Where had that come from? Hezhi wondered. From the lifeblood of society to his boat?

"No, I have never been boating," she told him.

"Oh, it's great fun," Wezh told her enthusiastically. "You can imagine that you're one of those pirates from the Swamp Kingdoms, you know, like in the romantic plays? You do like the plays, don't you? Most girls do."

Hezhi had seen a few of the plays he spoke of. Pitiful, debased things compared to the great epics like the one they had just witnessed.

"I liked the dance just now," she told him. "It was a wonderful rendition of the Chakunge epic."

"I found it a little boring," Wezh said diffidently. "You know, old-fashioned. Now the other day I saw this drama about Ch'üh—he's a pirate, you know…"

"That means 'mosquito' in the old speech," Hezhi informed him.

Wezh glanced at her, his eyes a bit wider than before, if such were possible. "Indeed?" he said. "That might explain why his sword is so long and thin, mightn't it? Well, how illuminating! I'm sure that you would have many such observations, if you were to attend such a play. Ah, with me perhaps." He looked around the room nervously.

"Are you searching for pirates?" she asked with mild sarcasm. "I don't think my father would admit them, you know."

"Oh, no, of course he wouldn't," Wezh said. "No, I was…" He closed his eyes and cleared his throat.

"Umm… Whither goes her brilliant beauty/My tongue cannot hold her name …"

The words were so rushed they were nearly incoherent, and so it took Hezhi nearly two stanzas to realize that Wezh was reciting his—or more likely somebody else's—poetry to her.

"Oh," she interrupted, standing abruptly. "I'm sorry, Wezh Yehd Nu, but I must bid you good day."

Wezh stuttered off, looked a little puzzled and forlorn. "Are you feeling unwell again, Princess?"

"Yes, Wezh, that is it precisely."

She turned and gestured to Tsem, who shot her a small expression of chagrin. She turned once to survey the hall again, before she left. The fountain was in its normal state, the water rising no higher than usual. But among the sparkling droplets she thought she saw something dark rising, as well. With an involuntary shiver, she took her leave without another word to the anxious Wezh.

"That was rude, Princess," Tsem told her, when they were back in the Hall of Moments and out of earshot of anyone. The hall was lined with guards in armor today, and a lone priest was sweeping, smoke rising from his spirit-broom, a little acolyte behind him with a mundane broom and dustpan, gathering the ashes. None of them were close enough to hear what the princess and her bodyguard were saying.

Hezhi shrugged. "He is an idiot, Tsem, stupid and unlearned. What use do I have for a boy like that?"

"You will find a use for men someday, or you will live as a spinster—or more likely have a marriage imposed on you."

"I think marriages must always be imposed, if Wezh is the common sort of man."

Tsem shook his head, then bowed it, in respect, as they passed the old priest and his novice.

"Anyway, I'm really not feeling well. You know that."

Tsem was about to reply, but there was a strangled cry behind them; Hezhi felt the hackles rise on her neck, experienced yet another terrible shuddering. She stumbled and turned to confront the source.

Something had emerged from the hall. Its outline wavered, and so she knew it for a ghost, but it was like no ghost she had ever seen, save only in the fountain earlier that day. It was huge, twice Tsem's size. It had legs like a crab's, or a spider's, and its body was long, twisted, like a crushed centipede. A flared tail— horribly like the one on her dress—swept around frenetically behind it. Its head was a grotesque mass of chitin and tentacles, and yet there was something—its eyes—that seemed appallingly, undeniably Human. Human and hungry. She knew instinctively that it was hungering after her.

The guards seemed frozen, and for one terrible moment, Hezhi feared that no one could see the thing except her. Then it was in motion, a scuttling mass of limbs and tentacles. One of the soldiers leapt at it then, his curved sword finally flashing out, and he was in its path, a tiny creature compared to the ghost. His sword chopped but once, slicing unhindered through the thing, clanging with great force and noise onto the marbled floor. Then the ghost passed through the guard and he fell, writhing, clenched up in a little ball, a jabbering kind of noise issuing from him the like of which Hezhi never imagined a Human Being could make. The beast lunged forward, and another guard—attacking more hesitantly—went down. She had the dull realization that, like a ghost, the thing wasn't solid—but it could certainly cause harm to men. She saw the second guard die very clearly; his skin puffed and split, exuding vapor—as if the blood in his body were suddenly steam.

That was the last she saw of it. Tsem had her in both arms and was running. Her last glimpse was of the priest, broom blazing furiously, standing between them and the apparition. The rest was nightmare flashes of this corridor and that, of Tsem's pounding heart—and the images of what she had seen burning on the surface of her eyes. Tsem did not stop until they reached one of the far shrines, a place that no ghost would ever dare enter. Placing her inside, he waited at the door, fists clenched. After a long while—when nothing happened—Tsem pointed a finger at her.

"Stay here," he said simply, and then he was gone, loping back up the way they came.

"Tsem! No, Tsem!" she shrieked, but it was too late. The half Giant was gone.

It wanted me. And it would kill Tsem as easily as it would anyone; it had no neck to snap, no body to bludgeon. She recalled the first guard, so young and brave.

Frustrated, afraid, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin. The tail on her dress was broken, she remembered not how.

Taking deep, slow breaths, she tried to calm herself. It was then that she noticed the blood.

Her first thought was that it was Tsem's, that he was injured somehow, for surely it couldn't be hers. But there it was, little smeared drops on the floor, on her dress. Not much blood. She touched some clinging to her legs. It was sticky, certainly blood.

She understood then. It was her blood, and she was not wounded. She had begun bleeding.

She was a woman.

PART TWO

The Blessed and the Cursed

I

The Return of Steel

Perkar stood amidst the waters of a great River. The current clutched at his ankles, touching him with more urgency but far less tenderness than the goddess of the stream. Beyond the thick water lay a settlement, and the word that formed in his mind was city though cities were only a rumor to him. It was a vast thing, this city, unimaginably huge, a white hive of blocky white buildings given scale only by their myriad, antlike inhabitants.

The water swirled before him, and a girl arose. A girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old. Her dark skin, black hair, and tiny angular face bore no resemblance to his Anishu love, but she seemed to know him, to beckon for him. To whisper a name that was his own despite the fact that he did not recognize its sound. He shuddered, his feet shuffling toward her with a will of their own. Rather, the River moved them, pulling him toward the child. A panic seized Perkar, dream-panic that overwhelmed everything else, drove like a dagger between sleeping and waking, tore a rent in the wall of dream that he fell through, to lie blinking and groaning on his blanket.