Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  Hezhi frowned. “I don’t understand. I am my father’s daughter. I carry the Royal Blood—from my mother’s line, too. I will be like them, powerful. One day.”

  “One day,” Tsem said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “But now let’s get you back aboveground, to a proper bath and fresh clothes.”

  “No,” Hezhi replied. She pressed herself away from the half Giant. “No. I’m going on.”

  “Oh? So you can keep falling into pools?”

  “I should have brought a lantern, that’s all. Now I have one. Say …” Hezhi frowned. “I thought I lost you, like always. How did you find me?”

  Tsem grinned a little, showing his enormous teeth. “You not lose Tsem, little Mistress. Tsem always stay far back, always out of sight.”

  Hezhi reddened. “You’re using your dumb voice. Because I thought you were dumb, too. But I guess I was the one who …” She broke off again, this time to stifle a sudden giggle.

  “What?” Tsem demanded.

  “I was just picturing someone your size sneaking around after me and D’en.”

  Tsem touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about D’enata.”

  “His name,” Hezhi snapped, all sudden humor vanished, “is D’en. Nn! And I’m going to find him!”

  “I knew that was what you were about!” Tsem exclaimed. “Princess, it is hopeless. Give up this notion. Try to forget your friend. It is all that you can do.”

  “I will not.”

  “Where will you go from here? Even with a lantern? Your trail ends there, in the water.” He gestured at the submerged lower stair.

  That silenced her. Tsem was right. Or was he? In her excitement, in arguing with Tsem, Hezhi had not looked around properly, now that she was able. But Tsem was indeed right. She could just barely see the arch of one door, there beyond the stair. If she could reach that, she might duck under it and find another room. Or she might not.

  “I’ll go back,” she said, “but only so far as another turning. There are many ways down into this darkness. One must lead to D’en.”

  Tsem wagged a finger. “I will carry you out, Princess. Your father will thank me.”

  “And I will come back, Tsem. Again and again, until I either find him or fall too far for even you to save me. If you always follow me, you know what I think of doing, at times. And now that I know how smart you are, I think I may get away from you. I was never as clever as I could be, Tsem, since I didn’t realize I had to be.”

  Tsem knitted his brows back together. “What do you want of me, Mistress? My task is to keep you safe. I can’t let you run around down here. There are things down here.”

  “There are things up there, too.”

  “I don’t mean ghosts, little Princess. Those are mostly harmless, and the priests keep the bad ones swept out. Down here there are real things. And the priests don’t come down here to sweep.”

  Hezhi sighed. “My mind is made up. You can either go with me—where I want to go—or you can leave me alone. Which will it be? Protect me, or let me roam?”

  “My head,” Tsem growled, “is as likely to leave my shoulders either way.”

  “I wouldn’t let them do that, Tsem.”

  “You have no control over such things, Princess.”

  For a moment, Hezhi nearly relented. Tsem was so good, so loyal. Almost as much a friend as D’en had been. But Tsem and all of the other servants kept a certain distance from her—even Qey, the woman who had nursed her, been all but completely her mother. Even Qey had been withdrawing from Hezhi these last few years. D’en had been unreserved with his affection.

  “Tsem,” Hezhi said evenly, “I will find D’en. With or without you.”

  Tsem nodded sadly, not in her direction, but out over the sunken hall. “Very well.” He sighed. “With me, then. But not now, Mistress. Not today. Tomorrow, when you’ve rested, when we get you some proper clothes.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  “Yes, though it won’t do any good,” Tsem said sadly.

  “We will find him,” Hezhi insisted.

  “Maybe that will not be a good thing,” Tsem gently replied.

  “Do you think he is dead?”

  Tsem regarded her for a long moment, then scooped her up in his great arms. “You’ll catch a fever like this, Princess.” He bent and took the lantern in one massive hand and carefully started up the mud-covered stair.

  “Why do they take them off, Tsem?”

  It seemed that Tsem considered that question for perhaps too long a time before answering. “I don’t know, Princess.”

  “I think you do,” Hezhi told him petulantly. “Do they take servants off, too?”

  “No. Not like that. When a servant is punished, it is done publicly, with much fanfare. So the rest of us will know.”

  Tsem was past the slickest mud now, and gray light was beginning to filter in from farther up the tunnel, where it turned right.

  “Do you really not know why they take them off, Tsem?”

  “I really don’t. Not for sure.”

  “Do you think that they will take me off?”

  “No,” Tsem answered, his voice curiously flat and clipped.

  “If they could take off D’en, why not me?”

  Tsem shrugged his massive shoulders. “You think too much, Princess. Because they won’t, that’s all.”

  Tsem could be a wall in more ways than one. Hezhi knew when he would say no more.

  The hot bathwater felt good. The angry gaze of Qey did not. Her middle-aged face was as round and tight as a fist; her hazel eyes sparkled dangerously in the lamplight as she leaned over to scrub just a bit too hard at the mud crusted on Hezhi’s feet.

  “Where is your dress?” Qey whispered after a time. Her soft voice was not conspiratorial, not pitched to trade secrets. It was reined in low only so that it would not be a shout. Hezhi winced as the less-than-kind attentions of the scrub rag moved up to her face and neck. She did not answer.

  “Your dress! Do you know? Your parents will think I sold it. I may be beaten. Or Tsem! If you won’t think of me, think of him. Surely someone saw him carrying you, all but naked. They might castrate Tsem!”

  Hezhi wasn’t sure what castration was, but she knew it couldn’t be good, not if Tsem was threatened with it.

  “Nobody saw us,” Hezhi shot back. Soap was smarting her eyes, and more tears swam about there, as well, despite all that she had shed since the disappearance of D’en. Her eyes seemed like the River, limitlessly full.

  “You can’t be sure of that. You’re just a child!” But her voice had begun to soften, her frantic scrubbing becoming more gentle. When Hezhi’s tears finally burst forth, Qey took her in her arms, soaking the front of her simple dress with soap and bathwater.

  “Child, child,” Qey whispered. “What are we to do with you?”

  Later, in the kitchen, Qey did not bring up the matter at all. Bright sunlight flooded the courtyard outside, washed the inner kitchen walls with cheerful color. Strings of garlic and shallots dazzled white and purple above the table as Qey kneaded huzh, the thick black bread that Hezhi loved, especially with pomegranate syrup and cream. The warm pungence of the yeast mingled with the scent of coffee warming on the indoor skillet-stove and juniper smoke wafting in from the courtyard, where the bread oven was slowly heating up. Tsem was dozing in the sunlight, a happy smile on his broad face.

  “When can I learn to cook?” she asked Qey. The woman did not look up, but continued to work her callused palms against the resilient mass of dough.

  “You helped me already,” Qey said. “Just the other day you beat some eggs for me.”

  “I mean really cook,” Hezhi said, careful not to sound cross. There had been too much trouble today already.

  “No need for that, little one,” Qey replied. “There will always be people like me to cook for you.”

  “Suppose I want to cook,” Hezhi countered.

  “And suppose I don’t?” Qey retorted.
“Neither of us chooses what we do, Hezhi. It’s all decided, and you’d best get used to it.”

  “Who decides?”

  “Everybody,” Qey replied. “The River.”

  And that was that. If the River said, it was.

  “Did the River decide about D’en?”

  Qey paused. She hesitated a moment, then brushed her palms on her apron. She knelt near Hezhi and took her hands.

  “Hezhi, dear,” she said, “I’m sorry about him. He was a good boy; I liked him.”

  She took a deep breath; to Hezhi it seemed that she was trying to somehow steady herself by filling up with air.

  “Hezhi,” the woman continued, “what you must understand is that Tsem and I … we are not like you. We cannot speak and do whatever we please. There are people who watch us, all of us, and even when they aren’t watching, the River is. So Tsem and I cannot discuss everything you want to discuss. Do you understand that?”

  Hezhi looked at Qey, trying to see what was different. Because the woman who had raised her was different somehow. Smaller? Different.

  D’en was of the Blood Royal. If something could happen to him, how much easier would it be for something to happen to Qey or Tsem? Hezhi did not want that.

  “I understand, Nama,” she answered. Qey gripped her hands, then went back to her bread. She seemed happier. Hezhi turned her gaze back out to Tsem.

  I shouldn’t force him, either, she considered, remembering their earlier conversation. But she had to. Besides, who or what could possibly take away Tsem?

  II

  A Gift of Steel and Rose Petals

  Perkar held his new sword up toward the sun, delighting in the liquid flow of light upon its polished surface, in the deadly heft of it in his hands. He crowed aloud, a great raven war whoop, and the curious cows in the pasture around Perkar turned briefly to accuse him with their mild cow-eyes of disturbing their deep meditations. Perkar disregarded them. He had a sword.

  He cut the air with it, once, twice, thrice, and then returned it reluctantly to the embroidered scabbard that hung on his back. Yet there, too, it pleased him, for he could feel the new weight, the mark of his manhood. A man at fifteen! Or man enough to receive a sword, anyway. He reached once more joyfully for the hilt of his sword, delight sparkling in his gray eyes.

  No, his own hidden voice told him. You were given the sword because you have shown yourself to be trustworthy. Tend to your father’s cows!

  Even reminding himself of his mundane duties made Perkar feel good today. After all, that was what an adult—man or woman—did. They looked after their obligations. Dutifully Perkar crossed the low ridge in the pasture. The sun was halfway from noon to sundown, scattering gold upon the otherwise verdant landscape. Forest bunched thickly at the borders of the Cattle-Field, wild and dense as the forest at the start of the world. The pasture itself rolled on east, dotted here and there with the rust-red cattle his father preferred. Between two hills, a thin line of willow marked a stream leisurely crossing the pasture.

  Perkar stopped first at the shrine on the brow of the high ridge. It was a modest affair, an altar of stone that came up to his waist, a small roof of cedar and cane sheltering it. On the altar rested a bowl of plain design. He took a cowhide bag from his waist and withdrew an incense brick, and with tinder and his bow-drill ignited it. The faint scent of cedar wafted up, and he sprinkled tallow onto the hot ember, smiling as the fat sputtered and flared. Clearing his throat, he sang, clearly and distinctly:

  Once I was a glade

  A part of the ancient forest

  When Human Beings came

  With their fourfold axes

  With their tenfold desires

  I kept to myself

  Ignored their requests

  Turned them away with

  hard thorns …

  Perkar sang on, the short version of a long story. It was the story of how his father’s grandfather had convinced the god of the forest to let him cut trees for pasture. Because he was humble and established this shrine, the spirit had eventually relented. Perkar’s family had maintained good relations with the Lord of the Pasture, and with the spirits of the surrounding land.

  Leaving the brick smoldering, he moved on to a second shrine just inside the edge of the woods. This invocation was a bit shorter; they owed less to the Untamed Forest, and even let deer and other creatures graze at the edge of their pasture to mollify him.

  The sun was well toward the horizon when he reached the stream.

  The stream had cut deep banks, etched into the pasture; the cattle had likewise worn deep trails down to it. Perkar loved this part of the land the best; when the sun was bright and straight overhead, he often came here, to cool himself in the water, to chase crawfish, to throw crickets on the surface of the water and watch the fish snatch at them from below. Humming, enjoying the feel of the sword flapping against his back, Perkar moved upstream, away from the cow-roiled waters, to where the creek flowed clear and cool from the forest. He paused there, savoring the transition from the smells of grass and cow to that of dark, leaf-strewn soil. He reached down and cupped a handful of water to sprinkle on himself. Then he took out the sacrifice he had for the water: rose petals from his mother’s garden. He started the song:

  Stream Goddess am I

  Long hair curling down from the hills

  Long arms reaching down the valley …

  Perkar finished the chant and smiled, sat down on the bank, combed fingers through short, chestnut hair. He removed his soft calfskin boots and dangled his bare feet in the water. Up the pasture Kapaka, the old red bull, bellowed, triggering a musical exchange of lowing across the hills.

  Now, at last, Perkar took his sword back out. He laid it across his knees and marveled at it

  The blade was slim, double-edged, about as long as his arm. The hilt was made large enough for both hands, wrapped in cowhide, a round, polished steel pommel its only decoration.

  “I know who made that,” a girl’s voice said.

  Perkar nearly dropped the sword, he was so startled. Instead, he stared, gape-mouthed, at the person who had spoken to him.

  She stood waist-deep in the creek, wearing no more than her dark, wet hair. Her face was pale, the color of ivory, her large almond eyes golden as the sunset. She looked to be a year or so older than he, no more.

  Perkar was not fooled.

  “Goddess!” he whispered.

  She smiled, twirled around in the water so that her hair fanned out across it. He could not see where the silken strands ended and the stream itself began.

  “I liked the rose petals,” she told him.

  “It’s been a long time since I saw you,” Perkar breathed. “Many years.”

  “Has it been so long? You have grown a bit larger. And you have a sword.”

  “I do,” Perkar answered stupidly.

  “Let me see it.”

  Perkar obediently held the sword up where she could see it. The Stream Goddess approached, revealing more of herself with each step. She looked very Human indeed, and Perkar tried his best to avert his eyes.

  “You may look at me,” she told him. She scrunched her eyes, concentrating on the weapon. “Yes. This was forged by the little steel god, Ko. He cooled it in me, farther upstream.”

  “That’s right!” Perkar agreed enthusiastically. “Ko is said to be related to my family. He is said to have fathered my grandsire’s sire.”

  “So he did, in a manner of speaking,” the goddess replied. “Your family is old hereabouts, as Human Beings go. Your roots with us on the land are deep.”

  “I love you,” Perkar breathed.

  “Of course you do, silly thing,” she said, smiling.

  “Since I first saw you, when I was only five. You haven’t changed at all.”

  “Oh, I have,” she corrected him. “A little here, a little there. Wider in some places, more narrow in others. My hair, up in the mountains, changes most. Each storm alters it, alters the tiny rivulets that
feed into me.”

  “I meant …”

  “I know what you meant. My Human form will always look like this, little Perkar.”

  “Because …”

  “Because someone with this shape was sacrificed to me long ago. I forget her name, though I remember a little of what she remembers …”

  “She was lovely,” Perkar said, feeling a bit bolder. When he said things like that to the girls at the gatherings, they blushed and hid their faces. The Stream Goddess merely returned him a frank stare.

  “You court me, little Perkar? I am older by far than your entire lineage.”

  He said nothing to that.

  “It is so silly,” the goddess went on. “This thing about swords and men. I made my agreement with your family only because it amused me.”

  “Agreement?”

  “There is more to receiving your sword than I suspect you know. A silly, symbolic thing, but as I said, amusing.” And she reached out her long, slim arm. He took it, and felt that her flesh was indeed warm, like a Human Being’s. She stepped up out of the water, glistening, her long, graceful legs nearly touching him. She smelled like—he didn’t know. Rose petals?

  He was certainly frightened. He had gone off, recently, with Hame, a girl his own age and Human. What they did—touching each other, exploring—had frightened him enough. The feelings it aroused had been so hungry. He could not see how such feelings could be sated, though he had come near to understanding once when he was alone.

  But this woman drawing him down to her flesh was not Human. She was Anishu, a spirit, a goddess. Perkar was trembling as she gently tugged at the belt of his pants.

  “Shhh,” the Stream told him. “Don’t worry.”

  Perkar and the goddess lay beneath a sky gone slate gray, and the shutters of the brightest stars were opening as night threw wide her windows. Huna, the Pale Queen, was brightening but already halfway across the sky, a thick crescent. Though the night breeze should have been cool, Perkar’s bare skin prickled with unnatural warmth. The Stream Goddess was tracing the lean contours of his face with her index finger. She giggled at the downy promise of beard, then cupped his cheek when he flushed in embarrassment.