The Killing Moon

30

Ehiru opened his eyes to the first hint of dawn’s light.

I am still alive, he thought, and despaired.

At his side Nijiri murmured in his sleep. There were dried tear streaks on the boy’s face, Ehiru noted, and spots on his own chest as well. That drove back some of the anguish, for it was selfish of him to forget that his death was also Nijiri’s test. Sighing, he wiped the streaks from Nijiri’s face. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and the boy sighed in response.

The empty ache inside him was gone, filled by the dead soldier’s dreamblood. Yet he felt none of the usual peace or satisfaction that should have come after a Gathering—which was no surprise, since what he had done to the soldier could in no way be called “Gathering.” He closed his eyes and saw again the soldier’s face: angry at first, then terrified as he realized Ehiru’s intent. He remembered the feel of the man’s soul as it struggled to escape his hunger, as ineffectual as a moth fluttering in hand—and that, too, had fired Ehiru’s lust. Even now he shivered to recall his excitement when he’d destroyed that soul, to be rewarded by a dizzying spiral of pleasure whose peak had been more exquisite than anything he had ever experienced in his life. Mere Gathering paled beside it… and that was the proof of his irredeemable corruption. He had taken no such pleasure in killing Charleron of Wenkinsclan. In his heart he laughed, humorlessly and bitterly, at his earlier conceit; had he believed himself too soiled to serve Hananja then? What must She think of the suppurating filth he had become now?

The thought left him too anguished even to weep.

“Brother?” He opened his eyes and saw that Nijiri had woken. The boy’s voice was hoarse, his face puffy. “Are you with me again?”

“Yes.” He fixed his eyes on the mosaic ceiling, unable to meet his apprentice’s gaze directly. Why had the Superior ever made him the boy’s mentor? He had never been fit for such a responsibility.

But Nijiri lowered his eyes, and abruptly Ehiru realized the boy blamed himself for what had happened. “I would have done my duty last night, Brother, but I thought… today… the Protectors…” He faltered again, then took a deep breath and visibly reached for calm. “I thought perhaps you would want to see at least that part of it through.”

“Few dying people have the chance to resolve their affairs,” Ehiru said, keeping his tone neutral. “Gatherers should receive no special privileges in that respect.”

“I know that.” The boy’s voice hardened suddenly and Ehiru looked at him in surprise. There was a taut, desperate sort of determination on his face—the determination of someone who knew he was doing wrong, yet did it anyhow. “But I can’t fulfill the charge of our brothers without your help. I can’t unravel so many secrets, and I can’t find and destroy the Reaper. Not alone. I’m only an apprentice, Ehiru-brother. You can’t ask so much of me.”

And Ehiru sighed, for he knew Nijiri was right.

“Then I shall return with you to Gujaareh,” he said at last, and shook his head at the wild flare of hope in the boy’s eyes. “Only that much, Nijiri. In Gujaareh Sonta-i and Rabbaneh can aid you in tracking down the Reaper and cleansing the Hetawa. Once you take my tithe—” Nijiri’s face fell; Ehiru continued ruthlessly. “You will be a Gatherer in full, then. Together the three of you will have the strength to do what must be done.”

The boy bowed over his hands, trembling. After several long seconds he lifted his head, composed, though Ehiru suspected it was just a veneer over utter peacelessness. That was a start, he supposed.

“Yes, Brother,” Nijiri said, his every word a grating resistance masquerading as calm. “I shall do as you ask.”

Ehiru let out a slow breath. Pushing himself to sit up, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and

an eye of light in the darkness, glaring and gloating as he shivered in a cage and begged Hananja for death

He froze.

“Brother?”

A vision. He was full of dreamblood, more than usual since he’d given no Sharer the surplus, and yet his soul still wandered.

“Brother.” There was fear in Nijiri’s voice now.

I share it, my apprentice.

How long before the madness claimed him again? An eightday? Less? How long before the hunger returned, this time insatiable? His blood chilled still further as he recalled what he’d done during the battle. He had put an awake, actively resisting man to sleep without a jungissa. He had torn the dreamblood from that man’s mind in mere breaths. Those were not the powers of a Gatherer.

How long before he became no different from the monster that had attacked Nijiri?

“Promise me you will do it, Nijiri,” he whispered. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “Promise me you’ll send me to Her while I am still Nsha.”

He had given his soulname to the boy only once, ten years ago, but of course Nijiri remembered it. From the corner of his eye, he saw the boy inhale. Then after a moment Nijiri said, sincerely now, “I swear it, Brother.” And he put his hand on Ehiru’s.

To show that he doesn’t fear me. Oh but you shall, my apprentice. All shall fear me in the end if you fail. Your comfort is hollow.

Oh, but how weak he was, that he craved it anyhow! Ehiru turned his hand up, lacing their fingers together, and they sat this way in silence until Sunandi’s servants came to fetch them.

The Meeting House of the Protectors lay at the center of Kisua’s capital. It was an unassuming building, squat and wide with walls of dusty brown stone and none of Yanya-iyan’s splendor, for all that it housed the rulers of a land. Small, unadorned pylons framed its wide entrance; the floors were marble but unpolished, worn dark with age. The people who stood on its steps—supplicants and influence-peddlers, he guessed, many of whom reeked of corruption—watched as Ehiru’s party passed. Most were richly dressed and quiet, their eyes reflecting mingled suspicion and awe. And they marked him for what he was at once, though both he and Nijiri wore hoodless off-white robes that were the closest Sunandi had been able to come to Gatherer daywear. Mindful of Sunandi’s property, they had not torn off the sleeves; no one could see their tattoos. But somehow, they knew.

Yet the austerity of the setting gave Ehiru comfort as he entered the House, behind Sunandi and with Nijiri at his side. There was a feeling to the simple architecture, and the solemnity of the people he saw inside—true wielders of power and responsibility, perhaps, not mere aspirants—that reminded him of the Hetawa in Gujaareh. Under other and better circumstances, he might have felt at home.

They passed through a dim archway and entered the House itself, a vaulted chamber lit by lattice-covered openings near the ceiling. Dust-flecked sunlight illuminated a curving stone table that stretched from one end of the House to the other. Ehiru counted seventeen people seated at this table, all of them elders and all with the look of nobility—though caste was difficult to tell, here in this land where mingling with foreigners was frowned upon. A handful of attendants lingered amid the pillars behind the Protectors; guards stood on either side of the chamber, watching Ehiru with open suspicion; otherwise the chamber was empty of all save the Protectors and the three of them.

Sunandi stopped in the space before the table and offered an elaborate bow before speaking in formal Sua. “Esteemed and wise, I come before you again in greetings. I am your voice and eyes and ears in foreign lands, and I beg you hear me now on a matter of great urgency.”

The central figure, an ancient woman with thinning hair in twists, waved her hand. “We have read your initial report, Speaker Jeh Kalawe, and that of the captain whose troop rescued you in the neutral lands.”

Sunandi straightened and assumed a less formal manner, though she still kept her eyes respectfully low. “Have you also read the report of Kinja Seh Kalabsha?”

“We have read your account of it, yes. We would have preferred to see the original from Kinja’s own hand, Speaker.” She gave Sunandi a stern look.

“My protégé Lin died trying to bring that document to you, Esteemed.” She paused for only a moment, though Ehiru saw the concealed flicker of anger in her eyes. “I was unable to recover it from her remains.”

“We are sorry for the loss of your slave, Jeh Kalawe,” said another of the Protectors, though he did not sound sorry to Ehiru’s ears. The man’s casual dismissal of the northblooded girl was offensive, but it explained much of Sunandi’s defensiveness about her. “You may request compensation after this audience. But I will admit to having some concerns about your report.” He narrowed his eyes at her, then cast a disdainful look at Nijiri. “I have more significant concerns about your bringing these outlanders here, whoever they are.”

Sunandi squared her shoulders. “They are Gatherers of Gujaareh, Esteemed—the Hananjan priest Ehiru and his apprentice, Nijiri. I have brought them here on their request. They too seek the counsel of the Protectors.”

There were murmurs of surprise at this, and several of the Protectors whispered quickly to one another. Finally the woman in the middle said, “I cannot imagine what Gujaareh’s unholy priests would want of us.”

“Information, Honored Elder,” Ehiru said in formal Sua, his voice prompting another stir among the Protectors. He saw Sunandi glance at him in consternation as he violated some sort of protocol, but he did not care. He had too little time left to waste on propriety.

“Many disturbing events have occurred in my land of late,” he said. “A Reaper walks the streets of the capital, unchecked and perhaps abetted by those in power. Twenty men—” He glanced at Sunandi. “Twenty men and the Speaker’s girl are known to have died at its hands. I have been blamed for the Reaper’s attacks, yet freed on the condition that I Gather Speaker Jeh Kalawe. And now your own soldiers have encountered Gujaareen troops in the Empty Thousand, again trying to kill the Speaker. I want to know why so many of my countrymen want this woman dead.”

The old woman raised both eyebrows into her faded hairline. “You believe we know?”

He inclined his head to her. “I believe there must be a reason the Prince corrupts himself and risks war with Kisua to conceal the secrets this woman carries. I believe there is a reason the Hetawa aids him, and allows the Reaper to exist. And I believe, though I have nothing but my instincts for proof, that all these things are somehow connected. No one in my land who knows the truth can be trusted. Perhaps outlanders are the answer.”

There was another susurrus in the chamber as the Protectors whispered among themselves. Sunandi threw Ehiru a sidelong glance. “You are a greater madman than I thought,” she murmured in Gujaareen.

He nodded, unamused. Very soon it would be true.

Presently the Protectors concluded their discussion. “Very well, Gatherer of Gujaareh,” said the old woman. “Half the things we have heard from our spies lately are so incredible we hardly know what to make of them. Perhaps an exchange of information will give us answers as well.” Then she glanced at one of the other Protectors, who scowled mightily before finally sighing.

“I must caution you that our information is incomplete,” the man said. “But it begins several years ago when our Shadoun allies found a tomb in the western desert foothills, far off the usual trails. They found it because it had been recently disturbed—robbed. The robbers fled north toward Gujaareh. We did not think this important at first, though of course we had the matter investigated. We now believe the tomb was that of Inunru—first Gatherer and founder of your faith.”

Nijiri frowned in confusion and blurted, “But his tomb was lost centuries ago, and would be sacred to us now. Why would any Gujaareen desecrate—?” Sunandi threw him a glare and he subsided immediately.

“Your apprentice speaks true, Gatherer, if out of turn,” the old man said, giving Nijiri an equally quelling eye before focusing on Ehiru again. “It is good to know that you at least preserve a proper reverence for the history of your faith, if not the proper manner of worship.”

Ehiru lifted his chin. “Some might say we preserved both better than Kisua, Honored Elder. Magic was once used here, too.”

The old man gave him a sour glare. “That was before we realized the horror of such power.”

“Perhaps. But what has that to do with the present matter?”

“We did not know, until last night when we read Kinja’s report as delivered to us by Jeh Kalawe.” The old man sighed. “Many centuries ago, here in Kisua, the first priests who dabbled in dream magic began to go mad, or so our own lore says. Inunru—who too was at risk—studied them in hope of determining the cause and cure. A century later when magic was banned and his followers banished, most of Inunru’s records were destroyed lest the knowledge they contained linger and flourish again, like a pestilence.” The old man’s lip curled. “But there have always been tales that some of Inunru’s followers managed to smuggle several scrolls out of the city.”

“We always believed,” said the old woman, “that the scrolls were in Gujaareh. But apparently they were lost to your people as well… until lately.” She looked at Sunandi, her expression bleak.

Sunandi nodded slowly. “I saw a locked case in the Prince’s quarters. That is where he keeps them, I believe.”

“Hmm.” The old woman looked weary, as if she had not been sleeping well. An overabundance of dreambile, a part of Ehiru’s mind catalogued, while the rest of him listened, as numbed as if by a sleep-spell. “Yes. It was the Prince’s men who raided the tomb, or so we believe. All this madness began after that.”

Sunandi took a deep breath. “And it explains many other things, Esteemed.” She looked at Ehiru, though she continued speaking to them. “My mentor Kinja long suspected that the Prince planned a war. His contacts warned him of the Prince’s negotiations with several northern tribes to forge a military alliance. And there had been a spate of unusual imports—heavy wood and iron, northern shipbuilding artisans, and the like, though all that trickled off a few years ago. But several months ago, Kinja also learned that the Prince had deliberately created a Reaper. He controls the creature using secret knowledge—doubtless from the stolen scrolls. The creature was used as an assassin, killing all who might interfere with the Prince’s plans. The deaths resembled natural causes. Kinja, Kinja himself may have…” Here she faltered for just a moment, visibly fighting emotion.

“In Gujaareh, no one would question such things,” Ehiru murmured, more to her than to the Protectors. He felt fresh pity for her now, hearing that both her mentor and her protégé had died at the Reaper’s claws. For that, he tried to comfort her, though only with words since that was all he had. “No one but Gatherers, and we did not know. If we had, we would have helped you.”

She gave a curt nod, getting control of herself, and faced the Protectors again. “Before I left Gujaareh, I also learned that the creature has been involved in a number of incidents at the capital’s prison. Many prisoners have died in ways which puzzle even the Gujaareen, for these are young, healthy men who slip away in their sleep—ungently. So it would seem the Prince is not content to use his Reaper as merely a convenient assassin. He nurtures the creature’s evil, helping its powers to grow for reasons known only to himself.” She hesitated, glancing at Ehiru. “What I could not be certain of was the Hetawa’s involvement.”

And thus she’d dared not trust him with everything she knew. He heard the apology in her voice and nodded acceptance, though he marveled at it given her hatred of his kind. But somehow, over the course of recent days, her feelings toward Gatherers—no, toward Ehiru—had apparently changed. There was a degree of respect in her manner now, which he had never expected to see.

He glanced toward Nijiri and saw grudging compassion in the way he looked at Sunandi. Change on both sides, then; good.

“And Kinja learned, though Jeh Kalawe was the one to bring us this knowledge,” said the old woman, with an approving glance at Sunandi, “that for the past five years—since the Prince found the scrolls—Gujaareh has been quietly building its fleet of ships to levels useful only for war. Other spies have confirmed this. Shipyards outside the city, along the Sea of Glory, have been producing vessels in great quantity. We do not watch the Sea of Glory closely; it has no connection to the Eastern Ocean and so poses no threat to Kisua—or so we believed. But we now know those ships were designed with thicker hulls than are needed on the Sea, built using techniques borrowed from the northern tribes. Therefore we suspect the Prince now has a fleet of ships which can sail all the way around the northern continent, through the frozen and dangerous waters at the top of the world, to reach the eastern seas.” She paused. “We suspect the Prince has sent these ships forth already, most of them years ago. Each left its docks as soon as it was completed, never more than one at a time—but by the volume of materials involved and the guesses of our own shipmasters, we estimate some five hundred ships could have begun the northern journey by now.” She heaved a long sigh. “Your Prince is as patient as an elder.”

The Kisuati woman. She cannot be permitted to reach Kisua, Ehiru, or there will be war. Eninket’s words echoed in Ehiru’s mind, and he shivered at the enormity of his brother’s misdirection. War had already been declared. Only its timing made any difference.

“Yes,” Ehiru said. He was angry again, too angry; another mark of his corruption. He controlled it with an effort. “Patience is only one of the gifts our Goddess bestowed upon him. I hadn’t realized until now just how thoroughly he has misused those gifts.”

A hint of compassion seemed to flicker in the old woman’s eyes for a moment. “Then perhaps you will oblige us by sharing information of your own,” she said. “As I told you, we suspect the Prince has forged secret agreements with several of the far-northern tribes for military alliance, and for safe passage through their waters; these agreements have been primarily brokered through a Bromarte trader-clan. A minor member of this clan, a Bromarte named Charleron of Wenkinsclan, was one of Kinja Seh Kalabsha’s contacts; he recently died. Jeh Kalawe has heard rumors that he was Gathered—or perhaps Reaped. Do you know anything of this?”

Goddess forgive me. This madness goes so much deeper than I ever suspected. Ehiru closed his eyes and took a long slow breath. “I was the one who collected his tithe.”

The Protectors began to murmur again, though the old woman shushed them quickly. “Who commanded his death? The Prince? His own kinsmen? Did he give you any information before he died, about strife between the Prince and your Superior?”

“These things I do not know,” Ehiru replied. “The commission came in the usual manner. I was told he had an incurable disease. I had no reason to suspect anything unusual…”

But even as he said this, he remembered the Bromarte’s words in the dream: they’re using you. And too, he remembered the silhouette that had been watching from a nearby rooftop.

If I had not killed him, the Reaper would have. He shuddered as understanding came at last, too late and tinged with a bitter irony.

The old woman looked at her fellow Protectors. “The Bromarte clans are reluctant members of the alliance, thanks to their long ties with both Gujaareh and Kisua. They have stayed as neutral as possible, only brokering deals with other clans that are more willing to fight, like the Soreni. But some of them, like Charleron, were willing to warn us of the danger.”

“No troops have left Gujaareh,” another man mused, picking at a spot on the table. “Their armies are at full strength, deployed a bit closer to the border than usual, but they haven’t begun to move. Of that much we can be certain.”

Another man said, “The Feen and the Soreni have ports along the Eastern Ocean, and they have ties to tribes with ports even along the frozen northern seas and the Windswept. Gujaareh has great wealth; they can afford to pay others to fight their wars. So if the Prince’s vessels were empty, so that they could travel faster, and if they could be filled with northern warriors after making the ocean journey…”

Silence fell in the chamber. In it, Sunandi cleared her throat. “Respectfully, Esteemed… Are our warriors prepared for an attack?”

An old woman at the far end of the table leveled a hard look at Sunandi. “We have been doing nothing else since we first learned of Gujaareh’s warship fleet, Speaker.”

“But even so, the Prince has moved more cleverly than expected,” said the woman at the center. She spoke heavily, oblivious to the quelling looks of her fellow Councillors. After a long moment she lifted her head. “I thank you for your report, Jeh Kalawe, and Gatherers of Gujaareh.”

Sunandi offered her bow again. But as she straightened, she hesitated. “Esteemed and wise. Kisua has not had war for many centuries, and never with her daughter-nation of Gujaareh. Is there no hope remaining for peace?”

“That is up to the Prince,” the central woman said.

“We shall of course attempt to parley with him,” said another of her companions. “Though it seems unlikely he will be interested in peace after investing this much in his attack.”

The central woman sighed, shaking her head. “And what will you do, Gatherer Ehiru?”

“Return to Gujaareh,” Ehiru replied. “There is still the matter of the Reaper, since it seems you have uncovered no information about its connection to all this. But as for the rest… my brothers must know of the Prince’s plans. There are still some in the Hetawa whom I trust, and who will help me try to stop this—if it can be stopped. War is the greatest possible offense to Hananja.”

The old woman considered this for a moment. “You may have horses and provisions to facilitate your journey home. But take care; by coming here, you may have made yourselves an enemy of your lord.”

He bowed over one hand to her. “We serve Hananja, Elder. Our Prince is merely Her Avatar, and as such he rules only on Her sufferance.”

As he straightened, he remembered Eninket’s face at their last meeting: smiling, reassuring. Lying through his teeth. The rage returned—not the red, brutal rage he’d been fighting since the desert, but something cleaner and more welcome: the cold and righteous anger of a Servant of Hananja.

Perhaps I am not wholly corrupt yet, he decided. Perhaps I can remain myself long enough to administer justice one last time. And for you, my birth-brother, that justice is long overdue.

Seeing something of Ehiru’s thoughts in his face, the old woman’s eyes widened. But then her fear faded and she returned a slow, grim nod.

“Then I bid you good luck, Gatherer,” she said, “and for all our sakes… good hunting.”