Waterborn

'We should move farther back in the cave,' Perkar said. 'If Ngangata and Atti come looking for us, I don't want them to see us.'

'Pfah!' Apad sneered. 'We can deal with them, if they oppose us. You know that.'

'I know that if Ngangata chooses to use his bow against us, we are all dead men, armor or no.'

'He's right,' Eruka said, plucking at Apad's shoulder.

'And where is your spirit? The god you called?' Apad asked Eruka, brushing the hand away.

'I don't know,' Eruka said. 'Gods are capricious. Or perhaps I phrased the song all wrong.'

'No,' a voice said from behind them. 'No, your song was sufficiently irritating that I came looking for you. Now give me that woti you promised.'

The three of them whirled as one, and Perkar scrambled to his feet, as well. The speaker was an Alwa, to all appearances, though a stunted, extraordinarily thick-muscled one. And whereas the Alwat were pale, this creature was white, and devoid of all fur. His eyes were white, too, though the pupils were black.

'Well?' he demanded.

Apad carefully set the bottle of woti down near the bowl. The Alwa ambled over, picked up the bowl, and drank its contents. Then he turned his attention to the bottle.

'This is good,' he said at last. 'The only decent thing that ever came from Human Beings. Now. Who called me?' He turned his blind-looking eyes to them, seemed to search them out. Perkar was reminded of Ngangata.

'What god are you?' Perkar asked.

The Alwa grinned wide. 'Don't know me? I guess your friend does.'

Eruka cleared his throat. 'He is a… ah, he is one of the Lemeyi.'

Perkar gaped. 'A Lemeyi,' he repeated. The white creature laughed, a loud, raucous sound.

'Why…' Perkar began, but could not finish. Not with the creature standing right there. Why would Eruka call such a creature? When he was a child, his mother had frightened him with promises that the Lemeyi would come to steal him away. At least one child he knew had been devoured by the strange creatures.

'Yes, why me?' the Lemeyi said. 'What do you want? Why shouldn't I eat you here and now?'

'We called you in good faith,' Eruka protested.

'Answer your friend's question,' the Lemeyi growled.

'I…' Eruka turned to face Perkar. He was sweating. 'I couldn't call any of the normal gods,' he said. 'They would just tell the Forest Lord—or he would know without being told. So I…' He trailed off miserably.

'So you called a bastard,' the Lemeyi finished. 'A bastard, that's me! My father was an Alwa and my mother was a stone!' He laughed, so loudly that Perkar feared the Forest Lord would hear.

'And so now,' the Lemeyi said, when he had done laughing, 'what do you want of the bastard?'

Apad and Eruka were just staring at the creature. Perkar found his voice. 'We want to see the armory of the Forest Lord.'

'The armory?'

'Where he keeps his weapons.'

'You want to see the Forest Lord's treasures?' the Lemeyi asked. He seemed amused by this, as he did by everything.

'If that's where the weapons are.'

'And you just want to see them?'

Perkar hesitated. He answered carefully. 'We want to see them. Can you take us there?'

'Well,' the Lemeyi mused. 'Well. I can take you anywhere in the mountain. Anywhere you want to go. But when you get there, you might not like it.'

'Why?' Apad asked.

'You just might not. Humans are funny that way. Never really like what they desire.'

'Well, we desire this,' Perkar said. 'Let us worry about whether we like it.'

'Oh, I wasn't worried,' the Lemeyi explained, spreading his hands generously. 'No, I wasn't worried. If that's where you want to go, I've nothing better to do. Follow me.'

'This is the right cave?' Perkar asked.

'Any of them is the right cave, if you know where you are going,' the Lemeyi replied. He frowned, looked back over his shoulder. 'You can't see in the dark, can you?'

'We have torches,' Apad said.

The Lemeyi shook his head. 'The Fire Goddess would arouse notice. Just follow close to me.' He turned and started down into the cavern.

Perkar shrugged and followed, his friends a few paces behind. They followed the Lemeyi down the dark, constricting tunnel. Perkar prepared himself for blindness, but as they progressed farther and farther from the entrance, his eyesight did not seem to dim; indeed, it improved somewhat, though the distance he could see was limited. The Lemeyi, in front of him, was distinct, as were the floor and walls of the cave. But up ahead, beyond their guide, it was as if a fog obscured his vision. Rather than dwelling on this feat the Lemeyi was clearly performing, Perkar instead concentrated on memorizing the path through the cavern. Always they seemed to be going down, and the way was usually rough; they picked their way over jagged swords of stone that pointed always up, toward the roof—a roof that Perkar could not usually see. At other times, however, the ceiling descended to their very heads; twice they had to crawl on their bellies through narrow clefts in the rock. His armor no longer seemed hot; though he perspired freely from the exertion of wearing it, he felt cool, almost cold, and the motionless air was colder still. When anyone spoke—the Lemeyi spoke often— the voice seemed to fill the space around them like water in a jug, and it seemed to Perkar that all of the underdark must know their whereabouts. He himself kept his mouth tightly shut whenever possible.

They crossed a swiftly coursing stream, flowing roughly in their direction of travel.

'She used to flow through here,' the Lemeyi said, indicating the way they were going. 'But that was many years ago. She still talks about it—constantly. I think she regrets cutting her new channel.'

'What?' Eruka asked.

'Well, before, she flowed down through here and finally south,' the Lemeyi explained. 'But she cut through to a lower fissure, worked that all up into a tunnel. Some of the little mountain gods down there were angry about that! They still resent it, even though they should pity her instead.'

'Pity her?' Eruka queried.

'Oh yes, for of course she flows north now. Into the Ani Pendu, the Changeling.'

Ani Pendu, Perkar thought. Changeling.

'What if we meet one of the gods?' Apad whispered.

'What if you do, mortal man?' the Lemeyi shot back.

'How are they best fought?'

The Lemeyi, of course, laughed. 'From far away, by someone else.'

 

 

It was too late, of course, to regret his decision, but just the right time for Perkar's apprehension to grow. By now they must be deep in the mountain, and his sense of that profundity made his magical ability to see in the dark seem a lie. In fact, he reflected, it might be a lie. The Lemeyi were said to be capable of such things. Perhaps even now they were still at the cave mouth, and this was all a dream in the white creature's head. If so, it was a lengthy dream. Perkar had not the faintest idea how long they had been traveling. Three times his throat had grown dry enough to wet with water from his skin, twice he had relieved himself while the Lemeyi waited impatiently. None of that told him much, only that time was indeed passing—something he might otherwise doubt. The dark tunnels all looked the same; they crossed a few more streams, had to wade in one for a while. The streams all seemed to flow in the direction they were going— which meant down, of course. That might be a help, should the Lemeyi choose to abandon them, something Perkar considered a distinct possibility.

Thinking along those lines, nagged by worry, Perkar at last decided to speak to the godling again.

'May I ask why you're doing this?' he asked.