Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  “Saved my life?” Perkar paraphrased. What was going on here? Surely he had broken his neck in the game of Slap and had taken some time to heal. But Hezhi stood wringing her hands, a variety of emotions playing across her face, and Ngangata looked happy, and perhaps surprised—as if neither ever expected to hear him speak again.

  “What do you remember?” Hezhi asked, biting her lip.

  “Nothing, I only—” But then Hezhi had buried her face in his shoulder, kneeling down to do so.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she gasped, and her throat caught once, as if she would cry. Perkar was so startled that he had no reply, and by the time he thought to raise his own arms and return the embrace, she had already pulled away again. Her face was dry, and moreover, she suddenly seemed a bit embarrassed.

  Ngangata had finished untying the straps. “Don’t try to stand yet,” the Alwa-Man cautioned, but Perkar ignored him, trying to swing his feet around and ending by tumbling into the wet sand. Distant thunder rolled across the hills, probably one of the gods laughing at him.

  “Well, alive again,” a gruff voice barked. It was Brother Horse. “Remember what I told you about the Mang being the only race to survive out here, in the time of creation? Remember that next time you think to play one of our games.”

  “I will try to remember.”

  “I will help,” Ngangata said. “Next time I will remind you by rendering you unconscious. You would suffer less damage that way, you idiot.”

  “Nice to be back,” Perkar said, wobbling—finally—to his feet.

  “Stay in the travois a bit longer, until you are stronger,” Brother Horse suggested. “We have to be moving.”

  “Why?”

  “We are being pursued. We will explain that later, too.”

  “I can ride alongside,” Hezhi offered.

  “Give me a few moments to think,” Perkar said, “to speak with Harka. Then tell me.” He lay back into the rough construction of hide and poles, then bolted back up as a sudden thought occurred to him.

  “Sharp Tiger? Did you think to bring Sharp Tiger?”

  Ngangata gestured with the back of his hand. “There he is. Now lie back.”

  Perkar strained his neck to follow Ngangata’s gesture, but he could see Sharp Tiger there, staring at him with what was probably horse-ish disdain.

  He lay back and soon the sky began to rattle again. A gray cloud was winging over, and against it the tiny but brilliant form of some sort of bird—perhaps a crane.

  “You seem to know what has happened to me, Harka.”

  “Indeed, what has not happened to you? At some points I was nearly as ill as you, so my own memories are shaky through some of it.”

  “You were ill? What does that mean?”

  “Our heartstrings are paired. Anything that brings you close enough to death weakens me, as well.”

  “But if I died, you would be set free.”

  “Normally. Not in this instance, however.”

  Perkar shook his head in amazement. “Impossible for me to believe any of this. Tell me all, then, Harka. And tell me why I have Hezhi to thank for my life.”

  Harka told him then, and afterward, Hezhi rode alongside to explain the occurrences in the world outside of his body. The fight, their flight from the Mang village, the battle of spirits for his life, the pursuit that they could see in the distance. Through all of this, Perkar felt steadily stronger. Without a supernatural entity to battle, Harka was healing him at the usual rapid pace. By the end of her story, Perkar was ready to try riding.

  “Good,” Hezhi said. “Ngangata says we will be harder to track without the travois.”

  “Probably. A travois leaves pretty deep and unmistakable prints. Even a hard rain might leave traces. How hard did it rain?”

  “Not hard enough.”

  The party regarded him silently, nervously, as he placed one boot into T’esh’s stirrup and then heaved his belly onto the stallion’s back. Grunting, he pulled his other leg over.

  They resumed, and though he felt faintly dizzy and still very weak, Perkar was able to stay in the saddle for the rest of the day, refining his questions as they went along.

  That afternoon they entered a hillier country, and their path tended generally to be upward as the land itself rose away from the lower steppe. In the distance, the mountains ceased to be faint purple clouds and had become worlds unto themselves, with forests, deserts, snowfields—close, it seemed, yet still far away and above them. It made Perkar feel easier, more at home, and a sudden realization struck him.

  “Hezhi, where are we going? Other than fleeing from pursuit?”

  “We are going to the mountain,” she stated, simply.

  “The mountain.” There it was, lurking. He had been so concerned with the events during his days of forgetfulness that he had not put the days before it into perspective. Though he had not forgotten it, he had delayed thinking about his meeting with Karak—or the Blackgod, or whatever the fickle deity insisted on being called. Karak had told him to make certain that Hezhi reached the mountain.

  “Why? Who made that decision?” he asked.

  Hezhi pursed her lips. “You don’t remember telling me to go there?”

  “No.”

  “Was it just your madness then? Did the Raven not instruct you to escort me to the mountain?”

  Perkar felt a wave of irritation. “Did Ngangata tell you that?”

  Hezhi frowned further, and her voice frosted a bit. “No. He told me that you spoke with the Blackgod, but he knew little of the substance of what you said to each other.”

  Perkar took a deep breath, using it to cool his growing angst. What was upsetting him? “I’m sorry, Hezhi,” he said. “What I told you—though I don’t remember telling it—is true. Karak says we are to go to the mountain in the heart of Balat.”

  “He told me the same thing.”

  “You spoke with Karak? Where?”

  Hezhi couldn’t suppress a grin when she answered.

  “Another story I need to hear,” Perkar said, dazed. He felt as if he had awakened sliding down the slick side of a mountain of ice with only one foot under him. After the meeting with Karak, he thought he knew what to do, but the world had moved on without him as he lay among the dead.

  “After,” Hezhi insisted a bit forcefully. “First you tell me: why must we go to the mountain?”

  If she had spoken to Karak, why hadn’t the Crow God told her that? Perkar brushed at T’esh’s mane thoughtfully. She deserved to know. Particularly she deserved to know after saving his life from the Breath Feasting. But his people—possibly his father and his brother—were dead and dying. It was his fault, and he must weigh that into all of his decisions. Piraku insisted that he put the higher cause first. At least, he thought it did.

  “Karak was vague,” Perkar answered carefully. “But he said that if we went to the mountain, to the very headwaters of the River, we could slay him.”

  “Slay him? Slay the River?” Hezhi’s voice was thick with incredulity. “Haven’t you already stumbled drunkenly down that path? Haven’t I heard this story?”

  “It sounds insane,” Perkar admitted. “I abandoned that ambition long ago. But Karak—Karak tells me we can do it, and moreover that we must.” That you can do it, he thought guiltily. But she had to be convinced a bit at a time.

  “And Karak is trustworthy?” Hezhi asked.

  “No, but Karak is a god of the same sort as the River, one of the ancient gods who created the world. And he has no love for the River—”

  “You used to scoff at that. When you tried to explain about all of the gods out here, you were skeptical of their claims.”

  “I am less skeptical now,” Perkar admitted. Deep down, he knew that he was overstating the case. He still doubted Karak rather deeply, but he believed his assertion that they could slay the River. He believed it because of Hezhi and the power he had seen her gathering about her, back at Nhol.

  “I will not go near the Riv
er, Perkar,” Hezhi insisted quietly.

  “It may not be necessary that you go,” Perkar lied. “But please, hear me out. I don’t know the entirety of Karak’s plan. It may be that it will make more sense as we near the mountain. It will be a long journey, and Karak promised to leave signs. In the meantime, where else should we go?”

  “He told me, too,” Hezhi muttered. “He told me to go there.”

  “Tell me of that. Of your conversation with the Crow God. Perhaps we can piece more together from both stories than from either.”

  Hezhi agreed, and told of her improbable journey. In telling it, she realized how ridiculous it sounded and for the first time really began to doubt the truth of it. It might, she realized, have been some sort of vivid dream.

  Save for the goddess living in her chest. She could hardly doubt that anymore.

  Perkar’s recovery had loosened some of the despair in her heart, and with a little time she thought she might cough some of it up and spit it out. She understood that much of her depression came from powerlessness, from being swept along by events, with no part in shaping her own fate. The reality of her new powers cast all of that in a different light. That new light filtered through a shattered crystal, producing more than one image and color—she was in many ways as terrified of what she had done as she was elated. But she remained herself and yet wielded power—in the end, the direction of the journey had been her decision, and that felt good. The power she had been offered before—the power of the River—would have been immeasurably greater, but such puissance would mean the end of her, Hezhi. She understood now that though the world of the “lake” was strange and terrifying—still, the spirit that moved there was her own. The Mountain Gods had trapped her, they would have killed her—but even they had no wish to transform her.

  Brother Horse, Ngangata, Yuu’han, and Raincaster all looked at her with more respect now, she was certain of that. And Perkar was back, alive, and best of all, she had played a major role in saving him. Now perhaps the debt he pretended she did not owe him would be mitigated, at least somewhat. Perhaps without that between them, they could really become friends. When he understood her part in saving him—and she thought she had minimized her role—he had thanked her, humbly and sincerely. She captured that moment like a butterfly, enjoying the motion of its wings while it lived. Knowing Perkar, she thought a bit sourly, it was not likely to live long. He was too preoccupied with his own worries, his own guilt—what, together, he called “destiny.”

  Did he really believe he could slay the god of the River, merely because some self-styled Crow God told him so? Well, perhaps it was true. Perhaps that was the only way she could ever be truly safe from the River God. But she knew his power, knew it the way a child knows the fists of a father who beats her, and she did not believe he could die. If there was anything in the universe that was eternal, it was the River.

  But perhaps nothing in the universe was eternal. She had read cogent arguments in several books to that effect.

  For the moment, it seemed reasonable—insomuch as anything seemed reasonable—to pursue the course that, after all, she had chosen: to go on to She’leng. But unless she learned much about this plan of the Blackgod, particularly its execution and its likely aftereffects, she would not actually commit to approaching the source. The scale upon her arm told her just how dangerous that could be.

  Perhaps her new gaan powers could help, however. She would have to ask Brother Horse, then consider all of the information available.

  That night they had no choice but to sleep in the open, so they camped in the lowest spot they could find and ranged the horses about so that they might serve as sentinels. There was no sunset, for the sky had gone leaden, and the day faded pitifully away. Hezhi felt cheated; each sunset and sunrise usually seemed more spectacular than the last in the Mang Wastes, as if there must be some compensation for the lack of splendid palaces, gold filigree, and books.

  As she closed her eyes, she wondered what Ghan was doing right then. She speculated, briefly, whether she could send her spirit abroad to Nhol, but the answer to that seemed obvious. If she went near him—or sent the Horse—they would be eaten. Brother Horse had done nothing in the lands of the River but watch, with his vision, if she remembered his story. He had never loosed his wolf or sent his senses out. She added that to her list of things to ask him about.

  But she could picture Ghan, bent over a book by flickering lamplight, tracing the sublime curves of the ancient hand, certain of each stroke. She missed him.

  I shall have to write him another letter soon. Though, of course, she had never managed to send the last. In fact, she realized with considerable chagrin, the earlier one was still in the yekt at the Mang camp.

  Mentally composing its replacement, she drifted into sleep.

  In her sleep came a hurricane. Wind shrieked across a darkling plain, the colors of which were indigo, black, and beetle green. Rainbow lightning brightened the sky so that it resembled the stained glass Hall of Moments, back in the palace, save that here the glass shattered and re-formed in every instant. Images shaped and faded in the trails the light burned on her eyes.

  She did not stand but sat a horse, and she understood that it was her mare, her spirit. Dust devils birthed and died about them, danced like the ladies of the court, stunned into a simulacrum of carefree behavior by Nende’ng and wine, seeking only the sensation of movement and the promise of oblivion.

  Across the vast courtyard—for such it was, she understood suddenly—a shadow man came walking. She saw him enter from a hall on the horizon, as tall as the great Water Temple, stalking toward her, lightning pattering upon his head and shoulders like fiery rain. From most of these obvious attacks he did not flinch, and she watched him approach in growing terror that even the nature of the otherworld could not entirely suppress. Beneath her, the mare whickered, stamped, and rolled her eyes. Hooves rang like bells on the polished marble.

  Suddenly the sky sleeted white, however, a bright, furious light that blinded her, stilled the wind, and rocked the earth the mare stood upon. When the blaze faded, she saw only the giant’s court, darker than before. The hulking shadow giant was gone. Above, she thought she saw vast wings vanish amongst the lofty unlit regions of the roof-sky.

  “I had hoped to impress you,” a voice sighed from nearby, breaking the new stillness. “Now I am fortunate merely to be alive.”

  She peered toward the voice. It was Shadow Man, but grown much smaller. Smaller than she, even, and curled into a ball like a fist.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am the gaan, the one who sent Moss and Chuuzek to find you.”

  Hezhi opened her mouth to speak, but he quickly went on.

  “I know you have been told I am your enemy. I know it must seem that way to you. But you have many enemies, Hezhi, and only a few who love you.”

  “You do not love me,” Hezhi snapped scornfully.

  “No. But I know who does. I know he is coming. I can take you to him.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Your old teacher, Ghan.” The shadow paused and clucked. “Gaan—Ghan. Have you ever noticed that?”

  “Ghan is in Nhol,” she snapped, ignoring his linguistic observation. “I can never go there again.”

  “Both of those statements are untrue,” the Shadow Man contradicted. “They are both lies, though you know not why you tell them. Ghan is coming here. Your father has sent him to make you understand.”

  “Ghan sent me from Nhol in the first place,” Hezhi whispered, feeling as if she would fall from the mare. “He would not come to get me back.”

  “I know what I know. Even Ghan can come to understand he was wrong. Hezhi, listen to me. Before, the River—your ancestor—was asleep. I do not know what transpired between you, exactly, but I know that it frightened you. Imagine him as a great creature, who, while asleep, did not recognize even his own daughter. In that state, he may have frightened you, and you would have been rig
ht to worry, perhaps even to flee him. But he knows you now. He feels remorse. Hezhi, you are the most important child he has ever produced. Karak knows that, that’s why he plots with Perkar. Karak and Perkar will do you harm, Princess, though I cannot see of what sort.”

  “Perkar is my friend.”

  “Oh, no, Princess, he is not. Neither is the Blackgod. It was he who attacked me just now.”

  “So you say. And even if he did, that would only mean he was helping me. Before you were a monster filling the horizon. Now you are a somewhat pitiful thing.”

  “As I said before, I only endeavored to impress you. Even the greatest gaan is no match for a god like Karak, and Karak and all his brethren are no match for the Changeling. You are the Changeling’s daughter, Hezhi, and they are no match for you, either, not if you don’t want them to be. This tinkering about with little spirits and little victories—that is what I do, what I am capable of. You are destined to change the face of the world, not dirty yourself with such paltry forces.”

  “What do you propose I do?” Hezhi snapped, making no effort to hide her irritation.

  “Separate yourself from those you ride with. Find Moss and Chuuzek, who follow you. They will take you to Ghan. He will explain to your satisfaction the rest.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Listen to me,” the shadow hissed, rising up, growing to Human size as it did so.

  Hezhi clapped the flanks of her mount, and the mare leapt forward, hooves flashing. Shadow Man leapt back, kept leaping back, growing more distant in a series of bounds that eventually carried him beyond the horizon and out of the hall. His voice, however, stayed near.

  “You must learn who your friends really are. You have been mistaken about such things before,” he said. “Watch Perkar. Especially watch the Crow God.”

  Then the plain went dark, as if it were a room in which all of the candles had been blown out. Real sleep swallowed her up, and no more dreams came until dawn.