by B. Muze
“Stand back,” it ordered. There was a power in that order that even a shaman had to obey. There was nothing Yaku Shaman could do. Jovai watched his spirit-self shift back into his human form with no power except speech.
“No!” her master cried. Jovai could hear his anger, frustration, and fear poured into that one word. He watched, horror filling his expression, as the lassoes caught Jovai and brought her down. Two of them bound her arms to her body, and the men dragged her, kicking and struggling, back up the hill.
“Master,” she screamed. “Help me. Please help me.”
“Why?” he demanded of the spirit cat who had enslaved him.
The cat eyed him with the imperturbable feline mien and said simply: “You may say goodbye, Yaku Shaman, because the great one loves you so.”
“Jovai,” he cried. The mountains and valley echoed with his pain, but only spirit and shaman ears could hear.
“Master. Master. Don’t abandon me!” she yelled.
“There is nothing I can do.”
“Master!” she screamed.
Already Yaku Shaman was fading, his body in the village pulling his spirit back. The will of the spirits was clear, and for the third time in his life, he hated them with all his heart.
Chapter 21
Slave
Jovai felt her master drift away from her, into the silence. He was not shielding himself. He had abandoned her. It was best that he should, she told herself. She should not have tried to run back. There was no place among her people for a nameless nothing. It was better for the slavers to be cursed with her, rather than those she had loved. Her soul screamed in pain for the way she had failed her dear master.
She ceased her struggling. She let the men pull her back. She stood quietly as they bound her wrists and slipped a knot around her chest like a thick leash.
Hom Busun’s fury was unleashed on his helpless slave. He punched her in the stomach, then at her jaw to stand her up, and a few times on either side of the head until the dizziness overwhelmed her and she fell to the earth, stunned. Then he drew out a thing like a bundle of shorter whips and beat her.
She took the blows in silence. The pain of them was nothing compared to the sorrow in her heart. There was no hope left.
Jovai came back to consciousness several hours later. The sun was sinking low in the sky. She found herself lashed to a tree. Every part of her ached. The back of her clothes were torn and her body covered with shallow cuts, but Hom Busun had known his job. Nothing was broken.
In the distance, she could hear the murmuring of her captors and the sound of earth being pounded. They were burying the corpse of the brown-blond haired youth. She heard them call to a god who was unknown to her, but no god answered them. She saw the spirit of the youth as it rose and walked, south. That was not the way of the dead. She did not know what it meant, but it made her shudder in horror. The youth, as he walked, seemed filled with fear and a long black shadow followed his spirit’s steps, even into night.
It had been so long since Jovai had eaten that her stomach clutched in pain. Her jaw was bruised, her face swollen where Hom Busun’s blows had hit. Her head ached and, though it was difficult to hold it up, it was worse to let it drop. She leaned back against the tree and waited for her captors to return.
The wait was not long. They came back with ground-turning tools in their hands and solemn looks on their faces.
“You awake, boy?” demanded Hom Busun, coming directly to Jovai.
With her eyes still closed, she did not answer. He boxed her hard on the side of the head to awaken her, smiling at her grimace of pain.
“That’s for Hom Kosif,” he explained. He boxed her head again on the other side. “And that is for trying to escape. We paid your people a lot for you: a beautiful, breeding mare just for one little, scrawny slave. You had better prove yourself worth that price or I will take great pleasure in extracting it, piece by piece, from your wretched hide.”
The Gicok and the other trader built a fire and started a meal while Hom Busun sought out a couple flasks from the bundled packs.
“We’ll do it right,” he said, holding them up for the others to see.
“Is there enough?” asked the younger trader.
Hom Busun shook the almost empty flasks and frowned. He pulled another from the pack, one he had taken off Jovai. He opened it and sniffed it warily.
“What’s this, boy?” he demanded, holding the flask under her nose.
“It is called konis,” she answered.
“What is it, boy?” Hom Busun insisted. “What does it do? Does it get you drunk?”
Jovai nodded, though she was only guessing what the word “drunk” might mean.
Hom Busun grinned broadly. He sniffed it again, then downed a huge swallow. The bitter taste caught him and twisted his face to a horrible grimace.
“What’s in this? Shit? It tastes like shit!”
“It is a holy drink,” Jovai told him angrily. “To be sipped with honor.”
“He says it’s a holy drink,” yelled Hom Busun, giddily to his men. “Just the thing to send poor Kosif off.” He bowed mockingly to his bound slave. “I promise you I drink it with ever so much reverence.” So saying, he took another huge swallow and stumbled back toward the fire.
“We’ll have a fine celebration tonight, thanks to our host,” Hom Busun told the other men, patting the flask of konis in his hand. “Good stuff. I feel better already.”
The younger trader reached to share it, but Hom Busun pulled it back.
“No,” he ordered, “feed me first, and feed him,” he waved vaguely toward Jovai, “then we can all enjoy together.”
The Gicok brought Jovai a plate of boiled beans. His eyes flitted around her warily as he did so, his face full of suspicion. He looked her over, probably debating whether to untie her so she could feed herself. His fear was stronger than his pride.
“Open,” he ordered, scooping the beans with his fingers. “No bite or starve.”
The smell was wonderful. Her whole body cried for food. She obeyed and let him feed her. Then he held a flask of water to her lips and let her drink.
As he turned to leave, she said, “Gicok. My people have always thought of yours as brave and honorable warriors. Yours was never the way to come as thieves in the night.”
“The people you speak of are dead,” he said angrily, avoiding her eyes. The way he said it left her uncertain. Did he mean her people or his? He rejoined the traders at the fire.
Hom Busun was already, ecstatically intoxicated. His face was filled with a foolish grin, his eyes, dilated and distant seeing.
“Great Gorat, this’s good,” he murmured, his speech slurred and difficult to follow. “Never felt so wonderful. If I die now — straight to the thirteenth paradise.” He took another gulp of the konis. His body was already so weakened that he could hardly lift the flask.
“Let me have some,” begged the younger man. He easily wrested the flask away from Hom Busun, but the Gicok stopped his arm as he lifted it to his lips.
“Strong,” said the Gicok, nodding toward Hom Busun.
“Just what we need right now,” answered the younger man.
The Gicok shook his head. “Too strong.”
The younger trader looked again at Hom Busun who lay smiling with joy, laboring for breath.
“I see it,” said Hom Busun, his voice a husky moan. “It’s a whole world — Paradise. Where’d it go?” He looked around confused and managed to drag his arm through his clothes until his hand rested on a small lump. A minute it took him to make his hand close and more to find the strength to draw the bag from his pocket. It was Jovai’s bag, her powers and loves, with the star-bone and the Gicok necklace and a small, polished stone. With labored effort Hom Busun pulled it open, then his strength left him and he dropped it, spilling the contents in the dirt. The necklace caught the Gicok’s flighty eyes.
“More,” called the trader, reaching weakly for the flask.
&nbs
p; The younger man held it away, and Hom Busun’s arm dropped heavily back to the ground, forgotten.
The Gicok knelt and picked up the little treasures. The necklace he put around his own neck, tucking it into his trader’s cloth top. The bone he put back in Jovai’s bag and stuffed it in his pocket. He held the stone in his hand for a moment. Jovai watched, fearful that he might read her name on it, a name she still did not know, but the Gicok put it back in the bag unexamined, careful not to turn it over to the flat side as he did so. The younger man was talking and didn’t notice, but Jovai watched, her heart in her throat. The Gicok scowled toward her, pure hatred in his face.
“He’s had a bit much,” the younger man was saying. “I’ll just have a little.”
He took a swallow from the flask and handed it to the Gicok. The Gicok sniffed it suspiciously. He took a small gulp and made a face, disgusted.
“Pretty bad,” agreed the younger man, “but I’m already starting to feel good. This stuff really works.”
The Gicok took another small swallow, corked the flask and put it aside.
“Don’t lose that stuff,” said the younger man. “I may want more.”
The Gicok handed it back to him and watched his partner sip it slowly until he was too weak to lift the flask.
Deep into the night, when both the others were lost in silent visions of their own, the Gicok finally stirred. He dragged himself toward Jovai, his body trembling with the weakness of konis. He looked at Jovai and around her with eyes strangely still for one of his race. She met his eyes and saw them filled with visions. He watched her in wonder and awe, murmuring to her in the Gicok tongue she could not understand. One word, “Hova” he repeated often enough for her to distinguish. He said it with reverence.
He sunk to the ground, his voice growing softer, and seemed to sleep. Jovai knew he was aware, but for several hours, at least, he would not be able to move.
In the stillness before dawn, the Gicok finally stirred. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled toward the supplies to gorge himself on any food that came to hand. His clumsy movements and the sound of rustling bags woke Jovai. The other two traders did not stir. One glance was enough to see that Hom Busun was dead, a look of horror twisting his face. The other grimaced in private nightmares. His breath was labored, his body paralyzed in fear.
The Gicok, his hunger satiated, carefully examined the condition of the others. When he discovered Hom Busun dead, he dealt the corpse a sharp kick and took a knife from Hom Busun’s belt. About the other man, he seemed more concerned. The younger man did not move, but his expressions shifted as if in response to intensifying horrors. The Gicok looked up at Jovai angrily, his eyes once again flickering in the Gicok way.
“Him?” demanded the Gicok, turning to Jovai and gesturing toward his young friend. “He live?”
“Maybe,” Jovai answered cautiously, “but he might not be sane.”
The Gicok’s expression grew grim. He gently lifted the man and leaned him against a stone, covering him carefully with a blanket.
“You sing death song, Vohee, — quickly,” he commanded, approaching her with his knife blade bare.
“Is it worth a horse just to buy a corpse?” asked Jovai, afraid.
He nodded shortly. “To kill murderer and thief it is worth.”
“I am neither,” objected Jovai.
The Gicok took the necklace from around his neck and held it before her.
“A gift,” she quickly explained, “from one who owed me his life.”
“No one owes life to Vohee!” scowled the Gicok. He cut her left hand free. It felt numb, unwieldy, swollen with bruises and cold. The Gicok angrily pressed the necklace into her hand. She frantically worked her fingers against the stiffness that had filled them and turned the necklace until she was holding it as she had been shown and could move it in the proper manner.
The Gicok’s expression melted from anger to astonishment.
“How you know?” he demanded.
“The giver showed me.”
“He is a traitor who showed Vohee,” muttered the Gicok, scowling again, but he sheathed the knife and put it into his clothes.
Carefully, still distrustful, he untied Jovai. It was with great relief that she shook her hands and feet free of the last of the ropes.
“Go,” ordered the Gicok, handing her back her pouch and the necklace.
“I thank you,” she told the Gicok.
From the pouch, she carefully pulled the stone and, drawing farther away from the Gicok so he could not see, examined it hopefully in the sunlight. It was not made of the dark earth as she expected. It was shiny black, lighter than a stone but hard and firm with an unbroken smoothness. No marks then. Her hopes sunk. There was no name here, carved or written and none had been spoken. The spirits really had given her nothing, when they had always seemed to promise so much.
Angrily, she raised the stone, thinking to toss it away. But it suddenly felt heavy in her hand, almost too heavy to lift. She was meant to keep it, she realized.
“Why?” she demanded silently. “I’ve given you my life, and you cast me away with nothing but a stone! If you won’t have me, then why should I be burdened with any part of you?!”
Again, she tried to lift the stone in her hand. This time it felt as if there were not enough strength in all her body to do it. She opened her hand to let it drop, but the stone stuck to her palm and would not shake loose. At last, with a sigh, she bowed her will to the spirits. If they would have her keep it, she must. She dropped the stone into her pouch and tied it back in place at her hip under her top, but kept the Gicok pendant around her neck.
She looked back toward the valley. She wanted with all her heart to return there. She was free now, and her legs could move there. Her mind played with the idea. How surprised they would be to see her again. There were probably many who knew what her father and the others had done. There would be still many more who would expect her to fail her trial and die. They would not be pleased seeing her return in her right mind.
Would she denounce the men who had sold her for a Gicok horse? It could be death for them and shame for their families, including her family. It would be shame for her master to have his authority questioned by so many, including the Winter Leader, and might lead to more questioning if the rest of his people did not wholeheartedly support him. Would they? Probably not, she guessed. They had been fighting him about her ever since he had taken her. It would not stop now. If she denounced the men, it would only make the arguments worse. The people of the village would be split over this, possibly violently. But if she did not denounce her traitors they would be free to kill her, and she had no doubt they would try. Had the slavers not offered an option, they probably would have killed her during her passage. They had not wanted to depend on her failing.
But she had failed. For that reason, above all else, she could not return. Yaku could not mark her a shaman unless she had a shaman name and felt the shaman mark burning upon her chest. She felt nothing burning there. She had no name at all. She would have to tell him that she had none. It was unnatural. Her people would say she had been given none because she really was a witch — and perhaps they were right. She did not feel evil, but what other explanation could there be?
If she were a witch it would be the shaman’s place to destroy her. It would not be just the passage of death, but a casting out so complete that even her ancestors would not welcome her. Her spirit would wander alone through eternity. Could her master do that to her, she wondered. Yes, she decided. For all his love of her, he would have no other choice.
“Why?” she demanded of the spirits again, silently. “I never wished to be different. I never wished to be anything other than what my mother and sisters are.”
“What you wait for, Vohee?” demanded the Gicok, coming up behind her. He had packed a horse for riding and one with supplies.
With one last, final look, Jovai turned her back on her people and her home and started of
f west.
“You go wrong way,” called the Gicok after her.
Jovai turned to him curiously, not understanding what he meant.
“Vohee that way,” he said, pointing back toward the valley.
With a nod to show she understood she turned again to the way she had chosen.
“Where you go?” demanded the Gicok, running after her.
She glanced at him suspiciously but did not answer.
“That bad way,” he told her. “You have no food or water or knife.”
“That does not concern you.”
“You are Dolkati Friend. Dolkati…” he sought a word but could not find it. “You go home, stupid Vohee.”
He grabbed her arm and pushed her back toward the camp.
“No,” she said, pulling away. Although his eyes flickered even quicker around her, she kept hers still, unblinkingly focused on him. She forced herself to relax and stood ready for whatever he might do.
“Bad way,” he warned. “Desert and Akarians” he pointed South and Southwest “Kofaie war there,” he pointed Southeast, “Nordu deadlands,” he pointed West, “Many death for stupid Vohee.”
She said nothing but watched and waited for his next move.
“Wait,” he ordered.
He ran to the campsite.
The Gicok carefully packed food and water into sacks of woven cloth and tied them onto two more horses. That left two for the trader who was still lost in the konis visions.
“You ride horse?” he asked.
She looked up nervously at the monster beasts. The Gicok grunted.
“No. Vohee too stupid.”
She approached the nearest horse cautiously. He sensed her fear and skittered away. She took a deep breath and imagined herself a Gicok, master of these demon beasts. This time the horse stayed still and let her approach, but once at his side, she could not see how to mount.
“Theligas,” ordered the Gicok, making a quick movement with his hand. The horse knelt before her. His shoulders still were higher than her waist, but she managed to scramble on. The Gicok snorted as he watched her and, with astonishing grace, leapt lightly upon the back of his own steed and started off. The other horses followed instantly, with Jovai’s arms around her steed’s neck clinging for her life.