The Sage (49 page)

“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 back 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.

The
high priest shouted encouragement to his pet. The snake seemed not to hear him,
though, for slowly, ever so slowly, its fangs folded as its mouth closed. So
did those of its mates.

Lua's
dance became more sinuous, her voice building heat. Yocote began to move to her
rhythm very slightly, the sweat rolling down his face, and the look in his eyes
was hunger and yearning. The snakes began to show something of the same
appetite themselves, two of them turning to gaze at the third.

Suddenly,
Kitishane understood. Two of the snakes were male, the other female! And Lua's
voice was becoming heavy with desire. Kitishane blinked; surely she must be
wrong, she thought. Surely there was not really a faint green haze surrounding
the little woman!

But
the snakes seemed to lose interest in her as they gained interest in one
another. The males undulated toward the female.

The
high priest shouted, nearly screeching.

Suddenly,
the two males seemed to see each other. Mouths yawned, emitting long hisses.
They poised to spring—

Lua
sang more loudly, and the aura about her deepened, becoming more blue than
green, then blue indeed.

The
snakes' eyes glazed; their fangs folded again, their mouths closed. They
appeared to forget one another and turned back to the female.

The
female had begun to writhe, undulating slowly in time to Lua's music. Her
curving grew, and the males slid up next to her, one to either side, matching
her undulations and her rhythms.

The
priest screamed in rage; his assistants joined him. They came striding down to
their erstwhile staves, raising their hands and chanting. The companions could
understand only the repeated name, “Bolenkar!”

A
red aura sprang up about the three snakes. They stilled, then turned cold eyes
on Lua.

Yocote
grasped his dagger and braced himself. Kitishane raised her bow.

But
Lua's chant deepened; they heard her call, “Rahani!” Other than that, her
sounds seemed hardly words at all, but she called again, “Rahani!”

The
blue aura seemed to stream from her, from her and out to envelope the snakes.
Sparks shot as it touched the red aura; then the two mingled, deepened,
becoming a purple that lightened to lavender.

The
snakes began to twine about one another.

The
high priest howled and drew a long and curving knife. He swung it high ...

Kitishane
shouted.

The
priests looked up—and saw an arrow pointed at their chief. Beside the archer
stood Culaehra, panting, but lifting his sword, the sword that had fought
Singorot to a draw.

The
curving knife froze, poised.

Lua's
voice thickened with passion. The snakes wrapped about one another so tightly
that they seemed to be only one writhing, interlocked mass.

Face
dark with anger, the high priest bellowed a chant. His assistants joined in.

The
three snakes turned back into wood.

Lua
stopped dancing and glared accusation at the priest. He snarled in return and
leaped at her, the curved knife sweeping down.

Yocote
shouted, leaping forward; Kitishane loosed her arrow; but Lua was faster than
them all, streaking forward to catch up the huge triple staff, which must
surely have weighed twice as much as she herself, and the green aura glowed
about her again as she whirled to strike the high priest on the side of the
head with the huge, knobbed, triple head.

The
man dropped like a stone as Kitishane's arrow caught one of the younger priests
in the hip. The other stood, staring in shock, as Lua dropped the staff,
beholding the dead priest. She stood trembling, eyes unreadable behind her
goggles, then fell to her knees, face in her hands, sobbing.

Yocote
was at her side in an instant, folding her in his arms.

Kitishane
stepped up behind the two, glaring defiance at the whole Vanyar horde, another
arrow nocked and ready.

The
two remaining priests fell to their knees, the one groaning and the other
crying out, but both with the same words. Masana turned to the companions,
smiling, and spoke.

“She
says they will turn away from Bolenkar,” Yusev translated. “He is weaker than
Lomallin and Rahani. She says they call Lomallin to protect them.”

Culaehra
nodded. “Thank you, Yusev.” He stepped forward, sheathing his sword and holding
up his hand, palm open, toward Singorot. After a moment the Vanyar chieftain
pressed his own palm against Culaehra's.

* * *

Fortunately,
the Darians had some spare knives of excellent workmanship that made ideal
goodwill gifts for the Vanyar. The barbarians, not to be outdone, pressed
several battle-axes on the nomads. They parted with declarations of goodwill.

“We
will carry word of these events to all the Vanyar,” Masana told them. It was no
promise, but only a statement of fact. “We shall turn the Vanyar from their
mission of death to the worship of life.” She smiled. “I thank you for all of
this.”

“We
thank you, for your courage and persistence,” Kitishane returned. “May we meet
again, as allies.”

“May
we meet again,” Masana echoed, and turned away to mount a wagon that carried
women and household goods. She turned back to raise a hand in farewell, and so
did most of the dozen other women in the wagon.

Culaehra
noted that. As they rode away he asked Kitishane, “You and Lua have been busy
talking among the women, have you not?”

“It
was not so hard,” Kitishane said breezily. “Lua taught me the words to say, and
they answered one another's questions.”

Yusev
lowered his hand from a farewell wave, then turned to Culaehra with a knot of
nomad warriors behind him. In the patois they had developed, he accused, “We
saw, Culaehra! We saw you aim your blade at his hip, not his head! We know the
sharpness of your blade, we know that it could have shorn his sword at the
hilt!”

“We
have seen you move with twice, three times the speed you showed him!” a warrior
claimed.

“Aye,”
another said, “and strike with two and three times that force, too!”

“Speak
truly, Culaehra,” Yusev said. “You could have slain that Vanyar in a matter of
minutes, could you not?”

“Yes,
but do not let it be noised abroad.” Culaehra kept his voice low, as if
Singorot were ten feet away. “None knows this except yourselves—and Singorot,
of course.”

“You
mean that his tribesmen know it not? Of course, but why did you do it?”

“If
I had killed him, we would have had a blood-feud on our hands, and they never
would have turned away from Bolenkar. Have I not won a greater victory this
way?”

“Yes,
I see,” Yusev admitted, though Culaehra could tell the words had a bad taste in
his mouth. “What lasting good will it do, though? Will not Bolenkar simply have
this whole tribe slain for treachery?”

But
Yocote stepped up, shaking his head. “Be sure they are not such great fools as
to send an emissary to Bolenkar to tell him they abjure his worship.”

“But
he will know when he does not hear them pray! He will know when he feels that a
priest of his is dead!”

“Bolenkar
is not a god, to know such things without being told,” Yocote said severely. “I
do not doubt that a few of these Vanyar will stay loyal to him, or that they
will send one of their number to another high priest, who will send report to
Bolenkar—but by that time the new ideas I have told Masana will have passed
from mouth to mouth, not through this tribe alone, but through many other
Vanyar tribes.”

“I
see.” Yusev's eyes widened. “Once the truth has spread so far as that, Bolenkar
will never be able to stop it, no matter how many he slays!”

“And
if he does slay many in trying to stanch it,” Kitishane said, “the Vanyar will
know him for the tyrant he is.”

“Yes,
yes! But not all the Vanyar will accept this news and turn from Bolenkar.”

“True,”
Yocote said, “and that will cause fighting within the ranks, Vanyar against
Vanyar.”

“Which
will weaken them further, and make them less able to fight! Most excellent,
Yocote!”

“At
the very least, none of our folk have been slain or even wounded,” Culaehra
explained, “and our strength is still full, to meet whatever foe we next
encounter.”

Yusev
turned to Culaehra again. “But you did not think of all that when you drew out
the fight and refrained from slaying that slogger, did you?”

“No,”
Culaehra admitted, “though I suspect that Kitishane did.”

“Kitishane!
You withheld your hand only because she told you to?”

Culaehra
looked into their eyes and saw that their opinion of him wavered in the
balance, for how could they respect a chieftain who only took orders from
another? “Who among you will not heed the words of your shaman?” he asked.

Their
heads snapped up; furtive glances sought out Yusev, who frowned and returned
the glances.

“Is
Kitishane a shaman, then?” one warrior asked.

“No,
but she has a kind of magic all her own,” Culaehra told them. “I have never
known her to give bad counsel. I did as she advised, not only because I trusted
her, but also because I sought to avoid as much bloodshed as possible.”

“You,
the hero, thought of avoiding bloodshed?” a warrior demanded. So did the
others.

“Oh,
yes,” Culaehra said softly. “Be assured, if I call upon you to risk your lives
in battle, it will be because I see no other way.”

Onward
they marched, eastward still. They encountered other tribes; some they fought;
with others they were able to parley or bargain. Yocote conferred with their
shamans, and from almost every tribe they gained at least a dozen recruits.
Where they were able to succor those who were threatened by other tribes of
Vanyar, they gained whole clans, who traveled with them as much for protection
as to aid in battle.

They
bypassed the cities of the Land Between the Rivers where they could, and fought
the armies of those who sought to stop them. There were no shamans here to
listen to word of Lomallin and Rahani; they had been slain by Bolenkar's
priests, and only the raven-masked ones counseled their people. Culaehra fought
three more duels, but with no hope of winning new friends. When they had chased
the city-folk back behind their walls, though, many of the farm-folk who
dwelled around the city came to join them. These Yocote and Yusev interrogated
sharply, wary of spies—but as Kitishane pointed out, it mattered little; surely
Bolenkar was aware of their coming.

They
passed beyond the eastern river, where the land rose to a high plateau. Now
they began to meet monsters, giant misbegotten mixtures of animal and reptile,
of insect and even plant. They dealt with them easily, for they never traveled
in numbers— but they lost a few warriors.