A chill mist was settling down from the hills; a few birds were chattering in the trees. Perkar was thirsty, his mouth as dry as cotton. He felt for his waterskin and found it, drained what remained there. The water burned terribly going down, and then he remembered his throat, reached up to feel for the hole. There was much blood there, clotted and congealed, but the wound had closed.
"One heartstring left. You are a lucky man."
"I don't feel lucky," he tried to mutter, but only a strangling noise emerged from his throat. The dead lioness lay across most of his body, and she was heavy. It took much wriggling and squirming to extract himself. Her weight had shoved the arrow in his chest all the way through, and so saved him the effort of doing it himself. He reached back and grasped it on the shaft below the protruding head and pulled it on out. The one in his ribs he was able to extract more easily; the hauberk had all but stopped it.
Removing his armor was actually more painful than extracting the arrows; many of the bright rings were crusted to his rapidly healing wounds, which began bleeding afresh as he removed the ruined hauberk. Freed of that, he felt a bit better; lighter anyway. One heartstring left.
"Surely she knew," he gasped, managing a faint whisper this time.
"Who knows? Gods can be fully as careless as mortals. Perhaps she did not know me."
"Should she have?"
"She has never wielded me or met me in battle."
Grimacing with a hundred pains, Perkar staggered to his feet, leaned against a scrubby tree for support. Mang—or what the wolves had left of Mang—lay not far away. He wondered why they had not eaten him, as well. Apad had not been spared that fate; Perkar could see his savaged body a few strides away, along with the two Bear-Men he had killed. Three dead wolves and the lioness were the only other testimony to their battle.
The sword Apad had been wielding lay near him, quiet now. For a moment, Perkar considered taking it; it seemed in many ways more powerful than the one he bore. But it hadn't saved Apad, and the jade sword had saved him, for better or worse. He arranged the curved blade on Apad's chest and left it there, regretting he had no time to bury his friend. He had to go, though. He might still be of some use to the Kapaka. He did spare the time to sing the "Ghost Homecoming Song" for Apad. He burned the last of his incense while singing; some for Apad, some for Mang, and after a moment's hesitation, some for his slain enemies.
Perkar found the Alwat at the top of the hill where he had left them. They had acquitted themselves well, armed only with cane spears. He wished he could have seen them fight. Five dead wolves were mute testimony to their determination. Digger lay curled around her torn throat, one hand still grasping her spear; the other end of it was fixed in the mouth of a wolf; the point emerged at the base of its skull. Inexplicably, tears started in his eyes, though years later he could not explain why he chose that moment to cry and not one earlier or later. He sank to his knees, sobbing. For himself, he supposed, for Digger, for Apad, for the nameless woman back in the cave.
Still blinking back tears, Perkar started down the slope. Gravel and scrub soon gave way to sloping expanses of red, sandy rock. It was, in fact, a plateau of solid stone, though soil filled low places and creases in it, giving tenuous purchase to the roots of short thick pines and cedars. Occasional deeper depressions held horsetails and willow, small wet islands of green amidst the rust.
Even on stone, the tracks of the hunt were clear, scratches in the rock, the shed hair of beasts, a stray arrow here and there. He strained his senses for some audible sign of the hunt or his companions, but, try as he might, he heard nothing save the wind; the world seemed all silence and blue sky, the clouds and thunder that rode with the hunt now flown far away.
At least he had seen no other Human bodies. The rest of the expedition had made it this far. He suddenly wondered if he had lain as dead for a single night or many. He asked the sword.
"Two nights. This is the third day since your battle."
Then his remaining companions were dead or escaped, proba-bly the former. But surely he would find their bodies; the Huntress had not made trophies of Apad or himself.
It took longer than he thought it would to reach the gorge, and there he found Eruka. The flaxen-haired singer stared up at the sky with empty eye sockets, his mouth slack. The godsword was still clutched in his hand. There were two dead wolves nearby, and much blood on the stones. Tracks led to the edge of the gorge.
The Changeling had cut deep into the stone, deep indeed, and the striated walls of the ravine were sheer and unforgiving. There was no path down that he could see, only the precipice. Steeling himself, Perkar gazed over the rim and thus saw the Changeling for the first time outside of a dream.
It both did and did not resemble his visions. Even in the sunlight, the River appeared cold, shadowed, the color of a killer's gray-eyed glance. Fast-flowing, gnawing eternally at the stone, he hissed hungrily between close walls. He was not huge or wide here—not the horizon-spanning monster of Perkar's nightmares— but for being this close to his source, the Changeling was broad indeed, a faint but certain promise of the River by the white city.
How had his companions gotten down? The hunt must have stopped here, and Ngangata and the Kapaka were yet unaccounted for. They had to have descended to the River. He peered over the edge, puzzled. There were no hidden paths there, no switchback trails in the absolute verticality of the walls.
Then he saw it, on a sandbar, his explanation. The carcass of a horse. He shook his head, trying to deny what should have been obvious. A slight ticking on the stone alerted him, and he turned at the sound.
A man stood there, naked save for a long cloak of black feathers that fell from about his shoulders to midcalf. His skin was whiter than bone, where it showed. Luminous black eyes watched Perkar from beneath beetled, ebony brows and an unruly mop of hair, also black.
"I know you," Perkar whispered, drawing his sword.
"And I know you," Karak answered, his thin lips parting in a grin. "The Huntress believed you dead, but I knew better."
"Why?"
"Why, why? Mortals and gods alike ask that question more often than I care to hear it. I let you live because I like pretty things."
"You think me pretty?" Perkar asked incredulously. He tried to imagine what he might look like now, encrusted in ten kinds of gore, the blanched puckers and slashes of unnaturally healing wounds, his matted and stinking hair.
Karak smirked. "No. But that fight—you and that other Human, charging down on the hunt, killing the Huntress' own mount—that was a very pretty thing. A shame if no one survived to polish such a gem."
"I don't know that I believe you," Perkar said, keeping the sword up and steady. A hard gust of wind enfolded them, flapping Karak's long Crow-feather cloak, bathing Perkar's bare torso in coolness. "I saw you kill Apad."
"So I did. After all, you couldn't be allowed to win. But you— you should have been dead, little mortal. Even now I see your one heartstring—such a thin little thing. I'm afraid the Changeling will eat even that, if you go down to him."
"What happened to my friends?"
"The other Humans? They flew into his clutches. That was a pretty thing, too; I came to tell you about it."
"Did any of them live?"
"All but this one," Karak said, indicating Eruka, and Perkar's heart soared for an instant, until the Crow God's meaning came clear.
"All but this one; he did not fly. He stood here on the edge and waited for us. He was frightened, but less frightened of us than the edge."
"The others?"
Karak cocked his head, pointed to the base of a tree. A broken rope was tied to it.
"He stretched that rope between these trees; we did not see it, for his sword was blazing. Two wolves and a huntsman we lost, for they tripped on the rope and tumbled over the edge."
"I'm proud of him. I wish he had killed more. But what of my other friends?"
"They flew over the edge when we approached."
"They jumped, you mean."
"That isn't as pretty."
"Are they dead? All dead?" It seemed incredible that anyone could survive such a fall.
Karak shrugged, a slight movement. "I don't know. Shall we see?"
"What do you mean?"
"I can take you to the bottom of the gorge; no farther. Even I fear the Brother."
"You? Who swallowed the sun?" Perkar asked sarcastically.
"The Changeling can swallow much more than that," Karak replied softly.
Karak drew the cloak more tightly about himself, as if he were cold, and shivered in the way of gods. In an instant he was a Raven again, huge, his gleaming beak a reminder of Apad's fate. Perkar considered trying to avenge his friend, but it was a thin thought, an obligatory one that sank away into his confusion and weariness. After all, he had already died for honor once, more or less, and killed for it, too. If Karak wanted to help him, no matter how whimsical his reason, Perkar would be a fool to spurn him.
Karak flapped into the air, took a hold on Perkar's shoulders in precisely the way he had taken on Apad, before pecking into his brains.
"Best that you grip my legs," Karak said, "else I will have to dig into your shoulders too hard with my claws."
Perkar acknowledged with a nod, reached around the scaly bird legs, wrapping his arms so that both his hands and the crook of his elbow held him there. Nevertheless, when the Crow God flapped again and they took to the air, his claws bit uncomfortably into Perkar's flesh.
They floated lazily down into the gorge, Karak's wings pop-ping and snapping in the air. The Raven hugged close to the sheer stone, intent, it seemed, on not flying over the surface of the River. He deposited Perkar on a narrow shingle of gravel and fallen stone.
"I don't see your friends," he said. "But perhaps they are here. I can see nothing, this close to the River."
Indeed, Karak seemed somehow paler, his feathers less lustrous. As Perkar watched, a few actually faded to a dull gray.
"You see? This is what you wanted to battle, Perkar. Even asleep, he already begins to eat at me." The Crow hesitated and cocked his head to the side. "But a battle is coming, Perkar," he hissed softly. "A war of gods and men. You would be wise to choose the right side."
"A war?" Perkar grunted. "I'll have no more of that."
"You have no choice, pretty thing." Karak stretched his wings and beat once more at the air. His flight seemed labored, but the higher he flew, the more dextrous he became.
Perkar frowned at his retreating form. "Thank you," he called out. "But how did you know my plan to fight the Changeling?"
Karak uttered a short, harsh laugh. "With which of these did the Forest Lord arm himself against his Brother?" he called, in the mocking voice of the Lemeyi.
For an instant, Perkar's dulled brain did not understand, then fury stabbed through the fog.
"You!" he shrieked. "That was you."
"Indeed," came the diminishing voice of the Raven. "And you have everything you desired. Your enemy at hand and a weapon to kill him with. Good luck to you, Perkar. I will send you one last gift…"
And, despite Perkar's curses and imprecations, he was gone and did not return.
Perkar sat on the shingle until the sun westered and the long shadow of the gorge consumed him. Then, not knowing what else to do, he rose stiffly to his feet and began to walk along the narrow shore, downstream. He passed the sandbar, where the corpse of the horse lay, bloated and covered with flies. He recognized it, of course; the Kapaka's horse. Reluctantly Perkar waded out to it, sinking up to his waist. The water felt like any water he had ever been in, save for a faint cold tingling that might have been the result of his exhaustion. Two days' sleep, it seemed, were not enough to heal such grievous wounds as his without cost.
The horse stank terribly, but Perkar managed to free the packs that still remained upon it. He found full waterskins (he did not trust the River) and some food, the latter miraculously still dry in its resin-impregnated sack. These he took, along with a single bar of incense and a flask of woti, presumably one of the gifts the Kapaka had been saving for the Forest Lord. He trembled as he took them, remembering the dream he had shattered, the misfortune he had brought to his people, grandchildren who would not see their grandfather again. The Kapaka was dead at heart before the hunt came after them, dead the moment the Forest Lord revoked his offer of new lands.
My king is dead, he realized, and his knees buckled, betrayed him into the cold River water. This was what it had all come to. A strange, new kind of panic came over him, a lucid surge of horror. Since Apad had killed the guardian, everything had seemed a terrible dream, the sort one could never run fast enough in. Now the running was done, the nightmare over, and he awoke to find it all true, morning without light or comfort.
He had not merely led his friends to their deaths, not merely thwarted his king's wishes; he had destroyed the Kapaka, killed him.
For the first time since leaving his father's valley, he felt the eyes of his people fasten on him, accusing. He had felt them before, but then they looked upon him with amusement, with disdain at worst, seeing a "man" without a wife, without lands, without Piraku.
Now they saw a monster. His father, his mother, his brother, his grandfather, his honored ancestors—even they saw him so, the man who had killed the king, and more. For in killing the Kapaka, he might have killed his people. If the Forest Lord was now their enemy…
They had been fools. He had been so much worse than a fool. No weapon could cut the Forest Lord, no host could stand before the hunt. If his people marched against Balati—for revenge, for territory—they would be swept away like autumn leaves before a whirlwind.
Because of me.
He thrashed about in the shallows, searching for the king's body, for anything. For something to save. But he knew, even as he thrust numb fingers against the rocky bottom, knew that the Changeling had taken his share, too, taken the Kapaka to make pebbles of his bones and fish of his flesh. Taken even that.
So Perkar continued on, stumbling, almost blind with remorse.
It was nearly dark when he saw the spark of flame ahead, and the only hope he had felt since meeting Karak quickened his pace. The wind shifted his way, and he smelled burning juniper. It seemed delicious to him, more desirable than any food. When he got closer, he could see a Human form huddled near the fire, eyes reflecting the flames as they watched him approach.
"Ngangata!" Perkar called. An arm raised weakly, waving.
"I think you did slow them down," Ngangata told him, his voice scratchy and weak. "For what it was worth. It is good that Apad died well." He seemed genuine.
"I should have died, too."
Ngangata did not respond to that. "The Huntress was dismounted," he said, after coughing a bit. "You must have killed her lion."
Perkar twitched his lip. "My sword did."
Ngangata nodded. "Well. We could have all had swords like that, and it would have made no difference. You and Apad did well. It was my mistake. I meant to bring us out farther upstream, where the river-wall is lower."
"Your fault?" Perkar declared incredulously. "Apad and Eruka and I broke the trust. We stole the weapons, killed their guardian. You have done nothing but try to salvage something from the tatters we left you. Nothing here is your fault, Ngangata. I only wish you had killed me, back in that cave where we fought."
Ngangata coughed raggedly. "That might have been best," he agreed. "Apad and Eruka would have never had the courage to enter the mountain by themselves."
"I know that. Why didn't you beat me when we fought? You could have, and I deserved it."
Ngangata looked dully up at Perkar. "Do you know how many times I have had to fight because of what I am? Seven days haven't gone by since childhood without some loudmouth challenging me. In my youth, I always fought to win, and I usually did." He gazed out across the River. "I believed that someday men would respect me, if not like me. But when I beat them, it was never said that I was fast, or strong, or brave. Always it was said I won because I was not Human, a beast. When men say things like that, they talk themselves into doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do."
"What do you mean?"
"Years ago, a man—never mind his name—I fought him, much as I fought you. But I beat him, in front of his friends. Later that night they all came for me, battered me senseless. I was lucky to survive."
Even in his present state, Perkar was shocked. "No warrior would ever do such a cowardly thing." He gasped. "Piraku…"
"Does not apply to one such as myself," Ngangata said dryly.
Perkar, ready to continue his protest, stopped. The Kapaka had said nearly the same thing. And if Perkar had been humiliated by Ngangata, what would Apad have said? He would have asserted precisely what Ngangata claimed—that the half Alwa had an unfair advantage over Humans.
"I see," Perkar said instead. "Yes, I can see that."
Ngangata waved his hand. "It's an old story," he said, dismissing the matter.
Darkness fell complete, though after a time the Pale Queen peeped over the canyon rim. Frogs sang in the River, and the two men huddled closer to the fire as mosquitoes tried to drain what was left of their blood.
"I'm glad you lived," Perkar said, after a time. "But the king… ?"
"The Kapaka is dead," Ngangata replied. "He hit the rocks and the River took him. I think he was dead even as we jumped; one of the Huntress' arrows pierced him."
"I found his horse," Perkar told him, feeling his throat tighten as he said it. "I've got some water and food."
"Good. We'll need those."
"The Kapaka…" Perkar gasped, choking back a groan, his odd panic suddenly intensified.
"Many died," Ngangata answered him. "We survived. That is a fact."
"He was not your king," Perkar hissed.
"No. He was much more than that to me," Ngangata shot back wearily.
Perkar stared at the glimmer in Ngangata's eyes and wondered what he meant, what lay there behind the black orbs.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I don't know you at all, Ngangata." He shifted, peered more closely at his companion. "What wounds do you have?"
Reluctantly the half man pulled his shift aside. A bloody bandage covered his ribs. "An arrow there," he said. "And my right leg is broken. Not bad for an encounter with the Huntress and a fall down a canyon."
A sudden inspiration struck Perkar. "Take this sword," he said. "It can heal you."
"No," said the voice in his ear. "Saving you bound our heartstrings together. I explained that. No one else can bear me unless those strings are severed, and that, of course, would kill you."
Ngangata saw the look of consternation cross his face.
"What is it?" he asked.
"My sword speaks to me," Perkar told him hesitantly. "It says it can heal only me."
Ngangata lifted his shoulders, attempting a shrug. "No matter," he said. "I will heal. My leg is splinted already, and the bleeding from the arrow has stopped."
Perkar doubted that last; he had seen the flecks of blood when Ngangata coughed. He did not mention this, however.
"Tomorrow I will hunt for us, or fish perhaps," Perkar told him. "When you can walk, we will strike off down-River."
"If you are hunting, we will certainly starve," Ngangata replied, but he smiled a bit.
"An insult!" Perkar returned, with a forced playfulness no more real than the love of a corpse. "Now we shall have to fight again." He tried to grin.
"This time I will kill you," Ngangata replied, in kind.
His smile was cruelly painful, and so Perkar relinquished it. "You were the best of us, Ngangata. We shall never fight again." He reached over and grasped the other man's hand. Ngangata returned the grip; it was still surprisingly strong. The strength seemed to leak out of it, though, and the pale man sank back onto his rough pallet of reeds, eyes closing gently. Perkar's heart caught in his throat.
"Ngangata!" he cried, reaching for the man's neck to seek his pulse.
"Let me sleep," Ngangata whispered. "I need some sleep."
Perkar sat with him, occasionally touching the body to make sure it was still warm. "I want you to live," he told the sleeping man.
The gorge walls kept the sun from waking Perkar until late morning. He rubbed his eyes and wondered where he was. The swiftly flowing River reminded him, and he turned anxiously to Ngangata. His companion was still asleep, but a brief touch was enough to assure him that Ngangata was still alive. He rose and stretched in the sunlight, feeling better than he had in some time. Surprisingly, his sleep had been untroubled by dreams. Perhaps the Changeling ate those, too.
Waking was more painful; the Changeling apparently feasted neither on memory nor on guilt.
He set about trying to make good on his promise to find food. He was ravenous, and yet the hunger was pleasing, as if he were a shell filled only with air and light.
He fashioned a gig with his boot-knife and the slender branch of a willow, lashing the knife on with a length of leather lace. Crouched by the River, he waited for a fish to come by. He waited a long time before he saw something moving along, something broad and fish-shaped. He set his mouth in anticipation, and when the creature swam beneath his spear, he stabbed downward with it, felt the point plunge into flesh. With a flourish and a cry, he heaved the fish up onto the bank, where it flopped about wildly.
It was a strange fish, the like of which he had never seen, plated with armor. Still, it would certainly be edible… Perkar watched in shocked wonder as the fish suddenly collapsed in upon itself, became a stream of water, and flowed back into the River. A tingle ran up the nape of his neck as he fully recalled where he was. This was the Changeling, and nothing was what it seemed here, where water could dream of being a fish.
He speared five of the ghost fish before finally skewering one that fell out on the bank and stayed there. Unlike the others— which had all been unfamiliar in appearance—this was a trout, and a large one. Disquieted by the new revelation regarding the River, but still happy to have caught something to eat, he stirred up their small fire, added a few branches to it, and gutted the fish. He was just propping their soon-to-be meal above the flames when something on the River caught his peripheral vision.
There was a boat coming downstream. Perkar blinked at it for a moment and then, with a wild cry, plunged into the water. In an instant he was over his head, and he thanked the Stream Goddess that he had learned to swim as a child. Stroking frantically, he strained to intercept the craft before it whisked past him. He needn't have worried; the boat nudged into him, as if by a will of its own. Throwing his arms up over the sides, he pulled himself in.
It was a fine craft, shallow draft, a dugout that must have been hewn from an outrageously large tree, so broad and steady it was. Perkar scrambled back to the tiller, took hold of it, and pointed the bow toward shore. The boat responded as if it were being paddled, actually cutting a wave across the current as it glided sedately to the rocky beach. Perkar remembered Karak's parting words, his promise of a last gift. This was certainly it. Perkar doubted that god-made boats were often found wandering masterless, even on the Changeling.
He secured the boat as best he could to one of the few willows on the shore, then walked back upstream. He found Ngangata awake—probably roused by his frantic cries—and tending the fish.
"I take back what I said," Ngangata confessed. "You have caught two fish today."
Perkar smiled weakly, indicating the boat. "A gift from the Crow God, I think."
"From the Raven," Ngangata corrected. "The Crow God gives nothing away."
"There are two of them? Two Karakal?"
Ngangata snorted. "No."
Perkar thought he understood, but he was weary of gods, sick to death of them, and did not feel like perfecting his knowledge of them any more.
"Are the walls of the canyon lower farther down?"
"Lower and more sloped, perhaps a day or so downstream," Ngangata acknowledged. "There will be rapids between here and there."
"Should we wait until you are stronger?"
Ngangata shook his head. "We should go now. If the Raven knows we are here, the Crow does, as well, and one can never be sure where which Karak will be at any moment. Better to leave Balat behind."
"I agree with that," Perkar conceded. "We'll eat, and then we'll go."
As it turned out, it was nearly dark before they set out; Ngangata's dressing needed changing; Perkar went back upstream to salvage the leather from the harness and saddle of the dead horse. Ngangata claimed that it would be many days before they reached any Human settlements, and they would need everything they could carry with them. Perkar wished desperately that he had taken more from Mang, but his own pack was all he had; there were some useful things in it: sinew, whetstone, a fire-making kit, but no food. Perkar wondered aloud what would happen to them if they had to drink River water. Ngangata pointed out that they could drink from streams that fed the Changeling, for they would be innocent of weirdness until they joined him.
Like the goddess, Perkar thought.
When they did put out into the River, Perkar felt a return of his earlier depression. Ngangata, exhausted by even a little labor, fell asleep quickly, leaving him alone with the slowly appearing stars, with the lapping of water at the bow. The lapping of his enemy. It was a quiet moment, even within him. The terrible raging of his mind was calmer, replaced by melancholy, by reflection. It occurred to Perkar that he had ruined the Kapaka's expedition and gotten everyone but Ngangata killed so that he could reach this River and challenge it. Now that he was here, probably less than a day from the Changeling's source, he was timidly fleeing it. If it weren't for Ngangata…
Then what? Perhaps better to perish at least attempting that for which he had sacrificed so much than to return with the shame that would follow him home. He had killed his king and perhaps ruined his people. His only hope was to die well, like Apad and Eruka.
But he would not have Ngangata killed, not him, too. No one else should suffer for his destiny. Idly, Perkar drew his sword, laid it across his knees.
"Can you see the Changeling's heartstrings?" he asked it.
"They are faint, far upstream. I can see them."
"Are they many?"
"Seven times seven," the sword replied.
"But he sleeps. How many could I sever before he awakens?"
"Many, perhaps. Not enough."
Perkar knit his brows in frustration. Would he ever be this close again? How often did the River sleep, present this opportunity? He brooded, and in the next few moments, a plan came to him. He would take Ngangata to the first Human settlement, see that he was cared for, and then come back, if he could. The boat was magical, steering itself, cutting easily across even this swift current. Would it sail upstream?
Perkar felt a bit of elation. He could test that now. He would not go far upstream; but if it could be done, then he would not feel so helpless, so cowardly. He would know that return was possible.
Checking to make certain that he would not run them aground, Perkar pulled the tiller half and then all the way around. The boat responded instantly, turning on the rushing water as if it were a placid lake. In no time, their prow was aimed upstream, back at the mountain, the heart of Balati. Not only pointed that way, but moving upstream. Perkar tightened his grip on the tiller, jubilant. He would take Ngangata on down-River and then come back, to die perhaps, but at least to have an ending. Triumphant, he let the boat keep its nose for just a bit longer.
The craft suddenly shuddered, the tiller wrenched from his hand. A wave from nowhere slapped the prow, and then, as if the wave were a great hand, turned the boat about and bore them back downstream. Perkar yanked at the tiller, but it was like straining upon a rod of steel forged to steel; it would not move in his grip at all. Around them, the River was abruptly different, somehow. It took him a moment to place the difference, but soon he understood it. The moonlight, formerly broken by the River into a million softly glowing shards, was gone from the water. The stream flowed as dark and silent as a night without any light at all. But above them, in the sky, the Pale Queen was glorious still, almost full.
"Well," the voice in his ear remarked. "Now be is awake."