He had walked a long way, the shadowman. His legs shook with every stride, like a still-suckling foal. He was black as mud, thin-faced and burning-eyed. He pushed through the fronds and cried out at seeing us. His head swung agog as he took in our dwellings, around the fire pit and the well.
We had been watching the shadowman for three days on our hunts. Three days as he crashed around our forests, leaned against hedgerows, fell thirstily upon streams. Some of us were repulsed by him — by his childish ignorance and sullen temper. Like my father I was fascinated by him — for the dark void of his face, the insensible grunts that escaped him, the strange and perfect skins he wore: white under black and without seams.
Fire-in-the-sky wanted to kill him. Fire-in-the-sky wants to kill anything that doesn't know his name. My father put up his hand to say — No. Fire-in-the-sky crouched to his knees again.
In the night the shadowman crawled into his bag, holding a tame little flame in one hand, intoning a stream of sharp and short sounds, rising and falling to an alien rhythm. These ended, each night, with a thick clap, the flame blown out, silence, and a moan that rumbled in the ground.
I asked my father how a man so incapable could survive to adulthood. A man who fumbled and frightened his quarry, who chomped at spoiled fruit, did nought to cover his tracks, and was oblivious to our watch — surely a runt or a fool. My father said — He is not a man but a shadow in the likeness of a man, and he has a witch's magic.
I had imagined witchery much more terrible than the shadowman.
So when he burst upon our clear we stood with our spears ready, our shields against our chins. I gave him a smile. He cried out again and buckled at the knees, falling into the short grass. I looked at Fire-in-the-sky, but he was still, merely frowning.
A-seam-of-jet poured well-water on the shadowman's head until he hollered and scrabbled. She caught his arm before he could hare off. We pulled him to the fire and sat him down, and Sage-words ladled rabbit stew into a stone bowl for him. He looked at it doubtfully, sniffed it twice, and took a deep draught. When his face reemerged, his whiskery chin dripped gravy. Fire-in-the-sky spat. World-horse let a sound sink slowly down his throat. My father held up one hand again.
— The-moon.
The shadowman-fool-witch stared at my father, who turned his palm to his chest and repeated — The-moon. The shadowman bobbed his head, eyes burning, nostrils flaring. A trickle of short, hard sounds broke from his lips. We made him speak them thrice.
— Welcome, Bra-da-shay-mess, said The-moon.
The shadowman rubbed his thin black fingers in apparent delight. Leap-from-a-branch imitated him, laughing loudly. She sidled over to him, puffing her cheeks, saying — Bra-da-shay-mess. He looked at her in alarm. In this way he was the same as us. We smiled at him for this. Leap-from-a-branch caught him under the arms and began to tickle him, so that the shadowman brayed, until my father chuckled and said — That is enough.
We made him eat, then we tied him to a tree for the hunt. Leap-from-a-branch took the shaped skin the shadowman wore on his head and put it on her own, then rifled her little fingers through his strange mossy hair. We watched and shrugged, walking out onto the hunt, spears on our shoulders, heralded by his warbling cries behind us.
It was a lean hunt. We snared only a few red robins and birds of the hedge, found only a handful of mushrooms in the pines, blew a score of darts at elusive hares.
— The shadowman has brought his ill-fortune to our hunt, said World-horse.
The-moon looked up and squinted.
— I am unsure of this, World-horse. We have had lean hunts before. We have had lean hunts many times.
— Still. If I go hungry tonight, it will be that man's doing, said World-horse, and Fire-in-the-sky thrummed underneath his words.
— No. If you go hungry tonight, it will be my doing, said my father The-moon. Leap-from-a-branch cackled.
Night spread the sky and laid out her banquet of stars. Sage-words took our meagre foragings and applied himself to their cooking. World-horse hunkered with him and stared into the flames. I asked my father whether we would keep the shadowman. The-moon said — Bring him.
He came, eagerly to the edge of the fire. I held one arm; A-seam-of-jet held the other. He sat. My father sat opposite.
The-moon gestured behind his head, and Hernia came forward to sit beside him. The-moon gestured to the shadowman and some time passed.
— Speak, Bra-da-shay-mess, said The-moon.
The shadowman's eyes burned large, and he leapt up. We pulled him down. He jabbered at The-moon, who smiled pleasantly. He reached into his sack and pulled out a black block, which he could easily split open, exposing white leaves that fluttered in the wind. We held our breath while he fondled the leaves. He paused and looked up at us, his white eyeballs all any of us could see of him, then turned back to stare at the thing in his lap. He began to intone, as we had heard him intone the past three nights. He sang a tuneless, unrhyming song without the aid of drums or pipes. Every now and then he would look up at us and say this — Ay-men.
The fourth time he said this, Leap-from-a-branch said it too — Ay-men. The shadowman jumped up. He would have hurdled the fire if we had not caught him. He clapped his hands. He held them together, fingertips skyward.
— Ay-men, he said.
— Ay-men, we said, most of us, greatly entertained.
— Witchcraft, said World-horse.
— Perhaps, said Hernia.
— Ay-men, said Bra-da-shay-mess. The-moon waved his fingers impatiently. So the shadowman gabbled and sang for a time, and said Ay-men and so did we, just to see the delight in his burning eyes, until World-horse said — This isn't filling my belly. The-moon agreed. So we led the shadowman back to the tree as Sage-words plenished our bowls.
With robin-flesh in our mouths, The-moon asked Hernia to speak.
— If it is witchery, it appears without effect, she said.
— What is he saying, said The-moon.
— Ay-men, said Hernia. Leap-from-a-branch giggled.
— What does it mean, said The-moon.
— It seems to make him happy, said Hernia.
— Then it must be a good saying, said The-moon.
— Ay-men, I said.
On morrow-morning the heavens clashed, waging war with bright steel spikes. We kept beneath our rooves. In the evening to lift our spirits we brought the shadowman to the fire again, had him speak as he looked into the block of leaves again, roared our Ay-mens again. But into the silence that fell when the shadowman clapped his block, World-horse said — He is cursing our days. The-moon turned to Hernia and asked — Is this true. Hernia said — Perhaps. I said — No. My father cupped his hand around my head. The shadowman looked very small.
On next morrow-morning the sun came to scold the warring clouds away. We took to our hunt again, but again the rewards were few. World-horse and Fire-in-the-sky were thrumming treacherously. Drifting away, I found myself in a dark wood, with black roots snaking underfoot, only a score of paces from a bright pheasant cock scratching in the loam. Lifting the pipe to my mouth, I whispered Ay-men and blew.
The shadowman did not eat pheasant with us that night. We could hear his lowing across the clear. I looked at my father, but The-moon looked away.
As the silver moon went a-wooing his Lady in the West, when I could hear the snoring of my people lift from their nests, I rose. I visited the shadowman. He was limp. I gave him water and robin-flesh. He opened his mouth to make a sound, a pointless sound, but I clamped my hand upon it.
When I cut his bonds he sighed deeply, then squawked. I slapped the back of his head and led him into the forest.
Sometimes I had to drag him by the hand. Sometimes I had to prod him with the blunt nub of my spear. He stumbled and moaned and crashed and slipped. At the river I tugged the rope that beckoned the raft, and pushed him tumbling onto it. I followed, heaving at the rope and feeling the bounce of the current. He plunged his arms past his elbows into the water. Again I wondered why he wasn't dead.
On the far side I looked into his white eyeballs.
— Ay-men, Bra-da-shay-mess.
He laughed a weak and horrible laugh; a sheep bleat. With his forefinger he drew a line from my throat to my belly, and another from nip to nip. Therefore I head-butted him and broke his jaw.
— Ay-men, I said, and pulled the raft away across the river.
This is a way we've never met. It joins another way, by accident, with a little bird food.