Hezhi considered the vista for a moment. “Where does your country begin?” she asked.
“I'm not sure,” he answered. “Not far, surely. Here in the Spines there are few people of any sort, only mountain people of no nation, wild creatures.” He turned to her. “How long will this take?”
“I'm not certain,” she answered.
“Be quick if you can. I misjudged the distance and the light. Soon it may be too dark to go back down.”
She nodded and removed her drum from its bag and, after just a moment of preparation, began a measured tapping, as Brother Horse had shown her. The drumming of the skin head quickly became ripples upon the surface of the otherworld, and she turned her vision inward and saw her companions. The mare welcomed her with a shake of her head; the bull lowered his deadly horns sullenly. The most recently acquired god—now in the appearance of a white swan—regarded her solemnly.
“Which of you will go?” she inquired of them.
The bull gazed up at her. In here, he was no skeletal creature animated by flame; he was magnificent, auburn with great shoulders cloaked in darker, longer hair, the eyes between his gleaming horns huge and brown, full of intelligence.
“Take me, ” he said. “We shall thunder across the plains, we shall gore the lion, and trample the wolf pack. Too long have you kept me in this peaceful place. ”
Hezhi's fear of the beast, as well as the passion and power he offered, clung to her even beneath the cold waters of the lake, but she shook her head. “Not today, not now. I only need a messenger, not a warrior. I send you, Swan.”
She sent the swan out through the doorway, her vision carried in her eyes.
PERKAR sat impatiently, watching as Hezhi's eyes glazed over and she tapped away on her drum. She was gone, not in her body at all, and that woke in him a faintly sick feeling, perhaps a buried memory of his own time in the otherworld.
“It's still not settled,” he told Harka, while he waited. “I still don't know what will happen when I face combat again.”
“It will be fine, ” the sword answered. “You are braver than you think. ”
“I flinched in the face of the bull. If it hadn't been for Hezhi, we would all be dead.”
“That would be true whether you flinched or not. Learn from your mistake, don't dwell on it. ”
“A mistake is something you do on purpose that turns out to be wrong. That's not what happened with the bull. I was afraid. I didn't do that on purpose.”
“ You've been afraid before. ”
“This is different.”
“I know. But courage exists only if fear does, too. The greater the fear overcome, the greater the courage. Fearlessness is only another name for stupidity. ”
“Has no one ever carried you who was fearless?”
“Of course. And he was as stupid as a stone. ”
“What was his name?”
“Perkar. ”
Perkar furrowed his brow in annoyance and refused to provoke any more conversation from the sword. Instead, he set about gathering scraps of juniper and twist pine; it was clear that night would settle down before Hezhi was done, and it would be cold, this high.
Sparks were dancing up when the drumming ceased; the only remnant of the day was a languid red rim on the western peaks.
Hezhi shook her head sluggishly as her eyes seemed to awaken to him and the rest of her surroundings.
“It's cold,” she sighed.
“Come over here, let the Fire Goddess warm you,” he said. She nodded, picked up her drum, and padded along the ridge to sit across the flames from him. She rubbed her hands, working the fire's heat into her chilled flesh. Perkar fought his impatience, knowing she would speak eventually.
And eventually she did.
“Men are dying up there,” she said. “I'm sorry.”
Cold fingers reached out of the night and prodded at his heart. “Many?”
“I ¿link so. More than fifty, more than I could count. They've stopped for the night, but I believe that in the morning they will begin again.”
Perkar's lips drew into a thin line.
“My father could be among them,” he muttered. “My brother.”
“I'm sorry.”
Perkar saw that she really was sorry. Her eyes were rimmed with wetness.
“It's hard to cry over there,” she said. “Everything I feel is different, flatter. But now—” Her little shoulders began to quake. “They were just dying. Arrows in their throats, big holes in them—“ She stuttered off, wiping at her face.
“Perkar …” she began, but he stood stiffly and walked around the fire, feeling foolish. He settled next to her and drew her against him, expecting her to stiffen, fearing she would.
She didn't. Instead she seemed to melt into his side, her head nestling against his chest, where she sobbed quietly for a while. Her tears were contagious, and a salty trickle began from the corner of his own eyes. Almost unconsciously, he rocked back and forth, stroking her thick black hair.
After a time, he had to rise and add wood to the fire, and he realized how reluctant he was to release her. When he returned, he felt awkward, uncertain whether he should hold her again or not. He finally reached for her tentatively.
“I'm all right now,” she said. He withdrew his arm, embarrassed, and they sat there for a few moments in an uncomfortable silence.
“What I mean is,” Hezhi began again, “you don't have to do that. You don't have to feel sorry for me.”
Perkar snorted softly. “You know me well enough to know that I only feel sorry for myself,” he answered.
“I don't believe that,” she said. “Ngangata thinks you ache for the whole world.”
“Ngangata is the kindest man I've ever known. He flatters me. Still, he has never been shy about numbering my faults, especially my selfishness. Nor have you, for that matter.”
“I'm sorry,” she said.
Perkar glanced at her in surprise. “That's the third time you've said that tonight,” he remarked.
“No, I am. A few months ago, when we were in the hills with the Mang, before all of this started, I thought we were going to be friends. But since then, I've been terrible to you. To everyone, really, and especially to Tsem. You think you're selfish—”
Perkar smiled and began tossing twigs into the flames, where they stirred little cyclones of sparks to life. “The fact is,” he told her, “Brother Horse and Ngangata are right about us. We both see the world wheeling around our noses. We both think that the rising of the sun and the Pale Queen hinges upon us.”