“Oh, don’t I know that!” Puffing on his pipe, Lamidy Coubert chuckled under his breath. “A person’s mind is a hard thing to change, it is. Living up here by myself like this, I’m often the butt of jokes from the people of Cailase village, where I buy those things I can’t make myself. Or I am looked upon with suspicion and uncertainty by those few visitors who do manage to make it this far into the mountains.” He manifested a kindly grin. “But after they meet me, their concerns usually disappear quite rapidly. I’m not what even the most fearful would call a threatening figure.” He gestured with one hand at the surrounding room.
“As you can see, I don’t even keep any weapons here.”
Ehomba nodded, then eyed the old man with interest. “Where I live there are many predators. They are very fond of sheep as well as cattle. We have to watch over our herds every minute, or the meat-eaters would take the chance to snatch a lamb or calf. So we need our weapons. You have no predators here?”
“Oh yes, of course. Dire wolves and pumas, small smilodons and the occasional hungry griffin. But Roileé generally keeps them off, and if they’re persistent, whether out of deep hunger or ignorance or real stubbornness, I can usually make enough noise and fuss to drive them away.”
“That old dog would face down a griffin?” Simna was disbelieving. “She hardly looks steady enough to make it to the nearest ridge top.”
“Roileé may have lost a step or two, but she still has her bark, and she can still bite. I haven’t lost a lamb to a predator in twelve years.”
The swordsman grunted. “Hoy, it just goes to show. Appearances can be deceiving for people. I guess it can be the same for dogs.” He scrunched deeper into the obliging back of the chair. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to drink? We’ve been a long time walking with nothing but water to sustain us.”
“Of course, of course!” For the second time Coubert looked startled. “My manners—I am getting old.” Thunder rumbled in the distance, and not as far off as before. The storm was definitely moving in the direction of the solidly built little cottage.
From an ice-chilled cabinet their elderly host brought out wine, and from a chest small metal goblets. Simna was disappointed in the limited capacity of the drinking utensils, but relaxed after their host set the bottle on the table and did not comment when refills were poured.
“You must tell me.” Coubert had taken a seat on the hearth just to the left of the fire. “What are the sheep like in your country? Are they the same as mine, or very different?”
Emitting a soft moan of despair, Simna poured himself a third glass of the excellent spirits and tried to shutter his ears as well as his mouth. Ehomba took up the question energetically, and the two men embarked on a discussion of sheep and sheep-raising, with an occasional aside to accommodate the dissimilar nature of cattle, that required the addition of several logs to the fire. Despite the steady cannonade of approaching heavy weather, Ahlitah was already submerged deep in cat sleep. With his abnormally long legs fully extended to front and rear, his paws nearly touched opposite walls of the cottage. With the assistance of more wine, Simna ibn Sind soon followed the imposing feline into similar latitudes of slumber.
Coubert’s hospitality extended to his offering his guest the only bed. Ehomba would not hear of it.
“Besides,” he told the oldster, “it has been my experience that the beds of more civilized people are too soft for me, and I would probably not sleep well in it. Better for me to remain here with my friends.” He pushed down on the cushion that was supporting him. “If this couch is also too soft, I assure you I will be very comfortable here on the floor, beside your excellent fire.” He glanced significantly upwards. “I think that tonight a strong roof will be the most important aid to sleep.”
“I think you’re right, my friend.” With a kindly smile, their host tapped the bowl of his pipe against the stone mantel, knocking the contents into the fireplace. “Actually, it’s been pretty dry hereabouts lately. We could use a good rain.” Thunder echoed through the surrounding vales in counterpoint to his comment. “From the sound of it, we’re about to have some. I hope you sleep well, Etjole.”
“Thank you, Lamidy.”
After the old man had retired to the room behind the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him, Ehomba struggled to negotiate with the couch for reconciliation of his long frame. It took some twisting and turning, and his legs still dangled off the far end, but the final position he settled on was not an impossible one, and he felt he would be able to sleep. The soothing fire was a great help, and the profundo purring of the black litah a suitable if not entirely exact substitution for the soothing susurration of the small waves that curled and broke rhythmically on the shore beneath the village.
He awoke to the peal of thunder and the flash of lightning. It revealed a world transformed into brief glimpses of stark black and white. Color returned only when the shocked purple faded from his sight, allowing him to see once again by the light of the dying fire. Ahlitah now reposed on his back with all four legs in the air, his massive skull lolling to one side, leaving him looking for all the world like a contented, spoiled tabby. That was one thing about cats, Ehomba knew: No matter how much they were scaled up in size, they all retained their essential, inherent catness.
Simna lay slumped in the chair, quite unconscious and smelling strongly of the fruit of the vine. The earth could have opened beneath the cottage and the swordsman would have slept until he hit bottom.
A second rumble rattled the room, leaving the herdsman more awake than ever. Rain tiptoed on the thatch and spilled in a succession of channeled bells off the roof to strike the compacted ground outside. Sleeping in the awkward position had left him with a cramp in his thighs. Grimacing, he swung his legs off the arm of the couch and onto the floor. He would walk off the cramp and then try to go back to sleep in a different position.
In the dwindling firelight he paced back and forth between the couch and the kitchen, feeling the sensation return to his legs. It was on one such turn that he happened to glance out a window precisely when distant lightning flared. What he saw, or thought he saw, momentarily frozen in the stark dazzle, gave him pause.
An uncertain frown on his face, he walked to the door and unlatched the top half. Cool, wet wind greeted him and blowing rain assailed his bare skin. He blinked it away, trying to penetrate the darkness. His eyes were sharp, his night vision acute, but he was no owl. Another flash of light, a boom of thunder close at hand, and his eyes finally confirmed what he had seen through the window a moment before. There could be no question about it.
Yapping and barking excitedly with the strength of a much younger animal, darting back and forth with impossible swiftness, leaping higher into the air than any impala, Lamidy Coubert’s dog was herding the lightning.
IX
W
onderment writ large on his face, Ehomba stood in the half-open doorway, watching the implausible. It was enthralling to see the little long-haired dog cut off a bolt before it struck the ground, turning it with a stentorian yelp, cutting back and forth in front of the shimmering flash until it was penned back among the rocks with several others. They hovered there, flickering wildly, apparently unable to decide whether to strike the ground beneath them or recoil back up into the clouds. Like cornered livestock, they were waiting for directions from the supernal sheepdog.
A fresh bolt attempted to slash at one of the garden fence posts. Anticipating its arrival, the dog flashed through the air faster than even Ehomba’s trained eye could follow. With a clashing of its jaws it snapped at the descending tip of the thunderbolt, sending it whipping sideways to slam harmlessly into an open, empty patch of ground.
Tongue lolling, eyes bright and alert, the dog stood stolidly next to the garden awaiting the next lashing from the heavens. Then something made her turn, and she saw Ehomba standing in the doorway, staring. Sneezing once, she shook her head dog-style and trotted over to the pen of boulders to yap boisterously at the lightning trapped within. With a great concerted crash and roll the cornered bolts were sucked back up into the roiling clouds from whence they had come, to crackle and threaten no more.
Satisfied, the old dog pivoted and came loping back toward the house. Halting beneath the overhanging lip of the thatched roof, she shook violently, sending water flying in every direction. Her long fur fluffed out, but only partway. It would take more than a shake or two to dry out that thick mop of black and white. Slurping up her tongue, she considered the tall stranger watching her from the other side of the door.
“Well,” she exclaimed in words of perfect inflection, “are you going to let me in so I can dry off, or do you mean to make me stand out here until I catch my death of cold?”
“No.” Taking a step back, Ehomba opened the lower half of the door. “I would not want that.”
She trotted past him and headed straight for the fire. Seeing that the somnolent Ahlitah occupied nearly all of the space before the glowing embers, she sighed and managed to find an unoccupied bit of floor between the big cat’s mountainous shoulder muscles and the hearth. There she lay down, breathing easily, and closed her eyes in a picture of fine canine contentment.
Ehomba shut and latched both the upper and lower halves of the door against the wind and rain before walking over to sit down on the hearth opposite the sheepdog. “I have seen dogs work cattle, and I have seen them work antelope. I have even seen them work camels. But never before have I seen one work lightning.”
Roileé wiped at her left eye with one paw before replying. “Lamidy has always been a good man, kind and caring. But he is getting old faster than I, and he cannot play as easily or as often as he used to. When I get bored, I have to find ways to entertain myself.” She nodded in the direction of the door. “Herding the lightning keeps my reflexes sharp.”
“I would think that any dog that can herd lightning could handle even a large flock of sheep on one leg.”
“Tut! Lightning is fast; sheep are tricky and, when they want to be, deliberately deceptive. As a herdsman yourself, you should know that.”
“I spend most of my time with cattle. Cattle are not tricky.”
“No, you are right. Cattle are quite predictable.”
“And while we are talking,” Ehomba suggested, “I would be very interested to know how it is that you came to be able to talk.”
Roileé shook her head and began licking the damp backs of her paws. “Many animals can talk. They just choose not to do so in the presence of humans, who think it a unique faculty of their own. Your striking feline companion talks. He does not want to, though. It is a curse to him.”
“A curse?”
“Yes. All he wants to do is kill, and eat, and sleep, and make love, and lie in the sun in a quiet place. That is why he keeps his talking brief. It is not because he is rude; only impatient with an ability he would just as soon not have.”
“You assume much in a very short time.”
“I assume nothing, Etjole Ehomba. I know.”
“Even a dog that can speak does not know everything.”
“That is true.” The long muzzle bobbed in a canine nod. “But I know a great deal. More than most dogs. You see, I am a witch.”
“Ah, now I understand.” Ehomba nodded solemnly. “You are a woman who was, through some hex or misfortune, been turned into a dog.”
“No, you do
not
understand. It is nothing like that. I was born a dog, I have always been a dog, and I will die a dog. I have never been, nor would I ever want to be, human. Some dogs do nothing all their lives but proffer companionship. Others work. I am a sheepdog. But I am also a witch, taught by witches when I was a puppy.” She nodded in the direction of the bedroom door. “For many years I have kept company with Lamidy. I could have done worse. He is a kind and understanding man who knows what I am and is untroubled by the knowledge. It is good for a dog to have a human around. Good for the soul, and to have someone to change a water dish.”
“Well, witch Roileé, it is good to know you.”
“And I you.” Limpid, intelligent dog eyes met his. “You are an unusual man, Etjole Ehomba.”
The tall southerner shrugged. “Just a simple herdsman.”
“Herdsman perhaps. Simple, I am not so sure. Where are you bound?”
He told her, as he had told people before her, and when he was through she was whimpering querulously.
“It all sounds very noble and self-sacrificing.”
“Not at all,” he argued. “It is what any virtuous man would do.”
“You impute to your fellow humans a greater dignity than they deserve. I like you, Etjole Ehomba. I would help you if I could, but I am bound by the oath that binds together dog and man to remain here with my Lamidy.”
“Maybe you can help anyway.” Ehomba considered whether he wanted to make the request. And, more significantly, whether he wanted it fulfilled. In the end, he decided that knowledge of a woeful kind was an improvement over no knowledge at all. All enlightenment was good. Or at least, so claimed Asab and the other people of importance. “Can you tell me what lies ahead for my friends and me? We know little of the lands that await us.”
The dog exhaled sharply. “Why should I know anything about that?”
“I did not say that you did,” the herdsman replied quietly. On the other side of the cat-a-mountain, Simna made gargling pig noises in his sleep. Behind Ehomba, the withering fire continued to cast warmth from its bones. “I asked if you could find out.”
Canine eyes searched his fine, honest face. “You are an interesting man, Etjole Ehomba. I can herd the lightning, but I think maybe you could shear it.”
He smiled. “Even if such a thing were possible, which it is not, what would one do with clippings from the lightning?”
“I don’t know. Feed it to a machine, perhaps.” Coming to a decision, she rose, stretched her front feet out before her and thrust her hips high in the air, yawned, and beckoned for him to follow.
She stopped in the cozy room’s farthest corner, facing a two-foot-high handmade wooden box with a forward-slanting lid. On the front of the lid someone had used a large-bladed knife to engrave a pair of crossed bones with a dog heart above and singular paw print below. “Open it.”
For the barest instant, Ehomba hesitated. His mother and father and aunts and uncles and the elders of the village had often told the children stories of warlocks and witches, of sorcerers and sorceresses who could turn themselves into eagles, or frogs, into oryx or into great saber-toothed cats. He had grown up hearing tales of necromancers who could become like trees to listen silently and spy on people, and of others capable of turning themselves into barracuda to bite off the legs of unwary gatherers of shellfish. There were rumors of hermits who at night became blood-supping bats, and of scarecrowlike women who could become wind. Others were said to be able to slip out of their skins, much as one would shed a shirt or kilt. Some grew long fangs and claws and their eyes were said to be like small glowing moons of fire.
But he had never heard of a witch among the animals themselves, who had not at some time been human. He told her so.
“Do you think only humans have their conjurers and seers? Animals have their own magic, which we share but rarely with your kind. Most of it you would not understand. Some of it would not even seem like magic to you. We see things differently, hear things differently, taste and smell and feel things differently. Why should our alchemy also not be different?” Eyes the color of molten amber stared back up at him. “If you want my help, Etjole Ehomba, you must open the box.”
Still he hesitated. A backward glance showed that his companions slept on. There was no sign of movement from the direction of the cottage’s single bedroom. “Does Coubert know?”
“Of course he knows.” Her muzzle brushed the back of his hand, her wet nose momentarily damp against his dry skin. “No one can live with a witch and not know what she is. Human or dog, cat or mouse, we are all the same. Some things you cannot hide forever even from the ones you love.”
“And he has no magic powers of his own?”
“None whatsoever,” she assured him. “But he is good to me. I have clean water every day, and I do not have to kill my own food.” For the barest instant, her eyes blazed with something that ran deeper than dogness. “We are comfortable here, the two of us, and if a right woman or strong husky were to come along, neither of us would resent the other’s pairing. We complement one another in too many ways.” She gestured with her black nose. “The box.”
His long, strong fingers continued to hover over the lid. “What is in it?”
“Dog magic.”
Lifting the cover and resting it back against the wall, he peered inside. No crystal globe or golden tuning fork greeted his gaze. No bottles of powdered arcanity or pin-pierced dolls stared back up at him. There was not much at all in the bin, and what there was would not have intrigued a disgruntled thief for more than a second.
Some old bones, more than a little rancid and well chewed; a long strip of thick old leather, also heavily gnawed; a ball of solid rubber from which most of the color and design had long since been eroded; a stick of some highly polished pale yellow wood covered with bite marks; and a few pieces of aromatic root tugged from a reluctant earth comprised the bin’s entire contents.
“My treasures,” murmured Roileé. “Take them out and lay them before the fire.”
Ehomba did so, taking a seat on the hearth when he had finished. As he looked on, the dog witch used her paws to align them in a particular way: bones here, stick crossed there, ball in position, leather strip curled just so, roots positioned properly to frame them all. With her nose, she nudged and pushed, making final adjustments. When all was in readiness, she lay down on her belly, tilted back her head, and began to moan and whimper softly. Neither Simna nor Ahlitah moved in their sleep, but from outside the cottage there came distant answering howls as wolves and other canids found their slumber disturbed. Ehomba felt something stir deep inside him, emotions primal and hoary, that spoke fervently of the ancient link between dog and man.
Roileé’s soft whimpering and moaning was not constant, but varied in ways he had never before heard from a dog. It was not language as he knew it, but something more basic and yet within its own special parameters equally complex. It bespoke wisdom denied to men, the intimate knowings of creatures that moved on four legs instead of two. It reeked of smells he could never know, and an acuity of hearing beyond the human pale. With these skills and senses other knowings were possible, and Roileé was a master of all these.
Within the incandescent depths of the fire something snapped, sending a glowing ember flying. It arced over the hearth to land amid the pile of gatherings. A tiny puff of smoke rose where it had settled among the leather and bones. The puff expanded, became a cloud obscuring the bright eyes of the old sheepdog, and then Ehomba too found himself engulfed.
He had always been a fast runner, but now he seemed to flow effortlessly over the ground as fast as a low-flying eagle. Trees and rocks and bushes and flowers flew past him, the flowers at shoulder level, the trees immense impossible towers that seemed to support the sky. Every sense was heightened to a degree he would not have thought possible, so that distant sights and smells and sounds threatened to overwhelm his brain’s ability to process them.
A subtle but distinct odor caused him to swerve to his left. Immediately, the musk sharpened, and seconds later a covey of startled quail exploded from the bush in which they had been hiding. He snapped at them, more out of an instinct to play than a desire to kill, for he was not hungry. Advancing on a small stream, he slaked his slight thirst, and was amazed by the distinctiveness of each swallow, at the chill of the water against his throat and the discrete flavors discernible within something seemingly as bland as the water itself.
A distant rumble caused him to lift his head from the stream, water trickling from his muzzle. Turning in the direction of the sound, ears pricked, he listened intently for a moment. When the rumble came again, he trotted eagerly in its direction, ears erect and alert, nose held high.