The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(97)

Ehiru stopped, frowning as he considered this. A merchant brushed past him and he shivered, his eyes unfocusing slightly as they tracked the merchant into the crowd. His body shifted, the fingers of one hand forking at his side—

Nijiri seized that hand and squeezed it hard. Ehiru flinched as if waking from a daydream, then closed his eyes in momentary anguish.

“The south gate,” he said. “Quickly. Get me out of this city, Nijiri.”

Nijiri nodded. Keeping hold of Ehiru’s hand, he pressed through the crowd in a new direction, praying that they reached Kite-iyan in time.





37





The world is born

Echoes, dancing fires, laughter

We race through the realm of dreams, alongside gods

The world ends.

(Wisdom)





The Prince of Gujaareh lay awake amid the cushions of his gauze-draped bed, contemplating the world he would one day own.

He had no particular desire for conquest. But he did desire peace—like any true son of Gujaareh—and he had long ago realized that peace was the natural outgrowth of order. This had been proven again and again throughout the grand dream that was Gujaareh. The rampant crime and violence that soiled other lands was alien here. No one starved, save in the most remote backwaters. Even the lowliest servant-caste had enough education and self-determination to control his own fate. Every child in the city knew his place from birth. Every elder in the city embraced his value in death. And on the strength of all who came between had Hananja’s nation thrived, growing from a pathetic knot of tents perched precariously on the river mouth into a network of cities and mines and farmlands and trade-routes crowned by its capital, the glory of the civilized world. His beautiful City of Dreams.

But the rest of the world still struggled along in disorder, and what peace could Gujaareh have in the long term with such weak and petty neighbors? He had visited other lands in his youth, and been horrified by chaos and cruelty that made the shadowlands seem pleasant. Other rulers had tried to tame that chaos with might or money, sometimes succeeding, but it never lasted. How could it, when a human lifetime was only so long? Even the most noble warlord eventually grew old and died, passing on power to those who more often than not were ill equipped to maintain it.

Thus the solution: conquer the world, but for peace rather than power. And to hold the world once it was won, become a god.

The Prince sat up. Beside him his firstwife Hendet stirred. He looked down at her and stroked her cheek, greeting her sleepy smile with one of his own. After thirty years and more than two hundred other wives, he still felt honored to have her favor. In the way of southern women, she was still beautiful even with her youth long past; time had left few seams in her dark smooth skin. But she was old—past fifty, nearly as old as himself. He yearned for more children from her, and perhaps could have had them if he’d permitted her to accept dreamblood from the Hetawa. But tempting as the notion had been, he could not bear the thought of the Hetawa’s setting its claws into yet another member of his family.

He kissed her forehead. “I would still rather you stay here. It will be dangerous.”

She lifted a hand to trace his lips with one finger. “Don’t be foolish.”

He smiled and nodded, approving of her decision despite the flicker of grief that moved through him. He would lose her when the power made him immortal. Another decade or two, and then she would pass beyond his reach into Ina-Karekh, where he would never see her again.

More sorrow to lay at the Hetawa’s feet, he decided. Then he rose, naked, to begin his war.

Servants draped a feather robe over him for the walk to the baths. There they sluiced his skin with purifying salt and lemon-water and dabbed him dry with oiled rose petals. When they finished dressing him in the armor of his ancestors and threading gold into his hair, he left the apartments to find Hendet and their son Wanahomen waiting for him. From his kneeling posture, Wana lifted a sword in a worked leather sheath. When the Prince took it, Wana raised his eyes to watch him belt it on, and not for the first time did the Prince marvel at the stark worship in his son’s gaze.

So be it, he thought. Let Hananja and the Moons’ children have the land of dreams. The waking world belonged to the sons of the Sun.

“Come,” he said, and Wanahomen rose, immediately falling into place one pace behind and to the right as they walked. Ever proper, Hendet followed on his left, her head high in anticipation and pride. As they entered the public corridors, his Aureole-servant leaped up to follow in his wake. The Prince considered waving the child away, but decided it would be more fitting to discard the Aureole afterward, when he had become a god in more than name. Charris fell in behind them, and thus they proceeded to the steps that led up Kite-iyan’s highest tower.

Around them the marble corridors were empty. For their own protection the Prince had sent all his other wives and children away, and stationed the Sunset Guard on the lowest floor of the palace to protect against attack. Only these four—an auspicious and pleasing number—would witness his ascension.

They mounted the steps in silence, passing the landing where Niyes had faced his final moments, not stopping until they reached the topmost level of the spire. As Charris opened the door, a finger of light pierced the faraway horizon and spread as the sun’s golden curve made its first appearance.

The Prince smiled. Far to the south, where the desert met the Kisuati border, the coming of dawn had signaled his armies’ attack.