The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) Read Online Free PDF

speak. He understood that with the Temple’s servants looking for them, it was better not to mention their mission to Bell Mountain. Martis had explained that to them often enough.
    “Magic!” Ellayne said, shaking her head. “How can anyone fight against magic?”
    “There’s no such thing as magic,” Jack said, rubbing his sore shoulder. He could not have told you why he said that.
    “You didn’t see the faces in the fire, boy,” said Ivor.
    Wytt chose that moment to emerge from the pack on Ham’s back and utter a loud chirp. Ivor would have run away if Martis hadn’t caught him.
    “What is it? Great heavens, what is that?”
    “Easy, easy—he won’t hurt you,” Martis said. “As a matter of fact, he’s a friend of ours, and he’s been very helpful. Jack, why don’t you and Wytt see if you can find us something to eat, while there’s still some daylight left? Take the slingshot.”
    Jack nodded. He could see Ivor was terrified of Wytt.
    “All right,” he said, getting up. “Come on, Wytt.” And over his shoulder, “But I still say there’s no such thing as magic. If there were, it’d be in the Scriptures, and everyone would know about it.”
     

     
    Martis and Ellayne calmed down Ivor, which took some doing.
    “There’s all kinds of crazy animals out here,” the shopkeeper said. “Just yesterday I saw a bird as big as a horse, and thankful I am that it didn’t see me! But it’s the end of the world, just like the prophet said. I wonder what happened to him.”
    Ellayne, who’d grown up on stories of Abombalbap and his adventures, read to her at bedtime by her father, believed in magic. Abombalbap was always running into witches and magicians. So she believed Ivor, even if Jack didn’t. More fool Jack, she thought.
    “Grandpa,” she said to Martis, “you’ve been to Heathen lands. Do they use a lot of magic there?”
    He shook his head. “None that I ever saw. But some of the Wallekki believe that in the deserts to the south of them, there are certain spirits that can be made to do a man’s bidding, if he knows the secret spells by which he might command them. Then again, those may be just stories, nothing more. The Heathen like tall tales.”
    Martis was at a loss. Although a servant of the Temple, he knew very little of the Scriptures. But if there were such a thing as magic, he thought, Lord Reesh would have known about it—and known how to use it, too. He wondered what kinds of things Lord Reesh knew but never spoke of to his servants. But it was not something he cared to discuss in front of Ivor.
    By and by Jack and Wytt returned, the boy dragging the carcass of an animal that was too big for him to carry.
    “Praise God, I was lucky!” he cried. “We’re going to have a good supper tonight! At least I think we will: I don’t know what kind of animal this is. But we saw a bunch of them feeding in some berry bushes, and I made a good shot with my slingshot. I got this one, and the others ran away.”
    He dragged the carcass to the fire. It was a plump little animal, dog-sized, with four stubby little hooves on each foot and sparse fur, pale brown and dappled with white spots.
    “Another new one!” Ivor said. “But I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s meat.”
    “And enough for all five of us,” Ellayne said, her mouth already watering, “not forgetting Wytt.”
     

CHAPTER 5
News from the East
    Lord Reesh knew things that no one else in Obann knew, and many of those things he kept to himself. He kept some of them even from the council of ruling oligarchs and from the governor-general of Obann, Lord Ruffin.
    Nevertheless, he was an old man and he had doubts as to his ability to outlive the present war. Because the Temple had to live on after him, he summoned to his private bedchamber tonight the man he had decided must succeed him.
    “I pray you are well, First Prester,” said the visitor.
    “I’d not be in my bed so early if I were well!” Reesh said.