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

by Chris Wooding

  ‘I need the Bloods Nabichi and Gor back here now!’ Grigi was demanding of his Weaver. His high, girlish voice made him sound panicky, but he was far from that. Grigi was very hard to rattle, and the seemingly inexplicable appearance of eight thousand Blood Batik troops behind them was merely a clever move to be countered. Already he had a force moving up to delay them while he could get his fire-cannons turned around and aimed. It was going to make this fight more costly, but he could still win it with shrewd leadership.

  ‘That fool Kakre is going to pay for this,’ he promised, reining his horse around. He did not care that other Weavers were within earshot, both Blood Kerestyn’s and the gemstone-Masked Weaver of Blood Koli. ‘Why didn’t he warn me about the extra troops? And where’s this intervention he promised?’ He glared at Barak Avun, blaming him for Kakre’s mistakes; after all, it was through Avun that Kakre had contacted him.

  Avun, who had been watching the battle with his hooded, drowsy eyes, turned and gave Grigi a bland stare.

  ‘There will be an intervention,’ Avun said. ‘Just not as you imagine.’ He flicked a gesture at his Weaver.

  The stabbing pain in Grigi’s chest took his breath away. His multitudinous chins bunched up as he gaped, clutching at his leather breastplate. A sparkling agony was spreading along his collarbone to his left arm, numbing his hand. His eyes were wide with disbelief. They flicked to his own Weaver, desperate supplication in their gaze, but the grimacing demon looked at him pitilessly. Grigi gasped half a curse as the strength drained from his limbs.

  ‘History does repeat itself, Grigi,’ Avun said. ‘But it appears that you do not learn from it. You had me betray Blood Amacha last time we were here; you should have known that I cannot be trusted.’

  Grigi’s face had reddened, his eyes bulging as he fought for air that would not seem to come. His heart was a bright star of agony in his chest, sending ribbons of fire through his veins. The sounds of the battle had dimmed, and Avun’s voice was thin in his ear as if from far away. He clutched at his saddle as realisation struck like a hammer: he was dying here, now, surrounded by these three impassive figures on horseback. Gods, no, he wasn’t ready! He hadn’t done what he needed to do! He was within sight of his prize, and it was being snatched from him, and he could not even make a sound to voice his defiance at his tormentor.

  His Weaver. His Weaver was supposed to defend him. They were always loyal, always. The very fabric of their society depended on it. If a Weaver did not serve his master in all things, then the Weavers were too dangerous to exist. They even killed each other in the service of the family that supported them. But this one was letting him die.

  How had Avun won round his Weaver? How?

  ‘You will find that the orders you sent did not get through to their intended recipients,’ Avun was saying languidly. ‘And they will most likely be quite surprised when my troops turn on them, and they are sandwiched between Koli and Batik men to the west and Mos’s main force to the east. It will be quite a slaughter.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You, of course, will not live to see it. Your heart gave out in the heat of battle. Small wonder, for one so fat.’

  The pain in Grigi’s body was nothing compared to the pain in his soul, the raw and searing frustration and anger and terror all mixing and mingling to scald him. His vision was dimming now, turning to black, and no matter how he fought against it, no matter how he struggled to cry out and make a sound, he was mute. Men of Blood Kerestyn were only metres away, and yet none of them marked him, none of them saw what the Weavers were doing, reaching an invisible hand inside him to squeeze his heart. To them, he was merely in conference with his aides, and if his expression was distressed and gawping, something like a landed fish, then they were not close enough to notice.

  He looked to Axekami, and it was dark now, the shadowed fingers of its spires reaching out across the carnage to enfold him. Twice he had sought it; twice been denied. Unconsciousness was a mercy. He did not feel himself slump forward and then slide from his saddle, his mountainous body crashing to the earth; did not hear the cries of alarm from Avun, false words to Grigi’s men as they gathered; did not see him and his Weaver slip away from the crowd, to turn the battle with perfidy. There was only the growing golden light, and the threads that seemed to sew through everything, wafting him like fallopian cilia towards what lay beyond oblivion.

  Kakre’s hood flapped about his Masked face in a flurry of wind as he watched the battle unfold. Nuki’s eye had risen overhead now. It was hot in the direct sun, and Kakre’s sweltering robe was entirely inappropriate, but he did not retreat. Neither did Mos. Reports came to them both: to Mos through his runners; to Kakre through the Weave. The morning had passed, and the forces led by Blood Kerestyn were decimated. The armies of some of the most prominent high families in the land had been cut to pieces. Kerestyn themselves, who had dedicated almost all their troops to this venture, would not be able to rise again for decades, if ever. Weakened, they would be unable to continue fighting in the vicious internecine dealings of the nobles, and would be torn apart.

  Avun tu Koli had been clever. Whatever deals he had made, he had managed to execute them without Grigi finding out. It was not only Blood Koli that turned on Kerestyn, but several other families as well, tipping the balance far enough in the Emperor’s favour to make it virtually impossible for Blood Kerestyn to turn the tide back. Ragged armies were fleeing in retreat now, Grigi’s allies deserting him as their cause became hopeless. Kakre noted that Blood Koli troops were almost entirely intact; Avun tu Koli had drawn them out of the conflict, letting the others take care of the battle, content to watch from the sidelines and preserve his men.

  ‘It was you,’ Kakre said at last. ‘I remember now. I had learned of a message to Avun tu Koli, sent from the Keep, but I failed to intercept it.’ He felt a pang of concern that he had forgotten about it until this point.

  ‘Avun tu Koli has always been an honourless dog,’ Mos replied. ‘And that makes him reliable. He’ll always choose the winning side, no matter what his previous loyalties. I just had to convince him that I would win. Look at him, holding his men back. Blood Koli will be the most powerful family behind Batik after this, and he knows it.’ He scratched at his beard, which had gone scraggy and heavily scattered with white as if withered by his grief. ‘You tried, Kakre, and it was a cursed good try. But you are stuck with me, and I’m stuck with you. No matter what you’ve done, we need each other.’

  The words almost caught in his throat: no matter what you’ve done. As if he could dismiss the murder of the woman he loved so easily. As if he could ever love again, or feel anything but sorrow and hatred and shame. Locked with the Weavers in a symbiosis of mutual loathing, he saw nothing but evil in his future; but evil must be endured, for the sake of power. He had lost a son, a wife, and an unborn child now. Such things could drive better men than him to ruin. But he had nephews, and other relations that could take the reins of the Empire when he was gone; and he had a duty to his family, to Blood Batik. He would not give up the throne while he still breathed.

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said Kakre, his voice a dry rasp. ‘And your runners come now to tell you why.’

  An urgent chime outside the door of the chamber behind them made Mos whirl. He stepped into the room, out of the sun to where the coloured lach of the walls and floor and pillars kept the air cool. He stopped halfway to the curtained doorway, and looked back at where Kakre was coming through the archway after him.

  ‘What is this, Kakre?’ he demanded. Suddenly, he was afraid. ‘What is this?’

  The bell chimed again. Kakre’s scrawny white hand emerged from the folds of his robe and gestured towards the doorway.

  ‘Tell me!’ Mos roared at the Weave-lord.

  The runner thought that this was an invitation to enter, and he drew the curtain aside and hurried in, blanching as Mos swung a furious glare on him and he realised his mistake. But he was terrified already, and he blurted out his message recklessly as if
by delivering it he could expel its meaning from him and purge the horror that his words carried.

  ‘Aberrants!’ he cried. ‘There are Aberrants all over the docks. Thousands! They’re killing anything that moves!’

  ‘Aberrants?’ Mos howled, swinging back to Kakre.

  ‘Aberrants,’ Kakre said, quite calmly. ‘We sailed bargeloads of them into Axekami last night, and then you shut the gates and locked them in. You’ll find that many more are deploying on the west bank of the Zan now and heading towards the soldiers outside Axekami. They will slaughter anyone not wearing the colours of Blood Koli.’

  ‘Koli?’ Mos was choking on the sheer enormity of what Kakre was saying. Aberrants? In Axekami? The most dreadful enemy of civilisation at the very heart of the empire? And the Weavers had brought them here?

  ‘Yes, Koli,’ Kakre replied. ‘Quite the treacherous one. Ever ready to step over the corpses of his allies to victory, like a true Saramyr. He has been on my side all along.’

  Mos had the terrible impression that Kakre was grinning behind his Mask.

  ‘Let us not delude ourselves, Mos,’ he croaked. ‘The Weavers see the way that Saramyr is turning. Soon, you would try to get rid of us. The people would demand it. Grigi tu Kerestyn was plotting to do the same. That cannot happen.’

  The runner was rooted to the spot, trembling, a young man of eighteen harvests witnessing an event of an importance far beyond anything he could ever imagine being privy to.

  ‘At this time, Aberrants are pouring from the mountains, from our mines, from dozens of locations where we have collected them and hidden them from your sight. You were kind enough to be part of the process of demolishing the standing armies of the nobles with this charade being played out beyond Axekami’s walls. Our Aberrants will take care of the rest.’

  For an instant, Mos was too stunned to take in what the Weave-lord was telling him. Then, with a strangled cry of rage, he lunged, a blade sliding free of the sheath where it had been hidden at his belt. Kakre put up a hand, and Mos’s charge turned into a stumbling collapse as his muscles spasmed and locked. He went crashing to the ground in a foetal position, his face contorted, jaw thrust to one side, his fingers jutting out at all angles, his wrists bent inwards and his neck twisted, as if he were a piece of paper screwed up and discarded. His eyes rolled madly, but he could only make a hoarse gargle emit from his mouth.

  The Weave-lord stood over the Emperor, small and hunched and infinitely lethal. ‘The time of the high families is over,’ he said. ‘Your day is done. The Weavers have served you for centuries, but we will serve you no longer. The Empire ends today.’

  He waved his hand, and Mos burst. Blood splattered explosively from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, from his genitals, from his anus. His belly split and his sundered intestines coiled out in a gory slither; his vertebrae shattered from skull to coccyx.

  In an instant, it was over. The ruined corpse of the Emperor lay amid a blast-pattern of his own fluids on the green lach floor of the room.

  Kakre raised his head, the corpse-Mask fixing on the messenger. The shock and disbelief on the young man’s face was comical. He dropped to his knees, haemorrhaging massively.

  There was silence in the room; but outside, in the streets of the city, rifle fire could be heard. Bells were tolling. An alarm was being raised.

  The brightness of the sunlight on the balcony made the room seem dim in comparison. Kakre studied the bodies of the men he had killed. An Emperor and a servant, both just husks in the end.

  The Aberrant predators in Axekami would rampage through the city, crush all resistance, bring the populace savagely to heel. All over northern Saramyr, huge armies of beasts were sallying forth from the Tchamil Mountains and along the rivers, an accumulation of decades of planning and five short years of unrestricted movement within the empire. Monstrous hordes, blossoming out from within like spreading cancers under the auspices of the Weavers and the Nexuses.

  Messages begging for help would not get to where they were sent. Weavers would disappear, their masters murdered. So long had the nobles of Saramyr relied on the power of the Weavers to communicate that they would not know what to do. So long had they accepted the Weavers’ servitude that they could not imagine rebellion. Suddenly, they would be alone, isolated in the midst of a massive country, separated by huge expanses from anyone who could help them. By the time they adapted it would be too late. The high families would be overthrown.

  The game was done, and the Weavers had won.

  Kakre walked slowly from the room. When Mos’s corpse was discovered, the Imperial Guards would draw the obvious conclusion. But by that time he would be back in his chambers, and the door was thick enough to withstand the Imperial Guards long enough for the Keep to fall, if they should hunt him down.

  Besides, he had a celebratory titbit waiting there, brought to him last night for just this occasion. A young woman, smooth as silk, lithe and beautiful and perfect. And such skin she had, such skin.

  The Juwacha Pass lay between Maxachta and Xaxai, bridging the Tchamil Mountains where they narrowed, reaching from the fertile west to the desert of Tchom Rin in the east. Apart from the Riri Gap on the south coast, it was the only major crossing-point between the two halves of the divided land. Legend had it that Ocha himself had parted the mountains with one stamp of his foot, to open Tchom Rin and the Newlands to his chosen people and give them licence to drive the aboriginal Ugati out. More likely it was some cataclysmic shifting of the earth that had carved the sinuous route between the peaks, one hundred and fifty miles long, as if the upper and lower parts of the range were simply drawn apart and the ground between had stretched flat.

  At its widest point it was two miles across, though it narrowed to half a mile at the western end, where its mouth was guarded by the sprawling city of Maxachta. What obstacles had been strewn across it on its discovery – boulder formations, glassy hulks of volcanic rock, massive jags of black stone: imperfections thrown up in the violence of its creation – had been destroyed with explosives and levelled long ago. The mountains had many passes for the agile, but for an army the Juwacha Pass was the only feasible way across without heading five hundred miles south to Riri.

  Reki tu Tanatsua reached the summit of the mountain ridge at midmorning, with the sun low and clear and sharp, shining directly in his eyes. Reki’s thin face was bearded now, the hair growing surprisingly thick for such a young man. His black hair had become shaggy, the streak of white dyed to make it invisible. His finery had gone, traded away for sturdy peasant travelling-clothes, and his gaze was flintier and wiser, less that of a child and more that of a man. He laboured up the last few yards to the top, crunching through autumn snows that dusted the ground lightly at this altitude, and there he stopped and looked back.

  Asara came up behind him, clad in a fur cloak, her clothes as simple and hardwearing as his. She wore her hair down, and her face was unadorned, but even without effort she was strikingly beautiful. The exertion of the climb had not even tired her. Beyond her, over the peaks, Maxachta spread across the yellow-green plains, tiny domes and spires shining as they came out of the frowning shadow of the mountains. They had passed it the day before yesterday and given it a wide berth, shunning habitation, just as they now chose a mountainous trail to the south of the Juwacha Pass rather than risk meeting anyone on it. It was a harder road, but a safer one, for all ways had become dangerous now.

  Reki offered a hand to her, and she took it with a smile. He helped her the last few steps to the tip of the ridge, and there they walked to the far side and looked down.

  The mountain ridge that they had climbed lay ten miles in from the western end of the pass, at the point where it curved slightly northward. From its heights, it was possible to see a long way in either direction. Asara had judged it a prudent point to take stock of where they were and anticipate any dangers ahead; Reki had submitted without argument. He had long learned to trust her in these matters. She had kept him alive thu
s far, and she was astonishingly capable for a woman her age. He desired her and was in awe of her at the same time.

  But there was another motive behind their ascent. Asara had a suspicion which she was unwilling to share with Reki, and she wanted to be certain of it before she continued. Her Aberrant eyes were exceptionally sharp, and the tiny wheeling dots that she had spied from afar had set her to thinking. Now she saw her suspicion confirmed.

  The mountains shouldered together to the east, forming a narrow, grey valley. It was carpeted in dead men and Aberrant beasts. Carrion birds plucked and pulled flesh so fresh that it had hardly even begun to decompose, or circled silently overhead, as if spoilt for choice and unable to decide where next to feast. From where they stood, the corpses were one incoherent jumble, bodies upon bodies in their thousands.

  Thousands of desert folk. Men and women in the garb of Tchom Rin.

  Asara shaded her eyes and scanned the pass, picking out broken standards and faded colours. She saw the emblems of the cities of Xaxai and Muio, in among those of other high families. It took her only moments to find the one she was looking for.

  Blood Tanatsua, tattered and torn, lying across several bodies like a shroud. The emblem of Reki’s family. And she knew enough of desert lore to realise that the standard was only raised above an army when the Barak himself was present.

  The desert families had marched quickly at the news of Laranya’s suicide. Had Kakre’s Weavers been setting things up here too, playing the families as Kakre was doing in Axekami? Certainly, it seemed that this army had moved with uncanny speed, even assuming that news of the Empress’s death had been communicated instantly by Kakre to his foul brethren in the desert. A vanguard, perhaps? A show of might? The desert cities would not declare war on the strength of what they had heard. It would take the token that Reki carried to make them do that. But now, it seemed, his errand was redundant.