“Do I? I can never remember.”
“Exactly. Exactly!” the Raven cackled.
“What about you, girl? Do you wish to be eaten?”
“No,” Hezhi said, anger beginning to slice through her awe. “No, not at all. I only want to understand what has happened.”
“Well, you flew through a lake, I suppose, and came to the mountain. That would mean either that you are dead—which you are not—or that you are a great shaman …”
“Which she is not,” the black bird finished.
“No,” Hezhi agreed. “I don't think I am either of those.”
“You followed my child,” the other woman—who could only be the Horse Mother—said. “What do you want of my child?”
“Nothing!” Hezhi cried. “I only want to go back. I made a mistake.”
“Imagine that,” the Raven said. “But I say when one visits the mountain, one never goes away the same. Look at her, my kindred. A girl who flies about like a shaman, and yet she has no servants in her mansion.” He tapped his breast with his beak.
“What concern is that to us?” the cat-woman asked. “What does it concern us that this Changeling brat has no helpmates?” She looked suspiciously at the bird. “Is this some trickery of yours, Karak? Some part of your silly machinations?”
“I know her only by reputation,” the Raven said. “She caused something of a stir down the Brother's course.”
“I cannot see there,” the monster with one eye rumbled. “He has closed that to me.”
“Then it might not hurt to have an ally there, even a mortal one. Give the child what she came for.” The bird winked at Hezhi.
“I didn't come for anything,” Hezhi insisted.
“Everyone who travels to the mountain comes for something,” the cat-woman snarled. “I'll give her none of mine; she hasn't earned them.”
“Be reasonable, Huntress. I could only give her a crow, not really the sort of helper that would do her much good.”
The “Huntress” snorted. “No, I should think not. Silly, willful creatures, always cawing in alarm at the slightest scent of danger.”
“I won't argue,” Karak said agreeably. “That is why I suggest you give her something. A tiger, perhaps, or even a ferret.”
“A tiger? No, I think not. I'll have none of this.”
The Horse Mother looked up from her child. “Did you come for a helper? You must know it was foolish to come to the mountain for such a thing. Without one, you can never return.”
“I didn't mean to come here,” Hezhi said, helplessness—and thus anger—swelling in her.
“Life often ends with a mistake,” the Huntress remarked.
“Huntress—” the Raven began.
“No! Enough of you, Karak. Balati, judge!”
The giant blinked his eye slowly. “Hold her until her body dies,” he said. “Then we will reclothe her in something. You decide, Huntress.”
“Lord—” the bird began, but then his beak seemed to seal shut; and though he struggled to speak further, only muffled grunts escaped him.
“Fine,” the Huntress said, smiling. She waved toward Hezhi, and she lost consciousness.
SHE awoke in a chamber of obsidian, if “awoke” was the right word to describe her passage back to consciousness. Her “body” no longer sparked and flashed; it had faded to a faint translucence through which she could see the shadows of her bones, her organs, the faintly pulsing lines of her heart. The scale on her arm showed as a searing white spot, however, and from it whirls of color traced up her nonexistent arm, making it seem much more real than the rest of her.
“Hello!” she shrieked, but she expected no reply and got none. She wondered, dully, if the altered appearance of her ghost meant that her body had died or if it reflected some other change in quality about which she knew absolutely nothing.
She had met gods now, not just the little gods in Brother Horse and the landscape, but the Emperor of Gods, Balati, the Huntress, Karak the Raven, and the Horse Mother. Perkar had described all of them save the Horse Mother. It still seemed worse than unreal to Hezhi; it seemed like the cusp of nightmare and waking, her mind insisting that it was all illusion and night terror, assuring her that she need only keep hold of her fear until morning. How could this be real?
But the Blessed beneath the palace were real; the River was real. In a world that held those things, why not gods with antlers? Because she thought they were silly, or barbaric, or unlikely? They would kill her, no matter what she thought.
She set about exploring her prison. It was less a chamber than a glassy tube, traveling roughly upward. She wondered if she could fly, as she had before, travel up along it. She tried, but nothing happened. She attempted climbing and had better success. Her ghost body seemed to have little if any weight. The slightest purchase of her fingers was enough. Unfortunately, there was little enough purchase of any kind in her prison, and she never gained more than thrice her own height, climbing.
She was still trying, however, when a voice spoke from behind her.
“Such a determined child. The Changeling chose well when he chose you.”
She turned, lost her tenuous hold on the wall, and plummeted. She fell with a normal sort of speed, but the impact hurt her not at all.
“Who are you?”
“You should know me. Perhaps Perkar has spoken of me.”
She peered into the darkness, made out a pair of yellow eyes. “Karak?” she asked, the alien name croaking clumsily from her mouth.
“In the well-wrought flesh,” the voice answered.
“Perhaps you have come to taunt me, then,” she said. “Perkar speaks of you as a malicious god.”
“Perkar seeks to assuage his own guilt by blaming others. No matter; I am fond of Perkar, though he maligns me. Tell me, did he return to the camp yet?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he tell you of his journey?”
“Nothing. He was injured.”
The Raven stepped forward, or perhaps became somehow more visible. “What injury could prevent him from talking? He carries Harka.”
“He is ill; some sort of spirit is eating his life. That is one reason I attempted the drum.”
“To save him?”
“Yes.”