“Yes, I have many suits of armor, many forms I may wear. Not as many as Karak, perhaps, but sufficient,” the Huntress answered.

“You wanted to eat me before,” Hezhi said, trying to summon some bravery to calm her voice.

“Yes. Perhaps I will yet, sweetmeat, but not at the moment. Karak's silly plan has finally come to my attention, and when I saw you coming, I thought to speak to you.”

“Oh?” She felt a faint relief wash over her, but kept a firm grip on her skepticism. Could she fly faster than the Huntress? Perhaps she and the bull could, but she did not want to lose the mare and the swan.

“Yes. I have some things to show you. We will travel together.”

As she said this, the mare and swan shook themselves as if waking. “Come.” The Huntress turned from them and began loping across the land. “Stay in my prints,” she called back over her feline shoulders. That commandment was simple enough to keep—the pawprints of the lion blazed the earth, blurred together into a trail of heatless flame. Hezhi rode with the bull, the swan on her shoulder, the mare just behind them so that they were really one, an eight-legged chimera with wings. Surrounded by her beasts, Hezhi felt confident again, but now she knew how illusory that confidence was, and she did not allow it to overwhelm her.

Running in the footsteps of the Huntress, their speed increased fivefold. The otherworld blurred into a void of transmuting shapes and colors.

When at last they stopped, it was upon the edge of a precipice; below stretched a plain.

“Here,” the Huntress purred. “This is as close as we dare approach—for the moment.”

“Approach whatV Hezhi asked, wondering what the Huntress could possibly fear.

“There,” the Huntress answered. “Take your swan through the lake, there, and look—but only from a distance.”

“Can I do that?“ Hezhi asked doubtfully.

“Yes. I will guide you.”

Hezhi cast another uncertain glance at the plain, and her keen eyes caught something, strange even in the otherworld. It looked something like a spider, or perhaps a spider and its web somehow become a single thing; a mass of tangled black strands and faintly multicolored bulbs that writhed aimlessly as they crept across the earth. “What is thatT Hezhi asked, pointing.

The Huntress growled, deep in her chest, before replying.

“That is what the Changeling sends to reclaim you,” she answered. “I have watched him grow from a seed of death into that mockery of gods and men that crawls where no such thing should crawl. Long have we tolerated the Changeling, for his power was so great, and, after all, he lay quiet in his bed most of the time. Now he sends things like this out and about. For that affront I have chosen to help Karak kill him.”

Hezhi turned to face the lioness. Crouching on the stone, she had changed a bit in appearance. Her fierce feline visage had crushed itself flat, so that the brilliant points of her teeth now gleamed from a face that somewhat resembled that of Ngangata or Tsem, but harsher, more brutal. The cords of leonine muscle had altered subtly so as to be more Human in appearance, as well, though Hezhi counted, with startlement, eight breasts on her tawny chest and belly.

“Why do you need usl” she asked. “I have a little power, it is true, but it is as nothing compared to yours. Perkar is handy with his enchanted weapon, but he told me of encountering you once before and how easily you dispensed with him. And yet every step of our journey has been planned by you gods. You cajole us and order us—I suspect one of you attacked Moss and the other Mang who followed us.”

“That last was one of Karak's pets,” the Huntress confessed. “But as to the other questions …” She leaned close, until the stink of rotten meat steamed in Hezhi's face. “I am not wont to answer questions. But you have been brave, and you command Hukwosha. And who knows, if all goes well you will have more power yet, before it is over, and perhaps I will ask favors of VOM. But listen, for I will not tell you a second time.” She glanced—almost furtively—back at the spidery thing on the plain and then continued. ”In the mountain, you met us all. Balati the One-Eyed Lord, Karak the Raven, Ekama the Horse Mother, and myself. But we are not separate things, and at times we do not exist at all. In all of the mountain, there is really only one god, and that is Balati. But Balati is vast, and ancient, and his tendency is to let this part of himself go this way and that part of himself go another. Karak is the one who is the most unfettered, the least like the rest of us in will and in purpose. Balati, he of the single eye, is where our true home resides—much as your spirits now reside in your heart—but he is a slow god, moving to the cycles of the earth and sky, not to the little moments and heartbeats that living things cherish. That I cherish.

“Now, this god you call the River, we call the Changeling, but we also call him 'Brother,' for he is that to us. Indeed—“ Her brow bunched and played as she considered her words. ”—it may be that he was once a part of us, just as I am. If so, he escaped entirely. And now Balati is slow to understand peril; he is still reluctant to act against his brother. He is angry, yes, but he cannot see the danger. Until recently, I was of the same mind. Only Karak knew better; Karak has labored long and secretly against the Changeling.”

“Why? Why secretly?”

The Huntress grinned a sharp, malicious grin. “If Balati is so moved, he can extinguish any one of us. Karak as Karak could cease to be, and of all of us, Karak most loves being”

“I still don't understand.”

“It's simple enough; the irony is delicious. Were it not for Karak, there would be no Changeling. That is the secret he has worked so long to keep hidden. That is why he strives so mightily and so stealthily to destroy the Brother.”

“Karak's fault? I don't understand.”

“It was a prank, at first., some joke of his that got out of hand. It is too long to tell, here and now. Suffice to say that once the Changeling was just a god like other gods, content and contained within the mountain. Karak tricked him into releasing himself, into becoming the River you know. That was long, long ages ago, but for Balati it was an eyeblink. He will not let us cut out the Changeling like the cancer he is. That is why we need you mortals. He does not notice you. When your enemies—“ She waved a pawlike hand at the plain. ”—when they invade Balat, the great forest, he will not object to my attacking them. When you enter into the mountain and find the River's source, he will not be aware of you, for Karak and I will cloak you. There you can do what must be done.”

“And what is that?” Hezhi demanded.

The Huntress raised her hand to her face and ran a large, black tongue over her fur.

“That I don't know,” she admitted. “Karak knows; he is the trickster, the sorcerer, the bringer of newness. He knows, and he will tell you. Trust that.”

“Do we have a choice in this?” Hezhi asked, not wanting to, but knowing she must.

The Huntress considered that for only an instant. “Of course. You can choose to die. Little thing, the River made you to pour himself into. The Life-Stealer down there wishes to return you to him, and if he is successful, you will show him to be the shadow that he really is. You will be much like him, but if he is a blade of grass, you will be a forest. You will devour all of the world, including all of my children, and that I will not allow. I will kill you myself, if I can.”

“If the danger is that great, I probably should die. When I come to his source, won't he take me then?”

“Not if you are strong; he can no more see himself at his source than you can see your own brain. And you have resisted him before.”

“It was too hard,” she whispered. “I nearly failed. Perhaps I should die.”

The Huntress crooned a long “noooo, ” and to Hezhi's vast surprise, she laid a now fully Human—if still furred—hand upon her shoulder. “He will only make another, in time. It may be a thousand years, but he will make another. And it is a paradox—at least this is what Karak says—that only one suited to hold him can destroy him. I don't know that this is true, but if it is, then his opportunity is also ours. Karak has apparently had his eye on this situation for many years. I despise trusting him, but here even I have no choice.” She turned a slit-pupiled eye on Hezhi. “Nor do you. Now, look.”

Hezhi felt the swan settle up higher on her head. She closed her own eyes and, when she saw again, it was through those of the bird. And in a single blink, she beheld blue sky and green grass, as those eyes slipped through the surface of the otherworld and into the more familiar colors and sounds of her own.

On the plain, where the spider-thing sat beneath the lake, an army rode, an army of Mang. She glided over them, buoyed up by the heat rising in lazy spirals from the earth. Another bird flew with her, she saw, a keen-beaked falcon with the Huntress' twinkle in her eye.

She followed the falcon down, until she could easily pick out the weary faces of the men, see the perspiration on their brows.

And so, at last, with a braided mixture of joy and horror, she saw Ghan. On a horse! He rode listlessly, but in his face she could see mirrored the blaze of thought mat must burn behind his weariness.

Near Ghan, she made out another familiar face—Moss. And now she could see what he had hidden from her before: the spirits crowded within him. No wonder the bull had found them so easily, no wonder Moss had ridden through the herd unscathed! He was the gaan, the great shaman.

And with them rode another figure, one that even in mortal vision shimmered with such power and elicited such fear that she could not mistake him: he was the Life-Eater, the web of blackness.

He was Yen.

The irony was that the goddess had spurned his love because she did not want to see him grow old and die. It was an irony that would drive his sword arm, he was certain.

After the meal, he confronted Hezhi. He tried to find some warmth in his voice if only for her sake. Part of him wanted to ask what was troubling her, to comfort her with a hug, but it seemed like too much trouble, and in her mood she might reject him anyway. He added this to his coldness; whatever tender feelings had developed between the two of them were doomed, and he knew it. He had never been honest with her about all he knew, and now he never would be. The destruction of the Changeling was too important to rest on the whims of a thirteen-year-old girl, even one he cared for. In the end, he might have to use force to get her to the River source. He did not want to do that, but he would. Now he would.

“We ride out by noon,” he told her. “Sheldu and his men will go with us.”

“That's good,” Hezhi murmured. “We may need more warriors.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked, aware of the frost in his voice but unable to do anything about it.

Hezhi's face reflected his tone; hurt and then anger passed over it, ultimately replaced by weariness.

“Never mind,” she whispered. “I'll get ready to ride.” She turned away, and Perkar realized for the first time that she had traded her Mang clothing for the embroidered yellow riding skirt and woolen shirt of a woman of his own people. It looked wrong on her somehow; the Mang attire suited her better.

“Yes,” he said to no one. “I'll get ready to ride, too.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught Ngangata's reproving and concerned gaze, but he shook it off, striding with purpose to the stables.

“Not quite,” Perkar said.

“No? This is how we met, equipping an expedition to ride into the realm of the Forest Lord. Now we are back to that point.”

“I suppose. For you and me, this is full circle. Full circle for me will be when we reach the mountain. That's where my mistakes began.”

“Oh, no,” Ngangata said. “Your mistakes began here, too, listening to Apad and Eruka—allowing their prejudices and fears to become your own—and hiding your agenda. The Kapaka would never have taken you along had he known you were in love with a goddess.”

“Is that what this is about? Are you here to dissuade me?”

“Yes. Your last quest to slay the Changeling brought all to ruin. Surely you remember.”

Perkar kneed T'esh roughly in the side; the stallion was blowing out so that the saddle would be loose, and today Perkar was having none of that.

“As usual, Ngangata, you know best. I even agree with you. Deep down, I no longer even believe in this quest. I do not think the Changeling can be slain, and I do not think I can put all my mistakes back the way they were. But I no longer have any choice in the matter.”

“You always have a choice.”

“Remember your diatribe against heroes, Ngangata? About how they are merely fools who have been glorified in song, how they are death to their companions?”

“I remember.”

“Then for the last time, ride away, because I think that soon I will die. And if I am a hero, we both know what will happen to my companions.”

Ngangata turned to his own mount. “I know this,” he said. “But does sheV

“Hezhi? No. Truth to tell, I don't think I am the hero this time at all, Ngangata. I think she is. Maybe she always was. And that means we are to die in her service. What point in telling her that? Perhaps she can slay the Changeling, as Karak says. Maybe I'll live long enough to see that. Gods granting, I'll take my revenge on his instrument, at least.”

Ngangata shook his broad head and waved away a horsefly. “You are intimately familiar with several gods, Perkar. Do you think them likely to grant you anything?”

“If it serves them, yes.”

“Very well,” he conceded. “But listen to me.” He turned his dark, Alwa eyes upon Perkar, eyes Perkar had once found so intimidating. Time and friendship had taught him to see the deep expressiveness of them, the concern there—but they still gave him pause. “I will not leave you, Perkar. I will not allow you to throw your life from you like a worn bowstave. Whatever else you may be, you are my friend, and I can say that of very few. So when you ride to meet death, think of me by your side.”

“I don't want that responsibility,” Perkar sighed.

“You don't have it,” Ngangata grunted, in answer. “But if I force you to think of me—or anyone—before yourself, I've done a good thing.”

Perkar watched as Ngangata finished saddling his mount and then led his horse from the stall. “Will we win, Ngangata? Can we defeat the Changeling?”

Ngangata uttered an odd little laugh. “Of course,” he answered. “Why not?”

Perkar smiled thinly in response. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Why not?”

Together they rode out to join the company of warriors.

Perkar wondered idly if “Sheldu's” bondsmen knew who their lord really was, but decided that it did not matter. They were a brave company, well armed, and they seemed fit for anything. Thirty men now, plus his original six. Would the Forest Lord notice them and stop them? Perkar understood from experience that against the Huntress and her host, they would be as nothing. Then again, Karak rode with them, though disguised. Perkar hated to admit it, but it was a huge relief; with a god riding at their fore, he no longer had to worry about whether he was making the right decisions, leading them down the correct path. As when he had been caught on the River, he had nothing to say about where he was going—only about what he did when he got there.

“Why haven't you traveled with us since the beginning?” he wondered to Karak aloud.

“I had things to do and I would have been noticed” was the reply—not explaining who would notice, of course, or what things he had to do. “Now—well, we are about to enter my home. Even now, however, I must remain disguised. Do not expect much overt help from me. I am your guide, not your protector, though the closer we get to Erikwer, the more help I can be.”

“Erikwer?”

“His source; the place in the mountain from which he flows,” Karak answered. After that, the Crow God rode up front to talk to one of his men.

So Perkar allowed T'esh to lag back. The stallion's coat gleamed, and Perkar himself had bathed, been dressed in fine new clothes, and a shining steel hauberk rode packed on Sharp Tiger. He should feel new and refreshed.

But two days before, riding and laughing next to Hezhi, smiling at her wonder at the mountains, he had felt a hundred times better. He realized, with some astonishment, that he had actually been happy. Odd that happiness was something one only identified when it was entirely absent.

The sun cast gold on bright new leaves and the upturned faces of wildflowers, but each moment only brought him closer to despair and doom.

He tried to brighten when Hezhi rode up but failed utterly.

“What's the matter?” she asked. For an instant he almost explained; it hung at his tongue. But the chill remained in him, and when he shrugged instead of answering her he could almost palpably feel her pulling back from him, retreating behind her own walls against hurt and closeness.

“Well, then,” she said awkwardly. “I came over because I need to tell you some things.” Her eyes wandered from her skirt briefly to his face and back down before she went on. “I journeyed last night. I saw an army of Mang riding to meet us. An army much larger than this one.”

“Oh?” he said. Karak had not shown him an army, though now that he thought of it, he had alluded to one.

“Yes. They are led by Moss.”

“Moss?”

“Moss is the gaan—though I suppose we should have known that. I should have seen it.”

“Brother Horse says that gaan can hide their natures, even from one another.”

“Yes. Still; when he came to me, in that dream, he was attacked by something I never saw—something commanding lightning. The next day you found Moss, wounded. I never made the obvious connection.”

Perkar held up one hand helplessly, not sure what to say. Moss was just a boy—who would expect him to be the leader of hosts of Mang warriors? But then, he was older than Hezhi, and not much younger than Perkar himself.

“This army also has someone else with it,” Hezhi said. “Someone impossible.”

“Impossible?”

He listened intently as she outlined her vision, and when he understood that she had seen the destroyer who had murdered the Stream Goddess, his chest tightened until he thought it might rip itself apart. But then she explained who he was, and he remembered.

“I chopped his head off,” Perkar said incredulously. “Off. ”

“This is the River at work,” she replied dully. “I'll fight you no more about going to She'leng, Perkar. I just want you to know that. You need not coax me any longer.”

“I was never—”

“Don't lie,” she answered, and with chagrin he saw real anguish in her eyes. “Yen lied to me, and now … now he's coming for me again. He may not have ever been human. All I understand is this: when one of you comes close to me, holds my hand, kisses me, it's only because he wants something besides me. Maybe if I live long enough, I can learn whatever secret it is, whatever magic exists that will let me survive that, but for now I've had enough of it. You and I will see this through; we will slay the River or die trying. But I don't trust you, Perkar, because I know you've lied to me. I am certain, at least, that there are things the Blackgod told you that you haven't chosen to share. So I'm not doing this because I trust you, Perkar, but because it is the only thing I can see to do. And I don't know that I like you very much, either.”

He listened to all of that helplessly, desperate to respond, but without anything to say. Because it was all true—all, save the implication that their recent closeness was no more than a ploy on his part. But he could see that it seemed that way, and besides, he didn't have the energy to argue. If she wanted it this way, it would only make things easier should they reach an impasse later on.

So instead of arguing, he only lowered his head, knowing that she would take that as a sign that everything she said was true. And after a moment she rode off to where Tsem, Brother Horse, and Yuu'han traveled in a little clump.

Though to be fair to her ancestors, being rid of such creatures as the Blackgod and the Huntress could at times seem desirable.

Five evenings later they capped a hill and she saw She'leng. She realized, with a start, that she had seen it earlier that day and believed it to be nothing more than a remote cloud, for it was so distant that it was only just darker than the sky. Nothing could be that far away and yet fill so much of the sky except a cloud. But when the sun touched it, and red-gold blood quickened on the outline of the peak, it stood revealed, like a ghost suddenly re-imbued with life and substance. It was still so far distant as to only be a shadow, but what a shadow! Its perfect cone filled the western quarter of the horizon. Truly such a place might give birth to gods, might humble even the likes of the River.

Throughout the journey, Perkar had become more and more distant, and though Hezhi wept about it once, secretly, she hardened her heart against him. She had given him the opportunity to dispute her, to tell her she was wrong, that he felt something more than some offensive mixture of anger and duty regarding her. He had refused the opportunity, and she would not give him the chance to hurt her again.

Besides, as the mountain waxed in the following days, recognition of the sheer audacity of what they were about grew proportionally, and that brought with it not only fear but a thriving excitement that she hadn't expected. Once she had stood on the edge of the palace, proposing her own death. Now she proposed to kill a god, the god of her ancestors—her ancestor.

Feeling an awkward need to express such feelings, she reluctantly guided her mount to where Brother Horse rode. He greeted her cheerfully, though since Raincaster's death his face more often fell in solemn lines.

“Hello, shizhbee” he said.

“It is well,” she answered, in Mang—her acceptance of his calling her granddaughter once again. He understood and smiled more broadly.

“I did have hopes of making a Mang out of you,” he remarked.

“I had hopes of being one,” she returned, a little more harshly than she intended. They wouldn't let me, she finished silently. But Brother Horse knew that, caught the implication, and an uneasy silence followed.

“I'm sorry,” Hezhi went on, before the quiet could entirely cocoon them. “You've been good to me, Brother Horse, better than I could have ever expected.”

“I've done no more than any other old man would do, to keep the company of a beautiful young girl.”

She actually blushed. “That's very—”

“It's true” Brother Horse insisted. “I'm like an old fisherman, come to sit down by the lake for a final time. I rest here with my feet in the water, and I know in my bones I won't be taking my catch home, not this time. Old men spend so much time thinking about the lake, about the dark journey that awaits us. The sight of beauty becomes precious—better than food, beer, or sex. And you have a glorious beauty in you, child, one that only someone with sight like mine can appreciate.”

“You aren't going to die,” Hezhi whispered.

“Of course I am.” Brother Horse snorted. “If not today, tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, the next day. But it doesn't matter, you see? There's nothing to be done about that. And this is fine company to die in.”

“I was worried that you came only because you thought you hadto.”

“What difference does that make?” Brother Horse asked.

“It's just that… I'm sorry about…” She remembered just in time that it was considered rude to name the dead until that name was passed on to another. “About your nephew,” she finished lamely.

His face did cloud then. “He was beautiful, too,” he murmured. ”What is comforting about beauty is that we know we will leave it behind us—that it goes on. When it precedes us, that's tragedy.”

He turned his face from her, and she heard a suspicious quaver in his voice when he spoke down to Heen, who trotted dolefully along the other side of his horse. “Heen says that's the problem with being as old as we are,” he muttered gruffly. “Too much goes before you.”

He reached over and ran his rough hand on her head, and she did catch a glint of moisture in his eyes. “But you won't,” he muttered. ”I'll see to that.” He straightened in the saddle and coughed. ”Now. What did you really ride over here to talk about?”

“It's not important.”

“I think it is. You've been silent as a turtle for three days, and now you choose to speak. What's on your mind?”

She sighed and tried to collect the fragments of what she had been thinking. “I was wondering how I should be feeling, going to slay my own ancestor. It should seem like murder, like patricide. Like killing my own father.”

Brother Horse looked at her oddly. “But you don't feel that way.”

“No … a little maybe. I was brought up to worship him. But then I remember my cousin, D'en, and the others below the Darkness Stair. I remember him filling me up, being inside of me, and I don't feel very daughterly at all. I want him to die. With so many gods in the world, he will hardly be missed.”

“Not true,” Brother Horse said. “His absence will be felt, but gladly. The world will be better without him. Are you afraid?”

“I was. I have been. But now I only feel excited.”

The old man smiled. “Felt that way myself, on my first raid. Just kept seeing that trophy skin in my hand, decorating my yekt. I was scared, too, but I didn't know it. The two feelings were all braided up.”

“It's like that,” she affirmed. “It's just like that. It's frustrating because I can't picture what will happen when we get there. I can't rehearse it in my mind, you see? Because I don't know what I am to do!”

“I rehearsed my first battle a hundred times,” Brother Horse said, “and it still went completely wrong. Nothing I imagined prepared me for it. You might be better off this way.”

“But why is this kept from me? Why shouldn't I know?”

“I can't guess. Maybe so no one learns it from you. Moss might be able to do that.”

“Oh.” They traveled on silently for a bit, but this time it was a comfortable pause. In that interval she reached over and touched the old man's hand. He gripped hers in return.

“If we succeed—if we slay him—I wonder, will the little gods like those who live here return to Nhol? Will the empire become like Balat?”

“No place is like Balat,” the old Mang assured her. “But I take your meaning, and yes, I think so. When he is no longer there to devour them, the gods will return.”

“That's good, then,” she said.

Tomorrow would. In Erikwer she would find release in one way or the other, release from the very blood in her veins by slaying or dying. And with that thought, tentative elation waxed fierce, and she remembered the statuette Yen had given her—so long ago it seemed. The statuette of a woman's torso on a horse's body, a representation of the Mang belief that mount and rider were joined together in the afterlife. She had become that statuette now. She was mare, bull, swan—but above all she was Hezhi, and she would live or die as herself. That could never be taken from her again.

Though everyone else trotted, she urged Dark into a gallop, stirring a small storm of leaves in the obscure light. The others watched her go, perhaps amused; she did not care. She wanted to run, to feel hooves pound in time with her heart. Tree branches whipped at her as the trail narrowed and steepened, but Dark was surefooted. Whooping, suddenly, she rounded a turn that plunged her down along a hillside—

And nearly collided with another rider. The horses shuddered to a halt as the other person—one of Sheldu's outriders—shot her a look that contained both anger and fear. She opened her mouth to apologize, but he interrupted.

“Mang,” he gasped. “We can't go that way.”

“What?”

“In the valley,” he insisted, waving his arms. “A whole army.” He frowned at her and then urged his mount past, disappearing up the slope.

Hezhi hesitated, her reckless courage evaporating—but not so fast as to take curiosity with it. The trail bent in a single sharp curve ahead, and through the trees bordering the trail she could see the distant slopes of another valley, far below. She coaxed Dark around that curve—hoping for just a glance of the army the outrider spoke of.

Beyond, the trees opened, and she faced down a valley furrowed so perfectly it might have been cut with a giant plow. On her right was only open air. To her left, the trail became no more than a track reluctantly clinging to the nearly sheer valley wall. So steep and narrow it was, she could hardly imagine a horse walking it without tumbling off; there were no trees on the precipitous slope to break such a fall before reaching the lower valley where the grade lessened and trees grew. Nevertheless, a group of Sheldu's men stood, dismounted, farther down the trail, and far below them another knot of men and horses struggled up the track. Below them, through the gaps in spruce and birch, sunlight blazed on steel in a thousand places, as if a swarm of metallic ants were searching the narrow valley for food.

But they were not ants; they were men and horses: Mang.

Yes, it was time to return to the group. She wondered how long it would take the army to climb the trail, and if the riders already coming up the slope were friend or foe. They were dark, like Mang, but even with her god-enhanced sight they were difficult to make out, though one seemed familiar.

That was when her name reached her ears, borne by wind, funneled up to her by the valley walls.

“Hezhi!” Very faintly, but she recognized the voice. And then it came again. Gaping, she turned Dark back toward the approaching army.