The Killing Moon (Dreamblood) (36 page)

Oh, but how weak he was, that he craved it anyhow! Ehiru turned his hand up, lacing their fingers together, and they sat this way in silence until Sunandi’s servants came to fetch them.

*   *   *

The Meeting House of the Protectors lay at the center of Kisua’s capital. It was an unassuming building, squat and wide with walls of dusty brown stone and none of Yanya-iyan’s splendor, for all that it housed the rulers of a land. Small, unadorned pylons
framed its wide entrance; the floors were marble but unpolished, worn dark with age. The people who stood on its steps—supplicants and influence-peddlers, he guessed, many of whom reeked of corruption—watched as Ehiru’s party passed. Most were richly dressed and quiet, their eyes reflecting mingled suspicion and awe. And they marked him for what he was at once, though both he and Nijiri wore hoodless off-white robes that were the closest Sunandi had been able to come to Gatherer daywear. Mindful of Sunandi’s property, they had not torn off the sleeves; no one could see their tattoos. But somehow, they knew.

Yet the austerity of the setting gave Ehiru comfort as he entered the House, behind Sunandi and with Nijiri at his side. There was a feeling to the simple architecture, and the solemnity of the people he saw inside—true wielders of power and responsibility, perhaps, not mere aspirants—that reminded him of the Hetawa in Gujaareh. Under other and better circumstances, he might have felt at home.

They passed through a dim archway and entered the House itself, a vaulted chamber lit by lattice-covered openings near the ceiling. Dust-flecked sunlight illuminated a curving stone table that stretched from one end of the House to the other. Ehiru counted seventeen people seated at this table, all of them elders and all with the look of nobility—though caste was difficult to tell, here in this land where mingling with foreigners was frowned upon. A handful of attendants lingered amid the pillars behind the Protectors; guards stood on either side of the chamber, watching Ehiru with open suspicion; otherwise the chamber was empty of all save the Protectors and the three of them.

Sunandi stopped in the space before the table and offered an elaborate bow before speaking in formal Sua. “Esteemed and wise, I come before you again in greetings. I am your voice and eyes and ears in foreign lands, and I beg you hear me now on a matter of great urgency.”

The central figure, an ancient woman with thinning hair in twists, waved her hand. “We have read your initial report, Speaker Jeh Kalawe, and that of the captain whose troop rescued you in the neutral lands.”

Sunandi straightened and assumed a less formal manner, though she still kept her eyes respectfully low. “Have you also read the report of Kinja Seh Kalabsha?”

“We have read your account of it, yes. We would have preferred to see the original from Kinja’s own hand, Speaker.” She gave Sunandi a stern look.

“My protégé Lin died trying to bring that document to you, Esteemed.” She paused for only a moment, though Ehiru saw the concealed flicker of anger in her eyes. “I was unable to recover it from her remains.”

“We are sorry for the loss of your slave, Jeh Kalawe,” said another of the Protectors, though he did not sound sorry to Ehiru’s ears. The man’s casual dismissal of the northblooded girl was offensive, but it explained much of Sunandi’s defensiveness about her. “You may request compensation after this audience. But I will admit to having some concerns about your report.” He narrowed his eyes at her, then cast a disdainful look at Nijiri. “I have more significant concerns about your bringing these outlanders here, whoever they are.”

Sunandi squared her shoulders. “They are Gatherers of
Gujaareh, Esteemed—the Hananjan priest Ehiru and his apprentice, Nijiri. I have brought them here on their request. They too seek the counsel of the Protectors.”

There were murmurs of surprise at this, and several of the Protectors whispered quickly to one another. Finally the woman in the middle said, “I cannot imagine what Gujaareh’s unholy priests would want of us.”

“Information, Honored Elder,” Ehiru said in formal Sua, his voice prompting another stir among the Protectors. He saw Sunandi glance at him in consternation as he violated some sort of protocol, but he did not care. He had too little time left to waste on propriety.

“Many disturbing events have occurred in my land of late,” he said. “A Reaper walks the streets of the capital, unchecked and perhaps abetted by those in power. Twenty men—” He glanced at Sunandi. “Twenty men and the Speaker’s girl are known to have died at its hands. I have been blamed for the Reaper’s attacks, yet freed on the condition that I Gather Speaker Jeh Kalawe. And now your own soldiers have encountered Gujaareen troops in the Empty Thousand, again trying to kill the Speaker. I want to know why so many of my countrymen want this woman dead.”

The old woman raised both eyebrows into her faded hairline. “You believe we know?”

He inclined his head to her. “I believe there must be a reason the Prince corrupts himself and risks war with Kisua to conceal the secrets this woman carries. I believe there is a reason the Hetawa aids him, and allows the Reaper to exist. And I believe, though I have nothing but my instincts for proof, that all these
things are somehow connected. No one in my land who knows the truth can be trusted. Perhaps outlanders are the answer.”

There was another susurrus in the chamber as the Protectors whispered among themselves. Sunandi threw Ehiru a sidelong glance. “You are a greater madman than I thought,” she murmured in Gujaareen.

He nodded, unamused. Very soon it would be true.

Presently the Protectors concluded their discussion. “Very well, Gatherer of Gujaareh,” said the old woman. “Half the things we have heard from our spies lately are so incredible we hardly know what to make of them. Perhaps an exchange of information will give us answers as well.” Then she glanced at one of the other Protectors, who scowled mightily before finally sighing.

“I must caution you that our information is incomplete,” the man said. “But it begins several years ago when our Shadoun allies found a tomb in the western desert foothills, far off the usual trails. They found it because it had been recently disturbed—robbed. The robbers fled north toward Gujaareh. We did not think this important at first, though of course we had the matter investigated. We now believe the tomb was that of Inunru—first Gatherer and founder of your faith.”

Nijiri frowned in confusion and blurted, “But his tomb was lost centuries ago, and would be sacred to us now. Why would any Gujaareen desecrate—?” Sunandi threw him a glare and he subsided immediately.

“Your apprentice speaks true, Gatherer, if out of turn,” the old man said, giving Nijiri an equally quelling eye before focusing on Ehiru again. “It is good to know that you at least preserve
a proper reverence for the history of your faith, if not the proper manner of worship.”

Ehiru lifted his chin. “Some might say we preserved both better than Kisua, Honored Elder. Magic was once used here, too.”

The old man gave him a sour glare. “That was before we realized the horror of such power.”

“Perhaps. But what has that to do with the present matter?”

“We did not know, until last night when we read Kinja’s report as delivered to us by Jeh Kalawe.” The old man sighed. “Many centuries ago, here in Kisua, the first priests who dabbled in dream magic began to go mad, or so our own lore says. Inunru—who too was at risk—studied them in hope of determining the cause and cure. A century later when magic was banned and his followers banished, most of Inunru’s records were destroyed lest the knowledge they contained linger and flourish again, like a pestilence.” The old man’s lip curled. “But there have always been tales that some of Inunru’s followers managed to smuggle several scrolls out of the city.”

“We always believed,” said the old woman, “that the scrolls were in Gujaareh. But apparently they were lost to your people as well… until lately.” She looked at Sunandi, her expression bleak.

Sunandi nodded slowly. “I saw a locked case in the Prince’s quarters. That is where he keeps them, I believe.”

“Hmm.” The old woman looked weary, as if she had not been sleeping well. An overabundance of dreambile, a part of Ehiru’s mind catalogued, while the rest of him listened, as numbed as if by a sleep-spell. “Yes. It was the Prince’s men who raided the tomb, or so we believe. All this madness began after that.”

Sunandi took a deep breath. “And it explains many other things, Esteemed.” She looked at Ehiru, though she continued speaking to them. “My mentor Kinja long suspected that the Prince planned a war. His contacts warned him of the Prince’s negotiations with several northern tribes to forge a military alliance. And there had been a spate of unusual imports—heavy wood and iron, northern shipbuilding artisans, and the like, though all that trickled off a few years ago. But several months ago, Kinja also learned that the Prince had deliberately created a Reaper. He controls the creature using secret knowledge—doubtless from the stolen scrolls. The creature was used as an assassin, killing all who might interfere with the Prince’s plans. The deaths resembled natural causes. Kinja, Kinja himself may have…” Here she faltered for just a moment, visibly fighting emotion.

“In Gujaareh, no one would question such things,” Ehiru murmured, more to her than to the Protectors. He felt fresh pity for her now, hearing that both her mentor and her protégé had died at the Reaper’s claws. For that, he tried to comfort her, though only with words since that was all he had. “No one but Gatherers, and we did not know. If we had, we would have helped you.”

She gave a curt nod, getting control of herself, and faced the Protectors again. “Before I left Gujaareh, I also learned that the creature has been involved in a number of incidents at the capital’s prison. Many prisoners have died in ways which puzzle even the Gujaareen, for these are young, healthy men who slip away in their sleep—ungently. So it would seem the Prince is not content to use his Reaper as merely a convenient assassin. He
nurtures the creature’s evil, helping its powers to grow for reasons known only to himself.” She hesitated, glancing at Ehiru. “What I could not be certain of was the Hetawa’s involvement.”

And thus she’d dared not trust him with everything she knew. He heard the apology in her voice and nodded acceptance, though he marveled at it given her hatred of his kind. But somehow, over the course of recent days, her feelings toward Gatherers—no, toward
Ehiru—
had apparently changed. There was a degree of respect in her manner now, which he had never expected to see.

He glanced toward Nijiri and saw grudging compassion in the way he looked at Sunandi. Change on both sides, then; good.

“And Kinja learned, though Jeh Kalawe was the one to bring us this knowledge,” said the old woman, with an approving glance at Sunandi, “that for the past five years—since the Prince found the scrolls—Gujaareh has been quietly building its fleet of ships to levels useful only for war. Other spies have confirmed this. Shipyards outside the city, along the Sea of Glory, have been producing vessels in great quantity. We do not watch the Sea of Glory closely; it has no connection to the Eastern Ocean and so poses no threat to Kisua—or so we believed. But we now know those ships were designed with thicker hulls than are needed on the Sea, built using techniques borrowed from the northern tribes. Therefore we suspect the Prince now has a fleet of ships which can sail all the way around the northern continent, through the frozen and dangerous waters at the top of the world, to reach the eastern seas.” She paused. “We suspect the Prince
has sent
these ships forth
already, most of them years ago. Each left its docks as soon as it was completed, never more than one at a time—but by the volume of materials involved and the guesses of our own shipmasters, we estimate some five hundred ships could have begun the northern journey by now.” She heaved a long sigh. “Your Prince is as patient as an elder.”

The Kisuati woman. She cannot be permitted to reach Kisua, Ehiru, or there will be war.
Eninket’s words echoed in Ehiru’s mind, and he shivered at the enormity of his brother’s misdirection. War had already been declared. Only its timing made any difference.

“Yes,” Ehiru said. He was angry again, too angry; another mark of his corruption. He controlled it with an effort. “Patience is only one of the gifts our Goddess bestowed upon him. I hadn’t realized until now just how thoroughly he has misused those gifts.”

A hint of compassion seemed to flicker in the old woman’s eyes for a moment. “Then perhaps you will oblige us by sharing information of your own,” she said. “As I told you, we suspect the Prince has forged secret agreements with several of the far-northern tribes for military alliance, and for safe passage through their waters; these agreements have been primarily brokered through a Bromarte trader-clan. A minor member of this clan, a Bromarte named Charleron of Wenkinsclan, was one of Kinja Seh Kalabsha’s contacts; he recently died. Jeh Kalawe has heard rumors that he was Gathered—or perhaps Reaped. Do you know anything of this?”

Goddess forgive me. This madness goes so much deeper than I ever suspected.
Ehiru closed his eyes and took a long slow breath. “I was the one who collected his tithe.”

The Protectors began to murmur again, though the old woman shushed them quickly. “Who commanded his death? The Prince? His own kinsmen? Did he give you any information before he died, about strife between the Prince and your Superior?”

“These things I do not know,” Ehiru replied. “The commission came in the usual manner. I was told he had an incurable disease. I had no reason to suspect anything unusual…”