The Blackgod

“Of course we understand that,” he said. “We are Mang. Our mothers taught us well.”

“I would hope so,” Brother Horse returned. “I would hope it would take more than war to see our ancient ways set easily aside.”

“This is more than war,” Chuuzek growled, but then, at another glance from Moss, he lapsed into sullen silence.

Brother Horse moved his mount forward again, and the silence pooled around the horsemen, threatening to stay with them all until they reached the village. Still, Brother Horse made no move to quicken his pace.

What could Chuuzek have meant, this was more than war? Hezhi barely understood war at all—as the insulated daughter of the emperor, she had rarely had occasion to think about it—but how could a war be more than that?

“I see the pennant of the Seven Hoof People,” Moss remarked.

“They arrived yesterday,” Brother Horse told him.

“Is old Siinch'u with them this year?”

Hezhi felt the cords of her companion's back loosen a bit. He even uttered a little chuckle, and Hezhi was certain, though she could not see his face, that he was grinning. “Oh, yes. I caught him trying to sneak into my granddaughter's tent the other day.”

“Still the same then.”

“Of course. Gods help lecherous old men.”

“Yes,” Moss replied. “Didn't I hear that you spent several years on an island hiding from the Woodpecker Goddess because you and her daughter—”

“No need to repeat rumors like that,” Brother Horse snapped. But it was his mock anger now, a joking kind of disapproval, very different from the low, dangerous tension of a few moments before.

Had she seen that danger, that thing with claws and molten eyes?

“Tell me about your granduncle Snatch-the-Pony. I heard he—”

“Yes, it's true,” Moss nearly crowed, his face opening into a radiant smile. “He went over to the Fang Hills …”

So when they reached the Swollen Tents Brother Horse and Moss were laughing together. But Chuuzek, trailing a bit, kept his face flat and expressionless. Hezhi thought it to be a thin, translucent mask over murder—and perhaps more.

VIII Tales of the Changeling

PERKAR sat staring at the Blackgod for a long while. He noticed and understood Ngangata's occasional glances warning him to be cautious. Perkar felt he hardly needed such a warning, but then again, the record of his Ufe seemed to register one mistake after another. The Blackgod simply gazed at the fire, his lips moving every now and then, as if he were speaking to the Fire Goddess, but otherwise he remained cryptic—as unknown and unfathomable to Perkar as the marks that Hezhi made on her long white leaves.

Good Thief added nothing to the silence. He ate the dried meat they gave him without speaking; he seemed to have expended his energy not only for threats and self-recrimination but for everything else. More than once Perkar thought he had fallen asleep, but his eyes always fluttered back open.

Destroy the Changeling. Perkar had spent months denying to himself that such a thing was within his power. Good people had died when he believed it was. His king had died, and a war with the Mang had begun because a single, stupid boy had believed he could slay the unslayable.

Now a god who claimed to have created the world told him it was possible, that it had been a part of things all along.

And he was afraid to ask the vital question—afraid to ask how.

Because if Karak told him, he might believe. And if he believed…

Across the fire, the Blackgod raised his weird yellow eyes. He smiled, and Perkar saw, in the spooled lights and images of his memory, a great black bird, gripping Apad's shoulders, plunging his beak down into brain and blood, only to come up wearing the grin of a Crow.

“How?” he asked, knowing the question would damn him.

“How?” the Blackgod repeated, blinking at Perkar.

“No,” Ngangata stated flatly. “Perkar, let it go. Whatever he plans—whether he tells the truth now or not—it will not go well for «s.”

“You can ride away,” Perkar said. “In fact, I beg you to ride away. You have shared enough of my burdens, my friend.”

Ngangata worried at the fire with a stick, banked it a bit. “We should both ride away.”

Karak softly clucked with his tongue. “There is so much Alwat in you,” he said to Ngangata. “Always ready to let things be. Always satisfied with the way things are.”

“Things could certainly be worse,” Ngangata retorted.

The Blackgod nodded. “Alwat through and through. But your friend, here, is Human—through and through. Better, he is a hero.”

“Perkar knows my opinion of heroes,” Ngangata replied.

“Enough,” Perkar snapped. “Tell me. Explain to me how I can destroy a god who lies across the entire breadth of the world.”

“Oh, you cannot,” Karak said.

Perkar blushed with fury. “Then why did you say that I could?”

“Well, you can certainly help to slay him. It is within your power to bring about his destruction.”

“Karak—”

“Blackgod. ”

“Blackgod, then,” Perkar snapped. “Perhaps the gods enjoy such quibbling. Perhaps immortality twists you so. But I want no part of it. Speak to me plainly or do not speak to me at all.”

Karak's eyes flashed red and then white hot. A snarl curled his handsome lip, and he bolted to his feet. Perkar, suddenly filled with Harka's sense of danger, reached for the blade, but his hand never reached it.

The Blackgod clapped his hands together and lightning was born. Thunder came in the same instant, to shatter the very air around them. Perkar was flung back roughly, dazed by the blinding light and deafening noise. Both throbbed in his head. He was only dimly aware of being lifted bodily off the ground as someone took a double fistful of his shirt. A great river of flame still ran across his vision, and he was not even certain whether his eyes were open or closed. He fumbled again for Harka, but an iron claw closed around his sword wrist and held it with absolute strength.

He dangled there, held in the air by chest and arm, until the brightness across his eyes faded and he could make out the Blackgod's face, set and grim, inhuman. The brassy roar in his ears lingered.

The Blackgod was now white. His skin was ivory, his hair a cascade of thistledown, his eyes pearly slits with a single blue pinpoint to mark their pupils. His face was still essentially Human, but his nose had become a sharp alabaster beak, a dagger aimed between Perkar's eyes. Ngangata and Good Thief sprawled behind Karak, and Perkar could not tell if they were alive or not.

“Know this,” the god hissed, his voice cutting somehow through the crashing in Perkar's injured ears. “There are limits to the insolence I will tolerate from such as you. You will treat me with respect. You will do this, or I will turn your companion inside out. I will flay his skin, and then I will have yours.”

With that the god released Perkar. He tumbled roughly to the ground, dizzy, on the verge of violent illness.

“Now,” Karak said, in a more reasonable tone. “Now you can let me answer your question or you may politely ask me to leave. All other options include pain for you and yours. Do you understand this? Are you now aware of our respective positions?”

Perkar realized dully that blood was drizzling from his ears and down his neck. He wiped ineffectually at it.

“Y-yes,” he managed to stammer, though he could not hear even his own voice as well as he could that of the god.

“Fine. Now listen carefully. Long ago, the Brother of the Forest Lord did not walk long across the land as he does now. Long ago, he kept to a certain place, kept all of his water about him, contained. He was only tricked into releasing it, you see. But once he was running free, he became hungry. He became insatiable. He began to grow then, to eat everything.