The Breath of God by Harry Turtledove

much as finding out he is would,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “If he isn’t spreading confusion—”
    â€œThen our neighbors truly are as idiotic as you Raumsdalians make them out to be,” Trasamund broke in.
    â€œYou said it. I didn’t,” Hamnet said. “But if the Rulers
are
fuddling the rest of the Bizogots, we need to know that. And if they are, we need to stop them if we can.”
    â€œI said I would make the spell. I will,” Liv said. “But I wouldn’t bother if Trasamund hadn’t decided Ulric Skakki meant what he said when he was only making one of his jokes.” She sent the adventurer a severe stare.
    Ulric looked embarrassed, a startling and unnatural expression on his face, whose normal bland expression could conceal anything. “I
said
I was joking,” he protested. “No one wanted to believe me.”
    â€œSee what happens when you tell so many lies?” Trasamund said. “Nobody wants to hear the truth from you.”
    â€œI’ll find the truth, whatever it is.” Liv nodded to Audun Gilli. “Tell me about your magic-sniffing spells.” When he did, in a mixture of her tongue and Raumsdalian, she frowned for a moment, considering. Then she nodded to herself. “Those are not bad, but I think I’ll use one I already know. It’s simpler, and I won’t have to worry about slipping with something new and unfamiliar.”
    â€œThat makes sense,” Audun agreed.
    â€œShe’ll do it anyhow,” Ulric Skakki said, as if to prove he didn’t intend all his words to be taken seriously.
    Then Liv explained to Odovacar what she intended to do. That took so much shouting, she might almost have told the Rulers what she had in mind, too. At last, the Red Dire Wolves’ shaman said, “Anybody would think you figured the Rulers were using magic to make us stupid.”
    Liv sighed. “Yes. Anyone would think that.”
    She took from a pouch on her belt an agate, dark brown banded with white. Audun Gilli suddenly grinned when he saw the stone. “Oh, very nice!” he said. “Agate overcomes perils, strengthens the heart, and helps against adversities.”
    â€œWe have them, sure enough,” Trasamund said.
    Her face a mask of concentration, Liv took no notice of either of them. She drew forth the dried foot of a snowshoe hare, bound it to the agate with a length of sinew, and tied them both to her left upper arm. “This to help me go where I will, in our world or that of the spirit, and to return without peril,” she said.
    â€œMay it be so,” Hamnet Thyssen murmured. He worried whenever sheworked magic, for he knew the danger it put her in. That it was needful only made him worry more, since that meant he couldn’t stop her.
    She began to chant. Some of the strange little tune was in the Bizogot language. The rest might have been in the speech mammoths used among themselves—if mammoths used any speech among themselves.
    As magic had a way of doing, the spell seemed to reach Odovacar. He pricked up his ears and followed her charm with all the attention he had in him. That his ears pricked was literally true; even in human shape, they were unusually large, unusually pointed, and unusually mobile. A bit later, he began to chant. His tune was much like the one Liv used, though not identical. Some of what he sang was in the Bizogot tongue. The rest might have been the speech dire wolves used among themselves—if dire wolves used any speech among themselves.
    â€œThe truth!” Liv and Odovacar sang the same thing at the same time, perhaps by chance, perhaps . . . not. “We must have the truth!” Then their songs went different ways again, into mammoth maunderings for Liv and dire-wolf woolgathering for Odovacar.
    Both shamans began to dance, Liv plodding after the truth and Odovacar chasing with lolling tongue and hungry eyes. Hamnet Thyssen watched