The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) by Lee Duigon Read Free Book Online Page A

some thought to this.”
     

     
    Sharak had an extra tent, small, much patched, and probably leaky, and a slave boy to go with it.
    “You, Gik,” the Wallekki said, addressing the boy. “This man is our prisoner. The mardar has seen him and will want to see him again. I place him in your keeping. He will sleep in your tent. See to it that he has food and drink. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
    The boy bowed and said, “Yes, master.”
    “Don’t try to escape,” Sharak said to Obst. “You’ll be killed if you try, and they won’t kill you quickly. Hooq and I will have to rejoin our scouting party, but we shall stay here for another day or two to see what the mardar does with you. Who knows? He might send you on to the Great Man.”
    Hooq laughed, but not merrily. “Better you than me!” he said.
    The two scouts walked away, leaving Obst alone with the boy. He was the dirtiest and scrawniest boy Obst had ever seen, with arms and legs like twigs and a head that seemed too big for his bony body. He wore only rags, and stood on bare, black feet. His hair was too dirty to be assigned a definite color. His only promising feature was his large, brown eyes.
    “My name is Obst,” the hermit said, “but Gik is no name for a boy.” For the word meant something very foul in the Wallekki language.
    “That’s all they ever call me,” said the boy. “I know what it means—what of it?”
    “But surely you have another name?”
    “If I do, no one ever told me what it was. I was born a slave in the household of Sharak’s father. They sold my mother after she weaned me. No one knows who my father was. Sharak says it was a dog.”
    There was no slavery in Obann—except, of course, if you fell into debt and could not pay. But all the Heathen peoples practiced it, and sometimes bought Western children from outlaws. People living under the shadow of the mountains knew much about slavery.
    “If you’re going to take care of me,” Obst said, “I can’t call you Gik. It wouldn’t be right. Isn’t there anything else you would like me to call you?”
    The boy made a face, shook his head.
    “Well, then,” Obst said, “since you leave it up to me, I shall call you Ryons, after a boy who lived a long, long time ago. He was an orphan, too; but God did not forget him.”
    “They said you’ve been to see the mardar,” the boy said.
    “Yes—and he has seen me. Tell me, what is he? Mardar means ‘chief of servants’ where he comes from, but he didn’t seem like much of a servant to me.”
    The boy who didn’t seem to care what you called him sat down by the low entrance to the tent. Obst joined him.
    “The mardar is here to make sure that everyone obeys King Thunder,” the boy said. “He makes sacrifices to the Great Man, and they’re all afraid of him. He can sacrifice a chief of chiefs, if he likes. He can do anything he pleases, and no one tries to stop him. He’ll probably have you cooked, and eat your heart.”
    “There wouldn’t be much gain to him in that; my heart is old and all worn-out,” Obst said. Ryons laughed; he seemed to find that very funny. Obst let him go on for a few moments.
    “Tell me about the Great Man, this King Thunder, whom the mardar serves,” Obst said. “Is he a man who claims to be a god?”
    Ryons answered in a harsh whisper. “Don’t even talk about him! It’s dangerous even to mention him. They don’t let us talk about him.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because he’s stronger than the gods! They all have to do what he says. He’s already captured a whole army of gods and put them in prison in his castle out beyond the lakes. That’s why the nations all have to obey him. If they don’t, he’ll call down fire on them and burn them up.”
    Obst had never heard of such a thing, outside of Scripture. There were heathens in ancient times, too, with heathen gods of wood and stone, and priests who pretended to make miracles. But he realized he would have to be careful of