The Shaman

by Christopher Stasheff

  Lucoyo stared back, then said, “That is not usually a cause of death.”

  “No,” Ohaern agreed, “but she whom I love is a goddess, an Ulin.”

  Lucoyo stared again, his eyes wide and round. Then, in tones of pain and regret, he breathed, “Oh, Ohaern!”

  “Yes,” Ohaern agreed. “To worship a goddess, to give her devotion, is all well and good—but to be in love with her?”

  “What shall you do?” Lucoyo whispered.

  “I shall find her.” Ohaern straightened with decision and pulled his legs under him, folded to keep him upright as he set his back against the stone wall. “I shall find her again or die in the seeking, and if it is to be only in dreams that I may discover her, then in dreams I shall lose myself. She bade me search for her through the world inside.”

  “The world inside?” Lucoyo frowned. “How shall you do that?”

  “As shamans do. I have spoken with the healers of our clan well enough to know that they must sink into trance and journey far, though their bodies sit still. I shall sit here until I sleep, and bring up a waking dream—for I know, more clearly than I have ever known anything, that I must find her or die.”

  Lucoyo bit back the words; Ohaern did not need to be reminded that they would probably die in any case. Well, it was better to die in this cave, of starvation and thirst, but without knowing it, than to die between the jaws of a manticore. Perhaps it was even better to die here knowing you were dying— and keeping a friend’s body alive as long as you could. “Sleep then, Ohaern. Though you wake, find your sleep—if you can.”

  “I shall—or my body shall dry up and lie forever in this cave.” Ohaern closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. In truth, he felt that if he could not find the goddess, he would prefer to find death rather than face a life devoid of Ryl and devoid of Rahani, or to confront the fact that Ulahane was laying waste to the world and torturing humankind to extinction for his own twisted pleasure.

  Lucoyo stared at his impassive face, still as the stone behind it, and reflected that it was, at least, better than seeing that face distorted with pain.

  The eyes opened and Lucoyo nearly jumped back in fright, it was so unexpected. “That was a short dream!”

  “I am in the wrong place.” Ohaern climbed to his feet.

  Lucoyo stared. “How do you know?”

  “That, I do not know—I only know that I know.” Ohaern prowled to the mouth of the cave, stepped out, went a few paces, then stopped, shaking his head. “No—I am farther from it now.” He came back in, sat down in a different spot, closed his eyes, then opened them and shook his head. “Not here, either.” He went farther back in the tunnel, sat down again, shook his head again. “Nor here.” He rose again, went farther back, tried another spot and another. Heart in his mouth, Lucoyo followed the big smith into the very bowels of the cave ...

  Where it suddenly opened out.

  It was no cave, but a cavern, and to judge by its size, the whole of the giant rock must have been hollow. From very high up, nearly at the ceiling, the sun’s rays slanted down through long slits in the rock, striking reddish highlights from the stone, so that the whole cavern had a ruddy glow. It was amazingly clean. Lucoyo found it hard to believe that not even one animal had ever made its den in so fine a shelter, but so it seemed.

  Ohaern was busy sitting down, closing his eyes, then rising with a shake of his head and walking slowly over the ground until he found another place that felt possible. Finally, after a dozen more tries, he settled down near the wall, leaning back against it and closing his eyes. There he stayed, immobile, save for the rise and fall of his chest. Lucoyo began to feel concern and sat on his heels next to the smith, peering at him closely in the reddish gloom. He could scarcely see any sign of breathing any more, and—surely it must have been his imagination!—Ohaern’s limbs, torso, and face seemed to have hardened, to have turned into wood. He stayed long by his friend, feeling the alarm grow, assuring himself that Ohaern could not just sit down and die. Finally he reached out to touch the smith, then to squeeze, and the alarm flared, for Ohaern did indeed feel as if he were made out of wood.

  For Ohaern, though, things were very different. He sat still and thought over all he had seen, letting his grief well up, overflow, and empty out—and realized that he still mourned Ryl. He was not truly aware of having closed his eyes, but only of the reddish glow in the cavern seeming to grow thicker and thicker, until it seemed to be reddish mist. He felt a massive disappointment that the goddess had not appeared, but he was bound and determined that he would not stir from this place until he found her again. Presently he began to feel thirsty, but strength flowed from the cave floor to fill him, and his thirst ceased. So did hunger. He hung suspended in ruby mist, with a growing sense of anticipation. Somehow, he knew that something was about to happen, though he had no idea what.

  Then he began to hear the drum.

  First he heard only one double beat, slow and heavy, the second beat louder than the first. He thought he must have been mistaken, but after a while it came again, then again and again, always a double beat followed by a pause, coming closer and closer until its sound seemed to beat all about him, filling the world. With sudden apprehension, he sensed that something was coming, something dreadful. Rising slowly, he braced himself for combat—and realized that the sound was not a drum beating at all, but footsteps, limping footsteps, giant, heavy, and slow.

  The mists parted and a huge, monstrous form emerged from them. It was like a man, but a man almost as wide as he was tall, with pillars for legs and arms knobbed with muscle. But his face was worst of all. It seemed half human, half that of a giant lynx, with great round slit-pupiled eyes and tusks that thrust up from a snarling mouth. It carried a great war club set with spikes, a club that swung down at Ohaern as if to drive him into the ground, while that tusked mouth opened to give a growl that swelled into a roar.

  Ohaern leaped aside at the last second. The huge club smashed down right where he had been. Then he leaped in and seized the haft of the club before the monster could draw it back, throwing all his weight against it, all his smith’s strength. The monster roared in anger and yanked the club up—but it would not go; the tug jolted Ohaern, but did not move him. The monster bellowed in wrath, set itself, and hauled with all its might, but Ohaern held fast, jolting off the ground, then sinking back to it, his muscles bulging and veins standing out as if they would burst. With a howl of desperation, the monster let go of the club with one hand and slashed Ohaern from shoulder to hip with a great sharp claw. The smith gave a shout of pain, then set his jaw—feeling the blood flow, but determined not to let go while there was life in him—and pulled harder. The club came free from the monster’s hand. The creature howled in despair as it fell back into the mist, and the sound of its passing faded into the huge limping footstep sound as it disappeared back where it had come from—a limping sound that reverberated, becoming the double drumbeat again.

  Ohaern stood leaning on the club, his chest heaving even as it poured blood. He could not believe he was still alive, could not believe he had managed to wrest the club away from the monster—and least of all could he believe that he still moved, still breathed, while his chest blazed with pain and oozed blood without stopping. Hesitantly, he lifted the club to see if he had weakened—but it came up off the floor as lightly as a leaf.

  Then suddenly it seemed to leap in his hands, dragging him around in a half circle, straining to be away, to pull him along with it. Ohaern stood a few moments, reasoning. Surely the monster had been a sort of guard to keep evil mortals from the goddess! Would not its club show him the way to her, then? Slowly, Ohaern followed the direction of the club. It pulled steadily, wanting him to hurry, to run, to tire himself, but he held it fast and kept his pace deliberate, trying to time his steps to the pulsing drum that seemed to beat all around him—a beat that quickened as he went along, becoming once again the sound of limping giant footsteps. He followed the club
, dread welling up in him once more. It was another guardian that approached him, surely—and would it not be worse than the first?

  There it came, shouldering the mists aside—a monster with a bird’s head, elongated, stretched out. A bird of prey it was, with a long hooked beak and huge, round, maniacal eyes. It stood half again the height of a man, spare and lean, as if made from rope, seeming to have no joints save for a leg that looked as if it were made of wood—a stout oaken staff, ending not in a foot, but in an axe head—and a wooden arm that ended in a spiked ball of iron.

  The beak opened to let out a great raucous cry—a cry of anger, a challenge at the small, soft being that dared invade the path to the goddess. Then it pounced.

  Ohaern swung the war club, but it clanged uselessly against the spiked ball. Then the axe foot knocked the club aside, and the spiked ball swung in a short, vicious arc that ended in cracking against Ohaern’s head. He reeled back, seeing only red mist, feeling the holes where the spikes had pitted his skull, and could only think, I am dead. My head is broken. I must be dead.

  Dead or not, he still moved, even managed to raise the war club again just as that terrible ball swung down at him with the full force of a long, curving swing. Ohaern swung back, feeling an amazing quantity of strength pouring into him from some unknown source, into his arms and his legs as he swung with all his might—and spiked club met spiked ball. Iron clashed against iron and sparks flew—sparks that struck the wood. Leg and arm burst into flame, and the beak opened in a cry of pain and terror.

  Ohaern realized he had taken the initiative. He swung again, sheering through a wooden arm weakened by fire. The iron ball flew, to crack against the wall, and the monster spun and hurried limping away, squawking in rage and fear and pain. The reddish mists embraced it, cooled it, soothed it— swallowed it, and Ohaern stood alone again, chest heaving with exertion, blood running down over his scalp, flowing out of his chest, amazed at his victory, amazed that he still lived, and certain that he was dead, for surely his body could not have held so much blood!

  But if he was dead, this was the Afterlife, and he could shed an endless amount of blood, for a ghost had no need of it. Slowly, he took up the club again and held it out. Of its own accord, it swung around, and he swung with it until it stopped but quivered in his hands, pulling. Step by step he set off once again, following the pull of the club, that endless, relentless, double drumbeat sounding in his ears and filling his head.

  Again the drumbeat became clear, but with a scratching. Out of the mist came rolling a huge ball, but it was a ball with chicken’s feet that pounded the ground with each turn, pushing the ball on again.

  Ohaern stopped and braced himself, the club up and ready.

  The ball rolled onward, faster and faster, huge and purple, showing no sign of having seen him. Closer it came and closer—but much wider than he was tall. He could see veins pulsing across its surface now. Naked and obscene, it rolled down on him. At the last second he leaped aside, and the ball rolled by—but it swerved and came rolling back, slowing now. As it neared Ohaern, a tube lifted off its surface, a tube that narrowed from the full width of the ball to a rounded end only half again as wide as Ohaern’s head, a rounded end that split and rolled back into two full, moist lips that opened to reveal serrated teeth.

  The ball rolled, and struck down at Ohaern. He leaped back, swinging his club up from under, jamming its end between those side-shifting sawteeth—but saw they did, down through the club’s wood as the ball rolled back. Ohaern, in a panic, held to the club, trying to pull back—and the huge clawed feet came up to rip out his belly. He screamed with pain, letting go of the club and leaping back—but his legs would not hold, and he fell.

  The end of the club disappeared between those grinding fangs, and the lips struck down, teeth savaging his vitals, chewing down, down through his groin. Then they lifted, and the claws came up, ripping away all his viscera, tearing the gash in his chest wider and emptying out all within, then rolling away to let the lips come at him again. But a sudden notion inspired him, and with his last ounce of strength Ohaern caressed one hp, then the other, tracing its soft flesh with his fingertips—and incredibly, the lips shivered and the teeth broke, broke clean away, so that there were no stubs, no trace of them left. He caressed the lips again and again, his strength fading, but all the teeth fell loose now, tumbling slowly, and the gashes where they had been healed over, the soft lips touching him tenderly, touching his torn chest—and drank, drank of his blood, but with a caress that made him shiver with delight that obscured his pain, and consciousness faded into the red haze, letting him finally relax into death, knowing that he had given all that was within him, given of his blood and his essence, and would no longer have to face the horrifying prospect of a world rent by Ulahane, a world bleak and barren and devoid of all love.

  But after a timeless interval, he felt stirring, felt touches on his viscera, felt them moving, being placed back within him. The touches were caresses, the organs were all replaced; he felt whole again, and his sight cleared, to see a woman bending over him, smoothing away the last of the rents in his skin.

  It was she. It was the Ulin woman he had seen in his dreams, but already standing back, moving away, incredibly no taller than he, but beckoning, beckoning, and Ohaern rolled up to his feet and took a clumsy, awkward step .. .

  Too clumsy. He glanced down, not willing to take his eyes from the woman for long, and saw ...

  Fur.

  He was covered with fur, fur over short, bowed legs. He lifted his arms, found paws on the ends, paws with claws, and realized, with a shock, that the goddess had made a bear of him!

  Yet she was beckoning, still beckoning with that curious, enigmatic smile, and he felt a stab of sensation in his groin, felt almost as if it was there that she pulled, and he followed, waddling on two feet, then realized that he could go much faster on four and dropped down to run after her, for she was fleeing ahead, fleeing and laughing through the mist, disappearing. The bear that was Ohaern roared in anguish and galloped to follow, galloped till the mist lifted, and there stood the goddess, still smiling, amused but charged, by the base of a tree, a huge tree that swelled out of the ground all about, filling the world, so thick it was, and the goddess was rising up the tree and up, beckoning, and the bear that was Ohaern roared in a panic that she might leave him, abandon him, and struck the tree with claws extended, struck and climbed, walking up the tree as if it were level ground, up and up through red clouds, pink clouds, white clouds, as the trunk narrowed and narrowed until it was scarcely wide enough for his footing. Finally he began to tire, finally each step weighed heavily on his limbs, but the goddess still beckoned and still he followed, until the white mists wrapped all about him and he felt solid footing under his hind feet again. She glowed through the mist, only a silhouette now, and Ohaern followed, heedless that the footing beneath him might cease, until the mist lifted again and he saw, under the shadow of the Tree that still lifted high, a bower, a castle of intricate tracery spires that lifted high.

  Ohaern went in through the doorway—and felt man’s feet slapping the soft, warm floor beneath. His feet. He looked up, discovering he was walking down a tunnel with an arching roof. Holding up his arms, he saw that they were man’s arms again; glancing down, he saw he had his own man’s body, but naked now. He would have stopped to stare, marveling at his unblemished skin, but her voice rose in lilting song from the end of the hall, song that stirred an answering chord within his vitals and pulled him, tugged at him, and he followed, breathing hard, to the end of the hallway, through its pink scented curtains into a huge curving chamber that was roofed and walled in pink padded satin, floored with a sea of cushions and in the center she stood, still beckoning, her veils floating about her.

  “Divest me of my veils,” she breathed, “for I cannot see you through them.”

  And he went to her, unwound the veils from her one by one, his breath hotter and harder and heavier, unwound veil after ve
il until she stood before him, seeming to glow, her eyes holding his as her hands moved about him, and he fell to his knees, finally come to his goddess, who claimed her worship of caresses. He gave that worship with all his heart, all his being, as she sank down beside him, and this time the ecstasy was of the mind and the body both, yes, and of the heart and spirit, too, as he gave of himself to her, all that he was, all of himself, and she gave back as much as she received and more, and he hung suspended with her in a formless, timeless sea of pure sensation, conscious only of transcendent delight and a wish that it never end.

  Chapter 28

  “I must go,” Ohaern said, and moved to rise—but a dainty hand held him with strength that his huge smith’s muscles could scarcely have matched. “What,” said Rahani, “would you taste of my pleasures, then leave me without a thought? I assure you, you may not treat a goddess so!”

  “I could never leave you without a thought!” Ohaern said fervently. “Indeed, you would ever be in my thoughts and in my heart, and I could not leave you for long! If I had to brave the agony your guardians inflicted time and again, I would do it!”

  She laughed, the tinkling of wind chimes, and withdrew her hand. “Brave words, O Smith! But if they were true, you would never wish to leave me.”

  “I do not,” Ohaern admitted, “but I have made promises, even though I may not have spoken them aloud. I am concerned for my friend Lucoyo, who guards my body—if it is still in the cave.”

  “It is,” she assured him. “This is your dream body—well, not a dream, really, but the term will do. You are immersed in a shaman’s vision, Ohaern, and you have become a shaman—my shaman, and you are singularly blessed to be allowed to approach me!”

  “Oh, so blessed indeed!” he said, more fervently than ever, and reached out a hand to touch her, ever so lightly, still not quite believing that she was real, that he had come to her, that she would allow his caress.