“I know that.” The boy’s voice hardened suddenly and Ehiru looked at him in surprise. There was a taut, desperate sort of determination on his face—the determination of someone who knew he was doing wrong, yet did it anyhow. “But I can’t fulfill the charge of our brothers without your help. I can’t unravel so many secrets, and I can’t find and destroy the Reaper. Not alone. I’m only an apprentice, Ehiru-brother. You can’t ask so much of me.”
And Ehiru sighed, for he knew Nijiri was right.
“Then I shall return with you to Gujaareh,” he said at last, and shook his head at the wild flare of hope in the boy’s eyes. “Only that much, Nijiri. In Gujaareh Sonta-i and Rabbaneh can aid you in tracking down the Reaper and cleansing the Hetawa. Once you take my tithe—” Nijiri’s face fell; Ehiru continued ruthlessly. “You will be a Gatherer in full, then. Together the three of you will have the strength to do what must be done.”
The boy bowed over his hands, trembling. After several long seconds he lifted his head, composed, though Ehiru suspected it was just a veneer over utter peacelessness. That was a start, he supposed.
“Yes, Brother,” Nijiri said, his every word a grating resistance masquerading as calm. “I shall do as you ask.”
Ehiru let out a slow breath. Pushing himself to sit up, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and
an eye of light in the darkness, glaring and gloating as he shivered in a cage and begged Hananja for death
He froze.
“Brother?”
A vision. He was full of dreamblood, more than usual since he’d given no Sharer the surplus, and yet his soul still wandered.
“Brother.” There was fear in Nijiri’s voice now.
I share it, my apprentice.
How long before the madness claimed him again? An eightday? Less? How long before the hunger returned, this time insatiable? His blood chilled still further as he recalled what he’d done during the battle. He had put an awake, actively resisting man to sleep without a jungissa. He had torn the dreamblood from that man’s mind in mere breaths. Those were not the powers of a Gatherer.
How long before he became no different from the monster that had attacked Nijiri?
“Promise me you will do it, Nijiri,” he whispered. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “Promise me you’ll send me to Her while I am still Nsha.”
He had given his soulname to the boy only once, ten years ago, but of course Nijiri remembered it. From the corner of his eye, he saw the boy inhale. Then after a moment Nijiri said, sincerely now, “I swear it, Brother.” And he put his hand on Ehiru’s.
To show that he doesn’t fear me. Oh but you shall, my apprentice. All shall fear me in the end if you fail. Your comfort is hollow.
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?”