“Shall I send you to Her now, Una-une-brother?” he asked softly. “I know the way.”
Una-une blinked at him. For one breathtaking, bittersweet moment his eyes filled with longing and Nijiri thought he would say yes.
Then Una-une’s expression flickered. The confusion returned. And as it began to pass, Nijiri saw the Reaper’s madness gleaming underneath. There would be no cat-and-mouse combat this time, he understood in that instant. The Reaper—for Nijiri could see Una-une fading away like morning mist—would pierce his mind and drain him dry.
Nijiri closed his eyes. “Forgive me, great Hananja. I can’t do this properly and still be sure.”
So he set his foot to brace himself, then made a blade of his hand and drove it into the Reaper’s throat.
The Reaper staggered back. Reached up, scrabbling at the loose leather collar and the deep concavity where its larynx had been. Even as Nijiri watched the area turned bruise-dark. With that opening, Nijiri ran forward and slapped a hand against the Reaper’s chest, driving dreambile through him as he’d done to Sentinel Harakha on the day of his apprenticeship trial. He was no Sharer; he had no idea what he’d managed to paralyze, just prayed it would be something important—And in the next instant, blood gouted from the Reaper’s lips. Its mouth worked, fishlike, as it struggled to draw breath and failed. With a Gatherer’s grace, it sagged to its knees. For just a breath its eyes focused on Nijiri, and there was peace in them.
Then Una-une fell and did not move again.
Taking a deep breath and clenching his fists, Nijiri pivoted to focus on Ehiru and the Prince. Oh Goddess!
Ehiru stood facing south. His hands quivered, each lifted before him with fingers forked. His body shook as well, harder than that of the afflicted child in Kisua; every muscle stood out like ropes beneath his skin. In profile Nijiri could see his mentor’s face frozen in a hideous rictus of lust and ecstasy and desperate, terrified denial. His eyes were shut tight. Over the sound of the wind Nijiri could hear Ehiru’s voice straining to utter a sound that might have been an animal’s death-cry or the groan of an overstressed timber. It was the sound of nothing human.
“Uuuuuuuh…”
And through it all the Prince stood behind him, hands on his shoulders, clinging to his back like a tick. His eyes had closed as well, but in pure bliss; in the dawn light he all but glowed as he drank in power.
“Nnnnnnnn…”
“Get away from him!” Nijiri lunged across the intervening space and grabbed the Prince.
It was like grabbing lightning. Power rammed up Nijiri’s arms and seared into his brain before he could raise his defenses or pull his hands free. In that blistering instant he felt himself crumbling away, too weak to withstand such a flood of will and magic and dreamblood and life and—
“Nnn—No! NO, GODDESS DAMN YOU, NO!”
The torrent of power stopped. In the ringing silence and slowness that followed, Nijiri saw the Prince, torn loose by Nijiri’s effort, stagger back; his expression was wild and thwarted. And then Nijiri saw Ehiru’s face contort in inhuman rage. Ehiru whipped about, still screaming—and put his fingers through the Prince’s eyes.
Impact with the floor drove Nijiri back into himself. He gasped, disoriented. A breath later the Prince hit the floor beside him, screaming, his eyes bloody holes. An instant after that, Ehiru fell upon the Prince, roaring and tearing at his face with bare hands.
The sky wheeled above Nijiri’s head. He closed his eyes, savoring flesh and blood and bone, more aware in that moment than ever before that his body was merely the temporary housing for his true self.
But it was good, strong housing, made by the gods themselves even if none would own up to the act, and he was grateful beyond words to have it.
* * *
After a time Nijiri was able to think again. He turned his head to the side and sighed at the sight of the Prince’s body. The face was unrecognizable, its limbs contorted in a bizarre sprawl. Dismissing it, Nijiri pushed himself up on one elbow and focused on Ehiru, who knelt facing the horizon.
“Brother.”
Ehiru did not turn. “Nijiri. We’ve won.” He chuckled, softly, without bitterness. “And lost. An army marches this way from Kisua.”
Nijiri sat up, wincing as bruises he’d forgotten reminded him of their existence. He suspected a rib was broken, too. “You’re certain?”
“I can taste them.” The wind shifted again, carrying with it the muddy richness of the irrigation canals. Ehiru inhaled deeply as if savoring the scent.
Nijiri got to his feet, dusting himself off. The wind rippled the cloth of the filthy Kisuati shirt he’d worn since the catacombs. He pulled it off and tossed it away, reveling in the feel of light and air on his skin again.
“I suppose that’s Hananja’s will too,” he said, and Ehiru nodded.
They remained that way for some while, watching the day brighten over the greenlands. Somewhere below, farmers tilled their fields and fishermen checked their nets and mothers kissed their children awake. War had come to Gujaareh and it did not matter, for whoever ruled in the palaces and fortresses would always need grain and fish and subjects to rule. For that, there would have to be peace. Hananja’s will always won out in the end.
Nijiri turned to Ehiru and said: “Lie down, Nsha.”
Ehiru glanced up at him and smiled. He lay back, his arms at his sides, and waited.
Nijiri knelt and cupped Ehiru’s face between his hands, wiping away sweat and grime and flecks of the Prince’s blood. When that was done he simply caressed Ehiru’s face, memorizing its lines as if he hadn’t done so a hundred times already. “I am Zhehur, in dreams,” he whispered.
Ehiru nodded. “We’ll meet again, Zhehur.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a long, weary sigh.
The ritual words were in Nijiri’s mind, but he did not say them. There was no need, and in any case no words were adequate. He drew his fingers over Ehiru’s eyes to close them and then settled his hand in place. He had no jungissa—the Prince’s defiled stone had probably fallen over the balcony railing—but it was an easy matter to push Ehiru into sleep. Even easier to pass through the thin layers that separated the realms, for Ehiru’s soul was halfway to dreaming already.
The images that passed between them in the moments that followed were simple. Ehiru was more than skilled enough to construct his own paradise. Nijiri lingered only to make certain the proper connections were in place—Ehiru’s mother and Kite-iyan, his hundred siblings, Una-une. He added small but unnecessary touches, like making certain the scent of the river hung in the air, and clearing the sky so that the Dreamer’s light shone with that special strangeness he knew Ehiru loved. When the world was finished, he lingered more, reluctant to sever the final connection, but at last Ehiru gently pushed him out. Ina-Karekh was not a place for the living, except in short safe doses of dream.
So at last Nijiri withdrew from the dream and took hold of Ehiru’s frail, fraying tether. He severed it neatly, collecting the tithe and setting the soul loose in its new home. Only when the last vestiges of Ehiru’s umblikeh had faded to nothingness did he follow his own tether home, settling back into his flesh with a sigh.
“Farewell, Brother,” said Gatherer Nijiri. “We shall indeed meet again.” He kissed the smile on Ehiru’s lips, then bent to lay another kiss on his breast. Those would do in place of his lotus signature.
Though no one would know they were there but him.
Epilogue
Hananja’s city burned beneath the Dreaming Moon.
Flanked by eight Kisuati soldiers, Sunandi walked through the debris-strewn streets with her face a mask and her heart full of grief. Here was the crafters’ market, several stalls already destroyed by the fires that had flared in the city over the past several days. There was the hall where the famous chantress Ky-yefter performed, its facade destroyed by a stray catapult stone. Although the Unbelievers’ District and parts of the southernmost wall now lay in smoldering ruins, the
majority of the city remained relatively unscathed. The Gujaareen army had not fought hard before surrendering, for their Prince was dead. Since then, the Protectors had been adamant that there be no looting or rapine, and General Anzi had been ruthless in enforcing those instructions among the Kisuati troops who’d come north to see to the occupation. They would have a difficult enough time controlling Gujaareh as it was.
Yet it was clear that even with the Protectors’ caution, something vital had been damaged in the city. Sunandi glimpsed some of the citizens forming water-brigades to combat the fires, but far more simply milled about in aimless confusion, their faces haunted and lost. Along the main avenues some of the citizens loitered with their fellows while watching the Kisuati soldiers move through their streets, but most sat or stood or rocked alone. In the pleasure quarter the Kisuati had found several raucous parties under way, with music and dancing in the streets. Gaudily painted timbalin-house women and youths beckoned to the soldiers, some lifting loindrapes to show nothing underneath and some wearing nothing to begin with, all of them smiling and friendly. But Sunandi had seen the haze of drugs or dreamseed in their eyes; she had heard the edge of fear in their sweet invitations. And among the whores she spied the yellow-clad figures of Hananja’s Sisters, standing silent watch amid the revelry. Then she understood: Gujaareh’s pleasure-givers offered themselves to the conquerors so that Gujaareh’s weaker citizens might remain unmolested.
“They’ll strike at any Kisuati-looking face,” Anzi had warned Sunandi, when he heard of her plan to tour the city. “All our people will be targets for their vengeance—a pretty woman like you even more so.” Clever of him to slip in that flattery, she reflected. Transparent, but clever. Well, he was handsome enough. Perhaps when the dust had settled and Gujaareh was firmly in hand… But not yet.
See them, Anzi. Do you still fear vengeance? This city’s spirit has been wounded, perhaps mortally. Gujaareh waits to see if death comes.
They entered the Hetawa square.
Here alone something of Gujaareh’s old peace lingered. The square was crowded with people of all castes and professions, some of them carrying bundles or pushing carts of belongings. The street directly in front of the Hetawa had been turned into a makeshift infirmary, with pallets laid out on the cobblestones. Family members and Hetawa acolytes moved among the pallets, tending burn victims and wounded soldiers. Other folk lingered nearby, some scratching notices on the walls of nearby buildings, some huddled on the steps of the Hetawa itself. Yet despite the crowding of the square, Sunandi perceived a curious stillness in the atmosphere—an intangible sense of comfort that could be glimpsed on nearly every face. For a moment she puzzled over the feeling, and then abruptly understood: there was no fear. Gujaareh had been defeated, Gujaareh might die as an individual nation, but Gujaareh was not afraid. Not here, at its heart.
In spite of herself, Sunandi smiled.
She headed across the square. On the steps she stopped and turned to the soldiers. “Wait here.”
The troop-captain, possibly acting on orders from Anzi, stared at her. “Impossible, Speaker. To let you go in there alone—”
“Do you imagine the Servants of Hananja would take her hostage? Or harm her in any way?” said a quiet voice nearby, speaking in heavily accented Sua. They turned to see a stocky red-haired man on the steps, watching them with a faint smile. Something about him stirred an immediate sense of recognition in Sunandi, though she could not recall seeing his face.
“Perhaps such things are done in barbarian lands,” the man said, “but not here.”
The captain bristled, but Sunandi threw him a stern glance and he subsided. “You must forgive us, sir,” she said to the man. “It’s a soldier’s job to worry about even the most unlikely possibilities.” She spoke in Gujaareen; his eyebrows rose in surprise and amusement.
“So it is. But I assure you, some things are not possible—not in the sight of Hananja. And if they were…” He glanced at the captain and although his smile never vanished, there was a momentary hardness in his eyes which, abruptly, Sunandi recognized. “There are only eight of you here. If we wanted Speaker Jeh Kalawe as a hostage, it would be simple enough to take her.”
The captain looked ready to draw his sword, though the man’s gentle warning had clearly had its impact. He glanced around at the square crowded with Hananja’s faithful—most of whom were watching the tableau—then set his jaw and fixed his eyes straight ahead. Sunandi let out a held breath and turned to the man.
“It would seem my reputation in Gujaareh is greater than I thought,” she replied. “Though of course it must be nothing to yours, Gatherer…?”
“Rabbaneh,” said the man. He inclined his head to her, then turned to walk up the steps, gesturing for her to follow. “Nijiri notified us shortly after his return that you’ve been judged innocent of corruption. He suspected you might return to Gujaareh—though not so soon—and wanted to be certain you received no… unwanted blessings, shall we say?” He chuckled. “Very diligent, is our Nijiri.”
She returned a sour smile, not entirely certain she liked this Gatherer’s sense of humor. “For which I’m quite grateful.”
“So are we all.” He glanced over at her, examining her carefully. “I understand you and the others who were at Soijaro have mostly recovered.”
Sunandi shivered at the memory. “A few died. Those already wounded or ill, several elders, a handful of others. But all the rest—yes, we have recovered, at least physically. I can’t say how well any of us sleep at night.” She sighed and made herself smile. “If nothing else, the tales of that monstrous event should keep Kisua safe for many years. The northern soldiers nearly fell over themselves getting back on their boats and fleeing home.”
Rabbaneh’s eyes were solemn, clearly seeing through her attempt at levity, but he smiled as well. “A peaceful result, then. Good.”
The double doors of the Hetawa’s main pylon had been thrown open. A line of people filed through it, spilling out onto the steps. Inside, the line ran down the length of a vast colonnaded hall whose ceiling was nearly out of sight above. But though the hall awed Sunandi, it was the sight of the titanic nightstone statue that made her stop and gape like a wonder-struck child.
While she stared, Rabbaneh stopped to wait, somehow radiating both nonchalance and possessive pride without uttering a word. After several long breaths, Sunandi swallowed and tore her eyes away from the Goddess with an effort. “I thought Yanya-iyan magnificent when I first saw it,” she said. “I should have guessed that in Gujaareh, the Hetawa would be the greatest wonder.”
“Yes,” the Gatherer replied with a smile. “You should have guessed.”
He headed into the shadows that ran behind the columns, walking sedately toward the back of the hall. Sunandi hurried to follow, trying not to stare at the columns and their carved tales, the sconces where moontear vines spilled down the walls in full bloom, the faceted glass of the massive windows. Between the columns she could glimpse other Hananjan priests in red-dyed loindrapes, guiding people into alcoves on the other side of the hall. Collecting tithes to heal the wounded, she realized. Of course.
The Gatherer stopped at a heavy curtain that led into what was clearly a different area of the Hetawa—the corridors, grounds, and buildings kept hidden from the public eye. Here Sunandi hesitated. But Rabbaneh smiled again, this time sincerely and with no hint of mockery. “Nijiri has told us many tales of his travels in the eightday since his return, Speaker,” he said. “He’ll be glad to see you again, I think.”
She was not so certain of that. Nor was she certain she wanted to see him, now that she had come.
“We found Ehiru’s body in Kite-iyan,” she said. She noticed that one of her hands was fidgeting, unnecessarily smoothing a fold of her dress, and stopped herself. “The Prince was there, and the other… the Reaper too.”
Rabbaneh nodded. “Our brother put his apprentice to a hard test. But Nijiri passed it, as we knew he would.” He paused,
then added more gently, “Come. It will be good for both of you.”
What was it about Gatherers, Sunandi wondered, that could make her feel as though they cared about nothing in the world more than her? Was it the dreamblood that made them this way? Or did they deliberately seek out successors who possessed that fascinating, terrifying mixture of empathy and ruthlessness?
She pulled back her shoulders, nodded stiffly, and passed through the doorway.
The curtain opened into a vast courtyard at the center of the complex. Covered walkways edged the perimeter of this and crossed it here and there, each linking one building with another. Sunandi made an effort not to gawk, acutely aware that she had entered a world seen only by a privileged few. Still she could not help noticing some things. They passed vaulted storechambers whose shelves were stacked with a treasure trove of scrolls, stone tablets, and wooden placards. At the sandy far end of the courtyard, a stern-faced warrior in black stalked down a line of adolescent boys posed in some arcane combat-stance. Nearer by was a fountain surrounded by grasses and flowers, around which younger children chased one another and played in joyous, astonishing silence.
Within these walls, where peace was protected by the Goddess, the war might as well have never occurred.
Then the Gatherer led her into a new building, this one with walls of dark gray marble rather than sandstone. The halls here were completely silent, and utterly still but for her and Rabbaneh.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Instinctively, in such a still place, she kept her voice low.
“The Stone Garden,” Rabbaneh replied. “He meditates there in his free hours.”
They reached the building’s atrium and passed from cool dim corridors into a space of sand and light. Two huge, irregular fingers of rock dominated the scene, one carved from nightstone and the other from white mica, each standing in a corner of the atrium. A handful of smaller boulders occupied the remaining space at random, some small enough to be used as seats. On the centermost of these, with his knees drawn up, sat Nijiri.