The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (34 page)

He’d find a way, she thought; and she was still thinking about him when she fell asleep.

She didn’t sleep the night through. Jack started thrashing in his sleep, and thrashed so hard, that he kicked her. He cried out and woke Martis, kept on crying out until he’d awakened everyone but himself.

Griffs gathered around, volleying questions at Martis in their language, which Ellayne didn’t understand. Martis tried to answer them while he tried to wake Jack, calling his name and shaking him. For some strange reason, Chillith didn’t join them. Ellayne looked for him but didn’t see him.

Jack kept making noise. Most of it was just nonsense, but here and there he got out a real word or two.

“Fire, fire!The beast!” And then he would scream.

He just kept going on like that, flailing his arms and legs like he was trying to run away. When Martis failed to wake him after several minutes of trying, Ellayne began to be afraid. What was happening to Jack? His face shone with sweat; his mouth spewed out gibberish.

“N’gaqa, n’gaqa—domio!”

Martis looked at Ellayne. “That’s Abnak,” he said. “Does Jack speak Abnak?”

“Of course not! What does it mean?”

“I think it means something like, ‘Kill, kill, get out of the way!’” Martis said.

“Well, then, he’s having a nightmare,” was all Ellayne could say.

It just kept going on and on—all this nonsense about a beast and fire, and great swathes of killing. It went on until one of the Griffs splashed some water in his face.

“Rain,” Jack muttered, “rain.” He stopped thrashing and lay still, sleeping with his mouth wide open. Martis still couldn’t wake him.

One of the Griffs came running up, babbling. Two or three others jumped up and ran off somewhere. Martis questioned the first man, got an answer. Ellayne tugged at his sleeve.

“What is it?” she said. “What’s going on?”

“They can’t wake Chillith, either,” Martis said.

For what little of the night remained, there was no sleep for anyone. But when the first dull grey of morning settled on the world, Jack’s eyes slid open.

“Are you all right?” Ellayne said.

“Why wouldn’t I be all right? I had a dream.” His face was pale as ashes, but other than that, he seemed unharmed. He let out a long sigh.

The Griffs who were watching with them, all started talking at once. It took Martis some time to quiet them.

“Tell us about the dream, Jack,” he said.

Jack shuddered. “I’m not even sure it was a dream,” he said. “It was more like I was there. And instead of being me, I was a lot of other people. Warriors! There were warriors all around, in crowds.

“There was a big city, and it was all on fire. I think it was Obann. It just burned and burned. But everybody was trying to run away from it because there was something coming that was worse. We were killing each other because we were trying to escape, and all these men were in the way.

“And then a beast came, and it was like a walking mountain.”

A hoarse scream interrupted him. The Griffs sprang to their feet, alarmed.

“Something’s happened to Chillith. Wait here,” Martis said. He got up. A moment later Ellayne rose up and followed him; and then Jack struggled to his feet and followed her. He was stiff and sore all over, as if he’d really spent the whole night being pushed and elbowed.

Men crowded around the mardar, who was sitting up and struggling like a madman. Several of the warriors held him—not without trouble, because he struggled mightily. He stretched out his arms and grasped wildly at the air with his two hands.

“Your honor!” Martis cried in Obannese. “What’s the trouble?”

At the sound of his voice, the mardar froze. “Is that you, Martis?” he said.

“It is.”

Chillith’s eyes wandered all over, although Martis was standing right in front of him.

“Is your honor sick?”

“It’s worse than that,” Chillith said. “I’m blind!”

He couldn’t see a thing, he said. Speaking to Martis, he grew calmer.

“Everything is darkness,” he said. “It seems to me that sometime in the night there was a disturbance in the camp; and I was just getting up to see what it was, when I fell back to sleep. And when I opened my eyes again, I was blind.”

“The disturbance was made by Jack, your honor,” Martis said. “He couldn’t help it. The spirit of God visited him with a prophetic vision, and no one could wake him. He’s only just awakened on his own.”

“Where is he?” Chillith snapped.

“Here, your honor,” Jack answered.

“As I have no vision at all,” said the mardar, “tell me of this vision of yours.”

So Jack told him, and Martis translated for the men who were listening. These exchanged uneasy looks; for the Griffs set great store by visions. Jack’s vision shook them. They shuffled their feet and shook their heads.

“What does this mean?” Chillith said. “Have you had other visions?”

“Yes, your honor—if you want to call them visions. It was a dream sent by God that made me climb Bell Mountain,” Jack said. “You remember: I told you about it once before. I never even heard of the bell before I dreamed of it. But there it was on top of the mountain where we found it, just like I saw it in my dreams. So they must have been visions, too.”

Chillith grinned hideously at him. “You have the makings of a shaman, boy! It was even so with me, when I was a boy,” he said. “But what does this newest vision mean?”

“Your honor, I believe I know,” said Martis. “Jack was transported in the spirit to Obann, where he saw the ruin of the city and the destruction of the Thunder King’s great army—not by force of arms, but by the power of God. At the moment of their triumph, God sent a giant beast to scatter them. I believe that army is no more.”

Chillith pondered that. The men demanded to know what Martis had said, so he repeated it in their language. They muttered excitedly.

“Silence!” Chillith said. And to Martis, “But how are we to believe this? How are we to know it isn’t witchcraft, or merely lies?”

“Your honor has been visited with a sign, in his own flesh,” said Martis. “Your blindness—there can be no other reason for it. God has made you blind so that you can see the truth.”

Chillith sat for hours, silent, staring into emptiness. He spoke no word all morning, after that. His men were too tense to feed themselves, and breaking camp was out of the question. If someone were to throw a stone into their midst, Ellayne thought, they’d run like rabbits.

Some of the men approached Martis, speaking in hushed tones so that the mardar wouldn’t hear them.

“This is what comes of letting the Thunder King take our gods away,” said a man named Pitro, who spoke good Obannese. “We betrayed our gods, and now we’ll all be punished for it, starting with Chillith.”

Martis shook his head. “It wasn’t the Griffs’ gods who did this,” he said, “but the living God.”

“The God of Obann is mighty in Obann,” said another man, “and we’re still in Obann.”

“He destroyed the army of the Thunder King,” said a third. “Had we been there, we’d be dead now, too.”

At high noon Chillith told his men to help him to his feet, and called for Martis.

“I’ve been trying to commune with my gods,” he said, “but they are not there anymore—not even in the darkness that I now inhabit. I begin to wonder if they were ever really there.

“But there is something in that darkness, Martis! I cannot see it, nor hear it. Nevertheless, there is a presence that I have not known before. I will not say it’s your God. But it is a presence. I greatly desired to hide from it, but I could not.

“I will not say it spoke to me, because there were no words, and I could hear no voice. But I will say it compels me to believe you—and to fear the God of Obann. I do believe that a great beast came up out of the river, just as the boy said, and destroyed the armies of the East.”

“What will your honor do?” Martis asked.

Chillith let out half a sigh, half a groan. “Do? What can I do?” he cried. “I’m blind. Your God has blotted out my eyes. Maybe you’re right. Maybe He did it so that I might see. Maybe I shall see things that my eyes refused to show me.

“You ask me what I mean to do. I do not know! For now, I believe I ought to go before the Thunder King and see what I can see without my eyes. It may be that now I’ll be able to see him for what he truly is. Maybe he’ll restore my sight. Or maybe I shall see him as a devil. Or a man.

“You must come with me, you and those two children. If you consent to this willingly, I’ll have your tethers removed, and you shall no longer be my prisoners.”

“And if we don’t consent?”

“I ask for your consent—in the name of your God, if you will have it so.”

“Your honor must allow me to discuss it with the children,” Martis said.

“Of course,” said Chillith.

Ellayne could hardly believe her ears.

“You want to go all the way out East to see the Thunder King?” she cried. “You must have lost your wits!”

“I can’t blame you for thinking so,” Martis said.

“I mean, why should we do it? Why? He’ll only kill us—a wicked man who thinks he’s a god!”

“I know it sounds like foolishness.”

“I’ll say!” Ellayne turned to Jack. “Well? Why don’t you say something?”

Jack shrugged. He was remembering vivid fragments of his dream. He had no words to describe the beast he saw. There were no animals like that. But he’d seen it scatter the great army that besieged Obann, and he knew that God had sent it for that purpose. It was true, all of it. God had showed it to him.

“Jack! Answer me!”

“I’m trying to,” he said. “I don’t want to go with Chillith. I’m not crazy! But I think God wants us to go—as long as we don’t go as prisoners, but because He wants us to.”

“That’s what I think,” Martis said. “But maybe, Ellayne, if Jack and I agree to go, Chillith will agree to send you back home to Ninneburky.”

That was what she wanted most in all the world. And yet when he put it like that, just held it out to her like a sweetmeat on a tray, there seemed something wrong with it. The more she yearned to reach out and take it, the more it seemed she shouldn’t. Was that God’s voice speaking to her?