Blackdog

by K V Johansen

  Still: a new land, a new chance, at the far end of the caravan road, farther than the gangs of the Four Deserts and the Western Road ever went. Nabban was at least a conveniently distant goal, and it would leave her father and the Blackdog, leave Shaiveh and Bikkim and Pakdhala, far behind. It could be like being born again.

  The dog ran. If it was tired, it did not feel it. Pakdhala was in Lissavakail. It knew this. It had been told. It would not overtake the abductors, but it would come in time. She would not be harmed, not yet. It had been told this as well. It did not remember being told; it only knew. It left the steep road for steeper tracks, swam a river, went down a cliff a goat would not dare and up a cascade. It was followed. It ignored the grey shadow in the sky. Not an enemy. Kin. It had been alone, so alone, so long. It was not alone. The shadow vanished, reappeared, went its own way, but always returned. There was no betrayal in that one, the dog knew it, as though it were memory. It might have been, must have been, because the other was kin too, yet thought of that other was sickness and rage, and not all for its goddess.

  The rocks were sometimes ice. Sometimes the dog did not think it ran. It flew, a flame in the air, a shard of light. Memory fell in drops, fragments, as if some cave of ice began to thaw. Drops pooled, brought emotion it had not known, forgotten since it began this life. Slow, so slow to gather, to become clear to the watching mind. Dawn was on it soon after it left Serakallash. Day followed, when the few travellers on the mountain road fled the pony-sized hound and whispered, The Blackdog… Sunset and night falling, and the memories gathered.

  Light, liquid as water, warmth and companionship and home. Ice, sharp as black stone. Ice and stone and darkness, loss and exile. And the white sky cracking, and a world to shape into a weapon, a bridge thrusting home…That world nearly broke beneath them; in their hundreds they fought upon it, till so much was ruin. But they failed.

  They were shattered, the black world seizing them again in claws of ice. Itself was shattered. Lost. Forgotten.

  There you are. See, there is something left of you after all. One of the many we thought dead and lost, but not quite dead after all. Now listen, feel, if you cannot think. Let Holla-Sayan think, let him stand interpreter. You have been made slave of a little goddess of this earth. You are bound in wizardry, human wizardry, nothing more. She is not owed this passion and devotion; she does not merit it; she has taken it by rapine and conquest, by defeat of a crippled soldier. Understand that. The Great Gods themselves did not steal our souls from us.

  I won’t be Pakdhala’s enemy, Holla-Sayan protested, and he was there, aware, within the dog. It allowed him that much.

  You can’t fight Tamghiz Ghatai in the dog’s madness, and it can’t win against Tamghiz Ghatai, crippled as it will always be whether you free it or not. You’ll both be destroyed, utterly and entirely, your soul, Holla-Sayan, and the Blackdog, consumed and corrupted into what Ghatai has become.

  So send it back where it belongs. If you’re truly a devil, if it is—send it back wherever you came from.

  Her laughter was bitter. Ah, if we could—what do you think we came so near destroying your world to gain, in the war that scarred the world, the war human history has near forgotten? What do you think we seven pulled the north into fire and blood for, in the history you still sing? Why do you think Ghatai hungers so for a greater binding to the power of this earth, this goddess’s soul woven into his heart, but to storm the heavens again? We don’t belong in the cold hells, Holla-Sayan. That’s a prison, not home. Though there was a home before we came to the plane that humans call the distant heavens. Lost… Her thought trailed away. Holla-Sayan, I can’t let Ghatai take the Blackdog, and Attalissa’s binding will not let it leave Ghatai to me, it will not let the dog wait and plan when she seems in such peril. So—you find a way to free it from that compulsion, or you at least master it so that it does not make some berserker’s attack so soon as we come to Lissavakail, or I will have to act. And that would mean your death and my sibling sent mad back to the cold hells, at best.

  At best? What’s at worst?

  The destruction of both your souls.

  As if she had no doubt but that she could do so. The tales said Vartu Kingsbane had murdered King Hravnmod the Wise, who was her own brother. No matter what the dog felt about her, he should not trust her.

  What happens to Pakdhala if the dog is set free?

  That’s a matter between Attalissa and the spirit she bound, nothing to do with you. It may depend on her.

  It is very much to do with me. She’s my daughter. I won’t free this thing to turn on her.

  Moth’s silence was heavy.

  What will it do? You say you knew this thing.

  No. If I did, I would give it back its name. We were many, once. Too many did die. I can’t know how it feels in its true heart about Attalissa after all this time, how it will feel when it is free. You know it better than I ever could. But what it may become, free—I don’t think it can survive long on its own in this world; it’s too weak. This isn’t our place, Holla-Sayan. You know that. You remember. It needs to be of the world. It was dying, slowly, when Attalissa bound it.

  You mean it’s still going to seek a host to possess.

  Not necessarily.

  Great Gods damn you—

  They already have.

  Say what you mean. But he began to understand. What you—what Vartu did to Ulfhild the King’s Sword.

  Nothing she didn’t accept.

  She went mad! She killed her brother and—

  We did not! It was almost an attack. The dog snarled, at Moth or at Holla himself, he wasn’t sure which.

  Great crimes, yes. We tried to make an empire, to draw on enough of the force of the earth to raise a road to the heavens and shatter the walls…we never cared what we broke, pursuing that end, and that included the lives of the fool wizards who invited us in. But I never killed Hravnmod.

  He believed her. He thought it was he who believed, and not only the dog.

  Are you I or we? he asked.

  Depends. She laughed. We’re one. Mostly. How about you?

  No answer.

  It isn’t possession, Holla-Sayan. It isn’t the madness you’ve been living with. You won’t harm Attalissa, your Pakdhala, at least.

  My life sacrificed for a…a creature…a being that you say is injured to the edge of death, that is so damaged it will never be whole, never be a free and thinking person again.

  You’re stronger than it is, Holla-Sayan.

  Hells I am.

  There, no, not within its own being. That is not a place for a physical creature at all. But here, yes, in this world of which you are part, blood and bone and soul, you are. Neither of you realize this, and so it is stronger, though it is all will and emotion without reason, because you fight within the world of its soul. Find the earth where your feet belong, and stand firm there.

  Did you? Did Ulfhild?

  No. We are one, don’t you understand that? We became that willingly. But you’ll have to fight the Blackdog to free it. It is Attalissa’s will that it is bound, you see, and it will not let you overturn Attalissa’s will.

  Holla’s protest that Attalissa would not, could not, do such a thing died unformed in memory of Laykas, the Blackdog who had massacred Serakallash. Attalissa had been a conqueror, oh yes. She had used the Blackdog in the little wars of the mountains, until her reach was exhausted. She had not always cared to spare the man that bore the spirit, either. The dog stirred uncomfortably, resisting the thought.

  Maybe it’s time for it to die. Long past time. Did your folk not have the mercy to finish a warrior left dying on the battlefield, someone dragging on in agony? Did you never have to do that in pity for a horse or dog you cared for?

  If it was as it must have been when the Great Gods first left it dying, believing it not worth banishing from the world—yes. But now? Now it lives.

  A parasite. An idiot child. A mad and feral beast.

  Ya, true. M
aybe. But—what are you, Holla-Sayan? You’ve been the Blackdog long enough—are you whole without it?

  Of course I am.

  Are you? Well, maybe. I don’t know you. But the heart of the matter is, you must free it, come what may after that, or it will attack Ghatai, and I will have to kill the both of you to stop him possessing your souls and gaining your strength. So. Consider.

  And how the hells am I supposed to free it, anyhow?

  It must know. It’s the only witness left to how Attalissa bound it. Your Pakdhala isn’t going to tell you, even if she remembers.

  She might.

  Maybe. She’s become a very human god. If she’s out paddling in the lake you can ask her, I suppose.

  Help me.

  I’ve given you all the help I can see to give. If you can’t find a way—maybe you’ll live if Lakkariss takes the dog. But I doubt it. Heuslar didn’t.

  Heuslar the Deep-Minded, Honey-tongued Ogada. She could say she was one, Ulfhild and Vartu, but she still separated her old ally—and kinsman, if the tales told true—into two when she spoke of his death.

  Not that I wanted him to, she added, almost a growl more apt to come from the bear-man. Try to see the dog’s heart, Holla-Sayan. That’s all I can guess. Find it, return it, before Tamghiz Ghatai finds you.

  This is the road around the lake.

  Ya.

  That was a choice. Somehow undo a goddess’s wizardry, set free a mind-crippled, mad devil upon the goddess who had enslaved it, who was his daughter, his human daughter of the heart, or be drowned in the devil’s madness and killed by Moth, to save him from being killed or worse by Tamghat.

  And right away, of course. What the hell did he know of wizardry?

  Somewhere within, somehow, he carried the stone from Sayan’s barkash, the talisman that told him he might wander, but he was not godless, he had a place in the world. Always a son of Sayan, a child of the Sayanbarkash, and Sayan had promised he would always know Holla’s soul, whatever he had become.

  The devils had sought the strength of the world. Men did not understand its strength. His thought or the dog’s?

  Holla-Sayan tried to draw the dog back, then, to pull it within himself, but it fought him, thrust him down. He might have outwrestled it back when they first fought for dominance, but now it was driven by its need to reach the goddess. It would bury him again—he stopped fighting it. So. At least he could hold on to himself, this way. So long as he did not yet try to stop the dog coming swift as it could to Lissavakail.

  Demons hid their hearts. Whether that was literal truth or poetry, he didn’t know if anyone knew. What was a devil’s heart, though? A devil’s soul?

  He dropped deep within the dog, following the glistening thread it had flung into his heart from beyond that blind, reflecting wall, it seemed a lifetime since. Dove down as far as he dared go, holding fast to himself, not to be lost, drowned there. Holding fast to self, but letting all else fade from him. Quiet. Stillness. And he waited. He was Holla-Sayan, child of Sayan’s barkash. He was the Blackdog. There was memory there, life upon life. There was…beast-life, such misery, uncomprehending madness, death upon death, a desperate clinging to the world in a form belonging to the world, whatever prey chanced by that was great enough to sustain it. A drowning desperation that scrabbled for a clawhold in the air, in the light of life. So Moth spoke truth. A maimed being, instinct fighting to exist. Nothing more than that. What if it had no heart at all, no soul?

  No. Without that centre, it would have died entirely. It would not have struggled to continue to exist.

  Attalissa—proud young woman, wizard and warrior, oh, not so unlike that silver-haired Northron, arrogance in every move—she had snared it in a web of grass and turquoise, snared it in beads of lake-water. It was a parasite, as he called it, drawing strength to exist from the earth through the pitiable shell of some straying herd-dog, gone mad through lack of sleep because the wounded devil could not rest, because it sought and could not find a way home, and it did not remember where home was. She took the devil’s heart in her hands, cool fire…

  The dog flung him away. He circled in darkness, settled, stillness itself. He began to build Sayan’s hillcrest beneath him, night-cool earth and air, sweet grass hissing in the wind, the stars, clean and bright. Gravelly soil, a white pebble there, beneath the grass. He put his hand on it and found he had a hand to put. Illusion. Vision. An ant crawled over his hand.

  Easy, easy, he soothed the dog. We’ll find your heart. I think…I almost see. He turned sidelong to the thoughts, as he had once to the idea of leaving Pakdhala with his mother on the Western Grass. It’s no threat to you, no danger to the goddess. It will save her. You can’t fight Tamghat, remember? Moth can.

  Vartu.

  His heart, if he had one there, almost stopped. A word, and it was the dog’s mind, not his, that uttered it.

  Vartu can, he agreed. Ghatai would destroy you and the goddess both. That’s what he wants.

  The dog was all longing for Attalissa.

  No. Slow down. Let me carry you. We’ll go to Attalissa, but we’ll go carefully. Trust me. You know me. I’m the one who knows you’re not a mindless spirit. I know you’re not an animal. I know you’re still there, somewhere. Trust me. Trust Vartu. She says Attalissa won’t be harmed, she says Ghatai is waiting for the right stars. Patience.

  It wanted Attalissa.

  I’ll take you to Attalissa. I’ll take you. But you have to trust me. You have to let me.

  They were close, heart to absent heart. He stood on Sayan’s hill and wrapped himself around the dog. It convulsed, flinging him away, into the darkness—but he did not go, he held it, sure of himself, the centre of himself, and he thrust it down, out of the world, and stayed with it there, holding it, while he was in the world.

  Fell. Groaned, could not get even an arm under himself, trembling in every joint. But he was strong where it mattered and he held the dog down, lying on the roadside in the dusk. The waves of the Lissavakail whispered, rubbing the shale, but Holla-Sayan didn’t hear them.

  Moth came down on a knee beside him, feather-cloak swirling, touched his face. His skin was dry and fever-hot, grey, but his breathing slow and deep. Asleep, simply asleep.

  Holla-Sayan?

  Go away. Even his thought was slow, weary. Need to rest. You find ‘Dhala for us.

  I came to find Tamghiz.

  Pakdhala! The dog stirred. She felt it, felt him tighten his hold around it, an embrace. You find Pakdhala. I’ll find your kin-devil’s heart.

  You rest, Moth agreed. She sighed. The road was empty. She lifted him, strength not human, carried him off the road, down to the lakeshore and into the shelter of a clump of silver-leafed willows. The slender sprawling trunks and some white-flowered creeper clambering over the stones and hanging from the branches would hide him from anyone passing by, if he slept the night away into daylight. Succeeding in waking him would be the last thing any fool did.

  Too many people demanding to be looked after. The only one she cared about was Mikki. The rest tangled her. The half-demon had, too, at the start. Mikki would say that was the point of people, to tangle you in life. He had better show up soon. She needed to know he was at her back, if she was going to face Tamghiz again.

  Waking brought Pakdhala a horribly pounding headache, a fevered burning in her throat, and the certain knowledge of where she was. A great curtained bed. The wind blew in off the lake through the pierced shutters, carrying the scent of the Lissavakail, the cool sweet waters. The sunlight made dapples on the blue and green marble mosaic of the floor, a rippling water pattern. Home, and in her own high room.

  “Her Holiness is awake.” The voice was a whisper. Cloth rustled, people rising. Pakdhala could not turn her head, but she managed to roll her eyes. Women—girls her own age—were getting to their feet, clustering round. So many mountain-born faces looked alien, blankly untattooed, snub noses, absurdly cropped hair. They wore gowns of indigo. Priestesses? She knew
none of them.

  Ah. The new crop of novices Tamghat had collected. Hostages, they said in Serakallash, or worse. Perhaps those confined to the temple were the lucky ones.

  “Let us help you, Holiness.”

  What kind of a ridiculous title was that? She tried to mouth a protest, could not even mew. They propped her up.

  Her hair was damp, combed out into a rippling sheet, cool cascade down her back. She was clean, skin-tinglingly clean, like after a good scrubbing and oiling in the baths. She was scented—reeked—of some perfume, heavier than she would ever choose, more Immerose’s style, or Varro’s, and even the barbarian Northron didn’t bathe in it. Beneath that she could smell rainwater, warm, flat, empty, and harsh soap more fit for scrubbing floors. No wonder her skin hurt. Did—she would not even think the name—did they mind the smell of camels so much? They had bathed her in water from the rooftop cistern. Why? To keep her from the lake? She had been so long from the lake and now she could smell it, could almost touch it—almost. Not quite. She might as well be on the desert road, and that was surely not right, when she was the lake.