The Shaman (27 page)

“Are
you the priest here?”

“The
servant of Ranol.” The old man came to peer up into Ohaern’s face. “Call me not
a priest, for I have no special powers, no more than yourself—though I have
some skill in healing.”

“I
have no need of that, praise Lomallin. Would you deny it if I called you a
sage, though?”

“There
is some truth to that,” the old man admitted, “for I am wise in the ways of
Ranol—though I would not claim to know much more than any other man might, at
my age. I would rather you called me simply by my name; I am Noril. It is good
to see you here, young man. Few come to Rand’s temple anymore.”

“Yes,
I see that.” Ohaern frowned. “Ulahane has stolen your congregation, and I do
not doubt he set about doing it quite deliberately. Is all your city decaying
to his worship, then?”

“Sadly
so,” Noril answered. “I could wish we had not become prosperous, for Ulahane’s
worship seems to grow with our wealth.”

“I
see that many of your people fish for their living,” Ohaern said. “Have
they
become wealthy?”

“Oh,
yes, for there are many more mouths to feed, now that there are always two or
three thousand traders in the city.”

“Two
or three thousand! So many as that?”

“Indeed,”
Noril confirmed. “Most of our people are still fishermen, but the bulk of the
city’s wealth now comes from the great storage sheds by the water, where the
traders barter the goods from both seas.”

“I
have seen men of the north trading marten pelts and amber for gold beads,”
Ohaern said, “but those beads shall be of little worth in the cold northern
winter.”

“Perhaps,
but before they leave Cashalo they shall go to one of the warehouses and trade
their gold beads for copper pans, fine pottery jars, bronze spearheads and
arrowheads, stout cloth, even the spices of the east and the dried fruits and
medicines of the south. They shall receive good value for their marten pelts
and amber, be sure.”

“I
can see no harm in that—in fact, a great good,” Ohaern said slowly, “if the
trade benefits both.”

“It
is the warehouses that bring it about,” Noril explained.

“Our
merchants take the goods from traders from the Eastern Sea in exchange for
goods of Cashalo’s making—or for gold beads; that is something new brought from
the east, and very useful, for everyone always wants gold.”

Ohaern
lifted his head as understanding dawned. “So even if your merchants do not have
any goods that the folk of the Eastern Sea want, they can exchange for golden
beads, and the east-men can exchange those later, when they find the goods they
do
want!”

“Even
so,” said Noril. “In fact, foreign traders have begun to take gold from the
first trader who approaches them,
then
go to look for the goods they
seek. It is easier to guard a handful of beads than a whole boatload of cargo.”

“But
would not the beads be easier to steal?”

“Aye,
and they can be exchanged for lavish food and wine, fine lodgings, and
entertainments, none of which can be taken home—so foreign traders must need to
have strong self-rule if they wish to go away with as much as they brought.”

“The
goods they seek are those that come from the Middle Sea?”

“Indeed;
our ancestors blessed us more than they knew when they built their fishing
village between two seas. So, a week or a month after the eastern traders,
southern and western traders come from the Middle Sea ...”

“Not
from the north?”

“No;
northerners generally come down the Great River. Anon they come, and exchange
their southern goods for the eastern goods.”

“Or
for gold, if the eastern goods they seek are not yet in the warehouse.” Ohaern
nodded. “But because your warehouses are so big, there is almost always
something that the foreign traders want.”

“Even
so. Thus the eastern ships can spend less time in port—and so can the southern
and western and northern— thereby being freed to make more voyages in less
time, and to limit the number of golden beads their crews spend in lodging and ‘entertainment.’
“

“Surely
these warehouses are a marvelous invention!”

Noril
nodded. “So if the traders of Cashalo keep a bit from each trade for
themselves, who could begrudge them? Certainly their labor is worth it! Though
perhaps not their entertainment ...”

“Call
it ‘vice’—I know the sort of entertainment you speak of,” Ohaern said with some
distaste. “I have seen your Street of Lantern Houses and have seen that it is
so named because each house there has a huge lantern over its portal. Why?”

Noril
sighed. “The women light their lanterns at nightfall so that men passing by can
clearly see them posing in their doorways, to attract ‘customers’ who wish to
pay to touch them and caress them, even to the ultimate intimacy.”

“Women
really do such things for gold?” Ohaern felt like the veriest bumpkin, but he
could not help staring. He also felt sick to his stomach.

Noril
answered, “There are many women who are so poor that they will bed a man for a
coin.”

“Surely
not!” Ohaern said, shocked.

“Unfortunately
so.” Noril shook his head sadly. “It is that, or starve—for in the cities there
is no way to get food by your own effort.”

Ohaern
looked away, shaken. “Do the Vanyar do worse to them than that?”

Noril
was silent a while, then said slowly, “I cannot say— only a woman would know. I
hear of men who claim that such women enjoy bedding every man they meet—but I
have seen some of those men, when I have gone into that street to try to
persuade the women to find some other way to live, and to persuade the men not
to despoil them. Of course, the women decry me for seeking to cut off their
livelihood, and the men decry me for seeking to deprive them of pleasure—but I
cannot believe it can very often be pleasure for the women, for many of those
men are ugly as hogs. I doubt very much that any woman would enjoy a night with
such a one.”

“None
who worship Lomallin would so despoil a woman.” Ohaern turned thoughtful. “At
least, if he did, it would be because his resolve weakened. And no woman who
worshiped Lomallin would need to tempt him, for her fellow worshipers would
make sure she did not starve.” He looked up to see Noril watching him keenly
and asked, “The eastern folk have brought more than their goods, have they not?”

“It
is even as you say,” Noril confirmed. “The traders from the Land Between the
Rivers brought us the worship of Ulahane. We had known of him before, of
course, but none thought to pray to him. The traders, though, built him a
temple, praising him as the source of their wealth and luxury, and many
listened. Still, his gathering of a congregation has not been the work of a
single night, nor even of a single year, for there are temples to many
different gods here, at least one for each of the nations who come to trade.
Oh, our ancestors worshiped Ranol, but they were tolerant of other gods and did
not mind if foreigners built temples. It is perhaps because there were so many
that I did not realize the danger of Ulahane gathering so large a
congregation—until I had lost half my own. I should have realized that the Ulin
War had not truly ended, only shifted its battleground from the heavens to the
hearts of humankind and the other younger races.”

“The
Ulin War?” Ohaern frowned. “I have heard of that, but only that it did occur.
In the north we know only that Lomallin is the god of Life, and the protector
of our kind—and that Ulahane is the god of Death, but most especially the death
of humankind!”

“That
is so.” Noril nodded. “When the Creator first made the younger races, Ulahane
sought to slay them all—but our race more than any other. Lomallin sought to
prevent him and protect us, and they did war.”

“Over
us?” Ohaern frowned. “Why did beings so great and mighty as the Ulin care about
ones so much smaller and weaker?”

Noril
shrugged. “Who can tell? The Ulin do as they please, and have no need to
explain. My own guess is that they, who had been the only beings who could
think or speak, now resented other, younger races being raised up to do even
that much of what they could do.”

“You
do not mean that the Ulin saw some threat in us! In the elves, perhaps, for
they have strong magic, or even the trolls and dwarves and dwergs and
goblins—but humankind, who alone of all the races have no magic?”

“But
can learn it.” Noril raised an admonishing forefinger. “Though few wish to
devote the time and labor to do so, they nonetheless can. No, I think that for
some reason the Ulin saw us as the greatest threat to their supremacy, perhaps
because we alone are not willing to keep our place in the order of Creation. We
are proud, we humans, and overweening in our pride. Perhaps it is for that
reason that Marcoblin was so angered at our creation that he determined to mock
the Creator by making parodies of humanity.”

“Marcoblin—he
was the king of the Ulin, was he not?”

“As
much as they had a king.” Noril shrugged. “He was their best fighter, though
how much use is skill with weapons when everyone else is a wizard, and some
more skilled at magic than he? Still, if the Ulin had a king, it was he, even
if only because no one chose to dispute the claim.”

“Was
he wizard enough to raise up mockeries of humanity?”

“No;
for that he had need to go to the wondersmith Agrapax. Picture it—think of
Marcoblin striding from mountain peak to mountain peak, the earth shaking with
his tread and boulders flying loose to go bounding down the slopes ...

“Ho,
Agrapax!” he cried. “I have work for you!”

“I
have work for me, too, a great deal of it,” the smith replied sourly, and
stared pointedly at the boulders that flew from Marcoblin’s tread. “You deceive
no one with your spectacle, Marcoblin. You are no bigger than the rest of us,
and no heavier, so you might as well show yourself as you really are and leave
off damaging my mountains.”

Marcoblin
reddened, a hot retort on his tongue, but he needed Agrapax’s efforts, so he
knew he must not deny him. He shrank to only thrice the size of a human, and
the earth ceased to shake as he leaped the last peak to land beside the smith’s
forge with the huge crater of magma behind it, from which Agrapax drew
whichever elements he needed to forge his next work. “I did not know those
mountains were of your creation.”

“They
are not.” Agrapax knew the king would not apologize, any more than any other
Ulin. “But I have improved them. What have you come for, Marcoblin? I have work
to do, and cannot labor while I stand here nattering!”

Now,
Marcoblin knew that the surly smith had no great love for him—or for any, save
his arts—and would not grant him a boon. No, he had need to trick him into it. “I
have come to wager with you,” he said.

“I
do not wager. It is a waste of time.” And the smith started to turn away.

“A
challenge, then!” Marcoblin cried. “An artifact that you cannot craft!”

Agrapax
turned back slowly, blood in his eye. “Something that I cannot make? There is
nothing that I cannot make, short of truly living beings, or the world itself!”

“It
is living beings of which I speak.” Marcoblin sneered. “I thought you could
not.”

“Oh,
aye, of course.” The smith turned away, losing interest.

“Not
truly
living!” Marcoblin cried. “Still you cannot.”

“I
can, if they are not truly alive,” Agrapax called back over his shoulder, “but
why should I?”

“You
cannot! You have never done it!”

“Never?”
the smith snorted, and took up his hammer. “Do you not remember the man of
bronze I made to alright the goddesses?”

“I
remember, and recall also that they only laughed, for it was a man with no
genitals! But I speak not of metal, Agrapax, but of flesh! You have never
crafted that!”

“No,
for flesh lives.” The smith turned to Marcoblin, but he looked right through
the king, his head rising. “An interesting notion.”

Marcoblin’s
pulse leaped; he knew the fish had taken the bait. Now, if he could just set
the hook .. . “Something like flesh, like something living, but not truly—and
formed in the shape of a human!”

“It
could be done, perhaps it could be done.” The smith nodded slowly. “Let us
discover if it can ...” He turned away, dismissing Marcoblin from his
awareness.

“But
with genitals, this time!” Marcoblin cried. “One male, one female, for if they
cannot reproduce, they are not truly a mockery of life!”

“Yes,
there is something in that, though even crystals can make more crystals.”
Agrapax tilted his head up, thinking. “Perhaps not genitals—perhaps a
splitting, and a growing of a new half ... or a replication, a growing of an
entire new being in a sort of prolonged sleep ... Build it in so that it comes
upon them once a year, unawares ...”

Marcoblin
smiled; the fish was hooked, and racing with the line. He turned away, leaving
Agrapax to bring in a huge catch.

So
they came anon—a troop of homunculi, marching down from the smith’s crater,
looking as if they had been made out of a baker’s raw dough, only roughly human
in form—a slab split at the bottom to form legs and slit at the sides to form
arms, with a lump of a head at the top. They had only folds for eyes and nose
and mouth, and were certainly a very rough parody of the human form.

“Say
I cannot make them now!” Agrapax demanded.

“You
can, and have done most wondrously!” Marcoblin saw the need to oil the smith’s
ego. “All these from only two?”

“No,
I became enthused with the task and made a hundred—and each of those made
another, which made another. But when I saw how quickly they made replications,
I modified them so that they will reproduce only once a year.”