‘No!’ Anais snapped, at the same time that Vyrrch said ‘Yes.’

Durun gazed in astonishment at his wife, and she, unflinching, gazed back. A taut silence fell.

She knew how he would react. The Emperor was nothing if not predictable. Most days she despised him, with his tight black attire and his long, lustrous black hair that fell straight to either side of his face. She hated his proud bearing and his hawk nose, his knife-thin face and his dark eyes. The marriage had been purely political, arranged by her parents before their passing; but while it had gained her Blood Batik as staunch and useful allies, she had paid for it by suffering this indolent braggart as a husband. Though he did have his moments, this was not one of them.

‘You gave birth to an Aberrant?’ he whispered.

‘You fathered one,’ she countered.

A momentary spasm of pain crossed his face.

‘Do you know what this means? Do you know what you’ve

done?‘

‘Do you know what the alternative was?’ she replied. ‘To kill my only child, and let Blood Erinima die out? Never!’

‘Better that you had,’ he hissed.

There was a chime outside the door then, forestalling her retort.

‘Another messenger awaits you,’ Vyrrch said in his throaty

gurgle.

Flashing a final hot look at her husband, Anais pulled open the door and strode past the servant before he had time to tell her what she already knew. Durun stormed away to his chambers. For that, Anais was thankful. She still had no idea how she would handle the anger of the high families, but she knew she would do it better without Durun at her side.

The chambers of Weave-lord Vyrrch were a monument to degradation. They were dingy and dark, hot and wet as a swamp in the heat of early summer. The high shutters - sealed closed when they should have been open to admit the breeze - were draped in layers of coloured materials and tapestries. The vast, plush bed had collapsed and settled at an angle, its sheets soiled and stained. In the centre of the room was an octagonal bathing pool. Its waters were murky, scattered with floating bits of debris and faeces. At the bottom, staring sightlessly upward, was a naked boy.

Everywhere there was evidence of the Weave-lord’s terrible appetites when in his post-Weaving rages. All manner of food was strewn about in varying states of decay. Fine silks were ripped and torn. Blood stained the tiled floor here and there. A scourge lay beneath the broken bed. A corpse lay in the bed, several weeks old, its sex and age mercifully unidentifiable now. A vast hookah smoked unattended amid a marsh of spilled wine and wet clothes.

And in the centre, his white, withered body cloaked in rags, the Weave-lord sat cross-legged, wearing his Mask.

The True Mask of the Weave-lord Vyrrch was an old, old thing. Its lineage went all the way back to Frusric, one of the greatest Edgefathers that had ever lived. Frusric had formed it from bronze, beaten thin so it would be light enough to wear. It was a masterpiece: the face of some long-forgotten god, his expression at once demented and horribly, malevolently sane, his brows heavy over eyes like dark pits. The face appeared to be crying out in despair, or

shrieking in hate, or calling in anger, depending on what angle the light struck it.

Frusric had given the new Mask to Tamala tu Jekkyn, who had worn it till his untimely death; it was then handed on to Urric tu Hyrst, a master Weaver himself. From Urric, it could be traced through seven subsequent owners over one hundred years, until it had come into the possession of Vyrrch, given to him by his master, who recognised in the boy a talent greater than any he had seen.

The True Masks took all their owners had, draining them, rotting them from the inside out; and they kept a portion of what they took, and passed it on to the next wearer. It changed them, imbuing shreds of its previous owner’s mind and memories and personality; with each owner, it took more and passed more on, until the clash of influences, dreams and experiences became too much for the mind to bear. The older the Mask, the greater the power it gained, and the swifter it drove the wearer to insanity. Lesser apprentices would have died of the shock at just putting this Mask on; Vyrrch was laid low three seasons, but he mastered it. And the power it had granted him was nothing short of magnificent.

What it had taken from him, though, was less glorious. He was nearly forty harvests of age, but he creaked and wheezed like a man of thrice that. His face had been made hideous. A thousand more minor corruptions and cancers boiled in his broken body, and the pain was constant. And though he did not realise it, the Mask had subtly been eroding his sanity like all the others, until he teetered daily on the brink of madness.

But he felt none of the pains in his body now, for he was Weaving, and the ecstasy of it took him away on a sea of bliss.

Like all Weavers, he had been taught to visualise the sensation in his own way. The raw stuff of the Weave was overwhelming, and many novices had found its beauty more than they could bear, and lost their will to leave. They wandered forever somewhere between its threads, lost in their own private paradise, bright ghosts mindlessly slaved to the Weave.

For Vyrrch, the Weave was an abyss, a vast, endless blackness in which he was an infinitesimal mote of light. And yet it was far from empty. Great curling tunnels snaked through the dark, grey and dim and faintly iridescent, like immense worms that thrashed and swayed, their heads and tails lost in eternity. The worms were the

threads of the Weave, and he floated in the darkness in between, where there was nothingness, only the utter and complete joy of disembodiment. A creature of sensation alone, he felt the sympathetic vibration of the threads, a slow wind that swept through him, charging his nerves. On the edge of vision, huge whale-like shapes slid through the darkness. He had never understood what they were: a product of his own imagining, or something else altogether? Nor had he ever found out, for they eluded him effortlessly, remaining always out of his reach. Eventually he had given up trying, and for their part they ignored him as being beneath their notice.

Swiftly he glided between the immense threads, a gnat against their heaving flanks. By reading their vibrations he found the thread he sought and, steeling himself, he plunged into it, tearing through its skin into the roaring tumult inside, where chaos swallowed him.

Now he was a spark, a tiny thing that raced along the synapses of the thread with dizzying speed, selecting junctions here and jumping track there, flitting along faster than the mind could comprehend. From this thread to that he flickered, racing down one lane after another, a million changes executed in less than a second, until finally he reached the terminator of a single thread, and burst free.

His vision cleared as his senses reassembled themselves, and he was in a small, dimly lit chamber. It was unremarkable in any way, except for the crumbling yellow-red stone of its walls, and the pictograms daubed haphazardly across it, spelling out nonsense phrases and primal mutterings, dark perversions and promises. The ravings of a madman. A pair of lanterns flickered fitfully in their brackets, making the shadow-edges of the bricks shift and dance. A peeling wooden door was closed before him. Though he was far from any mark by which to recognise his surroundings, the walls exuded a familiar resonance to his heightened perception. This was Adderach, the monastery of the Weavers.

The room was empty, but he sensed the approach of three of his brethren. While he waited, he thought over the news he had to report.

He could not imagine how she had stayed hidden for so long. That the Heir-Empress could be an Aberrant… how could he have not seen it before? It was only when he began to hear reports from frightened servants of a spectral girl walking the corridors of

the Keep at night that he began to suspect something was amiss. And so he had begun to investigate, searching the Keep for evidence of resonances, tremors in the Weave that would indicate that someone was manipulating it, in the way a spider feels the thrashings of the fly through her web.

He found nothing. And yet something was there. Whatever was causing these manifestations was either too subtle to be detectable even by him, or was of a different order altogether.

Eventually his searching bore fruit, and he found the trail of the wandering spectre as she prowled the corridors of the Keep, a tiny tremor in the air at her passing that was so fine it was almost imperceptible. Yet though he sensed himself drawing close time after time, he never caught up with her; he was always evaded. Frustration gnawed at him, and his efforts became more frantic; yet this only seemed to make her escapes seem all the easier. Until one day one of his spies overheard Anais consulting a physician about her daughter’s odd dreams, and the connection was made.

Like many, he had never laid eyes on the Heir-Empress, but he had spied on her from time to time. The Heir-Empress was far too important for him to abide by her mother’s wish for her to be kept sheltered and secret. He knew at once that she was not so sickly as Anais made out, but he also knew there were many good reasons why a child as important as this one should be kept safe from harm. He had simply attributed it to Anais’s paranoia about her only daughter - the only child she could ever have - and forgotten about it. It had not seemed urgent at the time, and as the seasons came and went he forgot about it, the thoughts slipping through the gauze of his increasingly addled mind and fading away.

It was his assurance of his own abilities that had led him to discount the little Heir-Empress from his initial investigations concerning the spectre; surely, he would have sensed something if she had been unusual in any way. He had not looked closer at first, because he should have detected it when he first spied on her.

The night he heard about the Heir-Empress’s dreams, he had used his Mask to search for her, to divine what she truly was. It was something he should have done a long time ago. Yet when he tried, she was impossible to find. He knew who and where she was, but she was still invisible to him. His consciousness seemed to slip over her; she was unassailable. The rage at his failure was immense, and cost the lives of three children. All this time, there had been an

Aberrant under his very nose; but it had taken him eight years to see it.

He knew now that he was dealing with something unlike anything he had encountered before. He considered what she was and what it might mean, and he feared her.

And yet still he needed proof, and it must be a proof that could not be connected to him in any way. So he had sent a message to Sonmaga tu Amacha’s Weaver, who had advised the Barak, who had employed a series of middlemen to obtain a lock of the Heir-Empress’s hair. Anyone who followed the trail would find it led to Sonmaga tu Amacha’s door; the only one who knew of Vyrrch’s involvement was Sonmaga’s Weaver, Bracch.

The conclusive proof of Aberration could only be carried out by a Weaver if he were physically within sight of the person, or if he had a piece of the person’s body to study. With the lock of hair Bracch was able to convince Sonmaga of the truth.

The girl was a threat that had to be eliminated. Though the situation was yet far from desperate, she had the potential to become a great danger to the Weavers. With good fortune, the Baraks and high families would deal with her for him, but if not… well, maybe then more direct methods would have to be employed.

The door to the chamber opened then, and the shambling, ragged figures of the three Weavers came inside. To them, he appeared as a floating apparition, barely visible in the dim, flickering light.

‘Daygreet, Weave-lord Vyrrch,’ croaked one, whose mask was a tangle of bark and leaves shaped into a rough semblance of a bearded face. ‘I trust you have news?’

‘Grave news, my brothers,’ Vyrrch replied softly. ‘Grave news…’

Six

i

The townhouse of Blood Koli was situated on the western flank of the Imperial Quarter of Axekami. The original building had been improved over the years, adding a wing here, a library there, until the low, wide mass sprawled across the expanse of the compound that protected it. Its roof was of black slate, curved and peaked into ridges; the walls were the colour of ivory, simple and plain, their uniformity broken up by a few choice angles or an ornamental cross-hatching of narrow wooden beams. Behind the townhouse was a cluster of similarly austere buildings: quarters for guards, stables, and storage rooms. The remainder of the compound was taken up by a garden, trimmed and neat and severe in its beauty. Curving pebble paths arced around a pond full of colourful fish, past a sculpted fountain and a shaded bench. The whole was surrounded by a high wall with a single gate, that separated the compound from the wide streets of the Imperial District. The morning sun beat down on the city, and the air was humid and muggy. Not too distantly, the golden ziggurat of the Imperial Keep loomed at the crest of a hill, highest of all the buildings in the city.

Within the townhouse, Mishani tu Koli sat cross-legged at her writing desk and laboured through the last season’s fishing tallies. Blood Koli owned a large fishing fleet that operated out of Mataxa Bay, and much of their revenue and political power was generated there. It was common knowledge that crabs and lobsters stamped with the mark of Blood Koli were the most tender and delicious (and hence the most expensive) in Saramyr. It was a benefit of the unique mineral content of the bay’s waters, so Mishani’s father said. For two years now she had been rigorously educated in every

aspect of the family’s holdings and businesses. As heir to the lands of Blood Koli and the title of Barakess upon her father’s death, she was expected to be able to handle the responsibility of heading them. And so she tallied, her brush flicking this way and that as she made a mark here, crossed a line there, with a single-minded focus that was alarming in its intensity.

Mishani was a lady of no great height, slender and fine-boned to the point of fragility. Her thin, pale face, while not beautiful, was striking in its serenity. No involuntary movement ever crossed her face; her poise was total. No flicker of her pencil-line eyebrows would betray her surprise unless she willed it so; no twitch of her narrow lips would show a smirk unless she wished to express it. Her small body was near-engulfed by the silken mass of black hair that fell to her ankles when she stood. It was tamed by strips of dark blue leather, separating it into two great plaits to either side of her head, and one long, free-falling cascade at her back.

A chime sounded outside the curtained doorway to her room. She finished the tally line she was working on and then rang a small silver bell in response, to indicate permission to enter. A handmaiden slipped gracefully in, bowing slightly with the fingertips of one hand to her lips and the other arm folded across her waist, the female form of greeting to a social superior. ‘You have a visitor, Mistress Mishani. It is Mistress Kaiku tu Makaima.’

Mishani looked blandly at her handmaiden for a moment; then a slow smile spread across her lips, becoming a grin of joy. The handmaiden smiled in response, pleased that her mistress was pleased. ‘Shall I show her in, Mistress?’

‘Do so,’ she replied. ‘And bring fruit and iced water for us.’

The handmaiden left, and Mishani tidied up her writing equipment and arranged herself. In the two years since her eighteenth harvest, she had been kept busy and with little time for the society of friends; but Kaiku had been her companion through childhood and adolescence, and the long separation had pained her. They had written to each other often, in the florid, poetic style of High Saramyrrhic, explaining their dreams and hopes and fears. It did not seem enough. How like Kaiku, then, to turn up unannounced like this. She never was one to follow protocol; she always seemed to think herself somehow above it, that it did not apply to her.

‘Mistress Kaiku tu Makaima,’ the handmaiden declared from without, and Kaiku entered then. Mishani flung her arms around

her friend and they embraced. Finally, she stepped back, holding Kaiku’s hands, their arms a bridge between them.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said. ‘And you seem pale. Have you been ill?’

Kaiku laughed. They had known each other too long to be anything less than brutally honest. ‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But you look more the noble lady than ever. City life must agree with you.’

‘I miss the bay,’ Mishani admitted, kneeling on one of the elegant mats that were laid out on the floor. ‘I will admit, it is galling that I have to spend my days counting fish and pricing boats, and being reminded of it every day. But I am developing something of a taste for tallying.’

‘Really?’ Kaiku asked in disbelief, settling herself opposite her friend. ‘Ah, Mishani. Dull, repetitive work always was your strong suit.’

‘I shall take that as a compliment, since it was you who was always too flighty and fanciful to attend to her lessons as a child.’

Kaiku smiled. Just the sight of her friend made the terrors that she had endured seem more distant, fainter somehow. She was a living reminder of the days before the tragedy had struck. She had changed a little: shed the last of her girlhood, her small features become womanly. And she spoke with a more formal mode than Kaiku remembered, presumably picked up at court. But for all that, she was still that same Mishani, and it was like a balm to Kaiku’s sore heart.

The handmaiden gave a peremptory chime and entered; she needed no answering bell when she had already been invited by her mistress. She laid a low wooden table to one side of Kaiku and Mishani, placed a bowl of sliced fruit there, and poured iced water into two glasses. Finally, she adjusted the screens to maximise the tiny breaths of the wind that stirred the hot morning, and unobtrusively slipped away. Kaiku watched her go, reminded of another handmaiden from a time before death had ever brushed her.

‘Now, Kaiku, to what do I owe this visit?’ Mishani said: ‘It is not a short way from the Forest of Yuna to Axekami. Are you staying long? I will have a room prepared. And you will need some proper clothes; what are you wearing}’

Kaiku’s smile seemed fragile, and the sadness within showed

through. Mishani’s eyes turned to sorrow and sympathy in response. ‘What has happened?’ she asked.

‘My family are dead,’ Kaiku replied simply.

Mishani automatically suppressed her surprise, showing no reaction at all. Then, remembering who it was that she was talking to, she relaxed her guard and allowed the horror to show, her hand covering her mouth in shock. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘How?’

‘I will tell you,’ Kaiku said. ‘But there is more. I may not be as you remember me, Mishani. Something is within me, something… foreign. I do not know what it is, but it is dangerous. I ask for your help, Mishani. I need your help.’

‘Of course,’ Mishani replied, taking her friend’s hands again. ‘Anything.’

‘Do not be hasty,’ Kaiku said. ‘Listen to my story first. You are in danger just by being near me.’

Mishani sat back, gazing at her friend. Such gravity was not Kaiku’s way. She had always been the wilful one, stubborn, the one who would take whatever path suited her. Now her tone was as one convicted. ‘Tell me, then,’ she said. ‘And spare nothing.’

So Kaiku told her everything, a tale that began with her own death and ended in her arrival at Axekami, having bought passage on a skiff downriver from Ban with money she found in her pack. She talked of Asara, how her trusted handmaiden had revealed herself to be something other than what she seemed; and she told of how Asara died. She spoke of her rescue by the priests of Enyu, and the mask Asara had taken from her house, that her father had brought back from his last trip away. And she told of her oath to Ocha: that she would avenge the murder of her family.

When she was finished, Mishani was quite still. Kaiku watched her, as if she could divine what was going on beneath her immobile exterior. This new poise was unfamiliar to Kaiku; it was something Mishani had acquired accompanying her father in the courts of the Empress these past two years. There, every movement and every nuance could give away a secret or cost a life.

‘You have the mask?’ she asked at length.

Kaiku produced it from her pack and handed it to her friend. Mishani looked it over, turning it beneath her gaze. The mischievous red and black face leered back at her. Beautiful and ugly at the same time, it still looked no more remarkable than many other

THE WEAVERS OF 5ARAMYR

masks she had seen, worn by actors in the theatre. It seemed entirely normal.

‘You have not tried to wear it?’

‘No,’ Kaiku said. ‘What if it were a True Mask? I would go insane, or die, or worse.’

‘Very wise,’ Mishani mused.

‘Tell me you believe my story, Mishani. I have to know you do not doubt me.’

Mishani nodded, her great cascade of black hair trembling with the movement. ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘Of course I believe you. And I will do all I can to help you, dear friend.’ Kaiku was smiling in relief, tears gathering in her eyes. Mishani handed the mask back. ‘As to that, I have a friend who has studied the ways of the Edgefathers. He may be able to tell us about it.’

‘When can we see him?’ Kaiku asked, excited.

Mishani gave her an unreadable look. ‘It will not be quite as simple as that.’

The chambers of Lucia tu Erinima were buried deep in the heart of the Imperial Keep, heavily guarded and all but impregnable. The rooms were many, but there were always Guards there, or tutors pacing back and forth, or nannies or cooks hustling about. Lucia’s world was constantly busy, and yet she was alone. She was trapped tighter than ever now, and the faces that surrounded her looked on her with worry, thinking how the poor child’s life must be miserable, for she was hated by the world.

But Lucia was not sad. She had met many new people over the last few weeks, a veritable whirl compared to her life before the thief had taken a lock of her hair. Her mother visited often, and brought with her important people, Baraks and ur-Baraks and officials and merchants. Lucia was always on her best behaviour. Sometimes they looked on her with barely concealed disgust, sometimes with apprehension, and sometimes with kindness. Some of those who came prepared to despise her departed in bewilderment, wondering how such an intelligent and pretty child could harbour the evil the Weavers warned of. Some left their prejudices behind when they walked out of the door; others clutched them jealously to their breast.

‘Your mother is being very brave,’ said Zaelis, her favourite of all the tutors. ‘She is showing her allies and her enemies what a good

and clever girl you are. Sometimes a person’s fear of the unknown is far, far worse than the reality.‘

Lucia accepted this, in her dreamy-eyed, preoccupied kind of way. She knew there was more, deeper down; but those answers would come in time.

It was while she was with Zaelis one balmy afternoon that the Blood Empress Anais brought the Emperor.

She was sitting on a mat by the long, triangular windows in her study room, with the sunlight cut into great dazzling teeth and cast on to the sandy tiles of the floor before her. Zaelis was teaching her the catechisms of the birth of the stars, recounting the questions and answers in his throaty, molten bass tones. She knew the story well enough: how Abinaxis, the One Star, burst and scattered the universe, and from that chaos came the first generation of the gods. Sitting neatly and with her usual appearance of inattentiveness, Lucia was listening and remembering, while in the back of her head she heard the whispers of the spirits of the west wind, hissing nonsense to each other as they flowed across the city.

Zaelis paused as a gust ruffled through the room, and Lucia looked quickly upwards, as if someone had spoken by her shoulder.

‘What are they saying, Lucia?’ he asked.

Lucia looked back at Zaelis. He alone treated her abilities as if they were something precious, and not something to be hidden. All the tutors, nannies and staff were sworn to secrecy on pain of death with regards to her talents; they looked away if they caught her playing with ravens, and shushed her if she spoke of what the old tree in the garden was saying that day. But Zaelis encouraged her, believed her. In fact, his fervour worried her a little at times.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I can’t understand them.’

‘One day maybe you will,’ said Zaelis.

‘Probably,’ Lucia replied offhandedly.

She sensed Durun’s arrival a moment before she heard him. He frightened her with his intensity of passion. He was a knot of fire, always burning in anger or pride or hate or lust. In the absence of anything that heated his blood, he lapsed into boredom. He had no finer emotions, no intellectual interests or stirrings of mild introspection. His flame roared blindingly or not at all.

The Emperor strode into the room and halted before them, his black cloak settling reluctantly around his broad shoulders. Anais

was with him. Zaelis stood and made proper obeisance; Lucia did so as well.

‘So this is she,’ Durun said, ignoring Zaelis completely.

‘It is the same she as you saw previously, on every occasion you bothered yourself to visit her,’ Anais replied. It was clear by their manner that they had just argued. Anais’s face was flushed.

‘Then I had no idea that I was harbouring a viper,’ Durun answered coldly. He looked Lucia over. She returned his gaze with a placid calm. ‘If it weren’t for the distance in those eyes,’ he mused, ‘I would think her a normal child.’

‘She is a normal child,’ Anais snapped. ‘You are as bad as Vyrrch. He breathes down my neck, eager for the chance to—’ She stopped herself, glanced at Lucia. ‘Must you do this in front of her?’

‘You’ve told her, I suppose? About how the city is rising against her?’

Zaelis opened his mouth and shut it again. He knew better than to interfere on behalf of the child. If the Emperor would not listen to his wife, he certainly would not listen to a scholar.

‘You’ll bring this land to ruin with your ambition, Anais,’ Durun accused. ‘Your arrogance in making this abomination the heir to the throne will tear Saramyr apart. Every life lost will be on your head!’

‘So be it,’ she hissed. ‘Wars have been fought for less important causes. Look at her, Durun! She is a beautiful child… your child! She is all you could hope for in a daughter, in an heir! Don’t be blinded by a hatred wrapped up in tradition and lore. You listen too much to the Weavers, and think too little for yourself.’

‘So did you,’ he replied. ‘Before you spawned that.’ He flung out a finger at Lucia, who had been watching the exchange impassively. ‘Now you use arguments that you would have scorned in days gone by. She’s an Aberrant, and she’s no child of mine!’

With that, he turned with a melodramatic sweep of his cloak and stalked away. Anais’s face was tight with rage, but one look at her daughter and it softened. She knelt down next to Lucia, so that their faces were level, and hugged her.

‘Don’t listen, my child,’ she murmured. ‘Your father doesn’t understand. He’s angry, but he’ll learn. They all will.’

Lucia didn’t reply; but then, she seldom did.

Seven

Six sun-washed days had passed in the temple of Enyu on the banks of the Kerryn, and Tane felt further from inner peace with every dawn.

He had wandered far today, after his morning duties were performed. As an acolyte, the priests gave him leisure to do so. The way to Enyu was not made up of rituals and chores, but of community with nature. Everyone had their own way to calm their spirit. Tane was still looking for his.

The world was tipping over the heady brink between spring and summer, and the days were hot and busy with midges. Tane laboured through the pathways of the forest with his shirt tied around his waist and his torso bare, but for the strap of the rifle that was slung across his back. His lean, tanned body trickled with sweat in the humid confines of the trees. The sun was westering; soon he would have to head back, or risk being caught in the forest after dark. Ill things came with the night, more so now than ever.

All around was discontent. The forest seemed melancholy, even in the sunlight. The priests muttered about the corruption in the land, how the very soil was turning sour. The goddess Enyu was becoming weak, ailing under the influence of some unknown, sourceless evil. Tane felt his frustration grow at the thought. What good were they as priests of nature, if they could only sit by and lament the sickness in the earth as it overtook them? What use were their invocations and sacrifices and blessings if they could not stand up to defend the goddess they professed to love? They talked and talked, and nobody was doing anything. A war was being fought beyond the veil of human sight, and Tane’s side was plainly losing.

But such questions were not the only things that preyed on his

mind and ruined his attempts at attaining tranquillity. Though he worked hard to distract himself, he found he was unable to forget the young woman he had found buried in leaves at the base of a kindly tree. Pictures, sounds and scents, frozen in memory, refused to fade as others did. He remembered the expression of surprise, the whip of her hair, as she whirled to find him standing unexpectedly behind her; the sound of her laugh from another room, her joy at something unseen; the smell of her tears as he watched over her during her grief. He knew the shape of her face, peaceful in sleep, better than his own. He cursed himself for mooning over her like a child; and yet still he thought on her, and the memories renewed themselves with each visit.

He found his feet taking him to a spring, where cold water cascaded down a jagged rock wall into a basin before draining back into the stone. He had been here a few times before, on the hotter days of summer; now it seemed a wonderful idea to cool himself off before returning home. A short clamber up a muddy trail brought him to the basin, hidden among the crowding trees. He stripped and plunged into the icy pool, relishing the delicious shock of the impact. Sluicing the salty sweat off his body with his palm, he dived and surfaced several times before the temperature of the pool began to become uncomfortable, and he swam to the edge to climb out.

There was a woman in the trees, leaning on a rifle and watching him.

He stopped still, his eyes flickering to his own rifle, laid across the bundle of clothes near the edge of the pool. He might be able to grab it before she could raise her own weapon, but he would have no chance of priming and firing before she shot him. If indeed that was her intention. She appeared, in fact, to be faintly amused.

She was exceedingly beautiful, even dressed in dour brown travelling clothes. Her hair was long, with streaks of red amid the natural onyx black, and was left to fall naturally about her face. She wore no makeup, no hair ornaments; the dyed strands of her hair were the only concession to artificiality. Her beauty was entirely her own, not lent to her by craft.

‘You swim well,’ she commented dryly.

Tane hesitated for a moment, and then climbed out to retrieve his clothes. Nudity did not bother him, and he refused to be talked down to while he trod water in the pool. She watched him - equally unfazed - as he pulled on his trousers over the wet, muscular curves

of his legs and buttocks. He stopped short of picking up his rifle. She did not seem hostile, at least.

‘I am looking for someone,’ the stranger said after a time. ‘A woman named Kaiku tu Makaima.’ He was not quick enough to keep the reaction off his face. ‘I see you know that name,’ she added.

Tane ran his hands over his head, brushing water from his shaven scalp. ‘I know that she suffered a great misfortune at someone’s hands,’ he said. ‘Are you that someone?’

‘Assuredly not,’ she replied. ‘My name is Jin. I am an Imperial Messenger.’ She slung her rifle over her back and walked over to him, pulling back her sleeve to expose her forearm. Stretching from her wrist to her inner elbow was a long, intricate tattoo - the sigil of the Messengers’ Guild. Tane nodded.

‘Tane tu Jeribos. Acolyte of Enyu.’

‘Ah. Then the temple is not far.’

‘Not far,’ he agreed. .

‘Perhaps you could show me? It will be dark soon, and the forest is not safe.’

Tane looked her over with a hint of suspicion, but he never really considered refusing her. Her accent and mode spoke of an education, and possibly high birth, and besides, it was every man and woman’s duty to offer shelter and assistance to an Imperial Messenger, and the fact that her message was for Kaiku intrigued him greatly. ‘Come with me, then,’ he said.

‘Will you tell me of this… misfortune on the way?’ Jin asked.

‘Will you tell me the message you have for her?’

Jin laughed. ‘You know I cannot,’ she replied. ‘I am sworn by my life to deliver it only to her.’

Tane grinned suddenly, indicating that he had been joking. His frustrated mood had evaporated suddenly and left him in high spirits. His humours were ever mercurial; it was something about himself that he had learned to accept long ago. He supposed there was a reason for it, somewhere in his past; but his past was a place he had little love of revisiting. His childhood was darkened by the terror of the shadow that stood in his doorway at night, breathing heavily, with hands that held only pain.

They talked on the way back to the temple, as night drew in. Jin asked him about Kaiku, and he told her what he knew of her visit. He made no mention yet of her destination, however. He had no

wish to reveal everything to a stranger, Imperial Messenger or not. He felt protective towards Kaiku, for it was he who had saved her life, he who nursed her to health again, and he treasured that link. He would make sure of Jin before he sent her on the trail to Axekami.

As they walked, Tane realised to his chagrin that he had misjudged the time it would take to travel back from the spring. Perhaps he had unconsciously been slowing his pace to match Jin’s, and he had been so preoccupied in conversation that he had not noticed. Whatever the reason, the last light bled from the sky with still a mile to go. The looming bulk of Aurus glowed white through the trees, low on the horizon. Iridima, the brightest moon, was not yet risen, and Neryn would most likely stay hidden tonight.

‘Is it far yet?’ Jin asked. She had politely restrained from asking him if he was lost for some time now.

‘Very close,’ he said. His embarrassment at the miscalculation had not diminished his good humour one bit. The single moon was enough to see by. ‘Don’t concern yourself about losing the light. I grew up in the forest; I have excellent night vision.’

‘So do I,’ Jin replied. Tane looked back at her, about to offer further words of encouragement, but he was shocked to see her eyes shining in a slant of moonlight, two saucers of bright reflected white, like those of a cat. Then they passed into shadow, and it was gone. Tane’s voice went dry in his throat, and he turned away, muttering a quiet protective blessing. He reaffirmed his resolve to tell her nothing of Kaiku’s friend Mishani until he was certain she meant no harm.

They were almost at the temple when Tane suddenly slowed. Jin was at his shoulder in a moment.

‘Is something wrong?’ she whispered.

Tane cast a fleeting glance at her. He was still a little unnerved by what he had seen in her eyes. But this was nothing to do with her, he surmised. The forest felt bad here. The instinct was too strong to ignore.

‘The trees are afraid,’ he muttered.

‘They tell you so?’

‘In a way.’ He did not have the time or inclination to elaborate.

‘I trust you, then,’ Jin said, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Are we close to your home?’

‘Just through these trees,’ muttered Tane. ‘That’s what worries me.’

They went carefully onward, quietly now. Tane noted with approval how Jin moved without sound through the forest. His mood was souring rapidly into a dark foreboding. He unslung his rifle, and his hands clasped tightly around it as they stepped through the blue shadows towards the clearing where the temple lay.

At the edge of the trees, they crouched and looked out over the sloping expanse of grassy hillside that lay between the river on their left and the temple. Lights burned softly in some of the temple windows. The wind stirred the trees gently. The great disc of Aurus dominated the horizon before them, lifting her bulk slowly clear of the treeline. Not an insect chittered, and no animal called. Tane felt his scalp crawl.

‘Is it always so quiet?’ Jin whispered.

Tane ignored her question, scanning the scene. The priests were usually indoors by nightfall. He watched the temple for some time more, hoping for a light to be lit or extinguished, a face to appear at one of the windows, anything that would indicate signs of life within. But there was nothing.

‘Perhaps I’m being foolish,’ he said, about to stand up and come out of hiding.

Jin grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong grip. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You are not.’

He looked back at her, and saw something in her expression that gave her away. ‘You know what it is,’ he said. ‘You know what’s wrong here.’

‘I suspect,’ she replied. ‘Wait.’

Tane settled himself back into his hiding place and returned his attention to the temple. He knew each of its cream-coloured planes, each beam of black ash that supported each wall, each simple square window. He knew the way the upper storey was set back from the lower one, to fit snugly with the slope of the hill. This temple had been his home for a long time now, and yet it never felt as if he belonged here, no matter how much he tried. No place had ever truly been home for him, however much he tried to adapt himself.

‘There,’ Jin said, but Tane had already seen it. Coming over the roof from the blind side of the temple, like some huge four-legged

THE WEAVERS Of SARAMYR

spider: shin-shin. It moved stealthily, picking its way along, its dark torso hanging between the cradle of its stiltlike legs, shining eyes like lanterns. As Tane watched with increasing dread, he saw another one come scuttling from the trees, crossing the clearing in moments to press itself against one of the outer walls, all but invisible. And a third now, following the first one over the roof, its gaze sweeping the treeline where they crouched.

‘Enyu’s grace…’he breathed.

‘We must go,’ said Jin urgently, laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘We cannot help them.’

But Tane seemed not to hear, for he saw at that moment one of the priests appear at an upper window, listening with a frown to the silence from the forest, unaware of the dark, spindly shapes that crouched on the roof just above him.

‘You cannot fight!’ Jin hissed. ‘You have no weapon to use against them!’

‘I won’t let my priests die in their beds!’ he spat. Shaking her off, he stood up and fired his rifle into the air. The report was deafening in the silence. The glowing eyes of the shin-shin fixed on him in unison.

‘Demons in the temple!’ he cried. ‘Demons in the temple!’ And with that he primed and fired again. This time the priest disappeared from the window, and he heard the man’s shouts as he ran into the heart of the building.

‘Idiot!’ Jin snarled. ‘You will kill us both. Run!’ She pulled him away, and he stumbled to his feet and followed her, for the sensation of the shin-shin’s eyes boring into him had drained his courage.

One of the demons hurled itself from the roof of the temple and came racing towards them. Another broke from the treeline and angled itself in their direction. Two more shadows darted across the clearing, slipping into the open windows of the temple with insidious ease, and from within the first of the screams began.

Tane and Jin ran through the trees, dodging flailing branches and vaulting roots that lunged into their path. Things whipped at them in the night, too fast to see. Behind they could hear the screeches of the shin-shin sawing through the hot darkness as they called to each other. Tane’s head was awhirl, half his mind on what was happening back at the temple, half on escape. To run was flying in the face of his instincts - he wanted to help the priests, that was his way, that

was his atonement for the crimes of his past. But he knew enough of the shin-shin to recognise the truth in Jin’s words. He had no effective measure against them. Like most demons, they despised the touch of iron; but even the iron in a rifle ball would not stop them for long. To attack them would be suicide.

‘The river!’ Jin cried suddenly, her red and black hair lashing about her face. ‘Make for the river. The shin-shin cannot swim.’

‘The river’s too strong!’ Tane replied automatically. Then the answer came to him: ‘But there is a boat!’ ‘Take us there!’ Jin said.

Tane sprang past her, leading them on a scrabbling diagonal slant

down the hillside. The decline sharpened as they ran, and suddenly

he heard a cry and felt something slam into him from behind. Jin had

tripped, unable to control her momentum, and the two of them

rolled and bounced down the slope. Tane smacked into the bole of a

tree with enough force to nearly break a bone, but somehow Jin was

entangled with him, and as she slithered past he was dragged down

with her. They came to rest at the bottom of a wide, natural ditch;

a stream in times gone by. Jin hardly paused to recover herself;

she was up on her feet in an instant, dragging Tane with her. She

scooped up her rifle as it clattered down to rest nearby. The

screeches of the shin-shin were terrifyingly close, almost upon them.

‘In here!’ Tane hissed, pulling against her. There was a large

hollow where the roots of a tree had encroached on the banks of the

ditch, forming an overhang. Tane unstrapped his rifle - which had

miraculously stayed snagged on his shoulder during the fall - and

scrambled underneath, wedging his body in tight. There was just

enough space for Jin to do so as well, pressing herself close to him.

Mere moments later, they heard a soft thud as a shin-shin dropped

out of the trees and landed foursquare in the ditch.

Both of them held their breath. Tane could feel Jin’s pulse against his chest, smell the scent of her hair. Ordinarily, it might have aroused him - priests of Enyu had no stricture of celibacy, as some orders did - but the situation they were in robbed him of any ardour. From where they hid at ground level, they could see only the tapered points of the shin-shin’s stilt-legs, shifting as it cast about for its prey. It had lost sight of them as they tumbled, and now it sought them anew. A slight fall of dirt was the only hearld of the second demon’s arrival in the ditch; that one had followed their trail down the slope, and was equally puzzled by their disappearance.

THE WEAVERS OF SARAAV/R

Tane began a silent mantra in his head. It was one he had not used since he was a child, a made-up nonsense rhyme that he pretended could make him invisible if he concentrated hard enough. Then he had been hiding from something entirely different. After a few moments, he adapted it to include a short prayer to Enyu. Shelter us, Earth Goddess, hide us from their sight.

The pointed ends of the shin-shins’ legs moved this way and that in the moonlight, expressing their uncertainty. They knew their prey should be here; yet they could not see it. Tane felt the cold dread of their presence seeping into his skin. The narrow slot of vision between Jin’s body and the overhang of thick roots and soil might be filled at any moment with the glowing eyes of the shin-shin; and if discovered, they were defenceless. He fancied he could sense their gaze sweeping over him, penetrating the earth to spot them huddled there.

Time seemed to draw out. Tane could feel his muscles tautening in response to the tension. One of the shin-shin moved suddenly, making Jin start; but whatever it had seen, it was not them. It returned to its companion, and they resumed their strange waiting. Tane gritted his teeth and concentrated on his mantra to calm himself. It did little good.

Then, a new sound: this one heavy and clumsy. The shin-shin stanced in response. Tane knew that sound, but he could not place it in his memory. The footsteps of some animal, but which?

The yawning roar of the bear decided the issue for him.

The shin-shin were uncertain again, their reaction betrayed by the shifting of their feet. The bear roared once more, thumping on to its forepaws, and began to advance slowly. The demons screeched, making a rattling noise and darting this way and that, trying to scare it away; but it was implacable, launching itself upright and then stamping down again with a snarl. There was the loping gallop as the bear ran towards them, not in the least cowed by their display. The shin-shin scattered as it thundered along the ditch, squealing and hissing their displeasure; but they gave the ground, and in moments they were gone, back into the trees in search of their lost prey.

Tane released the pent-up breath he had been storing, but they were not out of danger yet. They could hear the bear coming down the wide ditch, its loud snuffling as it searched for them.

‘My rifle…’Jin whispered. ‘If it finds us…’

‘No,’ he hissed. ‘Wait.’

Then suddenly the bear poked down into the hollow, its brown, bristly snout filling up their sight as it sniffed at them. Jin clutched for the trigger of her rifle to scare it away; but Tane grabbed her wrist.

‘The shin-shin will hear,’ he whispered. ‘We don’t fear the bears in Enyu’s forest.’ He was less confident in his heart than his words suggested. Where once the forest beasts had been friends to the priests of Enyu, the corruption in the land had made them increasingly unpredictable of late.

The bear’s wet nose twitched as it smelt them over. Jin was rigid with apprehension. Then, with a final snort, the snout receded. The bear lay heavily down in front of their hiding place, and there it stayed.

Jin shifted. ‘Why did it not attack us?’ she muttered.

Tane was wearing a strange grin. ‘The bears are Enyu’s creatures, just as Panazu’s are the catfish, Aspinis’s the monkeys, Misamcha’s the ray or the fox or the hawk. Give thanks, Jin. I think we’ve been saved.’

Jin appeared to consider that for a time. ‘We should stay here,’ she said at length. ‘The shin-shin will be waiting for us if we emerge before dawn.’

‘I think she has the same idea,’ Tane said, motioning with his eyes towards the great furred bulk that blocked them in.

The bear lay in front of their hollow throughout the night, and in spite of their discomfort the two of them slept. Jin’s dreams were of fire and a horrible scorching heat; Tane’s, as always, were of the sound of footsteps approaching his bedroom doorway, and the mounting terror that came with them.

Eight

Weave-lord Vyrrch shuffled along the corridors of the Imperial Keep, his hunched and withered body buried in his patchwork robes, his ruined face hidden behind the bronze visage of an insane and ancient god. Once he had walked tall through these corridors, his stride long and his spine straight. But that was before the Mask had twisted him, warped him from the inside. Like all the True Masks, its material was suffused with the essence of witchstone, and the witchstones gave nothing without taking something away. His body was thronged with cancers, both benign and malignant. His bones were brittle, his knees crooked, his skin blemished all over. But such was the price of power, and power he had in abundance. He was the Weave-lord, the Empress’s own Weaver, and he wanted for nothing.

The Weavers were a necessity of life in the higher echelons of Saramyr society. Through them, nobles could communicate with each other instantly over long distances, without having to resort to messengers. They could spy on their enemies, or watch over their allies and loved ones. The more effective Weavers could kill invisibly and undetectably, a convenient way to remove troublesome folk; the crime could only be traced by another Weaver, and even then there were no guarantees.

But the most important role of a Weaver was as a deterrent; for the only defence against a Weaver was another Weaver. They were there to stop their fellows spying on their employers, or even attempting to kill them. If one noble had a Weaver in their employ, then his enemies must have one to keep themselves safe. And so on with their enemies, and theirs. The first Weavers had begun to appear around two and a half centuries ago, and in the intervening

time they had become a fixture of noble life. Not one of the high families lacked a Weaver; to be without one was a huge handicap. And while they were widely reviled and despised even by their employers, they were here to stay.

The price paid to acquire a Weaver was steep indeed, and the employer never stopped paying till the Weaver died. Money was an issue, of course; but that money was not paid to the Weavers themselves, but to the Edgefathers in the temples, for they made the Masks that the Weavers wore, and such was the purchase price of the Mask. For the Weaver, there was only this: that whatever comfort he sought would be attended to, every need fulfilled, every whim satisfied. And that he would be cared for, when he could not care for himself.

Weaving was a dangerous business. The Weavers brushed close to madness each time they used their powers, and it took years of training to deal with the energies inherent in their Masks. The Masks were essentially narcotic in effect. The sublime delights of the Weave took the mind and body to a dizzying high; but when the Weaver returned to himself, there was a corresponding backlash. Sometimes it manifested itself as a terrible, suicidal depression; sometimes as hysteria; sometimes as insane rage or unquenchable lust. Each Weaver’s needs were different, and each had different desires that had to be satisfied lest the Weaver turn on himself. No employer wanted that. A dead Weaver was merely a very expensive corpse.

The Weavers were mercenaries, selling their services to the highest bidder. To their credit, once bought they were loyal; there had never been a case of one Weaver defecting to another family for a higher price. But all owed a higher loyalty, and that was to Adderach, the great mountain monastery that was the heart of their organisation. The Weavers would do anything and everything for their employers, even kill other Weavers - it was hard to maintain a conscience in the face of the atrocities they committed in their post-Weaving periods - but they would not compromise Adderach or its plans. For Adderach was the greatest of the monasteries, and the monasteries kept the witchstones, and without the witchstones the Weavers were nothing.

Vyrrch reached the door to his chambers, which were high up at the south end of the Keep. He encountered few people here. Though there were servants within calling distance whose job it

THE WEAVERS OF SARAMyR

was to satisfy whatever desire took him, they had learned that it was safer to stay out of his way unless needed. Vyrrch’s preferences were unusual, but then it was common for a Weaver’s requests to become more random and bizarre as the insanity took hold.

He had become increasingly paranoid about theft of his belongings one summer, convinced that whispering figures were conspiring to strip his chambers of their finery. He gnawed on his thoughts until he had reached the point of mania, and several servants were executed for stealing things which had never existed in the first place. After that, he declared that no servant would be allowed to enter his chambers; they were accessible by only one door, which was kept locked, and he was the sole owner of a key. Beyond that door was a network of rooms in which no servant had trodden for several years now.

He drew out the heavy brass key from where it hung around his scrawny white neck, and unlocked the massive door at the end of the corridor. With a heave, he pushed it open. A moment later, something darted out and shot past his feet. He whirled in time to see a cat, its fur in burned patches, racing away down the corridor. A momentary frown passed beneath the still surface of his Mask. He did not even remember asking for a cat. He wondered what he had done to it.

He stepped into the dim chambers, closed and locked the door behind him. The stench coming from within was imperceptible to him; it was the smell of his own corrupted flesh, mixed with a dozen other odours, equally foul. The light from outside was muted by layers of hung silks, now besmirched by dust and hookah smoke, making the rooms gloomy even at midday. He shuffled into the main chamber, where the octagonal bathing pool was. Vyrrch had rid it of its centrepiece of a drowned, naked boy by ordering a tank full of scissorfish and dumping them in the pool. They made short work of the boy, and later of each other, but now the water was dark red and chunks of flesh floated in it. The decayed lump that shared his broken bed was still there, he noted with distaste. It was beginning to offend him. He would do something about it soon. For now, though, he had a more important task of his own.

The Empress was facing the council on the morrow. It was a dangerous time for her, and potentially ruinous to Blood Erinima. The nobles and high families had assessed the Lucia situation by now; they had formed into alliances, struck deals. They were ready

with threats which they were fully prepared to deliver, ready to declare their intentions regarding Lucia’s claim to the throne: support, or opposition.

Vyrrch had spent the last few days relaying communiques between Blood Erinima’s allies, of which there were more than he expected. The news that Lucia’s Aberration was not overtly dangerous, nor outwardly visible, had gentled the storm somewhat, and many of Blood Erinima’s staunchest friends had opted to stand by them. Even Blood Batik, the line to which Anais’s husband belonged, had given their support, despite Durun’s obvious abhorrence to the child. They believed the tradition of inheritance by blood should be adhered to. Other, smaller familes, seeking the opportunity of raising themselves, had also shown their colours in Lucia’s defence. They hoped that allying themselves to the Empress in her time of need would win them reward and recognition.

Vyrrch was a little dismayed, but not put off. The opposition -who believed in the good of the country over tradition - were easily as strong, and there were still many families drifting undecided. The debate could swing either way.

It was Vyrrch’s intention to lend his own weight to the swing, and not in his employer’s favour. For the accession of Lucia was dangerous to the Weavers and to Adderach, and so he worked quietly to betray the Empress and her daughter.

He settled himself in his usual spot near the pool, cross-legged and hunched over, curled up small. Once he had become still, he waited while the ache in his joints slowly faded, allowing his phlegmy breathing to deepen. He relaxed as much as was possible, for his body constantly pained him. Gradually, he meditated, allowing even the pain to numb and retreat, feeling the eager heat of the witchstone dust embedded in his Mask. It seemed to warm his face, though its temperature did not rise; and its surface began to shimmer with an ochre-green cast.

The sensation of entering the Weave was like swimming upward through dark water to bright skies above. The pressure of the held breath expanding in the lungs, the feeling of being near bursting, the anticipation of the moment of relief; and then, breaking water with a great expulsion of air, and he was floating once again in the euphoric abyss between the gargantuan threads of the Weave.

The bliss that swamped him was unearthly, making all sensation

pale by comparison. For a time, he shuddered in the throes of a feeling far past any joy that physical pleasure could provide. Then, with a great effort of will, he reined himself in, keeping the ecstasy down to a level he could tolerate and function in. The Weaver’s craft was born of terrible discipline; for the Weave was death to the untrained.

He took himself to a territory often visited by him at his mistress’s behest. It was the domain of Tabaxa, a young and talented Weaver who worked in the service of the Barak Zahn tu Ikati. This time, though, he was coming not to convey a message or to parley. This time he was entering unnoticed.

Blood Ikati were a sometime ally of Blood Erinima. The two families had too many conflicting interests ever to become loyal friends, but they were rarely at odds; more often, they remained respectfully neutral with each other. Blood Ikati, while not being especially rich or owning much land, had an impressive array of vassal families who had sworn allegiance to them. In their heyday, they had been the ruling family, and many treaties forged then still held today through careful management. Blood Ikati by themselves were not the most powerful family in the land by a long shot, but when one counted in the forces they brought to the table they became a factor to be reckoned with.

Barak Zahn had struck a deal with the Empress - in secret -meaning that he would declare his support for her during tomorrow’s council. Anais knew better than to send a message through Vyrrch if she did not have to, and she had wisely decided not to rely on his loyalty in this affair. It pleased Vyrrch to see her distaste at being forced to use him to communicate over distance, for she was well aware of the Weaver’s standpoint on the matter of Lucia. Instead she had invited the Barak to meet with her in person in the Keep. But this was Vyrrch’s domain, and there was little that went on within these walls that he did not know about; so he listened in from afar anyway, unbeknownst to the plotters.

Anais was relying heavily on Blood Ikati’s support to help her win over the council; or at least to stop them becoming openly hostile. Vyrrch had other ideas. He planned to change the Barak’s mind.

It was a dangerous undertaking, but these were dangerous times. If he was discovered, it would mean scandal for the Empress -which was no bad thing - but it would also give Anais the excuse

she needed to get rid of him. There were rules to prevent employers throwing Weavers out once they became an annoyance, as they inevitably did; but committing sabotage without her order was breaking those rules.

The Weavers’ position depended on their trustworthiness. The nobles resented them for their necessity, and despised the fact that they had to take care of the Weaver’s ugly and primal needs; yet without them the vast empire would be hopelessly crippled. It was a curious balance, a symbiotic relationship of mutual distaste; and yet, for all the strength of the Weavers, they were still only involved in Saramyr society as mere tools of the nobles who employed them, and like tools they could be discarded. No one could feel safe with creatures which could read their innermost secrets, and yet it would be worse to have those secrets read by a rival.

The Weavers balanced on a knife edge, and if one as prominent as Vyrrch was shown to be undermining his employer the repercussions would set Adderach’s plans back decades. If they were suspected of being less than absolutely loyal, the retribution would be terrible, and their security relied on the nobles not acting in concert to remove them. Anais would love to have a new Weaver, and Vyrrch was too infirm to survive without a patron now.

Tread carefully, he thought to himself, but the words seemed as mist in the bliss of the Weave.

Tabaxa was no easy opponent, and so the strategy relied entirely upon stealth. The Barak or his watchdog must not realise that Vyrrch had been there, subtly tinkering with his thoughts, turning them against the Empress.

Tabaxa had woven his domain as a network of webs, their gossamer threads reaching into infinity. It was the most common visualisation of the Weave, taught by the masters to their pupils, but Vyrrch could not help a small stir of awe at the sight.

The vastness of the web defied perspective. It hung in perfect blackness, layer over layer stretching away at angles that baffled logic, anchored by threads chained somewhere so distant that perspective had thinned them to oblivion. It was far more complex than the simple geometry of a spider’s construction; here, unconstrained by laws of physics, webs bent at impossible angles that the eye refused to fix on, joining in abstractions that could not have existed in the world outside the Weave. Between the thick strands, gauzy curtains of filmy gossamer seemed to sway in a cold wind,

the tomblike breath of the abyss. A faint chiming sounded as the massive construction murmured and shifted.

Vyrrch was forced to adapt, shifting his perception to match that of his opponent. He knew it was not really there, only a method of allowing his frail human brain to see the complexities of the Weave without being driven mad. He hovered in nothingness, a disembodied mind, probing gently with his senses, seeking gaps in the defence. Net upon net of webwork spread before him, each one representing a different alarm that would bring Tabaxa. Vyrrch was impressed. It was subtly and carefully laid; but not so carefully that a Weave-lord could not penetrate it.

He shifted his vision to another frequency of resonance, and saw to his delight that much of the webbing was gone. Clearly Tabaxa had not been careful enough to armour his domain across the entire spectrum. There were very few Weavers who could alter their own resonance to a different level - in a sense, enter a new dimension within the Weave. Vyrrch could. Gratified, he gentled his way forward, invisible antennae of thought reaching out all around him, brushing near the threads but never touching them. He could feel the thrum of Tabaxa’s presence, a fat black spider many hundreds of times his size, brooding somewhere near.

A tremor caught the edge of his senses, and in his mind he saw something descending from above, a ghostly veil, flat and transparent, drifting through the gaps between the webbing. Almost immediately, he sensed others nearby. None seemed to be heading for him, so he remained still until they passed by, like ethereal wisps of smoke.

He’s clever, Vyrrch thought. I’ve never seen that before.

The things were sentinels, roaming alarms that existed on a plane high up in the resonance of the Weave. They were invisible at normal resonance. If Vyrrch had tried to penetrate the web as he had originally found it, he would have been unable to see them until they bumped into him and alerted their creator.

The Weave-lord was enjoying this. Slowly, patiently, he penetrated deeper into the gossamer shell of Tabaxa’s domain. The illusory wind sighed through the framework of alarms, shifting them from side to side. In reality, Tabaxa had set the alarm network to vary slightly across the Weave, the better to catch unsuspecting intruders, but the effect manifested itself to Vyrrch’s senses as a stirring of the web. Vyrrch had to dodge aside as a huge thread of

silver lunged past him. He kept himself small, a tight focus of consciousness, and crept through, deeper, inward.

That was when the alarm was tripped.

Vyrrch panicked as the web around him erupted in a deafening din, a stunning cacophony of resonances. For an instant, he flailed; then he regained himself, and cast about for the cause. Nothing! There was nothing! He had been careful! He could feel the sudden, urgent movement of Tabaxa as he hefted his bulk up and came racing down the web, searching for the intruder. Vyrrch tried to move, to get out before he was identified, but he was trapped, his consciousness snared. Frantically, he shifted back down to normal resonance, and there, to his horror, he found himself engulfed in some grotesque, slippery thing, half mist and half solid, a vile amoeba that was clutching his mind tightly.

Vyrrch cursed. Tabaxa had not only employed alarms that were visible exclusively in the higher spectrum - the filmy ghosts he had seen before - but he had used ones that could only be seen in the normal spectrum too. Vyrrch had been caught out; he should have been switching between the two resonances.

Enraged suddenly, he annihilated the amoeba with a thought, disassembling its threads in fury. But Tabaxa was almost upon him now, a dark, massive shape, eight legs ratcheting as he raced along the threads of his weave to see what was amiss. It was too late to avoid a conflict, too late to escape and remain anonymous. Tabaxa would know he, Vyrrch, had been here.

Heart’s blood! he thought furiously. There’s nothing else for it now.

He tore out through the webbing of alarms, tattering it behind him, and crashed into the spider-body of his opponent. His world dissolved into an impossible multitude of threads, a rushing, darting tapestry of tiny knots and tangles, and he was in the threads, controlling them. Tabaxa was here too; Vyrrch sensed his angry defiance. He was puzzled as to why Vyrrch had come into his domain, but eager to demolish the older Weaver. There would be no quarter given, and none asked.

The conflict was conducted faster than consciousness could follow. Each sought a channel into the other, so they dodged and feinted down threads, finding one suddenly knotted against them, untangling this one or that, reaching dead-ends and loops that had been laid as traps or decoys. Each wanted to confuse the other long enough to break through the defences, while simultaneously shor-

ing up their own. By manipulating the threads of the Weave, they jabbed and parried, darting back and forth, creating labyrinths for their opponent to get lost in or frantically unwinding a complex knot to create a channel into their enemy.

But in the end experience won out, and Tabaxa slipped up. Vyrrch had left him a tempting channel as a lure, and he impetuously took it; but it came up against a dead-end, and Vyrrch was waiting. With a speed and skill unmatched among the Weavers, he fashioned an insoluble knot behind Tabaxa, trapping him. Tabaxa tried to skip threads, to get out of the trap, but he only came up against another trap, and another, and by that time it was too late. Vyrrch was already away, burrowing through his defences, and Tabaxa could not get out in time. Vyrrch had identified a knot in Tabaxa’s wall that was fraying, and he tore it open and raced through, into Tabaxa’s mind like a meathook into a carcass, lodging in there and rending …

He could feel the force of his enemy’s haemorrhage as he withdrew, feel the flailing embers of Tabaxa’s consciousness as they were pulled back to his dying body. Tabaxa was even now spasming on the floor of his chamber, his brain ripped from the inside by the force of Vyrrch’s will. The Weave-lord himself was retreating, the agony receding behind him rapidly as he raced out of the Weave, following the threads back to his own body, cursing and raging.

Vyrrch’s eyes snapped open in the dim, filthy room where he sat. He shrieked in frustration, consumed by an anger that could not be borne. He had been careless! He, Vyrrch, the Weave-lord, had been caught by a trap he should have avoided with ease, would have avoided a year ago. What was wrong with him? Why could his mind not assemble his thoughts, lessons, instincts as it used to? He was perhaps the most formidable Weaver in the land, and yet he had blundered into Tabaxa’s trickery, and been forced to kill him to protect his own identity. And all without getting close to Barak Zahn. A failure; an unmitigated failure.

Vyrrch rose suddenly, another shriek coming from beneath his Mask. He picked up the unidentifiable corpse on his bed and tossed it into the bloodied pool. He swatted aside a crystal ornament that stood in the corner of the room, one he did not recall seeing before. It dashed into shards on the tiles, a fortune destroyed in an instant. Like a whirlwind he swept through his chambers, breaking and

throwing anything he could pick up, screaming like a child in a tantrum before flinging himself to the floor and scratching at it until his fingernails snapped.

The pain of his broken nails brought him to a momentary calm, a lull in the storm. He lay panting for a moment, before getting to his feet and stumbling to where a mouthpiece was set into the wall, connected by an echoing pipe to the quarters of his personal servants.

‘Get me a child!’ he rasped. ‘A child, I don’t care what sort. Get me a child, and… and bring me my bag of tools. And food! I want meat! Meat!’

He did not wait for a response. He threw himself to the floor again and lay there, his emaciated ribs heaving, waiting, drooling in anticipation. He did not know what would happen when the child got here. He never knew what would happen. But he thought he was going to enjoy it.

Nine

The compound of Blood Tamak was on the other side of the Imperial Quarter from Blood Koli’s, but Mishani chose to walk anyway. For one thing, it was a beautiful day, with cool breezes from the north offering relief from the usual stifling heat of the city. For another, she preferred that her business this afternoon remained a secret.

The streets of the Imperial Quarter were wider than the usual thoroughfares of the city, and less trafficked. Tall, ancient trees lined the roadside, and the rectangular flagstones were swept for leaves every morning. Fountains or ornamental gutters plashed and trickled, collecting in basins where passers-by could drink to quench their thirst. Carts rattled by with deliveries piled high upon them. Mishani passed many gates, each one belonging to an important family, each one with their ancestral emblem wrought upon them somewhere. The Imperial Quarter was made up mainly of the townhouses of the various families - not only the high families who sat on the councils, but a multitude of minor nobles as well.

. She glanced up at the Imperial Keep, its angled planes sheening in the sunlight. One such council was going on now, and it was one that she should well be attending. The Heir-Empress was an Aberrant, and the Empress in her hubris still seemed intent on putting her on the throne. Mishani would never have believed it possible - not only that Lucia had been allowed to reach eight harvests of age in the first place, but also that the Empress was foolish enough to think the high families would allow an Aberrant to rule Saramyr. Her father would be angry that she had not been there to lend her support to his condemnation of the Empress; but

she had something else to attend to, and it had to be done while all eyes were on the Keep.

The divisions brought about by the revelations in the Imperial Family had come swift and savage. Longtime allies had separated in disgust, driven apart by their inability to condone the other’s viewpoint. Arguments had erupted and turned to feuds. Most of it was down to men and their posturing, Mishani thought with a wrinkle of contempt. Her father was an example. He and Barak Chel of Blood Tamak had been political allies and good friends a month ago. Mishani had often accompanied him on visits to the townhouse of Blood Tamak. Then Chel’s support of the Empress in the matter of the succession sparked a debate in which both said regretful things to each other, and now they were bitter enemies and would not speak.

That, unfortunately, was contrary to Mishani’s interests, for within the house of Blood Tamak lived a wise old scholar by the name of Copanis, whose particular field of expertise was antique masks. And whatever the state of play between their two families, she intended to see him. The risk to herself was not inconsiderable. Her reputation would suffer greatly if she was caught in defiance of her father’s wishes, not to mention the embarrassment that would be caused by her presence in her enemy’s house. But there were greater matters at play here. Kaiku’s only clue to her father’s murder was the mask, tucked now beneath Mishani’s blue robes; and if anyone could tell them about it, it was Copanis.

She just had to get to him.

She worried about her friend as she walked a winding route through the Imperial Quarter: across sunlit, mosaic-strewn plazas with restaurants in the shady cloisters, down narrow and immaculate alleyways where thin, short-furred cats prowled and slunk, through a small park in which couples strolled and artists sat cross-legged on the grass, their brushes hovering above their canvases. She had a great affinity for the Imperial Quarter, and on most days she found it tantalising, a place of beauty and intrigue, where the peripheral machinations of the court were played out in the gardens and under the arches. She was aware that it was heavily sanitised and rigidly policed in comparison to the sweaty bustle of the rest of the city, but she was content to avoid the crush and press when she could, and she preferred the calm and beauty of these streets to those of the Market District or the Poor Quarter.

But today her mind was not on the sights and sounds surrounding her. Her concern for Kaiku consumed her thoughts entirely. If what Kaiku had told her was true - and she had no doubt that Kaiku, at least, believed it - then her situation was grave. She was convinced she was possessed by something, which was bad enough; the alternative - that she was mad, and had merely created the story of the shin-shin and the burning of Asara as a hysterical reaction to the death of her family - was scarcely better. And yet she seemed lucid, which tended to discount either of those possibilities; unless the madness or possession was of a more insidious kind, that did not show itself as raving lunacy but in a subtle mania instead.

A chill ran through her, a cool bloom that counteracted the bright afternoon sun on her skin. Heart’s blood, what if she was possessed? Mishani knew the stories of the dark spirits that haunted the forests and mountains, the deep and high and secret places of the world; but they had always seemed distant, powerless to affect her. She had heard about the gathering hostility of the beasts; it had been a small but persistent concern in court circles for a long time now. Enyu’s priests and their sympathisers never stopped talking about it. Was it so much of a stretch, then, to believe the possibility that her friend had become… infested by the emboldened spirits?

She shook her head. What did she know about spirits? She was frightening herself with conjecture and guesswork. There would be answers, there had to be answers, and she and Kaiku would hunt them out; but first, she had another task to perform.

Blood Tamak’s compound was set on a hillside, the main body of the townhouse supported by a man-made cliff of stone to make it sit level. It was a squat, flat-roofed building, its beige walls sparsely panelled in dark, polished wood, without any of the ornamentations, votive statues or icons that were usually present somewhere around the exterior of Saramyr households. Beneath it were the gardens, an unprepossessing lawn with curving flagstone paths and sprays of blooms, spartan even by the minimalist norms of Saramyr.

Mishani knew the layout well, for she had been shown around it often during her father’s visits. At the side of the compound, a narrow set of sandstone steps ran from the street in front to the one behind, which was set higher in the hill. There was a servants’ gate there, used for unobtrusive errand-running. It was here that Mishani took herself and waited.

She had timed her arrival excellently. Less than five minutes later, a short, sallow servant girl appeared, half opening the gate. Recognition widened her eyes as she saw who was outside.

‘Mistress Mishani,’ she gaped, blanching. She looked up and down the steps. ‘You should not be here.’

‘I know, Xami,’ she replied. ‘Heading to the market for flour?’ Xami nodded. ‘I thought so. Ever punctual. Your master would approve.’

‘My master… your father… we must not be seen talking!’ Xami stammered.

Mishani was the picture of elegant calm. Her tone was unhurried but firm. ‘Xami, I have a favour to ask.’

‘Mistress…’she began reluctantly, still standing in the gateway with the gate obscuring her partway, like a shield between them.

Mishani reached in and took the servant girl’s hands in hers, and within was the crinkle of money. Paper money, which meant Imperial shirets. ‘Remember the services I performed for you, in days when the heads of our houses were friends.’

Xami put the money inside her robe without looking at it. Her wide, watery eyes wavered in indecision. Mishani had passed love letters between her and a servant boy in the Koli house many times. It had seemed an interesting diversion then - and, additionally, Xami’s clumsy attempts at poetry in the vulgar script of Low Saramyrrhic always made her smirk - but now it seemed it might serve a useful political purpose as well.

‘Let me in, Xami,’ Mishani said. ‘You did not see me; you will not be blamed if I am caught. I promise you.’

Xami deliberated a few moments longer. Then, more because she feared somebody seeing them together than because she wanted to, she opened the gate fully. Mishani went in, and Xami slipped out and shut the gate behind her.

Mishani found herself in a narrow, vine-laden passageway that led around to the back of the main house, where the servants’ quarters were. Most of the servants - indeed, much of the household - would be at the Keep now, for in matters of state the nobles liked to arrive in full pomp and splendour whenever they could. Copanis would not. He was a scholar, not a servant; the Barak Chel was his patron.

The thought brought uncomfortable resonances of Kaiku’s father, Ruito tu Makaima. If he had had a patron, maybe there

would have been somewhere to start, somebody that suspicion might devolve upon who might have a reason to kill him and his family; but it was a dead-end. Ruito had been in the rare position of being independently wealthy enough to survive without patronage, having had several works of philosophy in circulation among the literati of the empire that had generated enough income for him to buy himself free a long time ago.

Mishani made her way around to the back. She refused to sneak; she walked instead as if she owned the place, her long, dark hair swaying around her ankles as she went. Those servants that were still about would be engaged in menial duties now, but thankfully none seemed to have taken them outside, and she was able to slip into the house through the rear entrance undetected.

The interior of the house was very spare and minimal, with polished wooden floorboards and only the occasional wall hanging or mat to draw the eye. Chel liked his house as he liked his pleasures - respectable and sparse. Upstairs lay the family rooms and the ancestral chambers, where the house’s treasures were kept. She would have no chance of getting up there; they were always guarded. But Copanis’s study was on the ground floor, near the back of the house. Trusting to luck and Shintu, god of fortune, she made her way down a wide corridor, hoping that no one would come to challenge her.

Shintu smiled upon her, it seemed; for she reached the study without seeing another soul. Unusually, it had a door instead of a curtain or screen, but then the old scholar valued his privacy. She tapped on it. An instant later it was opened irritably, as if he had been lurking on the other side for just such an opportunity to surprise those who dared to interrupt him.

His face turned from annoyance to puzzlement as he saw who it was. Before he could protest, she laid a finger on her lips and slid inside, shutting the door behind her.

Copanis’s study was uncomfortably hot, even with the shutters open to admit the breeze from outside. A low table was scattered with scrolls and manuscripts, but everywhere were concessions to ornamentation that were not present in the rest of the house. A sculpted hand; a skull with glass jewels for teeth; an effigy of Naris, god of scholars and son of Isisya, goddess of peace, beauty and wisdom. All was a clutter, but it conveyed the intensity of its author.

‘My, my,’ he said. ‘Mistress Mishani, daughter of my master’s

newly embittered enemy. I take it you have something very important you need, to come see me like this. And miss the council with the Empress, too.‘

Mishani looked over the old man with an inner smile that did not show on her face. He always was quick, this leathery, scrawny walnut of a scholar. His clothes seemed to sag off his lean frame, as his flesh did; but his eyes were still feverishly bright, and he was capable of running rings round intellectuals half his age.

Mishani decided to dispense with the preamble. She drew out the mask. ‘This belongs to a dear friend of mine,’ she said. ‘Our need is most pressing to discover all we can about it. I can tell you no more than that.’

Copanis scrutinised her for a short while. He was making a show of deliberation, but it was not hard to see how his eyes were drawn to the mask. He was too cantankerous to fear to balk the authority of his master, and he was never one to hoard his knowledge when he could share it. With a mischievous quirk of one eyebrow, he took the mask and turned it around in his hands.

‘You take a great risk, coming here,’ he murmured.

‘I seek to right a grave wrong, and aid a friend in desperate straits,’ she replied. ‘The risk is little, weighed against that.’

‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Well, I won’t inquire, Mistress Mishani. But I dare to say I can help you in my small way.’

He placed the mask in a small wooden cradle, so that it faced the sunlight from the windows. After that, he found himself a small ceramic pot of what looked like dust. This he sprinkled over the face of the mask. Mishani watched with fascination - disguised, as ever, behind a wall of impassivity - as the dust seemed to glitter in the sun.

‘Draw the shutters,’ he said. ‘Not this one; the others.’

Mishani obeyed, darkening the room until only a single shutter remained, shining light on to the mask’s dusty face. After a time, Copanis shut that one himself, plunging the room into darkness. He turned the mask so they could both see it. The dust glowed dimly, phosphorescent in the darkness - but its life was momentary, and it faded.

Copanis harumphed. He told Mishani to open the shutters again. She did so, enduring his peremptory tone because she needed his help. After that, he sat cross-legged at his desk and brushed the dust off the mask, then turned it over in his hands and studied it. He held it near to his face without letting it touch. He closed his eyes and spent a

short time chanting softly, as if in meditation. Mishani waited patiently, kneeling opposite him with her hair pooled around her.

Eventually he opened his eyes. ‘This is indeed a True Mask,’ he said. ‘It has been infused with witchstone dust, and there is power here. However, it is very young. Less than a year old; I would estimate no more than two previous wearers, neither of them possessing any remarkable mental strength. It is valuable, of course; but as far as the True Masks go, it is weak, like a newborn.’

‘You can tell all that? I am impressed,’ Mishani said.

He shrugged. ‘I can only tell you in the vaguest of terms. A True Mask picks up strength from its wearers… or, rather, it saps it from them. There are ways to tell a True Mask from an ordinary one, and guess at its age; but little else can be done. There is a simple way to learn more, of course, but I cannot counsel it.’

‘And that is… ?’

‘To put it on, Mistress,’ said Copanis with a sour smile.

‘Surely anyone who did that would die, unless they were a Weaver and trained in the arts.’

‘Ah, not so. A common misconception,’ Copanis replied, stretching. His vertebrae cracked like fireworks. ‘The older the Mask, the greater the peril; but one as young and weak as this… why, you or I might put it on and suffer no ill effects. Nightmares, maybe. Disorientation. That said, I repeat I cannot counsel it. There is still an element of risk. Should the mind prove to be susceptible, insanity and death would surely follow. The chance is small, but it exists.’

Mishani considered this. ‘Can you tell me where it comes from?’

‘Ah, that is easy. The hallmarks are obvious. See this wave pattern in the wood on the inside? And the indentation here, to accommodate the wearer’s philtrum? This comes from one of the Edgefathers at Fo; although from which part of the isle, I cannot say. I would guess at the north, simply because of the marked lack of mainland influences on the carving. The one who carved this either had little contact with the ports in the south of Fo and the people there, or he spurned the craft of the mainland Edgefathers.’ He passed it back to her, the red and black face seeming to grin mockingly. ‘That is all I can tell you.’

‘It was more than enough,’ she replied, bowing. ‘You have my gratitude. Now I must go; I’ve put you in peril already.’

He stood up, knee joints popping, and cackled. ‘Hardly peril,

Mistress. Here, I’ll help you get out,‘ he said. ’Let me spy out the lie of the land for you, then you can make it to the servants’ gate. You know where it is?‘

‘I know,’ replied Mishani, standing also, her hair cascading around her.

‘I thought you might,’ he replied.

Kaiku was unused to spending the summer months in the city; her father had always sent his family to their cooler property in the Forest of Yuna while he worked. Though it was only just climbing the slope towards the truly miserable heat of midsummer, Kaiku had become drowsy and felt the need for a siesta, and she had slept while she waited for Mishani to return.

In her dreams, the shin-shin came.

This time they were even more dark and nebulous than she remembered. They stalked unseen in the corridors of her mind, fearful presences that emanated dread, which she could not see but sense. She fled through a labyrinth that resembled her father’s house in the forest, but seemed infinitely bigger and endless. She found doors, hatches, corners that brought her shuddering to a stop, for she knew with dream-certainty that death was lurking there, felt them waiting just beyond with a terrifying, hungry patience. And each time she came up against one of these invisible barriers of fear, she turned and ran the other way, her skin clammy with the proximity of the end. But no matter how far she went, they were everywhere, and inescapable.

Flailing helplessly, trapped forever, she knew there was no escape for her, and still she tried. At some point, she became aware of another presence, one even more malevolent than the shin-shin. This one lived inside her, in her belly and womb and groin, and it grew whenever she thought about it, feeding on her attention. She desperately tried to distract herself, but it was impossible not to feel the thing inside her skin, and she sensed its mad glee as it suckled on her terror. Desperate, driven by some illogical prescience that she had to get out of the house before this new entity consumed her, she raced onward, trying new routes with increasing panic, finding all blocked against her by the lurking, unseen shin-shin. Her chest ached, and her heart pounded harder and harder, but she could not stop even though her body burned with fatigue, and suddenly it was all too much and—

Her eyes flew open to agony, and the room ignited.

She threw herself off her sleeping-mat with a shriek, warned by some instinct that caused her to react before her conscious mind could arrange itself. She was fortunate: so quick was she that the ripples of flame that sprang from the weave of the mat only licked her, and it was too brief to do more than singe her sleeping-robe. She scrambled to her feet, gazing wildly around the room. The curtain that hung in the doorway was ablaze; the window shutters smoked and charred, blue flames invisible in the bright sunlight. The timbers of the room had blackened but not caught light; an arrangement of guya blossoms in a vase had crisped to cinders. A wall-hanging, that had once depicted the final victory of the first Emperor, Jaan tu Vinaxis, over the primitive Ugati people that had occupied this land in the past, ran with fire. Thin, deadly smoke was rising all around her.

She dashed immediately for the doorway, an automatic response, and then retreated as she saw it was impassable while the curtain still burned. The windows were no option either. More terrifying than her animal fear of fire was the knowledge that she was trapped by it. She tried to cry for help, but the intake of breath made her chest blaze in pain. Her every muscle was in agony, and the blood seemed to boil and scorch as it pumped through her veins. The demon inside her had returned in her sleep and tormented her with fires inside and out. .

Steeling herself against the torture, she found her voice and shouted, hoping to alert the servants to her plight. But no sooner had she done so than the flaming curtain began to thrash, and she saw Mishani beyond it, slashing at it with a long, bladed pike that had been part of an ornamental set in the corridor outside. She hacked at the disintegrating cloth and it came to pieces, falling to the floor where a servant girl threw a bucket of suds across it and reduced it to a black mush. Shielding her face with one blue-robed arm, Mishani called to her friend; Kaiku ran to her in desperate relief. Mishani pulled her clear of the room, out into the corridor. Voices were raised all about the household as servants ran for water.

Kaiku would have embraced her friend then, if it were not for the gasp of horror that the servant girl gave. Kaiku looked to her, confused, and the girl quailed and made a sign against evil. Mishani’s face was stony. She grabbed the servant girl’s wrist, pulling her roughly to face her mistress.

‘On your life, you will speak of this to no one,’ she said, her voice heavy with threat. ‘On your life, Yokada.’

The servant girl nodded, frightened.

‘Go,’ Mishani commanded. ‘Find more water.’ As Yokada gratefully fled, she turned to Kaiku. ‘Close your eyes, Kaiku. Let me lead you. Feign that you are smoke-blinded.’

‘I—’

‘As I am your friend, trust me,’ Mishani said. Kaiku, shaken and scared still, did what she was told. Mishani was several inches shorter than Kaiku, but she seemed many years older then, and her tone brooked no argument. She took her friend by the hand and led her away, hurrying so that Kaiku feared to trip. She opened her eyes to see where her feet were, and Mishani caught her and hissed at her to keep them shut. Servants rushed past them in a clatter of feet, and she heard the swill of water in buckets. After a time, Mishani drew back a curtain and led her into a room.

‘Now you can open them,’ Mishani said, sounding weary.

It was Mishani’s study. The low, simple table was still occupied by neat rows of tally charts, an inkpot and a brush. Several shelves held other scrolls, not one of them out of place. Sketch paintings of serene glades and rivers hung on the walls, next to a large elliptical mirror, for Mishani often entertained guests in here and she understood the importance of appearance.

‘Mishani, I… it happened again…’ Kaiku stammered. ‘What if you had been with me? Spirits, what if—’

‘Go to the mirror,’ Mishani said. Kaiku quieted, looked at her friend, then at the mirror. Suddenly, she feared what she might see. She shuddered as a spasm of pain racked her body.

‘I need to rest, Mishani… I’m so tired,’ she sighed.

‘The mirror,’ Mishani repeated. Kaiku turned, bowing her head as she stood before it. She did not dare see whatever it was that Mishani wanted her to.

‘Look at yourself? Mishani hissed, and there was an edge to her voice that Kaiku had never heard before, one that made her afraid of her friend. She looked up.

‘Oh,’ she murmured, her fingers coming up to rest on her cheek.

Her eyes, gazing back at her, were no longer brown. The irises were a deep and arterial red, the eyes of a demon.

‘Then it’s true,’ she said, slowly, brokenly. ‘I am possessed.’

THE WEAVERS OF SARAMyR

Mishani was standing at her shoulder in the mirror, her head tilted down so that her hair fell across her face, her gaze averted. ‘No, Kaiku,’ she said. ‘You are not possessed. You are Aberrant.’

Ten

The council chamber of the Imperial Keep was not vast, but what it lacked in size if made up for in opulence. The walls and tiers of the semi-circular room were drenched in grandeur, from the enormous gold and crystal chandelier overhead to the ornate scrollwork on the eaves and balconies. The majority of the room was lacquered in crimson and edged in dark gold; the ceiling was sculpted into a relief of an ancient battle, while the floor was of reflective black stone. The flat wall at the back - where the speaker stood to talk to those on the semi-circular tiers above - bore a gigantic mural of two scaled creatures warring in the air, their bodies aflame as they locked in mortal combat above a terrified city below.

The assembly was silent as Anais tu Erinima, Blood Empress of Saramyr, walked to stand in front of the mural, her dress a dark red like that of the room. She wore her flaxen hair in her customary long plait, with a silver tiara across her brow. Next to her walked an old man in robes of grey, his hood masking his face so that only his hooked nose and long, salt and pepper beard could be seen. High, arched windows lit the scene, brighter on the west side where the sun was heading toward afternoon.

Anais hated this room. The colours made her feel angry and aggressive; it was a poor choice for a place of debate. But this had been the council chamber for generations past, through war and peace, famine and plenty, woe and joy; tradition had kept it virtually unaltered for centuries.

Maybe I will be the one to change it, Anais thought to herself, masking her nervousness with bravado. Maybe I will change many things, before my days are done.

She took her place on the central dais, a petite and deceptively naive-looking figure in the face of the assembly. The Speaker in his grey robes stood next to her. Facing her, on three tiers that rose up and away, were representatives of the thirty high families of Saramyr. They sat behind expertly carven stalls, looking down on their ruler. She scanned the room, searching out her supporters, seeking her enemies… and finally finding Barak Zahn tu Ikati, whom until a few minutes ago had been the former. Now she had no idea where she stood in his regard.

She had in her pocket a letter from the Barak, informing her of the sudden and extremely suspicious death of his Weaver, Tabaxa. It said nothing more than that. The letter had been delivered to her by a servant just before she entered the chamber. If the move had been calculated to unnerve her, it had succeeded admirably. Now she studied him in the stalls, a tall man with a short white beard and pox-pitted cheeks, trying to divine what he meant by it; but his face was blank, and gave no indication of his thoughts.

By the spirits, does he think I did it? she asked herself, and then wondered what she would do if the Barak withdrew his support, when her position was precarious enough already.

‘The Blood Empress of Saramyr, Anais tu Erinima,’ the Speaker announced, and then it was her time to speak. She took a breath, showing nothing of the fear she felt.

‘Honourable families of Saramyr,’ she began, her usually soft and gentle voice suddenly strong and clear. ‘I bring this council to session. Thank you for coming; I know some of you have travelled far to be here today.’ She paused, allowing the echoes of her pleasantries to fade before she launched into the fray.

‘I am certain you are aware of the matter before us. The issue of my daughter is of great importance to all of you, and to Saramyr as a whole. I know of the division over this situation, both among the high families and those not of noble birth. If compromise can be reached to heal this division, then I am willing to compromise. There are many aspects to this matter that will bear negotiation. But know this as a fact: my daughter is of Blood Erinima, and the daughter of the Blood Empress. Some may call her Aberrant, some may not: it is a matter of opinion. But the point is moot in the laws of succession. She is the sole heir to my throne, and she will be Blood Empress after me.’

The council, predictably, broke out in uproar. Anais faced them

without flinching or lowering her gaze. Many of them had been hoping that she had seen sense and decided to abdicate, if only to spare her daughter’s life. But Anais had never been more sure of anything. Her child would be as good a ruler as any, better than most. Whatever the dangers to herself, she would bring her child to throne.

Unless, of course, she was deposed by the council.

The thirty high familes were nominally vassals to the ruling family, but it rarely worked exactly that way. Blood Erinima ruled Saramyr, meaning that they - in theory - spoke for all the families. The Baraks each owned vast tracts of land, effectively dividing up Saramyr into manageable chunks. The Baraks further subdivided their land to ur-Baraks, who dealt with smaller portions, and the ur-Baraks left the management of villages within their territory to the Marks. With as many powerful families as there were in Saramyr, the question of loyalty was never clear-cut.

The council of the high families represented only the Baraks, and some of the more influential ur-Baraks who were related by blood. Though there was a strong tendency to support the ruling family, fuelled by tradition and concepts of honour, it was by no means a guarantee. The council had turned against their lieges before, and for much less. A vote of no confidence from the council was damning, and left only two real options: abdication, or civil war. Saramyr’s history was spotted with bloody coups. Though the ruling family always had the greatest army by far - for their post entitled them to the protection of the Imperial Guards, who owed allegiance only to the throne and not Blood - an alliance of several strong Baraks could still challenge them and win.

The Speaker raised his arm, and in his hand was a small wooden tube on a thin red rope. He spun it quickly, and a high keening wail cut through the room. When it died, silence had returned. Anais’s eyes flickered over the assembly. She could see other members of Blood Erinima in the stalls, approving of her declaration. Her old enemies in Blood Amacha looked furious; though she noted that Barak Sonmaga’s expression was almost smug. He relished the fight.

‘To those who oppose me, I say this!’ she cried. ‘You are blinded by your prejudices. Too long have you listened to the Weavers, too long have you been told what to think on this matter. Many of you have never even seen an Aberrant. Many of you are ill educated in

what makes an Aberrant at all. Those of you who have met my daughter know her to be gentle and kind. She bears no deformities. She may possess perceptions greater than ours, senses that we do not understand: but don’t the Weavers have the same? She has harmed no one and nothing; she is as well-adjusted as a child can be expected to be. And if exceptional intelligence is an undesirable trait for a ruler of Saramyr, then let us be ruled by half-wits instead, and see how long our proud country lasts!‘

There was silence again for a short moment. She was coming dangerously close to defying the Weavers outright, and who knew the ruin that would bring? Anais was only glad that no Weavers were present; they played no part in the country’s politics. Still, she was sure that they were listening somewhere…

Barak Sonmaga tu Amacha stood. She might have known he would be the first. The Speaker announced his name.