The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (47 page)

She smiled and touched the scar beneath his collarbone again. He straightened, perhaps in surprise. Barbarian skin, Gujaareen blood and bone. He thought of himself as two men, but she saw only one.

“This is life to me.” She met his eyes, trying to speak to the wariness there. “This is flesh. It is… pain and weakness and things that frighten me. But flesh is something I can control, Prince. I can make it stronger. I can heal it when it goes wrong. I need that, that certainty, right now. Does that make sense to you?”

His face twitched through several expressions, all too quick and complex for her to interpret. “I… Yes. Strange as it sounds, it does. But what of your Servant’s Oath, Sharer-Apprentice? I’ve taken so much from you already. I would not add more to the pile.”

“The oath is mine to discard, not yours to take.” Hanani set her jaw. “Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll be able to give all of myself to Hananja again without qualm. Tonight—” She sighed, feeling both ancient and young, and incomparably lonely. “Hananja has also taken enough from me, Prince.”

More than She has had any right to take.
But Hanani did not say this aloud, because he was just Gujaareen enough that it would disturb him.

Wanahomen looked at her hand on his arm, then at her face, searching. Hanani had no idea what he sought, but after a moment he sighed. Very deliberately, he let his shirt drop back to the floor.

“Flesh is not just pain,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t think of it that way.”

She shrugged and resumed unwinding her breast-wrappings. “It’s all I know.”

“I can show you more.” He looked almost shy as he said it.

In spite of herself, she smiled. “I would be grateful.”

When she let the last of her breast-wrappings fall to the floor, he looked at her for a long while, studying her with his eyes as she had done him with her hands. When he stepped out of his pants, very ready for her, she turned back to the cushions to lie down. He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, then—to her great surprise—knelt at her feet. His breath had gone harder, but there was reverence as well as need in his gaze.

“Women are goddesses,” he said. “Pleasure is your due tithe. That
is
the Gujaareen way, after all—I remember that much. And it is my duty as Prince to see the tithe delivered properly.” He said this with no hint of irony or mockery; Hanani stared at him in wonder. And when he spread his arms, lifting his chin and making an offering of himself, something within her that had been held tight, despite her words, relaxed.

She stepped closer, and his arms folded around her in the most careful of embraces.

This, then, was the manifestation of peace: silence. They were Gujaareen. They had no need of shouts, moans, names gasped as declarations of pride or devotion. He pressed nothing she did not want, held back nothing she desired. While he moved against her, she studied the steady flex of his muscles, the pace and pitch of his breath, the way her every sigh and touch redirected the humors within the miracle of his flesh. This was real magic, not dreamstuff, written in solid, aware blood and bile and ichor and seed. At the height of the matter Hanani channeled this new magic into a prayer
for Mni-inh, so that the Goddess might bring his soul back home. And in that held breath, as Hanani hovered almost outside herself, the Avatar of Hananja gripped her tight and shuddered within her and breathed hot into her ear: “
Yes.
”

She closed her eyes, grateful, and at peace.

It had not been difficult for Sunandi to arrange certain matters within Yanya-iyan once the Gatherers and Superior were interned. The Protectors had not cared where the prisoners were kept so long as they were secure, and so Sunandi installed them in a set of guestrooms that had apparently been made to fit northerner tastes: with sturdy lockable doors, and only the narrowest of windows. The rooms would have been unpleasantly hot during the growing-season months—there was a reason Gujaareen left doors off rooms—but in these not-quite-floodseason days they were comfortable enough. In addition, she had selected rooms that were spaced widely, and posted a guard outside each door, so that no one would think her lax. However, she had asked Anzi’s aid in selecting guards with certain useful characteristics. One, whom she placed in charge of the Superior, was the secret-son of a Teacher from the Hananjan temple in Kisua. Two more were Hananjans themselves; perhaps a fifth of all Kisuati had devoted themselves to the faith. The fourth was a Gujaareen man, one of the few military-castes who’d managed to find employment with the Kisuati army. He was a lowly foot soldier now; in Gujaareh’s army he had been an officer.

Such guards, she would tell the Protectors if they asked—she doubted they would ask, but it was always wise to have explanations ready—would ensure that the Gatherers and Superior were not mistreated during their confinement. Already there had been incidents in the two days since the Gatherers had been taken into custody: a spate of arrests as artisans refused to hand over work commissioned by Kisuati citizens, and merchants turned away Kisuati buyers or stopped accepting Kisuati coins. After several pairs of soldiers were attacked and beaten by gangs of angry Gujaareen, Anzi had ordered that soldiers patrol only in troops of sixteen, and he had stationed a troop in every neighborhood of the city. Despite this, a curfew and ban on assemblages had not prevented a riot—the first that had occurred in centuries—in the Unbelievers’ District. Only later had they learned that an armory was looted during the chaos. The district was being searched, but none of the weapons had yet been found. Sunandi suspected they had already made their way through the wall into the rest of the city.

The only thing that surprised her was that the violence had not yet become widespread. It felt to her as if the city was holding its breath, waiting, though for what she could not say.

The corridor where the priests were being kept was quiet when Sunandi arrived—a far cry from the busy, hectic upper floors where the Protectors had been living and working since their arrival. Indeed, the silence reminded Sunandi of the Stone Garden, a prayer space within the Gatherers’ Hall at the Hetawa: the corridor had that same pervasive calm. Three of the guards nodded solemnly to her as she approached; she returned their nods. The fourth guard, the one who should have been at Nijiri’s door, was missing.

Sunandi paused and glanced at the other guards. They had not yet raised the alarm, nor did they even look concerned.

A moment later, the door of the room opened and the guard—
the Gujaareen military-caste—stepped out. Spotting Sunandi, he inclined his head to her respectfully. “Dinner, Speaker,” he said in accented Sua.

“Ah.” She gazed at him for a moment longer, until he began to look uncomfortable. It was after midnight—late for dinner, even for a nocturnal Gatherer. But finally she came forward, and he opened the door to let her inside.

Within, the room was quiet, lit only by a single lamp and the Dreamer’s light coming in through the window. She saw a meal laid out on the table: so the guard had at least had the wit to be truthful about that. Nijiri sat on the bed nearby, his back propped against the wall, watching her with as much of a look of innocence as he could muster. That, for him, wasn’t much.

She folded her arms. “Good evening, little killer. Or should it be little schemer instead?”

He smiled, almost to himself. “I asked the guard to help me send a message to a friend, nothing more,” he said. Then he sobered. “But the friend was… not there.”

She frowned in confusion. “The guard already delivered it for you?”

“Through his dreams, yes. It’s something skilled narcomancers can do.” He folded his hands, his eyes lighting on the trio of scrolls she carried under one arm. “Have you brought me a gift, Jeh Kalawe?”

She ignored his question. “How long before you run out of dreamblood?”

He didn’t bat an eyelash, long used to her rudeness. “Three or four eightdays, for all of us. We had time to prepare, remember.”

That was a relief. “And when does the storm you summoned strike?”

He raised his eyebrows, innocence again. “Storm?”

“I know the nobles are up to something. And it’s becoming more and more obvious by the day that this city is gathering itself for a fight. Are you influencing them all in their dreams?”

That elicited a genuine smile. “No Gatherer has
that
much power, Jeh Kalawe.”

“Ehiru did.”

A pause. “Ehiru was not a Gatherer at that time.” His voice had gone cold, his smile vanishing. Instantly Sunandi regretted her words, but there was no way to rectify her error. He was Gujaareen, anyway; he would let it pass for the sake of peace between them. Forgiveness would take longer, but so be it.

She let out a sigh and forged on. “Earlier you implied that one of Eninket’s sons was still alive, and with the Banbarra. My sources say there are rumors of this floating about the city as well—that a new Prince is coming who will free Gujaareh. Is this true?”

He lowered his eyes. “I told you I would forgive you, Jeh Kalawe. That promise stands even if I don’t answer your questions and you have me punished for my silence.”

“I’m not going to have you punished, you fool! I’m trying to help us both!” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “The Protectors brought a thousand additional troops with them, Nijiri. They’re being deployed in the city now, to help keep the peace, and they’ve been given orders to respond to any problems
very
harshly—death to anyone who resists. And something else is being planned, in case there’s some sort of attack or citywide revolt. Something meant to break the people’s spirit.” She set her jaw. “I don’t know what. I’m not in favor right now; nor is Anzi.”

Nijiri got up and went over to the window, glancing up as if to check the Dreamer’s position. It was the closest she had ever seen a Gatherer come to restlessness. “You won’t regain favor by helping us, Jeh Kalawe. So why are you?”

Sunandi rolled her eyes. “I’m helping
Kisua
. This land has become
too dangerous for us to hold. A few of the greedier members of our populace—some of whom are here now, in charge—will become wealthy as tensions grow, but the rest of Kisua is who will suffer as Gujaareh devours our resources and soldiers and gives back nothing but headaches. And I’m terrified of this nightmare plague getting into our populace. You know we have no defense against magic.”

“We would help you, if that happened, once we learn how to fight it ourselves. Though it may require your people to attempt magic again.”

“It won’t require magic. Just a miracle.”

He turned to her slowly, studying her face, and then his eyes flicked to the scrolls under her arm. “You found something.”

She nodded, stifling excitement, then went over to the table, moving the tray of food to the floor. “In his search for the secret of immortality, Eninket had assembled quite a collection of lore on all sorts of magical curiosities.”

Nijiri grimaced, helping her lay out the scrolls. “Like the Reaper.”

“And more interesting things. This, for example.” She pointed to one scroll, covered in archaic pictorals drawn with heavy black lines. She had not been able to read half of them, but the scholar who had given her the translation had been so excited to see the words of his ancestors that he’d charged a quarter less than his usual fee just for the privilege. “This speaks of a plague that nearly consumed the city—a plague no healer could combat, spread through dreams. It mentions hundreds of victims, despair throughout the land…
This has happened before
, Nijiri.”

He stiffened. “We have no record of such a plague in the Hetawa.”

“You have no lore regarding immortality either, yet Eninket found a way. Someone, probably many someones down the centuries, has kept your Hetawa records very neat and clean. The filth, and the truth, are all here.” She patted the scrolls again.

He sighed, though he did not protest her characterization of the
matter. “They must have found some way to combat the dream back then, or Gujaareh would be abandoned ruins by now. Is there any mention of the cure?”

“Yes.” Sunandi shuffled the scrolls and laid out another, this one tattered and stained, written in crabbed hieratics. This one she could read herself—and had, late into the night, with a placard on her door warning Anzi and even the servants not to enter. Her eyes still ached. “This one says, here, ‘A child housed the dream, drawing and trapping all others within it. When the child dreamed horrors, all suffered them, and many died. Others died sleeping, unable to eat or drink. Only when the child was slain were his victims freed.’ ” She straightened, looking hard at him. “It goes on to say that only a few knew of this, and that the solution was discovered by the Superior of the time. He
killed
the child, Nijiri—and then ordered the deaths of anyone who knew about it.”