The Mammoth Book Of Warriors and Wizardry (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Sean Wallace

  And he turned his kohl-lined eyes to Cet.

  Night had fallen, humid and thick, by the time Cet went to the woman. Her companions were already abed, motionless on pallets the crew had laid on deck. One of the Sentinels was asleep; the other stood at the prow with the ship’s watchman.

  The woman still sat on her bench. Cet watched her for a time, wondering if the lapping water and steadily passing palm trees had lulled her to sleep, but then she lifted a hand to brush away a persistent moth. Throwing a glance at Ginnem – who was snoring faintly on his bench – Cet rose and went to sit across from the woman. Her eyes were lost in some waking dream until he sat down, but they sharpened very quickly.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Namsut.” Her voice was low and warm, touched with some southlands accent.

  “I am Cet,” he replied.

  “Gatherer Cet.”

  “Does my title trouble you?”

  She shook her head. “You bring comfort to those who suffer. That takes a kind heart.”

  Surprised, Cet smiled. “Few even among the Goddess’s most devout followers see anything other than the death I bring. Fewer still have ever called me kind for it. Thank you.”

  She shook her head, looking into the passing water. “No one who has known suffering would think ill of you, Gatherer.”

  Widowed twice, raped, shunned . . . He tried to imagine her pain and could not. That inability troubled him, all of a sudden.

  “I will find the brigands who hurt you,” he said, to cover his discomfort. “I will see that their corruption is excised from the world.”

  To his surprise, her eyes went hard as iron, though she kept her voice soft. “They did nothing to me that two husbands had not already done,” she said. “And wife-brokers before that, and my father’s creditors before that. Will you hunt down all of them?” She shook her head. “Kill the brigands, but not for me.”

  This was not at all the response that Cet had expected. So confused was he that he blurted the first question that came to his mind. “What shall I do for you, then?”

  Namsut’s smile threw him even further. It was not bitter, that smile, but neither was it gentle. It was a smile of anger, he realized at last. Pure, politely restrained, tooth-grinding rage.

  “Give me a child,” she said.

  In the morning, Cet spoke of the woman’s request to Ginnem.

  “In the upriver towns, the headman’s wife rules if the headman dies,” Cet explained as they broke their fast. “That is tradition, according to Namsut. But a village head must prove him or herself favored by the gods, to rule. Namsut says fertility is one method of proof.”

  Ginnem frowned, chewing thoughtfully on a date. A group of women on the passing shore were doing laundry at the riverside, singing a rhythmic song while they worked. “That explains a great deal,” he said at last. “Mehepi has proven herself at least able to conceive, but after so many dead children the village must be wondering if she too is cursed. And since having a priest for a lover might also connote the gods’ favor, I know now why Mehepi has been eying me with such speculation.”

  Cet started, feeling his cheeks heat. “You think she wants . . .” He took a date to cover his discomfort. “From you?”

  Ginnem grinned. “And why not? Am I not fine?” He made a show of tossing his hair, setting all the tiny bells a-tinkle.

  “You know full well what I mean,” Cet said, glancing about in embarrassment. Some of the other passengers looked their way at the sound of Ginnem’s hair-bells, but no one was close enough to overhear.

  “Yes, and it saddens me to see how much it troubles you,” Ginnem said, abruptly serious. “Sex, Gatherer Cet. That is the word you cannot bring yourself to say, isn’t it?” When Cet said nothing, Ginnem made an annoyed sound. “Well, I will not let you avoid it, however much you and your stiffnecked Servant brethren disapprove. I am a Sister of the Goddess. I use narcomancy – and yes, my body when necessary – to heal those wounded spirits that can be healed. It is no less holy a task than what you do for those who cannot be healed, Gatherer, save that my petitioners do not die when I’m done!”

  He was right. Cet bent at the waist, his eyes downcast, to signal his contrition. The gesture seemed to mollify Ginnem, who sighed.

  “And no, Mehepi has not approached me,” Ginnem said, “though she’s hardly had time, with three such devoted attendants . . .” Abruptly he caught his breath. “Ahh – yes, now I understand. I first thought this was a simple matter of a powerful senior wife plotting against a weaker secondwife. But more than that – this is a race. Whichever woman produces a healthy child first will rule the village.”

  Cet frowned, glancing over at the young woman again. She had finally allowed herself to sleep, leaning against one of the canopy-pillars and drawing her feet up on to the bench. Only in sleep was her face peaceful, Cet noticed. It made her even more beautiful, though he’d hardly imagined that possible.

  “The contest is uneven,” he said. He glanced over at the headwoman Mehepi – acting headwoman, he realized now, by virtue solely of her seniority. She was still asleep on one of the pallets, comfortable between two of her men. “Three lovers to none.”

  “Yes.” Ginnem’s lip curled. “That curse business was a handy bit of cleverness on Mehepi’s part. No man will touch the secondwife for fear of sharing the curse.”

  “It seems wrong,” Cet said softly, gazing at Namsut. “That she should have to endure yet another man’s lust to survive.”

  “You grew up in the city, didn’t you?” When Cet nodded, Ginnem said, “Yes, I thought so. My birth-village was closer to the city, and surely more fortunate than these people’s, but some customs are the same in every backwater. Children are wealth out here, you see – another miner, another strong back on the farm, another eye to watch for enemies. A woman is honored for the children she produces, and so she should be. But make no mistake, Gatherer: this contest is for power. The secondwife could leave that village. She could have asked asylum of your Temple Superior. She returns to the village by choice.”

  Cet frowned, mulling over that interpretation for a moment. It did not feel right.

  “My father was a horse-trader,” he said. Ginnem raised an eyebrow at the apparent non sequitur; Cet gave him a faint shrug of apology. “Not a very good one. He took poor care of his animals, trying to squeeze every drop of profit from their hides.”

  Even after so many years it shamed Cet to speak of his father, for anyone who listened could guess what his childhood had been like. A man so neglectful of his livelihood was unlikely to be particularly careful of his heirs. He saw this realization dawn on Ginnem’s face, but to Cet’s relief Ginnem merely nodded for Cet to continue.

  “Once, my father sold a horse – a sickly, half-starved creature – to a man so known for his cruelty that no other trader in the city would serve him. But before the man could saddle the horse, it gave a great neigh and leapt into the river. It could have swum back to shore, but that would have meant recapture. So it swam in the opposite direction, deeper into the river, where finally the current carried it away.”

  Ginnem gave Cet a skeptical look. “You think the secondwife wants the village to kill her?”

  Cet shook his head. “The horse was not dead. When last I saw it, it was swimming with the current, its head above the water, facing whatever fate awaited it downriver. Most likely it drowned or was eaten by predators. But what if it survived the journey, and even now runs free over some faraway pasture? Would that not be a reward worth so much risk?”

  “Ah. All or nothing; win a better life or die trying.” Ginnem’s eyes narrowed as he gazed contemplatively at Cet. “You understand the secondwife well, I see.”

  Cet drew back, abruptly unnerved by the way Ginnem was looking at him. “I respect her.”

  “You find her beautiful?”

  He said it with as much dignity as he could: “I am not blind.”

  Ginnem looked Cet up and down in a
way that reminded Cet uncomfortably of his father’s customers. “You are fine enough,” Ginnem said, with more than a hint of lasciviousness in his tone. “Handsome, healthy, intelligent. A tad short, but that’s no great matter if she does not mind a small child—”

  “‘A Gatherer belongs wholly to the Goddess’,” Cet said, leaning close so that the disapproval in his voice would not be heard by the others. “That is the oath I swore when I chose this path. The celibacy—”

  “Comes second to your primary mission, Gatherer,” Ginnem said in an equally stern voice. “It is the duty of any priest of the Goddess of Dreams to bring peace. There are two ways we might create peace in this village, once we’ve dealt with the brigands. One is to let Mehepi goad the villagefolk into killing or exiling the secondwife. The other is to give the secondwife a chance to control her own life for the first time. Which do you choose?”

  “There are other choices,” Cet muttered uneasily. “There must be.”

  Ginnem shrugged. “If she has any talent for dreaming, she could join my order. But I see no sign of the calling in her.”

  “You could still suggest it to her.”

  “Mmm.” Ginnem’s tone was noncommittal. He turned to gaze at Namsut. “That horse you spoke of. If you could have helped it on its way, would you have? Even if that earned you the wrath of the horse’s owner and your father?”

  Cet flinched back, too startled and flustered to speak. Ginnem’s eyes slid back to him.

  “How did the horse break free, Cet?”

  Cet set his jaw. “I should rest while I can. The rest of the journey will be long.”

  “Dream well,” Ginnem said. Cet turned away and lay down, but he felt Ginnem’s eyes on him for a long while afterward.

  When Cet slept, he dreamt of Namsut.

  The land of dreams was as infinite as the mind of the Goddess who contained it. Though every soul traveled there during sleep, it was rare for two to meet. Most often, the people encountered in dreams were phantoms – conjurations of the dreamer’s own mind, no more real than the palm trees and placid oasis which manifested around Cet’s dream-form now. But real or not, there sat Namsut on a boulder overlooking the water, her indigo veils wafting in the hot desert wind.

  “I wish I could be you,” she said, not turning from the water. Her voice was a whisper; her mouth never moved. “So strong, so serene, the kind-hearted killer. Do your victims feel what you feel?”

  “You do not desire or require death,” Cet said.

  “True. I’m a fool for it, but I want to live.” Her image blurred for a moment, superimposed by that of a long-legged girlchild with the same despairing, angry eyes. “I was nine when a man first took me. My parents were so angry, so ashamed. I made them feel helpless. I should have died then.”

  “No,” Cet said quietly. “Others’ sins are no fault of yours.”

  “I know that.” Abruptly something large and dark turned a lazy loop under the water – a manifestation of her anger, since oases did not have fish. But like her anger, the monster never broke the surface. Cet found this at once fascinating and disturbing.

  “The magic that I use,” he said. “Do you know how it works?”

  “Dreamichor from nonsense-dreams,” she said. “Dreamseed from wet dreams, dreambile from nightmares, dreamblood from the last dream before death. The four humors of the soul.”

  He nodded. “Dreamblood is what Gatherers collect. It has the power to erase pain and quiet emotions.” He stepped closer then, though he did not touch her. “If your heart is pained, I can share dreamblood with you now.”

  She shook her head. “I do not want my pain erased. It makes me strong.” She turned to look up at him. “Will you give me a child, Gatherer?”

  He sighed, and the sky overhead seemed to dim. “It is not our way. The Sister . . . dreamseed is his specialty. Perhaps . . .”

  “Ginnem does not have your kind eyes. Nor do your Sentinel brethren. You, Gatherer Cet. If I must bear a child, I want yours.”

  Clouds began to race across the desert sky, some as tormented abstractions, some forming blatantly erotic shapes. Cet closed his eyes against the shiver that moved along his spine. “It is not our way,” he said again, but there was a waver in his voice that he could not quite conceal.

  He heard the smile in her voice just as keenly. “These are your magic-quieted emotions, Gatherer? They seem loud enough.”

  He forced his mind away from thoughts of her, lest they disturb his inner peace any further. What was wrong with him? By sheer will he stilled the unrest in his heart, and gratifyingly the sky was clear again when he opened his eyes.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured.

  “I will not. It comforts me to know that you are still cap able of feeling. You should not hide it; people would fear Gatherers less if they knew.” She looked thoughtful. “Why do you hide it?”

  Cet sighed. “Even the Goddess’s magic cannot quiet a Gatherer’s emotions forever. After many years, the feelings inevitably break free . . . and they are very powerful then. Sometimes dangerous.” He shifted, uncomfortable on many levels. “As you said, we frighten people enough as it is.”

  She nodded, then abruptly rose and turned to him. “There are no other choices,” she said. “I have no desire to serve the Goddess as a Sister. There is none of Her peace in my heart, and there may never be. But I mean to live, Gatherer – truly live, as more than a man’s plaything or a woman’s scapegoat. I want this for my children as well. So I ask you again: will you help me?”

  She was a phantom. Cet knew that now, for she could not have known of his conversation with Ginnem otherwise. He was talking to himself, or to some aspect of the Goddess come to reflect his own folly back at him. Yet he felt compelled to answer. “I cannot.”

  The dreamscape transformed, becoming the inside of a room. A gauze-draped low bed, wide enough for two, lay behind Namsut.

  She glanced at it, then at him. “But you want to.”

  That afternoon they disembarked at a large trading-town. There Cet used Temple funds to purchase horses and supplies for the rest of the trip. The village, said Mehepi, was on the far side of the foothills, beyond the verdant floodplain that made up the richest part of Gujaareh. It would take at least another day’s travel to get there.

  They set out as soon as the horses were loaded, making good time along an irrigation road which ran flat through miles of barley, hekeh, and silvercape fields. As sunset approached they entered the low, arid foothills – Gujaareh’s last line of defense against the ever-encroaching desert beyond. Here Cet called a halt. The villagers were nervous, for the hills were the brigands’ territory, but with night’s chill already setting in and the horses weary, there was little choice. The Sentinels split the watch while the rest of them tended their mounts and made an uneasy camp.

  Cet had only just settled near a large boulder when he saw Ginnem crouched beside Namsut’s pallet. Ginnem’s hands were under her blanket, moving over her midsection in some slow rhythmic dance. Namsut’s face had turned away from Cet, but he heard her gasp clearly enough, and saw Ginnem’s smile.

  Rage blotted out thought. For several breaths Cet was paralyzed by it, torn between shock, confusion, and a mad desire to walk across camp and beat Ginnem bloody.

  But then Ginnem frowned and glanced his way, and the anger shattered.

  Goddess . . . Shivering with more than the night’s chill, Cet lifted his eyes to the great multi-hued face of the Dreaming Moon. What had that been? Now that the madness had passed, he could taste magic in the air: the delicate salt-and-metal of dreamseed. Ginnem had been healing the girl, nothing more. But even if Ginnem had been pleasuring her, what did it matter? Cet was a Gatherer. He had pledged himself to a goddess, and goddesses did not share.

  A few moments later he heard footsteps and felt someone settle beside him. “Are you all right, Gatherer Cet?” Ginnem.

  Cet closed his eyes. The Moon’s afterimage burned against his eyelids in tilted stripes: r
ed for blood, white for seed, yellow for ichor, black for bile.

  “I do not know,” he whispered.

  “Well.” Ginnem kept his voice light, but Cet heard the serious note underneath it. “I know jealousy when I sense it, and shock and horror too. Dreamseed is more fragile than the other humors; your rage tore my spell like a rock through spidersilk.”

  Horrified, Cet looked from him to Namsut. “I’m sorry. I did not mean . . . is she . . .”

  “She is undamaged, Gatherer. I was done by the time you wanted to throttle me. What concerns me more is that you wanted to throttle me at all.” He glanced sidelong at Cet.

  “Something is . . . wrong with me.” But Cet dared not say what that might be. Had it been happening all along? He thought back and remembered his anger at Mehepi, the layers of unease that Namsut stirred in him. Yes. Those had been the warnings.

  Not yet, he prayed to Her. Not yet. It is too soon.

  Ginnem nodded and fell silent for a while. Finally he said, very softly, “If I could give Namsut what she wants, I would. But though those parts of me still function in the simplest sense, I have already lost the ability to father a child. In time, I will only give pleasure through dreams.”

  Cet started. The Sisters were a secretive lot – as were Cet’s own fellow Servants, of course – but he had never known what price they paid for their magic. Then he realized Ginnem’s confession had been an offering. Trust for trust.

  “It . . . begins slowly with us,” Cet admitted, forcing out the words. It was a Gatherer’s greatest secret, and greatest shame. “First surging emotions, then dreaming awake, and finally we . . . we lose all peace, and go mad. There is no cure, once the process begins. If it has begun for me . . .” He trailed off. It was too much, on top of everything else. He could not bear the thought. He was not ready.

  Ginnem put a hand on his shoulder in silent compassion. When Cet said nothing more, Ginnem got to his feet. “I will help all I can.”

  This made Cet frown. Ginnem chuckled and shook his belled head. “I am a healer, Gatherer, whatever you might think of my bedroom habits—”