Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

“The ghosts of this land are full of winter anger,” rang Aryuk’s unearthly voice. “They stir in the earth. They walk in the wind. Go before they come after you. Leave their country, you and your people. Go.”

Even then, Red Wolf thought of Little Willow, their children, the tribe. “We cannot,” he pleaded. “We would die.”

“We will abide you until the snow melts, when you can again live in tents,” Aryuk said. “Until then, be afraid. Leave our living ones alone. In spring depart and never come back. I have fared a long, chill way to tell you this. I will not tell you twice. Go, as I now go.”

He turned and went off the way he had come. Red Wolf went on his belly in the snow. Thus he did not see Aryuk step behind the rock; but he heard the unnatural noise of his passing from the world of men.

The moon was down. The sun was still remote. Stars and Spirit Trail cast a wan glow across whitened earth. In the village, folk slept.

Answerer the shaman woke when someone pulled his windbreak aside. At first he felt puzzlement, vexation, and mostly how his old bones ached. He crawled from beneath the skins and crouched by the hearth. It held ashes. Somebody brought him fresh fire each morning. “Who are you?” he asked the blackness that stood in the doorway athwart the stars. “What do you need?” A sudden illness, an onset of childbirth, a nightmare—

The newcomer entered and spoke. The sound was none that Answerer had ever heard before in life, dream, or vision. “You know me. Behold.”

Light glared, icily brilliant, like the light that Tall Man and Sun Hair could make shine from a stick. It streamed upward across a great beard, to gully the face above with shadows. Answerer screamed.

“Your men could kill me,” said Aryuk. “They could not bind me. I have come back to tell you that you must go.”

Answerer snatched after his wits and found the graven bone that lay always beside him. He pointed it. “No, you begone, ya eya eya illa ya-a!” Tight as his throat was, he could barely force the chant out.

Aryuk interrupted it. “Too long have your folk preyed on mine. Our blood on the land troubles the spirits beneath. Go, all Cloud People, go. Tell them this, shaman, or else come away with me.”

“Whence rise you?” whimpered Answerer.

“Would you know? I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would rip your soul, freeze your blood, make your two eyes break free like shooting stars, your hair unbraid and stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But instead, I go now. If you remain, Cloud People, I shall return. Remember me.”

The light snapped off. Once more the doorway was darkened, then the stars shone unmercifully through.

Answerer’s shrieks roused families nearby. Two or three men spied him who walked from them. They told themselves they should not pursue but rather see what help their shaman needed. They found him moaning and mumbling. Later he said that a dire vision had sought him. After sunrise, Broken Blade mustered courage to track the stranger. Some distance from the village, footprints ended. The snow was tumbled there. It was as if something had swooped down from the Spirit Trail.

Far off southeastward, beyond the ice and the open sea, the sky began to lighten. Stars yonder paled. One by one, they went out. Overhead, north, and west, night lingered. Above snow, whitenesses swirled off the hot springs. Nothing broke the silence but an undertone of waves.

A man-shape arrived at Ulungu’s kinstead. He moved heavily. When he stopped among the dwellings he stood bent-shouldered. His call rustled faint. “Tseshu, Tseshu.”

They stirred within. Men peeked past windbreaks. What they saw flung them back at the bodies crowded behind. “Aryuk, dead Aryuk!”

“Tseshu,” It begged, “this is only Aryuk, your man. I have only come to bid you farewell.”

“Wait here,” said his woman in the fear-stinking darkness. “I will go to him.”

“No, that is death.” Ulungu fumbled to hold her.

She fended him off. “He wants me,” she said, and crawled out. Rising, she stood before the cloaked form. “Here I am,” she told It.

“Do not be afraid,” said Aryuk—how gently, how wearily. “I bring no harm.”

The woman stared at him in wonderment. “You are dead,” she whispered. “They killed you. We heard. Men of theirs went among Us, along the whole shore, and gave Us that news.”

“Yes. That is how Wan—that is how I learned where you are.”

“They said the Red Wolf killed you for what you did and We should all beware.”

Aryuk nodded. “Yes, I died.”

Care trembled in her voice. “You are thin. You are tired.”

“It was a long journey,” he sighed.

She reached for him. “Your poor arm—”

He smiled a little. “Soon I shall rest. It will be good to lie down.”

“Why have you come back?”

“I am not yet dead.”

“You said you are.”

“Yes. I died a moon or more ago, beneath the Ghost Birds.”

“How is this?” she asked, bewildered.

“I do not understand. What I know, I may not tell you. But when I begged leave, I was given my wish, that I could come see you this last time.”

“Aryuk, Aryuk.” She went to him and laid her head against his beard and mane. He brought his usable arm around her.

“You shiver, Tseshu,” he said. “It is cold and you have nothing on. Get back inside where it is warm. I must go now.”

“Take me with you, Aryuk,” she faltered through tears. “We were so long together.”

“I may not do that,” he answered. “Stay. Care for the young ones, for everyone of Us. Go home to our river. You will have peace. The Mammoth Slayers will trouble you no more. In spring when the snow melts, they will go away.”

She raised her face. “This … is … a great thing.”

“It is what I give you and Us.” He looked past her to the dying stars. “I am glad.”

She clung to him and wept.

“Do not cry,” he pleaded. “Let me remember you glad.”

Light strengthened. “I must leave,” he said. “Let me go, let me go.” He had to draw her arms from him before he could depart. She stood gazing after him till he had limped out of sight.

Tamberly brought her hopper across space-time and down through the snowfall to earth. She dismounted. Aryuk, who had held onto her waist on this as on other quick flights, left the rear saddle. For a span they were mute amidst the flakes and the gray morning.

“Is it done?” he asked finally.

She nodded. Her neck felt stiff. “It is done. As well as I was able.”

“That is good.” His right hand fumbled about his person. “Here, I give you back your treasures.” Piece by piece he returned them—flashlight; audiovisual pickup by which she had seen and heard what he did, earplug receiver through which she instructed him, speaker that enabled her to talk Wanayimo for him, with lowered voice frequency and some spooky feedback resonance at the transmission end. She dropped them in the carrier.

“What shall I do next?” Aryuk inquired.

“Wait. If … if only I could wait with you!”

He considered. “You are kind, but I think I would rather be alone. I have remembering to do.”

“Yes.”

“Also,” he went on earnestly, “if I may, I would rather walk than sit still. Your magic gave me some haleness back. It is ebbing, but I would like to use it.”

Feel yourself alive while you can. “Yes, do as you wish. Walk onward until—oh, Aryuk!” He stood there so patiently. Already the snow had whitened his head.

“Do not cry,” he said, troubled. “You who command life and death should never feel weak or sad.”