The Blackgod

by Greg Keyes

  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.

  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.”

  Ghan rolled his eyes and then tapped the
deck, as if he were explaining to a child. “Hezhi had dreams about Perkar, before he came to Nhol. The River linked the two of them with visions, drew them together through them. You understand that much?”

  “Have a care, Ghan,” the ghoul cautioned him.

  “You asked for my help.”

  “Yes, yes, go on.”

  “The River sends dreams, especially to the Waterborn. You told me he had sent you other dreams, in the past.”

  “Yes, to explain my purpose.”

  “Just so,” Ghan agreed. “If you press me for my opinion in the matter, you are being connected to this Mang man by the River. He is an ally or an enemy.”

  Ghe twisted his mouth ruefully. “But which? I can sort that much sense into my dreams. Bone Eel could have told me that.”

  Ghan snorted. “Please, be my guest in seeking scholarly advice from Bone Eel.” He rocked back against the bulkhead. His hip still hurt, and he wondered if he had cracked it. He turned to find Ghe, jaw muscles locked, staring intently at the water.

  “You are wrong, you know,” Ghan remarked.

  “About?”

  “I told you what I thought about your dream, and I told you I didn’t know the explanation for it. A fool—like Bone Eel—would have given you a definitive answer.”

  Ghe fingered the little scar on his chin. Ghan thought he looked a bit more relaxed. “I see what you mean. Though even if you had an answer for me, you might not reveal it to me.”

  Ghan let that pass. Why deny the obvious? Instead he settled for at least appearing to be helpful. “What do you think about this mysterious horseman?” he asked. “What feeling do you have?”

  Ghe shook his head as if affirming something. “That he is like me, a servant of the River. That he seeks Hezhi as I do.” He shifted on the deck, produced a knife from somewhere, and began absently picking at the wood. As he spoke, he kept his gaze focused on the knife point, only occasionally half glancing at Ghan.

  Like an embarrassed little boy. For some reason that comparison trotted a little shiver up Ghan’s spine and disturbed him more than the moment when he had seen the scar and known what the man was.

  “The odd thing is,” he went on, digging a little trench around one of the larger stains, “though I have more frequent dreams of the horseman now, they are more shadowy, as well. His face is less clear than it was the first time I dreamed of him.”

  Ghan continued to shiver despite the deep warmth of the day and turned to watch an enormous green heron lift from the reeds at the banks of the River. Beyond the reeds and a few willows, short grass extended to the horizon. Two days farther south it was desert.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ghe following his gaze—or, more probably, eyeing his back. His shoulder blades felt cold suddenly, like twin hatchets of ice buried in him. But when the ghoul spoke, his voice was tinged with wonder, so that it seemed impossible he could be thinking of killing. “He’s out there somewhere, isn’t he? She’s out there.”

  Ghan nodded and cleared his throat, surprising even himself as he recited:

  “With their ship, the Horse,

  They ply the sea of grass,

  They stalk the walking mountains,

  With stones they make their beds.”

  He trailed off and studied the deck more intently. “Well, you have to imagine it sung,” he muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “From an old book, The Mang Wastes. I sent a copy of it to Hezhi when I learned where she was.”

  “You’ve read much about the Mang?”

  “Lately. Lately I have.”

  “Since you discovered her whereabouts.”

  Ghan nodded in reply, caught the crooked look Ghe sent his way.

  “You do know where she is. Well enough to send her a book.”

  “I told you that much before,” Ghan replied.

  “So you did. But you never showed me how to get there. When will you tell me that?”

  Ghan answered with some heat in his voice. “You could take what you want. I know that. In fact, I wonder why you haven’t.” He set his chin defiantly, so that it wouldn’t quiver.

  “Qwen Shen wonders that, also,” Ghe said. “I’m not certain what to tell her.”

  “Qwen Shen?” Ghan snorted. “Is she your advisor, too? Does she help you chart your plans as you take horizontal council with her?” He knew he was straying over the line, and he braced for the fist closing in his chest. But it made him angry, when people were stupid.

  Ghe did nothing more than frown dangerously. “Have a care, old man,” he advised. “Qwen Shen is a loyal servant of the emperor and the River. She deserves your respect.”

  “Five days ago you suspected her of plotting your destruction,” he persisted.

  “Five days ago I had just been wounded. I suspected everyone. Now I conclude that the assassin was a Jik, placed among the guards by the priesthood.”

  “Have you questioned him in this matter—the would-be assassin?”

  Ghe raised his palms in a small gesture of helplessness. “He was killed by a Dehshe shaft just after wounding me. Not the death I would have invented for him, but at least he is no longer a danger.”

  “You don’t see the great convenience in that? In his dying before you could question him?”

  “Enough of this,” Ghe snapped in annoyance. “We were discussing your decision to tell me where Hezhi is.”

  Ghan sighed. “My life has recently taken a turn for the worse, but I’m still selfish enough to value it. I will take you to her.”

  “Old man, if I were going to kill you, I already would have.”

  “I know that. It isn’t your killing me that I fear.” Which was not entirely true. Ghe inspired both fear and revulsion in him. And something was different about him these past few days, unpredictable since he and Qwen Shen had begun their liaison.

  Ghe’s lip curled, half protest, half snarl. “I told you—”

  “I know what you think of her. But I am not sleeping with Qwen Shen—and I don’t trust her. You just as much as said she’s trying to convince you to swallow up my soul, or whatever it is you do.”

  Ghe gazed straight at him then, his eyes like glass, the unwinking regard of a serpent. He clucked thrice with his tongue, as if chastising a baby. “You don’t understand about her,” he said. He leaned close, and his voice became confidential. “I know we can trust Qwen Shen because she is the River’s gift to me.”

  “What?”

  “For serving him.” Ghe lowered his voice further, and his murderer’s eyes focused on the vast horizon. “Since I was reborn, I’ve never forgotten that I was dead,” he explained. “When I was a Jik, I used to say ‘I am a blade of silver, I am a sickle of ice.’ That was to remind me that I was merely a weapon, something the priesthood might wield against its foes. I was content with that. When I was reborn, I knew that I was still a tool, but this time my lord was higher, my purpose grander. But still a tool, to be discarded when the job was finished.”

  A sickly grin writhed upon his lips. “Do you know what it is to live in nightmare? In my world, Ghan, food has no taste, wine no intoxication. The River has large, but simple appetites, and the small things Human Beings enjoy are beneath his notice. Nightmare, where nothing is as it should be. You bite into the sweetmeat and find it full of maggots. You shake your mother to wake her—and find her dead. That’s what it’s like, if you want to write it down. Yet now, now, the River has given me Qwen Shen. You can’t possibly comprehend what that means.”

  “You love this woman?”

  “Love her? You understand nothing. She is a gateway. She prepares me.”

  “Prepares you for what?”

  Ghe stared at him as if he were insane. “Why, for Hezhi, of course.”

  Ghan bit back a reply, but as it sunk in, he shuddered again at the sheer dementia of that claim. He very much wanted to leave the afterdeck and go somewhere else, but there was nowhere else to go. Ghe asked if he understood living wi
th nightmare, and he wanted to reply that he did. The entire barge seemed like a floor ankle-deep in broken glass, and him without shoes: no place to tread safely. His hopes of misleading Ghe and the others grew slimmer with each moment; if the self-styled “ghoul” ever suspected that Ghan was lying to him, he would merely devour him. It would probably be best for him to drown himself now, before they got what they wanted from him one way or the other. But even that might be pointless, if Ghe really was linked with some Mang ally of the River. In fact, since the Mang were nomadic, Hezhi was more than likely not where Ghan had known her last to be. This dream man of Ghe’s probably had more current information on her whereabouts than Ghan did.

  So killing himself would probably not help Hezhi significantly, and it would remove the only real ally she had. No, as long as a chance existed for him to help her, he would not remove himself from this game of Na. He might not be an important counter, but he was a counter. Even the lowest such could eclipse and remove any other marker on the board.

  “Tell me more about the Mang,” Ghe said, abruptly interrupting his thoughts.

  Ghan motioned at the surrounding plain. “You see where they live. They travel and fight mostly on horseback. They live in skin tents and small houses of stone and wood.”

  “That passage you quoted, about walking mountains. What did that mean?”

  “The plains are home to many large creatures. The Mang hunt them to survive.”

  “What creature is as large as a mountain?”

  Ghan cracked a faint smile. “That was Saffron Court literature. Literature from that court is prone to hyperbole.”

  “Hyperbole?”

  “Exaggeration.”

  “But what were they exaggerating?”

  Ghan shrugged. “We shall see for ourselves, soon enough.”

  “That’s true,” Ghe murmured. “I’m looking forward to it.” He gestured once again at the alien landscape. “I never understood how big the world was, how strange.”

  “I would settle for a smaller one at the moment,” Ghan admitted. “My own rooms, my library.”