by Greg Keyes
“I accept your thanks,” Ghan muttered, waving, returning his gaze to the work he had been transcribing.
But he watched Yen from beneath his brows as the young man ventured into the labyrinth of books.
I have given you what I can of the temple, he thought. Now let me see where that takes you next. Tonight, when everyone was gone, he would retrieve the same book, read what Yen had read. He would keep pace with him, each step.
The old, he reflected, should be good at that, at least: watching, waiting.
He returned his hands to their work, but his mind haunted the world, the steppes of the Mang, the expanse of the River, the black depths of the Water Temple, searching. Searching for a young woman with a heart-shaped face and wonder in her eyes.
Ghe found the volume easily enough, high on a shelf and weighty. Still, with his strength he had little difficulty in lifting it down.
He paused in midreach as a vivid memory flashed through him, brighter and more insistent than most that remained to him. It was of himself, looking at the girl, Hezhi, her black eyes with his features reflected in them. The look of delight on her face as he handed her the bronze statuette, his own sudden, unexpected reaction.
He would have killed her, he knew, despite that. He would have killed anyone, if the priesthood had asked him to.
But how much better now that he did not ever have to think of killing her again. That was not—had never been—the River’s plan for her. So much better that he be her savior, especially now, now that he knew he loved her.
Loved her? Ghe felt a sudden trembling deep in his bones. When had he decided that? Back in the sewers as his head fell off? In the depths, in the death before his rebirth?
Had he decided it at all?
But, of course, he had. The River knew no more of Human love than it did of Human hatred. It could not make him feel thus. And so it must be he, Ghe, who loved Hezhi.
He shivered again and shook his head. What had he been about? He glanced down dully at the book clenched in his white-knuckled hands and remembered, though he did not recall actually lifting the volume down. The temple.
He took the tome over to a reading bench of polished teak and laid it flat. He admired the spine of ivory, the ivory pins that riveted it together. The cover was a sort of leather unknown to him, black and densely wrinkled. Some kind of lizard or alligator, perhaps, or one of the great tusked beasts he had heard of.
Inside, the supple white pages were tattooed in blue and black, the sometimes curving, often choppy lines of the syllabary. That was a relief; he had no facility with the ancient hand. Rebirth had made him no better at such things; the River had many powers to offer, but apparently the River could not read, not even books about itself.
The Codex Obsidian read the title page. Ghe began prowling through it, searching for what he was not certain. But the center of his lord’s frustration and torpor—the place he could not even see—Ghe knew, instinctively, that it was the temple. When he looked out over Nhol from the roof of the palace, he could see all of the city; the wings of the palace sprawling crookedly along the crests of the hill, the docks and merchant quarter, the thickly cluttered Southtown, and the temple rising high above it all. But when he closed his eyes and pictured that same scene, he saw only darkness where the temple should be. The god that pulsed the blood in his veins simply could not perceive it.
The temple, he remembered hearing, had created the priests the way an oven creates bread. Ordinary men had walked into it, when first it was formed, and the first priests had walked out. Priests were still made thus, though the process took many years. But whence had come the temple itself? That seemed an important story, and there was a sort of itch in his brain that suggested, maddeningly, that he had once known it. Surely he had been indoctrinated into the lesser mysteries in the time he had been trained for killing.
It galled him that he must search so for something he had once known.
And after a time he found it, in spidery characters that were written differently from the rest of the book, so old in style he must furrow his brow to puzzle through them, whisper the words aloud.
We read that in the fiftieth year of the ascension of Water to the throne of Nhol, the last of the monsters were killed, and the surface of the Lake was forever broken. There was rejoicing, there was feasting. The Chakunge thought, then, that it would be good to have a palace, and a keep, and walls to protect the city. It would be good to have canals to carry his Father’s waters into the dry land, it would be good to have letters to record his thoughts and the thoughts of his Father.
And so he loosed some of his blood back to his Father, and he prayed.
A season passed, and then came a stranger. He rode in a boat of ebon wood, and likewise his clothing was jet, likewise his skin and hair.
“The River, thy Father, has sent me,” said he. “For though your king is of his blood, a son should not serve his Father. Servants are needed, and I am midwife to all servants.”
A faint memory awoke in Ghe. The passage referred to Ghun Zhweng, the Ebon Priest, about whom the priesthood told many tales. It was he who brought the planting of crops, the knowledge to build canals, the sciences of architecture and engineering. It was he who established the temple. Ghe read on, impatient with the dry history, hopeful that he would find something of use. A bit later, his attention became more focused.
Then Ghun Zhweng drew for them a plan. “The River must be honored in a Great Temple, where his waters will flow, fourfold. It should be made in the shape of She’leng, the mountain from which the great god flows; it should have places, hidden and deep. It must have a belly of crystal, wherein the treasures are kept and the bones laid to rest. It should be measured to the following height and width…”
Something turned in Ghe, twisted, and the bright images of his Riverdream seeped from his eyes onto the very page. A mountain, cone-shaped, steepling high into the clouds and capped with dazzling brightness, where he had once been contained, content: the mountain that was his home, his cradle, his source.
His shuddering became bright fury, inhuman fury so great that he felt the pulsing of his blood threaten to burst forth from his heart and break his mortal body. Who did this? Who is this Ebon Priest, who made these shackles, this priesthood, this temple? Who is he, for I shall shatter him, harrow and eat his soul!
His teeth began to chatter, and his fingers clutched spastically at the pages of the book. The colors from his dream filled the room, a vortex of nightmare light, and for an instant he knew that he lay once again on the surface of oblivion, a greedy darkness eager to swallow him forever. But then, by degrees, the anger retreated, diminished to mortal stature, and then less than even that, so that he was left wondering what he had felt, and why. He was dizzy and weak; sweat slicked his skin and matted his hair. Dazed, he wondered if the terrible lights he had seen had been only in his own eyes or if they had truly filled the library, and he looked around him carefully; no one was about, there in the most jumbled recesses of the archives, and so far as he could tell, no one had come to investigate. Still, to the senses of the Waterborn, or of a priest, it must have seemed as if a fire had burned briefly or a claxon sounded. Ghe swiftly stood, wiped his brow, and arranged his hair as best he could. He replaced the book on its shelf and, with a hasty word of thanks to Ghan, exited the library.
As he hurried toward his room in the abandoned wing, his sense of urgency sharpened with each step until it became a razor carving at the inner dome of his skull. His time in the palace was drawing to an end, one way or the other. As a Jik, he had been the stinging end of the wasp, not its brains. The brains were the Ahw’en, and he vaguely recalled that they commanded intelligence and sorcery in no small measure. By now they certainly knew that something fell was loose in the royal halls. His experience with the old woman on Red Gar Street had reminded him to respect witchery. Whatever the River had made of him, it had not made him unstoppable; he was susceptible to the same measures used against gh
osts and the Waterborn themselves. The incense that had stunned him was the same used to banish ghosts and to stupefy the Blessed; priests routinely swept the halls of the palace to chase its hundreds of specters back into the darkness below its cobbled courtyards, and incense was the least potent power the priests wielded; even the lowliest acolyte could be taught to use a spirit-broom. What secret weapons did they keep against demon wraiths, against ghouls such as himself? It was a shame that he could remember so little of his learning as a Jik beyond the reflexes of killing; he might have once known how to track, trap, and destroy such a thing, an eater of life. Instead he had only the vague knowledge that it could be done.
Probably he had capabilities he did not yet recognize; but the time to discover those things was in short supply. Yet he ground his teeth at the very thought of leaving the palace. The River had chosen him in a way that it chose no one else. It had given him life and power to serve him as the Waterborn could not and the priesthood would not. Who had more right to live in the palace than he? But it was foolish to risk himself in this way. He could hide in Southtown and feed on as many scorps and gung as he wished; the Ahw’en would not find him there—would probably not even bother to try.
He entered an abandoned courtyard and surveyed the cracked and weed-rampant walk through it. Not for the first time, he wondered why this part of the palace was empty, falling into dust. Once when he was a child someone had shown him a chambered shell from deep in the River. It was a straight cone, like a horn, and inside it was partitioned, the largest spaces toward the widest end. Trumpet-cuttlefish, someone had named it, and he had listened in wonder at how the creature, as its life progressed, added greater and grander chambers to its home while abandoning those it had outgrown. It had been a thing of water, of the River. Were the Waterborn of the same nature? No one had ever said such a thing—not that he could recall, of course.
In the center of the court was a sink, a well down which unwanted things and dirty water were passed. He lifted the grate and lowered himself into darkness. Passing a short distance—about twenty paces—he reached a second grate, clambered up and through it, thus entering his apartments.
His courtyard was bare of any life at all. When he had found it, it had been infested with weeds, as well, but a wave of his hand had withered them, given their water and life to him. Now the stone was clean and cold, simple and pure.
This suite of rooms was actually sealed off from the rest of the palace, the doors to the outside halls not only bolted but plastered over, like the backmost chamber of that strange creature.
He paused before entering the room he slept in adjoining the courtyard. Who had told him those things, shown him that shell? A seaman, at the docks? But that seemed wrong. It might have been a woman… He remembered, then, the old woman on Red Gar Street, and he felt a catch in his throat. Perhaps it had been she. He could not remember.
He crawled into his room, trying to ignore the hunger that gnawed in him. Soon enough he would have to feed again; it seemed that he needed to kill more and more often as time went on. It might, indeed, be best to retreat to Southtown, where monsters could live with impunity.
He curled up on his stolen sleeping mat like a spider, thinking, planning, and waiting for the darkness.
Almost he slept; his body sank into a torpor, though his mind remained active, peering at the strange fragments of knowledge he had attained.
He understood for certain now that he must invade the temple, though he knew not why. There his lord, the River, was no guide, for in that parody of some far-off mountain, he could not see. That was why Ghe was needed; to go where the god could not go.
Had that not always been his role, as a Jik, as a ruffian on the street? Always Ghe went where others were not willing to. As a child for pay and loot, as a Jik for pride and the priesthood. What reward would the River give him, one day?
But of course, he knew the answer to that, too: Hezhi. Hezhi would be his reward.
Thus he thought, and thus he was still thinking when the wall began to shudder beneath the weight of mallets, accompanied by the high, shrill keen of priests chanting.
XII
The Breath Feasting
Hezhi heard the roaring of the crowd outside, but she had been hearing such for several days, and in her pensive, withdrawn state she certainly thought nothing of it. Nothing, that is, until Yuu’han and Ngangata dragged Perkar’s still body into the yekt. His eyes were closed and a bright string of blood ran from one corner of his mouth. His nostrils, also, bore red stains. He was pallid, and she could not see if he breathed or not.
She stared, unable to think of anything to say.
Tsem, however, easily found his voice. “Is he dead?” the Giant grunted.
Hezhi frowned at Tsem, still trying to understand what she was seeing. Yuu’han had stripped off Perkar’s shirt, and beneath it his chest was livid, purple and red, as if he had been stepped on by a Giant twice Tsem’s size. No, not stepped on; stomped. But how could he be dead? She had seen Perkar alive after being stabbed in the heart. She had seen the blade appear from the front of his chest, a red needle with Yen behind it, laughing at her, at her stupidity. What could kill Perkar, if not that?
No one answered Tsem, and finally Hezhi, more irritated at that than Tsem’s blurted question, finally asked, “What happened to him?”
Yuu’han met her gaze levelly, for just an instant, before looking off into some middle distance the way Mang were wont to do. “He played Slap,” the young man said. “He won’t play again, I think.”
“Then he is—”
Perkar interrupted them by coughing. It was actually more of a gurgle than a cough, but he blew a clot of blood from his mouth. His eyes did not open, though his face pinched tight with pain. Yuu’han stared aghast, made a hurried sign with his hand in the air.
“Naka’bush!” he hissed. In Mang it meant an evil ghost.
“No,” Ngangata told Yuu’han. “No, he is alive.”
“He was dead,” Yuu’han grunted, watching Perkar’s chest begin to rise and fall, hearing his wheezing, rasping breath.
“No. It is that sword he bears. It heals him.”
“The godblade?”
The Alwa-Man nodded. “Tell Brother Horse but no one else.”
Yuu’han looked uncertain, but after considering he nodded and then left the yekt.
“He will heal, then?” Hezhi asked, her voice still dull with shock.
“I believe he will,” Ngangata answered, “considering that he was dead before and is now breathing again. That would seem to me to be the biggest step toward recovery.” His alien face remained expressionless, and Hezhi wondered what the strange man was thinking. Were he and Perkar friends or just traveling companions, forced together by circumstance? Did Perkar really have any friends? In the past months, she had begun to regard him as such. There were moments when he made her feel better than anyone else did, happier anyway. And she believed that, unlike Tsem or Ghan or D’en, Perkar could not be taken from her by death. It seemed safe to care for him. Now even that illusion was shattered.
“I hope so,” Hezhi replied, still unable to think of much to say.
Ngangata rubbed his forehead tiredly and selected one of the yekt’s large, colorfully felted pillows to slump down upon. He looked very tired. “I have to know what you have heard,” he said after a moment.
Tsem crossed the room bearing a pitcher and bowl.
“Drink something,” he told Ngangata. Hezhi felt blood rise into her face with a wave of shame. She should be doing something. Ngangata took the water from Tsem.
“Fetch me a rag, Tsem,” she said quietly. “A rag and some more water. We should clean him up, at least.” Perkar’s breath was still coming erratically, labored, but at least he was breathing. Tsem nodded and went to search for a rag.
Ngangata watched her expectantly.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I’m not sure what is going on.”
“You’ve hea
rd about the war?”
She nodded. “Yes, just today. Some men came in earlier. They found me out in the desert—”
“Found you?”
Hezhi helplessly realized that she was only making things more confused. “I was walking over in the cliffs,” she explained. “Two Mang men from the west found me.”
“Found you in the cliffs? What were they doing over there?”
“I don’t…” She didn’t know. “That’s a good question,” she finished. “It isn’t on their way, is it?”
“Leave that for a moment,” Ngangata said. “What have you heard about the war?”
“Not much. Just that there is one, Perkar’s people and the Mang. There was an argument between those men and Brother Horse. He told them they were not to attack the two of you. I guess he doesn’t have much authority over them.”
“It’s too bad he didn’t have even less,” Ngangata said wryly. “If they had simply attacked Perkar, he would have killed them with his sword; that much is a fact. As it was, they challenged him to a ‘game’—you see the outcome.”
“I don’t know,” Hezhi said. “You know more about bar—about these people than I do. If there were a real fight, with swords and everything, wouldn’t others join in?”
Ngangata nodded. “Probably. It might have even turned into a little war, with Brother Horse’s closest kin trying to protect his hospitality. All in all it was probably best this way. His sword will still heal him.”
Tsem returned with a damp cloth and a basin. She reached for it, but he gently held her away and began sponging Perkar’s chest himself. Hezhi started to protest, but realized that Tsem probably knew more of what he was about than she did.
“I’ve seen him with worse wounds and still capable of walking and talking,” she commented. “Worse looking, anyway.”
“As have I,” Ngangata agreed, and Hezhi thought she caught a deep worry in his burring voice. He did not, however, offer anything further.
