The Sage

by Christopher Stasheff

  Yocote understood. He stood up on his hind legs again, willing himself to return to his proper shape. The world blurred about him for a few minutes, then steadied again, and he glanced down, seeing again his gnome's hands and arms, body, legs, and feet. He looked up at the young woman, then gave a little bow. “I salute you.”

  “And I you.” The Vanyar shaman returned the bow, then swept a gesture that included all of herself. “This is how I appeared when I was young—and how I still see myself inside.”

  “Must we still fight?”

  “No,” the Vanyar shaman said. “I have seen for myself which force is greater—Bolenkar's or Lomallin's. Your god is a channel for the life-force from its Source to us—and that life-force has vanquished the death-force of Bolenkar.”

  “Of Ulahane, rather,” Yocote said, “and he is dead.”

  Masana stared. “Can gods die?”

  “He was not truly a god, only a man of the Ulin—an elder race,” Yocote said. “He hated all the younger races and sought to slay us all. Has Bolenkar not told you of him?”

  “We have never seen Bolenkar,” Masana said. “How often do humans see a god? No, we have seen those who carry his word—but none of them have ever spoken of this Ulahane, nor any of the elder race.”

  “Ulahane raped a human woman,” Yocote told her. “Bolenkar is the bastard son of that crime. His father made many other slaves that way; they are called Ulharls. No, Bolenkar would not tell you that he is less than his father, for he seeks to become greater. He can not, so he is doomed to perpetual anger.”

  “What could kill a god?”

  “Another Ulin,” Yocote said. “Ulahane slew Lomallin—then Lomallin's ghost slew Ulahane. Both ghosts mounted to the heavens and fought with stars for weapons, and Lomallin's ghost slew Ulahane's. All that is left of Ulahane's spirit is the residue that resides in the Ulharls, and the hatred and lust and greed that they imbue in humankind and the other younger races.”

  “So the green god lives, and the scarlet god is dead?” Masana asked.

  “Even so.” Yocote sighed and gave up trying to convince her that the Ulin were not gods.

  “Then assuredly we worship the wrong god! I shall do all I can to turn my tribe to the worship of your Lomallin! What sacrifice does he wish?”

  “Your arrogance, your cruelty, your greed and hatred,” Yocote told her, “all the emotions that might cause you to fight with other people of any race. These Lomallin wishes you to give up, to try to exterminate in yourselves as if they were victims on his altar. He wishes you to live, not die; he wishes happiness and joy, not misery and pain.”

  Masana stared, eyes round in wonder. “He would have us give up conquest?”

  “It would be a sacrifice indeed,” Yocote said with a straight face. “Why do you Vanyar love to conquer so?”

  “It is not a love only, but a need. We have never seen the lands from which our kind sprang; we have been riding and fighting in conquest for three generations now. Our grandfathers began it when they fled from the centaurs who rode down from the north and conquered our ancestral country.”

  “The Vanyar were chased from their own lands?” Yocote asked, surprised. “What manner of people were these who pushed them out?”

  “Half man, half horse; they have horses' bodies, but are men from the waist up,” Masana said. “They wear long moustaches and cut their black hair short. They shoot with short bows made of horn and wood, and are as numerous as the grass on the plain.”

  Well, that last was how the western folk thought of the Vanyar. Was there a people so vast in numbers that even the Vanyar thought them uncountable? Yocote shuddered at the thought. “They are hard, these centaurs?”

  “Very hard; they show no trace of pain, and delight in slaughter and in rapine—or so said our grandmothers; we ourselves have never seen them.” Masana shuddered, too. “Pray to all gods that we never shall!”

  “So your grandfathers needed to conquer new lands in which to live.” Yocote frowned. “But why do you continue to do so?”

  “Because the centaurs might come again,” Masana said, “and because by the time our mothers were born, we Vanyar had filled the lands our grandfathers had conquered. If we were to live, we must needs do so by conquering more.”

  “You must bear many babes. Do your women bring them forth three and four at a time?”

  “Litters like those of dogs?” Masana scoffed, but her eyes brightened with anger. “No. We only know it is a woman's duty to bear as many children as she can.”

  Yocote was astounded. “What blasphemy is this? Women die from too much child-bearing—their bodies wear out!”

  Masana shrugged. “There are always more women to take their places—or so say Bolenkar's priests. They tell us a woman must always be willing, no matter whether she wishes it or not.” Her tone was becoming bitter. “If she is not willing, so much the worse for her! I wonder if those priests would say this if they had themselves been raped—but rape is all to the better, they say; Bolenkar would rather have rape than have the woman knowing pleasure. Thereupon he tells us another reason to conquer—to capture unwilling women and beget children upon them by force. If a man wants slaves, says Bolenkar, he should get them himself—get their mother by conquest, then get them upon her!”

  “So your men have many slaves.” Yocote shuddered. “Axe the children reared as slaves, or as Vanyar?”

  “The boys are Vanyar. The women are slaves.” The sardonic set of her mouth told him that even the full-blooded Vanyar women were slaves, but she dared not say it.

  “But children require food, clothing, warmth, and shelter,” Yocote replied. “How is a Vanyar warrior to gain them?”

  “By conquest,” Masana replied.

  “And if he fails?”

  “Then they die.”

  Yocote shuddered. “It is otherwise among the western peoples, even among us gnomes! Among humans a man may not wed until he has built himself a house, cleared land to farm, and proved his ability to provide by raising crops and bringing home meat from the hunt for a year or two—and must prove also, of course, that he can slay a bear who threatens them, or even a bandit.”

  “And how many children does he sire before he weds?”

  “Some do,” Yocote admitted, “but they must bring home food for the babes nonetheless, even should they marry another—and they are viewed with contempt for years after.”

  Masana nodded slowly. “That is better for the women, yes— but once they are wed, how many children do they bear?”

  “As many as the Creator gives them,” Yocote replied. “Some have none, some have fifteen—but most have only four or five.”

  “Four or five in a woman's whole lifetime?” Masana said in disbelief. “How comes this?”

  “I am still a bachelor,” Yocote said sheepishly, “so I do not truly know—but our shamans say that a man must not lie with a woman, even his wife, unless she wishes it.” He could not help a sly smile. “Of course, I am told that many men are quite skilled at bringing their wives to wish it.”

  “A wondrous law!” Masana cried. “Is this what Lomallin teaches his people?”

  “Lomallin's ghost, and the still-living Ulin woman Rahani,” Yocote told her.

  “But if what you say is so, a man who has four or five wives would father only twenty or twenty-five children!”

  “Twenty-five?” Yocote stared. “Where would he find food for so many? No, most of our folk wed only one wife—or only one at a time, at least; there are some couples that divorce and find new partners.”

  “Only one wife?” Masana said with surprise. “How could he be content?”

  “Ah.” Yocote smiled. “Therein are our women skilled. You might as well ask how a woman can be content with the same husband for a whole lifetime, and I must admit that some cannot, even as some men cannot—but most of our men seem skilled at keeping their wives content with their lot, and with their men.”

  “Rahani must teach them both wondr
ous things,” Masana muttered.

  “We are told that this is better for the children,” Yocote added. “They are secure in their parents' love, and in having the attention of one man and one woman, whom they know to be their mother and father.”

  “It is true, it is very true! For a child to have to struggle for the father's attention, against the children of the favorite wife, is as cruel as the mother struggling for some small part of her husband's regard! In fact, many have no more attention than he gives his cattle, and less than he gives his horse!”

  “Even so,” Yocote agreed. “Thus we limit the number of marriages, and folk wed later—and thus are there fewer children born to our folk. That is sad in itself, perhaps, but happier in that there is more assurance that none of the children will starve. But we boast that more of our women are happy than among the city-folk of the south, and that more men are happy, too.”

  “I think that I like your notion of happiness,” Masana said. “But what happens when a father dies in war?”

  “Then all the other folk of the tribe band together to see to it that his wife and babes do not starve, or go too badly in want,” Yocote told her. “Still, wars are rare among us, and generally nothing more than a hundred men or so in one single battle.”

  His face darkened. “At least, so it was until Bolenkar's emissaries came among us.”

  “I shall be his emissary no longer,” Masana said, with sudden and total conviction. “I shall match my spells against those of his priests, and if I die, I die—but if I live, I shall free the Vanyar from his tyranny!”

  Yocote stared, amazed at the transformation he had wrought.

  Masana saw, and smiled. “Do not be so surprised, little shaman—you have told me things I never knew, given me knowledge that Bolenkar and his priests have withheld from us! Of course I have embraced a teaching that could so bless me, and all my kind! It is not you who have persuaded me, but truth itself—and the truth shall free us all! Come, let us go back to the world of men and women, and I shall sing the Vanyar this song of freedom! Away!”

  With that, her form seemed to melt, to vibrate, and to harden again into the shape of the hawk. She climbed aloft in a crackling of wing beats and shot off toward the World Tree, then began to slip and slide through the air in a spiral about it, descending.

  Yocote hurried to follow her, changing back to the form of the badger as he did.

  Singorot stood panting, and Culaehra could visibly see the man summon the last of his energy. He swung his huge broadsword with a convulsive heave, and Culaehra ducked under its path with ease. The Vanyar tried to change the direction of the slash at the last moment, and Culaehra, with a flash of inspiration, rose just enough for the blade to catch Corotrovir and slam it back against his helmet—and he could have sworn the sword snarled at him for it. He fell to the side, rolled up to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it, and heard the murmur of satisfaction from the Vanyar with the groan of his own people—but in truth, the stroke held very little force compared to Singorot's first blow. The man had tired, and badly. So had Culaehra, of course, but with a lighter sword and lighter armor, he was nowhere nearly so weary as Singorot.

  He was sick to death of this pantomime, though. He wished heartily that Yocote would waken so he could end it.

  Then he heard a thrum of exclamations from the Vanyar. With a quick glance he saw the Vanyar shaman returning, her warriors supporting her as she came. She was still alive! Anxiety for Yocote thrilled through him, and he almost turned to glance at the little shaman, but saw Singorot swinging his sword back and up in a great circle. He was mightily tempted to kick the fellow in the belly and be done with it, but knew he had to let Singorot save the esteem of his own men, or he would have a blood-feud with full hatred on his hands. Again a lucky thought rose, and he rolled up his shoulder, tucked down his head, and charged the Vanyar, for all the world as if they held no swords.

  Singorot saw him coming, of course, but could not bring the great sword around in time to stop him. They met with a crash, and the Vanyar went sprawling. So did Culaehra, but it was the Vanyar's people who shouted in anger.

  Culaehra was first to roll back up to his feet. Singorot floundered, finally managing to roll to hands and knees, looking about, dazed, for his sword. Everyone could see that Culaehra had time and more to cut off his head ...

  But by that time no one was looking, for the Vanyar shaman was calling out, and all her people were turning to look. Culaehra risked a quick glance at Yocote and saw the little man unfolding and rising, blinking, bemused. Culaehra turned back to Singorot; the big man was on his feet again, his sword raised to guard, but taking many quick glances at his shaman. A moment later he was watching his shaman but taking many quick glances at Culaehra. With vast relief, Culaehra stuck Corotrovir into the ground before him and folded his arms. Singorot stared, first with surprise, then with quick calculation. The message was clear—Culaehra could seize the sword again in a second, but was not now brandishing it. What could it mean, but truce? The big Vanyar slowly lowered his own sword, then jabbed it into the ground before him and let go. His relief was hard to miss.

  Culaehra gave him a little bow; Singorot returned it. Then, very deliberately, Culaehra turned to watch the Vanyar shaman, as if he could understand her words. Surprised, Singorot stared, then turned to the shaman eagerly.

  Whatever she had said, it provoked a storm of controversy. Singorot caught up his sword, sheathing it as he ran to join the knot of people around the shaman. They were arguing furiously, arms waving, some voices angry, others high in delight.

  Culaehra caught up Corotrovir and sheathed it as he sidled back to Yocote. “Welcome back, shaman. You do not know how glad I am to see that you live.”

  “I can guess,” Yocote said sourly. “Be ready to defend Masana, warrior. She may need it more than any of us, in moments.”

  “Masana? The Vanyar shaman?”

  “The same.”

  “You have been busy in your trances, have you not?”

  “We have established that Lomallin is mightier than Bolenkar if the two must confront one another, yes—and I told her our notions about marriage and family life. She seemed to prefer them to the Vanyar code.”

  “As well she might,” Lua said with a shudder.

  Culaehra glanced down with a frown. “What do you know about Vanyar ways?”

  “I have spoken with Vira and her women. They heard great boasting and bragging from their captors—how they would rape them all again and again, begetting children upon them time after time. Then as soon as the children were born, they would resume raping, until they got them with child again.” Lua shuddered. “I am not surprised that a female shaman would prefer the way of Lomallin and Rahani.”

  “Nor am I,” Kitishane said.

  “Then she is preaching the worship of Lomallin to her people?”

  “Teaching them to turn away from Bolenkar, at least—and his priests will not take it lightly.” Yocote stiffened. “There they come!”

  There were three of them, clad in tunics and leggings, but with black cloaks whipping from their shoulders, hats made of ravens on their heads, and twisted staves in their hands, each carved to resemble a huge viper. The foremost, gray-bearded, shouted a question at Masana. She drew herself up, giving him a frosty look—so frosty that Yocote could see her fear—and answered in a sharp but measured tone.

  The oldest priest went berserk. He screamed at her, yelled at her, shook the snake's head of his staff in her face. She recoiled perhaps an inch, then glared up into his face and spoke sternly. The man turned pale, then spun about, raising his arms and waving his staff aloft as he shouted to the people. A murmuring sprang up, anger mingling with incredulousness, but with wonder underscoring all. One warrior shouted a question. Another cried out in tones of agreement and asked another question.

  The eldest priest turned purple and thundered his rage at them. Those nearest him shrank back, but glared defiance; those farther bac
k began to shout questions, then statements. The priest turned pale, then whirled to bellow at Culaehra and Yocote. Lua translated. “He tells us that we are blasphemers to say that Bolenkar's way can be wrong. He says we must die for that sin.”

  So saying, the priest threw down his staff. The two younger priests threw theirs down beside his. The wood seemed to ripple; its twists began to move. The staves came alive, and three gigantic vipers came crawling toward the companions, mouths yawning wide to show huge fangs. Droplets glistened at their points. The high priest shouted, and Lua said, “He says their bite is instant death.”

  Yocote stepped away, lightly and on his toes, shouting at the priests in the shaman's tongue. They only grinned with delight and watched. Yusev shouted at them in his turn, but heard only gloating laughter in answer. “They would not have laughed at an insult like that if they had understood it. These priests do not speak the shaman's language.”

  “Then they are not shamans, but only charlatans,” Yocote replied, “messengers who bear Bolenkar's message of hatred and war. Come, Yusev, you slay one snake and I'll slay another!”

  “No!” Lua stepped forward, eyes bright. “This is my work. Leave them to me.”

  “No, little sister!” Kitishane cried.

  But Yocote replied, “Let her fare. She is filled with gnome-magic, and vipers are creatures of the earth. She may slay them more quickly, and more certainly, than we.” But he watched wide-eyed, every muscle stiff, jaw clenched, and sweat stood out on his brow.

  Reluctantly, Kitishane held still—but she kept an arrow nocked on her bow.

  Lua began to dance, singing in low tones that seemed to caress. The snakes slowed, then lifted their heads. They began to weave back and forth, following her movements to time their strikes.