by Greg Keyes
Despite the comforting words, Hezhi felt panic rise in her chest. They had tied her down, naked, drugged her—awakened that thing in her belly, in her blood. This seemed somehow like that, another trick, something thrust upon her. The similarity between ghun and gaan flashed once more through her mind. Priest, shaman, what was the difference to her?
“Wh-what will you do?” she stuttered.
“Nothing. Nothing without your leave. Indeed, Hezhi, there is nothing I can do. You must do it, though I can guide you, help you along the way.”
“There must be something else,” she insisted. “Some way to be rid of him forever.”
They stepped beneath the slight natural roof, the enormous sky halved by the red stone. It was oddly comforting to Hezhi, making the world seem smaller, more manageable. Brother Horse motioned her toward a flat stone and lowered himself by degrees onto another, as if his joints were rusted metal. He placed his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands with thumbs together, and pointed skyward. He looked first at the cold stone and charcoal between them, but then raised his gaze frankly to meet hers.
“No way that I know of, child. My hope for you was that the ember in you would die away without the River nearby to strengthen it. But it has caught, you see? Even without him, it will burn inside of you. Not as the Changeling planned for it to; it will not transform you as you have told me it did your kin. Still, unless you bank it, bring it under your control, that little flame will yet consume you.”
Hezhi considered that she did know one way; she could fling herself from a cliff, break her body, and release her curse with her spirit. But even that might not work; more likely she would become a monstrous ghost, the sort that had once attacked her in Nhol. The Mang spoke often of ghosts, as well. However different the lands beyond the River were, they were not so different that death was a certain escape.
“What then?” she asked. “What must I do?”
Brother Horse reached over to stroke her hair. “It may not be so bad as you think,” he said. “But I won’t promise you that it will be easy.”
“Nothing is, for me, it seems,” she replied dully.
“It may even make you happier,” he went on. “I’ve watched you, these past months. You took to camp work pretty well. In time, I think you could even be good at it. But you would never love it, would you? The only things that I know you love—that I can see you love—are your paper and your ink, your book. The thought of books.”
“What does this have to do with that?” she muttered.
“Mystery,” he answered simply. And in that small word, Hezhi caught a glimmer of something. Hope, possibilities—something to fill the growing emptiness in her heart.
“Mystery,” she repeated, a question really. Brother Horse nodded affirmation.
“That is what you find in your books, am I right? Questions that you had not thought of yourself? Visions you could not imagine unaided? I can offer you the same.”
“It frightens me,” she admitted. “What lives in me frightens me.”
“It always will, unless you master it,” he said. “And probably even then, if you have sense, which I believe you do. But did your books bring you only comfort?”
She quirked an insincere smile at that. “No, not comfort,” she answered.
“Well, then,” the old man said. “Why do you hesitate?”
“Because I’m tired,” she snapped. “Weary of new things, of being frightened, of being sick, of losing what I know! Tired of these things happening to me…”
He waited until she was done, until she chewed down on her lip, panting, fury replacing fear.
“What then?” she asked again, this time sharply, insistently. “How do we start this?”
The old man hesitated, then reached into a pouch at his waist. He withdrew a small dagger, its blade keen and silver in the shadowed shelter.
“As always,” Brother Horse replied. “With blood.”
Hezhi turned the knife over and over in her hand, as if inspecting it would allay her fears. Instead, she only grew more nervous as Brother Horse kindled a small fire in the stone hearth.
She was distracted by the process of fire-making itself, which relied not upon matches—the only way she had ever seen fire “made”—but upon a dubiously simple device. He placed a flat piece of wood on the shelter floor; the wood had grooves cut along one side, and these shallow cuts terminated in blackened depressions. In one of these depressions he placed a stick, about the length of her forearm, and began to twirl it briskly with his palms, starting at the top of the stick and working quickly to its base, returning his palms to the top again, and so on. In moments a coil of smoke sought up from the juncture of the two pieces of wood. The smoke grew thicker and thicker until Brother Horse removed the stick and blew upon the hole he had been twirling it in. Astonished, Hezhi saw a small red coal there.
“Hello, Fire Goddess,” Brother Horse said. “Welcome to my hearth. I will treat you well.” He shook the coal onto a small wad of shredded dry material of some sort, held it delicately in his fingers, and breathed upon it. In an instant, he held flame between his fingers. With that small blossom, he ignited a pile of twigs leaning together like a little tent and, as they caught, added larger pieces of wood on top. Heen, sleeping with his head between his paws, opened a single eye halfway at the scent of smoke, then closed it once more, singularly unimpressed by the birth of a goddess.
“Can you teach me that?” she breathed.
“To waken the Fire Goddess? Of course. It is simply done. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it happen.”
“The women would never let me near, at the hunting camp; not when they made fire.”
“Women have some odd taboos about the goddess,” Brother Horse informed her, then added, “and about foreigners, as well.”
“That I know.” The wood crackled gleefully. Hezhi cocked her head and even smiled, despite the threatening edge of the knife in her hand, the nervous twitching in her belly. “I never thought of fire as a miracle before,” she breathed.
“See her in there?” Brother Horse asked. “Look closely.” He gestured with his lips, his gnarled brown fingers feeding bits of juniper twigs to the flame.
“No,” Hezhi said, suddenly understanding what she was being asked to do. She averted her eyes from the little tongues of light.
“The Fire Goddess is different,” Brother Horse reassured her gently. “She has lived with Human Beings for a long time—at least this aspect of her. Look, child. I will help you.”
He reached over and took hold of her hand; trembling a bit, she turned her gaze back to the fire. The evergreen tang of juniper smoke wrapped her as the wind shifted, and her eyes squinted over the sting and tears. Brother Horse tightened his grip on her, and in that instant the fire seemed to rush up, open like the shutters of a window. As through a window, she could suddenly see through it, to another place.
Once again, alien thoughts crowded her mind, and the scale upon her arm pulsed madly. She gasped and jerked to release herself from Brother Horse, but he kept his grip, and when she turned her head it was to no avail; the goddess was still there.
But after the first instant, her beating heart began to slow. Seeing the god at the cairn had been terrible, like suddenly understanding that she had pushed her hands into a nest of stinging worms, the shock before the pain. There was nothing of her in that experience, only the promise of dread and power.
The Fire Goddess was different. Hezhi saw warmth and comfort, an offer of aid rather than of power, an acceptance of her will and self that she did not fear. The Cairn God had threatened to sweep her away, like the River. The Fire Goddess only filled her with light and hope. It was still uncomfortable, but it was not terrible, not unbearable.
“Oh,” Hezhi murmured as comprehension waxed. She glanced at Brother Horse, to show him she understood, and her jaw dropped.
Brother Horse still sat watching her, but his body had gone gray, insubstantial, and within it, dark shap
es swam about. She got the fleeting impression of fangs, of flickering yellow eyes, of hunger. There was also something there that reminded her of raw fish, of fish in the kitchen, just after Qey gutted them for steaming.
“What?” she gasped, and violently yanked her hand from his. She staggered to her feet, and, though Brother Horse called after her, she scrambled as quickly as she could out of the shelter and into the wide, bright eye of the sky. She did not stop running until she could no longer hear Brother Horse at all.
V
The Blackgod
Perkar watched the stranger advance, keeping his grip on Harka firm, despite his sword’s assurance that the approaching god—or whatever it was—posed no immediate threat. Whoever it was seemed, at least, to be in no hurry to threaten them, ambling across the eighty or so paces separating them, pausing to examine the sky now and then.
As he watched this, Perkar caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He turned reluctantly and saw the Mang warrior whose leg he had injured crawling across the snow, a fierce determination shining through the glaze of pain over his eyes. Perkar started, wondered why Harka had not warned him. Stepping quickly back, he was able to put both the Mang and the approaching being in his field of vision, and then he understood Harka’s lack of alarm. The injured man was not crawling toward him, or even Ngangata. He was clawing across the frozen ground toward his companion’s downed horse, which, despite the fact that Perkar had severed both front legs at the knee, was still panting heavily.
As Perkar watched, the man collapsed, ending the crooked red trail he was painting in the snow an arm’s reach from the stallion.
“Gods curse you, Perkar,” Ngangata hissed. “How could you—kill him. Now!”
For a moment, it was the old Perkar, the old Ngangata. What was the half man jabbering about? Why kill an injured man? And who was Ngangata to curse him?
“The horse! For pity’s sake, kill it!” Ngangata had his bow trained on the approaching figure. Perkar was nearest the suffering animal.
Of course. The Mang had been trying to reach the horse, put it out of its pain.
“Watch him, then,” Perkar answered, waving at the stranger. He turned on the beast.
It was gazing up at him, flanks heaving but its eye steady, a pool of black incomprehension.
“Oh, no,” Perkar whispered. “Harka, what did I do?”
“Bested two mounted men, I would say,” his sword replied.
Perkar said nothing to that, but he swung the blade savagely down, cut through the handsome neck. The body heaved once as blood spurted, steaming, onto the snow, and then, mercifully, ceased to move.
Sickened almost to vomiting, Perkar turned as much of his attention as he could focus on the newcomer, who was by now only a score of paces away.
He had the appearance of a Mang man, though taller and rangier than most, features regular and handsome. His clothing was rich and spectacular; a long split coat of midnight-blue sable, ermine boots, a fringed elkhide shirt adorned with silver coins. Thick black hair, unbound, flowed from beneath a cylindrical felt hat, also banded with coins, both silver and gold.
“Huuzho,” he said, uttering the typical Mang greeting in a sibilant, musical voice.
“Name yourself,” Perkar snarled back, still fighting nausea.
“Name yourself or come no closer. I have slain gods and will gladly do so again.”
“Have you?” the man said, bowing politely. “How interesting. In that case—I have no wish to die—I name myself Yaizhbeen, and I present myself to you most humbly.”
“Yaizhbeen?” Perkar looked blankly at Ngangata, who was more fluent in Mang. “Yai” meant a god of the sky, he remembered.
“Blackgod,” Ngangata translated. Perkar caught his friend’s peculiar tone.
“At your service,” the man answered. “And so good to see you both again.”
“Again?” Perkar asked, but already puzzlement was grading toward dismay.
“Blackgod,” Ngangata said, without ever taking his eye from the man, “is one name that the Mang give Karak, the Raven.”
Perkar snapped Harka up, flicking thick drops of horse blood through the air. A bit of it splattered on the Crow God’s cheek, but he did not blink, maintaining his somewhat condescending smirk.
“Karak,” Perkar gritted, “if you have a weapon, I suggest you draw it.”
“Perkar, this is useless,” Harka’s voice came in his ear.
Karak looked mildly surprised, “I fail to understand your mood,” he remarked, his voice smooth, confident. “And let me remind you that I named myself Blackgod. You asked me for a name, and that is the one you were given. Please call me by it.”
“I will call you as I please,” Perkar retorted. “Find a weapon.”
The Blackgod stepped forward until Harka was a fingerspan from his heart. His yellow eyes were steady on Perkar’s. “What quarrel do you have with me, Perkar?” he demanded, though softly.
“Must I name them all? You tricked my friends and me into slaying an innocent woman. You yourself killed Apad. That is sufficient, I think.”
“I see,” the Blackgod replied. Perkar could feel the tension in Ngangata, but the halfling said nothing, though he surely wanted to. From the corner of his eye, Perkar could see that his friend’s bow was still raised.
“Ngangata,” Perkar said, “please leave us.”
“Perkar—”
“Please. If you have come to care for me at all, if you have forgiven me at all, Ngangata, mount and ride from here. I could not stand it if you died now.”
“This is sweet, but there is no need for anyone to die,” Karak assured them reasonably.
“I believe otherwise.”
“Then let me answer your charges, mortal man,” the god said, a trace of anger showing at last. “For though I love carrion, I would prefer that you live for a time. Now, first, the woman. Who summoned my aid to enter the cavern and find the weapons she guarded?”
“We did not summon you.”
“Does it matter whom you intended to summon? You wished a guide to take you precisely where I took you, true?”
“Don’t play games with me.”
Karak leaned into Harka until blood started on his skin. The blood was gold in color, dispelling any doubts Perkar had as to his identity. “True?” he repeated.
Perkar flattened his mouth into a grim line. “True.”
“You wanted the weapons. They were bound to her blood, and she to the cave. The only way to take them was to kill her.”
“I would not have chosen to do that.”
“You did not. Your friend Apad did. Because you led him there, because he thought himself a coward and was proving himself to you. Apad got you what you wanted, Manchild.”
“And you killed him.”
“That was war. I obeyed my liege, the Forest Lord. I might remind you that disobeying your liege was what got you into that mess, by the way. Apad attacked me, and he died a warrior, rather than a coward or a murderer. He did considerable damage to the host of the Huntress before losing his ghost. What better death can a seeker of Piraku desire? How better to redeem himself?”
Perkar fought for words, but his tongue seemed thick and stupid beneath the weight of the Raven’s verbal onslaught. “You are twisting this…” he began, but the Blackgod shook his head.
“Wait,” he went on. “There are crimes you did not name. Let me name them for you. I allowed you to survive, after the Huntress wounded you. I left you among the dead so that Harka, there, could heal you. I gave you a boat to negotiate the waters of the Changeling, at risk to my own life and position both from the River God and from my own liege lord. I cajoled and bribed Brother Horse into aiding Ngangata, here, to find you, and I told them when and where to locate you. Just now I killed an archer who might have slain your friend. Now. For these crimes will you kill me, as well, or will you kill me and then thank me, in the order that I brought things to you?”
Karak narrowed his eye
s, and in that moment, though he retained his Human form, he seemed very birdlike indeed. “And,” he snapped, “if you have no interest in thanking me, do you not have even the slightest curiosity about my motives for following one lone, silly Human across half of the world to give him my aid? Do you not even wonder at that, Perkar? If not, you are a dolt. Push that sword into me, and we shall see who is the stronger, Harka or myself.”
“I know the answer to that already,” Harka said. “Sheathe me, you idiot.”
Perkar ignored the blade. “Tell me then. Tell me why everything.”
“Perhaps,” the Crow God said, his voice again mild, “when you have lowered your weapon. Perhaps I will tell you how to set things right. Set everything right.”
“The war with the Mang? My people?”
“Everything.”
Grinding his teeth, Perkar slowly, reluctantly lowered Harka. He heard the creak of Ngangata’s bow unflexing, as well.
“Make camp,” Karak commanded. “I will retrieve my mount.”
“You play dangerous games,” Ngangata told him as the Blackgod walked back off the way he came.
“Not a game, Ngangata. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Don’t forget your own advice, my friend,” Perkar said.
“Which advice?”
“About heroes. My fights are not your fights. When I provoke my doom, you should walk away.”
“That’s true,” Ngangata acknowledged. “I should. But until you provoke it again, why don’t you gather some wood while I see if our friend, here, is still alive.” He gestured at the crumpled figure of the Mang warrior.
“What will we do with him?” Perkar muttered.
“Depends. But we should learn why they attacked us.”
“Perhaps they know my people and theirs are at war. Perhaps they merely wanted our skins as trophies for their yekts.”
“Perhaps,” Ngangata conceded. “But did you hear what they were yelling as they attacked?”
“I don’t remember them yelling anything.”