“Stay in the travois a bit longer, until you are stronger,” Brother Horse suggested. “We have to be moving.”
“Why?”
“We are being pursued. We will explain that later, too.”
“I can ride alongside,” Hezhi offered.
“Give me a few moments to think,” Perkar said, “to speak with Harka. Then tell me.” He lay back into the rough construetion of hide and poles, then bolted back up as a sudden thought occurred to him.
“Sharp Tiger? Did you think to bring Sharp Tiger?”
Ngangata gestured with the back of his hand. “There he is. Now lie back.”
Perkar strained his neck to follow Ngangata's gesture, but he could see Sharp Tiger there, staring at him with what was probably horse-ish disdain.
He lay back and soon the sky began to rattle again. A gray cloud was winging over, and against it the tiny but brilliant form of some sort of bird—perhaps a crane.
“You seem to know what has happened to me, Harka.”
“Indeed, what has not happened to you? At some points I was nearly as ill as you, so my own memones are shaky through some of it. ”
“You were ill? What does that mean?”
“Our heartstrings are paired. Anything that brings you close enough to death weakens me, as well. ”
“But if I died, you would be set free.”
“Normally. Not in this instance, however. ”
Perkar shook his head in amazement. “Impossible for me to believe any of this. Tell me all, then, Harka. And tell me why I have Hezhi to thank for my life.”
Harka told him then, and afterward, Hezhi rode alongside to explain the occurrences in the world outside of his body. The fight, their flight from the Mang village, the battle of spirits for his life, the pursuit that they could see in the distance. Through all of this, Perkar felt steadily stronger. Without a supernatural entity to battle, Harka was healing him at the usual rapid pace. By the end of her story, Perkar was ready to try riding.
“Good,” Hezhi said. “Ngangata says we will be harder to track without the travois.”
“Probably. A travois leaves pretty deep and unmistakable prints. Even a hard rain might leave traces. How hard did it rain?”
“Not hard enough.”
The party regarded him silently, nervously, as he placed one boot into T'esh's stirrup and then heaved his belly onto the stallion's back. Grunting, he pulled his other leg over.
They resumed, and though he felt faintly dizzy and still very weak, Perkar was able to stay in the saddle for the rest of the day, refining his questions as they went along.
THAT afternoon they entered a hillier country, and their path tended generally to be upward as the land itself rose away from the lower steppe. In the distance, the mountains ceased to be faint purple clouds and had become worlds unto themselves, with forests, deserts, snowfields—close, it seemed, yet still far away and above them, it made Perkar feel easier, more at home, and a sudden realization struck him.
“Hezhi, where are we going? Other than fleeing from pursuit?”
“We are going to the mountain,” she stated, simply.
“The mountain.” There it was, lurking. He had been so concerned with the events during his days of forgetfulness that he had not put the days before it into perspective. Though he had not forgotten it, he had delayed thinking about his meeting with Karak—or the Blackgod, or whatever the fickle deity insisted on being called. Karak had told him to make certain that Hezhi reached the mountain.
“Why? Who made that decision?” he asked.
Hezhi pursed her lips. “You don't remember telling me to go there?”
“No.”
“Was it just your madness then? Did the Raven not instruct you to escort me to the mountain?”
Perkar felt a wave of irritation. “Did Ngangata tell you that?”
Hezhi frowned further, and her voice frosted a bit. “No. He told me that you spoke with the Blackgod, but he knew little of the substance of what you said to each other.”
Perkar took a deep breath, using it to cool his growing angst. What was upsetting him? “I'm sorry, Hezhi,” he said. “What I told you—though I don't remember telling it—is true. Karak says we are to go to the mountain in the heart of Balat.”
“He told me the same thing.”
“You spoke with Karak? Where?”
Hezhi couldn't suppress a grin when she answered.
“Another story I need to hear,” Perkar said, dazed. He felt as if he had awakened sliding down the slick side of a mountain of ice with only one foot under him. After the meeting with Karak, he thought he knew what to do, but the world had moved on without him as he lay among the dead.
“After,” Hezhi insisted a bit forcefully. “First you tell me: why must we go to the mountain?”
If she had spoken to Karak, why hadn't the Crow God told her that! Perkar brushed at T'esh's mane thoughtfully. She deserved to know. Particularly she deserved to know after saving his life from the Breath Feasting. But his people—possibly his father and his brother—were dead and dying. It was his fault, and he must weigh that into all of his decisions. Piraku insisted that he put the higher cause first. At least, he thought it did.
“Karak was vague,” Perkar answered carefully. “But he said that if we went to the mountain, to the very headwaters of the River, we could slay him.”
“Slay him? Slay the River?” Hezhi's voice was thick with incredulity. “Haven't you already stumbled drunkenly down that path? Haven't I heard this story?”
“It sounds insane,” Perkar admitted. “I abandoned that ambition long ago. But Karak—Karak tells me we can do it, and moreover that we must? That you can do it, he thought guiltily. But she had to be convinced a bit at a time.
“And Karak is trustworthy?” Hezhi asked.
“No, but Karak is a god of the same sort as the River, one of the ancient gods who created the world. And he has no love for the River—”
“You used to scoff at that. When you tried to explain about all of the gods out here, you were skeptical of their claims.”
“I am less skeptical now,” Perkar admitted. Deep down, he knew that he was overstating the case. He still doubted Karak rather deeply, but he believed his assertion that they could slay the River. He believed it because of Hezhi and the power he had seen her gathering about her, back at Nhol.
“I will not go near the River, Perkar,” Hezhi insisted quietly.
“It may not be necessary that you go,” Perkar lied. ”But please, hear me out. I don't know the entirety of Karak's plan. It may be that it will make more sense as we near the mountain. It will be a long journey, and Karak promised to leave signs. In the meantime, where else should we go?”
“He told me, too,” Hezhi muttered. “He told me to go there.” ”Tell me of that. Of your conversation with the Crow God.