Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  “I just … you’ve all been fighting my fights for me while I lay on my back. I wanted to do something myself.” Not a lie, not as unspeakable as the truth. He might have been able to tell Ngangata, but Yuu’han was there, judging him with that hard Mang judgment, and he simply could not.

  Ngangata just frowned and started for his horse, his ration of words apparently spent for the day.

  “Wait,” Perkar said. “I wasn’t wrong about leaving you on the island. I was right about that. You would have died on the River. If you hadn’t, you would have died when the soldiers attacked me in Nhol. I didn’t want you dead.”

  “You don’t want,” Ngangata snarled, spinning on his heel. “You don’t want this, you don’t want that. Maybe I don’t want to see you killed doing some damn stupid thing like this, did you ever, ever consider that? And maybe Hezhi and Brother Horse don’t want you killed, or they wouldn’t have risked their lives in the otherworld to get your stupid ass back.”

  He strode violently over to Perkar and, quick as a snake striking, slapped him so hard that he rocked back on his heels and sat down, violently, his teeth snapping with the impact.

  “Now get on your damn horse and ride back up the hill with us and start using your head for more than a battering ram.”

  So saying, he leapt upon his stallion, gave heel to it, and in a flurry of dust was gone, leaving Perkar, blinking, on the ground watching him depart.

  Yuu’han regarded him placidly, then offered him a hand up.

  “If it’s any comfort,” Yuu’han confided, “I don’t much care if you live or die. I say you should feel free to ride down on our enemies anytime the mood strikes you.”

  “Thanks,” Perkar said, spitting blood onto the warming sand.

  “We should take Moss with us,” Yuu’han added. “Could you help me tie him to one of these horses?”

  “Yes, of course.” Perkar went to get one of the horses standing about.

  “You didn’t warn me that he was going to hit me,” Perkar complained to Harka.

  “No, I most certainly did not,” the sword replied.

  They broke camp when Ngangata and Yuu’han returned with Perkar and Moss. The latter was unconscious, tied unceremoniously across the saddle of a horse Hezhi had never seen before. When she saw this, she expected to behold Perkar strutting about, full of his brave deed, and she was prepared to give him the tongue-lashing he deserved. Instead, she saw him looking more ashamed and uncertain than ever.

  He wouldn’t speak to her, other than to mumble a few apologies and to make certain she understood he was thankful to her for saving him from the Breath Feasting. After a few moments of strained silence, she kneed her horse up ahead to where Ngangata rode vanguard. There she pried the story from the half man, who doled it out in short, clipped phrases.

  “What’s wrong with him, though?” Hezhi asked. “Wasn’t it better that he didn’t have to fight?”

  Ngangata lifted his odd, square shoulders. “I don’t know. Sometimes I despair of ever understanding him.”

  “You’ve known him for a long time.”

  “No. Only just over a year.”

  “Really?” Hezhi thought she understood the general outline of Perkar’s story—what Ngangata jokingly called the “Song of Perkar.” But this part of the tale she did not know.

  “How did you meet?”

  “We were both members of the expedition to Balat. Of the five of us, only we two survived.”

  “It must have made you close. You seem like brothers.”

  That seemed to amuse Ngangata. “The first time we met we insulted each other. It may have been my fault. Later on we fought—with our fists, not with swords. That was his fault. After that …” He trailed off, but after a moment’s thought picked up the thread and sewed it a bit further. “There is some good in him, you know, of a peculiar kind. Being as I am, I act as a sort of sieve that most people flow through, if you know what I mean. Perkar nearly went through, but in the end, he stayed. Whenever that happens, I count the person a friend, because it happens so rarely that I can’t afford to ignore it.”

  “You mean most people are repelled by your appearance.”

  He shrugged. “I am repelled by it. There is nothing I hate more than a mirror or a clear pool of water. Well … maybe there are things I hate more, but I dislike seeing myself.”

  “I don’t find you ugly,” Hezhi said.

  “You stopped in a different sieve long ago—your friend Tsem. So I would count you a friend, were we to know each other better. But you would never marry me, or bear my children.”

  That startled her. “I haven’t—”

  He waved with the back of his hand. “I only wanted to show you how alien the thought is to you. I have never given any thought to courting you.”

  Hezhi bit her lip. “Or anyone, I guess.”

  “Or anyone,” he confirmed.

  “Then you should, because I think someone would marry you, Ngangata. You are a good man, thoughtful. There must be a woman who wouldn’t fall through the sieve.”

  He smiled. “Show me this woman and I will court her,” he allowed. “I am not as fatalistic as Perkar. I take what opportunities come my way and do not spend time regretting those that do not. Show me such a woman, and I will take my opportunity.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open,” Hezhi said. “But you should, too.” She glanced at him and then away to the increasingly hilly land. “We haven’t spoken very often,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I must ask you a question. I must ask you to answer it truly or not at all.”

  Ngangata raised his thick brows and waited.

  “Can I trust Perkar?”

  The half man pursed his lips and rode silently for so long that Hezhi believed he had taken the offered option not to answer at all. But finally he nodded.

  “It depends on what you mean. You can trust Perkar to always try to do the right thing. That doesn’t mean that you yourself can trust him. In the end perhaps you can, because the people he knows are dearer to him than Perkar himself comprehends. He believes, for instance, that it is the failure of the expedition to Balat that gnaws most at him—the fact that he let his people down. And he does feel that. But what strikes him most deeply is that the actual people who trusted him died: Apad, Eruka, his king. Now he struggles to right those wrongs, and it may blind him to certain things. Do you understand the distinction? Perkar believes in the pursuit of higher causes. That is why I call him a ‘hero.’ But when he focuses his vision too narrowly on saving the world, he can make terrible mistakes, and it is usually those close to him who suffer for it. In that way he is very dangerous, Hezhi. You should be careful of Perkar. He means no harm, but people die in his wake, nevertheless.”

  “I think I knew that. His rescue of me was for some ‘higher purpose.’”

  “Yes.”

  Hezhi shifted uncomfortably in her saddle. That seemed to be the end of the discussion about Perkar, though it only served to confirm what she already suspected. Unexpectedly, she found that she enjoyed speaking with the halfling—and was not yet ready to end their conversation. “What do you know about dreams?” she was surprised to hear herself ask.

  “Not much. I do not have them. If I do, I do not remember them.”

  “How odd. I thought everyone dreamed.”

  “I have had hallucinations, when I was fevered. But I’ve never had a dream or a vision.”

  “My father has dreams,” Hezhi said. “All of those of Royal Blood have them. The River sends them so that we may know his will.”

  “Have you had such a dream?”

  “Something like that,” she replied cautiously.

  “You should speak to Brother Horse. He knows more of this than anyone here—as I’m sure you are aware.”

  “Yes, and I’ll speak to him eventually. But I want you to know, too. In time it may become important.”

  “I’m flattered,” the half man said, and he did not sound sarcas
tic.

  “First of all, I don’t think I got the dream from the River—not directly. I believe that if he could send me a dream, he would do more than that. I believe that I really am beyond his reach. But I think he sent his message through someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “This Mang gaan the Blackgod told you about, the one who sent Moss and Chuuzek, whose men attacked you and Perkar earlier. He has found a way into my dreams. He tells me lies.”

  “What lies?”

  “That part isn’t important. I just thought … if he can send dreams to me, he might be able to do more. I know just enough about sorcery to suspect that.” She looked down uncomfortably.

  “What I’m saying is, perhaps I can’t be trusted, either. Perkar nearly slew me once, and for good reason. A dreadful power sleeps in me, Ngangata. I just want you to know that I should be watched, that’s all.”

  Ngangata smiled. “I trust very little about the world,” he said. “Perkar is perhaps my best—if only—friend, and as you know, I don’t trust him. Inside of you, however, there is a—I’m not good with words—a kind of glimmer. Or maybe a truth. Something I trust, anyway.” He looked away, plainly embarrassed.

  “I hope you’re right,” Hezhi said.

  “Well, I have been wrong before,” Ngangata admitted. “And believe me, I never rely entirely upon such instincts. I will watch you—even more closely than I have.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No need for that,” Ngangata assured her.

  They traveled steadily until noon, and then the men conferred and called a halt. Brother Horse and the other Mang were essentially convinced that whatever creature had dispatched Chuuzek’s party was not following them, guessing that it was a territorial rather than a roaming god. Perkar diffidently agreed. Moss had awakened, and everyone wanted to question him.

  But it was Moss who asked the first question. “Chuuzek? What has become of my cousins?”

  Moss sat on the ground, weaponless, hands tied in front of him. His feet were hobbled with a length of rope that would not hinder him much walking but that would prove inconvenient if he attempted to run. Brother Horse, Perkar, and Ngangata stood over him.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I don’t remember anything much. Something struck my head as I was waking—” He fingered the bruise tentatively.

  “Your cousins are dead. Something bleeding black blood killed them. Do you know what it was?”

  “No,” he replied, but his eyes flicked to Hezhi, and she saw something there that made her doubt his answer.

  “Why were you following us?” Perkar demanded.

  “You know,” Moss answered sullenly.

  “I know only that some shaman sent you to kidnap Hezhi. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “That is the only thing you have need to know.”

  Brother Horse crouched, creakily, before the boy. “Moss, we want to know this thing your cousins died for. They died well; one tied himself to a tree, and whatever god they battled, they sent it away wounded.”

  Moss looked a bit triumphant at that but said nothing. Nor did he reply to any of their other questions. Hezhi was afraid they would strike or torture him, but after a time, they merely stopped in frustration; Ngangata, Perkar, and Raincaster went to hunt, Brother Horse retreated to tend the fire, Yuu’han watched Moss from where he whittled at a cottonwood branch. After a moment, Hezhi stood, brushed at her dress, and walked over to the green-eyed Mang. Heen roused himself to accompany her—the old dog seemed to have appointed himself her guardian as well as Brother Horse’s.

  “May I talk to you, Moss?”

  “You may.”

  “You tried to convince me to go with you before. You said I could bring peace.”

  “I did tell you that.”

  She nodded. “I know you believe that to be true. There is much I don’t know about you, Moss. I know even less about this gaan who sent you to gather me up. I only know that you aren’t much older than I am and you can’t be much wiser.”

  He started to interrupt her, but she held up her hand. “Listen to me, please. I want to say something to you, while I am not too angry to say it.”

  He subsided then and she continued. “When I was younger than I am now, back in Nhol, my best friend vanished. I looked everywhere for him, but I knew where he was all along. The priests took him away and put him in a dark place. They did this because he bore the blood of the River—the one you call the Changeling—and because that blood had marked him. I understood then that if his blood marked me, I would be taken away, too.”

  “That would have been a shame,” Moss said. “A shame to put such a lovely woman somewhere dark.”

  Hezhi felt some bitterness creep into her voice and wished she could keep it out somehow. She really wanted Moss to understand her, not to raise his hackles. “Some have called me pretty—some, perhaps, because they thought it, others merely to flatter me. But if the Royal Blood had worked long in me, no one would have thought me pretty. My relatives so marked all became monsters. Do you want to see my mark?”

  “Very much.”

  She pushed up her sleeve and revealed the single iridescent scale. “That was only the beginning. When I knew for sure that the change was coming to me, I ran. All of these people you see around me helped me run. They have all suffered for it, and many died because of my selfish desire to live. Now your gaan sends people after me, and more men are dying, and I want it to stop. But I will never go back to the River, because no matter what you have been told, I have felt his blood working in me. I know what I would do should he fill me up. He is tricking your shaman, trying to bring me to him. Your shaman in turn tricks you, and he sends me dreams, pretending to offer me my heart’s desire. But I know what is best, because the River has been in me. People die now, but it is as nothing compared to what will happen if you return me to the Changeling. I will be forced to end my own life, if that happens, and I don’t want to do that. But if men like you—good men, I believe, in your hearts—continue to die because of me …” Now she was weeping. “Why doesn’t it stop? Why don’t you all just stop it?”

  Moss spoke very gently, and his eyes were kind. “The world can be seen from so many different angles. Each of us is born seeing the world in a different way, and each moment we live shapes our eyes and hearts differently. I believe everything you say, Princess. You have my sympathy, and I am sorry to have caused you pain. But I still must place my duty first, and now I have the blood of my cousins to avenge, as well. I will think on what you told me, but I will not lie to you; my way is clear.”

  Hezhi felt anger spark, but she pushed an acrimonious retort away.

  “I don’t expect anything from you,” she said evenly. “I just wanted you to know.”

  Moss sighed. “And now I know.”

  As far as Hezhi could tell, there was nothing left to say. She felt tired, drained. Her vision had robbed her of most of the night’s rest, and she wished she could take a nap, at least.

  But there were two things she still needed to do. She had to speak to Brother Horse about her dream—but not now. Her talk with Moss had worn her out on that subject. There was something else, a nagging in her heart. She needed to talk to Tsem.

  He had been moping for days. It troubled her that they had not spoken, but she was embarrassed, both by the Giant’s morose self-pity and by her own reaction to it. Was this what growing up consisted of? Discovering that what you had always believed to be towers of eternal stone were really only shoddy facades? She had believed that her childhood had nurtured few illusions, but the feeling that Tsem was as unbreakable—in spirit, at least—as the iron he was named for had always been with her.

  Now it had been swept away in wind, and what was left for her was someone who needed her comfort.

  In all of her life, she had never been the one to give comfort. She had always sought it. It seemed a chore that she was probably not capable of. But she loved Tsem, and she had to try.<
br />
  Making certain that Yuu’han was still watching Moss, she went to find her old servant, unhappy at how much she dreaded finding him.

  XXIV

  Sorceress

  Ghan emerged into the fresh air and light of the afterdeck reluctantly; he had much reading to do and too little time, he feared, to complete it. But the motion of the boat—imperceptible as it usually was—made him queasy when combined with many hours of reading and writing. And though in Nhol he had considered sunlight about as desirable as poisoned wine, here he found it revived him, soothed him for more work.

  Unfortunately, Ghe’s sharp ears always heard him emerge and the ghoul almost always joined him, where they sat like a pair of spiders, limbs curled and eyes squinting at the brightness of daylight. This time was no exception; the door soon eased open behind him and Ghe trod noiselessly across the baroque patterns of rust-colored stains that recalled the carnage of a few days before.

  “The dream becomes more persistent,” the ghoul informed him, with no preamble, as if they were already in the midst of a conversation. Ghan glanced up from his absent study of the bloodstains, but Ghe was not watching him, staring instead at some middle distance.

  “The dream about the Mang?” Ghan asked.

  “Yes.” Ghe drew his legs beneath him cross-style as he sat. “The emperor included you on this expedition for the purpose of counseling me. Use your scholarly wits and tell me what these dreams mean.”

  “I’m a scholar, not a soothsayer,” Ghan snapped. “You need an old woman with casting bones, not me.”

  “An old woman with casting bones …” Ghe’s eyes widened in startlement, then went far away—a sign Ghan had come to interpret as a search through his shards of memory. After a moment, he unfurrowed his brow and leveled an enigmatic gaze at Ghan. “Well, there are no casting bones here and no old woman. You must know something of dreams.”