The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (13 page)

“I’ll convey that to our council,” the Sentinel said behind him. “Though they will doubtless send at least a representative to the designated place, in case you should change your mind.” There was a pause. “You should know, if you expect trust of your allies, that the shunha lord Sanfi cannot be trusted, either.”

Wanahomen threw a scowl at the Sentinel over his shoulder. “You’ve been watching me?”

“We’ve been watching Sanfi. He’s been gathering his coalition of nobles for some time—long before your Banbarra began their attacks. You’re useful to his plans, but only for now.”

Two could play the stone-faced game. Wanahomen folded his arms and said, “Explain.”

The Sentinel lifted an eyebrow minutely. “You will not trust this information.”

“I’ll decide whether to trust it later. For now I want to hear.”

“You know that once—before the Sunset dynasty—we were like Kisua and the southern tribes, ruled by the most respected of our elders.” The Sentinel shrugged. “Having the Kisuati Protectorate in control for the past ten years has reminded Gujaareh of that history. Sanfi leads the push to recreate a Gujaareen Protectorate.”

Wanahomen narrowed his eyes. “The common folk of Gujaareh want a champion chosen by the Goddess to rule them, not a circle of doddering old rich people. They can see how much good—or how little—Kisua’s Protectorate does its own land; orphan children prostitute themselves on street corners, and their slaves starve amid fields of grain.”

The Sentinel lowered his eyes. “For the long-term preservation of peace, we’ve kept secret your father’s true goals. No one in Gujaareh knows that King Eninket meant to slaughter thousands of soldiers to gain immortality. Yet the secrets that
have
come out—the murder of a Kisuati ambassador, the torture of three Gatherers, the conspiracy with northerners, the Reaper…” He shook his head. “The excesses of a Protectorate are distant and half-forgotten. The excesses of a Prince are a fresh wound. You cannot blame the people for thinking this way.”

He could, Wanahomen mused grimly, but it would do him no good to do so. “I see.”

“And even a Protectorate must have a leader. Sanfi is young for it yet, but he thinks long-term.”

“I made contact with Sanfi a year ago. It was only sensible for him to make plans before that,” Wanahomen said. The words sounded weak even to his own ears; he clenched his fists, scowling. Such plans, such plans! Not easily dismantled. And would any man who himself hungered to rule give up that idea simply because the true king had come along?

No. Such a man would not.

If I marry Tiaanet, Sanfi will gain influence through me. Then he could assassinate me and claim that he’d
meant
to put a Prince on the throne, but alas…

The Sentinel was watching him in silence, no doubt reading the turmoil in Wanahomen’s body language; Wanahomen had heard they could do such things. To cover this, he turned to face the man. “The petty schemes of the nobility are nothing to me. You forget my father raised me to deal with such things.”

The Sentinel inclined his head. “As you wish.” He picked up his cloak and the pouch, tying the latter across his chest. “Please inform Charris that there’s no longer any need for us to meet. In peace, Wanahomen, son of the King.”

He left the scroll on the cavern floor where Wanahomen had thrown it. Wanahomen scowled at him, but the Sentinel walked out and began climbing a trail that led to higher ground. Perhaps he had a mount hidden somewhere.

And good riddance. “Son of the King”! He speaks of alliance and yet will not even give me my proper title!
Ignoring the small voice within him, which pointed out that the title was currently meaningless and Servants of Hananja always told the truth, Wanahomen waited until the Sentinel’s footsteps had faded. Then he went to pick up the scroll. He dared not leave it in the cavern where it might be found.

Damn them to shadows, anyway. I don’t need them. I’ll use Sanfi as he meant to use me, then kill him myself.

But Tiaanet would not make a particularly willing bride if he murdered her father.

Forcing silent the murmur of unease in his mind, Wanahomen shoved the scroll into a pocket. Then he went to Laye-ka, signaling for her to kneel so he could mount. After a moment’s thought to determine a new route, he resumed the journey to the desert, his thoughts now convoluted and grim.

They brought Merchant Danneh to the Hetawa on the morning of the Festival of New Beer. Hanani heard the revelry from the square outside when the Hall doors opened to admit four Sentinel-Apprentices, who carried Danneh’s palanquin. The apprentices set the palanquin on the dais and removed its canopy to reveal Danneh.

The merchant was asleep but fitfully so, her face beaded with sweat as she shifted and made small fevered sounds. Beneath their lids her eyes moved with frenetic speed, as if the sights that tormented her in dreaming were too many and too swift for her to follow. Danneh’s servant, who had come with them, put hands to her mouth, fighting tears.

“She will not wake?” Nhen-ne-verra, the Sharer on duty, knelt beside Danneh as the Sentinels stepped away.

Danneh’s training showed as the girl composed herself. “No, Sharer,” she said. “When I returned from delivering her message to the Hetawa last night, she had fallen asleep again. I thought perhaps she had finally found peace enough to rest, but when morning came and she did not rise, I went into her bedchamber to find her like this. I’ve tried to wake her many times.”

Nhen-ne-verra nodded, pursing his lips as he pulled up Danneh’s eyelids—Hanani caught a glimpse of the woman’s eyes rolling wildly in their sockets—then opened Danneh’s mouth to sniff her breath. “No recent drink or food. Has she any enemies?”

The servant looked horrified. “None who would poison her!”

“I’m simply eliminating possibilities, child.” He tilted Danneh’s head up and massaged her throat, checking her pulse and the glands in her neck that signaled disease. All part of the traditional ritual of examination, Hanani knew—and all wrong for this situation.

She mounted the first step of the dais. “Nhen-ne-verra-brother.”

Nhen-ne-verra did not look up from his work. “You are under interdiction, Apprentice.”

Hanani bit her lip against the sting of the reminder, though he’d spoken kindly. “This woman—” She swallowed. “I met her a fourday ago. She sent word to
me
about this. Brother—” She cut herself off, fists clenching. She would not beg. She would not.

Nhen-ne-verra finally glanced at her over his shoulder. He was half easternese, pale of skin with long limp hair that had gone shockingly white in his elderhood—but his eyes were as black and stern as those of any shunha. “Very well. But you may not enter healing sleep. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Brother.” Quickly, before he could change his mind, Hanani crouched on the other side of Danneh’s litter. Throwing a glance at the servant, she lowered her voice. “Brother, there’s a dream—”

“Yes, the Superior has informed the Sharer path-elders, of whom I am one.” Nhen-ne-verra threw a half-smile at her abashed look. “You must admit it is intriguing, Apprentice. I cannot help but feel some excitement at the prospect of being able to examine this mysterious dream at last.”

Remembering the oily feel of the shadow in the dream she had shared with Gatherer Nijiri, Hanani shuddered. “Brother…” But she could not say what was in her mind.
Take care
would be an
insult, implying that she thought him too old or incompetent to perform his duty.
Dayuhotem died of it
was even worse, for Nhen-ne-verra was a Sharer with over forty floods’ experience; there could be no comparison between his skill and that of a child. So she bit her lip again and said nothing more.

He seemed to understand. “I’ll be fine, Hanani. But perhaps you should go and fetch your mentor for me, if he’s not on sleep shift right now. It would be sensible to have another Sharer here, just in case.”

It was an acolyte’s task to run errands and fetch, and humiliation coiled in Hanani’s belly. But it was a way to help, and at the moment it was better than nothing. Nodding quickly to Nhen-ne-verra, she hurried off in search of Mni-inh.

Her mentor was just finishing a training session on wound-binding in the Sentinels’ Hall. He spied her as he emerged from the naproom trailed by sleepy-eyed boys, who wandered off toward their next dream-implanted lesson. “Ah, Hanani. If you’re—” He read her face. “What is it?”

When she explained, he sobered at once. “I’ll go now. Find an acolyte and tell him to summon the Superior.”

That threw her. “The Superior, Brother?”

“And Yehamwy, if he’s not teaching right now.” He read her stricken face and sighed. “Witnesses, Hanani. If the healing is difficult, I want them to see and realize Dayu wasn’t incompetent, just confronted with something that could tax even an experienced Sharer’s ability. I know you’d rather not use your friend to prove a point…”

Hanani shook her head, pushing aside an irrational sense of guilt. Gatherer Nijiri had said such tactics would be ineffective in clearing Hanani’s reputation, but she understood Mni-inh’s desire to try. She hoped it would work too. “It’s what Dayu would want, Brother.”

Mni-inh nodded, then let her go and hurried toward the Hall of Blessings. Hanani caught one of the acolytes emerging from Mni-inh’s lesson and sent him in search of the Superior. Yehamwy’s class was nearby in the Gatherers’ Hall, so she hastened across the courtyard to the smallest of the Hetawa complex’s buildings to deliver that message herself.

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.