SIX

Screams.

Lan hadn’t imagined anything so awful could emerge from a human throat, never believed that such a naked shriek of animal terror could be made by an intelligent being. Never dreamed he would be hearing it from his own mother.

It was a perfect day, the occasional sparse train of tiny, puffy clouds freckling what was otherwise a clear blue sky, blending to a turquoise hue near the horizon. The Pelaska lazed down the centre of the Kerryn, the huge paddle-wheels at either side idle while the current took the lumbering barge westward from the Tchamil Mountains, heading towards Axekami. They were ahead of schedule, perhaps a half-day east of the fork where the river split and its southward channel became the Rahn, flowing into the wilds of the Xarana Fault. It had begun to seem that nothing would go wrong.

The journey had been a nervous one. Lan had wanted to beg his father not to take the Weaver and his cargo, but he would have been wasting his breath. They had no choice.

And now his mother was screaming.

They had been moored up in the tiny town of Jiji, at the feet of the mountains, loading in metals and ores and surplus equipment from the mines to deliver to Axekami. It was their bad luck that theirs was the only barge there with sufficient capacity for the Weaver’s needs.

The Weavers ran their own fleet of barges, which plied the rivers of western Axekami and were viewed with mistrust by all. The barge-masters were cold-eyed, taciturn and strange, and tales circulated up and down the waterways about these damned men who had made pacts with the Weavers in return for riches and power. Exactly where the riches and power came from was unclear: the barges hardly turned a profit, trading enough only to cover their operating costs. For the rest of the time, they passed silently by the ports and rarely docked, running secret errands of their own.

The Weaver commandeered the craft and crew and demanded passage, declaring that he had an urgent delivery to make and that none of the Weavers’ own barges were near. Lan’s father, Pori, accepted his fate stoically. Their patron would be furious at having one of his barges commandeered; but being of the peasant class, the barge-folk’s lives were a Weaver’s to command, or to take.

Lan was terrified of their new passenger. Like most people of Saramyr, he had attended the sporadic gatherings that occurred throughout his childhood when a Weaver arrived in town to preach. The fascination never waned. These strange, fearful, enigmatic men, hidden behind their grotesquely beautiful Masks and clothed in patchwork furs and fabrics, were a sight to see. They talked of Aberrants: evil, deformed monstrosities that desired to subvert the Saramyr way. Aberrants came in many guises. Some wore their deformities on the outside, twisted or crooked, limbless or lame. Others were more subtle and hence more dangerous: those who looked like normal people, but who harboured within them strange and terrible powers. The Weavers taught them how to recognise the taint and what to do when they found it. Execution was the most lenient of recommendations.

Root out the evil, the Weavers urged. Let nothing stop you. Aberrants are a corruption of humanity. It was a message that had been repeated for generations now, and was as ingrained in the Saramyr consciousness as the virtues of tradition and duty that underpinned their society.

But in those gatherings Lan had been one of a crowd, safe in their numbers, able to leave whenever he chose. There had been tales told of the Weavers’ terrible appetites, but nobody was sure how much was truth and how much fancy. There was a shiver of danger about them, but nothing more.

Now, however, they were forced to live with a Weaver for at least a week, maybe longer, for they had no idea where their passenger wanted to go and he would not tell them beyond an indication that they were heading downriver. A week spent in fear of some insane whim or demand, trapped within the confines of the barge, avoiding the blank gaze of that dry grey sealskin Mask with its puckered eyes and sewn-up mouth.

And if the Weaver were not bad enough, there was the question of the cargo that he would bring aboard. Instead of loading up at Jiji, they had been informed that they would be stopping along the way. Pori asked where, and had been backhanded across the face for his trouble.

They were forced to set off immediately. Thankfully they already had most of their own goods loaded, mainly barrels of surplus ignition powder from the mines, where it was used for blasting. They were selling it back to the city, where the civil unrest was pushing prices of firearms and powder up as demand increased. The trip might not be entirely wasted; if the Weaver were agreeable they could stop in Axekami to deliver it and fulfil their contract. But then, they had no idea how much space this mysterious new cargo would take up, nor whether they might have to throw out some of their own en route to accommodate it.

The Weaver took the cabin that belonged to Pori and his wife Fuira. That was to be expected; it was the best. Pori was the master of the Pelaska. They moved without complaint to the crew’s quarters, where Lan slept along with the bargemen and wheelmen. Lan might have been the master’s son, but when they were on the river he was no more than another barge-boy, and he swabbed decks with the rest of them.

The first night they were underway, the Weaver brought them to a stop on the port side of the river and made them moor up against the bank. There was nothing there but the trees of the Forest of Yuna crowding in, with the Kerryn carving a trail through what was otherwise a dense wall of undergrowth and foliage. The night was dark, with only one moon riding in the sky, and the current was treacherous there. By the pale green light of Neryn, they managed to secure the craft against the bank with ropes and anchors, and lower a gangplank. When they were done, they glanced at each other and wondered what was in store for them next.

They were not left to wonder long. The Weaver ordered them all below decks, into the crew quarters, and locked them in there.

Lan listened to the griping of the sailors in breathless silence while his father and mother sat calmly next to him on a bunk. Their curses and anger were practically blasphemous. He could not believe they dared to criticise a Weaver; nor did he think it was safe to do so, even out of their target’s earshot. But they went on damning the name of the Weavers, pacing their cramped quarters like caged animals. They might have been bound by law and duty to do as the Weaver said, but they did not have to like it. Lan cringed, half-expecting some indefinable retribution to descend upon them; but all that happened was that his father leaned over to him and said softly: ‘Remember this, Lan. Five years ago, men like these would not have dared say such things. Look how a mistreated man’s anger can make him overcome his fears.’

Lan did not understand. Until this journey, the only thing on his mind had been the upcoming Aestival Week which would mark his fourteenth harvest. He had the sense that his father was imparting some grave wisdom to him, some instinct that told him the comment meant more than it appeared to. But he was only a barge-boy.

It was dawn when the Weaver released them. Most of the bargemen had gone to sleep by then. Those that had stayed awake had heard strange cries from the forest that had made them swear hurried oaths to the gods and make warding signs. The decks were too thick to hear the sounds of the cargo being loaded, but they had to presume that whatever was being put aboard had been brought out of the depths of the forest, and that there were more hands than the Weaver’s alone at work. Yet when the lock clicked back and the men were released, there was only the Weaver on the deck, his grey mask impassive in the golden light of the newly rising sun. Despite their furious words of the previous night, the barge-men were less than belligerent as they emerged under the cold gaze of their sinister passenger. None of them dared to ask what had occurred the previous night, nor what kind of cargo now resided in the belly of the barge that was too secret to allow them to lay their eyes on it.

The Weaver took Pori aside and spoke to him, after which Pori addressed the crew, and told them what they had all been expecting. None of them would be allowed to go down to the cargo hold. It was locked, and the Weaver had the key. Anyone attempting to do so would be killed.

After that, the Weaver retreated to his cabin.

The next few days passed without incident. The Weaver stayed inside, seen only when his meals were delivered or his chamber pot was emptied. The sailors listened at the door of the hold and heard scrapes of movement inside, strange grunts and scuffles; but no one dared try to get in and see what was making them. They grumbled, aired their superstitions, and cast suspicious and fearful glances at the cabin where the Weaver had entrenched himself, but Pori hounded them all back to work. Lan was glad of it. Mopping the decks meant he could keep his mind off the baleful presence in his parents’ bed and the secret cargo below decks. He found that by not thinking about them, he could pretend that they were not there. It was remarkably effective.

Nuki’s eye shone benevolently down over the Kerryn with the pleasant heat of late summer. The air was alive with dancing clouds of midges. Pori walked the barge, ensuring everyone was doing his part. His mother Fuira cooked in the galley, occasionally emerging to share a few words with her husband or give Lan an embarrassing kiss on the cheek. Hookbeaks hovered over the water, floating in the sky on their smoothly curved wings, searching the flow for the silver glint of fish. As time drifted past in the slow wake of the Pelaska, it was almost possible to believe that this was a normal voyage again.

Not any more.

The Weaver must have grabbed her as she came to deliver his midday meal. Pori had always been uncomfortable with his wife having any contact with the Weaver at all, but she had told him not to be silly. She handed out the meals to everyone else on the barge; it was her duty to feed their unwanted guest as well. Perhaps he had just finished Weaving, sending his secret messages or completing some other unfathomable task; Lan had heard that some Weavers became very violent and strange after they used their powers. He could imagine her standing there, ringing the brass chime for permission to enter, and the Weaver appearing, all fury and anger, dragging her inside. The Weaver was small and crooked as most of them were, but Fuira would not dare to fight and besides, they had ways to make people do as they wanted.

Then, the screams.

The cabin door was shut, and the bargemen were gathered around it in fear and impotent rage. Lan stood with them, trembling, his eyes fixed on the spilled tray of food on the deck. He wanted to get away from there, to dive off the side of the Pelaska and silence her cries in the dull roar underwater. He wanted to rush in and help her. Instead he was paralysed. Nobody could interfere. It would mean their lives.

So he listened to his mother’s suffering, numb and detached from the reality of the situation, and did not dare to think what was being done to her in there.

‘No!’ came his father’s voice from behind him, and there was a rush of movement as the bargemen hurried to restrain him. ‘Fuira!’

Lan turned and saw Pori in the midst of four men, who were pulling a rifle out of his grip. He was flailing and thrashing with the strength of the possessed, his face contorted in rage. The rifle was torn free and slid across the deck, and then suddenly there was a scrape of steel and the bargemen fell away from him, one of them swearing and clutching a long, bleeding cut on his forearm.

‘That’s my wife!’ Pori screamed, spittle flying from his lips. A short, curved blade was in his hand. He glared at them all, his face a deep red, then he plunged through the crowd and shoved open the door of the cabin with a cry.

The door slammed shut behind him, though whether by his hand or some other force Lan never knew. He heard his father’s shout of rage, and a moment later something heavy smashed into the inside of the door, splintering the thick wood. There was a beat of silence. Then a new scream from his mother, long, sustained, ragged at the edges. Blood began to seep through the cracks in the door, and crawled slowly down to drip onto the deck.

Lan stood where he was, immobile, as the Weaver went back to work on his mother. He was watching the slow, dreadful path of the blood. Disbelief and shock had settled in, hazing his mind. At some point, he turned and walked away. None of the bargemen noticed him go, nor did they notice him picking up his father’s rifle on the way. He did not really know where he was heading, motivated only by some vague impulse that refused to cohere into a form he could understand. He was barely aware of moving at all until he found himself standing in front of the door to the cargo hold, hidden in the shade at the bottom of a set of wooden stairs, and he could go no further.

He raised his rifle and fired into the lock, blasting it to shards.

There was something in here, something that he was looking for, but whenever he tried to picture it he only saw that insidious blood, and his mother’s face. 71

His father was dead. His mother was being . . . violated.

He was here for something, but what? It was too terrible to think about, so he didn’t think.

The cargo hold was hot and dark and spacious. He knew from memory the dimensions of the place, how high the ribbed wooden ceiling went, how far back the bow wall lay. Crates and barrels were dim shadows nearby, lashed together with rope. Thin lines of sunlight where the tar had worn away on the deck above provided meagre illumination, but not enough to see by until his eyes had adjusted to the gloom from the blinding summer’s day outside. Absently, he re-primed the bolt on his father’s rifle, taking a step into the hold, searching. There were running footsteps overhead.

Something stirred.

Lan’s eyes flickered to the source of the sound. He squinted into the gloom.

It moved then, a slow flexing that allowed him to pick out its shape. The blood drained from his face.

He staggered backward, holding his rifle defensively across his chest. There were things down here. As he watched, more of them began to creep from the shadows. They were making a soft trilling sound, like a flock of pigeons, but their predatory lope made them seem anything but benign, and they approached with a casually lethal gait.

Shouts behind him. Bargemen running down the steps to the hold, attracted by the sound of the rifle.

Fuira shrieked distantly, a forlorn wail of loss and agony and fear, and Lan suddenly recalled what he was here for.

Ignition powder. The cargo.

A tidy stack of barrels lay against the stern wall, by the door where the other bargemen had rushed into the hold. They scrambled to a halt, partially because they had remembered the Weaver’s edict, mostly because they thought Lan’s gun was levelled at them. The darkness made it hard to see. He was aiming at the barrels. Enough there to blast the Pelaska to flinders and leave barely a trace of any of them.

It was the only way to end his mother’s suffering. The only way.

Behind him, there was the sound of dozens of creatures breaking into a run, and the trilling reached shrieking pitch in his ears.

He whispered a short prayer to Omecha, squeezed the trigger, and the world turned to flame.