She had heard the tales of the spirits of the forest turning bad. She knew the stories of the achicita, the demon vapours that came in the swelter of summer and stole in through the nostrils of sleeping men and women, making them sick on the inside. She knew about the baum-ki, who bit ankles like snakes and left their poison dormant in the body, to be passed on through saliva or other, more personal fluids. The poison hopped from person to person, becoming lethal only when it came across a baby in a womb, killing mother and child in one terrible haemorrhage.
It was the only sense she could make. There was something within, something unknown, something that had lashed out and killed. Had the shin-shin been after her, to claim whatever was inside her? What was she carrying? What was the condition Asara had spoken of?
But Asara was gone, and all she had left behind were questions. What manner of thing was she, who could suck the breath from one person and give it to another? Another demon, sent to look after her own? Who were her masters, the ones who had sent her? And what had her father been involved in, that such a tragedy should be visited on their house?
She slept, and her dreams were full of a face of black and red, a cackling spirit that haunted her in the darkness with the voice of her father.
The priests allowed her to use their sacred glade to make an offering to Omecha, the silent harvester, god of death and the afterlife. It lay along a narrow, winding trail that wove up the hill to the rear of the temple. Tane led the way, taking her hand when she stumbled. Having spent so long in convalescence, her muscles were shockingly weak, and the incline was almost too much for her to take. But Tane was there, keeping a respectful silence, and with his help she made it.
The glade was a spot of preternatural beauty, scattered with low, smooth white stones that peeped from the undergrowth, upon which complex pictograms were carved and painted red. There appeared to be no man-made boundary or border to separate it from the surrounding forest – in fact, were it not for the stones and the shrine, Kaiku would have not recognised it as a sacred place at all. There was a thin stream running through the glade, with the far bank rising higher than the near side, and a great old kamaka tree surmounting it, its thick roots knotted through the soil and its pendulous leaf-tendrils hanging mournfully over the water in flowery ropes. On the near side of the stream was the shrine, little bigger than the one that sat in front of the temple. It had been carved from the bole of a young tree, and the interior was hung with wind-chimes and tiny prayer scrolls. Fresh flowers had been laid inside it, and incense sticks smouldered in little clay pots to either side.
She gave Tane a nod and a wan smile, and he bowed, murmured a swift prayer to Enyu to excuse himself from the glade, and retreated down the trail.
Alone, Kaiku took a breath and assembled her thoughts. There was no emotion involved in this; she had spent that entirely by now. This was ritual. Her sorrow had eaten her from the inside and then turned and devoured itself into emptiness. All that was left was what was inevitable, what honour and tradition demanded she do. She acceded without complaint. Everything had fallen apart around her, but this at least was inviolable, and there was some comfort in that.
She knelt among the incense in the grey votive robe the priests had given her, for she had no formal wear and it was necessary to be respectful here. She prayed to her ancestors to guide her family through the Gate, past laughing Yoru into the golden Fields. She named each of them aloud to Omecha, so that his wife Noctu might write them in her great book, and record their deeds in life. And finally she prayed to Ocha, Emperor of the gods and also god of war, revenge, exploration and endeavour. She begged for strength to aid her purpose, asking for his blessing in finding the one that struck down her family. If he would aid her, she swore to avenge them, no matter the cost.
And with that oath, her course was set.
When she left the glade, she felt exorcised somehow. She had left a part of herself behind there, the part that was confused and frightened and heavy with grief. She had a new path now. It was what her family’s honour demanded. She would not let them die forgotten; she would right the injustice. There was no other course open to her.
After she had walked back to the temple with Tane, she reclaimed the mask from the priests and looked at it often, turning it about in her hands. Asara said her father had been killed for this mask. What was it, and what did it mean? Sometimes she toyed with the idea of putting it on, but she knew better. Even if Asara had not warned her, she had heard enough tales of the Weavers to learn caution.
Masks are the most dangerous weapons in the world.
The next morning, Tane brought her clothes with her breakfast.
‘You’ve been lying about too long,’ he said. ‘Come outside. You should see this.’
Kaiku nodded muzzily. She had no particularly strong inclination to do anything, but it seemed easier to go along with his suggestion than to refuse it. When he had gone, she stood up and stretched her limbs, then clambered into her travel clothes that the priests had washed and mended. Someone – presumably Tane – had added a purple silk sash to the bundle, a splash of colour amid the beige and brown. She tied it loosely round her waist, letting it hang down her thigh. It made her attire a little more feminine, at least. She laced up the open-throated shirt and gave herself a perfunctory examination. A smile touched her lips, more wry than humorous. The sash made her look like some flamboyant bandit.
She joined Tane outside in the bright glare of the sun. It was a good time to be out, before the ascending heat became uncomfortable. She appreciated the warmth of Nuki’s gaze on some dim and distant level, but it did not seem to penetrate as it had done in the days when her family were still alive. Rinji birds were drifting down the Kerryn, their long, white necks twisting down to snap at fish and beetles that strayed too close. Tane was watching them distractedly.
‘They’re early this year,’ he observed. ‘It’s going to be a long, hot summer.’
Kaiku shaded her eyes and followed the languid procession with her gaze. Several of the priests had paused in their work and were studying the birds with contemplative expressions. As children, she and Machim used to head out to the riverbank every morning in early summer, to wait for the rinji to come down from their nesting sites in the mountains, down to the plains where the better feeding was. With their long, gangly legs tucked beneath them and their massive wings folded, they glided with effortless grace, riding the currents of the Kerryn towards the lowlands.
When the first rinji had drifted out of sight – there were only a dozen or so, the vanguard of the impending exodus – Tane led Kaiku down to the bank. At her request, they crossed over the bridge and sat on the south side, looking over the shimmering deep-blue expanse towards the unassuming temple.
‘This is the way we always watched them,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Machim and I.’ Watching the birds going from left to right instead of the opposite had jarred with her memories and made her unaccountably uncomfortable.
Tane nodded. Whether it was simple preference, or if she was consciously trying to recapture the fond moments she shared with her dead sibling, he was prepared to indulge her.
‘It seems there are fewer and fewer each year,’ Tane said. ‘Word comes down from the mountains that their nesting grounds aren’t so safe any more.’
Kaiku raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not?’
‘Fewer of the eggs hatch, that’s one thing,’ he replied, rubbing his bald scalp, rasping his palm against the stubble. ‘But they say there are things in the mountains now that can climb up to where they lay. And those things are multiplying. It wasn’t like that ten years ago.’
Kaiku found herself wondering suddenly why Tane had troubled to bring her out here at all, why they were sitting together and talking about birds.
‘I have watched them every year since I can remember,’ she said. ‘And I used to stay up in the autumn and look out for them flying back.’
It was an aimless comment, a lazy observati
on thrown out into the conversation, but Tane took it as a cue to continue his train of thought.
‘The beautiful things are dying,’ he said gravely, looking upstream to where the Kerryn bent into the trees and was lost to sight. ‘More and more, faster and faster. The priests can sense it; I can sense it. It’s in the forest, in the soil. The trees know.’
Kaiku was not quite sure how to respond to that, so she kept her silence.
‘Why can’t we do anything about it?’ he said, but the question was rhetorical, an expression of impotent frustration.
They watched the birds come down the river all that day, and it did seem that there were fewer than Kaiku remembered.
She stayed another week at the temple while she regained her strength. The waiting was chafing her, but the priests insisted, and she believed they were right. She was too weak to leave, and she needed time to formulate a plan, to decide where to travel to and how to get there.
There was never really any doubt as to her destination, however. There was only one person who might be able to help her learn the circumstances that surrounded her father’s death, and only one person who she felt she could trust utterly. Mishani, her friend since childhood and daughter of Barak Avun tu Koli. She was part of the Imperial Court at Axekami, and she was privy to the machinations that went on there. Kaiku had not seen her much since they both passed their eighteenth harvest, for Mishani had been enmeshed in the politics of Blood Koli; yet despite everything, she found herself growing excited at the thought of seeing her friend again.
She walked with Tane often during that week, traipsing through the forest or along the river. Tane was interested in her past, in who she was and how she had come to be under that tree where he had found her. She talked freely about her family; it made her feel good to recall their triumphs, their habits, their petty foibles. But she never spoke of what happened at her house that night, and she made no mention of Asara’s fate again. He was light-hearted company, and she liked him, though he tended to swing into unfathomably dark moods from time to time. Then she found him unpleasant and left him alone.
‘You’re leaving soon,’ Tane said as they walked side by side in the trees behind the temple. It was the hour between morning oblations and study, and the young acolyte had asked her to join him. Birds chirruped all around and the forest rustled with hidden animals.
Kaiku fiddled with a strand of her hair. It was a childhood habit that her mother used to chide her for. She had thought she had grown out of it, but it seemed to have returned of late. ‘Soon,’ she agreed.
‘I wish you would tell me what you are hurrying for. Are you fleeing your family’s murderers, or trying to find them?’
She glanced at him, faintly startled. He had never been quite so blunt with her. ‘To find them,’ she said.
‘Revenge is an unhealthy motive, Kaiku.’
‘I have no other motives left, my friend,’ she said. But he was a friend in name only. She would not let him close to her, would not divulge anything of true worth to him. There was no sense inviting more grief. She knew she was leaving him; it was necessary, for she still did not know the nature of the demon inside her, and she feared she might harm him as she had Asara. By the same token, she was terribly afraid of endangering Mishani by her presence; but she knew if Mishani were asked, she would willingly take that chance, and so would Kaiku for her. There was some comfort in that, at least. Their bonds of loyalty went beyond question. And there was scarcely any other choice, anyway; it was the only course she could see.
‘I’d like it if you stayed,’ he said solemnly. She stopped and gave him a curious look. ‘For a while longer,’ he amended, colouring a little.
She smiled, and it made her radiant. For a moment, she felt something like temptation. He was physically attractive to her, there was no doubt of that. His shaven head, his taut and muscular body honed by outdoor chores and an ascetic diet, his deep-buried intensity; these were qualities she had never encountered in the high-borns she had met in the cities. But though they had spent much time together in the past week, she felt she had not learned anything about him. Why had he become a priest? Why was he driven to heal and help others, as he professed? He was as closed to her as she was to him. The two of them had fenced around each other, never letting their guards down. This was the nearest he had got to real honesty. She exploited the opening.
‘What is it I mean to you, Tane?’ she asked. ‘You found me, you saved my life and sat with me through it all. You have my endless gratitude for that. But why?’
‘I’m a priest. It’s my . . . my calling,’ he said, frowning.
‘Not good enough,’ she said, folding her arms beneath her breasts.
He gave her a dark look, wounded that she would pressure him this way. ‘I lost a sister,’ he said. ‘She would not be much younger than you are. I could not help her, but I could help you.’ He looked angrily at the ground and scuffed it with his sandals. ‘I lost my family too. We have that much in common.’
She wanted to ask how, but she had no right. She would not share her secrets with him, nor he with her. And therein lay the barrier between them, and it was unassailable.
‘One of the priests is going downriver to the village of Ban tomorrow,’ she said, unfolding her arms. ‘I can get a skiff from there to the capital.’
‘And you think your friend Mishani will be able to help you?’ Tane asked, somewhat bitterly.
‘She is the only hope I have,’ Kaiku replied.
‘Then I wish you good journey,’ said Tane, though his tone suggested otherwise. ‘And may Panazu, god of the rain and rivers, guard your way. I must return to my studies.’
With that, he stalked away and back to the temple. Kaiku watched him until he was obscured by the trees. In another time, in another place . . . maybe there could have been something between them. Well, there were greater concerns for now. She thought of the mask that lay in her room, hidden behind a beam on the ceiling. She thought of how she would get to Axekami, and what she might find there.
She thought of the future, and she feared it.
FIVE
It had to come to this, Anais thought. I was only putting off the inevitable. But by the spirits, how did they find out?
The Blood Empress of Saramyr stood in her chambers, her slender profile limned in the bright midday sunlight, the hot breath of the streets reaching even here, so far above. Below her lay the great city of Axekami, heart of the Saramyr empire. It sprawled down the hill and away from her, a riot of colours. Long red temples shunted up against gaudy markets; smooth white bathhouses huddled close to green-domed museums. There were theatres and tanneries, forges and workhouses. Distantly, the sparkling blue loop of the River Kerryn cut through the profusion on its way to meet its sister, the Jalaza, and combine to form the Zan. Axekami was built on the confluence of the three rivers, and their sweeping flow served to carve the city neatly up into districts, joined by proud bridges.
She let her eyes range over the capital, over her city, the centrepiece of a civilisation that stretched thousands of miles across an entire continent and encompassed millions of people. The life here never ceased, an endless, beautiful swelter of thronging industry, thought and art. Orators held forth in Speaker’s Square while crowds gathered to jeer or clap; manxthwa and horses jostled in their pens while traders harangued passers-by and jabbered at each other; philosophers sat in meditation while across the street new lovers coupled in fervour. Scholars debated in the parks, blood spewed on to tiles as a bull banathi’s throat was slashed by a butcher’s blade, entertainers leered as they pulled impossible contortions, deals were made and broken and reforged. Axekami was the hub of an empire spread so wide that it was only possible to maintain it via the medium of instantaneous communication through Weavers. It was the administrative, political and social fulcrum on which the entire vastness of Saramyr balanced. Anais loved it, loved its constant ability to regenerate, the turbulence of innovation and activity; but she knew
well enough to fear it a little too, and she felt a ghost of that fear brush her now.
The Imperial Keep stood high and magnificent on the crest of a hill, looking out over all. It was a vast edifice of gold and bronze, shaped like a truncated pyramid, with its top flattened and surmounted by a wondrous temple to Ocha, Emperor of the gods. It swarmed with pillars and arches, broken up by enormous statues that grew out of the walls, or which snaked along the grandiose façade to wind around shining columns. At the four points of the compass stood a tall, slender tower, reaching high above the main body of the Keep, each one dedicated to one of the Guardians of the Four Winds. Narrow bridges ran between the towers and the Keep, spanning the chasms between. The whole was surrounded by a great wall, decorated with carvings and scrollwork all along its length, and broken only by a mighty gate, with its soaring arc of gold inscribed with blessings.
Anais turned away from the vista. The room was wide and airy, its walls and floor made from a smooth, semi-reflective stone known as lach. Three tall arches gave her the view of her city; several smaller ones provided access to other rooms. A trickling fountain was the centrepiece, fashioned in the shape of two manta rays, their wings touching as they danced.
Messages had been arriving all day, both by hand and across the Weave, calling for a council. Her allies felt betrayed, her enemies incensed, and nothing she could do would assuage them. The only heir to the throne of Saramyr was an Aberrant. She should have been killed at birth.
Weave-lord Vyrrch was in the room with her; the very last person she wanted to see right now. The Weavers were the ones who did the killing, and she could feel glowering disapprobation in every syllable he spoke. He was at least wise enough not to berate her for hiding her child away from them, even though she knew that was what he was thinking. Did that foul ghoul seriously expect her to give up her only child to their tender mercies?
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr, The Skein of Lament and the Ascendancy Veil Page 5