by Greg Keyes
Still, the swamp had a certain beauty, he could see that now, and with the wind blowing at his back, bending the grass away from Nhol, the stench wasn’t so bad. He found himself wishing the fishers luck, when before he had only thought them stupid.
He could afford to be generous with such sentiments; he was strong now, his injuries entirely healed. Only the oldest wound, the ridged scar encircling his neck, tingled a bit uncomfortably, and he suspected that he knew the meaning of that. The River was becoming, in his way, impatient. Things must be happening elsewhere, with Hezhi, with her demon swordsman. Now that he understood what kind of strength he had, it was time to put it to use; before the Ahw’en and the Jik found him once more and made a better job of ending his existence.
He fingered the scar and wondered, absently, when it had ceased to repel him, when he had ceased to be at least inwardly horrified at his state. His lack of memories still troubled him, but now he had those of the boy—smell, touch, and taste anyway—to fill in the blank spaces of his childhood. An odd comfort, and he knew he would once have been disgusted by that, as well, but that had been a different, somewhat stupider Ghe.
And what would the smarter, stronger Ghe do today? He would invade the Great Water Temple, though on the surface that hardly testified to intelligence. But it was now or not at all, he felt sure of that.
And so, after watching the sunrise, Ghe rose up from the floor that creaked beneath him, and he thought of how he might best enter the most holy place of the priesthood, the sanctum of those who hunted him so persistently.
The answer gurgled and spluttered no more than a stone’s throw from the dilapidated hut: a sewer duct, emptying into the swamp. Wide enough to crawl through, but only just barely. Ghe allowed himself a bit of a smile. Hezhi would have crawled into such a tube, if she thought knowledge lay through it. Could he do any less?
He found the sewer firmly sealed by a heavy iron grate, but for him, at the peak of his power, that was no deterrent. The pins that held it in place were newer—much newer—than the rotten ones that had torn beneath his weight back at “his” apartments, but they protested no longer when he exerted himself. He peered up into the darkness, aware of the almost unbelievable stench but unconcerned by it. Even the old Ghe would have been able to deal with that, and he, the ghoul, cared far less about such temporary discomforts. He paused only a moment before entering, to check his weapons, a reflex so thoroughly ingrained in him from his training as an assassin that it was not a matter of thought. When he realized what he was doing, he chuckled aloud, for, of course, he had no weapons of steel. But still he had the jwed, the way of darting hands, and he had his power. They had nearly failed him back in the palace, but a weapon would have helped him not at all. His hands, his power, his cunning must serve him, or nothing would.
And so he crawled into the tube.
Only the faintest tingle of claustrophobia and a hint of boredom betrayed his Human origins; otherwise he slithered up the tube like a snake. When the sediment on the floor of the duct had settled too thickly, he could not move forward at all, and he would stop to patiently claw at the offending matter until he could squeeze through. When the tube dipped and filled with water for a time, he was just as unconcerned.
How long this took, he could not say and only vaguely cared. After some interminable period, he reached another grate, this one of steel, and though it resisted him a bit longer, it soon opened before him, too, allowing him to enter into a larger way, one that he could stand in, albeit hunched.
He twisted through the labyrinth, the complex overlapping of sewers, flood drains, and, finally, sacred water tubes that he knew Hezhi had mapped. He, however, did not have need of such a map, for in him was the River’s strange awareness of flowing, his own expertise with the underways, and even an added tactile sense from the ghost of the boy that was tethered to his heart. The River’s unspecified “map” of himself was somehow filtered through the boy’s sense of space without sight, and though Ghe would not have needed this added advantage to find the temple, it helped. And when he reached the temple itself, the River in him would be blind, would it not? He wondered, then, how much of his power he would retain, in those dark precincts below the great fountains and the alabaster steps. Perhaps, once again, his head would merely roll from his shoulders, and he would be undone, a corpse made puppet and then corpse again as its strings were severed.
He did not believe that would happen, but no matter. This was the path to serving the River, and it was the way that led, finally, to Hezhi. And he was no mere puppet, not some silly creature on a string.
And that was what he was thinking when his vision blurred, grayed, and doubt renewed itself as, at last, he crouched beneath the Great Water Temple.
XIV
Horse God Homesending
Hezhi sat on the stoop, contemplating her drum, as Brother Horse, with a pat meant to be reassuring, rose and went back to his duties. The sun set and stars scattered across the dome of the sky, obscured only by a few tatters of indigo velvet clouds that quickly faded to mist. The Mang kept up their chanting, and the very air seemed to hum with some secret presence.
Tsem went in to get some more water, and when he returned, he said in a worried voice, “Something is happening to him.”
Hezhi turned fearfully back to the yekt, reluctantly stood, and walked inside.
Ngangata watched Perkar, his thick features cast in a worried mold. His forehead—what little there was of it—bunched like columns of caterpillars, his eyebrows their furry sovereigns.
Perkar moaned, then thrashed a bit. He opened his mouth and a few syllables bubbled forth, nothing she understood. Ngangata, however, nodded. “Here,” he answered in Mang, then switched to another language. With his right hand he beckoned her.
To her horror, Perkar’s eyes slitted open, and the orbs beneath were glazed a peculiar blue, like those of a fish several days dead.
“Hezhi,” he muttered, barely audible.
“I am here,” she answered. She thought of taking his hand from Ngangata, but the idea repelled her; she knew what was crouched on his chest, what she would touch if she touched him.
“You must… shikena kadakatita…” His tongue stuttered off into something she didn’t understand, as if his River-given command of Nholish were failing. She looked to Ngangata.
“You have to go to the mountain,” Ngangata translated reluctantly.
“Balatata.” Perkar gasped.
“Yes, I know,” Ngangata assured him.
“What? What does he mean?”
“He is perhaps delirious.”
“Tell me what he said,” Hezhi insisted, and then to Perkar, in Nholish: “Perkar! Tell me.”
Perkar’s eyes opened wider, but his voice dropped away.
“He seeks you,” the faint breath from his mouth said. “The River seeks you. You must go to She’leng, the mountain. Look for signs…” His mouth kept working, but even the semblance of sound failed.
“His body seems a bit stronger,” Ngangata remarked after a moment. “But he should be well now. What did Brother Horse tell you?”
“That he has had a witching placed on him.”
“No more?”
“More,” Hezhi admitted, “but I must think on it.”
“Think quickly, then,” the half man urged, “if there is anything you can do.”
Behind her, Tsem growled. “Have a care, creature,” he said, the Mang thudding clumsily, like stones from his mouth.
Ngangata frowned but did not reply. Nor did he relinquish the hold of his gaze on her for several more heartbeats.
“I will think quickly,” she said, and left the tent. Tsem followed her, but not without casting a hard glance back.
“Thank you, Tsem,” she told him once they were outside, “but Ngangata is right. I can’t let him die.”
“You could. It might save us a lot of trouble.”
“No, Tsem, you know I can’t.”
He grumbled incohe
rently and shrugged a bit.
“Ngangata is like you, you know.”
“His mother a Giant? I think not.”
“You know what I mean.”
Tsem nodded sadly down at his feet. “Yes, Princess, I know what you mean. You mean we are alike in what we are not, not in what we are.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of it that way, but that was exactly what she had meant. Each was half Human and half… something else. What they were not was fully Human.
“Tsem, I—” But there was nothing right to say about that now. Instead she threw up her hands in frustration. “Leave me alone for a bit,” she said at last.
“Princess, that would be unwise.”
“Stay near the door. If anything happens, I will cry out.”
She thought, briefly, that he would disobey her, but he did not, and brushed open the doorflap with his enormous palm.
Alone on the stoop, she once more contemplated the drum.
It seemed alive; larger drums had begun thundering, out where the Mang were holding their ceremony, and the small hand drum shivered in sympathy with its brother instruments.
She remembered Perkar, the rides they had taken together, the brightening in his eyes when he spoke of his homeland. She recalled only a few days before, when he had shown her the wild cattle, the sudden intense affection that had seized her. How could she let some black creature eat all of that, if she had the choice? Perkar said he had done terrible things—and she believed him. But she had also done terrible things. And some feeling for Perkar rested in her, she knew that now, for it had glowed hot with pain when he left her to go to see the Stream Goddess, and it lay chill in her now like a frozen bone. She had denied that it was love—and it wasn’t, not the sort of love that made you want to marry someone—but it was a fragile thing, a part of her that existed only because she knew him. And when it was not hot or chill, it was warm and pleasant. Not comfortable, but more like the itchy moment before laughing or crying with joy.
And, even all of that aside, Perkar knew something, something important about her.
So there was no question of letting him die; she must admit that now to herself as she had to Tsem earlier. There were few paths open to her, and that admission closed all but one for now.
Tomorrow she would ask Brother Horse to instruct her. She did not really trust him, not anymore, and the other Mang were clearly less trustworthy even than he. Their treatment of Perkar, even after months of companionship, testified to where strangers stood among these people.
But Perkar was dying and the River was after her. Perkar had said so, said that she must go to She’leng. She’leng, the mythical mountain from which he issued. If the River sought her, why should she fly to his very head? It made no sense to her, but Perkar had spoken to one of his gods, one that had aided their escape from Nhol, one who seemed inclined to help them. But what did it mean, and why? “Look for signs,” Perkar had whispered, but she didn’t know what that meant, either. Perhaps none of it meant anything, as sick as he was, but she had to know, had to do something. Once again she was being tossed about by forces she did not understand, and that she could not tolerate. She needed information; she needed power. All of that lay in the little drum.
“How fares your friend?” a quiet voice asked, interrupting her thoughts. She turned, startled.
It was the strange Mang, Moss, the one who had found her in the desert. He had come up, apparently, from behind the yekt. Sneaking up on her? She prepared to call for Tsem.
“I mean you no harm,” the young man assured her quietly. “Really. I only meant to inquire after the stranger.”
“What business is that of yours? He is not kin to you.” She emphasized the word in a sudden disgust for the whole concept. Her “kin” back in Nhol had never cared for her; for her worth as a bride perhaps, but never for Hezhi. They would have placed her below the Darkness Stair and forgotten her. Family were people who never earned your respect or love but demanded it nevertheless. These Mang took that to such a ridiculous extreme she wanted to shout with laughter and disdain.
Moss did not flinch from her words or her rude, direct gaze. He only bowed slightly. “That is true, and to be honest, I will neither be happy nor sad if he dies. I will only be disappointed that the hospitality of this camp was violated.”
“That means nothing to me. You Mang make much of your laws and traditions, but like everyone else in the world, you compromise them the moment they seem encumbering.”
“Some do, that is true, when the danger seems great enough, when temper flares. That is not to say we ever discount our ways.”
“Words,” Hezhi scoffed. “What do you want of me?”
Moss’ face held nothing but concern, but Hezhi had seen that before, on the face of another young and handsome man, and she would not be fooled twice in the same lifetime in the same way.
“I wanted only to explain.”
“Why do you owe me any explanation?”
“I do not,” Moss replied, and for the barest flicker his green-tinted eyes lit with some powerful emotion, then became carefully neutral. He was not, Hezhi reminded herself, more than two or three years older than she was herself.
“I do not,” he repeated, “and yet I want to speak to you.”
“Speak, then, but don’t bother to try to fool me with any false concern. It only makes me angry.”
“Very well,” he said. He glanced back toward the western quarter of the camp; the drums were beating frantically as the fire threw new stars at the night sky.
“Soon the Horse God goes home. That you should see, if you care to understand my people.”
“I don’t care to understand them,” Hezhi replied. “Get to your point.”
Moss frowned, showing irritation for the first time. “I will. You know of the war between my people and those of your friend?”
“I know of it. It was you who brought the news, remember?”
He nodded. “Just so. But this war is more than a war between mortals, Lady of Nhol. It is a war of gods, unlike anything the world has seen in several ages. Among my people, there are visionaries, shamans who see things in the future, who barter and truck in the world of Dream, and they have seen many ill things coming with this war.”
She noticed then that his gaze had fastened upon her drum, and she deliberately placed it on the other side of her. “Go on,” she said.
“It is only this,” Moss said, chewing his lower lip for a moment. “There can be war, and many men and horses and perhaps even gods will die. They are already dying, you know. I don’t know if you understand what that means.”
“I have seen men die,” Hezhi told him. “I know death.”
“These are my kinsmen dying,” Moss said.
“For whom I care exactly as much as they care for me, for Perkar,” she retorted.
Moss breathed deeply. “You wish to anger me, but my people have charged me with something to say, and I will say it. You have been seen, Hezhi, in dream. A great man has seen you, a powerful gaan who would avert the worst of this war, bring peace. But what he has seen is that only you can bring this peace.”
“Me?” Hezhi narrowed her eyes to slits.
Moss nodded. “You. That is what was seen. You are the only hope for peace, and the Cattle-Man, Perkar, is the bringer of death. You must go from him, come with me. I can take you to the gaan and together we can stop all of this. If you remain by the side of this man—” He gestured at the yekt. “—then it will be as a rain of fire, sweeping over the land and burning all before it.”
“Me? Bring peace? How?”
“I know not. I have only been told this, but the one who told me is beyond trust and deceit. It is the truth, I promise you.”
“And of course I believe you,” Hezhi replied. She wanted to, of course. She had been the cause of so many deaths that the image of her as a peace-bringer was like a beautiful flower in a wasteland. She held on to that image wistfully but knew it had to be false. Mu
st be false.
“How dare you?” she said slowly. “How dare you? For twelve years no one cared what happened to me, whether I was happy or sad, whether I lived or died. Now the whole world seems to want me, to use me like some workman’s tool. I gave up the few things I loved to escape that, but I loved those things dearly. Do you understand me? I fled my home to live with you stinking barbarians to escape. I have given everything I’m going to give, do you hear me? How dare you say this to me?” She was trembling, and her voice had risen to a shriek. Words were spilling from her mouth without any consent from her, but she did not care. The fierceness in her heart might have been panic or fury or both, it was impossible to tell, as tightly bound up and volatile as it was. “Get away from me, you hear me? If I had any of the power you people think, do you honestly believe I would help you? I would strike you down, burn you to blackened bones, scatter your ashes from here to the ends of the earth!”
She wanted to go on then but finally caught herself, panting, reason overtaking anger. But she wanted to hurt Moss, sear that mild expression from his face, and she arrowed her remaining anger at him, as she had done in Nhol. There men had fallen, twitching and dying. Here Moss merely smiled a bit sadly.
“I’m sorry to have upset you. I thought you would be honored to save two peoples and perhaps the world itself from so much pain and suffering. I suppose I have misjudged you.”
“Your gods have misjudged me,” Hezhi snapped. “The very universe has misjudged me. I only want to be left alone.”
“That is not your fate,” Moss answered placidly.
“I will determine my fate,” Hezhi said, over the rising furor of the drums.
Moss stepped back, his condescending little smile still in place. “I must go,” he said. “The ceremony nears completion.”
“I have told you to go,” Hezhi retorted.
“Just so. But I would speak of this later, when you have thought upon it.”
“I have thought upon it,” she said. “I have thought upon it all that I will.”
Moss shrugged, bowed, and backed away for a few paces before turning back to the fire. Hezhi watched him go, aware that her entire body was trembling uncontrollably. She heaved in several deep breaths, attempting to steady herself. After a moment she glanced around her.
