The Blackgod

by Greg Keyes

  Ghan did not answer. Instead, he stood shakily. “I wish to gather my things now.”

  “Very well. The emperor thanks you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “And I thank you.” Ghe was surprised to find that his voice rang sincere, even in his own jaded ears.

  Sunlight sheathed the streets in molten copper, beat them bright and hot as Ghan trod across cobbles worn smooth by a hundred generations of feet. Last time he had walked this path, it had also been to board a boat, to arrange passage for Hezhi to his kindred in the Swamp Kingdoms and thence to far-off Lhe.

  In hindsight, that had been a poor plan. Not only because it had not succeeded—the boat had been attacked by members of the same royal elite who now escorted him—but because in Lhe the priesthood would have found Hezhi easily, had they cared to look. In the Mang Wastes, finding anyone would be no mean task.

  For weeks and then months he had awaited the writ of the executioner, sure that in the chaos of Hezhi’s escape he had been found out. If the arrangements at the docks were known to the emperor, then surely the arranger was known, as well. But the writ had never come, and his old head remained where it had been for sixty-three earthly years, bobbing about on a neck that sometimes seemed too thin to support its weight. Now was such a time.

  If he weren’t in such terrible danger, he might be amused that the emperor and his servants could so deeply underestimate him. They believed that their courtly intrigues were so complex, so deeply cunning, that they could shift Human Beings about like the markers in a game of Na. Perhaps they shifted each other around so, but he was a scholar. He could see through their pitiful, dull machinations as if they were sheerest silk. Not every detail, perhaps, not yet, but he could see the shape of something beneath that thin skirt, and it was not the curved courtesan he was expected to see.

  Who was Yen? That he did not know, but he was no merchant’s son. His accent, while passable, was all wrong. His manner, his pretense of submissive cooperation was poorly acted indeed; they hoped to disguise a deeper haughtiness. None of this had mattered before now, and thus he had simply not expended the mental energy to make these connections. But since Yen’s reappearance, his questions about Hezhi, his research on the Great Water Temple, Ghan was forced to reevaluate everything about the young man. Now that he set his mind to it—a finely tuned instrument, even now—it was clear to him that Yen had pretended from the first moment. His intention had always been to be near Hezhi. That made it likely—almost certain, in fact—that it had been Yen set to watch her, Yen who betrayed her, and who now sought to redress his error in allowing her to escape. And so Hezhi was in danger. Yen’s suggestion that her peril came from the priesthood was probably a lie—unless the expedition the man was assembling was created by the priesthood. That was a logical conclusion—after all, those set to watch royal children were usually Jik assassins and therefore of the priestly order. Yet these were unquestionably the emperor’s elite escorting him, and it seemed improbable that the emperor and the priesthood would work together on anything.

  Anything, that is, save perhaps in the containment of one of the Waterborn. The priesthood and the emperor were of one mind on that, and only that. And perhaps they knew something Ghan did not, something about Hezhi’s power or potential that moved both parties to cooperate above and beyond the norm.

  So, Ghan thought as he passed the ever-grander house walls lining the street, best assume it is both of them. The emperor and the priesthood, but only I know where Hezhi might be.

  And so this elaborate tale to convince him. Well, he was convinced. If he resisted, they might find some way to force him to tell. If he pretended to be duped by their moronic ruse, then he could do something. Something.

  But what?

  After Ghan departed, Ghe sat brooding in the cabin. He wished to leave the narrow confines of the living quarters, to pace the proud decks of the barge, meet the sailing men who would carry him up-River. But by now, surely, the priesthood had gotten wind of something. He knew well how deeply the palace was penetrated by the eyes of the temple, and this movement of men and supplies to one of the barges must have raised at least a few suspicious hackles. If he were seen, they would know for certain what was afoot, and whatever story was being circulated about the purpose of the expedition would be known as false. He was commanded by the emperor to remain cloistered until the barge was well away from Nhol.

  It was a wise command, and therefore he heeded it. And so, instead of following his desires, he explored the world he was allowed, for the moment. That meant the little cluster of rooms at the rear of the barge which, from off of the boat, resembled an elegant, spacious mansion.

  Inside, that apparent grandeur was seen as illusion, though the design of the cabins was essentially the same as a suite of rooms in the palace. His cabin opened directly onto the central deck, but it also had an entrance into a courtyard, of sorts. It was a small, narrow imitation of the ones in the palace, but it served the same purpose, allowing fresh air into the cabins arranged about it, especially those that crowded to the edges of the barge and could not thus open onto the deck. In all, four cabins similar to his own opened into the yard—relatively capacious rooms, furnished with colorful rugs and pillows, beds of down-stuffed linen. There were two much larger spaces, but those stacked sleeping shelves so that ten men could room in each. The whole complex was sunken into the deck on the rear end of the ship, and Ghe knew that there was another such cluster of rooms forward, but all of those were crowded ones, built to accommodate sailors and soldiers. The floor of the cabins was the bottom hull of the barge; the surface of the deck set a half a man’s length higher to provide protected space for cargo.

  Ghe wandered through the various rooms, noting their furnishings, access, and escape routes. He always preferred to know every way by which a room could be exited. One of the larger cabins, he discovered, had a latched access to the cramped cargo space that ran the length of the barge between the two “houses” at each end. After a moment’s pause, he shucked his expensive robe—it had come with the cabin—and entered the dark space, clad in only the brief cotton cloth that wrapped twice around his waist and once to cover his crotch and in the scarf tied about his neck. Unused as he was to fine clothing like the robe, he did not want to soil it in his explorations.

  In a deep crouch, he wandered curiously about the hold. Light streamed through a pair of open hatches and through the occasional perforations in the bulwarks at floor level that would drain rainwater or any other inundation that might tend to flood the barge or stand in the hold. Several sailors stood in the hatches, shuttling a few remaining items into storage. Though there was no particular need to, Ghe avoided them, padding through the shadowed crates and bags, identifying them by their markings: food, rope, assorted trade goods if they needed them. In addition, Ghe knew, there were sealed packs of arrows, spare edged weapons, extra boots and clothing for cooler climates. Finally, wrapped carefully and stored separately, a number of the head-size pitch balls that the catapult mounted abovedeck could fling at any vessel that might oppose them.

  The horses were not on board yet, but Ghe found and wandered through the maze of stalls, wondering how such large beasts would be able to stand imprisonment that scarcely allowed them a pace to move in. This part of the hold was also open to the sky, though canopied in good weather with an elevated tarp. He wound through the stalls in the suffuse light that bled through the canvas, and though the deck was clean to a polish, he smelled the faint, musky odor of beasts. He found where the bulwark could be opened to let the animals on and off and marked it in his memory for his own possible use.

  It seemed, to Ghe, a well-equipped expedition. Fifty footmen—most of them elite—thirty horse, himself, an engineer, the captain, whoever he was—and Ghan. Yes, it seemed a force to be reckoned with, but then, what did he know of that? What sort of dangers might they meet? He would have to talk—to Ghan, to the sailors who had been up-River before. Despite the tales he
had told Hezhi, Ghe himself had never been more than a league beyond the walls of the city.

  He could summon the ancient lord living in his belly to his lips, he supposed, ask him a thing or two. He could reach vague understandings with his ghosts without empowering them. But to deal with them specifically, he had to give them his voice to speak in. Though he could now summon and banish them at will, still he disliked hearing his voice chattering without his leave. No, he would save that summoning for later, when he had learned what he could from the living.

  There was some change above him; the faint cadence of work songs, the thudding of feet on the heavy planks died away into silence, and replacing that, the faint tones of a single voice.

  This must be my captain, Ghe thought wryly. He considered once more that this might all be some elaborate trick, that the emperor had merely devised a ruse to rid himself of a dangerous ghoul. It would make more sense, in many ways, than the scenario he seemed to find himself in. Hiding like a spider in the rich cabin of one of the emperor’s own barges, the elite guard obeying his orders? Much since his rebirth had been painted with the gray and blue of nightmare. Even moments of success and joy would suddenly flatten into something akin to terror when he remembered that he was, after all, dead. Here was one such moment, mocking even this achievement. A gutter scorp from Southtown on a royal barge…

  He had taken the risk, and he believed he had won. Had to believe it, for the nightmare reached its nadir in the Water Temple. Returning again from oblivion, awakening in a canal with priests and Jik swarming in search of him, he had known that without powerful help his mission was doomed. He would fail against whatever that thing was that held the first emperor himself on a leash. Ghe was not the only inhuman creature walking in Nhol, nor the most powerful. Only the emperor himself was an ally worthy of that thing, and Ghe had known, then, that it was his to win the emperor or win nothing at all.

  But the Chakunge was a man as well as a god, a living man, and as such had a natural abhorrence for Ghe and what he was. Perhaps the expedition was meant to go on, but he was not.

  If so, however, the emperor should have had him extinguished in the palace, for here, floating on the very skin of the River, Ghe was in the flower of his strength. Even the gnawings of hunger stayed distant, an occasional irritation, but nothing he need feed. This was fortunate, since on a ship with only eighty people, he could not sate his hunger without being noticed.

  So, with the barest hesitation, he threaded softly back to the entrance to the cabin, lifted the board aside, and entered.

  “What sort of ship’s rat is this?” a voice purred softly. A woman’s voice. Ghe whirled, wondering how he could have been so preoccupied.

  She stood there, regarding his condition of undress with obvious amusement. Thick, sensual lips bowed faintly at the corners of a narrow, tapered face. Opalescent eyes shimmered with amusement, curiosity—perhaps cruelty, as well. Her hair, bound up with a comb, was black, but unlike that of most of the nobility, it was not straight but instead slightly wavy, like his own—usually a sign of lower-than-noble birth.

  Her clothing carried a message quite different from her features and hair, however. Though not ostentatious, her dress was of jeh, a fiber much like silk but rarer yet, available only to Blood Royal.

  “Well?” she asked, and he realized he had not answered her. “What cause have you to skulk in my quarters? And what sort of apparel is this, loincloth and neck-wrap? Some new fashion in the court I haven’t learned of yet?”

  “A-ah,” Ghe replied, all but successfully avoiding a stammer. “You must pardon me, Lady. If you will hand me my robe, I will don it.”

  “Your robe?”

  “Yes. I did not wish to stain it inspecting the cargo.”

  “I see.” Her gaze fastened on his scarf, and the amusement faded a bit, replaced by… fascination? An odd gleam in her eye, anyway. “You are Yen.”

  “I am he.”

  Only the emperor and perhaps Nyas, his advisor, knew Ghe’s real name. Easiest to hide his identity from Ghan if he were the only one avoiding mistakes.

  “Well, I think we expected you to be dressed to receive us. I do not stand on such formalities—with men, anyway—but Lord Bone Eel shall, I think.” She stooped and handed him the robe, which he stepped into immediately. She was slight though not particularly short. Young.

  “I was expecting only Bone Eel,” Ghe said, frowning, trying to understand the faint buzz of emotion emanating from her, and failing.

  “Lord Bone Eel is my husband. I am the Lady Qwen Shen.”

  “Oh. I was not informed.” He stopped and bowed what he thought to be the appropriate bow, and she did not laugh outright.

  “You will be accompanying us?” he asked when he straightened.

  “Yes, of course. I could not let my husband stray far from my sight. Servants will be along soon with my clothes. I only wanted to see my quarters.”

  “Well, then,” Ghe answered. “I hope that you approve.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” she said. “They are drab and cramped, and I detest them already.”

  “Except when it rains, a pavilion will be erected for you on deck,” Ghe informed her. “I have seen such pavilions, and they are much more comfortable than these rooms.” Though he thought his cabin was very nice indeed, compared to anywhere he had ever lived, or to the crowded common rooms the soldiers must make do with.

  “Well, it isn’t raining now. Come up on deck and greet my husband.”

  “Unfortunately, I am under direct orders from the emperor himself to remain here until the voyage begins. I regret the inconvenience, but the lord must come below to meet me.”

  “He won’t like that, even though he must come down here anyway. He prefers for his men to greet him on the deck.”

  “Once again,” Ghe said, “I must apologize. But I must also do the emperor’s bidding.”

  “Yes, you must, I suppose,” she replied indifferently. Her mood had changed; whatever interest and amusement she might have found in him earlier departed. “Well.” She brightened. “Perhaps I will go see about having that pavilion erected.”

  There came a clumping behind them, as someone descended from the upper deck. “I have seen to it already,” a man’s voice assured her. Ghe turned, not caught unaware this time.

  “Lord Bone Eel,” he replied, bowing a degree or so lower than he had for Qwen Shen.

  “Yes, yes, enough bowing. We are shipmates, and you will find that on board ship there is less of that stifling formality we have in the city.”

  “Yes, Lord,” Ghe replied, trying to get the captain’s measure.

  He already knew a thing or two, of course. The highest nobility, those in the immediate family of the Chakunge, were all named so that water was actually mentioned in their names. It was the next tier down, the secondary nobility, who tended to be named for creatures of the water. He thus knew Bone Eel to be well removed from the line to the throne, but not as far removed as the most minor nobility, who were named for creatures that lived around but not in the River, such as the little whelp who had courted Hezhi. Wezh, whose name meant “gull.”

  Bone Eel looked like a captain. He was tall and striking, his profile hewn from a strong stone but polished to perfection. His hair was straight, glossy black, and worn cropped like a helmet at his ears. He was dressed in a simply cut but elegant yellow sarong and a sailor’s loose shirt, umber with bluish turtles batiked upon it. A scabbarded sword hung casually from a broad leather belt.

  “You are Yen, the diplomat of whom the emperor informed me?”

  Diplomat? “Yes,” he answered cautiously. “I am Yen.”

  “And who do we wait for now? This scholar, Ghem?”

  “Ah, Ghan, my lord,” he corrected. “And he will join us sometime hence.”

  “Well, let’s hope he arrives soon. I wish to be under way before nightfall.”

  “Nightfall? I thought we were to leave by morning.”

  “As did I,” B
one Eel replied, his mouth flattening into a grim line. “But the emperor said that we were to take no priests on this journey, you see?” By his look he clearly took for granted that Ghe did see.

  “No, Lord, I’m sorry, I don’t.” Ghe was beginning to feel a certain irritation with the man. He let his gaze wander inside the captain’s chest, thought idly about just stroking the strands there, the way one might stroke a harp. But the time for that would probably come soon enough, not now. He must have patience, for there was much he did not know. If he had learned anything at all in the past days, it was that impulsive actions were not always wise ones.

  “No? Well, ships are supposed to carry at least one priest, and they are raising a mighty hue and cry about this barge leaving without one. We must be under way before things become too noisy.”

  “Oh.” Ghe wondered if the Ahw’en were behind this—if they suspected—or if it was just the usual petty political war waged daily in the palace courts.

  “In any event, I am ready to go!” Bone Eel exclaimed, his deep voice tinged with enthusiasm. “Too long have I been a prisoner of land. I’m ready to feel the River beneath my feet again.”

  “And how long has it been since your last voyage?” Ghe inquired.

  “Oh, it’s been—well, let me see…” He ticked off one finger, then the next, frowning.

  “It’s been five years,” Qwen Shen put in sweetly. She beamed at Ghe, but he thought perhaps there was a hidden glare in the expression.

  “That long?” Bone Eel muttered. “Yes, too long indeed.”

  Bone Eel continued to agree with himself as he went back above.

  XIX

  Drum Battle

  A wind slanted out of the east with the dawn, and Hezhi leaned into it, let it relieve her weary muscles of some small part of the task of supporting her. She was listing in the saddle anyway, worn out in more ways than she knew, and she could almost imagine that the wind, fragrant with sage and juniper, was a pillow, nestling against her, welcoming her to sleep.