The Shadowed Sun

by N. K. Jemisin

  More feet pounded up behind them, and more voices rose in query, horror, anger. Abruptly they quieted as Unte arrived, pushing through the crowd. He stopped and stared at Azima, throwing Wanahomen a hard look.

  Wanahomen shook his head minutely, praying Unte would see the shock in his own face. I never intended this. He’d expected to find the girl shaken but furious, and Azima defensive, caught in the act. To touch a woman against her will, any woman except a slave or an enemy of the tribe, was one of the highest dishonors a man could bring upon himself. To do it in the an-sherrat of an ally, violating guest-custom … It would have settled the contest between them more firmly than any challenge.

  He heard Yanassa’s voice coming through the crowd, snapping at men until they moved out of her way. Reaching the front, she took in the scene at a glance, then sighed and went to Hanani. The templewoman had never taken her eyes from Azima’s corpse. Even as Yanassa crouched beside her and touched her shoulder, Hanani jerked violently but did not look away.

  “Shh, shh.” Yanassa pulled a blanket from the tangled pile behind the girl and draped it ’round her shoulders, then threw another over her legs. Turning to the watching men, she glared. “What’s wrong with you? Isn’t it obvious what’s happened here? Someone take that corpse from her sight before she goes mad.”

  Unte took a deep breath. “Where is Tajedd?”

  “Here—” Wrapped in a blanket and accompanied by one of the older Yusir women, the Dzikeh leader pushed through the crowd and stopped, gasping. “Azima! Oh gods, Azima …” He went to the corpse’s side, touching the slack face with a shaking hand. “Who? How?”

  “I killed him,” said the templewoman. If the murmurs around the tent had not ceased when Tajedd arrived, no one would have heard her: her voice was barely above a whisper and toneless. “I killed him.”

  “Hanani!” The other priest now. Wanahomen moved aside as Mni-inh shoved his way through the crowd with no attempt at politeness, then swore a string of the filthiest gutter Gujaareen. He went to the templewoman’s side, but Yanassa swatted his hands away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” She switched to Gujaareen so he could understand her, though her protective body language and outraged tone were clear enough. “The last thing she needs right now is a man’s touch!”

  Sharer Mni-inh had never looked so furious in all the time Wanahomen had known him. His voice actually trembled with rage. “She’s in shock, you barbarian cow, and she wouldn’t be if your people hadn’t hurt her—now get out of my way!”

  Wanahomen might have laughed, under other and better circumstances, at the way Yanassa started and drew back in inadvertent obedience. The priest dropped to one knee and took the girl’s hands, then drew a deep breath and looked hard into her eyes. He had to move into her line of sight, blocking Azima’s corpse with his body, to do it. She looked up at him, her movements jerky and quick.

  “I killed him, Brother. I killed him.” She began to shake all over, so violently that Yanassa grew alarmed and the priest could barely hold her hands. “I killed him!”

  “Shh,” the priest said, and then closed his eyes. Abruptly the girl’s tremors ceased. She sagged backward, asleep. The priest lifted her legs to move them onto the pallet, and adjusted the blanket.

  Yanassa sighed and got to her feet. “That’s a blessing.” She turned to Tajedd, her face hardening. “In this tribe, a man who violates a woman deserves death. I’m pleased our Gujaareen cousin saw fit to deliver the sentence herself.”

  Tajedd started. “Are you mad? That slave killed my hunt leader!” He pointed at Hanani. “I want her life!”

  Yanassa put her hands on her hips. “She was no slave! What slave has her own tent, and such wealth?” She gestured around at their surroundings. The tent was still sparsely decorated by Banbarra standards, but even to Wanahomen’s foreign eye it was obvious the tribe had accorded high value to her Hetawa jewelry.

  “No slave?” Tajedd blinked in confusion.

  “No slave,” said Hendet’s voice, and Wanahomen turned to see his mother behind him. She nodded to him as she moved past. “I gifted her with this tent myself. My son and I have claimed her as family in accordance with the guest-custom of our homeland.” She inclined her head to Tajedd—a small gesture of respect from one high-ranking person to another, tacitly reminding everyone present that she was his equal in status.

  “She’s a priestess among her people,” Yanassa said. “I’ll grant that she has no knowledge of proper behavior, but I’m absolutely certain she had no intention of inviting this man into her tent.” She threw Azima’s corpse a scathing look. “She told me she’d never had any man, and was forbidden from doing so by the Goddess of Dreams. She’ll be a virgin all her life.”

  “A virgin?” Tajedd stiffened, understanding and fury lighting his face. He turned and threw a look of purest hatred at Wanahomen.

  Wanahomen set his jaw. Virginity meant nothing in Gujaareh—an inconvenience that most rid themselves of the moment they reached the age of choice—but it was a status that the Banbarra accorded great value. Raping a virgin broke half their laws in one blow: clans had gone to feud and tribes to war over less. Tajedd would never believe that Wanahomen had not planned Azima’s death now. He had no choice but to play this to the hilt.

  “Customs differ indeed, Cousin,” he said to Tajedd, meeting Tajedd’s fury with coolness. “Perhaps Azima mistook the girl’s strange ways as a sign of her availability, or an invitation. Mistakes happen. Still …” He stepped into the tent and went over to peer down at the girl. The male Sharer had his fingers on her eyelids, including the blackened one; as Wanahomen watched, the swelling diminished. “It is odd that Azima struck her, isn’t it? A wonder she was still able to stab him, after a blow like that. She might’ve died of it.” He turned to Tajedd, whose anger was gone now, eclipsed by sick realization. “A slave wouldn’t have fought at all, yes? They know better. Indeed, a slave would not have been in a tent by herself, unless she had been commanded to wait there by its owner. Did Azima think this was someone else’s tent, perhaps?”

  Unease tightened Tajedd’s jaw as Unte turned to look at him with narrow eyes. There were few things the Banbarra took more seriously than privacy. Each clan’s an-sherrat was its own small kingdom within the greater body of the tribe, ruled by its highest-status female member. Within an an-sherrat’s borders, men could feel safe in lowering their veils if its mistress approved; women could disrobe or indulge in any pleasure with dignity intact. No one could enter another clan’s an-sherrat uninvited, save in the event of an emergency.

  “It must’ve been a mistake,” Tajedd murmured.

  “Which?” Unte asked. He kept his voice mild, but only a fool would have mistaken his calm for a lack of anger. Wanahomen was grateful for his support—but then, the Yusir tribe was implicated in the death of a Dzikeh hunt leader. Unte too had to see this through. “Invading the tent of a proper woman, beating her, attempting to steal that which is hers and hers alone to bestow? Or invading the an-sherrat of Hendet Hinba’ii with the intent of damaging her clan’s property? Which was Azima’s mistake?”

  Tajedd went silent for several damning breaths. Finally he lowered his eyes, accepting the dishonor. There had been no way out of it for him, really; it was simply a matter of which wrong did less damage to his tribe’s reputation.

  “My hunt leader is dead, Unte,” he said at last, in a heavy voice. “He was my sister’s child, beloved to me. Let us discuss his error in private, so that I might make amends.”

  Unte nodded. “Yes. This is a matter between tribe leaders.” He looked up at the entrance of the tent, where Yusir and Dzikeh-Banbarra crowded the opening for a glimpse of the goings-on. “This will be settled properly by dawn,” he said to them. “One man’s folly need not cast a shadow over the whole night. All of you return to your revelry, save those of you who would help us move Azima’s body.”

  Several of the Dzikeh pushed through the crowd, but the rest of the gathered fol
k began to mill about and murmur at once, only a few of them drifting away as Unte had commanded. One woman stepped forward. “Unte, will there be a feud between us and the Dzikeh?”

  A few people looked at Tajedd, who did not raise his eyes. “No,” Unte said in a firm voice. “A wrong has been committed and Tajedd means to see justice done. The ties between Dzikeh and Yusir are too strong to be damaged by this.”

  Wanahomen noted more than one relieved face among the onlookers as more of them began to leave the area of Hanani’s tent. He did not blame them; he too had heard tales of the Banbarra’s brutal, generations-long intertribal wars. There had once been half again as many Banbarra tribes as the six that remained now.

  The Dzikeh men came in and gathered up the body of their hunt leader, wrapping one of the templewoman’s floor-rugs around it to keep more blood from spilling. There was less blood than he would have expected given that the knife had struck the heart. Even so, Wanahomen did not think the woman would mind the rug’s loss.

  Unte left with Tajedd, though he threw one unreadable glance at Wanahomen beforehand that tied Wanahomen’s stomach in knots. But the scheme had worked, however wrong it had gone. The Yusir-Banbarra might even gain status thanks to this, though Wanahomen could not be sure of that; even after ten years there were things about the Banbarra he would never understand. Unte’s likely reaction was one of them.

  Finally there were only five of them in the tent: Wanahomen, Charris, Yanassa, and the two Sharers. Yanassa hovered near Hanani, though she seemed to have finally yielded the contest to the male Sharer, who had finished healing the girl and now sat quietly beside her.

  “My Prince.” Wanahomen focused on Charris with a guilty flicker; he had left the man kneeling all the while.

  “Rise, Charris. What is it?”

  Charris got to his feet and switched to Chakti, throwing a quick glance at the male Sharer as he did so. “The Dzikeh was already dead when I arrived. There was no mark on him. It was I who put the knife in his chest.”

  Wanahomen stiffened. Yanassa frowned, uncomprehending. “How can that be?” she asked. “A man that age and healthy does not simply fall down dead.” Abruptly her eyes narrowed in thought. “But it’s true that she had no knife before, and I did not buy her one. I thought she’d only hurt herself with it, to be honest.”

  Magic. There was no other explanation. Wanahomen turned to stare at the male Sharer’s back. “Yanassa, please leave me with our clan’s guests. Charris, go with her.”

  Charris snapped a bow, turned on his heel, and exited the tent. Yanassa scowled and looked as though she wanted to protest, but to his everlasting relief she sighed and left as well. In the silence that fell, Wanahomen pulled off his headcloth, rubbed a hand over his braids, and sighed.

  “You want to know how he died.” The male Sharer.

  Wanahomen blinked in surprise: did this one know Chakti? Or was it just a guess? “Yes,” he replied. “Considering the Law and Wisdom say nothing about Sharer-maidens who can strike down barbarians with a scream.”

  “She screamed because of what she’d done,” the Sharer said, getting to his feet. When he turned, his face was the coldest Wanahomen had ever seen it. All along the journey from the foothills, this one had seemed the more good-natured of the pair, annoyed at their situation but still determined to make the best of it. There was nothing good-natured in him now.

  “To heal a man, we touch his soul and teach it to crave wholeness. To hurt a man, one must teach the soul to crave its own torment.” The Sharer stepped closer and reached out to lay a hand on Wanahomen’s chest. Wanahomen started and drew back, abruptly uneasy, but the Sharer moved with him, keeping contact. “And to kill a man—”

  Pain snapped jaws shut around Wanahomen’s chest with such sudden savagery that he could not draw breath enough to cry out. He staggered back, scrabbling at his chest, at the Sharer’s hand that was now a claw hooked into his tunic and the flesh beneath. But even as his heart screamed in his chest, even as he struggled to escape this new Hetawa-spawned monster, the strength seemed to vanish from Wanahomen’s limbs. He sagged to his knees, gasping for breath.

  “I saw what happened in her dreams,” said the Sharer. Wanahomen squinted up at him through tears of pain and suddenly knew: this man had no compunction whatsoever about killing him. Whatever oaths he had sworn, however ingrained his healer’s beliefs, they had been completely subsumed by his fury. “I saw you bring her into that tent to heal your wound. She didn’t understand what your kiss meant, but I do. You marked her as a target. You used her as bait.”

  His heart. The pain had wrapped around his heart like the coils of a serpent—or a dozen ropes, their raw fibers abrading him even as they pulled tighter. He moaned, wishing the ropes would loosen just for an instant so the pain would ease. Or better yet snap—

  Through the haze of his vision, he thought he heard the pop-hiss of fibers parting. An instant later he could breathe again, and the Sharer had let him go.

  “I see,” Wanahomen heard the Sharer murmur, almost to himself. “She was right about your strength. If you were trained you’d have me—but you aren’t trained, young Prince, and I can tear your body apart faster than you can break through my constructs.” Footsteps moving toward him. Wanahomen scrambled backward, though ineffectually; the pain had left him weak.

  The Sharer crouched before him. He did not scowl; his expression was as calm as any Hananjan priest’s should be. All the fury was in his black eyes. “Tell me why, Prince.”

  “Wh-why …?”

  “Why you put my apprentice in harm’s way! If you had any idea—” The Sharer’s face constricted in sudden anguish. “I hadn’t warned her she could kill this way. She’s so young, she tries so hard. This night will taint her soul forever and I want to know why you did it, Prince of Gujaareh, Avatar of Hananja. I want to know if you’re as much of a monster as your father, because if you are—” He clenched a fist, trembling with suppressed rage, and for a moment the fading pain in Wanahomen’s heart was eclipsed by fear the mad priest would attack him again.

  He tried to think. “I needed—”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying, damn you! I n-needed Tajedd’s vote.” His heart was a raw ache, but he took more deep breaths, reveling in the taste of the air, the feel of it in his lungs. “In a few days there will be … a gathering of the tribes. Yusir, Dzikeh … f-four others. They vote on … whether to join in war against the Kisuati. Free Gujaareh.”

  The Sharer’s eyes narrowed. Why, Wanahomen wondered, did all Hetawa priests look so alike when they meant to kill? Though if he had known even the healers were deadly, he would have told that Gatherer where he could throw them both.

  “And the vote wasn’t likely to go in your favor?”

  “S-six tribes. Because enemies see no difference between one Banbarra and another … four of the six must vote in my favor. Even a tie loses. Dzikeh would not have supported me. They could have turned others. I had to win them now.”

  Was there some hint of understanding in the Sharer’s eyes? Wanahomen didn’t dare hope for it. “And how did hurting Hanani win these—” He stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables. “Dzikeh?”

  He started to protest that the girl hadn’t been hurt much; it was obvious that Azima hadn’t managed to penetrate or loose seed into her. Just in time he realized the utter stupidity of saying so.

  “I made them think Hanani was mine,” he said. “My slave, my woman. Azima—the dead man—wanted an excuse to fight me. To damage another man’s property is an insult that must be avenged. He attacked her to provoke me.”

  With that, Wanahomen glared up at the Sharer. Some of the feeling was coming back into his limbs. Could he defend himself now? He wouldn’t have cared to lay a wager on it. “But I need the Hetawa too, though I wish to all the gods I didn’t. So I had Charris watch the girl, ready to intervene before … well, before. You may not believe me, but I did not intend Azima’s death. And I didn’t
intend for the girl to be … damaged. Alarmed, perhaps. Offended. Nothing more.”

  The Sharer said nothing for a long while, considering. Then, before Wanahomen could flinch away, he lifted his hand to Wanahomen’s face. Wanahomen blinked instinctively, and then there was another of those curious disjuncts of time. The Sharer took his hand away, and Wanahomen’s eyelids tingled. He sat up, aware that more time had passed than his mind could immediately grasp.

  Then he realized the pain in his chest—even the twinge of the bruises where the priest had gripped him—was gone.

  “The Gatherers see some value in you,” the Sharer said softly, his lip curling. “They think you’re better than your father. I can’t say I agree, but they are closer to Hananja than I.” He got to his feet. “Do what you must to free Gujaareh and return peace to our land, but don’t ever use my apprentice in your schemes again.”

  The Sharer turned then, and went back to kneel at the girl’s side. Plainly he meant to keep vigil for the rest of the night. And plainly Wanahomen had been dismissed.

  After several tries—the strength was returning to his limbs, but slowly—Wanahomen managed to get to his feet. It was even more difficult to leave the tent at a pace that did not seem like fleeing, so that some morsel of his dignity could remain intact. The Sharer never turned back to him; the man didn’t care. But it mattered to Wanahomen.

  Though later that night, when he reached his own tent and collapsed into the pallets, he did not stop trembling for a long while.

  23

  The Negotiation of Magic

  The child sat up and looked around. After a moment she got to her feet, then spun in a circle. Her mother gasped, then threw her arms around the girl in a tight embrace, earning a muffled protest from her.

  “She’s been weak for several months,” Yanassa said for Hanani’s benefit. “But with this fever, her mother had begun to fear she would die. The clan has only the one girl-child to inherit the an-sherrat.”