The Shadowed Sun

by N. K. Jemisin

  Hanani had put her hands to her mouth at the blow; Mni-inh had taken a step forward, his fists clenched. “Stop that, gods damn you!”

  Unte merely looked at them, and the emptiness of his face chilled Hanani to her bones. Even Mni-inh drew back from this, his face paling. When he spoke again his tone was more conciliatory.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I spoke without thought. But … I’m sure the P—Wanahomen has told you that our faith, our order, considers violence a great evil.”

  “I know that,” Unte said. Hanani thought—hoped—that she saw some softening of his expression in response to Mni-inh’s apology. “Which is why all I ask is that you determine whether she’s mad. If she is, I don’t ask you to heal her.” He cast a glance at his fellow tribe leaders, who were all equally grim. “Others would ask, so that she can be given to the women for sport, but I do not. If she’s mad, we will kill her, lest her madness infect us all. If she’s sane …” He closed his mouth.

  By now Hanani understood, and a painful knot inside her eased. Indeed, if she could have, she would have hugged Unte. If she and Mni-inh judged the Shadoun insane, she would be granted a swift death. It meant lying if the woman was sane, but no action that served peace could be truly wrong, could it? She glanced at Mni-inh, hoping he would agree, though she took care to keep her expression as neutral as Unte’s. It was doubtful the other tribe leaders spoke Gujaareen, because they were men. But it was obviously important that Unte show no sign of kindness toward the Shadoun.

  “You will not touch me,” the woman said abruptly, glaring at Mni-inh. “I know what you are now, though they have dressed you in their gaudy clothes. Dash ta hinakri en em—” She lapsed into her own tongue for a moment, trembling with rage. “Demons! Insects! I will not abide your touch!”

  “We’re Sharers of Hananja,” Mni-inh said, inclining his head. “Healers—”

  “I do not care! Let these tteba have me.” She jerked her head toward the flap of Unte’s tent. “I would rather lie under a hundred of these than be in the same tent with you!”

  Mni-inh stared at the woman, then exchanged a confused look with Hanani. It was improper in the extreme for a Sharer to force unwanted healing upon a petitioner; only Gatherers had the right to impose magic against a person’s will. But if they did nothing, there was no telling what the Banbarra would do.

  “I’ll do it,” Mni-inh said at last. He sighed and rolled up his sleeves, stepping forward.

  The woman tensed, her eyes bright as those of a cornered animal. Hanani gasped out a warning only an instant before she lunged at Mni-inh. What she meant to do Hanani could not guess—bite him? But Mni-inh had seen her attack coming too, and he sidestepped her lunge, clamping a hand on her shoulder.

  The Shadoun gasped, her eyes glazing, and slumped to the floor. Dreamblood. Shaking his head ruefully, Mni-inh knelt, turned her over with Unte’s assistance, and put his fingers on her already sagging eyelids.

  It was only then that Hanani noticed the deep circles under the woman’s eyes, and the exhaustion that her anger had hidden until now. Traveling alone through the desert could not have been easy for her, especially in enemy territory. The poor woman looked as though she had not slept in days …

  As though she had not slept in days.

  They’ll stay awake as long as they can, Mni-inh had said of their pathbrothers, who now carried the nightmare sickness.

  In the silence that had fallen, Mni-inh suddenly gasped, his eyes flying open. Unte, helping to hold the woman, frowned sharply at him.

  But when they finally give in …

  “No.” Hanani tried to will herself to move, but her limbs would not obey. In her mind she saw Gatherer Sonta-i; she saw Dayuhotem. “No—”

  It was already too late. Mni-inh began to tremble all over, his face contorting. He made a single abortive sound, half scream and half sob.

  “No!” Something snapped in Hanani. She ran to him, shouldering Unte aside. But before she could grab Mni-inh, he slumped to the ground.

  Hanani threw herself on him, hauling with all her strength to get him onto his back. She had to push his eyelids down with her fingers; they were stuck wide, horrified. It took all her discipline to calm herself enough to enter the healing sleep, but she did it, and cast herself into his flesh, searching and searching for his soul.

  There was nothing left inside him but silence.

  32

  Death

  For a moment, stepping into Unte’s tent, Wanahomen thought he had gone back in time. Once again Hanani sat unmoving; once again the air felt of death and shock. But there were two bodies on the rugs this time: the Shadoun woman, and Sharer Mni-inh.

  “What in shadows happened?” he asked.

  It was a measure of how disturbing the event had been that Tajedd was the first of the tribe leaders to answer.

  “The woman was gibbering,” he said, sounding dazed. “We plied her with food and drink, threatened her, and she only cursed us. So we summoned those”—he nodded toward Mni-inh’s corpse, and Hanani’s back—“to see if she was mad.”

  “She did not want them to touch her.” Another man, one Wanahomen did not know. Judging by the strong resemblance between him and Unte, this was Unte’s younger brother and the leader of the Issayir tribe. “So the man-healer did something to calm her. When he put his fingers on her eyes …” He shuddered. “I’ve never seen a look like that on a man’s face.”

  “It was the death nightmare.” The templewoman’s voice, soft at the best of times, was barely audible now. She sat with her back to them, her mentor’s head in her lap. It struck Wanahomen as odd that she had unbound his hair from its usual knot. One of her hands stroked his hair, slowly and steadily. “The dream that kills like a sickness. Some do not die of it at once, but bear it within them, spreading it to all who sleep nearby.” She paused for a moment, though her hand never stopped its incessant stroking. “Night is falling.”

  Wanahomen stiffened. “You’re saying—” But he understood at last. There had been rumors of the nightmare in the city when he’d gone to visit Sanfi, though he’d never suspected it was so serious. And now he recalled how they had found the Shadoun—making a fire for tea. Strong black tea, to keep herself awake. She must have known she carried death inside her. So she came among her enemies, not caring how she died as long as she took us with her.

  The tribe leaders were watching him, waiting; Hanani had spoken in Gujaareen. He swallowed and explained.

  Tajedd flinched back. “A plague! Can those corpses spread it now?”

  “Dream magic doesn’t work that way. There’s no danger.” Wanahomen glanced at Hanani, troubled by her stillness. “The Shadoun must have been in Gujaareh’s capital recently, trading. Since the Kisuati conquest they’re the only desert tribe permitted within the city’s walls. If they spent the night in the city, near someone who had the sickness … From what I’ve heard, it would’ve taken no more than that.”

  “Animals,” snarled the other tribe leader—of the Madobah, Wanahomen guessed by elimination. He glared at the Shadoun’s corpse. “Sneaking cowards! They’re too weak to face us in combat, so they resort to tricks?”

  “Yes,” said Unte. He too gazed down at the Shadoun, who had died with a snarl on her face. “Many of the six tribes’ best warriors are here. If she had succeeded in her plan, she would have accomplished in a single night what generations of blood feud between our races could not.” He sighed heavily and looked at the body of the Sharer. “Tell the woman—when you deem it appropriate—that her friend will be buried with all the honors due a Banbarra warrior. He may have lost his own life, but he saved us in the process.”

  Wanahomen nodded. Uncomfortable silence fell; in it they all heard the faint whisper of movement as Hanani stroked her mentor’s hair again.

  Wanahomen went over and crouched beside her, peering into her face. She was not crying. Instead there was a strange blankness in her expression that Wanahomen did not like at all.

&nb
sp; “Sharer-Apprentice.” He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether the gesture would be rejected, but then put his hand on hers, stilling the constant stroking.

  She looked at him and the blank mask cracked. For one terrible breath, such agony distorted her face that he barely recognized her. In that moment he feared her grief was too great to bear; she would go mad with it, or die. But then the moment passed and her face returned to blankness. She took a deep breath and nodded, then carefully moved her mentor’s head off her lap.

  “You have business to discuss,” she said. “Forgive me.”

  “Hanani,” he said, uneasily resorting to her name. “You should—”

  “Will you see to the funeral arrangements?” She ran right over his words as if he hadn’t spoken. “In spite of … circumstances … cremation should be fine. His soul is neither lingering here in Hona-Karekh nor dreaming in Ina-Karekh. His flesh is unimportant now.”

  Wanahomen wondered where the man’s soul was, though he could not bring himself to ask. “The Banbarra do not cremate, but I’ll teach them how to build the pyre properly.”

  “Thank you, Prince.” She got to her feet, moving slowly and clumsily, as if it took all her effort to keep the calm mask in place. She had no strength left over for grace. “Under the circumstances, I must ask again for donations of dream-humors from the tribe, as I am now the only healer here.”

  “I’ll tell Unte.” He spoke quickly, before she could cut him off again. “Hanani. You should not be alone.”

  She looked at him and he saw the shadowlands in her eyes. “Who will give me peace now, Prince? You?”

  “There’s more than one kind of peace,” he said, scowling. “Yanassa. I’ll ask her to—”

  “Thank you for your concern.” She turned to leave, then paused. “This was clearly an unforeseen accident. When I return to the Hetawa, I’ll make sure my brethren understand this.”

  Wanahomen grimaced, shamed by his own selfishness, because in the back of his mind he had worried about that exact thing. But she gave him no chance to muster a response. With an almost palpable effort to straighten her shoulders, she inclined her head respectfully to the tribe leaders, then walked out of the tent.

  “Wana.” Unte. He was frowning after Hanani. “I don’t know the customs of your land, but—”

  “In Gujaareh we would send her to the Hetawa,” Wanahomen said, heavily. “My people treat wounds of the soul the same as wounds of the flesh; we never leave such things to fester. But there’s no one here who can heal her now.”

  Unte sighed and nodded. “Well. The end-solstice celebration is tomorrow night. The vote will take place the next day or the day after, assuming the remaining two tribes arrive on time. One way or another, you’ll be able to take her home soon.”

  Wanahomen was not certain Hanani would last that long, but he kept that thought to himself.

  “She says she’ll tell her brethren of the Hetawa that his death was no fault of ours.” He looked down at the two corpses and shuddered. “But this is my fault. I brought this horror into the tribe.” Clenching his fists, he went to Unte, pulled off his veil and headcloth, and knelt. Though they had agreed that Wanahomen would never bow his head to Unte—kings did not submit to other kings—he did so now, pressing both hands to the floor and bending his forehead to them, in a full and formal Gujaareen gesture of contrition. He hated the words he had to speak, hated himself for having to speak them, but there was no denying that they needed to be said.

  “I was careless,” he said. He spoke Gujaareen; he could not have humbled himself properly in Chakti. “I assumed the woman could do us no harm, and didn’t notice what I should have, though the signs were there. You were right to doubt me, Unte; I do not care enough.”

  There was silence for a moment, during which Wanahomen counted every beat of his heart. But then Unte touched his shoulder. “I think perhaps you care a bit more now,” he said, with surprising gentleness.

  Then he switched to Chakti so the other leaders could understand their conversation. “Be at ease, Wanahomen. No one could have anticipated this.”

  “But my neglect—”

  Unte shook his head. “Care for your countrywoman, then, if you would serve penance. But I cannot see how I would have done differently in your place.” He looked up at the other tribe leaders; two of them nodded agreement. Tajedd did not, but that was to be expected.

  Wanahomen closed his eyes for a moment, relieved and grateful and anguished all at once. His throat clenched, but that would not do, not in a room full of men he still hoped to sway to his cause—though after this his chances would likely fade like mist before the sun. Nothing to be done for it now. He swallowed hard, nodded, and got to his feet. “The woman has asked that he be burned,” he said, nodding toward the Sharer’s body.

  Unte rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “There’s a cavern where it may be done,” he said. “Toward the north of the canyon, well away from the fields, where the river runs underground. There are many vents there into other caverns; that should dissipate the smoke.”

  Wanahomen nodded. “I know the place. I’ll have my men take care of it.” He glanced at the Shadoun. “And her?”

  Unte smiled sadly. “She, too, should be buried honorably,” he said. “As should any warrior who strikes a useful blow for her people.”

  Night had fallen by the time Wanahomen went in search of Hanani. By this point he was hot and sweaty, smelling of oils and herbs, and too tired to bathe again before morning. Then too, he was worried about the woman. He did not think she was the type to do injury to herself—or at least not here and now. If nothing else, as a good Hananjan, she would want to donate her dreamblood before she died.

  He spotted Yanassa among a small knot of other women, listening to a musician not far from Hanani’s tent. With several hundred guests in the canyon and disaster averted, it seemed that Unte had given permission for the solstice celebrations to continue. Even so, there was a subdued feel to the revelry. The musician, Neapha Seven-Fingers, played a slow mournful lament. Wanahomen saw no one dancing, and none of the more raucous and cheerful celebrations that were usual for the penultimate night of the solstice. Tomorrow night, perhaps, they would return to their usual gaiety, especially if the vote went in favor of war. For tonight, the tribe’s mood was somber.

  Yanassa spied Wanahomen and made an apologetic gesture to her companions before rising and coming to meet him. “You’re going to see her?”

  He nodded. “Did you? How is she?”

  “She let me in for a while, but wouldn’t speak of her pain.” Yanassa lowered her eyes. “We had words before, about the Shadoun woman, and I think she no longer trusts me. Perhaps you’ll do better.”

  Things were dire indeed if that was the case. “I’ll go now.”

  There was an immediate stir within when he tapped Hanani’s tent flap. She pushed it open to see who it was. “Prince. Have you come for your next lesson?”

  He started; that had been the last thing on his mind. “Tonight seems hardly the time—”

  “Yanassa told me the tribe leaders vote in two days. There isn’t much time left for me to teach you. Come.” She slipped out of the tent and went around it to the back, heading for the fire circle again.

  The an-sherrat still had four tents, Wanahomen realized. He would have his men remove Mni-inh’s in the morning.

  The woman carried herself better now than she had that afternoon. There was no outward sign of pain in her movements or demeanor; no sign of any emotion whatsoever. She looked better physically as well, although that was probably Yanassa’s doing. Her hair had been redone into curling twists, the weighted ornaments replaced by tiny ornamental gold coins that jingled faintly as she walked. Banbarra used the tinkling of coins to keep away ill fortune in times of mourning.

  Sighing, he sat down on one of the stones beside the fire. She sat down opposite him.

  “I’ve tended your mentor’s body as best I could,” he said. “I didn’t remember
all the rites, and I had no wrappings, but I’ve treated him with dignity. My men are gathering wood tonight; in the morning we’ll take him to a place to set a pyre. Do you want to come?”

  She said nothing for a moment, her body language as unreadable as her face. “No.”

  Not a tear, not a tremor, not a single sign of grief. If he hadn’t already come to know the peculiar combination of strength and uncertainty that was normal for her, he wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. “Did you find tithebearers?”

  “Yanassa,” she said. “And Charris as well, when he came to visit. A few others.”

  “Do you have enough now?”

  “Enough of everything but dreamblood, but that is to be expected without a Gatherer’s aid. The living can spare very little of their own.”

  Wanahomen had hoped to steer the conversation away from death. “This lesson. Will it be as unpleasant as the last one?” He mustered a smile, which she did not return.

  “That depends on you,” she said. The flatness of her voice was truly unnerving, compared to her usual compassionate tone. “Please go to sleep now.”

  Easier said than done, he thought sourly, but nevertheless shifted to sit on the ground, propping his back against the rock. Though he was exhausted, sleep was long in coming. He was all too aware of her eyes on him, the crackling of the fire, the discomfort of the ground.

  “You cannot sleep.”

  The sound of her voice. “It will happen eventually,” he snapped. “If I’m taking too long for your tastes, we can always finish the lesson tomorrow.”

  “Imagine something important to you.”

  He frowned. “Like what?”

  “Some object, or a symbol that has meaning to you. A pictoral, perhaps. Imagine it. Contemplate its contours in your mind.”

  He considered for a moment, then carefully, reverently, drew the image of the Aureole of the Setting Sun in his mind. Not his mother’s imitation, but the true thing: the staff, carved from white nhefti, a wood used only for holy objects. The brass frame, crafted by an artisan so long ago that his name had been forgotten. Plates of polished amber, each carved whole from chunks that must have been the size of melons, and each worth the entire treasury of a lesser kingdom, to represent the sun’s overlapping rays. Eight red amber, eight clear yellow. He remembered listening as a child, enraptured, while his father explained that the central plate—the semicircle of gold two handspans wide and nearly as red as blood—represented the Sun, who had founded their lineage on a pretty mortal girl who’d caught his ever-roving eye. It had been mined on a mountain where snow lay thick enough to drown in—