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

little cakes he’d made by baking them on a flat stone. Only after they’d filled their bellies did he question them.
    “Where’s Obst?” he said. “Start by telling me that.”
    It took all day to tell their tale. Jack and Ellayne told him everything—Jack’s dreams, their long journey to the summit of Bell Mountain, and their ringing of the bell. What Martis held back from his part of the story was his own affair.
    “I wish you’d told me all that the first time we met,” Helki said. “I’d have gone up the mountain with you. Obst should have trusted me; he’d’ve done better if he had. But then I reckon I wouldn’t have been there to take care of Jandra.”
    “Can you help us get to Obann?” Jack asked.
    “Never been there. It’ll be a pretty good job just to get you through the forest, the way things are. Latt Squint-eye, King of Lintum Forest!” Helki threw back his head and laughed. “I’ll crown him with my rod!”
    Throughout the day Jandra played with Wytt, napped, and cuddled her hideous pet dragon, never venturing more than a few yards beyond the mouth of the cave. She sat on Helki’s lap for a while, then puttered around the cave, humming a tuneless little song. She lay down on a bed of ferns for another nap, and they’d just about forgotten her—until she raised her voice in words that no toddler from the mountains should have known.
    “The Temple is fallen; twice has the Temple fallen; but I will give the throne to Ozias, and my words to all the peoples of the earth.
    “There is a Temple beneath the Temple, and a cellar beneath the cellar. Ih wolbe c’heilet ander richteke-mann, an hehr wol Ih ophelten …” And with that she fell into a sound sleep.
    “What in the world was that?” Ellayne whispered.
    “It was a line of Scripture, in the language of the Old Books,” said Martis. “It’s from the prophet Ika: ‘I will be honored by the righteous, and him will I uphold.’ No reciter could have pronounced it better.”
    “But how could she recite Scripture?” Jack said. “How old is she? Two? Three?”
    Helki shook his head. “She’s always coming out with something I don’t understand. If you say it’s a verse from Scripture, that’s more than I know. She talks about some book that’s missing and tells me I’m the Flail of the Lord, whatever that is. The rest of the time, she’s just an ordinary little girl. I wish Obst were here—he might understand it.” He looked at Martis. “Too bad a servant of the Temple can’t explain it to us!”
    Martis spread his palms. “What can I say?” he answered. “Do you know how many thousands of men and women serve the Temple? We aren’t all religious scholars!
    “All I know is that these two children rang the bell on Bell Mountain, and what I suspect is that that changed everything. I don’t know how; but I do know the First Prester, my master, was mortally afraid of it. He sent me out to stop them, and I failed—which is the one thing in my life I don’t regret.”
    “Just get us as close to Obann as you can, Helki,” Jack said. “I know everything is supposed to be ending, but it looks more like something else is beginning. Maybe,” he turned to Ellayne, “you’re right about that, after all.”
     

CHAPTER 11
Obst Among the Heathen
    Living out in the open in a leaky tent, surrounded by enemies, might have been the end of most old men; but not Obst. He felt stronger and healthier than he’d felt in many years.
    He delighted in the company of the slave boy, Ryons, who soaked up friendship as rich soil soaks up rain. He could not have had much friendship in his life so far, Obst thought. Obst told him stories from the Scriptures, and stories of the forest and outlaws and hermits like himself; the poor child lapped it up. He especially liked the stories told of King Ozias as a boy, hiding in the forest from his implacable enemies, protected by his mother until he was old enough to outwit them on his own.
    With