The Shaman Read online

  As he came closer, the city spread as far as he could see to east and west. The mist burned off as the sun’s rays struck through, and as the travelers came closer, he could see more clearly. There was some turbulence as they passed the mouth of a smaller river, and Lucoyo had to clutch at the sides of the coracle, but he still could scarcely take his eyes off the huge buildings that crowded either bank of the smaller river. The people of Cashalo had actually built some sort of hut that crossed the smaller river from shore to shore, like logs fallen to bridge a stream—if a log could be a hundred feet long or more, square at the sides, with dozens of people going back and forth across it, carrying heavy loads! Some of them worked in pairs, carrying their loads atop poles between them. He could only see their silhouettes against the bright morning sky, but remembered it well, for it was his first sight of city people—not counting the soldiers of Byleo, of course, which he didn’t.

  “I see a place to tie our craft,” called one of the rivermen. Ohaern looked where the man pointed and saw a wooden wall rising out of the water, anchored by stout upright logs, to which were tied boats—but what boats! Some were small as their own, but others were large as houses, made of plain wood or painted bright colors, some with no paddles, some with a dozen, and some even with huge square sheets of cloth hung above them on a great, thick pole! Such expanses must have been very expensive, for he knew how long it took a Biri. woman to weave even a small blanket from the sheared hair of the wild goats.

  Then the city seemed to tower on either side of him, or rather, to loom hugely, for they were coming in between great huts, four and five times the size of the largest tent he had ever seen. But they were not made of stretched hides, no—they were made from stones cunningly fitted together, as high as a man’s chest, with stacks of split logs rising twice higher yet!

  “Catch a rope,” Ohaern called.

  Lucoyo looked down, startled, and saw that the smith had paddled them in against the wooden wall—not a wall only, he saw now, but the side of a great flat floor, just below his chin! There were ropes hanging from the tree trunks, and he caught one.

  “Hold us fast,” Ohaern told him. He shipped his paddle, then took the rope from Lucoyo. “I will hold us tight against the wall. Up with you, now, and out!”

  Lucoyo did not need to be invited twice. He seized the edge of the wooden floor with relief and, being careful not to jump and swamp the coracle, hauled himself up waist-high, then rolled over and up to his knees. The view of the river was quite different, even so little higher as this! He found himself looking down at the rivermen in the canoe as one of them caught a rope and pulled their boat in against the wood.

  “Steady the coracle,” Ohaern called, and Lucoyo dropped down onto his stomach to hold the skin boat tight against the wood. Ohaern levered himself up and out in the same fashion Lucoyo had, then reached down to pull the coracle out of the water. He began to loose the leather bindings from the saplings.

  “Let me do that,” Lucoyo said. “You help our friends up!”

  “A good thought.” Ohaern passed him the coracle, then leaned down to catch the rivermen, one by one, and haul them up to sit on the edge of the wooden floor.

  “It is a larger dock than I have ever seen,” one said, looking about him.

  “ ‘Dock’? What is that?”

  “What we are sitting on.” Riri thumped the wood. “It saves us having to wade out pushing the canoe each time we climb in, so we have built short, low, wooden docks at our fishing village—but only two of them, never so many, and never so high or wide as this!”

  “So we have come to Cashalo,” one of his friends said, looking about him with wondering eyes. “So many years I have dreamed of it, and at last I have come!”

  “Much good may it do you, Orl,” Riri said bitterly. “What pleasures can a cripple have in Cashalo? What manner of life?”

  “Aye,” Hifa said on Orl’s other side. He looked about him somberly. “We have escaped from the Vanyar—but how shall we live?”

  “How should we live anywhere?” Riri retorted. “Who has use for a lame man?”

  “Who has use for a skilled fisherman?” Ohaern countered. He climbed to his feet and strode down the dock to a large boat, whose crew were just now boarding. The deck was piled with nets. “Ho, men of Cashalo! Do you fish?”

  The oldest man looked up in surprise. His face was seamed leather, and his only garment a swath of blue cloth draped over one shoulder and belted to form a kilt. He grinned and answered in strongly accented Biri. “Aye, stranger, we are fishermen! Most of the folk of Cashalo still fish for their dinners, though we labor hauling and carrying for the traders, too—and the richest among us do nothing but trade.”

  “Working for the traders? I had not thought of that.” Ohaern straightened, stroking his chin. “Where do they wander to trade?”

  “Everywhere,” the fisherman said, “or the young men do— north and south, east and west, wherever the rivers bear them. But when they have gathered enough wealth, they stay at home and the river brings the trade to them.”

  “How can the river bring trade?” Lucoyo came over, curious.

  “Because it bears traders.” The fisherman pointed a little farther down the dock, where men in sheepskin vests were tying up a long, low boat. “They are from the north, and will doff those woolly pelts for honest cloth quickly enough, I warrant. They have already left off their hats.”

  “Small wonder,” Ohaern grunted. “It is hot!”

  “And those!” The fisherman pointed across the dock, and Ohaern turned to see small, dark men with straight black hair and light cloth loincloths tying up a high-stemmed boat that seemed to be made of nothing but bundles of reeds. “Those are from the south and west! All come to Cashalo, if only to pass through to the Dark Sea—but if they do, they stop here to trade for jars of beer and hard bread, and a night’s pleasure, too. Most trade their goods here, though for the pots and weapons and metalwork of Cashalo—or of the east, or the cedars of the west and the ivory of the south, for that matter. Then they go home, and trade the freight of Cashalo for four times as much as they set out with—and while they do, the traders of Cashalo are trading their cotton cloth for the amber and furs of the north. See! There are northmen now, of your own nation, or I miss my guess!”

  Ohaern looked, and sure enough, there were Biriae, tying up a fleet of coracles. He made a note to ask them their clan and tribe and discuss the depredations of the Vanyar and Klaja with them—but there were friends to dispose of first. He turned back to the fisherman. “Have you work for fishermen who cannot walk, but can paddle well?”

  “Paddle?” The man looked up, startled. “Aye, for a man need not stand for that. In truth, in our boat he need not stand to haul in the nets! They would be useful indeed, for I have only my two sons today—my three neighbors are working for Gori the trader. Where are these men?”

  “Yonder.” Ohaern turned to beckon. Startled, Riri looked up, then pushed himself to his knees and, face flaming with shame, came walking on his knees.

  The fisherman frowned. “What has befallen him?”

  “The Vanyar,” Ohaern said. “His village was one of peaceful fishermen. The Vanyar overwhelmed them, slaughtered many, and kept a few to paddle—but they maimed and starved their captives, as you see.”

  For a moment pity lined the old fisherman’s face, but Riri saw, and his own face turned to flint. The old fisherman made his own face board-smooth and said, as Riri came up, “Can you row?”

  “What is ‘row’?” the riverman spat.

  “It is like paddling,” said the elder, “only you sit with your back to the bow and set the paddle between two sticks we call an ‘oarlock.’ The shaft is longer, though, and the blade shorter, so we do not call it a ‘paddle,’ but an ‘oar.’ “

  “It is an odd way to send a boat,” Riri said.

  “It lends greater power to your strokes, for you can use your back as well as your arms. Would you learn?”

&nbs
p; “For dinner and a bed?” Riri shrugged unwillingly. “I will.”

  “Have you fished with a net?”

  “Have I? Aye, and made them, too!”

  “Then I may have much work for you, indeed,” the elder said thoughtfully. “When I do not, others will. Nay, friend, lash your craft here, and none will disturb it, for it is the mooring of the family of Stibo. Come with us for a day’s fishing, and your canoe will be here when you come home.”

  “I thank you,” Riri said slowly, sounding as if he were uncertain as to whether or not he should be grateful.

  “And I shall thank you,” Stibo returned, “if you fish as well as your friend talks. I have need of your mates, too. Bid them bring the canoe, and we shall row out.”

  “Ho! Ori! Hifa!” The alacrity with which Riri turned to beckon to his friends belied his coldness. “The canoe! Hurry!”

  His friends stared, startled, then lowered themselves back into the canoe, slipped the mooring, and paddled around toward the fishing boat.

  “There is nothing crippled about them in the water,” Stibo said, watching the canoe—so he could affect not to see Riri look up with surprise that turned to satisfaction, even pride, as he nodded and turned back to his friends.

  “Into the boat!” Stibo said. “We must row out a little before they can paddle in! What is your name, stranger?”

  “Riri,” the riverman said.

  “Then into my boat, Riri, for we’ve a day’s work to do!”

  “That I will!” Riri reached up to catch the gunwale, then hauled himself over. “Show him his bench and his oar!” Stibo called, and one of his sons nodded, pointing the way for Riri.

  “I thank you, Stibo,” Ohaern said softly.

  “You are welcome, stranger,” Stibo said. “I am glad to do it, for I serve the goddess Rahani, and thus would she have me do. Nay, we shall be back here at sunset, if you wish to speak to your friends—but they shall have beds in my house tonight, and work on the morrow, so you need not fear for them.”

  “I am Ohaern,” the big smith said. “I can forge both bronze and iron. Call on me if I can aid you.”

  “I shall.” Stibo nodded. “Good luck in Cashalo, my stranger friend—and if you have gold on you, keep your hand away from it, but know where it is at all times.” Then he vaulted into his boat, and it drew away from the dock. The canoe tied up; then Ori and Hifa reached up for Riri and his new shipmates to draw them over the gunwales.

  “The people of Cashalo are good,” Lucoyo said, “if they are all like him.”

  “Even if most are,” said Ohaern. “But come now, Lucoyo. Let us speak to our countrymen.” He turned away to the Biriae, and Lucoyo followed, secretly thrilling that Ohaern no longer seemed to remember that he had ever been anything but a Biri.

  Ohaern’s tribesmen were already talking to a trader, who stood beside them with a small slab of clay in his hand, pressing tally marks into it with a pointed stick as they laid marten pelts before him, adding them to a stack set on a clean square of pale cloth. “One hundred and seven!” the trader said. “We agreed on one gold bead for each five pelts, so that is twenty-one beads.”

  “Twenty-two.” The Biri held up two more fingers. “Or I shall take back two of the pelts.”

  The trader shrugged. “What are two out of one hundred seven? Still, I would rather have them than lose them—so I will give you a silver bead for them.”

  The Biri nodded. “Silver? Yes, I will take that.” He was a grizzled, scarred old warrior who looked to be as hard as an axe blade—and the three young men with him were all hale and muscular. Ohaern could understand the trader’s reluctance to cheat them.

  “Then, praise Ulahane, it is agreed!”

  Ohaern’s head snapped back; he felt as if he had been dealt a blow across the face at the mention of the scarlet god’s name. He stared, watching as the trader slipped the beads onto a string. He did not look at all evil. How could he be Ulahane’s?

  The elder Biri took the string and bit one bead.

  The trader smiled. “Do you not trust me?”

  “I like the flavor.” The Biri looked down at his own toothmark in the gold and grinned. “Praise Ulahane indeed, if he gives good bargains to us both!”

  Ohaern felt as if the slap had been repeated, nay, doubled.

  “Indeed he does, for he is the god of prosperity!” said the trader. “Come to his temple tonight and you shall find great pleasure in his worship!”

  “Pleasure in a temple?” The Biri frowned.

  “Pleasure indeed, for in every ritual, we consecrate women to Ulahane’s service, and he fills them with uncontrollable lust. When the worship is done, they mingle with the male worshipers, and there is a merry time indeed! Nay, come and learn our manner of worshiping the trader’s god.”

  “Let us do so, Father, I beg you!” one of the young men said.

  “Aye, let us do so indeed,” said another, “for the journey has been long, and it will be years before I have enough battle scars to claim a wife!”

  “I am scarcely loath, myself,” the older man agreed, “though I might have been so before your mother died.”

  One of the sons seemed disconcerted at that, but he made no protest as the father said, “Aye, let us go to worship Ulahane!”

  Ohaern turned away, shaken.

  “Will you not speak to your countrymen?” Lucoyo demanded. “If anything, I should think they need your words now more than ever!”

  “They would not listen,” Ohaern replied, but kept his face turned straight ahead. “Perhaps not all of these Cashalo men are good.”

  “Or perhaps they are,” Lucoyo said, “but are becoming less so.” He gave himself a shake. “I can certainly understand the appeal of their god!”

  “You have been too long without a woman,” Ohaern grunted, and was appalled at the surge of desire he felt within him, at the memory of Ryl. Remorse and grief followed on the instant.

  “Will Ulahane really give us the better bargain?”

  Ohaern’s head snapped around. The accent was thick, but he could understand the words—though those speaking were not Biriae, but Myrics, the short, broad-faced men from the far north, with whom the Biriae sometimes fought and often traded. In fact, there were two Biriae climbing into the barge with the Myrics, which was why they were speaking the mixed trading language the two nations had developed.

  One of the Biriae shrugged. “We are his worshipers now. We shall learn quite quickly whether he will favor us in our dealings or not.”

  “Even if he does not,” said the other Myric, grinning, “his ritual was well worth the conversion!”

  “It was indeed,” the other Biri agreed. “We shall have to see to building him a temple and beginning his worship at home.”

  Ohaern could only watch, stone-stiff, stone-cold—watch, and listen.

  “He has certainly brought us good bargaining,” said a Myric. “The priest was right, telling us to press for as many beads as we could, and to give none to the beggars.”

  A Biri nodded. “One of the acolytes told me some word about Lavoc the cloth trader, that he would not wish his wife to know.”

  “What—that he had been playing with the women in the Street of Lantern Houses?”

  “Yes, and trading his wife’s gold beads for their favors. I mentioned that to him when I was bargaining my beads for his cloth, and he was suddenly willing to give me three bolts of cloth for a single bead.”

  His three companions laughed, and Ohaern finally found the will to turn away, his face thunderous. He paced quickly down the dock as the traders cast off the line and began to paddle out into the current. When he was far enough away, he hissed, “That Biriae should sink to such filthy tricks!”

  “Almost worthy of the tribe that raised me,” Lucoyo agreed, though he seemed much less disturbed by it. “I cannot like the thought of them spreading the worship of Ulahane in their homelands.”

  “Our homeland!” Ohaern snapped. “Tell me again that I shou
ld not turn about and go to cut out the corruption as it arrives!”

  “You should cut out the source instead,” Lucoyo said, but he seemed to recite it almost absentmindedly.

  Ohaern looked closely, and sure enough, the half-elf was gazing ahead into the city with longing, his eyes not quite focused. “What ails you?”

  Lucoyo sighed. “I could almost wish that I had not offended Ulahane so clearly, Ohaern. Willing women! The thought has great appeal to me now.”

  Ohaern held himself rigid, shocked all over again. Then he studied his friend’s face and finally saw not only longing, but clawing hunger. He did not know which disturbed him more, Lucoyo’s lust or the discovery that he had personal reasons for avoiding Ulahane, rather than an affinity for Lomallin.

  Lucoyo hurried forward a few steps to a man with a wax tablet, who stood waiting for a boat to pull into the dock. “Man of Cashalo! I greet you.”

  The trader looked up, and in very bad, very heavily accented Biriae, answered, “Greet you, stranger. What wish?”

  “How do I find the Street of Lantern Houses?” Lucoyo asked, while Ohaern stood rigid, unbelieving. “And how do I fare once I arrive there?”

  The trader gave him a sly grin. “Find it by going straight from sea gate toward palace.” He pointed at a broad street that seemed to sweep in all the dockside area. “Is fifth paved street. Turn left. Once there?” He shrugged. “Offer gold or amber to pimp who owns house, then play with which woman you like.”

  “Gold or amber?” Lucoyo’s face fell. “Well, I shall have to see to .gaining that! Thank you, man of Cashalo!”

  Still grinning, the trader made a sign that indicated Lucoyo was welcome, and the half-elf hurried off, the hunger naked in his face.