by Greg Keyes
The warm feeling in her gut had begun to feel “wrong” again by the time her father reached his dais. Hezhi noticed that during the strange performance, her mother and sisters had emerged from their rooms and were already seated on the benches. As the Chakunge joined them, he turned and clapped his hands briskly. The cleared place on the floor—where he had stood so recently—grew wider as many young boys in the dress of priestly acolytes ran about, ushering everyone back. Hezhi watched, interested despite herself. Her father had demonstrated his kinship with the River, shown that he could speak to it, bend it to his will—or more likely, beg its indulgence. What now?
The drums began again, a slow, powerful rhythm like a heartbeat. The dancers came out.
They seemed fragile creatures, men and women alike, until they began to move, to swirl to the ponderous drumbeats; then they became as strong as the drums, as supple as drumheads. This Hezhi had seen before; it was the more standard court performance. Still, the dancers were beautiful to behold, with their sleek muscles and their costumes of silk and feathers. The crowd around her began to squat, or sit cross-legged. Tsem rolled out a little mat for Hezhi—had he been carrying it all along?—and she sat, too.
The story was an ancient one; Hezhi knew it well. It was the story of the first Chakunge, the man born of water. Now a dancer portrayed his mother, Gau, bathing in the River, and now she was heavy with child. Others portrayed the People, harried by the terrible monsters who once inhabited the River valley. A monster under each stone, living in each tree. They were terrible, tyrannical. They captured the daughter of the headman, surrounded her with ugliness and pain.
Hezhi studied the woman portraying the daughter; she was slim, a slip of a girl no older than herself. Sad, she was, bereft of kin, surrounded by monsters. Without hope, for none of the People could save her or even themselves. Hezhi felt a little glimmer of identification. It was easy to guess how she might have felt: alone, threatened, unable to understand the monsters surrounding her.
Now came Chakunge, the Riverson, laughing, full of power. He was clad in the rainbow, in armor of shell and fishbone, in plates from the giant Rivercrabs. His weapons were wit and water, swords and spears formed of the very substance of the River. First he tricked a few of the monsters, one by one. He convinced the first of them—the Black-headed Ogre—that his power came from bathing four times a day in the waters of the River. The monster emulated him and was drowned.
Soon enough, Chakunge was done toying with his foes, however. He went among the monsters who held the chiefs daughter and slew them all, turned them into stones and sharks, ground them into sand. He took the captive woman away, asked her to be his queen.
Who will take me away? Hezhi wondered. She had never considered such a thing. But it would be so nice, if a hero like Chakunge would come, free her from her problems, her worries. Perhaps that was where D’en was, off becoming a hero, so that he could come back and rescue her.
After the dance, the people in the hall lined up to file past the fountain; each drank from the water in their cupped hands, praying for their city, their emperor, themselves. Hezhi followed dutifully, and when she came to the fountain her mind was still picturing the dashing dancer portraying Chakunge, laughing, full of power. When she drank, she prayed silently. Send me a hero, she prayed. She felt weak, doing so. She felt as if she were betraying something. But at that moment, it was the foremost thought in her. Send me a hero, she beseeched, and she drank the water.
She had taken only a score of steps, and the water reached the hurtful place in her belly, and there it seemed to erupt, like pine knot thrown on a fire. She gasped and fell, saved only by the quick arms of Tsem from cracking her skull open on the hard marble floor. The water roared in her, rushed out into her veins, fiery. It made her skin feel like dough, like something soft and barely real; reality was the heat, the insides of her.
A hundred times she had taken sacred water, and it had always been just drinking. Now she thought she would die.
Her senses returned soon enough, though. No one but Tsem seemed to pay her much heed; he picked her up, carried her to a bench near the wall, and the two women occupying it leapt up hastily at the look he jabbed at them.
Perhaps Tsem is my hero, she thought, but no, Tsem was as surrounded by the monsters as she; he was like one of the men the chief sent who failed. But he was a comfort.
Tsem laid her on the bench, and after a few moments the flame became a tingle, an itch, was gone. But something was different, changed.
“I should take you back home now, Princess,” Tsem whispered.
“No.” Hezhi shook her head. “No, I’m better now. It was just the water … I’m better. I should stay for the rest of this.”
“As you wish, Princess.” Still, he made her remain on the bench long after she was capable of walking. When finally she wobbled to her feet, his face was filled with concern.
“I’m fine, Tsem,” she assured him, but her feet felt like wood and she sat back down, as best she could, with her dress’s tail hanging off the back of the bench and resting on the floor.
The ceremonies were over; now servants passed here and there, bearing trays of steamed dumplings, fried fish cakes, strange foods that even Hezhi could not identify. She wasn’t in the least hungry; she took a small cup of wine when it was offered, however, and the first few sips of it made her feel better.
She was taking another sip when she heard a polite cough.
“Princess? May I?”
It was the boy, Wezh Yehd Nu. He was dressed in as silly an outfit as anyone, a long robe of silk, green pantaloons, a shirt cut to look like a breastplate.
Hezhi reluctantly inclined her head in assent. The boy sat down. Tsem seemed to have withdrawn to some distance.
“You seem to be feeling unwell,” Wezh remarked. “I thought I might ask if there was anything I can do.”
“It’s nothing,” Hezhi said. “I felt a little faint, but I am much better now.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Wezh said gravely. He moved his mouth as if to say more, but instead turned his attention back to the crowd. The two of them sat in awkward silence for a few moments.
“My father says these gatherings are the lifeblood of our society,” Wezh said at last. “Don’t you think that’s true?”
Hezhi remembered her father, a blurred image with the River at his beck.
“I suppose,” she replied.
There was another awkward silence, during which Hezhi began to feel well enough to be rude. Still, she held her peace. Perhaps those near her—Tsem, for instance—might be a little less annoying if she indulged their wishes just a bit. And of course, her father had probably been so insistent that she come for just this reason. Daughters were best married off early.
Wezh was not unkind or unpleasant looking. Perhaps, if not a hero, he could be a friend. She flinched at that thought—the thought of having another person as dear as D’en to lose—but it was no longer unbearable, as it had been a year or even a few days ago.
“I have a boat,” Wezh said cautiously. “A little barge with a cabin on it. My father gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday. Do you like to go boating?”
Where had that come from? Hezhi wondered. From the lifeblood of society to his boat?
“No, I have never been boating,” she told him.
“Oh, it’s great fun,” Wezh told her enthusiastically. “You can imagine that you’re one of those pirates from the Swamp Kingdoms, you know, like in the romantic plays? You do like the plays, don’t you? Most girls do.”
Hezhi had seen a few of the plays he spoke of. Pitiful, debased things compared to the great epics like the one they had just witnessed.
“I liked the dance just now,” she told him. “It was a wonderful rendition of the Chakunge epic.”
“I found it a little boring,” Wezh said diffidently. “You know, old-fashioned. Now the other day I saw this drama about Ch’iih—he’s a pirate, you know …”
“That means ‘mosquito’ in the old speech,” Hezhi informed him.
Wezh glanced at her, his eyes a bit wider than before, if such were possible. “Indeed?” he said. “That might explain why his sword is so long and thin, mightn’t it? Well, how illuminating! I’m sure that you would have many such observations, if you were to attend such a play. Ah, with me perhaps.” He looked around the room nervously.
“Are you searching for pirates?” she asked with mild sarcasm. “I don’t think my father would admit them, you know.”
“Oh, no, of course he wouldn’t,” Wezh said. “No, I was …” He closed his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Umm … Whither goes her brilliant beauty/My tongue cannot hold her name …”
The words were so rushed they were nearly incoherent, and so it took Hezhi nearly two stanzas to realize that Wezh was reciting his—or more likely somebody else’s—poetry to her.
“Oh,” she interrupted, standing abruptly. “I’m sorry, Wezh Yehd Nu, but I must bid you good day.”
Wezh stuttered off, looked a little puzzled and forlorn. “Are you feeling unwell again, Princess?”
“Yes, Wezh, that is it precisely.”
She turned and gestured to Tsem, who shot her a small expression of chagrin. She turned once to survey the hall again, before she left. The fountain was in its normal state, the water rising no higher than usual. But among the sparkling droplets she thought she saw something dark rising, as well. With an involuntary shiver, she took her leave without another word to the anxious Wezh.
“That was rude, Princess,” Tsem told her, when they were back in the Hall of Moments and out of earshot of anyone. The hall was lined with guards in armor today, and a lone priest was sweeping, smoke rising from his spirit-broom, a little acolyte behind him with a mundane broom and dustpan, gathering the ashes. None of them were close enough to hear what the princess and her bodyguard were saying.
Hezhi shrugged. “He is an idiot, Tsem, stupid and unlearned. What use do I have for a boy like that?”
“You will find a use for men someday, or you will live as a spinster—or more likely have a marriage imposed on you.”
“I think marriages must always be imposed, if Wezh is the common sort of man.”
Tsem shook his head, then bowed it, in respect, as they passed the old priest and his novice.
“Anyway, I’m really not feeling well. You know that.”
Tsem was about to reply, but there was a strangled cry behind them; Hezhi felt the hackles rise on her neck, experienced yet another terrible shuddering. She stumbled and turned to confront the source.
Something had emerged from the hall. Its outline wavered, and so she knew it for a ghost, but it was like no ghost she had ever seen, save only in the fountain earlier that day. It was huge, twice Tsem’s size. It had legs like a crab’s, or a spider’s, and its body was long, twisted, like a crushed centipede. A flared tail—horribly like the one on her dress—swept around frenetically behind it. Its head was a grotesque mass of chitin and tentacles, and yet there was something—its eyes—that seemed appallingly, undeniably Human. Human and hungry. She knew instinctively that it was hungering after her.
The guards seemed frozen, and for one terrible moment, Hezhi feared that no one could see the thing except her. Then it was in motion, a scuttling mass of limbs and tentacles. One of the soldiers leapt at it then, his curved sword finally flashing out, and he was in its path, a tiny creature compared to the ghost. His sword chopped but once, slicing unhindered through the thing, clanging with great force and noise onto the marbled floor. Then the ghost passed through the guard and he fell, writhing, clenched up in a little ball, a jabbering kind of noise issuing from him the like of which Hezhi never imagined a Human Being could make. The beast lunged forward, and another guard—attacking more hesitantly—went down. She had the dull realization that, like a ghost, the thing wasn’t solid—but it could certainly cause harm to men. She saw the second guard die very clearly; his skin puffed and split, exuding vapor—as if the blood in his body were suddenly steam.
That was the last she saw of it. Tsem had her in both arms and was running. Her last glimpse was of the priest, broom blazing furiously, standing between them and the apparition. The rest was nightmare flashes of this corridor and that, of Tsem’s pounding heart—and the images of what she had seen burning on the surface of her eyes. Tsem did not stop until they reached one of the far shrines, a place that no ghost would ever dare enter. Placing her inside, he waited at the door, fists clenched. After a long while—when nothing happened—Tsem pointed a finger at her.
“Stay here,” he said simply, and then he was gone, loping back up the way they came.
“Tsem! No, Tsem!” she shrieked, but it was too late. The half Giant was gone.
It wanted me. And it would kill Tsem as easily as it would anyone; it had no neck to snap, no body to bludgeon. She recalled the first guard, so young and brave.
Frustrated, afraid, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin. The tail on her dress was broken, she remembered not how.
Taking deep, slow breaths, she tried to calm herself. It was then that she noticed the blood.
Her first thought was that it was Tsem’s, that he was injured somehow, for surely it couldn’t be hers. But there it was, little smeared drops on the floor, on her dress. Not much blood. She touched some clinging to her legs. It was sticky, certainly blood.
She understood then. It was her blood, and she was not wounded. She had begun bleeding.
She was a woman.
PART TWO
The Blessed and the Cursed
I
The Return of Steel
Perkar stood amidst the waters of a great River. The current clutched at his ankles, touching him with more urgency but far less tenderness than the goddess of the stream. Beyond the thick water lay a settlement, and the word that formed in his mind was city though cities were only a rumor to him. It was a vast thing, this city, unimaginably huge, a white hive of blocky white buildings given scale only by their myriad, antlike inhabitants.
The water swirled before him, and a girl arose. A girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old. Her dark skin, black hair, and tiny angular face bore no resemblance to his Anishu love, but she seemed to know him, to beckon for him. To whisper a name that was his own despite the fact that he did not recognize its sound. He shuddered, his feet shuffling toward her with a will of their own. Rather, the River moved them, pulling him toward the child. A panic seized Perkar, dream-panic that overwhelmed everything else, drove like a dagger between sleeping and waking, tore a rent in the wall of dream that he fell through, to lie blinking and groaning on his blanket.
“Never have I had such a dream,” Perkar told Eruka. The two of them were trudging along an animal track at the top of a ridge, hoping to run across game—the expedition’s supply of meat was running low, and the Kapaka had ordered a halt for hunting.
“The city you describe—I scarcely believe that such a place exists.”
Perkar shrugged. “It was a dream.”
“But sometimes dreams have great potency, particularly if you dream of something you have never seen. I once dreamed of my father, niece, granduncle, and a bull, all naked save for hats, dancing in a circle and singing. I think a dream of that sort means little—tiny sprites turning things already in your head inside-out. But the Great Songs speak of dreams in which heroes see unknown lands, unforged swords—those things they don’t already know. Dreams like that must come from more powerful gods.”
“Your niece—how did she look, naked?”
Eruka shouldered him good-naturedly. “My niece is more a woman than the waif in your dream city of stone towers and white streets. Much more. I can scarce reach my arms around her waist.”
Perkar grinned, but the dream image came back to him: a black-haired slip of a girl with huge eyes and skin as dusky as a Mang’s. Certainly he had never seen her.
“Sst.” Eruka motioned silence. “There i
s a deer!”
Perkar bobbed his head a bit, trying to see what Eruka saw. Indeed, there it was, a buck with spreading antlers.
Eruka motioned to their left and began padding that way, drawing an arrow from the ornate quiver at his side. Perkar nodded and drew his own shaft, fitted it to the sinew cord on his own bow.
Sapling, I
Bending in the hardest wind
Came along a Human man
His name was Raka
Sapling, said he
I know what you might be …
He whispered the little song the bow maker taught him under his breath; surely it would make his arrow fly more true.
The buck snapped up its head and began to run. Gasping, Perkar pulled back on the string, let the arrow fly. The shaft cut air and a few leaves—the buck was no longer to be seen.
A few moments later Eruka rejoined him, scowling. “I thought you had hunted before.”
“I have,” Perkar answered defensively. “But on horseback, with hounds running the beasts. With a spear, not a bow. And I’ve hunted mostly boar, not deer.” “Me, too,” Eruka said, grinning sheepishly. “I thought it would be no harder on foot.”
Perkar snorted. “We were lucky to even see that animal, I think. I doubt we will see another.”
“If only I was a great heroic singer, like Iru Antu.” Eruka sighed. “The kind of singer who can change the songs of things, make spirits obey his will. I could simply summon us a deer, have it stand still while we slew it.”
“The other night you boasted of just such an ability,” Perkar reminded him.
