And so he loosed some of his blood back to his Father, and he prayed.
A season passed, and then came a stranger. He rode in a boat of ebon wood, and likewise his clothing was jet, likewise his skin and hair.
“The Riven thy Father, has sent me, ” said he. “For though your king is of his blood, a son should not serve his Father. Servants are needed, and I am midwife to all servants. ”
A faint memory awoke in Ghe. The passage referred to Ghun Zhweng, the Ebon Priest, about whom the priesthood told many tales. It was he who brought the planting of crops, the knowledge to build canals, the sciences of architecture and engineering. It was he who established the temple. Ghe read on, impatient with the dry history, hopeful that he would find something of use. A bit later, his attention became more focused.
Then Ghun Zhweng drew for them a plan. “The River must be honored in a Great Temple, where his waters will flow, fourfold. It should be made in the shape of She 'leng, the mountain from which the great god flows; it should have places, hidden and deep. It must have a belly of crystal, wherein the treasures are kept and the bones laid to rest. It should be measured to the following height and width
Something turned in Ghe, twisted, and the bright images of his Riverdream seeped from his eyes onto the very page. A mountain, cone-shaped, steepling high into the clouds and capped with dazzling brightness, where he had once been contained, content: the mountain that was his home, his cradle, his source.
His shuddering became bright fury, inhuman fury so great that he felt the pulsing of his blood threaten to burst forth from his heart and break his mortal body. Who did this? Who is this Ebon Priest, who made these shackles, this priesthood, this temple? Who is he, for I shall shatter him, harrow and eat his soul!
His teeth began to chatter, and his fingers clutched spastically at the pages of the book. The colors from his dream filled the room, a vortex of nightmare light, and for an instant he knew that he lay once again on the surface of oblivion, a greedy darkness eager to swallow him forever. But then, by degrees, the anger retreated, diminished to mortal stature, and then less than even that, so that he was left wondering what he had felt, and why. He was dizzy and weak; sweat slicked his skin and matted his hair. Dazed, he wondered if the terrible lights he had seen had been only in his own eyes or if they had truly filled the library, and he looked around him carefully; no one was about, there in the most jumbled recesses of the archives, and so far as he could tell, no one had come to investigate. Still, to the senses of the Waterborn, or of a priest, it must have seemed as if a fire had burned briefly or a claxon sounded. Ghe swiftly stood, wiped his brow, and arranged his hair as best he could. He replaced the book on its shelf and, with a hasty word of thanks to Ghan, exited the library.
As he hurried toward his room in the abandoned wing, his sense of urgency sharpened with each step until it became a razor carving at the inner dome of his skull. His time in the palace was drawing to an end, one way or the other. As a Jik, he had been the stinging end of the wasp, not its brains. The brains were the Ah-w'en, and he vaguely recalled that they commanded intelligence and sorcery in no small measure. By now they certainly knew that something fell was loose in the royal halls. His experience with the old woman on Red Gar Street had reminded him to respect witchery. Whatever the River had made of him, it had not made him unstoppable; he was susceptible to the same measures used against ghosts and the Waterborn themselves. The incense that had stunned him was the same used to banish ghosts and to stupefy the Blessed; priests routinely swept the halls of the palace to chase its hundreds of specters back into the darkness below its cobbled courtyards, and incense was the least potent power the priests wielded; even the lowliest acolyte could be taught to use a spirit-broom. What secret weapons did they keep against demon wraiths, against ghouls such as himself? It was a shame that he could remember so little of his learning as a Jik beyond the reflexes of killing; he might have once known how to track, trap, and destroy such a thing, an eater of life. Instead he had only the vague knowledge that it could be done.
Probably he had capabilities he did not yet recognize; but the time to discover those things was in short supply. Yet he ground his teeth at the very thought of leaving the palace. The River had chosen him in a way that it chose no one else. It had given him life and power to serve him as the Waterborn could not and the priesthood would not. Who had more right to live in the palace than he? But it was foolish to risk himself in this way. He could hide in Southtown and feed on as many scorps and gung as he wished; the Ahw'en would not find him there—would probably not even bother to try.
He entered an abandoned courtyard and surveyed the cracked and weed-rampant walk through it. Not for the first time, he wondered why this part of the palace was empty, falling into dust. Once when he was a child someone had shown him a chambered shell from deep in the River. It was a straight cone, like a horn, and inside it was partitioned, the largest spaces toward the widest end. Trumpet-cuttlefish, someone had named it, and he had listened in wonder at how the creature, as its life progressed, added greater and grander chambers to its home while abandoning those it had outgrown. It had been a thing of water, of the River. Were the Waterborn of the same nature? No one had ever said such a thing—not that he could recall, of course.
In the center of the court was a sink, a well down which unwanted things and dirty water were passed. He lifted the grate and lowered himself into darkness. Passing a short distance—about twenty paces—he reached a second grate, clambered up and through it, thus entering his apartments.
His courtyard was bare of any life at all. When he had found it, it had been infested with weeds, as well, but a wave of his hand had withered them, given their water and life to him. Now the stone was clean and cold, simple and pure.
This suite of rooms was actually sealed off from the rest of the palace, the doors to the outside halls not only bolted but plastered over, like the backmost chamber of that strange creature.
He paused before entering the room he slept in adjoining the courtyard. Who had told him those things, shown him that shell? A seaman, at the docks? But that seemed wrong. It might have been a woman… He remembered, then, the old woman on Red Gar Street, and he felt a catch in his throat. Perhaps it had been she. He could not remember.
He crawled into his room, trying to ignore the hunger that gnawed in him. Soon enough he would have to feed again; it seemed that he needed to kill more and more often as time went on. It might, indeed, be best to retreat to Southtown, where monsters could Uve with impunity.
He curled up on his stolen sleeping mat like a spider, thinking, planning, and waiting for the darkness.
Almost he slept; his body sank into a torpor, though his mind remained active, peering at the strange fragments of knowledge he had attained.
He understood for certain now that he must invade the temple, though he knew not why. There his lord, the River, was no guide, for in that parody of some far-off mountain, he could not see. That was why Ghe was needed; to go where the god could not go.
Had that not always been his role, as a Jik, as a ruffian on the street? Always Ghe went where others were not willing to. As a child for pay and loot, as a Jik for pride and the priesthood. What reward would the River give him, one day?
But of course, he knew the answer to that, too: Hezhi. Hezhi would be his reward.