chief Uduqu, who guards the king, and my maid, Dakl. I have also brought my bodyguard of eighteen men.” She paused, then added, “I am afraid it’s necessary. We have come here because, of all the men in Obann at this time, you have the greatest reputation for honor and integrity. I could not think of anywhere else for us to go.”

Jod’s head spun. Nevertheless, he bowed to Gurun and the king.

“All that I have is at Your Majesties’ disposal,” he said. “Please sit down! We’ll have something to eat, and while we eat, you can tell me all about it—whatever it is that brings you here.”

Chapter 51

A Great and Terrible Light

The Hosa marched until they found a clearing big enough for them to stay the night. They made a proper camp, gathering brush to make a palisade around it—nothing would get through that without making a lot of noise—and posting plenty of guards.

Xhama estimated he now had some five hundred men left out of the thousand he’d led out of Silvertown. Some had been lost as stragglers, and more had been killed in the fight with the Zamzu.

They offered Ryons neither violence nor disrespect as they made him march with them. Cavall seemed to like their company; “A good sign,” Ryons thought.

His own fear never came back to him. Maybe the man of God was with him, after all, and you just couldn’t see him. Ryons had the feeling that if he could only turn his head suddenly and look in just the right place, he’d get a glimpse of him. But it would have been bad manners, so he didn’t try. Meanwhile, Xhama spoke of his faraway homeland, of his herds of cattle and his crops of corn and melons, and his two wives.

“But then came the Thunder King’s mardars,” he said, “and they cast spells that made our cattle die and our corn wither. They said they would dry up our women if we did not obey them. We must either serve the Thunder King or see our whole people starve to death.”

There was little enough to eat that night. The Hosa carried rations, but they had to make them last. And after their meager supper, Xhama gathered his chiefs in the middle of the camp to discuss what to do. Ryons sat on a log behind him, with Cavall at his feet, understanding nothing of what was being said in all that long debate.

“We should press on to Silvertown,” said one of the chiefs, “and get out of this horrible forest! Maybe, if we give the boy to Goryk Gillow, the Thunder King will let us go in peace.”

But not many of the chiefs thought that this was likely. A few laughed scornfully.

“I have been thinking about this, all the time we marched,” Xhama said. “Listen to me, my children.

“We have rebelled against the Thunder King, and we are all dead men. But this boy says his God can give us life again! Our own gods could not protect us from the Thunder King. They are, instead, his prisoners. What good did they do us?

“But now there are many who have rebelled against the Thunder King, and they are still alive. They serve in this boy’s army, and the God of Obann honors them. It is my thought that we should do the same! If the king will have us for his friends, I myself would serve him willingly. And we shall wash our spears in the blood of those who would enslave us.”

A few of the chiefs whooped, then a few more. They sprang to their feet and briefly danced. Cavall barked, and Ryons held him tightly, lest he should attack. But Xhama turned to him with a brilliant smile upon his face.

“It’s settled!” he said in Tribe-talk. “My warriors are now your warriors, and we will swear an oath to you of our own free will. No one will ever say that you compelled us.”

Ryons stood up. The chiefs fell silent.

“Tell them,” he said, “that I’ll be true to them, and as good a lord to them as I can be. But tell them this, too: that if they wish to follow me and be my men, then they must learn to believe in the true God, and no God but Him. Tell them that God will protect them and make them strong against their enemies—just as He has protected me. And God will destroy the Thunder King.”

Xhama turned back to his men and translated, making a long speech of it.

And the Hosa that night danced in Ryons’ honor and swore to serve the living God.

There was rejoicing, too, at Carbonek. Late that afternoon, an Abnak scout who understood Tribe-talk emerged from the woods with the news that King Ryons’ own army was on its way and would join them in another day or two.

“So we’re saved!” Jack said, as the settlers bustled about, preparing a celebratory feast. “If only King Ryons and Helki were back with us, everything would be just fine.”

“But what about that Heathen army that’s on its way here from the East?” Ellayne said.

“Oh, I guess King Ryons’ army can take care of that!”

Ellayne looked up at Martis. “What’s the matter, Martis?” she said. “You should be happy, but you look worried.”

“I always worry when things are going well, Ellayne. That’s the best time for them to go wrong.” He forced a smile to his face, but it didn’t stay long.

He was thinking about what other potent objects the Thunder King might have acquired, left over from ancient times. If he could afford to give them to his agents who traveled throughout Obann, he must have found a trove of them. What powers might they have?

“We’re saved for now, I suppose,” he said. “I’ll feel better about it when the king and Helki return. They went out with six archers to fight against an army, and no one’s heard from them since.”

“No one’s heard anything,” Jack said.

While the Hosa danced, and the settlers at Carbonek feasted, Goryk Gillow received a messenger who’d come all the way from Kara Karram.

It was a mardar named Zo, a little, bow-legged man whose people inhabited the Lake of Islands. You would not have guessed he was a mardar, to look at him; he didn’t advertise it. But he spoke excellent Tribe-talk, and Goryk welcomed him into his house.

“Your pardon, comrade!” Zo said, as he reached for Goryk’s ceiling and bent his body this way and that, stretching himself. “I’m full of kinks from riding horseback—I’ll never get used to it. A reed boat on the water, that’s the only way to travel.”

“You’ve come a long way, Mardar,” Goryk said. Zo had brought a bulky leather box with him, stitched shut with leather thongs. This box now lay on the floor. Goryk was curious about it.

“I’ve come because our master King Thunder understands your problems and wishes to help you,” Zo said.

“I am glad he has received my messages and taken thought for me,” Goryk said. “Are you the help he has sent? Or is it the contents of that box?”

“The one will do you no good without the other!”

“Let me first give you some refreshment, Mardar. I wish my chairs were more comfortable; but as you can see, they’ve been cobbled together by men who are something less than skilled artisans.”

He gave Zo some fresh-baked bread stuffed with shredded chicken, and a cup of mead. The mardar had never tasted mead before—it is made with fermented honey—and pronounced it excellent. After they had exchanged a few more civilities, Zo got up again, drew a knife, and cut the cords that bound the box.

“You’ll have to be careful with this,” he said. “Also, try to keep it a secret for as long as you can.”

The box was stuffed full of a kind of dried moss, which Zo pulled out by the handful and tossed aside. When it lay in heaps on the floor, he reached into the box and took out a much smaller one, which he placed gingerly on Goryk’s tea table.

What was it? A dull black cube about the size of a militiaman’s helmet, one face of it sported what looked like the flared mouth of a trumpet. “Examine it closely,” Zo said, “but don’t touch it yet.”

On another face of the cube Goryk saw a tiny arm protruding from a vertical slot, and two round, white lumps nestled in black rings.

“What is it?”

“Our master has explored the mighty secrets of the ancients. This is one of them,” the mardar said. “Inside this box is imprisoned a devil, in such a way that it cannot get out. This little arm and these two buttons, here, compel the devil to do your bidding, and to cease. It has great powers, but it is the slave of whoever holds this box.”

Goryk had never heard of such a thing. Had he been a real prester, and studied at a seminary and read the Commentaries, he would have known something of the power of the ancients: power that led them to destruction in the Day of Fire. As it was, he didn’t believe in devils. But he realized that Mardar Zo, and their lord the Thunder King, knew infinitely more than he did about such things, so he kept an open mind.

“What can it do?” he asked.

“At your command,” said Zo, “the devil will wail at your enemies so loudly and so horribly that they will be afraid to advance against you. But if they do, then at your command, the devil will shoot forth a great and terrible light—a light so fierce, that it will strike blind anyone who looks at it. With this power, you, standing alone, can put a small army to flight.”

“Have you seen it do these things?”

Zo nodded. “I myself have commanded the devil in this box. With it I put down a rebellion on one of the islands in the Lake of Islands. Rebels dove from their boats and drowned, rather than stand against the devil’s power. Now all the islands are quiet and obedient.

“Now you may pick up the box. But be careful not to touch the arm or the buttons.”

Goryk was careful indeed. To his amazement the box weighed next to nothing. Its smooth casing felt like no kind of metal he had ever touched before.

“Do not ever try to open the box!” Zo said. “No one can do it. But if you were to handle this thing carelessly or to abuse it, the result would be disastrous to you.”

“I’ll never do that,” Goryk said.

“The little arm commands the devil to wail. If you push the arm up, you will hear a kind of click, and then the noise. The farther up you push the arm, the louder the devil will wail—loud enough to drive a strong man mad. Push it back down, until it clicks again, and he will be silent.

“If you press the top button, blinding light will instantly flash out of the horn, which you will have pointed at your enemies. Don’t point it at your friends! Press the lower button, and the light will be cut off instantly.”

Goryk set the box back on the table. Not for a moment did he think Zo might be lying or exaggerating.

“Use it only in great need, comrade,” Zo said. “Our master says that sometimes these objects, because they are so unthinkably old, may cease to function. The power inside them finds a means to escape.”