She passed swiftly between the newly scarred buildings, little fearing the creatures that ran amok in the alleys. Wooden balconies and shop-fronts gaped emptily as if in shock at how they had been deserted. Carts and rickshaws were left where they had been abandoned in the rush to evacuate the townsfolk. A crackle of rifle fire sounded up the hill as dozens of soldiers wasted their ammunition in a futile attempt to hurt the demon that was battering its way towards the lake from the treeline.
The screams she had heard were louder now. She sensed the stirring of the Weave like coiling tentacles, the Weaver’s ugly manipulation of the invisible fabric beneath the skin of the waking world. She hated them, hated their clumsiness in comparison to the Sisters’ elegant sewing, hated their brutal way of forcing nature to their will. She fed her rage as she approached, concealing her presence from the Weaver with a few deft evasions.
The street opened out into a junction of three major thoroughfares. The heart of the junction was a cobbled area in which stood a bronze statue of a catfish, depicted as if swimming upward towards the sky, its torso curved and fins and whiskers trailing. It was the animal aspect of Panazu, god of rivers, storms and rain and – by extension – lakes. An appropriate choice for a town on the shore of the greatest lake on the continent. Two-storied buildings leaned in close, their shutters hanging open, cracked plant pots outside and wooden walls riven by holes from rifle balls.
This had been one of the critical defensive points of Juraka, and had been fortified accordingly with barricades and a pair of fire-cannon. But such measures were useless against Weavers. Without a Sister of the Red Order to counter him, the Weaver had muddled the soldiers’ minds and thrown them into rout. Aberrants had overrun the unmanned positions and were tearing into their panicking prey. The Weaver was nowhere to be seen.
Kaiku did not waste time considering how this predicament had come about. There should have been a Sister here to protect the soldiers, but the Red Order was in disarray across the town. Instead she stood brazenly at one end of the junction and opened up the Weave. The air stirred around her, rippling her dress and ruffling her tawny hair where it lay across one side of her face. She surrendered herself to the ecstasy of Weaving.
The pure joy of disembodiment, of witnessing the raw stuff of creation in an endless profusion of glittering threads, was enough to drive the untrained to madness. But Kaiku had been there many times, and she had mantras and methods of self-control that anchored her against that first tidal wash of narcotic harmony. She saw the tears and rents left by the Weaver’s passing, felt his influence extending into the golden stitchwork dolls that were the soldiers, twisting their perceptions, making them confused and helpless.
He was unaware of her yet, and she used that. She slipped closer, winding along fibres, darting from strand to strand so that the emanations of her approach would be subtle and widely spread, faint enough to be missed in amongst the throb of the demons’ presence. She could locate him with ease: he was in the upper storey of an old cathouse overlooking the junction. This Weaver was young and careless, for despite his power he did not notice her until she was close enough to strike him.
She did not strike him, however. Even angry as she was, she knew the risks that facing a Weaver entailed. Instead, she slid into the fibres of the beams that held up the roof of the cathouse, securing herself along their length to obtain the necessary mental leverage. The best way to kill a Weaver, she had found, was to do it indirectly.
In one violent twist, she ripped the beams apart.
The explosive detonation caused by shredding the fibres of the Weave created enough concussion to blow the shutters of the cathouse off their hinges. Flame billowed from the topmost windows; boards splintered and went spinning end over end through the air. The roof caved in, crushing the Weaver beneath it. The reverberations of the death flashed out across the Weave in a frantic pulse and slowly faded away.
One less of you, then, Kaiku thought, as the Weave faded from her vision.
The soldiers were coming to their senses, disorientated at finding themselves in the midst of an attack. Some were too slow to react, and were cut to pieces by the Aberrants that swarmed among them; but others were faster, and they brought their swords to bear. There were enough remaining to put up a resistance yet, and they did so with sudden and fierce anger.
Kaiku walked among them, slaying Aberrants as she went. With a wave of her hand she burst organs and shattered bone, tossed the creatures away or burned them to tallow and char. The soldiers, shouting hoarse rallying cries to one another, fought with renewed heart. Kaiku joined the cry, venting a deep and nameless hatred for what had been done to her, to her land, to these people; and for a time she steeped herself in blood.
Presently, there were no more enemies to fight. She came to herself as if from a vague and shallow trance. The junction was quiet now, a charnel house of bodies rank with the stink of gore and ignition powder. The soldiers were congratulating themselves and watching her warily, suspicious of their saviour. One of them took a step towards her, as if to offer her thanks or gratitude, but his step faltered and he turned aside, pretending that he was shifting his feet. She could see them arguing quietly as to who should do the honourable thing and acknowledge her help, but the fact that no one would do it of their own free will rendered it hollow. Gods, even now she was Aberrant to them.
‘We should go,’ said Phaeca, who had appeared at her shoulder. When Kaiku did not respond, the Sister laid a hand gently on her arm.
Kaiku made a soft noise of acknowledgement in her throat, but she did not move. The feya-kori from uphill was coming closer, its funereal moans preceding the jagged sounds of the destruction it was wreaking.
‘We should go,’ Phaeca repeated, quietly insistent, and Kaiku realised that she had tears standing in her eyes, tears of raw fury and disappointment. She wiped them with the back of her hand and stalked away, overwhelmed by a prescient feeling that the desperate war they had been fighting for their homeland had just turned fundamentally, and not in their favour.
TWO
Sasako Bridge lay a little over thirty miles south-west of Juraka, spanning the Kespa as part of the winding Prefectural Highway. The terrain was hilly and forested right down to the banks of the river, and the road skulked its way between great shoulders of land that, in days gone by, had provided perfect points of ambush for bandits and thieves preying on the trade caravans which used this route in times of peace. The bridge itself was a hidden treasure: an elegant arch of white, supported by a fan of pillars that emerged from the centre of the river on either side of the thoroughfare like the spokes of two skeletal wheels. It had been worked from an extremely hard wood that had weathered little with time, and the careful etchings and votive iconography on the pillars and parapets were still clear after many centuries, though some of the scenes and characters and beasts they depicted had been lost to all but the most scholarly minds.
Now, with the retreat at Juraka, Sasako Bridge had become the key point in holding the eastern line against the armies of the Weavers.
The rain began at dusk, soaking the canvas tents of the army of the Empire. Sasako Bridge was the fallback point if Juraka was lost. A defensive infrastructure had been built here long ago against just this eventuality. Stockade walls and guard-towers were already in place; fire-cannons and mortars lay hidden among the folds of the hills. Sasako Bridge was the only spot where an army could cross the Kespa, unless they cared to head seventy miles south to Yupi Bridge – similarly guarded – or even further into the swamps, where the city of Fos watched over the Lotus Arch. If they were coming – and they undoubtedly were – then they would be coming through here.
Kaiku stood in the songbird-house, high up on the flank of a forested slope, and looked out over the hills to the river. The embroidered wallscreens had been opened to the west, for the cool breeze was blowing the rain against the opposite side, and the pale light of the moon Neryn bathed the view in spectral green. Lanterns gli
mmered down there among the glistening boughs, evidence of the sprawling camp hidden below the canopy of the foliage. The Kespa was just visible through the overlapping flanks of land, making its way steadily from Lake Azlea in the north towards the swamplands in the south and the ocean beyond. The air was alive with the restful hiss and patter of the downpour, and the insects had fallen silent under the barrage.
The troops of the Empire had found the songbird-house abandoned when they first began to set up fortifications here, and taken it as their own. It was a tender memory of days that already seemed impossibly distant, when the high families’ domination of the Empire was unchallenged, as it had been for a thousand years until the Weavers had usurped them and thrown them into a savage war to preserve their own existence. Then, noble families often owned a songbird-house, a secluded love-nest bedecked with romantic finery – including songbirds – which was employed by newlyweds or young couples, or parents who wanted a little peace from their offspring.
Kaiku gave a small, involuntary sigh. It had been four years since the war began; but her war had begun almost a decade ago. Would she have even recognised herself if she had met the woman she was to become? Would she have ever imagined she might be wearing the make-up of the Red Order? She remembered a time when she had found it ghoulish. Now she enjoyed painting it on. It gave her a new strength, made her feel as fearsome as she appeared. Strange, the effect that wearing such a Mask could have; but if she had learned one thing in these ten years, it was that there was power in Masks.
She thought of the True Mask that had once belonged to her father, its leering face blazing in her mind like the sudden appearance of the sun. It came to her unbidden, as it always did, but as she forced it away it tugged at her with promises that would not easily fade.
Needing to distract herself, she turned back to face the room, where others were gathering for conference. It was wide and spacious, empty of furniture but for a low, oval table of black wood in its centre, upon which vases of guya blossoms and silver trays of refreshments were set. The screens were adorned with depictions of birds in flight and landscapes of lakes and mountains and forests, and mats for sitting on were laid across the polished wood floor. Servants hovered in the corners of the room, where twisting pillars cut from tree boughs held charms and superstitious knick-knacks. Even at a hurriedly assembled meeting such as this the rules of etiquette were not ignored.
She could identify most of the people here. It was the usual mishmash of generals sent by different Baraks, a scattering of Libera Dramach, a few representatives of other high families. She sought out the people she knew well: Yugi, clapping someone heartily on the shoulder and laughing; Phaeca, talking gravely with a man that Kaiku did not recognise; Nomoru, sitting alone at one side of the room, looking as scruffy as ever and wearing an expression that indicated she would rather be elsewhere.
When all were present, they seated themselves around the table, except for Nomoru, who remained on the periphery. Kaiku gave her a scowl. She was unable to understand why Yugi always included her in gatherings like this. Nomoru was so unrelentingly rude that Kaiku felt embarrassed being around her. Even now she radiated surliness and drew the gazes of the generals and highborns, who wondered what she was doing here but were too polite to ask.
The man at the head of the table was General Maroko of Blood Erinima. He was thickset and bald-headed, with a long black beard and moustache that hung down to his collarbone and made him look older than his forty-five harvests. He was in ultimate command of the forces that had been stationed in Juraka, elected through the usual process of squabbling and jostling between the high families that attended such matters.
‘Are we all here, then?’ he asked, a little informally considering the occasion.
‘There is one more,’ said Kaiku. She had barely finished her sentence before the latecomer’s arrival was heralded by a stirring in the Weave. The air thickened, and Cailin tu Moritat manifested herself at the opposite end of the table from Maroko.
She was a ghostly haze in the air, a white smear of a face atop a long streak of black that tapered away to nothing several inches above the floor. The vague impression of features could be made out, but they blurred and shimmered. Kaiku sensed the unease of those who looked upon her and allowed herself a private smile. Cailin could make herself appear in perfect clarity if she liked, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. But she loved her theatrics, and she was much more menacing as an oblique, half-seen entity hanging vulture-like over the proceedings. She preferred to frighten people.
Kaiku announced her for those who did not already know, adding the correct honorific: Pre-Eminent of the Red Order. She was the official head of the Sisterhood now, having taken the title when the Sisters declared themselves publicly in the wake of the Weavers’ great coup. Though the Red Order had never operated as a hierarchy, Cailin had long been their leader in all but name, and she declared it necessary to sanction her position if they were to be taken seriously. Kaiku could not argue with her logic, but as with much that Cailin did, it left her with an uneasy suspicion that what seemed apparently spontaneous had in fact been set up long before, and was merely part of a greater plan of which she was not aware.
Maroko went curtly through the pleasantries of greeting and welcome, then settled to the matter at hand. ‘I have read your reports, and I know of our losses,’ he said. ‘I am not interested in apportioning blame or merit at this point. What I want to know is: what in Omecha’s name were those things in Juraka, and how do we beat them?’
It was clear that the question was addressed to the Sisters. Kaiku was the one to reply.
‘We call them feya-kori,’ she said. ‘I say we call them that because we dubbed them ourselves: they are not like any demon we have heard of, in living memory or in legend.’
‘You knew of them before they attacked us?’ jumped in one old general. Kaiku remembered him: he was ever quick to throw accusations at the Sisterhood. Did he distrust them because they were Sisters, or Aberrants, or both? He would be far from alone in any case.
‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘Our information reached us only during the assault. Sadly, the intelligence came too slow, or the Weavers moved too fast, for us to forewarn you. Even so, I think you will agree that the loss of five of our number is ample evidence that we were taken as much by surprise as you were.’
‘Ample,’ agreed Maroko, with a pointed glare at the general. ‘Nobody here questions the loyalty of the Red Order.’ He looked back to Kaiku. ‘What information do you have?’
‘Very little,’ Kaiku admitted. ‘Much of what we have is speculation. The Weavers have summoned demons before, but nowhere near the magnitude of the feya-kori. Even with the new witchstones they have awoken these past years, none of us had imagined that their abilities had increased so much.’
‘Then how have they managed to do it?’ asked another general, leaning forward on his elbows in the lanternlight. ‘And how can we stop them?’
‘To both questions, I have no answer,’ she replied. ‘We know only that they came from Axekami.’
‘Axekami?’ someone exclaimed.
‘Indeed. These demons did not come from the depths of a forest, or a volcano, nor any other wild or deserted place where their kind might usually be found. These came from the heart of our capital city.’
There was consternation at this. The generals began to argue and theorise amongst themselves. Kaiku and Phaeca used the time to communicate with Cailin. Some of the generals threw them distasteful glances, noting the telltale coloration of their irises as they strung and sewed the Weave. The Sisters constructed patterns of impression and intent and flashed them across the four hundred miles that separated them from their Pre-Eminent. Kaiku took care of the security of their link, monitoring the vibrations of the threads for roaming Weavers who might listen in, but nothing threatened them that she could find.
‘I think the first and most obvious thing we should do,’ Yugi was saying, ‘is to
send someone to Axekami.’
His proposition silenced the murmurings that were going on across the table. Though he had no power in any official capacity, he was the leader of the Libera Dramach, the organisation founded to protect the disenfranchised Heir-Empress Lucia tu Erinima. The fact that both Lucia and the Red Order were closely tied in with them made them as much a force to be reckoned with as any of the high families of the Empire.
‘I’m sure you are aware of how dangerous such an undertaking would be,’ General Maroko said; but as he did so, he was stroking the end of his drooping moustache with his fingertips, a habit which indicated he liked what he was hearing. ‘The capital is deep in the Weavers’ territory, and reports indicate that it has . . . changed quite drastically.’
Yugi shrugged. ‘I’ll go,’ he said.
‘I doubt that we can afford to risk you,’ Maroko replied, raising an eyebrow.
Yugi had expected such a response. ‘Still, somebody must,’ he said, absently taking a sip of wine from the cup on the table before him. ‘These feya-kori represent the greatest danger we have faced since this war began. We have no idea how to deal with them. They’re too powerful for the Red Order, and artillery seems to have little effect if the assault on Juraka is any measure. Someone needs to go to Axekami and find out what these creatures are and where they are coming from.’
‘I agree,’ Maroko said. ‘But such a decision is not under my authority. Our responsibility is to hold the eastern line. However, we can pass our suggestion back to the councils at Saraku . . .’
‘We need answers, not more arguments!’ someone called, to which there was a smattering of laughter and a grim smile from Maroko.
‘Then I’ll handle it myself, as a Libera Dramach matter,’ said Yugi. ‘With your permission, of course,’ he added, even though he had no real need of it.
‘See to it,’ Maroko replied. ‘Inform us of your findings.’
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr, The Skein of Lament and the Ascendancy Veil Page 98