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

by Chris Wooding

  The Koli family house was built close to the edge on the highest point of the promontory. It was a coral-coloured building, constructed around a circular central section with a flattened and ribbed dome atop it. The uniformity of its surface at ground level was broken by a square entrance hall that poked out like a blunt snout, facing away from the bay. Two slender wings encompassing stables and servants’ quarters ran along the cliff edge. Cut in steps into the cliff itself was an enormous three-tiered garden, its lowest tier balconied and jutting out over the drop to the beach below. All kinds of trees and plants were cultivated there, and carved pillars of rock had been left in strategic places to maximise the aesthetic pleasure in the fusion of stone and greenery. On the highest tier was a small conservatory, a skeletal framework of tall arches and curved pillars, where Mishani’s mother Muraki would sit to write.

  She was there now, Barak Avun suspected, though he could not see from where he lounged on the lowest tier with Barak Grigi tu Kerestyn. No doubt concocting more of her stories, he thought with distaste. Sharing her family’s problems with the empire. In all things she obeyed him, except in this. He had been furious when news of her latest book had reached him; it fuelled scandalmongers the breadth of the land. There was enough rumour about their missing daughter without her adding to it. But she would write what she would write, and she defied him to censor her.

  Still, the damage could be minimised. If all went well, then soon he would have his daughter back, one way or another, and then they could concoct a cover story that would put all that dishonour to rest. If all went well . . .

  ‘Gods, it’s not so bad, is it?’ said Grigi, who was lying on a couch and looking over the balcony to the bay. ‘Up here, you can forget about the problems of the world, forget about the blight. Nuki’s eye still shines on us, the sea still ebbs and flows. Our problems are small, when you look at them from this height.’

  Avun regarded him with vague contempt. The obese Barak was drunk. Between them was a table scattered with the remnants of the food Grigi had devoured, and empty pitchers of wine. Avun was ascetic in his tastes, but Grigi was a glutton, and he had gorged himself all afternoon.

  ‘They are not small to me,’ Avun said coldly. ‘The sea still ebbs and flows, but its fish are becoming twisted; and those fish paid for the food you have eaten. My fishermen have taken to holding back some of their catch for their own families. Preserving them against the famine. Stealing from me.’ He turned his hooded eyes outward, to where the distant cliffs of the eastern side of the bay were a low, jagged line of deep blue. ‘It is easy to pretend that nothing is wrong. It is also foolish.’

  ‘No need to be so dour, Avun,’ said Grigi, a little disappointed that his ally did not share his expansive mood. ‘Heart’s blood, you know how to bring a man down.’

  ‘I see nothing to be cheerful about.’

  ‘Then you don’t see the opportunity that this famine brings us,’ Grigi said. ‘There is no stouter warrior than a man fighting for his life, and the lives of his family. All they need is someone to unite behind. That person will be me!’ He raised his goblet clumsily, spilling a little wine onto the slabs of the balcony.

  ‘There goes the Barakess,’ said Avun, languidly indicating a brightly coloured junk that was slipping out of the harbour far below them, making its way through the clutter of fishing vessels.

  Grigi shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun and looked down. ‘Do you trust her?’

  Avun nodded slowly. ‘She will be there when the time comes.’

  The afternoon’s work had been satisfactory. Emira, a young Barakess of Blood Ziris, had visited them at her request. She had talked with them about many things: the threat of famine, the Blood Emperor, the plight of her own people. And, in her sly and roundabout way, she had wondered whether Blood Kerestyn intended to make a play for the throne, and whether they might need Blood Ziris’s help when they did.

  It was ever this way, in the game of the Imperial courts. Families backed each other in the hope that the one they supported would gain power, and in turn that family would elevate the ones that had helped them get there. As Mos’s ineptitude became clearer, and with Blood Kerestyn the only realistic alternative, the high families were flocking to Grigi’s banner without him even having to call them. With Blood Koli at his right hand, he was a powerful figurehead, and the strength of the empire was gathering itself to him.

  But always there had been the problem of the Emperor’s strength of numbers. With the Weavers at his side, and the Imperial Guards at his command, he was a near-invincible force. While Kerestyn forces had been smashed during the last coup, Blood Batik had walked unopposed into the city, and had grown since then. Even with overwhelming support from the other high families, Grigi knew it would be a close call. He had broken himself on the walls of Axekami once before; he would have to be very sure of himself before he would try it again.

  Avun had brought him the solution to that problem this very day.

  ‘I have a new friend,’ he had said, as they walked through the chambers of the family house that morning. ‘One very close to the Emperor. I was contacted not long ago.’

  ‘A new friend?’ Grigi had asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘This person tells me that something is going to happen, very soon. We must be ready.’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘We must assemble our support, so we can march on Axekami at a day’s notice.’

  ‘A day! Ridiculous! We would have to tell all the families well in advance, gather their forces here.’

  ‘Then we shall do so, when the time is right. There will be a signal. And when it comes, we must act swiftly, and have our allies ready to do the same.’

  Grigi had adjusted his purple skullcap on top of his head. ‘That’s a little too much to take on trust, Avun. Tell me just who this new friend of yours is.’

  ‘Kakre. The Emperor’s own Weaver.’

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘It’s time, Kaiku,’ said Yugi.

  Darkness was falling. The sky was a soft purple in the east, the harbinger of oncoming night. Iridima stood alone at half-moon amid a thick blanket of dim stars, pallid and ghostly in the dusk. The heat of the early autumn day was fading to a warm night, and a gentle breeze dispersed the muggy closeness of the previous hours.

  They had found the Weavers’ barrier, the edge of the secret that they had crossed the Fault to uncover. Nomoru had announced that they were nearing the point where she had lost her way on her previous visit, and an hour later they returned to the same spot, despite having headed steadily westward. If that was not enough, Kaiku’s senses had begun to crackle; she was certain that she knew exactly where the barrier cut across the landscape, and when they had been turned around. She had been very careful to keep her kana reined tight as they passed into it. She did not want to try and tackle the barrier without the help of her father’s Mask.

  The four travellers sheltered in a dell for a few hours to wait for the cover of night. Kaiku spent them sat against a tree, holding the leering, red-and-black face before her, looking into its empty eyes. When Yugi spoke to her, she barely heard him. He had to shake her arm before she looked up at him sharply, annoyed; then she softened, and smiled in thanks. Yugi’s eyes mirrored uncertainty for a moment, and he retreated.

  Her mind flitted back, skipping over days of hard journeying, alighting eventually on the gloomy, doleful marsh where Yugi had lain dying. The battle to extract the demon poison was etched in Kaiku’s memory; every probing fibre, every twist and knot were mapped onto her consciousness in shining lines. Despite herself, she felt a small grin of triumph touch her lips, and her spirits rose. But then her gaze fell on Yugi, who was shouldering his pack, and her grin faded a little.

  Ever since he had awoken, Yugi had been different somehow. She had sensed something when she had been inside him, a faint wash from his mind that hinted at something dark and unspeakably ugly. She could not guess what it was, only that it lay deep and hidden,
and unconsciousness had loosened it from where it was fettered. She watched him, and wondered.

  Yugi tried not to notice, but he could feel her eyes on his back. His brush with the demons had sobered him, that much was certain. The proximity of death had reminded him of a previous life, before he had joined the Libera Dramach. Days of blood and blade and mayhem. He began to play with the dirty sash wrapped around his forehead; a totem of those times, times that he wanted desperately to forget but never could.

  He pushed the thoughts away as the travellers got to their feet and made ready to breach the Weavers’ barrier. The immediacy of the situation focused him. Their trip across the Fault had not been an easy one, but it would get worse from here on in.

  ‘Is that going to work?’ Nomoru asked doubtfully, motioning to the Mask in Kaiku’s hand.

  ‘We will know soon enough,’ Kaiku said, and put it on.

  Dreadfully, it felt like coming home. The Mask warmed to her skin, and she fancied that she felt it mould itself to the tiny changes in her face since the last time she had worn it. She felt a great contentment, a nostalgic warmth such as she felt as a little girl asleep in her father’s lap. She could hear the comforting whisper of Ruito’s voice, a phantom of his memory brushing against her, and tears sprang to her eyes.

  She blinked them back. The Mask felt like her father because it had robbed him of some of his thoughts and personality when he had worn it. He had been killed for this piece of wood. The Masks were cruel masters, taking and taking in return for the power they gave, addicting their users until their victims could not live without them. Until they were Weavers. She would not let herself forget that.

  Spirits, what would happen if a Sister of the Red Order became a Weaver?

  ‘You look ridiculous,’ said Nomoru, her voice devoid of humour. ‘What’s this going to achieve?’

  Kaiku gave her a contemptuous glance. Strangely, she did not feel in the least bit ridiculous, wearing this Mask with its knowing leer. In fact, she felt that it suited her perfectly, and made her appear more impressive.

  ‘What it will achieve is to get us through that barrier when you could not,’ Kaiku replied airily. ‘Let us be quick. I do not want to wear this thing a moment longer than necessary.’

  She thought, as they departed, that those words felt curiously hollow. She had spoken them because she thought she was supposed to, rather than because she actually meant them.

  The last light had fled the sky when they came up against the barrier. Topping a gentle rise in the land between two peaks of hulking stone, Kaiku felt the Mask become hot against her cheeks.

  ‘It is here,’ she said. ‘Tie yourselves to me.’

  Tsata produced a rope, and they did as she instructed. It was difficult to tell how much the Tkiurathi believed in the necessity of what they were doing, but he acceded to the will of the group without complaint.

  Kaiku proceeded tentatively, holding her hand out before her. The Mask grew hotter still, rising in temperature until she thought it might burn her; and then her fingers brushed the barrier, and it was unveiled to her eyes.

  She could not hold back a gasp. The glittering Weave-sewn tapestry swept away to either side of her, six metres high and six deep, curving up and over the steep contours of the Fault. It was a churn of golden spirals and whirls, spinning and writhing slowly, curling around each other and taking on new forms, stretching and flexing in a dance of impossible chaos. Like an eddy in the waters of reality, perception was turned around and thrown out on a new course in this place, and Kaiku marvelled anew at the complexity of the Weavers’ creation.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Yugi. ‘Is it the barrier?’

  Kaiku realised by the tone of his voice that he was asking why she had stopped, not what the thing before them was. It was invisible to everyone but her. For a brief moment, she felt a smug and selfish glee at being the only one privy to this wonder; then, surprised at herself, she cast it aside.

  ‘Hold hands,’ she told them, and she gave her hand to Yugi. The others did the same.

  She stepped into the barrier, and was consumed by the Weave. The first time it had happened, back on Fo, she had been tempted to let herself be swept away in the unutterable beauty of the golden world that surrounded her. This time she was ready for it, and her heart was hardened against its charms. In a few strides, she was through, pulling Yugi with her; but the sensation was a cruel wrench, and the return to reality made everything seem grey and bland by comparison.

  Yugi came stumbling through backwards and tripped as he did, disoriented at finding himself turned around. He had let go of Nomoru, the next in line, and as he fell to the ground the rope around his waist tautened. She was tugging the other way. Kaiku could see her now: the barrier had faded from her sight as soon as she was past it. Nomoru was trapped in the invisible zone of disorientation, blank-faced, labouring to drag herself back in the direction they had come and seemingly unable to understand why she could not get there. Tsata was in a similar state nearby, his face a picture of childlike confusion.

  ‘Pull them through,’ Kaiku told Yugi, and though he was still bewildered as to where he was, he did as he was told. Between them they dragged their companions across the barrier and onto the other side.

  It took the better part of ten minutes for their thoughts to become coherent again, by which time Kaiku had removed the Mask and stashed it back in her pack. She studied them with fascination as they gazed glassy-eyed at each other like babies, or looked around at their surroundings as if completely unable to process where they were. No wonder that nobody could penetrate the barrier without a Mask. What a masterpiece of Weave-manipulation it was.

  Once they had collected themselves, Nomoru was still unable to remember this area which she had once professed to know. So it was Kaiku who took the lead, as Nomoru’s sense of direction seemed to be still suppressed, making her hopeless at navigation.

  ‘We have to get away from this place,’ Kaiku said. ‘I am not convinced that it is safe to pass the barrier, even with the Mask. We may have alerted those who set it here.’

  With that, they set off into the broken landscape to their right, skirting the inside of the barrier. Kaiku relied on her senses to let her know when they were brushing too close to the invisible perimeter, and using that as a guide, they lost themselves in the dark rills and juts of the Xarana Fault, and Iridima watched them go with half a face.

  When they were far from the point where they had entered the domain of the Weavers, Nomoru called a halt.

  ‘It’s hopeless,’ she said. ‘Doing it this way. We’ll never get there in the dark.’

  The others wearily agreed. For a time, it had seemed like they were making progress; but then the night sky clouded, shutting out the glow of the stars and the single moon, and now they could barely see at all. They had been wandering amid a stretch of uneven gullies and scrub ground for some time now, scratching themselves on thorny bushes and probably going in circles. Their frustration was multiplied by the fact that they did not know exactly what they were looking for. Seeking out evidence of Weaver activity was a broad and vague objective, when they had no idea of the extent of their enemies’ capabilities, nor what form such evidence might take. Now they were walking down a trench of baked mud, with steep sides rising up over their heads: an old ditch, long dry, and infested with weeds.

  ‘We should rest,’ said Yugi. ‘We can go on when the sky clears, or when dawn comes.’

  ‘I am not tired,’ Kaiku said, who did indeed feel strangely energised. ‘I will keep watch.’

  ‘I will join you,’ said Tsata, unexpectedly.

  They threw their packs down at the base of the ditch; Nomoru and Yugi unrolled mats, and were asleep in minutes.

  Kaiku sat with her back against the trench wall, her hands linked around her knees. Tsata sat opposite her, silently. It was eerily quiet; even the raucous drone of night insects was absent. Distantly, she heard the unpleasant cawing of some bird she could not identif
y.

  ‘Should one of us go up to the top, to look out for . . .’ she trailed off, realising that she had no idea what she expected might come for them.

  ‘No,’ said the Tkiurathi. ‘We cannot see far, but there may be things that can see us in the deep darkness. It is better to be hidden.’

  Kaiku nodded slightly. She had not wanted to go up there anyway, and it felt sheltered here.

  ‘I wish to talk,’ said Tsata suddenly. ‘About Weavers.’

  Kaiku brushed her fringe back from her face, tucked it behind one ear. ‘Very well.’

  ‘I have learned about them from Saran, but I still do not know how your people accept them,’ he said.

  The mention of Saran made Kaiku’s eyes narrow. That was something that the encounter with the Omecha cultists and the ruku-shai had driven entirely out of her head.

  ‘I am not sure I understand what you are asking,’ said Kaiku.

  ‘Let me say how I see it, and you may correct me afterward. Is that acceptable?’

  Kaiku tilted her chin up, then realised with some embarrassment that she had used an Okhamban gesture rather than a Saramyr one.

  ‘Once your civilisation was dedicated to great art and learning, to building wonderful architecture and long roads and incredible dwellings,’ Tsata began. ‘I have read your histories. And though I do not share your love for stone cities, or for the way you gather in such numbers that pash becomes meaningless, I am aware that all ways are not my ways, and I can accept that. I can even accept the terrible divide between the nobles and the peasant classes, and how knowledge is hoarded by one to keep the other in ignorant labour. That I find nothing less than evil, for it is so counter to the nature of my people; yet if I began to talk about that, we would be here a lot longer, and it is the Weavers I wish to speak of.’