“To where?”
Ghan glanced up at him frankly. “Understand me,” Ghan said. “I think I have little use to you or the emperor other than my knowledge of where Hezhi is. I wish to preserve that usefulness as long as I may. For now, I will say only that you should sail to the mouth of that stream and then up it, if possible.”
Ghe nodded. There was nothing stupid about the old man. Indeed, he reminded Ghe of someone. For an instant, he knew who it was; the old woman on Red Gar Street, whom he had murdered. He felt a sudden flush of emotion at the thought, a shadow of the sadness that overtook him after she died. Why should this old man remind him of her?
They were both old, both ugly, both hard and unforgiving, that was what. Both dangerous, added to the list. But there was something more fundamental he could not remember.
“Well, then,” he said, to interrupt his own thought. “I shall take this news to Bone Eel, unless you wish to advise him yourself.”
“Please.” Ghan snorted. “I have spoken to him once; that shall suffice until such time as I die and he summons my ghost and compels me to speak to him again. I have avoided his sort for many years, and now I am crowded shipboard with one.”
Ghe nodded. “I understand you. The priesthood and engineers are full of his kind. I believe that it is actually Qwen Shen who leads this expedition.”
“Yes, Qwen Shen. Lady Fire, Lady Ice.”
“What?”
“That is the meaning of her name, you idiot,” Ghan said. “Fire, ice.”
“Oh.”
“Go. I have much reading to do.”
“Master Ghan, do you never do other than read?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that you have never been north of Nhol on the River. And yet, here you sit, closeted away, rather than beholding the world as it unfolds.”
“Yes, well, as of now I can pretend I am not on this mad journey. I can keep my mind on important things. Soon enough—when you have me marching overland on these ancient legs—I will not have that luxury. Besides, what can one see 'unfolding' out there?”
“Well … water and distant levees, I suppose, another boat now and then. I see your point.”
“Indeed. And a person of normal intelligence would have seen my point long ago and thus spared me wind that I cannot afford. I am old; there is not that much left in me.”
“Once again I apologize, Master Ghan, and I will leave you to your work.”
He bowed briefly and exited the room. He went back above and thought that he did not see Ghan's point. As he stepped out onto the polished planks, the world seemed wondrous and entirely new. The sun cast a cheerful yellow light on the world, and clouds meandered good-naturedly across a sky that, like the sun, was as simple and unshaded as the colors in his dreams. Some thirty or so of the soldiers stood along the railings, still in their aquamarine-and-gold kilts and burnished steel armor. His soldiers, really, here because he asked the emperor for them. Men who would fight and die at his command.
Best of all, the enterprise was not the wan hope it had once been. Ghan knew where Hezhi was, knew exactly where she was. Soon he would find her, protect her from her enemies, embrace her once again. He would bring her back to her father—not the poor flesh-and-blood one in the palace, but the one she truly belonged with. She fled him only because she did not understand him, and that because of the priesthood filling her from childhood with the wrong notions, notions that came from that dark place beneath, where a terrible creature masqueraded as Human while toying with the First Emperor on a chain. She had learned to fear the God, equate him with the perversions of the priests—perversions and fears that he himself had once embraced before death awoke him. But the River—the truth of him—was this he saw now, vastness, the sky come to live upon the earth, Ufe, the cycle of rain. Joy. In that instant, he felt his head and his feet as a world apart, and between them crawfish, gar, flatfish, crabs, catfish, eels—all of the living things in the waters, the vast brakes of reed and cane, the thick cypress and mangrove stands of the Swamp Kingdoms. No trace of hunger pained him, and the nightmare verity that he was dead seemed far distant, a misplaced worry. Only one unquiet thought lay in him, and it was annoying because he could not find its heart at all. In it was something of the temple and its weird master, but that was not the seed of his … worry? Fear?
Whatever it was, he would deal with it when it came, and now, for the first time since his rebirth, he felt—bizarrely—almost like singing. He would not let one skewed thought pull him away from this rare sensation. Nor would he sing; that would be too much, and others on the boat would think him addled—but he would watch the River gliding past and worship it, know it for his destiny, and that would be like singing.
IN his cabin, Ghan studied the map carefully, and another that held more detail. He cross-referenced it against the geography he had brought with him.
He trod a tightrope now, with razors on either side. If only he were absolutely certain that the priesthood had not sent a mission. But if they had, it was far ahead of them, and Hezhi and Tsem would have already escaped or been captured.
He did not see how the latter could happen unless the Mang sold her to them, and he could not imagine what a priest might offer or wield that would buy or intimidate the Mang.
His plan was still only half shaped, still coming together. Too much of it hinged upon Yen, who continually surprised him. There was something about Yen he did not understand, a part of the tapestry unwoven or out of sight, at least.
Meanwhile, he had his maps and his geography. He would learn what he could from them.
Thus, as Ghe walked abovedecks, wondering what prickled at his happiness, Ghan turned back to the first map and absently ticked his finger upon the conical drawing of a mountain labeled “She'leng,” whence the wiggly line signifying the River began. It was odd, he thought, how much it resembled the drawing that marked Nhol, half a world away.
XXI The Shadow Man
WAKE up, Perkar opened his eyes to a sky that shuddered and bumped so that he feared the clouds would shake loose from it and fall upon him. In fact, it seemed that some of them already had, for he was soaked to the bone. He raised his hand feebly in a vain attempt to brush the water from his clothing, and the world wobbled even more dangerously.
Someone chattered in a language that he didn't immediately understand—and then recognized as Mang. He jerked up, realizing suddenly how weak his body felt, how limp. His last real memory was of playing Slap with a big Mang warrior—and losing. What had they done with him?
He couldn't sit up, because he was tied down, strapped to a travois.
“Hey!” he tried to roar, but instead issued only a weak cough. Still, someone else heard it, and the scratching progress of the travois suddenly stopped.
A thick, half-Human face blotted the sky, and quick fingers pulled at straps on his chest.
“Ngangata,” Perkar croaked.
“How do you feel?”
“The way I felt after the Huntress was done with me. What happened?”
“Well, that is a very long story, and—”
“Perkar!” A rustling of cloth and soft boots on sand accompanied an excited shout. He turned his head and saw Hezhi scrambling across desert toward him.
“Brother Horse said you would wake up soon! I thought the rain would do it!”
“Hello, Princess. I hope someone can explain something to me soon.”
Thank her for saving your life, Harka muttered in his ear, faintly—as if the sword, too, were ill.
“Saved my life?” Perkar paraphrased. What was going on here? Surely he had broken his neck in the game of Slap and had taken some time to heal. But Hezhi stood wringing her hands, a variety of emotions playing across her face, and Ngangata looked happy, and perhaps surprised—as if neither ever expected to hear him speak again.
“What do you remember?” Hezhi asked, biting her lip.
“Nothing, I only—” But then Hezhi had buried her face in his shoulder, kneeling down to do so.
“I'm glad you're back,” she gasped, and her throat caught once, as if she would cry. Perkar was so startled that he had no reply, and by the time he thought to raise his own arms and return the embrace, she had already pulled away again. Her face was dry, and moreover, she suddenly seemed a bit embarrassed.
Ngangata had finished untying the straps. “Don't try to stand yet,” the Alwa-Man cautioned, but Perkar ignored him, trying to swing his feet around and ending by tumbling into the wet sand. Distant thunder rolled across the hills, probably one of the gods laughing at him.
“Well, alive again,” a gruff voice barked. It was Brother Horse. “Remember what I told you about the Mang being the only race to survive out here, in the time of creation? Remember that next time you think to play one of our games.”
“I will try to remember.”
“I will help,” Ngangata said. “Next time I will remind you by rendering you unconscious. You would suffer less damage that way, you idiot.”