Braided Path 03 - The Ascendancy Veil

by Chris Wooding

  ‘Help me, Mother,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.’

  But Mishani could not form a reply. Her throat was locked with grief, her body racked by it, and all she could do was cry as Lucia gave a long sigh, and her last breath was driven from her lungs.

  It was some time before Mishani heard the footsteps of Barak Zahn, and she looked up. He slumped to his knees, his face a mask of disbelief. He did not try to take Lucia from her. To do so would be to admit that it was real, that this had really happened, that he had lost his child for the second and final time.

  She wondered how historians might one day justify this loss. Would they count it worthy that the Weavers’ army had been stopped, even at such a terrible cost? No, there was not even that to offer succour. To destroy the enemy was one thing, but the armies of the Empire were destroyed too. There was barely enough in reserve to defend their lands now. The same could be said of the Weavers, but the Weavers bred armies faster and stronger than humans did. The two forces had wiped each other out, levelled the score temporarily, but the reality was that the Weavers had won in the long term. Without this army, they needed less food. They could survive another two years, perhaps three, on what they had. And in that time they could launch a new offensive, one that nobody could stand up to. The Empire had bought itself a stay of execution, no more.

  Everything now relied on one thing. Cailin’s plan had to work. They had to destroy the witchstones. It was their last and only hope.

  Those soldiers that had survived stood around the tableau on the hilltop: their fallen saviour, her head in Mishani’s lap; the broken Barak on his knees; the impassive Sister. They felt the uncertainty that Mishani felt, and they dared not think of the future now.

  Among them stood a thin woman with tangled hair and a sullen cast to her face. She watched the scene for a time, then turned away. Grief and death were not new to Nomoru: she had seen enough as a child to last her a lifetime. Her only concern was that nobody knew who it was that fired the shot which killed their beloved Lucia. And beneath that, there was the slightest twinge of embarrassment at her shoddy marksmanship. After all, she had been aiming for Lucia’s head.

  When dawn came, the battlefield was empty. Starfall drifted down in the aftermath of the moonstorm like tiny flakes of glass, glinting as it caught the sun. The armies of the Empire would search for their comrades and loved ones when Nuki’s eye had risen high, but until then they had retreated, unable to bear staying in the abattoir that the banks of the River Ko had become. No carrion birds or flies troubled the corpses: the residue of the spirits was too strong here.

  On the north side of the river, amid the uncountable thousands of those that had died, there stood a mound of earth the size and shape of a small, hunched man. Its visage, what there could be seen of it, was a gaping face, emaciated like that of a corpse.

  The effigy lasted until mid-morning, when the sun warmed and dried it. It began to crack slowly; and then the Weave-lord Kakre crumbled, bit by bit, until he was nothing more than powdery dirt on the wind.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Kaiku stood on the foredeck of the junk and looked bleakly towards the grey peaks. She clutched her robe to her chest with one hand, cinching it tight against the chill sea breeze. She could have warmed herself up with a thought, but she wanted to suffer. It suited her mood.

  The sky was overcast, and though it was spring there was no hint of it today. A dozen ships swayed at anchor before and behind her. They shed small rowing-boats periodically that ferried back and forth from the drab shingle beach to the south, a slender finger of the Newlands that extended along the line of the coast and stopped just east of the looming, slanted bulk of Mount Aon.

  For days they had been skirting the northern edge of Saramyr and there had been nothing but sheer black rock, great mountain walls that plunged vertically into the sea and offered no purchase for a landing. Kaiku had gone to starboard every morning and watched the thin plume of dark smoke from the volcanic Mount Makara drift steadily away to her right. And now here they were at their destination, a bay of stony beaches and hard planes of slate which ran inland for a few short miles before the mountains rose up again. This was where they were to make landfall, where the seven hundred Tkiurathi would disembark and make their way southwest to Adderach.

  Their voyage had been favoured by Assantua, it seemed. The moon-tides had gone their way and the winds had been good. And though they had been forced to take a somewhat indirect route – passing Fo on its western side to avoid the heavily trafficked Camaran Channel – and more than once they had been forced to detour while the Sisters cloaked them from the attention of distant ships, still they had arrived on the exact day they had intended to. Or so Cailin assured them, anyway. Kaiku had stopped counting long ago.

  The journey had been a miserable affair even before Kaiku had learned of the Empire’s pyrrhic victory and Lucia’s death. After that, she remembered little, and the discomfort and boredom of their confinement seemed insignificant in comparison to her grief.

  She was trapped on this ship. Even her cabin held no privacy, for she shared it with two other Sisters, and that she counted as a luxury compared to the holds of the junks, where the Tkiurathi slept in cramped confinement. She took to wearing the make-up of the Order, because when she did so people tended to leave her alone. Often she was seen wandering the decks at night like some dark spectre, and the sailors became used to the sight after a time and ignored her. The other Sisters mistrusted her; though Cailin had told nobody of their argument at Araka Jo, Kaiku’s disdain for their cause was subtly evident, and they sensed this. Cailin was on another ship, and had maintained an icy silence which suited Kaiku.

  In her more bitter moments, she found a dark satisfaction in the knowledge that Lucia’s death had robbed Cailin of her champion, that the Pre-Eminent must have been furious to learn how her carefully laid plans for the Sisterhood’s future had been ruined. But that was small comfort: it was a setback at worst, and Kaiku knew Cailin would overcome it. If the Weavers fell, it would be the Sisters that claimed the victory, and the Sisters that would rise to take their place. Kaiku could scarcely bring herself to care. Why should she concern herself with a world so full of horror and sadness, a world that seemed to exist only to break her heart over and over? She cared only for her sorrow, and nursed it well.

  Now she watched the sailors taking the Tkiurathi to shore. They were eager to get off the junks, having been tormented by conditions during the long journey. Though they had endured it without complaint, they hated to be penned in, and the overcrowded ships – much smaller than the massive vessels that had brought them across the sea from Okhamba – were claustrophobic in the extreme.

  In less than a week, it would all be over. Seventy miles across the mountains lay the first monastery of the Weavers, and beneath it the first witchstone. Given that they were unsure of the terrain, they could not be certain of the exact timing of their arrival, but they kept in sporadic contact with the Sisters that accompanied the desert forces which approached from the south, and they coordinated in that way. Their activity in the Weave was heavily disguised: each communication was attended by several Sisters to ensure that no hint of their location could be divined. Their part of the operation relied on stealth.

  If all went to plan, the Weavers’ forces would be drawn out of Adderach to meet Reki’s army in the south, whose progress had been well marked. They would not expect an attack from the north, from the sea. Kaiku doubted greatly if the Weavers would extrapolate a threat to Adderach from the daring breakout the Sisters had achieved at Lalyara: for all the Weavers knew, they were simply trying to save the Empire’s fleet, and had sailed south to the safer ports of Suwana or Eilaza. Besides, the Weavers did not know that Muraki tu Koli had given away their plans; that much was evident by the way they fell into the ambush at the River Ko.

  The prospect of having done with it all, one way or another, was comforting to Kaik
u. She did not consider the shades of grey between success and failure: either the Weavers would be destroyed, or she would. She held on to the memories of her family, of Tane, of Lucia, and used it to fuel her hatred. Death would not be so bad now, if it could take her away from the cruelty of this world.

  But first there was something she had to do. When they reached the barrier of misdirection that the Weavers would certainly have erected around their monastery, she would have to wear the Mask again.

  It lay still in her pack in her cabin, now at the bottom and buried in clothes. At night, it whispered to her, tempting her with promises of her father. It was infused in some way with his essence, an essence that it had robbed from him, as it was also infused with hers now. If she wore it, could she once again attain that peace of her childhood, the comfort of her father’s presence, the unthinking security he offered? No, she would not allow herself the luxury. It was a narcotic, offering anything she wanted in return for taking everything she was. But each time she was forced to use it, it became harder to resist, and after so long in such close proximity she had almost caved in more than once, hoping for refuge in its warm folds. Only her sour and venomous abhorrence of the Weavers and their devices kept her from doing so.

  But when they came to the barrier she would have to put it on. Though the Sisters were capable of getting through without much effort, there was no guarantee that the Weavers would not detect their intrusion, and the element of surprise would be lost then. The only sure way they had of passing unnoticed was the Mask.

  This Mask, this Mask that had cost her family’s lives, was still one of the most important weapons they had. There had been no others: those Masks that the Sisters had taken from dead adversaries were too old and powerful to dare investigate, and would kill or corrupt any Sister that wore them.

  So it was down to Kaiku. She would have to lead seven hundred Tkiurathi and almost fifty Sisters through the barrier. It would take hours, and she would be wearing that awful Mask all that time.

  Her eyes flickered over the mountain peaks, and she sighed. Let it all be over. Just let it be finished.

  She sensed somebody by her side, and turned slightly to acknowledge Tsata. He had been wary around her ever since she had learned of Lucia’s death, unsure whether she needed him to comfort her or if she wanted to be left alone. There had been little talk between them lately. He had busied himself with matters among his people in the hold.

  ‘How are the Tkiurathi?’ she asked. Her voice seemed foreign to her, older than before.

  ‘Well enough,’ he replied. ‘They know how much is at stake since the battle at the River Ko. They will not falter. The journey through the mountains will restore their spirits after so long trapped in these ships.’

  Kaiku brushed her hair away from her face. ‘What will you do . . . afterward?’ She looked at him. ‘When this is all done?’

  Tsata held her gaze for a long time before replying. ‘That will depend on how things turn after we have reached Adderach,’ he said. ‘I will not say I have not thought on it, but there are too many factors.’

  Kaiku nodded in understanding. It was no evasion; he was being honest. But honest though he was, he had picked up a habit of employing Saramyr ways while dealing with Saramyr, and the unspoken implication was clear. What it depended on was her.

  And what did she want to do? She had no answer to that. The only person other than Tsata she had left was Mishani, but who could say in what direction their lives might take them? Tsata would probably return with his people, and Mishani would engage herself in something diplomatic which would keep her travelling. But for Kaiku, there was only a void, an emptiness that would be left by the fulfilment of her promise of revenge. In happier times she might have thought of it as boundless opportunity, but now she saw only a frightening loss of purpose.

  She felt a surge of resentment. Why should he rely on her? Why should her decisions be so important to others? Why, if the world was so determined to wound her, was it so reluctant to let her divorce herself from it?

  She realised that she was succumbing to self-pity again, and caught herself. No, she would not go that way. This man at her side loved her, and he was a man worthy of her love in return; it was her fault that she was reluctant to give it, and no one else’s. There were things she wanted to say to him, things that nestled so deep in her that she did not know whether they would survive the journey out, the harsh process of speech. Promises, pledges, oaths. Words that were solid and real, to fix her back to the world of light and laughter that she had drifted away from. But everything seemed so frail and ephemeral to her now. She wanted to tell him these truths in case either of them should die in the coming conflict, so that he would not be left unknowing, but she realised also that if they did not die, she would have to live with the things that she had said, and she was not yet ready for that.

  She could not think on it. It was a decision too great for her in the face of all that was to come. Afterward, let things fall as they may. For now, there was only revenge, and the promise of an ending. The world was glutted with death these days, but it could stand a little more.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Tsata asked at length. ‘It will soon be my turn to go. I would like it if we went together.’

  ‘I will get my pack from my cabin,’ she said. And my Mask, she added silently, and heard its glee like a whisper behind a wall.

  ‘I will wait for you, then,’ he said after her, as she began to walk away.

  She stopped and looked over her shoulder. ‘Would you wait for me?’ she asked, and by her tone he knew she was talking about something entirely larger than a simple boat journey. ‘How long would you wait?’

  ‘Until all hope was gone,’ Tsata replied, without a trace of embarrassment. ‘Until it hurt me more to be with you than to be without.’

  Kaiku felt something buck painfully in her chest at that. She found that she could not meet his eye, and that if she stayed any longer under the intensity of that gaze then she would begin to cry. She was so terribly fragile, and she hated herself for it.

  ‘I will not be long,’ she said, and left; but whether she meant it in answer to Tsata or in relation to fetching her pack, even she did not know.

  It took them six days to reach the Weavers’ barrier. Six days before Kaiku put the Mask on again, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she was happy.

  The hooves of Reki’s manxthwa crunched steadily over the loose gravel on the floor of the pass. He was watching the gristle-crows circling overhead in the flat light of the dawn, his eyes tight with distrust. The air was dead and still.

  He rode with his hand near the hilt of his nakata. His hair was tied back in a short queue to keep it out of his face in battle; it made his scar more obvious. The beige leather of his armour creaked as he moved, and his expression was grim with concentration.

  Reki had been keeping in contact with the Tkiurathi force since landfall, and in that time the tension in his men had grown unbearable. The Aberrants had all but disappeared, except for the gristle-crows that shadowed them from high above, out of rifle range. In less than an hour, if the Sisters’ estimations were correct, they would be coming up against the Weavers’ barrier. The Tkiurathi had already successfully penetrated it during the night, and were lying in wait in the mountains just inside the perimeter. But there was no sign of any opposition. Even the skirmishes that had whittled at his army in those first weeks had ceased.

  It was too easy. And this pass was too dangerous: a shallow-sided valley of shale and granite, bulwarked on either side by peaks. After so many days of struggling to find navigable trails through the hostile heights, he should have been glad that they at last had a few smooth miles to walk. His men had been taxed to their limits by the journey, and they needed a rest, but the pressures of time would not allow it. The longer the day wore on, the more chance that the Tkiurathi would be discovered by roaming gristle-crows within the perimeter of Adderach, and their deceit would be reveal
ed.

  So they had to come through this eerily silent pass.

  All the scouts he had were scouring the surrounding land, but they reported nothing. He asked the Sisters that travelled with him, but they had no answer. Perhaps the Weavers were consolidating around Adderach. Perhaps even inside it. That would make things extremely problematic. It would be much harder to winkle the Weavers out of their lair if they had settled in to a defensive position, and it would give them time to destroy their own witchstone if it came to a last resort. That, as far as Reki understood, would be disastrous.

  Asara rode alongside him, in the midst of the army of desert warriors that moved uneasily down the narrow route through the mountains. Her manxthwa murmured and snorted and shook its head as it plodded, apparently oblivious to the prevailing mood of foreboding.

  She was trying to reconcile the man at her side with the boy she had first seduced, long ago, in her capacity as a spy for the Libera Dramach. It was no good. He was no great warrior – his skills lay in tactics, and he never fought in the frontline like some Baraks did – but he certainly looked like one now. Once he had been shy and uncertain of himself; now he was lordly and assured, and people responded to that and followed him.

  Asara had watched that change, due in no small part to her. Having a lover and later a wife of such staggering beauty did wonders for his self-esteem. She had been unfailingly supportive and loyal, guiding him towards strength, and he had done whatever she suggested. When he was with her, he believed he could achieve anything, and believing made it so. Four years had passed swiftly for her. At her age, time was accelerating faster and faster. She had the body and face of a twenty-harvest goddess, but the soul of a woman of ninety.

  However, things were not as they were. A cloud had gathered over their relationship and was darkening rapidly. He was asking about her past, and he would not let it lie. His love for her was poisoning him. His imagination fashioned dozens of different scenarios that he tested her with to see her reaction: desperate suggestions as to how she might have lived her childhood, as if she might give away some signal when he struck on the right one. It had become an obsession, a worm of doubt that had grown into something monstrous and gnawed him inside, feeding on the magnitude of his passion for her. Had she not won him so utterly, he might have managed to be content with ignorance; but she had long experience of men and their ways, and she knew that this would consume him until he was either satisfied or driven to some mad act. She had known men slay their partners in frustration when in the throes of such torment, or cast themselves from cliffs.