The Blackgod

by Greg Keyes

  “We’ve been nothing but trouble to you,” Hezhi finished.

  The old Mang grimaced. “It’s this war, and something else, something Moss wouldn’t explain to me completely.”

  “He said I could bring peace.”

  “Yes, he told me that, as well, but wouldn’t explain how. I don’t think he knows.”

  “In any event, we have to leave,” Ngangata said. “We have to get Hezhi and Perkar away from here. They seem almost as bent upon killing him as upon snatching her.”

  “What do you mean?” Hezhi asked.

  “We were set upon by warriors out on the plains. They came to kill Perkar.”

  Brother Horse waved his hand. “They are Mang, he is a Cattle-Man, and we are at war.”

  “No, it was more than that. They were seeking him specifically, and no other.”

  “It’s because Perkar knows where we should go,” Hezhi broke in suddenly. “Karak told him.”

  Brother Horse stretched a grim smile. “What do you mean, ‘where you should go’?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Hezhi realized. “There is something I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know what.”

  “You learned this on the other side of the drum?”

  Hezhi nodded thoughtfully.

  “Well, let me warn you that if you have only the word of the Blackgod, then you have little worth trusting.”

  “He has only aided me,” Hezhi said.

  “When he set me to watch for you at Nhol?”

  “No, since then.”

  Brother Horse raised his eyebrows in surprise but did not inquire further.

  “He works for his own purposes, that much is certain,” Ngangata said. “But he helped us against the warriors on the plains, too. He seems to have cultivated a liking for our little family.”

  “How quickly do we have to leave?” Hezhi asked, mustering as much determination to put in her voice as she could.

  “Tonight would be best,” Brother Horse admitted sadly. “We can hold Moss and Chuuzek and the rest for a few days, give you an escort and a head start to wherever you are going. Beyond that, my own people will begin to rebel at the thought of holding their cousins captive. Young people these days don’t respect the old as they should.”

  Hezhi nodded solemnly. “Ngangata, can Perkar travel?”

  “Can you heal him?” the halfling countered.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Well,” the half man considered. “We can tie him to a horse, but that will slow us. It would be better if he could ride.”

  “Put some distance between yourselves and the village first,” Brother Horse advised. “Then I believe I can show Hezhi what to do. She has the power now.”

  He was looking at her strangely, deeply, and Hezhi understood that the old man could see what the others could not, the change in her.

  “You will go with us?” she asked him.

  “I will accompany you long enough to help with that. Afterward… well, there look to be many affairs that need my attention.”

  Hezhi took a deep breath. “Running again. Always running.”

  Tsem moved up to stroke her hair, and his tenderness awoke buried tears. She did not shed them, but they crowded into her throat and threatened to cut off her air.

  “Well,” she gasped, “where shall we run? I know nothing of these lands.” Her pleading gaze fastened first on Brother Horse and then on Ngangata.

  “North, perhaps,” Brother Horse muttered. “North, across the Changeling, or perhaps east. Away from all of this.”

  Hezhi sat on her mat. “Away. At first it seemed that just leaving Nhol was ‘away.’ Now… what lies north and east?”

  “Ah… plains, forests, mountains. North, Human Beings are scarce. East are the Stone Leggings and other tribes. Giants northeast eventually. Beyond that I don’t know.”

  “We can’t cross the Changeling,” Ngangata stated, his voice solid with certainty.

  “No. No, of course.” Images of distant lands where no one knew or cared about Hezhi faded as soon as they formed. Was there such a place, anyway? A place where her blood would merely lie quiet and the River was not even a legend? Probably not.

  “We’ll go where Perkar said to,” Hezhi mumbled. “Where the Blackgod said to.”

  “Where?”

  “We’ll go to the mountain.”

  Ngangata frowned. “Princess, I—”

  Hezhi stared at him, suddenly angry. “I know. I know he flows from there. But that is the only compass we have at the moment. If any of you has a better suggestion, tell me or decide for me. But if you want me to decide…”

  Ngangata shifted uncomfortably. “The war is there. We would only be plunging into the heart of things.”

  Brother Horse cleared his throat. “I know of a camp, up in the White Crown Mountains. It should be far from any such troubles.”

  “If you know of it,” Hezhi retorted, “it is certain that other Mang know of it. Besides, this gaan seems to be able to smell me wherever I am. He knew to send Moss and Chuuzek here.”

  “That could be coincidental, Princess,” Tsem pointed out.

  “No. They came straight to where I was, in the cliffs. I was in a closed-off canyon, wasn’t I, Brother Horse? What reason would they have for going in there?”

  “They might have seen you on the plain, wondered who you were,” the old man muttered.

  “You don’t believe that,” Hezhi answered.

  He shrugged his bony shoulders. “No.”

  “If we go out into the desert and hide, they find us without you and your kin to protect us. If we go back to Nhol, the same fate that I fled awaits me. The same, too, if I try to cross the River. Twice now I have been told to go the mountain. That would at least put us in Perkar’s homeland, where his people might protect us, would it not?”

  Ngangata nodded wearily. “Yes. But that is a hard journey, by land, and we have to cross the country where the war is being fought.”

  “One of you decide, then,” she said.

  Tsem snorted. “You great men, you horsemen, you hunters. My princess has lived in these lands for half a year, you for your whole lives. Can’t either of you think of anything?”

  Brother Horse scratched his chin. “Only that she is right,” he admitted.

  “That’s all?” Tsem snapped—audibly, as his nut-size teeth cracked together on his last syllable.

  “Listen, Giant,” Brother Horse suddenly blazed. “She is not a princess here. There are no armies waiting to march at her command. There are no kings on the huugau. Would that there were and I were one. I would surround her with my soldiers and a wall of stone and make her safe. But this is Mang country, do you understand? I have no soldiers, only kinfolk, and I have to spend as much time trying to please them as they to please me. And if I tell them to do something they are set hard enough against, they will ignore me. Then I lose face and power, and the next time they listen to me even less. Those men you killed today have relatives in my own clan. They will not forget you, or her, or me, for not giving you up. I have few enough years left to live, and I had hoped to live them in comfort, but that dream withers in the sun now. So don’t you upbraid me for not being able to do what no man can do!”

  Tsem’s eyes widened with startlement, but his face stayed set. “I’ll kill anyone else who tries to touch her, too,” he said. “So you better help us get away from here, before I have to break more of your precious kinsmen and make your old age even more uncomfortable.”

  “Tsem,” Hezhi said softly. “Hush. He has already helped us, don’t you understand?”

  “No. I don’t understand why they can’t let you be. You’ve already… we’ve already…” Tsem suddenly bent and ground his face into the wall, shuddering.

  Hezhi’s gut wrenched. “Tsem!”

  The Giant moaned and thrust his hand back, motioning her away.

  “He must have been wounded,” Ngangata muttered. “I didn’t see—”

  “No,” Tsem
croaked. “Not wounded.”

  Hezhi understood then. The half Giant was crying.

  “Please,” she said to Ngangata and Brother Horse. “Please get the horses together, or whatever. If we have to leave, we have to leave. But could the two of you make the arrangements?”

  The old Mang nodded, but Ngangata hung back stubbornly.

  “I will watch Perkar,” she assured him. “I’ll watch him.”

  After a moment the half man nodded curtly and followed Brother Horse from the yekt.

  Hezhi approached Tsem and laid her hand on his massive ribs.

  “I’ve never seen you cry,” she whispered.

  “I don’t mean to,” he wheezed. “It’s just that… why can’t they leave you alone!”

  “Shh.”

  “I saw how the priests hurt you, in Nhol, and I could do nothing. I saw the horror that never left your face, after you went down into that place, that place under the sewers. And then I could do nothing. Finally—”

  “Finally you helped me escape the most terrible fate anyone could imagine.”

  “Yes, and had to be carried away from Nhol on my back. I know who saved whom back in Nhol, Princess.”

  She knelt, and hot tears were starting in her own eyes. “Listen to me, Tsem. You did save me, just not the way you think. I almost…” Became a goddess? Razed Nhol to its foundations? Would that have been so bad, looking back?

  “I almost became something terrible,” she finished. “You saved me.”

  “I don’t remember that. How could I have done that?”

  “Just by being Tsem. By loving me.”

  “Ah. I thought you wanted me to stop crying.”

  “I don’t care if you cry,” she soothed. But she did. Even wounded, Tsem had not seemed so feeble to her. He had always been her wall, her strength. Wounded, he had merely been awaiting repair, being rebuilt to be her tower again. But this struck her down to the bone, all the way down. She was really alone here, in this place. She had to be her own strength, and even Giants couldn’t protect her now.

  She hated herself, but she wished he hadn’t cried. She wished he had kept it in, wept to the wind later. But he hadn’t, and now she knew, and she loved him enough not to tell him what he had done: that he had made it all worse.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “We have to get ready to go. The world awaits us.”

  XVIII

  On the Barge

  A bright clattering of gulls blew through the door as the old man stepped into the darkened cabin. He stood for a moment, silhouetted in a rectangle of sunlight, a breeze that smelled like water and iron seeping past his body. Ghe motioned him in.

  “You,” Ghan grunted. “What do you have to do with all of this?”

  “My father has more influence than I ever told anyone,” Ghe answered, secretly amused by his joke. In his heart of hearts, his father was the River.

  “Enough to command the use of a royal barge? Don’t lie to me, boy.”

  Ghe sighed and stood politely, smoothing the hem of his dark green robe. He motioned for the librarian to sit on the pillows heaped about the cabin. Ghan ignored the motion, stubbornly continuing to stand on the slowly rocking deck.

  “Yes, then, you’ve seen through me,” Ghe admitted. “Please sit down. Have a measure of coffee.”

  “I don’t intend to stay.”

  Ghe shook his head. “As you imply, you and I are in the grip of powers greater than ourselves. The emperor’s soldiers are still outside, and I doubt that I can persuade them to leave.” Ghe was amazed at the strength of the old man. He could sense the cloud of fear and uncertainty about him, and yet his face and manner betrayed no such sentiments. A worthy opponent and a needed ally.

  “But you know what this is all about?” Ghan asked, eyeing him critically.

  “Indeed. As do you, I expect.”

  “Hezhi,” the old man said dully, reaching to pinch the folds of his brow with one hand.

  “Hezhi? Not ‘Hezhinata’?”

  Ghan’s only answer was a glare.

  “She is in danger, you know. Master Ghan, she is in deadly danger.”

  Ghan folded his thin arms across his chest like a hedge of bone, protecting him.

  “Danger.”

  “Please sit down, Master Ghan. I tire of standing myself.”

  Ghan pursed his lips in undisguised frustration and then, with a slight nod, settled onto one of the felted pillows. He appeared uncomfortable, sitting without a desk in his lap, a book splayed open before him. Ghe smiled reassuringly, bent, and poured coffee from a silver urn into twin porcelain cups. He offered one to Ghan, who took it almost without seeming to notice. His attention was focused entirely on Ghe, as if he were trying to peer through his clothing to the lies they hid, through the scarf about his throat to the impossible scar.

  “Tell me what danger,” Ghan demanded.

  “From whom else? From the priesthood.”

  “The priesthood?”

  “It has come to the attention of the emperor that the priesthood plans an expedition to search for her.”

  “Search for her? Why?”

  “Who knows what purposes hide behind their robes and masks? But the emperor believes that it has to do with the Royal Blood.”

  “Away from the River, she is no danger to them.”

  “I know little of these matters, Master Ghan. I am only the son of a merchant, an engineer at best. What I do know is that what is true or false is of no consequence to the priesthood. Set in motion, they are like a stone falling. What remains beneath them is crushed. For whatever reason, we know they seek her. Furthermore, we believe that they know where she is.”

  “They could not.”

  “Couldn’t they? They have been sending out spies for the better part of a year. They have been working their sorcery, watching the stars.”

  “All of this the emperor told you.”

  Ghe held out his hands. “I did not, of course, have an audience with the Chakunge himself. But his minister spoke to me, after I made my concerns known.”

  “Your concerns?”

  Ghe nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. The priests talk, and the careful ear ensnares their words. I have heard things.”

  “Why were you researching the temple?”

  “A false trail. I believed that they actually had her captive in their sanctum.”

  “They do not.”

  “You seem certain of that,” Ghe observed.

  Ghan tightened his mouth, realizing that he had said too much.

  Ghe leaned over the coffee urn and spoke intently. “The emperor knows, Master Ghan, that you helped his daughter escape the city. He has been watching you, hoping for some sign that you know her whereabouts.”

  “And you were the spy?”

  “One of them, Master. Please understand, it was from my concern for her.”

  Ghan frowned sharply. “What is this all about? If you wish me to confess some crime, I will not. I have no patience for these courtly games.”

  “This is no game, Master. In the morning, this barge swims upstream to search for the daughter of our emperor. Unlike the priesthood, we have no idea of where she is, save north and away. You can help us.”

  “I do not know where she is.”

  “You do. Assuredly, Master Ghan, you do.”

  “Torture it from me, then.”

  “The emperor won’t do that. At least, he said he would not. He wants your cooperation and your loyalty. You are dear to Hezhi, and it is important that she believe in our good intentions when we do find her.”

  “You aren’t—” Ghan’s face registered shock for the first time. His mouth actually dropped open. “You aren’t really suggesting that I go with you on this mad search?”

  “But that is precisely what I am saying.”

  “Out of the question! The library—”

  “The emperor has actually been considering sealing the library. It has been the center of much trouble, of late.”

 
“Sealing the library?”

  Ghe sipped his coffee, let the implicit threat sink in. A mask of fury settled on Ghan’s face and then quickly vanished.

  “I see,” he clipped.

  “Perhaps only temporarily, until you return.” He regarded his coffee cup once more. “There has also been talk of restoring certain names in the capital, of ending certain exiles.”

  Ghan was nodding his head now. The sweetmeat and the rotten pear were both on the plate before him. Ghan’s family was in exile and had been for decades; only his intense love of the library kept him in Nhol. The simultaneous threat to close the library and promise to reinstate his clan had to be a powerful combination.

  “No purse is large enough to make me a whore,” the old man declared almost inaudibly, eyes nearly shuttered by his angry lids.

  “Those were the emperor’s words, his promises and threats,” Ghe whispered. “These are mine. I love Hezhi, Master Ghan, and I know you do, as well. You helped her once, at gravest risk to your own life and everything you hold close and dear. Help me help her. When we find her, I promise you—I swear to you—that whatever pleases her, we shall do. The emperor wants her back here, but I want what is best for her. And she must be warned, at the very least, about the determination of the priesthood. At the least.”

  “You are mad. This entire city is mad, the nightmare of a brutish, sleeping god.”

  “What does that mean? Do you mean to wish away the world as it is and replace it with one you imagine? If so, you must cease merely reading your books and do something. Come with me, Master Ghan.”

  For the first time, Ghan raised his coffee to his lips, and in an instant—like the batting of an eye—Ghe sensed his fear and hesitation vanish. Replaced by… Ghe’s new senses were like smell. Fear he had scented often enough to know it. This was something he did not know.

  “I must have certain books. I must have maps.”

  “You are free to return with the soldiers to the library. They will help you carry anything you need. You accept, then? I can relay that to the emperor?”

  “You may tell him I will accompany you.”

  “I will tell the captain, when he boards.”

  “You are not the commander here?”

  “As you say, Lord Ghan, one so lowly as I cannot command a royal expedition. A noble will be placed in command. But you and I will lead them, will we not?”