Waterborn cotc 1, p.39
Waterborn cotc-1, page 39
part #1 of Chosen of the Changeling Series
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.
