"Something," Harka warned. "What?" "I don't know. The smoke confuses me."
Hezhi turned at Perkar's muttered word. Was he talking to her? His gray eyes were staring, shocked. A bloody spike projected from his chest, right where his heart should be. He crumpled, and from behind him stepped a shadow in the shape of a man. She shrieked and leapt away as something swung out—a fist, she guessed later—and struck her in the mouth. Then the shadow leapt on toward Tsem. She reeled back crazily, trying to regain her balance; her mouth tasted coppery, and she realized with horror that it was filling with blood. She spat and fell into the water almost simultaneously.
Pushing up on the palms of her hands, she tried desperately to seize the images around her, force sense into them. The shadow was dancing around Tsem, and she saw the flicker of a blade. Anger surged up from her feet, through the thing in her, and she sent it to stab the black-clad man. He did stumble; but she felt the power drain out of her attack, as if the very air were sucking it up. The smoke, she thought. They sweep me as if I were a ghost.
Tsem was leaning heavily against the wall, how badly hurt she could not tell.
The shadow recovered, stood, walked toward her.
"Well, Princess," he said. "The priests assured me that you would not be able to do even that much. I'm impressed. Best I kill you now, I think, before you can prove them wrong again."
At that, Tsem groaned in anguish, lurched toward them, and fell. The shadow-man laughed. "Strength and size don't count for much," he observed.
Chills prickled all over Hezhi. She knew his voice.
"Yen?" she gasped.
The shadow bowed. "My name is actually Ghe," he confided. "But I was Yen to you. When I was assigned to watch you, in case you ascended early or disastrously. Becoming your acquaintance seemed the best way."
"But…" Hezhi groped for words. How could this be Yen, so kind, who had given her the statuette? "Yen, no. I'm just leaving. I'm not ever coming back. Please, let us go."
The man's voice softened a bit. "Princess, I'm sorry, I truly am. I grew to like you, playing at Yen. But I am not Yen, not at all like that. I kill people; that is what I do. And the priests tell me to kill you."
The priests were creeping closer, the smell of their smoke more overpowering. Desperately she launched another attack at Yen, but this time she felt it drowned in the smoke instantly. He didn't even react.
"I am sorry. I'll try to make it quick, and I'll leave an offering for your ghost."
"Leave an offering for your own," another voice growled. Hezhi gaped. Perkar, the dead man, stood behind them, sword in hand. He did not look happy.
* * *
For a whole heartbeat, Ghe stared at the walking corpse. He recalled feeling the heart split, and even if he had missed, the toxin on his blade was known to paralyze and kill in less than fifty heartbeats. The blade had come out the front! An unaccustomed fear stabbed through Ghe, and he lashed out quickly, hoping to hamstring this demon. His blade met the other, his priest-blessed blade, and it shivered. Ghe knew that it had almost shattered, would have shattered if the impact had been oblique. Desperately he attacked with the wintsem, the net of steel, a combination of strokes that would end inevitably with his point in the man. The last stroke went too low, because Ghe was afraid to meet the strange weapon head on, and so his final lunge took his blade into the barbarian's belly rather than some more immediately vital spot. Ghe yanked to withdraw his steel, had one look at the foreigner's face, realized what he had done. The pale man's blade was already descending toward his unprotected neck.
Li, think kindly of my ghost, he had time to think, before his head fell into the dirty water. Even then, for 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.
Hezhi saw the pillar of light draw up from the floor, from a glowing, iridescent stain floating on it. With dull surprise she understood that it was her blood, the blood from her mouth. She heard the gasps from the priests; saw Yen's head parted from his body, still shrouded in its black hood. The flame took form, congealed, became a creature from a nightmare, tentacles, horn, many-colored plates. It shuddered, stretched wide its ten crablike legs, and, before she could draw another breath, turned to her. A flaming broom struck the thing, slowed only slightly as it passed through, but the creature lost its form momentarily, flowed and then came back together. Soundlessly it glided toward the priests.
Hezhi sank down to her knees, held herself with both arms, moaning.
"A god," Perkar breathed as the thing appeared. He lurched toward it, swayed back. The assassin had hurt him badly.
"Careful," Harka warned. "It isn't a god precisely, but it has many of the same qualities. And we only have three heartstrings left."
"Is it like the girl?"
"Yes, somewhat. More like the ghost-fish in the River, but stronger."
"Heartstrings?" He saw that he had a brief reprieve; the thing had turned on the priests, obviously annoyed by the silly burning broom one of them cast at it.
"No mortal heartstrings at all, no Ti to sever. It is a ghost!"
"Can we fight it?"
"It has seven immortal strands. We will probably lose."
Terrible things were happening down the corridor. He stumbled over to the girl. "Are you all right? Can you run?"
"Tsem," she muttered. "See to Tsem."
He nodded and quickly crossed to the Giant. To his credit, Tsem was already struggling to his feet. A sword wound gaped in his abdomen.
"We have to get past that thing," Perkar told him. "While it is killing the priests."
Tsem nodded, leaned against the wall. "Come on, Princess," he said. "Come let me carry you."
She didn't respond, other than to look at them, confused. Tsem bent down and lifted her up.
"I'm sorry to spoil your beautiful clothes, Princess," Perkar heard him whisper.
They stepped over two dead priests, who appeared to have been boiled alive, and Perkar wondered how Harka could possibly protect him from that. The thing was a shimmering presence, up in front of them.
"When it finishes the priests, I'll take it, try to drive it from the tunnel," Perkar told Tsem. "Then you run, do you understand? You have no hope against a creature like that." Perkar realized that he had made his decision. Whatever murky purpose the River had proposed for him, he could not bring himself to slay Hezhi and her guardian. Tsem was too much like Ngangata. Harka was right—he always wanted things to be simple, and he did the simple things even when they did not feel right. Helping Hezhi and Tsem felt right. Helping the priests and their assassin did not. In its own way, that was simple enough for him.
Tsem nodded weary assent.
The last of the priests fell at the mouth of the tunnel, and Perkar relinquished his wildest hope—that the thing would pursue its tormentors out into the sand he could barely see beyond. He gritted his teeth and prepared to charge. Then he whooped, because the monster did glide out of the end of the tunnel. There was a furious clatter around it, which puzzled him momentarily until he placed the strange sound. Arrows, smacking into the stone surface of the duct. Soldiers, firing from outside.