by Greg Keyes
“Yes. Please inform Wezh Yehd Nu that I would like to meet him in the Onyx Courtyard this evening, if it is to his liking.”
“Princess?”
Hezhi sighed. “I have to go on as if I will have a life,” she told him. “Else I will go mad.”
Tsem nodded solemnly. “If you will be safe here, I will go inform him at once.”
“I think I will sit here a bit longer, but then I will go to the library. You can meet me there this afternoon to escort me to meet Wezh.”
“Very good, Princess.”
“And thanks, Tsem,” she said earnestly.
“You are quite welcome, Princess.” He heaved to his feet and lumbered off. She watched him go, let the sun saturate her a bit more. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled forth the little statuette, the horse-woman, turned it over and over in her hand. Did the strange, pale man in her dreams tide a horse? She decided that he probably did. Lately, she had come to welcome the dreams of forest and the strange man—they kept away the nightmares about D’en and L’ekezh. Ironically, those dreams of faraway had become less frequent, less forceful. The forest was almost faded entirely, though the man, when she dreamed of him, was more vivid than ever. Reluctantly she rose and set her feet in the direction of the library.
“I’m not complaining, mind you,” Qey insisted. “It’s just that I thought you didn’t like this Wezh fellow.”
“Well,” Hezhi explained, biting into a plum, “it doesn’t really matter whether I like him or not, does it? There are worse men to be courted by, and to hear Tsem tell it, they are queuing up to do so.”
“Well, they should be. You are very beautiful, Hezhi.”
“Pfah. I could be a sack of grain, for all they care. As long as I was a sack of grain whose father was Emperor.”
“That may be true,” Qey admitted, “but there are many noble daughters. In you, the young men can see a lovely woman, and in a few years a stunning one. If one must marry, it is better to marry someone pleasant looking.”
“They don’t see that in me,” she protested.
Qey shook her head. “You’ll see. You’ll have your mother’s face and figure, I can already tell that. Even if you inherit from your father’s side—his sisters are all quite pretty.”
“Not so pretty as his brother,” Hezhi muttered.
Qey turned an astonished face away from the stove. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” she quickly amended. “Nothing, just a joke.”
“Your father’s brother is dead, Hezhi. It isn’t something to joke about.”
“I know.” She wiped the plum juice from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Anyway,” Qey remarked, changing the subject, “how was your meeting with Wezh Yehd Nu?”
“He tried to be pleasant, and succeeded well enough, I suppose.” She smiled. “I think he was very surprised to hear from me. He told me he had given up.”
“Did he bring a present, then?”
“Oh, yes. I think his mother picked it out.” She reached into her bag to show Qey her present, feeling a brief, inexplicable sadness when her hand brushed the statuette. She drew out Wezh’s gift and set it on the table.
“Oh, that’s a nice perfume,” Qey said, examining the crystal bottle.
“So I hear. I’ll wear it next time I meet him.”
“You’ll be meeting him again?” Qey asked, a bit surprised.
“Yes. He’s taking me to a drama tomorrow.”
“Which one?”
Hezhi cleared her throat. “The Eel and the Lion it’s called. A romance, I think.” She half sang the tide, the way Wezh did. He was quite excited about taking her to it.
“Will you like that?” Qey asked, doubtfully.
“Almost certainly not,” Hezhi said. “But I have to learn to tolerate such things. After all, I can’t spend the rest of my life in the library, like Ghan.”
“Well, but I never expected to hear you say that, little one.”
“Everything changes,” she philosophized, biting into another plum.
“Yes,” Qey agreed. “If there is any truth in the world it is that.”
The next day Hezhi went into the library early. Ghan raised an eyebrow and his face puckered into a frown.
“Will I be graced with your presence for the entire day today?” he asked sarcastically.
She blushed. “I’m sorry, Ghan. I’ve been … I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing less than I expected,” he remarked sourly.
“I’m here now. What do you want me to do?”
“Do what you like. I shelved yesterday. And by the way,”—he frowned up briefly at her before continuing—“a ‘friend’ of yours came by this morning. One ‘Wezh,’ I believe. Since you weren’t here, he asked if I might deliver a message pertaining to the drama you will be attending tonight.”
Hezhi felt her face burning furiously as Ghan went on. “He said you should wear something ‘frip’ with lots of ‘lacies.’ It’s the style for this show.”
“Ah … thanks,” she stuttered. Ghan glowered at her.
“You have better uses for your time than that, don’t you? Do you even know what ‘frip’ means?”
“No,” she replied. “He says it a lot.”
“Does he?” Ghan sneered.
Hezhi felt a surge of anger swarm up through her embarrassment. “This isn’t your affair, Ghan.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve wasted too much time on you to have you running off with boys who say ‘frip’ and ‘lacies’! By the River and Sky, you can do better than that!”
“What would you have me do, Ghan? I have to make a life here! Soon I will no longer be a child, and people will expect things of me. Maybe it’s fine for you, buried here with these books, but my clan isn’t banished away somewhere! They’re right here, watching me, wondering what to do with me when I come of age. I’ve denied reality long enough, don’t you think?”
Ghan gaped for just a moment, but he quickly shut his mouth so he could form a reply. “Who are you?” His voice was suddenly mild. “Who is this?” he asked the air. “Is this the same girl who lied to me just to get in here? Who taught herself to read—however poorly—in the ancient script? Who came in here, day after day with no help and no encouragement at all, who fell asleep with her nose in my books because she wasn’t even sleeping at night but thinking about what she had been reading all day?” Ghan rose off of his stool, and as he did, his voice rose as well. “What have you done with her?” he demanded.
That stung, much more than she was willing to admit. “Everything is different now,” she told him, fighting back tears.
Ghan regarded her for a long moment before answering.
“It must be,” he finally said, and returned to his work.
She waited for him to say something else—anything else—but he did not. He kept to his pen and paper. Glumly, Hezhi trudged over to the new books, produced her pen—the new one Ghan had given her—and began to make notes for the index. She looked up at Ghan now and then, but he was studiously ignoring her. Unable to bear it, she took her things and went back into the tangle.
She had been working only a moment when someone coughed quietly behind her. Briefly she thought it was Ghan, and she turned, ready to try to explain. It wasn’t Ghan, though, but Yen, a gentle smile on his face.
“I guess he isn’t in a very good mood today,” he commented.
“It isn’t his fault,” Hezhi replied.
Yen shook his head. “He shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. He should understand.”
“No,” she disagreed. “He can’t understand. No one can.”
“I’m willing to try,” Yen said softly. “If you want to talk.”
She gazed up into Yen’s kind eyes. “It’s nothing I can talk about,” she explained apologetically. “It’s just that … have you ever discovered that your life wasn’t at all what you thought it was?”
Yen frowned, tapped his chin w
ith his thumb. “No,” he finally said. “No, I’ve always known what my life is. I’ve had some nice surprises, and some unfortunate ones, but I’ve always known myself.”
“You’re fortunate, then,” she said. “When you grow up in the palace, you never know. Ever. There’s just one betrayal after another, and you never know where you stand. But you think you do anyway, and then …” She trailed off. “I’m sorry, Yen. It’s very kind of you to listen, but nothing I can tell you will help me, and it might be bad for you.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Yen soothed.
“My life is like the River,” she said. “It flows one way, always downstream, inevitable. I never faced that before. I guess I always believed that I could somehow remain a child, stay in the cracks of the palace—here, in the library, where no one would ever notice me.”
Yen sat down across the table from her. “When I was a child, I always wanted to be my father, always wanted to be older than I was. I was impatient to grow up, to captain a boat, to sail up-River and see strange sights. Not at all like you, I guess. You always wanted to be yourself, and I wanted to be someone else.” He sighed. “But it was my father who encouraged me to join the priesthood. I joke about him, but he really wants me to succeed at this, to be a great engineer and have my name go down as the one who designed such-and-such a shrine. ‘Don’t be a sailor like me, boy,’ he told me. ‘You were cut out for finer things.’”
Hezhi shook her head ruefully. “I was always told what to be. I’ve never been offered a choice, but I was too stupid to realize that.” She attempted a smile. “I should like to meet your father one day. He sounds like a nice man.”
“He is,” Yen assured her. “Perhaps one day you will meet him.”
“Maybe,” she doubtfully allowed, but then brightened a bit. “But when I am a woman, when I join my family, then I will be allowed to leave the palace. Perhaps then. I should like to sail in a boat.”
“Well.” Yen chuckled. “I know more about that than I care to admit. But you will have royal barges at your disposal, won’t you? No battered trading scows for you.”
“Yes,” she said, suddenly feeling very shy. “But royal barges never sail up the River, never visit the Mang or any other strange lands. I envy your father that, even if you do not.”
Yen shrugged. “Well. Perhaps someday …”
She shook her head. “No. That’s a silly thought. Nobility on a trading boat—that couldn’t happen.”
Yen ticked his finger against the wood of the table. “No, I suppose not,” he admitted. “But if you dream of it …”
She held up her hand. “You have no idea how tired I am of dreams,” she said ironically.
Yen nodded as if he understood. “Anyway,” he went on, “I hope you find happiness of some kind. And if you ever want to talk about these things, I’m willing. I won’t tell anyone.” He grinned. “Not that I have anyone here to tell. You’re the only person I really know here. Everyone else ignores me.”
“You don’t have any friends with the engineers?”
“No.” He sighed. “It’s notoriously hard to become liked among them. The ones who have been here longer delude themselves into believing they are royalty, and of course some of them—the overseers—are. If I make it a year, two years, then some of them will deign to talk to me.”
“That’s too bad,” Hezhi empathized.
“Not too bad. I can still go see my father, now and then.”
Hezhi nodded. “That’s how Tsem and Qey are to me. They are my only friends.”
“Tsem is the big fellow?”
“Yes. He’s half Giant. My father ordered his mother to mate with one of his Human guardsmen. He was curious as to what would result.”
“Ah,” Yen replied. “But what about this Wezh person? The one who came in here earlier, the one the old man was scolding you about? Isn’t he a friend?”
She snorted and shook her head. “No. He’s just courting me. People are rarely friends with those who court them.”
“A shame,” Yen remarked. “I don’t see that you could enjoy courting much if you don’t like the person.”
“That’s right,” Hezhi confirmed.
“Well.” Yen coughed. “Well, I should get back to what I was doing. But … if you want to count me a friend, too, I would like that.”
She blinked at him. “Thank you,” she responded, not knowing what else to say.
Yen nodded and then hurried off.
She returned to indexing, though she remained distracted for the rest of the day, wondering why the only people she could seem to count on were those not related to her.
III
Brother Horse
The transition from tall grass to short to none at all was seamless, and yet one day Perkar was watching the wind’s footsteps bending waist-deep prairie and not many mornings later he realized that the River was surrounded by desert. Desert, he could see, was more aggressive than prairie. The plains had crept up to the banks of the River often enough, but more often a thick screen of willow, cottonwood, oak, and bamboo buffered the two from one another. Now, however, the screen of trees was a thin green shadow, a billowy olive veil easily penetrated by vision. The distance that beckoned was vast and empty, and seemed to Perkar like another vision of hunger, perhaps as great as that of the River. He wondered how bitterly the two gods of water and sand might hate one another, or whether they might be allies. Or even two shadows of the same presence, like the Huntress and Karak.
Bludgeoned though he was, Perkar felt a spark of wonder, still. Wonder that any land could be so very different from his own. The River had actually contracted a bit. Perkar suspected that the fierce sun was drinking thirstily from the god, and it pleased him slightly to think that something was capable of causing the River pain. Of course, the sun was not particular, and drank greedily from Perkar and Ngangata, as well.
Ngangata lay in the meager shade of a deerskin Perkar had finally had the sense to stretch as a sunscreen between some willow saplings he lashed to the sides of the boat. The Alwa-Man was consequently improving, though he still hovered near the edge of fever. Perkar forced him to drink as often as he could, though the River water had a bitter, even salty taste. Almost like blood, Perkar reflected, remembering his dream of the River flowing red.
Near noon one day, he saw that they were approaching an island. He took hold of the tiller, and, as usual, it allowed him to steer just that much, so that they ran aground on the sandy strip. Once the island had been merely a bend in the River, but he had eaten right through the land, so that the channel now flowed on both sides.
He dragged the boat up into the thick reeds, starting involuntarily when he nearly stepped on a snake as long as he was tall. Without even thinking, he began a little chant to the Snake Lord—to beg pardon for frightening one of his people—and then he remembered: Here, there was only the River. Harka, his sword, was certain about that.
“At first,” Harka had told him, one day, “I could at least hear the gods in the distance. They did not crowd to his banks, but they were there, just beyond. Even in the grassland I could sense them watching from afar. Now I don’t know how far you would have to go to even hear a whisper. It’s true what they say about the Changeling. He eats them.”
As if he had any doubt of that, after seeing her.
He lifted Ngangata out of the prow and sloshed farther inland, hoping that the entire island was not marsh. After fifteen steps or so he was relieved to feel his feet on firmer ground. Barefoot, he winced a bit at the barbed burrs that assailed his tender feet. Still, he sought the middle part of the island; Nu, said his dream voice. There he could make out the odd swaying trees that resembled—as much as they resembled anything familiar—tall ferns.
Ngangata stirred awake in his arms, looked muzzily around him. “Oh,” he said. “Let me try to walk, Perkar.”
Perkar set him on his feet, caught his companion when his knees buckled. But then, with teeth gritted, Ngangata took one
and then two trembling steps without leaning on him. He continued to walk, slow and wobbly, until they reached the trees.
Perkar was astonished at what they found there. The thick, brushy undergrowth of the island had been cleared back to form a yard of bare, sandy soil. At the far edge of the clearing stood a house made of what appeared to be bundled reeds lashed to a willow framework. Fish were drying on a raised stage, beneath which a faint wisp of smoke timorously sought the sky. An old man and a dog watched their arrival with apparent interest
“Dubu? Du’ yugaanudiin, shiheen?” the old man croaked. His dog—a yellow mutt spotted brown—cocked its head at him as if listening.
Perkar held out his palms, to show that they were empty. “I don’t understand you,” he said. This wasn’t his dream language, and it certainly wasn’t the language of his own people.
“Oh,” the man replied, in a heavily accented version of Perkar’s tongue. “I was just asking my dog who you were.”
“Huuzho, shutsebe,” Ngangata said weakly.
“Huuzho, shizhbee,” the old man replied, smiling. “So you, at least, know the real speech.”
“My name is Perkar, Clan Barku,” Perkar told him. “My companion is Ngangata.”
The old man shook his head in bemusement. “Such names,” he mused. “I was never able to keep them straight!” He came to his feet—it seemed quite a struggle—and gestured for them to join him. “I forget myself,” he said cheerfully. “Join Heen and me. I will make us some tea.”
Perkar was uncertain, but Ngangata nodded. The two of them crossed the clearing, Perkar walking, Ngangata stubbornly stumbling along. The old man, meanwhile, disappeared into his strange hut and emerged with a copper kettle. He filled it with water from a rainbarrel at one side of the house, and after adding some herbs to the pot and a bit of wood to the flagging fire, came back to join them. He walked bow-legged, on limbs as spindly as those of a spider.
“Now,” he said, as he returned to his seat. “Please sit down.”
Perkar and Ngangata folded their legs beneath them. The old yellow dog appraised them briefly with half-lidded eyes, then returned to sleep.
