The Shadowed Sun

by N. K. Jemisin

  The walls of the Gatherers’ Hall were gray marble, unlike the warm yellow-brown sandstone used in every other Hetawa building. The corridors here were cooler, dimmer, and quieter, with a feel that was somehow more meditative than that of the Hetawa’s other halls. Hanani slowed her pace despite her anxiety, since the hurried slap of her sandals on stone was loud and unpeaceful. She had no fear of disturbing the Gatherers, whose cells were on the fourth level away from the noise and activity of the ground. It simply seemed irreverent while in the Gatherers’ house not to move sedately, as they did, and speak softly, as they did, and behave in all the ways that pleased Hananja most.

  But she could not remember the way to the correct classroom. Hearing voices some ways ahead, she followed them.

  “… More dangerous than his father,” one of the voices said. It reminded her of the marble along the walls, dark and cool and gray. “His life has been harder, and he has more cause to hate.”

  “We should assess him beforehand, true,” said another voice—lighter, with a hint of laughter. “I’m not certain I like this plan, however. Desert folk are not given to peaceful behavior.”

  “If he permits harm to either of them, we’ll know what sort of man he is.” That one was a younger, less certain voice. Following it, Hanani turned a corner and saw light ahead: watery shafts of morning sunlight falling into the building’s atrium. The Stone Garden, where the Gatherers danced their private prayers. The younger voice continued, “Though then the harm will already have been done.”

  “It cannot be helped,” said a fourth voice, and Hanani stopped in horror because that voice was the Gatherer Nijiri’s, and that meant Hanani should not be overhearing this conversation at all. “He would never trust one of us. But someone young, who couldn’t possibly have participated in the judgment against his father; someone he is inclined to protect, not fear—”

  “Be silent,” said the cool gray voice abruptly, and the entrance to the atrium was shadowed as a tall, gaunt figure stepped into the light. “Sharer-Apprentice.”

  The figure wore a hooded eggshell robe; she swallowed and bowed deeply over both hands in apology. “I’m sorry, Gatherer. I, I was looking for Teacher Yehamwy. H-he has a class in this building.”

  “In that direction.” The Gatherer inclined his head back the way she’d come. “Why are you looking for him?”

  Hanani swallowed. “The wife of the tithebearer who died has been brought to the Hall of Blessings, Gatherer, suffering from the same dream that killed her husband.” And Dayu. “Sharer Nhen-ne-verra is attempting to heal her. My mentor thought perhaps—witnesses—”

  The Gatherer looked off to the side; abruptly three other figures appeared around him, all silhouetted in the light from the garden. One of them she recognized as Nijiri before he, like the rest of them, drew up their hoods.

  “We will attend,” the gaunt Gatherer said then. “I believe we will be more suitable as witnesses than Teacher Yehamwy, as we can observe in dreaming as well as waking. Lead the way, Apprentice.”

  There was nothing but command in his tone. Hanani could think of no proper way to protest. But the Gatherer was right that they would make eminently suitable witnesses; no one would dispute their observations. So hoping that her nervousness did not show, Hanani led them to the Hall of Blessings.

  When they arrived at the dais, however, she stopped in surprise. Nhen-ne-verra stood away from Danneh’s litter, his shoulders hunched, body a-tremble as if some palsy had taken him. Mni-inh held him by the shoulders, nearly supporting him, his expression tight with worry.

  The gaunt Gatherer flowed past Hanani like a serpent, all grace and focused intent. The tattoo on his near shoulder was the nightshade flower, done all in indigo: Sonta-i, eldest of the path. “What has happened?” he asked.

  Nhen-ne-verra shook his head, wordless. Mni-inh said, “Nhen-ne-verra attempted to locate the petitioner’s soul, the first stage of healing. Something disturbed him.”

  Nhen-ne-verra shuddered and shook his head again. “Not there. She was—I did not find her. But something else was. Goddess!” He pulled away from Mni-inh and looked up at the great statue of Hananja that loomed overhead, Her hands outstretched in welcome. He reached upward as if to grasp those hands, his own trembling.

  “Nothing of You,” he whispered. There was a fervent, unsteady note to his voice that Hanani had never heard before. When she glanced at Mni-inh, she saw alarm on his face as well. “Nothing of You has such a feel!”

  Gatherer Sonta-i moved swiftly onto the dais and touched the old Sharer’s shoulder. Nhen-ne-verra groaned softly and seemed to wilt; Mni-inh quickly put an arm under his shoulder and steered him over to one of the side-benches.

  Sonta-i turned to gaze at the servant, who had drawn back from the tableau, her eyes wide. Then he focused on Danneh.

  Another Gatherer stepped forward. He was taller than all the rest, though by the yellow safflower on his shoulder Hanani realized he was Inmu, youngest of the path. “Sonta-i-brother—are you certain—”

  But Gatherer Rabbaneh put a hand on his shoulder. Inmu looked at him, then at Sonta-i, and subsided. Sonta-i knelt beside Danneh, laying fingertips on her closed eyelids.

  It was in that moment that an irrational anxiety came over Hanani—irrational, for why should a Gatherer fear any dream? Nevertheless she stepped closer. “Gatherer.”

  Four hooded faces turned toward her, though she’d meant Sonta-i. To him she said, “It was in the realm between. Not in Ina-Karekh, not here in Hona-Karekh. Between.”

  His eyes narrowed. Gatherer Nijiri gave her a long, thoughtful look. Caught in their regard, Hanani cringed inwardly, wondering what in the names of the gods had compelled her to say such a thing. But before she could stammer out an apology, Nijiri turned to Sonta-i. Neither man spoke, but something passed between them nevertheless; anyone with even a whiff of dreaming gift could have sensed it. Sonta-i gave Nijiri a minute nod, and turned his focus to Danneh again. He closed his eyes, and a moment passed.

  This will go wrong, whispered everything inside Hanani.

  But before she could think of what to say, Sonta-i made a low, strained sound. Hanani caught her breath and ran up onto the dais, but Nijiri forestalled her with a hand like a vise on her shoulder. When she turned to stare at him, his face was bleak with mourning already, his eyes fixed on Sonta-i. She looked around at Rabbaneh, who was the same. What was wrong with them? They sensed the same danger that she did; why didn’t they stop this? Only Inmu seemed troubled when Hanani met his eyes, and he looked away with his jaw set and tight.

  Sonta-i gasped suddenly, his eyes and mouth opening wide. A dozen expressions flickered across his face, more than Hanani had ever seen on him, all too fleeting to identify. “So much rage,” he whispered. “So much sorrow. I have never known feelings before now. What irony.” He shuddered, his hand slipping off Danneh’s face to brace against the floor. It was the first clumsy move she had ever seen a Gatherer make. He focused on that hand, seemingly with great effort. “The space between. Strength is not enough. A child, Nijiri. The Wild Dreamer is a child.”

  He pitched forward without warning, falling onto Danneh. Startled, Mni-inh moved forward and pulled Sonta-i up; Gatherer Rabbaneh crouched swiftly to assist. But Sonta-i’s body hung limp between them, and the blow had done Danneh no harm either. Both were dead.

  11

  Betrayal

  The sentries’ birdcalls echoed from the walls of the canyon called Merik-ren-aferu, accurate enough in their mimicry that nesting skyrers along the sheer cliff faces called back in territorial challenge. The sentries had been watching Wanahomen for miles with long-eyes, he knew, probably from the moment he and Laye-ka had appeared as a spot on the rolling desert horizon. Had he been an unexpected spot, or worse, multiple spots, the tribe would have been long gone from the canyon by the time he reached its threshold—gone but for the sentries, who would have stayed behind to welcome him with an arrow through the eye. Banbarra hospitality was inf
amous.

  Because Wanahomen was known and expected, however, he saw signs of habitation as soon as he rode into the canyon. Through gaps in the high brush he glimpsed hidden orchards and patches of cultivated ground—tended by slaves from more agricultural tribes, of course, as no Banbarra would ever deign to work in the dirt. And the sentries appeared at last, lurking along ridges in rock-colored clothing and peering up at him from carefully disguised pits. The ones he could see nodded gravely as he passed; he knew there were others he had not seen. Then Laye-ka uttered a happy whistle as the corral came into view, where the tribe’s camels and horses rested when not in use or loosed to forage.

  Wanahomen dismounted here and tended Laye-ka before releasing her into the corral. “Thank you for bearing me back safe,” he whispered as he removed her halter, and she grunted as if she understood the ritual words. Then she trotted into the corral and promptly shouldered aside three other camels to get to the feed trough. They gave way with a long-suffering air that made Wanahomen laugh.

  The laugh brought forth another head, which poked up from behind a rock with headcloth askew and sleep-lines engraved in one side of its face. “Wana!” The boy brightened at once, hopping up and trotting over to him. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Yes, and if I’d been a thief our mounts would be long gone,” Wanahomen said. He tossed his saddlebags over one shoulder, then put his hands on his hips and favored the boy with a stern glance. “What sort of guard are you if you sleep your duty away, Tassa?”

  The boy ducked his eyes, abashed. “It was only for a little while. I stayed up waiting for you last night.”

  “I was delayed,” Wanahomen replied with a grimace. He had taken a long detour down a lesser-used foothills trail in order to avoid the Kisuati soldiers. “Answer me this, though: has Charris claimed a horse today?”

  “Your slave?” Tassa’s tone held pure Banbarra scorn for a lesser being. “No, not yet. You let him ride off on his own?”

  I would have, before he betrayed me. “Just be sure he doesn’t claim one today—not before he sees me. And don’t fall asleep this time.” Tousling Tassa’s hair, he answered the boy’s sheepish grin with one of his own and headed away from the corral, finding one of the dangling rope ladders to climb up to the topmost ledge.

  The Banbarra encampment, a forest of elaborately decorated tents and fire circles, spread along several of the highest and broadest ledges of the canyon. All the tents could be packed to move in a matter of minutes, and would be in the event of danger. For now, however, the tribe was at rest, preparing for the next battle in its undeclared war on Kisua. Wanahomen nodded as he walked past men gossiping while fletching arrows or sharpening their swords; knots of women sat together sewing leather breastplates and boots. Though Wanahomen nodded to the women too—a Gujaareen habit he’d never been able to break—they did not return the gesture, and a few did not even deign to look in his direction. He felt their eyes on his back as he passed.

  Eventually he reached a large, handsome tent of dark brown camel hide. The rods planted about its entrance had been carved with Gujaareen pictorals, and there was an emblem above its entry flap: the sun and rays of the Aureole of the Setting Sun, symbol of Wanahomen’s lineage. The true Aureole, held somewhere in Kisuati-occupied Gujaareh, was a semicircle of beaten gold surrounded by red-and yellow-amber plates. This one was chiseled marble with rays of dark and light polished wood. Tasteful, and still valuable in the Banbarra estimate of things, but even after ten years Wanahomen could not help seeing the emblem as the paltry imitation it was.

  “Are you going to come in?” his mother’s voice called, from within the tent.

  Wanahomen flinched at the sound of her voice, not only from surprise. Bracing himself, he lifted the tent-flap and went inside. “Sorry, Mother. Just thinking.”

  Hendet, wife of Gujaareh’s King-in-dreaming, lay on a thick pallet of furs and woven sweet rushes with two tasseled pillows tucked behind her back. As he crossed the rug-layered floor, she set aside a thick scroll and opened her arms. “So much like your father,” she said, as he knelt for her hug. “Always thinking, thinking, thinking. What is it this time?”

  He had heard the weakness of her voice already. Normally she was deep-spoken for a woman, husky and strong, but now she spoke as if through a mouthful of dry wool. It was impossible not to notice her thinness as he hugged her, or the parchment-dryness of her skin as he sat back.

  “Many things,” he said, making himself smile. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

  “I’ve taught you to lie better than that,” Hendet replied with mock sternness. That surprised an honest laugh out of him and eased some of his fear, for if she was feeling well enough to joke, there was still hope. “Unte said the raid went well.”

  He nodded, then sobered, reaching up to remove his face-veil and headcloth for her. “Tell me where Charris is, Mother.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then gave him a second, shrewder look as she read his face.

  “He’s about to leave on an errand for me,” she said finally.

  “For—” He caught himself before his temper could explode, for she was Gujaareen and would never tolerate such a thing. He clenched his fists on his knees instead. “Mother, did you send him to negotiate an alliance with the Hetawa?”

  Hendet gave him a cool look, which nevertheless had the power to sting. “I sent him to finalize an alliance with the Hetawa, yes. Unte has agreed to the Hetawa’s terms, though one of them was that they meet you before the agreement was sealed.”

  “Unte! And you—” Getting to his feet, he paced back and forth in the small confines of the tent, taking deep breaths in an effort to slow the pounding in his temples. When he could finally bring himself to speak with a civil tongue, he stopped and faced her. “They killed the man you loved, Mother,” he said. “They used and tormented him and corrupted the Goddess’s magic for power …” But he trailed off, then, because Hendet was looking at him with a mixture of exasperation and sorrow, as if he had somehow disappointed her.

  “You are so much your father’s son,” she said softly, startling him silent. “You’ve done well despite everything that’s happened; so very well. I’m proud of you, and I believe in you. But in this one way”—her voice grew cold as ocean water—“you can be such a fool, Wanahomen.”

  He flinched. “What?”

  “Gujaareh is built on a four of strengths.” Hendet’s eyes had gone hard as stone pillars. In a distant part of Wanahomen’s mind, he reveled in the fact that there was no lessening of her ferocity despite her illness; she still had the soul of a queen, however much her flesh had failed her. But her words—“The river, the castes, the army, and the Hetawa. Those priests you hate so much educate our young, keep our people healthy and content, administer justice … And they have magic, Wanahomen. Power like nothing else in the waking realm. Without their cooperation, even if you regain the throne Gujaareh will not be yours.”

  “The military caste has promised to assist me in the final battle,” Wanahomen said, stubbornly, “and now the nobles are behind me. I’ve sealed the pact with the shunha lord Sanfi. The common folk will welcome my return—”

  “No! They won’t! Not without the Hetawa’s support! Wanahomen. You’re too smart for this.” She sighed and extended a hand to him. After a long, angry breath, he knelt at her side and took it. She stroked his hand and said, “Your father raised you to be wise; to ignore the Hetawa is not wise. You don’t trust them—nor should you. I too remember their crimes.” And now her hard look was more distant, her anger directed elsewhere. “But even I see that this is necessary.”

  He looked away in mute denial. She sighed.

  “When you’ve regained the throne, you’ll make agreements with Kisua, won’t you? Much as you hate them. And to reward their efforts, you will give the Banbarra trading privileges that no other nation has had, which will anger the merchant caste—but you’ll do it anyhow, because Gujaareh is too weak for another wa
r. Is this not true?”

  Wanahomen ground his teeth. “That’s different.”

  “How? The Gatherer who slew your father collaborated with Kisua. And the nobles whose alliance you’re so glad to earn—where was their support with your father dead and the three of us in desperate need? They left us to die!” She sighed then, reaching up to stroke his hair. “The plain fact is that you can trust none of your allies, my son. A king cannot afford trust. But neither can you allow hatred to overrule sense.”

  He resisted the truth of her words. Just the idea of cooperating with the Hetawa left the bitter taste of guilt, of betrayal, in his mouth. What would his father think, if he knew that Wanahomen had allied with his murderers?

  That I’m doing what I must, came the reluctant answer, and at last he bowed his head before Hendet in acquiescence.

  She stroked his braids approvingly. “Now. Tell me how you knew.”

  “I met a templeman, a Sentinel, in the hills. He gave me this.” He pulled the scroll from a fold of his robe.

  “And you didn’t even open it? Well, at least you didn’t throw it away. What does it say?”

  He drew his knife, cut the seal-knots, and opened it to read the formal pictorals aloud.

  To Wanahomen, chosen heir of Eninket King (may he dwell in Her peace forever), greetings.

  Your request to meet is accepted. A representative shall make himself available at the location of this scroll’s bestowing, on the fourth day of the eighth month of the harvest, at sunset.

  It is requested that you and your allies make no further assault upon our mutual enemy until this meeting can occur.

  There were no signature pictorals. Wanahomen scowled and threw the scroll on the floor, rising to pace again.

  Hendet reached out to pick the scroll up. Some of Wanahomen’s anger slipped as he saw how badly his mother’s hand shook before she concealed it by laying the scroll on her lap to read closely.