Waterborn

as I say.' He handed her a piece of rolled paper. Ch'ange paper, the kind royal business was transacted on.

'Your father was kind enough to sign this, Princess.'

'What is it?' Her head was swimming, her knees seemed wobbly, unsound, and she feared she would collapse.

'It is a contract. You are indebted to the Royal Library. During the daylight hours, you will be as my servant, doing what chores I see fit. You may not complain, and you must comply or be bound by your hair to the shaming post in the Grand Courtyard. Do you understand this?'

'Servant?' Hezhi blurted. 'I cannot be a servant. I am a princess!'

'Which means nothing to me. Not with this paper in my hands. Even the emperor, your father, serves the River, and you serve him, as does all of the royal family. And he has commanded that you serve me.' He proffered Hezhi the document.

She took it with trembling fingers, but she could not read it. She could not concentrate. But there was her father's signature, his seal. It was real.

'I…' she began.

'The first thing I tell you is to be silent. You speak only when I request it.'

'Yes, Ghan,' she acknowledged, lowering her eyes by way of answer.

'Now. Today I will show you how to mend books. I have many for you to mend. After that, I believe…' He shot his gaze about the room almost hungrily. 'Have you improved your command of the old script? You may speak.'

'I have tried…' She trailed off. She could not possibly read the old script as well as Ghan would want her to.

Ghan glared. 'There is much indexing to be done. Do you know what indexing is?'

'No, Ghan.'

'So ignorant.' He sighed. 'But it cannot be helped, I suppose.'

'If I…'

'I didn't ask you to speak!' Ghan hissed, his face contorted.

'Your pardon, I—'

'Silence!'

But I am a princess, Hezhi thought, but succeeded in not retorting.

'Follow me. Do not stop to tear any books.'

Ghan took her to a small table. There were sheets of white paper, a bowl of paste, heavy boards for pressing.

'Tears are simple,' Ghan began. 'Even the simple can fix them. I will show you that first, then the binding.'

Hezhi nodded. Dully, she watched his smooth brown fingers deftly work with the paper.

'Use just enough glue. Just enough, and no more.'

A sudden suspicion filled Hezhi. An image, even, of her sleeping, of Ghan standing over her, of him reaching down, tearing the book himself, then quietly leaving her there, still asleep. So that he could do this, humiliate her, punish her for invading his precious library.

Ghan's finger was a handspan from her nose, wagging angrily.

'You aren't paying attention,' he accused. He looked angry.

Yes, I am, Hezhi thought. I certainly am.

VI

A Gift of Blood

'Please.' Perkar groaned. 'I'm leaving. Please, Goddess, give me your blessing.'

The stream flowed on, caressing only his ankles, and them only indifferently, with no more feeling than it would a stick or a rock.

'Please,' he repeated. As the sun moved on and on across the sky.

At last, near sundown, the water swirled. She was there, watching him.

'I am not for you, Perkar,' she told him.

'It matters not,' he answered. Her beauty would kill him, he thought. It was so terrible, so wonderful. Even in his dreams it could not be idealized, could not become greater; even in dreams it only faded.

She shook leaves from her hair. A wet, ebony tendril of it strayed down over her right eye.

'You have no right,' she said. 'You have no right to add to my sorrow. You are a beast like all other beasts.'

'Yet you love me.'

Her face twisted into a little smile, evil at the edges. 'You don't know what I feel, Perkar. I am not a beast—or I am many. When I think of myself this way—in this form, in the form of this poor little creature whose blood was loosed in me—when I think of myself this way, I have some love for you. But it is my kind of love, nothing you would recognize.' She shook her head, her most Human expression. 'Go away, live and die, forget me.'

'I am going away,' Perkar said.

'Good. Stay away.'

'Only when I do die.'

Her face softened, and she walked over, stroked his face. But when her fingers touched him, she drew back again.

'There is talk among the spirits,' she whispered. 'You are going to speak to the Forest Lord.'

'I am.'

'You will be very near him, Perkar. The devourer.'

'Not so,' Perkar mumbled, reaching to touch her. 'We go north and west. You—the great River is in the east. That is where you… he…'

'Where he takes me in. Where he kills me and chews me up. But that is down along his body. His head is farther up, up in the mountains. You will be near him, and you must be careful. He will smell me upon you, taste me. And he knows you, too, my sweet, for through me he has swallowed your seed. Promise me that you will not approach him.'

'I promise you that I will find a way to kill him.'

The goddess darted her hand out: It leapt quickly as a fish and slapped him hard across the face.

'You are a boy,' she hissed. 'You have the thoughts of a boy. Be a man and live with what may be, what is possible, and not what you childishly wish.'

Perkar was too stunned to speak. He was still without his voice when she faded back into the water.

* * *

'I still say you should take old Yellow Mane,' Henyi muttered.

Perkar smiled thinly at his little brother. 'I don't think Yellow Mane would last very long in Balat—or any wild forest. I think Yellow Mane is fine just where she is. Happy, too.'

'But I don't see why you have to take Kutasapal.'

'Because Father gave him to me. What are you complaining about? You already have a fine stallion.'

'So do you.'

'For a journey like this, one needs many horses,' Perkar said.

'So you say.'

'Watch when the others arrive with the king,' Perkar told him, tousling the younger boy's hair. 'They will have more than one horse.'

'Of course they will. There will be more than one of them. The king, that strange- looking man…'

'They will each have more than one horse, I mean.' Perkar kicked at one of the red chickens pecking near his boots, where a few grains had dropped from the handful he had just given his horse. 'I'm taking Kutasapal, here, and Mang, of course.' Mang was Perkar's favorite steed. Years before, when the fierce Mang raiders had come up the valley, many had died and their kin never recovered their mounts. The beasts were hard to train—or so Perkar's father said—but one of the stallions got a mare with colt. Mang was second in that