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

by Chris Wooding

  Durun drew them to a halt in the Sun Chamber. Anais had almost forgotten this place existed; but even amidst all that was going on, she found herself regretting that she had not come here more often. It was a place of true beauty, a great dome of faded green and tarnished gold, with enormous petal-shaped windows that curved symmetrically down from the ornate boss at the apex. The light of the morning splintered into layers of colour as it spread across the webbed glass, bathing the chamber beneath in a multitude of hues. The floor was a vast circular mosaic, and the walls were lined with three galleries of wood and gold. These had once been where councils had stood while a speaker held court in the centre, or where an audience would look down on performers below. Now, like so many of the Keep’s upper levels, the chamber was empty and musty, a ghost of its former glory.

  ‘Where’s Lucia?’ she fretted. She could hear how she sounded, no longer the Blood Empress but the weak woman they all wanted her to be. She hated herself for it, but she was powerless to stop. The attack on the throne room had shaken her to her core; for the first time she had looked in the eyes of men who intended to kill her. It made her authority seem a joke, a game she had been playing, issuing orders that governed the life or death of her subjects while safely shielded from it all inside her impregnable Keep. Now someone had struck at her, close to her heart, and the mortal terror she had felt was not easily washed away.

  Who was it? Vyrrch? Most likely, but then she had a thousand enemies now. The bombs suggested Unger tu Torrhyc’s vengeful army. She thought she had wiped them out, but maybe there were more, ready to deal retribution for the death of their brothers . . .

  One of the six doors to the room was opened, and in came Rudrec with Lucia. She drifted after him, her eyes far away, bearing that look she always wore, the combination of bewilderment and deep curiosity mixed with a hint that she knew far more about the object of her attention than she should.

  Anais gave a cry of joy and ran over to her daughter, kneeling and hugging her in relief. She dared not think what might have happened if the attackers had taken the life of her beautiful child. Trembling, she held Lucia tight, and Lucia stroked her hair absently. The Heir-Empress seemed preoccupied, looking wide-eyed up at the windows above, but Anais was too overcome to notice that her mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Give me news of the battle downstairs,’ Durun demanded. They had come up several levels from the throne room. ‘What about my father?’

  Rudrec frowned, momentarily puzzled. ‘I left when you did, my Emperor, and I went directly to the roof gardens to collect Lucia, then to here. I have spoken to no one. I have no news.’

  Durun appeared satisfied. ‘Good. Then nobody but us knows we are here? Matters should stay that way until we find out who is responsible for today’s outrage.’

  ‘No one knows we are here,’ Rudrec affirmed. ‘Shall I return to the throne room and search for the Barak?’

  ‘No, stay,’ Anais said quickly, getting up. ‘We need another guard.’

  Durun nodded his assent. Lucia hung on to her mother’s dress.

  ‘We should go,’ Durun snapped suddenly. ‘We can’t be sure who to trust until the enemy is found.’

  ‘I suggest we go to the Tower of the North Wind,’ said Yttrys. ‘There is only one door there, thick and easily barricaded. My Empress and Emperor will be safe until we can gather the Guards and root out the assassins.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Rudrec. ‘My Imperial Mistress?’ he queried, looking for confirmation.

  Anais made a neutral noise that they took as an affirmative.

  The Tower of the North Wind could be reached from the Sun Chamber by a long, straight bridge spanning a dizzying drop. The bridge was plated on its side and underneath in a latticework of gold which caught the sun in blinding lines of fire. Its interior surfaces were no less fine, the parapets scattered with murals and the floor veined in dark lacquers. Beneath them was the sloping edge of the Keep, for it stood at the corner where two of the Keep’s many-arched sides met; level upon level jumbled up towards them from the ground far below, sculptures lunging out to gaze off over the vast panorama of Axekami’s streets. Ahead was the thin finger of the tower, a smooth golden needle rising before them, its tip raking the sky as a monument to the spirit that made the north winds blow. Its sister towers rose behind them, at the west, east and south corners of the Imperial Keep.

  They stepped out into the open air, feeling the hot wind rustle their clothes, and there they halted.

  The roof of the tower was black with ravens. They perched on the tapering apex, or waited on the sills of the arched windows that pocked its length. Closer to hand, they lined the ornamental parapets on either side of the bridge, and carpeted the floor near the far end, shifting restlessly. Every one of them had its black, bright eyes on the newcomers, watching them with an uncanny avian intelligence.

  Anais felt a chill run to her core. She heard Rudrec breathe an oath. Durun cast an accusing glance at Lucia, but Lucia was not looking at him; she was gazing at the birds.

  ‘What should we do?’ Yttrys said, addressing Durun.

  ‘Heart’s blood!’ Durun cried. ‘They’re just birds.’ But he sounded less confident than he would have liked, and it came out as bluster.

  He took Anais’s arm and pulled her ahead with him, leading the group out towards the centre of the bridge. The hot breeze plucked at their clothes as if searching for a grip to throw them off and pitch them to their deaths. To their right, Nuki’s eye was a bright, glowering ball, peering malevolently through wispy, slatted clouds.

  Durun had evidently been hoping the ravens would scatter at their approach. They did not. They bobbed and shuffled, preened themselves or flexed their black wings, but always they watched.

  ‘This is your doing, isn’t it?’ Durun growled, throwing Anais roughly aside and grabbing Lucia’s tiny wrist. ‘These are your accursed birds!’

  Suddenly he snorted, released Lucia and drew his sword, plunging it into Rudrec’s breast before the Guard Commander had time to react. Hutten and Yttrys drew their blades at the same time, but while the former was readying himself to strike at the Emperor, the latter drove his sword under Hutten’s ribs. He cried out in surprise and pain, but his voice turned to a gargle as blood welled in his throat, and he slid to the ground with sightless eyes.

  The birds began to caw, setting up an almighty and terrifying racket; but Durun had swept Lucia into the crook of his arm, with the point of his sword at her throat.

  ‘You call them off!’ he shouted. ‘The first bird to take wing will cost your life, you Aberrant monstrosity.’

  The ravens’ cawing died, and they did not move, but it seemed that the searing summer day suddenly became chill under their baleful regard. Yttrys stepped over to Anais, guarding her with his blade. The other four Guards watched dispassionately. It was evident they were on Durun’s side also. Only Rudrec and Hutten had not been in on it, and they had died for their ignorance.

  Anais’s eyes were fixed on her husband, hate shining through a salt-water sheen. It had happened in only a moment, but now the evidence of her senses had overcome her shock and was pummelling her with the truth. The raw betrayal, the disbelief . . .

  Durun. All this time, it had been him. Her own husband.

  And she had invited his troops into her city.

  Her legs went suddenly weak, and she staggered back a step, her gaze never leaving that of her husband. She saw the whole picture then, and the extent of her ruin crushed her. Barak Mos and his son, working in unison with . . .

  ‘Vyrrch,’ she whispered. ‘You were working with Vyrrch.’

  Durun allowed himself a slow smile. ‘Of course I was,’ he said. ‘The Weavers were most unhappy when you insisted on keeping Lucia in the line of succession. He was only too willing to help. But don’t think it started there, wife. How long do you expect it took to find so many men loyal to Blood Batik, to integrate them into your Imperial Guards without anyone finding out? Eight years I’ve
been planning this, Anais. Eight years, since this thing was born.’ He squeezed Lucia tighter in his grip.

  Eight years? Anais felt dizzy, as if the bridge were yawing wildly beneath her, threatening to tip her off. The immediacy of the situation clutched at her, pressing the breath from her lungs. The sheer scale of his bitterness, nursed for eight long years, bled through every word.

  ‘I knew how you felt, Durun,’ she said, bewilderment in her voice. ‘I knew how you felt. An Emperor in name only, wedded to me for your family’s advantage, part of a deal. I knew how frustrated you were, but this . . .’

  ‘This isn’t about me, Anais,’ he replied, glancing at the ravens and then back to her. ‘This is about our empire. You’d let us tear ourselves apart for the sake of your little girl.’

  ‘Our little girl!’ she cried.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Your little girl. Don’t you think I have wenched my way around enough? Strange, then, that there have never been any bastard offspring to bother us, to make their claims to the throne. Strange how we tried so long for an heir, yet you became pregnant only once.’

  ‘What are you accusing me of?’ she cried, shamed that this should be aired in front of their subjects, terrified at what would happen to her and Lucia now.

  ‘I have no seed, wife, nor ever had!’ he spat. ‘This monster in my arms is someone else’s spawn, and every sight of her reminds me how I have been cuckolded.’

  There it was, then; and suddenly it made sense. Anais felt her eyes welling, angry at herself that she should be weak enough to weep. Nuki’s eye glared accusingly at her from behind the thin scratches of cloud in the east: he knew what she had done, and here was the long-feared retribution. So long ago, and she thought it had passed into the shadows of history and been forgotten. But Durun had known. And it would cost her and her family dear.

  She wiped away the tears, defiant. She had suspected, always suspected . . . but never been sure until now. Well, she would not lie or beg forgiveness; not from him. ‘Yes, I slept with another!’ she shouted. ‘Did you think it easy for me, that the whole castle knew my husband consorted with whores and maids? How was it that I was expected to tolerate your scabid antics, while I was to remain pure and for you only on the occasions when you decided to notice me? I am Blood Empress, curse you! Not some half-educated, placid little fishwife!’

  ‘So who was it?’ Durun snapped, silencing her. ‘A salesman? A travelling musician?’ He looked down at Lucia’s face. She was calm, like a doll. ‘No, she has noble features. A Barak, perhaps? Someone of high birth, surely.’

  ‘You’ll never know,’ she sneered. But she did, and Lucia did too. By some instinct she had recognised her father the instant she saw him in the roof garden. And he had recognised her, she believed. The Barak Zahn tu Ikati. A brief affair, a tempest of lovemaking, ended all too quickly. It was as if her womb craved a child, desperate with malnourishment from Durun’s empty issue; despite the herbs she had taken to prevent it, she had become pregnant almost immediately. She broke it off as soon as she knew, terrified by the implications. Was it really Zahn’s? Or could it be Durun’s, for she had made bedplay with him intermittently during the early stages of the affair, driven by a misplaced sense of guilt at deceiving him. What if it was Zahn’s, and grew to resemble him? What if he tried to lay claim to what was his?

  And yet, for all the magnitude of her mistake, she would not end the pregnancy. After trying for so long, a child – any child – was too precious to give up, whatever the circumstances. How could she dare to think it was not her husband’s? Easier to believe it was his, and say nothing to Zahn. Against the subsequent discovery that the child was Aberrant, her lineage paled into insignificance; and it was surprisingly easy to convince herself that Durun was the father, even to the point where she had forgotten about the other possibility. She resembled her mother, and not Zahn or Durun.

  ‘It does not matter who you prostituted yourself to,’ Durun said, and she heard again in his voice the depth of his spite. ‘Your polluted bloodline ends here, Anais. A treacherous attack by Unger tu Torrhyc’s men, and the Empress and heir lie dead. As the only survivor, I will reluctantly become the Blood Emperor, true ruler of Saramyr.’ He was beginning to enjoy himself now. The ravens were checkmated; Anais was at last his. So many years as the puppet on the throne, so many years in the shadow of a woman, a cuckolded husband without power. He would not let her die before she knew how totally he had outmanoeuvred her. ‘By nightfall, the Imperial Guards will owe their allegiance to me as the only surviving member of the Imperial family, and my family’s troops will have the city. Grigi tu Kerestyn can batter himself senseless against our walls, but he’ll see it’s a hopeless task. The council will accept me as Blood Emperor because they will have no choice. Truth be told, I think they’ll be relieved that this whole debacle with you and Lucia is over.’

  ‘And Vyrrch? What did you promise him?’ Anais cried.

  ‘Vyrrch is dead,’ Lucia said quietly.

  ‘Silence,’ Durun snapped.

  ‘The dream lady beat him,’ she said.

  ‘I told you silence!’

  The ravens stirred, a black ripple through the blanket of beaks and feathers.

  ‘My Emperor,’ said Yttrys nervously. ‘Let us be about our business and gone from here.’

  Durun was about to reply when his hand exploded.

  Anais screamed as hot blood splattered her, but her scream was nothing to the roar of agony that came from her husband as he drew back the blazing stump of his sword arm. Lucia darted out of his grip, her long blonde hair afire, screaming also. At the same moment the ravens took flight as one in a vast black cloud, and the air was filled with the beating and thumping of their wings.

  Yttrys was too paralysed by fright at the sight of the birds to pay attention to Anais as she ducked away, grabbing Lucia and slapping at her head to put out the flames. Durun’s own hair was alight now, the silken black gloss rilled with licking waves of fire. He beat at himself helplessly. Yttrys, suddenly realising what had become of his prisoner, ran to where Anais was crouched over Lucia. He hesitated for the briefest of moments, constrained by the last vestiges of her authority; then he plunged his sword into the Empress’s back with a cry.

  Anais screamed, a shriek of pain that overwhelmed the cawing of the approaching ravens. The agony was indescribable, but worse was the sudden, swamping cold that settled on her body like a shroud, numbing her. She barely felt the jerk as the blade was pulled from her, tearing through organs and muscle and skin to come free in a spray of dark arterial blood. She was already sinking into the grey folds of unconsciousness. Desperately she clutched Lucia to her, looking at the pallid face of her child, and tears fell from her eyes as the wet stain on the back of her dress swelled in ugly osmosis.

  Yttrys turned to run, but in turning he saw Tane and Kaiku at the other end of the bridge; the shaven-headed man and the young woman with her eyes the colour of blood. The sight caused him to halt, to re-evaluate for a moment. Were they friend or enemy? Could he kill them both? Had they been responsible for what had happened to Durun? It was an automatic soldier’s instinct, a second’s pause; and that was all it took for the ravens to reach the Imperial Guards.

  Yttrys shrieked as they enshrouded him, clawing at his nape and scalp and face, a thousand tiny knives raking and pecking at his flesh. He opened his mouth to shriek again, but they slashed and plucked at his tongue. They tore through his eyelids and gorged on the soft jelly of his eyes. He fell and thrashed and wailed, but they were relentless, attacking every inch of his body until there was no part of him that was not bloodied. The other Guards suffered similar torment before they died.

  At the same time the ravens bombarded the Emperor, wings beating at his face, pummelling him, battering his body. Still flailing at his hair to put out the searing torch that was crisping the skin of his back and neck, he stumbled backward, and with a wail of fear he toppled over the parapet and plunged off the bridge. His final sc
ream faded until they could hear it no more.

  By the time Kaiku and Tane had run over to the fallen Empress, the quiet had returned. All about was the shifting of wings from the ravens, the soft wet smacking as they devoured the corpses of the Guards. Anais sobbed and gasped, lying across her daughter. Her back was soaked in a great dark patch, and blood had run down her arms and dripped from her sleeves, spattering sinister blooms of red on to the bridge. Kaiku crouched next to her, touched her shoulder with a gentle hand.

  ‘Is she alive?’ Kaiku asked.

  Anais drew back, her moist eyes never leaving her child. Her face was grey, and seemed to have aged terribly. Lucia lay still, her eyes closed. Her back had been terribly burned through the green dress she wore, the fibres of the clothing having blackened and snapped and curled away from each other. Her breathing was shallow, and a pulse fluttered at her throat, but she would not wake when Anais rocked her.

  The spectre that had led them through the Keep, that had brought them here; it was this girl. She had drawn them to her intentionally. She must have known she was in danger.

  But it seemed they had come too late.

  ‘Help her. She’s . . . my daughter,’ Anais gasped. She seemed oblivious to her own mortal wound.

  Kaiku nodded, and for the first time Anais saw her, saw the crimson irises of her eyes. She coughed, and blood ran from her mouth. Kaiku felt tears coming. This, the Empress of all Saramyr. For so long she had been an almost mythical creature, holding the power of a vast empire in her hands. Millions would fight and die at her command, armadas would sail the oceans for her; she was as close to godhead as humanity would allow. But in the end, only human after all. She seemed so small now, just a frail dying woman. Kaiku listened to Tane murmuring rites to Noctu and Omecha, final benedictions for the soul of their ruler, and she felt a sense of tragedy overwhelm her.