It did indeed, but a picture that was far too indistinct to be of any use. Sunandi sighed. “I cannot bring this to the Protectors, General. Even if they believed me—which is no guarantee by far—they would ask the same questions I have, and you have no answers. I suspect you understand that. So I must ask: what did you really hope to gain from this meeting?”
“Your belief, if not the Protectors’. Kinja’s message—have you deciphered it yet?”
Sunandi grew very still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grimaced. “There’s no time for games, Speaker. We cannot stay here much longer or the servants—some of whom are surely spies—might miss us. Suffice it that Kinja gave me the message just before he died, though he told me nothing of its content. Said I knew too much already. He asked me to make sure his successor received it if anything should happen to him. Your girl’s skills made that easy for me, thank the gods.” He reached over and took her hand, gripping it firmly. “Believe the message, Speaker. Make the Protectors understand. The Reaper is only the beginning.”
“I can’t make the Protectors understand anything, General—”
“You can. You must. Go there to convince them—you’ll have to leave anyway if you want to live; you know that, don’t you? Do it soon. The Prince knew Kinja had discovered something, and Kinja died. He already suspects you. You’re too obviously Kinja’s heir.”
“And you?”
Niyes smiled, bleakly and without a trace of humor. “I will doubtless take that place soon.” He nodded toward the stone slab. “But before I do, I want to try and prevent a great evil. My men are loyal and more than willing to die for Gujaareh—but I won’t let them die for this.”
His face was grim, his eyes hard and resigned. He was either the greatest liar she’d ever seen, or he meant every word.
After a long and careful scrutiny, Sunandi finally sighed. “Then take me out of here, General, before I lose my dinner. I’ll need all my strength intact if I’m to stop a war.”
5
Gujaareh’s King is crowned as he ascends the throne of dreams to sit at Hananja’s right hand. In the waking realm, it is the duty of the Prince to act in Her name.
(Law)
In the sky above, the Dreamer had risen, her four-banded face framed by thin wisps of summer clouds. In the streets below, the same colors—red for blood, blue-white for seed, yellow for ichor, and black for bile—glowed from banners on every torchpost and windowsill, lintel and clothesline. The light reflected off sweat-sheened faces and leaf fans, brightly dyed cloth and eager smiles. Some while before the sun had set, its last sullen glow fading reluctantly beyond the river. Already Hananja’s city was deep in the throes of worship, rejoicing on the night its Goddess starved.
In the courtyard of the palace Yanya-iyan, the noblest of Her followers had gathered to worship apart from the wilder street celebrations of the common castes. Here the Hamyan proceeded in a more dignified fashion as the esteemed lords of the shunha and zhinha mingled with their peers from artisan-hall and warhall, the royal family and foreign lands. Every so often one of the guests would raise hands, proclaim some trinket or utensil a sacrifice, and exhort Hananja to accept it to supplement the sparse dreams She would receive on the shortest night of the year. Usually this ritual drew laughter from the other guests, though the Servants of Hananja in attendance maintained a pointed silence.
Had Nijiri known more of life beyond the Hetawa walls, he might have felt humbled by the presence of so many citizens of note. Instead he stood still as they ambled about him, his awe stolen by Yanya-iyan itself. The main structure of the great palace surrounded the courtyard in an open-ended oval. He and the other guests stood within a curving valley of marble tiers, each decorated with embossings and troughs of flowers that seemed to have been stacked to the sky. At the open end, bronze lattice-gates twice the height of a man allowed commoners to peer in, if they dared; the guards would allow it if they seemed no threat. Even as Nijiri watched, two women at the gate pointed in at something beyond him. He turned to follow their gaze and stopped in fresh wonder.
Far opposite the gates, at the other end of the courtyard, stood a pyramid-shaped elevated pavilion. Beneath the pavilion’s glass roof, at the top of a mountain of steps, sat a deceptively simple oxbow seat carved whole from a block of pale, shiny nhefti-wood.
And there sat the Prince of Gujaareh, Lord of the Sunset, Avatar of Hananja, straight-backed and so still that Nijiri wondered for a moment whether the figure was flesh or painted stone. The answer came when a servant child crouched at the Prince’s left hand, offering a golden cup on a platter. The Prince moved an arm—no more than that—and took the cup without looking. Another child crouched nearly hidden behind the Prince, holding the staff that bore the Aureole of the Setting Sun: a wide semicircle of polished red-and gold-amber plates shaped like sunbeams, kept steady behind the Prince’s head. Around the Prince’s feet, twenty of his younger children sat arranged as living ornaments, reflecting their sire’s glory.
“A rare sight,” a voice said beside Nijiri, startling him badly. He jerked about to see a woman in a gown of palest green, translucent hekeh fiber. She smiled at his discomfiture, flexing the delicately patterned scars along her otherwise smooth brown cheekbones.
Women are goddesses, rang the old adage through Nijiri’s mind before he swallowed and bowed over both hands, hazarding a guess. “Sister?”
“Gatherer.” She inclined her head and spread her hands, her every movement grace. He stared, entranced by the way the black ropes of her hair caught the light. “Gatherer-Apprentice rather, given that I do not know you, and given that you gaze at me like a young man who hasn’t seen a woman older than twelve for many years. That would make you Nijiri.”
He quickly lowered his eyes. “Yes, Sister.”
“Meliatua is my name.” She nodded toward the Prince’s pavilion again. “I meant the Prince’s children, by the way. He rarely allows any but the oldest out in public.”
“Ah, yes.” Nijiri groped for some more polite way to address her. “Sister” alone seemed rude, like calling one of his brethren merely “Servant.” But her order operated independently of the Hetawa, and he knew nothing of their divisions of rank. Then it occurred to him that a conversation had begun between them and he was expected to respond, not stand there gawping like a fool.
“I, I was just thinking that it must be terribly dull for the children,” he said, wincing inwardly at his stammer, “being forced to sit there for so long.”
“The Prince will send them away presently. For the time being they’re on display, both as a sign of his devotion to Hananja and as a rebuke to the rest of these fools.” She looked around and sighed, either missing or ignoring Nijiri’s shock at her casual contempt. “They offer Her trifles; the Prince presents his own flesh and blood. If the Hetawa laid claim to any of those children right now, the Prince would have no choice but to agree.”
Nijiri blinked in surprise. That the Hetawa could adopt any child who showed promise—orphaned or not—he knew. During his own years in the House of Children he had met several adoptees with living parents. But they had all, like Nijiri, been children of the lower and middling castes. He could not imagine a shunha or zhinha heir, let alone a child of the Sunset, deigning to live as a mere Servant of Hananja when caste and family connections promised so much more.
She read his face and lifted an eyebrow. “Your own mentor is a brother of the Prince, Gatherer-Apprentice. No one knows the circumstances—Ehiru has always been private about such things—but he was the last child of the Sunset claimed by the Hetawa. Did you not know?”
Half-overheard whispers flitted through Nijiri’s memory, but still the truth was a shock. He had guessed that Ehiru’s origins were highcaste—who could notice that fine black skin, those angular features, those elegant manners and speech, and think otherwise?—but never so very high as that. He dared a look up at the seated Prince again and tried to visualize Ehi
ru in his place, beautiful and regal and perfect as a god. The image fit so well that a secret, shameful thrill flitted down Nijiri’s spine before he banished it.
From the corner of his eye he spied Meliatua watching him. Realizing that half his thoughts must be obvious, he flushed and drew his hood closer about his face. “We all belong to Hananja now, Sister.”
“Indeed we do.” She took his arm then, startling him badly. He could do nothing but follow as she tugged him into a stroll.
“Where is your mentor, Gatherer-Apprentice? He should be at your side, protecting you from the likes of me.” Her teeth gleamed in the firelight.
“He wished me to spend some time on my own, Sister.” Nijiri felt the softness of her breast press against his elbow and fought the urge to nudge it back to see what would happen. He had a vague notion this would offend her. “Gatherers must blend in among people of many kinds; I am therefore to observe and learn.” He glanced at her, hesitated, then dared humor. “Perhaps comfort is my sacrifice tonight.”
To his relief she laughed, causing the scar-patterns on her cheeks to dance in the firelight. He admired the way the scars ornamented her beauty even as he realized with some surprise that he did not want her at all. She was a sculpture: to be observed and perhaps even touched, but not a thing one could take home.
“You should become a Sister if you’ll miss such a small thing,” she said. “Our business is comfort, after all. Although truthfully, there’s little even we can do tonight.”
Surprised, Nijiri followed her gaze and focused on his fellow revelers. It took him a moment to fathom the Sister’s meaning, but now that she had pointed it out, the signs were obvious. A darting glance from a man who wore rich scholars’ robes, at Nijiri—at his shoulder, which bore his new, just-healed Gatherer tattoo—and then away. A young zhinha woman, laughing at some joke by her companion, faltered silent for an instant as Nijiri and Meliatua passed. When she resumed laughing, it sounded forced. A tall soldier with a face like sandy foothills nodded gravely to Nijiri; there was a terrible sorrow in his eyes.
Meliatua shook her head. “And another measure of comfort is offered up to Hananja. They make proper sacrifices without meaning to.”
“No one has ever looked at me with fear before,” Nijiri said, troubled. “But then, I am a Gatherer now.”
“Only the ignorant fear Gatherers on sight,” the Sister said. “The rest know when to fear. There are no Gatherings on Hamyan Night.”
This was true, and it was why Ehiru had been willing—after days of inactivity—to come out tonight. He was willing to train Nijiri, pray and spar with him, do everything an apprentice Gatherer needed him to… except Gather. That, however, was a different problem. “Then why do they fear me?” he asked.
“Observe, Apprentice, as your mentor commanded. Learn. Listen.”
So he did, falling silent as they wended their way through the crowded courtyard. At first he heard only snatches of words amid the babble. Gradually his ears sifted sentences from the mass, then finally snippets of conversation.
“—The shipping manifest didn’t even show the extra cargo—”
“—Murdered in his cell. No marks, but his eyes—”
“—Bromarte. They usually hire the Feen to fight for them, but this time—”
“—Nothing natural, I tell you. He was gibbering when they pulled him out—”
“—Those military-castes. Tight-lipped bastards—”
“Rumors,” Nijiri said at last. Above, the Dreamer’s red band edged into Yanya-iyan’s oval sky; they had circuited the courtyard for nearly an hour. “And gossip. But not of the mindless sort I expected. They speak of corruption, and madness, and war.”
She nodded. “Just so. Not the stuff of comfort.”
“That does not explain their fear of me, Sister.”
“Doesn’t it? Corruption and madness and war. Gatherers take the corrupt and those madmen who cannot be cured. War is anathema to Hananja, and thus to Her Servants.” She turned to him, stopping abruptly and dropping her voice. “It may not be possible to find an explanation tonight. For now, it is enough that we have noticed. If She wishes us to understand further, She will let us find the means.”
He frowned, remembering more rumors whispered among the Hetawa acolytes. “Can you not fathom it now, Sister? I know little about your path, but I have heard of your—er, powers—” He faltered when she smiled.
“Careful, Gatherer-Apprentice. Inunru the Founder had no part in founding the Sisterhood. The Hetawa accepts us—grudgingly—because we supply the city with dreamseed, but never call us a ‘path’ in front of your Superior unless you want to annoy him.” She nodded toward the left, and Nijiri glanced through the crowd to glimpse the Superior accepting a cup from a passing servant. Nijiri quickly looked away before their eyes could meet.
“For another, I possess only Outer Sight.” She touched the scars on her face: two parallel lines of raised dots along her cheekbones and crossing the bridge of her nose. “Deciphering the realm of waking is my specialty, not dreaming omens. I can see the fear in these people and guess at its causes. I can investigate, to pierce the obfuscations and misdirections so common in the waking world. But to know for certain? That much will be beyond me until my fertile years end.”
He groped for a suitable reply to this, then was surprised again as she disengaged her arm from his. “Sister?”
“Your mentor commanded you to observe and learn,” she said, “not spend the evening consorting with a woman of dubious orthodoxy. And I have duties of my own on this night.”
He flushed abruptly, realizing what those duties must be. She was a young Sister, perhaps only ten years older than himself, still nubile. The Sisters of Hananja served Her in many ways, but they never shirked their primary mission. There would be much dreamseed to collect on a night like Hamyan.
He inclined his head to her as he would to an equal, a silent acknowledgement of her rank in his eyes. “May She dream of your good fortune, Sister.”
“And yours, Gatherer-Apprentice.” She bowed to him—deeply, flattening both hands—and then turned away into the milling crowd. He gazed after her in wonder.
“If not for your vows she might have stayed with you tonight,” said a voice behind Nijiri, and for the second time he turned to face a stranger. This one was a man of Nijiri’s height, with eyes a startling shade of near-golden brown. It was impossible to guess this man’s age. His skin was smooth and youthful, his thicket of long rope-braids—not a wig, Nijiri realized with some surprise—black and free of silver. But he felt older than he looked, as he watched Nijiri with all the patience and confidence of a waiting lion. And there was something fleetingly familiar about him…
“Young men your age are especially rich in dreamseed, I’m told,” the stranger continued. “She might have drawn her quota for the night from you alone.”
Nijiri bowed, carefully respectful while he tried to place the man’s rank and that niggling familiarity. “Doubtless she will find others who have need of her skills.”
“And you have no need? How old are you?”
“I have seen sixteen floods.”
The man smiled. “Then you have need, young Gatherer! Does it trouble you that you could ease those needs right now, if not for your oath? Or are you hoping you still can, if you catch her in some discreet place along the way home?”
His words were offensive, and he knew it. Nijiri could see that in the man’s smile. For a moment he was flustered. He should, as one sworn to Hananja, remind the man of his vows—but a highcaste might take that as an implication of ignorance or stupidity. And yet to say nothing would make Nijiri faithless to Her… He wavered in indecision, his stomach knotting.
“We all have such needs, my lord. But directing them toward the service of Hananja is the sacrifice we of the Hetawa offer every day, with great joy.”
The Gatherer Rabbaneh stepped out of the milling throng, his face carved into its usual smile, a cup in one hand.
Before Nijiri could register relief, Rabbaneh handed his cup to Nijiri and dropped smoothly to one knee, crossing both arms before his face and turning his palms outward as if to shield himself from a blinding glare. A manuflection; Nijiri had heard of the custom from his Teachers, but never seen it performed outside of lessons. It was the highest gesture of respect, offered only to those specially marked by the gods—
Dream of Inunru!
The strange man—the Prince of Gujaareh—laughed good-naturedly at the look of horror on Nijiri’s face, then waved a hand at Rabbaneh. “Stop that. I put aside the Aureole so I could walk among my people for a while without all that foolishness.”
Rabbaneh rose and adopted the more traditional bow of respect instead. He was still smiling as he straightened. “You must forgive me, my lord. I meant only to model the proper behavior for Nijiri. His actions reflect upon the whole Hetawa now, and especially my path.”
“Oh, he was perfectly polite, Rabbaneh. A credit to his Teachers.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Nijiri said. To his great relief he did not stammer, though he could not have vouched for the volume or pitch of his voice in that moment. He quickly bowed over his free hand, not trusting himself to manuflect without falling over. His hands shook so badly that Rabbaneh’s drink sloshed and splashed in its cup. Rabbaneh reached over and deftly plucked the cup away before Nijiri could stain his robe.
“Nijiri.” The Prince seemed to mull over the name. “Too pale to be shunha, too humble for zhinha. Were you common-born?”
“My lord.” Rabbaneh smiled in a gentle reprimand even as Nijiri opened his mouth to say, “Yes.” To Nijiri’s surprise, the Prince chuckled.
“Oh fine, fine. You priests.” He stepped closer, and Nijiri nearly started as the Prince reached up to take his chin between two fingers. “You’re a fine-looking boy. It’s a good thing your birth-caste no longer applies, whatever it was. You might have been sold in marriage to some wealthy, influential widow—or if you were lowcaste, someone would have made a pleasure-servant of you.” He ran a thumb over Nijiri’s lips and this time Nijiri did start in spite of himself, though he mastered the reflex to pull away in time. The Prince smiled, his eyes narrowing in amusement. Then—to Nijiri’s intense relief—he let go.