by Greg Keyes
“We might as well stay on the River until we reach this point here,” Ghan said, indicating a single waving line that intersected the River.
“What’s that?”
“Another, smaller watercourse. It may be that we can take the barge up it some distance. Then we will have to debark and go overland.”
“To where?”
Ghan glanced up at him frankly. “Understand me,” Ghan said. “I think I have little use to you or the emperor other than my knowledge of where Hezhi is. I wish to preserve that usefulness as long as I may. For now, I will say only that you should sail to the mouth of that stream and then up it, if possible.”
Ghe nodded. There was nothing stupid about the old man. Indeed, he reminded Ghe of someone. For an instant, he knew who it was; the old woman on Red Gar Street, whom he had murdered. He felt a sudden flush of emotion at the thought, a shadow of the sadness that overtook him after she died. Why should this old man remind him of her?
They were both old, both ugly, both hard and unforgiving, that was what. Both dangerous, added to the list. But there was something more fundamental he could not remember.
“Well, then,” he said, to interrupt his own thought. “I shall take this news to Bone Eel, unless you wish to advise him yourself.”
“Please.” Ghan snorted. “I have spoken to him once; that shall suffice until such time as I die and he summons my ghost and compels me to speak to him again. I have avoided his sort for many years, and now I am crowded shipboard with one.”
Ghe nodded. “I understand you. The priesthood and engineers are full of his kind. I believe that it is actually Qwen Shen who leads this expedition.”
“Yes, Qwen Shen. Lady Fire, Lady Ice.”
“What?”
“That is the meaning of her name, you idiot,” Ghan said. “Fire, ice.”
“Oh.”
“Go. I have much reading to do.”
“Master Ghan, do you never do other than read?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that you have never been north of Nhol on the River. And yet, here you sit, closeted away, rather than beholding the world as it unfolds.”
“Yes, well, as of now I can pretend I am not on this mad journey. I can keep my mind on important things. Soon enough—when you have me marching overland on these ancient legs—I will not have that luxury. Besides, what can one see ‘unfolding’ out there?”
“Well… water and distant levees, I suppose, another boat now and then. I see your point.”
“Indeed. And a person of normal intelligence would have seen my point long ago and thus spared me wind that I cannot afford. I am old; there is not that much left in me.”
“Once again I apologize, Master Ghan, and I will leave you to your work.”
He bowed briefly and exited the room. He went back above and thought that he did not see Ghan’s point. As he stepped out onto the polished planks, the world seemed wondrous and entirely new. The sun cast a cheerful yellow light on the world, and clouds meandered good-naturedly across a sky that, like the sun, was as simple and unshaded as the colors in his dreams. Some thirty or so of the soldiers stood along the railings, still in their aquamarine-and-gold kilts and burnished steel armor. His soldiers, really, here because he asked the emperor for them. Men who would fight and die at his command.
Best of all, the enterprise was not the wan hope it had once been. Ghan knew where Hezhi was, knew exactly where she was. Soon he would find her, protect her from her enemies, embrace her once again. He would bring her back to her father—not the poor flesh-and-blood one in the palace, but the one she truly belonged with. She fled him only because she did not understand him, and that because of the priesthood filling her from childhood with the wrong notions, notions that came from that dark place beneath, where a terrible creature masqueraded as Human while toying with the First Emperor on a chain. She had learned to fear the God, equate him with the perversions of the priests—perversions and fears that he himself had once embraced before death awoke him. But the River—the truth of him—was this he saw now, vastness, the sky come to live upon the earth, life, the cycle of rain. Joy. In that instant, he felt his head and his feet as a world apart, and between them crawfish, gar, flatfish, crabs, catfish, eels—all of the living things in the waters, the vast brakes of reed and cane, the thick cypress and mangrove stands of the Swamp Kingdoms. No trace of hunger pained him, and the nightmare verity that he was dead seemed far distant, a misplaced worry. Only one unquiet thought lay in him, and it was annoying because he could not find its heart at all. In it was something of the temple and its weird master, but that was not the seed of his… worry? Fear?
Whatever it was, he would deal with it when it came, and now, for the first time since his rebirth, he felt—bizarrely—almost like singing. He would not let one skewed thought pull him away from this rare sensation. Nor would he sing; that would be too much, and others on the boat would think him addled—but he would watch the River gliding past and worship it, know it for his destiny, and that would be like singing.
In his cabin, Ghan studied the map carefully, and another that held more detail. He cross-referenced it against the geography he had brought with him.
He trod a tightrope now, with razors on either side. If only he were absolutely certain that the priesthood had not sent a mission. But if they had, it was far ahead of them, and Hezhi and Tsem would have already escaped or been captured.
He did not see how the latter could happen unless the Mang sold her to them, and he could not imagine what a priest might offer or wield that would buy or intimidate the Mang.
His plan was still only half shaped, still coming together. Too much of it hinged upon Yen, who continually surprised him. There was something about Yen he did not understand, a part of the tapestry unwoven or out of sight, at least.
Meanwhile, he had his maps and his geography. He would learn what he could from them.
Thus, as Ghe walked abovedecks, wondering what prickled at his happiness, Ghan turned back to the first map and absently ticked his finger upon the conical drawing of a mountain labeled “She’leng,” whence the wiggly line signifying the River began. It was odd, he thought, how much it resembled the drawing that marked Nhol, half a world away.
XXI
The Shadow Man
Wake up.
Perkar opened his eyes to a sky that shuddered and bumped so that he feared the clouds would shake loose from it and fall upon him. In fact, it seemed that some of them already had, for he was soaked to the bone. He raised his hand feebly in a vain attempt to brush the water from his clothing, and the world wobbled even more dangerously.
Someone chattered in a language that he didn’t immediately understand—and then recognized as Mang. He jerked up, realizing suddenly how weak his body felt, how limp. His last real memory was of playing Slap with a big Mang warrior—and losing. What had they done with him?
He couldn’t sit up, because he was tied down, strapped to a travois.
“Hey!” he tried to roar, but instead issued only a weak cough. Still, someone else heard it, and the scratching progress of the travois suddenly stopped.
A thick, half-Human face blotted the sky, and quick fingers pulled at straps on his chest.
“Ngangata,” Perkar croaked.
“How do you feel?”
“The way I felt after the Huntress was done with me. What happened?”
“Well, that is a very long story, and—”
“Perkar!” A rustling of cloth and soft boots on sand accompanied an excited shout. He turned his head and saw Hezhi scrambling across desert toward him.
“Brother Horse said you would wake up soon! I thought the rain would do it!”
“Hello, Princess. I hope someone can explain something to me soon.”
Thank her for saving your life, Harka muttered in his ear, faintly—as if the sword, too, were ill.
“Saved my life?” Perkar paraphrased. What was going on here? Surely he h
ad 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 River, 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.”