“There you are.” Brother Horse's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She looked up, a bit startled to see the old man, who had been busy constantly since their return to the village—greeting strangers, settling minor disputes, arranging marriages. He smiled down at her, gaudy in a long vermilion coat nearly covered with copper coins, gold-embroidered felt breeks, and a tiger-pelt underjacket. In one hand he held an otterskin bag that bulged around something round and flat. Behind him lolled Heen, dustier than usual, ears twitching as if offended by the rau-cousness around him. Hezhi tentatively returned the smile.
“I think you may have questions for me,” he said. “I'm sorry that I haven't been around to talk to you.”
“I needed to think anyway,” Hezhi replied.
“You think a lot. That is good, considering. And what have you decided?”
“That I don't know enough to decide anything.”
“Wise,” he said, shaking his head. “I never waited until I knew enough. Which makes it a miracle that I am an old man and not a young ghost.” He extended his hand. ”Walk with me a bit, child.”
Hezhi hesitated. “Now?”
Brother Horse nodded. “It's important.”
Hezhi sighed. “I don't think I'm ready.” She rubbed absently at the dully tingling scale on her arm, the one physical sign of her magic.
The old man grimaced. “I would give you more time if you had it. But soon—tomorrow—we will slay the Horse God and send him home. Without some preparation, if you see him—”
“I will go mad,” Hezhi finished.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“I see,” she muttered. She checked to see that her ink was dry, and, assured that it was, carefully rolled up the paper and replaced it in its bone case.
They walked out from the village, pausing as riders thundered by on the racetrack that encircled the houses. Felt and horsehide tents crowded the landscape; the village scarcely resembled the one she had come to know—though it was nothing like a city, of course. The air was thick with smoke from burning wood and dung, half-charred meat, other scents she could not place. A pack of children—screaming and batting a ball along the ground with bent sticks—nearly ran over them, but when they saw Brother Horse, they parted and streamed around, like a school of fish effortlessly negotiating a snag in the River. Heen paused at the village edge—apparently disapproving of their direction of travel—but after it became apparent that they were ignoring his tacit advice, he followed regardless.
It seemed a long time before they were in the open desert, with the cries, laughter, and music of the Swollen Tents behind them. Patches of rusty sand glared through thawing white drifts. Here and there, muddy trails marked the paths in from elsewhere, from wherever the Mang tribes came.
“I'm sorry for your sake that I have to help you with this,” Brother Horse stated. “It has been a long time since I was a singer. Years. I wish there was a younger one around who could help you, but Cedar went off into the mountains a month ago, and I trust none of the others with you.” He paused for a few heartbeats and went on. “When it happened to me—the sight—
I was a bit older than you. A warrior. It nearly ruined me; I was sick for days after my first sight of a god.”
“I was sick.”
“For a short time. You are very strong, Hezhi.”
“Tell me more about yours,” she appealed, “your first sight.”
He seemed to consider that, and for a few tens of steps the only sound was that of their boots crunching through the melted and refrozen surface of the snow.
“I first saw Ch'egl, the god of a small spring. A very minor god indeed, much less imposing than he whom you saw.”
“And?”
“It was after a raid. My companions and I scattered to divide the pursuit. We were to all meet at the water hole. I reached the place first, and I saw Ch'egl They found me wandering in the desert, nearly dead of thirst, as mad as a shedding snake.”
“But you recovered.”
“Only after my friends took me to a gaan. He sang a curing song for me. But then he told me that if I wanted to live, I would have to apprentice to him.”
“And so you did.”
“No! I wanted to be a warrior. I felt certain I would never have such a vision again. But I did, of course. Fortunately, that time I had companions with me.”
Hezhi glanced up at him. “What? What happened that time?”
“That time I saw Tu Chunuleen. The great god you call 'the River.' Perkar calls him the 'Changeling.' Your ancestor, Hezhi.”
“Oh.”
“He was asleep. He is almost always asleep. But he dreams, always. When I saw him—” He stopped, fumbled with the ties of his shirt. At first, Hezhi thought he was stopping his story to relieve himself—the Mang showed no hesitation or shame in doing such things. But he did not. Instead, he raised the shirt up so that she could see an ugly, jagged scar.
“I did that myself,” he explained. “With my skinning knife. I nearly spilled my guts all over the ground, before my friends stopped me. I have never come closer to death. I did not want to live, not after seeing him. A gaan had to follow my soul halfway to the Ghost Mountain before he could save me.”
As he spoke they reached a low line of red rock, a shelf where the land dropped down the height of a tall man. Part of the upper level hung over like a roof, and Hezhi could see a little hearth of stones on the floor of the natural shelter. Cold prickles ran up her back, and she had a sudden, vivid memory of the priests, back in Nhol, waiting for her that day. Though many months in the past, the pain and humiliation of that experience stained her like red wine.
“What are we doing?” she demanded. “What is this?”
Brother Horse laid a hand on her shoulder. “We are only talking, as of now. Only talking, little one, away from the madness of the town.”
Despite the comforting words, Hezhi felt panic rise in her chest. They had tied her down, naked, drugged her—awakened that thing in her belly, in her blood. This seemed somehow like that, another trick, something thrust upon her. The similarity between ghun and gaan flashed once more through her mind. Priest, shaman, what was the difference to her?
“Wh-what will you do?” she stuttered.
“Nothing. Nothing without your leave. Indeed, Hezhi, there is nothing I can do. You must do it, though I can guide you, help you along the way.”
“There must be something else,” she insisted. “Some way to be rid of him forever.”
They stepped beneath the slight natural roof, the enormous sky halved by the red stone. It was oddly comforting to Hezhi, making the world seem smaller, more manageable. Brother Horse motioned her toward a flat stone and lowered himself by degrees onto another, as if his joints were rusted metal. He placed his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands with thumbs together, and pointed skyward. He looked first at the cold stone and charcoal between them, but then raised his gaze frankly to meet hers.
“No way that I know of, child. My hope for you was that the ember in you would die away without the River nearby to strengthen it. But it has caught, you see? Even without him, it will burn inside of you. Not as the Changeling planned for it to; it will not transform you as you have told me it did your kin. Still, unless you bank it, bring it under your control, that little flame will yet consume you.”
Hezhi considered that she did know one way; she could fling herself from a cliff, break her body, and release her curse with her spirit. But even that might not work; more likely she would become a monstrous ghost, the sort that had once attacked her in Nhol. The Mang spoke often of ghosts, as well. However different the lands beyond the River were, they were not so different that death was a certain escape.
“What then?” she asked. “What must I do?”
Brother Horse reached over to stroke her hair. “It may not be so bad as you think,” he said. “But I won't promise you that it will be easy.”