Her eyes rolled. “Willing, then. Though a dying man should not be so picky.”
“He’s not like you. To a Gatherer, death is a blessing.”
“But not to you.” She gave him a cold, knowing smile; he flinched. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. You would do anything to keep him alive—so you shall take this chance, even though you despise me. And then you shall stand beside him in the Protectors’ Hall and beg them for help, knowing that your every word increases my power. Then they will listen to me even though I’m only Kinja’s too-young, unseasoned daughter. We must use one another now, little killer, if we are both to achieve our goals.”
Nijiri flinched at her words and their implications—far beyond the petty schemes she imagined. It was as the Teachers, even lecherous Omin, had warned him: those who consort with the corrupt eventually become corrupt themselves. Evil was the most contagious of diseases, so virulent that no herb, surgery, or dream-humor could cure it. One’s sense of what was normal, acceptable, became distorted by proximity to wrongness; entire nations had succumbed this way, first to decadence, then collapse. Sunandi, and perhaps all Kisua, was well advanced in the throes—and now she had spat this sickness onto Nijiri. Only his will would determine whether the sickness passed and left him stronger, or consumed him wholly.
But he would keep others’ needs foremost in his thoughts, as Gatherer Rabbaneh had taught him. He would risk corruption, if that was what it took, to see that peace was restored and justice done. Because that was what a Gatherer did. And if it cost his soul to do so… well, at least he might save Ehiru. That, alone, would be worth it.
“So be it.” He turned away to go tell Ehiru the news. Perhaps, knowing that this hospital was near, his brother could hold out a little longer. But then he stopped.
Ehiru was on his feet. He had stepped out of the makeshift lean-to that the minstrels used to shield themselves from sun at the midday rest, and stood now facing north. To Nijiri’s eye the deterioration was obvious in the way that Ehiru swayed slightly as he stood, and in the hollows of his face; he had no appetite these days. But his back was straight and his eyes—though dimmed at the moment by a slight confusion, as though he doubted something he saw—were for the moment lucid. Nijiri felt hope rise a notch higher. Surely Ehiru could last another day or two.
“Something is out there,” Ehiru said suddenly. The minstrels glanced around at him in surprise. He took another step onto the hot, rocky sand. “Someone is coming.”
Nijiri went to him, Sunandi forgotten as he touched his brother’s arm and spoke in a low voice. “Is it a vision, Brother? Tell me what you see.”
“Evil,” Ehiru said, and for a sick instant Nijiri wondered if Ehiru spoke of him. But the Gatherer’s eyes were fixed on the horizon.
“No. Gods, no.” The Kisuati woman stood nearby; Nijiri saw that her eyes too had fixed on the horizon. Puzzled, Nijiri followed their gazes and finally saw for himself: a row of dust-shrouded specks amid the wavering heat-lines, flickering and solidifying and flickering again—but growing closer.
“Evil, and blood,” Ehiru said, and then he turned to Nijiri. “We should run.”
26
A Gatherer shall submit himself to Her test once per year. He shall purge himself of all tithes, and travel between dreaming and waking with only Her favor to guide him. He shall endure in this state for three nights, or until death draws nigh. At the height of this test, he shall be attended by one who does not begrudge Hananja’s tithe. If even once the Gatherer claims Her tithe for his own selfish desires, he shall fail.
In the borderlands between Ina-Karekh and Hona-Karekh, a voice whispers.
For a time Ehiru could ignore the voice, as he had long ago learned to do. Deny a vision and it has no power. This one is easy to deny. It is soft, sometimes inaudible, rambling and gibbering when he can hear it. But it never stops, and every so often it says something so provocative that he cannot help responding.
His words were full of lies. “Remember that I freed you” love me forgive me serve me.
Eninket? thinks Ehiru. Perhaps.
One lie, another lie. The Superior. The Kisuati woman. The Law and Wisdom of your faith. Your brothers, all your brothers.
No. I do not believe that.
All your brothers. Even the boy. Brother protector lover son.
Nijiri would never lie to me. I will listen to no more of this.
A vision:
He walks along the banks of the Blood at sunset, Kite-iyan gleaming atop its hill in the near distance. He is small. His mother holds his hand. He looks up at the woman he can no longer remember clearly, though parts of her linger in his mind: skin smooth as polished nightstone, a laugh rich like cattail wine, eyes that are pools on a Dreamer-less night. Is she beautiful? She must be, for she is a foreigner and yet has become the firstwife of a king. He wishes he could remember more of her.
“Soon,” he says to her, a man’s voice coming from his childish throat. “I will see you again very soon.”
She looks at him, dark lips and graceful brows and blurred perfection, and he knows that she is sad. This troubles him for reasons he cannot remember. But when he opens his mouth to speak to her again, the words flee and the thoughts jumble and the vision is
“It is not real, Brother.”
Ehiru blinks and sees darkness. Cold air goosebumps his skin. The Dreamer’s shifting light makes the dunes seem to roll like water in the distance. A warm body presses against his on the pallet. Nijiri.
“I know,” Ehiru says, though he is beginning to doubt that what he sees is not real. His mind has begun to wander toward Ina-Karekh, and he knows better than anyone that the land of dreams is a real place with real power.
“I want to be with my mother,” he says, and the boy flinches. Ehiru regrets inflicting pain in this manner, but Nijiri is a man by the laws of their people, a sworn Servant of the Goddess. It is time for him to face the responsibility of his role. “At Kite-iyan. You have never seen that palace, so I will describe it to you.” And he does so, drawing on a hundred memories from his childhood, embellishing its beauty unnecessarily. “I can shape the rest, but it must be that place. She will be there, and I want to see her again.”
The boy’s tears wet his skin. “Do not ask this of me, Brother. Please.”
But there is no one else and they both know it. And even if their other brothers were available he would choose Nijiri, for the boy loves him. That is the key, Ehiru understands now. Gathering is an act of love; without that, it becomes something perverse. When Nijiri Gathers him there will be beauty more sublime than he has ever known, because the boy has loved him for years, loved him through pain and beyond, loved him with a strength that pales the Sun’s love for the Dreamer.
He feels no shame at the thought of using that love for his own ends. It has always been a gift freely given between them.
The voice returns at mid-morning, when they resume their ride and monotony weakens the wall he has built to contain the madness. He ignores most of its ravings until it says,
The Kisuati woman is beautiful, is she not?
He is prepared for this. Lust is one of the first emotions to break free once a Gatherer’s dreamblood reserves are drained. He ignores the voice and the image it plants in his mind: Sunandi lying on a red cloth, her long neck bent back for his lips, her full breasts ready for his hands, desire in her long-lashed eyes. There is a powerful stir in his loins, but this too he ignores out of long habit.