The Shadowed Sun

by N. K. Jemisin

  She nodded, stifling excitement, then went over to the table, moving the tray of food to the floor. “In his search for the secret of immortality, Eninket had assembled quite a collection of lore on all sorts of magical curiosities.”

  Nijiri grimaced, helping her lay out the scrolls. “Like the Reaper.”

  “And more interesting things. This, for example.” She pointed to one scroll, covered in archaic pictorals drawn with heavy black lines. She had not been able to read half of them, but the scholar who had given her the translation had been so excited to see the words of his ancestors that he’d charged a quarter less than his usual fee just for the privilege. “This speaks of a plague that nearly consumed the city—a plague no healer could combat, spread through dreams. It mentions hundreds of victims, despair throughout the land … This has happened before, Nijiri.”

  He stiffened. “We have no record of such a plague in the Hetawa.”

  “You have no lore regarding immortality either, yet Eninket found a way. Someone, probably many someones down the centuries, has kept your Hetawa records very neat and clean. The filth, and the truth, are all here.” She patted the scrolls again.

  He sighed, though he did not protest her characterization of the matter. “They must have found some way to combat the dream back then, or Gujaareh would be abandoned ruins by now. Is there any mention of the cure?”

  “Yes.” Sunandi shuffled the scrolls and laid out another, this one tattered and stained, written in crabbed hieratics. This one she could read herself—and had, late into the night, with a placard on her door warning Anzi and even the servants not to enter. Her eyes still ached. “This one says, here, ‘A child housed the dream, drawing and trapping all others within it. When the child dreamed horrors, all suffered them, and many died. Others died sleeping, unable to eat or drink. Only when the child was slain were his victims freed.’” She straightened, looking hard at him. “It goes on to say that only a few knew of this, and that the solution was discovered by the Superior of the time. He killed the child, Nijiri—and then ordered the deaths of anyone who knew about it.”

  Nijiri’s frown deepened. “Why?”

  “Unknown. This was written by a former acolyte of the Hetawa—he witnessed the child’s death, but no one noticed him. If they had, he would have been killed as well.” She put her hand on the scroll, splaying it over the hieratics to get his attention. “This Superior was not corrupt, Nijiri. He went on to found the Sharer path, wrote some of your faith’s most beautiful prayers, and enacted laws that made the city better. He was a good man. Good people kill only to keep the most dangerous secrets.”

  He raised his gaze to her, slowly. “What is your point, Jeh Kalawe?”

  “That you must be open to solutions you wouldn’t otherwise consider. That corruption is a matter of intent, not action, as your mentor told me long ago.”

  He was silent for a moment. “The scholar who helped you with these documents. What have you done to him?”

  She had already decided to answer, if he asked—though she had hoped he would not ask. “He’ll be given a proper funeral with the other victims of the plague. Because that is why he died, if not how.” When Nijiri’s lips tightened, Sunandi leaned forward, bracing her hands on the table and deliberately putting her face in reach of his long, deadly Gatherer’s hands. “And how many people have you murdered to keep Eninket’s secrets, over the years?”

  He did not reach for her, or flinch, to his credit. And she kept herself from flinching at the cold death in his eyes, which was a salve to her own pride.

  “Gatherers do not murder,” he said softly, with a hint of irony in his voice that chilled her even further. “All that we do is a blessing, given by Hananja unto Her people.”

  In the wake of that, Sunandi could do nothing but allow a moment of proper Gujaareen silence. There was something to the custom, she had decided some years ago, of letting a brief passage of time cleanse the air, after dangerous words and thoughts had tainted it.

  “I make no claim to holiness, but I too do what I must for peace,” she said at length. She tapped the tattered scroll. “The man who wrote this should never have committed it to paper. He did it to salve his conscience, and his weakness may save us … But when we find the ones using this pestilence as a weapon now, we must be more vigilant than our ancestors were. We must make sure this evil magic dies here. Will you agree to that?”

  He nodded. “This is corruption of the highest order. The Hetawa must do whatever is necessary to see it cleansed.”

  “Even if the cleansing means killing a child?”

  “That may not be the only way.”

  It was a relief that he hesitated, Sunandi decided, even though she could not permit him to remain stubborn on this. She would know to fear him only when his conscience died—or if she ever did anything harmful without purpose. Then he would come for her. She had always known and accepted that.

  “It’s the only certain way. Will you do it, if it comes to that? Gather an innocent?”

  Another necessary moment passed.

  “I’m not my mentor,” he said softly. She was surprised to read shame in his face. “I’ve never had his honor.”

  She hesitated, but then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re different from Ehiru, true, but that isn’t a bad thing. He thought only of Hananja, while you think first of Hananja’s people.”

  He gave her a thin smile whose sadness surprised her. “Don’t be fooled, Jeh Kalawe. I think only of myself. I must be able to look him in the eye when I see him again, in Ina-Karekh.”

  She would never get used to the way Gatherers constantly looked forward to their own deaths.

  “There’s more in the records.” An awkward transition this time, but unavoidable. She pulled the third scroll from the bottom of the stack, and spread it atop the other two. “Do you recognize this?”

  Nijiri frowned at the document, which was covered in some sort of chart. Name-pictorals sprawled across the page, linked by neat, precise lines. “Should I? I’m no Teacher.” He paused then, spotting the small creator’s stamp at one bottom corner of the sheet, and stiffened.

  “Inunru.” Sunandi watched him. “The name was more common back then, but there’s reason to believe this was indeed the same Inunru who founded your faith, and narcomancy, and the Gatherer path.” And the man who had created the first Reapers, she did not add—because he knew it anyway, and because avoiding painful subjects was custom in Kisua and Gujaareh alike.

  Nijiri’s jaw flexed anyhow, but he said nothing about it, his eyes roving the scroll’s lines. “What is this? Mothers, fathers, uncles …” He scowled in impatience. “I was born servant-caste, Jeh Kalawe; we bred as we pleased and never obsessed over lineages as you high-castes do. What does this mean?”

  “From what I can tell, your founder was researching certain lineages. The dreaming gift runs in families, does it not?”

  He nodded absently. “More through fatherlines than motherlines, yes. Whenever a fatherline produces a child suitable for the narcomantic paths, we watch it thereafter.”

  She pointed to a tiny pictoral of a bird in flight beside some of the names. “This is the first character of your word for dream. That may mean Inunru suspected those people of bearing the gift.”

  Nijiri touched a descent-line, one of several that had been drawn in red rather than black. “But this is a motherline,” he said. “A sister of a Sentinel who was a strong dreamer …” He traced the line. “Produced three children, all daughters …” His finger stopped in an empty space below the line. “He lost track here. But that’s no surprise; we’ve never watched women.”

  “Because women more rarely inherit the gift?” Sunandi asked, folding her arms. “Or because your faith shuns women?”

  He looked annoyed. “We revere women.”

  “If you overlook women who carry the gift, it amounts to the same thing. That girl you took in as a Sharer—What was her name?”

  �
�Hanani.”

  “Is Hanani’s gift strong?”

  Nijiri considered for a moment. “Strong enough,” he said at last. “Mni-inh—” He faltered for a breath, inexplicably. “Mni-inh never complained about her ability, only her confidence.”

  “Could she have become a Gatherer, instead of a Sharer?”

  His face twitched, though he mastered his reaction beyond that. “She lacks the temperament. But Gathering and Sharing are two faces of the same coin, in the end.” He sighed. “So, yes.”

  Sunandi tapped the scroll near the names of the three Sentinel-nieces. “So any one of these women may have possessed a gift of Gatherer or Sharer strength. Do women often go mad, here in Gujaareh?”

  Nijiri looked away, troubled. “Not often, but it isn’t unheard of, either.” A bit defensively he added, “We give them dreamblood to control it, the same as we would any man.”

  “But men with the gift are found early and taken into the Hetawa, before they can suffer much. They’re valued, nurtured. Isolated, though …” A new thought occurred to her then, and it was an ugly one. She grimaced as she turned it over in her mind. “Your Hetawa’s restriction against female Servants may have been purposeful. Men with the gift become celibate in the Hetawa, but women with the gift are under no such restriction; most make sons and daughters. It’s no different from leaving useful mares in a herd, while culling the more troublesome stallions who have the same traits! These women”—she pointed at the red motherlines—“keep the dreaming gift in Gujaareh. Otherwise the Hetawa would take them all, and soon there would be no more Sharers, no more Gatherers.”

  Nijiri said nothing for several breaths. Sunandi noticed that his eyes were on the lineage-chart, fixed on the creator pictoral in the bottom corner.

  “It was Inunru who decreed that women were not to serve,” he said at last. “So I was taught in the House of Children. He said it was because women are goddesses, and their magic is like the dreaming realm—powerful, but unpredictable. Too unstable for use in narcomancy. That’s why so many blamed Hanani, when …” He trailed off, frowning to himself.

  “Hanani is proof that women with the dreaming gift are no different from men,” Sunandi said firmly. “How many others like her are out there now, I wonder? Perhaps some have married men whose own lineages carry the gift. Their sons might become Gatherers, and their daughters lunatics.”

  He winced at that, but then shook his head; Sunandi wanted to strike him for his resistance. “Not all with the gift go mad, Jeh Kalawe.”

  “No, but those who do did not have to. I suppose your faith considers that a small price to pay.” She uttered a bitter sigh; he said nothing. “And every so often, a child is born whose gift is so strong as to be a danger to everyone near.” She tapped the scroll. “I would wager my fortune that your founder was looking for a child like this.”

  “Looking for one? Why would—”

  “For the same reason he kept notes on the potential of Reapers! Immortality, magic, dreams that can kill armies—or nations. Power. Your founder was fascinated by it.”

  And privately, Sunandi was glad Inunru was long dead. She would not have wanted to square off against a man so brilliant, and so utterly ruthless. Just as well his fellow Servants of Hananja had killed him for his many crimes—but he had seen nearly three hundred floods of the river before that day, using his own magical lore to extend his life. He had spent most of that time shaping the Hetawa, and Gujaareh, to suit his designs. A long time in which to sow evil.

  If only the poisoned fruit did not keep ripening in my time.

  Nijiri let out a heavy sigh. “This knowledge hurt Ehiru, when he learned it,” he said. “He thought so highly of our faith. It troubles me less because I’ve always known the evil we can do, but even so …” He sighed. “Indethe ne etun’a Hananja. Clearly You do not watch us closely enough, my Goddess.”

  Sunandi glanced back at the door, trying to gauge how much time had passed. She could not stay missing from the Protectors’ floors or her apartments for long, not without raising suspicion. “Can you send this information to your brethren at the Hetawa? By dreams or whatever?”

  “Yes. We have acolytes scattered about the city, away from the Hetawa, where they may dream safely. I’ll contact one of them.” He sat down on the bed again, solemn. “You want the Teachers to search the city’s birth-records for the lineages that have produced strong narcomancers, but this time follow the women.”

  “Just the strongest lines, or the ones that most recently begat Gatherers or Sharers. There’s no time to search them all. You may find nothing, but the alternative is to search every household in the city to see if you can find a nightmare-dreaming child hidden in a closet.”

  “Very well, Jeh Kalawe. We shall do as you suggest.”

  Sunandi nodded and quickly began collecting the scrolls, watching him surreptitiously as she did so. He seemed low in spirits, but that could have been just confinement and uncertainty. Still, she could not help asking, “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?”

  He shook his head. “You’ve risked yourself enough.” But the frown did not leave his face, so she was not surprised when he spoke again. “There is one other thing that troubles me.”

  “Which is?”

  “Inunru made many decrees in the time that he guided our faith. The more I come to know of him, the more I realize every one of those decrees had some ulterior purpose.” Sunandi nodded, glad that she was not the only one who had considered this. He rubbed his hands together as if cold, though the room was not. “There’s one fatherline in the city that the Hetawa never claims—not completely. By tradition and Inunru’s decree, every Prince of the Sunset must have the dreaming gift in some measure. Only the Hetawa’s Council of Paths knows of the decree—but as Inunru’s inheritors, we have worked to carry out his will all these centuries. In fact, that was one of several reasons we decided to endorse Wanahomen; his father tried to hide it from us, but the boy is a powerful dreamer.” He sighed. “Some of us even took that as a sign from the Goddess.”

  Sunandi frowned. “Why would Inunru command such a thing?”

  “I don’t know, Jeh Kalawe. But I have suspicions, and they frighten me.”

  She guessed, from his hesitation. It was obvious, really. If Inunru could not find a Wild Dreamer, he had meant to create one. Princes of the Sunset took many wives and sired many children; that alone must have made the lineage perfect for Inunru’s purposes. Such a child in the wrong hands, even untrained, was a formidable living weapon. In Inunru’s hands … Sunandi shuddered to think of it.

  And now the Hetawa was helping Wanahomen—descendant of madmen and magicians, heir of another monster who’d slipped their control. Another of Inunru’s dangerous secrets.

  Sunandi tucked the scrolls under her arm and sighed. “Save that one for the next war, you fool,” she said. “Don’t we have enough troubles?”

  He stared at her, then chuckled. It was the first real laugh she could ever remember hearing from him. “Rest well, Sunandi. I’ll pray for you tonight.”

  And he had never, in Sunandi’s memory, called her by her given name. She hadn’t been offended by that extra layer of formality between them despite their years of friendship; he was Gujaareen. Still—

  “In peace, Nijiri,” she said, and stifled her smile until she’d left the room.

  37

  War Leader

  The morning was half over by the time Wanahomen finally left Hanani’s tent. She was still asleep, tangled in a thin blanket and the scattered pile of cushions. He paused to kiss her neck and one artlessly bared breast before leaving; she did not stir.

  Outside, the camp was only half awake, as most of the tribe and its guests had kept up the celebration until the setting of the Waking Moon. He glimpsed a few bleary-eyed slaves cleaning up, and a few even more bleary-eyed warriors drinking strong tea around the cookfires; aside from this the camp was still asleep. Returning to his own tent, he took a quick
basin bath and put on fresh clothing before reporting to Unte.

  “Well, well,” Unte said as a slave let him into the tent. Unte was sprawled across a long flat cushion with his feet up, nursing a large cup. By the bitter scent, Wanahomen knew it held a tea for hangovers. “Do you never go at things the easy way, Wana? Half the camp is in awe of you, and the other half thinks you may be the death of us all.”

  Wanahomen settled on the cushion across from him, smiling ruefully. “Good. Not so long ago, only a quarter were in awe of me. Which are you, by the way?”

  “I’ll judge when I see the lady’s face. I trust she was satisfied?”

  It was practically law among the Banbarra to brag about one’s sexual exploits. Men spun tales of unattainable women attained and impossible positions achieved, while he’d heard rumors that the women kept a chart somewhere for betting purposes, complete with skill rankings for each of the tribe’s men. But while Wanahomen had done his share of tale-spinning—some true, most not, as was the way of such things—he had no great desire to talk about his time with Hanani. The whole matter was too fragile and powerful, almost holy, like the templewoman herself. He did not know how to feel about it yet.

  “I would say so,” he said to Unte, trying to sound nonchalant. “Though of course it’s always difficult to tell with women. I think her sorrow has been eased as well. At least, enough that she will not go mad or kill herself.”

  Unte stifled a yawn and frowned. “Was that really a danger?”

  “Last night? Gods, yes. And she’ll bear careful watching for some while longer.” He reached for the tea to pour himself a cup. “My people don’t deal well with pain.”

  “Then just as well you gave her pleasure. Though now I worry that her priest friends, those cold-faced fellows who kill in the night, will be annoyed with us.”

  “They’ll be annoyed with me, yes.” The tea was foul, but it contained a strong stimulant; he grimaced and forced it down. “But it’s her they’ll blame, not me.”