The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr / the Skein of Lament / the Ascendancy Veil

by Chris Wooding

  Kaiku bowed slightly. ‘I would be honoured.’

  ‘Then we shall begin as soon as you are ready,’ she said.

  There were three Sisters in the room apart from Cailin. All of them wore the accoutrements of their order: the black dress, the red crescents painted over their eyes, the red and black triangles on their lips like teeth. Asara found their poise uncanny, but not unnerving.

  In the conference chamber of the house of the Red Order, lanterns glowed against the night, placed in free-standing brackets in the corners. The red and black motif was mirrored in the surroundings: the room was dark, its walls painted black but hung with crimson pennants and assorted other arcana. Its centrepiece was a low, round table of the same colour on which a brazier breathed scented smoke into the room. The Sisters all stood, but Asara lounged in a chair. She had digested the importance of the news she brought long ago; it amused her to watch the reactions of the Sisters now.

  ‘Do you trust her?’ one of the Sisters asked, a slender creature with blonde hair.

  ‘Implicitly,’ Asara replied. ‘I have known her for years. She would not lie; certainly not about this.’

  ‘And yet there is no proof,’ another pointed out.

  ‘Not unless any remains in her father’s apartment in Axekami,’ Asara said. ‘But I doubt that.’

  Cailin bowed her head thoughtfully. ‘This bears research of our own, dear Sisters. If a single scholar can assemble enough evidence to convince himself to travel all the way to Fo for proof, to risk himself and his family . . .’ She trailed away.

  ‘We must contact our Sisters further afield,’ suggested another.

  Asara raised an eyebrow. The Red Order had their ladles in more pots than anyone knew, she suspected. Though she had no clear idea of their membership, they were careful never to gather in one place in any great number. Indeed, four was the most she had ever seen together. She had gathered hints from Cailin that the Sisters were scattered all over Saramyr and beyond, engaged in hunting for new recruits like Kaiku or inveigling themselves into other organisations; but she believed there was another reason why they never congregated. They were paranoid. They knew well how fragile they were, how small their Sisterhood, and they feared extinction. While they were all connected by the Weave, there was no need to gather together, and hence no way the whole could be destroyed. Oh, she did not doubt that each of them was using their powers to further the Sisterhood, but she suspected fear was at the root. They were selfish, and sought power to stabilise themselves. The Red Order and the Weavers were not as different as Cailin would like to think.

  ‘There is another matter,’ Cailin pointed out. ‘The caged Aberrants Kaiku came across. What do they mean?’

  ‘Perhaps they are studying the effects of the witchstones on living beings. Perhaps they are searching for a cure to Aberrancy.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Cailin replied. ‘Perhaps it was merely a product of their insanity. Or maybe it is a clue to something much greater.’

  ‘We should think on this,’ agreed one of the other Sisters.

  ‘But this changes nothing,’ Cailin said, her voice rising decisively. ‘Kaiku’s discovery is only a first step, a breakthrough that demands our attention. But we have other, more pressing concerns now. This can wait. We must disseminate the information and ensure it becomes spread so wide that it cannot be suppressed, we must plan and research and investigate . . . but all that is for the future.’ She made a sweeping gesture as if to clear it from their minds. ‘For now, we have another task. Axekami is falling apart; the city is in the midst of revolution. The Imperial Guards cannot contain it. The armies of Blood Amacha and Blood Kerestyn squabble just outside the city. The Weave-lord Vyrrch works from within to undermine the Empress and kill her child.’ She paused, and her eyes flicked to each of them in turn. ‘This must not be allowed to happen. She is the only hope we have of turning the people of Saramyr away from the Weavers’ teachings, making them understand that Aberrants are not the evil they imagine us to be. I do not care who takes the reins of the Empire if Blood Erinima is overthrown, but I will not lose the Heir-Empress. I have met her in her dreams, and I know something of what she can do. She is too rare and powerful a creature to die on the end of some ignorant foot soldier’s blade. Perhaps Blood Erinima will emerge triumphant, but I count the chances as slim. The Empress has set herself squarely against the world. If she loses, Lucia dies.’

  ‘Then what do you propose to do?’ Asara asked.

  ‘The plans are in place, between ourselves and the Libera Dramach, to ensure the Heir-Empress’s safety the only way we can,’ Cailin replied. ‘We propose to kidnap her.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  The door crashed inward, wrenched off its hinges with one swing of the short, heavy battering ram that two of the Imperial Guards held between them. Guard Commander Jalis led the way inside, clambering over the fallen obstacle, passing from bright daylight into the gloomy murk of the narrow stone stairway. Already a hue and cry was being raised somewhere beneath. He raced downward, the tarnished white and blue plates of his armour clinking as he descended headlong towards the basement of the tannery. The stench of the place was even worse down here than it had been in the open air, and it crowded him in and almost made him gag. He swallowed the reflex. His heart was pounding, his blood up. Behind him two cohorts of Guards were cramming down the stairway, their rifles and swords clattering. Running blind into who knew what, and none of them cared. They had found the bastards at last, and they were in no mood to go easy on them.

  Jalis burst out of the stairwell and into the wide, low-ceilinged basement. He had no time to register the details of the room; there was only a flash impression of space, and gloom, and the blur of metal swinging towards him. His sword swept up to meet another man’s blade with a ringing of steel. He parried, parried again, then put his weight to his sword and struck, knocking his opponent back as he fended the blow weakly aside. Jalis forced his way into the room, clearing a path for the others to break through and join the combat. Swords clashed in a metallic cacophony, and bodies heaved against each other as battle was joined.

  Jalis threw back his attacker with a second push and stabbed. Until that point he had barely seen who it was he was fighting, but now he registered that it was a young man, wearing no armour and plainly no warrior, with his face contorted in an ugly grimace of hate. The unfair odds concerned him not one bit. He ran the young man through, and had his blade out and was fighting with someone else before his enemy’s impaled body had hit the floor.

  There were dozens of them, outnumbering the Guards in the room; but they were pitifully matched against trained, armoured soldiers. Jalis’s arm juddered as he buried his blade in another man’s neck, this one no more than eighteen harvests, little more than a boy. The Guards pushed outward from the stairway, allowing more of their number in behind them, and the ferocity of the initial onslaught diminished as more swords arrived to take the strain.

  Jalis took a second to sweep the room with his eyes. The basement was massive, and poorly lit, but it took only one glance to realise that their information had been good. Everywhere, tables were laden with tubes of coiled brass, distillation bulbs, disassembled clockwork timers and fuses. All about lay kegs of ignition powder, stacked up against the round pillars that supported the ceiling, secreted in corners behind piles of crates. It was a disorderly clutter at the edges, where odd shapes bulked in the shadows, but the central section was lethally precise, its tables laid in stringent rows so that completed components could be passed along the line to the next worker.

  This was the heart of Unger tu Torrhyc’s secret army: the bomb factory. Dozens had died at the hands of these fanatics, and hundreds more from the chaos their bombs had sown. He had no pity for them. They were a threat to Blood Erinima, and to the Empire. Each one that fell to his blade made Axekami a better place.

  And yet the frenzy with which they threw themselves on to the swords of the Guardsmen surprised even him. These were
not fighters, yet not a one of them cowered, or tried to run. Instead they had taken up arms and raced to the attack, and they were hewn down like wheat. Jalis grimaced as a spray of blood gave him a warm slap across the jaw, and wondered what misplaced loyalty possessed them to such fervour.

  A moment later, the crack of a rifle jolted his attention, and a Guard to his left fell with a sigh to the ground. It was followed by another, and again. Jalis picked out the source; two men against the far wall, where there was a rack of rifles and ignition powder. Several more had arrived and were taking their choice of weapons. A Guard just behind Jalis was already unslinging his own rifle from his back, but Jalis grabbed his arm roughly.

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ he cried. ‘Retreat! Get out!’

  It had been a risky gamble, to plough blindly into the enemy as they had done, but there was only one way into or out of the basement and they had had no other choice. Now Jalis saw he had underestimated the zeal of the bomb-makers, and it might cost them dearly. Gods, they should know better than to fire rifles down here! The entire place was one enormous bomb waiting to explode! It was suicide!

  But perhaps that was exactly their plan.

  The Guards pulled back towards the stairway, but the bomb-makers had redoubled the fury of their attack, throwing themselves at the intruders with no heed at all for their safety, choking the passage to freedom. More rifles joined the firefight, shooting friend and foe alike with indiscriminate aim. Jalis tried to push his way back through the ranks, the cloying stench of the tannery suffocating him, sudden panic swelling within; but there was nowhere he could go. He felt a sinking, draining feeling in his chest, and the world slowed to a crawl, and a sinister prescience whispered in his ear that the end was upon him.

  He did not hear the rifle ball that ricocheted into a powder keg, nor see the flash. The tannery exploded in a blast that smashed the surrounding streets to rubble, annihilating everything within and sending bricks and flaming timbers looping through the air to hiss and steam as they landed in the river, or to smash through walls and shutters. The earth shook, rattling even the fixtures of the Imperial Keep, and a great dark column of smoke belched upwards from the smouldering remains, to climb skyward and pollute the perfect summer’s day.

  ‘You know that my words make sense, Anais.’

  The Empress glared at Barak Mos across the low table. They sat on pillows in one of the western rooms of the Keep, an informal meal set before them of fish and rice and crabs from Mataxa Bay. Durun paced back and forth before the pillared arch that let out on to a wide balcony for catching the afternoon sun in spring and autumn. As summer ascended to its zenith, they stayed in the shade; the humidity was hard to bear even there, and scarcely a breath of wind came to relieve them.

  ‘Gods, wife, why don’t you listen to him?’ Durun cried, his long black hair sweeping as he came to a halt and gestured in exasperation at his spouse. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘Durun, stay out of this!’ his father commanded. ‘You aren’t helping.’

  Anais used her tiny silver finger-forks to spear a morsel of slitherfish from her plate, making them wait while she ate it thoughtfully. Durun seethed in the background like a leashed dog in sight of a rabbit. Mos watched her.

  ‘I am not sure I see the need. The single greatest cause of the disruption in Axekami is gone,’ she said. ‘The threat of Unger tu Torrhyc’s army has been removed.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Mos agreed. ‘But at the cost of two cohorts of your Imperial Guards. You were overstretched already, Anais; now you are worse off. Riots tear through the city; fires rage unchecked. The forces of Blood Amacha and Blood Kerestyn have arrived outside the city, and are squaring up to each other within sight of the walls. Chaos breeds chaos, my Empress; the city is falling apart, and it’s beyond the strength of your forces to quell it. Should Amacha or Kerestyn strike at Axekami now, your men would be too busy dealing with the populace to put up any resistance.’

  Anais raised an eyebrow. From the usually taciturn Barak, this validation sounded rehearsed. He had obviously been thinking about it for some time.

  ‘Please,’ Durun said, unable to resist interrupting again. ‘We are next to defenceless here. I won’t let our thrones be taken because we were too busy mopping up after the ungrateful cattle down in those streets. Let my family’s men do that!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Anais. ‘So you propose that the forces of Blood Batik will only be deployed for the duties of policing the city?’

  Mos cast a furious glance at his son, who was too haughty to have the decency to blush. Instead, he snorted and turned his head away to look out on to the balcony, feigning indifference. He had just given away a potent concession that Mos no doubt had intended to use as his coup de grâce in this argument.

  ‘Yes,’ Mos grated. ‘I’m aware of your caution in allowing any force into Axekami that is not blood-bound to your will, though it puzzles me that you don’t seem to see we have the same interests. I have as much to lose as you if Axekami falls to an invader.’ He took a breath. ‘In order that you don’t feel threatened, I propose you withdraw your Imperial Guards to their usual duties of guarding the Keep and securing the walls of Axekami; my troops will be used only in putting down the riots and restoring order to the city, unless you wish otherwise.’

  ‘I may wish to use them in the defence of Axekami in the event of Blood Amacha or Kerestyn making an assault upon the walls. Is that acceptable?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mos said. ‘My son and granddaughter are here.’ Durun snorted again at this, making clear what he thought of Mos calling Lucia his granddaughter. Mos gave him a sharp look, which he ignored, before continuing: ‘I would hardly let an invader storm the city while I had any power to prevent it. In fact, to prove my dedication in this matter, I’ll stay in the Keep myself, with your permission. Whatever befalls you or Durun or Lucia will befall me as well.’

  ‘This is not a small risk,’ Anais replied evenly, her food forgotten before her. ‘There would be few of your bloodline left if we were to lose.’

  ‘Ah, but Anais, with my forces and yours combined, and the walls of Axekami protecting us, we won’t lose. Amacha and Kerestyn together would have scarcely a chance of beating us. Squabbling and divided as they are, there is no hope of victory for them.’

  Anais thought on it for a moment, returning to her food. He made a convincing argument, and she was aware that her situation was worsening with every passing day. In truth, she already knew in her heart what she would do; she had decided before Mos had called on her. She had to agree; she had no other choice. Yet no matter how trusted the ally, to invite a foreign force into the heart of the capital was dangerous. There were always angles she could not see, vested interests she was not aware of, even with men as plain-speaking and guileless as Mos and Durun.

  It was a risk she had to take.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. Mos broke into a broad smile. ‘But not one of your men shall set foot in the grounds of the Imperial Keep,’ she added. ‘Not even a retinue for yourself. Are we understood?’

  His smile faded a little at the edges, but he nodded. ‘Agreed. I will send for my men immediately.’

  ‘You will have to use Vyrrch to contact your Weaver,’ Anais said with a wrinkle of distaste. ‘Be careful what you say to him.’

  ‘I speak to Weavers as little as I possibly can,’ Mos replied.

  ‘I will make the necessary arrangements with my men,’ Anais said. She looked at Durun, who looked back at her blandly, his dark eyes piercing on either side of his hawk nose. Typical of him: he had got what he wanted, and yet he acted as if it was his due rather than something granted by his wife. She dismissed him from her mind. She had him under control, anyway. His thoughts and loyalty were dictated by one organ alone, and it was not his brain.

  ‘I’ll talk to Vyrrch now,’ said Mos, getting to his feet. ‘Better to get it over with.’

  ‘And what of the Bloods Amacha and Kerestyn?’ Durun asked. The question indicated w
ho was the mind behind this meeting, as if Anais could not have guessed.

  Mos flexed his shoulders in the manner of a man relaxing at home, not in the presence of his Empress. Anais almost smiled at his lack of grace. ‘Leave them be,’ he said. ‘Barak Sonmaga tu Amacha will never let the Barak Grigi tu Kerestyn approach the city; and he has not the strength to assault it himself, for that would mean turning his back on the armies of Kerestyn. Let us see if the arrival of a few thousand of our men from the other side of Axekami won’t take some of the enthusiasm out of them. My intelligence tells me Sonmaga’s ill-equipped for civil war anyway; not enough time to gather troops. And Grigi must know he can beat Sonmaga, but the losses he’d take would mean he’d have no chance of taking Axekami. They’re at a stalemate. This might be just the thing to make them cut their losses and go home, and that would be one less problem to deal with.’

  Durun stalked over to stand by his father’s side. Anais got up from the table and saw them to the doorway of the chamber. ‘Then may Ocha bless us and keep us all safe.’

  Mos bowed deeply. ‘You are wise, Anais, to choose as you have chosen today. The country is in good hands.’

  ‘We shall see,’ she replied. ‘We shall see.’

  The Heir-Empress Lucia tu Erinima knelt on a mat before her pattern-board, her shadow long behind her in the low, bright sun of the evening. She had been there since midday, on the upper terraces of the gardens. There she had settled herself amid the sun-warm beige stones that tiled the floor of this, one of the many tranquil resting places and walkways curving through the greenery. Before her the terraces dropped away in steps until they came to the high perimeter wall of the roof gardens; hidden beyond that was the city of Axekami, the sweltering sprawl of streets surrounded by an even higher wall to separate it from the vast grassy expanses of the plains.