Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  He awoke with a start, but there was no clear indication of what had awakened him; the woods were still dark. Nightbirds were calling, but not close or loud. He rubbed the grit from his eyes and strained them at the darkness, realized that it was not entirely dark, after all; he could just make out the enormous bole of an ash, to his left, the suggestion of a fern frond, there. It must be, he thought, the earliest glimmerings of dawn. Soon it would be light enough to find the camp. He would tell them that he had gone off in search of solitude, he supposed, that he needed to be alone. They would think it odd—Apad and Eruka would know it to be a lie and Ngangata, at least, would suspect some more foolish motive. But it would be better than admitting the truth. Perkar realized that he felt relieved, unburdened. The knots tied in his gut were loosened and gone. The decision had been taken from him by the forest itself; he had tried to find the caves, the magical weapon—if it existed. He had failed; not because he wasn’t strong or brave, but because the forest would not let him find the way. It was simple, a relief. Be a man, she had told him. Dream of the possible.

  The light was a bit grayer, more details were coming clear. He studied the earth near his feet, trying to puzzle out details, occupy himself until it was really light. He made out one of his bootprints, pressed into a worn, muddy place. There, another.

  He frowned. One of his prints crossed another. Not his. He found more as he searched; many men in boots, walking one behind another. And the prints of horses. Perkar drew a tight breath, and his heart pounded. It was the trail.

  The songs often spoke of caves as mouths or doorways, but to Perkar they seemed like eyes, slitted and unblinking eyes of some enormous creature. He panted as he regarded them and tried to decide which to enter. The path up was harder than the one down, as his grandfather used to say. Especially in full armor, without a horse. His clothes were already soaked with sweat, though the morning was cool. The first true rays of the sun were yet to be seen.

  He had no time to dither, he knew. Ngangata and Atti might not know what he was about, but they would certainly come looking for him, follow his bumbling trail through the woods. He understood that he could yet turn back, and that nagged at him. Once he entered the caves he was committed to his course of action. He was telling himself that for the fifth time when he heard muttering voices coming up the trail, the rattle of armor.

  Suddenly his choices narrowed. There was only one cave close enough to reach before Ngangata and Atti came into view, and he found himself scrambling upslope toward it. It was not the largest cave, nor the smallest; but part of its floor had collapsed and the rubble formed a ramp leading up to it, like the wrinkled folds beneath the eye of an old man. He levered himself from one broken chunk of rock to the next, fingers fumbling desperately for purchase on the moss-covered stone. He was almost to the opening when he heard his name called. Reluctantly—and yet still a bit relieved—he turned toward the voice.

  It was neither Ngangata nor Atti; it was a red-faced, puffing Apad, Eruka trailing not far behind him.

  “Wait!” Apad called. The two of them straggled over to the talus slope and started up it—somewhat more cautiously than Perkar.

  “Where are Ngangata and Atti?” Perkar called.

  “They went to take food and water to the Kapaka. We said we would look for you,” Apad explained, through his wheezing. He and Eruka were both clad in their armor, as well, and had probably been running or at least trotting since they left camp.

  “What are you doing here, alone?” Apad demanded as he drew abreast of Perkar. “We agreed to go together.”

  Perkar shrugged. “I guess I thought …” He trailed off, unwilling to say what he had really thought.

  “You thought you would have the glory to yourself,” Apad finished for him. “But heroes come in threes, remember?” He glanced upslope, at the cave. “Is this the right one?”

  Perkar raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. It was the closest.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Perkar shook his head.

  “Eruka,” Apad said to their companion. “Can you find out? Is there a song?”

  Eruka pursed his lips, an uneasy expression on his face. “There is a song,” he admitted reluctantly. “I think it would help with this.”

  “Well?”

  “What do we want to know exactly?”

  Apad looked heavenward in exasperation. “We want to know which of these caves leads to the Forest Lord’s armory,” Apad said.

  “I know a song that might help,” Eruka repeated. “But it could be dangerous.”

  “How so?”

  “Any spirit I call here might tell the Forest Lord.”

  “The Forest Lord is busy,” Apad said. “And heroes must take risks.”

  “Why don’t we risk entering the wrong cave, then?” Eruka suggested.

  The conversation had given Perkar time to think. He vividly remembered being lost in the forest at night. One could just as easily become lost in a dark cave.

  “We need light to find our way in there,” he said. “At the very least we need torches.”

  Apad considered that. “Do whatever it is you can do, Eruka,” he said. “Perkar and I will make some torches.”

  Perkar hesitantly followed Apad back down. The two of them started searching for branches.

  “Look for heart pine,” Apad said. “That should burn brightly and long.”

  Perkar had his doubts about that; his father usually made torches from bundles of dried reeds—but he also usually coated them in tar or fat. Behind them, Eruka began singing, but Perkar was already far enough out of earshot that he could not make out the words.

  Perkar found a long piece of heart pine in a rotting tree—but he also chanced upon some dry reeds, which he collected into a bundle, binding them together with some greener, less brittle stems. When he got back to the trail, Eruka was no longer singing. He and Apad were sitting in the nearest cave, feet dangling out. Eruka was holding something that looked suspiciously like a flask of woti.

  “I thought we had no more of that,” Perkar said as he climbed up to join them.

  “I thought we might need it,” Eruka said. “Some gods only respond to woti or wine.”

  “You lied to the Kapaka?”

  Eruka shrugged. “I just didn’t mention it.” He took a drink of the woti and passed the flask to Apad. The air near the cave seemed drenched with the rich, sweet scent; Eruka had poured a libation into a small bowl, probably while singing.

  “Did your song work?”

  “I don’t know,” Eruka admitted.

  Apad offered the flask of woti to Perkar. “Woti makes you brave,” he said.

  Perkar grinned crookedly. “You aren’t a Wotiru, are you? You chew your shield?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I am,” Apad said, taking another drink. Perkar didn’t think Apad was a Wotiru; he had met them, at his father’s house. They drank copious amounts of woti to fill them with battle-fever, but even when there was no battle they carried an air of recklessness—even madness—about them that Perkar had never noticed in Apad.

  “We should move farther back in the cave,” Perkar said. “If Ngangata and Atti come looking for us, I don’t want them to see us.”

  “Pfah!” Apad sneered. “We can deal with them, if they oppose us. You know that.”

  “I know that if Ngangata chooses to use his bow against us, we are all dead men, armor or no.”

  “He’s right,” Eruka said, plucking at Apad’s shoulder.

  “And where is your spirit? The god you called?” Apad asked Eruka, brushing the hand away.

  “I don’t know,” Eruka said. “Gods are capricious. Or perhaps I phrased the song all wrong.”

  “No,” a voice said from behind them. “No, your song was sufficiently irritating that I came looking for you. Now give me that woti you promised.”

  The three of them whirled as one, and Perkar scrambled to his feet, as well. The speaker was an Alwa, to all appearances, tho
ugh a stunted, extraordinarily thick-muscled one. And whereas the Alwat were pale, this creature was white, and devoid of all fur. His eyes were white, too, though the pupils were black.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Apad carefully set the bottle of woti down near the bowl. The Alwa ambled over, picked up the bowl, and drank its contents. Then he turned his attention to the bottle.

  “This is good,” he said at last. “The only decent thing that ever came from Human Beings. Now. Who called me?” He turned his blind-looking eyes to them, seemed to search them out. Perkar was reminded of Ngangata.

  “What god are you?” Perkar asked.

  The Alwa grinned wide. “Don’t know me? I guess your friend does.”

  Eruka cleared his throat. “He is a … ah, he is one of the Lemeyi.”

  Perkar gaped. “A Lemeyi,” he repeated. The white creature laughed, a loud, raucous sound.

  “Why …” Perkar began, but could not finish. Not with the creature standing right there. Why would Eruka call such a creature? When he was a child, his mother had frightened him with promises that the Lemeyi would come to steal him away. At least one child he knew had been devoured by the strange creatures.

  “Yes, why me?” the Lemeyi said. “What do you want? Why shouldn’t I eat you here and now?”

  “We called you in good faith,” Eruka protested.

  “Answer your friend’s question,” the Lemeyi growled.

  “I …” Eruka turned to face Perkar. He was sweating. “I couldn’t call any of the normal gods,” he said. “They would just tell the Forest Lord—or he would know without being told. So I …” He trailed off miserably.

  “So you called a bastard,” the Lemeyi finished. “A bastard, that’s me! My father was an Alwa and my mother was a stone!” He laughed, so loudly that Perkar feared the Forest Lord would hear.

  “And so now,” the Lemeyi said, when he had done laughing, “what do you want of the bastard?”

  Apad and Eruka were just staring at the creature. Perkar found his voice. “We want to see the armory of the Forest Lord.”

  “The armory?”

  “Where he keeps his weapons.”

  “You want to see the Forest Lord’s treasures?” the Lemeyi asked. He seemed amused by this, as he did by everything.

  “If that’s where the weapons are.”

  “And you just want to see them?”

  Perkar hesitated. He answered carefully. “We want to see them. Can you take us there?”

  “Well,” the Lemeyi mused. “Well. I can take you anywhere in the mountain. Anywhere you want to go. But when you get there, you might not like it.”

  “Why?” Apad asked.

  “You just might not. Humans are funny that way. Never really like what they desire.”

  “Well, we desire this,” Perkar said. “Let us worry about whether we like it.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried,” the Lemeyi explained, spreading his hands generously. “No, I wasn’t worried. If that’s where you want to go, I’ve nothing better to do. Follow me.”

  “This is the right cave?” Perkar asked.

  “Any of them is the right cave, if you know where you are going,” the Lemeyi replied. He frowned, looked back over his shoulder. “You can’t see in the dark, can you?”

  “We have torches,” Apad said.

  The Lemeyi shook his head. The Fire Goddess would arouse notice. Just follow close to me.” He turned and started down into the cavern.

  Perkar shrugged and followed, his friends a few paces behind. They followed the Lemeyi down the dark, constricting tunnel. Perkar prepared himself for blindness, but as they progressed farther and farther from the entrance, his eyesight did not seem to dim; indeed, it improved somewhat, though the distance he could see was limited. The Lemeyi, in front of him, was distinct, as were the floor and walls of the cave. But up ahead, beyond their guide, it was as if a fog obscured his vision. Rather than dwelling on this feat the Lemeyi was clearly performing, Perkar instead concentrated on memorizing the path through the cavern. Always they seemed to be going down, and the way was usually rough; they picked their way over jagged swords of stone that pointed always up, toward the roof—a roof that Perkar could not usually see. At other times, however, the ceiling descended to their very heads; twice they had to crawl on their bellies through narrow clefts in the rock. His armor no longer seemed hot; though he perspired freely from the exertion of wearing it, he felt cool, almost cold, and the motionless air was colder still. When anyone spoke—the Lemeyi spoke often—the voice seemed to fill the space around them like water in a jug, and it seemed to Perkar that all of the underdark must know their whereabouts. He himself kept his mouth tightly shut whenever possible.

  They crossed a swiftly coursing stream, flowing roughly in their direction of travel.

  “She used to flow through here,” the Lemeyi said, indicating the way they were going. “But that was many years ago. She still talks about it—constantly. I think she regrets cutting her new channel.”

  “What?” Eruka asked.

  “Well, before, she flowed down through here and finally south,” the Lemeyi explained. “But she cut through to a lower fissure, worked that all up into a tunnel. Some of the little mountain gods down there were angry about that! They still resent it, even though they should pity her instead.”

  “Pity her?” Eruka queried.

  “Oh yes, for of course she flows north now. Into the Ani Pendu, the Changeling.”

  Ani Pendu, Perkar thought. Changeling.

  “What if we meet one of the gods?” Apad whispered.

  “What if you do, mortal man?” the Lemeyi shot back.

  “How are they best fought?”

  The Lemeyi, of course, laughed. “From far away, by someone else.”

  It was too late, of course, to regret his decision, but just the right time for Perkar’s apprehension to grow. By now they must be deep in the mountain, and his sense of that profundity made his magical ability to see in the dark seem a lie. In fact, he reflected, it might be a lie. The Lemeyi were said to be capable of such things. Perhaps even now they were still at the cave mouth, and this was all a dream in the white creature’s head. If so, it was a lengthy dream. Perkar had not the faintest idea how long they had been traveling. Three times his throat had grown dry enough to wet with water from his skin, twice he had relieved himself while the Lemeyi waited impatiently. None of that told him much, only that time was indeed passing—something he might otherwise doubt. The dark tunnels all looked the same; they crossed a few more streams, had to wade in one for a while. The streams all seemed to flow in the direction they were going—which meant down, of course. That might be a help, should the Lemeyi choose to abandon them, something Perkar considered a distinct possibility.

  Thinking along those lines, nagged by worry, Perkar at last decided to speak to the godling again.

  “May I ask why you’re doing this?” he asked.

  “Me?” The Lemeyi sounded genuinely astonished. “Doing what?”

  “Leading us. Taking us to the Forest Lord’s treasure.”

  “Why, you called me.”

  “That doesn’t compel you, does it? I thought Eruka’s song was only to get your attention. I didn’t realize it obligated you in some way.”

  “Why, I hadn’t thought of that,” the Lemeyi said, scratching his head. “I guess I’m not compelled to do this at all. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, mortal man.” He smiled broadly and vanished. Or, rather, the entire tunnel vanished into darkness as if Perkar had been struck blind. Which, of course, he had been in a sense. Perkar heard a double sharp intake of breath behind him, a curse.

  “Well, that was clever, Perkar,” Apad drawled, behind him.

  Somewhere, the Lemeyi began to laugh.

  VI

  The Rite of the Vessel

  They made her undress. She burned with embarrassment and outrage as she did so. Her body had begun to change in ways that bothered her; in pr
ivate ways that only Qey should share, and sometimes not even she. No man—with the exception of Tsem, and he not in years—had ever seen her unclothed. It was an insult, a terrible insult, to have to stand exposed to their masked faces. And yet, though it should have, it did not make her angry; instead it made her feel helpless and more than a little sick.

  “Lie down,” one of the priests told her; his voice was also high and clear, and she remembered that priests weren’t technically men; they were made into eunuchs at an early age—or so she had heard—to better serve the priesthood. She tried to think about that, about how that fit into the whole question of age and “investment,” tried to flee their staring masks into the puzzle within her mind. It didn’t work; they were too real, the experience was too personal.

  Two of the priests lit bundles of herbs, the same ones used in their brooms, and the rich but acrid scent of the smoke permeated Hezhi’s room quickly. The third priest began to chant in words that she did not recognize, and the fourth—the one who had done all of the speaking up until that point—unwrapped a cloth from a brass vessel, a stout cylinder the size of a man’s head, closed on the bottom, almost closed on the top. A brass tube projected from the midpoint of the cylinder and rose upward at an angle to the level of the top of the can. There it ended in a perforated ball, the holes many and small. Though much more ornate, the design was essentially that of the watering can Qey used to care for her potted plants.

  The priest set the watering can aside and opened a pouch dangling on his belt. From this, he produced a wad of damp herbs.

  “Open your mouth,” he said.

  She complied, trying not to hesitate, not to let on that she was worried or afraid. The herbs were bitter, and nearly filled her mouth.