The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(93)

“Come, Brother,” Eninket said to the creature. Fixing the stone to his breastplate, he held out his hands in a posture that was sickeningly familiar. Like the Hetawa’s statue of the Goddess, Ehiru realized with sinking horror—or a Sharer awaiting the transfer of a Gatherer’s collected tithes. After a moment, the Reaper shuffled to Eninket’s feet and knelt, taking his hands.

“No,” Ehiru whispered. But there was no mistaking the Reaper’s posture, a palsied mockery of the tithing ceremony. Nor could Ehiru deny the way Eninket suddenly caught his breath and stiffened, his face alighting in all-too-familiar ecstasy.

And even as Ehiru wept, a surge of pure, envious lust shot through him.

That was enough to send him to his knees, dry-retching over the dusty stones. He felt Nijiri’s hands on him, trying to pull him up or at least soothe him, but that was no help. By the time he finally lifted his head, blinking away tears and gasping for breath, the warped ceremony had ended. Eninket’s shadow fell over him, right in front of the bars and within arm’s reach at last—but so sickened was Ehiru that he could not muster the will to attack.

“I tell you this because you deserve the truth after so many lies, Ehiru,” Eninket said. His speech was faintly slurred, his eyes still hazy with lingering pleasure. “Dreamblood has more power than you could ever imagine. You know what a single life can do. What you don’t know—what the Hetawa has spent a thousand years hiding—is that the more lives one takes, and the more dreamblood one absorbs, the greater the transformations it triggers in body and soul.” He put a hand on the iron lattice and leaned forward, speaking softly and emphatically. “Take enough lives all at once, and the result is immortality.”

Ehiru frowned up at him, uncomprehending. Nijiri’s hands tightened on Ehiru’s back. “Impossible,” Ehiru heard him say.

Eninket gave them a lazy smile. Above it, his eyes glittered like citrines in the torchlight. “It was so for our founder Inunru,” he said. “Great Inunru, brilliant as a god, blessed by Hananja! Did you never wonder how one man could accomplish so much in a mortal lifetime? One hundred years after his first experiments he had not aged, did not die. More and more faithful flocked to the banner of Hananja as they saw him and realized the power of Her magic. The Kisuati Protectors finally banished his followers and outlawed narcomancy not because they feared the magic, but because they feared him. Inunru had made himself all but a god; they had to do something to destroy his influence.”

“Lies,” snapped Nijiri. “The Hetawa would have known of this. There would be records, the lore would have been chiseled into every wall—”

“The Hetawa had its own secrets to keep,” Eninket said, smiling coldly. Ehiru fixed his gaze on Una-une, who sat slumped and quiescent at Eninket’s feet. “Because another hundred years after his banishment from Kisua, right in the Hetawa’s Hall of Blessings, Inunru finally died when his own priests killed him. They, too, had come to fear him, because his power had only grown in the time since—and with it, his greed. So they killed him. And they rewrote Hetawa ritual, rewrote history itself, to make the world forget such magic existed.” Eninket leaned down, so that Ehiru had no choice but to look at him. “But I have found Inunru’s scrolls, Brother, and now I know. A Reaper is the key.”

He reached out and caressed Una-une’s bowed head with a tenderness that had nothing to do with affection.

“When our armies and those of Kisua meet on the battlefield,” Eninket continued, “their bloodlust and pain will draw the Reaper’s hunger like a moth to flame. But this moth will devour the flame, and through him so shall I. Una-une will die at last, burned out by the power… but I shall become as eternal as a god.” He paused, then gazed at Ehiru for a long solemn moment. “Then, however, I will need a new Reaper.”

Ehiru’s blood turned to stone.

With a soft sigh, Eninket turned away. “Rest well, Brother,” he said. “I’ll be back from Kite-iyan when the war is done. The guards will inform me when the necessary changes have taken place in you.” He started to leave, then paused and glanced at Nijiri. “You may think this no kindness… but at least the boy will be a willing first victim.”

With that, the Prince of Gujaareh walked away, gesturing for all the guards, even the ones who’d caged them, to follow. The children hooded the Reaper and coaxed it to its feet. It shuffled away between them, docile for the moment.

“Eninket,” Ehiru whispered. He did not know if it was a curse or a plea. If Eninket heard, he gave no sign.

The great stone doors rumbled shut once more, sealing them within the tomb.





FOURTH INTERLUDE





Have you fathomed the secret yet? The thread of folly that eventually wove our doom?

There is a reason we Servants of Hananja vow celibacy. There is a reason the Princes were leashed. These were raindrops in a waterfall, a grain of sand flung at a storm, but we tried. True dreamers are both geniuses and madmen. Most lands can tolerate only a few, and those die young. We encouraged ours, nurtured them, kept them healthy and happy. We filled a city with them and praised our own greatness. Do you understand just how beautiful, and how dangerous, that was?

And yes, I knew. I’ve told you I was a talekeeper; I have always known the answers to these questions. We train our children to keep their own counsel. When I became a Gatherer, I watched, and would have spoken if the need had come. Fortunately there is no need. Is there?