The Sage

by Christopher Stasheff

  Culaehra stared. “You mean to kill him, in his sleep?”

  “How else can you kill a wizard?” the hunter demanded impatiently. “If you let him wake, he may work magic by the power of his mind alone, for all we know! Who kens the ways of wizards, or how they work their magic? Of course we shall kill him in his sleep!”

  Even to Culaehra, that sounded particularly vicious, certainly cowardly.

  “It is the only way to counter that huge and unfair advantage that the wizard has over you!” the hunter exhorted. “Give him a chance to fight back, and you will have no chance at all! Slay him in his sleep, for there is no other way! Slay him in his sleep and be free!”

  Cowardly indeed, and terribly wrong—but so anxious was Culaehra to regain his freedom that he felt himself attracted to the notion.

  “Then you and I shall enslave the gnomes and the woman again.” The stranger grinned.

  The thought of Kitishane in his arms sent the blood roaring through Culaehra's head. To see if she really was as beautifully formed as the contours of her leather breeches and tunic hinted ... to examine and admire those contours at his leisure, taking as long as he wanted ...

  Of course, to take his time, to caress lingeringly, she would have to be willing ... well, he would find a way around that one.

  “Will you do it, and have the woman?” the hunter demanded.

  “Yes!” Culaehra leaped to his feet and clasped the hunter's forearm. “I should be sentry in the three hours before dawn! Come then, and we shall do it!”

  “Stout fellow!” The hunter grinned, thumping him on the shoulder. “Go, then, and gather your wood as you go! Tonight, whet your knife!”

  “I will! Come in the darkness before the dawn!”

  “I shall!” The hunter stooped to take up his bow and quiver. “Look for me in darkness!”

  “In the darkness, then!” Culaehra punched his arm, then turned to go—and he glanced back, ready to jump aside in case the hunter loosed an arrow at his back. But the man only waved the first time Culaehra looked, and was gone into the undergrowth the second time. Culaehra relaxed and set himself to gathering a convincing stack of wood as he went. Really, the hunter was a fine fellow!

  Culaehra came swinging into the camp with an armload of sticks, whistling between his teeth, amazed at how well he felt. Why, his heart had not sung like this since the day he was cast out of his village!

  Yocote looked up from the small fire he had kindled, frowning. “What brings you in such good spirits, Culaehra?”

  “The smell of autumn in the air, Yocote! The feeling of well-being it gives a man!” The lies came easily again. He dropped the wood next to the gnome. It felt so good to plan, to believe he could once again be free and be able to bully, to plan on beatings or worse without that dratted amulet burning cold into his throat...

  Culaehra's hand flew to his collar as he realized he had been planning to slay Illbane in detail, and not once had the amulet even cooled his skin.

  It wasn't there.

  For a moment he groped frantically, thinking surely the chain must have broken, the amulet fallen beneath his shirt—but no, it was gone, chain and all! Suddenly, he remembered the hunter's hand gathering the cloth of the tunic at his throat, hauling him near, then thrusting him away. “That snake! He stole my amulet!”

  “What snake?” Lua stared up at him wide-eyed.

  “The one who struck at me in the forest! The swine! The vulture! Steal from me, will he?” Culaehra turned about and charged back into the trees.

  Kitishane and the gnomes stared after him, dumbfounded, as Illbane came up beside them, watching Culaehra go.

  “Why should he be angry if someone took the amulet?” Lua asked. “He has hated it so!”

  “Yes,” said Kitishane. “He claims it is the badge of subjugation!”

  “As indeed it is,” Illbane confirmed.

  “Then why would he be angry at having it stolen?”

  “Because,” Illbane said, “it is his.”

  Chapter 11

  Culaehra ran through the woods, cursing as he went. How dare the thief steal from him! Worse, how dare he claim to be an ally and scheme with him to achieve his fondest desire, all the time knowing it was only to distract him from the theft! Thank heaven, Culaehra thought, that he had not tried to slay Illbane, depending on the man's help!

  It was dark now, but moonlight filtered through the branches here and there. Culaehra ran stumbling, back to the clearing where he had met the hunter. Moonlight filled it; he cast about quickly for the stranger's trail, found it, then plunged into the trees, searching.

  As he went he calmed a little, enough to remember the folly of making a huge amount of noise when chasing quarry. He slowed a bit, placing his feet carefully if quickly as he followed the hunter's trail. Oddly, it was quite clear, as if the man had made no attempt at all to hide it.

  There, through the trees! The light of a campfire! Culaehra slowed, moving quietly, but there was murder in his heart as he stepped into the clearing.

  Not quietly enough. The stranger turned from the fire, grinning as he stood. “So, woodsman! You could not wait for me to come join you!”

  “No one could wait that long,” Culaehra retorted, “for you would never have come.” He held out a palm. “My amulet, if you please.”

  It glinted at the stranger's throat. “Come and take it,” he taunted.

  Culaehra stalked close, then leaped, lashing out with a kick.

  The stranger dodged, snatching at Culaehra's leg but missing. He leaped forward even as Culaehra landed, slamming a fist at his midriff, then a right at his face, then a left at his belly again—but Culaehra had learned that was the hunter's favorite combination by now, and blocked all three, then stepped in with a quick uppercut. The stranger blocked and cracked a fist into Culaehra's jaw. His head swam, and he grabbed at the stranger even as he turned away, almost losing his balance—but hearing a heavy thud as the stranger hit the ground. Then Culaehra stepped back, his balance almost restored, shaking his head, clearing it—to see the stranger uncoiling from the ground fists first. But it was too crude a movement. Culaehra sidestepped easily, slamming a blow into the stranger's head as it passed. The hunter shouted in anger and lashed a kick even as he hit the ground. It took Culaehra off guard, caught him in the belly, and he doubled over in pain, backing away quickly. The stranger took a minute coming to his feet, though, clearing his head, then came at Culaehra hammer and tongs.

  They went at it again and again for what seemed like hours, deflecting most of each other's blows but landing some, ducking and dodging and kicking and being kicked, until finally they stood at arm's length, knees bent and shoulders hunched, gasping for breath, exhausted and weaving.

  “I think you would have come to the camp after all,” Culaehra wheezed, “but not to slay Illbane—to kill me!”

  “Think you so?” the stranger said, and suddenly his face seemed to soften like a tallow candle in the sun, then to slip strangely. It firmed again, much leaner than it had been, the brown hair bleached to blond—and Culaehra found himself staring at his own face!

  He must have gaped like a landed fish, for the stranger gave a mocking laugh. “Oh yes, I am Culaehra, I am yourself! You cannot escape me, woodsman—woodsman and wolf's head, for who should know so well as I! You cannot escape me, cannot flee from me, cannot slay me without slaying yourself—for I am you, and am in you, and will always be, for I am indeed you and no one else!” He threw back his head, laughing loud and long. Culaehra cursed, but the stranger laughed all the harder, even as he seemed to lighten, even as the moonlight seemed to show through him, then through the campfire and the trees till he was only an outline filled with vapor that lost its form and churned in the night breeze, churned and arrowed straight at Culaehra. He tried to dodge it, cursing and shouting, but it shot back into his torso—chest, belly, and groin—and was gone.

  The night was still—still, but for the night air stirring in the branches of
the trees, and Culaehra's hoarse breathing where he knelt, shaking, swearing, and sweating.

  “Take heart, Culaehra.”

  The outlaw's head snapped up; he stared upward, fear striking deep—then saw it was Illbane, and sagged with relief.

  Then it occurred to Culaehra that the sage might know of his conspiracy to murder him, and he tensed again. To hide his fear, he spoke roughly. “Take heart! How can I, if I am truly so treacherous and despicable a snake as that!”

  “Because he is not all of you,” Illbane said, “nor even the essence of you—he is only the outer husk of you, not the whole nut nor even the kernel. He is the outer husk, and you can peel him away and leave him behind—if you wish.”

  Culaehra stared with sudden hope, and caught at the sage's robe. “How!”

  “Think,” Illbane said. “Was he truly the spit and image of you?”

  Culaehra lowered his gaze, frowning, thinking over everything the stranger had said and done. Finally, he grimaced with self-disgust. “He did nothing that I had not done—or would not have done, given the chance.”

  “Did you never think there was anything wrong in what he said?”

  Culaehra frowned, remembering.

  “Did you never doubt the lightness of what he urged you to do?”

  “I did,” Culaehra said in self-contempt. “I felt reluctance, hesitation. I put it down to fright.”

  Illbane did not ask of what he had been frightened. “You never thought it might be a sense of right and wrong?”

  “I have never believed what people preach about that!” Culaehra snapped.

  “Perhaps not,” Illbane said, “but that does not indicate you have no sense of lightness or of justice. It only means that what people tell you is right goes against your innate sense of the word.”

  Culaehra sat very still, frowning downward.

  “Since you did not agree with your shaman and your chief and your elders,” Illbane said, “you thought you were wrong. Worse, you thought you were bad—and if you were bad anyway, you decided to do a good job of being bad.”

  “How could you know that!” Culaehra glared up at him.

  “Because you are not the first young man who has let others make his face for him,” Illbane responded.

  Culaehra bridled at the notion that he had let anyone control him so much. “Have you known any others?” he demanded.

  “What if I told you that the first was Lucoyo?”

  Culaehra sat staring up at the old man for a minute. Then he said, “What! Are you the demigod Ohaern, then?” and laughed. “I would say you surely seem old enough!” But he became serious again. “I see. You mean that Lucoyo is the example for all of us who have turned to the wrong. But he reformed!”

  “Or was reformed by the trust and liking of Ohaern and his men,” Illbane said, “a reformation sealed by the love of his wife.”

  “I should sneer at such a statement,” Culaehra said.

  “Then why do you not?”

  “Because I would not believe myself,” Culaehra confessed, then stopped and frowned, gazing inward. “There has been a great change in me, hasn't there?”

  “Inside yourself, yes,” Illbane told him, “but you persisted in believing the outside.”

  “I will never believe in him more!”

  “I hope not,” Illbane said, “but it will be difficult, Culaehra. You have believed in him for so long.”

  “Not now that I have seen him as others do! I swear that I shall never again be such a louse and a snake as this treacherous hunter!” His face turned thoughtful. “But how can I become a better person, Illbane? I am what I am, and there is no changing it.”

  “No, but there is the wearing of a mask,” Illbane told him, “which is what you have done—and that hunter was the mask. You do not need to change what you are, Culaehra—you need to discover it.”

  “What am I, then?” The young man looked into the old one's eyes with a terrible intensity.

  “You are a good man, and an honest one,” Illbane said simply. “You are a strong man who can become a mighty warrior; you are a courageous man who can become a hero.”

  A few months before, Culaehra would have laughed in his face, then spat. Now, he only said slowly, “I am not sure that I want to become that.”

  “When last comes to last,” said Illbane, “it is not a matter of what you want to be, but of what you are—and of becoming all that you can be.”

  “How shall I do that?”

  “You have the amulet back.” Illbane pointed at Culaehra's throat. He put a hand to it—and sure enough, it was there! The sage said, “Use it well, and strengthen your spirit, as these months of toil and practice have strengthened your body.”

  Culaehra ran his finger over the clasp—and it came loose. Amazed, he held the amulet out where he could see it. “What is it, Illbane?”

  “Only a hollow drop of iron,” Illbane told him, “but inside is a broken arrowhead that was forged by Lomallin himself, forged to fly straight and true with an Ulin's magic—so if you ask it right from wrong, it will still fix straight upon the truth, and you will feel its answer within you.”

  “But all I have felt before is its chill!”

  “You were not open to feeling within,” Illbane said. “You may be now—or you may have to rely on its turning cold while you listen for some answer in your heart. But given time, you will begin to feel that answer, and over the months, you will become more aware of it.” He clapped the outlaw on the shoulder. “Come now, clasp it back around your neck, and let us return to the others.”

  Culaehra fastened the amulet and rose to go with him.

  Halfway back to the camp he stopped abruptly, staring at Illbane.

  The sage nodded. “You have just discovered where the hunter came from, then?”

  “How did you make him?”

  “Just as I told you,” Illbane replied. “He is your spit and image.”

  Culaehra tried to remember when Illbane could have gathered up his spittle, but he had spat so often that he could not say. He resolved never to spit in the future. “Need I ask why?”

  “Do you?” Illbane returned.

  “To show me myself, so that I might be disgusted.”

  “Of course.” The sage laid a hand upon his shoulder. “But remember, Culaehra—I only showed you yourself as the world sees you. The rest you did yourself—both of you.”

  Even now it rocked him, but Culaehra found that he was no longer devastated to realize that he appeared to be so treacherous and self-serving, for he remembered that Illbane had told him there was a better man buried deep.

  As Culaehra went to sleep that night, he realized Illbane must have known about his murderous plan but did not hold it against him, had not even mentioned it to him. This, perhaps, was the most humbling realization of all—that the sage had known he would plot to slay him, given the chance.

  How could Illbane say that he had the soul of a hero?

  Illbane slowed the pace even more, taking whole days for lessons in fighting and magic, then telling them tales of the Ulin around the campfire.

  Finally, they began to be able to fight without thinking about their movements, more or less automatically. Illbane approved, explaining that their discipline had yielded spontaneity.

  That night, he told them once again that the Ulin were not gods, but only an older and more powerful race than their own.

  “Then who made the Ulin?” Yocote asked.

  Illbane smiled, glad the question had finally come. “The God who always was and always will be—the God of Dariad and his people.”

  Culaehra frowned. “What does he look like?”

  “No one knows,” Illbane told him. “He has no face or form, and is as likely to appear as flame or smoke as in human guise. In fact, He probably is neither male nor female, but more fundamental than either.”

  “You mean this god is an 'it'?” Culaehra's skepticism was clear—but Kitishane and Lua stared in amazement.


  Yocote, however, only frowned and nodded. “What else is known of this First God?”

  “That, and little more,” Illbane told him. “He created everything that exists from Himself; everything exists within Him.”

  “If He is neither male nor female, why do you call Him 'him'?” Kitishane asked.

  “Because I am a man, and it gives me the illusion that I can understand Him better if He, too, is male,” Illbane said frankly. “He has power over everything that exists. He helps those who need help and call upon Him, if the help will aid their souls in coming back to Him when they die. Those who displease Him will never come back to Him—”

  “And probably will not want to,” Culaehra said sourly. This talk of a supreme God was bothering him strangely.

  “He is the beginning and end of all life, and there is no lasting happiness except in Him,” Illbane concluded.

  Culaehra gave a short, ugly laugh. “I have known many who were happy enough.”

  “Then they lived in Him, and within His laws, whether they knew it or not,” Illbane said.

  “If so, He has very strange laws! I speak of men who robbed and cheated those weaker than themselves, and beat them into submission if they would not obey!”

  “If they were truly happy,” Illbane countered, “why would they have been constantly trying to gain more wealth and power?”

  Culaehra stared, taken aback.

  “Because they enjoyed the gaining as much as the having,” Yocote said slowly.

  Illbane nodded. “But if they constantly craved pleasure gained from outside themselves, there was no pleasure inside, no abiding feeling of joy that did not need constant replenishing from some outside source.”

  “Are you saying those who worship your Creator do not need constant replenishment?” Culaehra's skepticism neared the point of anger.

  “They do, but they gain it from Him,” Illbane told him. “They draw from a never-empty well, and their happiness is not only in the afterlife, but also in the present.”

  Lua and Kitishane gazed at him, their eyes wide and their faces thoughtful, but Culaehra said flatly, “I will not believe it!”