Blackdog

by K V Johansen

  “Who are you?” Attavaia demanded, staring.

  “Pakdhala,” the girl said, and flushed. Well she might. Soaking had turned the thin weave of her shift translucent and in the eerie sourceless moonglow, every delicate rounding and black-haired shadow of her showed. Tsuzas was probably noticing, grant he couldn’t help it.

  “Um.” The girl rubbed her face, rubbed a scar on her forehead, and took a deep breath. “I mean, I should say, Attalissa. Sister Attavaia, were you, um, looking for me?”

  There were better ways she could have introduced herself, but the fixed stare of the priest with the shadow of a dreaming god lying over his mind rattled her. She remembered all too well how Sera had risen in rage against her when Holla-Sayan took her to Sera’s well the first time. How much greater cause had Narva for hatred? Narva whom she had thought all but faded from the world.

  Apologize. That was what her father would say. Ask forgiveness. And Great Gods, what business had the gods of the earth to fight among themselves anyway? If Sayan were as she had been, she would have died in this life long ago and been reborn in Tamghat’s reach, be his by now, and all the lives dependent on her with her. She had been no better than a desert raider; worse, in that she was greater and stronger and should have understood better that all lives and all freedoms were precious and holy.

  The priest swayed, shaken by whatever fierce emotion it was boiled within his distant god. He looked ill. Rage, a god manifest—that would draw Tamghat’s attention down on them if nothing else did.

  The tendril of the god that bound this man to Narva’s heart could be severed, to ban the mountain god from coming so near the lake.

  No. She had no right. And Attavaia still stared as though she were seeing a ghost.

  Then the priest fell like a weed cut through at the roots, eyes rolling up white in his head. Attavaia and she moved at the same moment, fast enough to break his fall, so he came down sprawling in their arms. Attavaia drew his head onto her lap, bent over him, whispering, “Tsu!” with such a mixture of love and tenderness and anger—

  Pakdhala’s heart wrenched and she shut her eyes on Bikkim’s face as she had last seen it, just an edge of grey cheek, bleeding into death on the arcade floor.

  Tsu, if that was the priest’s name, shuddered, and she laid a hand over his heart. Narva’s awareness rose through him like deep waters welling up through sand, a seeping rush.

  “Narva!” Narva, hear me, please. Hear what I say. I have done you great wrong. I can never atone, I know it. But don’t let your rage at me loose here, don’t draw Tamghat’s attention to us. For the sake of this man your priest, if no one else.

  She flowed into the lake, ran up the valleys, coursed through the ice fields. She was in them all; she had been in them, self cut off from self, as she rode the desert miles from Marakand to At-Landi and At Landi to Marakand, a human cycle familiar as the seasons. She was this land, lake and river, valley and peak, but that—that was not hers. Narva still lay in the veins of his mountain, though she had driven him deep, taken valleys and pastures and the mines. She pulled herself out of them, or pushed them out of herself, rivers of light, veins of fire. Narva, take back your lands. Take back your folk. Forgive me my great sins against you. Come back to the waking world, leave your suffering priest’s mind and speak to him in your own voice. Walk the earth in wind and sun and snow again, and if you will, if you will, stand by me when I go to face Tamghat, and set your strength alongside mine. Or do not, if you will not. Protect your folk how you best see fit to do so.

  Was he hearing, not understanding? “Stone,” she said aloud, looking around at them. “I need something from the Narvabarkash, stone, turquoise, something. But it must be of Narva’s land.” The priest’s breath dragged and rattled as if he were a beast near foundering. “Something.”

  Attavaia shook her head.

  “Anything! Anything of the land! Does he have earrings of Narvabarkashi gold, can you get them out, give me one?”

  “Basket,” Attavaia hissed, and struggled one-handed to drag a tall basket from the boat, twisting where she knelt.

  Narva, do you hear me? Can you hear me? Please… Fever rose in the priest’s body; she felt his skin burning under her hand. Attavaia shoved the basket at her.

  “Bluewort from the slope above Narva’s heart. Will that—?”

  Turquoise, gold, stone would be better, earth of the earth. But roots tasted the soil, and they had no time to try to strip the priest of his ornaments. He was starting to thrash against them.

  “Stars!” the priest said. “The devil will take her. Kill her now, kill her now, send her back out of his reach!” He lurched for Pakdhala’s throat, but she held him easily enough, pinning him down again, stronger, with the lake behind her, than he. She reached for the bundle of crumbling herbs Attavaia held out.

  “Narva, see, I give you back the land I stole,” she said aloud, too loudly, had to remember they were mere yards from the temple wall. “Take it!” Narva, take back your earth. Forgive me, please. She had to force the priest’s clawed and clenching fingers open, then force them shut again around the herbs. Poor-man’s indigo, they called it. The scent of crushed bluewort filled the air, sharp and bilious.

  The priest stopped breathing.

  “Tsuzas!”

  He inhaled, almost choking, and struggled to sit up, leaning forward with his head in his hands. Attavaia kept an arm behind his shoulders, glowering at Pakdhala.

  “What have you done?”

  “Given Narva back his mountain,” she said. And probably drawn the attention of Ghatai onto them.

  “My lady…” Attavaia whispered. “Great Gods, my lady, it is you.”

  “I’ve grown, I know,” she offered, with a weak grin. “Turned Westgrasslander, can you tell?”

  “You’ve come back.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” the priest said sharply, pulling away from both of them. He frowned at the plants in his hand, closed his fist on them, and opened it again on ashes. He breathed on them, sending them dancing into the air, out of sight. “He’s going to eat you up, Attalissa. Like consumes like. He is devil and flesh, he will eat you, flesh and god, and then being god, he will come for me and for Sera and…and whoever else lies before him, until he is great enough to break the world.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Are we here to feed ourselves to him? And what have you done with your tame devil? Fed it to him already?”

  “What do you mean, devil?” Attavaia demanded. “My lady, Narva’s talked of devils and stars before—”

  “Tamghat is Tamghiz Ghatai. But the Blackdog is no—”

  “I dreamed it,” Narva said mockingly. “My lady of the lake, you have no idea what it is to dream, drowning in your own heart, entombed in your mind. The stars flow in your blood—”

  “That’s enough,” moaned Attavaia. “Great Gods, isn’t it enough you’ve driven Tsu half-mad as it is? What have you done with him?”

  “She asked for my help. How am I to come within her land and leave my own without my priest’s aid?”

  You don’t need to ride him to be here. We are too close kin now, Narva, we have lain within one another too long. Do you see? Pakdhala—Attalissa—held out a hand, eyes half-shut, found him, cool blue flame.

  Oh. And Narva, for once, said nothing more.

  “But stay hidden in him,” she added. “Tamghat may know, if you walk here openly.”

  “You’ll be lucky if Tamghat’s not just over there listening to every word we say,” Narva muttered. Or was that the priest? “He’s right.” That was definitely Tsuzas, holding his head again. “Great Gods save me.” He looked up at Pakdhala. “Narva’s right. Now what?”

  “A devil,” Attavaia was muttering broodingly. “That explains so much, but Great Gods, how do we fight a devil? It took the Great Gods to bind them, before.”

  “I…” don’t have a plan I like. “I…I need to find the Blackdog before…” Still hidden from her, barring its
elf. Or…the temple? Great Gods, no, not fallen into Tamghat’s grasp.

  “Uncle!” Attavaia said, and her whole face lit. “My mother will be so glad…” She sobered, meeting Attalissa’s eye. “Oh.”

  “Otokas died the day the temple fell. I’m sorry, Attavaia.”

  Attavaia merely nodded.

  It seemed empty to say the proper things, so many years after his death. I’m sorry. Otokas was a good man. He died valiantly. Pakdhala said them anyway.

  “But where have you been all these years, my lady?” Attavaia asked. “You look…” She shrugged, embarrassed. “Quite foreign.”

  “On the caravan-road,” Pakdhala said. “A caravan-mercenary. My father…the Blackdog, is a caravan-mercenary. Attavaia—I’ve heard whispers in Serakallash—a free temple. That’s you?”

  “Yes. But we’re scattered. We meant to raise the valleys tonight, once we’d rescued you—we have the means, at least if the fog clears, we didn’t plan for fog, but…but what can we do against a devil? My lady, we thought when you returned—”

  “I’d crush him like a flea between my fingers? I wish I could. All we can do is…all we can do, Attavaia. I will do all I can, to the end of my life and my strength.”

  They kept giving her…looks. She wasn’t what they expected, what they hoped for and wanted. When she thought of the little doll in brocade and gold the goddess had been, these many lives past, she couldn’t blame them.

  “I don’t know if I can defeat him. I do know I will never let him make himself god of this land. If you can raise the valleys tonight…Yes. It will distract him, surely, if nothing more.” The night spun out of her control, a runaway horse under her. “Are you using beacons? They should be fine. The fog is low on the water.” The fog was nothing natural, called out by some vast and alien power, Tamghat and not-Tamghat—the owl-wizard’s idea of subtle cover, no doubt.

  “We can send a runner to the beacons if we have to, but before the fog, the plan was to use Nabbani fire-tubes.” Attavaia patted the herb-basket.

  She felt Ghatai stirring, a touch on the empty barriers, like a man running his fingers along a pot, checking for cracks. Time was running out. She let the darkness return to the night around them, lest anyone be looking out from the temple, and reached out herself. Tamghat’s awareness was questing through the temple, puzzled, suspicious, but not certain what he felt awry. The man himself was…at the Dawn Dancing Hall? And Sayan be thanked, the Blackdog…it shied away. She flinched herself, as if burnt. It was not Tamghat, but…

  Old Chapel.

  Great Gods. It was free.

  “My lady?”

  “Call me Attalissa, at least,” she said vaguely. Great Gods forgive her, Holla was dead, her father was dead, and they had that…beast unloosed among them, now of all times. Drawn to Ghatai, if Narva’s bitter words were truth, another of devil-kin. Surely she had not known, surely Hareh had not known what it was they hunted, or they would never have committed such an abomination as to bind it to a human host, surely…no time for that.

  Perhaps it could still be mastered, and turned against Ghatai.

  “The fog will burn off in a moment,” she said. “It’s served its purpose. Wait here till it clears, then fire your signals. Drive the Tamghati from the valleys, drive them from Lissavakail. Take back the temple. But don’t, don’t turn on your own folk, my folk, who only bowed to him from fear. I can’t say you will have any kind of victory, but I swear, I will not let him become the god of this land, whatever it takes to prevent that.”

  She turned to go, turned back, bowed to Tsuzas. Narva, if I die, truly die, destroying him, look after my folk. Don’t leave them godless. The priest, wide-eyed, bowed. Attavaia bowed.

  Pakdhala felt small and alone and naked, and very much human.

  They could hear the heart beating, a slow, heavy tolling. Each breath seemed to take a lifetime, thoughts racing, memories, a maelstrom of sensation and emotion that blurred and melted together like the dreams of fever, ice-bright and incomprehensible. A world of crystal and fire and soaring music. Ice. Silence. Darkness. The thick air, the slow-moving, flesh-heavy earth, its gods small sparks of light, rooted in stone and water. Years, this lasted. Centuries. They knew…he seized one face and clung to it. Pakdhala. All else was irrelevant. Here was here, now was now. The Lissavakail, the Old Chapel, Pakdhala. Could they move, that was the question, or were they dead after all? Stupid thought. That was a hand, lying before his face, a tangle of red-tied braids over it. His hand, yes, black snake looping around the wrist. He tried to close it and watched the fingers clench. Good. They were alive.

  Pakdhala. An uncomfortable upwelling of anger, such deep anger, went with that. But it didn’t matter; they—he—would not allow it to matter. They were beyond Attalissa’s reach now, and she was still Pakdhala; he was still Holla-Sayan.

  First things first. He set a shoulder to the altar and heaved. The wood was slimy with rot, but the altar grated aside, opening half the stairwell. He ducked under the edge of the altar, straightened up into stale, musty darkness, except he could see. At least…it was not seeing, but the power, the life that lay in each thing of the world…he saw it, felt it, tasted it—edge and surface and depth, the painted friezes, peeling, patched with mould, the bones, the souls…It was unnerving. He would rather see. Light? He knew the way of it, an old lamp sitting on the floor, its fuel long consumed, kindled to a pale ghost-light. He hadn’t needed the lamp to hold the light, and could laugh at himself for that, but he picked it up regardless, took stock. Human, was he? They? Well, he had grown used to human, in a way, in the long mad years. He hadn’t dreamed how the dog had broken his body; his coat and leather vest were shredded, but the white scars on his chest ached, nothing worse.

  He needed to work out who was who.

  Did it matter?

  Sayan be thanked, light also reduced the chamber to human understanding, colour and memory, and those armoured bones, collapsed together in the corner…

  Six women hid there in the shadows, waiting, uncertain, afraid, knowing and not knowing him.

  “Sister Meeray?”

  She had not changed. No, of course not.

  “Blackdog?” She seemed uncertain. Well she might. What did ghosts see of the world that lay beyond human vision?

  “More or less,” he admitted. What are you still doing here? was the foolish question that came to mind. Killed and left unburied, a final cruelty on Ghatai’s part. “My name’s Holla-Sayan.”

  There was room in the water-filled stairwell for their bones, burial enough to release them, but he had lost so much time already; Pakdhala had been in Tamghat’s hands two days now, too long. “Sisters, I’m sorry. I’ll send someone to honour your bones as soon as I can, but I have to go, I need to find the goddess.”

  “No!” Meeray said. “We’ve waited—Blackdog, we’ve been waiting for you. We knew you’d come back.”

  The door did not look forced, though it was not barred. He frowned at a heap of broken stone, quarried from somewhere and piled beside the door. Had Tamghat tried to tunnel in to them? No…The bones…the ghosts shied away as he came near, carrying the lamp. The skeletons lay—or were heaped—along the wall, as if the bodies had huddled there together, sitting or lying on the floor. One, quite clearly, had settled over the swordblade run between rib cage and pelvis, a mountain shortsword. She had killed herself.

  “He sealed you in here.” Holla-Sayan felt sick.

  “We couldn’t dig our way out.” Meeray shrugged, no clink of armour, no rasp of cloth. “The whole corridor beyond, maybe the whole wing, I don’t know. We can’t leave the Chapel now anyway. But out there, it’s all rubble. More fell as we dug.”

  “That’s where Jabel and I died,” another woman put in softly. Shy Altira. Jabel, at her shoulder, nodded.

  He counted four skulls among the bones at his feet.

  “But—” Lying under earth, under stone, chance-fallen or deliberate burial—those two should have gone to the G
ods’ road.

  “I know,” said Meeray. “At least, they should be free. But he cursed us.”

  “Ghatai—Tamghat did?”

  “He said we could wait here till Attalissa returned.”

  “So we did,” Jabel said, and smirked.

  “Don’t be so smug about it. At least you died quickly. We began to starve.”

  “Until it was better to—”

  “That’s over and done with,” Meeray snapped, and turned back to Holla-Sayan. “We thought Tamghat was coming in by the tunnel. There were powers there, fighting. But then there was only you?”

  “There was always only me,” he said. Memories of Otokas, of host upon host, name upon life upon name, running back to Hareh the wizard of Tiypur. He did not owe them explanation; he could still claim the Blackdog’s authority over the temple.

  “Sisters, you swore to serve Attalissa. Do you serve her still?”

  “Of course. Oto—Blackdog, that’s why we’re here. We would have waited if we could regardless.”

  He put out a hand to a spear, ghost of a spear. The real weapon lay abandoned on the floor, its shaft broken, no doubt in levering rocks, before that escape attempt had been abandoned.