The audience chamber was on the highest story of Yanya-iyan. When the Prince led him onto the royal family’s private balcony, Charris caught his breath at the sight of the whole city spread before them, the ground so far below that the people milling in the market plaza seemed small as dolls. To the west was the river and the fertile greenlands, source of Gujaareh’s prosperity. Northward, Charris could even see the river delta and the coastal edge of the Sea of Glory. It was the whole of the Prince’s kingdom, laid out as far as the eye could see.
Then he looked to the east, and stiffened.
“You must forgive me for not telling you about this,” the Prince said. Charris could feel the Prince’s eyes on his face, drinking in his reaction. “Admiral Akolil scorns the landed military, and I generally try to keep him appeased. But the time has come for you to know.”
Ships, Charris thought in a daze. From their vantage he could see the eastern port, which opened to the Narrow Sea and allowed Gujaareh to trade down the continental coast as far as Kisua. The port was full of ships—warships—crowding in to reach the loading docks. Beyond that, he could see the expanse of the Narrow Sea spreading from Gujaareh’s coast all the way to the horizon. And there he saw more ships, neatly anchored rows of them. Hundreds of them. They dotted the water like a pox.
“The shipbuilding five years ago on the Sea of Glory,” Charris whispered. “The provisioning levies for more troops than we actually have.”
“Indeed.” Charris heard pride in the Prince’s voice. “With aid from our allies, these ships have all made the long journey ’round the northern continent, through oceans of floating ice and other hazards too fantastic to name. We lost many, but more survived. And now nearly every one has arrived with a bellyful of fierce barbarian warriors. The Kisuati will be most surprised.”
Charris struggled to make his mouth work. “When?”
“They set sail tomorrow. I’m having their resupply rushed as much as possible. Akolil assures me they can make the Iyete Straits in a single day, and be at Kisua’s northeastern coast in an eightday, or perhaps a few days beyond. Much earlier than I’d intended, of course, thanks to Niyes and Kinja and lovely, treacherous Sunandi. And I’d meant to have twenty thousand troops instead of just ten; the rest won’t arrive for weeks or months. But ten should be sufficient for the first wave. Kisua isn’t ready either, after all.”
Charris turned to stare at him, too stunned to censor himself as he normally did. “You really intend to do it. Kisua is twice our size—”
“But we have twice the wealth. And Kisua’s isolationism has earned her enemies among the northern tribes, who resent the way Kisua hoards trade to the south. The northerners became eager to fight once I promised them control of that trade.” The Prince smiled, turning to gaze eastward. “Though I’m not sure I’ll hold to that agreement. All of their troops are going to die, after all. It will be Gujaareh’s swords which ultimately subdue the Kisuati beast.”
“Going to die?” Charris blurted it, trying to think through the numbness of his thoughts. War. On such a scale, war to engulf the whole eastern half of the continent and the northlands as well. Only an eightday away.
“Of course. Our mad friend has developed even faster than I expected, which is fortunate as my hand’s been forced early. Everything hinges on the Reaper.”
And then, suddenly, Charris knew what the Prince was going to do.
He must have gasped, because the Prince gave him a sharp look. Then smiled at his horror.
“Dreamblood,” said the Prince. He clapped Charris on the shoulder, companionably. “In the end, it all comes down to that. No longer will my lineage be slave to the Hetawa. And no longer will Gujaareh be a mere crossroads for trade. We can become the center of a civilization that spans continents, bringing peace and prosperity to all. And I shall give the people a living god, one of flesh and not mere dreams, to worship. Do you understand?”
Charris did. And for an eternal instant as he stood there, Niyes’s treachery paled before his own hunger to draw his sword and strike the Prince down.
But then the urge passed. He was zhinha, a true son of Gujaareh, and the Prince was the Avatar of Hananja. To attack him was more than treason; it was blasphemy. And so he knelt, raising his arms in proper manuflection.
“I understand, my Prince,” he said. “My life is yours.”
“As it has always been,” said the Prince. He turned back, then, to admire the view.
29
Those who honor Hananja are expected to obey Her Law. However, those who dwell in the lands of unbelievers are permitted to conceal their faith as needed to preserve peace.
(Law)
Kisua.
The capital city seemed as unending as the ocean. It was easy to see the shared history with Gujaareh in Kisua’s sun-baked white walls and narrow brick-paved streets, but there the resemblance ended. There were also great sprawling edifices, some four or five stories high. There were gold-leaf lintels, brightly colored tile inlays, and sturdy locked, ornately carved darkwood doors. Vines grew wild over most of the buildings, their flowers scenting the warm, humid air with perfumes so heavy that Nijiri could breathe them blocks away. With the scents mingled strange sounds: raucous laughter and furious arguments, the calls of merchants hawking their wares, lullabies and love songs long since forgotten in Gujaareh. He could taste the city’s three thousand years on his tongue, rich and thick as an elder’s dreams.
Behind him in the curtained chamber, Ehiru slept. He had not spoken since the incident in the desert; he acted only when Nijiri guided him; his eyes tracked nothing, lost in some other realm. On the way into the city, Nijiri had been able to keep Ehiru’s condition hidden from the soldiers, though he suspected Sunandi had noticed. She’d made no protest when he insisted upon sharing quarters with Ehiru, even though her house was large enough to have many guest chambers. The servants had brought food and fresh clothing, then left them undisturbed, giving Nijiri the time and privacy to bathe Ehiru and attend to his own toilette.
So at sunset Nijiri had knelt on the balcony to pray and seek peace within himself. He meditated until the Dreamer rose fully, its four-hued light a comforting and familiar companion. Finally he went into the guest chamber’s bedroom. Ehiru lay amid the translucent hangings, restless despite Nijiri’s dragonfly jungissa on his forehead. Nijiri parted the hangings and sat down beside him, reaching up to remove the jungissa. With his fingertips he traced the frown etched into his mentor’s brow. It seemed there was no peace for Hananja’s favorite even in sleep. There was only one way Ehiru would have peace ever again.
Nijiri shifted his hand to lay a finger on each of Ehiru’s eyelids.
Ehiru had failed the pranje’s test. To Gather him now would be a kindness—far kinder than letting him wake to face the enormity of his crime. It was Nijiri’s duty as Ehiru’s apprentice, his duty as a Servant of Hananja. In the Hetawa Ehiru would have been sent onward already. And yet…
Nijiri’s hand trembled.
In the Hetawa Ehiru would not have faced the test in the midst of a battle, surrounded by chaos and enemies. How could the test truly measure his control under such circumstances? Even Nijiri had killed—not with narcomancy, but murder was murder. And because of that, because he had been off protecting a tithebearer-in-abeyance and not attending Ehiru as he should have done, Ehiru had faced his moment of greatest trial with no one to help him. The failure was as much Nijiri’s as his.
“Brother—” He snatched his hand away, overwhelmed by an anguish so intense that its weight seemed to crush him. Pressing his forehead to Ehiru’s he wept helplessly, great racking sobs that echoed throughout the guest chamber and probably beyond, but he was past caring what Sunandi or her servants thought of his grief. He wanted only for Ehiru to wake and shush him and hold him, as he had on that long-ago day when they’d first met. I would die for you, he had thought on that day, and instead he had learned to kill, to walk in dreams, to dance his soul’s joy. He had done it all
to make himself worthy of this man, who was the closest thing to a father he had ever known. The closest thing to a lover he had ever wanted. There were no words for what Ehiru was to him; even Sister Meliatua had not fully grasped it. God, perhaps. Far more than Hananja had ever been.
The tears spent themselves after a time. As the tightness in his throat loosened, he pushed himself up, taking deep breaths to try and regain control. Twin streaks of wetness painted Ehiru’s face. Nijiri brushed them away and then did the same to himself.
All the hard-won peace he’d achieved during the evening’s meditation was gone. Sighing, Nijiri got to his feet and rubbed a hand over his hair, turning to pace—and stopping as he saw the silhouette in the doorway. Sunandi.
She walked in without asking to enter, her bare feet making no noise on the woven-grass mats, the moonlight illuminating her face in flashes as she passed near the windows. Though she had probably heard his weeping she made no mention of it, not looking at him as she passed. He was too weary to feel grateful.
When she reached the foot of the bed she stopped, gazing down at Ehiru for a long moment. “Will he die?”
Once upon a time Nijiri would have hated her for that question. Now he only looked away. “Yes.”
“When?”
“When I do my duty.”
“Must it be now?”
“He deliberately took a man’s dreamblood and gave no peace in return. By our laws, there’s no higher crime.”
She sighed, folding her arms. “He sleeps well for a criminal.”
“A minor sleep-spell. If he were himself, I’d never have been able to cast it on him.” He looked down at the jungissa in his hands, turning it by its fragile-seeming wings. It had been owned by countless Gatherers down through the centuries—and before that, the stone from which it had been hewn had flown through the sky, spinning among the gods themselves. Perhaps it had even touched the Dreaming Moon before falling to earth as magic made solid.
“Deprivation has greatly weakened his umblikeh,” he said softly. “The tether that binds a soul to its body, and to the waking world.”
“And now that he is no longer… deprived?”
“Under ordinary circumstances, with time, the tether could heal.”
She threw him a sidelong glance. “He will have no time if you Gather him.”
Nijiri shook his head. “In the Hetawa he might have managed it—over months, in isolation. Out here, amid all this madness…” Nijiri gestured toward the balcony, Kisua, the world. “No. Even leaving aside the matter of his crime, it’s hopeless.”
He felt her eyes on him as he went to the balcony door and leaned against it, gazing out at the city and wishing it were Gujaareh. Wishing too that the Kisuati woman would leave. He had so little time left with Ehiru.
But she said nothing for so long that he finally turned back to see if she was there. And stiffened, for she had dared to sit on Ehiru’s bed, stroking the fuzz of his unshorn hair with one hand.
She glanced up, saw his anger, and smiled. “Forgive my familiarity. He reminds me of someone I once knew and loved dearly.” She took her hand away. “He should have the choice.”
“What?”
“The choice. Of whether to die, when to die. I could accept the terrible things your kind do if you did them only to the willing.”
Nijiri scowled. “You believe he is unwilling? A Gatherer of Hananja?”
She winced. “Perhaps he is willing. Still, his city prepares itself in secret for war, his brother schemes to use evil magic, a Reaper stalks the shadows, and he will live to see none of it resolved. That seems crueler than merely killing him outright.”
Nijiri’s hand clenched on the curtain. “You only want him with us when we stand before the Protectors tomorrow.”
“That I cannot deny. But that serves you as well, for it will help me save both your city and mine. Whatever you might believe, I have no desire to see war between our lands. And too, it pains me to see the two of you suffering like this.” Nijiri made a sound of disbelief, but she ignored him, still gazing at Ehiru. “When he told me about Lin… I hated all your kind. Everyone who uses magic. Now I begin to see that it is your Hetawa that is wicked, and not you.”
He opened his mouth to curse her blasphemy, then recalled the look in the Superior’s eyes when they’d taken Ehiru away in a rogue’s yoke. “Not all the Hetawa.” Oh, that was weak.
“True. You and your mentor, and even the Reaper who took my Lin… you are the victims here. The most pitiful victims of all, because you believe.”
Nijiri stared at her, then finally sat down on a nearby chair. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Maybe you’re right.”
She fell silent, perhaps out of surprise at his agreement, perhaps just respectful of his pain. When she spoke again, she kept her voice soft the way a Gatherer would. “Let him live until tomorrow. Let him hear what the Protectors have to say. I don’t know what sort of information they can give him, but by speaking with them, he could help to seal the breach between my land and yours. Perhaps that will give him some extra measure of peace before…” She hesitated, groping for some delicate way to say it.
“Before he dies,” Nijiri finished for her. He looked her in the eye and offered a bleak smile. “Death does not trouble us, remember.” He focused on Ehiru and sobered. “He will not be pleased with me when he wakes.”
“Endure it,” she said, getting to her feet. “Your kind make decisions about other peoples’ lives—and deaths—all the time, do you not? Perhaps it’s time one of you learned to face the consequences of such decisions, instead of simply killing those who object.”
It was another insult—but there was a note of kindness underlying the acerbity, and he saw in her eyes that this was as near as she could come to a peace offering. He nodded to her; there was no anger left in him now, only grief. “Perhaps it is, Speaker.”
He saw her eyebrows rise at his use of her proper title; after a long moment she returned the nod. “Rest well then, little killer. In the morning the Protectors will see us. Be ready.” She turned and walked out, leaving Nijiri alone with Ehiru and his thoughts.
After a few moments of silence, Nijiri pushed himself up from the chair. Crossing the chamber to Ehiru’s bedside, he lifted the covers and climbed in, nestling himself into the crook of his mentor’s shoulder. Lulled by the steady beat of Ehiru’s heart he slept for the rest of the night—not quite at peace, but blessedly without dreams.
30
All who give of themselves to the Hetawa are entitled to its care and comfort.
(Law)
Ehiru opened his eyes to the first hint of dawn’s light.
I am still alive, he thought, and despaired.
At his side Nijiri murmured in his sleep. There were dried tear streaks on the boy’s face, Ehiru noted, and spots on his own chest as well. That drove back some of the anguish, for it was selfish of him to forget that his death was also Nijiri’s test. Sighing, he wiped the streaks from Nijiri’s face. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and the boy sighed in response.
The empty ache inside him was gone, filled by the dead soldier’s dreamblood. Yet he felt none of the usual peace or satisfaction that should have come after a Gathering—which was no surprise, since what he had done to the soldier could in no way be called “Gathering.” He closed his eyes and saw again the soldier’s face: angry at first, then terrified as he realized Ehiru’s intent. He remembered the feel of the man’s soul as it struggled to escape his hunger, as ineffectual as a moth fluttering in hand—and that, too, had fired Ehiru’s lust. Even now he shivered to recall his excitement when he’d destroyed that soul, to be rewarded by a dizzying spiral of pleasure whose peak had been more exquisite than anything he had ever experienced in his life. Mere Gathering paled beside it… and that was the proof of his irredeemable corruption. He had taken no such pleasure in killing Charleron of Wenkinsclan. In his heart he laughed, humorlessly and bitterly, at his earlier conceit; had he believed himself
too soiled to serve Hananja then? What must She think of the suppurating filth he had become now?
The thought left him too anguished even to weep.
“Brother?” He opened his eyes and saw that Nijiri had woken. The boy’s voice was hoarse, his face puffy. “Are you with me again?”
“Yes.” He fixed his eyes on the mosaic ceiling, unable to meet his apprentice’s gaze directly. Why had the Superior ever made him the boy’s mentor? He had never been fit for such a responsibility.
But Nijiri lowered his eyes, and abruptly Ehiru realized the boy blamed himself for what had happened. “I would have done my duty last night, Brother, but I thought… today… the Protectors…” He faltered again, then took a deep breath and visibly reached for calm. “I thought perhaps you would want to see at least that part of it through.”
“Few dying people have the chance to resolve their affairs,” Ehiru said, keeping his tone neutral. “Gatherers should receive no special privileges in that respect.”
“I know that.” The boy’s voice hardened suddenly and Ehiru looked at him in surprise. There was a taut, desperate sort of determination on his face—the determination of someone who knew he was doing wrong, yet did it anyhow. “But I can’t fulfill the charge of our brothers without your help. I can’t unravel so many secrets, and I can’t find and destroy the Reaper. Not alone. I’m only an apprentice, Ehiru-brother. You can’t ask so much of me.”
And Ehiru sighed, for he knew Nijiri was right.
“Then I shall return with you to Gujaareh,” he said at last, and shook his head at the wild flare of hope in the boy’s eyes. “Only that much, Nijiri. In Gujaareh Sonta-i and Rabbaneh can aid you in tracking down the Reaper and cleansing the Hetawa. Once you take my tithe—” Nijiri’s face fell; Ehiru continued ruthlessly. “You will be a Gatherer in full, then. Together the three of you will have the strength to do what must be done.”