LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      “THE THINGS I must do are not for the uninitiated to witness.”

      “But this is my hut!” Heckram protested in amazement. The assumptions of this scrawny old stranger amazed him.

      “Out!” Carp repeated, and the big man went reluctantly, wondering why he obeyed at all. Carp remained standing until the door-hide had fallen into place behind him. But the instant he knew he was alone, he sank down to his haunches beside the hearth. Carefully he lowered himself the rest of the way to the earth, feeling the weariness that ate at his old bones, chewed at his strength like Beaver gnaws down a tree. But he would not fall yet. Not yet. He had a people to win.

      The old shaman closed his eyes for a moment, tracked his mind back over the long trail he had followed since Tillu had run away with his apprentice. Tillu had not wanted her son to be a shaman, had not wanted to become the shaman’s woman herself. How little she knew of the way the world was structured. The magic was strong in Kerlew, ran through the boy more redly than the blood in his body, was just as intrinsic to his life. She could not take the boy away from the magic. It was the magic that had called to Carp, guiding him down a hundred frozen paths, growing colder and then hotter, but always leading him on. And now he had found them, living very close to these reindeer herders, but not yet a part of their tribe. That was all to the good; it would make Carp’s task easier.

      Tonight he would impress these folk, would convince them that they must accept him as their new shaman. Once he had established that, it would be easy to take Kerlew from his mother’s tent, to show her that the magic made the boy his. And if she still wanted her child? Carp laughed noisily through the gaps in his teeth. Then she must have Carp as well. Women. So little did they understand of how the world was put together. Tillu was already his, just as surely as if she were a reindeer and he a herder, notching his mark into her ear. It would be good to warm his old flesh against a woman again, sweet to sleep with his face pillowed on her hair. He nodded to himself sagely, rubbing his chilled thighs with his gnarled hands.

      But first he must bring it to pass. His back protested as he reached to seize the strap of his small pack and drag it closer. He studied the knots in the fine sinew that tied it shut. They were his, marked with the signs of his magic. No one had tampered with it. And after tonight, no one would dare. He untied it carefully, the sinew snagging on the rough skin of his hands. His knuckles and wrists ached. Wet snow coming. He rubbed his hands briefly, sighing at the pain the weather brought him. Then he nodded, accepting what the spirit world sent him. He would use it, as he used everything his magic brought him. Every scrap of rumor, every guilty start, every anguished dream-starved stare became the fuel for his magic. He reviewed what he already knew of this people, every gleaning from the few days he had spent among them.

      They had been long without a shaman. A najd, they called a spirit bridger, and feared their magic men as much as they revered them. It was time for them to have a najd again, to renew their ties with the spirit world. He would take that place within them and make it

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