The Shadowed Sun

by N. K. Jemisin

  And just like that, Hanani understood why he was so angry.

  “What happened to me was not your fault,” she said, as gently as she could.

  “I was two tents away! I should’ve heard. I should’ve known—” He faltered silent, his fists tight at his sides.

  Hanani rose, went over to him, and took his hands, looking into his eyes so that he would see she did not blame him. “I am some years past childhood, Brother. You can’t protect me from all the world.”

  He looked at her with his eyes full of regret, lifting a hand to her cheek in a way that he had not in years. He had stopped that at the same time he had stopped hugging her, and she had missed both terribly in the years since. So she leaned against his hand, letting him know without words how grateful she was for the gesture, and he let out a long pained sigh.

  “You’re the daughter I never knew I needed,” he said softly. “No one can love another person so powerfully and still keep perfect peace in his heart. I shouldn’t love you as I do. But I don’t care, Hanani. I do not care.”

  Nor do I, Brother, she thought to herself. I could never regret loving you as much as I do.

  Yet Mni-inh had spoken truly. As Sharers, they had pledged devotion only to their petitioners and tithebearers and fellow Servants, in service of the Goddess. Individual love—the selfish, powerful stuff of families and lovers—interfered with that.

  So Hanani said nothing, but she lifted her hand to cover his. Mni-inh smiled, his face wry and somber. “And here I’ve been adding to your burdens,” he said. “Even as you struggle with this yourself, you must take the time to comfort me.” He sighed. “Forgive me.”

  She shook her head, not wanting to speak. But something within her relaxed, just a little, as he put words to the frustration she’d been nursing for days. So she felt better when Mni-inh let out a long, slow breath, and let her go.

  “Train your Prince,” he said. “If you can. He’s old for it, and probably too barbarian-minded. But if you’re determined to do this, I’ll help you.”

  She managed a smile, for him. “Thank you, Brother.” He nodded, sighing. “Now. If you’re going to try and bludgeon magic into that fool’s head, you’ll need all your strength. Let’s go see whether these savages can manage a decent meal, hmm?”

  So it was that later that evening, after an absolutely delicious meal at the communal hearth for those who lacked slaves, Hanani followed young Tassa up a long trail that was little more than a series of vaguely connected ledges along Merik-ren-aferu’s eastern wall. Tassa, born and raised to canyon life, scrambled over rock piles and up steep slopes like a lizard, snickering at Hanani whenever she balked or had to stop and rest. But he did not leave her, for which she was grateful.

  During one rest, as she sat on a flat slab of rock and prayed the snakes and spiders under it would stay put, he came to sit beside her, his eyes bright and curious. “Why?” he asked. “Go, Wana. You.” He pointed up toward the top of the cliff, which Hanani could not see; the lantern she carried cast a bright circle, but beyond it was darkness. She could only hope they were close.

  “To teach him,” she said, keeping the words simple. “Dreams.” She pantomimed sleeping, resting her cheek on her folded hands.

  He frowned at that, considering. “Because …” He groped for words for a moment. “Go, Wana. To, to Gujaareh. You teach dreams, because?”

  It was too difficult to explain. Even if Tassa had spoken Gujaareen fluently, he was still just a child. But she had seen how it pained the Prince to withhold his Gujaareen heritage from the boy. So she lifted her fingers in front of Tassa’s eyes, though she did not reach for his face. “May I?”

  He frowned—looking much like his sire in that moment—but finally curiosity won out: he nodded and shut his eyes. Hanani laid her fingers on his eyelids and wove him a quick, delicate teaching dream. She had been to the palace Yanya-iyan a few times in her life, usually as part of the Hetawa’s annual Hamyan processional. She showed Tassa this, walking in her dream through the shining palace gates into the vast courtyard, and stopping before the dais where, traditionally, the Prince of Gujaareh oversaw the annual celebration. There had been no prince on the dais for ten years, but Hanani had glimpsed the old Prince, Wanahomen’s father, once in her childhood. So she drew upon that memory to create him, lean and proud and statue-still on the white oxbow seat that was his throne, with the gold-and-amber Aureole of the Setting Sun behind and above him.

  Then, slowly, she replaced that Prince with another: Wanahomen. He sat on the same throne, his face full of hauteur and power, wearing a red silk skirt and a collar of gold plates, a red headcloth making a portrait of his face beneath the domelike ivory crown.

  When she ended this dream, Tassa stared at her in wonder. “Wana?”

  Hanani smiled and nodded. “Gujaareh is the City of Dreams. Wana, he must have good dreams, healthy dreams, to rule us. To be our Prince. Do you understand?”

  Tassa frowned, but not in incomprehension, she thought. He drew up his knees on the rock, and Hanani saw melancholy in his eyes. “Prince here,” he said sullenly. “Hunt leader before, under Unte, is tribe leader after Unte. But …”

  He could never be satisfied with this, Hanani knew. She saw that new understanding in Tassa’s eyes, and then regretted showing the boy the truth. The Prince had been raised amid a magnificence that not even the richest Banbarra tribe could match. Tassa could have that glory too, as a son of the Sunset—but only at a terrible cost. Yanassa had explained: Banbarra children belonged to their mother’s clan, with aunts and grandmothers to help rear them and uncles to teach boys the ways of men. Banbarra men had no claim on the children they sired, only the ones born to their own female relatives. To give Tassa his Gujaareen birthright, the Prince would have to steal from him his Banbarra birthright, and all the family he’d known and loved.

  When I return to Gujaareh, I will lose my son. Recalling the Prince’s words, Hanani understood two things at once: that Yanassa was both generous and brave to allow Tassa so much contact with his father, and that the Prince was less selfish and arrogant than he seemed.

  Hanani sighed and touched Tassa’s hand. “My parents sold me away when I was younger than you,” she said. “You’re very fortunate to have parents who love you as much as yours.”

  He didn’t understand; she saw that in his puzzled look. But then his eyes flew wide, and he leaped to his feet and drew a chunk of chipped rock—a homemade knife, Hanani realized as she rose as well—from a fold of his robes. He turned to face a dark part of the trail beyond the lantern’s light, tense and trembling.

  But it was only the Prince who stepped quietly out of the shadows. Tassa caught his breath and slumped in visible relief.

  The Prince came over to them, his eyes amused as he looked at Tassa’s paltry knife. He said something in Chakti, and Tassa squirmed with embarrassment and tried to put the knife away. Before he could, the Prince took his hand and crouched, taking the knife from him to examine. He shook his head, but then his eyes went soft as he gazed at Tassa. He lifted a hand to the boy’s cheek, and in spite of herself Hanani could not help remembering the warmth of Mni-inh’s hand.

  Then the Prince stood and untied one of the knives around his waist. The hilt was polished bone, the sheath beautifully worked leather; he drew the blade for a moment and its steel sheen caught the light. Then he sheathed it again, wrapped the tasseled cords around its hilt, and handed this to Tassa.

  Tassa inhaled sharply, taking the knife with both hands. In a reverent tone he asked a question; the Prince nodded. Tassa, eyes shining, babbled an excited, barely coherent thanks and then ran off into the shadows, clutching the knife to his chest and grinning like a fool.

  The Prince watched the boy leave, sighing hard enough to lift his veil. “Wujjeg’s folly comes in handy. Though Yanassa will have words for me.”

  “A knife is a dangerous gift for a child.”

  “Yes. But among the Banbarra, boys who aspire to be warriors
usually get one at about his age.” He examined the small stone knife—little better than a sharp rock—and then tossed it into the shadows. “And if he’s so determined to have one, he should have one that won’t fail when he needs it.”

  He seemed oddly somber; Hanani could detect none of the usual brooding or scorn in his manner. She ventured, “If it is traditional, then Yanassa—”

  “Yanassa wants him to become an account-master or a talekeeper or a smith. Anything but a warrior.” He shrugged. “Yet he is my son, for all she might regret that now.”

  He had overheard her conversation with Tassa, she realized. The rocks echoed sound; on such a quiet night every word must have been clear.

  “Well, children rarely grow as their parents wish,” he continued, moving to sit across from her, getting as comfortable as he could against a sloping rock face. “Yours must be astounded by you.”

  Hanani folded her hands in her lap. “Mine likely do not think of me often, if at all.”

  He hesitated. “You said they sold you.”

  “Yes. We were farmcaste; our crops failed one year. It’s a girl-child’s duty to see to the well-being of her family in times of trouble. So I asked them to sell me.”

  He frowned. “I’d heard such things happened among lowcastes, but … How old were you?”

  “I had seen six floods of the river.”

  “Six!” He shook his head. “You couldn’t have known what you were asking.”

  She shrugged. She had not, but it no longer mattered.

  “Why the Hetawa?” he asked. “They have little use for females—or at least, that was the case before you. Surely your parents could have gotten more selling you to another farmcaste family that had no daughters, or a timbalin house, or elsewhere.”

  Hanani watched the lantern’s flame dance in a chilly breeze. The movement was nearly as entrancing as a sleep-spell. “It was my choice,” she said. “The Hetawa always seemed so magnificent to me. All the fine, wise priests, and the magic, and the chance to learn as much as I wished … Even if only for a few years, I wanted it.”

  “And your parents did what would make you happiest, even though it made you less valuable for their needs.” His eyes, above the veil, watched her steadily.

  It was something that had never occurred to Hanani. For children adopted by the Hetawa, the Goddess Hananja became mother, the Servants fathers, fellow adoptees an army of siblings. It had helped to believe that—and to forget the family that had birthed her—during those first lonely, homesick nights. Eventually it had become true. But perhaps she too had been fortunate to have parents who loved her so well that her happiness mattered more than their desires.

  She inclined her head to the Prince, grateful for his insight. He looked briefly flustered, then sat up straighter. “Shall we begin this lesson?”

  “Oh. Yes.” It was a blunt, jarring transition in the conversation. She had never known a Gujaareen to be so inelegant. Even the Kisuati had more delicacy. “Well. May I examine you?”

  He nodded, and she rose and went to him. It was difficult to position herself properly in the encumbering skirts, but she managed to do it by resting a hand on his shoulder. This caused him to glance down at her hand, an oddly thoughtful look in his eyes.

  “It didn’t bruise,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Where the Kisuati soldier struck me. You offered to heal me that day, as I recall.”

  Hanani had forgotten. It jarred her, especially given that he had tried to save her then from the same sort of treatment Azima had inflicted later.

  She could not, would not, dwell on that thought. “Close your eyes,” she said. The words, and the tone, were just as clumsy as his own attempt to change the subject had been, and her voice sounded cold even to her own ears. His eyes went equally cold in response. But without another word, he leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes.

  There’s too much anger in my heart for this, Hanani realized. But the words were said now, and the lesson begun; she had no choice but to proceed.

  So she laid her fingers on his eyelids and sought his soul. There were layers and layers of him to search, not just flesh but constrictions of will and emotion. It would have gone more easily if she could’ve put him to sleep, but it was important that she know him in waking as well as dreaming—more, Mni-inh had advised her, because it was his waking self that she would teach, regardless of the realm they entered. So she delved down through the fierceness and loneliness and pride and protectiveness of him, and when she entered the rush of the great artery above his heart she found his soul and then—

  What?

  Something shifted.

  Instead of the darkness behind her eyelids, she found herself adrift in a far deeper black. For a moment she was disoriented, and then she realized: she was not inside the Prince anymore. The connection remained, she saw: a bright, blood-red line crossed the space. His tether, the umblikeh, which bound his soul to flesh. Hanani’s own was visible too, in this formless place.

  She did not like the formlessness. But just as she thought this, the space around her brightened, becoming the Hall of Blessings again. All in gray.

  The realms between. Alarmed, Hanani whirled toward the Hall’s alcoves, where before she had glimpsed—she now knew—the force that had killed Dayuhotem. But nothing was there. Relieved, she turned back to Hananja’s statue and the dais, and saw herself, another her, clad in voluminous robes that billowed in an unfelt wind.

  Kneeling at the Goddess’s feet, and using a knife—the knife the Prince had just given his son—to hack repeatedly at a tiny figure before her, which was already an unrecognizable red desecration.

  Hanani screamed. The other Hanani paused and looked up at her, and smiled through tears and splattered blood.

  No! I would never! Wildly, Hanani grabbed for her own tether and—

  —Fell back into herself, so swiftly and powerfully that she jerked back from Wanahomen with a gasp.

  His eyes snapped open, surprised and puzzled. “What is it?”

  “I—I don’t—” She was disoriented, sluggish; she could not muster her thoughts. Had he not seen that vision of horror? Did he have no recollection of his own dreams at all? “I don’t know. I was …”

  “Gods, you’re swaying like a drunkard.” The Prince reached out to steady her, one hand on her waist and the other on her thigh.

  On her thigh, like Azima’s hands—

  The panic struck before Hanani could think. “Don’t touch me!” Her voice was barely intelligible, a scream with words, and she kicked and flailed to get away from him. Tripping on her skirts, she fell amid the rocks and dust, panting and gasping and trembling so hard she could barely breathe. She kept scrabbling on hands and knees, stopping only when she reached a big slab of rock that blocked the trail.

  There was a long silence behind her, and in it Hanani’s terror began to fade.

  “I won’t touch you,” the Prince said. He spoke softly, his voice subdued. “What shall I do, to help you? I could go fetch your mentor, but that means leaving you here alone.”

  She had begun to regain control of herself. The tremors eased as she pushed herself up slowly, groping for dignity as she turned to face him. “N-no,” she said. “I’m sorry. I, I don’t know why …” Oh, but she knew why. They both did. “I’m sorry.”

  “Of all people, you should not apologize to me,” he said. She would not think about his words, or recognize the regret in them, until later. “It’s safe here, Sharer-Apprentice. I will allow no one else to harm you, ever again.”

  Amazingly, impossibly, the words actually comforted her. They shouldn’t have. She had no reason to trust him. Still, the fact that he was the only man there, and had made no move to touch her again, had its own wordless power, and she calmed further. He fell silent then, which helped more: she could pretend he wasn’t there and seek peace within herself. So at last, she took a deep breath and shifted to sit on her knees.

  �
��I think,” she said, enunciating carefully, “that we should end the lesson here for the night.”

  The Prince had come to a crouch near the dwindling lantern; he nodded. To her relief, he didn’t ask again about the strangeness she had found in his dreams, or whether she was all right. “Let me escort you back.”

  She nodded, getting to her feet. The Prince picked up the lantern and came to stand near enough that she could see by its light, but not near enough to touch her. She did not look at him. In silence, he led her back to camp.

  27

  Dreaming Awake

  There was a strange feel to the night air. Gatherer Inmu noticed it while leaping from one rooftop to another on his way back to the Hetawa. If the rooftop had been one of the sloped, tiled monstrosities favored by zhinha and others with exotic foreign tastes, Inmu would have ended up counting his bones in the alley below. Fortunately the roof was flat. Inmu landed badly, rolling once to dissipate the force of the impact, but unharmed aside from pride.

  His pride took another blow as he looked up and spied Gatherer Nijiri’s still form in the shadows of the roof’s cistern.

  Embarrassed, he got to his feet. But to his relief, Nijiri did not chide him for his clumsiness. In fact, though they had agreed to meet here at the end of their rounds, Nijiri had not seemed to notice Inmu at all. As Inmu stepped closer, he saw that Nijiri was utterly still, one hand braced against the cistern, his gaze turned inward and a look that was part anger, part fear, frozen on his face.

  Nijiri may never know true peace, Inmu’s mentor Rabbaneh had told him once. He has enough for his petitioners, but I think he may never find what he needs for happiness. Not here in the Hetawa, anyhow.

  It troubled Inmu, sometimes, to think that one of his brothers suffered so. They all knew why: Ehiru. Yet Nijiri was a perfect Gatherer in every other way—swift and silent on the hunt, deadly in combat, tender in the taking of tithes. Was it his lingering grief that made him so competent? Inmu had no idea, but he had resolved to study this brother until he found a way to help him.