by Greg Keyes
“I think,” Moss said apologetically, “that I should insist. It is not meet that we leave you here, wandering about in the cliffs. Your companion is Mang?”
“He is.”
“Then he will find his way home easily enough.”
“He will wonder what became of me.”
Chuuzek snorted. “If he is Mang, he will read the signs well enough.”
Hezhi frowned up at them. She could see the hilts of their swords clearly, protruding from sheaths laced to their saddles. Chuuzek had his hand upon his, but Moss’ were folded loosely, casually, at the base of his horse’s neck.
“You wear war tassels,” she said. “I can’t know what your intentions are.”
“It is true,” Moss said. “We are at war. Not with you. But I might take you captive, if that is the only way you will allow me to return you to the village.”
“I still prefer to decline.”
Chuuzek snarled; Hezhi could see that he was genuinely angry. Moss merely looked uncomfortable.
“I would rather have your permission,” he began, but at that moment he was interrupted by the sound of another horse approaching.
Hezhi looked beyond them to the new arrival, saw that it was Brother Horse, mounted, Heen trotting a hundred paces or so behind. For just a moment it all seemed far too much. The stranger she knew or the stranger she did not know?
Surrounded by monsters.
She would watch them. She would pretend that she did not care what happened to her. That was simple enough.
“Well, hello,” Brother Horse bellowed as he drew nearer. “How are my nephews from the Four Spruces Clan?”
Moss turned in his saddle and then dismounted, a sign of great respect. Chuuzek dismounted, also, with some hesitation, muttering under his breath.
“We are well enough, Grandfather,” Moss replied. “Only trying to convince this little thrush that the snow and open sky are no place for her with sundown approaching.”
Brother Horse smiled broadly. “My little niece is a hardheaded thrush,” he explained, his eyes focused on Hezhi rather than on the two warriors. “I appreciate the concern, however.”
Hezhi shivered. Brother Horse seemed so normal. Suddenly she doubted what she had seen; perhaps the monsters within him were merely some illusion created by the Fire Goddess, by the unevenness of her own vision. Once again, she did not know enough. But if, inside, Brother Horse was really a demon, what hope did she have?
Her only hope lay with herself. Not with Perkar, not with Tsem, not with the River. She did not need a butcher or a giant. She strained, for the first time trying to will the godsight to happen, to force a vision of the old man.
His form did not waver; he remained as he seemed.
Brother Horse leaned in his saddle and the leather creaked loudly within the red walls of stone around them. “Hezhi,” he said. “Will you return with us now? It’s too cold for an old man to be out searching for his niece.”
“Leave her to us, then,” Chuuzek grumbled, but he kept his eyes firmly on the ground, not willing to challenge the old man directly.
“No,” Brother Horse said. “My niece is shy around strangers. She is not very trusting.”
Was there more than common emphasis on the last word? Was he accusing her?
But why should she trust him?
“I am cold,” she said rather shortly. “I would like to get back to Tsem now.”
“Climb up behind me, then.” Brother Horse grunted.
“She may share my horse,” Moss offered. “I would consider it an honor.”
Of course you would, Hezhi fumed. What do you want of me? To kill me, as Yen did? My skin, to hang in your yekt? Or merely sex, like Wezh? She was unable to avert her eyes quickly enough to avoid shooting him a poisonous glance; she saw the venom mirror against his eyes, saw what appeared to be dismay.
Be hurt, Hezhi retorted in her mind. But you want something. You may be smart enough to hide it, but your cousin is not.
“No, best she ride with me,” Brother Horse said good-naturedly. But there was a certainty in the way he said it, a gentle termination of the debate.
“Very well,” Moss replied, his voice betraying no ill feelings. “I only offered.”
“And I only refused you,” Hezhi replied, using the polite “you” to soften her words. To imply that at another time, under other circumstances, she might not refuse. Though she would, of course.
Climbing up behind Brother Horse, she felt more comfortable almost instantly. Safe from whatever unknown threat the young warriors represented. The feeling was so much against her will—she wanted to stay wary, alert, and angry—that she wondered if it might not be some form of enchantment. Brother Horse was, after all, a gaan, and she knew nothing of the powers he might wield. Still, nothing seemed amiss or odd about the old man. To the contrary, he was just as he had always been.
They rode back to the Ben’cheen all in a clump. The sun was westering, but not, as Moss had implied, particularly near setting. Hezhi kept her head pressed against Brother Horse’s coat, thinking that perhaps she would hear a growl or some other strange sound from within his body. She did not, and so instead she focused on the conversation, idly noting the slight differences in their speech.
“Is it odd that you go about with your helmets so?” Brother Horse asked after a moment.
“It would be odd if we were not at war,” Moss replied softly, after a considered pause. “As things stand, it is not odd at all.”
“I see. And who are my western relatives at war with?”
“The Mang,” Moss corrected, “are at war with the Cattle People.”
Hezhi felt the muscles of Brother Horse’s back tighten.
“War? Not just raiding?” His voice sounded casual, but the tension Hezhi sensed remained. “Why have I not heard of this?”
“News travels slowly on the plains in winter. That is why Chuuzek and I have come; we bring the news that our people will not be at the Ben’cheen this year.”
“Tell me more of this,” Brother Horse demanded. He kept his horse carefully at a walk, and the younger men were obliged to maintain the same pace, though the colorful cluster of tents was visible in the distance, the sounds of celebration already audible.
Chuuzek spit over his left shoulder. “They have invaded our upland grazing lands, built fortresses to defend them. They sent men to ask for them first—very polite.”
“You told them no.”
“We sent their heads back. It is our pasture.”
Brother Horse sighed. “That is true,” he allowed. “It belongs to the western bands.”
It was only then that Hezhi understood, that she remembered who the “Cattle People” were: Perkar’s people.
“Oh, no,” she muttered.
It was a small exclamation, not intended to be overheard, but Moss caught it, favored her with brief but intense scrutiny.
“Where is your niece from?” Moss asked quietly.
Hezhi understood, of course, that Moss did not for a moment believe that she was Brother Horse’s niece. Though her appearance more resembled the Mang than it did Perkar’s strange folk, there were still quite noticeable differences. And Moss had heard her speak, could not help but know her Mang was recently learned. “Niece” was merely the polite way for an older man to speak of a younger woman—particularly one under his protection.
“She is from Nhol,” Brother Horse told him in a tone that made it clear that the question, though it had been answered, was not a welcome one. “And she is my niece in all but blood.” “Huh,” Chuuzek grunted, but Moss merely nodded acceptance.
“There are three more at my fire right now,” Brother Horse went on, “three more who also do not share the blood of the Horse Mother, who have no kin amongst the herds. But they are under my protection, as well. My clan and I would take it hard if anything should happen to them.”
He’s telling them about Tsem, Perkar and Ngangata, she thought.
“Als
o from Nhol?” Moss asked.
“One is,” Brother Horse replied. “The other two, not at all.”
There was a brief, restless silence, during which Chuuzek became more and more agitated, chewing his lip and bunching the reins in his hands.
“If they are Cattle People, I will kill them,” he suddenly blurted defiantly.
Brother Horse reined his mount to a full stop and turned in his saddle to face the young man squarely.
“If you kill a man—or a woman—under my protection, in my village, I will consider it murder,” he said. His tone remained placid, but the words somehow conveyed the most resolute finality imaginable. Chuuzek made to speak again, but Moss intervened.
“Of course we understand that,” he said. “We are Mang. Our mothers taught us well.”
“I would hope so,” Brother Horse returned. “I would hope it would take more than war to see our ancient ways set easily aside.”
“This is more than war,” Chuuzek growled, but then, at another glance from Moss, he lapsed into sullen silence.
Brother Horse moved his mount forward again, and the silence pooled around the horsemen, threatening to stay with them all until they reached the village. Still, Brother Horse made no move to quicken his pace.
What could Chuuzek have meant, this was more than war? Hezhi barely understood war at all—as the insulated daughter of the emperor, she had rarely had occasion to think about it—but how could a war be more than that?
“I see the pennant of the Seven Hoof People,” Moss remarked.
“They arrived yesterday,” Brother Horse told him.
“Is old Siinch’u with them this year?”
Hezhi felt the cords of her companion’s back loosen a bit. He even uttered a little chuckle, and Hezhi was certain, though she could not see his face, that he was grinning. “Oh, yes. I caught him trying to sneak into my granddaughter’s tent the other day.”
“Still the same then.”
“Of course. Gods help lecherous old men.”
“Yes,” Moss replied. “Didn’t I hear that you spent several years on an island hiding from the Woodpecker Goddess because you and her daughter—”
“No need to repeat rumors like that,” Brother Horse snapped. But it was his mock anger now, a joking kind of disapproval, very different from the low, dangerous tension of a few moments before.
Had she seen that danger, that thing with claws and molten eyes?
“Tell me about your granduncle Snatch-the-Pony. I heard he—”
“Yes, it’s true,” Moss nearly crowed, his face opening into a radiant smile. “He went over to the Fang Hills…”
So when they reached the Swollen Tents Brother Horse and Moss were laughing together. But Chuuzek, trailing a bit, kept his face flat and expressionless. Hezhi thought it to be a thin, translucent mask over murder—and perhaps more.
VIII
Tales of the Changeling
Perkar sat staring at the Blackgod for a long while. He noticed and understood Ngangata’s occasional glances warning him to be cautious. Perkar felt he hardly needed such a warning, but then again, the record of his life seemed to register one mistake after another. The Blackgod simply gazed at the fire, his lips moving every now and then, as if he were speaking to the Fire Goddess, but otherwise he remained cryptic—as unknown and unfathomable to Perkar as the marks that Hezhi made on her long white leaves.
Good Thief added nothing to the silence. He ate the dried meat they gave him without speaking; he seemed to have expended his energy not only for threats and self-recrimination but for everything else. More than once Perkar thought he had fallen asleep, but his eyes always fluttered back open.
Destroy the Changeling. Perkar had spent months denying to himself that such a thing was within his power. Good people had died when he believed it was. His king had died, and a war with the Mang had begun because a single, stupid boy had believed he could slay the unslayable.
Now a god who claimed to have created the world told him it was possible, that it had been a part of things all along.
And he was afraid to ask the vital question—afraid to ask how.
Because if Karak told him, he might believe. And if he believed…
Across the fire, the Blackgod raised his weird yellow eyes. He smiled, and Perkar saw, in the spooled lights and images of his memory, a great black bird, gripping Apad’s shoulders, plunging his beak down into brain and blood, only to come up wearing the grin of a Crow.
“How?” he asked, knowing the question would damn him.
“How?” the Blackgod repeated, blinking at Perkar.
“No,” Ngangata stated flatly. “Perkar, let it go. Whatever he plans—whether he tells the truth now or not—it will not go well for us.”
“You can ride away,” Perkar said. “In fact, I beg you to ride away. You have shared enough of my burdens, my friend.”
Ngangata worried at the fire with a stick, banked it a bit. “We should both ride away.”
Karak softly clucked with his tongue. “There is so much Alwat in you,” he said to Ngangata. “Always ready to let things be. Always satisfied with the way things are.”
“Things could certainly be worse,” Ngangata retorted.
The Blackgod nodded. “Alwat through and through. But your friend, here, is Human—through and through. Better, he is a hero.”
“Perkar knows my opinion of heroes,” Ngangata replied.
“Enough,” Perkar snapped. “Tell me. Explain to me how I can destroy a god who lies across the entire breadth of the world.”
“Oh, you cannot,” Karak said.
Perkar blushed with fury. “Then why did you say that I could?”
“Well, you can certainly help to slay him. It is within your power to bring about his destruction.”
“Karak—”
“Blackgod.”
“Blackgod, then,” Perkar snapped. “Perhaps the gods enjoy such quibbling. Perhaps immortality twists you so. But I want no part of it. Speak to me plainly or do not speak to me at all.”
Karak’s eyes flashed red and then white hot. A snarl curled his handsome lip, and he bolted to his feet. Perkar, suddenly filled with Harka’s sense of danger, reached for the blade, but his hand never reached it.
The Blackgod clapped his hands together and lightning was born. Thunder came in the same instant, to shatter the very air around them. Perkar was flung back roughly, dazed by the blinding light and deafening noise. Both throbbed in his head. He was only dimly aware of being lifted bodily off the ground as someone took a double fistful of his shirt. A great river of flame still ran across his vision, and he was not even certain whether his eyes were open or closed. He fumbled again for Harka, but an iron claw closed around his sword wrist and held it with absolute strength.
He dangled there, held in the air by chest and arm, until the brightness across his eyes faded and he could make out the Blackgod’s face, set and grim, inhuman. The brassy roar in his ears lingered.
The Blackgod was now white. His skin was ivory, his hair a cascade of thistledown, his eyes pearly slits with a single blue pinpoint to mark their pupils. His face was still essentially Human, but his nose had become a sharp alabaster beak, a dagger aimed between Perkar’s eyes. Ngangata and Good Thief sprawled behind Karak, and Perkar could not tell if they were alive or not.
“Know this,” the god hissed, his voice cutting somehow through the crashing in Perkar’s injured ears. “There are limits to the insolence I will tolerate from such as you. You will treat me with respect. You will do this, or I will turn your companion inside out. I will flay his skin, and then I will have yours.”
With that the god released Perkar. He tumbled roughly to the ground, dizzy, on the verge of violent illness.
“Now,” Karak said, in a more reasonable tone. “Now you can let me answer your question or you may politely ask me to leave. All other options include pain for you and yours. Do you understand this? Are you now aware of our respective positions?”
Perkar realized dully that blood was drizzling from his ears and down his neck. He wiped ineffectually at it.
“Y-yes,” he managed to stammer, though he could not hear even his own voice as well as he could that of the god.
“Fine. Now listen carefully. Long ago, the Brother of the Forest Lord did not walk long across the land as he does now. Long ago, he kept to a certain place, kept all of his water about him, contained. He was only tricked into releasing it, you see. But once he was running free, he became hungry. He became insatiable. He began to grow then, to eat everything.
“Until now, at least he has been lying in one bed, and so he eats only what he can reach from it. But he tries to throw pieces of himself out, toss them away but keep hold of them, too. This is so that he can wander where he does not flow and eat what is there, as well. He wants it all, you see?”
Perkar nodded, even as he coughed. The pain in his ears was sharpening, and he could not tell if that was Harka healing him or just the fading of shock and the return of sensation.
“Well, this girl Hezhi is such a piece of him. But you and I, Perkar—we took her away from him before she could be whole. Before she could be him. It was a near thing; you don’t even know how near.”
“But now she is safe?”
“Safe? Oh, no, pretty thing. No, now he wants her back. She is his best hope and his most terrible danger. He is awake now—you awakened him—and he bends his huge will to reclaiming her. And he knows you, too, of course.”
“This Mang gaan, then. He serves the River?”
“Yes, in a sense. The River sends him dreams, shows him visions of greatness. He is one tool the River wields now.”
“There are others?”
“I can’t see them well. They are still in his shadow, where my vision has trouble walking, with him awake. But something waits there in Nhol, ready to spring out across the plains. When it comes, it will be a whirlwind.”
