“True,” the hag spat, “and she would forever after have been sacred to Alique. Now, thanks to your meddling, she shall be forever cursed, and no man shall touch her!”
The girl wailed.
“A great many strangers must have died,” Ohaern said, “for so many young women to be eager to worship your promiscuous goddess! Or do you force a boy of your own, if no stranger comes in the spring?”
“There are always men who think it worth their lives to bed Alique’s virgin,” Labina spat, “but there are always springtime strangers, too, who are eager to bed any woman who is willing!”
Ohaern stood frozen a moment, then snapped, “And if I had accepted their favors? Would I, too, have been marked for sacrifice?”
“Aye, but now you will go in place of your friend, for you have desecrated the ritual, and only by slaying you can we avert Alique’s anger! Nay, slay me if you wish, for there is a matron ready to assume my office!” Then Labina screeched to her people, “Slay him!”
The villagers charged Ohaern with a roar.
He threw the priestess from him, but Lucoyo was already beside her, twisting the sword from her hand and turning to slash at his attackers with a shout. He pressed his back against Ohaern’s, and they cut and wounded man after man—but when five lay moaning, the others pulled back, and men at the edges turned to run for weapons.
“You cannot pass us,” one big man growled, “and when we have our blades, we shall slay you!”
“You shall not!” cried a voice like the grating of a cell door, and men howled in fright as they suddenly shot up off the ground in a wave that moved closer and closer to Ohaern. The dwerg pressed inward, hurling men out of his way with his huge, long arms—and behind him, guarding his back, came a human form with a jackal’s fur and a jackal’s head!
Ohaern stared, amazed at the sight of a Klaja coming to his aid. Then he shook himself into motion, taking advantage of the villagers’ fright, and leaped toward Grakhinox, bellowing his war cry, sword flashing. Villagers howled and leaped aside until there were none left between Ohaern and his rescuers.
“Do not let them escape!” Labina shrieked. “Stop them, or Alique’s wrath shall fall upon you!”
The villagers rallied, especially as voices at their outer edges cried, “Blades! Blades!” and the rattle of copper and flint told of weapons arriving. One man spun to face Ohaern’s sword with a copper sickle. Ohaern laughed and knocked it spinning from his hand—but suddenly there were twenty copper sickles, with flint-toothed scythes beside them, and whirling flails all descending on the hapless four together. The Klaja howled and struck about him with his pike, but for each man he transfixed, two leaped at him before he could wrench his blade clear. The dwerg caught those two and hurled them aside while Lucoyo and Ohaern fought madly, beating back blade after blade, but their breath came ragged already, and they knew that within a few minutes the villagers must drag them down by sheer weight.
“HOOOOOLD!” a voice cried out all about them, a single voice, but it seemed to come from all sides with the sound of a gong. Everyone froze, wide-eyed, but kept their weapons high and their gazes fixed on their opponents. Ohaern risked a quick glance back, and saw ...
A tall figure holding Labina up by the throat, her face turning purple, obscene red-dyed body thrashing—and the tall figure behind her seemed to burn with green fire, to be surrounded with it, and the villagers cowered away, moaning with superstitious fear.
But Ohaern stared with wider eyes than any, for he recognized the figure. It was Manalo!
“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.
Chapter 23
“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 exhauste
d 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.”
“And during all that time,” Lucoyo said, grinning, “the male Ulin fretted and fumed for want of her favors, and cursed Lomallin?”
Manalo smiled with him. “Indeed they did—and cursed harder when Rahani, having learned her bitter lesson, ignored them still and turned to the human race to fill the void in her, that needed something to care for and love. Indeed, she became the most ardent of human-lovers, and Lomallin’s most staunch ally.”
Lucoyo frowned. “Did her regard for him not rise when she saw him turn to fighting?”
The Shaman Page 27