14
By the age of four floods, a Gujaareen child should be able to write the pictorals of the family name, count by fours to forty, and recite the details of every dream upon waking.
(Wisdom)
Nijiri sat in the Stone Garden trying to keep his knuckles from turning white. They would be watching for that. He could give them no cause to doubt his self-control—not if he wanted to be left free and unchaperoned. Not if he meant to go and find Ehiru.
“Hiding something again,” Sonta-i said. He stood across from Nijiri near a column of nightstone, just as unyielding. “You think we cannot guess your plans. You think we cannot smell the fury curling off you like smoke.”
Damnation.
“Is my anger not understandable, Brother?” Nijiri kept his voice calm. “What surprises me is your lack of it. Does Hananja’s peace silence all sense of propriety and justice?”
“We feel the anger, little brother,” Rabbaneh said from behind Nijiri. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Dreamblood silences nothing. It merely… softens.” He paused, then said thoughtfully, “Perhaps if you were to share our peace—”
Nijiri pulled away. He took care to keep the movement smooth and minimal, polite aversion rather than vehement rejection. “I would prefer to find peace on my own.”
Rabbaneh sighed and dropped his hand. “The choice is always yours. But please try to remember, little brother, that Ehiru went willingly.”
“Yes.” Nijiri saw the scene again in his mind: the shame in the Superior’s eyes, and the aching grief in Ehiru’s. “He went because the Hetawa betrayed him and he could not bear to be among the corrupt any longer.”
“You trespass,” Sonta-i warned.
Nijiri got to his feet and turned to face them, his fists clenched at his sides. “I speak the truth, Sonta-i-brother. I saw the beast that attacked me last night. I suffered its touch. And the only reason I survived is because Ehiru-brother fought it away and gave me his last dreamblood. Sharer Mni-inh saw the evidence of this and vouches for Ehiru-brother. Even the Superior acknowledged that imprisoning our brother was not justice but the will of Yanya-iyan. Politics.”
He spat out the last word like the poison it was, and was gratified to see Rabbaneh grimace in distaste. Sonta-i’s normally impassive expression grew thoughtful, however. Sonta-i would be the key, Nijiri knew. The dreaming gift had come upon Sonta-i too young, or so went the rumors among the acolytes. He had no true emotions, though he mimicked them well enough when necessary, and he drew no distinction between the waking world and the vagaries of dream. Neither could be trusted; neither was real in his eyes. It was a disadvantage in Gathering, but there were times—like now, perhaps—when Sonta-i’s view of the world made him the most flexible and pragmatic of all the Gatherers. Self-interest, not tradition or faith, drove him. If Nijiri could appeal to this, Sonta-i might prove an unexpected ally.
“We do not judge—” Rabbaneh began.
“But we traditionally have some say,” Sonta-i interrupted. “Especially in the matter of our own. It is strange that we were not consulted.”
Nijiri held his breath.
“The Superior had to make a quick decision.” Rabbaneh folded his arms and began to pace—and this tension too was a sign, Nijiri realized. The Superior’s decision sat poorly with both his pathbrothers.
“If Mni-inh had declared Ehiru a danger, then the Superior’s quick decision would have been justified,” Sonta-i said. “Mni-inh says his mind is yet whole.”
“It is,” Nijiri blurted. “He shows only the early signs so far, just hand-shaking and a bit of temper—”
He realized his error when they both glared at him. Sonta-i’s face somehow became just a touch colder.
“The method of any Gatherer’s communion with the Goddess is private, Nijiri,” he said. “You will understand that better—and no doubt respect it more—when you’ve had to face the long night without dreamblood yourself.”
Nijiri bowed over both his hands in shame. “Forgive me. It’s only…” His shoulders and throat tightened. Goddess, no, not tears. Not now. “I can’t bear this.”
Rabbaneh stopped pacing, his expression strained and grim. “Nor can I.” He turned to Sonta-i. “You understand what this means.”
Sonta-i nodded. “We don’t have enough information to make an assessment yet. Therefore we must acquire more.”
“Perhaps we should take this to the Council of Paths,” Rabbaneh said. “Our judgment may be impaired by our closeness to the situation—”
Sonta-i looked at him; Rabbaneh fell silent. Nijiri frowned at both in confusion.
“No,” Rabbaneh said at last. He turned away, his back stiff, and sighed. “I don’t really believe that.”
Sonta-i regarded Rabbaneh for a moment. Then he turned to Nijiri, his gaze speculative. “How will you find him if you go?”
Only Hananja’s grace prevented Nijiri from gasping aloud. Instead he took a deep breath to calm the sudden racing of his heart. “He’ll be in one of the guard-stations,” he said. “Yanya-iyan has no dungeon and the Sunset Guard does not control the prison.”
“There are eight guard-stations, Apprentice. One for each quadrant of the city, inner and outer.”
“I’ll have to check them all, Sonta-i-brother. But I think he’ll be at one of the inner stations, since they’re closer to Yanya-iyan. I imagine the guards will want to be in range of quick reinforcements, if our brother should somehow break free.”
Sonta-i’s eyes, gray as stone, probed Nijiri’s for several long moments—though what he sought, Nijiri could not fathom. Rabbaneh stared at Sonta-i in disbelief.
“You cannot mean this, Sonta-i.”
“Neither you nor I can go,” Sonta-i said. “The city has only two working Gatherers left; we are needed.”
“So is Nijiri! He must replace Una-une. Bad enough we’ll have one green Gatherer, but if Ehiru is lost, we have to begin training another.”
“If Ehiru is lost when he should not be,” Sonta-i said with the faintest of emphasis, “we will have lost far more than a seasoned Gatherer. We will have lost the autonomy that is absolutely essential for our proper function. We will have allowed a clear injustice to impact our actions. We, who must be purest of all.”
Rabbaneh shook his head. “But Nijiri is only a boy, Sonta-i.”
“He is sixteen, a man by law. In the upriver villages he might be married already, perhaps a father.” Sonta-i focused on Nijiri, though his words were for Rabbaneh. “The pursuit of justice is the duty of every Gatherer, even the least of us. One of our brothers has been wrongfully imprisoned.”
“This is not the way to free him!”
“Indeed. Only the truth can do that. But the truth in this case intersects with the duty of our path.”
“You mean for Ehiru-brother and me to find the Reaper,” Nijiri breathed, understanding at last. His head reeled with wonder. “You mean for us to kill it.”
Sonta-i nodded. “You’ll need proof to clear Ehiru’s name. The Reaper’s body should do.”
“And if you don’t find that proof,” Rabbaneh said in a tight voice, “neither you nor Ehiru will ever be able to return to the Hetawa. You’ll both be declared corrupt and hunted down. We will be sent to hunt you, along with half the Sentinels. Do you understand? While you hunt the Reaper, you walk the Gatherers’ path only in Hananja’s eyes. No one else—not the city guard, not the Sunset Guard, not the Sentinels—will acknowledge it.”
I chose the Gatherers’ path for only one reason anyhow, Nijiri thought, and lifted his chin. “I’ll serve in my heart if serving in public means swallowing injustice.”
To his utter shock, Sonta-i smiled. It was a horrible expression beneath his dead gray eyes, lacking the slightest touch of amusement or pleasure, and the sight of it sent a shiver along Nijiri’s every nerve.
“Rabbaneh and I do not endure injustice either, Apprentice,” Sonta-i said. “We send you to kill it.”