The Blackgod

And on and on go I

Each year better than the last

No winter cold to eat me

Each season a different-colored spring.”

And as she sang her final verse, she rose up, more magnificent than he had ever seen her, and Perkar's knees quaked, and without even thinking he knelt.

She approached and ran her fingers playfully through his hair.

“Stand up, silly thing,” she admonished. “We have been more familiar than this.”

“Yes,” he began, “but …” He shrugged helplessly but then met her eyes. “I don't deserve this, to be part of your song.”

She laughed, the same silvery music he had heard for the first time what seemed like centuries ago. “Deserving has nothing to do with it,” she replied. “The Changeling is part of my song, and his name never deserved to be sung. But that is how the songs of gods and goddesses must be. You are a part of my story, Perkar, a part I cherish. After all, it was your love that ended my pain and gave me this.” She swept her arms wide, indicating the joyful crash of the water.

He kept his gaze frankly on hers. “Long ago, you told me not to be a boy, dreaming of the impossible. But I loved you so much, and I was so stupid. I would have done anything for you—save to heed your warnings. But this thing I have finally accomplished—in your song you say that my love saved you. But I must tell you truthfully, Goddess, I did not do all of this for love of you.”

She smiled even wider and swept her gaze across Ngangata, Tsem, Yuu'han, and Hezhi.

“He is such a silly thing sometimes, is he not?“ She sighed. She turned back to him, her look one of mock despair. Then she gestured to Hezhi.

Tentatively Hezhi stepped forward. The Stream Goddess was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Even though she had thought she understood Perkar, she suddenly realized that she had not. She knew, intellectually, that much of what he had done had been motivated by a love for this goddess, but to actually see her, hear her voice, made it all different. Hezhi's heart seemed to sag in her chest, as she remembered her own shadowed, ungainly outline on the floor in “Sheldu's” damakuta. Regardless, she approached the goddess and was faintly astonished when the strange woman reached and took her hand. The skin of the goddess was cool and damp, but otherwise felt Human enough.

She was even more astonished when the goddess squeezed her hand and then placed it in Perkar's.

“I never said it was love for me that ended the Changeling and set me free,” the goddess explained. ”Only the love of a mortal man. Your love for your people, Perkar, your love for these companions, and your love for this girl. Those are the loves ofaman, sweet thing, and those are what set me free.”

“I love you, too,” Perkar answered.

“Of course you do. How could you not? But you understand now what I told you so long ago.”

“I think so. I no longer dream of you somehow becoming my wife, if that is what you mean.”

She only smiled at him and then turned back to Hezhi. “Child, I have a gift for you.”

“Forme?”

A second column of water rose and became something dimmer, more ghostlike than the very real goddess; but it congealed into a recognizable form nevertheless.

“Ghan!” Hezhi cried.

“More or less,” the apparition said curtly—but more than a hint of a smile graced his usually severe features. “Changed but not changed. When you chew up a piece of meat and spit the gristle out—I think I must be mostly gristle.”

“Ghan!” She was weeping again, though she thought that by now she would have no salt or water left in her body.

“Hush, child. You know how I despise such displays.”

“Do you?” Hezhi answered, wiping the lachryma from her cheeks. “I read your letter, the one you sent by the Mang. The one in which you said you loved me, that I was like the daughter—”

“Yes, yes,” he replied testily. “Old men sometimes write maudlin things.” He softened. “And I probably meant them.”

“What will become of the library?” Hezhi asked. And then, in a blinding flash of insight, “OfNholl”

Ghan shrugged. “The library was my life, but I'm oddly glad now that I did not spend my last days in it. The books remain, and there is always someone. Someone like you and me, at least every generation or two. They will wait, just as they did for you. As for Nhol, who knows?”

“They will not worship me,” the goddess said. “I will not have it. It causes me more pain than pleasure. But I will not harm them, though it is a city that he built. Human Beings are able to change; that is the most—perhaps the only—wonderful thing about your kind. They will be as happy or happier without the River as they were with their god, given time.”

Ghan smiled. “It will be an interesting time, these next few years. I intend to observe them.”

“Observe?”

“The goddess has graciously consented to take this that remains of me downstream with her.”

The goddess nodded confirmation. “Unlike the Changeling, I have no desire to flow through a sterile land. I am more comfortable with neighbors, frog gods, heron lords, swampmasters. Perhaps your old teacher can take up residence in one of the many vacant places—a stream, a field, a mountain. I will invite others, too.”

“And who…” Perkar frowned and began again. “What of the stream that you inhabited of old?”

“Ah, that,” she said. “That is already taken care of; a new goddess lives there. Give her flowers as you did me.” She smiled oddly, a bit mysteriously, with some sadness, and came closer to him, speaking very softly. “Farewell, love. I have become large indeed, and it is a new thing. I have not yet flowed my length, and part of him still lives, though I slay more of him each instant. But it may be that when I have attained my length I will drowse for a time, and when I waken it may be to your great-grandchildren rather than you. I may never speak to you like this again. But of all mortals I have loved, you were both the sweetest and the most worrisome. You made me less a goddess and more Human than you will ever know. Farewell.” She stepped farther from him.

“Good-bye, Goddess,” he answered, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice from shaking.

“Fare you well, Hezhi,” Ghan said, as the two of them began to collapse back into the water they were formed of. ”Perhaps you will burn incense for me someday.”

Then he and the goddess were gone. The five mortals silently watched the bright play of the river for a time, before Tsem cleared his throat.

“Ah…”he began.

“Yes, Tsem?” Hezhi asked.

“Do you think it would be, ah … disrespectful if we were to take a bath, you know—here?”

Perkar, oddly enough, was the first to start laughing. It was more joyful than their nervous tittering back in Erikwer, almost exuberant.

I could use a bath,” he replied, when he could. “I'm all for that, and I don't think she would mind at all.”

THEY did bathe, then, and climbed back up, and afterward Perkar and Ngangata hunted, returning with a small antelope. They set it to roasting on the flame that Yuu'han, Hezhi, and Tsem had built in their absence. They cooked the meat, and later, licking the grease from their fingers, they watched the sun go down.

“Well, what now?” Tsem sighed. “What do we do now?”

“Now,” Perkar said, “we go back to my people. We tell them about the new bargain with the Forest Lord, about the new valleys he has opened for colonization.”

“That will end the war?” Yuu'han asked a little harshly.

Perkar turned a concerned gaze on the Mang. “I know a lot of your people have died,” he said softly. ”Saying I'm sorry means nothing, I know.”

“They were warriors,” he responded. “They chose their deaths. But I have to know, after all of this, after aiding you even against my own, that it was worth it.”

“It was worth it,” Ngangata answered. “The war will end. Perkar's people talk a lot about fighting and glory, but they would actually much rather tend their cows in peace. In the lands they have taken from your people, they would never know peace.”

“That is true,” Yuu'han conceded. ”We would fight for the plains our horses graze upon until none of us were left alive.”

“And we know that,” Perkar assured him. “Only desperation drove my people to attack yours. Now they can settle peacefully in lands that are more suited to cattle, anyway. You can return to your folk and tell them the war will end, my friend.”

“That pleases me. It would please my uncle, as well.”

“Your uncle was a good man, a great man,” Perkar said. “I'm sorry for what happened to him.”

Yuu'han smiled faintly. “He knew he would die. He knew that he would die as soon as he left his island. He had a vision.”

“Then why …” Hezhi began.

“He was old, but he was still a man,” Yuu'han explained. “Still Mang. If he had lived much longer, he might have lost that, might have become another pack for his clan to carry about with them. We would have done that, for he was dear to us. But he would have hated it. He saw a path that would bring his death, but also much glory, many songs.”

“Piraku,” Perkar said.

“As you call it. He died quickly, with little pain, but valiantly. And he cared about you all, was willing to give his life.” He looked uncomfortable. “As was I. I only ask that you remember where he died, honor his spirit now and then.”

“I don't think we will soon forget Erikwer,” Ngangata replied. “And I'm certain your uncle will soon wear other clothes; perhaps those of a stallion or a hawk.”

“It may be. Or perhaps he roams with his old mount, Firehoof, in the plains of the Ghostland. Either way, I'm sure he is just the same as he was, a noisy, perverse old man.”

“Almost certainly.”

“In any event, we will remember him,” Perkar promised, “and I will send him plenty of woti and beer, wherever he dwells now. Starting when we get home, and I have something to send him. You will join me in some woti, I hope. In a toast to him.”

“I think I will return along the river,” Yuu'han said, shaking his head. “It will be quicker and easier than traveling through the mountains, and now the Changeling is … friendlier.”

“When will you leave?”

“In the morning, I think.”

“That will be a long journey alone,” Ngangata said.

Yuu'han shrugged. “I will not be alone. My cousin will be with me.” He jerked his head toward his mount, Huu'yen.

“Of course. But we will miss you,” Perkar said.

“And I all of you.”

They talked a bit longer, of inconsequential things, watching the red-eyed Fire Goddess in her hearth of stones, and one by one they fell asleep, and though Ngangata stood sentinel, even he was blissfully snoring when the new morning dawned.

EPILOGUE A Different-Colored Spring

THE warm vapor of black woti carried up into Perkar's nostrils, a delicious scent. The promise of its taste tugged powerfully at him, pulling him back across the years to his first sip of the dark, warm drink, and for an instant he felt anew everything he had known then: pride, joy, love, and above all, hope. The promise that his Ufe had just begun, that the great fields of the world were stretched out before him. Had the sunlight really ever seemed so golden, so untarnished?

That had been only five years ago. This was the fifth anniversary of his manhood rite, of the day when his father had trounced him so soundly before his whole family, when he had been given his first sword.

“Drink it, son,” his father exhorted. “You have been home for more than a year; time enough has passed. Put away your mourning and drink.”

Perkar hesitated, still. The smell was so fine. What had he told Karak, a year and some months ago? You have made me like a ghost, able to appreciate only the smell, never the taste…

Something like that. He smiled thinly, raised the cup to his father. He had never thought of Sherye as old before, but he seemed old now. In the two years Perkar had been gone, his sire looked as if he had aged ten. His hair was more than half gray, his eyes compassed by seams of pain and worry.

“To your Piraku, Father,” Perkar said. He lifted the small cup and drank. The wine seemed to rush into his head, filling it with smoke and honey before it burned its way, pleasantly, to his belly.

“To your Piraku, my son,” his father answered, and drank his own. The older man then poured them both another cup.

“Perhaps I am flesh again now,” Perkar murmured, and this time when he smiled, it felt more genuine.

“What do you mean?” his father asked.

“Nothing.” Perkar shook his head. “Something best forgotten.”

Sherye measured him with iron-gray eyes and smiled ruefully. “My son goes away and returns with a mouthful of cryptic remarks. But at least he returns. And today he is a man for five years.” He raised the second cup in salute. Together they drank.

The warmth from the first cup was beginning to reach into Perkar's blood, and finally he felt his shoulders begin to relax. He sagged back a bit on his pillow. They sat alone, his father and he, in the banquet hall of the damakuta where Perkar had been born. Only a handful of candles burnished the walls of polished red cedar, while above, the steep pitch of the ceiling climbed into darkness. The low table before them held only the bowl of hot water, the pitcher of woti it warmed, and their cups.

“I feel that I have been a man for only a year,” Perkar admitted. “Two at best. I don't know. I only know that I was not a man when I set out with the Kapaka.”

Sherye barked out a short, harsh laugh as he poured yet more woti. “We are never men when we say we are, son—it's only later, when we question our worth, that we stand some chance of finding it.” He tossed down the third cup, waited for Perkar to do likewise, and then poured a fourth.

“You intend for us to get drunk tonight, don't you, Father?” Perkar asked, already beginning to feel somewhat light-headed.

“Very drunk,” his father conceded. “Very.”

Six drinks later they were well on their way. Perkar felt his face numbing and softening, and to his horror, tears welled behind his eyes. In his months of self-enforced temperance, he had forgotten the power of woti to draw out the hidden, to release things best bound—to make hardened men bawl like mouseling infants.

His father swayed back and forth when he next spoke, the rustling of his rust-and-black quilted robe the only other sound.

“When will you take the land, son? When will you build your own home? Your younger brother—Henyi—is already gone four months.”

Perkar bit his lip. He had tried to remain silent on this issue, keep it in. But suddenly he felt the words bolt past his lips like a willful steed.

“When all have chosen,” he cried, louder than he wished. “When all whom I wronged have picked the choicest land for pasture. Then I will go.”

His father waved his hand impatiently. “Many whom you wronged are dead.”

“Their children, then.”

“How many generations will you pay, my son? You have redressed your misdeeds—stopped the war with the Mang and haggled new land for the Cattle Folk. Truth to tell, none of us would have known your blame, had you not returned to tell us of what happened. Yours is not the first expedition to go into Balat and not return.”

“Yes,” Perkar said. “I have heard some accused the Alwat—Akera and his brothers even went to hunt them.”

“And found none,” his father pointed out. “No harm was done.”

It seemed to Perkar that harm had been done, if the reputation of the Alwat had been further blemished. And even though the truth of the matter was now widely known, men like Akera would still count the imaginary grudge in a tally against the Alwat. Thus truth was the servant of desire. But the blame against the Alwat was not the worst distortion. “The most embarrassing thing is the way people treat me,” Perkar muttered.

“Like a hero? You are that. The songs are already spreading. How did you want to be treated? As an outcast, a pariah? Would that have made you feel better?” The older man smiled and reached to grip Perkar's shoulder. “The punishment of a hero is that he is treated like one. You will see that soon enough. Go take your land, son. You have waited long enough.”

“Perhaps.”

“And think about marriage. It's past time for that, as well. Bakume still has a finely dowered daughter …” He stopped when he saw the expression on his son's face. He drank another cup of woti. “Ah, well then,” he said. “A father might as well try. A man can have two wives, you know.”

Perkar blinked at his sire. What had the older man seen on his face?

But he thought he knew, and that should be dealt with soon. He had put it off too long.

HEZHI woke with a start, her heart racing. Her blood pulsed chill, like roots of ice digging through her skin, but already the dread images were fading away, her nightmare painted over by the rosy sunlight falling through the higher window onto her bed. She lay there, waiting for the last of the dream to evaporate, wondering if she would ever be entirely free of such sleep terrors. Before last night, it had been almost two weeks. The mare and the swan assured her that they could protect her from her nightmares, but Hezhi felt somehow that such aid would harm her more in the end. With each passing day the horror lessened, just as the tightness of the knife scar in her side lessened under the ministrations of Perkar's mother. The latter required bathing, stretching, and massaging the white lump with tallow; Hezhi had been assured that simply ignoring the scar would result in a stiff, unpleasant pucker that would trouble her for the rest of her days. She suspected that ignoring—or allowing her familiars to suppress—her dreams would have similar results. In the year and more since leaving Balat, the nightmares came fewer and with diminishing intensity. One day they would be all but gone.

Roosters were crowing, so Hezhi rose, dabbed her face at the washbasin, and sought out her robe, the gold-and-brown one she favored. Once dressed she trudged down the stairs to the great hall.

Perkar and his father lay there; Perkar was supine, mouth open, eyes closed. Sherye had nodded his head onto the table and remained there as if bowing to whatever god the wood had been cut from. The shadow of her nightmare was strong enough that a wave of horror washed over her, a fear that they were dead, but she saw the truth quickly enough in the woti bottle on the table, and the relief was so great she laughed. Perkar had relented at last and taken woti with his father. Perkar, too, was healing.

A soft sound caught her attention. Across the hall, Kila—Perkar's mother—gestured for her attention. Hezhi crossed the hardwood floor, treading lightly even in bare feet, wishing to make no sound to rouse the men.

Kila was a tiny woman, smaller even than Hezhi in stature and frame, and yet she seemed larger somehow, as if time had lent her eminence. Her face reminded Hezhi of a bird—not some large, beaky bird, but something delicate, like a sparrow. Her hair, worn in three long braids that nearly reached her knees, was that strange red-brown color that Hezhi was slowly becoming accustomed to.

“Thank you,” Kila said, whispering. “Best we let them sleep. They would not be pleasant if we awakened them now. Would you come with me to feed the chickens?”

Hezhi nodded and followed the older woman out into the yard.

“Normally Aberra and her daughter feed them,” Kila explained as she opened the wooden bin that contained the grain, “but they are away right now.”

“I'll help,” Hezhi said. She took a handful of the grain and began casting it about the yard in imitation of Kila. The red-and-gold birds appeared from every corner of the walled-in compound, converging on the two women, clucking about their feet like the courtiers who had once surrounded her father. Hezhi smiled at the image, then wondered more seriously what had become of that court, of the palace. With the River dead, did Nhol still stand? Did her father still rule? Despite herself, she felt again a longing for the city of her birth and, most surprising of all, a faint worry for her father, her mother, her sisters. Though she had barely known them, she understood now that they did matter to her in some small but real measure.

“What's troubling you, child?” Kila asked.

“Thinking of home,” Hezhi explained.

“From what Perkar says, I wonder that you miss it.”

“As do I,” Hezhi admitted. “But I worry about my family. Most of all, I wonder about Qey.”

“That's the woman who raised you?”

“Yes.”

Kila was silent for a few moments, throwing grain out toward the weaker birds that could not bustle up to her feet. “Will you return?”

Hezhi shrugged. “I don't know. I don't know what I will do.”

Kila looked at her frankly. “I hope you don't,” she said. “I hope you stay right here. I've never had a daughter—” Her face fell slightly. “—not one who lived, anyway. Having you around has been like having a daughter.”

Hezhi smiled. Kila meant well, and she liked the older woman, but she could remember Brother Horse, making her a similar proposition, just after she escaped from Nhol. “You could be Mang,” he had told her. And yet, despite the old man's best intentions, that had turned out to be a false promise. She had been with Perkar's people for longer—sixteen months now—but she still had little faith that this could be her home. At least Tsem was happier here; he was much more useful as a cowherd and at building fences than as a Mang hunter. He even seemed to enjoy the hard, outdoor work. Yes, Tsem could live here and be happy. But as more and more time passed, Hezhi wondered what her place would be—if there was one for her at all.

Kila sighed. “But even if you stay, I suppose you will marry soon enough. Already we have had two proposals for you.”

“What?” Hezhi's head snapped up. “Proposals?”

Kila laughed. “You should have seen your expression! Yes, of course proposals. Look at you! Such a pretty young woman, and well into marrying age.”

“But who?”

“Neighbors. Sons headed off to the new lands. Men who care less about a fine dowry and more about having a beautiful bride—and a shamaness, no less.”

“I thought no man married an undowered woman.”

Kila nodded around at the chickens, satisfied that they had been provided for, and started back across the yard. A gentle morning breeze breathed down from the mountains, cool but invigorating, like a swim in springwater. “Not in normal times,” Kila answered. “But these are not normal times. Dowry is usually land and cattle, land being the most important of the two. But right now, there is land to be had for the taking. Anyway—” She shot Hezhi a mischievous grin. “—you have a dowry.”

“I do?”

“Sherye has dowered you with two bulls and thirteen cows. Did you not know?”

Hezhi was so dumbfounded she literally could not speak for a space of ten heartbeats. “When?” she finally sputtered out.

“Ten days ago, on your fifteenth birthday. Two bulls and thirteen cows. Fifteen, you see?”

“That was very nice,” Hezhi said softly, feeling faint.

“I told you that you were like a daughter to us,” Kila answered.

Perkar's parents very much wanted her married! Hezhi was wondering just how much like a daughter they considered her, and what the greater ramifications of that were. But after more than a year in the Cattle Lands, she thought she knew.

PERKAR gave another try at lifting the fence post, lost his balance, and then sat down with a bump. He hoped he wasn't going to be sick again.

“Get up and work, Perkar,” Ngangata chirped in a cheerful—and thus evil—voice. “Sweat it out.”

From fifty paces away, Tsem boomed in, “I always wondered if that sword of yours cured hangovers, too, back when you still had it.”

“I don't know,” Perkar grumbled, holding his head. “I never got drunk when I bore Harka. But I wish I had him back, right now, so I could find out.”

“Try this instead.” Ngangata smirked, walking over to join him on the crest of the hill. Below, some fifty red cows moved lazily across the pasture. Tsem eclipsed a few of them as he, too, ceased working and labored up the slope to join Perkar and Ngangata.

Perkar eyed suspiciously the skin that Ngangata offered him. “What is it?”

“Water,” the halfling replied, inserting a broken stalk of grass between his broad, thin lips.

Perkar drank some of it. It was cool, clear springwater, tasting only of rain and snowmelt. Perkar was sure it would make him vomit. He drank it anyway and discovered that he did indeed feel somewhat better.

“Pass me that,” Tsem panted, and Ngangata transferred the skin to the huge man's massive paws.

“We make good time on this fence,” Tsem said, his tongue still wrapping thickly around Perkar's language.

“Thanks to you and Ngangata,” Perkar muttered. “I've been useless enough today.” He glanced up speculatively at Ngangata. “How much longer will you stay?” He hesitated, then rushed on, “I didn't think you would come back at all.”

Ngangata straightened his shoulders and gazed off at the forest, as if worried that something might lurk there. “Well, I had to make sure you hadn't already found some new trouble to get into. In any event, I had to come see if the songs were true.”

“Songs?”

“Yes,” Ngangata answered. “In the songs I heard at Morawta, they speak of the hero Perkar standing as tall as two men together. I had to see if that was true.”

Perkar closed his eyes, but that made his head whirl the worst, and so he cracked them open again. “Tell me not of such songs.”

Ngangata sat beside him, touching his shoulder lightly. “I shouldn't taunt you,” he admitted. “But you still owe me. Anyway, there is one thing I thought you would like to know about the new songs.”

“That being?”

“The Changeling. The river who was once the Changeling has a new name.”

“A new name for a new river,” Perkar said, and despite himself he felt a little thrill. Five years ago he had promised a goddess revenge, and despite everything, he had given her that—and more. “What do they call her?”

Ngangata's smile broadened. “Ah-hah. I knew you would want to know that.” He rubbed his hands together and cracked his knuckles, then lay back to gaze up at the lazy clouds overhead, his alien, dark eyes filmed with blue. “Well, the Mang call her Tu'da'an, the 'River of Springtime,' because she brought new life. Many of your own folk call her simply Itani, 'Rowing Goddess.' But there is another name for her.”

The half man lapsed into silence for a moment, as if suddenly listening to the sky.

“Yes?” Perkar grunted testily.

“Ah. Many call her Animiramu.”

Perkar had no answer for that, no retort. He only turned to look at the farthest tree line, toward the distant north where she flowed.

“I'm sorry,” Tsem interposed after a moment or two, “but what does that mean?”

“It means 'The goddess he loved,' ” Ngangata answered softly.

Perkar did not want the subject pursued.

“You didn't answer my question,” he rasped, more harshly than he meant to. “How long will you stay this time?”

Ngangata considered for a moment. “I don't know. A few days.”

Perkar massaged his head, wondering if he should try to discuss what he wanted when he felt so bad. But Tsem and Ngangata were both here, and no one else around.

“Listen, Ngangata. You, too, Tsem. I think I'm going out to claim some land in the new valleys. I think it's time I did that.”

“Good,” Ngangata said. “You waited more than long enough.”

Perkar considered Ngangata as frankly as he could with his bloodshot eyes. “This is my idea,” he began.

“Uh-oh,” Ngangata interjected.

Perkar greeted that with a self-deprecating grimace. “Hear me out. I want you two to come with me.”

“To do all of the work, I assume,” Tsem rumbled.

“To share the land,” Perkar countered. “To each take a third of my granting.”

Ngangata stared at him silently, weighing those words. He understood what Perkar was offering, whether Tsem did or not.

“How could that be?” the halfling softly inquired. “Grantings can be made only to clan members. Tsem and I have no clan.”

“I asked a lawkeeper about this,” Perkar explained carefully. “My father and I can adopt you. You can share the land with me as if we were siblings. And your land would pass on to your sons.”

“I could own land? Like this?” Tsem asked. From his tone it was clear that he thought he misunderstood. Perkar repeated his statement in Nholish, to make certain the half Giant comprehended.

“I can have no sons,” Tsem said, his voice thick with emotion. “My sort can father no offspring. But…”

“That matters not,” Perkar said. “Pass it on to whomever you want—it would be yours.”

“After much hard work,” Ngangata added. “This is not cleared pasture we speak of. Perkar, I am a hunter, a guide, not a cattleman.”

“For many years, the most of our sustenance will come from hunting, until our herds have strength and many trees have been felled. If you never choose to do aught but hunt it, it would still be your land.”

“Yes, but I would be your brother, according to those terms,” Ngangata said, his voice thick with disgust. Perkar looked down in shocked astonishment, certain that after all of this time he and Ngangata were better friends than that…

But then he saw the halfling was biting back his laughter, and when Ngangata did release his mirth, Perkar understood that it was all right. His offer had been accepted.

“ISN'T it beautiful?“ Perkar asked, sweeping his arm to encompass the valley. Hezhi thought at first that the question was purely rhetorical, but then he turned his shining gray eyes on her, demanding a response.

“It is,” she agreed. And it was. The expanse of the valley was breathtaking—not awesome, like some of the landscapes she had seen in Balat—but nevertheless lovely, a panorama of rocky meadows and spruce swaying in a breeze easing down a saddle in the surrounding mountains. But it was more wonderful still in Perkar's eyes, that was clear. Like so many things, she could never appreciate it as he did.

“I shall build my damakuta there” he stated, indicating a gentle rise in the valley floor, “and there shall be my first pasture.” He indicated a flatter area nearby, where a stream snaked through a meadow.

“That seems reasonable,” Hezhi replied, “though I know little enough about pasture.”

He glanced at her again, and she wondered exactly what his gaze held. It looked a bit like fear.

“Come walk with me a bit,” Perkar urged, dismounting.

Hezhi watched as he tied his horse to a nearby tree, then reluctantly swung her leg over Dark's mane and head, sliding earthward. “Where have Tsem and Ngangata gotten off to?” she asked. “They were behind us a few moments ago.”

“They've—all—gone off to look at their own allotments, down the ridge,” he stammered—and blushed.

“Oh.” She felt an odd sensation in her stomach, for no reason she could clearly explain. “Where are we walking to?”

“Just walking,” Perkar replied. “We have something to discuss.”

Something serious, by his tone, and her belly tightened further. What was it he had to drag her four days' travel from his father's damakuta to discuss? It irritated her that Perkar was keeping secrets again. He had kept his offer of land to Tsem from her, for instance. She had been forced to drag that out of her old servant. During the journey to this place, he had barely spoken to her, as if his concealments were muzzling him. It was a side of Perkar she knew well and intensely disliked—and yet it was familiar, almost comfortable. Now, as he was about to reveal something to her at last, she was suddenly afraid to know. Could it be that she was more frightened of Perkar's candor than of his evasions?

“You've made Tsem very happy,” Hezhi said, to have something to say, to delay Perkar's admission or whatever it was.

“Good,” Perkar answered. “He deserves happiness.”

“Indeed.” So why did she feel that Perkar was a thief, stealing her lifelong friend?

“You've made yourself happy, too,” she went on. “I've never seen you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Happy, I said. Excited. All you can talk about is your land and your damakuta. I'm glad you finally decided to come here. Your family is delighted. Why—“ She stopped, wondering suddenly what she meant to say.

“Go on,” he prompted. They had taken a few steps into the forest, but now he turned to confront her, his eyes frank but nervous.

“Why so far out? Ngangata says this is as far as we could go and still be in the new lands. The closest holding is more than a day away from here.”

Perkar shrugged. “Not for long. These lands will fill up soon enough.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

He sighed. “The truth is, I'm not at home back there, with my people. Not really, not anymore. And Tsem and Ngangata …” He trailed off.

“Will never be at home there? Is that what you mean to say?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But out here we can be. All of us.”

“You and Tsem and Ngangata, you mean,” she replied, carefully. Just to let him know what he was leaving out.

Perkar's shoulders visibly slumped, and though his mouth worked to say something, no sound emerged. Clearly frustrated, he leaned close, as if he must whisper what he had to say …

And kissed her. It was not what she expected, not then. A year ago, perhaps, but not now. Couldn't Perkar get anything right?

But the kiss seemed right, after an instant, after she fought back the first swell of panic when he leaned in. It seemed careful, and sweet, and when he drew away she was surprised to feel a bit disappointed.

“I—uh—I've wanted to do that for some time,” he admitted.

“Then why did you wait until now?” she asked, unable to keep a little of the bitterness out of her voice.

Perkar's eyes lit with surprised chagrin. “I didn't think…”

“Oh, no, of course not. Of course you didn't think.” She felt some heat rising in her voice. “You didn't think that while your mother was planning my wedding to some cowherd I never met and everyone was busily discussing your marriage to some cattle princess and Tsem—“ She choked off, bit her lip, and went on. ”You didn't think to give me any sign of what you were thinking or felt—for more than a year.” She snapped her mouth closed, feeling she had said too much.

Perkar looked down at his feet. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I thought it was clear.”

“The only clear thing to me is that no one cares to see you and me together.”

“I just kissed you.”

“That could mean a lot of things,” Hezhi snapped.

“And you kissed me.”

“That could mean a lot of things, too,” she responded, but her voice wavered, because he was moving closer again.

“What it means to me,” he said, his voice barely a breath, “is that I love you.”

Hezhi wanted to retort sarcastically to that, too, to tell him it was too late, to hurt him just a little.

But what she said was “Oh.”

He shrugged. “Another reason for being this far out. I love my family, but I want none of their matchmaking. If there is anything that I've realized in all of this, it is that the most precious Piraku is that which you find. And despite everything, I was lucky to find you. It is the only thing I have to thank the Changeling for.”

Hezhi clenched her eyelids, but the tears squirted out anyway. “This is a fine time to start this,” she murmured, “just when I had resigned myself to leaving.”

“Leaving?” He gaped, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “To go where?”

“Perhaps back to Nhol, perhaps to somewhere I've never been. I don't know; just away.”

“Back to Nhol?”

“Yes, of course. What is there for me here?”

“I've just told you.”

“Yes, I guess you have. But I don't know that I'm ready to become a wife. I know I'm fifteen, but for me there was never a childhood, Perkar. How can I become a woman when I was never a child?”

Perkar reached and took her hand. “I haven't asked you to marry me,” he replied. “I only told you I love you, something I thought you already knew. You did know, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, wiping her tears. “Yes, but you never said it.”

“Well, we are two of a kind then,” Perkar rejoined mildly.

“Oh,” she snapped, “of course I love you, you idiot.”

“Then stay here, with Tsem and Ngangata and me. With your family.”

Hezhi drew in a long breath and looked at him, this man she had first seen in dreams, and as she did so, she realized that her tears had stopped. “Well,” she said at last. “I do want to stay here, with you. I do. But I am not ready for marriage. I'm just not, despite my age. I want …” She drew her brows together and gazed defiantly up at him. ”I want to be courted for a time. I want more stories about two-headed cows. I want to separate what we feel from what we went through together—just a little.”

“I remind you that I didn't ask for your hand—” Perkar started, but she shushed him with her finger.

“But you will, Perkar Kar Barku. You will. And when you do, I want to give the right answer.”

Perkar smiled then and took her hand. “Good enough, then. How do I go about this courting business?”

Hezhi wiped what remained of her tears and felt an almost impish grin touch her lips. “Well,” she said. “I suppose you can kiss me once more, and then we should really find my chaperone.”

Wind rustled the trees and dapples of sunlight streamed through the leaves above. It was a long kiss.

Now available in trade paperback from Del Rey Books—the bold new adventure from the mind of J. Gregory Keyes!

NEWTON'S CANNON

by J. Gregory Keyes

Please read on for a sneak preview of this thrilling novel…

1716 A Miracle

Benjamin Franklin was ten years old when he saw his first miracle. Cold fingers of wind had been groping up the narrow streets of Boston all day, and as night fell they tightened their grip. The equinox had come and gone, and winter had an early hold on the Massachusetts colony.

Ben stood on the Long Wharf, watching the tall, sleek lines of a sloop as she sailed into port. He was worried less about the cold than about how to explain to his father where he had been and why it had taken him so long to get a loaf of bread. He should not lie to his father—that would be a terrible sin, he knew. But with his brother Josiah so recently run off to sea, his father would not want to hear that Ben had been watching ships again. Ben wondered if there were some way to frame the truth so that it was not incriminating. He could argue that his love of ships was just a love of well-crafted things. But he did long to follow his brother to adventure—whales and pirates and unknown realms. The truth was, he could not stand the thought of remaining for his entire life in Boston, not with the promise of grammar school and college snatched away from him.

His mood bleak, Ben turned down Crooked Lane, hoping to shave a few moments from his journey back home. The narrow alley was almost entirely dark; here and there the halfhearted flame of a candle gave life to a window. The candles brought Ben no comfort, reminding him instead of what he would be doing tomorrow: boiling tallow to make the wretched things.

Halfway up the lane he saw a light that did not flicker. At first he thought it a lantern, but even the illumination of a lantern wavered. This shone as steadily as the sun. Ben felt a little chill that had nothing to do with the marrow-freezing air. The light was peeping through the half-closed shutters of a boardinghouse.

His decision took only an instant. He was already late. This light seemed so unnatural, he knew that it must be some trick. Perhaps the flame was encased in a paper lantern. He moved through the yard as quietly as he could. Now he could see the light itself: a pale, bluish, egg-sized sphere. He immediately understood that this light was not a flame. But if not flame, what?

A spark from flint and steel had something of the quality of this sphere's light, yet sparks lived only briefly. He knew in his bones that this was alchemy, magic—science, the king of magics.

If there was magic, there must be a magician. He crept closer to the house until his eye was almost pressed against the thick pane of glass.

The sphere was the only source of light in the room. There was no fire in the hearth, but the window was warm to the touch. Ben wondered if the magic light gave off heat as well. If so, it could not be very much heat, since less than a foot away from the glowing sphere a man sat, reading a book. The sphere was floating above the man's head so that his wig and brows cast shadows over his face. He was leaning over the table, tracing the characters in his book. So clear was the light, so legible the characters, that Ben could make them out and determine that the book was written neither in English nor in Latin. The characters were all swooping curls and curves, as beautiful as they were enigmatic.

The man was not having an easy time reading the script, Ben thought. He was puzzling at it, Ben could see, because the magician traced his finger over the same line several times before moving on.

How long he stood there, Ben did not know—nor was he certain why. But what Ben thought was, That could be me. That could be me reading that book, commanding that light.

There were no whales or pirates in Boston, but there were books. The three years of school his father had been able to afford had provided Ben with the skills he needed to read and understand what he read, and he had long ago devoured most of the books his father and uncle owned. None of them were on magic, but there must be books on it. And now his future suddenly seemed brighter. He would become more than a tallow chandler.

Indeed, when he tore his gaze from the window, he realized that if one flameless lantern could be made, then so could another. And if enough were made, neither he nor his father would be in the candlemaking trade for long.

Tiptoeing away he spared one look back, and in that instant the magician looked up from the book and rubbed his eyes. It was an unremarkable face. Then, it suddenly seemed to Ben that the man saw him from the corner of his eye, as if he had known Ben was there from the very beginning. Then the magician's face was in shadow again, but his eyes seemed to catch the light, reflecting red like those of a hound. Ben abandoned all efforts at silence and flew home with what speed his legs could command.

“I told you, Josiah, the world is changing faster than we want,” Uncle Benjamin maintained, propping his elbows on the table. “I'd heard tell of these flameless lamps in England two years ago. And now one has come to Boston.” He shook his head wonderingly.

Ben's father frowned at his brother. “I'm not so concerned with these new devices as I am with my son's moral well-being. I wish you would at least remonstrate your nephew for spying.”

Ben felt his face burn. He looked about him to see if anyone else had heard, but the hubbub of conversation produced by Ben's siblings—eight of them were at home tonight—was enough to drown out the three of them. Ben, his father, and Uncle Benjamin often fell into conversation after dinner, especially now that Ben's older brothers James and Josiah were away. The remaining Franklins rarely cared to join them in their usually bookish discussions.

Uncle Benjamin took his brother's comment to heart. He turned to his nephew and namesake. “Young Ben,” he said, “what betook you to spy on this man? Is spying a habit you nurture?”

“What?” Ben asked, astonished. “Oh, no, sir. Twere not an act of peeping but of investigation. As when Galileo trained his telescope on the heavens.”

“Oh, indeed?” Ben's father asked mildly. “Your observations were purely scientific, then? You felt no impropriety at peeking into someone's window.”

“It was an uncovered window,” Ben explained.

“Ben,” his father said, frowning, “you argue well, but if you do not take care, you will logic yourself straight into hell.”

“Come, Josiah,” Uncle Benjamin said. “If you had seen such a strange and unnatural light—”

“I would have passed it by or knocked to inquire, preferably at a reasonable hour,” Ben's father finished. “I would not have sneaked across the yard and peeked into his window.”

“Only this one time, eh, Ben?”

“Yes, Uncle,” Ben affirmed.

Ben's father sighed. “I should never have named the boy after you, Benjamin. For now you rise to defend his every misdeed.”

“I'm not defending him, Josiah, I'm merely making it clear that the boy knows he did transgress.” He did not wink at Ben.

“I do understand,” Ben assured them both.

His father's face softened. “I know that you are perfectly adept at learning your lessons, Son,” he said. “Did I ever tell you about that time he came home tootling on a pennywhistle?”

“I have no recollection,” Uncle Benjamin admitted. Ben felt another blush coming on. Would his father ever cease to tell this story? At least James—who never failed to taunt him about his mistakes—was not here. Though he would never say it aloud, Ben could scarcely be sorry James was 'prenticed in England.

“I'd given the boy a few pennies,” Ben's father explained, “and he came home with a whistle, well pleased. Such a din he made! And I asked him what it cost and he told me. Then what did I say, Son?”

“You said, 'Oh, so you've given ten pennies for a whistle worth but two.'”

“And he learned,” his father went on. “Since then I've approved of all his purchases—not that he makes many.”

“I know what he saves his money for,” Uncle Benjamin said, patting Ben's shoulder affectionately. “Books. What are you reading now, Nephew?”

“I'm reading Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, by Mr. Bunyan,” Ben answered.

“Ah, so the Pilgrim's Progress pleased you, then?”

“Very much, Uncle Benjamin.” Ben pursed his lips. “And speaking of such matters …”

“Yes?” his father asked mildly.

“Since I won't be going to school anymore, I'm hoping to pursue my education here at home.”

“And I encourage you to.”

“Yes, Father, and now I want to educate myself in science.”

His father settled back in his chair, face thoughtful. “Ben, these new philosophical machines seem womsomely close to witchcraft to me. You know that or you wouldn't have asked me whether you could learn of them.”

“They don't say so in London,” Uncle Benjamin interposed.

“Or in France,” his father shot back, “but you know what deviltry they've put this 'science' toward there.”

“Bah. The same could be said of such an honest invention as a musket. It only profits us to know the mind of God.”

“Indeed. But is it the mind of God that makes stones glow and float in the air?” Ben's father lifted his hands. “I don't know, and neither do you. Neither does Ben, and it's his immortal soul I worry about. Not to mention his pockets, for books are not cheaply had.”

“Father,” Ben said carefully, ordering his words in his mind, “you ask how it will profit me. I ask you, When every man in Boston has a flameless lantern, who will buy candles?”

The two older men turned to stare at him, and he was secretly pleased at their dumfounded expressions.

“Say that again,” Uncle Benjamin whispered.

“Well, suppose these lights are easy to make—”

“Suppose they are expensive,” his father interrupted.

“Yes,” Ben persisted, “suppose they cost ten times the price of a candle. But suppose also that they never burn down—need never be replaced? Would not the wise man then invest in the more expensive item so that he could save in the long term?”

His father was silent for a moment. His uncle sat equally quiet, observing the exchange between father and son.

“We don't know that they last forever,” Josiah finally said. “We don't know that they are not even more dear than thirty times the cost of a candle.”

“No, Father, we don't,” Ben said. “But if you give me your leave, I can find out.”

“Do what you think best, Ben,” his father at last acquiesced. “And when you are not certain what is best, then you speak to me. One leak will sink a boat: one sin will destroy a sinner.' You see, I, too, have read your Mr. Bunyan.”

“Agreed, Father.”

“Now then, here is another thing that touches on your bookish-ness. Where were you before you spied on this magician? You took a very long time after a single loaf of bread, even with some espionage thrown in.”

“Oh. I…” He had forgotten about that. He picked at the grain of the table wood with his thumbnail. “I went down to the Long Wharf. A New York sloop was coming in.”

Ben's father sighed. “Why do boys so pine for the sea?”

“I don't pine, sir—” Ben began.

“I wasn't asking you, lad. It was a question for the Almighty. Ben, I know that if I try to keep you in the chandler's trade, you will treat it badly or run off like your brother Josiah. So here is my thought. I will try to find you a trade more suited to your talents, and in turn you will remain here in Boston, at least until you've reached a proper age.”

Ben hesitated. “What trade did you have in mind, Father?”

“Well, I must apprentice you, so here is my thought.” He leaned forward. “Your brother James is due home soon from England; he is going to set up a printing shop right here in Boston.”

Ben felt a sudden, almost giddy hope. Was his father going to send him to England, too, to serve an apprenticeship in the printer's trade? That was more than he had dared hope.

“Yes, I thought you would like this idea,” his father exclaimed. “Brother, what did I tell you?”

“It will please him well,” he replied, but his eyes were watching his nephew carefully.

“It's settled then, if James agrees,” his father said, eyes shining. “When your brother returns, you shall be 'prenticed to him. That should bring you in touch with those books you seek, give you a trade that will bring you pleasure, and keep you here in Massachusetts.”

Ben felt his happy expression freeze. The thought of becoming a printer was interesting, but years of servitude to a brother worried him.

Ben reached his bed that night with a feeling of both wonder and resignation. Though he could hardly dispute that things had taken a turn for the better, something was slipping away from him. And at the very edge of sleep, he realized it was the floating light and that strange, curling text. The shadow of apprenticeship dimmed hope of that alchemical light.

That can be me, he thought again insistently. I will find every book in Boston that tells of science and magic, and I shall make my own devices. I shall profit from inventing them, too, and Father will be proud.

But something about that rang false, so that when sleep at last found him, it found a fitful and unhappy boy.

NEWTON'S CANNON by J. Gregory Keyes