“Perhaps you should say this to your apprentice, priest.”
Ehiru shook his head, slowly, and brushed away a persistent biting insect. “I’ve known Nijiri since he was a child. Nothing stops him, or dissuades him, once he sets his mind on a thing. That will make him a good Gatherer.” And then, because the moment seemed to demand a degree of candor, he added, “And I’m selfish enough to want his love, for whatever time I have left. I won’t abuse it, but… I’m not strong enough to turn it away, either. Perhaps you’ll think less of me, for that.”
She sighed and hunkered down to crouch beside him, arms wrapped around her knees. “No. I don’t think less of you. Embrace love while you have it, priest—from whichever direction it comes, proper or improper, for however long it lasts. Because it always, always comes to an end.”
Her pain, her aching loneliness, was almost more than Ehiru could bear. He wanted so badly to touch her, stroke away her sorrow and administer peace in its wake, but he dared not. His desire for her was dangerously strong already. Then too, he realized sadly, he could not spare the dreamblood. His mind was consuming what he’d taken from the soldier far too quickly.
Well, there were other ways to share peace.
“I’m no woman,” Ehiru said. “I won’t have the strength to travel on my own, once I dwell permanently in Ina-Karekh. But before that, if I have the opportunity, I’ll seek out this Kinja, and tell him what a lucky man he is.”
A small tremor passed through her, and her face twitched. “Thank—” But she could not complete the phrase. Tears welled in her eyes, abruptly. Ehiru looked away and fell silent, to allow her that much privacy.
After a moment, she took a deep breath and said, in a calmer tone, “The boy says you mean to, er, take up permanent residence in Ina-Karekh soon.”
“Yes. I must.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m no longer fully in control of my mind, Jeh Kalawe. Even this moment is just an island of lucidity in the flood of madness that surrounds me. In truth, you shouldn’t be alone with me. It isn’t safe.”
“The boy doesn’t fear you.”
“But you should. Even he should.” He sighed, watching the garden’s shadows shift in a breeze.
“No.” To Ehiru’s surprise, he felt Sunandi’s hand cover his. “In the desert, you endured days of madness when you could easily have taken me. That’s not the way of a murdering beast, no matter what you did to that soldier. And as you say, Gatherer—sometimes, no matter how horrid the outcome, we must judge a person by his intentions rather than his actions.”
And then, to his greater shock, she leaned in and kissed him.
It lasted only a breath, just long enough for him to taste the merest hint of her berry-dark, rose petal–soft lips. He had never kissed a woman before. Later, he would recall the scent of whatever oil she’d put on after her bath, the sound of her breathing, an impression of cinnamon on the tip of his tongue. The feel of her hand on his, and the softness of her breast against his arm. Later he would imagine pulling her closer, regret that he would never know the fulfillment of such thoughts, and be glad, at least, that he’d had the chance to experience this in his last days of waking.
Then she pulled back with a small sad smile, and he stared at her, still stunned.
“May Hananja’s inward sight be ever upon you,” she said softly, the blessing’s syllables rolling beautifully in her native tongue. Then she stroked his cheek with one hand. “I can’t wish you peace, for when you return to your homeland you must fight. But good luck.”
And then she got to her feet and left the garden. Ehiru stared after her for a long while, unsure of what to think, or whether to think at all. Eventually, though, it came to him that he felt better. More certain of the choices he’d made, and the path he faced. In her own way, she had given him peace.
“Peace and luck to you as well, Sunandi of Kisua,” he said softly. “And farewell.”
33
There is the flood, once per year, which marks experience. There is the full Dreamer, once per decade, which marks knowledge. There is the Waking Moon each morning, which marks contemplation. There is the river, ever-present, which marks history.
Traveling with the flow of the Goddess’s Blood, it took nine days to reach the outskirts of the Gujaareen Territories. Nijiri spent most of those days doing his share of work on the merchant barge that bore them north toward home. When he was not working the longoar or fishing for their dinner, he whiled away the hours watching the greenlands pass on either side of the river as they drifted along. Sometimes he played tehtet, a numbering game that required one to bluff and lie to win, with the vessel’s Kisuati crew. Unintentionally he endeared himself to them by losing every round.
Keeping busy helped Nijiri avoid thinking of the future, although that went only so far. Sometimes he would look up and see Ehiru, who spent most of his own free hours standing at the prow of the barge like a solemn statue, absorbed in whatever thoughts occupied his mind these days. At other times the barge would float through a village, gliding past farmers preparing their fields for second planting and children watering their beasts at the riverside. At such times Nijiri would be painfully struck by the overwhelming normality of what he saw. Beyond the fields, vast and terrible conspiracies were in motion: armies on the move, monsters unleashed, death on a nightmarish scale threatening to swallow all the land. Yet for the common folk of Kisua and Gujaareh, life went on as it had for centuries, unscathed by time or trouble.
This is what we fight for, Nijiri would think in such moments, waving and smiling at a farm child or pretty maiden. This simple, ordered life was Hananja’s truest peace, which priests of the Hetawa had devoted their lives to protecting for generations. This was what it truly meant to be a Servant of Hananja.
Then he would look at Ehiru and remember what awaited them in Gujaareh, and whatever peace he had found would vanish again.
Thus did he pass the days as the villages became trade-posts, and the trade-posts became towns and smaller cities, and at last on the tenth day the towers and sprawl of Gujaareh’s capital began to grow in the distance.
The barge captain—a former Kisuati army officer—was sanguine about the risks as the crew prepared for the end of its journey. “I’ve smuggled more than my share of contraband through Gujaareh’s gates,” he said to Nijiri as they stacked goods for the tax assessors. “You’re no different from the rest, so relax.”
But Nijiri could not relax. The sight of Gujaareh’s familiar walls had stirred both homesickness and dread within him, and as they drew nearer, the dread grew. This was not dread for the inevitable duty he faced when the time came for Ehiru’s Final Tithe; that particular misery was a steady, omnipresent thing. The new feeling was at once sharper and more alarming.
Troubled and restless, he went to Ehiru, who manned the second longoar so that they could steer more precisely now that other vessels had begun to appear with greater frequency around them. All the river’s traffic had increased as they approached Gujaareh’s gateway port; the crew joked that soon they would be able to cross the river by stepping from boat to boat.
“My heart flutters like a moth in my chest, Brother,” he murmured, taking hold of the pole to assist Ehiru. “I’ve never had a true-seeing, but everything in me is frightened of returning to the city.”
“We have no reason to fear,” Ehiru said, keeping his voice just as low. “No one is looking for us, or at least not here. Gujaareh has grown wealthy by treating traders kindly; we have only to be calm and we should pass the gates with no incident.”