Dy-lee was one of The Nameless, and so was Zheena his mate, and great
grizzled Dy-veece, and every member of that merry clan with whom I had
eaten and slept the night before....
Dy-lee was one of The Nameless, and so was--Ahmusk the hunter.
* * * * *
It must have taken me an hour to tell my friend this terrible,
wonderful truth which I had discovered. But finally he realized it,
and at first his wrath was dreadful to behold, and then he saw the
happiness in it and he danced for joy among his dogwolves.
The simple fact was that for no-one-knew-how-long, the guild of
guardians had kept our two races apart and in horror of the things they
called The Nameless, for reasons I could not then even begin to guess;
had kept us apart by tales of monsters which existed only in their own
minds. For the first time in my life I knew pure black hatred of fellow
humans. Had I had the guardians there at that moment, I would have
slain them all.
Yes, Dy-lee's people were The Nameless; and my glen-folk were The
Nameless to him, under whatever exotic name he called us. Nothing could
be plainer, for why else would he think The Nameless lived to the east,
while I had been taught they lived in the west?
Now in my rage it came to me why Laq had shot at me in the Fearful
Forest, and later had pinked Halfspoor with an arrow to make the bear
attack me. He did not dare allow me to make friends here with the hairy
folk. It would topple him and his entire crew of liars and rascals.
He might have halted me yesterday afternoon with a word, but there
was Lora, whom he coveted. He had had a bow, a thing no guardian ever
owned--he must long ago have stolen it and some arrows, to practice
until he thought himself skilled enough to slay me. It did not seem
incredible now that he would plan to kill me for her. Nothing seemed
strange in the light of my new discovery. The world was topsy-turvy,
and surely all things must be possible to one of his loathsome breed.
After we had stamped about for a while, talking furiously and
incomprehensibly to each other and shaking hands with fervor and
startling the dogwolves into howling many times, we went up to Dy-lee's
cave, where he called in all those of his folk who were nearby, and
laying his hand on my chest, he solemnly told them that I was one
of those creatures whom they had all feared for so many years. The
turmoil was frightful. Then, before they could flee, he shouted to them
what he had discovered. Of course it took much less time than it had
when I explained it to him, for he shared his language with them and
needed no elaborate signals. You never heard such a roar as went up
when he had finished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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