The Blackgod

“You did not. Your friend Apad did. Because you led him there, because he thought himself a coward and was proving himself to you. Apad got you what you wanted, Manchild.”

“And you killed him.”

“That was war. I obeyed my liege, the Forest Lord. I might remind you that disobeying your liege was what got you into that mess, by the way. Apad attacked me, and he died a warrior, rather than a coward or a murderer. He did considerable damage to the host of the Huntress before losing his ghost. What better death can a seeker of Piraku desire? How better to redeem himself?”

Perkar fought for words, but his tongue seemed thick and stupid beneath the weight of the Raven's verbal onslaught. “You are twisting this…” he began, but the Blackgod shook his head.

“Wait,” he went on. “There are crimes you did not name. Let me name them for you. I allowed you to survive, after the Huntress wounded you. I left you among the dead so that Harka, there, could heal you. I gave you a boat to negotiate the waters of the Changeling, at risk to my own life and position both from the River God and from my own liege lord. I cajoled and bribed Brother Horse into aiding Ngangata, here, to find you, and I told them when and where to locate you. Just now I killed an archer who might have slain your friend. Now. For these crimes will you kill me, as well, or will you kill me and then thank me, in the order that I brought things to you?”

Karak narrowed his eyes, and in that moment, though he retained his Human form, he seemed very birdlike indeed. “And,” he snapped, “if you have no interest in thanking me, do you not have even the slightest curiosity about my motives for following one lone, silly Human across half of the world to give him my aid? Do you not even wonder at that, Perkar? If not, you are a dolt. Push that sword into me, and we shall see who is the stronger, Harka or myself.”

“I know the answer to that already, ” Harka said. “Sheathe me, you idiot. ”

Perkar ignored the blade. “Tell me then. Tell me why everything.”

“Perhaps,” the Crow God said, his voice again mild, “when you have lowered your weapon. Perhaps I will tell you how to set things right. Set everything right.”

“The war with the Mang? My people?”

“Everything.”

Grinding his teeth, Perkar slowly, reluctantly lowered Harka. He heard the creak of Ngangata's bow unflexing, as well.

“Make camp,” Karak commanded. “I will retrieve my mount.”

“You play dangerous games,” Ngangata told him as the Black-god walked back off the way he came.

“Not a game, Ngangata. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Don't forget your own advice, my friend,” Perkar said.

“Which advice?”

“About heroes. My fights are not your fights. When I provoke my doom, you should walk away.”

“That's true,” Ngangata acknowledged. “I should. But until you provoke it again, why don't you gather some wood while I see if our friend, here, is still alive.” He gestured at the crumpled figure of the Mang warrior.

“What will we do with him?” Perkar muttered.

“Depends. But we should learn why they attacked us.”

“Perhaps they know my people and theirs are at war. Perhaps they merely wanted our skins as trophies for their yekts.”

“Perhaps,” Ngangata conceded. “But did you hear what they were yelling as they attacked?”

“I don't remember them yelling anything.”

“They called us shez. Shez are demons who bring disease. This is not an ordinary sort of insult.”

“Oh.” Perkar watched Ngangata kneel by the side of the injured man. The warrior was still alive, though breathing shal-lowly. Perkar walked back toward the stream, searching for deadwood, trying to keep his feelings from crowding out reason. What could Karak—or Blackgod, or whatever his true name might be—what could he offer to “set everything right”? The Raven was glib and clever, had a way of making the absurd seem reasonable. Yet one thing he said rang powerfully true to Perkar. Why would Karak care about Aim? Karak had changed his whole destiny—or at least given him the means to change his own destiny and follow a certain path. Why would a god take such an intimate interest in him?

He glanced back, to see that the Raven was leading his mount to where Ngangata still knelt over the injured man. Perkar pushed a little farther into the thin trees, trying to remember what he could about Karak while also searching for firewood.

Ngangata had reminded him that Karak was an aspect of the Forest Lord. The Forest Lord had other aspects— the Huntress, for instance, and the great one-eyed beast who had carried on the actual negotiations with the Kapaka—but Karak seemed to be the most deviant, the most free-willed of those avatars. And Karak himself was said to be of ambiguous nature, the Crow and the Raven. The Crow was greedy, spiteful, a trickster who took pleasure in causing pain. Raven—the songs spoke of Raven as a loftier god, one who went about in the beginning times shaping the world into its present form. Some said that he had actually drawn the original mud from beneath the waters to create the world. Others claimed that he stole the sun from a mighty demon and brought it to light the heavens. Perkar had paid little attention to such stories; the faraway doings of gods distant in both time and space had never been as important to his people as the gods they knew, the ones who lived in pasture, field, forest—and, of course, stream.

Now he was camping with a god said to have created the world, and he could not remember which stories about him were supposed to be true and which were told merely to entertain children on dark winter evenings.

“Tell me about Karak, Harka,” he said.

“About Karak or about the Blackgod? ”

“They are the same, are they not?”

“Mostly. But different names always make a difference. ”

“Did he really create the world?”

“I wasn't there.”

“Don't evade.”

“No one created the world. But I think the Raven may well have created dry land. ”

“I can't believe that.”

“Why is it important? What does this have to do with the present? ”

Perkar sighed. “I don't know. I just … what does he want with me?”

“ I think that he will tell you, soon enough, ” Harka replied. “Just keep your wits about you. Listen to everything he says, so that you can go over and over it later. The Raven gets things done. He is the Forest Lords wit, his cunning, his hand. He goes about making things and unmaking them. The Crow always tries to twist around what the Forest Lord commands, make it into something different, and even when the Crow and Raven are in accord, the Crow works through treachery, deceit, and chicanery. Still, they say, if you pay close attention—very close attention—you can hear the Raven telling you how to defeat the Crow. ”

“It makes perfect sense. You've done it yourself—made excuses for doing things you knew you shouldn't do. Planning to check on the cattle because your father wanted you to, but finding just enough other things to keep you busy so that you didn't have time to. ”

“That doesn't seem like the same thing,” Perkar answered doubtfully. “But I will think on it.”

By now he had an armload of deadwood and so, with many misgivings, turned back toward Ngangata and Karak.

He got the fire started in silence, as Ngangata erected the tent. The Mang warrior had regained consciousness and regarded them with a mixture of bleary resignation and hostility. Karak merely sat, silent, watching them. Perkar decided that if the god was going to speak, it would be in his own time; he would not