Waterborn

This was it, Hezhi was certain. Events had caught up with her before she could understand them. This was the day she would vanish or join her parents. Tsem knew it, too. He was as immobile as a statue.

If they take me, she realized, he will kill them. He will kill them all. She remembered Tsem, hugging her to his breast as he bore her away from the demon ghost, pulling her from the water when she was younger, insisting that she would never disappear as D'en had.

She laid a hand on his arm. 'Tsem,' she whispered. 'I wish some flowers from the west roof garden, the blue ones and the red ones. Go gather them for me.' The west roof garden was the farthest of their old haunts, above the deserted wing of the old palace. It would take some time for him to go there and back.

Tsem suppressed a glare—only because he was in front of the priests. 'Princess,' he said, voice thick with anguish, 'the priests may have need of me…'

'No. We have no need of you,' the priest contradicted. 'You may gather her flowers. The rite is brief but uncomfortable— she may want them to cheer her up afterward.'

'Yes, Tsem,' she said. 'It cheers me to think of you picking flowers.' And alive, she silently added.

'I'm sure it does, Princess,' Tsem said, trying to sound like his normal, bantering self.

'Go on, Tsem,' Qey murmured. 'I'll look after Hezhi.'

Tsem nodded and turned rather quickly. He closed the door behind him.

'What do I do?' Hezhi asked the priests.

They motioned her toward her room.

IV

The Forest Lord

The next day the rain was gone, the sky a cobalt dome unalloyed with clouds. Perkar trudged down the talus slope beneath the cave, rubbing his tired eyes. Sleep had not been kind to him; mostly it had eluded him, but when he did drop into its depths, weird frenzied dreams had allowed him no rest. In the clear light, he hoped to sort them out, to find their importance, if any. But his mind was dull, and a chill wind sweeping down from that bluest sky numbed his body, as well.

This is like autumn, he thought. Autumn, though the season stood midway through summer. Hubara, the North Wind, should be sleeping yet in her faraway mountain. But perhaps another cold wind lived in the mountain Perkar could now see, for certainly the wind came down from there, with its smell of wet cinders and falling leaves. The mountain itself was a wonder, a nearly symmetrical cone, slopes pale in the morning light, crowned with dazzling brightness. Perkar wondered if he should offer something to it, but he didn't know the Mountain God's song or even his name. But then he remembered that the Mountain God was also the Forest Lord, Balati.

So he burned some incense for Balati, though the wind took it in the wrong direction. Then he braided a little fishnet of horsetail reeds and walked down to the stream, the one that had spoken to the Alwat. There he cast the fishnet in, softly sang a little song—a greeting, since he did not know its own song.

'Thank you for your words,' he told it then. 'If you speak to her again, tell her I only do what I must.'

He sat by the swollen stream, knowing it would not answer him, and puzzled at his dreams. Some involved Ngangata, and those dreams were painful, embarrassing, almost like dreams of finding oneself inexplicably naked at some important gathering. Perkar perceived no clear reason why his dreams had that tenor; he was always clothed in them. The mere presence of the half man seemed to trigger the feelings. Others were of her, of course, of the smell of rose petals, of her pleading, of that sharp slap across his face. Those she had sent, with the rain; they were the only ones he understood. But mixed up with those dreams were the ones about the city and the girl. Houses and halls of white stone, a dry land and a river of unthinkable size. The River he knew, as certainly as he knew anything, though he had never seen it. In one dream the River was as red as blood, thick and sluggish. And the girl, standing at a fountain, saying his name. Asking for him.

'There you are.' The Kapaka looked down at him from the trail to the cave. He was grizzled and unshaven, and he looked older than Perkar believed he was. You didn't sleep well, either, Perkar thought, and wondered what dreams might trouble a king.

The Kapaka cleared his throat and came on down to the stream. 'You've made an offering? Good. That's good.'

Perkar only nodded.

'Perkar,' the old man began reluctantly, then with more force: 'this expedition is an important one. If it weren't, I wouldn't have put my old bones in the saddle and come all the way out here. No Kapaka has done this in two generations, and I certainly never had any intention to. I would vastly prefer to be at home, telling my grandchildren stories. But younger sons are starting to fight among themselves, others are arming against the Mang. That is foolishness, Perkar; whatever the old songs may make of war, it is foolishness. Piraku is cattle, children, the love of family, giving gifts. War breaks things, tears them up, kills family, destroys cattle. Can you see that, as young as you are?'

Perkar nodded. 'I think so. The great heroes were always the most generous ones. The ones who settled wars rather than starting them.'

'Just so. And so this trip is important to me, to all of us, you see?'

'It's important to me, as well,' Perkar told him.

'I wonder. You don't seem focused on our goal, Perkar. See, there it is, the mountain in the heart of Balat. But I think you see something else.'

Perkar did not deny that. He merely shrugged. 'It is important to me. And I hope to serve you, Kapaka.'

The old man grimaced. 'This business with Ngangata, Perkar—you have to let that go. You can't judge what he says as if he were a warrior, like the rest of us. He is not a part of the warrior's code, and it is wrong to hold him accountable to something that he never benefits from. And we need him, Perkar. Who will talk to the Alwat if something happens to him? Who will guide us to the Forest Lord? Apad and Eruka are loudmouths, but I thought better of you. Bear the halfling's company for this short few days of your life, for all of us. If that isn't good enough reason, then do it because I tell you to.'

Perkar nodded. 'I'm sorry I made trouble. Ngangata is safe from me.'

'And you from him, I hope,' the Kapaka answered. 'Now we should get saddled and moving. We lost time yesterday, and the sooner we get done with this, the sooner I can get back to my grandchildren.'

'Agreed,' Perkar said.

The Kapaka turned to go, but he spared Perkar one more of his iron-gray gazes, this time one carrying approval rather than reproach. 'You fought well against the Wild God. That was your first battle, was it not?'

'It was,' Perkar admitted.

'Be proud of that,' he said. 'You defended your king, and I have never seen an unblooded man fight better his first time. Be proud of that, and not of last night.' The gravel crunched softly beneath his boots as he walked back up to where the horses waited.

 

 

'You should be up in front,' Eruka told him. 'You should be vanguard instead of Ngangata, after last night.'

Perkar shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'Ngangata rides in front because our Alwat guides are up there,' he said. 'Not because he is ranked ahead of all of us.'

'We are heroes,' Eruka said. 'Heroes on a journey with our king. Don't you remember 'Ekar Kapaka Karak'? 'The Song of the Raven King'?'

Perkar was preparing to tell Eruka that it was too early for a song, but he wasn't quick enough; Eruka's voice rose up into the midmorning, mingled with the singing of birds and clopping of hooves.

Arrayed behind me

All of my bright-edged heroes

All of my caparisoned heroes

First in their ranks

Rode Waluka my Wolf-Warrior

My Warrior of most standing