The Shaman Read online

  No one said anything to that, but men and women glanced at one another uneasily. Finally, a grandmother said, “Were not the goddesses jealous?”

  “Most jealous indeed, and they sought revenge on the Ulin men.”

  “Surely there was danger in that!” the grandmother gasped.

  “Danger indeed, so more often they took their revenge on the women who had lain with the Ulin men, or took human mates themselves in spite. Most frequently, though, they sought to revenge themselves on the children of such unions.”

  “Thus were made the Ulharls,” a grandfather said, his voice low.

  “Thus the Ulharls came,” Manalo confirmed, “and that is why so many of them fled to the protection of their fathers, even though it meant serving them in every slightest wish. And they are doughty servants indeed, for they are half again as tall as any human man or woman, half again as strong, and many are born with powers of magic. All can learn magic easily, and most of them wish to.”

  Everyone shivered at the thought of the vindictive super-humans. “Why are the Ulharls so cruel?” one woman asked.

  “Because they hate you for being free, when they are not,” Manalo answered. “Those who were taken by their Ulin fathers—which some Ulin did only to anger their fellows or former lovers—and grew up among the Ulin, despised and mocked and ever the object of the women’s spite—these grew up bitter indeed, and are ever seeking weaker targets for their anger and hatred.”

  “But there are good Ulharls!” a youth cried.

  “Oh, some Ulharls grew happily enough,” Manalo said, “for they are honored if they grew up among humans—or are happy and spoiled if they have Ulin mothers and grow up with them. But they are few, very few.”

  “The Ulharls can have children by human wives, can they not?” one young woman challenged.

  “They can have children, yes,” Ohaern answered, “though I have never yet heard of an Ulharl who bothered to wed—or dared to, without his father’s consent.”

  “Would not such a one be human?”

  “Not the child of an Ulharl—such a one would be too huge to be mistaken for a man or woman. But a grandchild or greatgrandchild might be mistaken for a human, yes. A very big human, a very strong one—but a human nonetheless.”

  Ohaern felt a chill as several glances sought him out.

  “Do you all know who your great-grandparents were?” Manalo challenged. “A son of a son of a son of a son has little resemblance to his ancestor, after all. Any among you could be of the Ulharl.”

  A rash of coughing and clearing of throats ran through the great lodge, and everyone turned away from Ohaern. In fact, everybody tried not to look at any of his neighbors—and hoped they weren’t looking at him. Ohaern smiled, amused, and grateful to the sage.

  “It is their safeguard, ironically,” Manalo told them, “the Ulin’s guarantee that their race will never truly perish, so long as human beings walk the earth. You who are their victims, and the butt of their hatred, shall ensure that something of them survives.”

  “You do not mean that the gods are dying!” Chaluk cried, shocked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Manalo softly. “They have died from slaying each other in rage, they have died by their own hands when life became too dull—but the greatest number of them died in their war. There are only a handful left now, perhaps fifty—of whom many disdain the world of men, and some even disdain the other Ulin.”

  “And Lomallin and Ulahane are the most powerful among them?” someone asked.

  Manalo shrugged. “Perhaps only the most powerful of those who concern themselves with the destinies of mortal folk. If Lomallin has greater power than most, it is only by dint of his compassion for humankind, and his concern for their welfare, which focuses all his energies—and if Ulahane has greater power than most, it is sheerly by virtue of his will.” He shook his head slowly and sadly. “Oh, make no mistake—the Ulin are a dying race, while mortals are still growing, still becoming more and more numerous.”

  “And they hate us for that?” a young man asked, and the girl next to him shuddered.

  “They do,” said Manalo. “Many of those Ulin who are left regard the younger human race with spite and jealousy. All of them are concerned only with their own satisfactions—and for many of them their greatest satisfaction is venting their revenge on humankind.”

  “For no greater crime than that we exist?” a young woman asked, her voice quavering.

  “For no more than that,” Manalo agreed.

  “But what of Lomallin?” asked another. “Surely he is not concerned only with his own pleasures!”

  “His only fulfillment, rather,” said Manalo, “and yes, he is. It is fortunate for humankind that his notion of reward, his reason for staying alive, is seeing us thrive.”

  “Would he kill Ulahane, then?” another young man asked, eyes wide.

  Manalo shrugged. “Not willingly—but if he must kill or be killed, I do not think he would hesitate.”

  “So other Ulin are yet more important to him than us,” a mother said bitterly.

  “Of course,” Manalo said. “What else would you expect?”

  “Does he not think of us as his children, though?”

  “No,” said Manalo, “for he did not make you—well, not very many of you, and those few were Ulharls. No, he thinks of you as ones who need his protection, but not as being of his kind.”

  “His pets,” the woman said, even more bitterly.

  “Something more than that,” Manalo answered. “Remember, though, that Ulin are not gods, and Lomallin is certainly not the Creator. If he favors humankind, it is because he wishes to, not because he must.”

  “But how can you say they are not gods,” Ohaern asked, “when their powers are so far-reaching, and they have so much to do with our destiny?”

  “You, too, Ohaern?” Manalo looked up sadly, then thumped his staff against the floor and pulled himself upright. He rubbed his back. “I should not sit so long with my legs folded at my age. Come, my friends, let us go to bed. I must be up before the sun tomorrow, and on the road as it rises.”

  A chorus of protest answered him, but he stood firm against it, and it turned into a tide of regretful good wishes for his journey. Finally, Ohaern ushered the rest of the clan out and left Manalo to his bed by the fire in the great lodge.

  Chapter 3

  The tribesman caught Lucoyo by either arm and slammed him back against the rock. “Bind him fast,” the chief ordered, and his captors turned to their work with a will, wrenching tight the rope of twisted hide—around one wrist, around the back of the slab of rock, and around the other wrist.

  “So much for your pranks, halfling,” Holkar grunted. “Laugh, why don’t you?”

  “Yes, laugh,” snapped Gorin the chief. “Laugh while you can. If my daughter dies, you will scream soon enough—and long enough.” The back of his hand cracked across Lucoyo’s face.

  “It was only a jest,” Lucoyo said, then had to pause to spit blood. The bruises on his face were burning, and he knew they were already swelling. “Only an idle prank. The spider wasn’t supposed to bite. I didn’t know it could bite.”

  “You knew it well enough!” Kragni’s fist caught him on the cheek, sending the bruises aflame and adding his mark to the others’. “Everyone knows that the white crone has a bite—and that it can kill!”

  It was true enough—but the huge, hairy spider was also the most frightening of its kind, which was why Lucoyo had chosen it to hide among the rushes Palainir would use for weaving. If truth be told—which Lucoyo was determined it would not be—he had hoped the crone would bite. Palainir deserved it, for not only had she spurned his invitation to go walking out to watch the sunset, which he had expected—she had also given a shriek of laughter and called her friends to come see the stub of a halfling who had the temerity to approach a real woman. Burning with shame and seething with anger, Lucoyo had gone away and thought long about the manner of his revenge. He had made sure to
be near, currying a pony, when Palainir had taken out her basket of rushes to begin weaving a hat; he had barely kept himself from laughing out loud as she jumped back with a shriek. But even he had been appalled when the shrieks went on and on as she flapped her hand, trying to throw the spider from her. Her mother had seized the whole basket and knocked it against her hand, which was fine, but she had also turned and pointed a trembling finger at Lucoyo while she tried to soothe her daughter’s sobs, which was not. None doubted he had done it, though none had seen him—and Palainir now lay laughing and crying by turns in fevered delirium.

  Actually, Lucoyo couldn’t blame the spider. After having been tumbled among the rushes, it had no doubt been frightened and angry; he would have bitten, too. In fact, he wished he had. But he could fault the crone for bad taste, considering how long it had held onto Palainir’s hand. On second thought, perhaps he would have, too—the girl was very pretty. On third thought, no—he would not have wanted to keep that taste in his mouth. If beauty was in the heart and soul, Palainir was sadly lacking.

  Lucoyo turned his head to spit more blood. “You wrong me, Gorin. I, too, hope she recovers.”

  “I am sure you do—now that you are caught and bound. For the fright you gave her, you have been punished with blows and kicks, and you deserve it richly.”

  Well, Lucoyo could have argued that—but it didn’t seem like the time or place.

  “But for her illness, you shall be punished with the ordeal of fire!” The chief’s eyes blazed. “And for her death, you shall be punished with your own!”

  That, Lucoyo just couldn’t abide. “Go to Ulahane,” he croaked.

  The back of the hand rocked his head again. Through the ringing in his ears he heard Gorin say, “No. That is where you are bound.”

  Holkar and Kragni laughed richly, though Lucoyo could see little humor in the remark, and surely no wit. Gorin spat in his face—surely a subtle piece of satire, that—and sneered. “Ponder the ways of your wickedness, half-elf! When my daughter’s agony is over, yours begins!”

  He turned away, and so did Holkar—but Kragni lingered long enough to slam in another blow that made Lucoyo convulse against his ropes in agony, and said, “Point-eared jackass!” with malice and satisfaction before he, too, turned away into the night, leaving Lucoyo to hang alone in the dark.

  The old, old insult, Lucoyo thought as he struggled for breath and waited out the waves of pain that radiated from his groin. How he hated the tired old phrase—they could not even invent a new one! He had been hearing the same worn-out curses ever since he was old enough to understand words—or, at least, for as long as he could remember. “Half-elf!” “Point-ear!” “Jackass!” “Monster!” “Halfling!” and half a dozen others, always greeted with roars of laughter by the rest of his crowd of tormentors, as if they were bright, new, fresh—and funny.

  Lucoyo knew just how humorless they were, those insults— and those tribesmen—so he had bent his mind to thinking up really amusing insults to answer theirs. Unfortunately, that had brought beatings—but he had fought back, and watched and studied the big boys as they fought, and bit by bit began to win now and then. To win, when he was always smaller and lighter than the others! But they had an answer for that—they came at him in threes and fours, and never gave him an honest chance at a fair fight. So he had learned to fight back with pranks that made others laugh until they realized who had done them—he learned to set the burr in the saddlecloth, to drop the sharpened peg in the boot, to substitute the sandstone arrowhead for the flinten one and the green shaft for the seasoned bow. He had learned to answer their clumsy japes with true wit.

  “A rabbit’s ears, and a rabbit’s heart!” Borek had sneered.

  “But a man’s brain between them,” adolescent Lucoyo had answered, “whereas you have a man’s ears and a rabbit’s brain!”

  Borek turned on him, looming over him. “We shall see a rabbit skinned for that!”

  “Skin?” Lucoyo stared at the hairy chest in front of him. “Have you really a skin under all that fur?”

  “Lucoyo, you go too far!”

  “No, it is you who go to fur ... No, no, I am sorry, Borek!”

  Lucoyo held up both hands in a parody of pleading. “Have it as you will, suit your pelt—I mean, your self.”

  “I shall see your pelt stretched to dry!” And Borek waded in with a roundhouse punch.

  Lucoyo leaped back adroitly, then ducked under the next punch and came up fist first and hard. The blow cracked under Borek’s jaw, jarring his teeth; he staggered back, and Lucoyo followed close—face, belly, face—punching hard.

  Borek’s friends roared anger and leaped in.

  Lucoyo jumped aside just before they landed—so they landed on Borek, who howled with anger, and Lucoyo leaped away, running. Borek and his friends shouted in rage and came pelting after.

  Lucoyo ran like a river in flood, with quick glances back over his shoulder. Borek lumbered along, farther behind every minute, with most of his friends a dozen yards ahead, almost keeping pace with the sprinting half-elf—but Nagir was catching up, coming faster and faster, closer and closer . . .

  Lucoyo slowed down, just a little bit, just as much as might come from tiring ...

  Nagir shouted and kicked into a wild dash.

  At the last second, Lucoyo pivoted and slammed a fist into Nagir’s belly. The bigger boy doubled over, eyes bulging, and Lucoyo hooked the fist into his jaw. Nagir straightened up, and Lucoyo hit him with three more punches before he fell. Then he had to turn and run, for the other boys were catching up.

  “Run, rabbit, run!” Borek bellowed in fury as he plowed to a halt, shaking his fist. “Run, rabbit-heart! You cannot outrun the council!”

  That didn’t worry Lucoyo. He came home at dusk, confident the men of the tribe would realize that when it was five against one, the one was rarely at fault.

  He was wrong.

  As the men beat him with sticks for having beaten one of their sons, the fatherless half-elf learned not to trust in authority, not to rely on the law.

  But quick fists and fleet feet were only one way. Lucoyo learned also to wield truth as a weapon. He learned to answer scorn with the loud announcement of things his tormentors thought secret, learned to ferret out each person’s covert shame and charge them with it aloud, in answer to their sneers. It earned him beatings, yes, but the insults did slacken a bit. More importantly, he felt the fierce elation of revenge.

  Thus had Lucoyo learned to be the jester—but the jester whose tongue was barbed and poisoned, whose jests were edged and honed. They hated him for it, of course, but by their own law, they could do nothing as a clan, take no action against him.

  In private, of course, they could beat him, and did—if they came in threes and fours. In fact, he decided they had kept him so long because they needed something to punch.

  Oh, he hated them! Why had he stayed with them so long?

  Because his mother still lived, that was why—his mother, seduced by that wicked elf, who must surely have mocked her when he was done. Oh, she had told Lucoyo that he had bade her come to dwell with him, but she had been loath to leave her own kind—wisely, Lucoyo was certain, for what could she have been but a servant in an elfin hill?

  But perhaps, the traitorous hope whispered, as it always did, perhaps they would have honored her—honored you, if you had grown up with them! Perhaps he would have married her .. .

  Ridiculous! Lucoyo was actually grateful for the stab of pain that came with his angry shake of the head; it helped him deny the thought. His mother would have been a concubine when she was young, a wet nurse as she aged, and would now be a scullery maid to an elf-wife! No, she had done unwisely to have gone to that blasted elf’s bed, but had then done as wisely as she could to come back to her nomad clan’s camp and endure the shame of their censure.

  Her clan . ..

  It had never been his, not really. He had always been the outsider, the odd one, the detested stranger
whom they could not quite exile with a clear conscience ...

  Until now.

  He had made his fatal mistake, he had played one prank too many, taken one revenge too vicious. He had to admit, facing his inner heart, that he had hoped the spider would bite, hoped the chief’s daughter would die as she deserved, for the mockery she had heaped on him, that they all had heaped on him. True, she had been only one among many, and it was not right that she suffer for all of them ...

  Then make them all suffer, something wicked whispered inside him—Ulahane’s voice, perhaps; but Lucoyo was ready to listen to it now, ready and more. Revenge, it whispered, on them, on all the other mortals who would have treated you just as badly, on the elves who would have treated you worse! Revenge, on every human of every race and breed! Revenge on anything that lives!

  It was a worthwhile thought, and Lucoyo promised he would give it serious consideration—if he lived.

  But who was he promising?

  Surely only himself!

  Lucoyo was short, slight, and sharp-faced. Even without the ears, anyone would have known him on sight as not wholly human—and, of course, everyone in this tribe of nomads knew what he was and what his mother had done. No man would touch her after that—he had heard them talk about how none would take an elf’s leavings! True, his mother had told him that she was too plain to have attracted a husband, that the elf-man had been her one chance of gaining the baby she had so ached to hold, but he did not believe her.

  He must not believe her—or Lucoyo would have to blame her, too, for this bitter, constant torment called “life.”

  So when the clan folded their tents and followed the great herd of aurochs, it was Lucoyo’s mother who bore the heaviest burdens, Lucoyo’s mother whom Gorin’s wife commanded to watch over her own children as well as Lucoyo.