Greg Keyes - Chosen of the Changeling 2 - Blackgod

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THE BLACKGOD

The Blackgod

Chosen of the Changeling: BOOK TWO

J. Gregory Keyes

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THE BLACKGOD

A DelRey ® Book BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

A DelRey ® Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and

simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

http://www.randomhouse.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-97125

ISBN 0-345-41880-8

First Hardcover Edition: April 1997 First Mass Market Edition: May 1998

For My Mother—Nancy Ridout Landrum

CONTENTS

Prologue: Death

Part One: MANSIONS OF BONE

I. The Mang Wastes

II. Rebirth

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THE BLACKGOD

III. Snow Thunder

IV. The Godsight

V. The Blackgod

VI. Old Friends

VII. Surrounded by Monsters

VIII. Tales of the Changeling

IX. The Reader of Bones

X. A Game of Slap

XI. The Codex Obsidian

XII. The Breath Feasting

XIII. Becoming Legion

XIV. Horse God Homesending

XV. Beneath the Temple

XVI. Gaan

Interlude: The Emperor and the Ghoul

Part Two: UPSTREAM PASSAGES

XVII. Kinship

XVIII. On the Barge

XIX. Drum Battle

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THE BLACKGOD

XX. Dragons

XXI. The Shadow Man

XXII. The Dreamsnare

XXIII. Deep Wounds

XXIV. Sorceress

XXV. Falling Sky

XXVI. Demons

XXVII. Stormherd

Interlude: A Letter to Ghan

Part Three: THE GODS OF SHE’LENG

XXVIII. The Drum Scout

XXIX. Forward-Falling Ghost

XXX. The Roadmark

XXXI. The Lady of Bones

XXXII. Beauty

XXXIII. The Steepening Trail

XXXIV. The Teeth of the Host

XXXV Shamans

XXXVI. Erikwer

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THE BLACKGOD

XXXVII. Changeling Blood

XXXVIII. Horse Mother

XXXIX. The Goddess

Epilogue: A Different-Colored Spring

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For Moral Support: John Keyes, Tim Keyes, Earl Ridout, Helen Ridout

For Criticism: Ken Carleton, Veronica Chapman, Gene Crawford,

Tom Deitz,

Pat Duffy, Nell Keyes

And for Hard Work:

Christine Levis

(MAP)

PROLOGUE

Death

Ghe plunged his steel into the pale man’s belly, watched the alien gray eyes widen in shock, then narrow

with terrible satisfaction. He yanked to withdraw his blade and, in that flicker of an instant, realized his

mistake. The enemy edge, unimpressed by its wielder’s impalement, swept down toward his exposed

neck.

Li, think kindly of my ghost, he had time to think, before his head fell into the dirty water. Even then, for

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THE BLACKGOD

just a moment, he thought he saw something strange; a column of flame, leaping out of the muck,

towering over Hezhi. Then something inexorable swallowed him up.

Death swallowed him and took him into her belly. Dark there, and wet, he swirled about, felt that last,

bright blow like a line of ice laid through his neck flutter again and again and again, hummingbird-wings

of pain. It was most of what remained of him, though not all. The little spaces between the memory of

that blade stroke were like a doorway into nothing, opening and closing with greater and greater speed,

and through that portal danced images, dreams, remembered pleasures—danced through and were gone.

Soon all would gambol away like fickle ladies at a ball, and he would be complete again, just the

memory of his death, and then not even that.

But then it seemed as if the sword shattered, raced up and down his spine like rivers of crystal shards;

and the belly of death was no longer dark, but alive with light, charged with heat and lightning, burning,

pouring in through that doorway. The light he recognized; he had seen its colors blossoming from the

water as his head parted from his body. The doorway gaped and wrapped around him, bringing not

darkness, not oblivion, but remembrance.

Remembrance carried hatred, bitterness, but most of all hunger. Hunger.

Ghe remembered also a word, as strands met and were torturously yanked into crude knots within him,

tied hurriedly, without care.

No, he remembered. Ah, no!

No, and he fought to hands and knees he could suddenly feel again, though they felt like wood, though

they jerked and quivered with unfamiliar weakness. He could see nothing but color, but he remembered

where he wanted to go and had no need of vision. Down, he knew, and so he crawled, blind,

whimpering, hungrier by the moment.

Down for he knew not how long, but after a time he fell, slid, fell again, and then plunged into water that

scalded so terribly that it must have been boiling.

For a while, he could think of nothing but boiling water, for pain had returned to him, as well.

No. The pain went into him like a seed, grew, spread roots, sent limbs out through his eyes and mouth,

shoots from his fingers, and then, very suddenly, ceased to be pain. He sighed, sank down into the water,

which now enfolded him like a womb, utterly comforting and utterly without compassion; just a womb,

a thing for him to grow in, but no mother or love wrapped around that. There he waited, content for a

while, and after he was sure the pain was gone, he looked about for what had not blown through that

dark doorway into nothingness—what remained of him.

He was Ghe, the Jik, one of the elite assassin-priests who served the River and the River’s Children.

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THE BLACKGOD

Born in Southtown, the lowest of the low, he had risen—the memory stirred!—he had kissed a princess!

Ghe clenched and unclenched his unseen hands as he felt the ghost of his lips brushing hers. He realized,

dully, that he had kissed many women, but that the only actual, particular kiss he could remember was

hers.

Why was that? Why Hezhi?

They had sent him to kill her, of course, because she was one of the Blessed. His task had been to kill

her, and he had failed. Yet he had kissed her…

Abruptly his memory offered mirror-sharp images, a scene from his past—how long ago? But though

his mind’s sight was keen, the voices floated to him as if from far away, and though he saw through his

own eyes, it was as if he watched strangers dance a dance to which he knew only a few steps.

He was in the Great Water Temple, in the interior chamber. Plastered white, the immense corbeled vault

above him seemed to drink up the pale lamplight in the center of the room. More real, somehow, was the

illumination washing down from the four corridors that met in the chamber, though it was dimmer still

than the flame. He knew it for daylight, rippling through sheets of falling water that cascaded down the

four sides of the ancient ziggurat in whose heart they stood, curtains of thunder concealing the doorways

of the temple. In that coruscating aquamarine and the flickering of the lamp, the priest before him

seemed less real than his many shadows, for they constantly moved as he stood still.

On his knees, Ghe yet remembered thinking of the priest standing over him, You shall bow to me one

day.

“There are things you must know now,” the priest told him, in his soft, little-boy voice; like ail full

priests, he had been castrated young.

“I listen for the fall of water,” Ghe acknowledged.

“You know that our emperor and his family are descended from the River.”

Ghe suppressed an urge to rise up and strike the fool down. They think because I am from Southtown I

know nothing, not even that. They think I am no more than a throat-slitter from the gutter, with the

brains of a knife! But he held that inside. To betray his feeling was to betray himself, and betraying

himself would betray Li—Ghe-in-the-water wondered who Li was.

“Know,” the priest went on, “that because they carry his water in their veins, the River is a part of them.

He can live through them, if he chooses. The power of the Waterborn has but one source, and that is the

River.”

Then why do you hate them so? Ghe wondered. Because they are part of the River, as you will never

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THE BLACKGOD

be ? Because they need not have their balls cut off to serve him?

The priest wandered over to a bench and sat down, taking his quivering shadows with him. He did not

sign for Ghe to arise, and so he remained there, prostrate, listening.

“Some of the Waterborn are blessed with more,” the man went on. “They are born with rather more of

the River in them than others. Unfortunately, the Human body can contain only a certain amount of

power. After that…”

The priest’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Ghe suddenly realized that this was no mere rote litany any

longer. This was something real to the priest, something that frightened him.

“After that,” he went on, sounding like nothing so much as an eight-year-old boy confiding some terrible

childhood discovery, “after that, they change.”

“Change?” Ghe asked, from the floor. Here was something he did not know, at last

“They are distorted by their blood, lose Human form. They become creatures wholly of the River.”

“I don’t understand,” Ghe replied.

“You will. You will see,” he answered, his voice rising to a firmer, more dissertative pitch. “When they

change—the signs are discovered in childhood, usually by the age of thirteen— when they change, we

take them to dwell below, in the ancient palace of our ancestors.”

For a moment, Ghe wondered if this was some silly euphemism for murder, but then he remembered the

maps of the palace, the dark underways beneath it, the chambers at the base of the Darkness Stair behind

the throne. Ghe suddenly felt a chill. What things dwelt there, below his feet? What horror would disturb

a priest merely to discuss it?

“Why?” Ghe asked cautiously. “If they are of the Blood Royal…”

“It is not only their shape that changes,” the priest explained. He looked squarely at Ghe, his pale eyes

lapis shards of the light shimmering down the facing hall. “Their minds change, become inhuman. And

their power becomes great, without control. In times past, some River Blessed have passed unprotected;

we have missed them. One was even crowned emperor before we knew he was Blessed. He destroyed

most of Nhol in fire and flood.”

The priest stood up and walked over to a brazier in which coals glowed dully. He nervously sprinkled a

few shavings of incense on them, and a sharp scent quickly filled the room.

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THE BLACKGOD

“Below,” he whispered, “they are safe. And we are safe from them.”

“And if they know their fate?” Ghe asked. “If they try to escape it?”

“We know what happens when the Blessed are not contained,” the priest murmured. “If they cannot be

bound beneath the city, then they must be given back to the River.”

“Do you mean… ?” Ghe began.

The priest nearly hissed with the intensity of his reply. “The Jik were not created to carry on

assassinations of enemies of the state, though you now serve that purpose well. Have you never

wondered why the Jik answer to the priesthood and not the emperor directly?”

Ghe thought for only an instant before replying. “I see,” he murmured. “We were created to stop the

Blessed from running free.”

“Indeed,” the priest replied, his voice relaxing a bit “Indeed. And more than a few have been killed by

the Jik.”

“I live only to serve the River,” Ghe replied. And he meant that, with all of his heart, both of him; Ghe

then and Ghe in the water.

But now he could see the he, of course. The great lie that was the priesthood. They existed not to serve

the River but to keep him bound. Those whom the River blessed were given their power for a purpose,

so that he might walk the land rather than live torpidly within his banks—so that the god of the River

might roam free. And the priests bound the River’s children, though they pretended to worship him. If

one worshipped a god, would not one help it realize its dreams? What matter to the River if a few

buildings were crushed in the pangs of birth, a few Human Beings died? The River took in the souls of

all when they died anyway; he drank them up. All belonged to him.

Far from worshippers, Ghe could see now, the priests were the enemies of the River. They had fought

for centuries to keep the Royal Blood checked, diluted. That was why they had set him to kill Hezhi, the

emperor’s daughter—kill that beautiful, intelligent girl. And he would have done it, had not her strange

barbarian guardian been unkillable! Ghe had stabbed him in the heart with a poisoned blade, and still he

stood back up, chopped off Ghe’s head— He flinched away from that thought. Not yet. However it had

happened, it was fortunate that he had not slain Hezhi. Much depended upon her, he realized. The River

had many enemies plotting against him, and now Ghe, the River’s only true and loyal servant—now he

had those enemies. And he knew his task with a wonderful, radiant certainty. His task was to save Hezhi

from her foes, for she was the River’s daughter, and more. She was his hope, his weapon. His flesh.

Soon enough, Ghe knew, he would open his eyes, would creep back up to the light, take up his weapons,

and make his way where Rivers do not flow. A wrong would be righted, a god would be served, and

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THE BLACKGOD

perhaps, just perhaps, he would once again kiss a princess.

PART ONE

Mansions of Bone

The Mang Wastes

Hezhi Yehd Cha’dune, once-princess of the empire of Nhol, yelped as what weight her small body

possessed was suddenly stolen from her in an explosion of force and wind as the thief— her horse Dark

—shook all four hooves free of the earth. For a moment they hung almost still above the uneven slope of

shattered stone and snow, but Hezhi knew—knew in her belly—that when they struck back down the

mare would just keep falling, tumbling head-over-tail down what seemed almost a sheer grade. She

doubled her hands in Dark’s mane and leaned against her neck, straining to hang on to the barrel-shaped

torso with her legs, but when the horse’s hooves were reunited with the ground—first front and then

thunderously rear—she slapped back into the saddle with such force that one leg kicked unwillingly free

of its stirrup. The surrounding landscape blurred into jolting white, gray, and blue nonsense as she

ignored the free-flapping stirrup and just held on. Then, suddenly, the earth was flat again and Dark

really ran, digging her head into the wind, hammering across the half-frozen ground like a four-limbed

thunder god. The mare’s flat-out run was so smooth, Hezhi’s fear began to evaporate; she found the

stirrup, caught the rhythm of the race, and her tightly held breath suddenly released itself in a rush that

quickly became triumphant laughter. Never before had she completely given the Mang-bred horse her

head, but now that she had, the chocolate-and-coffee-striped mare was gaining on the four riders ahead

of her. When one of them—perhaps hearing her laughter—turned his head to look back, she was near

enough to see the surprise register in his unusual gray eyes.

Thought you could leave me back farther than that, didn’t you, Perkar? she thought, with more pride

than anger. Her self-esteem doubled when the young man’s expression of amazement became one of

respect. She felt her own lips bow in glee and then promptly felt stupid for beaming so, like one of those

useless creatures back in the palace or some brainless child. Still, it felt wonderful. Though she was only

thirteen years of age, it had been many years since she felt anything at all like a child, good or bad. It

couldn’t hurt to smile and laugh if she felt like it, could it?

She clapped Dark’s flanks harder and was rewarded by a burst of even greater speed from her steed—

and was consequently nearly thrown over the mare’s head when the animal quickly stamped to a halt to

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