The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(55)
“I keep my promises to my brother,” said the Prince. “If he’s killed her, then escort him back here and allow him to return to the Hetawa. All charges against him will be dropped. Won’t they, Superior?”
In a low voice the Superior replied, “Yes.”
“If he has not killed her,” the Prince continued, “then our bargain is forfeit. Capture him and bring him back, but to Yanya-iyan. Unharmed, please. I’ll have another use for him.”
“You dare not.” That from the Superior, seething with fury—and fear, Rabbaneh sensed. “You dare not.”
“I dare far more than you could ever imagine, Superior.” There was a pause; ceramic clinked against ceramic as liquid poured. “Now go scurry back to your little hole, and cower there until I have need of you.”
To Rabbaneh’s amazement the Superior did not react to this contempt. Cloth shifted and sandals shuffled; the meeting was over.
Quickly Rabbaneh climbed down the pipe and dashed back through the alley and across the street to the building next door. The shadows engulfed him just as the door of the zhinha house opened. The Superior emerged, gesturing curtly for his Sentinel attendants to follow, and they headed away into the night.
Climbing up to the roof, Rabbaneh returned to where the guard lay sleeping, the scarab-jungissa still humming faintly on his forehead.
“You’re a fortunate man,” Rabbaneh whispered, removing the stone and laying fingers over the man’s eyes. “You’ll have a pleasant dream of shirking your duty and taking a nap. Your captain will likely punish you, but not with your life. That is because you won’t remember seeing me up here, except as a fragment of a dream.”
He wove the dream into the man’s mind as he spoke. It was not the most ethical application of narcomancy, but perhaps Hananja would forgive the misuse because his intentions were pure. And because the life of a pathbrother was at stake—though only the gods knew what could be done about it at this point.
It was enough that they knew, Rabbaneh decided, and he hurried home to share the knowledge with Sonta-i.
20
Tell me, Mother Moon O tell me
Ai-yeh, yai-yeh, e-yeh
When will Brother Sleep come calling?
Ai-yeh, an-yeh, e-yeh
On the night of river-dancing?
Ai-yeh, o-yeh, e-yeh
In the peace of Moonlight-dreaming?
Ai-yeh, hai-yeh, e-yeh
Tell me, Mother Moon O tell me
Ai-yeh, kuh-yeh, e-yeh
Who will bring my brother home?
Ai-yeh, si-yeh, e-yeh
Though I welcome him with singing
Ai-yeh, nai-yeh, e-yeh
Must I sing my song alone?
(Wisdom)
On the first day out of the city, the caravan crossed a tributary of the Goddess’s Blood, passing through a village called Ketuyae. There Nijiri had gotten his first glimpse of how the folk of the upriver towns lived. The rhythmic work songs of the washing women lingered in his mind, as did less pleasant memories of human wretchedness. Some of the structures used as homes in Ketuyae were little more than lean-tos made of mud and sticks and palm leaves. The village was too tiny to merit a satellite temple of Hananja; Nijiri saw only a single overworked Sharer whose hut was barely finer than the lean-tos. There were no public crypts for the dead, just patches of ground where bodies—not even burned!—had been crudely shoveled into the earth. He saw no clean well, no bathhouse. He couldn’t tell the highcastes from the servants. When he asked a fellow member of the caravan how children in the village were schooled, he got only a shrug in response.
Now Ketuyae was a fond memory. They had been traveling hard for two days since, passing first through arid rocky foothills and then into the vast, windswept dunes of the Empty Thousand. The desert was not actually a thousand miles wide, Nijiri understood, but it was hard to believe otherwise when from the back of his camel he could see nothing but sand and heat-haze in every direction. The remaining four days of the journey felt as though they might as well be a thousand years.
He had lost himself in unhappy contemplation of the grit in his eyes, the heat, and the rivulets of sweat tickling his back when he was shocked out of misery by cold water splashing onto his face and neck. He yelped and glanced around to see Kanek, one of Gehanu’s sons, grinning at him from another camel with an open canteen in his hands.
“Wake up, city boy.” Kanek was grinning. “We’re almost there.”
“There…?” Nijiri blinked away water, trying to comprehend. They couldn’t be at Kisua yet. And why was Kanek wasting water?
“The oasis at Tesa, city boy. See?”
He pointed ahead. Nijiri followed the arm and saw what at first seemed to be just another mirage glinting against the horizon. Then he noticed the palm trees spiking toward the sky, and buildings squatting around their trunks.
Kanek splashed more water at him. “We’ll get to bathe soon, and drink all we want, and wash our clothes so we no longer smell like dungheaps. So wake up!”
His good humor was infectious and Nijiri started splashing water at Kanek in return, giving him a good wetting before Gehanu turned and glared them back to discipline from several camels ahead. Still, the spirits of the whole caravan seemed to lift as the news spread. Nijiri glanced around for Ehiru, wondering if he dared splash his brother—and his fine mood dissipated at once. Ehiru’s camel plodded along near the rear of the caravan, moving more slowly than its fellows. Atop it, Ehiru rode with his head down and headcloth hanging ’round his face, giving no sign that he had heard the news.