The Shield of Time

by Poul Anderson

  Tamberly looked into the hunter’s eyes. They never wavered. “Your friend Aryuk is dead,” he declared. “I slew him. It was necessary.”

  For a moment the world darkened. Then: Bear up. This is a stoic culture. Don’t lose face. “Why is this?”

  The narration was short and dignified.

  “You could not have spared him?” she asked dully. “I would have paid … enough to give Running Fox his honor.”

  “You have told us you will leave in a few more moons, and Tall Man will not stay much longer,” Red Wolf answered. “After that, what? Other Vole men would think they could harm others of us and go free too. Also, Aryuk had won power over Running Fox’s ghost. Had we not recovered what he took, after death his own ghost would have been twice as strong, and surely full of hatred. I had to make sure he will never walk among us.”

  “I have gotten a promise that there will be no further revenge on the Tulat,” said Corwin, “if they behave themselves.”

  “That shall be true,” Red Wolf affirmed. “We do not wish to grieve you further, Sun Hair.” He paused. “I am sorry. I never wished to grieve you at all.”

  He made a dismissing gesture, turned, and walked slowly off.

  I cannot hate him, Tamberly thought. He did what he saw as his duty. I cannot hate him.

  Oh, Aryuk, Tseshu, everybody who loved you, Aryuk!

  “Tragic,” Corwin murmured after a minute. “But take comfort.”

  It flared in Tamberly. “How can I, when he—when his family—I’ve got to look after them, at least.”

  “Their own people will.” Corwin laid a hand on her shoulder. “My dear, you must control those generous impulses of yours. We may not intervene more than we already have. What could you do for anyone that is not forbidden? Besides, this tribe will soon be gone.”

  “How much will be left by then? God damn it, we can’t just stand idle!”

  He donned sternness. “Calm down. You can’t bluff the Wanayimo into anything. If you try, it will only complicate my work. Frankly, as matters stand, you have cost me some prestige, by association, when the news obviously stunned you.”

  She knotted her fists and struggled not to weep.

  He smiled. “But there, I didn’t mean to play Dutch uncle. You must learn to accept. ‘The moving Finger writes, and having writ,’ y’know.” Gently, he embraced her. “Come, let’s go inside and have a drink or three. We’ll toast memories and—”

  She tore loose. “Leave me alone!” she cried.

  “I beg your pardon?” He raised frosted brows. “Really, my dear, you’re overwrought. Relax. Listen to an old campaigner.”

  “You wanna know what the moving Finger should do to you? Leave me alone, I said!” She grabbed at her dome opener. Through the wind, did she hear a resigned girls-will-be-girls sigh?

  Sheltered, she flung herself on her bunk and let go. It took a long while.

  When at last she sat up, darkness enclosed her. She hiccoughed, trembled, felt as cold as if she were still outside. Her mouth was salt. I must look a fright, she thought vaguely.

  Her mind sharpened. Why has this hit me so hard? I liked Aryuk, he was a darling, and it’s going to be grim for his folks, at least till they can rearrange their lives, which’ll be tough to do with the Cloud People battening on everybody, but—but I’m no Tula, I’m only passing through, these are old, unhappy, far-off things, they happened thousands of years before I was born.

  Corwin’s right, the bastard. We in the Patrol, we’ve got to get case-hardened. As much as we can. I think now I see why Manse sometimes suddenly falls quiet, stares beyond me, then shakes his head as though trying to throw something off and for the next few minutes gets a little overhearty.

  She hammered fist on knee. I’m too new in the game. I’ve too much rage and sorrow in me. Especially rage, I think. What to do about it? If I want to stay on here any longer, I’d better make up with Corwin, more or less. Yeah, I was overreacting. I am right now. Maybe. Anyhow, before I can straighten things out I’ve got to straighten me out. Work off this that’s in me and tastes like sickness.

  How? A long, long walk, yes. Only it’s night. No problem. I’ll hop uptime to morning. Only I don’t want anybody seeing me stalk off. Unseemly display of emotion, and might give wrong ideas. Okay, I’ll hop elsewhere as well as elsewhen, way away to the seashore or out on the steppe or—

  Or.

  She gasped.

  X

  Morning stole gray through falling snow. All else lay white and silent. The air had warmed a little. Aryuk sat hunched in his cloak. The snow had partly buried him. Perhaps he would rise and stagger onward, but not yet, and perhaps never. Although he felt hunger no more, his wound was fire-coals and his legs had buckled under him during the night. When the woman descended from unseen heaven, he simply stared in sluggish wonder.

  She got off the unalive thing she rode and stood before him. Snow settled on her head covering. Where it touched her face and melted, it ran down like tears. “Aryuk,” she whispered.

  Twice he could utter nothing but a croak, before he asked, “Have you too come after me?” He raised his heavy head. “Well, here I am.”

  “Oh, Aryuk.”

  “Why, you are crying,” he said, surprised.

  “For you.” She swallowed, wiped the eyes that were blue as summer, straightened, looked more steadily down at him.

  “Then you are still the friend of Us?”

  “I, I always was.” She knelt and hugged him. “I always will be.” His breath hissed. She let go. “Did that hurt? I’m sorry.” She studied bound arm and blood-caked shoulder. “Yes, you’ve been hurt. Terribly. Let me help you.”

  Gladness flickered faint. “Will you help Tseshu and the young?”

  “If I can—Yes, I will. But you first. Here.” She fumbled in a garment and drew forth an object he recognized. “Here is Lovely Sweet.”

  With his good hand and teeth he stripped off the wrapping. Eagerly, he ate. Meanwhile she got a box from the thing she rode. He knew about boxes, having seen her use them before. She came back, knelt again, bared her hands. “Do not be afraid,” she said.

  “I am no longer afraid, with you by me.” He licked his lips. His fingers followed, to make sure none of the brown stuff was left behind. The ice in his beard crackled to their touch.

  She put a small thing against his skin near the wound. “This will take away pain,” she said. He felt a slight shoving. On its heels ran a wave of peace, warmth, not-pain.

  “A-a-ah,” he breathed. “You do beautiful works.”

  She busied herself, cleaning and treating. “How did this come about?”

  He didn’t want to remember, but because it was she who asked, he said, “Two Mammoth Slayers came to our place—”

  “Yes, I have heard what the one told who escaped. Why did you attack the other one?”

  “He laid hands on Tseshu. He said he would take her away. I forgot myself.” Aryuk could not pretend to her that he was really sorry for the deed, in spite of the evil it brought. “That was foolish. But I was again a man.”

  “I see.” Her smile mourned. “Now the Cloud People are on your trail.”

  “I thought they would be.”

  “They will kill you.”

  “This snow may break the trail too much for them.”

  She bit her lip. He heard that it was very hard for her to say, “They will kill you. I can do nothing about that.”

  He shook his head. “Do you truly know? I do not see how it can be certain.”

  “I am not sure I see either,” she whispered, keeping her gaze upon her busy hands. “But it is.”

  “I hoped I might die alone, and they find my body.”

  “That would not satisfy them. They think they must kill, because a man of theirs was killed. If it is not you, it will be your kindred.”

  He took a long breath, watched the tumbling snow for a bit, and chuckled. “So it is good that they kill me. I am ready. You have taken away my
pain, you have filled my mouth with Lovely Sweet, you have laid your arms about me.”

  Her voice came hoarse. “It will be quick. It will not hurt much.”

  “And it will not be for nothing. Thank you.” That was seldom spoken among the Tulat, who took kindnesses for granted. “Wanda,” he went on shyly. “Did you not say once that is your real name? Thank you, Wanda.”

  She let the work go, sat back on her haunches, and made herself look straight at him. “Aryuk,” she said low, “I can do … something more for you. I can make your death more than a payment for what happened.”

  Amazed, marveling, he asked, “How? Only tell me.”

  She doubled a fist. “It will not be easy for you. Just dying would be much easier, I think.” Louder: “Though how can I know?”

  “You know all things.”

  “Oh, God, no” She stiffened. “Hear me. Then if you believe you can bear it, I will give you food, a drink that strengthens, and—and my help—” She choked.

  His astonishment grew. “You seem afraid, Wanda.”

  “I am,” she sobbed. “I am terrified. Help me, Aryuk.”

  XI

  Red Wolf awoke. Something heavy had moved.

  He turned his head right and left. Again the moon was full, small and as cold as the air. From the roof of heaven its light poured down and glistered away over the snow. As far as he could see, the steppe reached empty, save for boulders and bare, stiffened bushes. He thought the noise—a whoosh, a thump, a crack like tiny thunder—had come from behind the big rock near which he, Horsecatcher, Caribou Antler, and Spearpoint had made their hunters’ camp.

  “Forth and ready!” he called. He slipped free of his bag and took weapons in a single motion. The rest did the same. They had slept half awake too, in this brilliant night.

  “Like nothing I ever heard before.” Red Wolf beckoned them to take stance at his sides.

  Black against the moonlit snow, a man-form trod from around the rock and moved toward them.

  Horsecatcher peered. “Why, it is a Vole,” he said, laughing in relief.

  “This far inland?” wondered Caribou Antler.

  The shape walked steadily closer. A badly made skin cloak covered most of it, but the hunters saw that it carried a thing that was not a hand ax. As it drew near they descried features, bushy hair and beard, hollowed-out face.

  Spearpoint rocked. “It is he, the one we went after with Running Fox,” he wailed.

  “But I killed you, Aryuk!” Red Wolf shouted.

  Horsecatcher screamed, whirled about, dashed off across the plain.

  “Stop!” Red Wolf yelled. “Hold fast!”

  Caribou Antler and Spearpoint bolted. Almost, Red Wolf himself did. Horror seized him as a hawk seizes a lemming.

  Somehow he overcame it. If he ran, he knew, he was helpless, no longer a man. His left hand raised the hatchet, his right poised the lance for a cast. “I will not flee,” rattled from a tongue gone dry. “I killed you before.”

  Aryuk halted a short way off. Moonlight welled in the eyes that Red Wolf had plucked out and crushed. He spoke in Wanayimo, of which he knew just a few words when he was alive. The voice was high, a ghastly echo underneath it. “You cannot kill a dead man.”

  “It was, was far from here,” Red Wolf stammered. “I bound your ghost down with spells.”

  “They were not strong enough. No spells will ever be strong enough.”

  Through the haze of terror, Red Wolf saw that those feet had left tracks behind them like a living man’s. That made it the more dreadful. He would have shrieked and run the same as his comrades, but clung to the knowledge that he could surely not outspeed this, and having it at his back would be worse than he dared think about.

  “Here I stand,” he gasped. “Do what you will.”

  “What I would do is forever.”

  I am not asleep. My spirit cannot escape into wakefulness. I can never escape.

  “The ghosts of this land are full of winter anger,” rang Aryuk’s unearthly voice. “They stir in the earth. They walk in the wind. Go before they come after you. Leave their country, you and your people. Go.”

  Even then, Red Wolf thought of Little Willow, their children, the tribe. “We cannot,” he pleaded. “We would die.”

  “We will abide you until the snow melts, when you can again live in tents,” Aryuk said. “Until then, be afraid. Leave our living ones alone. In spring depart and never come back. I have fared a long, chill way to tell you this. I will not tell you twice. Go, as I now go.”

  He turned and went off the way he had come. Red Wolf went on his belly in the snow. Thus he did not see Aryuk step behind the rock; but he heard the unnatural noise of his passing from the world of men.

  XII

  The moon was down. The sun was still remote. Stars and Spirit Trail cast a wan glow across whitened earth. In the village, folk slept.

  Answerer the shaman woke when someone pulled his windbreak aside. At first he felt puzzlement, vexation, and mostly how his old bones ached. He crawled from beneath the skins and crouched by the hearth. It held ashes. Somebody brought him fresh fire each morning. “Who are you?” he asked the blackness that stood in the doorway athwart the stars. “What do you need?” A sudden illness, an onset of childbirth, a nightmare—

  The newcomer entered and spoke. The sound was none that Answerer had ever heard before in life, dream, or vision. “You know me. Behold.”

  Light glared, icily brilliant, like the light that Tall Man and Sun Hair could make shine from a stick. It streamed upward across a great beard, to gully the face above with shadows. Answerer screamed.

  “Your men could kill me,” said Aryuk. “They could not bind me. I have come back to tell you that you must go.”

  Answerer snatched after his wits and found the graven bone that lay always beside him. He pointed it. “No, you begone, ya eya eya illa ya-a!” Tight as his throat was, he could barely force the chant out.

  Aryuk interrupted it. “Too long have your folk preyed on mine. Our blood on the land troubles the spirits beneath. Go, all Cloud People, go. Tell them this, shaman, or else come away with me.”

  “Whence rise you?” whimpered Answerer.

  “Would you know? I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would rip your soul, freeze your blood, make your two eyes break free like shooting stars, your hair unbraid and stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But instead, I go now. If you remain, Cloud People, I shall return. Remember me.”

  The light snapped off. Once more the doorway was darkened, then the stars shone unmercifully through.

  Answerer’s shrieks roused families nearby. Two or three men spied him who walked from them. They told themselves they should not pursue but rather see what help their shaman needed. They found him moaning and mumbling. Later he said that a dire vision had sought him. After sunrise, Broken Blade mustered courage to track the stranger. Some distance from the village, footprints ended. The snow was tumbled there. It was as if something had swooped down from the Spirit Trail.

  XIII

  Far off southeastward, beyond the ice and the open sea, the sky began to lighten. Stars yonder paled. One by one, they went out. Overhead, north, and west, night lingered. Above snow, whitenesses swirled off the hot springs. Nothing broke the silence but an undertone of waves.

  A man-shape arrived at Ulungu’s kinstead. He moved heavily. When he stopped among the dwellings he stood bent-shouldered. His call rustled faint. “Tseshu, Tseshu.”

  They stirred within. Men peeked past windbreaks. What they saw flung them back at the bodies crowded behind. “Aryuk, dead Aryuk!”

  “Tseshu,” It begged, “this is only Aryuk, your man. I have only come to bid you farewell.”

  “Wait here,” said his woman in the fear-stinking darkness. “I will go to him.”

  “No, that is death.” Ulungu fumbled to hold her.

  She fended him off. “He wants me,” she said, and crawled out. Rising, she stood before the c
loaked form. “Here I am,” she told It.

  “Do not be afraid,” said Aryuk—how gently, how wearily. “I bring no harm.”

  The woman stared at him in wonderment. “You are dead,” she whispered. “They killed you. We heard. Men of theirs went among Us, along the whole shore, and gave Us that news.”

  “Yes. That is how Wan—that is how I learned where you are.”

  “They said the Red Wolf killed you for what you did and We should all beware.”

  Aryuk nodded. “Yes, I died.”

  Care trembled in her voice. “You are thin. You are tired.”

  “It was a long journey,” he sighed.

  She reached for him. “Your poor arm—”

  He smiled a little. “Soon I shall rest. It will be good to lie down.”

  “Why have you come back?”

  “I am not yet dead.”

  “You said you are.”

  “Yes. I died a moon or more ago, beneath the Ghost Birds.”

  “How is this?” she asked, bewildered.

  “I do not understand. What I know, I may not tell you. But when I begged leave, I was given my wish, that I could come see you this last time.”

  “Aryuk, Aryuk.” She went to him and laid her head against his beard and mane. He brought his usable arm around her.

  “You shiver, Tseshu,” he said. “It is cold and you have nothing on. Get back inside where it is warm. I must go now.”

  “Take me with you, Aryuk,” she faltered through tears. “We were so long together.”

  “I may not do that,” he answered. “Stay. Care for the young ones, for everyone of Us. Go home to our river. You will have peace. The Mammoth Slayers will trouble you no more. In spring when the snow melts, they will go away.”

  She raised her face. “This … is … a great thing.”

  “It is what I give you and Us.” He looked past her to the dying stars. “I am glad.”

  She clung to him and wept.

  “Do not cry,” he pleaded. “Let me remember you glad.”