by Greg Keyes
My new calling is shrouded in both of these, and it terrifies me as often as it elates me, I must admit, but I am coming to accept it. I have become what the Mang call a gaan, a person who talks with ghosts and gods, who cajoles them into doing favors and occasionally whips them to it. It is power, and until recently I thought I was happy to leave power back with the River. The strength that he offered was infinitely more potent than what I have acquired on the shaman’s path, but the price that came along with the River’s strength was more than I will ever be willing to pay. The cost of becoming a gaan is much lower, and one I believe I can afford. I strike bargains, most often, with my servants; all but one of them serves me because they wish, rather than because they must. Three gods dwell with me now—I acquired my latest tenant only a half-score of days ago. The first who came to live in my “mansion”—this is what they call the place within us where the gods rest—was the ghost of a horse, and the story of that is too long to tell here, and not very typical of how a gaan normally works. The second case is even more extraordinary: that one was a strong, passionate spirit sent to attack us, and him I took by force. When I did that, Ghan, my power did feel like that moment by the River, for it gave me the ability to command. I liked it; when that dread god knelt before me and sullenly entered into my service it made me feel like the princess I should have been. However, I shall not use force again, for now that he is there, within me, I fear him. I do not fear him so much as the things he offers; he coaxes me, promising that with his aid, no spirit can escape my power to bind, swears that I can become a shaman such as the world has not seen in a thousand years. I feel that this is true—I believe him—and so am tempted, for with enough power I could crush all of my enemies and the dangers to my friends, as well. I am tired of running, of battles, of death. And so when Hukwosha—that is the name of the Bull God—when he offers me such power, I want it. But I fear it, because it is merely another path back to what I avoided when I left the River. Ultimately my power comes from him, even this power I have to be a gaan; it is not my wish to become like him, an eater of gods. It is not my desire to become lost in dreams of conquest. I only want to live, to be free, to be left alone.
Forgive me when I digress, but writing of my feelings helps me to comprehend them.
This last god I have acquired as a companion is—according to my teacher, Brother Horse—a more typical shaman’s helper than the other two. This one I call Swan, because that is how she appeared to me. I found her in a lonely valley of ghosts, guarding their tombs. How long ago she was set there to ward them, I cannot say, and she had little sense of passing time; but all of the ghosts had departed, and Swan had nothing left to do—and yet could not herself depart. In this case there was no battle, no danger, and no desperation—only a lonely god. I offered her a place in my mansion, explaining what sort of service I would expect from her, and she agreed more than readily. After the capture of the bull, it was a great relief, and though the swan is not a powerful or ferocious helper, she comforts me in a way the others do not.
Tsem became a warrior three days ago; he is very proud. Perkar and the others have fashioned him an enormous wooden mace and a shield with a wooden frame covered in elkhide. We were set upon by creatures Perkar names Lemeyi, which are half god and half something else. These three had the appearance of long-legged wolves. They paced us for a day before attacking, shouting with Human speech. I could have taken one—as I did the bull—but the thought repelled me. Instead I sent out the mare to attack, and she dispensed with one. Perkar dispatched a second, but it was Tsem who broke the spine of the third. It writhed and cursed at him in Nholish, scored deep claw marks into his shield, but he hit it again and again, until it did not move.
I protested when Perkar began teaching Tsem to fight with weapons, but now I admit that he was right to do so. The Lemeyi was trying to reach me, and Tsem would have interposed himself in any case, armed or not. These creatures had claws like sickles and fangs like daggers. He would have died. As it is, he came to my rescue. He knows it, too, and walks more proudly, makes jokes readily for the first time since leaving Nhol.
The encounter with the Lemeyi affected Perkar more than the rest of us. He has brooded almost without words since that fight. Ngangata says that Perkar was once tricked by the Blackgod in the guise of a Lemeyi. This is yet another instance that makes me wonder how much I can trust either Perkar or the Blackgod whom he names Karak.
We began this journey in the southern Mang country, a place where only the skeletons of mountains remain. Now we are in places where mountains are in the prime of life, mountains such as I never dreamed could be. It astonishes me that a peak more magnificent than those I have seen can exist, and yet I know that it can, for ahead of us, in a forest Perkar calls Balat, She’leng awaits. I have seen it before, in the otherworld of the lake, but the memory of that place fades like a dream; the colors and shapes are difficult to remember—exactly like a dream, in fact, since Brother Horse calls dreaming “floating on the surface of the lake.” We shamans do not merely float—we dive—but those deeper dreams are often as nonsensical as the ones at the water’s edge.
My fourteenth birthday is four moons away, and I wonder often if I shall ever see it. I think that I won’t. Just as my blood moved the River to pull Perkar and me together, something is moving us all again. It seems as if, instead of a mountain, She’leng must be a vast pit—an ant-lion trap. For months we have been skittering down the widest, least sloping part of that funnel, digging in our heels sometimes, now rushing down in great leaps. The Blackgod told Perkar that what awaits us at that bottom place is the death of the River, the end of a war. Perkar believes that the war which will end will be that of his father’s people against the Mang. That may be. But it seems to me that a larger conflict rages, and neither side much cares about us save in how we might be used.
I wish you were here. An enemy lately taunted me with the possibility of your presence. It was the only thing he offered that held temptation for me. It may be that he was telling the truth about you, and in that case I am sorry, for you have been drawn into this deepening pit with us. Perhaps we will have a chance to meet again and talk, before we reach the bottom.
PART THREE
The Gods of She’leng
XXVIII
The Drum Scout
A few ravens took to the air as Ngangata led the way into the field, but most remained where they were, glutting themselves on the corpses that lay broken on the rough ground.
“Harka?” Perkar murmured.
“All dead. No one hiding in the woods.”
Nevertheless, Perkar joined the others in scanning the far tree line. It kept his gaze from touching the hollow regard of the dead, and, in any event, survivors of the battle could not be far distant, for the ruins of two yekts still smoldered nearby.
Brother Horse and Yuu’han rode out impatiently, studying the dead and muttering to one another the names of their clans.
Two bodies belonged to no Mang clan at all. They were clad in hauberk and helms like his own folk, and from beneath their steel caps bushed hair the color of wheatstraw. Perkar sighed heavily and dismounted.
Studying their ruined faces, he felt a selfish relief in not knowing either of the men, though the bloodied embroidery on their shirts identified them as being of the Kar Herita or some closely affiliated clan.
How often had he imagined this moment, when he would first see one of his own people again? From before the start of the journey home, of course, but in the last few days his every waking moment seemed plagued by visions of this first encounter. In his dreams—sleeping and waking—it was the broken body of his father or his younger brother he found first. For once, at least, his imaginings were more painful than the reality.
“Six dead in all,” Ngangata told him, after making a circuit of the meadow.
“The rest Mang?”
“Yes.” Ngangata nodded. “Four Mang and two Cattle People.”
“This is much
deeper into Mang territory than I thought my people would ever come,” Perkar muttered, kicking at a stone. “This is such poor pasture for men to fight and die over.” He glanced up at the half man. “How are Brother Horse and Yuu’han taking this?”
The two Mang were riding over to inspect the ravaged yekts. Ngangata followed them with his gaze. “We all knew that it would come to this eventually.”
“I’ve tried to talk them into turning back.”
“Yes. But this war concerns them, too. They wish to see it ended as much as we.”
“What if we come upon a battle in progress, Ngangata? I won’t be able to watch my people fight without helping them, and neither will they.”
“Then we must avoid any such battles.”
“How?” Perkar asked irritably, aware that Hezhi and Tsem were approaching. Tsem’s eyes were watchful, darting here and there, and his massive club was cocked back on one shoulder, ready.
“I can help, I think,” Hezhi offered.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I didn’t think of this before because I didn’t really understand what you meant by war. I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“What did you expect?”
“Well, the only wars I’ve read about were those fought by the empire. I always had the impression of enormous numbers of men all lined up and marching toward one another.”
Perkar nodded. “That happens sometimes.”
“I mean thousands and thousands of men,” Hezhi clarified.
“Oh. I see what you mean,” Perkar said. “I have heard tales of armies that numbered as high as a thousand, but that was long ago.”
“Exactly. And so I imagined that when we reached the borders of your country we would encounter a sort of line of soldiers, going on for miles, fighting each other. That probably sounds silly to you.”
“It does,” Perkar admitted. “You might find a damakuta like that, surrounded by men fighting or under siege. But our country is much too large for the Mang to encircle. Most of the battles will be like this, fights over homesteads or damakutat. The heaviest fighting is probably in the Ekasagata Valley, where the best land is. There we probably would see camped armies. But that is the way we have avoided all along.”
“Then it should be simple to avoid battles like this.”
“No. The country is vast, but as you see, from here on it’s a land of valleys and passes, narrow places. Raiding parties like the one that came here must be wandering around everywhere, seeking revenge, looking for some likely settlement to attack. We can never know where they will be.”
“Of course we can. I can send out some of my spirits to check our path ahead.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m certain Brother Horse has been doing it. Remember when he counseled this trail over the last at the fork a day ago? I think he saw a battle ahead of us.”
Perkar mulled that over. “If you can do that, at no danger to yourself, it would be best. I’d hate to have to put our friendship with those two to the test. I usually fare poorly in tests like that.”
“Well and truly said,” Ngangata remarked, dryly but with no apparent malice.
Perkar took a heavy breath. “Still, if we manage to get through the frontier unscathed, it will actually be more difficult to proceed through the pastures unnoticed. My people are watching carefully, I’m certain, and the thought of skulking about in my own country pains me.” He thought secretly, too, how desperately he longed to hear his own language spoken, taste woti again, see a face familiar from childhood.
“Why must we take such care there?” Hezhi asked.
“Because I cannot guarantee how any of us would be treated,” Perkar muttered. “Not by any but my own close kin. Passions are probably high against the Mang—which they will assume you to be, as well, Princess.”
“But it’s they who have invaded Mang lands, not the other way around,” Hezhi protested, indicating the burned yekts where Brother Horse and Yuu’han had begun chanting.
“I know,” Perkar said. “But people die on both sides, and if a relative of yours is slain, it matters not to you who began the battle. It matters only that you avenge him.” He gestured at the dead men. “You can be sure that this man’s clan will not remember that he led a raid into land not his own. They will only remember that he was slain by the Mang, and for that reason it is good to slay Mang in turn.”
The party traveled sullenly for the remainder of the day, the two Mang riding somewhat apart with their grief from the rest. They camped for the night in a small, high valley, the sort that made poor pasture for horses or cattle and was thus generally unsettled by both Mang and Perkar’s folk. Perkar also hoped that it would give them a good view of the trail they hoped to pursue the next day.
Before sundown, Hezhi followed Perkar up a narrow trail in the hillside; Tsem was convinced with some difficulty to stay behind, but he could see as plainly as anyone else what a difficult way it would be for someone of his size to tread.
Hezhi admired the ease with which Perkar negotiated the ascent, which often became a climb, requiring the use of hands as well as feet. She always seemed to be just a bit too short to reach the next handhold with ease, her fingers a little too small to grip the same knob of stone with as much tenacity as Perkar did. And he was much stronger and tired less quickly. He often glanced back at her, a tacit question about her well-being in his eyes that both annoyed her by its implicit condescension and warmed her with its concern. It was a mélange of feeling she had come to associate with Perkar: irritation and fondness.
At last they reached a high point, the balded peak of a ridge, and from there the folded, crumpled land spread out and away in all directions. There was no distance anywhere unserrated by mountains, and for an instant, Hezhi felt that she stood on the same mountain as she had with Karak, watching the souls of the dead drift skyward to She’leng.
But here she saw no ghosts, only deep troughs filled with shadow and bloody sunset.
Perkar edged toward the sheer western face of the ridge and extended his finger northwest. “There,” he said. “Can you see up this vale? Is there battle there tomorrow?”
Hezhi considered the vista for a moment. “Where does your country begin?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Not far, surely. Here in the Spines there are few people of any sort, only mountain people of no nation, wild creatures.” He turned to her. “How long will this take?”
“I’m not certain,” she answered.
“Be quick if you can. I misjudged the distance and the light. Soon it may be too dark to go back down.”
She nodded and removed her drum from its bag and, after just a moment of preparation, began a measured tapping, as Brother Horse had shown her. The drumming of the skin head quickly became ripples upon the Surface of the otherworld, and she turned her vision inward and saw her companions. The mare welcomed her with a shake of her head; the bull lowered his deadly horns sullenly. The most recently acquired god—now in the appearance of a white swan—regarded her solemnly.
“Which of you will go?” she inquired of them.
The bull gazed up at her. In here, he was no skeletal creature animated by flame; he was magnificent, auburn with great shoulders cloaked in darker, longer hair, the eyes between his gleaming horns huge and brown, full of intelligence.
“Take me,” he said. “We shall thunder across the plains, we shall gore the lion, and trample the wolf pack. Too long have you kept me in this peaceful place.”
Hezhi’s fear of the beast, as well as the passion and power he offered, clung to her even beneath the cold waters of the lake, but she shook her head. “Not today, not now. I only need a messenger, not a warrior. I send you, Swan.”
She sent the swan out through the doorway, her vision carried in her eyes.
Perkar sat impatiently, watching as Hezhi’s eyes glazed over and she tapped away on her drum. She was gone, not in her body at all, and that woke in him
a faintly sick feeling, perhaps a buried memory of his own time in the otherworld.
“It’s still not settled,” he told Harka, while he waited. “I still don’t know what will happen when I face combat again.”
“It will be fine,” the sword answered. “You are braver than you think.”
“I flinched in the face of the bull. If it hadn’t been for Hezhi, we would all be dead.”
“That would be true whether you flinched or not. Learn from your mistake, don’t dwell on it.”
“A mistake is something you do on purpose that turns out to be wrong. That’s not what happened with the bull. I was afraid. I didn’t do that on purpose.”
“You’ve been afraid before.”
“This is different.”
“I know. But courage exists only if fear does, too. The greater the fear overcome, the greater the courage. Fearlessness is only another name for stupidity.”
“Has no one ever carried you who was fearless?”
“Of course. And he was as stupid as a stone.”
“What was his name?”
“Perkar.”
Perkar furrowed his brow in annoyance and refused to provoke any more conversation from the sword. Instead, he set about gathering scraps of juniper and twist pine; it was clear that night would settle down before Hezhi was done, and it would be cold, this high.
Sparks were dancing up when the drumming ceased; the only remnant of the day was a languid red rim on the western peaks.
Hezhi shook her head sluggishly as her eyes seemed to awaken to him and the rest of her surroundings.
“It’s cold,” she sighed.
