VII Surrounded by Monsters

HEZHI leaned against the wind-smoothed stone, steadied herself, and caught her breath. Already the terror of what she had seen was fading, but the strangeness of it remained, the shock. Brother Horse had seemed to her, in the short time she had known him, the most Human of creatures: earthy, affectionate, and easygoing. He had comforted her from the first, from the moment they met, lifting her onto his horse, wrapping her tight in his arms as they thundered away from Nhol, from her birthplace and her doom.

But he was most certainly not Human, or at least not completely so. Human Beings did not have creatures living inside of them.

At least, she did not think they did.

“I can't trust anyone,” she said aloud. “Only Tsem.”

And perhaps Perkar. It was odd, that thought. She had known Perkar for no more than a day longer than she had known Brother Horse, and she had seen the ugliness he was capable of, the slaughtered bodies of her father's ehte guard, the decapitation of Yen. But Perkar and she were twisted together in some way, braided by their own desires—not for each other, perhaps, but bonded in some inextricable fashion. It was not love—she loved Tsem, she loved Ghan, loved Qey. What bound her and Perkar was not that, nor was it the awkward, restless desire that Yen had inspired. It was something less compelling but more powerful.

But that was her belly talking. Her brain was learning to trust itself, and it told her that even Perkar was not to be counted on.

The cliffs behind her soared as high as three-story buildings and were often as sheer as city walls. She had regarded them from afar, from the village, and they had seemed mysterious, intriguing. Like a city, yet not a city. Spires, walls, caverns like halls—she had imagined them all. Crinkling her brow, rebellious, she strode back into them, following a crooked canyon floor, trying not to think about the things in Brother Horse, the god of the cairn, about gods and demons everywhere.

She was suddenly struck by an odd memory. The stone rising about her seemed to form a vast hall, and save for the lack of buttresses and a real ceiling, she was suddenly, powerfully reminded of the Leng Court, where her father often held ceremonies and audiences. When last she had been in the court she had seen a drama, a representation of the legend of her family. It told of the People, surrounded on all sides by monsters, unable to save themselves, and of how Chakunge, the son of Gau—a chieftain's daughter—and the River destroyed them all.

Surrounded by monsters: that was what the Mang were, surrounded by monsters, in every stone—maybe more than surrounded, maybe even penetrated, if all were like Brother Horse. In Nhol, the River had changed that, at least, killed these things that infested the land the way termites infested wood or maggots old meat. Maybe that was what these cliffs were, a place where these “gods” had burrowed, like insects, through the land, tried in some crude fashion to form a city comparable to Nhol.

It dawned on her that her people might not have been all that different from the Mang at one time. The girl in the story, Gau: she had been the daughter of a “chieftain”—a very old word, one not used anymore except to refer to the leaders of barbarian tribes. But Hezhi's own people had once had chieftains, very long ago. Before becoming a part of the River, before escaping from these visions…

The wind hummed and shuddered through the stone corridors, and Hezhi felt fright creeping back upon her. What if her “godsight” came now, and she saw whatever thing made that noise? What if the cliffs suddenly came alive around her?

They could most easily enter her through her eyes, Brother Horse claimed. Despairing, she sank down to her knees, then sat, shut her eyes, and imagined a cool breeze across rooftops, Qey in the kitchen, fussing over an evening meal of braised chicken with garlic, black rice, and fish dumplings.

In Nhol she had learned to fear darkness; now she found solace in it.

I wish Perkar were here, she thought, clenching and unclenching fistfuls of the grainy sand. There was no snow here, though she had noticed drifts piled against the south canyon wall. Still, it was cold. It would get colder at night. Where would she go? Back to the camp, where Brother Horse and those creatures in him waited? Where everyone was a relative of the old man and no one trusted her at all?

Yes, she needed Perkar.

As she thought this a second time she suddenly realized what she was doing and snarled in sudden self-fury. Perkar was right not to trust her! Once she had called him from across the world, from his home and family, and for what? So that he could slaughter men in the streets of Nhol that she might escape her destiny. And now, here she was, in the midst of that new destiny he had sacrificed so much to help her create, and she was wishing for him to come save her again, to bring his bloody blade and make carrion of her problems.

No, not again. This time she would make her own way.

But what did that mean? Could she survive here, in the Mang Wastes, without the Mang or Perkar?

No, she could not.

Could she face Brother Horse again? She didn't know if she could do that, either.

Abruptly she realized that she might no longer have a choice. New sounds intruded upon the slow, terrible melodies of wind through stone. The muffled rhythm of hoofbeats, tinkle of brass bells, and human voices moving nearer with each moment. Reluctantly she opened her eyes and glanced quickly around. What would she do if it was Brother Horse? He must know that she had seen him. Had he intended that?

Well, she would face him. If she died, she died. She would not die weeping or cowering. She was Hezhi, daughter of the emperor of Nhol, once possessed of enough power to make the world quake beneath her feet. It would take more than an old man possessed by demons to make her cringe.

Still, she trembled a bit as she stood to face the hoofbeats.

Two horsemen had entered the canyon. Neither was Brother Horse. They were Mang, clothed in bachgay—long black coats split for riding—and flaring elkskin breeks. Rigid bands of lacquered armor showed beneath their coats. Both bore bows. It was plain, even to her, that they were following her tracks—and that they now saw her.

As they drew closer, she realized that she did not recognize them; they were not of Brother Horse's band. This was no surprise—since the Ben'cheen had begun, there were more strange faces than familiar ones. What was more disturbing was that these men also wore steel caps with plumes of red-dyed horsehair, and she remembered hearing that this signified being at war. She glanced around, wondering where she might hide, but there was nowhere; the cliffs were too sheer to scale—at least for her to scale—and there were no obvious caves or crevasses to crawl into. She could only watch them come, alert for any sign of their intentions on their faces.

When they drew nearer, they unstrung their bows, returned them to ornately embroidered sheaths. They paused in doing this, and though one might take his eyes from her, the other was always watching, as if she were a snake or some other dangerous thing.

Done disarming, they urged their mounts closer to where she stood, and she, not certain how to respond, merely watched them come.

“Du'unuzho, shigiindeye?” one asked softly. “Are you all right, cousin?” His accent was strange, not like that of Brother Horse, though she could still understand him. Up close, his face was not as fierce as it appeared from a distance; lean and narrow, it tapered pleasantly. His eyes were not black, as were her own or those of the other Mang she knew, but a light brown, flecked faintly with green. He was quite young, perhaps no more than fifteen. His companion looked the same age, though more thickly built, his face and eyes more typically Mang.