Zaelis finally demurred, and allowed Lucia to enrol in the school rather than be taught by him. Kaiku and Mishani took it upon themselves to act as elder sisters to her. She was a strange and distant girl, but there was something about her that drew people in, and within days she had been integrated into the close community of the Fold children, scars or no scars. Zaelis fretted and worried until Cailin pointed out the ravens that had taken to gathering on the rooftops of the buildings lately, and which roosted in the trees in the next valley.
‘They will look after her much better than you can,’ she said.
For herself, Kaiku found an odd sort of happiness after the kidnapping of the last of the Erinima line. Here she no longer thought of herself as Aberrant. It was a meaningless term now, and one that had lost all the connotations of shame and degradation it had carried for the greater part of her life. For the first time since the Weavers had murdered her family, she could simply be herself, to drift for a while without a pressing purpose to spur her on. Her oath to Ocha was there, of course, always present in the back of her mind; but she had her whole life in which to fulfil it. And besides, she had already struck her enemies a crucial blow. Her discovery that the witchstones were responsible for the blight on the land, for the Aberrants themselves, had caused a furore among the Libera Dramach, and plans were already afoot to deal with the problem. Let them plan, she thought. She found she could hold her cares away for a while in the lazy days of late summer. The Weavers could wait. Their time would come.
But first she had to learn. She applied herself to Cailin’s lessons, and those of the other Sisters, who periodically returned from their secretive errands in other parts of Saramyr. Gradually her kana became less of an enemy and more of a friend, and she learned not to fear it but to treasure it. Though mastery of her abilities would be a long and arduous journey, she had taken the first steps, and they brought her greater joy than she might have imagined.
She and Mishani shared a house, in one of the middle tiers of the cascade of rocky plateaux that formed the backbone of the Fold. It had stood empty for a long while, so Zaelis gave it to them in recognition of their actions, and they took it and made it their own. The friendship between them was better and stronger now than it had been for years, since Mishani went to the city to learn the ways of court. They supported each other through the days when they felt bleak, when they grieved for the loss of their families or friends. Kaiku remembered Tane often, more often than she would have liked. For someone who had been such a brief episode in her life, he had made more of an impact on her than she would have believed at the time. Only when he was gone did she realise it, and by then it was too late.
Her father’s Mask lay in a chest in her house. She took it out once in a while to look at it, and sometimes she felt a tugging, a strange urge to put it on, to have the scent and memories of her father back again. At times it seemed to whisper to her in the darkness of the house at night, calling her to it. Those nights she lay awake, but she never went to the chest. There was something in the call she disliked, something like a craving that she did not want to succumb to. Occasionally she thought of throwing it away, but somehow she always forgot about it soon after.
For Asara’s part, she left soon after it became clear nobody was going to follow Lucia to the Fold. The easy days of peace Kaiku and Mishani enjoyed were anathema to her, so one warm evening as they sat on the slopes of the valley she announced to them that she was going. Where she went or when she would return, only she knew. But Kaiku remembered the look that had passed between them as they hugged their goodbyes and kissed each other on the cheek, the moment of uncertainty when it seemed their lips might brush, the awkward swell of repulsion and desire intermingled. Then Asara dropped her eyes, smiled a strange sort of smile and left. That smile haunted Kaiku sometimes. She found she wanted to see it again.
And so it went for them, safe in their sanctuary. The days passed, the summer wore on, and they built themselves new lives and lived them, like the other folk of the Fold. But all were conscious at every moment that there among them was a small bloom of hope, a child upon whom their futures rested. A child who still might take the throne, and change their world for the better.
She was growing. All they had to do was wait.
The new Blood Emperor of Saramyr strode out of the council chamber of the Imperial Keep, the roars of disapproval ringing throughout the corridors. His face was dark as thunder, but he had expected nothing less in reaction to his announcement. The very nobles who had cheered his accession with joyous voices, who had been there as he was proclaimed and all Axekami hailed him, had turned against him today. Yet more potent than the outrage against the laws he had declared was the knowledge that they could do nothing about it. The council was weakened. The nobles teetered, gathering themselves in, fresh from the memory of the recent conflict and keen not to be involved in another one. There was nobody to unite behind against him. Blood Amacha had been all but been annihilated with their defeat outside Axekami. Kerestyn and Koli had expended most of their forces in the attempt on the city, and been forced to retreat empty-handed. They knew better than to show their faces at court now. They hid and licked their wounds.
The Blood Emperor Mos tu Batik swept through a pair of double doors into his private stateroom, and knew there were none left to stand against him.
It was the same room in which he had once met the former Blood Empress, when he had warned her that Vyrrch and Sonmaga were plotting against her. She had little suspected that it was not Sonmaga but he and his son who were conspiring with the Weave-lord. Deception and deceit did not sit easily with a man of Mos’s bluntness, but he could rise to the challenge when the occasion demanded.
The room was much as it had been then. It had escaped the fires that burned a portion of the Keep and ruined many precious artefacts. Another consequence of the shambolic execution of their plan. Vyrrch was supposed to have been there to coordinate the dampening of the fires after the coup, using his ungodly powers to help extinguish them. Instead he had been killed, somehow. The door to his chambers had been opened from the inside. And if the Weavers knew anything about it, they weren’t saying a cursed thing.
He hadn’t wanted this. He had wanted his son to be in his place, the Blood Emperor for the glory of Blood Batik and his family. It wasn’t right that it should have gone this way, that the father should take the role of the son, while Durun lay in the catacombs, an unrecognisable corpse. But he would not let Durun’s death be for nothing. Blood Batik were the ruling family now, and there would be changes.
He looked about, clearing his head of the bitter thoughts that swirled around it. The enormous ivory bas-relief of two rinji birds crossing in flight dominated one wall; a partition let out on to an open balcony, beyond which the hot breezes rose from the city below. Two couches sat by a low table of black wood. His visitor, as he had expected, had declined to sit on them.
‘Emperor Mos,’ he said, his voice a slow creak behind the cured-skin Mask.
‘Weave-lord Kakre,’ Mos replied.
Mos went to the table and poured out a glass of wine for himself, not thinking to offer his guest one. He drank it in one swallow. The new Weave-lord maintained an expectant silence, his face like a corpse amid the ragged bundle of furs and hide that was his robe.
‘It’s done,’ Mos said at last.
The Weave-lord watched him disconcertingly for a time. ‘You are a man of your word,’ he said. ‘Then our pact is complete.’
Mos poured, drained, nodded. ‘The nobles can’t oppose me. The Weavers will be given all the concessions and honours of a noble family, as if you were all one Blood. You will be allowed to be present at court, and at council. Your vote will carry the same weight as any other noble. You will be allowed to own land on the plains of Saramyr, instead of living up in the mountains where no land laws apply. You are no longer merely advisors and tools for communication, you are a political force in your own right.’
‘And, of course, you will not forget the aid the Weavers have given you,’ Kakre said. ‘You, the Blood Emperor of Saramyr, will not forget who put you on your throne.’
‘Heart’s blood!’ Mos swore. ‘We made a deal, and I have my honour! I’ll not forget. We have a partnership. See that you do your part, and keep me here.’
Kakre nodded slowly. ‘I foresee a long and mutually beneficial relationship between Blood Batik and the Weavers,’ he said.
‘Indeed,’ Mos said, but he was unable to hide the curl of disgust in his voice. Kakre gave no indication that he had detected it. He bade farewell and left Mos to his thoughts.
Mos filled his glass for a third time. He was a big and broad man, and alcohol took a long time to affect him. He took the glass out to the balcony and felt the heat of Nuki’s eye on his skin, bathing the streets of Axekami in a balmy evening light. His city. He had put it to rights, brought order to the people, and given them a leader they could believe in again. Blood Erinima was ousted, and peace had returned.
He let his eyes range down the hill that the Imperial Keep stood on, over the Imperial Quarter, past the bustling Market District to the docks and the sparkling sweep of the River Kerryn, then beyond, to the plains and the distant horizon.
The body of the Heir-Empress had never been found. She had gone, without a trace, without a trail or a clue. His best men had turned up nothing, and though they searched even now, he doubted they ever would. Like a phantom, a vapour, she had disappeared. There were a thousand ways she might have died in the chaos that had seized the Keep that day. He did not believe any of them.
If only Vyrrch had waited until his troops were in the city, as they had planned. Mos might never know what had caused the Weave-lord to set the bombs off early. He might never know what had happened on that bridge between the Keep and the Tower of the North Wind, from which his son had fallen. They had found the Empress there, stabbed through the back, and while every soldier who lay with her had been picked almost clean of flesh, she lay untouched. Whether some devilry or some grotesque trick, it mattered little. What mattered was who had done it. And what they had done with Lucia.
He looked out as far as he could. Somewhere out there, the disenfranchised heir was hiding, growing, gathering support. He could sense it. She would not be found until she revealed herself.
One day she would return, and that day would shake the foundations of the empire.
THE SKEIN OF LAMENT
ONE
The air, cloying and thick from the jungle heat, swam with insects.
Saran Ycthys Marul lay motionless on a flat boulder of dusty stone, unblinking, shaded from the merciless sun by an overhanging chapapa tree. In his hands was a long, slender rifle, his eye lined up with the sight as it had been for hours now. Before him a narrow valley tumbled away, a chasm like a knife slash, its floor a clutter of white rocks left over from a river that had since been diverted by the catastrophic earthquakes that tore across the vast, wild continent of Okhamba from time to time. To either side of the chasm the land rose like a wall, sheer planes of prehistoric rock, their upper reaches buried beneath a dense complexity of creepers, bushes and trees that clung tenaciously to what cracks and ledges they could find.
He lay at the highest end of the valley, where the river had once begun its descent. The monstrosity that had been chasing them for weeks had only one route if it wanted to follow them further. The geography was simply too hostile to allow any alternatives. It would be coming up this way, sooner or later. And whether it took an hour or a week, Saran would still be waiting.
It had killed the first of the explorers a fortnight ago now, a Saramyr tracker they had hired in a Quraal colony town. At least, they had to assume that he had been killed, for there was never any corpse found nor any trace of violence. The tracker had lived in the jungle his whole adult life, so he had claimed. But even he had not been prepared for what they would find in the darkness at the heart of Okhamba.
After him had gone two of the indigenous folk, Kpeth men, reliable guides who doubled as pack mules. Kpeth were albinos, having lived for thousands of years in the near-impenetrable central areas where the sun rarely forced its way through the canopy. Sometime in the past they had been driven out of their territory and migrated to the coast, where they were forced to live a nocturnal existence away from the blistering heat of the day. But they had not forgotten the old ways, and in the twilight of the deepest jungle their knowledge was invaluable. They were willing to sell their services in return for Quraal money, which meant a life of relative ease and comfort within the heavily defended strip of land owned by the Theocracy on the north-western edge of the continent.
Saran did not regret their loss. He had not liked them, anyway. They had prostituted the ideals of their people by taking money for their services, spat upon thousands of years of belief. Saran had found them eviscerated in a heap, their blood drooling into the dark soil of their homeland.
The other two Kpeth had deserted, overcome by fear for their lives. The creature used them later as bait for a trap. The tortured unfortunates were placed in the explorers’ path, their legs broken, left cooking in the heat of the day and begging for help. Their cries were supposed to attract the others. Saran was not fooled. He left them to their fates and gave their location a wide berth. None of the others complained.
Four more in total had been killed now, all Quraal men, all helpless in the face of the majestic cruelty of the jungle continent. Two were the work of the creature tracking them. One fell to his death traversing a gorge. The last one they had lost when his ktaptha overturned. The shallow-bottomed reed boat had proved too much for him to handle in his fever-weakened state, and when the boat righted itself again, he was no longer in it.
Nine dead in two weeks. Three remaining, including himself. This had to end now. Though they had made it out of the terrible depths of central Okhamba, they were still days from their rendezvous – if indeed there would even be a rendezvous – and they were in bad shape. Weita, the last Saramyr among them, was still shaking off the same fever that had claimed the Quraal man, he was exhausted and at the limit of his sanity. Tsata had picked up a wound in his shoulder which would probably fester unless he had a chance to seek out the necessary herbs to cure himself. Only Saran was healthy. No disease had brushed him, and he was tireless. But even he had begun to doubt their chances of reaching the rendezvous alive, and the consequences of that were far greater than his own death.
Tsata and Weita were somewhere down the valley in the dry river bed, hidden in the maze of moss-edged saltstone boulders. They were waiting, as he was. And beyond them, similarly invisible, were Tsata’s traps.
Tsata was a native of Okhamba, but he came from the eastern side, where the Saramyr traders sailed. He was Tkiurathi, an entirely different strain to the albino, night-dwelling Kpeth. He was also the only surviving member of the expedition capable of leading them out of the jungle. In the last three hours, under his direction, they had set wire snares, deadfalls, pits, poisoned stakes, and rigged the last of their explosives. It would be virtually impossible to come up the gorge without triggering something.
Saran was not reassured. He lay as still as the dead, his patience endless.
He was a strikingly handsome man even in this state, with his skin grimed and streaked with sweat, and his chin-length black hair reduced to sodden, lank strips that plastered his neck and cheeks. He had the features of Quraal aristocracy, a certain hauteur in the bow of his lips, in his dark brown eyes and the aggressive curve of his nose. His usual pallor had been darkened by long months in the fierce heat of the jungle, but his complexion remained unblemished by any sign of the trials he had endured. Despite the discomfort, vanity and tradition forebade him to shed the tight, severe clothing of his homeland for attire more suited to the conditions. He wore a starched black jacket that had wilted into creases. The edge of the high collar was chased with silver filigree which coiled into exquisite openwork around the clasps
that ran from throat to hip along one side of his chest. His trousers were a matching set with the jacket, continuing the complex theme of the silver thread, and were tucked into oiled leather boots that cinched tight to his calves and chafed abominably on long walks. Hanging from his left wrist – the one which supported the barrel of his rifle – was a small platinum icon, a spiral with a triangular shield, the emblem of the Quraal god Ycthys from whom he took his middle name.
He surveyed the situation mentally, not taking his eye away from the grooved sight. The point where the gorge was at its narrowest was laden with traps, and on either side the walls were sheer. The boulders there, remnants of earlier rockfalls, were piled eight feet high or more, making a narrow maze through which the hunter would have to pick its way. Unless it chose to climb over the top, in which case Saran would shoot it.
Further up the rising slope, closer to him, the old river bed spread out and trees suddenly appeared, a collision of different varieties that jostled for space and light, crowding close to the dry banks. Flanking the trees were more walls of stone, dark grey streaked with white. Saran’s priority was to keep his quarry in the gully of the river bed. If it got out into the trees . . .
There was an infinitesimal flicker of movement at the far limit of Saran’s vision. Despite the hours of inactivity, his reaction was immediate. He sighted and fired.
Something howled, a sound between a screech and a bellow floating up from the bottom of the slope.
Saran primed the rifle again in one smooth reflex, drawing the bolt back and locking it home. He had a fresh load of ignition powder in the blasting chamber, which he counted as good for around seven shots under normal conditions, maybe five in this humid air. Ignition powder was so cursedly unreliable.
The jungle had fallen silent, perturbed by the unnatural crack of gunfire. Saran watched for another sign of movement. Nothing. Gradually, the trees began to hum and buzz again, animal whoops and birdcalls mixing and mingling in an idiot cacophony of teeming life.
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr / the Skein of Lament / the Ascendancy Veil Page 44