by B. Muze
“Why have I forgotten?”
The little girl shrugged.
“I don’t know. You’ll probably tell me when you remember.”
She yawned and stretched. It was hard to stay awake.
The great bear bowed his head, wearily. She stroked his cheek. It was wet.
“Don’t worry, master,” she said gently, “You are remembering very quickly.”
“You must help me,” he told her.
She dared to kiss him like a little mother.
“I will help you,” she promised.
The next evening, he was improved enough for the healer to allow the elders to see him. They crowded into his tent and sat around him while the child and a helpful wife served them steaming tea.
“You look well again,” Massern told the shaman, pleased. “How do you feel?”
The shaman looked to his servant for interpretation. She dutifully complied. The elders watched the exchange puzzled.
“He says he is feeling well,” his servant told the reverend men, “but not…” she paused, seeking words where the translation could not be direct, “not all himself…complete…yet.”
“Why do you speak to us through your servant?” asked Nobien Elder, a tiny old man with a beaked nose and a whining voice.
The great bear, seeing their faces, was already answering before the question was fully asked. His servant had to struggle to catch all his words through so many others. When she did, it was difficult to interpret. She was not yet perfect in the language. Much of what she understood was inferred through the context, and it made her awkward as an interpreter. She did not want to say the wrong thing.
“He says his mind cannot be shaped in your words yet, so I will help.”
They looked at each other, at him and his servant, confused.
“Why can’t he talk?” asked Jatoyen Elder, the youngest but perhaps the smartest of the elders.
“He wants to know why you can’t talk,” she explained to her master. “They don’t understand.”
“How much do they know?” he asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell them about the bear and the wolf?”
“It was not my place. I told the healer, but I don’t know what she said.”
“Tell them now,” he ordered.
“My master wants me to tell you what happened,” she started. The elders nodded. That was why they were here.
“But why can’t Yaku Shaman tell us himself?” insisted Massern.
She interpreted his question for her master. He scowled at Massern with a barely suppressed growl and practically shouted his answer. His servant blushed, but her interpretation was polite.
“He says to let me speak, and I will tell you.”
She retold her story with her father’s dramatic style, holding her arms out wide and pointing to the top of the tent, which could not be as tall as the giant, evil wolf-dog. Her master watched her, not understanding her words, but apparently amused by the way her arms flew around and her voice changed, deep for his words and high for hers. It was not the solemn telling he would have made, she guessed, but the elders watched her, spellbound.
She gloried in describing her master’s courage as he walked unfalteringly toward the terrifying spirit. Her audience startled as the beast leapt through her words and brought her master down. Their eyes went wide with wonder as she told of the great brown bear that rose from the shaman’s body and towered over the tallest trees.
“No,” her master interrupted in the old language. “Not so tall. Tell the truth.”
She looked at him, startled and ashamed.
“Perhaps he was not so very tall,” she amended, “but he was beyond any real bear, taller than the wolf by half again as much…”
She described the fight in vivid detail, described her fright at being cornered by the beast and the heroic strength of her master who saved her.
“When you found us the next day, you found his body only. He had not returned yet. He did not return until we were about to leave…”
“You called me back,” Yaku Shaman corrected. He said it in the normal language. His servant stopped her narrative and smiled at him. He nodded for her to go on. When she hesitated, he flicked his fingers like a push to shoo her.
“Tell the rest,” he insisted, in the old language.
“He was still in the form of the bear,” she told the elders. “Even after his spirit returned to his body, it has taken time for him to become Yaku Shaman again.”
“The bad spirit — will it trouble us again?” asked Jatoyen Elder.
The shaman looked to his servant for interpretation. When she gave it, he shook his head.
“The bear has kept it away for a while,” he told them through the little girl. “But it is a strange one to be troubling us. I do not know what it means.”
“You are a very great shaman,” Tapeten Leader praised him for his people. “We thank you for protecting us.”
“But why do you not speak?” asked Nobien Elder again.
“He…his spirit has not come all the way back,” his servant translated for him. “The normal language is still difficult.”
“Why is it that you can speak to him?” asked Jatoyen Elder. “What language do you use?”
She turned to interpret to her master, but the elder stopped her.
“I’m asking you,” he said.
“Forgive me, Elder,” she answered, confused, “but I am not a person yet.”
The others laughed. The shaman tapped his servant’s shoulder to get her explanation. She gave it. Her master very nearly smiled.
“He says to tell you that we use the old language.”
“How does your servant come to know it?” asked Jatoyen, now properly addressing the shaman.
“He says he has been teaching me.” She paused while her master said more. Then she smiled, blushing slightly. “He says I have learned very quickly and well.”
“Why have you been teaching her?” Jatoyen pursued.
Massern stopped the servant before she could interpret.
“That is a question for the shaman when he is fully healed. For now, we should be thankful that we have an interpreter.”
“How much longer do you think it’ll take for you to be truly yourself?” asked Nobien Elder.
The shaman shrugged.
“So, do we have a shaman again or don’t we?” he insisted of the other elders.
“We will let you rest now,” Tapeten Leader told the shaman, as answer to Nobien. “If we have strong need of you, we will come. Otherwise, we will leave you alone.”
Yaku nodded but did not rise as they left. The interview had obviously wearied him. His body was still not strong. It demanded him to sleep much more than he was used to. His servant was glad he did not begrudge it, for every time he slept he awoke with more of himself returned.
Chapter 9
The Student Teaches the Teacher
Yaku Shaman had his servant start teaching him their language. It was a strange thing for her to serve her master so. She gave him words for everything she saw. He could not retain them and had to be told over and over. When he did have the words, he could not put them together in the right order. The little girl had never thought of her language enough to explain it. She knew it was right when it sounded right, but the shaman had lost the sound.
Slowly, the shaman came to speak again, through his own reviving memory, more than his servant’s efforts. The language was the last thing to come fully back to him. By the Winter Festival he was strong enough to honor the spirits of the dead, to welcome them, should they choose to visit their families in such a distant place, but his servant still stood beside him, to help him speak to his people. She found it distracting duty. She wanted to find her grandfather and grandmother, but many people crowded around the shaman, both the dead and living, wanting the tale of his adventure told over and over. He was telling it mostly himself, with simple and austere style. The only c
olor was in the phrases he let her supply, and often he would correct her to his style.
“Our shaman is the only one who makes a story smaller in the telling, not bigger” some of the people laughed.
If her grandparents came, she did not see them. Perhaps it was too far. There were many others, whom she did not recognize and several who had died in the past year who still reached for the living as the living reached for them. She was happy to see Rirylia, who had made the long trip, but her master gave her almost no time to visit.
“Tell them I’m well,” begged Rirylia, pushing herself to her little friend’s side. She pointed to her parents, who were still grieving in memory of her. “They won’t listen to me.”
“I cannot leave my master,” she answered, “and they wouldn’t believe me anyway.” She remembered her mother’s and uncle’s responses the last time she had carried a message from the dead.
“Perhaps your master could do it?” asked Rirylia, hopefully.
The little girl asked him when the fourth telling of his tale was finished and he had a moment’s peace.
“Rirylia asks you to please tell her parents that she is well.”
The shaman addressed the distressed young spirit. “I have told them,” he said to her. “They do not cry for you, but for themselves because they miss you.”
“Can I help them?” asked Rirylia.
“Time will help them,” the shaman answered.
The winter festival marked the turning of winter toward spring. It was soon time to turn the people for home. They had to be back in their village by the Trintoa. Her master once again focused her lessons on the Trintoa ceremony. He quizzed her on the chants and corrected her until she was perfect. He spoke to her of the spirits whom they particularly wanted to please, taught her how she could call them, the ways they might come and how she might know them. There were so many, it seemed impossible to know them all.
One day, Massern interrupted their evening lesson.
“Have you fully recovered now?” he asked Yaku Shaman in his friendly way.
The shaman nodded, sternly, while his servant offered the Summer Leader some drink.
“The elders are hoping you will not need your servant at tomorrow’s council.”
Yaku Shaman eyed him suspiciously but said nothing. When he went to the council meeting, he left his servant behind. It was the first time since he had fought the evil spirit that he spoke to his people alone.
“Why do you teach your servant the old language?” asked Jatoyen Elder.
Yaku Shaman glanced at Massern, but he waited with the others for the answer.
“At the Trintoa she will get her name, and I will take her as my…” he paused, seeking the forgotten word, it did not come. “I will teach her to be your shaman.”
It was startling for the elders to hear. Massern had said nothing, confident that the shaman would change his mind. There had been rumors, but few could believe a woman shaman. It was easier to believe a crazy, old shaman.
“You waste your time with her,” said Sirfen Elder, who prided himself that he was still as strong a warrior as a much younger man. “We cannot follow a woman shaman.”
“It is unnatural,” cried Nobien Elder, “against the proper order of things.”
“You must choose a boy,” ordered Tapeten Leader. He spoke little, but when he did his words were strong.
Yaku waited until their objections were finished. Only when they were silent did he speak.
“The people do not choose a shaman. Even the shaman does not choose a shaman. Only the spirits choose. She is the one they have chosen. They like her. They will follow her. If you do not, then you go against them, and our people will suffer.”
“How can you know the spirits have chosen her?” demanded Tapeten Leader. It was a dangerous question that meant more than its words. It said to all listening that he believed the shaman was not a shaman but only insane.
Yaku measured the Leader silently, coldly, with his eyes before he turned them away and did not deign to answer. That was an insult back. Only foolish children were ignored so.
Nobien Elder nudged Tapeten Leader, urging him to apologize. The tension in the tent was thick. Tapeten stood up proudly and left the council. The elders all frowned. It was a bad business.
“Why would the spirits choose a shaman that our people could not follow?” asked Jatoyen Elder, with soothing tact.
“They do not say,” answered Yaku Shaman. “Perhaps they feel it is time that we should change. When our people were warriors, the spirits chose men who could lead in battle and in hunt, but we are farmers now. Our spirits nurture, like women, more often than fight.”
Sirfen Elder shook his head angrily.
“When the Gicoks raid or the journey is needed, how can a woman serve us?” he demanded.
“It is not the shaman, himself, who serves the people. The shaman serves the spirits and the spirits aid the people. The spirits follow her already. The spirits of our ancestors recognize and talk to her. The spirits of our wounded came to her.” He spoke now to Massern who had no memory with which to understand. “It was because of her that many more were not lost during the Gicoks’ last raid. My spirit,” he pushed his pride away to say it, “came to her when she called. The evil one had wounded me. I could not become myself again. I could not even remember. I could think no more than an animal. I could not have found my way back, and no one else of our people could have called me. Only a shaman.”
“You have taught her, of course,” said Jatoyen Elder carefully.
Yaku shook his head.
“I am teaching her,” he corrected, “but this much she knows already.”
“Could you teach another?” Jatoyen pressed.
“I can teach anyone everything I know, but the spirits will only listen to the ones they choose.”
“If you taught a boy, might the spirits then choose him?” asked Nobien Elder.
Yaku Shaman frowned deeply and slowly forced his fists to uncurl.
“No!” he answered, more like a growl than a word.
“So, you will teach your girl,” said Massern with a soothing smile, “but if the spirits should favor a boy soon — she has just had a brother, perhaps he too will have the spirit’s interest — could you then teach him instead?”
“I will follow the spirits,” answered Yaku with a nod.
That satisfied his people. They would humor their aging shaman’s whim. They would accept the little girl as Yaku’s temporary apprentice until a proper one was found.
The way back was more difficult than the way south had been. The snow had fallen thickly and still iced the higher mountain passages where the more treacherous climbs were. Lower down the melting snow and rains swelled streams and rivers, and turned good hard ground into mud which bogged the wagons and sucked at the people’s feet and the animal’s hooves. One young bofimer, a fine, healthy breeder, fell with a broken leg and had to be slaughtered. The wolves and hunting cats were bolder now that the long winter had made them hungry. The camp’s guards were doubled to keep them away as well as watch for Gicoks. They were lucky. The Gicoks did not come.
They pushed through storms and lengthened their days’ marches into night to reach the village by Trintoa. They arrived by nightfall, only two days before the morning of the sacred ceremony.
One of the men who had been left with the livestock met them with bitter news. A giant black wolf or dog, larger than any he had ever seen, had found the hidden valley and killed many healthy animals before he and the other young man had finally chased him away. The other man went in pursuit to try to kill the beast while his partner guarded the remaining animals. The man did not come back. When his partner went looking, he found his body torn apart — shredded as if by a dozen beasts, but not eaten. His face, still mostly intact, was a mask of terror and his dark brown hair had turned pure white.
The body had been packed in snow through the winter, but the snow was melting in the valley, and the bod
y was decaying. The shaman saw to it immediately, before he saw his house again. They carried it to the north plain, and he gave it a very long and special service to appease the wounded spirit who had been trapped between the living and the dead too long, and to protect it from the evil spirit who might hunt it still, even after death.
Every day before an important ceremony the shaman fasted in solitude to prepare his soul. His servant enjoyed such days when she could be free for a while. This one she eagerly looked forward to. She longed to see her tree again on the eastern hill, to listen to the baby in the trunk and reassure herself that he was still happy and safe. Then she planned to visit Katira, who was busy with a new baby boy of her own, to her husband’s delight. Pinden, who was not a farmer but a weaver, could only have been happier if it had been a girl as pretty as his wife, which greatly amused his father-in-law, but everyone was still very proud. Her little brother would probably be there too, for Katira often watched him. It was where the shaman’s servant liked to go best in her very rare and very precious free time.
The fast day morning, however, the shaman was up even before his servant. He woke her in silence and took her with him to bathe and to pray.
“But don’t you have to be alone?” she asked.
“Today you will stay with me,” he answered.
They walked the village, then sat in the holy room with the fire burning lightly scented herbs. They sat for hours, the shaman calmly listening deeply, while his servant fidgeted.
“Be still and listen,” he would order, and she would try, but she couldn’t concentrate as her master did. She would be still for a few minutes, then her feet would start shaking or twitching, and her arms would feel uncomfortable no matter where she put them, and all she could hear were people working and talking and children playing and she wanted to be out there with them. It made her master angry.
“Tomorrow is very important. We must be ready. You must prepare with me, not distract me.”
Again she would try and again she would fail.
“Listen deeply,” he ordered.
“What am I trying to hear?” she asked.