Waterborn

"They will find me out anyway," Hezhi all but shrieked. "The next time they test me. The next time…"

"Is it that bad?" Ghan whispered almost wonderingly.

Lips pressed together defiantly, she pulled up her long sleeve, and there it was, blue and green in the pale illumination streaming weakly through the translucent skylight.

"By the River," Ghan breathed. Hand to his forehead, he sat back heavily onto a small stool, massaging his brow.

"What am I to do with you?" he muttered.

"You can't do anything," she rejoined, trying to seem brave. Despite her intentions, her voice sounded like a pathetic moan, even to her own ears.

"Why did you want the priest books? What did you think of?"

"Ghan," she said tremulously, "Ghan, I've seen them. I found a way down to where the Darkness Stair goes, to the old palace. I saw them, the Blessed. I can't be like that. I'll jump off the roof first."

She would, this time. She had promised herself.

"Hezhi, what did you think of?"

"That maybe… Maybe there is a way to stop it. To stop the Royal Blood from working. To keep the River asleep in me."

Ghan's head hung as if it weighed a hundredweight. She had never seen him look so old. "There can't be," he muttered.

"Why?"

"The priests would do it, don't you think?"

"They do do it, Ghan. They stop it in themselves!"

"By castration, before the change starts. That won't work for you. You aren't a man, and if you were, you would already be too old."

Her voice strengthened, as she gained a little courage. "If there is one way to stop it, there might be another." She watched him rub his head hopefully.

"I don't know. There might be. I don't believe so."

"It doesn't matter," she remarked bitterly. "Not if I can't see the books anyway."

Ghan looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time in several exchanges. "No," he said. "But I can look at them, if I go there. They have to let me, if I say it is required for the index."

"That would be dangerous for you," she replied.

"Yes. As this conversation, right now, is dangerous for me." He gripped her shoulder, pointed his index finger squarely at her nose, so that she almost went cross-eyed. "Stay calm, for a day or two only. Stay off of the roof, and act normally. Work here in the library, tell anyone who asks that I have demanded it. I will find out what I can, do what I can. But you have to trust me. Me, and no one else. Have they tested you once already?"

Hezhi nodded, dumbfounded by Ghan's sudden passion.

"Then they are watching you, you can be sure of that. Somewhere, in the shadows, following you. He will see you, Hezhi, but you won't see him."

"Who?"

"The priests set watchers on children like you, children that worry them. Members of the Jik sometimes."

"The Jik?" she repeated, her voice quavering.

"I know you've read about those Blessed who were discovered too late. The noble children who went wild, caused destruction. The priesthood won't let that happen again. When they fear it, they turn loose the Jik—not to spy on foreign diplomats, not to kill overly ambitious merchants—but to watch children, to stop them while there is still time."

"It sounds like you agree with them," Hezhi murmured, suddenly unsure.

"I'm just explaining your danger and the reason for it," he explained quietly. "I have no wish to see my library and the rest of the palace come down around my ears. But rather that than know you were below the Darkness Stair. Bide, Hezhi, and let me see what I may. And watch the shadows! Your half Giant will not be able to protect you from one of the Jik."

When they returned to the central room, she noticed Yen, a half-dozen books open in front of him. He looked up and smiled at her. She waved but did not approach him. Her life was compli-cated enough without becoming better friends with the son of a merchant. Instead, she went home, silently watched Qey go about her tasks, and at last retreated to her own room, where she could hear the comforting sounds of the house without danger of having to speak to anyone.

As she lay there, turning thoughts and images over in her mind, her ghost appeared, a man-shaped blur touched at the edges by rainbow. She watched with some apprehension as he meandered around the room, as if performing some stately spectral dance. He did not approach her or threaten to touch her as he had before. Eventually the shimmering that marked him twisted, became thin, a line, vanished.

Left alone once more, she reflected on what small comfort came from answers. After all, she now understood most of the events of the past few months. Her power began to waken when she began to bleed. The Riverghost had sensed her, lurked in the fountain while her father summoned its lesser brethren, and then come after her. Whether it meant somehow to feed on her or was merely drawn to her like a moth to a flame was immaterial, though she suspected the former, considering how the ghost in her room was able to draw form and substance from the merest contact with her blood. Who had the demon ghost once been? Someone like her, of course. A child filled with forces she neither wanted nor understood. She had lived below the Darkness Stair—for how long? She had died there, and the River, torpid and uncaring, had drunk her into himself.

She scratched at her own scale, her own sign of exile.

Evening found her still there, and in the entry room across the courtyard, she heard a door open, and voices. She bolted up in her bed. If it was the priests, she was doomed. She wondered, wildly, if she could climb the wooden trellis to the roof, make her way to the Great Hall, steal their victory from them. But it was too late; footsteps slapped across the courtyard, hushed in soles of soft leather.

Her visitor was no priest. The woman who uncertainly entered her room and leaned against the doorjamb was the last person she ever expected. Almost, in fact, she didn't recognize the woman. Slim, beautiful despite being a few years past her prime, coiled hair shot with a magnificent streak of gray. Eyes as wide and black as Hezhi's own, the same eyes, so many were wont to say.

"Mother?" Hezhi gasped, even then uncertain.

"So," the woman said, her voice cool, but edged with some almost concealed emotion. "You know me, at least. That is more than I expected."

Hezhi nodded her head, unable to speak. She tugged at her sleeve, making certain the scale was concealed.

The two women gazed at each other, neither speaking, for a long moment. The elder finally broke the silence. "You've grown into a pretty thing," she said. "Soon you will have many suitors."

"I have one already," Hezhi corrected quietly, sitting up and brushing at her disordered hair.

"The Yehd Nu boy? Yes, I've heard about that. You embarrassed him quite soundly."

Her mother's speech was glacial, each word carefully shaped as if just recalled from a distant memory. Hezhi noticed the discreet black stain beneath her nose, the dark cast to her lips.

"I didn't mean…" she stammered, but her mother held up a hand.

"No, you should keep him guessing. And soon…" She paused, wrinkled her angular face, brushed at it with a finely manicured hand. "Yes, soon you will have many suitors, and have your pick of them."

Hezhi nodded, still unwilling to offer anything to this ethereal creature, this woman she had seen only from afar for most of her life. When was the last time they had spoken? In her garden, two years ago? It seemed at least that long.

"Well, I…" Her mother seemed to search for words and frowned down at the floor as if she might find them there. When she looked back up, her glazed eyes held a frankness in them, an unspoken truth. "I just wanted to see you, Hezhi. It's been a long time since we talked." She smiled, a false and painful smile. "After all, I did bear you, didn't I? Nine months in my belly you were, though you struggled to escape much earlier." She shrugged. "I just wanted to see you, tell you I'm looking forward to you joining us soon. That will be nice, won't it?"

Hezhi could see Qey, across the courtyard, wringing her hands, pretending to slice onions. She was crying, but of course, she always cried when she sliced onions. Halfway across the courtyard was a handsome, smart-looking man in royal livery, trying not to seem uncomfortable. Her mother's bodyguard? Or a Jik? But no, the Jik she would never see; they were less visible than ghosts, and when their knives found your heart it was always from behind.

Her mother smiled at her for a score more uncomfortable breaths. "I just wanted to say hello," she explained. "You're really a very beautiful young woman."

"Thank you."

Her mother nodded. "I hope we see you soon," she concluded sluggishly, turned. Signaling her man with a slight crook of her wrist, she departed.

Her visit left Hezhi with a tight heart, a need for air. Dizziness crept up on her, and she realized her breathing was too hard, too fast. Why would her mother come see her now, of all times, after all these years? But Hezhi knew, she knew.

Even the most remote of mothers might want to see her child one last time.

Especially if she knew her child was soon to die. Or vanish.

Ghan had a harried look about him, as if he hadn't slept. His face was tightened into a frown more bitter than usual, and he ushered her into the back room without delay.

"It was more difficult than I imagined. I'm afraid I awoke some of my own sleeping enemies," he said tiredly.

Concern for the old man stole up through her other fears. "I never wanted to create trouble for you," she said.

"No, I created my own troubles long ago," he informed her. "Old debts can be put off for a time, but they must be paid eventually."

"They let you see the books?"

"Yes," he verified shortly.

She waited.

"There isn't much that can be done," he said at last. "Only one thing, really."

"But something?"

He shrugged. "It is a chance. Some of the older texts speak of a time before the Blessed were consigned…" A look of agony washed over his face, and his jaw worked soundlessly, like a mute gibbering. "You know," he gasped, after the spasm passed, "one can dance around a Forbidding, if one is clever. Sometimes I am not clever."

"Before they were sent underneath," Hezhi finished for him softly, wishing she could erase his pain.

"Yes." He seemed composed again. "Before that began, they were dealt with in other ways. Some were killed. Others fled Nhol entirely, or were exiled to some distant land."

"And now? Why not now?"

"There are uses for the Blessed," he muttered. "Under the right circumstances, their power can be controlled, manipulated. Used to enhance the Chakunge's power. More than that, though, was the nagging paranoia of the royal family. One does not let a rival power loose in the world."

"I don't…"

"Some evidence indicates that the… change"—Again he shuddered, lightly—"is so tied to the River that if one is not near him, if one is far away, it will not occur." He paused, watching her, letting that sink in.

"Leave Nhol?" It was a bewildering thought.

"Surely it has occurred to you," he said softly.

"I… no, I hadn't thought of that. How? Where would I go?" Even as she said this, her dreams came flashing back behind her eyes; deep forest, mountains, the gray-eyed man. Was that what they were about, her dreams?

"I made a wish…" she muttered.

"What?"

"The day I began bleeding, I drank Sacred Water. I wished for someone—a man, I guess—to come and get me, free me from my problems. It was a stupid wish, I know. It feels stupid talking about it. But after that, I began having dreams of a far-off place, of a strange man."

"You were bleeding," Ghan whispered. "Your first blood." He frowned, wrinkled his brow as if remembering something. "Blood is motion," he said softly, and it had the sound of something quoted. "Blood is motion, and thus spirit. Spirit is the roots of the world."

"What is that?" Hezhi asked.

"An old, old saying," Ghan said. "I never thought about it much. But the Royal Blood sets things moving, Hezhi. The River knows the feel and touch of Human blood, the scent of it. But the blood of his children he knows very well. You may have set something exceptionally deep in motion." He knitted his fingers tight, squeezed his palms together, nodded fretfully. "But what you get is not likely to be what you wished for."

"Why would the River help me at all? Why would it help me escape?"

Ghan quirked his mouth in a shallow grin. "The River is not a thoughtful or wakeful god. He is a very literal one, and it has been said that none can know his will. Not because he is mysterious, or even capricious, in the usual sense. But because he does not know his own will."

"Leave Nhol," Hezhi considered wonderingly. "I can't imagine it."

"But you can imagine the alternatives all too well," Ghan pointed out.

"I don't even know how to begin."

"Your Giant. He is loyal?"

"Tsem loves me," Hezhi said. "He has always been with me."

"In the palace, that means nothing. Do you trust him?"

"Yes," Hezhi said, "I do."

"Then leave and send him in to see me. He and I will make your plans."

"What of me? Am I to have no part in my own rescue?"

"Tsem and I can move outside of the city. You cannot."

Hezhi saw sense in that, reluctantly nodded acquiescence.

Ghan narrowed his eyes. "This man in your dreams. Describe him again."

Hezhi closed her eyes, concentrating. "He has very pale skin," she said. "Gray eyes, light brown hair. He wears armor sometimes. He has a sword. I think he is very far away; I have never dreamed about him here, in Nhol."

Ghan nodded. "These dreams of yours may mean something or they may not. Nhol is a large city, and even if this dream-man is here, he may be difficult to find. Though there must be precious few men in the city who match his description." He smiled and stretched out his hand to give hers a squeeze. "Well, it's been long enough since I've been out of the palace anyway. This will be good for me."

He motioned for her to go on, his eyes thoughtful. Already seeing the city outside, perhaps, and the paths by which one might leave it.

"Ghan?" Hezhi murmured. "Ghan, why have you helped me?"

Ghan regarded her, his old face solemn. "I wish you wouldn't ask me questions I don't know the answers to," he sighed. "Not when I have a reputation for knowing everything."

VII

Paths of Stone, Mountains of Light

Perkar spooned the soup greedily; he believed it to be the best thing he had ever eaten. Nearby, a scruffy brown dog watched him with more than passing interest.

"Otter Boy wants some," Win explained. Win was a little boy of perhaps seven years with a broad, happy face. Nearby, his mother, Ghaj, watched with evident amusement as she spun cotton onto a wooden spool. Hearing his name, Otter Boy stood, wagging and panting hopefully.

"Reminds me of my old dog, Kume," Perkar remarked. "When I was this hungry, I wouldn't give him any, either."

"They have dogs where you come from?" Win asked.

Ghaj snorted, glanced up from her work to show them her thick-featured face. "They have dogs everywhere," she opined.

"She's right, they do," Perkar agreed.

"Tell me more about where you're from," Win exclaimed.

"Don't be rude," Ghaj chided her son.

"It's all right," Perkar said.

Ghaj puckered her face in consternation. "He's my boy," she informed him. "I'll decide what is and is not acceptable."

"Oh," he said sheepishly, "sorry."

She nodded her forgiveness, but it was clear she had more on her mind. "I can't invite you to stay with us tonight," she told him. "Me a widow and you a foreigner—I don't need that sort of talk. There is an inn in town—sort of—L'uh, the stable master, rents a few rooms. You understand, I hope."

"I understand," he assured her. He also understood the suspicious way she kept eyeing his sword and the faded brown stains on his clothes.

"You do have some money?" she inquired.

He stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth.

"What is money?" he asked.

Ghaj rolled her eyes. "A foreigner who doesn't even know what money is," she muttered. "Strange things the River sends me."

"Why can't he stay with us?" Win complained. "He can show me his sword."

"A sword isn't something to play with or to unsheath lightly," Perkar told the boy.

"How long will you stay in Nyel?" Ghaj asked.

Perkar considered. "Not long. I'll leave in the morning, I think."

Ghaj clucked her disapproval. "You must be in a big hurry to leave that soon. You're in no shape to travel."

"I have something to do," he told her. "Something I want to get finished as soon as I can, so I can go on with other things."

"I didn't ask for your life story," Ghaj chastened sourly. "I only wanted to know how long I have to put you up for."

Perkar finished off the soup and set the bowl down. Without hesitation, Otter Boy nosed down into it, tongue slurping. "I thought you just said…"

"Let them talk," Ghaj decided. "It'll only be out of jealousy anyway. Strangers don't stop here—they either stop in Wun or go on to Nhol, and the overland routes are nowhere near here."

"There is a path to Nhol, though?"

"A path, not much more. Most people go by boat."

"I lost my boat," he explained.

Ghaj grinned broadly, with genuine amusement. "So I guessed," she said, gesturing with the back of her hand at his still-damp and muddy clothing. "You know," she mused, "some of my husband's old clothes might fit you."

As it turned out, the shirt fit loosely and the kilt needed taking in. He accepted them gratefully, though he didn't much care for the kilt. How could one ride a horse in such a garment?

Ghaj was quick to suggest ways he could repay her kindness. She was low on firewood for cooking; two of her crawfish traps needed repair, and a new trash pit needed digging. He saw to all of these things, with the often dubious aid of Win. These chores he completed by evening, and when Ghaj served the late meal— River rice and steamed crawfish—he ate it with gusto. His muscles were beginning to ache, but to Perkar it was a delicious soreness, earned by doing something real and worthwhile. It reminded him of long days in his father's pasture, cutting hay and thatching it together for the winter, of hard work on a neighbor's damakuta and then a heavy meal and woti afterward. He had experienced pain enough, aching muscles to last a lifetime in the past few months—but that soreness had never brought him satisfaction.

"Tell me," Win begged. "Tell me more about your adventures."

"There isn't so much to tell about me," he told the boy. "But I can tell you some of the things I saw, coming down the River. I can tell you about the old Mang man I met."

"Tell me!" Win exclaimed delightedly. "Did you have to kill him with your sword?"

"No, he was very nice to me. He had a dog, too…"

He went on for a while, speaking of the vast open plains, gradually becoming desert, the occasional distant mountains, the night that lightning had raged silently on every horizon without ever a thunderclap or a raindrop. As he did so, a peculiar thing happened. Remembering these things with his voice, he suddenly marveled at them. When those sights had been laid out, actually there for him to see, he had absorbed them with the eyes of a corpse, indifferent. Wonder, long dormant, now quickened, and he felt like both laughing and crying. Instead he talked on, until Win's little eyes, fluttering closed and frantically opening again, finally drooped still and stayed that way. Ghaj carried him up to his loft bedroom.

"Let me show you where you will stay," Ghaj said when she returned. She led him inside the house and motioned to a quilted pallet on the floor. Perkar glanced around, puzzled.

"Where will you sleep?"

Ghaj grinned crookedly with her wide mouth. "The reason people say those things about widows," she confided, "is because they are true." He stood dumbly as she reached to her hem and shucked her dress up over her head. "Besides," she added. "It's not likely I'll meet another one like you anytime soon, and I can't resist seeing how you're put together."

"I…" He felt a familiar shame, one almost forgotten in the past months. How could he explain to her, about the goddess, about his problems?

He was still searching for a way to tell her when she stepped closer, reached out, and touched his cheek. "What's wrong?" she asked. "I may not be as beautiful as you might like, I know…"

Her hand was warm, smelled of garlic and crawfish. Her eyes were kind and just a little hungry, with disappointment already threatening at the edges. Despite himself, despite what he knew, he looked at her, took in her naked body with his eyes. Indeed, she was like no woman he had ever dreamed of having. Her features were broad and thick, lips everted, cheekbones flat, angular. Her body was thick, too, in every dimension, and she was not young. The slightly swelling belly and the curve of her hips were stippled with pale stretch marks, as were her breasts, otherwise generous, enormous nipples charcoal in the moonlight. She was as much a Human woman as anyone could be, nothing like a goddess at all. He gasped aloud, closed his eyes at the sudden rush of blood in his body, at the fierce urge that overtook him then. Ghaj sighed with delight (and perhaps relief) as he sagged forward, embraced her, buried his head in the juncture of her neck and clavicle. She was salty, hot, her skin was a luxury like none he had imagined. He nearly sobbed with ecstasy as her lips closed around the lobe of his ear, as she pushed her hands up under his kilt.

"I…" he gasped as she took control of the situation, gently pushed him back onto the pallet.

"I know," she whispered. "It's been a long time since you were with a woman. It's been a long time for me, too. We have to try and be quiet, though. If we wake Win, we'll have less time for each other."

That made good sense to Perkar, but there were many times that night when he wondered how anyone in the entire world could still be asleep.

Later, when they were both exhausted, they held one another until limbs began to go numb and then settled for nestling. Perkar felt his quickening sense of wonder rise above him like a halo. Ghaj was now a beautiful woman, and he gazed at her through the night, noticed that her thick features had become sensual, her stubby hard fingers tender and evocative. The moon was set, sight replaced by touch and memory, when exhaustion drew up over his joy and hope like a warm comforter and settled him into dreams.

At Ghaj's earnest urging, he stayed another day and night, recovering his strength and enjoying Human company. He spent the day doing more chores and making Win a little bow and arrow so he could be like the great Ngangata of Perkar's stories.

That night, he and Ghaj made love again, and it was even nicer without the weirdness and uncertainty of the first time. He had never imagined that passion and comfort could be combined. After all, one could not be comfortable around a goddess.

He awoke to Ghaj's steady gaze, her dark skin buttered gold by the morning, her hair hanging mussed in her face. She was tracing her finger lightly over his chest, brushing the white mass of scar tissue where the lion had cut him open, the stiff ridge of it where the Huntress' spear had driven through him. When she noticed him awake, she smiled faintly. "So young, to have all these," she said, and lightly kissed the spear wound.

"Thank you," he said a bit later, as they were getting dressed.

"For what?"

"Everything. I know you don't understand, but this has been important for me. I've never…"

"You aren't going to tell me you were a virgin," she teased. "You were clumsy now and then, but not that clumsy."

"No," Perkar admitted, embarrassed. "No, not exactly. But it was important."

Ghaj walked over, gathered him in for a hug. "It was very nice," she said. "I enjoyed our time together. Come back through and if I'm not remarried, we'll enjoy each other again." She took his chin in her fingers, kissed him lightly. "You do know I could never ask you to stay? I like you, despite your foreign weirdness, but as a husband you wouldn't do me much good around here. Despite what I said, I do care what people say."

"I know. I'm flattered that it even crossed your mind, Ghaj."

"A sweet boy, despite your scars," she said, kissing him again.

Later, Win and Ghaj helped him get his things together. Ghaj replaced his dilapidated saddle pack with a woven shoulder-net, and after a bit of cobbling reduced some of her husband's too-large shoes to fit Perkar. Win was delighted with his bow. To Ghaj Perkar had nothing to give, save the little charm his mother had made him. He gave her that. "I wish I had better," he told her. "You've been very kind to me."

Ghaj's eyes twinkled. "Come back this way and I'll be 'kind' to you some more." She gave him another hug and a kiss that lingered just a little, and pointed him down the road.

"You'll be to the outskirts of Nhol by nightfall, if you walk briskly. You don't want to enter Nhol at night, so I suggest you go a little more than briskly. I also suggest you find one of the dockside taverns—they're used to strangers there and always have rooms. Take this." She handed him a little pouch. He shook it and it jingled.

"A Royal and a few soldiers," she informed him. "I can spare just that for you."

"It's more than I need. I can't…"

"Hush. In Nhol, without money, you'll be sleeping in an alley and have your throat slit before the first half a night. Take the coins, consider it pay for the work you've done around here, if you insist. And I suggest if you're going to stay long in the city that you find some way to pick up a few more soldiers. What I gave you won't go far at all."

He nodded. "Again, I'm grateful."

Ghaj called out to him once more as he was about to turn a bend in the trail. "Don't trust anyone in Nhol, Perkar."

He waved and called back that he wouldn't. Win followed him a little way, but not much beyond the edge of the bottomlands, where the trail climbed up out of the floodplain and onto the drier land around. He watched as the little boy's stubby legs took him quickly back away.

The sun was hot, but it did nothing to spoil Perkar's mood. Though the hard dirt trail was taking him to an unknown destiny, he felt ready to meet it now, hopeful even. The doom hanging over him like a thundercloud, if not departed, was at least letting a bit of light in.

In that light the day was beautiful, the strange scenery fascinating. It was a landscape of fields, and what fields they were! Grander than most pastures, they rolled out flat on both sides of the road, broken only by an occasional line of trees, the distant levee on his left, and strange streams as straight as arrow shafts.

It was only after he crossed a score of these streams, wondering at their perfect regularity, that he was struck with the idea that someone had dug them. The notion dumbfounded him, for though he could see the use of such unthinkably extensive ditches for watering crops, the labor involved was more than he could imagine. And yet the result was as staggering as the effort, for beyond the fields nothing grew but scrub, while the fields were green with strange plants.

And there were no cattle at all. What did these people do for milk, cheese—more important, Piraku? And yet the fields and their artificial rivers spoke eloquently of determination, ingenuity, and strength. Perhaps that, itself, was their Piraku.

Taking Ghaj's advice, he traveled as briskly as he could, but more than two score days with his butt in the bottom of a boat had not prepared him for a long walk. Near noon he stopped to rest, to eat the leaf-wrapped parcels of smoked catfish Ghaj had given him. In the shade of a cottonwood, he took Harka out to clean his blade.

"You puzzle me," Harka told him.

"I puzzle myself, but go on."

"All of that trouble to escape the Changeling, and yet you still follow the course he plotted for you."

"I said I would finish this, and I will," he replied. "But on my terms. That's important to me, to do things because I choose to."

"Perhaps that is the chief difference between Humans and gods," Harka offered. "We almost always do things because we must, because it is our nature."

"No difference," Perkar said. "Neither gods nor Humans like to be told what to do. Both follow their natures, and both want to be left alone to do it."

"Human nature changes notoriously quickly, however. The nature of gods changes only slowly, through many passing seasons."

"Like the Changeling," Perkar noted.

"He may not be the best example."

"Once I hoped to kill him," Perkar said. "Now it is enough for me merely to frustrate him. He wants something of me in Nhol. Very well, I will go to Nhol. But when I get there, I will be my own man. I will judge the situation for myself."

"Ngangata is right. You are most dangerous when you think."

"Perhaps. But in Nhol, I do not care whom I kill. I have no kin there, no friends."

"There is always me," Harka reminded him.

Perkar was forced to smile at the perversity of that. "If you die," he said, "I will most certainly be dead, too, and so I will not care. No, my only concern in Nhol is that I kill only those the Changeling does not want me to."

"Easier said than done."

"Not at all. I haven't felt even a flicker of guilt for killing those thieves a few days ago." That wasn't quite true, but to his own surprise, it was almost true.

"That isn't what I mean," Harka said. "How can you pretend to know what the Changeling wants?"

Perkar finished the fish and stood. "This girl who calls me. I think she must be one of these Waterborn. I think he wants me to save her from something. And so I will not."

"Perhaps he wants you to kill her. Perhaps it is she who wants to be saved."

"We'll see. We'll see when we get there. Right now I feel good, Harka, so keep your doubts to yourself. I choose to do this now—on the River I was compelled. I could walk back home if I wanted, I could go live with the Mang or become a fisherman. I pick my own doom from now on."

"Let us hope," Harka replied, "that is merely a euphemism and not a prophecy."

He grinned. "I care not!" he shouted, and brandished Harka above his head before returning him to his scabbard.

He reached the city walls not long before dusk, and found that while his dreams might have been competent to teach him a strange language, they were less adept at preparing him for the sight of the city. The walls alone were larger than any Human-made structure he had ever seen, dwarfing the largest damakuta a hundred times over. To that fact he added that they were clearly made of stone and not wood, and the effort put into building the stupendous stockade was, to him, even more difficult to envision than the artificial streams. As he approached it from a distance, he kept expecting that size to be an illusion that would resolve itself when he got closer, reveal that the city was not really as large as it seemed, that the towers and great rising blocks of buildings that peered at him from over that great wall must be of more reasonable dimensions. And yet, the more closely he approached, the clearer it was that he was in a place where magnificent, impossible things were done. He began to understand, with a sinking feeling, why these people insisted on calling his own "barbarians." What he saw here made the difference between the dwellings of the Alwat and his father's damakuta seem insignificant. Small wonder that the people of Nhol thought of his people in much the same way as his thought of the Alwat. And yet that thought gave him a bit of comfort, because he now understood— finally—that what people built didn't make them any more or less brave, worthy, or deserving. No man he had ever heard of had died any better than Digger and her kin or deserved more praise.

The gatehouse was a white-plastered cube the size of his father's stables; Perkar wondered how many warriors it might hold. He was greeted by only two; they looked at him as if he might be something the River had pulled in, something less than savory. Which, in its own way, was true enough.

"That kitchen knife of yours stays in its sheath here, do you understand?" The soldier spoke slowly, as if he thought Perkar might not comprehend him. "If you go near the great temple, any of the fanes, or within four streets of the palace, you may not wear it at all, unless you are employed by a member of the royal family to do so."

"I understand," he replied. "I am seeking employment for my sword, actually. Can you direct me to someone whose business it is to hire?"

The second guard rolled his eyes. "You barbarians. Never been in a city before in your life, have you?"

"No," he confessed.

"Take my advice. Get a job on the docks, if you need money. That's good, honest work. The nobles don't usually hire foreign bodyguards, and when they do it's usually not very good for your continued well-being, if you understand me."

"I'm not sure I do," he said.

"Too bad," said the first guard, smiling in a way that didn't seem very genuine. "That's all the free advice we'll give today."

Perkar shrugged, a little put off by their rudeness, but still too overwhelmed by the city to take it personally.

"Go down to the docks, near South town," the second guard called after him anyway. "If someone wants your sword, they'll come looking for you there."

"Thank you," he shouted back, meaning it.

Passing through the thick, plastered walls, he entered a maze of confusion. His first instinct was to go back out, take several deep breaths, and reconsider his course of action. How could anyone find anything in such cluttered bedlam?

People were everywhere, as thick as ants on a piece of meat. They clustered in bunches or darted about, called to each other, all talking at once, it seemed. Beyond the gate was a small, cobbled square, buildings bunched at every side of it, enclosing it so that it more resembled a canyon than a yard. The only exits— save for the gate, of course—were a multitude of claustropho-bically narrow paths between the buildings, cobbled like the square. Cobbled paths? Once again, he felt dismay at the sheer scale of Nhol.

He also felt horribly out of place. People were staring at him, rudely and openly. Some—particularly the children—even pointed and laughed. He grimaced uncomfortably. He was a stranger here, of exceedingly strange appearance, undoubtedly, though he had hoped the clothes Ghaj had given him would help. However, he noted that though the people swirling around him were dressed in a similar manner, most wore much more colorful clothing, and though the sun had darkened his skin considerably, it was many shades lighter than any other he saw.

He had not the faintest idea which of the little paths to take, and so he walked down the broadest one; as near as he could tell it led southeast, and the man had said something about Southtown.

The street was crowded, despite the late hour; night seemed to come quickly in the city, and Perkar was reminded of being at the bottom of the gorge at the River's headwaters. The buildings around him rose far above his head, perhaps four or five times his height. Balconies jutted off of these clifflike faces, here and there, and often people stood or sat out on them. Without fail, all of these upper observers followed Perkar's progress closely, and he wondered at first if they might be watchmen of some sort; but most were actually women, some of them rather old. It occurred to him that they might—strange as it seemed—live in those lofts, though he had originally supposed the upper rooms were for storing hay or grain.

As the sky darkened, the street reminded him more of the tunnels in the mountain than of a gorge. The heavens still held blue and gray, even a hint of crimson and argent, but smoke and shadows ruled the streets. Torches burned murkily in sconces near doorways, and the dragon-eyes of oil lamps stalked and hovered around him, revealing here a face, there a patch of clothing, the dark knots of the hands gripping the lantern handles. A fog of smoke from burning wood, oil, and tar lay heavily upon him, mingling with the stench of Human Beings, strange foods cooking, and a half-dozen other distinct but unrecognized odors.

The path he was on intersected a much larger one, and he finally tried to stop someone to ask directions. The person—a man who looked to be about his own age—disdainfully brushed off his inquiring hand and hurried on his way without even paus-ing. Perkar watched him go, dumbstruck. What manner of people were these? They looked like Ghaj, and Win, and Brother Horse, and yet they had not a smidgen of the same hospitality. He reminded himself that they also resembled the pirates who had tried to kill him, and began to proceed a bit more cautiously.

Two more men and a woman rebuffed him, and so at last he stopped a child.

For an instant, he thought the little girl was the one in his vision; she had the same black eyes and hair framing a heart-shaped face. But then he realized that her nose was a bit too broad, her eyes not as large, other details that he couldn't quite place but that added up to the wrong person. She stared up at him, half frightened, half curious.

"My mother says not to talk to foreigners," she said simply.

"Please," he pleaded, "I only want to know where the docks are, in Southtown."

She regarded him dubiously, but finally gave him an answer that involved a string of turns and unfamiliar street names.

"I don't know those streets," he told her. "Can you be more detailed?"

When she was done, Perkar didn't know whether he was thoroughly confused or knew where he was going. Thanking her, he followed her directions as best he could.

Not much later, he crossed a canal, a channel that had been lined with cut stones. He stared down from the bridge at it, agape. Boats were moving up and down the waterway—it was wider than the stream back home—poled by men and women. Some held cargo—fish, bundles of cloth—but most seemed to bear only a few passengers. He made out stairs descending at intervals from the street to the canal.

Beyond the canal, he turned where he thought the girl meant for him to, and the path climbed a hill. At the crest of it, he emerged from the early night of the streets onto an open plaza. There he was suddenly gifted with a broader view of the city, still visible in the pale and fading illumination of the sky. A thousand flat rooftops sprawled out below him, rectangular islands in an ink-dark sea. Many of the islands were inhabited; he could make out people tending fires, clothes and rugs hung on lines, flapping vaguely in the wind. A few of the roofs even had tents upon them, and he guessed that people might sleep in them, when the weather was warm. From many of the houses, pits of orange-yellow light gaped at his uphill vantage, interior courtyards cheerily lit from within.

Another hill rose to his right, and the structures clustered there loomed enormous. Massive vaults, sky-reaching towers, and long, unbroken walls of stone were somehow all joined into one, and formed a single building larger than the entire city of Wun. It scarcely looked like something Human Beings could live in, and the hair on his nape prickled at the sight of it. How must it be, in the center of such a thing? Like being in the mountain, in the Belly of the Raven, too far from sky and sunlight. He remembered the creatures who lived in the mountain all too well; spidery things, pale and sinister. Might not such creatures dwell there, in that hilltop edifice?

Was this the "palace" the guards spoke of? He remembered Brother Horse and his talk of the clan that ruled Nhol, men and women with a seeming of godhood upon them. Perhaps they were gods of shadow, of depth.

But there was a height, here, too. The hilltop monstrosity—the palace?—rolled down in blocky waves to the River, surrounded the whole of the way by a formidable stone wall. Where it touched the River, a monumental structure of cut stone reared up against the dying light. Perkar recognized it immediately as a mountain, or something made to resemble a mountain, but angular, like a building, as well. Water spewed from its summit, churning and gray, and poured like miniature rivers down its sloping faces. For an instant, Perkar felt dizzy, on the verge of some fantastic revelation. It was as if he were gazing at the very source of the Changeling, the mountain in the heart of Balat, where the gods lived. Yet it was the mountain not as it was, but as Human Beings might make it, of dressed stone, cornered, regular. He stared on, teased by inspiration but never quite comprehending the importance of what he saw. At last he shook his head, let his gaze stray.

The River was even wider here than at the point where the pirates had attacked him, the other shore obscured by distance and twilight. He saw several more canals—they all seemed to run toward the palace. He also made out, against the dim silver light of the water, a jumble of quays jutting out into the River like short, dark trails. They lay south of him, and so he continued on, sure that these were his destination, the false mountain still riddling at his brain.

He attempted to keep the location of the docks fixed in his senses as he descended the hill and lost sight of them. Despite his best efforts, he was soon confused again. He stopped several children to refine his course, and so at last, by the time night was truly pitch, he found himself near the water's edge and a strip of dirty, untidy buildings. There he sat down, his back to a wall, and gazed out at the dark River, freckled with the torchlight of a hundred boats. He sighed, his earlier elation gone with the sunlight. He felt very, very far from home.

"Well," he told the River. "Here I am. You killed my friends, bent my destiny, brought me across the whole world. Now what do you want? Where is this girl?"

His only answer was the sounds of the city, the faint lapping of waves on the quays.

Perkar realized that he had dozed off; someone was nudging him awake with a foot. He gasped and reached for Harka.

"Hey, no, watch that!" a young voice called down. He squinted up but couldn't make out the face. Whoever it was, though, was dressed much like the soldiers who had met him at the gate; he could see that much in the feeble light of a nearby torch.

"I'm sorry," Perkar muttered vaguely, still confused.

"Sleeping on the street is a bad idea, barbarian," the voice informed him.

"I don't know my way around here," he explained. "I don't know where I should stay."

"Oh. Didn't your captain tell you?"

"Captain?"

"You came on a boat, didn't you?"

"Uh, no," Perkar said, rising to his feet. Someone passed close with a lantern, and he caught a glimpse of the soldier's face; very young, it seemed, smooth, kind. "No," he repeated, "I came overland."

"Overland? Well. The guards at the gate should have told you where to go then."

"They told me to go to the docks, near Southtown."

"You're a bit from there," the man told him. "Come along, I'm patrolling that way, if you want a guide."

"Yes!" Perkar agreed, nodding vigorously.

"Come on, then, stay close," the guard counseled.

After they had gone a few steps, Perkar spoke up again. "My name is Perkar, of the Barku Clan," he offered.

"Eh? Oh," the man responded. "Hang, son of Chwen, is mine. Where are you from, barbarian?"

"From the Cattle-Lands, at the edge of Balat," Perkar answered.

"Is that far away?"

"It took well over a month to get here on the River."

"I thought you said you came overland," the man said, a trifle suspiciously.

"From Nyel," Perkar amended. "I lost my boat at Nyel."

"Funny," Hang replied.

"How so?"

"Something I just heard—ah, watch them!" Hang stepped over a couple of men lying facedown in the street. They looked like natives; Perkar wondered why Hang didn't warn them not to sleep in the street, too, and said so.

Hang snorted. "They should know better, that's why, but they're too drunk to have any sense, I imagine. I thought maybe you didn't know better."

"That was good of you," Perkar said.

The man shrugged, glanced slightly back at him as they walked along. "Most people don't like foreigners," he admitted. "I find them sort of interesting. My mother was a barbarian, you know."

"She was?"

"She was a Mang captive my father bought and eventually married."

"Bought?" Perkar asked incredulously, wondering if he had misunderstood.

"Paid a fair price, too, twelve Royals, he used to say. That's what he called her most of the time, 'Twelve Royals.' "

Perkar wasn't sure he was following, precisely, but he remembered his father's advice about keeping quiet rather than revealing his ignorance.

"I thought I might go trading up-River one day, so I don't mind meeting strangers, to learn a little about them."

"I see."

"What have you come to Nhol for?"

"To see it, I suppose," Perkar told him, not really knowing what else to say. Then he added, "I was hoping to get a little work for my sword."

The soldier nodded, and Perkar thought he caught a sidewise look of condescension from him. "You'll want to stay at the Crab Woman, then. That's not far, I'll show you to it and bid you good night."

They turned off of the street on the River and crossed several more streets inland. At last the soldier knocked on a heavy wooden door.

"This is the place, Perkar-from-faraway. Don't let them charge you more than a pair of soldiers a night. Remember that!"

"Thank you, I'll remember it," Perkar said. He was watching the fellow walk away when the door opened.

A large, rough man stood there, raking a practiced gaze over him.

"Barbarian sell-sword? Well, keep that thing leathered, you hear me? We get trouble from your kind all of the time, and we know how to deal with it. You've got no clan or brotherhood or tribe or whatever that'll find out what happened to you down here and avenge you, get that straight, right?"

Perkar frowned when he understood that he was being threatened, but let it pass. Piraku and its code of behavior were plainly not known to any of these people, though they insisted on calling him a barbarian. Best he should mostly watch and listen here, until he understood more about what codes of conduct did apply.

"I just want a bed to sleep in," he mumbled. "I've been walking all day."

"Four soldiers, here at the door," the man said gruffly.

At least he understood this. He had never dealt with metal coins before, but he had bargained for cattle often enough.

"A single soldier is all I can afford," he said.

"Well, then you can't afford to stay here," the man snapped. "Though we have a discount for albinos today. Three soldiers."

They settled on two, as the guardsman had indicated, and after paying he entered into the building's courtyard. Here, too, was a bit of familiarity. The courtyard was set up much like the hall of a damakuta, with heavy tables and benches. Men and some women sat at these, drinking from heavy clay bowls.

"You can have the room in the corner," the man indicated. "Beer and wine is a soldier a pint. Tell the serving boy if you want some."

"Where do I go to look for work?" Perkar asked, hesitantly.

"I knew it," the man grumbled. He sighed heavily. "Just stay around in here, keep your scabbard out where people can see it. If anyone is looking, they'll notice you."

"Thanks," Perkar said. Worn out and overloaded with sight, sound, and smell, he wound back through the mass of strangers to the door the man had indicated. It opened into a cell that was no larger than a storage shed, but held a pallet and a small lantern. He closed the door and, after a bit of fumbling about in the dark, found a bolt, slid it shut. He sank down to the mat, which stank of sweat and beer and possibly less appetizing things. He was musing on how a city could be so huge and rooms in it so small when, despite the smell and the constant noise of voices from outside, Perkar was soon deeply, mercifully asleep.

VIII

The Rooftop

Ghan was not in the library the next morning, and Hezhi knew what that meant; he was down in the city, planning her "escape." Her mind was still awhirl with the idea; she had stayed up late into the night, in the courtyard of her rooms, running her ringers upon the little Mang statuette. Somehow, the fierce little horsewoman made the almost unthinkable idea of leaving Nhol—of leaving the palace—seem possible, something she could survive. The little figure could not, however, allay her doubts; there were many of those. What would she do, wherever she went? Certainly she would not be a princess, waited on by servants. That and indexing in the library were all she knew how to do. Where else would her skills with books be useful? The Swamp Kingdoms, perhaps—they might have a few libraries. But the Swamp Kingdoms were too close to the River, still in his domain. Did the Mang have libraries? Probably not.

Hope and fear kept her company all night, and in the end it was knowing her only other choice was the underpalace that al-lowed hope to be the one that woke up with her. She would not be waited upon there, either, and no book could survive that flooded, terrible place.

Hope told her Ghan would think of something; hope was the statuette, the image of a creature, unfettered, unbindable.

The worst of it was that now that plans were in motion, she was helpless. After years of investigating her own life so that she could understand and control her fate, matters were again in the hands of others. She spent the morning thumbing vacantly through books whose pages she did not even see. Ghan's place was held by a plump young man from somewhere in the Butterfly Court, where the tax collectors carried out their business. He was pleasant and rather bland, and apparently of no help whatsoever to Yen, who came in about midmorning. Consequently, Yen brought his questions to Hezhi.

Yen was a fast learner, so his queries were no longer simple ones. She welcomed the challenge—it and Yen kept her mind and stomach off of wondering where Ghan and Tsem might be, what they might be doing. But once they had found the necessary texts—Second-Dynasty proscriptions for tertiary water fane drainage—her mind wandered off again into the land of what-will-be. She really couldn't help thinking that once she fled from Nhol, was exiled from it, she could marry whomever she wanted, even a merchant's son.

She also considered that, once she was no longer a princess, no one would want to marry her, not even a merchant's son. And of course, it could never be Yen, who was dedicated to his life here as a Royal Engineer. Still, it was a pleasant, even an entertaining, thought.

He looked up to ask her a question and caught her thoughtful gaze, and she blushed, fearing he could tell exactly what she was thinking.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I'm keeping you from something."

"No, no," she corrected, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I'm just distracted today. I have a lot to think about."

"Well, as I said," Yen began, making motions to leave.

"No, stay," she pleaded. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"Oh. Ask me?" Yen sounded very surprised. "An opinion, I hope, for of real knowledge I have no great supply."

"You know about this," she assured him.

He looked at her expectantly.

"It's just that I've never been out of the palace," she said at last. "The city is a mystery to me, even what I can see of it. Tsem—my servant—he tells me a bit, but of course he's never lived out there. I just wondered if you could tell me something about it. Anything."

"You've mentioned this before," Yen said, "and I didn't tell you before, but it puzzles me. I've seen nobles in the city many, many times. Why have you never been out?"

"I'm not old enough," she confessed, hoping the weight of what that meant to her was not apparent in her voice, on her features.

"Ah. But soon?"

"Yes. I suppose that's why I ask."

"Well, I don't know where to start. It all seems so plain to me, so common. Most people spend their whole lives wondering what the inside of the palace is like, you know. We don't think much about fishmongers and scorps, unless we have to."

"Scorps?"

"Scorpions. Thieves, cutthroats. Some parts of the city are rather dangerous, you know."

"The merchants' quarter, where you grew up?"

"No, not really. We have burglars, now and again, people who break into our houses to steal things, but they aren't really dangerous. They avoid the kind of trouble killing a rich man might bring down on them. They are very stealthy, crafty—but not dangerous. No, the scorps haunt the docks, the warehouse district, Southtown…"

"Would you come with me?" she asked him abruptly.

"What?"

"Just for a few moments, would you come with me?"

"Ah, I suppose. To where?"

"A place I know, where we can see the city, where you can point to things when you talk about them."

"Will that be all right? Without an escort?"

She had briefly forgotten about that. Tsem was with Ghan.

"Just for a short time. And no one will see us, I promise."

"If you promise," he said solemnly, "then I'm bound to believe you."

"That is my father's house," Yen said, pointing. "The one with the red awning, you see?"

Hezhi followed the line of Yen's finger, out and away from the rooftop garden. "Yes. Why, that's one of the largest houses there!"

"My father does well enough. Still, the least part of the palace makes it seem like a hovel."

She frowned. "But what of those houses?" she asked, indicating the thick, tiny huts of Southtown.

"Well, of course, those are real hovels," Yen told her. "One-room shacks with leaky roofs."

"What are the people there like?"

Yen shrugged. "I only know what I see—people from the rest of the city rarely venture into Southtown, you know. But the people there are scorps, beggars, cutpurses, prostitutes. The sort without the ambition to better themselves."

"Do they have a choice about that?" she asked. "Can they better themselves?"

Yen nodded easily. "I think so. We all have choices, you, me, the people in Southtown. I could have followed my father, been a trader, but see, I chose another path."

She wasn't so easily convinced. "Surely it must be very difficult to live there. I mean, someone from down there couldn't get appointed to the Royal Engineers, the way you did, could they? I have trouble enough imagining life without slaves, servants, soldiers to protect me…"

Yen chuckled shortly. "Why bother to imagine that? That would never be your lot."

The irony of that almost stung, but she could not, of course, reveal her distress. "I try to imagine many things," she stated.

"As do I," Yen replied, and for a moment his eyes flashed in a most peculiar way, a way that tickled her belly with warmth, brought blood to her face.

"More," she demanded, tearing her eyes from the young man and looking back out over the rooftops and streets.

"Well… the docks, there. I used to sit on them when I had nothing else to do, watch the foreigners come in. Some of them were so strange, they couldn't even speak, but only gabble in their own barbaric languages."

"Tell me about them," she requested, resting her chin on the walled edge of the court, watching sunlight flash on the River like a thousand thousand golden eels. A great three-masted ship was just heaving out of the channel, toward, dock, its sails crumpling as it came, all but the lateen sail in back.

"There. What sort of ship is that?"

Yen nodded sagely. "Look at that craft, Lady. It is built for sailing upon the ocean; see how most of the sails are rigged square, but the one aft is triangular? That lets them sail into the wind."

"That seems impossible," she remarked, watching the ship. It wasn't headed straight for the dock, but was instead beginning a peculiar little dance, switching back and forth, approaching the shore as one might a lover one were very shy of meeting.

"See? They're doing it now. Notice the pennant at the top of their mast? That will tell you how the wind is blowing."

It was true. The pennant streamed away from Nhol and the docks, and yet the ship—the large ship—was somehow, if a bit tediously, moving into the breeze, without oars or a hauling rope.

"Very clever," she breathed as she began to understand what was involved. They were using the wind against itself, stealing strength from it rather than confronting it headlong. "Where is that ship from?"

"Well, I'm not quite certain. The south, for sure, but I can't make out the device on their pennant."

Hezhi squinted. "A serpent surrounding a quartered circle," she said.

Yen looked at her with new respect. "You have good eyesight, Lady. Well. That would be Dangun, one of the farthest of the Swamp Kingdoms, which actually borders on the coast. The ship, I think, is actually of Lhe manufacture."

"Lhe? South along the gulf? I've seen that on maps."

"Odd people, civilized in their own way, I suppose. They have skin as black as coal, as black as your hair and eyes. I like to watch them."

He did not look at her as he said this, but she was left wondering if Yen meant he liked to watch the Lhe sailors or her hair and eyes.

"And up-River?"

"The Mang, of course, and across the desert to the east the Dehshe, who resemble the Mang. They cut timber, though, and mine tin, so I suppose they are a bit more civilized than the plainsmen. Their boatmen are usually a quiet lot. Again, unlike the Mang."

"Have you ever met very pale men, with light hair and gray eyes?" she inquired.

"I've never laid eyes on such a man, though I have heard of them," Yen said. "They are said to live in the ice and snow at the very edge of the world, which colors them pale. The Mang speak of them as enemies, I think."

"They live north, then?"

"North and west, I think, from wherever the River rises."

"From the mountain?" Hezhi wondered. "They live at She'leng?"

Yen raised his open palms. "I know little of religious matters. It is a constant source of irritation to the priests." He stepped nearer to her, hesitated, then reached out his ringers and took her chin in his palm. His eyes glowed, dark opals flecked with gold. Breath caught in her throat.

"We should go now," she managed.

"Yes," Yen told her. "In just a moment." He bent down, brushed his lips against hers. He did not press them wetly, as Wezh did, and they did not feel like wet liver. They felt sweet and warm, kind. And something else, something a little hungry…

She felt frozen as Yen drew away from her, unable to think.

"I'm sorry if that upset you," Yen told her, his voice husky. "I know we cannot court. But I wanted to kiss you once, at least."

"Once?"

He nodded. "Soon I will have no more excuses to come back to the library, at least not for many months; I will be supervising the construction. When I next see you, you will probably be married." He smiled thinly.

"Well," she gasped. "You should not have done it. If anyone saw…"

"But you promised no one would see."

She colored further. "I did not ask you up here for that," she insisted, turning her eyes back out to the cityscape, her heart doing hummingbird pirouettes in her breast. "But you may do it again, if you wish. Just once more."

From the corner of her eye, she saw him lean in again and, closing her eyes, turned to meet him.

She thought about that kiss for the rest of the day, the hours in the library seeming in turns frozen in time and rushing by. She was still considering it as she made her way back to her apartments. It was an odd feeling, the memory of that sweet, forbidden thing, another gift to go with the statue, another bit of madness in her life. The broad corridors of the palace seemed like the narrowest parapet of the Great Hall, a thin, tiny path that she could easily sway off of, out into the deep, the unknown. It seemed to her that Yen was right, though he had not been speaking of her, that her possibilities were virtually unlimited. She wanted to dream on and on of what might be, bathe in promise, yet at the same time, she knew she had to sober herself, become calmer for the adventure awaiting her.

No matter how often she told herself that, her feet still felt light.

Turning into the corridor where her rooms were, the stink of incense assailed her nostrils. The priests had just swept here, and the smoke still hung thick in the air. Certainly they had just been sweeping, as they did now and then. But Hezhi's eyes widened. The door to her rooms stood ajar a crack. Smoke drifted out, pungent gray coils of it. She could just see the fringe of Qey's skirt, silhouetted against the light from the doorway. She stood, staring, pulse hammering. All of her gauzy dreams were torn, just like that, and she realized exactly how fragile hope was. Trembling, she reached into her pocket, stroked the statuette, but it felt only like metal, unfeeling metal. The horse-woman was cold, her promise dissipated in that first sharp scent of incense.

She stood rooted until Qey turned, her face revealed in the doorway. Hezhi had that one glimpse of it as Qey recognized her, a sad, tortured look, pleading. A terrible flash of insight caught her, as if Qey's face were a light more blinding than the sun, and she understood she would never see the woman who had raised her again after this one last glimpse. The flash became an ache, a wish to be gathered up in Qey's arms once more, to eat breakfast just one more time, to tell her that she loved her.

This was the last she would see of Qey, and she would never see Tsem again at all.

Horse-woman clutched in her hand, she turned and fled, ran as she had never run before, just as a shout went up behind her, the high, boyish voice of a priest.

The halls echoed hollowly beneath her slapping feet, as if she were inside of a skull or the tombs beneath the temples one read about. It was as when she was a younger girl, with D'en, dashing through the empty places of the great palace, footsteps their only company. Now, however, the halls were crowded with footfalls.

D'en, she thought miserably. I will certainly never see you again.

Up a flight of stairs, and the next. She had no idea how close the priests were to catching her; the thundering of blood in her ears and the sound of her own flight obscured any clamor of pursuit. It didn't matter really, if she could just reach the rooftops before they did.

She burst into the afternoon light, gasping, tears just beginning to trickle. Frantically she clambered up the side of the upper court, where she and Yen had so recently kissed. Wind whispered through the cottonwood as if to welcome her back.

This may not be high enough, she thought, and so continued her ascent onto the red slate shingles that slanted down to the garden from higher regions of the palace.

She had nearly reached the ridge of the roof when a voice shouted behind her again. She turned, briefly, to see first one and then a second priest emerge from the stairs. Ignoring them, she finished climbing to the ridgebeam and began to run along it.

Here was her straight, narrow trail, illusion become real. It ran all along the top of the empty wing, a vertiginous path that led nowhere but to the roof of the Great Hall. There she would climb once more, put the distance of six ceilings and five floors between herself and the pavement. That would be high enough.

The shingles plunged steeply away from her left and right hands to join the flat roofs of lower floors. As she ran, she glimpsed little flashes of life in the courtyards below—a woman hanging laundry, a gardener watering potted plants, a man and a woman kissing. Such little things, and yet suddenly infinitely precious. As precious and precarious as her shattered hope. The only recognizable fragment of that hope was her chance to escape the priests—and D'en's fate. As she understood this her tears transformed from sorrowful to bitter.

Clambering up onto the roof of the Great Hall, she glanced back again. The priests were far behind her; they had not spent uncounted hours here, in the bright air above the palace. She would succeed, she had time.

She slipped a few times, ascending the steep, vaulted roof, but she knew where the handholds were, knew to go up the crease where a mighty strut supported the roof. A moment she had then, to think of Tsem, of how sad he would be, of how glad she was that he was in the city when the priests came. He would have killed them, and then he would have died, too. Now that wouldn't happen, nor would Ghan risk his life and freedom unnecessarily. She would solve her own problems, bear the weight of her birth on her own small soles.

Shuddering for breath, she completed the climb, and there took another moment to rest. The top of the dome was open, a great unwinking eye staring out from the Leng Court. Looking down, she could see its iris, the fountain, far below, the beckoning stones.

I mustn't fall in the fountain, she thought. I mustn't give the River my blood while I yet live; I won't do that.

She was still crying, but the tears now had the melancholy solace of happy tears, of the sort of crying that feels good. The priests were still pursuing, sluggishly. Gazing about her, she cherished the glorious view—the dusty desert reaches, the filmy green fields, the vast bustle of humanity that was Nhol. The sun resting in the River, half sunken, a floating tangerine.

Stepping up to the edge, she admired her little statue once more. The fierce grin seemed like laughter, like a secret joy they shared. Another wind whipped around her, and she felt her heart washed clean by it, filled with light and high, endless sky.

She spread wide her arms like wings, the long streak of her shadow fleeing eastward in the steeply slanting light.

IX

The Quickening of Dream

Morning brought the city that Perkar remembered from his dreams, a forest of buildings flaming white in the sun. Yet already his pristine vision was faded, replaced by the reality of rude, incomprehensible people, dirty rooms, and the smell of the docks, a stench for which he had no name. Morning also brought with it a sense of immense inadequacy, for he had not the faintest idea what to do, how—or even what—to negotiate in this alien place. Until now, the River had provided him with direction and thus purpose. Now he lacked that. He wondered what would have happened had he stayed in the boat. Would it have sailed straight to where he was being called, to the task at hand? Or would he be in this same place, sitting at a thick, stained, knife-scarred table wondering what to do?

Midmorning actually provided him with part of an answer. He had been splitting his time between the table and its promise of employment and stepping outside, watching and wondering still at the immensity of Nhol. A few others in the Crab Woman seemed to be seeking work; a group of three rough-looking men, dark and scarred, conversed in low tones in a language he did not understand. Each wore his weapon in plain sight, as he did. Another, solitary man—he reminded Perkar of a ferret—sat scratching vaguely at his table with a knife. None of the four seemed much inclined to talk to him, and so he kept his distance, waiting and watching.

Around noon, four more men came in, three wearing plain kilts and one—a young, slim fellow—in tar-stained pants. Pants seemed a rarity in Nhol; these were the first he had seen. None of the four wore weapons, at least not visible ones, so he concluded that they were in the Crab Woman to drink rather than to look for "sellsword" jobs.

They chose a table near his, ordered beers. Casually he listened in on their conversation, which largely concerned an individual named "Lizard" who seemed to be their foreman. The four didn't like Lizard very much. As Perkar did not know Lizard, the conversation failed to capture his interest, and so his mind wandered with his gaze out beyond the door, to the people strolling past.

Until, that is, one of them mentioned his boat, and that took hold of his notice and kept hold of it.

"Strangest thing I ever saw," the pants-wearer was saying. "A whole crowd of us watched it, too; it's not like it was just me."

"Currents," an older fellow with a thin beard said. "Currents are strange."

"It was going against the current, no sail, no paddles, nobody even in it."

"And?" the bearded man responded.

"And that's it. It sailed right up Eel Canal, quiet as you please, six men in it yanking on the tiller."

"Priest stuff," one of the other men ascertained, and they all mumbled general agreement.

That was too much for Perkar. He rose and approached the table.

They nodded wary greetings, as if fearing he might want something.

"Excuse me," Perkar said. "I am Perkar of the Kar Barku Clan. I'm sorry to have been listening to you, but I did overhear you talking about a boat, sailing along without anyone in it."

"That's right," said the small man defensively, the one who had seen it. "It's true."

"What happened to it?"

The little man grinned. "Last I saw, two of the priests had come down from the temple with some of those brooms of theirs, the ones they burn."

Which meant nothing to him. "Where might that be?" he asked.

"Might be in the deep blue sea," the bearded man grunted. "But it's not. Back up that way, where the canal runs up to the palace."

"I'd like to see that," he told them.

"Well, that's nice," the bearded man said, and the others laughed.

Determined not to lose his temper, Perkar merely nodded at them. "Thanks," he said. Surely someone outside could tell him where Eel Canal was.

"Just go left, out the door, follow Shadowfish Street," the small man piped up. "That'll take you to Eel Canal. Just walk up that, you'll see it if the priests haven't managed to do something to it yet."

"Thanks again," Perkar said, and continued on out the door. Outside he glanced at the docks, several streets down, and turned left. He looked back—to memorize the landmarks near the Crab Woman, so that he could find his way back, and raised his eyebrows in astonishment. The largest man he had ever seen was just entering the tavern. He surely stood seven or more feet tall, massively muscled, thick, broad, with relatively short bowed legs. Despite his size, the glimpse of his face Perkar got reminded him of Ngangata. Heavy brows, sloping forehead.

Shaking his head in amazement, he went on in search of his boat.

Finding Eel Canal was no great feat, and neither was following it to the palace, though it was a long walk. There, perhaps a hundred paces from the base of a towering wall, was the Crow God's boat. Floating, empty and serene. Perkar wondered what had happened to the dead men he had left in it, but quickly put that thought away as something he didn't want to dwell much on. The boat was covered in streamers or ribbons of some sort, and no less than four blocks of some strange incense were burning on the canal wall nearest it. A young man was tending the incense and looking glumly at the boat. Perkar waved at him, and he stared back.

"Good day," Perkar said, not knowing how to wish "Piraku" in the language of Nhol. The man nodded back at him.

"You are watching this boat?"

"Yes" was the sullen reply.

Perkar was startled; the man was younger than he appeared, a boy really. "Why?"

"It was moving by itself," the boy explained. "It is either some gift from the River to the priesthood or a demon; we aren't sure yet."

"Perhaps it is inhabited by a god," Perkar offered, leaning against a nearby building, hoping that would not give any offense.

"Barbarian," the boy said, clearly disgusted. "The River is the only god."

"There are many gods where I come from," he replied reasonably.

"Demons, you mean. Ghosts, maybe. No gods."

He shrugged, remembering Balati, the Huntress, Karak. They certainly were not ghosts.

"Are you a shaman?" he asked, hoping that was the correct word.

"A witch, you mean? An old midwife? You are a barbarian. I am a priest of the River."

"Priest." Perkar knew the word—ghun—of course, but the concepts connected to it were vague. "What is a priest exactly?"

The man eyed him with a new, more intense disdain—which Perkar would not have thought possible. He spoke very slowly, spacing his words. "Priests… serve… the… Ri-ver," he said.

"I know your language," Perkar said, restraining himself from snapping. "I don't know your ways as well."

"Why are you, an outlander, even concerned?"

"I'm curious."

The boy nodded. "I will tell you then. Listen to the sound of Running Water. Long ago, our people lived in the great desert. We had nothing, and monsters surrounded us. The daughter of one of our primitive chiefs had a child by the River, and he freed us from the demons, brought us here, to the River, and began the city of Nhol."

Perkar nodded. "My people have children by gods, as well."

The boy's face reddened again. "If you continue to blaspheme, I will cease speaking to you."

"I apologize," Perkar said. "You were saying?"

"The Chakunge—the Son from the Water—was the first of the Waterborn, the first of our kings. In them the blood of the River flows most deeply."

"And you priests? You are also Waterborn? Relatives of this Chakunge?"

"No," the boy said. "No, that is another story. The Waterborn, you see, are a part of the River and so they cannot serve him, worship him. They let us know his will, they wield his power. But to those of us who serve him, the River sent another man—a stranger. This man was known as Ghun Zhweng, the Ebon Priest. He taught us how to worship the River, built the Great Water Temple, established the flow of water into the palace. The River gave us his blood and thus our rulers, but it was Ghun Zhweng who brought us civilization. He gave us our rites, the spirit brooms, the knowledge of writing."

Perkar nodded. "I understand. The priests serve the River, the Waterborn are the River. So, then, does your priesthood serve the Waterborn?"

"Yes, of course," the boy said—but Perkar sensed a hesitation in that answer. "Though we serve the River more directly, sometimes."

Perkar allowed himself to look puzzled, even exaggerated the expression.

"What I mean to say—" The priest frowned and looked down at his palms. "Do not mistake me," he said. "The Waterborn are the children of the River, and so we worship them, especially the Chakunge, the emperor—may he live a thousand years. But there are others who have far less of the blood, whom the River is not so much a part of. They are ruled by their coarser, Human half— which we as priests understand. We are also closer to the people—we mediate between the Waterborn and these people you see in the streets."

Perkar thought that somewhere in that rambling answer was the implication that the priesthood did not always bow to the will of the Waterborn—but he was confused enough not to be certain. What did seem certain was that this priesthood served the Changeling directly, though they were not related to him. Those who were of the Changeling's blood ruled the city.

This girl he was seeking, then. She was a part of the River. Who could her enemy be? Why did she call him?

"Do the Waterborn have any enemies?" Perkar asked.

That startled the young priest. "What do you mean? Barbarians like yourself, I suppose. Foreign tyrants who wish to conquer our city. Foes of the Waterborn are the foes of us all."

"None in the city? Criminals, treacherous men?"

The priest shook his head. "Absolutely not."

Perkar thought he had enough to absorb for the moment, and though the boy seemed to have warmed a bit to talking, he had not become much more pleasant.

"How long have you been a priest?" Perkar asked.

"I was initiated three years ago, and have attained the third stitch," he said, some pride glowing through the words.

Perkar nodded. "You seem very young to have such responsibility. Congratulations."

The boy—dark, of course, like everyone in Nhol—became a peculiar shade of purple. "I am twenty-two years of age," he snarled.

"But… your voice," Perkar stammered.

The priest appeared to be trying to decide whether to swallow his tongue. "I forgive you because you are a barbarian," he finally said in a tight voice. A tight, eleven-year-old voice. "Priests of the River are… removed from certain gross physical realms."

Perkar stared at the man in horror as that sank in. "You…" He didn't say it, didn't say gelding, for he had no desire to become engaged in a duel at the moment. He finally settled for a polite "Ah."

The man continued to glare at him for a moment, adjusted his robe and kilt, fiddling with the incense.

"Do you mind," Perkar said, uncomfortable now, "do you mind if I watch the boat for a while?"

"For what reason?"

"I want to see if it will move again. That would be interesting, I think."

The priest snorted. "Do what you will. It doesn't violate any laws, though I must caution you against approaching the boat. It belongs to the priesthood."

"I'll just watch then," he assured the priest, and sat down next to the wall. He was not certain why he did so, not sure why he shouldn't. It seemed reasonable that the boat would go where the River wanted him to, in which case he was where he belonged. Of course, he might be too late for whatever-it-was, or, without him in it, the boat might have wandered about aimlessly. Still, the immense palace was only a stone's throw away; the canal vanished into a black hole with a steel grate, and he suspected the water went into the royal dwellings themselves. Perhaps that was all the boat meant by being here, that he should enter the palace. Surveying it critically, Perkar could not imagine scaling its walls or avoiding the many guards and soldiers who would likely question him. In that case, he shouldn't be here, he should be back at the Crab Woman, pursuing the possibility that some noble might hire his sword. That was probably the only way he was likely to enter such a daunting fortress. And if he got in, if he found this girl, what then? She was the River's child, or at least of his blood. Here she was in his city. What would she need with him, a "barbarian" from a thousand leagues away? And most critically of all, when he found her, would he kill her or save her? He wondered, briefly, if he could kill a little girl, and was overcome by a sudden, almost dizzying burst of anger. Yes, he thought, remembering the ghost of his king, Eruka's empty eyes. Yes, if it will thwart the River I can kill anyone.

He was turning all of this over in his mind for at least the third time, when a great, deep voice rang out, just down the street.

"That has to be him," it said. Perkar was startled to see the Giant—or another man much like him—striding toward him. With the Giant was a small, wizened man in dark blue robes. It seemed that he had seen those robes back at the Crab Woman, too, and so it stood to reason they had followed him here intentionally. He scrambled to his feet, hand on Harka's hilt.

The old man was bald, Perkar could now see, though he had tied a sort of cloth around his head. It was he, not the Giant, who spoke when the two stopped before him.

"Gray eyes, light hair, pale skin," the old man muttered. "Well, well."

The Giant shook his massive head, parted his lips to reveal what resembled a mouthful of knucklebones. "There are many strangers at the docks. It is just a coincidence."

"Hezhi can tell us," the old man said. "If he isn't the one, what have we lost?"

"Everything, perhaps. Foreigners are thieves and cutthroats."

Perkar felt that he had been spoken of in the third person for long enough. "What are you two talking about?" he demanded.

The old man looked mildly surprised. "You speak our language passing well, for one from so far away, from the Cattle-Lands."

That stopped Perkar's ready retort. "You know my people?"

"By reputation only. I have read one or two of your…" He frowned. "Higaral?" he said at last, a question.

Perkar blinked. "Ekaral," he corrected. "Songs."

"Yes. An officer of the Second Dynasty sailed up-River some time ago and lived with your folk for a while, wrote down a few of your Ekaral because he thought they might interest someone, I suppose."

The Giant growled and then looked abashed when the old man shot him a sharp look. The elder nodded, though, as if in agreement with whatever sentiment the Giant conveyed.

"We can talk about that later. Tsem reminds me that we have no time to discuss poetry. The other men in the Crab Woman told us we might find you here. I want to engage your services."

Perkar nodded. "So you are my destiny, caught up with me finally. Do you, by any chance, know a girl, perhaps twelve years old, with black eyes and a pointed chin?"

The Giant's jaw dropped, but the old man glanced furtively at the priest near the boat.

"Elsewhere," he hissed. "I wish to discuss this, but elsewhere." He gestured for Perkar to follow, and the Giant beckoned as well, with somewhat more insistence. Perkar pursed his lips, his only hesitation. This was what he was here for.

"There is much to explain," the old man said as they once again approached the docks. "Many questions I have for you, as well, but precious little time. So I must ask the most important ones first."

"My name is Perkar Kar Barku," Perkar informed him.

"Yes, yes." The old man nodded. "I am Ghan, and the half Giant is Tsem."

"Ghun, Tsem," he repeated.

"Ghan," the old man said sharply, "not Ghun."

Teacher, not priest. And the Giant's name meant Iron.

"Ghan," Perkar repeated apologetically. But he marked that— this old man seemed no friend of the priests.

"You mention a young girl," Ghan went on sharply. "What do you know of her?"

Perkar considered his answer, but settled on telling at least part of the truth. "Not much. I dream about her, that's all. I have dreamed about her for months."

"You have been in Nhol for that long?"

Perkar shook his head ruefully. "I only just arrived."

"Why did you come to Nhol, Perkar?"

"I didn't have much choice," he answered. "The River brought me. It is a long story, an Ekar, but you say we don't have much time. So, shortly, the River took hold of my boat and brought me here."

Ghan raised his hand. "Did this make you bitter? Do you resent this?"

He grinned a little sourly and lied, though it was a lie twisted closely to truth. "It did. I think this girl called me, the way a shaman calls a familiar or a man a dog, and I came. I have had a long time to think about this, however. She was able to call me—as opposed to some other person—only because of certain acts I committed on my own. Acts that, for me, demand … redressing. I have determined that finishing out this part of my destiny—answering this girl's summons—is the first step in my atonement."

"Perhaps the last, as well," Ghan warned him. "What I will ask you to do is very dangerous."

"I assumed as much," Perkar said. "You said you are familiar with our songs. Do you also know the meaning of the word Piraku?"

"I read those long ago, and memory betrays," Ghan said, shaking his head.

"It means many things. Wealth, honor, glory. It means doing what must be done, even if death is the only reward. It is what my people live and die by."

The Giant, Tsem, chewing his massive lip, suddenly erupted into speech. "This is ridiculous. We can't trust him, Master Ghan."

"If he is the man Hezhi dreamed of, we have no choice," Ghan muttered. "He may be of some help."

"I believe I am he," Perkar assured them. "Though I have no idea of what task I must perform."

"I will keep this story simple, too," Ghan promised. "I believe the girl you dream of is Hezhi Yehd Cha'dune, the daughter of the emperor of Nhol and its empire. As you say, I believe that she called you here to help her escape the city."

Perkar looked from one to the other of the two men. "Why must a princess escape her own city?" he asked.

Ghan shook his head. "It is complex, and not something Tsem or I may speak of. Hezhi can tell you, later, when all is well. But she must escape today. I'm afraid you must agree or disagree on what I've already told you."

Perkar nodded slowly. "I don't know anything about this city," he said. "I don't see what help I can be."

"Can you use that?" Ghan asked, pointing to Harka.

"Oh, yes," Perkar said. "I can use Harka."

"Harka?"

"The god who dwells in my sword."

Ghan lifted his eyebrows again, but did not dispute the existence of gods as the priest had.

"That may be your use. Frankly, I don't know, either. But Hezhi dreams of you, and I feel certain that there is a purpose to that." His face worked around some unspoken thought, and he let out a long, weary breath. "If only I could know,'" he groaned at last.

"I see her emerging from the River," Perkar whispered, closing his eyes. "The River is blood, and I am in it. The River is trying to swallow me, but it also offers me up, to her. She is weeping, and her tears are blood, too. She wants me to help her."

He opened his eyes again, so that sunlight could clean away the remembered vision. Ghan and Tsem were staring at him. The Giant's eyes were narrow. Ghan was nodding.

"I see no other choice," he said at last. "This is all moved by her blood, Tsem. If we do not trust her, we cannot save her."

Tsem almost snarled, but then his brutish face quieted. "You are wiser than I," he said at last.

"I doubt that," Ghan answered. "But I am more learned." His face hardened with decision.

"Perkar of the Clan Barku, we will trust you. We will help you earn your… perku?"

"Piraku," he corrected. "But I have a single question for you."

"Ask it then, quickly."

"The enemies of this girl. Is one of them the River himself?"

Ghan and the Giant both stared at him before the old man, almost imperceptibly, nodded yes.

Perkar smiled faintly. "I was told to trust no one in Nhol," he replied. "But I will do as destiny demands. Then perhaps my life will be my own again."

"Perhaps," Ghan allowed.

By now they had retraced their steps to the docks. Ghan led them through the maze of quays, out to a small, single-masted vessel. He called out, and a sharp, weasely-looking man poked his head from the cabin.

"Ghan," he said, his voice pleasant-timbred, low, completely unweasellike.

"As we arranged," Ghan told him. He turned to Tsem. "Tsem, this is my cousin; you may call him Zeq'. He will take you and the princess down-River to my clan's holdings. I have prepared a letter for my family that contains both truths and lies—they would not help if they knew the complete truth. Have Hezhi familiarize you with its contents, so that what you say and know will be consistent with my story. My clan will then arrange overland transportation to Lhe. I have written another letter to the archivist there, whom I correspond with. I know that he will help us. In Lhe, Hezhi will be safe, and so will you."

"I can read it myself," Tsem rumbled. Ghan did not look as surprised as he might.

Ghan turned back to Zeq'. "This is Perkar, an outlander," he explained, though his cousin's suspicious stare made it plain that he had already ascertained that much. "I will pay his passage, too. His sword may prove useful if trouble comes."

Zeq' nodded at Perkar, doubt plain on his face.

"What of you, Master Ghan?" Tsem asked. "It will go badly for you if your part in this is discovered."

Ghan lifted his frail shoulders. "If all goes well, my part will never be known."

"Unless the priests question you. They can make you speak, you know."

"I do know."

"Then they will know where Hezhi has fled to."

"No," Ghan said. "Because the priests will never actually question me. Trust me about that."

Tsem regarded him thoughtfully. "Without you, my mistress has no chance at all. I will trust you." Tsem then turned his rugged features on Perkar. "Know this," he said softly. "Hezhi is the most precious thing that lives. If harm comes to her through you, nothing will stop me from snapping your neck. Not that sword or a hundred. Do you understand me?"

"I understand," Perkar said, holding his gaze steady on the Giant's own. Both of these men clearly loved this girl, were willing to give their lives for her. Could Perkar make the same commitment to a person in no way related to him, a person he had never met? The Giant didn't believe so, that was evident. And the Giant, of course, was right. Things were not as clear as he had hoped they would be; perhaps when he met the girl he would know for sure. In the meantime, how could he reassure the Giant without lying? For he did not want to lie to this strange, huge man, so like Ngangata.

"I have never met your princess," Perkar said softly. "But many good people—friends of mine—died because of me. I can never be redeemed for that, my friend. I have no love for this River; it hurts someone I love, it took my life from me. You imply that your girl—this Hezhi—has somehow turned the River against herself. I believe that she intends to steal from him, rob him. I once swore to kill the Changeling Rivergod, Giant. That was stupid, and it led to all of the deaths I spoke of just now. But if she and I can steal from him—especially if it is her life we steal—then I will feel that I have taken at least that much revenge against him. I have been willing to die for less noble things than saving the life of a princess." Or killing one, if need be, he finished silently, though he felt a sudden, surprising guilt for the thought. But if what these men told him was true—if in saving this girl he was thwarting the River—then he would not betray his words. Only if he had been lied to would he have lied.

Tsem listened carefully, with narrowed eyes.

"I love her," he said at last. "Remember that, along with all of your other pretty words."

Ghan took Tsem's massive elbow. "Tsem, this is the time. You go back into the palace and get her. Dress her in those worker's clothes you told me about; cut her hair. Bring her down to the boat here, and Zeq' will do the rest."

"And me?" Perkar asked.

"I don't know why she brought you here," Ghan said, "if it was indeed she. It may be that the River did send you, at the behest of the priesthood or the emperor. I doubt that; it isn't their way to act in such a circuitous manner. Your presence here is so bizarre, so unlikely, that I trust it. As to what you are supposed to do, I rather think that will become obvious in the moments and days ahead. In the meantime, should anyone try to hinder your escape, kill them."

Ghan and Tsem turned and walked back into the city, Tsem with a smoldering backward glance.

"Well," Perkar told Harka. "Kill. That's something we can do, isn't it?"

"Just so long as you don't forget," Harka said. "Some things even we cannot kill."

Just inside the gate, Tsem and Ghan parted ways. It was late enough in the day that Hezhi was probably back in her apartments, so Tsem steered himself toward that wing of the palace.

When he heard Qey weeping, he knew something was wrong. Suddenly frantic, he burst into the courtyard; Qey was there, and two of the priests.

"What?" Tsem demanded, despite the fact that they were priests, despite what they could have done to him for impertinence.

"Your charge ran away," one of the two informed him— darkly, though his voice was sweet. "Where were you?"

"Ran? Where?" But he knew, knew with a terrible sinking feeling in his gut.

"I don't know," the priest snapped impatiently. "Two priests followed her, but she has not returned."

Tsem nodded, blood pounding in his ears. The first priest never had the opportunity to cry out; Tsem's fist slammed into his temple with the force and effect of a sledgehammer. The second had time for a terrified squeal before Tsem lifted him up with both hands and snapped his neck like a chicken's. Then, ignoring Qey's sudden, rejuvenated hysteria, he ran as fast as his huge feet could carry him.

X

A Gift of Slaughter

Swaying at the edge, Hezhi heard her name shouted. Not in the high, clear voice of a priest, but in Tsem's bass roar. She gasped, stepped back from her doom, and turned to see where the call came from.

Tsem was loping across the rooftop. As she watched, he caught the struggling priest by the hair. The priest yelped, and then Tsem broke his neck. The second priest, also looking back, screamed shrilly and continued screaming until Tsem caught him. Hezhi closed her eyes, unwilling to watch. When she opened them, the hapless priest had fetched up motionless against the parapet of an adjoining roof.

"Hezhi," Tsem bellowed again.

Trembling, she watched him approach, and without a backward glance at the long fall, she climbed back onto the slope and, sitting on her behind, began a controlled slide back to the roofbeam. Tsem caught her at the bottom, folded her into his huge arms.

"Did they hurt you, Princess?" he cooed.

"No, Tsem. No, they never touched me. I was ahead of them."

She tried not to look at the dead men and their bulging, surprised expressions when she and Tsem retraced their steps. Instead, she gave her attention to what Tsem was telling her, though it was difficult, with the relief and confusion that swam about in her skull.

"Ghan has arranged passage out of the city," he informed her. "It is all planned, you have no need to worry."

"There are probably more priests in the apartment…"

"Not anymore," Tsem growled. "Their ghosts, perhaps."

"Oh. Tsem, you shouldn't have done it. If they catch you now…"

"They won't, and if they do, they'll be very sorry. Now come."

They dropped back down into the courtyard with its familiar cottonwood, and there Hezhi's swirling head spilled weakness down into her knees and she nearly collapsed. Tsem scooped her up and started down the stairs.

The apartments were a nightmare. Qey was bawling and there were two more dead priests, one leaking blood from his mouth and the other with his face crushed unrecognizably. The thick scent of incense still hung in the air.

"Qey! Qey," Tsem roared, shaking her. "Cut her hair! Cut it off!"

The old woman, shaken almost out of her senses, looked vaguely at the two of them. "Her hair…" she repeated.

"Arr!" Tsem rushed into her room. "Where did you hide your work clothes? The ones I got for you?"

"Under the mattress," Hezhi called, still watching the quaking Qey.

"Qey," she whispered.

Qey's eyes sharpened a bit then, and she held out her arms. Hezhi rushed into them, ground her head against the woman's breast.

"Cut her hair," Qey suddenly muttered. She gently disengaged Hezhi and went to her sewing kit, returned with scissors.

"Turn around, little one," she whispered. Hezhi did so, felt the peculiar little grinding of her hair being all but sheared off, just at the nape of the neck.

Tsem burst back into the room with her clothes; she had rinsed them of the mud and slime of the underpalace, but they were still deeply stained.

"Put them on."

"Where are you taking her?" Qey wailed. "Where are you taking my little Hezhi?"

"Somewhere safe, Qey," Tsem told her hurriedly. "But you must know nothing, nothing, or they will hurt you to find out. Do you understand?"

"Come with us, Qey," Hezhi pleaded. "She can come with us, can't she, Tsem?"

"She may," Tsem said a little doubtfully.

Qey stared at them both, then gently shook her head. "No, little one, I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I just can't. I would be in the way, I wouldn't know what to do."

"Take care of me, like you always have," she insisted.

"No." Qey stepped back, still shaking her head. "No, please, Hezhi, don't ask me to."

She meant to keep insisting until the old woman agreed, but the finality of Qey's tone convinced her. So, instead, she hurriedly doffed her skirt, pulled on the loose pants and smock.

"That's it," Tsem muttered nervously. "That's it, come on."

"Qey…" Hezhi began, but the old woman shushed her, grasped her head, and planted a little kiss on her cheek.

"I love you, child," she said. "I love you very much. Go with Tsem and take care. Live, little one." Her tears had ceased, and now she seemed calm, in control.

"Come," Tsem insisted.

"Wait," Hezhi said. She searched back through her dress, found the little statue Yen had given her.

"All right, Tsem," she said, feeling stronger. "Let's go." Tsem nodded and gestured. Together they set off down the hall, walking briskly, but not running for fear of attracting attention.

"We'll take the Ember Gate," Tsem explained. "You are Duwe, a boy from the docks. I paid you a soldier to help me carry four baskets of fish."

"Where is Ghan? Will he be at the boat?"

"Ghan has returned to his apartments. We will not see him. He has arranged everything."

"I have to say good-bye to Ghan."

"You can't, Princess, there is no time. Soon someone will notice the dead priests. Ghan left a letter for you."

"Ghan…" She sighed. She might never know what happened to him—or Qey.

They came to the Ember Gate, Hezhi walking with her head down, trying to seem humble, respectful. Two guards met them there.

"Who is this?" they asked, eyeing Hezhi suspiciously.

"Just a boy," Tsem replied. "I had too many fish to carry, so I gave him a soldier to help me."

"A boy, eh?"

Something was wrong; she already knew that. The guards seemed too alert, too suspicious, as if they had been warned to watch for her.

"You should know better than this, Tsem," one of them grunted.

Tsem grinned good-naturedly. "Well, you can't blame me for trying, can you? A man has to have a little something, doesn't he?" He ended his question with a wink and a bit of a leer.

The soldier shook his head. "We were warned about this," the guard said, drawing out his sword. The other followed suit.

"Princess," one of the guards commanded, "tell your servant to back away from us. Do it."

She hesitated, and she saw Tsem tense for a spring.

"Princess, he might kill one of us, but we have swords. Tell him."

You fool, Hezhi thought. I can no longer tell Tsem anything.

Tsem confirmed that by taking that moment to lunge. The guard saw it coming, backpedaled away from the Giant, his sword slashing down. Tsem caught the blow on his left arm, and blood started instantly. The other guard stepped around and behind Tsem, sword raising up.

Hezhi shrieked and lashed out, though her fists were clenched at her side. In her mind, her shriek was a spear, hurtling through one guard and then the other.

The effect was instantaneous. The guard stepping behind Tsem dropped his sword and curled around his belly, gagging. The other, dancing away from Tsem, doubled over and disgorged, first his breakfast and then a stream of blood.

Whatever it was she had done struck Tsem, as well, though a lesser blow; he staggered and crumpled to his knees, eyes glazing. Blood was pouring from his arm.

"Tsem!" she gasped.

"I'm all right," he muttered, rising back onto his feet. "Come on, we have to hurry."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, too."

"Doesn't matter," he said, looking dully at his slashed arm. "Come on."

"Wrap your arm," Hezhi said.

"Later."

"No! Someone will see!"

Comprehension flickered in the half Giant's eyes, and he tore one of the guard's surcoats off. Both of the men still seemed to be alive, though in terrible pain. She felt a stab of remorse, and then remembered that they had meant to kill Tsem, had been doing it, and the guilt died, stillborn.

The scale on her arm ached as if burning. Tsem wrapped his arm, took her by the shoulder with his free hand. Together they passed through the now-unguarded gate, and for the first time in her life, Hezhi entered the city of Nhol.

Ghe stared down at the dead priests in disgust and dismay. They never even understood they were dying; he could see that on their frozen, stupid faces. It was his own fault, as well. He had spent too much time with Hezhi instead of following the old man and the Giant; by the time he had found them, understood what they were up to and had taken measures to have the boat seized and the gates guarded, he had lost touch with Tsem. Yes, he had allowed himself to be distracted by a silly boyhood whim, and now priests were dead. And yet, he had done the impossible, kissed a princess, the daughter of the Chakunge himself. What gutter rat in Southtown wouldn't give his knife arm for that? Not that he could tell anyone, but he would know.

Ghe caught the motion easily; it was the old woman, of course, the one he had found just staring down at the dead bodies. Why hadn't he noticed the scissors? He was distracted.

He disarmed the old woman as she stabbed—overhand, of course—and watched her crumple as the blade of his hand struck the base of her skull. She would live, to pay for her idiocy on a torture rack. He had things to do.

He hoped the guards at the gate would stop them, but if not, the boat should have been seized by now. There were only two men guarding it, its owner and a barbarian sellsword.

Ghe checked his weapons to make sure they were all accounted for, and without sparing the -nata priests a second glance, he loped hurriedly down the corridor. He still had much to prove, to the other Jik and to the priesthood. He should have taken Hezhi just after their lips met, while she was happy, before the palace was littered with bodies, but sentimentality and uncertainty had stopped him. No, hope. Hope that the stupid girl wouldn't go through with it, but stay in the palace and accept whatever destiny the River granted her. Now he had much to explain.

Perkar was sitting on the edge of the dock, watching the water ebb and flow against the pilings when Zeq' gave a sort of strangled yelp. He looked back to see what the matter was. Whatever it was wasn't back there; Zeq's distended eyes were staring out at the street. He followed the boatman's terrified gaze.

Eight men were marching down the street. They were dressed in identical kilts striped black and dark blue, blue tunics stiff over steel breastplates. Their dark hair was shoved up under plain steel caps.

"Who are they?" he called back to Zeq'.

"Nunewag," Zeq' replied stiffly. "The emperor's elite guard."

The men showed no sign of halting or explaining themselves. The situation seemed clear enough to Perkar; these troops had been sent by the emperor to find his daughter. Serving the emperor, they served the River. They, at least, were unambiguously his enemies. Still, they were Human Beings, and so it was with some small reluctance that he walked over to the gangplank connecting the ship with the dock. He drew Harka.

The apparent leader of the men—the one in front, at least— looked up at him and said dryly, "Barbarian, I give you one chance to escape being a ghost. We are the Nunewag, the emperor's personal guard, on his business."

"What business is that?"

The leader made a disgusted face. "Barbarian, if that is any concern of yours, then I will have to arrest you. Do you understand me?"

"I understand that this man has not given you permission to board his boat," Perkar said as easily as he could. He knew that if he appeared calm, that would most likely rattle them. In point of fact, he was calm, and Perkar wondered—not for the first time—if Harka had some hand in that, too.

The leader of the soldiers waved his hand and the others began to spread out quickly so they could flank Perkar, though they would have to leap to the boat to do so.

"Take them the fight," Harka advised. "Don't let them pin us on the boat. Despite the advantage we have at the moment, we will lose it if any of them manage to get behind us on the boat. Better to have them behind us out on the street, where we have room to move."

He saw no reason to argue with Harka. He waited until the men were actually in position to jump before he made his own move. Skirling the fierce war whoop of his father, he charged down the plank.

The leader faced him first and was consequently the first to die. Harka met the oncoming blade, slid down to its guard, sheared through that, arm, and breastplate. The man's dying face was more incredulous than shocked, as if the great opening in his chest were less an issue than the wholly unfair way it had been achieved. Perkar's charge did not slow; he whirled away from the crumpling man and continued it, crushing physically into two warriors who did not have their swordpoints up yet. One actually fell and the other stumbled away as Perkar beheaded a third. Then something cold and hard slid into his kidney. Snarling, he spun, felt the blade in his back tear a gash, swung backhanded and decapitated that assailant, too.

If they had all rushed him then, it might well have been the end. But he bellowed and whirled, yanked the offending sword from his body, and though he staggered and his knees nearly buckled, the men seemed to take note not of that but of the fact that he was still on his feet, while three of them lay dead. In a few heartbeats, their eight had become five, and those five looked nervous.

Perkar felt the pain ebb then, and strength returning. By the time they chose to renew their attack—circling him now—he had cleared his head of the pain and felt ready to deal with them again.

As soon as the circle closed on him, he let Harka pick the most dangerous point, hurled himself at it, sword cutting brightly. He broke another sword and cut off its wielder's arm, sliced deeply into the thigh of another, though he took a hard slash into his own ribs, felt a flood of warmth wash down his side. He wished he had his hauberk; that would have deflected the last cut.

Now, effectively, they were three. They were stubborn men, and one of them managed to wound him again—this time rather high in the chest—before he finished them and sagged back against the dock, coughing up blood. He turned to ask Zeq' if he might get a drink of water, when he realized that the boat was already leaving the quay, Zeq' madly working the sail. "Wait!" Perkar called after him.

"I'm sorry, my friend," Zeq' yelled back. "There is nothing I can do for you. You're already dead, you just don't know it yet!" "I won't die," Perkar insisted. "Come back!" "I didn't bargain for this," Zeq' yelled. "They probably already caught the Giant and the girl. It's over, barbarian! I'll tell people of your battle."

"I don't care about that!" he howled. "Just come back!" Zeq' didn't answer. His sail caught a breeze blowing out from the shore, and his little boat began to pick up speed.

He made to shriek one last time but blew out a clot of blood instead.

"Careful," Harka cautioned. "That last one got your lung." "How quickly will I heal?"

"Quickly enough. We have five heartstrings left between us. If you can wait a little while before getting run through again, you'll have six." "How long?" "Half a day."

"I'm waiting here," he said stubbornly. "For as long as I can. If I have to fight more soldiers, I'll fight them."

Back to a piling, Harka on his knees and eyes alert, Perkar waited. A crowd of thirty or more people stood, staring at him and the corpses of the king's guard. Two of the latter lay moaning, and two passersby were helping them staunch the blood flowing from their arm and thighs, respectively. He doubted if either would live. Belatedly, he felt a stab of remorse, then wondered why the possibility of regret never occurred to him before a fight anymore. He had heard that killing grew easier as one became accustomed to it. It was certainly easier when your enemies attacked you in such a dishonorable fashion, eight against one. Of course, he had Harka, but they hadn't known that. They had believed him a lone barbarian with a normal weapon. Such was their misfortune, to be both without Piraku and wrong at the same moment.

A member of the city guard appeared in the crowd and gaped at the dead men and at Perkar. He made as if to draw his sword and come forward, but Perkar shook his head, a silent no. That was apparently enough for the guard. He took his hand from his hilt and vanished up the street, surely seeking reinforcements.

"Hurry up with your girl, Giant," he muttered.

The blood was soaking through Tsem's makeshift bandage before they had crossed five streets, but Tsem seemed untroubled by his wound. He rushed ahead of Hezhi, and people scrambled from his path.

For her, the city was a series of broken patterns, faces, colors rushing by her. She had no time to comprehend it, to chart it out in some way she could understand. The newness was too steeped in blood, pain, fury, and fear. What should have been a moment of discovery was instead just another tunnel she was rushing down, seeking her life.

They ran, it seemed, forever, and the air changed as they went on, became thicker, scented with fish and truly unpleasant smells that chewed at the back of her brain.

"Almost," Tsem said, triumph and worry both audible to her ear, so familiar with his voice. A crowd burst apart before them, as much from the force of Tsem's presence as from his mass.

The scene revealed then was a strange one, and oddly enough, the first thing that Hezhi noticed, the thing that she would always remember, was the River, right there, lapping at a wooden walkway no more than ten steps away. Looking at him, from level ground and not from above, the River was somehow more awesome, a sheet of power that lay over every bit of the world but for that upon which she stood. Rivergulls complained above, fighting the wind forcing them from shore and whatever meals they might find there.

Next she saw the bodies, the blood, and, last of all, him. He was the man from her dream, there was never any question, though at the moment he looked absolutely unlike any image that had ever come to her. Spattered in blood, his face an odd, angry red, wearing some sort of peasant garb, he sat watching them and the crowd, looking across the bodies as if they were a field of grain he had just reaped, as if he were resting a bit before gathering it up, his sword a red sickle on his knee. It was he, though; she smelled a hard, sweet metallic smell that was not just blood but his blood, and she knew it, as if she had smelled it or even tasted it before. That was the River in her, she knew, recognizing him, not her eyes, not her nose.

What's more, he knew her, too. His strange gray eyes flashed, a weird little smile played across his lips.

The River, the bodies, the man—there was a stroke or two missing from the painting, she understood, and Tsem's stunned grunt of consternation suggested what it might be. The gray-eyed man confirmed her guess, in a wintery voice.

"Our friend Zeq' should be out in the channel about now," he said. "Seems he didn't care much for the elite guard's attention."

"How did they know?" Tsem bellowed. "Who told them?"

Hezhi was becoming aware of the crowd, a sea of faces staring at them, angry, curious, frightened.

"I don't know," Perkar said. "I only know we have to leave some other way, and quickly." He frowned. "You're hurt."

"They caught us at the gate to the palace, too."

The man stood and strode over to the two, so that they need not shout. "A city guardsman just came by," he said. "He probably went for reinforcements."

"Probably," Tsem answered, glancing around at the carnage, at the man's clearly hideous wounds.

Closer, he looked more like his dream image, though the dream image had been more boyish somehow, younger. Perhaps it was the blood that made him look older. His eyes focused on hers again, and then he dropped to one knee.

"Perkar Kar Barku," he said. "I believe you summoned me, Princess."

Hezhi opened her mouth—she did not know what her reply would have been—when there was a hoarse shout up the street.

"Guards coming!" someone in the crowd cried, and she couldn't tell if she and her companions were being warned or whether the person was eager to see another slaughter.

"This way," Tsem bellowed, and once more they were running, pounding over the cobblestone streets. Above them, the dark sheet of night was drawing over the sky, hastened by clouds flying in on some high, furious wind. She glanced now and then at Perkar, wanting to ask him so much, wondering how he could still be alive with such terrible wounds.

"The South Gate is our only chance," Tsem gasped. "It will be least guarded. Perhaps the barbarian and I can fight our way through."

South Gate? Something about the South Gate rattled memories, didn't it? She tried desperately to think. They rounded a corner— Perkar was hanging back, trying to discourage the crowd—fully half of them were following the trio, clearly hoping to see more fighting. Tsem, ahead of her, nearly slipped in a puddle of some nameless gunk…

That jarred her memory. "Tsem!" she yelled. "Tsem, the sewers!"

"What?" He stopped and turned toward her, shuddering. She remembered that running was difficult for him.

"The new part of the city drainage—the one Yen is working on—it runs out past South Gate."

"I don't understand, Princess."

"We can cross under the wall. Just help me find Caul Street."

XI

The Changeling

After all that had happened that day it was the dank tunnels Perkar and his companions descended into that brought shivers to his spine. The closeness and the dark evoked memories he had no wish to recall.

"That grate up there is beneath Moon Street," Hezhi called, gesturing at a cataract of light falling through from above.

Passing beneath it, Perkar glanced up, saw perhaps ten faces crowded against the fading light. They still had followers from the Riverside, it seemed. Which was unfortunate, since that would certainly attract the attention of soldiers, sooner or later.

"How much farther?" Tsem called.

"Not too far. They just began construction of the new section, so the outer grill should have been removed. It comes out a few hundred yards from the wall."

"What if it's guarded, too?" Perkar asked.

"I don't know."

"We might have done better at the gate," he observed. "Fighting up a ladder will be real trouble."

"They will have bows at the gate," Tsem informed him.

"Ah."

"Anyway," the girl, Hezhi, put in, "we won't have to climb up. The duct should open from a hillside."

Perkar was curious as to why a princess should know the ins and outs of the sewers. For that matter, a part of him was fascinated by the very concept of these underground ditches built to drain the city of rain, floods, and Human waste. It was not something he would have ever thought of or searched for, that much was certain.

The three of them slogged on.

"The girl looks like a god," Harka volunteered.

"What?" he whispered, low, so that the others would not think him insane.

"She is not a god, but she certainly resembles one. This is very odd."

"Is she my enemy, Harka?" Perkar barely sighed. "Did the River send me to serve her or stop her?"

"Perhaps the River did not summon you at all. Perhaps it was always she."

"You say she resembles a goddess. Is she more powerful than the River? Could she force her will upon him?"

Harka hesitated before answering. "No," he said finally.

"Everyone who pursues her serves the River. The emperor's guard, the priesthood. Yet she is of his blood."

"A rebellious child?"

"Why should a barbarian be summoned from half a world away to kill a rebellious child?"

"Perhaps no one who serves the River can do it. Perhaps only an outlander."

"Still, that feels wrong. In my dreams, she wanted me to help her. That means I should kill her."

"Only if she is your enemy, and not the River. Remember what Brother Horse said, about a god so large his head doesn't know what his feet are doing?"

"I wanted this to be simpler," he muttered, somewhat more loudly than the rest of his conversation with his sword. Tsem sent him a sharp glance over his shoulder.

"You always do," Harka said. "It is your chief character flaw."

That should not have come as a shock to Perkar, but it did. "We'll think about that later," he muttered. He crinkled his nose, and then, in a louder voice, asked, "What's that smell?"

"Sewage," Tsem answered.

"No, no," Hezhi gasped. "I smell it, too. Incense, or a priest's broom."

"Above us?" Tsem said hopefully. "At the gate?"

"We don't pass beneath the gate," she said. Her voice sounded choked, as if she were about to cry. Small wonder; a girl her age shouldn't see this much killing, be caught up in so much terror. She was right, too. The smoke was coming from up the tunnel, not wafting down through one of the infrequent grills.

"What does this mean?" Perkar asked.

"Priests," Tsem said grimly, "and probably soldiers, too."

They hurried on regardless, Tsem in the lead, Perkar to the rear, Hezhi between them, protected by their bodies, hands, and sword.

Tsem slowed up after a moment, breathing heavily. Perkar didn't think the Giant looked very well.

"There," Tsem said. They could see the end of the tunnel, though it was faint due to the darkness outside of the city. It was just light enough to make out the figures silhouetted there. The smell of smoke was stronger.

Ghe slowed as his opponents did, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He had caught up with them at last, though they had led him a merry chase. Of course Hezhi would remember these sewers— after all, he had brought them to her attention. He fingered the tip of his sword, to make certain the toxin smeared on it was still there. Satisfied that it was, he slipped on toward where the three stood. Clearly they were aware of the priests, were deciding what to do about them. Perhaps the girl would try to use her sorcerous powers, the ones she had used against the guards at the gate. If so, she would fail, for the priests were now thoroughly protected from such attacks. The same smoke that swept away ghosts and demons would contain her power, or so the priests assured him. No, Ghe was much more worried about the barbarian, the one who reportedly had killed eight of the king's elite. He felt the elite were overrated, especially by themselves, but that was still an incredible feat, one that Ghe might be able to duplicate if he managed to strike first, before they were aware. As he would do now. He slipped closer still, until he could see the weave in the outlander's shirt.

"Something," Harka warned. "What?" "I don't know. The smoke confuses me."

Hezhi turned at Perkar's muttered word. Was he talking to her? His gray eyes were staring, shocked. A bloody spike projected from his chest, right where his heart should be. He crumpled, and from behind him stepped a shadow in the shape of a man. She shrieked and leapt away as something swung out—a fist, she guessed later—and struck her in the mouth. Then the shadow leapt on toward Tsem. She reeled back crazily, trying to regain her balance; her mouth tasted coppery, and she realized with horror that it was filling with blood. She spat and fell into the water almost simultaneously.

Pushing up on the palms of her hands, she tried desperately to seize the images around her, force sense into them. The shadow was dancing around Tsem, and she saw the flicker of a blade. Anger surged up from her feet, through the thing in her, and she sent it to stab the black-clad man. He did stumble; but she felt the power drain out of her attack, as if the very air were sucking it up. The smoke, she thought. They sweep me as if I were a ghost.

Tsem was leaning heavily against the wall, how badly hurt she could not tell.

The shadow recovered, stood, walked toward her.

"Well, Princess," he said. "The priests assured me that you would not be able to do even that much. I'm impressed. Best I kill you now, I think, before you can prove them wrong again."

At that, Tsem groaned in anguish, lurched toward them, and fell. The shadow-man laughed. "Strength and size don't count for much," he observed.

Chills prickled all over Hezhi. She knew his voice.

"Yen?" she gasped.

The shadow bowed. "My name is actually Ghe," he confided. "But I was Yen to you. When I was assigned to watch you, in case you ascended early or disastrously. Becoming your acquaintance seemed the best way."

"But…" Hezhi groped for words. How could this be Yen, so kind, who had given her the statuette? "Yen, no. I'm just leaving. I'm not ever coming back. Please, let us go."

The man's voice softened a bit. "Princess, I'm sorry, I truly am. I grew to like you, playing at Yen. But I am not Yen, not at all like that. I kill people; that is what I do. And the priests tell me to kill you."

The priests were creeping closer, the smell of their smoke more overpowering. Desperately she launched another attack at Yen, but this time she felt it drowned in the smoke instantly. He didn't even react.

"I am sorry. I'll try to make it quick, and I'll leave an offering for your ghost."

"Leave an offering for your own," another voice growled. Hezhi gaped. Perkar, the dead man, stood behind them, sword in hand. He did not look happy.

* * *

For a whole heartbeat, Ghe stared at the walking corpse. He recalled feeling the heart split, and even if he had missed, the toxin on his blade was known to paralyze and kill in less than fifty heartbeats. The blade had come out the front! An unaccustomed fear stabbed through Ghe, and he lashed out quickly, hoping to hamstring this demon. His blade met the other, his priest-blessed blade, and it shivered. Ghe knew that it had almost shattered, would have shattered if the impact had been oblique. Desperately he attacked with the wintsem, the net of steel, a combination of strokes that would end inevitably with his point in the man. The last stroke went too low, because Ghe was afraid to meet the strange weapon head on, and so his final lunge took his blade into the barbarian's belly rather than some more immediately vital spot. Ghe yanked to withdraw his steel, had one look at the foreigner's face, realized what he had done. The pale man's blade was already descending toward his unprotected neck.

Li, think kindly of my ghost, he had time to think, before his head fell into the dirty water. Even then, for just a moment, he thought he saw something strange: a column of flame, leaping out of the muck, towering over Hezhi. Then something inexorable swallowed him up.

Hezhi saw the pillar of light draw up from the floor, from a glowing, iridescent stain floating on it. With dull surprise she understood that it was her blood, the blood from her mouth. She heard the gasps from the priests; saw Yen's head parted from his body, still shrouded in its black hood. The flame took form, congealed, became a creature from a nightmare, tentacles, horn, many-colored plates. It shuddered, stretched wide its ten crablike legs, and, before she could draw another breath, turned to her. A flaming broom struck the thing, slowed only slightly as it passed through, but the creature lost its form momentarily, flowed and then came back together. Soundlessly it glided toward the priests.

Hezhi sank down to her knees, held herself with both arms, moaning.

"A god," Perkar breathed as the thing appeared. He lurched toward it, swayed back. The assassin had hurt him badly.

"Careful," Harka warned. "It isn't a god precisely, but it has many of the same qualities. And we only have three heartstrings left."

"Is it like the girl?"

"Yes, somewhat. More like the ghost-fish in the River, but stronger."

"Heartstrings?" He saw that he had a brief reprieve; the thing had turned on the priests, obviously annoyed by the silly burning broom one of them cast at it.

"No mortal heartstrings at all, no Ti to sever. It is a ghost!"

"Can we fight it?"

"It has seven immortal strands. We will probably lose."

Terrible things were happening down the corridor. He stumbled over to the girl. "Are you all right? Can you run?"

"Tsem," she muttered. "See to Tsem."

He nodded and quickly crossed to the Giant. To his credit, Tsem was already struggling to his feet. A sword wound gaped in his abdomen.

"We have to get past that thing," Perkar told him. "While it is killing the priests."

Tsem nodded, leaned against the wall. "Come on, Princess," he said. "Come let me carry you."

She didn't respond, other than to look at them, confused. Tsem bent down and lifted her up.

"I'm sorry to spoil your beautiful clothes, Princess," Perkar heard him whisper.

They stepped over two dead priests, who appeared to have been boiled alive, and Perkar wondered how Harka could possibly protect him from that. The thing was a shimmering presence, up in front of them.

"When it finishes the priests, I'll take it, try to drive it from the tunnel," Perkar told Tsem. "Then you run, do you understand? You have no hope against a creature like that." Perkar realized that he had made his decision. Whatever murky purpose the River had proposed for him, he could not bring himself to slay Hezhi and her guardian. Tsem was too much like Ngangata. Harka was right—he always wanted things to be simple, and he did the simple things even when they did not feel right. Helping Hezhi and Tsem felt right. Helping the priests and their assassin did not. In its own way, that was simple enough for him.

Tsem nodded weary assent.

The last of the priests fell at the mouth of the tunnel, and Perkar relinquished his wildest hope—that the thing would pursue its tormentors out into the sand he could barely see beyond. He gritted his teeth and prepared to charge. Then he whooped, because the monster did glide out of the end of the tunnel. There was a furious clatter around it, which puzzled him momentarily until he placed the strange sound. Arrows, smacking into the stone surface of the duct. Soldiers, firing from outside.

Standing at the lip of the tunnel, the world yawning wide before them, Perkar quickly assessed the tableau. Ten or so soldiers were hurriedly trading bows for swords; three more were running like frightened dogs. A wisp of rose curled against the western horizon was all that remained of the day, stars and moon smothered by churning clouds. The landscape was sand, scrub, and beyond that, green fields.

Shrieks went up as the demon fell among the men, and Perkar, remembering his battle with the Huntress, felt a brief, diluted pity.

They ran. Despite Tsem's huge frame and powerful legs, his wounds and weight were taking their toll; the giant was soon staggering. The shouts behind them were still too near.

"Come on," Perkar said. "I'll carry her."

"No," Tsem gasped. "No, I have her."

"Where? Where do we go?"

"West," he said. "West into the desert."

Where the Giant came by his energy, Perkar did not know, but he kept going. He resisted the urge to look back, knowing that Harka would warn him if the god-creature came close enough to be a danger. The sounds of combat died away behind them, just as they entered one of the fields. Knee-high plants, gray in the darkness, shivered in the wind.

"Best turn, Perkar," Harka said.

Perkar slowed and drew a long breath. "Keep going," he told Tsem. "Just keep going."

Waiting, legs braced wide, he watched for the thing. "At least I'll fight some part of the Changeling," he muttered.

"Too bad the soldiers didn't occupy it longer," Harka said. "If we could have managed to get farther from the River …"

"How much farther?"

"Farther than we can get, I'm afraid. See, there it is."

Perkar could make it out, running up one of the irrigation canals, a dancing, deadly, many-colored flame. Of course up one of the canals—the canals were part of the stinking River. He should move, fight it out in the field, where it might have less power. He glanced back at Tsem and Hezhi: They were still paralleling the watercourse, unaware. It might pass him by and follow them instead. He tightened his grip on Harka.

"Look," Harka seemed to whisper, though the "voice" in his ear was no softer than it ever was. "See its heartstrings?"

"I do," Perkar said. Seven strands of living light knotted together behind the ephemeral, monstrous form, bearing down on where he waited.

The ghost hesitated, perhaps puzzled by him. Staring at it towering over him, venomous, deadly, he saw no point in waiting for it to attack him. He shouted and slashed, Harka flaring with light, cascades of flame enveloping him. His blow went deep into nothing, until Harka's edge struck a heartstrand, and that split with a force that nearly tore the sword from his hands. Something struck into him, too, a deep flare of heat, liquid metal filling his bones, a pain unreal in its intensity.

"Fight, fight," Harka urged frantically. "We have two heartstrings left!"

Grimly Perkar struck back into the withering light.

Hezhi felt Tsem's blood soaking her, seeping through her clothes, sticky against her skin. Like honey. She wanted it all to stop, for Yen to be Yen and still alive, for Tsem to be unwounded, to have never even met the inhuman Perkar. She shut her eyes tight, wishing, wishing.

Tsem gasped and stumbled, nearly cried out. Two more steps, and the great legs folded them to the earth.

"Princess," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I have to rest, just for a moment. Keep this way, and I'll follow." "Tsem!" she urged. "No, Tsem."

He set her gently on her feet and then sank back to a sitting position. "Go on," he said.

Back behind them a shout rang out. Turning, she saw the ghost, a scintillating cloud, and the black shadow of a man silhouetted against it.

"This is what comes of my wishes," she muttered. "This." A hot surge of anger cut through, knifing up from below her fear and helplessness. Men were dying all around her, and she was curled up, wishing it all away—when she was the one who had wished it all into existence. Her mouth set in a little line, fists clenched, she stalked back toward Perkar and the ghost. She was not helpless. She was Hezhi Yehd Cha'dune, and ancestors of hers had tumbled cities.

She suddenly felt the River, pulsing along beside her in the irrigation canal, felt as if it were part of her own bloodstream. She drank from it, her arms and legs flaring with energy, stretching out and out until she could embrace the canal, the field, Perkar, the demon. The demon she did embrace, tightly, angrily.

It knew its danger; she felt its slow mind understand, and it flickered past Perkar, a spider made of lightning. She heard Perkar groan, but her attention was not on him anymore. She was actually smiling when her hand that was more than a hand reached out and into the ghost, seized the knotted strands of light within it and squeezed. Fire rushed up her arms, a brass drum crashing in her head with each heartbeat. The demon writhed in her grip, lashed at her, died. When it died, she ate it up. It was a fine meal, demon.

Hezhi cackled gleefully as her embrace grew to include everything around her, even things she could not see. The soldiers pursuing them, the walls of the city—and it was flowing out yet, a pool spreading.

She slapped at the soldiers first, though what she really wanted were the priests. The priests, who created Yen, the betrayer, the priests who put D'en down in the dark, who held her down, naked on the bed. She could make rubble of Nhol, and she would, she would. Feeling the walls, she marveled at how easily they might crumble. The soldiers were dead now, their feeble little lights gone. With sudden delight, Hezhi sensed what must be a priest, a sort of blank place, the shadow of a person. He was standing on the wall, watching her, chanting. She danced and shouted as she pulled him apart, sent the shreds of his spirit scattering around the city.

Nearer her, Perkar was still alive. He felt strange, stronger somehow than the others. Of course he did; Yen stabbed him in the heart and he was still alive. He was probably the only one here who could stop her, she mused. And so, laughing, she turned her attention to him, as he came unsteadily toward her. Yes, there was a little knot tying him to his sword. A simple enough thing to sever…

She lived in that instant for a long while, stretched out, her head in the mountains, her body as long as the world. A hideous and beautiful cruelty saturated her, a delicious thing.

I will live awake, she reveled. I am awake! Flesh and bone could know hunger better and deeper than any spirit, any ghost. That was why gods wore flesh, was it not? And she had been sleeping, sleeping in this flesh for so long! But even the pain of denial felt wonderful—as a memory to make the feast more pleasurable.

Perkar was quite close. Best kill him quickly.

Tsem grasped her from behind gently. She hadn't noticed him, so familiar was he, so close to her.

"Do not touch me, Tsem," she snarled.

"Princess," he wheezed, "Princess, please."

How feebly Tsem's heart beat! How slowly his flame flickered. The tiniest thought from her would end it. But even with her new vision, her anger and her pristine malice, she did not desire that. Tsem should live, should be her right hand in the new city she would build. She would need one loyal servant, at least. And so instead of snuffing him out, she reached in, intent upon fixing him, strengthening his weak strands. Healing him.

And she could not. She could twist, tear, break. But she could not heal Tsem.

In that instant—that long frozen moment, Perkar still stepping toward her with glacial slowness—she stood again on the roof of the Great Hall, gazing down. How simple to jump this time, to consume herself, not with death, but with power, with complete certainty. Life without doubt or fear, if she jumped. The little girl would die, but a terrible and exquisite creature would be born in her place, a goddess.

But she was Hezhi, and she had faced this before. Suddenly the difference between death and power seemed illusory. She would have certainty, but not hope or love or longing. Only certainty and hunger. A rat had certainty and hunger, a ghost did, too. She had always, always wanted more. Love, purpose, comfort.

And so, like all of the other times, she stepped back from the precipice, and as she did so a hard, clear wind blew out of her. When it was gone, when she shrank back to what she was, the earth rushing to slap her, Tsem caught her up, hugged her to his bloody chest.

Perkar watched in astonishment as the monster suddenly writhed, clenched in upon itself, and then flew apart.

"Harka?"

"Behind us!" the sword said, snapping his head around with the force of the danger behind him. Hezhi stood there, a tiny figure in the dark. But around her, something rushed and swirled, heaved like black water. Perkar's face tingled as from a rush of cold wind. "She will kill us," Harka stated flatly. "Unless you are very swift indeed."

For an instant, Perkar's mouth worked. As in the cavern beneath Balat, everything was coming too quickly, far too quickly for him to comprehend. But Harka was showing him now—the living mass of strands within Hezhi, the rope of shuddering lightning feeding into her from the canal. Strangling a cry, he began to run.

He had been right all along. If he was meant to save Hezhi, then he should kill her. Brother Horse's words seemed to jab at him from the maelstrom of his thoughts. About the River walking free, one day, destroying everything. And it was Hezhi's feet the River was to walk upon.

His own legs betrayed him after only a few steps. Grimly he struggled back up, steeling himself for the girl's assault. She had many more strands than the monster he had just faced. He had no chance, but he had to try, for Apad, for Eruka. For the king.

He staggered on, and no attack came. With each step he summoned more of his anger, her face in his dreams that allowed him no sleep. If he could only land a single stroke before he died, his ghost might know at least some peace.

When he was less than a score of steps from her, the strands suddenly unknotted, whipped about like a whirlwind untangling, and swirled back into the water. Hezhi trembled, her eyes wide, sightless, and fell. Her face bore a little smile that seemed almost triumphant. Perkar raised Harka and advanced.

"Can I kill her now?" he gasped.

"With a single stroke. But she is no longer …"

"That is all I need to know." He stepped forward.

Tsem saw him approach, seemed puzzled an instant before his dull eyes gleamed with understanding. The Giant snarled, raised his bandaged arm to ward off the blow, curled his huge body to protect her. Perkar took the final step, felt Harka, hard and effective in his hands.

"I'm sorry," he said to the Giant. "But this ends now." The Giant did not answer, but followed the gleam of Harka in the moonlight as Perkar raised him.

For the king, he thought again, summoning the image of that hollow ghost, caparisoned and parading at the Changeling's whim. Focusing his anger to make the stroke clean, merciful. Tsem certainly deserved that. But the memory that lit behind his eyes was not of the king, it was of the woman in the cave, the touch of her gaze upon his as her life swiftly ebbed.

An instant before it would have been combat. Now it was murder. Tsem's loyalty did not deserve murder. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. This is weakness, he told himself. Avoiding what must be done. But the steadfast light in Tsem's eyes was more adamant than any shield, and the anger in Perkar splintered against it like the flawed weapon it was. Trembling, he lowered Harka, plunging the blade into the black soil, following it down to his knees. A sob of frustration tore loose from his throat. He did not understand—anything. But he couldn't kill Tsem and Hezhi, whatever sort of monster she might have been a moment ago.

"Come on," he said to Tsem. "Can you still walk?" Tsem nodded his head in dull affirmation and, still wary, stood, his charge tiny in his huge grip. With Perkar trailing, they walked away from Nhol, away from the River. None of them looked back.

Near midnight, Tsem finally collapsed, moaning once and then toppling almost gracefully. Perkar disengaged Hezhi from the massive arms. She seemed to be nearly unconscious herself. He did what he could for Tsem's wounds. The cut into his arm was deep, to the bone, and still bleeding. Perkar bound it up tightly. The gut wound was more of a problem; the giant was certainly bleeding inside. The blade had slid into intestines, mostly. Perkar did the only thing he knew. He was too tired and thirsty himself to go much farther, especially carrying Hezhi. He found water in an irrigation ditch and drank as if he had never touched water to his lips before. Then he gathered scrub and brush for a fire.

The Giant shrieked in his sleep when Perkar plunged the burning tip of a branch through his wound, careful to follow the line of the sword puncture. The smell of searing flesh caught at Perkar's nose and nearly made him gag.

When Tsem's shriek died down, Perkar heard a whicker out in the darkness, a sound he would know anywhere. Horses.

Shakily he rose to his feet. The pursuit had come quickly, more quickly than he had imagined. Above him, the clouds were parting as if the stars and moon wanted to watch his last battle. He smiled, mocking that grandiose thought; of course the sky had no care for him. But the Pale Queen was there, resplendent in a double halo, and he found some contentment in the thought that he would die beneath her.

"I'm sorry, Hezhi," he muttered down to the girl. "I'm really not very good at this sort of thing, when it comes right down to it."

She surprised him by speaking. "I didn't mean to call you," she said. "It was… I didn't know what I was doing."

"It's all right," he assured her. "It's done now. I'm not angry, just sorry I couldn't have been more help. Seems that the River's plan for you was lacking in detail."

"The River had no plan for me," she shot back bitterly, "save that I should become a monster."

He shrugged. "There are horsemen out there—one at least, and he just rode off, I think, to find the rest. They'll be back soon, in force. When they come, hide somewhere; they may think you went on while I stayed here to hold them off."

"I will stay," she replied.

"No. Do as I say."

Hezhi gazed at the sprawling Giant. "Is he dead?" she asked.

"He wasn't a moment ago; I might have killed him trying to close his wound." He paused. "Among my people he would be counted a very brave man."

Hezhi nodded, tiredly. "I killed him," she said.

"If he is dead, he died for you," Perkar said. "That isn't the same as you killing him. Believe me, I've had ample time to consider the difference, and the difference is great. We all have to die, Hezhi. It's worth dying a little earlier if the reasons are good enough. His were; he told me he loved you."

"Yes," she agreed. "He did."

"Hide now," Perkar whispered. "Hear? The horses are returning. "

It sounded like a score of them, at least. He took a deep, painful breath. His heart beat weirdly, and he couldn't shake the memory of feeling it stop, of seeing the bloody point of a knife slide out the front of his breast.

"Maybe I'll die this time," he told Harka.

"And me working so hard to keep you alive? Very ungrateful."

"I get sick when I think about the things that have happened to my body," Perkar said. "No one should have to carry the memory of being stabbed through the heart. Death should soothe that away."

"I won't apologize," Harka said. "Someday you will thank me."

"I would thank you now, if I could be rid of you."

"Careful. You'll hurt my feelings."

He threw back his head and howled. "Come and get me, walking dead men! I'll pile your bodies around my feet, I'll trample on your sightless eyes!" He wondered if Eruka would be proud of him, quoting verse even as the end came. He howled again.

A horseman broke from the trees, another, and another. The lead horseman grinned at him, a smile that nearly split his head in half.

"If you insist, I suppose," the rider said. "Though that isn't really what we had in mind for the night's entertainment."

Perkar was actually struck dumb. More riders filed into the clearing, wild-looking men on lean, beautiful mounts, hair braided and ornamented with copper, silver, gold. They were all showing him their teeth, fierce, wolflike smiles.

"Ngangata?" Perkar choked out at last.

"Nice to be recognized by such a great hero," Ngangata replied, leaning with braced hands, palms on his saddle. "And I would spend some time singing your praises, except for the fact that a contingent of Nholish cavalry will be on us in about two hundred heartbeats. Brother Horse and a few others will slow them down, but we had best ride."

"Do you have mounts for us?"

Ngangata nodded, and a stallion and a mare were brought up.

"The Giant has to go, too," Perkar insisted.

"Is he alive?"

One of the Mang warriors knelt at Tsem's side. He spat something at Ngangata, who replied in the same tongue. Another steed was brought up, and three men wrestled Tsem up onto its back.

"They say he won't live out the night," Ngangata explained. "But they will bring him anyway, so that he can die on horseback."

XII

The Song of Perkar

Tsem surprised everyone. He did live through the night, and a second, as they put leagues between themselves and Nhol. And, Hezhi reminded herself, the River. She felt a dull ache with each footstep of the horse, with each breath of the old Mang warrior she clung to. She was not certain what the cause of her pain was, whether it was the loss of Qey and Ghan and everything she knew or whether it was the thing in her crying out for its father, for her to awaken it again. During the third day, when they had to tie her to the saddle to keep her from leaping off and running back toward Nhol, it seemed certain to be the latter.

Midmorning that day, the company stopped and dismounted near a tree—an unremarkable cottonwood, gnarled and ancient, roots feeding in a meager wash. The desert stretched out and away from them, a pitted and striated landscape of rust and yellow sand.

"What are they doing?" she asked the old man—Brother Horse, he was named.

"Offering to the god of the tree," he explained.

"The what?"

The men began burning bundles of grass; one placed a little bowl of something amongst the questing white roots of the tree.

"This is the first one—or the last, depending on which direction you're going," Brother Horse explained. "The god on the borderland, the edge of the empire of Nhol."

"The edge of the River's hunger, then," Perkar said from nearby on his own horse.

Brother Horse chuckled. "Not the edge of his hunger, but the edge of his reach. From here on the desert lives again."

"Then I shall offer, too," Perkar said. He smiled at Hezhi, seemed happy. Dismounting, he joined the other men. She felt only a terrible anxiety, as if some unthinkable thing were about to occur.

When they remounted, rode past the tree, an appalling, wrenching pain pushed her violently into oblivion.

When she awoke—not sure how much later—the pain was still fading, like the sting from a hard slap. She felt for her scale. It was still there, still itching faintly.

"Ah," Brother Horse said when he felt her stir. "Let me have a look at you." He called a halt, dismounted, reached leathery brown hands to help her down. Her feet felt light and sensitive on the hot sand.

"Yes, yes," Brother Horse said, smiling at her and mussing her hair.

"What? Yes, what?"

"Well, you see, child, I can see gods—always been able to. When I first saw you I said 'Now, that girl has something in her.' I could see it in there, you understand?"

She nodded. As she could see her father, when he called the Riverghosts, perhaps.

"Well, it's still there, but it's gone quiet. Can you feel that?"

She felt a faint tickle of joy, despite herself. "Yes," she said, "I think I can."

"Good. Come on now, cheer up. The River has lost his grip on you, too, and your friend may live yet!" Hezhi actually felt herself grin.

"Back up!" Brother Horse ordered, boosting her up onto the beast's back. When he was mounted, too, he gave a great shout, one that frightened her and delighted her at the same time. The animal beneath her surged, and she was reminded of Tsem carrying her. Yet this was different, a rushing thing that she had not understood or appreciated during their midnight ride out of Nhol. The landscape raced by, the horse a half-tamed thunderbolt beneath her. She did not shriek herself, but she almost did, and felt a brief, almost terrible shining joy, somehow more solid and real than the joy of a goddess. She thought of the little statue, the horse-woman, and was her, proud, fierce. Free.

"Now tell me," Perkar insisted, days later. A pair of boys and a girl laughed nearby, chased a wooden hoop across the red sand of the village square. Sparks swept up from the fire, twining up an invisible tree of wind to join the darkening sky. A cool dry breeze padded down from the mesa, breathed across them promises of autumn, coursed on east.

Perkar, Brother Horse, Ngangata, and a Mang warrior named Yuu'han gathered about the fire in what Brother Horse named a Wheel of Words. Hezhi sat outside of the circle as Brother Horse's eldest daughter, Duk, plaited up what little hair Qey had left her.

"Tell," Perkar repeated. "I don't believe that you just happened upon me."

"Why not?" Ngangata asked. "Isn't that the lot of a hero's friend?"

"Riding to the rescue? That sounds more like the hero to me," Perkar rejoined. "'The Song of Ngangata.' I like the sound of that."

"No songs about me, please," Ngangata said.

"Well," Brother Horse told them, "you can sing a song about me, then."

Perkar looked at both men in exasperation. Brother Horse grinned, took a drink of cactus beer, and finally relented.

"Your friend here was frantic when he discovered you gone, don't ask me why. He insisted that we follow you. I refused, of course—I am an old man, much too old to ride out against Nholish cavalry."

"To be sure," Perkar muttered sarcastically. "Much too old to ride circles around them, widdershins and back."

Brother Horse glowered at Perkar. "How long did you beg me to tell you this story?"

"My apologies, ancient one," Perkar said. "Please continue."

Brother Horse nodded with apparent satisfaction. "I did agree to take Ngangata—at great risk to my own life—as far as a village I knew of, there to bargain with my great-nieces and nephews and other assorted kin for a horse to ride to Nhol. A half day's ride, a day walking. I guessed that the Woodpecker Goddess would not notice me in such a short time."

He grinned, showing his yellowed, broken teeth to best advantage, quaffed another mouthful of beer. "Well, of course, halfway there—just past Lies-in-a-Square Rock—there came a whirlwind and a sound of feathers, and my old heart stopped dead in my chest. I was beginning a dignified defense of my actions…"

"He was on his knees, begging," Ngangata clarified.

"Dignified defense of my actions," Brother Horse repeated with a wicked glance aside to the Alwa-Man, "when I realized that the god standing before me was not Nuchünuh but a black god, feathered, yes, but not a woodpecker. It was Raven, I knew that right away.

"'Lord Raven,' said I, 'to what do I owe my great fortune?' And he said, 'No doubt you define "fortune" differently than I do,' and he stared at me with those yellow eyes of his."

"Karak? Karak came to you?"

Ngangata nodded, while Brother Horse patiently drank some more beer.

"I'll shorten this up," Brother Horse said, "because I can smell supper nearly ready. Raven-god told me he had been watching us all, from afar, because it pleased him to do so. He said that I should assist Ngangata in reaching Nhol, since he had foreseen that we would be needed. In turn, I explained my infirmities…"

"He asked Karak what was in it for him," Ngangata elucidated.

"I explained my infirmities," Brother Horse continued stubbornly. "When I was done, Raven asked me how infirm I might become if someone were to alert Nuchünuh that I was wandering about unprotected. I didn't like the tack of that conversation, I'll tell you. But then Raven made a kindly offer to speak to the Woodpecker Goddess on my behalf. He told me that she owed him many favors, and that he would spend a few so that I could live out my years among my people again. Well, you know, I hadn't really thought about it all that much, but I did miss my relatives, alone out on that island. I could also see that great things were happening, a grand adventure calling me to one last heroic task…"

"Karak convinced him to help," Ngangata summed up.

"'You tell the rest of it then," Brother Horse grunted, lifting his beer cup.

Ngangata complied. "Brother Horse convinced some of his relatives to come along, promised them war honors if they came— and some old treasure of his, buried somewhere, I think. The rest isn't much to tell. We rode straight across the desert to Nhol, while you meandered down the Changeling."

"Yes, but how did you find me?"

"Karak told us to watch for you on land. That was cryptic and I thought not much help. We sat up on a hill where we could see the whole west side of Nhol."

"From that far away? How could you recognize us, or even see us?"

"I can see gods, remember?" Brother Horse reminded him, his voice becoming ever so slightly slurred. "I know that sword of yours, and there are no other gods in that miserable land except the Waterborn"—he looked suddenly embarrassed and winked apologetically at Hezhi—"I'm sorry, child, I don't mean to offend you."

Hezhi shrugged her little shoulders and shook her head to say that there had been no affront.

"So," Brother Horse went on, "I thought that anything I saw that looked like a god would be you, probably."

Perkar shook his head in amazement. "And so you watched that entire time? Without sleeping?"

"Ah… not exactly."

"He actually was asleep," Ngangata put in. "But then Yuu'han, here, saw a burst of light, strange godlike light."

"The ghost," Hezhi murmured, the first words she had spoken that evening. "The ghost from my blood."

Ngangata nodded agreement. "We found that out later; it was too dark for us to see anything else, really. We woke Brother Horse up, though, and after a good bit of squinting he swore he could see Perkar and a goddess, a goddess growing larger and larger."

They all glanced at Hezhi, who shifted uncomfortably and stared down at the dirt.

"You all leave the girl be," Brother Horse snapped. "She's been through enough, lost plenty. No need to keep reminding her of unpleasant things."

"It's just that I'm the cause of it all," Hezhi blurted. "All of you, traveling across the world, risking your lives, killing people, all because I made a stupid wish. It wasn't even a real wish, just an impulse. And Tsem, hurt so badly…"

Perkar watched her eyes wander off, wondered how she was not crying and wished she would. Whatever kept her from crying seemed to hurt her more than a good bawl.

"Now," Brother Horse puffed out. "Come here. Come here and sit with us."

She stared over at the fire for a long moment, her black eyes drinking away the flames. Then slowly she disengaged herself from Duk—who understood not a word of their conversation, which was in Nholish—and hesitantly approached the fire. Brother Horse patted the spot next to him.

"Don't waste your energy on that kind of thinking," he told her. "You didn't pull all of the threads that tightened up this net. You only pulled one of them. Take me. What did you have to do with my altercation with the Woodpecker Goddess? Nothing, that's what. It happened six years ago, long before all of this began. Perkar, he was tied up in something gone wrong long before your blood set the River in motion. And Raven, who knows why he does what be does? But the certain thing is he does nothing at your whim or mine. Ngangata never even knew you, and he had precious little reason to help Perkar—no offense, Perkar—but he came along anyway."

"But, Tsem," she whispered, and then sobbed. "Qey, Ghan… all of those soldiers…" She buried her face in Brother Horse's shirt and began to shudder with much-needed crying. Embarrassed, Perkar excused himself, wandering off from the fire. He went on out of the square, threading between scrubby junipers and wiry bushes, let the faint wind settle on his shoulders.

All those soldiers, she said. But be killed them. He should feel something, he knew, remorse, guilt the like of which had raged in him after the Kapaka's expedition had all but died. Instead he felt only a vague regret, sorrow that the men had stood in his way, but no awful grief.

"Everyone dies," Harka offered.

"And everyone lives," Perkar retorted. "That's no answer."

"What about this, then? You've finally learned to shoulder what you do and move on, without wailing about the burden."

"I like that better," Perkar admitted, "though it seems a bit self-serving."

"Better to serve yourself than someone else," Harka pointed out. "I should know."

"Can I free you, Harka? Is there any way to do that?"

"If there is, I don't know of it. But thanks for the thought."

"It wasn't just for you, but you are welcome."

Later, returning to the village, he noticed a low, familiar chanting issuing from a clump of scrubby pines. He nearly passed on, but after reflecting for a moment, he sat down on a convenient rock and waited, watched the crimson slice of the sun flatten against the black rocks in the west.

After a while, the chanting stopped, and Ngangata emerged from the trees, bowstave in hand. He nodded at Perkar when he saw him. The two men regarded each other, Ngangata standing, Perkar seated on the stone.

"It should be time to eat," Ngangata said after some time had elapsed.

He nodded. Wondering what it was, precisely, he wanted to say. He frowned in concentration.

"Come on," Ngangata said, his voice soft, like the evening air.

Perkar shook his head. "No, I… Brother Horse was right, you know. You had no sane reason for coming to help me."

Ngangata's mouth quirked up. He glanced off at the horizon, at the faded sun, and it seemed a long time before his black gaze, once so frightening, came back to meet Perkar's eyes.

"Perkar," he sighed at last. "You think too much. Too much. Now let's go eat; my bow and I are starving."

Perkar stood a bit unsteadily. His vision was a trifle blurred, as if some dust had blown into his eyes. He brushed off his kilt, took a few, slow steps to join Ngangata. "Thank you," he said.

Ngangata looked down at his own feet, nodded. "Come on. Food." And when he smiled, Perkar felt his own face respond, smiling back.

"Princess?"

Hezhi woke to the familiar voice, wondered if she had overslept again, if Ghan would be angry, what Qey was preparing for breakfast. Reality intruded quickly, the red desert, unfamiliar voices buzzing in the background. But Tsem, Tsem was familiar. And awake.

"Tsem!" Hezhi fell forward across his chest, buried her face in his monstrous shoulder. "Please live, Tsem."

The half Giant chuckled wanly. "That is what I hope to do, Princess, believe me." He glanced blearily around at the cedar posts, the soot-darkened walls of the little house they were in.

"I don't know where we are," Tsem admitted.

"Let me get you some water," she offered, "and I'll tell you." She patted him on the shoulder and went outside, down the hill to the spring Duk had shown her. So much she had to tell Tsem, and so much of it was unexplainable. So much unknown. Where were Ghan and Qey now? Being tortured for their part in her escape? Dead already? She might never know. Fetching the water back, she took a moment to regret her refusal of power. Whatever else she would have done, she would have saved Ghan and Qey. But if the fire in her had burned that far, she would have been lost, and many, many people would have died.

Tsem accepted the water thirstily and listened with wide eyes as she explained where they were, what had occurred while he slept.

"What will we do?" he asked, when she had finished.

"I don't know," she replied. "But I hope you will stay with me. I can't bear to lose you, too."

"Of course, Princess. I am your servant."

"No," she refuted. "I am no princess and you are no servant, not out here. If you stay with me here, it must be because you choose to."

Tsem nodded and sat up, gazing silently out the bright rectangle of the door.

"I should like to step outside," he said at last.

"I don't know…"

"Please."

She was scant help in aiding Tsem to his feet, but in reality he seemed to need only her moral support. Out in the sun, he leaned against the clay-plastered wall of the hut, gazed around at the distant horizon.

"I would like to find my mother's people," he said at last. "Someday. She used to tell me about them…"

"We can do that," Hezhi said.

"Not necessarily right away," Tsem put in. "But someday."

"Someday," she agreed, and grinned. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and together they contemplated the distance.

EPILOGUE

Autumn

A month passed, and the sky grew clearer, the winds colder. Some days brought clouds of geese and ducks, winging from the north in search of a warmer sun. Others brought the cold fingers of winter the birds were fleeing. The Mang worked hard in that month, chinking up houses, trekking to the wetlands nearer the River to gather nuts and berries, ranging in the uplands for meat and pine nuts.

Tsem recovered slowly, but after the first week the Mang healer attending him announced that he would certainly live— though he hinted that the debts he had incurred with certain gods would have to be repaid. Perkar, eager to do his part, organized a hunting expedition with Ngangata and a few younger Mang men. It was decided that a few women would accompany them, as well, and Hezhi, unskilled as she was, begged to be included.

Two days brought them to a lightly forested canyon, and there they made a strong camp, set up tents, dug firepits, built skinning frames for the hides they hoped the men would bring in. Hezhi set about learning the things Mang women did: gathering nuts, digging roots, tanning hides. The work was hard, and many times, early on, kindled nostalgia for the palace, where she was waited on by servants. The women she worked with were cordial but a little impatient with her. They seemed to expect her to already know how to do things. Hezhi was a quick learner, however, and before many days had passed the women began including her in their storytelling sessions, laughing now and then at her highly imperfect Mang, but never with any malice. The men returned every few days, always with game, and the women murmured much about the skill of Ngangata and his bow. Perkar was less esteemed, but he also killed much game, often entering the camp, flushed with his success, "like a little boy, just learning to hunt," the women would exclaim.

Half a month passed at the camp, and Hezhi began to feel a certain contentment, the days settling on her shoulders like a warm coat, her fingers learning their tasks as her tongue became comfortable with the language of the Horse People. One of the young warriors began flirting with her, and she became the object of good-natured gossip, though she kept a good distance from the young man. The lesson she had learned with Yen—Ghe?— was not one she would unlearn quickly. It was one of three pains still throbbing in her. The palace and her family were already fading. They were, as the saying went, more of her skin than her heart. But she missed Qey and Ghan, feared for them. She wondered often what the letter Ghan had left her contained—it had gone with Zeq' and his boat when he had fled.

Toward evening of the twentieth day in camp, Hezhi was scraping clean an antelope skin when the packhorses began to pace nervously in their corral. Many of the women stopped in their tasks, gazing down the canyon to see who or what might be approaching. They soon made out two riders, and one of the older women, astute in such matters, recognized Brother Horse and Yuu'han, his grandnephew.

That evening they held a celebration. Fortuitously, the hunters returned that same day, and so a deer was dressed and roasted. Brother Horse brought with him beer, candy, copper bells for the men and their horses, cloth and knives for the women. To Hezhi he gave one of the knives, a small, sharp blade.

"They tell me you learn quickly," he said. "Every Mang woman needs a good skinning knife."

"Thank you," she said, meaning it. The knife borrowed from Duk had always been that, and she was astonished at how happy she was to have her own.

"Well," Brother Horse went on, when she had accepted her present. "I have something else for you, as well." He drew forth a small bundle from his pack. "A friend of yours sent this along."

"A friend of mine?"

"Yes. Yuu'han and I rode down to Nhol, to buy sugar and knives."

"Nhol?" She took the package, fumbled it open with eager fingers. Saltwater started in her eyes when she saw what was enclosed. There was a book—The Mang Wastes—and a ten-score roll of blank paper. The latter was accompanied by pen and powdered ink. There was a note, as well.

"Hezhi," the note began.

I have lived a long life, but there has never been much joy in it. What pleasure I did find was usually in the paper and ink surrounding me. And so I thank you for an unaccustomed sort of happiness. I never intended to love you, you know, for I have learned that love is rarely pleasurable. It was not when I thought you dead. I cursed myself daily. Yet now I hear you live and are safe, and I no longer regret my affection. I would, of course, never say these things to you, but pen and paper may speak when I am silent.

I know you must worry about your nurse, Qey, but she is well. The soldiers found her half dead amongst dead priests and believed her to be the victim of your crazed bodyguard as much as they. Neither has anyone pointed a finger at me. The massacre at the South Gate is little talked about, and your name is spoken only as Hezhinata.

I have sent along a paper and pen with the Mang; I only hope they do not use it to wipe themselves with along the way back to you. It is my hope that you will compose a letter or two to an old man, telling him of the things you see. There must yet be wonders he has not read of.

You must not return to Nhol, Hezhi. Nothing pleasant awaits you here. I have confidence in you, know that you will make a life for yourself wherever you go. You have that in you, and it is all you, nothing of the River you leave behind. Be blessed by whatever gods there are in your travels, and try to think kindly of me, though I was never as good to you as I should have been.

—Ghan

She read the letter and read it again, never sure whether to laugh or cry. It did not really matter; either would have contained the same mixture of joy and melancholy. She gave Brother Horse a hug and thanked him again. Grinning, he patted her shoulder and then started to rejoin his family in drinking. He turned, though, gazed at her seriously.

"You may become Mang, if you wish," he said. "I will adopt you as my daughter, and we will find a good, capable husband for you. Who knows? Now and then I see the sparkle of power in you—not like it was, of course, not enough to change you, but perhaps enough to make you a shamaness, to earn an honest living that doesn't involve scraping hides."

"I'm learning to like scraping hides, thank you," she replied. "But I thank you for your offer. It is very kind, since I know I would be a burden, at least for a time."

"Families have broad shoulders," Brother Horse replied, "made to bear burdens."

"I don't know what I will do yet," she mused. "I think Perkar and I must speak."

"You are not bound to him," Brother Horse said.

"No, not bound exactly," she half agreed. "But there are debts we share, responsibilities we hold together."

Brother Horse shook his head. "Such young people to be so serious. Enjoy yourselves, before your bones turn into dry sticks and your skin into leather."

Hezhi smiled. "I will try," she promised.

Perkar edged around the skinning frame, admiring the hide from all sides. "You've done a nice job with this," he said. "One would never know you were once a princess."

She attempted a smile, but it fell into a flat line.

"Sorry," he hastened to add.

"No," Hezhi said. "It isn't that. Being a princess never meant much to me. It might have, I suppose, if…" But the if hung in the air.

He pretended to examine the skin more closely, embarrassed.

"What are your plans, Perkar?" she asked abruptly. "Do you plan to hunt with the Mang from now on?"

"No." He had been thinking about that, of course. "No. I'm repaying debts right now, and I thought to begin with the closest, the ones I owe here. I'm also told that winter is hard on the western steppes. When spring comes, I'll go back to my father's land, to my own people. I have much to atone for there, many things to set right."

"Many things that I share blame for as well," Hezhi said.

"This has been discussed," he told her. "I believe you to be blameless."

"If I am, you are as well. But if you bear responsibility, so do I, Perkar. You can't have it both ways. We did this together, you and I. No matter what Brother Horse says, this skein was wound by the two of us, out of our fears and desires. I barely know you, but we belong together, at least for a time."

He tried out a chuckle and found it wanting. "How old are you?" he said. "Why not rest for a few years, be a child awhile longer?"

The girl looked back at him wearily. "That is already lost to me," she said quietly.

"Lost things can be found," he replied. But he knew what she meant. He would never again be that boy with his first sword, whooping in his father's pasture.

"I don't know," he went on, when she didn't reply. "We have many months to think about it. It might be that you will change your mind."

"I might," she conceded. "I did promise Tsem a few things. But I want you to think on this."

Perkar grunted. "You know," he said, "you frighten me a bit."

"I? I thought you were a demon, when I first met you."

"Perhaps I am, when I wield Harka. I don't know. But you…"

"How do I frighten you?"

"Who knows? All that time, on the River, your face the only clear thing in my mind. I can't see you without remembering that, without remembering that I hated you for a while."

"You still hate me?"

"No. It is just a memory. A clear memory." He settled down, cross-legged.

Hezhi hesitated for an instant, eyes turned from him. "You were going to kill me," she blurted suddenly.

Perkar grinned sardonically. "We were going to kill each other, weren't we?"

Hezhi nodded, but choked suddenly, gasped with an obvious effort to fight back tears. Perkar stared at her with open dismay. She bit her lip and began to scrabble to her feet. Perkar, to his own vast surprise, reached his hand out gently, laid it upon her shoulder. After a tiny hesitation, he knelt and drew her to him, felt her heart beating in her slight form like a thrush's wings. She sobbed, once, into his shoulder, and he felt a sudden tightness in his own throat.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, as he hugged her awkwardly. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts, all of it."

"I never meant to…" she mumbled, sniffling.

"Shh. Never mind," he soothed back. For a moment they stayed that way, and Perkar realized that though he had come half a world to find her, he had never really touched Hezhi.

"Listen," he said seriously, disengaging but leaving his hand on her shoulder, "all of this talk about duty and responsibility is fine, but I would be happier if we could at least like each other."

Hezhi nodded, reached up to brush at the dampness beneath her black eyes. "I can do that," she said, her tone a shade less certain than her words.

Perkar smiled, but boyishly this time, with none of his world-weary hardness. "I can do that, too. Maybe…" He crinkled his brow. "Maybe we need each other to heal from this; I don't know. But when I go home, I hope you will come with me."

"I would like that," she replied.

Suddenly embarrassed, Perkar turned his attention back to the skinning frame. "I thought I might go for a ride," he confided. "I like this horse the Mang gave me. He reminds me of one I used to have." He glanced over at the girl. "Would you like to come with me?"

Hezhi surveyed her work. Overhead, a late flight of geese arrowed through the turquoise sky.

"Yes," she said, her eyes distant. "Yes, I think I would."

He rose and offered her his hand, but she stood on her own before taking it, grinning.

"Where shall we ride to?" she asked.

It was his turn to smile. "Anywhere," he said. "Wherever we choose."

They turned together toward where the horses waited.

About the Author

Born in Meridian, Mississippi, on April 11, 1963, J. Gregory Keyes spent his early years roaming the forests of his native state as well as the red-rock cliffs of the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. Storytelling in his family and on the reservation sparked an interest both in writing and in the ancient. Pursuing the ancient, he obtained a B.A. in anthropology from Mississippi State University. Moving to Athens, Georgia, he worked ironing newspapers and as a night guard to support his wife, Nell, in her metalworking/jewelry degree, and also began seriously pursuing writing in his spare time.

Returning to anthropology, he earned a master's from the University of Georgia, concentrating on mythology and belief systems, long-standing interests that also inspire his fiction. He currently teaches introductory anthropology and a course on reconstructing Southeastern Indian agriculture while pursuing his Ph.D.

In leisure time, Keyes enjoys ethnic cooking—particularly Central American, Szechuan, and Turkish cuisine—heirloom gardening, and kapucha toli, a Choctaw Indian sport involving heavy wooden sticks and few rules.