The Shaman (25 page)

They
camped for the night, then rose before the sun and came into Cashalo with the
dawn. The first thing that struck Ohaern was that there was no wall around the
city. He had thought the Vanyar mad when he talked of the possibility of
building a wall around a city, though after seeing the palisade around Byleo,
Ohaern had understood his captive’s meaning— but it seemed incredible that
people might surround a whole city with a wall! At least, if cities were as
large as rumor said.

It
seemed that they were, to judge by Cashalo.

Lucoyo
wasn’t thinking—he simply stared in amazement. The mist rising from the river
obscured the city, making it seem a faery realm, half real and half dream—and
Lucoyo could well believe it a dream, for he had never seen so many huts; and
even though there seemed to be a great deal of room between the stone and
timber structures, he felt hemmed in already. Some of the buildings were huge,
ten times the size of one of his people’s dwellings, tapering step by step as
they ascended toward heaven. Had the people of Cashalo built homes for their
gods?

As
he came closer, the city spread as far as he could see to east and west. The
mist burned off as the sun’s rays struck through, and as the travelers came
closer, he could see more clearly. There was some turbulence as they passed the
mouth of a smaller river, and Lucoyo had to clutch at the sides of the coracle,
but he still could scarcely take his eyes off the huge buildings that crowded
either bank of the smaller river. The people of Cashalo had actually built some
sort of hut that crossed the smaller river from shore to shore, like logs
fallen to bridge a stream—if a log could be a hundred feet long or more, square
at the sides, with dozens of people going back and forth across it, carrying
heavy loads! Some of them worked in pairs, carrying their loads atop poles
between them. He could only see their silhouettes against the bright morning
sky, but remembered it well, for it was his first sight of city people—not
counting the soldiers of Byleo, of course, which he didn’t.

“I
see a place to tie our craft,” called one of the rivermen. Ohaern looked where
the man pointed and saw a wooden wall rising out of the water, anchored by
stout upright logs, to which were tied boats—but what boats! Some were small as
their own, but others were large as houses, made of plain wood or painted
bright colors, some with no paddles, some with a dozen, and some even with huge
square sheets of cloth hung above them on a great, thick pole! Such expanses
must have been very expensive, for he knew how long it took a Biri. woman to
weave even a small blanket from the sheared hair of the wild goats.

Then
the city seemed to tower on either side of him, or rather, to loom hugely, for
they were coming in between great huts, four and five times the size of the
largest tent he had ever seen. But they were not made of stretched hides,
no—they were made from stones cunningly fitted together, as high as a man’s
chest, with stacks of split logs rising twice higher yet!

“Catch
a rope,” Ohaern called.

Lucoyo
looked down, startled, and saw that the smith had paddled them in against the
wooden wall—not a wall only, he saw now, but the side of a great flat floor,
just below his chin! There were ropes hanging from the tree trunks, and he
caught one.

“Hold
us fast,” Ohaern told him. He shipped his paddle, then took the rope from
Lucoyo. “I will hold us tight against the wall. Up with you, now, and out!”

Lucoyo
did not need to be invited twice. He seized the edge of the wooden floor with
relief and, being careful not to jump and swamp the coracle, hauled himself up
waist-high, then rolled over and up to his knees. The view of the river was
quite different, even so little higher as this! He found himself looking down
at the rivermen in the canoe as one of them caught a rope and pulled their boat
in against the wood.

“Steady
the coracle,” Ohaern called, and Lucoyo dropped down onto his stomach to hold
the skin boat tight against the wood. Ohaern levered himself up and out in the
same fashion Lucoyo had, then reached down to pull the coracle out of the
water. He began to loose the leather bindings from the saplings.

“Let
me do that,” Lucoyo said. “You help our friends up!”

“A
good thought.” Ohaern passed him the coracle, then leaned down to catch the
rivermen, one by one, and haul them up to sit on the edge of the wooden floor.

“It
is a larger dock than I have ever seen,” one said, looking about him.

“
‘Dock’? What is that?”

“What
we are sitting on.” Riri thumped the wood. “It saves us having to wade out
pushing the canoe each time we climb in, so we have built short, low, wooden
docks at our fishing village—but only two of them, never so many, and never so
high or wide as this!”

“So
we have come to Cashalo,” one of his friends said, looking about him with
wondering eyes. “So many years I have dreamed of it, and at last I have come!”

“Much
good may it do you, Orl,” Riri said bitterly. “What pleasures can a cripple
have in Cashalo? What manner of life?”

“Aye,”
Hifa said on Orl’s other side. He looked about him somberly. “We have escaped
from the Vanyar—but how shall we live?”

“How
should we live anywhere?” Riri retorted. “Who has use for a lame man?”

“Who
has use for a skilled fisherman?” Ohaern countered. He climbed to his feet and
strode down the dock to a large boat, whose crew were just now boarding. The
deck was piled with nets. “Ho, men of Cashalo! Do you fish?”

The
oldest man looked up in surprise. His face was seamed leather, and his only
garment a swath of blue cloth draped over one shoulder and belted to form a
kilt. He grinned and answered in strongly accented Biri. “Aye, stranger, we are
fishermen! Most of the folk of Cashalo still fish for their dinners, though we
labor hauling and carrying for the traders, too—and the richest among us do
nothing but trade.”

“Working
for the traders? I had not thought of that.” Ohaern straightened, stroking his
chin. “Where do they wander to trade?”

“Everywhere,”
the fisherman said, “or the young men do— north and south, east and west,
wherever the rivers bear them. But when they have gathered enough wealth, they
stay at home and the river brings the trade to them.”

“How
can the river bring trade?” Lucoyo came over, curious.

“Because
it bears traders.” The fisherman pointed a little farther down the dock, where
men in sheepskin vests were tying up a long, low boat. “They are from the
north, and will doff those woolly pelts for honest cloth quickly enough, I
warrant. They have already left off their hats.”

“Small
wonder,” Ohaern grunted. “It is hot!”

“And
those!” The fisherman pointed across the dock, and Ohaern turned to see small,
dark men with straight black hair and light cloth loincloths tying up a
high-stemmed boat that seemed to be made of nothing but bundles of reeds. “Those
are from the south and west! All come to Cashalo, if only to pass through to
the Dark Sea—but if they do, they stop here to trade for jars of beer and hard bread,
and a night’s pleasure, too. Most trade their goods here, though for the pots
and weapons and metalwork of Cashalo—or of the east, or the cedars of the west
and the ivory of the south, for that matter. Then they go home, and trade the
freight of Cashalo for four times as much as they set out with—and while they
do, the traders of Cashalo are trading their cotton cloth for the amber and
furs of the north. See! There are northmen now, of your own nation, or I miss
my guess!”

Ohaern
looked, and sure enough, there were Biriae, tying up a fleet of coracles. He
made a note to ask them their clan and tribe and discuss the depredations of
the Vanyar and Klaja with them—but there were friends to dispose of first. He
turned back to the fisherman. “Have you work for fishermen who cannot walk, but
can paddle well?”

“Paddle?”
The man looked up, startled. “Aye, for a man need not stand for that. In truth,
in our boat he need not stand to haul in the nets! They would be useful indeed,
for I have only my two sons today—my three neighbors are working for Gori the
trader. Where are these men?”

“Yonder.”
Ohaern turned to beckon. Startled, Riri looked up, then pushed himself to his
knees and, face flaming with shame, came walking on his knees.

The
fisherman frowned. “What has befallen him?”

“The
Vanyar,” Ohaern said. “His village was one of peaceful fishermen. The Vanyar
overwhelmed them, slaughtered many, and kept a few to paddle—but they maimed
and starved their captives, as you see.”

For
a moment pity lined the old fisherman’s face, but Riri saw, and his own face
turned to flint. The old fisherman made his own face board-smooth and said, as
Riri came up, “Can you row?”

“What
is ‘row’?” the riverman spat.

“It
is like paddling,” said the elder, “only you sit with your back to the bow and
set the paddle between two sticks we call an ‘oarlock.’ The shaft is longer,
though, and the blade shorter, so we do not call it a ‘paddle,’ but an ‘oar.’ “

“It
is an odd way to send a boat,” Riri said.

“It
lends greater power to your strokes, for you can use your back as well as your
arms. Would you learn?”

“For
dinner and a bed?” Riri shrugged unwillingly. “I will.”

“Have
you fished with a net?”

“Have
I? Aye, and made them, too!”

“Then
I may have much work for you, indeed,” the elder said thoughtfully. “When I do
not, others will. Nay, friend, lash your craft here, and none will disturb it,
for it is the mooring of the family of Stibo. Come with us for a day’s fishing,
and your canoe will be here when you come home.”

“I
thank you,” Riri said slowly, sounding as if he were uncertain as to whether or
not he should be grateful.

“And
I shall thank you,” Stibo returned, “if you fish as well as your friend talks.
I have need of your mates, too. Bid them bring the canoe, and we shall row out.”

“Ho!
Ori! Hifa!” The alacrity with which Riri turned to beckon to his friends belied
his coldness. “The canoe! Hurry!”

His
friends stared, startled, then lowered themselves back into the canoe, slipped
the mooring, and paddled around toward the fishing boat.

“There
is nothing crippled about them in the water,” Stibo said, watching the canoe—so
he could affect not to see Riri look up with surprise that turned to
satisfaction, even pride, as he nodded and turned back to his friends.

“Into
the boat!” Stibo said. “We must row out a little before they can paddle in!
What is your name, stranger?”

“Riri,”
the riverman said.

“Then
into my boat, Riri, for we’ve a day’s work to do!”

“That
I will!” Riri reached up to catch the gunwale, then hauled himself over. “Show
him his bench and his oar!” Stibo called, and one of his sons nodded, pointing
the way for Riri.

“I
thank you, Stibo,” Ohaern said softly.

“You
are welcome, stranger,” Stibo said. “I am glad to do it, for I serve the
goddess Rahani, and thus would she have me do. Nay, we shall be back here at
sunset, if you wish to speak to your friends—but they shall have beds in my
house tonight, and work on the morrow, so you need not fear for them.”

“I
am Ohaern,” the big smith said. “I can forge both bronze and iron. Call on me
if I can aid you.”

“I
shall.” Stibo nodded. “Good luck in Cashalo, my stranger friend—and if you have
gold on you, keep your hand away from it, but know where it is at all times.”
Then he vaulted into his boat, and it drew away from the dock. The canoe tied
up; then Ori and Hifa reached up for Riri and his new shipmates to draw them
over the gunwales.

“The
people of Cashalo are good,” Lucoyo said, “if they are all like him.”

“Even
if most are,” said Ohaern. “But come now, Lucoyo. Let us speak to our
countrymen.” He turned away to the Biriae, and Lucoyo followed, secretly
thrilling that Ohaern no longer seemed to remember that he had ever been
anything but a Biri.

Ohaern’s
tribesmen were already talking to a trader, who stood beside them with a small
slab of clay in his hand, pressing tally marks into it with a pointed stick as
they laid marten pelts before him, adding them to a stack set on a clean square
of pale cloth. “One hundred and seven!” the trader said. “We agreed on one gold
bead for each five pelts, so that is twenty-one beads.”

“Twenty-two.”
The Biri held up two more fingers. “Or I shall take back two of the pelts.”

The
trader shrugged. “What are two out of one hundred seven? Still, I would rather
have them than lose them—so I will give you a silver bead for them.”

The
Biri nodded. “Silver? Yes, I will take that.” He was a grizzled, scarred old
warrior who looked to be as hard as an axe blade—and the three young men with
him were all hale and muscular. Ohaern could understand the trader’s reluctance
to cheat them.

“Then,
praise Ulahane, it is agreed!”

Ohaern’s
head snapped back; he felt as if he had been dealt a blow across the face at
the mention of the scarlet god’s name. He stared, watching as the trader
slipped the beads onto a string. He did not look at all evil. How could he be
Ulahane’s?

The
elder Biri took the string and bit one bead.

The
trader smiled. “Do you not trust me?”

“I
like the flavor.” The Biri looked down at his own toothmark in the gold and
grinned. “Praise Ulahane indeed, if he gives good bargains to us both!”

Ohaern
felt as if the slap had been repeated, nay, doubled.

“Indeed
he does, for he is the god of prosperity!” said the trader. “Come to his temple
tonight and you shall find great pleasure in his worship!”

“Pleasure
in a temple?” The Biri frowned.