by Greg Keyes
“But sex! When? With whom?”
Tsem squeezed her shoulder. “Not often, I suppose, and with an old friend of hers in the palace. She would have been married to him, I suppose, if it had been allowed.”
“Who?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t tell you that,” Tsem said, mischief creeping into his voice.
“I think you should,” she rejoined.
“Well, perhaps if you were a princess and I your slave, I would obey that command. However, since you insist that such is no longer the case …”
“Tsem.” She sighed, opening her eyes and arching her brows dangerously.
Tsem rolled his eyes and put on an exaggerated air of secrecy. He leaned very near, as if confiding a bit of court gossip. “You remember old J’ehl?”
Hezhi’s mouth dropped open. “J’ehl? Qey and J’ehl? Why, he was a wrinkled little old man! He looked just like one of those turtles with soft shells and thin long noses! How could she—”
“Perhaps he had more use for such a nose than you might imagine,” Tsem remarked.
“Oh!” Hezhi cried. “No! Darken your mouth! I won’t hear any more of this. You’re inventing this because no one can call you a liar out here. Except me! Qey and J’ehl indeed. Qey and anyone. She was too old, too dignified—”
“Oh, yes,” Tsem said. “Do you remember that time when J’ehl came to deliver flour, and I took you into your room and sang very loudly to you, the same song, over and over?”
“The only song you knew!” Hezhi exploded. “I kept telling you to sing a different song, but you wouldn’t. After a while it got to be fun, though, me trying to put a pillow over your face, and you just singing and singing …” She stopped. “What are you saying?”
“Qey made me do that. So you wouldn’t hear.”
“No!” Hezhi almost shrieked, but she was laughing. Laughing. It was shocking, horrible even to think of Qey and that little man making love as Tsem roared and she squealed, but somehow it was funny. And she realized that Tsem had tricked her, tricked her into an instant of happiness, despite everything.
“Those were good days,” she told him as her laughter trailed off. “How old was I?”
“Six years old, I think.”
“Before D’en vanished.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And how did that song go?”
“You don’t really want me to sing it!”
“I think perhaps I do!” she commanded.
Tsem sighed hugely and squared his shoulders.
“Look at me.
A giant mon-key
Live in a tree
A giant mon-key!”
His deep voice bellowed out into the evening air, and three dozen Mang heads turned in their direction. Though they could not understand his words, most smiled and a few laughed, for off-key is off-key in any language.
“A big mon-key!
Him love Hezhi!”
Tsem shouted on, until Hezhi was wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.
“Stop, stop,” she said. “We’ve too many serious things to worry about.”
“You told me to sing,” Tsem answered.
“You haven’t sung that to me in a long while.”
“Well, you haven’t asked me to, and when you got a bit older and started wandering about with D’en so much, Qey and J’ehl had little trouble finding time for their passions.”
“I still refuse to credit that!”
“Believe it, little Princess. I could not imagine such a thing myself were it not true.”
“I think you imagine sex all of the time!”
“Yes, but not with Qey!”
She chuckled at that, too, but her brief happiness was already waning. It amazed her that she could have forgotten her troubles for even such a trivial moment, but Tsem had always been good at that.
“You are a big monkey,” she told him. “And I love you.”
Tsem blushed but read her sobering mood, and from long experience he made no attempt to keep her laughing.
“I know, Princess, and thank you. Out here it is good to have someone who loves you.”
Hezhi turned her face back to the bonfire. She felt braver, and dared to look at it full on. “You’ve never said anything truer than that,” she said.
There was a small cough behind them. Hezhi turned to see Brother Horse regarding them.
“I need to speak to you, Granddaughter.”
“Call me Hezhi,” she said, frowning.
He sighed. “Hezhi.”
“Tsem will stay with us,” she informed him.
“Very well. An old man will sit, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
Brother Horse shook his head. “Look at that. They don’t need to make the fire that big! They must have burned everything for a hundred leagues.”
Hezhi frowned over at the old man to let him know that today she had no patience for the Mang propensity to chitchat before getting down to the business at hand. He caught the hint.
“Perkar is very ill,” he announced, the playfulness suddenly gone from his voice and replaced by an almost shocking weariness. “He has been witched.”
“Witched?”
“You saw the thing on his chest.”
“I saw it.”
“You are strong, or you would be mad now. What you saw was a sort of spirit—something like a ghost, or god—perhaps the offspring of a ghost and a god. We call them ‘Breath Feasting,’ because they eat the life in a person. Usually they eat it right away, but Perkar’s sword continues to heal him.”
“I don’t understand. I thought Perkar was hit with a Slap paddle.”
“It must have been a witched paddle. Such things have been known to happen.”
“You mean someone did this to him.”
Brother Horse nodded. “Of course. It would have to be a gaan, someone with the power to bind spirits.”
“Like yourself, you mean.”
The old man grunted. “No. Someone with much more power than I ever possessed. Someone who could put the Breath Feasting in a Slap paddle and command it to wait.” He turned a frank gaze on her. “I know you were frightened by what you saw in me. I know you do not trust me now, and I should have explained before you saw. But I never believed that you could see into me so easily. That is one of the hardest things to do, to see a gaan. Gods are often disguised by mortal flesh, even from the keenest gazes. You must forgive me, you see, for I never thought that even if you did see into me, it would frighten you. I forget, sometimes, what it means to be from Nhol, where there is no god but the Changeling.”
Hezhi pursed her lips in aggravation and thrust out her jaw, trying to retain her bravery of a moment before. Tsem, beside her, was a presence of enormous comfort. “Are you telling me you are some sort of god?”
“What? Oh, no. No. But there are gods in me. Very small ones, very minor ones.”
“In you? I don’t understand that.”
“There are many kinds of gods,” Brother Horse began, after a moment’s pause to collect his thoughts. “There are those that live in things—like trees and rocks—and there are those that govern certain places, certain areas of land. There are also the Mountain Gods, whom we call the Yai, and they are different yet again; they are the ancestors of the animals, as Horse Mother is the begetter of all horses, as Blackgod is the father of all crows, and so forth. Those are the most powerful gods, the gods of the mountain.”
“Yes, this was explained to me,” Hezhi said, uncomfortably.
He nodded. “The Mountain Gods have younger relatives who walk about. Small gods cloaked in the flesh of animals—such as those we select for the Horse God Homesending that we hold tonight.”
“I know that, as well.”
“Such gods dwell in flesh, sometimes in places, and those places are like their homes, their houses. But when their house is destroyed—when their bodies are killed or their place ruined—then they are without homes. They must return to the great
mountain in the west to be reclothed in skin. However, it is possible to offer them—or sometimes compel them—to make another home, here.” He tapped his chest with a forefinger. “That’s why we call this yekchag tse’en, ‘Mansion of Bone.’ You saw the dwellers in my mansion, child. Two spirits live within me and serve me, though they have, like myself, grown old and weak.”
Hezhi took that in doubtfully. “And what do these gods do, living in your chest?”
“First and foremost, they dim the vision,” the old man said gently. “They toughen you so that the sight of a god does not enter you like a blade, to cut out your sense. Once you have a single familiar, no matter how weak, then you can resist.”
She suddenly understood what Brother Horse was getting at, and her eyes widened in horror. “You aren’t saying I have to do that? Have one of those things inside of me.”
Brother Horse examined his feet rather closely. “It isn’t bad,” he said. “Most of the time you never need them or notice them.”
“No!”
He shrugged. “It is the only way. And I can do nothing for Perkar. You can trust no other Mang healer, for we do not know who did this. You are his only hope, and you are your own only hope. You have been lucky and strong thus far, but you will weaken, and when you do, your Giant friend will not be able to help you, nor will I. I know you don’t like it, but you must face this, Hezhi. I am trying to help you.”
“Brother Horse, I can’t!” She worked her mouth helplessly, hoping it would fill with more words of its own accord, explain to the old man her horror of losing herself, of becoming something not Hezhi. That fear had been a strength when the River threatened to fill her up with himself, make her into a goddess. Now … one of those things, those monsters, living in her? How could she be the same, ever?
But if she did not, what would Perkar do? And what would she and Tsem do? Her talk to Tsem of using her power to help them survive—would she pretend she had never said it?
“How is it done?” She sighed weakly.
“Princess, no,” Tsem gasped. He at least understood her, knew her fears.
“I don’t say I will do it,” she muttered. “Only that I want to know how it is to be done.”
Brother Horse nodded. “I have a few moments, and then I must return to my responsibilities. This is a bad time, such a bad time for all of this.” He reached around and pulled up the bag he had carried before, when they went into the desert. From it, he produced a small drum, thin and flat like the tambors played for jugglers in her father’s court.
“I made this for you,” he said. “It is called a bun.”
“Bun,” Hezhi repeated. “Like ‘lake.’”
“Exactly. A drum is a lake.”
“That’s nonsense,” Hezhi snapped. “What do you mean?”
Brother Horse continued patiently. “The surface of a lake is the surface of another world. Beat upon its surface, and ripples are formed. The things that live beneath that surface will see the ripples, feel the beating. Some may come to investigate. The skin of this drum—” He touched it gingerly but did not sound it. “—is the surface of another world, as well, or at least to a part of this one that only you and I—and others like us—occasionally see. And if you beat upon it …”
“Something will hear,” she whispered, for suddenly she remembered another time, in the library, a book in the old script. Two days before, Ghan had shown her the key to understanding the ancient hand, how the ten thousand glyphs were ultimately composed of just a few. She was reading of her ancestor, the Chakunge, the Waterborn, and how he slew the monsters. When he banished the last of them, the text said he “broke the surface of the lake.” At least that was how she had read it, though the character was just a little circle that she did not think resembled a lake very much. But she remembered the word: wun. Bun, wun. He had banished the monsters and broken the surface of that other world, and even in the ancient language of Nhol the name for that surface was drum.
“Something will hear,” Brother Horse acknowledged, and his voice brought her back to the dusty desert and the shouting celebrants. “Or feel. And if it pokes its head through the drum, you can speak with it and strike your bargain.”
“That simple?”
“It is not simple,” Brother Horse said. “There are songs to be sung—you can send your words through the surface of the lake. But ultimately, yes, that is the essence of it.”
“I hear drums beating now,” Hezhi said. “Are they attracting gods and ghosts?”
“Perhaps,” Brother Horse said. “But their drums are not like this one, or like this one will be when you have made it yours.”
“And how do I do that?”
“As I told you before, it begins with blood. You must wipe a bit of your blood on the surface of the lake, and it will be yours. The lake’s surface will open into you rather than into the empty air. Your familiar can climb right out of the spirit world and into your body.”
“Then I cannot pass through the drum, into that other world myself?”
Brother Horse smiled ruefully. “You understand quickly. Yes, you may. But you don’t want to do that, Hezhi. Not yet, not until you have many gods on friendly terms with you, or in your power.”
Hezhi regarded the old man for a moment. She was still afraid, terribly afraid. And yet, with that drum she could have power. Like being the keeper of an important doorway, through which anything might come. It was weirdly compelling, and briefly, her curiosity nearly matched her fear. She reached over and touched the drum skin; it felt ordinary, not at all unusual. But then, Brother Horse had not seemed unusual either, until she suddenly saw inside of him.
“I’ll take the drum,” she said. “But anything else—”
“Take the drum,” Brother Horse confirmed. “Think on this, and in the morning, after the Horse God has returned home, we will talk again.”
Hezhi nodded and took the tight disk in her hand. Its tautness felt suddenly to her like something straining, pulling. But it was straining to stay together, of one piece.
Much like Hezhi herself.
XIII
Becoming Legion
The wall shuddered again, and Ghe knew for certain that it was no hallucination. Impossibly, he could faintly smell incense, seeping through some unseen crack.
Found out. How stupid he had been! But he never imagined that it would be so soon, so sudden.
Ghe was not accustomed to panic, and panic he did not. Instead he quickly surveyed his meager possessions, choosing what to keep and what to leave. Nothing to assure them of his identity; they probably knew, but perhaps they did not.
He poked his head around the door into the courtyard. It was black as pitch, a moonless and overcast night, but that meant nothing to him; his vision was better than an owl’s, able to pierce the deepest darkness with ease. Thus he saw the shadow shapes ranged along the palace roof, awaiting him.
Of course. Pound on the wall to flush me out, catch me in the courtyard. They are not stupid, my old comrades.
What of the sewers? But the duct from his courtyard’s sink led only to one place—the sink in the other courtyard. Beyond that he might find liberty, but the chance was far too great that they had stationed incense-burners there. His best chance, he realized, was the roof, despite the six Jik he counted on it. None of them seemed to be burning spirit-brooms; he could not see the spots, like holes in the air, that he had come to identify with them.
He hesitated only an instant longer, for the door to the apartment had begun to splinter. Choosing what he judged to be the most thinly guarded wall, he sprang, darting across the court and leaping like some nocturnal predator for the second-floor balcony.
Instantly, light flared above him, soft witch-light that caused the air itself to incandesce, a burning cloud like swamp fire. Not bright enough to blind his enemies, but enough for them to see him by. An arrow whirred near, and another, and to him they seemed almost to hang in the air as his senses raced furiously ahead of their mo
tion, the River in him flowing as swiftly as a mountain stream.
His leap brought him to the balcony, clutching at the wrought-iron railing. He hissed as the bolts that held it to the rotten stone protested and then tore, and for an instant he hung in space, sagging backward over the cold stone below. It was an instant the Jik on the roof did not waste; an arrow sank joyfully into his back, just missing his heart, puncturing his lung. The pain was astonishing; it was like being pinned with a lightning bolt, and a deafening roar filled his ears like the thunder following.
The railing held long enough for him to vault over and onto the stone floor of the balcony; two more arrows skittered by him. The one piercing him began to writhe like a snake in the wound it had made.
Ghe still did not hesitate; he could have run out into the second-story apartment, but he knew that it, too, was sealed and that he would be cornered there like a sewer rat. Despite the unnerving pain, despite the sudden loss of strength and speed he felt, he crouched and leapt again, this time for the very edge of the roof. A shaft skinned across his knuckles as he gripped the plastered edge, and then, with the strength of his fingers alone, he levered himself up onto the flat roof.
A Jik waited there, of course. Ghe lunged immediately; power was bleeding out along the squirming shaft of the arrow that was surely more than an arrow. He was still faster and stronger than a man, but only just so. A blade, a pale ribbon in the witch-light, cut just over his head, and then he was inside the swordsman’s guard. He jabbed stiffened fingers into the soft flesh of his opponent’s throat, felt cartilage crush as the man lifted from the ground with the force of the blow. Two more assassins converged from the sides, and Ghe now saw the bloom of flame that was a broom igniting.
A roll gained him the sword and saved him from two more arrows, but a third impaled his thigh and, like the first, began to work some killing magic. It might be that he was already doomed; he could not tell, knowing as little as he did about the priesthood’s witchery.
It suddenly struck him as stupid to rely on the sword; his old instincts as a Jik were betraying him. Instead, he reached out and snatched at the nearest man’s heartstrands and tore them brutally, gasping as the sweet reward of stolen life pulsed into his veins, replacing what the arrows were taking. Turning, more swiftly now, he blocked a single stroke from his second tormentor, slid his own stolen blade neatly through solar plexus and spleen, bathed in the sudden release of energy as the man’s spirit gushed out. Another arrow grazed him, and he ran, burning his newly gained strength, dodging erratically, hoping to outguess the archers. Missiles flew from unlikely places, and he realized that he had not yet seen all of his attackers, but that mattered not, so long as he ran fast and well. Night was his ally, and though new witch-lights bloomed here and there, there were not enough Jiks to be everywhere. The single man who managed to place himself in Ghe’s path died without succeeding in loosing his shaft or swinging his sword; Ghe tore his life out from thirty paces away.
