The Killing Moon (Dreamblood) (35 page)

“Brother—” He snatched his hand away, overwhelmed by an anguish so intense that its weight seemed to crush him. Pressing his forehead to Ehiru’s he wept helplessly, great racking sobs that echoed throughout the guest chamber and probably beyond, but he was past caring what Sunandi or her servants thought of his grief. He wanted only for Ehiru to wake and shush him and hold him, as he had on that long-ago day when they’d first met.
I would die for you
, he had thought on that day, and instead he had learned to kill, to walk in dreams, to dance his soul’s joy. He had done it all to make himself worthy of this man, who was the closest thing to a father he had ever known. The closest thing to a lover he had ever wanted. There were no words for what Ehiru was to him; even Sister Meliatua had not fully grasped it. God, perhaps. Far more than Hananja had ever been.

The tears spent themselves after a time. As the tightness in his throat loosened, he pushed himself up, taking deep breaths to try and regain control. Twin streaks of wetness painted Ehiru’s face. Nijiri brushed them away and then did the same to himself.

All the hard-won peace he’d achieved during the evening’s meditation was gone. Sighing, Nijiri got to his feet and rubbed a
hand over his hair, turning to pace—and stopping as he saw the silhouette in the doorway. Sunandi.

She walked in without asking to enter, her bare feet making no noise on the woven-grass mats, the moonlight illuminating her face in flashes as she passed near the windows. Though she had probably heard his weeping she made no mention of it, not looking at him as she passed. He was too weary to feel grateful.

When she reached the foot of the bed she stopped, gazing down at Ehiru for a long moment. “Will he die?”

Once upon a time Nijiri would have hated her for that question. Now he only looked away. “Yes.”

“When?”

“When I do my duty.”

“Must it be now?”

“He deliberately took a man’s dreamblood and gave no peace in return. By our laws, there’s no higher crime.”

She sighed, folding her arms. “He sleeps well for a criminal.”

“A minor sleep-spell. If he were himself, I’d never have been able to cast it on him.” He looked down at the jungissa in his hands, turning it by its fragile-seeming wings. It had been owned by countless Gatherers down through the centuries—and before that, the stone from which it had been hewn had flown through the sky, spinning among the gods themselves. Perhaps it had even touched the Dreaming Moon before falling to earth as magic made solid.

“Deprivation has greatly weakened his umblikeh,” he said softly. “The tether that binds a soul to its body, and to the waking world.”

“And now that he is no longer… deprived?”

“Under ordinary circumstances, with time, the tether could heal.”

She threw him a sidelong glance. “He will have no time if you Gather him.”

Nijiri shook his head. “In the Hetawa he might have managed it—over months, in isolation. Out here, amid all this madness…” Nijiri gestured toward the balcony, Kisua, the world. “No. Even leaving aside the matter of his crime, it’s hopeless.”

He felt her eyes on him as he went to the balcony door and leaned against it, gazing out at the city and wishing it were Gujaareh. Wishing too that the Kisuati woman would leave. He had so little time left with Ehiru.

But she said nothing for so long that he finally turned back to see if she was there. And stiffened, for she had dared to sit on Ehiru’s bed, stroking the fuzz of his unshorn hair with one hand.

She glanced up, saw his anger, and smiled. “Forgive my familiarity. He reminds me of someone I once knew and loved dearly.” She took her hand away. “He should have the choice.”

“What?”

“The choice. Of whether to die, when to die. I could accept the terrible things your kind do if you did them only to the willing.”

Nijiri scowled. “You believe he is unwilling?
A Gatherer of Hananja?
”

She winced. “Perhaps he is willing. Still, his city prepares itself in secret for war, his brother schemes to use evil magic, a Reaper stalks the shadows, and he will live to see none of it resolved. That seems crueler than merely killing him outright.”

Nijiri’s hand clenched on the curtain. “You only want him with us when we stand before the Protectors tomorrow.”

“That I cannot deny. But that serves you as well, for it will help me save both your city and mine. Whatever you might believe, I have no desire to see war between our lands. And too, it pains me to see the two of you suffering like this.” Nijiri made a sound of disbelief, but she ignored him, still gazing at Ehiru. “When he told me about Lin… I hated all your kind. Everyone who uses magic. Now I begin to see that it is your Hetawa that is wicked, and not you.”

He opened his mouth to curse her blasphemy, then recalled the look in the Superior’s eyes when they’d taken Ehiru away in a rogue’s yoke. “Not
all
the Hetawa.” Oh, that was weak.

“True. You and your mentor, and even the Reaper who took my Lin… you are the victims here. The most pitiful victims of all, because you
believe.
”

Nijiri stared at her, then finally sat down on a nearby chair. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Maybe you’re right.”

She fell silent, perhaps out of surprise at his agreement, perhaps just respectful of his pain. When she spoke again, she kept her voice soft the way a Gatherer would. “Let him live until tomorrow. Let him hear what the Protectors have to say. I don’t know what sort of information they can give him, but by speaking with them, he could help to seal the breach between my land and yours. Perhaps that will give him some extra measure of peace before…” She hesitated, groping for some delicate way to say it.

“Before he dies,” Nijiri finished for her. He looked her in the eye and offered a bleak smile. “Death does not trouble us,
remember.” He focused on Ehiru and sobered. “He will not be pleased with me when he wakes.”

“Endure it,” she said, getting to her feet. “Your kind make decisions about other peoples’ lives—and deaths—all the time, do you not? Perhaps it’s time one of you learned to face the consequences of such decisions, instead of simply killing those who object.”

It was another insult—but there was a note of kindness underlying the acerbity, and he saw in her eyes that this was as near as she could come to a peace offering. He nodded to her; there was no anger left in him now, only grief. “Perhaps it is, Speaker.”

He saw her eyebrows rise at his use of her proper title; after a long moment she returned the nod. “Rest well then, little killer. In the morning the Protectors will see us. Be ready.” She turned and walked out, leaving Nijiri alone with Ehiru and his thoughts.

After a few moments of silence, Nijiri pushed himself up from the chair. Crossing the chamber to Ehiru’s bedside, he lifted the covers and climbed in, nestling himself into the crook of his mentor’s shoulder. Lulled by the steady beat of Ehiru’s heart he slept for the rest of the night—not quite at peace, but blessedly without dreams.

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.