The Blackgod cotc-2

by Gregory Keyes

  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, burnt 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 Black-god 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, Yu-u'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 returned. “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.

  “HEZHI,” a voice muttered from very near. She turned to see Brother Horse, clutching a drum in one hand.

  “Grandfather,” she whispered back.

  “Can you see it? Can you see what you need?”

  “Brother Horse, I'm dying.”

  “Listen to me,” he snarled angrily. “I told you I wouldn't let you do that. Won't let you die! Listen to me …” But his eyes fluttered and he spat blood.

  “What?” she asked, though she hardly felt concerned anymore—instead she felt strangely serene, light-headed.

  “There.” He pointed at the thing that might have once been Ghe. “See, beneath the lake. Look beneath the lake.”

  She looked. It was easy, for death was dragging her beneath anyway. She first saw Brother Horse, a fading warmth, his ghost already coming unmoored.

  I can take him in, she thought. Like a god, keep him in my breast. She reached to do so.

  But above the lake, his hand clutched hers. “No,” he barely whispered. “You don't have the strength for that. You need me like this.” His eyes gleamed with laughter, love, and comfort as he gripped her hand more tightly. “Tell Heen I said farewell,” he murmured. “Heen tells me he loves you …” Then his eyes lost their light as a flame surged into her, filled her with new strength.

  And Brother Horse was gone, his hand already cooling, no trace of his heartstrands remaining.

  Look beneath the hke, he had said, and, trembling, she did so, afraid to waste his last gift on anguish.

  The “waters” closed over her. I am dying, she realized a
gain. The Blackgod stabbed me. And, finally, she understood Karak's words, saw the use her blood would be put to, the results it would bring. She had to stop that somehow—and Brother Horse had seen how she could do it, seen some weapon she might use. He had pointed at Ghe.

  She saw Karak still—a black thing of feathers and blue fire in the otherworld. She saw Ghe, too, knew him instantly. He still resembled some sort of inky net, with the scintillating bulbs of stolen souls bound to him like jeweled weights. But the net was rent, the pattern of his body in disarray. A few souls still glimmered there, however, and she reached, featherlight, to touch them.

  Her swan and mare were still with her, though injured as she was. The swan guided her and the mare held her up, and together they brushed her fingers through the shattered remains of Ghe. One of the souls responded to her tentative inquiry, produced a voice that floated thinly to her.

  “Hezhi?”itsaid.”Hezhi?”

  She paused. She knew that voice. “Ghan?”

  “Indeed,” he answered, gathering a bit of strength.

  “Ghan, how did you—”

  “I died. He captured my ghost—a fairly simple matter for him.”

  “Ghan, I have so much to tell you,” she began. An image of him formed in her mind, his parchmentlike face, the knowing twinkle in his black eyes that could so often glare with irritation. She had lost Brother Horse, but here Ghan was back.

  He laughed. “No time for that. No time for that at all.”

  “No time for anything, I think,” she said.

  “No, you are wrong. Ghe is stronger than the Blackgod knows, and I think if we can win his help, there is yet something we can do. But Hezhi, we must hurry.”

  “Tell me what to do then.”

  He told her.

  HARKA slashed down as Karak's blade rose to meet it, and the two came together in a shower of sparks. In Perkar's ear, Harka shrieked piteously. He had never known the weapon could feel pain or fear, but now both shuddered through him, as if the blade had become his own arm, skin removed and nerves laid bare.

  Karak hammered down a second blow, and Perkar raised his blade to meet it.

  “No!” Harka screamed; then steel clashed and the godblade burst into a thousand bits. The hilt leapt from his hand, and in his ear, Harka's dying cry faded into nothing. Perkar swayed, weaponless, in the following silence.

  “Now,” Karak said, “that silliness is over with.” He bent toward Hezhi's body.

  An arrow shaft appeared in his eye. Karak shrilled and straightened, seeking his new attacker. Ngangata stood less than a score of paces away. Half of his body was soaked in red Human blood, but he raised his bow for a second shot. Karak darted forward, faster than a mortal eye could follow, and in that eye-blink his sword plunged into the halfling's chest. Ngangata snarled and yet tried to raise his weapon, but Karak twisted the blade, and Ngangata's eyes turned to Perkar. They brimmed with tears of agony, but his gaze held no self-pity or even fear—it conveyed apology. Apology—for having failed him. Perkar leapt once again, shrieking inarticulately, still unarmed, bent upon tearing the Crow God apart with his bare hands. With a flashed look of utter disdain, Karak turned and ran him through, as well, the blade sliding into his navel and out his back. He knew no shock at being impaled, because in the past year he had taken more than one such wound. But before, he might have fought up the blade, or at least quickly disengaged himself. Now he merely glared at his murderer, still refusing to admit it was over.

  Karak held him up with the blade for an instant, yellow eyes bright with contempt. “See how you like that without a magic sword to heal you,” he spat.

  “Ah,” Perkar moaned. Karak released the hilt. Sword still in his belly, Perkar felt his knees wobble and give way, and he sat down roughly.

  He almost fell on Ngangata. The halfling was still alive, though just barely so. Karak regarded them for just a moment, then stepped toward Hezhi.

  “I-I'm sorry,” Ngangata managed to stammer.

  “Shut up, you dumb Brush-Man,” Perkar whispered. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

  “I could have … I could have …” Ngangata seemed confused, unable to think of what he might have done.

  Trembling, Perkar leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “I'm the one who is sorry, brother. Piraku with you and about you.” He patted the dying halfling on the shoulder. “I've got just one more thing to do,” he said, feeling a little giddy but otherwise surprisingly well, considering. “Then I'll come join you here.”

  Ngangata nodded but said nothing.

  Perkar put both hands on the sword hilt, closed his eyes, and pulled.

  GHE brushed his hps upon Hezhi's and felt triumph. He, a gutter scorp from Southtown, had kissed a princess. He stepped back from her, wanting to see her lovely eyes, hoping to see love there.

  What he saw instead was urgency.

  “Hello, Yen,” she said very seriously.

  “Princess.”

  “I need your help.”

  Ghe noticed for the first time that there were other figures behind Hezhi. They all stood in the little courtyard above Nhol, where Hezhi had taken him once to look down at the ships. But he understood that could not be where they were as his memories—what little remained of them—returned.

  “I've failed you,” he said, feeling hot, unaccustomed tears start in his eye, remembering the Blackgod carving him with a knife of living thunder.

  “Not yet. There is still time,” Ghan said from behind Hezhi. The third figure was the stream demon, the woman—she sat sullenly on the bench by the cottonwood tree. Near her, looking old and defeated, stood the ancient Nholish lord he had captured in the Water Temple. Lengnata was fat, his eyes piggish little dots.

  “Where are we, really?” he asked Hezhi.

  “In your mansion. The place where you keep the souls you capture.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I came to see you, Ghe. Because there is something you can do to save me.”

  “Anything.”

  “You must slay the River to do it.”

  Ghe's limbs began to quake. He shuddered violently. “I can't do that. You have to know I can't do that. Even if I had the power—”

  Anger wrote itself on her features. “You owe me,” she declared. “You made me think you liked me, maybe more than liked me. You owe me.”

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I don't know what that means,” she retorted, but softening. “But I know that I need your help.”

  “I cannot slay the River!”

  Ghan interrupted him. “Have you forgotten Li again, Ghe? We found bits of her in you, in your memory, hidden away and dimmed from your waking mind. The River tried to clean them out of you. He made you kill her, Ghe, because he would not give you what few memories you cherished.”

  Hezhi held something out to him—not something physical, but fragments of his mind, like a shattered mirror. Images of an old woman, her love for him, the care that only she had ever lavished upon him. A day long ago, on the levee of the River…

  “He did steal her from me, didn't he? Why did he do that?”

  Hezhi reached up and brushed the hair from his eyes. “To keep you from being distracted. A real man—one with his own thoughts and motives and loves—a real man makes a poor weapon for the River. The River hates us because he will never really understand us, no matter that he wants our bodies as vessels. He hates you, Ghe, hates me, simply because he needs us. I know what it's like, to have him in me. I do.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. ”But Ghe, he made you from a man. Part of you is still a man. And despite what you did to me, you don't deserve what he has done to you. Neither of us deserves it. I am dying, Ghe. Only you can save me.”

  An inchoate anger was growing in him, but still he persisted. “I… He made me so. I cannot but serve him.”

  “No,” Hezhi said. “No, if you love me, you can serve me. You once told Ghan that whatever I wanted—”

  “I li
ed! Ghan knows that.”

  “You thought you lied,” Ghan said. “But I believed you because it was a deeper truth than you knew. It was the man in you, rather than the Riverghost.”

  Ghe stilled his trembling, braiding his anger and his love. He reached into the secret, cold place that had helped him kill, back when he had been merely Human, when a misstep meant his own death, when compassion was a deadly thing. He wove that into the fibers, too, a warp to lay the weft through. lama blade of silver, I am a sickle of ice, he whispered, and finally, once again, he was.

  “What must I do?” he heard himself say.

  Hezhi leaned up and kissed the scar on his chin, the first wound he ever received. “I'm sorry,” she said. “But what you have to do is die. But we will help you.” And she gestured to the stream demon.

  “Die,” he considered. “I have to die.” He focused on her again, on the exquisite shape of her face. “Will you forgive me then?”

  “I already forgive you, Ghe.”

  “Call me Yen.” She smiled. “Yen.”

  IT took three pulls to remove the sword, each more painful than the last, and the final heave was followed by a gout of blood that he knew must surely have drained him. Nevertheless, though his legs felt like wood, he struggled to stand.

  Nearby, another huge figure stood over Hezhi, which Perkar recognized as Tsem. The Giant interposed himself between the girl and the god.

  “This is getting tiresome,” Karak said. “Perkar, lay down and die. Tsem … oh, never mind.” He raised his hand.

  A scorpion stinger as thick as a Human leg struck the god as a nightmare jumble of limbs and plates suddenly crawled back into motion. Karak rolled his eyes—not in pain but in irritation—and struck the thing away with his hand. “And you!” he snapped. The monster with the face of the assassin from Nhol rose unsteadily on several spiderlike legs. It should have been dead—Perkar could see the hole in it, how burnt and charred it was. Only its head remained Human, and it was the Human eyes that held Perkar, not the monstrous body.