It would not be long before Wanahomen’s combativeness became something more than playful, Niyes gauged, gazing at the young man’s arms; they rippled with muscle beneath the finely tailored linen of his shirt. The Prince still outstripped his son in height and build… but it was cunning, and not physical prowess, that usually decided the contest for the Aureole. Wanahomen was more than old enough for that. Yet there was no cunning in Wanahomen’s eyes, Niyes saw—nothing but adoration as he embraced his father.
“Did you really bring a full forty of men?” drawled a familiar voice.
Distracted, Niyes blinked away from the Prince to see that Charris had drawn near. The guard-captain was smiling, although his green eyes showed more than a little contempt. “Did you expect trouble, Niyes, or are you just becoming paranoid in your old age?”
Niyes set his teeth and smiled back. “When the safety of the Prince and his family are at stake, I take no chances.”
“As you should not,” the Prince said, turning away from Wanahomen to gaze at both men. There was a hint of censure in the Prince’s face; Niyes knew he detested strife among his soldiers. He bowed over his hand in silent apology, Charris did the same, and the Prince inclined his head in acceptance. Then he added, “As no doubt Captain Charris takes no chances, even here within Kite-iyan’s walls. We will trust his guardianship now, Niyes, and that of the men under his command. Tell your soldiers to relax and avail themselves of my wives’ hospitality until we leave.”
Niyes inclined his head obediently; Charris did too at the corner of his vision. So Niyes turned and gave quick orders to the men to stable their horses properly before taking their unexpected recreation, and then he followed the Prince and his family into the palace.
In the courtyard many more people waited—some of the Prince’s other wives and children, the staff and servants. The Prince moved among them without hesitation, offering smiles and greetings as he walked. Niyes tensed, uncomfortable as always to see Gujaareh’s ruler unguarded amid such a large crowd—but then he noted the scattering of soldiers’ uniforms among the gowns and forced himself to relax.
“Come, Niyes,” the Prince said, pausing at the archway that led into the palace’s heart. “You’ve never been here before, have you? Though you knew Charris…”
“We trained together, my Prince,” Niyes said, moving to join him.
“You’re not friends, I gather.”
The crowd was sparse here at the arch; Charris was still in the courtyard, giving orders to his men. Niyes cleared his throat. “No, my Prince. He is zhinha.”
The Prince laughed, then led him forward into wide, airy halls of high ceilings and artfully arched windows. “Forgive me for laughing, old friend, but you must realize the rivalry between shunha and zhinha has always been amusing to those of my lineage. Look.” He took Niyes’ hand, lifting their hands together to show the contrast: river-earth black and desert-sand brown. “I have the same amount of gods’ blood in my veins as shunha, zhinha, or even Kisuati sonha—leaving aside the fact that as Hananja’s Avatar I hold godly status of my own. And yet because I am a few gradations paler in shade…”
“It is more than that, my Prince,” Niyes said stiffly.
“Yes, yes.” The Prince smiled and released Niyes’ hand. “You’re always so serious. We’re here for leisure—although we must discuss one bit of business first. Come, let me show you around.”
Kite-iyan was a women’s palace; its walls were of rose marble threaded with occasional veins of gold. Troughs lined the hallways at intervals, abloom with flowering plants. Pictographs of Dreaming Moon and her children abounded in the decor, drawn from the more pleasant tales of the heavenly family’s life. They also passed wide chambers devoted to women’s interests—libraries and sculpture halls, practice rooms for stick-fighting and dance. A few of these were occupied, Niyes noticed, as not all of the Prince’s wives had deigned to interrupt their routines for his visit.
“Things are very different here from my youth,” the Prince mused, nodding to women or children as they walked. “In my father’s day, this place was a flower-strewn prison. He took any woman to wife who caught his eye, regardless of her feelings on the matter. They were brought here, permitted no visitors or holidays, wholly cut off from the world beyond the gates. It was just as bad for us children, though we were at least permitted to visit the city from time to time. Beyond our lessons there was nothing to do but compete for status and our father’s favor, and that we did with a will. Poisonous, all of it.
“Since I began my own marriages I have striven to do better. My children are permitted to know their maternal relatives. Their mothers may continue to manage their own separate households and businesses, and they can come and go as they please. And you see that I take no great care to keep men away. I saw a few of the younger wives considering that sloe-eyed archer of yours. I hope he’s strong enough to endure them all.” He shrugged and grinned as Niyes looked at him in astonishment. “It takes a great deal to keep two hundred and fifty-six women happy, man; your soldiers are doing me a great favor, believe me! Any children who result only add to my glory, after all.”
Niyes nodded slowly, more unnerved than amused by this reminder that the Prince missed nothing. “The highcastes have been discussing your marital reforms, my Prince. Many find the changes… disturbing. But then we shunha have always revered our women in the old ways.”
“Believe it or not, Niyes, I agree with the ideals of the shunha.” They began to climb a staircase that wound in a gentle upward spiral; sunbeams from narrow windows slanted across it like wheel-spokes. “Gujaareh has been influenced far more than it should be by ill-mannered savages who bore holes through their skulls to cure headaches. It’s disgraceful. I cannot marry fewer wives, but I can remember that they are human beings, not broodmares. I treat my children like the treasures they are. You were watching my son Wana. Were you surprised that he loves me?”
Niyes blinked in surprise. “Yes, my lord.”
“You expected antagonism. The young lion, sizing up the leader of the pride. But we are not animals, Niyes. We are not meant to scrabble over scraps of power, pulling one another down like crabs in a barrel. My father followed that model. So did I, to succeed him. I killed most of my siblings and their mothers. I killed my father, for that matter—sent him to the Throne of Dreams with my own hands. He deserved no less honor.”
Niyes flinched. Only habit, and the fact that the Prince did not slow, kept his feet moving up the steps. That the Prince had assassinated his way to the Aureole was no surprise; half the city suspected it. But for the Prince to admit his crime was another matter altogether.
He speaks to me of treason. Why?
“I mean to change all that, Niyes.”
They passed a landing, heading toward the upper floors of what appeared to be one of Kite-iyan’s towers. The walkways here were empty, Niyes noticed, the steps edged in a faint sheen of dust.
“I mean for my children never to have to murder their own flesh and blood. I mean for my wives to love me—if they wish—and not fear me. I mean for Gujaareh to have strong, wise leadership for as long as it stands. No more madness. No need to rely on the Hetawa for our peace and happiness.”
Niyes frowned, distracted from his growing unease. “Admirable goals, my Prince—but while you are certainly a wise ruler, you cannot guarantee that all your heirs will be. As long as power is the prize, they will compete, and the ruthless will win.”
“Yes. I know. It weakens us, all this infighting. Like you and Charris, shunha and zhinha, Gujaareh and Kisua. When we weaken ourselves so much, it becomes easy for others to dominate.”
They stopped at another landing, this one fairly high in the tower. Afternoon sunlight cast an overlapping pattern of red-gold rectangles across the floor. At the end of the landing stood a heavy wooden door, braced and decorated with metalwork in the northern style. A large, ornate lock was set into the band across its middle.
A door? In Kite-i
yan?
“My Prince…” Niyes swallowed and found his throat suddenly dry. “If I may ask, where are we? What are we to discuss, all the way up here?”
The Prince walked to the door and reached into his shirt, pulling out a long, heavy key on a slender gold chain. “One of my wives is here.”
“One of your—” He stared at the Prince in confusion. The Prince gazed at the door, holding the key but making no move to open it.
“I grant my wives a great deal of freedom, but I expect loyalty in return. This one spied on me for the Hetawa.” He glanced at Niyes, his eyes distant and hard. “Betrayal is the one thing I cannot forgive.”
Coldness slithered along Niyes’ spine. I will die today, he thought.
The Prince gave a slight, sad smile as if he’d heard those words, then turned to unlock the door. His voice, when he spoke again, was light, conversational, as it had been throughout their tour. Still, there was an edge to it now that Niyes did not miss.
“You must realize, Niyes: I understand why she did it. She was raised in the Hetawa’s House of Children; they were family to her. She followed her conscience, and I don’t blame her for that. Indeed, I admire her integrity… but betrayal is still betrayal, and it cannot go unpunished.”
The Prince pushed open the door and stepped within, turning back to gaze at Niyes. After a moment, slower, Niyes followed.
Beyond the door was a narrow chamber lined along one side by windows—an extension of the hall that must have at some point been walled off to form a storage room. The windows here had been bricked shut, however, save a small one at the far end. Shadows shrouded the room, except where a single bloody rectangle of light spread across the floor. The air smelled of dust and wood resin, and things less wholesome. Stale sweat, unwashed flesh, an un-emptied toilet box. Niyes squinted into the gloom, waiting for his eyes to adjust. All he could make out at first was a woman’s bare foot, lying motionless at the edge of the light. Her leg, and the rest of her, disappeared into the shadows beyond.
From somewhere in the direction of her body, Niyes heard harsh, uneven breathing.
The Prince closed the door behind them. The clack of its heavy foreign latch was very loud in the small space.
“The plain fact of the matter,” the Prince continued, “is that the Hetawa is no threat. They can do nothing to me without harming themselves. But Kisua is another matter, Niyes. You’ve forced my hand by involving lovely, clever Sunandi. I must push my plans forward by several months because of this, even once I kill her. And that, too, is a true shame; I liked her very much.”
“My Prince—” Niyes caught himself, even as his heart began to thud uncomfortably fast. It was too late. Had been too late the moment he’d decided to take the corpse from the prison as evidence; he had known that all along. Still, he was shunha, born of one of Gujaareh’s oldest lineages. He would die with dignity. “… It was for Gujaareh that I did it, my lord.”
The Prince’s eyes softened. He gripped Niyes’ arm for just a moment, then let him go. “I know, old friend. I don’t blame you either, though I believe you judged me wrongly. I too do what I must, for Gujaareh.”
From the far end of the room they both heard the harsh breaths quicken. A man’s voice, thick as mud over stones, spoke. “I… can smell the Moons, Brother. Night comes.” Then lower, hungry—“I am empty. I hurt.”
The Prince glanced in that direction. With one hand, he plucked something from the hipstrap of his loinskirt and rapped it against a nearby wall. A faint, high-pitched whine sang in response, maddeningly familiar—and then Niyes remembered. The Hetawa. Every month when he went to offer his tithe of dreams. Jungissa, the stone that vibrated with a life of its own, essential for magic.
The Prince lifted the stone in front of himself as if to ward off whatever lurked in the shadows. “I’ve brought you something, Brother,” the Prince said, keeping his voice soft. “This one is corrupt too. But you must finish him quickly, for tonight you have another task to complete. Do you understand?”
“Corrupt…” There was a shuffle from the dark, followed by a soft step. Niyes made out the figure of a man rising slowly from a crouch.
Escape was impossible. Even if he made it out of the room, Charris’s soldiers would take him down at one word from the Prince. Heart pounding, Niyes drew his dagger.
“It’s better if you don’t fight,” the Prince said. He kept his voice gentle, soothing, though his eyes marked Niyes’s dagger. “He has enough control left to do it properly, if you don’t agitate him.”
Niyes smiled grimly. “I am also military-caste, my lord.”
“So you are.” The Prince sighed, then turned back to the door. “I’ll tell your family that you died bravely, protecting me from an assassin. They’ll not be harmed.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Farewell, Niyes. I’m sorry.”
“So am I, my lord.”
The Prince left. After a moment, the Reaper came.
8
A Gatherer shall seek purity within the Hetawa, keep hidden among the faithful, and reveal his whole self only to the recipient of Hananja’s blessing.
(Wisdom)
A leaf had fallen into the fountain. The patter of water against its surface sounded like rain. Ehiru closed his eyes as he sat on the fountain’s edge, listening.
Rain came only once a year in Gujaareh, during the spring. When it came, the Goddess’s Blood overflowed her banks and flooded the entire river valley, from the Sea of Glory all the way into the northeastern reaches of Kisua. Most Gujaareen hated floodseason and the small discomforts that it brought—mud everywhere, insects rampant, families forced to live on their upper floors or rooftops until the waters receded. Ehiru had always loved floodseason, himself. It cleansed, despite the initial mess; the city’s sun-baked walls gleamed anew once the dust of the dry seasons had been washed away. It renewed—for without the annual floods Gujaareh’s narrow band of fertile land would be swiftly devoured by the deserts beyond.
The boy would make a fine replacement once his training was complete, Ehiru decided.
But Nijiri was to replace Una-une; he grimaced, remembering this. There were one or two other promising youngsters among the acolytes who might replace Ehiru himself—none so clearly called to the task as Nijiri had been, but suitable nevertheless. Life would be difficult for Sonta-i and Rabbaneh until the new Gatherers gained seasoning, but soon their younger brethren would be ready to walk the Goddess’s most difficult path. Then the Gatherers of Hananja would be renewed. Cleansed at last of weakness and taint.
“Ehiru-brother.”
The patter of the fountain might have covered the boy’s footsteps, but not the rustling of the palm fronds. These were so thick in the Water Garden as to be unavoidable. Yet Nijiri had approached undetected. Ehiru smiled to himself in approval.
“Hananja has given us to each other, Nijiri.” He kept his voice only loud enough to be heard over the fountain. In the intermittent silence he heard the boy’s soft intake of breath. “Me to you in your time of need; now you to me. I will be here until you need me no longer. Understand this.”
More silence, just for a moment. “I may need you for many years yet, Ehiru-brother.”
“Not so long. Only until your apprenticeship ends.”
“And beyond!”
Ehiru turned away from the fountain and looked at him, surprised by the urgency in the boy’s tone. Nijiri stood a few feet away, half-hidden amid the palm-tree shadows, looking every inch the handsome young highcaste in a tailored shirt and loinskirt of fine woven cloth. No one would guess him servant-caste given his manner, and his beauty. There was something perpetually deceptive about him: fine bones hid the strength that came from years of physical training, and his smooth-cheeked, pretty face drew attention away from his eyes—which Ehiru knew could turn very cold when circumstances merited. He had always had Gatherer’s eyes, even as a child.
Not now, though. Now Nijiri’s face seemed calm, but hi
s body was rigid, betraying feelings that perhaps even he did not yet fully understand.
I should never have allowed you to choose me as your mentor. Selfish of me, and confusing to you. Poor child.
“A Gatherer must be strong enough to stand alone, Nijiri,” Ehiru said. The boy’s face twitched ever so subtly at this warning; Ehiru could not guess what was in his mind. “Your greatest lessons will come long after your apprenticeship, taught to you by the world. I cannot stand between you and those.”
“I know that, Brother.” There was an edge to Nijiri’s voice, all of a sudden, that Ehiru had not expected. “I went with you, all those years ago, because I had already grown to understand it. You taught me my first lesson: that love means sacrifice. Making choices that are good for others, even at the cost of the self.” He ducked his eyes suddenly, radiating unhappiness. “I can do that. But I see no reason to do it unnecessarily.”
Suddenly Ehiru wanted to embrace him. It was the wrong thing to do—too familiar, too paternal. Nijiri was his pathbrother, not his son; someday soon his opinions would hold as much weight as Ehiru’s own. The relationship between mentor and apprentice required a careful balancing of affection with respect, on both sides. But in the wake of his mishandling of the Bromarte’s soul, and the miserable self-loathing he had wrestled in the days since, it was both humbling and humiliating to realize that Nijiri still thought highly of him. Humiliating because he did not deserve the boy’s admiration—but humbling to realize he could not abandon his duty so easily. The boy trusted him, needed him. He had to be worthy of that trust—become worthy of it, somehow, and stay worthy for long enough to get the boy trained.