The Shaman's Apprentice

by B. Muze

  In that evening Jovai hated her people more than she ever could have thought possible. Yet, if the Gicoks attacked, she would defend them, for she loved them too. There was not one among them whom she would let fall if she could save him, and she would kill any who threatened them. She would die, if necessary, to keep the people of her valley safe.

  “As long as your people threaten mine, I must be their enemy, but still I will honor you, and through you, your people. Accept it or deny it as you will.”

  “My horse waits for me beyond the river, in the upper flat in the west mountain above your valley,” he said, as if answering her. “In his pouch, he has a tube made of reed. In the reed are my powers and my loves. From it take two things, a lock of white hair bound in gold and a piece of bone. The hair put back in the pouch of the horse and send him back to my people. The reed with the rest of the contents bring to me. The bone you keep. If you do this, I will accept your honor and honor you back. If you do not, you will carry my curse forever.”

  Chapter 11

  Betrayal

  Jovai woke. It was sunset already and she shivered in the cooling air. The Gicok still sang, though his voice was weak and she could barely hear it. She did not understand his words.

  Her dream puzzled her. She shook her head to bring back clear thought. The tree branch on which she sat was no longer comfortable. Little branches poked at her, prodding her down. She obeyed, still confused.

  Only vaguely aware of what she was doing, she climbed down the eastern hill, walked around the village quietly and paused at the edge of the river. The bridge had not been pushed out again, yet. She had not the strength to do it alone, so she had to swim. She left a trail of water along the bank where she emerged, and up the path, as she climbed into the mountains.

  She got safely to the clearing the Gicok had described. Six great black horses grazed there, patiently awaiting their riders. Jovai stared in confusion. It had not occurred to her that there would be others. How would she know which was the right one?

  She called up a picture of the dying Gicok in her mind. She called it up so strongly that for a moment it seemed real, and she stepped into it and walked forward into the clearing. The horses glanced up at her curiously. One stepped forward, eagerly, then paused confused. His nostrils quivered, and he danced away. He was the one.

  She tried to catch him, but he would not let her near. When she got too close, he reared and struck at her with his hooves. She quickly ducked away and called to him soothingly in the spirit’s tongue, but he would not listen. He whinnied loudly, calling his distress.

  Then he raised his lip in an expression almost like a human snarl and rushed at her. Jovai turned and ran, frightened. Another horse leapt in front of her, blocking her path, herding her another way, toward a cave in the mountainside sheltered by trees. She did not think of what beast might claim that cave. She merely ran for it as the only place of safety from the frightful demon horses.

  A spear flew past her as she entered the cave. It came from within. She ducked and pressed herself toward the wall, but hands from the darkness grabbed her and held a knife to her throat.

  “Focurna yem toxeti,” hissed a voice nearby, and a figure stepped forward from the other wall into the meager moonlight struggling in from the cave entrance. It was a Gicok, though not tall like his people, but bent, stooping painfully. In his good hand, he held a spear, raised and aimed at her.

  “Mo moretic jahi vo.” The one who held her answered back, his voice angry. He pushed Jovai away from him, deeper into the cave. His push was weak, as though nothing backed it, but there were two of them, both armed, and she was not.

  “Moreti forca na yem!” the other ordered. She felt his spear at her back, nudging her on.

  The one who had held her followed at a distance, leaning heavily against the wall of the cave, dragging a useless leg behind him. He too had a spear, but he used it as a crutch.

  The spear jabbed painfully at her side, forcing her toward the cave wall. Through a crack, a little light fled, and there was just enough space, behind a shielding boulder, for a grown man to squeeze through into an adjoining chamber. The spearman prodded at her, and she silently obeyed, slipping through the crack, although her heart was pounding with fear.

  A small fire in the center lit the little cave chamber, it’s smoke thickly filling the high ceiling and drifting low to choke the air around the dead men scattered on the floor beneath.

  “Hisnathek ge?” demanded a weak voice from the crowd of bodies.

  The spearman answered angrily. The other man, who had held the knife, then entered the chamber and spoke to the dying one with a tone more reasonable and respectful.

  “Vohee?” demanded the dying one.

  The others nodded and herded her into the light. The spearman laughed when he saw the frightened little girl and turned his back disdainfully. The limping man was more cautious. With knife drawn, he approached her slowly. She backed away.

  “He will not kill you…yet,” said the dying man from behind her, his accent thick and harsh, but understandable.

  Jovai turned to him, astonished that he could speak her language. The limping man lunged at her and pulled her down heavily as he fell on top of her. With his weight and his knife again at her throat to hold her, he searched her clothes for weapons. There was nothing to find. He let her up again, with a short report to the dying leader.

  “What do you do here, Vohee?” demanded the dying one.

  “I am sent by the warrior we captured,” she answered.

  “Why?”

  “He wants his…his power and his loves. I am here to get them for him.”

  She approached him cautiously, her eyes struggling through the shadows to see his wounds. The spearman shouted something at her angrily, but the dying one weakly waved him into silence. He let the little girl approach.

  “You are here to steal,” he accused.

  She shook her head. Blood caked with mud over a wound on his temple, but it was a deep gash in his side, a blade which had found its way between the reeds of his vest, that was killing him. This wound too was caked with mud, but the blood leaked through and took his life with it. It had a stench about it. The fever was fighting to get in and winning. She reached for the wound, to examine by touch what the shadows hid, but the spearman was upon her, wildly ordering her back, his spear dividing her from the dying one.

  “I am a healer,” she announced. “I can help you if you’ll let me.”

  “You are our enemy.”

  “If you do not trust me you will die.”

  “I’d rather die than be taken by your people.”

  Jovai shook her head in frustration. All this talk of enmity seemed silly to her now. This wounded person was not a warrior striking at her people, but a man weak with pain. She knew in his heart he must grieve for those whose dead bodies were scattered around him. She knew some part of him, however hidden, must tremble in fear as he faced his own death. She knew she could help him, if only he would let her. With all her heart, she wanted to ease away his pain and fear, to heal his hurt and lend him her strength. Her mind struggled to find a way to convince him to accept her.

  “I am your enemy only if you are mine. If you will go away and threaten my people no more, then I will heal you and let you go. Otherwise, you wait here until you are captured or dead.”

  “I cannot trust you, Vohee.”

  “No more than I can trust you, Gicok.” She glanced up at the spearman who guarded her still. She was in at least as great a danger here as the dying man. They could kill her easily, at their whim. With a calm expression on her face, masking her fear, she spoke with a soft strength. “Call off your men.”

  The dying one hesitated, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “I am no warrior, just a defenseless, little girl,” she said gently. “If my touch were death it would only be quicker than what you now face. What is your fear?”

  He spoke slowly to his men. The spearman scowled but
withdrew.

  Jovai gently felt the warrior’s body and found that the gash on his side was not one, but several, very close. He winced at her touch. His body was wet with sweat, though the cave was cool. It was very bad. She shook her head, discouraged.

  “I need water, fresh and boiling, and cloths to bind your wounds, and the knives and needles and threads we use and the oils and salves. What do you have?”

  The Gicok spoke to his men, assigning tasks. Bundles that lay among the corpses scattered on the floor were opened and emptied of their contents. The limping warrior tossed a cloth bag to her. It was her master’s healing bag, which had disappeared this last raid. Lightweight stretches of cloth, woven for summer wear, were pulled forth from other collections. The Gicok spearman quickly put their remaining water in a travel bag over the fire to boil and went to fetch more.

  Jovai set to work. The Gicok would take no sleeping draught but endured the pain as bravely as his comrade had endured the tortures of her people. She cleaned and sewed his wounds, stopped the bleeding, and applied all the medicines she could to battle the fever. She prayed as she worked, calling on the spirits to aid her administrations. They came. They helped, but to what end she was not sure. When she had done all she could, it did not seem enough. The fever still raged in him, and he seemed weaker for the pain he had endured. He did not speak. He seemed barely conscious. She wrapped him in blankets and mixed some boiling water with dried herbs and roots, making a healing, if distasteful, tea. He fought her when she tried to help him drink it. Even in his weak state, he would not be forced before he saw her sip it herself. Every other sip she took herself until he was convinced it was not poison. Then she let him rest and silently he slipped into sleep.

  “You next,” she said, pointing at the limping one.

  He eyed her distrustfully but cautiously approached. She made him stretch out on the ground and gingerly felt his leg. It was broken in two places and the muscles, she suspected, were torn, but there was no open wound, and the bruises did not speak of deep bleeding. She quickly, firmly realigned the bone. He yelped in pain, surprised, and pulled away, forcing her to have to do it again.

  She called to the spearman to ask for sticks, but he did not understand. She grabbed at the spear the Gicok had been using as a crutch. The spearman yelled and brandished his own as if for battle. She shook her head, turned away from him and threw the spear with all her strength at the cave wall. It imbedded only slightly, but it was enough to break off its point. She lay it next to the Gicok’s hurt leg and pointed at the spearman’s spear. He yelled again, angrily. Jovai sighed and started searching the dead ones herself for any spears they might still have. The spearman grew furious and forced her back into the corner, his spear’s point at the bottom of her throat.

  “Gena he yem,” came their leader’s voice, weakly from where he lay. The yelling had awakened him.

  The spearman shouted something again, angrily, the point nicking Jovai’s throat.

  “Gena he yem!” the leader repeated. “Tokezt.”

  The spearman clenched his jaw in anger but lowered his spear. He ran out of the cave. Jovai turned back to her search for sticks.

  “Do not look through our things,” the leader weakly ordered.

  “Our things,” Jovai corrected, as she pulled forth the tools and treasures of her people only recently stolen.

  “They are ours now.”

  The lame one struggled to rise. Jovai turned to him angrily.

  “Tell your man to keep still,” she ordered the leader. “At least until I can bind his leg.”

  “Respect our possessions and he will,” the leader answered.

  She moved away from the bundles.

  The spearman returned with many spears, their points all broken. Jovai measured them against the lame one’s leg and showed the spearman where to cut them shorter. She bound the sticks to the leg with cloth which she thickened with strong mud. Then it was the spearman’s turn.

  He would not let her near him. He would not accept her touch. Of all of them, he had seemed the strongest, yet he hunched oddly and used only one arm when wielding his spear. It worried her as she considered the wound his arm might hide. She appealed to his leader to let her treat it.

  “If he does not want your help I cannot make him take it,” the leader answered.

  “But why is he afraid?”

  “He waits to see if I will live — or if I will be strong enough to take my life before your people take it.”

  “If he waits too long with an open wound the fever might get in him.”

  “Better fever than Vohee.”

  Through the night she tended the leader. He fought fever from his sleep, shivering with cold while sweat soaked his blankets. He would cry in his language from cruel dreams and thrash, although so weakly that she alone, with her little girl’s strength, could control him. She poured the hot tea, as much as she could, into him. At one point, he hid his face in her lap and cried freely. His garbled Gicok words gave her no understanding of the fever dreams he battled, but she held him gently, stroking his face and head, and sang to him in the spirit language a healing, strengthening prayer.

  The dawn was coming. The tortured captive had to be dead by now. They would bury his body soon, and she had promised him his reed of tokens. If she did not deliver it, she would carry his curse, but she could not leave her patient yet. The fever still claimed him, and he needed what strength she could lend to win against it.

  The spearman also slept, sweating profusely. Fever was slowly taking him too, but there was nothing she could do. The lame warrior watched her from the only entrance to this cave chamber. She knew that he would not let her pass. She could not talk to him to argue. Her master would be missing her soon. If he searched for her, he would find her. If he found her, all her effort for these men was worse than wasted. All her attempts to help them would instead have brought their worst fears upon them. She felt in her heart the curse of the traitor — those whom she had loved best, she now feared most. But what she did she felt she had to do. It was right. At least, she hoped it was right.

  Chapter 12

  He Who Walks This Star Among Many Stars

  Shortly after the dawn broke, so did the leader’s fever. He slipped into an exhausted sleep so deep it seemed a death. She let him rest for several hours, but that was as long as she dared.

  “You must leave now,” she told him, waking him gently.

  He stared up at her, bewildered, not recognizing the child who spoke strange words to him.

  “Go back to your people now, before mine find you. They will be looking for me soon.”

  The light of comprehension slowly filled his flickering eyes.

  “The slave who taught me Vohee language, I will free. If my people make war on yours again, I will not be among them,” he promised her.

  She helped him rise. The spearman rose dizzily to his feet as the lame one pushed him awake. He helped his comrade stand, and they made their way out of the cave, the packs of her people’s treasures on their backs.

  Jovai filled their flasks with the healing tea and warned the leader to rest as often and as long as he could, for the fever could come back. As a gesture of good-will, the leader led the captive Gicok’s horse to her.

  “A gift,” he announced.

  He held him as she searched his sack for the reed. When she found it, she emptied it into her hand. There were many little things, feathers, teeth, stones, jewels, charms of gold and silver and different, beautiful stones. She found the white hair bound with gold and put it back into the horse’s sack. She found the bone — a strange and unfamiliar thing from no animal she could identify, shaped like a star with many points of light and with a natural hole in its center. She strung it on a string pulled from her underdress and tied it around her neck. The rest she put back into the reed and tied the hide covering again over the opening.

  She bid her patients well and started off.

  “Will you not take the ho
rse?” asked the leader in wonder.

  She stared at him, surprised that he should offer a prize so rich. His warriors were known to kill their horses rather than to let their enemies take them. This horse was a beautiful stallion, a fine specimen of the breed. There was not one person in her village who would not have given all his possessions in trade for such a stud. Horses with such a sire’s strength and courage would make her people rich indeed. But she had promised the captive Gicok. She could not take him.

  “His master wanted me to send him back,” she explained. “Please lead the horse safely to your people. Tell them that the Vohee honor the courage of their warrior. He is a worthy hero.”

  “You must at least have this,” insisted the Gicok leader. From his own sack, he pulled a hide bag. From the bag, he drew a little cord on which was strung a carved and painted metal disk.

  “My people will know you as one of our own with this,” he said. “You will be honored and welcomed as a friend, but only if you hold it for them to see like so.” He held it up, inverted from the way it was strung, and slowly swerved it to its side, then back. “Remember,” he warned, “or they will believe it stolen.”

  She thanked him and watched as the three Gicoks rode away, out of the reach of the women of the valley.

  She swam the river again and made her way around the village toward the northern plains. She expected to find the young warrior’s body, but there was no sign of it. Bewildered, she walked back to the village and found the crowd still gathered and the warrior still singing with the last gasps of his breath.

  Her master lounged lazily among a group of men. He glanced up at her as she arrived, then looked away. He was still angry at her disrespect and would not recognize her again until she came to him with an apology.

  She did not. She went toward the front of the crowd around the captive and looked up into his burned eye sockets. She stood there silently, waiting, until his song finally ended and his life was over.