by Greg Keyes
Anger wrote itself on her features. “You owe me,” she declared. “You made me think you liked me, maybe more than liked me. You owe me.”
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what that means,” she retorted, but softening. “But I know that I need your help.”
“I cannot slay the River!”
Ghan interrupted him. “Have you forgotten Li again, Ghe? We found bits of her in you, in your memory, hidden away and dimmed from your waking mind. The River tried to clean them out of you. He made you kill her, Ghe, because he would not give you what few memories you cherished.”
Hezhi held something out to him—not something physical, but fragments of his mind, like a shattered mirror. Images of an old woman, her love for him, the care that only she had ever lavished upon him. A day long ago, on the levee of the River …
“He did steal her from me, didn’t he? Why did he do that?”
Hezhi reached up and brushed the hair from his eyes. “To keep you from being distracted. A real man—one with his own thoughts and motives and loves—a real man makes a poor weapon for the River. The River hates us because he will never really understand us, no matter that he wants our bodies as vessels. He hates you, Ghe, hates me, simply because he needs us. I know what it’s like, to have him in me. I do.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “But Ghe, he made you from a man. Part of you is still a man. And despite what you did to me, you don’t deserve what he has done to you. Neither of us deserves it. I am dying, Ghe. Only you can save me.”
An inchoate anger was growing in him, but still he persisted. “I … He made me so. I cannot but serve him.”
“No,” Hezhi said. “No, if you love me, you can serve me. You once told Ghan that whatever I wanted—”
“I lied! Ghan knows that.”
“You thought you lied,” Ghan said. “But I believed you because it was a deeper truth than you knew. It was the man in you, rather than the Riverghost.”
Ghe stilled his trembling, braiding his anger and his love. He reached into the secret, cold place that had helped him kill, back when he had been merely Human, when a misstep meant his own death, when compassion was a deadly thing. He wove that into the fibers, too, a warp to lay the weft through. I am a blade of silver, I am a sickle of ice, he whispered, and finally, once again, he was.
“What must I do?” he heard himself say.
Hezhi leaned up and kissed the scar on his chin, the first wound he ever received. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But what you have to do is die. But we will help you.” And she gestured to the stream demon.
“Die,” he considered. “I have to die.” He focused on her again, on the exquisite shape of her face. “Will you forgive me then?”
“I already forgive you, Ghe.”
“Call me Yen.”
She smiled. “Yen.”
It took three pulls to remove the sword, each more painful than the last, and the final heave was followed by a gout of blood that he knew must surely have drained him. Nevertheless, though his legs felt like wood, he struggled to stand.
Nearby, another huge figure stood over Hezhi, which Perkar recognized as Tsem. The Giant interposed himself between the girl and the god.
“This is getting tiresome,” Karak said. “Perkar, lay down and die. Tsem … oh, never mind.” He raised his hand.
A scorpion stinger as thick as a Human leg struck the god as a nightmare jumble of limbs and plates suddenly crawled back into motion. Karak rolled his eyes—not in pain but in irritation—and struck the thing away with his hand. “And you!” he snapped. The monster with the face of the assassin from Nhol rose unsteadily on several spiderlike legs. It should have been dead—Perkar could see the hole in it, how burnt and charred it was. Only its head remained Human, and it was the Human eyes that held Perkar, not the monstrous body.
“Perkar,” the thing croaked.
He was so weak. His knees shook. He didn’t even know what he imagined he would do with the sword he had just pulled from himself. Strike Karak one more useless blow? But here was this thing, the thing that had eaten the Stream Goddess …
He raised his sword, though the earth sought to drag it from his hand.
He carried his weight into the swing, knowing that if he missed it wouldn’t matter anyway, he would never stand to attack again. He wondered dully why the Tiskawa tilted its head back, as if inviting the blow.
The Blackgod was perhaps more injured than he let on, for though he lunged to place himself between Perkar and the River-thing, he was too slow to avoid Tsem’s broken club, which struck him in the shoulder blade and caused him to stumble. Then it was too late, and the sword Perkar’s father had given him—the sword forged by the little Steel God Ko—bit deeply.
For the second time, Perkar watched Ghe’s head leave its body. It was strange that the final expression to grace the assassin’s face seemed to reflect victory rather than defeat.
XXXVIII
Horse Mother
Blood geysered into the cavern, spewing from the stump of the River-thing’s neck. It fell toward the lake and gouted liquid into the water, and the water burned. It caught like dry leaves in high autumn, like pitch. Glorious light of many colors gyred and capered madly in the cavern, and Perkar sank back to his knees beneath the rainbow dance of the River’s death—and his own. And though wonder should have been shocked out of him, he still laughed and wept tears of joy when he saw, amongst those flames, a lithe form he had once loved, the Goddess of the Stream, hair coursing opalescent as she skated across the surface of the dying god.
“What have you done?” Karak shrieked. “What have you done?”
“Slain the River, I think,” Perkar answered, dropping his blade so he could lower himself to the floor with one hand and clutch his belly with the other. It was starting to hurt now, a slow burning that he knew would consume him for a long time before finally killing him.
“Not as I planned, pretty thing,” Karak snarled.
“Nevertheless, I think he is dead.”
“Perhaps,” Karak said. “I don’t see how, but—”
“It is true; you know it. I have done it for you.”
“It is not as I wished it to be,” Karak complained, his voice becoming a trifle petty.
“Karak, please. I know you can heal Hezhi and Ngangata, if they are not dead. Please. We did what you wanted. The Changeling is no more.”
“But what is in his place?” Karak snarled. “That I do not know. Perhaps he will be as bad as the Brother.”
That seemed wrong to Perkar, but it was just a feeling. And it was too much trouble to argue. “Save them,” he repeated instead.
“What of you, pretty thing? You don’t want to die, do you?”
“No,” he answered, knowing at last that it was the truth. “No, I don’t. But they should come first.”
“How sweet. But seeing as how you acted contrary to my wishes, I will heal none of you.”
“As if you ever acted in accord with anyone’s wishes,” a voice boomed, shuddering the very stone beneath their feet. “As if you ever accomplished the goal without twisting the intent.”
Karak and Perkar turned as one at the low, grating voice, a voice nearly below Perkar’s hearing.
“Balati,” Karak said, almost a groan, almost an imprecation.
It was, indeed, the Forest Lord. His single black eye reflected the glimmering flames upon the water, but the rest of him seemed to drink in the light, a mass of fur and shadow and antlers that were really, Perkar could see now, trees that reached up and up, never ceasing to rise and branch. Near him stood a mare with a coat of gold and rust, the most magnificent mare Perkar had ever beheld. As Balati spoke again, the horse turned and sniffed first at the still form of Sharp Tiger, then at Hezhi.
“You have played a merry prank on me, Crow,” Balati muttered, his voice as solid and unyielding as stone. “You have killed my Brother.”
“He was dangerous,” Karak hissed. “In anot
her thousand years—when it was far too late, and he was eating you—you would have understood that yourself.”
“That is what you are for, Karak,” Balati said. “That is my use for you, and you have performed it well. My Brother was ill—dead even. He was the ghost of a god, envying the living.”
“Ah!” Karak brightened. “It is well then—you do understand. In that case, perhaps I should fly and see precisely what has been wrought here. The new River God, like the old, has no sentience in Erikwer, but when he emerges from the cavern—”
“Oh, no, I think not,” Balati said, almost gently. “You need humbling, I believe, and I need you with me for a time, so that I can quicken enough to understand all of this.”
“Lord,” Karak said, “there is much I need to be about, much to be done in the world as it shall become.”
“Yes, I’m sure. But we will let mortals do it for a while, and the little gods of the land.”
Karak suddenly transformed into a crow and took wing, but as he flew, he shrank, and the Forest Lord reached out a massive paw and closed it upon him. Perkar heard a single, pitiful grawk and then saw no more of the Raven.
“L-Lord Balati—” Perkar stammered.
“I know you,” Balati said. “You slew my guardian, stole my things.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But I—and I alone of these here, and of my people—” Perkar groaned through thickening pain. “I was to blame, no one else.”
Balati cocked his head slowly to one side. Unlike the Raven, unlike the Huntress or indeed any other god Perkar had known, there was nothing Human in the gaze of Balati. He was the world before men or Alwat, the forest and the land before the forest came alive. There was no mercy, no compassion—nor hatred nor envy nor greed—to be understood in that nebulous single orb. “You wanted something before,” he rumbled. “What was it?”
Perkar blinked. “Before …?”
“When you stole my things.”
A year ago, Perkar realized, when Apad and Eruka and the Kapaka and the Alwat all died. “We … we came to request more land for pasture, so that we need not fight the Mang.”
Balati gazed down at him for some time. “That is reasonable,” he said. “You may have them.”
“Have them?”
“Two valleys, the two which lie along west of the rim of Agiruluta. You know the place?”
“Yes, Lord,” Perkar muttered faintly. “I know it. Thank you.”
But the Forest Lord no longer stood before him.
Now only the mare remained, stood near where Tsem crouched, weeping, beside Hezhi. The mare walked toward him, and as she did so, she became a woman, Mang-seeming, handsome. She looked angry.
“The girl Hezhi still has some life in her, and since she is the house my little colt lives in, I have healed her. Your friend will live.”
“Thank you,” Perkar murmured.
“Do not thank me yet.” She knelt nearby and put her hand to Ngangata’s throat. Then she turned to him again. “You slew one of my children in a foul and vicious way. You cut her legs from under her and left her to suffer.”
“I did,” Perkar admitted. “I have no excuse.”
“No, you don’t. And so as punishment, I will give you a choice. I will either heal the halfling or you, but not both.”
Perkar closed his eyes. He did want to live. His goal was accomplished, and suddenly he could imagine a life that might have Piraku and perhaps even joy in it. He might once again sip woti, own cattle—and with Hezhi alive, he might even find a companion. And he was afraid, afraid of the hours of torture that lay before him, of the oblivion to come …
“You are cruel,” he said. “Of course you must save my friend.”
The Horse Mother hesitated. “Perhaps I should do the contrary then. If you really want this one to live, then he shall die.”
His mouth worked, but he couldn’t manage an objection, realizing the mistake he had made. After all, hadn’t he used the same logic against the River long ago? Tried to guess his desire and then frustrate it?
But then the Horse Mother laid her hands on Ngangata. “No,” she said. “I haven’t the heart for that sort of cruelty. I was just taunting you. Ngangata will live. But I will not help you—I will not go so far.”
“Thank you,” he managed.
And then she, like the Forest Lord, was gone.
He lay there for a moment, watched the now steady rise and fall of Ngangata’s chest.
“Tsem,” Perkar whispered. Perhaps the half Giant could be persuaded to kill him quickly. But before he could utter another word, a sudden, sharper pain took him into oblivion.
It took everything he had to stand still while the white-faced demon swung his sword again. But this time the pain and the shock meant very little to him. He was almost thankful to Perkar.
To Hezhi and Ghan, he was thankful. “Good-bye, Hezhi,” he sighed, as shade descended.
He was a little boy, walking along the levee, looking for a dead fish, anything to eat. His feet were cut and bleeding from fleeing across broken shards of pottery; the soldiers had seen him taking a merchant’s purse of gold, and of course he had dropped it in the pursuit.
Ahead on the levee he saw an old woman, basking in the sunshine. She had an apple and a salted catfish before her on a red cloth. And bread, warm black bread that he could smell, even on the fetid breeze from the marsh. He felt about in his pocket again—but his knife was really gone. He walked toward the old woman anyway, thinking hard.
She saw him and frowned—but then she waved him over.
“I saw you looking at my food,” she said. He nodded sullenly.
“I’ve seen you before, on Red Gar Street.”
He shrugged, unable to take his eyes from the fish.
“We’ll play a game,” the old woman said. She reached into a little bag and withdrew three clay cups and a copper soldier. She lined the cups up, placed the copper under one of them, and then moved them about quickly.
“Keep your eye on the copper,” she said. “Now, tell which cup the coin is under, and I’ll give you my bread.”
“It isn’t under a cup,” he said. “It’s in your hand.”
She opened her hand, and there it was. “How did you know that?” she asked.
“I’ve seen you on Red Gar Street, too.”
She laughed. “Take the fish and the bread.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I like you,” she answered.
“That’s no reason to give me something,” he said, but he took the food anyway, as she watched through narrowed eyes.
“My name is Li,” she told him, as he swallowed a huge hunk of the bread.
He stopped chewing then. “Really? Are you really Li?”
The old woman smiled thinly and shook her head. “No, child, not really, no more than there was a soldier under those cups. But I can take you to where she is.”
“You’re the Lady.”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t I be afraid of you?”
“Yes and no. Are you?”
Ghe shrugged. “A little. Will I disappear?”
The Lady smiled. “Now that would be telling. Why don’t we go see?”
Ghe nodded. “May I finish the bread first? I’m still hungry.”
“Of course, child. Finish the fish, too.”
Hezhi awoke, cradled in Tsem’s arms. The pain in her side was still present, but when she felt for the wound, that was gone, though her clothes were sticky—in some places stiff—with dried blood. She remembered—knew—that it was her own.
Tsem stilted, tilting his coarse features down to look at her. They also were smeared with dried blood—a cut marked the summit of a huge gray lump above one massive brow—and caked further with dirt. Below his eyes, tears had cut runnels through blood and dirt, but he was dry-eyed now.
“I’m tired,” she muttered. “Thirsty. Tsem, are you all right?”
“I have a headache, and I was worried about you. The Black
god knocked me down and I hit my head. I guess he was too busy to bother with killing me.”
“Where is the Blackgod now?”
“Gone.”
She tried to look around. “Is anyone dead?”
Tsem nodded his head sadly. “You almost were, but a horse healed you. I know that sounds stupid.”
“No, it makes sense,” she told him. “Who is dead?”
“Brother Horse. Bone Eel, Qwen Shen. Lots of soldiers.”
“Perkar? Ngangata?”
“Ngangata is fine. He’s doing what he can for Perkar.”
“Perkar? Is he badly hurt?”
“Very badly, Princess. He will probably die.”
“I should—maybe I can help him.” But she knew that she could not. Brother Horse had never taught her how to mend a torn body, only how to cast off possession. And neither of her remaining familiars had such arts. And they, too, were weak. But Perkar! Added to Brother Horse and Ghan …
“Take me to him,” she pleaded.
Tsem nodded, lifted her up, and carried her to where Perkar lay.
He was near death, she could see that. Ngangata had bound up his belly, but blood still leaked through the bandage, and he must be bleeding inside, for she could see his spirit ebb.
“She healed me but not him,” Ngangata muttered when they arrived.
“Who?”
“The Horse Mother.”
Hezhi took a deep breath, fighting back tears. “She said he offended her—” she began.
Ngangata laughed harshly. “Yes, he did. That’s Perkar, always offending some god or other.” He tried to smile, with small success.
“But his sword. Can’t his sword heal him?”
“The Blackgod destroyed Harka,” Ngangata explained.
“What do we do?” Tsem asked quietly.
“Wait, I suppose,” Ngangata replied stiffly.
Hezhi nodded and took one of Perkar’s cool, bloody hands in hers. The smell of iron and water was strong, but the cavern was quiet now, and the last of the flames on the water had dwindled to a pale glow. Hezhi began, at long last, to cry—for Ghan, for Perkar, for Brother Horse—even for Ghe. She cried until a light appeared, high above them, a disk of gray and then blue; beyond Erikwer, the sun had risen.