Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  Once outside, she scurried to where Tsem sat, back propped against the wall. He was talking to a young man in the dress of the court, some minor nobility. When the young man saw her, he raised his brows a bit, bade a quick farewell to Tsem, and started off down the corridor, plainly having business elsewhere. Hezhi paid little mind. She rushed up to Tsem, plucking at the titan’s sleeve.

  “Let’s go, Tsem. Now.”

  Tsem nodded, frowning, and climbed laboriously to his feet.

  “This was a short day for you,” he remarked as they crossed the increasingly busy hall. Afternoon absolutions would be offered soon, and everyone was moving toward the open fountains. Hezhi, of course, would attend no such public ceremony, and though Tsem technically should, she made no sign that he might be released to go and do so.

  “Yes, a short day. I thought I might help Qey in the kitchen.”

  Tsem snorted. “There is no need to lie to me, Princess. Tsem is your servant.”

  Hezhi frowned, a bit angry that Tsem should know her so well. They crossed the White Yarrow Courtyard and then entered the royal wing, where they met fewer people going to pray.

  “Did the Salamander cause you pain, Mistress?” Salamander was Tsem’s name for Ghan and his smooth pate.

  “No, Tsem.” Hezhi was startled to feel her tears threaten to begin again. Hadn’t she put them away? She was fine.

  “Huh.” The Giant grunted. They walked along a bit in silence.

  “Mistress,” Tsem began, then paused a moment before going on. “You know Wezh Yehd Nu?”

  “What? Tsem, what are you talking about?”

  “I just wondered if you knew him.”

  “Should I?”

  “His family is wealthy and powerful.”

  “And unscrupulous. A century ago they acquired their land by fraud and deceit. There was a murder or two involved, as well, I think.”

  “I have never heard this,” Tsem growled.

  “No one talks about it. After all, now they have Royal Blood. It was in one of the old records—a priest wrote it, bemoaning the thinning of the River’s blood with that of thieves and cutthroats.”

  “Ah. But this was long ago, yes?”

  “Yes, long ago.”

  “There is a young man of the family, one Wezh …”

  “Was that who you were talking to in the hall?”

  Tsem stopped, leaned against the bright turquoise painted wall of the Wind People Hall they were just entering. “You know,” he said, “that just may have been him.”

  “Now, you don’t lie to me, Tsem. He scurried off like a house lizard when the cat comes around. What did this ‘Wezh’ want of you? I warn you, if you think I will release you, even for a day, to bodyguard some fool while he goes off to get drunk in the city …” Hezhi had refused such requests before.

  “Ah … no, Princess. That is not what he wanted.”

  “Well?”

  “He asked me to talk to you.”

  “About?” Hezhi was impatient with this conversation. What was Tsem going on about?

  “He would like for you to … meet him. In the Onyx Courtyard, perhaps, or wherever you choose.”

  “Meet him for what … oh. Oh.”

  “He asked me to tell you something else,” Tsem murmured, almost inaudibly. His face was flushed dark, as dark as the time Hezhi had discovered him and the water maid who came around now and then to clean the cistern, poking and prodding one another in an old storage room.

  “Something else?”

  Tsem cleared his throat, his eyebrows drooping mournfully in embarrassment.

  “Ah,” he said. “Whither goes her brilliant beauty/My tongue cannot hold her name/More elusive than …”

  “No! Stop right there,” Hezhi hissed.

  “I’m not very good at reciting …”

  “It matters not. I don’t want to hear that. This boy is courting me?”

  “He would like to.”

  “No! I won’t have that. No.”

  Tsem tightened his jaw, but then his coarse face softened. “Princess, what could it hurt?”

  “I have no time for it,” Hezhi answered. Nor will I prove Ghan right about me, she added silently.

  “What shall I tell him, then?” Tsem sighed.

  “Tell him whatever you like. This is no concern of mine, Tsem.”

  “As you say, Princess.”

  “Exactly so,” Hezhi shot back. She strode off quickly, more than ready to be in her bed, alone, forgetting as much of the day as possible.

  The rest did Hezhi good; she slept more than in any two recent nights. But as refreshed as she felt, she also had the nagging sensation of being behind, of having lost time. She ate a hurried breakfast of red rice and sausage, and with barely a word to Qey, she darted off toward the library. She did not stop to get Tsem, but he followed her anyway, catching up to her before she departed the royal wing. He reached her, in fact, near the foot of the Hall of Moments, a marbled corridor scintillating in the shifting colors that glowed through its stained-glass skylights. Hezhi paused there, both to allow the Giant to join her, and also to peer down the beautiful hall. Down there were her father and mother, aunts and uncles, older siblings.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it, Tsem?”

  “It’s very nice, Princess,” he answered.

  “When do you think I will move down that hall, live with Father and Mother?”

  “When the time comes, Princess.”

  “Yes, when the time comes. My sister Lanah moved down there last fall. She was thirteen, just about my age.”

  “Perhaps soon, then, Princess.”

  “Tsem, you know, don’t you? Why we all live out here, in the royal wing, but not with the family. Why we move in there sometime after our tenth years. And if not that, get taken away into the dark, below the city?”

  Tsem didn’t answer. Instead, he seemed to be concentrating on the colors in the hall.

  “It used to be that I wanted to find D’en. I still want that, Tsem, but I wonder about myself now. Will I go down the corridor to live with Father and Mother, or will I go below the city, to wherever they took D’en? If you love me, Tsem, you should tell me.”

  Tsem nodded. “We have had this conversation, Princess, and I cannot answer you. I would if I could. I do love you.”

  Hezhi turned toward him, startled. His face was folded in pain, his eyes glittering like something glass and jagged.

  “You can’t tell me?” Hezhi asked Tsem nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips worked soundlessly. He shuddered, and his eyes trembled up beneath his thick lids. He began to shake.

  “No! Tsem!” Hezhi ran to him and threw her arms about his waist. She could not reach all the way around. His huge body was convulsing, shaking. As she held him, though, the shuddering quieted and finally subsided. She hugged him tighter, until two platter-sized hands reached down and gently disengaged her.

  “I didn’t know, Tsem. I’m sorry.”

  “It is something they do to us, when we are very young,” Tsem said. His voice sounded tired, strained. “The priests—when we are chosen to work and live in the royal rooms. Me, Qey, everyone. So we can’t talk about it. Do you understand?”

  “I understand. I know what a Forbidding is.”

  Tsem acknowledged that. “I would talk to you if I could, Princess.”

  “I know. Come on, let us go to the library.”

  Her concern for Tsem ebbed as they strode on; not because she did not care for the half Giant, but because her anger began to wax. What was being hidden from her, from her siblings, her cousins? She knew no more than D’en had, and D’en was gone.

  Light burst upon them again as they crossed the Ibex Courtyard, and with the real illumination came a sudden, hidden one. Hezhi grinned fiercely, her anger fitted neatly into place with purpose.

  “It isn’t architecture I should be studying,” she whispered, not to Tsem but to herself. “It’s us. The Blood Royal. This has to do with us.” So simple, so
obvious. Find the missing royalty, find D’en. Find herself. “That’s what I should be studying,” she whispered.

  But how? She had no idea where to begin. In her meandering so far, she had encountered nothing like what she sought. Ghan was right, absolutely right. One could wander in the library for a generation and not know what one searched for, not with her limited skills and knowledge.

  She was still sorting through that when she reached the library. As always, Tsem made his way to the hallway left of the door and sat down to wait for her. Hezhi entered, uncertain where to begin, but eager enough.

  She entered and knew something was wrong. Ghan glanced up immediately from his work, met her gaze with his for the first time since that day she had entered the library. He frowned slightly and stood, holding a book with a burgundy binding. Her heart stood cold in her chest as the old man beckoned her over to him.

  She went, her face burning fiercely.

  “You remember what I said?” Ghan said, his voice a faint sound, a dry page turning.

  “It was already torn,” Hezhi said, hoping to sound confident and failing utterly.

  “I told you also I would teach you not to lie,” Ghan said, mildly. “How did you know what I would accuse you of?”

  How had Ghan even known she had that book? It was impossible. Impossible, unless … It seemed to Hezhi that there was some way it was possible, but she was too frightened to think, and Ghan was still standing there, demanding something.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I … I fell asleep. It tore then.”

  Ghan nodded. “I warned you.”

  “Please …” she began, not knowing exactly how to plead with him, what she could offer. The expression on Ghan’s face stopped her, however.

  “There is no bargaining with me, Princess. I am the master in this room, subject only to the word of your father. And your father will not speak for you.”

  “I may come here no longer?” I will not cry, Hezhi thought, and suddenly felt confident that she would not, not until later.

  “Oh, no, Princess. You will come here. You will come here every day, and you will do as I say.” He handed her a piece of rolled paper. Ch’ange paper, the kind royal business was transacted on.

  “Your father was kind enough to sign this, Princess.”

  “What is it?” Her head was swimming, her knees seemed wobbly, unsound, and she feared she would collapse.

  “It is a contract. You are indebted to the Royal Library. During the daylight hours, you will be as my servant, doing what chores I see fit. You may not complain, and you must comply or be bound by your hair to the shaming post in the Grand Courtyard. Do you understand this?”

  “Servant?” Hezhi blurted. “I cannot be a servant. I am a princess!”

  “Which means nothing to me. Not with this paper in my hands. Even the emperor, your father, serves the River, and you serve him, as does all of the royal family. And he has commanded that you serve me.” He proffered Hezhi the document.

  She took it with trembling fingers, but she could not read it. She could not concentrate. But there was her father’s signature, his seal. It was real.

  “I …” she began.

  “The first thing I tell you is to be silent. You speak only when I request it.”

  “Yes, Ghan,” she acknowledged, lowering her eyes by way of answer.

  “Now. Today I will show you how to mend books. I have many for you to mend. After that, I believe …” He shot his gaze about the room almost hungrily. “Have you improved your command of the old script? You may speak.”

  “I have tried …” She trailed off. She could not possibly read the old script as well as Ghan would want her to.

  Ghan glared. “There is much indexing to be done. Do you know what indexing is?”

  “No, Ghan.”

  “So ignorant.” He sighed. “But it cannot be helped, I suppose.”

  “If I …”

  “I didn’t ask you to speak!” Ghan hissed, his face contorted.

  “Your pardon, I—”

  “Silence!”

  But I am a princess, Hezhi thought, but succeeded in not retorting.

  “Follow me. Do not stop to tear any books.”

  Ghan took her to a small table. There were sheets of white paper, a bowl of paste, heavy boards for pressing.

  “Tears are simple,” Ghan began. “Even the simple can fix them. I will show you that first, then the binding.”

  Hezhi nodded. Dully, she watched his smooth brown fingers deftly work with the paper.

  “Use just enough glue. Just enough, and no more.”

  A sudden suspicion filled Hezhi. An image, even, of her sleeping, of Ghan standing over her, of him reaching down, tearing the book himself, then quietly leaving her there, still asleep. So that he could do this, humiliate her, punish her for invading his precious library.

  Ghan’s finger was a handspan from her nose, wagging angrily.

  “You aren’t paying attention,” he accused. He looked angry.

  Yes, I am, Hezhi thought. I certainly am.

  VI

  A Gift of Blood

  “Please.” Perkar groaned. “I’m leaving. Please, Goddess, give me your blessing.”

  The stream flowed on, caressing only his ankles, and them only indifferently, with no more feeling than it would a stick or a rock.

  “Please,” he repeated. As the sun moved on and on across the sky.

  At last, near sundown, the water swirled. She was there, watching him.

  “I am not for you, Perkar,” she told him.

  “It matters not,” he answered. Her beauty would kill him, he thought. It was so terrible, so wonderful. Even in his dreams it could not be idealized, could not become greater; even in dreams it only faded.

  She shook leaves from her hair. A wet, ebony tendril of it strayed down over her right eye.

  “You have no right,” she said. “You have no right to add to my sorrow. You are a beast like all other beasts.”

  “Yet you love me.”

  Her face twisted into a little smile, evil at the edges. “You don’t know what I feel, Perkar. I am not a beast—or I am many. When I think of myself this way—in this form, in the form of this poor little creature whose blood was loosed in me—when I think of myself this way, I have some love for you. But it is my kind of love, nothing you would recognize.” She shook her head, her most Human expression. “Go away, live and die, forget me.”

  “I am going away,” Perkar said.

  “Good. Stay away.”

  “Only when I do die.”

  Her face softened, and she walked over, stroked his face. But when her fingers touched him, she drew back again.

  “There is talk among the spirits,” she whispered. “You are going to speak to the Forest Lord.”

  “I am.”

  “You will be very near him, Perkar. The devourer.”

  “Not so,” Perkar mumbled, reaching to touch her. “We go north and west. You—the great River is in the east. That is where you … he …”

  “Where he takes me in. Where he kills me and chews me up. But that is down along his body. His head is farther up, up in the mountains. You will be near him, and you must be careful. He will smell me upon you, taste me. And he knows you, too, my sweet, for through me he has swallowed your seed. Promise me that you will not approach him.”

  “I promise you that I will find a way to kill him.”

  The goddess darted her hand out: It leapt quickly as a fish and slapped him hard across the face.

  “You are a boy,” she hissed. “You have the thoughts of a boy. Be a man and live with what may be, what is possible, and not what you childishly wish.”

  Perkar was too stunned to speak. He was still without his voice when she faded back into the water.

  “I still say you should take old Yellow Mane,” Henyi muttered.

  Perkar smiled thinly at his little brother. “I don’t think Yellow Mane would last very long in Balat�
�or any wild forest. I think Yellow Mane is fine just where she is. Happy, too.”

  “But I don’t see why you have to take Kutasapal.”

  “Because Father gave him to me. What are you complaining about? You already have a fine stallion.”

  “So do you.”

  “For a journey like this, one needs many horses,” Perkar said.

  “So you say.”

  “Watch when the others arrive with the king,” Perkar told him, tousling the younger boy’s hair. “They will have more than one horse.”

  “Of course they will. There will be more than one of them. The king, that strange-looking man …”

  “They will each have more than one horse, I mean.” Perkar kicked at one of the red chickens pecking near his boots, where a few grains had dropped from the handful he had just given his horse. “I’m taking Kutasapal, here, and Mang, of course.” Mang was Perkar’s favorite steed. Years before, when the fierce Mang raiders had come up the valley, many had died and their kin never recovered their mounts. The beasts were hard to train—or so Perkar’s father said—but one of the stallions got a mare with colt. Mang was second in that line, a proud fine horse, dun with fierce red stripes the color of dried blood on his neck.

  “Henyi, give your brother a rest. He needs the finest of our horses.”

  Both brothers turned at the new voice.

  “Hello, Mother,” they said, nearly in unison.

  “Henyi, the chickens need feed. See to it, please.”

  Perkar lowered his head, ostensibly to tighten the packs on the mare. In fact, he was avoiding his mother’s troubled gaze.

  “There is no need to do this, Masati,” she said.