Chosen of the Changeling

by Greg Keyes

  Instead of replying, she nodded wearily.

  “In any event,” Brother Horse said, “with some rest, you should be adequate to the task of helping Perkar.”

  Hezhi awoke, cold, though she was well bundled in blankets. The embers of a nearby fire gave out a dull heat, as well, but the air quickly sucked it away. Hezhi could not remember stopping; she must have fallen asleep in the saddle. She still felt tired, but it was a manageable weariness, not the soul-numbing shroud of exhaustion she had worn earlier. Most everyone else seemed to be asleep, as well, scattered here and there about the floor of some sort of cave or rock shelter. Outside the gaping entrance, moonlight drizzled onto the plain when swift-flying clouds allowed; she watched several of the dark forms pass before the Bright Queen, dress briefly in silver, then rush on to their nameless destinations. The air smelled wet.

  “It will rain soon,” a voice raspily whispered. Hezhi turned from the tableau to Ngangata. She could see only bits of his face in the dim glow. It seemed very inhuman, and she suddenly remembered the dreams she once had of a deep, ancient forest, of trees so huge and thick that light never fell, undiffused, to the earth. And though she had never dreamed of Ngangata—only Perkar—in the bits of his face she somehow sensed those trees.

  “You can tell?”

  “Yes. It is no difficult thing, really.”

  “How is Perkar?”

  “Breathing a bit more shallowly, I think,” he answered.

  “Well,” she chuffed, rubbing her eyes, “would you go wake Brother Horse for me?”

  “Do you have the strength for this? I know I urged you earlier, but …”

  “I won’t let him die, Ngangata. Not if I have a choice in the matter.”

  He nodded and rose lithely, with no sound, and padded off on cat’s feet.

  Nearby, Tsem stirred. “Princess?”

  “I’m here.” She rummaged through her things—they were in a pile near the blanket she had been wrapped in—and withdrew her drum.

  “Can’t that wait?” the half Giant asked.

  “Wait forever, you mean? Tsem, try to understand.”

  “Tsem always try to understand, Princess. Tsem just not very bright.”

  Hezhi could not tell if Tsem was trying to make her smile or rebuke her with his “dumb act,” the one he had used in the palace so often.

  “You’ll be right beside me.”

  “I was right beside you before, when your spirit left your body. You almost fell off the roof and broke your neck.”

  “I was foolish. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “And now you do,” he replied sarcastically.

  She didn’t answer. Ngangata was returning with Brother Horse. The old Mang man knelt and touched Perkar’s brow.

  “Yes,” he muttered. “We should do this now.”

  “How?”

  “I will do it. You will lend me the strength I need.”

  “I don’t understand. You told me you couldn’t heal him.”

  “I can’t—not without you. I don’t have the strength. On the other hand, you don’t have the knowledge, and I don’t have time to teach it to you; that would take months of apprenticeship.”

  “What do I do, then?”

  “Tap your drum; follow me and watch what I do.”

  “What will you do?”

  He spread his hands expressively. “We must fight and defeat the Breath Feasting. We will use our spirit helpers. Watch how I call mine forth, and then call yours forth in the same manner.”

  “The Horse, you mean—the spirit of the Horse.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Of course,” Hezhi repeated, not at all certain things were as obvious as Brother Horse seemed to think them. “I’m ready.”

  “The rest of you be silent and do not touch us,” the old man warned. “Do you understand? Giant, do you understand?”

  “If anything ill befalls her, I will break your neck.”

  Brother Horse sighed and shook his head slowly at the cave floor. “If, when we get started here, you interfere, you may have no need to break either of our necks. The Breath Feasting may do it for you.”

  Tsem glowered but protested no more.

  They sat and after a still, silent moment, Brother Horse began scratching the surface of his drum with his nails, faintly, faintly. Soon he began to tap it, and Hezhi joined in, also tapping with the nail of her index finger. The effect was nearly immediate; though almost negligible, the vibration of the taut rawhide tremored up her finger and into her bones and blood, filled it with rhythm. She moved to a pulse not her own, pumped not by her heart but by the skin head, by the scale on her arm. She was only remotely aware when Brother Horse began to chant, a wordless incantation at first, a droned note repeated over and over and an occasional odd rise in pitch. But in time, the meaningless syllables resolved into words, and these she caught as they drifted by.

  Wake up, my guest

  You have slept long

  In the house of my ribs,

  The house of my heart

  Wake up now,

  See through my eyes,

  Walk with my feet,

  Yush, my old friend

  As he sang, Brother Horse began to shiver, wavering like flame in high wind. In that uncertainty of form, his face was the face of a wolf and his own at once, and she gathered from his limbs a sense of lean gaunt grayness that was not wholly Human. He chanted on, speaking to the spirit in him, and the air about Hezhi began to dream, to fill with the colors from behind closed eyelids. Tsem, Ngangata, and the others became shadowed, dimmed away as the real and the unreal traded their substance. Brother Horse continued to spread, became two shapes, wolf and man, though they were not entirely separate.

  “Now,” the old man told her, though he still chanted when he said it, “sing as I sang. Call up your helper.”

  Hezhi closed her eyes, rocking. It no longer seemed as if her finger moved the cadence of the drum; rather, it seemed to move itself. Hezhi’s sight turned inward, and there she saw the horse-child, waiting for her call. She appeared as she had in life, iron gray with blazing white stripes, mane whipped by a fierce wind, racing upon a limitless, grassy field.

  This is in me, Hezhi realized. The Horse’s world nested within her, a world of hooves pounding and strong, willful blood.

  Come on out. Come out and help me, she thought. Her lips formed the same chant that Brother Horse had recited, but this inner speech seemed more important than the formal words. It was her wish that the mare responded to, not the syllables in Mang. The mare came gladly, the thunder of her hooves shaking the drum so violently that Hezhi very nearly dropped it.

  Hezhi opened her eyes. Brother Horse was talking again, perhaps to her. He seemed to be speaking urgently, but in her dreamlike state she felt sluggish, too lazy to puzzle at his meaning. She was more interested in the spirit emerging from her; it was almost as if she were giving birth—or at least, the way she had imagined giving birth might be. Far away, she heard a dog barking frantically. Heen? He was never frantic about anything.

  Then she noticed Perkar standing, facing her, bending toward her. The almond molds of his eyes were entirely black, seething, bubbling like boiling tar. He grinned oddly, and his teeth were black, too. His sword squirmed in a white-knuckled grip, now a blade, now an eagle, now a single long beak or claw.

  “I told you,” Perkar said. “I warned you.” He lifted the sword to point at her throat slowly, as if it were heavy and he was having trouble raising it

  A feral swirl of gray and teeth and claws smacked into Perkar and his black grin turned to a snarl. He staggered beneath the onslaught, swiping clumsily about him with his weapon. Brother Horse still sat, hands tapping the drum, as the wolf that had emerged from him tore with white teeth at Perkar.

  Hezhi stated, gaping. Were they to kill Perkar? If the price of evicting the Breath Feasting from his body was to kill him, what was the point? But Perkar did not seem in danger of losing. One hand gripp
ed the wolf by the throat now, and though it squirmed and shifted shapes from wolf to serpent to man, still he held it and brought the godsword around. The wolf split nearly in half, and its yowl was deafening. Perkar tossed it aside and advanced upon Brother Horse.

  “Old man, you should have stayed away from this. He has been given to me by one much stronger than you.”

  “By whom?” Brother Horse asked. His eyes remained on Hezhi, however.

  “I will take your ghost to him, and he will have some use for it, I think.”

  “I regret that I cannot accompany you.”

  Hezhi noticed that the two halves of the wolf were still joined by a thread of life, and the doglike creature was obstinately dragging itself across the cave floor toward Perkar. It would never reach him before the Perkar-thing reached Brother Horse, however. Only Heen stood, teeth bared, between the old gaan and death—but if a wolf god fell so quickly, how long could an ordinary dog stand?

  Hezhi hesitated just an instant longer. What if Brother Horse was the enemy, and this all a trick to kill Perkar once and for all? She still, despite all of her experience, had only his word that he was on her side. But watching him sit there, calmly, facing something that looked like Perkar but was not, not really—

  “Come, Goddess,” she cried. “There is your enemy!”

  And the spirit bolted from her chest, like a heartbeat escaping, heart and all. It was not unlike the feeling of terrible sadness or joy, tightened beneath the tiny bones of her breast, suddenly bursting out, and of the two, more like joy. The gates of her heart swung open, and the Horse God sprang out.

  Perkar turned at the sound, gaping wider than humanly possible. In fact, his whole head hinged open, almost comically. Black flame coiled out from an open mouth framing sharklike teeth. He brought his blade up, but he was too late. The mare erupted into existence, fury and passion rolling in her eyes, and her hooves slashed with more speed and force than summer lightning. They caught Perkar in the head and his skull split, burst into shards like a shattered pot. He swayed on his feet for an instant, as the Breath Feasting pulled free of the stump of his neck. The demon leapt out, coiled sinew and scales scratching at the air, spinning out rays like a thousand-legged spider, each leg a segmented worm tipped with a sting. It wheeled toward the Horse God, who reared to meet it, teeth bared and snapping. Hezhi braced for their impact, but it never came; something suddenly settled about the demon, a hoop of shivering light, and Hezhi realized that she had not seen Brother Horse approaching the duel, though now she felt how insistent his drumbeat had become. He swept the circumference of his instrument—which seemed now much larger than before—over the Breath Feasting, and as the beast passed through, it came apart. It literally burst through the skin head of the drum, a fountain of worms rotting into shreds of moldy black cheese and finally smoke. The only sound was faint, something between a snap and a gasp.

  The old man made a few more passes with the drum, making certain that all of the fragments had become vapor, but no darkness was left, no visible remains of the demon; even the smoke was gone now. Then he bowed to the mare and knelt by the wounded wolf-spirit. He drew the creature to him, and in a gentle shudder they became one again. When he came back to his feet, there was a new shuffle and limp in his gait, pain etched plainly on his brow. He approached Hezhi and gently took her hand. It seemed as if her fingers were farther away than Nhol, not part of herself at all, but when he took them, the sound of drumming ceased, and she realized that she had never stopped tapping her instrument The Horse whickered, pranced widdershins around them both, and then leapt back into her; Hezhi felt only a vague shock, smelled horse hair and sweat.

  Fear smote her. The world beyond the drum was stark and, in its way, simple, and Human emotions were dim things there. But now, afterward, the reaction set in as wonder realized that it should have been terror. And Perkar had been killed, not saved. His head had burst apart, destroyed by her own hand—or by the hoof of her spirit helper.

  She blinked. Perkar lay on the cave floor, as he had before. His head was whole, and as Brother Horse and Ngangata bent over him, he moaned once.

  “What happened?” Tsem demanded. “Why are you shaking?”

  Hezhi looked up into the Giant’s puzzled face.

  “The fight? Didn’t you see?”

  “See? I saw you and the old man tapping your drums and singing nonsense. Heen there started howling and growling, and then Brother Horse stood up and waved his drum around. There was some smoke or something; that’s all I saw.”

  “Truly?”

  “Princess, that’s all that happened.”

  Frowning, Hezhi turned back to Perkar and the two men with him.

  “Well? Is he better?”

  Brother Horse shook his head solemnly. “He is still ill. It will take time for Harka to heal him entirely. But the Breath Feasting is gone.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Thank the Horse Goddess, or yourself.”

  “You slew it.”

  Brother Horse spread his hands. “It is not really slain, but it will be many years before its substance knits back together.”

  “You drew it through the drum.”

  “Yes. It is a dweller in the lake. Cast out of its waters, without flesh about it, it suffocates, in a sense. It comes unbound.”

  “Are all gods thus?”

  “No. The Breath Feasting is delicate, in some ways. But any passage through the drum—from one side of the ‘lake’ to the other—must be prepared for, by spirit, god, or Human. The transition is always dangerous.”

  “What are you talking about? What lake?” Tsem asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” Hezhi said, patting his arm. “I promise I’ll explain later.”

  “Good. Because right now, the two of you sound quite mad.”

  Brother Horse did not grin, but his old humor seemed to flicker in his eyes as he shook his head and said, “Indeed. Madness is a prerequisite for becoming a gaan.” He reached down and gave his dog a scratch between the ears.

  Tsem rolled his eyes. “Then everyone out here but me must be one.”

  Yuu’han chose that moment to interrupt.

  “Out on the plain,” he said. “Look.”

  Hezhi followed the pointing finger, but all she saw was moonlight and clouds. Ngangata and Brother Horse, however, had a different reaction.

  “I thought they would hold them longer,” the old man remarked.

  “Perhaps it is someone else.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What? What is it?” Hezhi asked.

  “See there?” Ngangata pointed.

  Hezhi followed the imaginary line described by his finger, but still she saw nothing. “No.”

  “It’s a campfire. Someone following us, between a day and half a day behind.”

  Brother Horse groaned. “I had hoped to rest before sunup.”

  “We can rest in the saddle,” Ngangata answered. “At least our tracks will be covered.”

  “What do you mean?” Hezhi asked. But then she understood, as the first patter of rain came from outside. A distant thunder tremored, and a line of blue fire walked around the far horizon.

  “I told you it would rain,” Ngangata said. But he was looking at Perkar, who moaned once more, and Hezhi thought she caught the hint of a smile on his wide, strange lips, a whisper of thanks from his halfling eyes.

  XX

  Dragons

  Ghan paused at the threshold of the library and turned back, scrutinizing each block of visible shelving as the soldiers with him coughed impatiently.

  “Wait,” Ghan grumbled. He could see a volume, lying on a table, out of place. He moved stiffly across the room to retrieve it.

  “Now, where do you go?” he asked rhetorically, checking the notation on the book, which told him exactly that. It belonged in the labyrinthine rear stacks—the ones Hezhi had named “the Tangle.” He motioned to the soldiers to indicate he would return shortly and took the book to its shelf
. Alone, he rested his head against leather-bound spines.

  “I’ve spent my whole life among you,” he muttered to the books. “What will you do without me?”

  The tomes did not answer him, of course, but as he walked heavily back to the waiting guards, to his surprise, he answered himself. He rested his fingers on Grimoire Tertiary, the last in the row before he again crossed the reading area.

  “Good-bye,” he whispered. “Someone will always come who cares for you. Someone.”

  And then he left, not looking back again, turning his mind stubbornly outward to what must be.

  I have seen dragons, he wrote a bit later as, ignoring everyone else on the barge, he spread his things in his quarters and began to write. They were, in their way, magnificent. Bone Eel called them with his blood, though I would have believed it too deficient to summon even a worm. But it was enough; they turned and writhed in the water like living waves, scintillating with the hues of a green rainbow. Quite beautiful. When they slid into their moorings, down beneath the barge, the first tug showed their power, for in one moment we were still and in the next the boat was in motion. Soon we will not give them a second thought, but they must work tirelessly, pulling us up the River that gives them life.

  He set the pen aside then, folded down onto his bed, and closed his eyes. The day had been long and wrought much upon him, and even writing gave him little solace.

  Ghe emerged into the light before dawn, and Nhol was gone. Even with his enhanced vision, the River was almost all that he could see; on the nearest side he could make out the artificial horizon of the levee, willow, cottonwood, and bamboo rambling at its base. The other bank was so distant that it showed only as a thin green line. He took in a breath and thought it clean, new. They were in motion! The expedition—his expedition—had begun. And they would find her, he was sure of that. It was a vast certainty, inhuman in scope, but it still gave him joy.