The Sage

by Christopher Stasheff

  Kitishane and Lua were already back at the camp by the time he returned, but they moved to the other side of the clearing as they saw Culaehra come—and the unicorn was there, too, quietly cropping grass, but deliberately between him and them. Yocote turned the spit where Kitishane's hare roasted, but lifted his head to give the outlaw a malevolent look as he passed. Culaehra returned it with interest, thinking how he would avenge himself on the little man when the chance came—but the amulet chilled his throat, and his resolve suddenly faltered, weakened by fear. He had to think a moment to realize why, then discovered the cause: when the amulet turned cold, a beating from Illbane followed. What was wrong with him? Pain had never mattered to him before!

  But then, always before, he had been sure of winning, of inflicting more pain than he received. Now, he was helpless to stop it. Oh, he fought back surely enough—but it did no good, and it was he who received more pain than he dealt! Mortification burned within him at the thought of the unfairness of it, but there it was, and he could do nothing about it.

  To make it worse, the chill of the amulet lessened until it was only dead metal again. It was almost as if the sage had outfaced him in person, then sneered with contempt at his retreat. Sick at heart, Culaehra knelt to hang the bark bucket over the fire.

  It was a very silent dinner, punctuated only by Illbane's occasional question and Yocote's laconic answer. But as they were finishing their meat, the gnome frowned and asked, “Who puts the evil in men's hearts, Illbane?”

  “There are many answers to that,” the old man said slowly. “What have you heard, Yocote?”

  “That there are good gods and evil gods,” the gnome replied, “and the evil gods find ways to make men wish to do as they do.”

  “And you, Lua?” Illbane asked.

  “I, too, have heard of the gods,” the gnome-maiden said slowly, “and I believe it, because I cannot help but think that all people are truly good, and only an evil god can make them otherwise.”

  “Why, what a stock of nonsense is that!” Culaehra burst out. “People are born evil, look you, and what they call 'goodness' is simply following the rules they make up to protect their wickedness!”

  The others stared at him, shocked, but Illbane asked, “What of those who seek to help others, even those they do not know at all?”

  “They delude themselves,” Culaehra said bitterly. “They cannot stand to face the fact that the world is a brutal place, and the people in it all self-seeking and cruel—so they pretend to kindness and unselfishness, and soon begin to believe their own lie, forgetting that it was all just a pretense!”

  “It was no pretense!” Lua cried, eyes filled with tears. “I sought to help you because I pitied you, not because I wished anything for myself!”

  “I do not want your pity,” Culaehra snarled, “and I did not ask for it, though I would have been a fool not to take advantage of it. And you did want to believe yourself to be good and noble, and helping me was what you had to do to make yourself believe it!”

  Kitishane stared at him, rigid and pale, a protecting arm around Lua—but Yocote, strangely, only frowned in somber interest. “What horrible things did people do to you, Culaehra, to make you believe such lies?”

  Culaehra's arm flashed up to strike, but the amulet turned cold against his throat, and Illbane's staff intervened. The outlaw lowered his arm slowly, but growled, “They are not lies, but only the truths of the world that others are too craven to face!”

  Yocote stared at him a moment longer, then looked up at Illbane. “I think he truly believes that.”

  “What reason have you to believe otherwise?” Culaehra fought to keep his anger from showing—not very successfully, but the attempt was new to him.

  “Experience,” Yocote told him. “Others have helped me for no better reason than that I lived in their village—some of whom did not especially like me. I helped them in turn.”

  “That is selfishness there!” Culaehra jabbed a finger at him. “They only helped you in case they needed your help some day, and you them!”

  “There is some truth in that,” Illbane said. “A village in which the people do not help each other will not last long—they will die one by one. But that in itself means that only those who are willing to help one another will live.”

  “Yes, or that those who the villagers are not willing to help will be cast out!” Anger was hot in Culaehra—but he was amazed to see it reflected in Kitishane's eyes. What could she know about being cast out? Instantly, he wondered why she had been hunting alone in the woods when she found him beating the gnomes. Strange that he had never thought of it before.

  But Illbane was nodding slowly. “Perhaps—but even so, as time passes, the people who live together will be those who do feel the urge to help anyone they see in trouble—and those cast out will die childless, for the most part, so the race of humankind will become more and more they who are born to help one another.”

  “What old wives' tale is this?” Culaehra asked in contempt.

  “Not an old wives' tale, but a legend of the gods.” Yocote was proving obstinately hard to anger tonight. “Have your elders never told you of the hero Ohaern and how he led the jackal-heads and nomads against the armies of the Scarlet God?”

  “What has that to do with why men work evil?” Culaehra demanded.

  “Then you have not heard it?”

  “I have, and I have no wish to hear it again! Start that tale, little man, and I shall—”

  Illbane cuffed him, silencing him for a few moments while the world wobbled around him and the sage's words echoed in his head. “Tell the tale as you know it, Yocote. Perhaps it will do him some good.”

  Culaehra barely bit back a hot retort. A picture flashed in his mind, of Illbane stretched out naked under the hot desert sun and he there to torture the old man with a knife—but the amulet's chill bit deep into his throat, making him gasp and banish the image. Of course—it was Illbane's amulet!

  “Ohaern was only a man, then,” Yocote began. His voice took on the singsong cadence of a tribal tale-teller. “But that was 'then.' His wife lay on the point of death, and Ohaern prayed to the god Lomallin for her life—and Lomallin sent Manalo, a wandering wizard, who healed her. Later, though, she labored in a hard birth, again at the point of death, and again Ohaern prayed—but this time the wizard came not, and the wife died. Ohaern was furious with Lomallin—until he learned that Manalo was held prisoner in a city dedicated to Ulahane, the god who hated humankind—and all the races of the world, save the gods alone.”

  “There are some who say he hated even them,” Lua reminded.

  “Even so,” Yocote agreed. “So Ohaern led a score of men against that city, but on the way, the half-elf Lucoyo joined him, burning with fervor to destroy the works of Ulahane and those who dedicated themselves to him.”

  Illbane raised his eyebrows at that, but did not interrupt.

  “They freed Manalo—this is not the full tale, my friends, but only as much as you could put in a cup. Ohaern had been a smith, but he used no tools to break the bronze and copper that held Manalo, only the strength of his hands and arms. They freed the wizard and took him back to their homeland—where Lucoyo met a beautiful daughter of Ohaern's clan and fell in love with her, and she with him. They courted, lost in their own world of dreams—until they were wakened most rudely when the Vanyar struck and devastated their village.”

  “Yes, the horse barbarians on the steppe, to the east!” Culaehra snapped. “They still ride there, and train themselves to wreak mayhem! What did your Ohaern gain after all?”

  “He drove them away from us for five hundred years. Is five centuries not enough for you?” Kitishane asked with withering sarcasm.

  Culaehra glared at her, anger filling him—but the unicorn raised its head and moved silently to stand behind the woman, then lowered its horn. Culaehra throttled his anger back, but watched the beast with narrowed eyes. Lua, misunderstanding who was threatening whom, reached
up to stroke the unicorn's nose. Surprisingly, it accepted her touch.

  “Still, it was not the Vanyar alone whom Ohaern overcame, but he who stood behind them,” Yocote reminded them, “dread Ulahane, the god of evil, who had sent forth his Ulharls—half-human children of the women Ulahane had raped—to suborn human agents, then send them out to seduce the barbarians to his worship.”

  “Others, too,” Lua murmured.

  Yocote nodded. “Other Ulharls he sent to overawe the jackal-headed folk and command them to do his bidding. Indeed, some of his emissaries bribed whole cities to Ulahane's worship and became high priests, rivaling the kings in power. But Ohaern journeyed through those cities while Manalo wandered the land to raise other folk to fight the human-hater. Ohaern exhorted the city-folk and swayed them back to Lomallin, then taught them how to fight off the Vanyar when they attacked. With Lucoyo, he went to one city after another, and was safe—but in a farming village where the folk had been swayed to worship Ulahane in the guise of a hag, they were nearly slain as sacrifices, and would have been, had not the goddess Rahani appeared to Ohaern in a dream to warn him. He struck aside the priestess who sought to slay Lucoyo, and the two of them fought back-to-back. Still, what are two against a whole village?”

  “But Manalo came back.” Kitishane was hanging on every word, almost hungrily.

  Yocote nodded. “Manalo came back. The wizard appeared to save them, then led them out into the desert and disappeared again. There, in the center of a ring of standing stones, the god Lomallin came to earth, to fight Ulahane in personal combat— and was slain. Ohaern and Lucoyo fled, grieving, and Ohaern sank into a deathlike sleep, wishing to die indeed—but Rahani appeared to him again and bade him live. He came back to life, but even then, he and Lucoyo would have died in that desert, had they not been saved by a band of nomads. Thus they met Dariad the Defender, the chieftain who gathered an army of nomads to fight at Ohaern's command. Then those whom Manalo had raised came to them—the homunculi made by the wondersmith Agrapax; renegade jackal-men who had fled the harsh rule of Bolenkar, eldest of the Ulharl, Ulahane's sons; and tribes of hunters, each few in number, but together, a mighty army. They marched on Ulahane's capital city—but Ulahane sent his Ulharls out to murder them, each leading a band of monsters. Ohaern, Lucoyo, Dariad, and their people fought and bled mightily—but they persevered, slew the Ulharls, and drove the monsters away. So they came to the walls of the city, where Ulahane himself confronted them—but Lomallin's ghost sent down lightning and slew the evil god, whose soul sped to the sky to fight Lomallin again. There they battled, forging stars into weapons—and there Lomallin's ghost extinguished Ulahane's completely. Seeing, the folk who had worshiped the human-hater cried out in despair and turned to the worship of Lomallin.

  “Then Ohaern and his friends marched victoriously through all the cities of the Land Between the Rivers, freeing them from bondage to the Ulharls whom Ulahane had left to rule them, and preaching Lomallin's kindness. The hard task done, Dariad led his nomads home, where the desert folk heaped honors upon them. The desert folk would have honored Ohaern and Lucoyo all their lives, but those two were lonely for forests and streams, and yearned for their homeland. Back to the north they went— and found that some of Ohaern's tribesmen had lived after all, though in hiding. Among them was the woman Lucoyo loved. They wed, and lived to see many grandchildren about them— but Ohaern could not stay; the presence of his homeland wrenched his heart with memories of his dead wife. No, he wandered away into the wastelands, where the spirit of Rahani could console him. She led him to a magical cavern, where he fell asleep, and lies dreaming of Rahani.”

  Illbane stared in shock. How on earth had people come to know of that? Beloved, have you been telling tales in people's hearts?

  He thought the breeze answered, Do you not wish to boast? but Yocote was saying, “Now and again, the soul-cries of human misery disturb Ohaern's slumbers, but the trials of his people pass, their cries die down, and he sleeps again. The day will come, though, when too many people dwell in misery, too many suffer from the tortures that the strong and cruel wreak upon the weak and gentle.”

  Culaehra's head snapped up, his eyes smoldering.

  “When the cries from the hearts of the oppressed echo too loudly within Ohaern's head and do not die down, they shall wake him, and he shall break forth from his cavern and stride out to free all slaves and smite all the wicked.”

  “Why, what a stock of nonsense this is!” Culaehra scoffed. “The strong shall always rule, and the weak shall always suffer!”

  “Ohaern will free the weak and bring them to rule,” Yocote said with massive tranquility.

  “If the weak rule, they shall cease to be gentle! Indeed, when enough weaklings band together, the first thing they do is to turn on a strong man and torture him!” Culaehra's eyes glowed with anger and bitterness. “Speak not to me of the virtues of the weak—I know them for what they are and know that only their weakness prevents them from showing the cruelty that is buried within them!”

  Kitishane stared at him, appalled. “I think you really mean that.”

  “Do not seek to tell me differently,” Culaehra said, quietly but with such intense bitterness that Kitishane and Lua recoiled. “I have lived it too much, seen the weak turn on the strong too often!”

  Yocote's eyes flared, but he only said, “How often is too often?”

  “How often is too often when the strong smite you?” Culaehra returned. “Once is too often, then—but when it is you who do the smiting, there is no limit!”

  His head rocked with a sudden blow. He whipped about with a roar, starting up to fight.

  Chapter 7

  But the amulet bit his throat with coldness, and Illbane's eyes burned down at him with such ferocity that Culaehra hesitated, feeling his spirit quail—and in that moment of hesitation, Illbane demanded, “Was that too often?”

  Snarling, Culaehra lunged at the old man—but even seated, somehow Illbane leaned aside, and Culaehra blundered past, tripped, and fell. He rolled over to shove himself up—and found that blasted staff pointed between his eyes again. “If you truly believe that for the one who strikes the blow it is never too often, then Ulahane's spirit is not fully dead!”

  With sudden elation, Culaehra realized how he could strike back at this magically invulnerable dotard. What matter blows, if he knew he had hurt Illbane with his words? “There never was an Ulahane—nor a Lomallin, nor a Rahani! They are nothing but tales the slaves make up to give themselves enough hope to slog their way through the next day, through all their days to their graves, where there is no afterlife nor any thought nor virtue, but only dirt and worms!” He trembled within at his own audacity, his blasphemy, but stood crouched and ready for the blows of Illbane's rage.

  But the sage only frowned, turning grave—and the probing of his eyes spoke of an understanding so deep that Culaehra shrieked again, “Dirt and worms! There are no gods, none, for if there were, no one would suffer!”

  “You believe that so that you will be free to hurt others,” Yocote snapped.

  But Illbane waved him to silence and said, “You would not speak so if you had not suffered in your own turn, strongman.”

  “You have seen to that!” Culaehra had to turn away from the understanding, the compassion in those eyes, had to make it sink under the weight of anger.

  It would not founder. “Think!” Illbane commanded. “Before the first hurt that was given you, before those weaklings of whom you spoke first banded together against you, there was a stranger who stayed awhile in your village!”

  Culaehra froze, staring into the vortex of those eyes, turning pale.

  “Before the first great cruelty of your life, there was a stranger!”

  Suddenly the memory crashed through the barrier in his mind. Culaehra sank down with a high, keening cry, clutching his head in his hands.

  “He came, he stayed, he talked!” Culaehra went on inexorably. “All liked him, all respected hi
m, even when he began to talk to certain of the villagers one at a time.”

  How had he known? Culaehra himself had forgotten. In all his memories of that awful childhood day, he had forgotten the stranger who had come a fortnight before, who had stayed a fortnight after, whose words had swayed the other children against him, made the adults fear and shun him. “You could not know!” the outlaw cried. “You could not ever have known!”

  “I need know only that Ulahane's evil lives after him,” Illbane told him, “lives in the body of his eldest Ulharl, Bolenkar. He it is who has sent his own corrupted minions throughout the lands, through all the lands, from his stronghold in a southern city!”

  Culaehra's head snapped up; his eyes locked on Illbane's. “Bolenkar? But he is a tale, a lie!”

  “He is as real as you or I, and he lives,” Illbane told him. “He dwells in Vildordis, a city of evil and cruelty, where slaves are brought only to be tortured, and where the miasma of corruption overhangs the whole citadel like a cloud. Oh, be sure, he lives, doughty hunter—lives, and seeks to do his father's work, but do it even better, to succeed where his father failed, for only thus does he feel he can revenge himself on the blasted ghost who raised him in humiliation and brutality.”

  “Has it come again, then?” Yocote looked up, his huge eyes tragic, his whole face wan. “The time of devastation?”

  “It nears,” Illbane told him, “for there are far too many who hearken to Bolenkar's promises of wealth and victory and pleasure, who turn to worship him by bloody sacrifice in his temples and worship him even more in their actions—in wars upon the weaker, in conquest and rapine and slaughter and destruction. But Bolenkar's agents go before him, to seduce good folk to his ways and, after they have learned to enjoy depravity and cruelty, to his worship.”