Free The Shaman by Christopher Stasheff Page A

before we will truly know it,” Glabur said. “We have
never seen it before.”
    Lucoyo
frowned. “Why, how is that?”
    “It
must be a thing of the grasslands,” Ohaern said. “And you really must show it to us, Lucoyo—we might find a use for such a thing as that.”
    “Use?”
Lucoyo asked, disbelieving. “What use could it have other than to play a prank?”
    “Well,
it was a humorous prank indeed,” said Glabur, shaking his head. “I have not
jumped so high since an aurochs tried to gore my shins!” He chuckled, shaking
his head.
    “It
was indeed.” Dalvan chuckled, too. “But can we go back to our meal now, archer?
With no more alarms?”
    “I
promise.” Lucoyo held up a hand. “For this meal, anyway.”
    “Oho!”
Glabur cried. “Watch out, my lads! We have a prankster among us!”
    They
laughed and averred that they would be careful as they sat down to eat.
    Lucoyo
could scarcely believe his ears. They were actually laughing! And no one seemed
to be angry with him—at least, after the initial shock. He took his place in
the circle slowly and tentatively, unable to believe that people could be
capable of such simple goodness.
    There
had to be a reason for it. They had to have a motive.
    Lucoyo
determined that he would find that motive. He would test these people very
thoroughly before he would begin to trust them.
    But
they will turn away from you, that nasty voice whispered inside him. They may be friends, real friends, and you will make enemies of them by your
tricks.
    Lucoyo
realized that, and had to admit that perhaps the ill-will among his clan-mates
had not been entirely due to their villainy. Nonetheless, he had to test these
new friends. It was stupid, he knew, but the urge to revenge his hurts on
anything human was too strong for him still; he would confine it to attacks
that could be construed as jokes—heavy-handed, perhaps, but jokes nonetheless.
    Lucoyo
tried them, well and truly. He put dried burrs in Glabur’s leggings; he put
riverbank clay in Ohaern’s boots. He put a cricket in Dalvan’s coal box, and
when Dalvan opened it and cried out in alarm, Lucoyo laughed with delight and
produced the coal, live and hot in a makeshift box of his own. He was careful
never to do any real damage—and was always amazed that, after the initial shout
of anger, the hunter would look up in surprise as his clan-mates began to
laugh, then would grin sheepishly and begin to laugh himself.
    Of
course, Lucoyo hadn’t stopped to think that they might play pranks on him. He didn’t even think of it when he shoved his foot into his boot and
felt something cold and supple move against his foot. He yelped and yanked the
boot off, dumping the little snake out, then beat the sole furiously to knock
out anything else that might be there—and suddenly realized that the whole band
was laughing. He looked up, astonished and enraged, leaping to his feet with
words of denunciation on his lips—then remembered the sheepish grins and
grudging laughter of his victims. Indignation shot through him, pushing out the
rage—he would be hanged if one of these crude hunters would show more tolerance
than he himself! He forced the grin, then managed to hack a laugh—and found
that the second came easier than the first, and the third even more easily, and
by the fourth he was really laughing.
    Ohaern
clapped him on the back and cried, “There’s a man for you! He can swallow it as
well as he serves it!”
    Lucoyo
laughed even louder, realizing that now it was he who had been
tested—and had passed the test. But he resolved to reserve a very special
tidbit of humor for the big barbarian.
    Of
course, he jibed at them constantly, calling Glabur “ox-high” due to his epic
leap, and Dalvan “coal-carrier.” They responded in kind, calling him “arrowhead”
and “limpet,” to which he replied that all should be as limpid as he, and
answered their chorus of groans by saying that he could walk as quickly with