The Sage (3 page)

Control
it, then! Control
her,
Culaehra thought, as he had always controlled
everyone who might have been a danger: by fear. He pushed himself to his feet,
ignoring the hammering in his head, and stepped close, towering over her as he
demanded, “What were you doing to me, vixen!”

“I—I
only sought to soothe your head, to heal you,” the gnome-woman protested. She
reached for the pale thing before he could stop her and held it up. “A cold wet
cloth for your forehead, to reduce the swelling.”

Culaehra
narrowed his eyes, automatically suspicious of any seeming kindness—it had
never been more than a ruse to make him lower his guard, so that he might be
more easily hurt. “Why should you wish to aid me?”

“I
cannot stand to see any creature in pain,” the gnome explained, “and ... and
when I beheld your face ... I wished to heal you even more ...”

She
looked away, and Culaehra stared in amazement that was quickly followed by
soaring elation and triumph. She was in love with him! A gnome-maiden, in love
with a human man! And why not, seeing how ugly she was? True, he was no paragon
of beauty himself, with his crooked nose and thin lips, and the layer of fat
that smoothed over his great muscles was enough to make any fool who met him
think he was
only
fat— but he was human, and must therefore look
amazingly handsome to her! He swelled with the sense of power the knowledge of
her infatuation gave him, his aches and pains seeming to recede, even the
stabbing in his side. “What is your name, gnome?”

“L-Lua,
sir,” she stammered.

Culaehra
sat down again, snapping, “Get busy, then! And mind my ribs—one is broken, I
think.”

“I—I
shall go gently,” the gnome quavered, and took up her cloth again. She washed
his bruises with slow, gentle strokes, using water from a clay pot that had
miraculously escaped tipping. He gasped with pain at every touch and cursed her
newly at each bruise. At last she knelt back and said, in faint tones, “Pardon,
master, but—you must take off your tunic if I am to see to the bruises on your
chest...”

Master
already! Elation thrust again, and Culaehra untied his tunic. He gasped and
spat a curse as she probed his ribs. She shied away at his anger, but he
snarled, “Fix it, wench!” and, trembling, she came back to touch his ribs ever
so gently.

He
winced at the pain, and she said apologetically, “The bone is not broken,
master, but it is badly cracked. You must keep it still until it heals—not move
your arms much, nor breathe deeply.”

“Fair
enough! Then you shall be my hands. Gather wood and build a fire to warm me—and
find something to cook!”

She
did, for a wonder—began to move in and out among the trees picking up sticks.
Didn't the little fool realize she could run off among those trees, that he was
too lame to follow her?

Of
course not—she was in love. Culaehra grinned again at the thought of the power
that love gave him, then noticed that, gnome or not, there was a certain
femininity to her movements, a grace, even a trace of contours. It reminded him
of Dinecea, the girl who awaited the birth of his baby, and at whom he had
laughed when she told him they must wed. The thought raised the ghost of
desire, but raised also the memory of his humiliation and shame at the hands of
the gang who had beaten him and hauled him in front of the elders. Cowards! He
could have beaten any one of them, even any five of them, but not ten of them
together. Anger built, and he looked at the gnome-maiden anew—the perfect
receptacle for his wrath: too much besotted to flee, too weak to fight back,
too small...

Small!
And the memory was on him again, the forest about him dimmed by the image of
the grove with the screams tearing from it, and he was lost in the vision of
the past.

The
screams tore from the grove, and Culaehra was a boy of ten running toward it,
knowing some girl-child was in danger, then bursting through the screen of
underbrush and seeing Borli, huge and hulking and ugly, so ugly that even his
wife would have nothing to do with him, and little Culaehra had seen what he
was doing to Kerlie, five years younger than he, had seen her skirt already
torn aside and Borli laughing with lust as he held her shoulders pinned against
the sodden leaves, lowering himself. Culaehra had cried out in rage, boy or
not, and kicked at Borli's midriff, but his foot had gone lower, come up and
caught him in the loins. Borli howled with pain and rolled aside, and Culaehra
cried, “Run, Kerlie! For the life of you, run!” For suddenly he knew it would
have been her life; stupid though he was, even Borli would have known better
than to leave a witness.

Even
himself! For Kerlie was up and running now, stumbling away without her skirt,
but away and still whole in body at least, and Borli was pulling himself to his
feet, eyes wild with rage, hp lifted in a snarl of wrath, and he snatched up a
fallen tree limb and ran at Culaehra, swinging.

White
with fear, Culaehra ducked under the blow, snatching his dagger out of its
sheath. He leaped in too close for Borli to strike with the stick, stabbing
with the dagger. It sank between Borli's ribs at the side, and the lumbering
fool screamed with pain. Culaehra leaped back, dagger poised to thrust, hoping
Borli would fall back, give him time to run ...

But
Borli only swung the stick again, leaping forward, and Culaehra didn't duck low
enough. It cracked into his head. He fell, dizzy and sick, the world dim about
him, but he held onto the dagger, somehow knowing it meant his life. He heard
Borli's victory yell as if from a distance, then felt the impact of the man's
body atop his own, felt the clumsy hand fumbling at his trews, realized with
sick horror that what Culaehra had prevented Borli from doing to Kerlie, Borli
was trying to do to him instead. He stabbed with the dagger, up and as high as
he could, heard the scream but stabbed again and again even after the scream
began to bubble, then finally realized that Borli had gone silent and the
weight on top of him was still. He pushed against it, forcing it up enough to
roll out from under; then, gasping and crying, making sure his knife was in his
hand, Culaehra stumbled away, glancing only once at the horrid thing behind
him. Tottering out of the grove, he leaned against the assurance of a huge
oak's rough bark, drawing strength from the tree until his breath was nearly
even and he could begin to hobble out across the stubble of the field, to call
for help, any grown-up help ...

But
the men had come to meet him, running to meet him, in a panic from Kerlie's incoherent
sobbing, Culaehra's father foremost among them. He had taken the boy in his
arms, crushed him to his chest, thanking the gods for his safety, then loosing
him as he looked up at the other men's yells from the grove. He had started
toward them, but Culaehra had pulled away, crying, so his father had stayed
with him until one of the men came back to tend the boy. But there was some
reserve about the man, some strange distance as he talked, trying to reassure
Culaehra that all would be well—and when Culaehra's father came back from
seeing what the grove held, there was something of the same distancing about
him, too, a shunning, even a hint of fear as he asked, “Did you do that?”

“I
had to!” little Culaehra had protested. “He was trying to ... trying to ...”

Warmth
came back as his father had pressed him against his side. “There, there, boy,
we know you did what you had to do, and saved little Kerlie from the worst of
it, too. There is no blame for you, but only a hero's honor.”

And
the villagers did honor him as a hero that night around the great central fire
in the meeting lodge, while Borli's wife and mother turned away their faces in
shame, though no one laid any blame on them. A hero's honor, yes—for one night.
But even the next morning, Culaehra realized that the other folk were beginning
to shun him, to greet him with politeness but no warmth, and wondered
why—wondered more and more, hurt and perplexed, and his parents couldn't
explain it, told him it was all in his mind, wasn't real—but it was in them,
too. He couldn't help but wonder until the next week, when he went hunting, and
the biggest boy in the village caught up with him, and a dozen behind him,
challenging, “You think you're such a great fighter, eh? Let's see if you can
beat me!” and leaped in, punching.

Anger
surged, all the confusion and hurt behind it, and Culaehra fought back like a
madman, fought back until the bigger boy finally ran with blood streaming from
his nose and his cronies with him, running from the berserker. Culaehra followed
them a dozen yards, then slowed and glared after them, chest heaving, realizing
that everyone was afraid of him because he had slain a grown man .. .

And
all the boys would fear him now, because he had beaten their biggest and scared
the rest.

Later,
when he was mostly grown, he realized that it was partly fear and partly
revulsion because of the deed he had stopped Borli from committing, which was
nonetheless associated with him—revulsion and fear. A deep well of contempt
built up in him, contempt for people who would honor a boy for saving a little
girl and killing to defend himself, then shun him for having done it at
all—contempt and anger, always anger never far from the surface, ready to lash
out at anyone who gave him insult. He grew to despise them and their rules,
even their gods, and began to think that only the wicked one, Bolenkar, might
be devoid of hypocrisy, for at least he stood for wickedness openly.

Culaehra
grew up as a man without a god he would honor, without any faith except faith in
himself, in his own wit and strength and skill in fighting—for he had to fight
the other boys again and again, and when they finally left him alone, he knew
that it was only the fear of a beating that stopped them. He became the best
fighter and most despised man in the village, and showed his contempt for his
fellows by bullying them and breaking their silly rules whenever he could ...

Such
as the rule that said he had to marry the woman he bedded and got with child.

But
never the rule against rape.

So
revulsion came up in him as he crouched over Lua, came up as soon as he felt
the stirrings of desire, self-contempt, and nausea intensified because the
gnome-maiden was smaller than a five-year-old. Instead he showed his contempt
for her professed mercy and the sickness she called love by commanding, “Unlace
my boots, so my feet may feel the warmth of the fire.”

He
was still amazed when she did it. He sat back against a tree trunk, let her
spoon hot broth into him, and set himself to healing ...

And
to contemplating his revenge.

Ohaern
woke shivering—but worse, he woke aching. Before he even moved, he ached in
every limb. He lay absolutely still, afraid even to open his eyes for fear the
effort would hurt.

Coward!
he scolded himself.
Churl and swine!
He nerved himself to stir at least
a little, at least his eyelids ...

Light
seared through to his brain, and he narrowed his eyes to bare slits, telling
himself the light was really dim, that it was only his five-hundred-year-old
eyes to which it seemed a glare. When it had become bearable, he opened his
eyes a little farther—and could have sworn he felt sand beneath the lids. Had
his eyeballs gone dry in five centuries?

Fifty
years, he told himself. Surely by his body's time it had only been fifty years,
or less! But fifty years or fifty decades, he felt as if his body were iron
that had rusted solid, and that he must break free again.

He
opened his eyes farther, waited till the dazzle ceased, then opened them even
more, and saw—a dazzle indeed! The flecks of ice that had coated the cavern
when he was young had grown to sheets and columns now! He lay in a hall of ice,
lighted by a foot-high flame from a crack in the rock at his feet. The
reflections danced all about, refracting, reflecting, and surrounding him with
light.

At
least Rahani had given him a tomb worthy of a hero—but, no, say a bedchamber,
not a tomb! For he had slept, not died— only slept, while human history flowed
by. And it was time to waken.

Ohaern
turned his head—slowly, slowly, and it felt as if he had to break through a
layer of rust. There by his bier sat a small, round table of ebony, and on it,
in a silver bowl, fruits of many shapes and colors. The mere sight repelled
him, but he knew this body needed nourishment. He moved a hand—but it stayed
still. Frowning in puzzlement, he willed it to move, looked down at it, lying
over the gray blanket that covered his chest. Slowly, the hand moved, feeling
heavy with the weight of centuries—but move it did, and Ohaern managed to hold
it up as the arm moved behind the hand, farther and farther until the palm
reached the table. There Ohaern let it rest, breathing heavily, feeling as if
he had just moved the earth. Alarm stirred—how was he to forge a sword if he
could scarcely move his hand? But before that alarm could take hold, a new one
shoved it aside:

Blanket?

He
had pulled no blanket over himself, had indeed lain down in only the cloak,
tunic, and leggings that the villagers at the foot of the hills had given him.
There had been no blanket, certainly not a gray one. He had a dreadful
suspicion what the fabric was, but shoved the issue aside, telling himself that
strength was more important. His weakness was only that of muscles wasted from
inaction, he assured himself, and slack from lack of food. He knew he needed
nourishment, so he took a yellow globe from the bowl on the table and hefted
it, though it seemed as heavy as any boulder he had ever managed to lift, and
brought it back to his mouth, a distance that seemed as wide as a river. He
forced it to his lips, bit, and felt the juice seep over his tongue—but with
almost no taste. What! Had his body forgotten how to register the sweetness of
food?