The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (15 page)

“No! They won’t! Not without the Hetawa’s support! Wanahomen. You’re too smart for this.” She sighed and extended a hand to him. After a long, angry breath, he knelt at her side and took it. She stroked his hand and said, “Your father raised you to be wise; to ignore the Hetawa is not wise. You don’t trust them—nor should you. I too remember their crimes.” And now her hard look was more distant, her anger directed elsewhere. “But even I see that this is necessary.”

He looked away in mute denial. She sighed.

“When you’ve regained the throne, you’ll make agreements with Kisua, won’t you? Much as you hate them. And to reward their efforts, you will give the Banbarra trading privileges that no other nation has had, which will anger the merchant caste—but you’ll do
it anyhow, because Gujaareh is too weak for another war. Is this not true?”

Wanahomen ground his teeth. “That’s different.”

“How? The Gatherer who slew your father collaborated with Kisua. And the nobles whose alliance you’re so glad to earn—where was their support with your father dead and the three of us in desperate need? They left us to die!” She sighed then, reaching up to stroke his hair. “The plain fact is that you can trust
none
of your allies, my son. A king cannot afford trust. But neither can you allow hatred to overrule sense.”

He resisted the truth of her words. Just the idea of cooperating with the Hetawa left the bitter taste of guilt, of betrayal, in his mouth. What would his father think, if he knew that Wanahomen had allied with his murderers?

That I’m doing what I must
, came the reluctant answer, and at last he bowed his head before Hendet in acquiescence.

She stroked his braids approvingly. “Now. Tell me how you knew.”

“I met a templeman, a Sentinel, in the hills. He gave me this.” He pulled the scroll from a fold of his robe.

“And you didn’t even open it? Well, at least you didn’t throw it away. What does it say?”

He drew his knife, cut the seal-knots, and opened it to read the formal pictorals aloud.

There were no signature pictorals. Wanahomen scowled and threw the scroll on the floor, rising to pace again.

Hendet reached out to pick the scroll up. Some of Wanahomen’s anger slipped as he saw how badly his mother’s hand shook before she concealed it by laying the scroll on her lap to read closely.

“You must tell Unte at once,” she said.

“I’d had no further raids planned, because of the coming solstice meeting,” Wanahomen said, frowning to himself. “It’s coincidence, but once they hear of this ‘request,’ the other tribe leaders will think me subservient to the Hetawa.” He paused, considering. “I could ignore the request—”

“You will do no such thing,” Hendet said, bristling. “You know as well as I that this is not a
request
, but a condition of the alliance. Unte will understand.”

“Unte isn’t the problem,” he replied, and then told her of the slain Gujaareen soldier and his subsequent decision to kill Wujjeg. “It was defiance,” he finished. “I ordered no Gujaareen deaths and he deliberately killed one.”

“Then you were right to kill him,” Hendet said. “Though it is unfortunate; Wujjeg’s clan…” She faltered abruptly, visibly tired as she leaned back on the pillows to catch her breath. “They hold great influence with the Dzikeh-Banbarra. They will try… try to turn that tribe against you.”

“I know,” he replied grimly. Suddenly it was all too much to bear: the Banbarra, his mother’s illness, the thrice-damned Hetawa. The priests were at the heart of all of it, he decided sullenly. If not for their Gatherers, his father would be alive and Kisua would be Gujaareh’s newest territory, and Wanahomen would have nothing more important to concern him than how to woo Tiaanet.

But would she even want me if my father were still Prince?
came the sudden, ugly thought.

Pointless to torment himself with such thoughts now.

“You need rest,” he said to Hendet.

“I’m fine,” she said, but she did not resist when he helped her to lie flat. Her very acquiescence was proof of how bad she felt: she obeyed him only when she was in pain. His stomach constricted at the thought of what would happen if she didn’t improve soon. The Banbarra were nomads for part of each year, and they would not stay in Merik-ren-aferu much longer. After the solstice, the six tribe leaders would gather and decide whether to support Wanahomen’s war. But then whether the war was fought or not, won or lost, the tribe would begin the long journey across the Empty Thousand to the continent’s western coast, there to trade and grow wealthy from the goods they’d made or stolen during the year. Wanahomen had made the springtime desert crossing many times now in his years among the Banbarra, and he had seen the harsh reality of it: the old and infirm did not often survive the journey.

Then I must win Gujaareh before spring.

Tucking the blankets close around his mother’s chin, Wanahomen leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead. “Dream well, Mother,” he whispered. “In Her peace.”

“And you, my son,” she said, and closed her eyes.

He had not told her of the images that had haunted his dreams for the past few weeks: his father consumed with rot, the rot threatening his own flesh, and the terrible flood of evil that threatened to swamp Gujaareh. His mother would see meaning in such dreams, and perhaps she would be right to do so.

But what good did that do, when all was said and done? Why should he worry about dream phantoms when he had fears enough for a thousand nightmares in the waking realm?

So he settled himself on the furs beside his mother’s pallet and watched her until she fell asleep. Once she had passed into Ina-Karekh for the night, he got to his feet and left to plan the next stage of his war.

By Law and Wisdom, bodies were kept in state for a time after death. No one knew how long the final journey to Ina-Karekh took without the aid of a Gatherer; Gujaareh’s most brilliant Teachers had debated the matter for centuries to no conclusion. Consensus held there was some possibility, however remote, that destroying the flesh too soon might upset the soul and send it hurtling toward the shadowlands. Women were safe from this, naturally, being goddesses who could steer themselves through Ina-Karekh: they were kept for one day, as a courtesy, though girls before menarche were given two since their womanly power was less developed. Men, however, were ordinary—therefore the Law dictated that male bodies be kept for a minimum of four days after death, and longer where embalming and sarcophagi allowed. The only exceptions to this Law were for male bodies that bore a Gatherer’s mark, and any others whose souls were known to be safely beyond the waking realm.

They burned Gatherer Sonta-i two days after his death. He had given no Final Tithe; no one knew the disposition of his soul, or if it even still existed. Yet he was cremated as if his death had been proper and wholesome, because to do otherwise would invite
questions that the Hetawa could not, dared not answer.
How did he die?
would be the least of them. The ones to follow would be far, far worse:
What is this terrible dream that killed him? What can the Hetawa do to stop it?
And the answer to that last one—
Nothing, we can do nothing
—would disrupt the entire city’s peace.

For there were now five new victims.

Hanani stood at the entrance to the Hall of Respite, one of the buildings allotted to the Sharer path. It was in this building that the most difficult and disturbing healing magic was performed. While most displays of magic were believed to strengthen a worshipper’s belief, some healings required that limbs be severed or broken, babies cut from their mothers, or worse. That did not apply in this case, but the sight of the five helpless dreamers was disturbing nevertheless because so little could be done for them.

Several senior Sharers moved among the Hall’s beds, examining and tending the dreamers as best they could. Beyond them, Mni-inh spoke quietly with a cluster of layfolk nearby—the families of the victims, Hanani assumed. She wondered what he could possibly have found to say to them.

Turning to face the central courtyard, she saw that Sonta-i’s funeral pyre had fallen in on itself at last. The Dreaming Moon was high overhead; they’d lit the pyre at sunset. A handful of mourners had lingered throughout the burning, but now they drifted away in ones and twos as if the collapse of the pyre had been a signal. None of them spoke as they walked away, Hanani noticed. No one wept. Perhaps, with the state of the Gatherer’s soul so in doubt, no one knew quite how to mourn.

“Sharer-Apprentice.”

Teacher Yehamwy’s voice. It was a sign of Hanani’s own low spirits that she felt none of the usual dread as she turned to face him. But perhaps he felt the same; there was none of the usual distaste in his eyes.

“Teacher.” She inclined her head to him, then glanced at the open curtain of the Hall of Respite. “I did not enter, Teacher.”

He glanced at the entrance as if that was the last thing on his mind, and sighed. “Well. Given the circumstances, it seems clear the boy’s death was unforeseeable. In the morning I shall inform the council that my interdiction is lifted. I’m sure they’ll concur.”

Just like that. Hanani stared at him, too numbed to speak. But then the breeze shifted, carrying a whiff of the funeral pyre—incense and fragrant wood-resin and the unmistakable odor of charred flesh—and whatever elation she might have felt vanished unborn. Soon she would be able to heal again. But what good did that do when even dreams had turned to poison? She could not bring herself to thank Yehamwy.

Yehamwy seemed to be ignoring her in any case, gazing across the courtyard at the pyre. He wore a Teacher’s brown formal robes, which meant that he’d probably attended Sonta-i’s funeral.

“There was a time when I thought you were the greatest threat to our way of life,” Yehamwy said, not taking his eyes from the pyre.

Hanani started. “
Me
, Teacher?”

“You. Our walking, breathing capitulation to the Kisuati and their ‘superior’ ways.” He sighed. “Their women are not goddesses, merely weak mortal creatures who do the same work as men—and can suffer the same torments. Their servants are bought and sold like meat, their elderly resented as a burden… I would not have this for Gujaareh.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes reflecting the pyre’s flickering light. “But in the end, you’re just a foolish girl-child who will never know true womanhood. If you want to heal, why should I stop you? Compared to the real dangers in the world, you are nothing.” He turned away from the pyre, and also from Hanani. “I suppose the Goddess has seen fit to remind us all of that.”

He walked away then. Hanani stared after him until his brown robe blended into the darkness.

never know true womanhood

What did that mean?

“Hanani?”

You are nothing.

She felt bruised inside. The syllables of her name seemed to echo in her mind, but she turned to face Mni-inh, who had come to the door of the hall. He looked very tired.

“You should go,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

For a moment, with some part of her mind expecting more pain, Hanani thought he had heard Yehamwy’s last words and agreed with them. But then he gave a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”

She dragged her scattered thoughts back to the present. “Sonta-i. That was why he did it, wasn’t it?”

Mni-inh nodded. “Someone had to try. The Gatherers are the strongest narcomancers in the Hetawa. If this thing could be defeated by magic…” He sighed. “Well, now we know it can’t be.”

Perhaps she was dreaming, Hanani thought.

There had been a dreamlike quality to the past few days, an ever-present note of unreality that her daylight mind could not seem to grasp. In the waking world, bad dreams did not pass from soul to soul like a pestilence, and Gatherers did not die of them. Acolytes did not die at all, especially when they were bright and beautiful and well loved.