How Long 'Til Black Future Month?

by N. K. Jemisin

  Here Mehepi took over, leading them to the largest house in the village, built of sun-baked brick like the rest, but two stories high. “See to our guests,” she ordered Namsut, and without a word Namsut did as she was told. She led Cet, Ginnem, and the two Sentinels into the house.

  “Mehepi’s room,” Namsut said as they passed a room which bore a handsome wide bed. It had probably been the headman’s before his death. “My room.” To no one’s surprise, her room was the smallest in the house. But to Cet’s shock, he saw that her bed was low and gauze-draped—the same bed he’d seen in his dream.

  A true-seeing: a dream of the future sent by the Goddess. He had never been so blessed, or so confused, in his life.

  He distracted himself by concentrating on the matter at hand. “Stay nearby,” he told the Sentinels as they settled into the house’s two guest rooms. “If the brigands attack again, I’ll need to be able to wake you.” They nodded, looking sour; neither had forgiven Cet for putting them to sleep before.

  “And I?” asked Ginnem. “I can create a kind of shield around myself and anyone near me. Though I won’t be able to hold it if you fling a sleep spell at my back again.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Cet said. “If my narcomancy is overwhelmed, your shield may be our only protection.”

  That evening the villagefolk threw them a feast, though a paltry one. One of the elders drew out a battered double-flute, and with a child clapping a menat for rhythm, they had weak, off-key entertainment. The food was worse: boiled grain porridge, a few vegetables, and roasted horsemeat. Cet had made a gift of the horses to Mehepi and her men, and they’d promptly butchered one of them. It was likely the first meat the village had seen in months.

  “Stopping the brigands will not save this place,” Ginnem muttered under his breath. He was grimly chewing his way through the bland porridge, as were all of them. To refuse the food would have been an insult. “They are too poor to survive.”

  “The mine here produces lapis, I heard,” one of the Sentinels said. “That’s valuable.”

  “The veins are all but depleted,” said the other. “I talked to one of the elders awhile this afternoon. They have not mined good stone here in years. Even the nodes the brigands take are poor quality. With new tools and more men, they might dig deeper, find a new vein, but …” He looked about the room and sighed.

  “We must ask the Temple Superior to send aid,” Ginnem said.

  Cet said nothing. The Temple had already given the villagers a phenomenal amount of aid just by sending a Gatherer and two Sentinels; he doubted the Superior would be willing to send more. More likely the village would have to dissolve, its people relocating to other settlements to survive. Without money or status in those places, they would be little better than slaves.

  Almost against his will, Cet looked across the feast table at Namsut, who sat beside Mehepi. She had eaten little, her eyes wandering from face to face around the table, seemingly as troubled by the sorry state of her village as the Templefolk. When her eyes fell on Cet, she frowned in wary puzzlement. Flustered, Cet looked away.

  To find Ginnem watching him with a strange, sober look. “So, not just jealousy.”

  Cet lowered his eyes. “No. No doubt it is the start of the madness.”

  “A kind of madness, yes. Maybe just as dangerous in its own way for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Love,” Ginnem said. “I’d hoped it was only lust, but clearly you care about her.”

  Cet set his plate down, his appetite gone. Love? He barely knew Namsut. And yet the image of her fighting the sleep spell danced through his mind over and over, a recurring dream that he had no power to banish. And yet the thought of leaving her to her empty fate filled him with anguish.

  Ginnem winced, then sighed. “Everything for Her peace.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Ginnem did not meet Cet’s eyes. “But if you mean to help her, do it tomorrow, or the day after. That will be the best time.”

  The words sent a not-entirely-unpleasant chill along Cet’s spine. “You’ve healed her?”

  “She needed no healing. She’s as fertile as river soil. I can only assume she hasn’t conceived yet because the Goddess wanted her child fathered by a man of her choosing. A blessing, not a curse.”

  Cet looked down at his hands, which trembled in his lap. How could a blessing cause him such turmoil? He wanted Namsut; that he could no longer deny. Yet being with her meant violating his oath. He had never questioned that oath in the sixteen years of his service as a Gatherer. For his faithfulness he had been rewarded with a life of such peace and fulfillment as most people could only imagine. But now that peace was gone, ground away between the twin inexorabilities of duty and desire.

  “What shall I do?” he whispered. But if the Sister heard him, he made no reply.

  And when Cet looked up, a shadow of regret was in Namsut’s eyes.

  Ginnem and the Sentinels, who had some ability to protect themselves against narcomancy, took the watch, with Ginnem to remain in the house in case of attack. Exhausted from the previous night’s battle and the day’s travels, Cet went to sleep in the guestroom as soon as the feast ended. It came as no great surprise that his hours in the land of dreams were filled with faceless phantoms who taunted him with angry smiles and inviting caresses. And among them, the cruelest phantom of all: a currant-skinned girlchild with Cet’s kind eyes.

  When he woke just as the sky began to lighten with dawn, he missed the sound of the jungissa, so distracted was he by his own misery. The urge to sleep again seemed so natural, dark and early as it was, that he did not fight it. Perhaps if he slept again, his dreams would be more peaceful.

  “Gatherer!”

  Perhaps if he slept again …

  A foot kicked Cet hard in his side. He cried out and rolled to a crouch, disoriented. Ginnem sat nearby, his hands raised in that defensive gesture again, his face tight with concentration. Only then did Cet notice the high, discordant whine of the narcomancer’s jungissa, startlingly loud and nearby.

  “The window,” Ginnem gritted through his teeth. The narcomancer was right outside the house.

  There was a sudden scramble of footsteps outside. The window was too small for egress, so Cet ran through the house, bursting out of the front door just as a fleet shadow ran past. In that same instant Cet passed beyond range of Ginnem’s protective magic, and stumbled as the urge to sleep came down heavy as stones. Lifting his legs was like running through mud; he groaned in near pain from the effort. He was dreaming awake when he reached for his own jungissa. But he was a Gatherer and dreams were his domain, so he willed his dream-self to strike the ornament against the doorsill, and it was his waking hand that obeyed.

  The pure reverberation of the dragonfly jungissa cleared the lethargy from his mind, and his own heart supplied the righteous fury to replace it. Shaping that fury into a lance of vibration and power, Cet sent it at the fleeing figure’s back with all the imperative he could muster. The figure stumbled, and in that instant Cet caught hold of the narcomancer’s soul.

  There was no resistance as Cet dragged him into dream; whatever training the brigands’ narcomancer had, it went no further than sleep-spells. So they fell, blurring through the land of dreams until their shared minds snagged on a commonality. The Temple appeared around them as a skewed, too-large version of the Hall of Blessings, with a monstrous statue of the Dream Goddess looming over all. The narcomancer cried out and fell to his knees at the sight of the statue, and Cet took the measure of his enemy at last.

  He was surprised to see how young the man was—twenty at the most, thin and ragged with hair in a half-matted mix of braids and knots. Even in the dream he stank of months unwashed. But despite the filth, it was the narcomancer’s awe of the statue which revealed the truth.

  “You were raised in the Temple,” Cet said.

  The narcomancer crossed his arms over his breast and bent his head to the statue.
“Yes, yes.”

  “You were trained?”

  “No. But I saw how the magic was done.”

  And he had taught himself, just from that? But the rest of the youth’s tale was easy enough to guess. The Temple raised orphans and other promising youngsters in its House of Children. At the age of twelve, those children chose whether to pursue one of the paths to service, or leave for a life among the laity. Most of the latter did well, for the Temple found apprenticeships or other vocations for them, but there were always a few who suffered from mistakes or misfortune and ended badly.

  “Why?” Cet asked. “You were raised to serve peace. How could you turn your back on the Goddess’s ways?”

  “The brigands,” whispered the youth. “They stole me from my farm, used me, beat me. I—I tried to run away. They caught me, but not before I’d found the holy stone, taken a piece for myself. They said I wasn’t worthy to be one of them. I showed them, showed them. I showed them I could make the stone work. I didn’t want to hurt anyone but it had been so long! So long. It felt so good to be strong again.”

  Cet cupped his hands around the young man’s face. “And look what you have become. Are you proud?”

  “… No.”

  “Where did you find the jungissa?”

  The dreamscape blurred in response to the youth’s desire. Cet allowed this, admiring the magic in spite of himself. The boy was no true narcomancer, not half-trained and half-mad as he was, but what a Gatherer he could have been! The dream re-formed into an encampment among the hills: the brigands, settled in for the night, eighteen or twenty snoring lumps that had caused so much suffering. Through the shared underpinnings of the dream, Cet understood at once where to find them. Then the dream flew over the hills to a rocky basin. On its upper cliff-face was an outcropping shaped like a bird of prey’s beak. In a black-burned scar beneath this lay a small, pitted lump of stone.

  “Thank you,” Cet said. Taking control of the dream, he carried them from the hills to a greener dreamscape. They stood near the delta of a great river, beyond which lay an endless sea. The sky stretched overhead in shades of blue, some lapis and some as deep as Namsut’s mourning gown. In the distance a small town shone like a gemstone amid the carpet of green. Cet imagined it full of people who would welcome the youth when they met him.

  “Your soul will find peace here,” Cet said.

  The youth stared out over the dreamscape, lifting a hand as if the beauty hurt his eyes. When he looked at Cet, he was weeping. “Must I die now?”

  Cet nodded, and after a moment the youth sighed.

  “I never meant to hurt anyone,” he said. “I just wanted to be free.”

  “I understand,” Cet said. “But your freedom came at the cost of others’ suffering. That is corruption, unacceptable under the Goddess’s law.”

  The narcomancer bowed his head. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Cet smiled and passed a hand over the youth’s head. The grime and reek vanished, his appearance becoming wholesome at last. “Then She will welcome your return to the path of peace.”

  “Thank you,” said the youth.

  “Thank Her,” Cet replied. He withdrew from the dream then, severing the tether and collecting the dreamblood. Back in waking, the boy’s body released one last breath and went still. As shouts rang out around the village, Cet knelt beside the body and arranged its limbs for dignity.

  Ginnem and one of the Sentinels ran up. “Is it done?” the Sentinel asked.

  “It is,” Cet said. He lifted the jungissa stone he’d taken from the boy’s hand. It was a heavy, irregular lump, its surface jagged and cracked. Amazing the thing had worked at all.

  “And are you well?” That was Ginnem. Cet looked at the Sister and understood then that the question had nothing to do with Cet’s physical health.

  So Cet smiled to let Ginnem see the truth. “I am very well, Sister Ginnem.”

  Ginnem blinked in surprise, but nodded.

  More of the villagers arrived. One of them was Namsut, breathless, with a knife in one hand. Cet admired her for a moment, then bowed his head to the Goddess’s will.

  “Everything for Her peace,” he said.

  The Sentinels went into the hills with some of the armed village men, after Cet told them where the brigands could be found. He also told the villagefolk where they could find the parent-stone of the narcomancer’s jungissa.

  “A basin marked by a bird’s beak. I know the place,” said Mehepi with a frown. “We’ll go destroy the thing.”

  “No,” Namsut said. Mehepi glared at her, but Namsut met her eyes. “We must fetch it back here. That kind of power is always valuable to someone, somewhere.”

  Cet nodded. “The Temple would indeed pay well for the stone and any pieces of it.”

  This set the villagers a-murmur, their voices full of wonder and, for the first time since Cet had met them, hope. He left them to their speculations and returned to the guestroom of the headman’s house, where he settled himself against a wall and gazed through the window at passing clouds. Presently, as he had known she would, Namsut came to find him.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You have saved us in more ways than one.”

  He smiled. “I am only Her servant.”

  She hesitated and then said, “I … I should not have asked you for what I did. It seemed a simple matter to me, but I see how it troubles you.”

  He shook his head. “No, you were right to ask it. I had forgotten: My duty is to alleviate suffering by any means at my disposal.” His oath would have become meaningless if he had failed to remember that. Ginnem had been right to remind him.

  It took her a moment to absorb his words. She stepped forward, her body tense. “Then you will do it? You will give me a child?”

  He gazed at her for a long while, memorizing her face. “You understand that I cannot stay,” he said. “I must return to the Temple afterward, and never see the daughter we make.”

  “Daugh—” She put a hand to her mouth, then controlled herself. “I understand. The village will care for me. After all their talk of a curse they must, or lose face.”

  Cet nodded and held out a hand to her. Her face wavered for a moment beneath a mix of emotions—sudden doubt, fear, resignation, and hope—and then she crossed the room, took his hand, and sat down beside him.

  “You must … show me how,” he said, ducking his eyes. “I have never done this thing.”

  Namsut stared at him, then blessed him with the first genuine, untainted smile he had ever seen on her face. He smiled back, and in a waking dream saw a horse running, running, over endless green.

  “I have never wanted to do this thing before now,” she said, abruptly shy. “But I know the way of it.” And she stood.

  Her mourning garments slipped to the floor. Cet fixed his eyes on them, trying not to see the movements of her body as she stripped off her headcloth and undergarments. When she knelt straddling his lap, he trembled as he turned his face away, his breath quickening and heart pounding fast. A Gatherer belongs wholly to the Goddess; that was the oath. He could hardly think as Namsut’s hands moved down the bare skin of his chest, sliding toward the clasp of his loinskirt, yet he forced his mind to ponder the matter. He had always taken the oath to mean celibacy, but that was foolish, for the Goddess had never been interested in mere flesh. He loved Namsut and yet his duty, his calling, was still first in his heart. Was that not the quintessence of a Gatherer’s vow?

  Then Namsut joined their bodies, and he looked up at her in wonder.

  “H-holy,” he gasped. She moved again, a slow undulation in his lap, and he pressed his head back against the wall to keep from crying out. “This is holy.”

  Her breath was light and quick on his skin; dimly he understood that she had some pleasure of him as well. “No,” she whispered, cupping his face between her hands. Her lips touched his; for a moment he thought he tasted sugared currants before she licked free. “But it will get better.”

  It did.
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  They returned to the Temple five days later, carrying the narcomancer’s jungissa as a guarantee of the villagers’ good faith. The Superior immediately dispatched scribes and tallymen to verify the condition of the parent stone and calculate an appropriate price. The payment they brought for the narcomancer’s jungissa alone was enough to buy a year’s food for the whole village.

  Ginnem bade Cet farewell at the gates of the city, where a party of green- and gold-clad women waited to welcome him home. “You made the hard choice, Gatherer,” he said. “You’re stronger than I thought. May the Goddess grant your child that strength in turn.”

  Cet nodded. “And you are wiser than I expected, Sister. I will tell this to all my brothers, that perhaps they might respect your kind more.”

  Ginnem chuckled. “The gods will walk the earth before that happens!” Then he sobered, the hint of sadness returning to his eyes. “You need not do this, Gatherer Cet.”

  “This is Her will,” Cet replied, reaching up to grip Ginnem’s shoulder. “You see so much, so clearly; can you not see that?”

  Ginnem gave a slow nod, his expression troubled. “I saw it when I realized you loved that woman. But …”

  “We will meet again in dreams,” Cet said softly.

  Ginnem did not reply, his eyes welling with tears before he turned sharply away to rejoin his Sisters. Cet watched in satisfaction as they surrounded Ginnem, forming a comforting wall. They would take good care of him, Cet knew. It was the Sisterhood’s gift to heal the soul.

  So Cet returned to the Temple, where he knelt before the Superior and made his report—stinting nothing when it came to the tale of Namsut. “Sister Ginnem examined her before we left,” he said. “She is healthy and should have little trouble delivering the child when the time comes. The firstwife did not take the news happily, but the elder council vowed that the first child of their reborn village would be cared for, along with her mother who so clearly has the gods’ favor.”