The Shaman (36 page)

“Your
goddess is overcome!” He did not shout, but his voice echoed all about them. “The
power of Lomallin has exposed your false Alique for what she is—only the
invention of a diseased mind, only a perversion and a mockery of the figure of
the Lady Rahani of the Ulin!”

The
whole clearing held rock-still as he dropped Labina to the ground. She looked
up at him, at the terrible wrath in his face, and cried out, curling herself
into a ball.

“But
there is power in Alique!” the old man cried.

“It
is the power of Ulahane!” Manalo thundered. “It is the power of death! He sent
the priestess Labina to you at a time when the harvests were increasing by
themselves! He sent Labina to debauch your young women and slay an endless
procession of strangers!”

He
looked about at the villagers, staring into each pair of eyes one by one as he
said, “Turn from the worship of Death to the worship of Life! Only Lomallin and
Rahani can give you increase of your crops!” Then, to Ohaern and his friends, “Turn
and go!”

The
aisle the dwerg had plowed reopened as if by magic. Ohaern knew better than to
run—he marched down that aisle, head high, with Lucoyo behind him, glowering
about, and Grakhinox behind the half-elf, with the grinning sharp-toothed Klaja
bringing up the rear. As they passed the edge of the crowd, Manalo followed
them, looking sternly at each villager, commanding them, “Turn away from this
death-bringer Labina! Scorn her false goddess Alique! Turn from the goddess who
is only a nightmare tale, to the Ulin Rahani!”

But
as he passed the far edge of the circle and stepped beyond the last hut, Labina
came alive behind him, screaming imprecations, howling at her people to go, to
bring down the blasphemers, or their crops would die, their babies be
stillborn, and all their cattle barren. The crowd moaned with fear and bent to
habit. They went charging after the strangers, and as they ran, the moan of
fear turned to the full-throated bay of the hunting pack.

Ohaern
did not need Manalo to tell him what to do. He ran.

“Quickly,
aside!” Ohaern dropped into an irrigation ditch. His companions followed him,
none paying much attention to the shallow water and mud in which they knelt.
The villagers thundered by, shouting and cursing, a ragged line of copper
blades flashing in the light of torches.

Manalo
leaned over to Ohaern and whispered, “Catch me one!”

Ohaern
looked up in surprise, then turned back to the running file of villagers, eyes
narrowed as he judged his moment. The body of pursuers passed, with only three
stragglers puffing along behind. As the last came by, Ohaern surged out of the
ditch and caught the man about the chest, pinioning his arms with one hand
while he clapped the other over the villager’s mouth. The man struggled,
thrashing and gargling—but little noise could escape Ohaern’s hand, and
struggles were futile in the arms of the big smith. Ohaern turned to drag him
down into the ditch, but Manalo had emerged, the hem of his robe clotted with
mud. He turned, beckoning. “Come!”

Ohaern
followed, hissing, “Lucoyo! Follow!” The half-elf bolted out of the ditch,
heedless of the fact that he was still naked, but with a nervous glance behind
at the Klaja. The jackal-head showed no sign of enmity, however, and the dwerg
was between them, so Lucoyo only hurried after Ohaern, cursing the hour they
had stopped at the village.

Manalo
led them to the shadow of a large, round, squat structure, out in the middle of
the field. There, he turned to face the captive. “This granary will do to hide
us for a few minutes,” he said, “and it is far enough from the village so that
none will hear you if you cry out. Still, Ohaern, you had best keep him gagged.”

The
whites showed all around the man’s eyes in fear. Ohaern frowned; such ruthlessness
did not seem like the Teacher he had known.

But
Manalo turned away, spreading his hands toward the village and beginning to
chant. The green glow began again, highlighting his hands, then growing to
surround them. Ohaern felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. What magic was
the sage brewing?

Manalo
turned slowly, so that he faced one field after another, even pacing around the
granary to cast his enchantment over the fields it hid from the village. Ohaern
watched, the spell seeming to prickle up his backbone and spread out over his
skin. He began to wish he could be somewhere else, anywhere else, for he did
not want to see Manalo take revenge.

They
came back to their starting place, and the green glow died as Manalo lowered
his hands. For a moment he slumped, exhaling a long and exhausted sigh, then
squared his shoulders, looking down at the villager. “Your harvest is saved,”
he said, “and that without slaying a stranger, nor even one of your own. Tell
the priestess, tell the priest—but first tell all your fellow villagers.”

The
man stared, amazed that he was not to be harmed. Ohaern stared, too. Manalo
nodded at the smith. “Release his mouth.”

Ohaern
took his hand away, and the captive drew in a shuddering breath. “You—You shall
not harm me?”

“No.
You are here only to take word of my enchantment back to the village.” Manalo
raised a forefinger. “But your crops shall grow well by the power of the Ulin
Rahani, not by any strength of your make-believe goddess Alique.”

The
villager shrank back, glancing at the ground as if expecting a fireball to
shoot from the earth and strike down the blasphemer—but nothing happened.

“Rahani
does require a sacrifice, though,” Manalo said severely. “You must plant your
seeds in hills, and in each hill you must place a small fish.”

“A
fish?” The man’s eyes were so round that he might have been one himself. “Only
a fish?”

“One
for every half-dozen seeds,” Manalo qualified, “but it is the sort of sacrifice
Rahani wants—food for food, not life for life.”

“If
you say so,” the man said, and gulped.

“I
say it, and it shall be so,” said Manio. “Plant as I have told you, pray to
Rahani, and you shall see that even if the plants already green in your fields
should die, the new planting shall increase enough to yield a rich harvest
indeed. Nay, more—the shoots that already live shall grow, not die, and your
harvest shall be twice rich, even thrice. When you see this is so, turn away
from the make-believe three-faced goddess and turn to the worship of Rahani. Go
now, and tell what you have seen and what I have said you shall see in the
future!” He nodded at Ohaern, and the big smith released the villager, who
stood a moment, glancing about at them, then suddenly broke and ran, dashing
away across the field like a gazelle.

“Will
he truly take your word?” Lucoyo asked.

Manalo
nodded. “But he will also lead the hunt after us. Come, we must be gone before
he returns!” And he turned away, leading them off into the night.

He
finally let them pause five miles from the village, where a grove of trees grew
up by a small watercourse.

Lucoyo
threw himself on the ground. “Thank all gods for sweet rest!”

“You
have need of a great deal,” Ohaern said sourly. “You have exerted yourself
steadily for two days, I doubt not.”

A
slow smile spread across Lucoyo’s face. “Ah, but what sweet exertion!” He
levered himself up and looked down at his naked body. “I must find a sheep, to
steal its skin—and my weapons! Where shall I find a new knife?”

“Where
would you have found a new life?” Ohaern retorted.

“It
is true.” Lucoyo sobered. “I must thank you for saving me again, O Smith. I owe
you another blood-debt.”

“Or
is it I who owe you?” Ohaern rejoined. “I have lost count. But we both owe our
lives to the sage.” He turned to Manalo. “I thank you from the bottom of the
blood-well within me, Teacher, for it would not still be within my skin if you
had not saved us.”

“Yes,
great thanks,” Lucoyo agreed, “thank you for every square inch of my skin, and
to show that I mean it, I show it indeed!”

Manalo
smiled, amused. “It is nothing, Lucoyo.”

“It
is to me! But how is it you happened by when we most needed you? And how is it
you came—” He glanced at the Klaja. “—accompanied?”

The
sage shrugged. “I had finished my wanderings, alerting the leaders of all the
nations to Ulahane’s assault. That done, I conjured a vision of you two to see
how you fared—and saw that you would soon be faring most dangerously indeed! I
sped to where I knew you would be, and on the way I was attacked by a band of
Klaja. They were few enough to be easily dealt with—but I discovered that
another of their kind had come up to stand beside me, dealing out blows. The
defeated ones howled at him, accusing him of leading them to me, and he did not
deny it, though it could not have been true.”

“No,
it could not.” The jackal-head grinned. “But it did me no harm to let them
think so.”

“Why
did they chase you?” Ohaern asked.

“For
a crime, for the sin of pride. I dared ask my fellows by what right the Ulharl
drove us, and when none could answer, I determined not to obey the giant
anymore. That meant death, of course, so instead I fled from my own kind. They
would not have it; when the Ulharl discovered I was gone, he sent them after
me, to punish disloyalty with slow death.”

Manalo
nodded. “No wonder a Klaja who turns against Ulahane is unheard of.”

“And
the enemy of our enemy should be our friend,” Ohaern said slowly.

“Or
at least our ally.” Lucoyo looked up at Manalo. “But what of these who treated
us so well, yet would have shed my blood, Teacher? What sense is there in that?”

“In
their view, you marked yourself for sacrifice when you were willing to copulate
with the women who served their make-believe goddess,” Manalo explained. “That
meant you would be willing to initiate their newest acolyte—and, in their minds,
ought to pay the price.”

Lucoyo
shuddered. “Who perverted their minds thus?”

“Labina,”
Manalo told him. “I recognize her kind by the fruits of her labor, and by the
idol she sought to become by paint and mask—the third aspect of the made-up
goddess, the hag and destroyer. She is a worshiper of Ulahane, sent forth by
him to pervert the worship of Rahani and turn humans away from Lomallin’s
teachings. She took Ulahane’s parody of Rahani, twisting her image from
something life-giving and nurturing into something that debased men and women
alike.

For
worship she debased an act of love into a public spectacle of physical
sensation only—which, like all physical sensations, palls as the pleasure
seekers become jaded; they do not realize that the rapture they truly seek is
of the heart.”

“Cheapened
by stripping it of intimacy,” Ohaern murmured.

“Yes.
Then she glorified death.” Manalo sighed. “The villagers kept the hag-face
secret, of course, or you would have fled from her devotees—yes, even you,
Lucoyo; the hag’s purpose was plain.”

“But
who is this goddess whose image they perverted?”

Manalo
looked up at Ohaern keenly, hearing the urgency of the question in his tone—but
he did not comment on it, only answered, “She is Lomallin’s ally. At first she
held aloof from the quarrel between Lomallin and Marcoblin—her interests were
otherwise.”

“What
interests were those?” Lucoyo asked.

Manalo
sighed. “She is greathearted but, more importantly, very tenderhearted—so if
she saw anyone who needed consolation, she was quick to offer it—and she was
very beautiful.”

“So
the consolation the men asked was physical,” Lucoyo inferred, wide-eyed. “Do we
speak of human men?”

“No—or
not often. By the time humans began to appear on the earth, she had been hurt
often enough by the Ulin men who took her favors, then turned away with callous
disregard, so that she had curtailed her promiscuity, or at least reduced it
greatly. In this she was aided by the counsel of Lomallin, who urged her to
keep her self-respect by keeping her favors. She hearkened to him, for he was
one of the few men who had never sought her bed.”

“He
did not find her attractive?” Lucoyo asked.

“That
was what she feared, but he assured her most earnestly that he did, but would
not treat her lightly—and she believed him, though she did not respect him
greatly.”

“Why
was that?” Ohaern asked.

“Because
he was a wizard,” Manalo said sadly, “not a warrior. In truth, he was one of
the least combative of the Ulin, and she saw masculinity as linked to fighting,
so she viewed Lomallin with great fondness, but also fond contempt.” He shook
his head, mouth twisted with wry reflection.

“Still
she listened to him when he bade her refrain?” Lucoyo asked in surprise.

“Listened
to him, yes, but watched him, too, and found another object for her tender
heart. She saw him teaching Agrapax’s homunculi, or trying to.”

“
‘Trying to’?” Lucoyo frowned. “They seemed smart enough when we met them!”

Klaja
and dwerg looked up, startled, and not a little frightened.

“Now,
yes,” Manalo agreed, “but when they were new, they all were both ignorant and
innocent. They had little mind and less initiative, but only wandered aimlessly
with no purpose, unless they were driven. So Lomallin gathered a dozen of them
and sought to teach them. Once he sparked interest in what little minds they
had, those minds began to grow. He made a language for them, a very simple
language, then began to teach them the history of the Ulin, and why and how
they had been made. Each of them went out and taught two more, so three dozen
came back to Lomallin to learn further—and thus, by doubles and quadruples and
octuples, the homunculi developed minds and knowledge.”

“But
what did Rahani see in this?” Lucoyo asked.

“She
saw creatures who needed love and care, and joined Lomallin in their teaching.”
Manalo gazed off into the distance, a smile playing upon his lips. “For a
century and more she labored beside him, until all the Agrapaxians had learned
as much as they could.”