She'lu frowned. Certainly he felt pride, had felt it since the day Hezhinata was killed. But what he felt now was almost a glow, a silly sentimentality. He realized that all of his thoughts had been flavored with nearly lachrymose emotion, and a faint suspicion stole over him. Why had he awakened? Not that it was an uncommon experience for him to lack sleep. But it seemed to him that a dream had brought him out of bed, one of the simple-colored dreams the River sent now and then. More and more of those dreams had come of late, but rarely did they reveal anything to him that was of help in his policies. When he could remember them, he would discuss them with Nyas, and together they would try to sort them out, but this was different. He could not remember the dream itself, but it had left him thinking maudlin thoughts about his father and his daughters. No, not his daughters, but his daughter, Hezhinata, the only child of his to be born with power.
Thinking of this now, he recognized the signs. The River wanted him to think of her—something he was not in the habit of doing. Certainly the thought of bringing her here had passed briefly, whimsically, through him, as had the fleeting joy that one of his seed had so frustrated and wounded the priesthood. But these feelings of love came from the River. At least, most of them did. He sighed. Should he wake Nyas?
At that moment he felt something, the equivalent of a foot-scrape or a loud breath, but it was not sound. Someone was here, in this room, with power. She'lu pursed his lips. Not power like the priests, that annoying power of not that got progressively stronger with the rank of the priest. No, this had “sounded” more familiar.
He flooded the room with force, filling it so quickly with his puissance that it would be impossible for the intruder to slip away undetected. If the intruder were Human, he would be dead or mindless in an instant, but She'lu already knew the hidden one was more than that.
“Show yourself,” he snapped, as the air rippled with killing magics.
Someone stepped from the shadows. He seemed to be shrugging off the attack, maintaining an admirable calm as he did so. She'lu could sense a sort of raw power that might be as great as his own, but it was artless, and he knew that his attack must be causing some pain. Despite this, his visitor walked out into the center of the floor, bent to one knee, and bowed deeply.
More puzzled than ever, She'lu withdrew the spears and nets of his strength and laid them into a dike about himself, securing his person but still prepared to lash out if need be. Who was this man? Even the most powerful of the royal family would have been at least stunned by his show of force, and yet this man retained the ability to walk and kneel.
“Thank you, my lord,” the man said, and so showed he could speak as well.
“Who are you? Step closer.”
The intruder did so, rising and moving close enough for She'lu to make him out. He was a well-built fellow with a thin, ascetic face. He was clothed simply in a black tunic and kilt, the signature dress of the Jik.
“You are an assassin,” She'lu said flatly.
“I am an assassin,” the man acknowledged. “But I am no longer a Jik. I do not serve a priesthood that does not serve the River.”
She'lu stared at the man, more perplexed than ever. What was occurring here?
“I recognize you,” he realized. “You were the one assigned to my daughter. The young one.”
“My name is Ghe, Majesty, and I am your servant.”
“You were killed, or so I heard, along with my daughter.”
The man paused for just an instant, and in that flicker his guard descended a bit, and She'lu could suddenly make out more than one web of heartstrands in the man. A sudden fear knifed into She'lu. He had heard, as a child, of such creatures, been informed of them as an emperor.
“It is true that I was killed, Majesty. But your daughter was not. Of that, I pray to speak to you.”
“My daugh—” No, damn him. First things first. “You say you died,” She'lu hissed. “But I see no ghost before me. You are a ghoul, or something very like one.”
The man cast down his eyes and reached to his throat. He unwrapped the black sash that obscured it. She'lu could not make out what was thus revealed until he conjured a pale yellow glow to illumine the court. Then he could see plainly enough the thick ridge of scar encircling Ghe's throat.
“A ghoul, I think,” Ghe said, “though I know little of such things.”
“The River sends them,” She'lu said softly, wondering if it would do any good at all to call the guards. “When an emperor goes against the will of the River, he sends them to kill him.”
The ghoul stroked his chin with his thumb, a remarkably Human gesture for someone who must have been decapitated and then given new, unholy life.
“I cannot speak for other ghouls, my lord, but that is not the case with me. I think that you should consider what you have heard to be yet another lie of the priesthood.”
“My spies have told me of a ghoul in the palace. The priests drove it from here.”
“And I have returned, at great peril to my existence. It is true that the River gave me new life, but it was not to harm you. You are the Chakunge, the Riverson. Why should he wish to harm you?” The ghoul paced slowly across the floor, and She'lu opened his mouth to speak before he realized that he was bereft of anything to say.
“It is the priesthood, my lord,” the man continued. “They keep your power in check, do they not?”
“They are a nuisance,” She'lu admitted.
“I have discovered that they are much more than that,” the ghoul told him. “They and their temple bind all but the tenth part of the River's power, and you are the most of that tenth part, you and your kin. Hezhi was his greatest hope.”
“Hezhinata,” She'lu corrected.
“No, Lord, Hezhi. She lives yet. She escaped with a barbarian and her Giant bodyguard. Think on it and you will know that you never saw her body.”
“The Waterborn must be given back to the River in the crypts.”
“Another lie. I have been to the crypts. They are prisons for your ancestors, dungeons where their ghosts are kept to fade into eternity, never rejoining the god. But that aside, even if they did take Hezhi there, what of her bodyguard, the barbarian? Were their bodies seen by anyone you trust?”
“They were left in the desert to rot.”
“But I repeat, did this information come from a source that you trust?”
She'lu's head was awhirl. The things this man spoke of were incredible, but they were not preposterous; they were all things that he himself had considered, at one time or another. His own father had warned him of the priesthood, as had Nyas, countless times. They had always been a scratch in his eye, but to hear these things said, all at once—and of course he had been suspicious of the strange stories surrounding Hezhinata. Seven of his elite guard, killed by some “barbarian” at the docks? She'lu had always suspected the hand of the priesthood in that. In fact, the barbarian was said to have been nearly impossible to kill, bleeding from mortal wounds and yet still standing. Was that not a property ghouls were said to possess? How many ghouls did the priesthood control?
“Enough of this,” She'lu snapped. “Babble no more. If you have come to kill me, do your best. If you come for aught else, tell me what you want.”
The ghoul scratched his chin again, a gesture that She'lu was beginning to find annoying. “I want to find Hezhi and bring her back to Nhol. I want you to help me.”