The Killing Moon (Dreamblood) (8 page)

Niyes stepped close to the sarcophagus, lifting the lantern high for Sunandi. Steeling herself, Sunandi stepped forward to examine the corpse.

It was not one of Niyes’s relatives. Though the skin had darkened in death, Sunandi could still tell that the man, in life, had been much lighter-complected than any shunha of a respectable lineage. Perhaps even a northerner—although the hair was tight-curled and black, and the distorted features showed clear southern roots. A common Gujaareen, then.

But what truly shocked Sunandi was the expression on the corpse’s face. The eyes had sunken, but lines of striation still showed around the lids and across the brow. He’d died with his eyes shut tight. The mouth was open, lips drawn back in a way that could have been caused by drying and shrinkage of the skin—but she doubted it. It took no embalmers’ skill to recognize a mortal, agonized scream when she saw one.

“Twelve men have been found like this,” Niyes said, his voice soft in the silence. “All were young men, healthy. All died in the night without warning, mark, or wound. This one had a cellmate, who said he was like this before he died—thrashing, trying to cry out but making no sound. Asleep.”

“Asleep?”

Niyes nodded. “Asleep, and dreaming something so horrible that it killed him.” He looked up at her, his face haggard in the lamplight. “I brought this one here to keep as proof. The others were burned. Do you understand what it means?”

She swallowed, her gorge rising anew. “The abomination. But if your Hetawa has failed in its vigilance, then you should be showing this corpse to the Prince of Gujaareh, not me. I am Kisuati; I can only say, ‘We told you so.’ ”

“There’s more to it, Speaker. Strange events have occurred lately, especially in the past few years. The Prince—” He gri
maced. “The Prince has quietly poured money into the shipdocks along the Sea of Glory. They’ve slowed now, but until two years ago they were working night and day producing ships. Merchant-vessels, the orders say, but of a strange design, made with heavier wood than normal.”

“The Sea of Glory has no connection to the Eastern Ocean,” Sunandi said, confused. “Ships built there are no threat to Kisua.”

“Those ships sailed away months ago and have never been seen or heard from again,” Niyes said. “Where do you think they’ve gone, Speaker?”

“North? South? They’re still no threat unless they sail west across the Endless and ’round the world to Kisua’s front gate—a feat no vessel has ever managed, except in tales.” Sunandi shook her head. “Leaving aside the fact that they might actually
be
merchant-vessels.”

Niyes sighed and ran a hand over his balding pate. “The Prince has also recently sought alliance with several northern tribes. Not just our regular trading partners, either—ax-mad barbarians from the icelands, who make our Bromarte seem well-mannered and gentle-hearted.”

“Perhaps he’s found new trading partners. Which of course would require new merchant ships.”

“But along with all the rest—including Kinja’s death—you must admit it paints a disturbing picture.”

It did indeed, but a picture that was far too indistinct to be of any use. Sunandi sighed. “I cannot bring this to the Protectors, General. Even if they believed me—which is no guarantee by far—they would ask the same questions I have, and you have no
answers. I suspect you understand that. So I must ask: what did you really hope to gain from this meeting?”

“Your belief, if not the Protectors’. Kinja’s message—have you deciphered it yet?”

Sunandi grew very still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grimaced. “There’s no time for games, Speaker. We cannot stay here much longer or the servants—some of whom are surely spies—might miss us. Suffice it that Kinja gave me the message just before he died, though he told me nothing of its content. Said I knew too much already. He asked me to make sure his successor received it if anything should happen to him. Your girl’s skills made that easy for me, thank the gods.” He reached over and took her hand, gripping it firmly. “Believe the message, Speaker. Make the Protectors understand. The Reaper is only the beginning.”

“I can’t
make
the Protectors understand anything, General—”

“You can. You
must
. Go there to convince them—you’ll have to leave anyway if you want to live; you know that, don’t you? Do it soon. The Prince knew Kinja had discovered something, and Kinja died. He already suspects you. You’re too obviously Kinja’s heir.”

“And you?”

Niyes smiled, bleakly and without a trace of humor. “I will doubtless take that place soon.” He nodded toward the stone slab. “But before I do, I want to try and prevent a great evil. My men are loyal and more than willing to die for Gujaareh—but I won’t let them die for
this
.”

His face was grim, his eyes hard and resigned. He was either the greatest liar she’d ever seen, or he meant every word.

After a long and careful scrutiny, Sunandi finally sighed. “Then take me out of here, General, before I lose my dinner. I’ll need all my strength intact if I’m to stop a war.”

In the sky above, the Dreamer had risen, her four-banded face framed by thin wisps of summer clouds. In the streets below, the same colors—red for blood, blue-white for seed, yellow for ichor, and black for bile—glowed from banners on every torchpost and windowsill, lintel and clothesline. The light reflected off sweat-sheened faces and leaf fans, brightly dyed cloth and eager smiles. Some while before the sun had set, its last sullen glow fading reluctantly beyond the river. Already Hananja’s city was deep in the throes of worship, rejoicing on the night its Goddess starved.

In the courtyard of the palace Yanya-iyan, the noblest of Her followers had gathered to worship apart from the wilder street celebrations of the common castes. Here the Hamyan proceeded in a more dignified fashion as the esteemed lords of the shunha and zhinha mingled with their peers from artisan-hall
and warhall, the royal family and foreign lands. Every so often one of the guests would raise hands, proclaim some trinket or utensil a sacrifice, and exhort Hananja to accept it to supplement the sparse dreams She would receive on the shortest night of the year. Usually this ritual drew laughter from the other guests, though the Servants of Hananja in attendance maintained a pointed silence.

Had Nijiri known more of life beyond the Hetawa walls, he might have felt humbled by the presence of so many citizens of note. Instead he stood still as they ambled about him, his awe stolen by Yanya-iyan itself. The main structure of the great palace surrounded the courtyard in an open-ended oval. He and the other guests stood within a curving valley of marble tiers, each decorated with embossings and troughs of flowers that seemed to have been stacked to the sky. At the open end, bronze lattice-gates twice the height of a man allowed commoners to peer in, if they dared; the guards would allow it if they seemed no threat. Even as Nijiri watched, two women at the gate pointed in at something beyond him. He turned to follow their gaze and stopped in fresh wonder.

Far opposite the gates, at the other end of the courtyard, stood a pyramid-shaped elevated pavilion. Beneath the pavilion’s glass roof, at the top of a mountain of steps, sat a deceptively simple oxbow seat carved whole from a block of pale, shiny nhefti-wood.

And there sat the Prince of Gujaareh, Lord of the Sunset, Avatar of Hananja, straight-backed and so still that Nijiri wondered for a moment whether the figure was flesh or painted stone. The answer came when a servant child crouched at the
Prince’s left hand, offering a golden cup on a platter. The Prince moved an arm—no more than that—and took the cup without looking. Another child crouched nearly hidden behind the Prince, holding the staff that bore the Aureole of the Setting Sun: a wide semicircle of polished red-and gold-amber plates shaped like sunbeams, kept steady behind the Prince’s head. Around the Prince’s feet, twenty of his younger children sat arranged as living ornaments, reflecting their sire’s glory.

“A rare sight,” a voice said beside Nijiri, startling him badly. He jerked about to see a woman in a gown of palest green, translucent hekeh fiber. She smiled at his discomfiture, flexing the delicately patterned scars along her otherwise smooth brown cheekbones.

Women are goddesses
, rang the old adage through Nijiri’s mind before he swallowed and bowed over both hands, hazarding a guess. “Sister?”

“Gatherer.” She inclined her head and spread her hands, her every movement grace. He stared, entranced by the way the black ropes of her hair caught the light. “Gatherer-Apprentice rather, given that I do not know you, and given that you gaze at me like a young man who hasn’t seen a woman older than twelve for many years. That would make you Nijiri.”

He quickly lowered his eyes. “Yes, Sister.”

“Meliatua is my name.” She nodded toward the Prince’s pavilion again. “I meant the Prince’s children, by the way. He rarely allows any but the oldest out in public.”

“Ah, yes.” Nijiri groped for some more polite way to address her. “Sister” alone seemed rude, like calling one of his brethren merely “Servant.” But her order operated independently of the
Hetawa, and he knew nothing of their divisions of rank. Then it occurred to him that a conversation had begun between them and he was expected to respond, not stand there gawping like a fool.

“I, I was just thinking that it must be terribly dull for the children,” he said, wincing inwardly at his stammer, “being forced to sit there for so long.”

“The Prince will send them away presently. For the time being they’re on display, both as a sign of his devotion to Hananja and as a rebuke to the rest of these fools.” She looked around and sighed, either missing or ignoring Nijiri’s shock at her casual contempt. “They offer Her trifles; the Prince presents his own flesh and blood. If the Hetawa laid claim to any of those children right now, the Prince would have no choice but to agree.”

Nijiri blinked in surprise. That the Hetawa could adopt any child who showed promise—orphaned or not—he knew. During his own years in the House of Children he had met several adoptees with living parents. But they had all, like Nijiri, been children of the lower and middling castes. He could not imagine a shunha or zhinha heir, let alone a child of the Sunset, deigning to live as a mere Servant of Hananja when caste and family connections promised so much more.

She read his face and lifted an eyebrow. “Your own mentor is a brother of the Prince, Gatherer-Apprentice. No one knows the circumstances—Ehiru has always been private about such things—but he was the last child of the Sunset claimed by the Hetawa. Did you not know?”

Half-overheard whispers flitted through Nijiri’s memory, but
still the truth was a shock. He had guessed that Ehiru’s origins were highcaste—who could notice that fine black skin, those angular features, those elegant manners and speech, and think otherwise?—but never so very high as that. He dared a look up at the seated Prince again and tried to visualize Ehiru in his place, beautiful and regal and perfect as a god. The image fit so well that a secret, shameful thrill flitted down Nijiri’s spine before he banished it.

From the corner of his eye he spied Meliatua watching him. Realizing that half his thoughts must be obvious, he flushed and drew his hood closer about his face. “We all belong to Hananja now, Sister.”

“Indeed we do.” She took his arm then, startling him badly. He could do nothing but follow as she tugged him into a stroll.

“Where is your mentor, Gatherer-Apprentice? He should be at your side, protecting you from the likes of me.” Her teeth gleamed in the firelight.

“He wished me to spend some time on my own, Sister.” Nijiri felt the softness of her breast press against his elbow and fought the urge to nudge it back to see what would happen. He had a vague notion this would offend her. “Gatherers must blend in among people of many kinds; I am therefore to observe and learn.” He glanced at her, hesitated, then dared humor. “Perhaps comfort is
my
sacrifice tonight.”

To his relief she laughed, causing the scar-patterns on her cheeks to dance in the firelight. He admired the way the scars ornamented her beauty even as he realized with some surprise that he did not want her at all. She was a sculpture: to be observed and perhaps even touched, but not a thing one could take home.