"An insult!" Perkar returned, with a forced playfulness no more real than the love of a corpse. "Now we shall have to fight again." He tried to grin.

"This time I will kill you," Ngangata replied, in kind.

His smile was cruelly painful, and so Perkar relinquished it. "You were the best of us, Ngangata. We shall never fight again." He reached over and grasped the other man's hand. Ngangata returned the grip; it was still surprisingly strong. The strength seemed to leak out of it, though, and the pale man sank back onto his rough pallet of reeds, eyes closing gently. Perkar's heart caught in his throat.

"Ngangata!" he cried, reaching for the man's neck to seek his pulse.

"Let me sleep," Ngangata whispered. "I need some sleep."

Perkar sat with him, occasionally touching the body to make sure it was still warm. "I want you to live," he told the sleeping man.

The gorge walls kept the sun from waking Perkar until late morning. He rubbed his eyes and wondered where he was. The swiftly flowing River reminded him, and he turned anxiously to Ngangata. His companion was still asleep, but a brief touch was enough to assure him that Ngangata was still alive. He rose and stretched in the sunlight, feeling better than he had in some time. Surprisingly, his sleep had been untroubled by dreams. Perhaps the Changeling ate those, too.

Waking was more painful; the Changeling apparently feasted neither on memory nor on guilt.

He set about trying to make good on his promise to find food. He was ravenous, and yet the hunger was pleasing, as if he were a shell filled only with air and light.

He fashioned a gig with his boot-knife and the slender branch of a willow, lashing the knife on with a length of leather lace. Crouched by the River, he waited for a fish to come by. He waited a long time before he saw something moving along, something broad and fish-shaped. He set his mouth in anticipation, and when the creature swam beneath his spear, he stabbed downward with it, felt the point plunge into flesh. With a flourish and a cry, he heaved the fish up onto the bank, where it flopped about wildly.

It was a strange fish, the like of which he had never seen, plated with armor. Still, it would certainly be edible… Perkar watched in shocked wonder as the fish suddenly collapsed in upon itself, became a stream of water, and flowed back into the River. A tingle ran up the nape of his neck as he fully recalled where he was. This was the Changeling, and nothing was what it seemed here, where water could dream of being a fish.

He speared five of the ghost fish before finally skewering one that fell out on the bank and stayed there. Unlike the others— which had all been unfamiliar in appearance—this was a trout, and a large one. Disquieted by the new revelation regarding the River, but still happy to have caught something to eat, he stirred up their small fire, added a few branches to it, and gutted the fish. He was just propping their soon-to-be meal above the flames when something on the River caught his peripheral vision.

There was a boat coming downstream. Perkar blinked at it for a moment and then, with a wild cry, plunged into the water. In an instant he was over his head, and he thanked the Stream Goddess that he had learned to swim as a child. Stroking frantically, he strained to intercept the craft before it whisked past him. He needn't have worried; the boat nudged into him, as if by a will of its own. Throwing his arms up over the sides, he pulled himself in.

It was a fine craft, shallow draft, a dugout that must have been hewn from an outrageously large tree, so broad and steady it was. Perkar scrambled back to the tiller, took hold of it, and pointed the bow toward shore. The boat responded as if it were being paddled, actually cutting a wave across the current as it glided sedately to the rocky beach. Perkar remembered Karak's parting words, his promise of a last gift. This was certainly it. Perkar doubted that god-made boats were often found wandering masterless, even on the Changeling.

He secured the boat as best he could to one of the few willows on the shore, then walked back upstream. He found Ngangata awake—probably roused by his frantic cries—and tending the fish.

"I take back what I said," Ngangata confessed. "You have caught two fish today."

Perkar smiled weakly, indicating the boat. "A gift from the Crow God, I think."

"From the Raven," Ngangata corrected. "The Crow God gives nothing away."

"There are two of them? Two Karakal?"

Ngangata snorted. "No."

Perkar thought he understood, but he was weary of gods, sick to death of them, and did not feel like perfecting his knowledge of them any more.

"Are the walls of the canyon lower farther down?"

"Lower and more sloped, perhaps a day or so downstream," Ngangata acknowledged. "There will be rapids between here and there."

"Should we wait until you are stronger?"

Ngangata shook his head. "We should go now. If the Raven knows we are here, the Crow does, as well, and one can never be sure where which Karak will be at any moment. Better to leave Balat behind."

"I agree with that," Perkar conceded. "We'll eat, and then we'll go."

As it turned out, it was nearly dark before they set out; Ngangata's dressing needed changing; Perkar went back upstream to salvage the leather from the harness and saddle of the dead horse. Ngangata claimed that it would be many days before they reached any Human settlements, and they would need everything they could carry with them. Perkar wished desperately that he had taken more from Mang, but his own pack was all he had; there were some useful things in it: sinew, whetstone, a fire-making kit, but no food. Perkar wondered aloud what would happen to them if they had to drink River water. Ngangata pointed out that they could drink from streams that fed the Changeling, for they would be innocent of weirdness until they joined him.

Like the goddess, Perkar thought.

When they did put out into the River, Perkar felt a return of his earlier depression. Ngangata, exhausted by even a little labor, fell asleep quickly, leaving him alone with the slowly appearing stars, with the lapping of water at the bow. The lapping of his enemy. It was a quiet moment, even within him. The terrible raging of his mind was calmer, replaced by melancholy, by reflection. It occurred to Perkar that he had ruined the Kapaka's expedition and gotten everyone but Ngangata killed so that he could reach this River and challenge it. Now that he was here, probably less than a day from the Changeling's source, he was timidly fleeing it. If it weren't for Ngangata…

Then what? Perhaps better to perish at least attempting that for which he had sacrificed so much than to return with the shame that would follow him home. He had killed his king and perhaps ruined his people. His only hope was to die well, like Apad and Eruka.

But he would not have Ngangata killed, not him, too. No one else should suffer for his destiny. Idly, Perkar drew his sword, laid it across his knees.

"Can you see the Changeling's heartstrings?" he asked it.

"They are faint, far upstream. I can see them."

"Are they many?"

"Seven times seven," the sword replied.

"But he sleeps. How many could I sever before he awakens?"

"Many, perhaps. Not enough."

Perkar knit his brows in frustration. Would he ever be this close again? How often did the River sleep, present this opportunity? He brooded, and in the next few moments, a plan came to him. He would take Ngangata to the first Human settlement, see that he was cared for, and then come back, if he could. The boat was magical, steering itself, cutting easily across even this swift current. Would it sail upstream?

Perkar felt a bit of elation. He could test that now. He would not go far upstream; but if it could be done, then he would not feel so helpless, so cowardly. He would know that return was possible.