Every spare moment afterward Doe begged Loomahk to tell her everything about Re. He had plenty to say. After his mate's death he had become something like a minister among the small community in Gen-Re-Koh, though his office did not much resemble the priesthood she knew. He told her Re-worship had all but died out when human settlers first arrived in Krohn, long, long ago.
"Why?"
"I don't know. From the stories I've heard, I think many of Re's ministers were power-struck and had allowed the religion to get corrupt. When the humans' idea of God came along, it was too appealing to abandon the old and follow the new."
Then tensions had developed between animals and humans, leading to an animal revolt and a simmering animosity into their own time. The revolt had turned some minds back to "purer" expressions of animal culture, including the old religion--no longer a major force attracting power-seekers, it grew in the shadows as a secret source of pride. It bore little resemblance to the worship from centuries back, but nonetheless followers considered themselves cloth cut from the same fabric as their ancestors.
"We call ourselves 'Rahs,'" Loomahk said.
"The remnant." Doe smiled. "I like that."
What those that returned to Re discovered was a God who could not be interpreted in infinite philosophies. The tradition was to assign Re a dual nature--the Hawk, symbolizing Her heat, and the Lion, symbolizing His light. It was also a truism among animals that lightning was fire from the heart of the sun, loosed in frustration for being choked in rain and clouds. That lightning had been the cause of many forest fires, killing the faithful and unfaithful indiscriminately, proved this was a capricious God. Re was majestic, powerful, wise--but no one ever called Re good.
"But why worship a God who can harm you?" Doe found this the most difficult concept to grasp in the religion she came to adore, and perhaps she never did grasp it.
Loomahk had given the matter much thought himself, and had developed a theory which satisfied him. "The first animals see many forces beyond their control--sun and wind and rain. Rain washes you clean, gives you water to drink, grows plants--but rains come or don't come without pattern, and sometimes rainstorms are dangerous and the rivers flood. Wind is pleasant on your skin--unless it is winter and the chill breeze bites you, or a windstorm knocks down every tree. The sun gives warmth and light, rises and sets every day without fail, and the only evil Re brings is the rare fire. So Re is the one to worship, and if Re is not perfectly good--nothing else is either."
Doe did not speak of her old life anymore. She turned her back to it violently in favor of this new learning, this idea of a God whose power she could feel as a gentle touch on her face. "I could love Re," she whispered to Loomahk in the night. "And--barring those forest fires which you say are rare--Re would never break my spirit or steal my heart, like everyone else I've loved."
Loomahk thought, "You could love that rock over there and it, too, would never steal your heart." But he did not say it out loud.
"Why are you harboring someone cast out from her people, Loomahk?"
The wolf looked up, startled. He was out in Gen-Ree-Koh hunting with the pack. He'd lost the scent and his companions but had been found by a tiny weaverbird who addressed him now from a sohn-tree.
"Doe cast out? What kind of tale are you telling me, storyteller?"
"A true one, wolf. Give up the hunt for now and listen to it."
Usually it was a pleasure to listen to weaverbirds. They could weave a tale so skillfully you even caught the scent of those involved. But knowing a character in the story took away all the enjoyment of the art.
He saw through the weaverbird's eyes the village square where she made her home. He heard a high melody (the weaverbird whistled it for him) and scathing words accompanying it. Villagers who had wandered in twos and threes in all directions were thronging now as blackbirds round new-scattered corn. In the midst of this was a girl with large eyes burning with anger. She was the singer. She flailed the melody round her as a whip, and she was dressed in a cloth sheet, a bedcovering. She carried a knife and a figure like a scarecrow. "The priests of Oo wear what that scarecrow was wearing," the weaverbird explained. The girl led her procession to the center of the square. There she quit her song with a stab of her knife at the heart of the effigy. Loomahk could imagine the crowd's reaction without any words from the storyteller.
"She was at your cave the next night," the weaverbird finished. "I would have told you sooner but I wanted to speak to you in private, and you are never alone."
From then on Loomahk waited for the chance to hear Doe's side of the story. He knew her nature and knew she was prone to moments of drama. He trusted that what the weaverbird was reporting was one of those moments and that the situation was not as serious as it sounded.