The Killing Moon

by N. K. Jemisin

  At last they reach the grand hall. Here the soldiers stop before a man who wears more red and gold than they do. The man stoops to examine Ehiru’s pendant.

  “He is not yours!” cries a voice, and this one wakes Ehiru from his stupor. His own mother. He turns, ignoring the pain this causes his scalp, to see her emerge from a side-corridor. She wears a brightly colored brocade wrap and the gold-amber necklace that Ehiru’s father gave her; she is regal and unafraid. Soldiers immediately take her by the arms, dragging her forward. She barely seems to notice their presence. “I have given my son to the Hetawa,” she declares to the captain. “Harm him and risk the Goddess’s own wrath.”

  The captain scowls at this and orders the men to kill her.

  The world slows again. Two knives go into her at breast and belly, then again at neck and side. The men step back. Ehiru lunges forward, not caring if he loses his scalp, but fortunately the soldier’s grip has loosened and he slips free only a few hairs the less. He reaches her as she falls, stumbling in his effort to catch her, and failing. She lands hard enough to bounce but then lies still, her hands drifting to the floor at her sides, her eyes fixing on his. She is smiling. He skids to his knees beside her, the floor is slippery with her blood, her wrap clings to his hands when he takes hold of it in an effort to pull her upright.

  “Do not weep,” she whispers. Blood is on her lips. He screams something; he does not know what. “Do not weep,” she commands again. She lifts her hand to touch his face, drawing a wet line down one cheek. “This is how it must be. You will be safe now; Hananja Herself will protect you. You are Her son now.”

  And then she stops talking. Her hand drops. Her eyes are still fixed on his, but different somehow. He is still screaming when the soldiers drag him back; they ignore him. They are upset, frightened for some reason.

  “No way to know she was the firstwife,” the captain says. He sounds shaken. “So many women here, no way to know. That’s what we’ll tell him.”

  “And the brat?”

  “The Hetawa, where else? Do you want to be the one who explains to the Gatherers how he died?”

  No one answers.

  “We’ll deliver him on the way back to Yanya-iyan. As far as tonight is concerned, he wasn’t here.”

  So they carry Ehiru outside and truss him up and strap him across a saddle like baggage, and once the killing is done they ride away with him into the desert night. And as they dump him on the Hetawa steps and leave him there for the Sentinels to collect, he recalls the old priest’s words and realizes that they were not an error, but a prophecy. Now, though he would never have chosen it, he is a child of the Hetawa. Now and forevermore.

  * * *

  Ehiru opened his eyes and lifted his head from his knee. Sunandi’s garden surrounded him, wilder and thicker than Gujaareen gardens tended to be, although no less beautiful. Straightening from the awkward posture, he stretched out his leg and sighed, looking up at the Dreamer through the graceful branches of a shimanantu tree. He’d come to meditate, but the humid warmth of Kisua’s nights had lulled him into sleep—and memories—instead. Not the wisest thing to sleep outdoors and without screening cloth; he scratched one leg and grimaced as he felt a four of insect bites beneath his fingers. Then he tensed, hearing a footstep behind him.

  “Is your bed not to your satisfaction, Gatherer?”

  He relaxed and turned to see Sunandi. She stood a few feet away on the porch that was the garden’s entrance. She wore only a light shift, momentarily throwing him back to the fateful night of their meeting in Yanya-iyan that now seemed so long ago.

  “The bed is fine,” he replied. “Gatherers don’t sleep at night.”

  “And yet you have the look of a man who’s just woken from a fine nap.”

  I’m not quite a Gatherer any longer, he thought, but did not say. She probably knew it, anyhow.

  “Where’s your little killer?”

  Ehiru shook his head. “In Ina-Karekh, though his body is in your guestroom with my jungissa holding him in sleep. He would be awake too, if not for that, worrying over all our troubles.”

  “Hmm, yes.” She sighed. “I’m glad to know that Gatherers, too, have sleepless nights. Makes you seem more human.”

  “I could say the same of ambassadors,” he said, turning to look up at the Dreamer again. Waking Moon peeked around the curve of her larger sister, a signal of the coming dawn. “Someone in your profession must see so much evil, day in and day out. It surprises me to see that you can still be troubled by anything enough that it disturbs your sleep.”

  “A matter of degree, Gatherer.” She walked down the steps, coming to stand on the grass beside him. “Everyday evils are nothing to me, true, but this war is so much more than that.” She hesitated, then added in a tone of resignation, “Perhaps I should be glad that I won’t live to become so jaded.”

  He sighed up at the Moons. “You sought to prevent war. There’s no corruption in that.”

  He sensed her surprise and sudden attention in the moment of silence that followed. “Even if my methods…?”

  “Corruption is a disease of the soul, not the actions, Jeh Kalawe. And though the latter are often symptomatic of the former, it is a Gatherer’s duty to see beyond superficialities. When I return to Gujaareh, I’ll inform the Council of my judgment.” He glanced back at her. “See to it that you never grow corrupt enough to accept evil without losing sleep, however, or it will be dangerous for you to enter Gujaareh again.”

  She exhaled, fourdays of tension released in that one sound, and closed her eyes for a moment—perhaps sending a prayer of thanks to whatever gods she respected, or perhaps just savoring life anew. But when she opened her eyes the old irreverence was there. “Be sure you tell your apprentice too, priest. He doesn’t like me.”

  In spite of his mood, Ehiru smiled. “Nijiri has little experience with foreigners or women. You confuse him.”

  “And that which confuses must be destroyed?”

  “Or understood. But you, Sunandi Jeh Kalawe, are a difficult woman to understand under the best of circumstances. You can’t blame Nijiri for throwing up his hands and deciding to kill you as the simplest solution to the matter.”

  She laughed, low and rich. He watched her, obliquely fascinated by the sound and the long graceful lines of her neck. “He wouldn’t be the first man to come to that conclusion,” she said, looking up at the Moons. “The Prince seems to have felt the same way. And Kinja often joked about it.” She fell silent then, abruptly, and he remembered that she was still in mourning.

  “This Kinja,” he said. He gazed at the Dreamer as he said it, but he caught her look from the corner of his eye, sensed her sudden tension. He kept his tone soft, trying to convey that he meant only to comfort her. “Will you tell me of him? Since, it seems, he died trying to save both our lands.”

  She was silent for a length of time. It was very Gujaareen of her, though Ehiru suspected she would not appreciate the description.

  “He was…” she began, slowly, “Well. My father, officially, by adoption. But in truth he was more like you are to Nijiri—an older brother, a mentor, a friend. I loved him the same way that boy loves you.” She paused then, glancing at him. “Perhaps not in quite the same way, though. I never wanted Kinja as a lover.”

  “Even if you had, he would have loved you too much to indulge your desire,” Ehiru replied, evenly. “A father has power over a woman that no lover should have, after all, and vice versa.” He shrugged. “This Kinja seems an honorable man, and honorable men are not so selfish.”

  “Perhaps you should say this to your apprentice, priest.”

  Ehiru shook his head, slowly, and brushed away a persistent biting insect. “I’ve known Nijiri since he was a child. Nothing stops him, or dissuades him, once he sets his mind on a thing. That will make him a good Gatherer.” And then, because the moment seemed to demand a degree of candor, he added, “And I’m selfish enough to want his love, for whatever time I have left. I w
on’t abuse it, but… I’m not strong enough to turn it away, either. Perhaps you’ll think less of me, for that.”

  She sighed and hunkered down to crouch beside him, arms wrapped around her knees. “No. I don’t think less of you. Embrace love while you have it, priest—from whichever direction it comes, proper or improper, for however long it lasts. Because it always, always comes to an end.”

  Her pain, her aching loneliness, was almost more than Ehiru could bear. He wanted so badly to touch her, stroke away her sorrow and administer peace in its wake, but he dared not. His desire for her was dangerously strong already. Then too, he realized sadly, he could not spare the dreamblood. His mind was consuming what he’d taken from the soldier far too quickly.

  Well, there were other ways to share peace.

  “I’m no woman,” Ehiru said. “I won’t have the strength to travel on my own, once I dwell permanently in Ina-Karekh. But before that, if I have the opportunity, I’ll seek out this Kinja, and tell him what a lucky man he is.”

  A small tremor passed through her, and her face twitched. “Thank—” But she could not complete the phrase. Tears welled in her eyes, abruptly. Ehiru looked away and fell silent, to allow her that much privacy.

  After a moment, she took a deep breath and said, in a calmer tone, “The boy says you mean to, er, take up permanent residence in Ina-Karekh soon.”

  “Yes. I must.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m no longer fully in control of my mind, Jeh Kalawe. Even this moment is just an island of lucidity in the flood of madness that surrounds me. In truth, you shouldn’t be alone with me. It isn’t safe.”

  “The boy doesn’t fear you.”

  “But you should. Even he should.” He sighed, watching the garden’s shadows shift in a breeze.

  “No.” To Ehiru’s surprise, he felt Sunandi’s hand cover his. “In the desert, you endured days of madness when you could easily have taken me. That’s not the way of a murdering beast, no matter what you did to that soldier. And as you say, Gatherer—sometimes, no matter how horrid the outcome, we must judge a person by his intentions rather than his actions.”

  And then, to his greater shock, she leaned in and kissed him.

  It lasted only a breath, just long enough for him to taste the merest hint of her berry-dark, rose petal–soft lips. He had never kissed a woman before. Later, he would recall the scent of whatever oil she’d put on after her bath, the sound of her breathing, an impression of cinnamon on the tip of his tongue. The feel of her hand on his, and the softness of her breast against his arm. Later he would imagine pulling her closer, regret that he would never know the fulfillment of such thoughts, and be glad, at least, that he’d had the chance to experience this in his last days of waking.

  Then she pulled back with a small sad smile, and he stared at her, still stunned.

  “May Hananja’s inward sight be ever upon you,” she said softly, the blessing’s syllables rolling beautifully in her native tongue. Then she stroked his cheek with one hand. “I can’t wish you peace, for when you return to your homeland you must fight. But good luck.”

  And then she got to her feet and left the garden. Ehiru stared after her for a long while, unsure of what to think, or whether to think at all. Eventually, though, it came to him that he felt better. More certain of the choices he’d made, and the path he faced. In her own way, she had given him peace.

  “Peace and luck to you as well, Sunandi of Kisua,” he said softly. “And farewell.”

  33

  There is the flood, once per year, which marks experience. There is the full Dreamer, once per decade, which marks knowledge. There is the Waking Moon each morning, which marks contemplation. There is the river, ever-present, which marks history.

  (Wisdom)

  Traveling with the flow of the Goddess’s Blood, it took nine days to reach the outskirts of the Gujaareen Territories. Nijiri spent most of those days doing his share of work on the merchant barge that bore them north toward home. When he was not working the longoar or fishing for their dinner, he whiled away the hours watching the greenlands pass on either side of the river as they drifted along. Sometimes he played tehtet, a numbering game that required one to bluff and lie to win, with the vessel’s Kisuati crew. Unintentionally he endeared himself to them by losing every round.

  Keeping busy helped Nijiri avoid thinking of the future, although that went only so far. Sometimes he would look up and see Ehiru, who spent most of his own free hours standing at the prow of the barge like a solemn statue, absorbed in whatever thoughts occupied his mind these days. At other times the barge would float through a village, gliding past farmers preparing their fields for second planting and children watering their beasts at the riverside. At such times Nijiri would be painfully struck by the overwhelming normality of what he saw. Beyond the fields, vast and terrible conspiracies were in motion: armies on the move, monsters unleashed, death on a nightmarish scale threatening to swallow all the land. Yet for the common folk of Kisua and Gujaareh, life went on as it had for centuries, unscathed by time or trouble.

  This is what we fight for, Nijiri would think in such moments, waving and smiling at a farm child or pretty maiden. This simple, ordered life was Hananja’s truest peace, which priests of the Hetawa had devoted their lives to protecting for generations. This was what it truly meant to be a Servant of Hananja.

  Then he would look at Ehiru and remember what awaited them in Gujaareh, and whatever peace he had found would vanish again.

  Thus did he pass the days as the villages became trade-posts, and the trade-posts became towns and smaller cities, and at last on the tenth day the towers and sprawl of Gujaareh’s capital began to grow in the distance.

  The barge captain—a former Kisuati army officer—was sanguine about the risks as the crew prepared for the end of its journey. “I’ve smuggled more than my share of contraband through Gujaareh’s gates,” he said to Nijiri as they stacked goods for the tax assessors. “You’re no different from the rest, so relax.”

  But Nijiri could not relax. The sight of Gujaareh’s familiar walls had stirred both homesickness and dread within him, and as they drew nearer, the dread grew. This was not dread for the inevitable duty he faced when the time came for Ehiru’s Final Tithe; that particular misery was a steady, omnipresent thing. The new feeling was at once sharper and more alarming.

  Troubled and restless, he went to Ehiru, who manned the second longoar so that they could steer more precisely now that other vessels had begun to appear with greater frequency around them. All the river’s traffic had increased as they approached Gujaareh’s gateway port; the crew joked that soon they would be able to cross the river by stepping from boat to boat.

  “My heart flutters like a moth in my chest, Brother,” he murmured, taking hold of the pole to assist Ehiru. “I’ve never had a true-seeing, but everything in me is frightened of returning to the city.”

  “We have no reason to fear,” Ehiru said, keeping his voice just as low. “No one is looking for us, or at least not here. Gujaareh has grown wealthy by treating traders kindly; we have only to be calm and we should pass the gates with no incident.”

  “And once we pass the gates?”

  “I would prefer to seek out our pathbrothers, but I don’t know how we can reach them in the Hetawa without others—those I no longer trust, like the Superior—knowing of it.” He looked briefly sour, then sighed. “For now, we have surprise on our side. That will count for something.”

  Nijiri frowned, then inhaled. “You mean for us to go to Yanya-iyan directly, then. And do what, Gather the Prince straightaway? Without—”

  “Yes, Nijiri,” Ehiru said, throwing him a hard look. “I mean to do just that.”

  A Gatherer destroys corruption—and power, if he must, Rabbaneh had said. And he’d been right to remind Nijiri to stop thinking like a servant-caste. True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.

  So Nijiri bit his lip, stifled the part of himself t
hat quailed at the idea of doing something so audacious, and set his mind to the task at hand. “We should seek Sister Meliatua,” he said. “She and the Sisters have many allies around the city; they may be able to help us.”

  “Hmm.” Ehiru seemed to consider this. “If she can get a message into the Hetawa… or hide a person…” He glanced at Nijiri, and abruptly Nijiri realized what he was thinking.

  Nijiri scowled. “You will not enter Yanya-iyan without me.”

  Ehiru opened his mouth to argue, then apparently thought better of it. He shook his head, eyes creasing with amusement. “You have become a willful, rude apprentice, Nijiri.”

  “I’ve always been so, Brother.” In spite of his mood Nijiri could not help grinning. But the moment was fleeting. Ehiru sobered and gazed out over the water. It wasn’t difficult to guess the direction of his thoughts.

  “Ehiru-brother.” Nijiri hesitated, then blurted, “I’ve been thinking. Perhaps you could go before the Council of Paths. If you could face the pranje again, within the peace of the Hetawa—”

  Ehiru took one hand off the oar and held it out. Even over the gentle bob of the barge, the tremor in his hand was pronounced. Nijiri caught his breath and Ehiru took hold of the oar once more, gripping it tightly to conceal the tremor.

  “You see,” Ehiru said. He turned his gaze to the river; his face was expressionless. “Within another fourday, I shall be as useless to you as I was in the desert. So I must act quickly.”

  It had been twelve days since he’d killed the soldier, but already Ehiru’s reservoir was empty again—had probably been empty for days, if his hands were that bad. Shaken, Nijiri resumed turning the oar.