Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  “You people age so quickly,” she told him. “Don’t hurry it more than necessary.”

  Perkar nodded without understanding. His life was too full just now. He felt as if all that he had ever seen and known was about to boil up out of him, become something he had never anticipated. He was having trouble thinking. And he was in love.

  “That first time, when I was so young,” he asked her. “Why did you appear to me then?”

  “I need no excuse to appear,” she said lightly.

  “You came this time to honor a bargain.”

  “True enough. I came last time because you were laughing, and I thought it beautiful. I wanted to hear you with Human ears.”

  “The stream cannot hear?”

  “Oh, it can. I can hear everything, the entire length and breadth of me, from the mountains until …” Her lovely face clouded. “I can hear it all. But it isn’t like this. Being tied up in one place, being just a point, a quickly moving speck—it has a different sort of appeal.”

  “Is that what we are to you? Specks?”

  She frowned, turned over on her side, so that the curve of her hip gleamed, impossibly beautiful to Perkar. “Before, my memories are different. I remember being born, I think, long and long ago. I remember when I came through this place in the old dry bed, over there.” She gestured behind them. “Mostly, though, it was all the same: swelling with the rains, greeting my little ones and taking them in. The little thoughts of all the things that live within me. The Old People—you call them the Alwat—they came and touched me now and then, but I hardly noticed them—though other spirits told me much about them. Then your people came. They annoyed me at first; they angered me. I tried to ignore them. That was when they cut this girl and put her in the water. Her blood mixed up with mine, I felt her brief little life swimming away in me. Not like a fish at all. I was very sad, sad that Human Beings thought I craved such things. That is not my nature.”

  “Some spirits crave death, my father says.”

  “The land spirits need it, though they care little for sacrifice. Without death, forests have nothing to eat. But I …”

  “Streams do not crave death?”

  Perkar did not understand at first. The idea of a goddess weeping was beyond his young imagination. And yet she was.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “My song. Do you remember the last part of my song?”

  Of course, Perkar thought, How could I ever forget your song? He cleared his throat.

  Swollen,

  I flow across short grass

  Where the wild horses drink from me

  There I end, I flow on

  But I am not the same

  Not the young woman

  I am the Old Man there

  The Old Man

  And everyone fears me.

  Perkar finished the stanza, gazing with wonder into her tear-streaked eyes.

  “What?”

  “The Old Man,” she said at last, “is a terrible god. He eats me up. He eats me up!” She shuddered, her breath hissing.

  “He swallows me each day. In time he will swallow this seed you have just put in me. He eats everything.”

  She rose up, a night goddess now. Huna touched her with silver.

  “Stay away from him, Perkar,” she said.

  “Stop. I love you.” He had begun to weep, too.

  “I’m always here.” She sighed, but now he heard the pain in that. As if she had also said, “And he always devours me.” He could picture how, each moment of each day, she fell down the hills into him. Whoever he was.

  She stepped onto the water, smiled at him. Then she was a sheet of silver water, collapsing. She was a ripple. She was the stream.

  Perkar watched her flow, long into the night

  “I love you,” he said again, before he left. He took up the sword that had been made by the god Ko, but it no longer seemed a delightful burden. It seemed heavy, somehow. Yet it was not a melancholy heaviness, not a grief. He felt strong, happy. But sober. Determined.

  I will find out who this River is that eats her, he promised. That is the first thing I shall discover.

  It was morning before Perkar returned home. The rising sun banished the melancholy from his soul, lightened his step as it lightened the sturdy cedar walls of his father’s damakuta. He stopped at a little shrine at the base of the hill the fort stood upon, offered a bit of wine to the little god that slept there in the stone. A rooster crowed from somewhere up beyond the wall.

  The damakuta had always seemed unimaginably huge to him, but as he glanced back up the hill at it, he knew that it had become smaller. He was a man now, in every way that mattered, the first of his father’s sons to come of age. Soon he would seek Piraku, a thing that had many faces: destiny, wealth, cattle, prestige—and, of course, a home. Still, he reflected, when he did build his own house, there could be no better model than his father’s. The sturdy walls had protected his family and cattle from more than one attack by jealous chieftains and once, even, the fierce horsemen of the eastern plains. The longhouse within the walls was tightly built, warm in the harshest winter, airy and cool when the windows were unsealed in the summertime.

  Perkar came lightly back to his feet and fairly bounced up the hill. The outer gate was open, of course, and Apiru, one of his father’s bondsmen, waved down at him from the watchtower.

  “Morning, Perkar,” he shouted, a little too loudly. A little too—was that a smirk on Apiru’s face?

  “Morning,” Perkar returned. Did Apiru know? Did everyone know? By the forest gods, did his mother know?

  Some of the bounce was gone from Perkar’s step by the time he saw his father, sitting on a stool in the courtyard. The yard was large and bare, picked clean of vegetation by the gold-and-red chickens that roamed upon it. It was large enough to hold the most valuable of their cattle, when raiders came. Still, at the moment it seemed a little cluttered. There were more people than there should be, this time of morning. Besides his father, a number of his father’s bondsmen and their families stood about, apparently doing nothing. His younger brother, his sister, and her husband were clustered together in the doorway of the longhouse. His father’s two younger brothers, their wives—and grandfather! He must have come over from his own fort—nearly a day’s travel—last night. What was going on?

  “Good morning, Perkar,” his father remarked. The older man’s seamed, sun-browned, angular features and hawklike nose were a worn, presently unreadable version of Perkar’s own. It always made Perkar nervous when he couldn’t tell what his father was thinking.

  “Morning, Father. Piraku beneath you and about you.” That was the formal greeting, and Perkar guessed this to be a formal occasion, though no one seemed dressed for it. His father, in fact, was taking off his shirt, revealing the hard muscles and tight white scars Perkar had always so envied.

  “Did your night go well, son? Do you feel more of a man?”

  Perkar felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment Father did know. He recalled the goddess’ reference to some sort of arrangement between her and the family.

  “Ah …” was all he could manage. A ripple of laughter fluttered around the yard. Kume, his father’s oldest dog, lifted his head and yawned as if he, too, had a comment on the matter.

  “One more thing, then, Perkar, and you will be a man,” his father said, his eyes daunting, an ambiguous smile now ghosting on his lips.

  “But I thought …” Perkar stopped in mid-utterance. When one did not know, it was best to keep silent. He wished desperately that he weren’t the oldest son, that he had observed someone else coming into manhood. “What part is that, Father?”

  “The part where I beat you senseless,” the older man replied, gesturing with his hand. Padat, Perkar’s cousin, came out from the doorway then, trying to keep a smile from splitting the round face all but concealed by his bushy, flaxen beard. He was carrying two heavy wooden practice swords. Perkar felt his bowels clutch. Oh, no. Not in front o
f everyone.

  The swords were handed out, first to Perkar’s father, then to Perkar. Perkar reluctantly moved out to face the older man.

  “I, Sherye, patriarch of the clan Barku, challenge this whelp to combat. Do all of you hear this?”

  There was a general chorus of assent. Sherye smiled at his son.

  Perkar cleared his throat. “Ah … I, Perkar son of Sherye, son of the patriarch of clan Barku, take that challenge in my mouth, chew it like cud, spit it back.”

  “So be it,” Perkar’s grandfather growled from his stool.

  That was that. Sherye stood immobile, waiting for Perkar to make the first move. He always did that, waited like a lion or a snake, and when Perkar attacked …

  But Perkar had not even lifted his sword to fighting position, and suddenly his father was there, the oaken blade cutting at his shoulder, fast and hard. Perkar yanked his own sword up more by instinct than by design; his footing was all wrong, and though he caught the attack, he stumbled back beneath the sheer force of it. He let his father think he had stumbled more badly than he had: Perkar went back on one knee and then cut out at his father’s extended leg. Sherye, of course, was no longer there: He was leaping in the air, the sword a brown blur. It thudded into the meat of Perkar’s shoulder. The pain was immediate and paralyzing; Perkar nearly dropped his weapon. Instead he backed wildly away, amid the hoots and jeers of his family.

  Sherye came on, and the expression on his face was anything but fatherly. Again the punishing blade swept down, and again Perkar’s only consolation was that the weapon was wood and not sharp, god-forged steel. The blow scraped down his hasty guard, and flick, it whacked against his thigh. It could easily have been his hip, crippling even with a wooden weapon.

  Twice struck was enough for Perkar. He was going to get hurt in this match—he might as well resign himself to it. Avoiding his father’s attacks was an impossibility. The next time the blade darted at him, he ignored it, instead stepping into the blow, aiming his own attack at Sherye’s exposed ribs. His father’s sword caught him on his uninjured shoulder. His own weapon cut empty air.

  Perkar bit his lip on a shriek. Sherye did not press his advantage, but instead stepped back and regarded his eldest son.

  People were laughing at him again. Perkar set his stance and charged. The two men met and exchanged a flurry of blows; miraculously, none landed on Perkar, though he barely deflected one aimed straight at his head. Even more miraculously, one of his own strokes grazed his father’s arm. Bolder, Perkar howled and leapt, committing himself to an attack that left him defenseless.

  His father’s blow landed first, a bruising slap against Perkar’s ribs, but an instant later he felt the shock of wood meeting flesh from a more favorable perspective as his own weapon thwacked his father’s upper arm. Perkar’s war cry turned into a jubilant shout, but that was cut quite short as Sherye spun and laid a stinging blow across his shoulder blades. Perkar lost track, then, of how many times he was hit. In the end he thought it a miracle that nothing in his body was shattered, that the only blood was from the lip he himself had bitten.

  The heat in the sauna was delicious—it almost made Perkar glad he was hurt. Sore muscles and bruises acquired a better flavor when marinated in deep heat.

  The woti didn’t hurt, either. It went down his throat like a warm coal and settled warmly in his stomach a moment before venturing on out into his veins.

  “You never forget your first taste of woti,” his father was saying. “You never forget when you become a man.”

  “Likely not, after that beating,” Perkar complained—but lightly, so his father would know there was no real resentment

  “You took it well. You made me proud.”

  Perkar bowed his head, afraid to show the fierce grin of pleasure at his father’s approval. Sherye laid his palm on Perkar’s back.

  “Piraku,” he said. “You will find Piraku, just as I did, as my father did.”

  Perkar nodded; he could not speak. The two of them sat in silence, let the heat work further into their bones. Sherye threw a handful of water and spruce needles onto the rocks, and fragrant steam hissed up around them.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” his father said after a time.

  “Yes,” Perkar answered. “Beautiful. Father …”

  “Hm?” The older man’s eyes were closed.

  “I love her, Father.”

  Sherye snorted. “Of course you do. We all did … do, though the way we love her changes. That’s why our grandfathers made that pact with her, son. It’s good to love the things in the land.”

  “No. No, not like that,” Perkar went on. “I love her like …”

  “Like the first woman you’ve ever made love to. I know. But she’s Anishu, son. You’ll see that soon enough.”

  “It’s happened before! That song, the ‘Song of Moriru,’ where …”

  “I know the song, son. But the man died, and Moriru lived on and on, always sad. That’s the way it would be.” He smiled and reached over to tousle Perkar’s chestnut hair. “You’ll find a Human girl soon enough. Don’t worry about that.”

  “She’s already sad,” Perkar whispered, unwilling to pass over the subject so lightly. “She says …”

  “Son.” Sherye’s voice was solemn, sober. “Son, let it go. There is nothing you can do for her. Let it go.”

  Perkar opened his mouth to speak again, but his father half-cocked one eyebrow, his signal that the matter would be pursued no further. Perkar turned his gaze down into the empty woti cup.

  But he did not let it go. He could not.

  III

  The Labyrinth

  The ghost hesitated at the edge of the hall, unwilling actually to venture into the light streaming down through the open roof of the small courtyard. Very little direct illumination reached the flagstones; the palace was three stories high here and the yard only ten paces across. Still, the white stucco shimmered with reflected sunlight. Ghosts did not particularly care for light.

  Hezhi watched it back into the hall, hesitate near a stairwell, perhaps deciding where to go next. Qey had told her that ghosts often did not know what they were about—often forgot even that they were dead. Where and when did this one think it was? She studied it, hoping for clues, but this ghost provided few. It was less a form or even a shadow than a distortion in the air, like something seen through a glass of water—or like glass itself, for that matter. Sometimes you could see more—features, even. When Hezhi was six, she had awakened to confront the pale, nervous face of a young man. When she shrieked, he vanished quite quickly. She had never seen so clear an image since then. Qey left little offerings for a few of the ghosts—especially Luhnnata, the one who inhabited her kitchen. Hezhi had come to be familiar with the young man who haunted her own room, though she never again saw his face.

  She shrugged. This wing of the palace was strange to her, one with ghosts she had never seen. Certainly it would not be a dangerous one, not here, so close to the heart of things, where the Sha’ghun priests swept nearly every week.

  “Let’s go, Tsem,” she commanded, stepping out into the light of the courtyard. The air was fragrant with sage and oregano growing from various stoneware boxes. A pigeon quickened its waddle to avoid their passage. Hezhi and Tsem brushed on past the ghost, which seemed to hug close to the wall when they came near.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier,” Hezhi muttered as they turned from the narrow passage onto a larger thoroughfare. Though it was a covered hallway, light streamed in from the courtyards on either side; the basic architecture of the palace made it impossible to go far from one of the alleged hundred and eighty-seven courts.

  Tsem shrugged, not otherwise answering.

  “You did think of it, didn’t you?”

  “Not exactly,” the half Giant said reluctantly.

  “Some help you are.”

  “Princess. Remember that you bullied me into helping you with this little enterprise. M
y agreement was only to go along with you into the lower cities to protect you. I never said I would do any more than that.”

  “You said you would help me find D’en.”

  “I never said that, Princess.”

  Hezhi thought about it. He hadn’t. Still, she was in no mood to be generous. “Two years we’ve been running into solid walls—literally. If I’d thought to go through the library two years ago, we would have found him by now.”

  “Shhh, Princess. I think this is the place. You don’t want anyone to hear your crazy talk.”

  The open doorway to their right did indeed seem to lead into the archives hall. At least, the legend on the frame said as much.

  Inside, an old man sat on one of the fashionably low stools common throughout the palace. A writing board lay across his lap. On the board was a sheet of paper to which he was vigorously applying a brush and ink. Hezhi found herself instantly fascinated by the speed with which the characters flowed from his brush tip, the grace with which they lay on the paper afterward.

  It took him a moment to look up.

  “Yes?”

  Hezhi nodded to Tsem, who bowed for her, then announced her. “Princess Hezhi Yehd Cha’dune, ninth daughter of the Chakunge—Lord of Nhol. She is here for instruction.”

  The old man blinked. Hezhi could see that the scarf wrapped around his head hid a nearly bald pate; his thin face crinkled naturally into a scowl as he carefully placed his brush upon the ink-mixing stone.

  “Child, what do you want of me?”

  Tsem started to speak, but Hezhi waved him back with what she hoped was a suitably imperious gesture. “My father wished that I should learn more of writing, of science, and of … architecture. You are to instruct me in these things.”

  The old man narrowed his eyes, as if fascinated by some strange insect he had just discovered on his morning meal.