Ehiru glanced at it, shuddered as if the sight made him queasy, and looked away. Nijiri frowned. “What is it, Brother?”
Ehiru said nothing.
A vision, then. Too soon; it had been only three fourdays since Ehiru had given his last tithe to the Sharers. Nijiri kept his tone even and said, “Tell me what you saw, Brother, please.”
Ehiru sighed. “Insects.”
Nijiri grimaced and began to rewrap the cake. Most visions were harmless. But like pain with the body, unpleasant visions served as a warning for the mind, indicating imbalance or injury. It was a thing that Sharers could deal with on a temporary basis—siphoning off the excess dreambile, adding sufficient dreamichor to restore the inner equilibrium, perhaps other things; Nijiri had never learned much more than basic healing techniques. But only dreamblood could cure it. “There aren’t any. But I’ll hold this until the vision has passed, if you like.”
“No,” Ehiru said. He reached over and broke off a piece of the cake, lifted it to his mouth without looking, and ate it, chewing grimly. “It was only a vision. Eat the rest yourself.”
Nijiri obeyed, shifting to ease the ache in his buttocks. If he never rode another camel, he would die in peace. “We can rest properly tonight, Brother,” Nijiri said. He hesitated and then added, “And you can draw dreamblood from me, just enough to stave off—”
“No.”
Nijiri opened his mouth to protest, but Ehiru forestalled him with a small pained smile. “My control was weak the last time you offered; now it is gone altogether. I have no wish to kill you, my apprentice.”
His choice of words chilled Nijiri despite the desert heat. “Gathering is not killing, Brother.”
“Either way, you would be dead.” Ehiru sighed, lifting his head to gaze toward the distant oasis. “In any case, there may be another way.”
“What?”
Ehiru nodded toward the middle of the caravan. A light palanquin of balsawood and linen bobbed amid the river of cloth-wrapped heads, carried by sturdy young men on the smoothest-gaited of the camels. From within the palanquin came the sound of a racking, weary cough.
“Their matriarch,” Ehiru said very softly. “I have heard such a cough before. I would guess she suffers hardened lungs, or perhaps the sickness-of-tumors.”
“Dreambile could cure the latter if she has the strength to bear it,” Nijiri said, trying to recall his Sharer-lessons. He had seen the old woman during their rest hours. She was a cheerful little creature who had probably been spry before her illness, seventy floods at least. Her old body would be slower to respond to the healing power of the humors, but the effort wasn’t hopeless. “I know nothing of hardened lungs, though…” He trailed off, seeing suddenly what Ehiru meant. “… Oh.”
Ehiru nodded, watching the palanquin. “She could have visited the Hetawa before the minstrels left Gujaareh, but she didn’t.”
She does not want to be healed! Nijiri stifled excitement. It was the best of all possible circumstances. And yet Ehiru’s angry words from a few nights before, after Nijiri had recovered from the Reaper attack, lingered in his mind. “So… you’ve changed your mind about testing yourself?” He did not say facing the pranje, for one did not speak of such things while among layfolk, even quietly.
“No. I still intend to submit myself to Her judgment. But I must seek dreamblood now, or become dangerous to our companions.” He sighed. “Once I settle the matter of the Hetawa’s corruption, then I can contemplate my own.”
“Yes, Brother.” Nijiri tried to feel glad for that respite.
“Of course, there is one blessing in this. You’ll finally have the chance to assist in a Gathering.”
Nijiri caught his breath; he had not considered that at all. “Will you speak with her, Brother? Tonight? May I attend?”
Ehiru mustered a rough chuckle, which drove back some of Nijiri’s worry. If Ehiru was still capable of humor, he was not as far gone as Nijiri had feared. “Tonight, yes, I shall assay. You may attend if she wishes it, my greedy apprentice.” Then he sobered. “This serves our purposes, Nijiri, but we must never forget that the tithebearer’s needs come first.”
“Yes, Brother.” They fell silent for the rest of the ride into Tesa.
Palm trees rose out of the sand until they loomed more and more like mountains, the closer they drew. The town beneath was clearly far more prosperous than Ketuyae had been. Narrow fields ran between the houses, taking advantage of an irrigation system that appeared to have been haphazardly rigged throughout the town with fired-clay pipes. Potted plants grew wherever the pipes wouldn’t go, on balconies and rooftops and street corners. The sight of so much green lifted Nijiri’s spirits again. He darted a glance at Ehiru and was pleased to see that his mentor seemed to have regained a measure of alertness as well, sitting straighter on his camel and looking about with interest.
Children came forth at once to surround the caravan, chattering in a syrupy dialect of Gujaareen that Nijiri found barely comprehensible; they offered sweets, flasks of water, flowers and other welcoming trinkets. Adults came out of their houses or looked up from their work, waving. Gehanu, apparently well known to the townsfolk, waved back and called greetings as they rode along. The caravan kept moving forward until the street widened and they faced the oasis itself: a circular pond surrounded on all sides by a low wall, only a few dozen feet across but clearly the heart of the village. All the roads ran to it; irrigation lines radiated from its walls like the spokes of a wheel.
Here the troop stopped and dismounted, tethering the camels near troughs that had been set aside for watering animals. Gehanu walked through the group calling out instructions and the rules of the town: guard the caravan’s goods in shifts, disputes weren’t allowed at the water’s edge, and everyone was required to pay at least one visit to the village baths. “Or none of the maidens or lads here will look twice at you,” she said. A group of passing Tesa-girls giggled to emphasize her point.
Nijiri spent a while unloading and feeding the camels along with all the others. He spied the palanquin on the ground and surreptitiously watched as a young man helped the old woman walk around to ease the stiffness of her legs. She stopped every few steps to let out a series of hollow, wheezing coughs. Each one left her visibly drained, leaning harder on the young man’s arm. She was thin and weak and had probably been ill for months. Nijiri’s heart tightened in sympathy and anger.
“Thinking killing thoughts, boy?”
Nijiri started and turned to see Sunandi nearby, pouring a vase of water into the animals’ trough. She looked every inch the rough caravanner; her full lips were now chapped, her skin was dry, and gone were the brightly colored wraps she’d worn at Etissero’s, along with the earrings and the looping necklaces. Here she wore only shapeless layered robes in earthen tones, same as the rest of them; the only sensible attire for the high desert. The headcloth with which she’d covered her short-shorn hair did accent her angular, large-eyed face nicely—Nijiri reluctantly had to admit that she was quite beautiful—but aside from that, she might as well have been just another juggler or dancer with the caravan troop.
She did not look at him as she worked, and she kept her voice down, but he heard the edge in her tone.
“You believe it better for her to suffer like that?” he asked. “A Sharer could have eased her pain.”
“For a price.”
“A few dreams! From such an old one they would have been rich. All Gujaareh could benefit from the power within her.”