Read The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) for Free Online Page A

mind,” Martis said. “This’ll make it harder for Lord Reesh’s new assassin to recognize me if he sees me.”
     

     
    But things were afoot in the world that Jack and his companions knew nothing of.
    Helki the Rod had returned to Lintum Forest with a strange little girl in his care, whom he’d found wandering all alone on the plains. Her name was Jandra; her family must have lived in the wooded foothills below Bell Mountain, until Heathen raiders killed them—at least that was what Helki thought must have happened. She was a tiny blonde thing, barely old enough to walk and talk. Helki hoped to give her to a family of settlers in the forest who would take proper care of her. With his giant frame, wild hair, and clothes that were mostly patches of all kinds of different fabrics and colors, they made an odd pair.
    What was strange about Jandra was that sometimes her eyes went all glassy and she said things that she could never remember saying, and which to Helki made no sense. He supposed that the destruction of her family had addled her mind.
    “There is a book missing,” was one of those things she said, and others, equally obscure, like, “Restore, restore the throne of Ozias.” What in the world did it mean, any of it?
    He had not been gone but a few days, but Helki found the forest in an uproar. The first cabin he visited was deserted, the family up and left, with no sign of a struggle or a robbery: friends of his, and he could not tell what had happened to them. And various outlaw bands were on the move, which forced him to remain in hiding for much of the time. He doubted this activity was on his account, albeit Latt Squint-eye, the richest and most murderous of all the outlaw chiefs, had sworn to kill him.
    Helki had a nice, dry cave he used from time to time as quarters. Its location was a secret known only to him. There he set up a temporary home for Jandra, intending to stay there with her until he knew the cause of all the uproar. He made her a bed of fresh ferns.
    “Now, little one, you mustn’t go outside when I’m not here,” he told her. “It isn’t safe. But there’s a nice spring of clear water nearby, and I’ll find us all kinds of nice things to eat. The forest is a good place to live, as long as you know how to live in it.”
    “You be my daddy?” asked the child.
    “Yes, my peeper, I’ll be your daddy—at least until we can find you a real daddy, with a mommy, too, and other tykes for you to play with. I’ve been a daddy to baby birds and baby squirrels, and little fawns, so I reckon I can be a daddy to a good little girl like you, if needs must. Only promise me you won’t set foot outside this cave unless I’m with you.”
    “Bad mens?”
    “Bad enough, and plenty of them—but I’ll see to them, never you fear.”
    And then her eyes went funny—Obst’s eyes used to get like that when he was meditating, Helki recalled—and she said, “You shall be the flail of the Lord,” and then fell fast asleep on her bed of ferns. Helki sighed and ran thick fingers through his tangled hair.
    “Flail of the Lord, is it?” he said. “And what might that be? Burned if I know!”
     

     
    There was uproar in the city of Obann, too, but of a different kind.
    With a loud and measured tramp that filled the space between the buildings, companies of spearmen marched, their captains on horseback, their boots ringing on the cobbles, the people lining the streets to watch and cheer. Lord Gwyll’s officers had raised the levies of the coast and along both banks of the Imperial River, all the way down from the city to the sea, and marched them here for mustering into brigades. Now they were being sent east, to firm up strong points and make ready for the invasion of the Heathen.
    Lord Reesh watched from the roof of his own house, with Judge Tombo by his side. They watched intently.
    Tombo pointed down to the street. “There!” he said. “Watch.”
    Reesh leaned forward, squinting, his