The Shaman (42 page)

And
apparently he was going to have to be the one who worried, for Ohaern dropped
down to lean back against the stone wall and did not move. Instead his body
began to go loose, muscle by muscle, and tears welled from beneath his eyelids.

Panic
seized Lucoyo, more intense than any he had ever felt before. Ohaern had become
the rock of his life ever since he had left the tribe that had raised him, so
seeing the big smith reduced to jelly and tears shook him even more deeply than
watching Manalo shed his disguise and emerge as Lomallin, only to be slain by
the Scarlet One. He dropped to one knee and said in as soothing a tone as he
could manage, “It will be well again, Ohaern.”

“It
will not!” the smith groaned, in the voice of heartbreak. “Ryl is dead, Manalo
is gone, Lomallin is dead, and nothing shall endure to uphold hope! It is vain,
Lucoyo—all the world is vain and hollow, and life is without meaning!”

The
panic stayed, deepening into the horrible feeling for Lucoyo that he was
confronting fate. “There is hope, there must be!” Inspiration struck. “Remember
that the sage said I must care for you because you are the key to this war! It
is you who can slay the Scarlet One!”

“What
purpose?” Ohaern groaned through his tears. “What purpose, when he has slain
Lomallin?”

“Revenge!
Confound you, man, is your nature so kindly that you do not even crave revenge?”

“What
matter? We are doomed, we are all doomed! How can I take revenge on Ulahane?
How could anything kill him, now that he has slain Lomallin?”

Clear
as if he were there beside them, Lucoyo heard Manalo’s remembered voice. He
said, “The legend! Ohaern, remember the legend! That only after he has been
slain can Lomallin become stronger than Ulahane!”

“What
a deal of nonsense!” Ohaern cried with building anger. “How can any man become
stronger after he is dead?”

“He
is an Ulin, not a man.”

“Was!
Do not say ‘is’ to me, Lucoyo!” The anger was building toward rage now. “Lomallin
is dead! I saw him die with these eyes! Do not pretend he still lives!”
Suddenly the smith lashed out, striking a blow that sent Lucoyo flying down the
cave and crashing into a wall. “Go away! Leave me! Stop plaguing me with your
words of brightness! Leave me to my grief and let me die in peace!”

“All
right, if that is your wish!” Lucoyo cried in anger of his own. He leaped up,
cracked his head on the roof, cursed, and strode out of the cave, leaving
Ohaern to his tears and his wallow of despair.

Ohaern
wept long, deep racking sobs that shook his whole frame and drew from him every
dram of energy he possessed. At last, worn out, he fell over, lying long on the
cold stone of the cave floor, and wept the last few sobs, which were devoid of
tears. Finally he quieted, and sleep enfolded him, a sleep that shrouded him in
gray mist, a fog such as had lain over the grass when they buried Ryl.

But
it was not Ryl who made those mists part—it was golden light, and as the mists
burned away, Ohaern saw against it the silhouette of the voluptuous,
translucent-veiled female form of his dream, and knew he saw the goddess, the Ulin,
again. He dared to breathe her name: “Rahani.”

“Come
to me, Ohaern.” The veiled arm beckoned “Seek through the world inside and come
to me. Come, and you shall have comfort, you shall have consolation, you shall
have ecstasy such as mortal men only dream of—if you can find me ... if you can
reach me ... if you can touch ...”

But
her arms were moving, waving, as her hips churned in a dance, and the veils
were enfolding her, hiding her, turning to mist, to fog, in which she
disappeared.

“Rahani!”
he cried in the tearing voice of despair, and reached out to grasp, to draw,
but his hand closed on rock, and the gray of the mist was hardening into stone,
a stone that seemed to warm, to turn yellow, and Ohaern realized he was seeing
sunlight on rock, a lump of rock swelling out of the cave wall.

He
stilled, his eyes flicking up and down, discovering that he was in the cave and
that his body felt like lead. He pulled himself up sitting, but hung his head,
muttering, “I am awake.”

“Yes,
praise the gods!”

Ohaern
looked up, startled, to see Lucoyo holding out a water skin. In his amazement,
Ohaern did not even think to ask where it had come from, only took it and
squirted a few swallows into his mouth. Then he handed it back. “I thought you
had left me.”

“So
did I.” Lucoyo shrugged. “But I stepped out into that freezing, barren night
and realized I had no place to go.” He sighed. “I might as well die here with
you, as die fighting a manticore or being squeezed to death by a lamia. Unless,
perhaps, you have decided not to die?” He did not seem very hopeful.

Ohaern
was silent a moment, then said, “I do not know, Lucoyo.” He looked up, looked
directly into the half-elf’s eyes and said, “You see, I have fallen in love.”

Lucoyo
stared back, then said, “That is not usually a cause of death.”

“No,”
Ohaern agreed, “but she whom I love is a goddess, an Ulin.”

Lucoyo
stared again, his eyes wide and round. Then, in tones of pain and regret, he
breathed, “Oh, Ohaern!”

“Yes,”
Ohaern agreed. “To worship a goddess, to give her devotion, is all well and
good—but to be in love with her?”

“What
shall you do?” Lucoyo whispered.

“I
shall find her.” Ohaern straightened with decision and pulled his legs under
him, folded to keep him upright as he set his back against the stone wall. “I
shall find her again or die in the seeking, and if it is to be only in dreams
that I may discover her, then in dreams I shall lose myself. She bade me search
for her through the world inside.”

“The
world inside?” Lucoyo frowned. “How shall you do that?”

“As
shamans do. I have spoken with the healers of our clan well enough to know that
they must sink into trance and journey far, though their bodies sit still. I
shall sit here until I sleep, and bring up a waking dream—for I know, more
clearly than I have ever known anything, that I must find her or die.”

Lucoyo
bit back the words; Ohaern did not need to be reminded that they would probably
die in any case. Well, it was better to die in this cave, of starvation and
thirst, but without knowing it, than to die between the jaws of a manticore.
Perhaps it was even better to die here knowing you were dying— and keeping a
friend’s body alive as long as you could. “Sleep then, Ohaern. Though you wake,
find your sleep—if you can.”

“I
shall—or my body shall dry up and lie forever in this cave.” Ohaern closed his
eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. In truth, he felt that if he
could not find the goddess, he would prefer to find death rather than face a
life devoid of Ryl and devoid of Rahani, or to confront the fact that Ulahane
was laying waste to the world and torturing humankind to extinction for his own
twisted pleasure.

Lucoyo
stared at his impassive face, still as the stone behind it, and reflected that
it was, at least, better than seeing that face distorted with pain.

The
eyes opened and Lucoyo nearly jumped back in fright, it was so unexpected. “That
was a short dream!”

“I
am in the wrong place.” Ohaern climbed to his feet.

Lucoyo
stared. “How do you know?”

“That,
I do not know—I only know that I know.” Ohaern prowled to the mouth of the
cave, stepped out, went a few paces, then stopped, shaking his head. “No—I am
farther from it now.” He came back in, sat down in a different spot, closed his
eyes, then opened them and shook his head. “Not here, either.” He went farther
back in the tunnel, sat down again, shook his head again. “Nor here.” He rose
again, went farther back, tried another spot and another. Heart in his mouth,
Lucoyo followed the big smith into the very bowels of the cave ...

Where
it suddenly opened out.

It
was no cave, but a cavern, and to judge by its size, the whole of the giant
rock must have been hollow. From very high up, nearly at the ceiling, the sun’s
rays slanted down through long slits in the rock, striking reddish highlights
from the stone, so that the whole cavern had a ruddy glow. It was amazingly
clean. Lucoyo found it hard to believe that not even one animal had ever made
its den in so fine a shelter, but so it seemed.

Ohaern
was busy sitting down, closing his eyes, then rising with a shake of his head
and walking slowly over the ground until he found another place that felt
possible. Finally, after a dozen more tries, he settled down near the wall,
leaning back against it and closing his eyes. There he stayed, immobile, save for
the rise and fall of his chest. Lucoyo began to feel concern and sat on his
heels next to the smith, peering at him closely in the reddish gloom. He could
scarcely see any sign of breathing any more, and—surely it must have been his
imagination!—Ohaern’s limbs, torso, and face seemed to have hardened, to have
turned into wood. He stayed long by his friend, feeling the alarm grow,
assuring himself that Ohaern could not just sit down and die. Finally he
reached out to touch the smith, then to squeeze, and the alarm flared, for
Ohaern did indeed feel as if he were made out of wood.

For
Ohaern, though, things were very different. He sat still and thought over all
he had seen, letting his grief well up, overflow, and empty out—and realized
that he still mourned Ryl. He was not truly aware of having closed his eyes,
but only of the reddish glow in the cavern seeming to grow thicker and thicker,
until it seemed to be reddish mist. He felt a massive disappointment that the
goddess had not appeared, but he was bound and determined that he would not
stir from this place until he found her again. Presently he began to feel
thirsty, but strength flowed from the cave floor to fill him, and his thirst
ceased. So did hunger. He hung suspended in ruby mist, with a growing sense of
anticipation. Somehow, he knew that something was about to happen, though he
had no idea what.

Then
he began to hear the drum.

First
he heard only one double beat, slow and heavy, the second beat louder than the
first. He thought he must have been mistaken, but after a while it came again,
then again and again, always a double beat followed by a pause, coming closer
and closer until its sound seemed to beat all about him, filling the world.
With sudden apprehension, he sensed that something was coming, something
dreadful. Rising slowly, he braced himself for combat—and realized that the
sound was not a drum beating at all, but footsteps, limping footsteps, giant,
heavy, and slow.

The
mists parted and a huge, monstrous form emerged from them. It was like a man,
but a man almost as wide as he was tall, with pillars for legs and arms knobbed
with muscle. But his face was worst of all. It seemed half human, half that of
a giant lynx, with great round slit-pupiled eyes and tusks that thrust up from
a snarling mouth. It carried a great war club set with spikes, a club that
swung down at Ohaern as if to drive him into the ground, while that tusked
mouth opened to give a growl that swelled into a roar.

Ohaern
leaped aside at the last second. The huge club smashed down right where he had
been. Then he leaped in and seized the haft of the club before the monster
could draw it back, throwing all his weight against it, all his smith’s
strength. The monster roared in anger and yanked the club up—but it would not
go; the tug jolted Ohaern, but did not move him. The monster bellowed in wrath,
set itself, and hauled with all its might, but Ohaern held fast, jolting off
the ground, then sinking back to it, his muscles bulging and veins standing out
as if they would burst. With a howl of desperation, the monster let go of the
club with one hand and slashed Ohaern from shoulder to hip with a great sharp
claw. The smith gave a shout of pain, then set his jaw—feeling the blood flow,
but determined not to let go while there was life in him—and pulled harder. The
club came free from the monster’s hand. The creature howled in despair as it
fell back into the mist, and the sound of its passing faded into the huge
limping footstep sound as it disappeared back where it had come from—a limping
sound that reverberated, becoming the double drumbeat again.

Ohaern
stood leaning on the club, his chest heaving even as it poured blood. He could
not believe he was still alive, could not believe he had managed to wrest the
club away from the monster—and least of all could he believe that he still
moved, still breathed, while his chest blazed with pain and oozed blood without
stopping. Hesitantly, he lifted the club to see if he had weakened—but it came
up off the floor as lightly as a leaf.

Then
suddenly it seemed to leap in his hands, dragging him around in a half circle,
straining to be away, to pull him along with it. Ohaern stood a few moments,
reasoning. Surely the monster had been a sort of guard to keep evil mortals
from the goddess! Would not its club show him the way to her, then? Slowly,
Ohaern followed the direction of the club. It pulled steadily, wanting him to
hurry, to run, to tire himself, but he held it fast and kept his pace
deliberate, trying to time his steps to the pulsing drum that seemed to beat
all around him—a beat that quickened as he went along, becoming once again the
sound of limping giant footsteps. He followed the club, dread welling up in him
once more. It was another guardian that approached him, surely—and would it not
be worse than the first?

There
it came, shouldering the mists aside—a monster with a bird’s head, elongated,
stretched out. A bird of prey it was, with a long hooked beak and huge, round,
maniacal eyes. It stood half again the height of a man, spare and lean, as if
made from rope, seeming to have no joints save for a leg that looked as if it
were made of wood—a stout oaken staff, ending not in a foot, but in an axe
head—and a wooden arm that ended in a spiked ball of iron.