by Greg Keyes
“What do I do?” she whispered. They had moved far from the torches, though Tsem and Ngangata kept edging after them.
“What are you doing, Karak?” Ngangata snarled.
“What I told you,” he answered. “What we came here for.”
“What—” Hezhi began again, but then something cold slid through the flesh of her ribs, and though she tried to shout with pain, her breath sucked in and closed on itself. She gazed down in shocked astonishment and saw Karak’s hand gripping the hilt of a knife. As she watched, he twisted it.
Then several things happened at once. Tsem repeated Ngangata’s question, stepping even closer. Ngangata suddenly exploded into action, whipping an arrow from the sheath on his back and setting it to his bow in a single motion. As the pain from the twisting knife hazed her vision, Brother Horse and Yuu’han drew swords and swung at Bone Eel, who was in the act of pointing a white tube of some sort at Ngangata. Hezhi saw all of this in an incredible blaze of light and lucidity as a single drop of her blood squirted from off Karak’s blade and struck the surface of the water; a column of white flame leapt up and ignited the very air.
Then the pain truly caught her, and she realized that there was steel in her, and without a single thought she lashed at Karak.
What happened then wasn’t clear to her, save that the knife wrenched out and she was shoving her fist into the hole in her side. Karak stumbled away from her, sheeted in blue flame—while she was hurled back onto the shingle. She hit and slid, able to think only about the blood that soaked her dress with preposterous speed. She had done something to Karak; he was clutching his eyes—
Her heart reached hummingbird pitch, and the motion around her seemed to slow, so that she could almost leisurely pick out the details of the strange dance being performed for her benefit, there in a stygian courtyard that only a god could imagine. But she could do nothing, say nothing, because her thoughts were all gushing from her side with the waters of her life.
Tsem hit the Blackgod with his club, and the god pitched back, an arrow appearing in him at almost the same moment. Qwen Shen shrieked as Yuu’han hewed into her, the sorcerous flowers of energy gathering on her fingertips suddenly withering. Brother Horse struck his sword through Bone Eel, but Hezhi could see a coiled serpent of power in the nobleman, revealed as it was unleashed. All of his strands surged into the pointed bone tube he held. As Brother Horse stepped back to gather for a second swing, Bone Eel turned faster than a snake, and the tube he was holding suddenly telescoped, shot out like an improbably fast-growing stalk of grass; it passed all the way through Brother Horse, who stood transfixed for a moment before dropping his sword. Heen, worrying at Bone Eel’s leg, went flying, yelping, through the air.
Hezhi choked on a scream, kicking away from it all, crawling back over the black stones, life leaking out of the hole in her.
The light from the burning blood was fading, but she could see perfectly well as Tsem hit the Blackgod again, and again, and again, until his club broke. Ngangata rushed toward her, but Bone Eel turned and the weird thing he held suddenly lanced out again, passed through the halfling’s shoulder. He gasped and collapsed, bow clattering to the ground.
He’s killing my friends, she realized. Why?
Hukwosha answered her. Does it matter? Release me. I shall deal with him.
“Release you?” Hezhi muttered. The scene was wavering. She felt very weak. “Very well.”
And she did.
Hukwosha sprang into the frail and wounded body with a terrible shout of triumph, a bellow to shake the heavens. Too long had he been bound by first this godling and then that, and finally, humiliation upon humiliation, by mortal Man and Woman! But wounded and half out of her mind, this one had released him, and he did not intend to pass the opportunity by. Before him lay an entire world, as it had in the beginning, in the darkling plain even before Karak brought the sun. What cared he for these scheming gods and their demented brother?
But it nagged him to run. Hezhi wanted him to stop the man with the tube—he had killed Brother Horse and Ngangata! No, he saw that that wasn’t true; the old man was fumbling with his drum, albeit feebly. Yet what did he, Hukwosha, care for the old man, for Hezhi’s desires? He bunched his muscles and prepared to go—as an attack struck him, the point of Bone Eel’s jumping spear-bone turning on his hide. His fierceness overwhelmed his reason then. He turned on the man—ah! Not a man, but a Lemeyi, one of those silly half-god sorcerers. He lowered his horns. Little creature, Hukwosha thought, you’ve made a singular mistake.
His first charge lifted the puny thing from its feet, rammed him into the stone wall. Fierce energies rained upon him, attacks gnawed at his heart, and given time they might have succeeded; but he twisted the immortal heartstrands on his horns and snapped them, sent all of Bone Eel’s potence out into the air to fade. Then he shook the impudent, broken thing from him.
When he turned, there was Karak, rising up over the body of Tsem like the shadow of the carrion bird he was. Karak appeared unhappy.
“Hezhi,” he snarled. “You fool. You are wasting your blood, don’t you know that? It is the only thing that can slay him!”
“My blood?” Hukwosha snarled.
“You will slay him and take his place, Hezhi. You will not die, you will become a goddess. But you must stop fighting me.” Then his face hardened further. “Or fight me, it matters not.”
Hukwosha lowered his horns to charge again, but sudden weakness jolted through him. He became aware of the gash in his side, shifted his hand in it in the vague hope that the blood would stop pouring out, wondering where his horns and hooves and might had all run off to.
“Hukwosha—” Hezhi began, but Karak reached out with an impossibly long talon and ripped Hukwosha from her, tore the great bull into shards of light, scattered them on the water. He fixed what remained—her—with the suddenly argent orb of one eye.
“Now, child, your blood. It is for the best. There must be a River, you know. It just need not be him.”
Hezhi stumbled back, but all of the bull’s strength was gone. “I don’t want to be a goddess,” she murmured, as if trying to explain something simple to a child.
“You have no choice. Only his blood can slay him—and you we can control. We will not make the same mistake we made with him. Perhaps Balati need never know at all, once you wear the Changeling’s clothing.”
He stepped forward.
“Not just yet,” shouted something as it arose from the water.
Perkar’s fingers tingled as he loosened his death grip on Sharp Tiger’s mane. That wasn’t easy to do, for the Mang stallion continued down the narrow spiral trail, if not at a full gallop, well beyond a canter. No horse could be so surefooted, but Sharp Tiger seemed either unaware of or unconcerned about that simple fact. Still, Perkar knew he would need feeling in his hands soon, feeling enough to wield Harka one last time, and so he unknotted his fingers from the thick black hair and let his legs hold him on, allowed himself a moment of reluctant humor at the memory of the expressions on the faces of Karak’s men as he and the stallion crashed from the woods, through their ranks, and into the pit.
He wondered how much farther down he had to travel; night had fallen, and he could no longer make out the opening to the sky, nor tell how fast and far he had already descended.
He remembered the last time he had entered Balat, what seemed like centuries ago. Could he really have been so proud, so arrogant, so absolutely sure of himself? It didn’t seem possible. When he entered the mountain, he had been a boy, full of dreams and ideals and hopes higher than the stars. When he left he had felt old, used, and worn. Scores of days had passed before the first glimmer of light had entered back into his soul. One such glimmer had been Brother Horse, when he met the old man, hiding on an island in the Changeling. Another had been Ghaj, the widow near Nhol who taught him that he could find pleasure with other than a goddess. But in the end, in the aftermath, it had been Hezhi who brought real joy back to
him.
Why hadn’t he ever admitted that? Because he would rather force her to share blame for his crimes than enjoy her company? Because he feared she could never care for a killer and a fool?
His scalp prickled and he urged Sharp Tiger on for the first time since mounting him. Incredibly, the stallion did increase his speed in response, though Perkar would not have believed that possible. He recalled, with a sudden chill wonder, part of a song
Raincaster once sang—tried to sing, anyway, in Perkar’s own tongue, so that he would understand it. In Mang it had flowed glissando, one syllable to the next. In Perkar’s language it had rung stilted but still powerful—wounded but not crippled.
And whosoever should kill you
Bright steed, blood-girded brother
Let him beware, let him fear
My life, become a weapon
Such that vengeance itself will
Appear a small, whimpering thing.
This I swear to you as I live
And when buzzards pick my bones
And when my bones are dust
Four-hooved brother.
A man would avenge his steed as he would a relative, according to the ancient word and blood of the Horse Mother. Would a horse do the same for its rider? Would the Horse Goddess aid such a purpose?
He would find out soon enough, he was sure—if he wasn’t too late. Had the Blackgod already slain Hezhi? Had her blood already destroyed the Changeling and replaced him? The sick feeling in his gut told him that deep down, he must have always known that Karak’s solution would be this. What had he pictured, some sort of battle royal, them flailing at the water with their swords? A jar of the god’s essence that they could simply crack? No, this was the only way that made sense. Human blood had such a powerful effect on gods, and Hezhi’s blood was both Human and Changeling. It would flow down him like hemlock, numbing him as it went so that he wouldn’t even know he was dead until the last drop of him reached the sea. And in his place would be Hezhi, or whatever it was that Hezhi had become—a goddess, but perhaps one that Karak and his kin could exert more influence over. A weaker River Goddess with less ambitious aims.
But Hezhi would be dead. The woman just waking in her child’s face would never come fully alive; she would never read another book or see another herd of wild cattle. And she would be lost to him.
It always comes back to me, he thought angrily.
If only he weren’t too late.
Ghe rose from the water, trembling with power and rage at what he saw. Hezhi lay before him, her blood and life leaking out of her like a flower cut off at the stalk. Others lay about, dead or dying, and a clump of soldiers who emanated only confusion but were now turning toward him. Qwen Shen was among the dead—he regretted that bitterly, for he would have preferred to dispense her punishment himself—and Bone Eel was among the mortally wounded. Bone Eel’s Human guise had been stripped bare, however, and the fading life Ghe saw was that of the guardian of the Water Temple, the foul creature who had made pets of emperors. Another regret; but Bone Eel—or whatever the thing was really named—was still fading, so perhaps there would be time to punish him.
Presiding over the massacre was what could only be the Blackgod, a maelstrom of power, standing above Hezhi like her executioner. He turned angrily at Ghe’s challenge, his aura sharpening into a threat of power greater than even that of the Huntress. But he had defeated the Huntress, had he not? And the cold expanse of water below him would absorb any amount of energy he cared to take. Still, before attacking, he reached out and ate the approaching warriors as a first course.
He sprang with the speed and force of a javelin, and the Blackgod fell back. Desperately he plunged stinger and claw—both physical and arcane—through the weird flesh of the being, hoping to quickly find the artery of his strength. If the discharge burnt him, so be it.
Lightning speared him, seared a hole in the tough plates of his belly large enough for a cat to crawl through. Every muscle in his body clenched into knots so tight that some pulled loose of the bone. Another bolt flashed, lit the underground lake with violet light, and he was torn loose from the Bird God, thrown roughly to the shingle, twitching.
The Blackgod laughed as Ghe struggled to regain control of his inhuman limbs, his strength ebbing with each instant. The water was near, but it was as if a wall had been erected between him and that source of life. Feebly he tried to crawl.
“So this is the best Brother can send against me,” the Blackgod mocked, shaking his head and clucking. “Let me introduce myself, Ghe of Nhol. I am Karak, sun-bringer, storm lord, master of rain and thunder, the Raven, the Crow.”
“You are a corrupt demon,” Ghe snarled, “and you must die.”
“Oh, indeed?” Karak asked, and lightning lit the cavern once again in a hideous similitude of twilight.
Perkar beheld the tableau below, long before the lightning; Harka gave him vision in the darkness. And so it was with a sense of unbelievable helplessness that he watched the tiny figures meet and fall, not certain who any of them were. A monster rose from the water and attacked one of the shapes, and then came the lightning, and from that he knew which participant was Karak.
He and Sharp Tiger were a single turn of the spiral path from the cavern floor—perhaps the height of fifteen men from the stones—when a third peal of thunder roared up through the pit; Perkar saw, almost precisely below him, the shadowy form of the Blackgod and the blasted carcass of some fishlike monster. To his horror, he also saw Hezhi crumpled nearby, an unmistakable pool of blood spreading beneath her. Brother Horse, Yuu’han, Ngangata, and Tsem all lay immobile on the black stones. All of the warriors who came with Karak lay still. He knew he should be angry, but all he could summon was a vague denial and a rising wind of fear. Too far, too long to complete the last turn as Karak, the clear victor, turned to Hezhi’s body.
Perkar suddenly stiffened as the air rang like an iron bell, and through flesh and bone Perkar suddenly saw Sharp Tiger’s heart glow like a red-hot anvil, heard the stallion scream, felt him leap into space. It was no slip, no mistake; the horse laid back his ears and jumped. Perkar’s mind—already staggered—simply refused to accept what had happened for an instant, but as the fall took his weight and filled his stomach with feathers, a sudden wild elation stifled a nascent yelp. “Brave boy, Tiger,” he had time to say instead, before he and the vengeful mount of Good Thief crashed into the black-cloaked figure.
The impact robbed him briefly of his senses, but Harka would not let him plunge into true unconsciousness, shrieking alarm in his ears. It was a good thing; he regained his feet at the same moment as Karak. Sharp Tiger, unbelievably, was still alive, struggling to rise on four broken legs. With a snarl, Karak reached and slapped the stallion’s skull; it split open, and the beast died. Perkar hoped—in the brief instant he had to hope—that Mang legend was true, that Sharp Tiger and Good Thief would be reunited as one on some far-off steppe. Then he had no time for thoughts of that sort or otherwise as he fell upon Karak with Harka.
The first five or so blows landed, and Karak tripped back, golden blood glistening from several wounds. Perkar howled, swinging the blade savagely, not so much like a sword as like an axe, as if he were hewing deadwood. Karak’s daunting yellow eyes stayed steady on him, but he knew that he must just keep his attack going, not give the god a single pause, keep the fear from gathering tight in his chest to slow his arms.
A black fist leapt past his guard and smote him with such force that he felt bones crack in his jaw. He slapped into the ground, rolled, and came back up with his blade ready.
Karak loomed over him, still with Human form and face but glossy black save for the orbs of his eyes. He shook his head no. “Pretty thing, is this how you repay me? I am only doing what I said I would do. Stand aside and let me finish what we began together.”
“I won’t let you kill her,” Perkar shouted. “Not even to slay the Changeling.”
“She won’t die,” Karak return
ed. “Only her flesh will die. She will become mightier than she ever dreamed. Otherwise, she is dead already. Her body is beyond saving.”
Perkar glanced again at Hezhi’s feebly moving form, heart sinking at the sight of her pale face and the huge pool of blood. Could such a tiny creature contain so much blood? It didn’t seem possible.
“Her death will be meaningless unless she bleeds her last into the Changeling,” Karak hissed urgently. “She will have died for nothing, when she needn’t die at all. But we must hurry!”
Perkar turned slowly back to the Crow God, knowing that he had already done his best and failed. But the storm of dread in his belly, instead of rising to a cyclone, began to break, diminish. “Between the two of us, Karak, we have brought about the deaths of everyone I hold dear,” he said measuredly, wishing he had something more profound to offer as last words. “I have lost my Piraku and betrayed my people, and you were behind it all. So let one or both of us die today—and I hope for the sake of the world it is both. And if it is me, you may do as you will.” He raised Harka.
Karak sighed and reached to a sheath at his own side. “Very kind of you, to give me your leave. I could deal with you as I did him,” he said, indicating the fish-thing. With a horrible start, Perkar saw that it had a man’s face—the face of the Tiskawa, in fact. “But you I will give a chance to die with Piraku, for you have served me well, Perkar Kar Barku.” He drew his blade. “Do you recognize this sword?”
Perkar stared, his mouth suddenly dry. “Yes,” he admitted unwillingly, haltingly. “It is my sword. The one my father gave me.”
“Is it? I found it in a pool of red blood, here in this very mountain. I had it retempered to suit me. But I must correct you in one particular; since you threw it away, it is my sword now.”
“Something very strange about that blade,” Harka warned him, but Perkar was beyond reason. The sudden fury that filled him was greater than any he had ever known, a tenebrous joy that could not distinguish between killing and dying. He flung himself at the Blackgod, Harka curving out and down.