by Greg Keyes
He sent the little bits of himself out, patiently, and to his surprise the people built a city. They went out from his banks, and they slew the gods of the borderland, pushed his boundaries farther than ever he could have himself. This was good, and he continued to wait as generations passed and his people grew stronger and stronger, became more and more capable of carrying him in their bones and veins.
But then torpor overcame him, and he slept. He awoke only briefly after that, and thus it was a long time before he realized that something had been done to him, was making him sleep, robbing him of his sentience. It was a dull, muted frustration. He still did not know what had happened to him, though he could sense a dark well in the heart of his city, bleeding him, binding him somehow. He still had his children, born stronger with each generation, but they were distant from him. One was finally born who could contain him.
Now she was gone.
Ghe woke then. He woke and sat up on the pallet he had arranged. His little room was dark, but he could nevertheless see the spare walls, the small bundle of clothes and weapons that were his only possessions.
Hezhi, he thought. She was the one the River had waited for. He shuddered briefly. The thoughts and feelings in his dream were not human; he understood that they only seemed so because they had bent through his mind.
What the River felt for Hezhi, however, would not bend, would not settle upon any emotion Ghe had ever experienced, though it resembled lust in some ways. The old Ghe would not have understood it at all, but he was beginning to. That was why he shuddered.
Ghe understood something else now that he had not before.
The River did not know about the priesthood, did not even know they existed. To him, they were blank spaces, nothing. And the center of his pain—the dark vortex that bled his power, drew him relentlessly into slumber—Ghe knew what that was. He had been there, many times.
It was the Great Water Temple itself.
X
A Game of Slap
Tsem met them near the edge of the camp. He was perched on an old house foundation, fending off a swarm of curious children.
When Hezhi saw him, she slid down from behind Brother Horse and flew across the intervening distance to him.
“Princess,” Tsem growled, “where have you been?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Hezhi said. “Right now, stay close to me. Please.”
“Of course, Princess.” The Giant turned wary eyes on the newcomers and said—loudly enough for the horsemen to hear, in his broken Mang: “They not hurt Princess, do they?”
“No,” she answered. “They only escorted me back here.”
“Princess, this is not the palace,” Tsem said more quietly in their own language. “You can’t go running off alone whenever you want.”
“I know,” she said. “I know that.”
Brother Horse spoke to Tsem, also in Nholish. “Giant, take your mistress back to my yekt. Keep close watch on her. Things are happening I must attend to, and I need for you to keep her safe. I will send Yuu’han around, as well.”
“What?” Tsem asked. “What is happening?”
“I am not sure,” the old man replied. “I will come tell you when I know.” Hezhi noticed that Moss—and Chuuzek, of course—seemed restless.
Chuuzek confirmed that by growling to his cousin, “What is this babbling? What are they saying?” Moss shrugged, conveying his own puzzlement.
Ignoring them, Brother Horse turned to Hezhi and continued in her language. “Please do not fear me, child. I know what you saw, and it is nothing for you to fear. I should have explained more before asking you to see, that is all. Accept my apology, and I will come speak with you as soon as I can. In the yekt, with your Giant present.” He smiled, and she could not help believing him; his sincerity, for the moment, was more real than the strangeness she remembered.
Brother Horse switched back to Mang to speak to the other horsemen. “I am sorry to have been impolite,” he said. “The Giant knows but little of our speech.”
“I could teach him a word or two,” Chuuzek snapped. Moss only nodded.
“It was my honor to meet you, cousin,” Moss said to Hezhi, emphasizing “cousin.” “I hope to speak to you of your homeland soon. I have many questions about the great city, and I have never seen it for myself.”
Hezhi nodded politely but did not answer aloud. With Tsem’s massive hand on her shoulder, the two of them made their way through the crowd. Behind them, whoops went up as horsemen rode up to meet the newcomers.
“What is this all about, Princess?” Tsem asked again, as they moved toward the yekt they were staying in.
“I wish I knew,” Hezhi told him glumly.
Hezhi noticed that Yuu’han appeared not long afterward, subtly. He sat near the fire outside of the yekt, talking with animation about something with a warrior near his own age. Hezhi noticed, however, that his eyes wandered the camp, fastening more than occasionally on the yekt.
“Is he trying to keep us in or keep someone else out?” she wondered, and Tsem’s brow ridges bunched deeper. He did not repeat his earlier question, but Hezhi explained her meeting with Moss and Chuuzek. She skirted around the issue of why she had run off into the desert in the first place; she did not want to talk about that until she understood more. Tsem seemed content enough with that; after all, he had spent countless hours in Nhol following her at a discreet distance when she sought privacy by wandering the labyrinthine ways of the abandoned and ancient sections of the palace.
“I wonder what this means, this war?” Tsem asked.
“I don’t know. I think that at the least, it means Perkar and Ngangata will receive a poor welcome when they return.”
“But what does that mean to us? To you?”
“I hope Brother Horse will tell us when he returns.” She paused. “I think Brother Horse believes me to be in some sort of danger.”
“That seems obvious,” Tsem replied. “But what sort of danger? What would these Mang want with you?”
Hezhi spread her hands to acknowledge her ignorance.
Tsem sighed. “I understood things in the palace. There I could protect you. Here … here I know nothing. We should leave this place, Princess.”
“And go where? There is nowhere we will understand better. And of course we cannot go back to Nhol.”
“Another city perhaps. Lhe, Hui …”
“Those are very far away, Tsem. How would we get there, just you and I? And when we got there, what would we do? They would not accept me as royalty there. We would have to live in their Southtowns.”
“Where do you say, then?”
Hezhi thought about that for a moment. “Here may be as good a place as any. Or …”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps with Perkar’s people.”
Tsem grimaced at that. “His people are no better than these. Barbarians.”
“Well, then,” Hezhi grunted, dismissing the whole question with the back of her hand.
“You once said we might seek out my mother’s people,” Tsem put in, unwilling to let the matter drop.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Hezhi said. “But where do they live? How would we find them? The two of us cannot travel alone. Can you build a fire, or kill game, or set a snare? I can’t.” She looked up at Tsem squarely. “Back then, Tsem, it seemed as if the whole world was open to us. Now I see things in a different light.” She hesitated for just an instant before going on. “Yet there is something I can do, something to give us some choice, I think.”
“That being?” Tsem grunted, rolling his massive head back on his shoulders.
“Brother Horse says I have a gift for sorcery. It is the only thing I have, it seems.”
“You have me, Princess.”
Hezhi softened her voice and patted the Giant’s arm. “And never doubt how much I value that, Tsem. You are my only true friend. But here, in this place, value is counted in terms of kin, and we have none. It is counted in horses, and we have no
ne. It is counted in yekts and war honors and hunting trophies, and we have none. Nor are we likely to acquire any of those things.”
The Giant nodded ruefully. “Yes, I can see that.”
“But they also reckon worth in power, and that, perhaps, I have.”
“Witchery is dangerous, Princess.”
“Yes. Yes, but it is the only thing I have to make a place for us. And if we are ever to go where we will, we must have people willing to help us. We must have some way to pay them.”
“Or coerce them.”
“Yes,” Hezhi admitted softly. “I thought of that, too.”
The village was not as Perkar and Ngangata had left it: it had bled out over the plain, filled it with color and life, horses pounding around makeshift racetracks, riotous noise. It was wild, barbaric, exciting—and not altogether unfamiliar. It had the quality of a homecoming or a hay gathering, though it was bigger, brighter, and more boisterous.
Where he and Ngangata rode, however, faces pinched tight in suspicion, even faces they knew, and by that Perkar understood that the news of the war had already come to Brother Horse’s village. How could it not, with clans from the entire Mang world attending?
“It might have been best not to come here at all,” Ngangata gritted from the corner of his mouth.
“We have no choice,” Perkar muttered back, wondering how many warriors he and Harka could take before all of his heart-strands were severed. His sword made him much more powerful than a mortal, but it did not make him invincible; the Blackgod had made that more than clear to him.
“If they attack me, I won’t have you fighting with me. The war between their people and mine is not your concern.”
Ngangata shot him a scathing, raw look. “You may have forgotten this, Cattle-Man, but though I have no kin or clan amongst your people, it was still there that I was raised, and it was to your king that I swore my allegiance. Your people never gave me much, but what I got you will not take from me.”
Perkar stared for a moment, then nodded, blushing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Feel free to die with me, then.”
“Thank you.”
It was almost as if that agreement were a signal for a handful of riders to rush up to them, shrieking. Perkar snarled and snatched for Harka.
“They are not attacking,” Harka said. “Not yet. Keep me ready.”
Perkar eased his breath out then, and the riders parted around him, shouting, brandishing axes and thick curved swords. Perkar knew none of these, but like the riders at the stream, they had their war plumes on. Each wore a Human skin as a cloak, the empty arms and hands flapping like the wings of spirits.
He and Ngangata sat their horses as the riders circled them, enduring the Mang curses. At last, one of them parted out and brought his stallion stamping and gasping to relative stillness. He was a young man, thickly muscular.
“You!” he shouted at Perkar. “Cattle-Man. We will fight.”
Perkar avoided the man’s eyes: meeting them squarely was considered an affront by the Mang. Instead he gazed up at the sky, as if wondering where the clouds were. “I have no wish to fight you, man,” he replied.
“We are here on the invitation of Brother Horse,” Ngangata added. “We are not here to fight.”
“I am not speaking to you, Brush-Man,” the warrior said, “And I do not care whose protection you are under.”
“It’s true,” Perkar heard someone say. “They were hunting with us in the high country.” A few others echoed the sentiment.
“Hunting in the high country. Is that where he got my cousin, there?” He jabbed his thick fingers toward Sharp Tiger, and Perkar realized that if things could get worse, they had. They were Mang. Of course they would recognize the horse and wonder where its rider was.
Perkar was spared having to answer when a second man rode up beside the first. He was quite young, and his eyes were a peculiar color for a Mang—almost green. “Be still, Chuuzek. Brother Horse told us of these two.”
“Someone get Brother Horse,” someone else called from the side. “Bring him here quickly!” Perkar did not turn to see who it was, but thought he recognized Huu’leg, with whom he had hunted and shared beer.
“As I said,” Perkar repeated, “I have no desire to fight.”
The man who had been called Chuuzek glared at him. The crowd seemed split on the matter of their fighting; Perkar could hear many urging Chuuzek on, but others were as loudly proclaiming that such a breach of hospitality could not be tolerated. “What is your quarrel with me?”
“You are the pale man and the Brush-Man. You began this war,” Chuuzek proclaimed loudly, matter-of-factly.
Perkar could only stare, openmouthed. It was Ngangata who answered the charge. “Who told you this?”
“The gaan. The prophet.”
And at that, there was silence for a moment, before Brother Horse’s voice rose up.
“Well, my nephews are back!” he said dryly, not loudly at all. But in the quiet after Chuuzek’s assertion he was more than audible.
“A Mang’s nephews are Mang,” Chuuzek spat.
“Well, so they are,” Brother Horse agreed. “And so they are—in this camp, at this moment.” The old man pushed through the crowd, two younger clansmen trailing closely. He glared up at Chuuzek. “Mang know how to behave properly in a relative’s camp.”
“Yes,” the green-eyed boy assented. “Yes, they do.”
Chuuzek, whose face had been set in a fierce scowl, suddenly grinned broadly. He turned to Brother Horse. “You misunderstand, Shutsebe. This is the time of the Ben’cheen, of feasting and games. I was only asking your nephew if he wanted to go at the bech’iinesh.”
“He does not,” Brother Horse snapped.
Perkar pursed his lips, trying desperately to place the word. He had heard it before, and it meant something like “flat” … No. It meant “they slap.” It was a game, and a rough one.
Chuuzek shrugged off Brother Horse’s pronouncement.
“He can tell me himself,” Chuuzek said, “if he is too small and soft for a Mang pastime.”
“Well,” Perkar said softly, “I have no wish to fight you. But if it is only a game you wish to play …”
Brother Horse was frowning and shaking his head no, and the lift in Ngangata’s brow also told him that he was agreeing to a bad thing. But if he did not do something, he would not know peace long enough even to get Hezhi. And if he did, there was nothing to stop a party of these men from following him from the village and attacking him in the open desert, away from Brother Horse and his hospitality. No, it was time for him to do something. And Chuuzek was looking at him expectantly.
He had five hundred leagues of Mang territory to ride through to reach his home. Best get this over with—or at least begin it—now.
“Of course. I accept your invitation,” he said, and the crowd burst into a hoarse cheer. Chuuzek bared his teeth in satisfaction.
“Fine,” Brother Horse said. “But let my nephew get a bite to eat, something to drink. There is plenty enough time for Slapping today.”
“No,” Perkar said. “No, I feel well enough to play now.” As he said this, he stared fully into Chuuzek’s eyes and saw the malicious light there.
Brother Horse sighed. “Perkar has no paddle. I will loan him mine.” He turned and strode off.
For an instant, no one spoke, but then the crowd surged around them, and it almost seemed as if they lifted up Perkar and his mount and carried them to the track around the camp. Still shouting, they parted about the hoof-beaten path and lined the sides of it. Perkar wasn’t certain, but many of them seemed to be taking bets.
Presently Brother Horse returned, bearing a wooden paddle as long as a man’s arm and a hand’s breadth wide. It looked to be hardwood wrapped with leather over some sort of padding. Brother Horse handed it up to him, and he took the felt-wrapped grip. It weighed almost as much as a sword.
Chuuzek was nowhere in sight.
“What do I do?”
Perkar asked.
Brother Horse shook his head. “Tell me what you want buried with you. Chuuzek is going to kill you.”
Perkar smiled and nodded. “Yes, yes. What do I do!”
The old man pointed around the track. “He’s around on the other side of the village. In a moment, someone will blow a horn. You ride toward each other. You hit each other with the paddles.”
“How is the winner known?”
Brother Horse spit. “Oh, you’ll know,” he said. “You just keep going until someone can’t or won’t. My advice to you is to fall off right away. Very dishonorable, but then again, it will give Chuuzek only one chance to break your neck.”
“Can I parry his paddle?”
“You can do whatever you want. It won’t matter.”
“You’ve never seen me fight.”
Brother Horse laid a hand on his leg and looked up frankly. “You bear a godsword; I know that. No doubt with it in your hands you are a great warrior. But today you are just a man on a horse with a wooden paddle, facing a Mang who was in the saddle nine months before he was born.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Normally, people are careful enough when they play this game. Accidents happen, though, and if it looks like an accident, people won’t call it murder. With you, it won’t even have to look good.”
Perkar nodded grimly. “Well,” he muttered. “Let’s go, then.”
Brother Horse nodded. “When someone blows a horn, ride that way.” He pointed north.
Perkar tightened his grip on the paddle, swung it experimentally a few times.
And someone blew a horn, two sharp notes. The crowd cheered raggedly, and Perkar dug his heels into T’esh. His mount leapt forward almost without that, as if it knew the significance of the horn. Perkar flexed his hand on the grip, then tightened.
“You can still help me, Harka?” he snarled into the wind.
“Some. Not much. Draw me and I can help you much more.”
Perkar gritted his teeth but did not answer. T’esh had fallen into a fluid gallop, what Ngangata called an “archer’s gait.” Where was Chuuzek?
