TWENTY

‘I will not go back!’ Kaiku said, stalking around the rock-lined hollow where the travellers hid. ‘Not yet. Not while we still know nothing about those creatures down there.’

‘It’s because we know nothing that we have to go back,’ Yugi argued. He glanced up at Tsata, who was on lookout, crouched on the lip of a flat stone. ‘We have no idea what kind of defences they can muster. And we’re certainly not equipped to try and infiltrate them. What is it exactly you’re planning to do, Kaiku?’

‘It is not enough for us to return to the Fold with news of an Aberrant army hiding in the Fault,’ Kaiku said. ‘Why are they here? Who are they intended for? Is it the Libera Dramach, or somebody else? We need answers, not a report that will only breed more questions.’

‘Keep your voices down,’ Nomoru told them coldly.

They had observed the Aberrants and the strange Weaver-like newcomers for several hours before retreating from the edge of the cliff that overlooked the flood plain. Fearing the brightening day, they had pulled back to a less exposed spot where they could chew over their options. Nomoru had found them a pebbly dip between a cluster of tall rocks that leaned together, shutting out most of the sky. Despite the relative ease with which they had penetrated this far into the Weavers’ protected area, they were all becoming increasingly nervous. The lack of any form of guards could be explained by the barrier they had passed through: as with the monastery on Fo that Kaiku had infiltrated in the past, the Weavers believed their barrier was infallible, and did not trouble themselves with security. But still, they had begun to feel that their luck was running thin, and something had to be done.

‘If we stay and try to find out more, we run the risk that we are captured or killed,’ said Yugi, running a hand through his hair before readjusting the rag around his forehead. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his stubbled cheeks made him look haggard and weary; but he was the leader here, and he spoke with authority. ‘Then nobody gets any answers, and no warning of what the Weavers are planning.’

‘But what are they planning?’ Kaiku said. She was unusually agitated. ‘What do we know?’

‘We know that they have a horde of several different species of Aberrant,’ Yugi said. ‘All predator species or specialised in some way. And they’re all pure-bloods; no freaks.’ Yugi shrugged. ‘That means they’ve either selected them very carefully from their natural habitat, or bred them that way. This is what they have been moving in secret with their barges. This is what Lucia sensed on the river.’

‘They’re under control,’ Nomoru said. She was sitting on the slope of the hollow, her face striped with the shadow of the rocks overhead, cleaning her exquisite rifle. ‘Should have been fighting each other. They aren’t. So they’re under control.’

‘Can they do that?’ Yugi asked Kaiku. ‘Can a Weaver influence that many creatures like that?’

‘No,’ Kaiku said. ‘Not even a Sister could keep a constant check on all those minds at once. Not even a hundred Sisters, and they’re a lot more . . . efficient with their use of the Weave than men are.’

‘Maybe you’re wrong,’ said Nomoru. ‘Maybe the Weavers can do it.’

‘I am not wrong,’ Kaiki returned. ‘I would have sensed it, even if they could. Whatever was going on down there, it was too subtle to be Weavers controlling those creatures.’

‘Then what about those black-robed people?’ Yugi suggested. They had seen dozens of them, wandering between the scabrous masses of Aberrant beasts. ‘Are they the keepers of the menagerie?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Kaiku. ‘Perhaps not.’

‘Could you find out?’

‘Not by the method you mean. I do not know what I would be facing,’ she said. ‘If they caught me using my kana, the consequences could be disastrous. For all of us.’

‘What about that building?’ Nomoru said, squinting down the barrel of her rifle. ‘Don’t have any idea about that. Need to get closer.’

‘It’s a mine,’ said Yugi. ‘Surely that’s obvious? The fact that the blight is present here means they’ve got a witchstone down there. It also means that it’s been awake long enough to start corrupting the land.’

‘I think the presence of the building is enough to indicate that they have been here a long time,’ Kaiku pointed out. ‘Yet they have not made any move to attack the Fold. So we can presume—’

‘It’s a flood plain,’ Nomoru interrupted, continuing her original train of thought. ‘How do you dig a mine on a flood plain? It would flood.’

Tsata had been listening to the conversation patiently. It had been obvious to him what to do since the start, but he knew that simple survival logic did not work on Saramyr; they insisted on complicating things. Now that they had argued their way around the subject enough to satisfy themselves, he decided the time was right to interject.

‘I have a solution,’ he said.

The others looked up at where he crouched, his pale green eyes flitting among the broken rocks that surrounded them.

‘Two of us stay and investigate,’ he said. ‘Two of us go back.’

‘Only Nomoru knows the way back,’ Yugi pointed out.

‘I know the way back,’ Tsata said. After a lifetime of navigating his way through dense jungles, the relatively open terrain of the Fault was simple to remember. He could retrace their route easily, and avoid the dangers that they had passed through on their journey here.

‘Nobody’s staying,’ said Yugi.

‘I am,’ Kaiku shot back.

‘You’re the only one who can get us out through that barrier,’ Yugi reasoned.

‘Then I will accompany you to the other side and then come back,’ said Kaiku.

‘I will stay with her,’ Tsata put in. ‘I would be more use here.’

‘You’re both in a real hurry to get killed,’ Nomoru said with a nasty smile. ‘I don’t mind. I’ll go with him.’ She thumbed at Yugi. ‘Safer.’

‘We’re all going back together,’ Yugi said. ‘We almost didn’t make it here with four of us. With just two—’

Kaiku cut him off. ‘You almost did not make it here,’ she said. ‘Need I remind you to whom you owe the fact that you are here at all?’

Yugi sighed. ‘Kaiku, I won’t let you do this. And certainly not out of gratitude for saving my life.’

Kaiku brushed her fringe back from where it hung across her face. She had ever been a stubborn one, and now she had her heels firmly planted. ‘It is not your choice,’ she said. ‘I am here as a representative of the Red Order; you do not have rank over me. And Tsata is under allegiance to no one.’

‘You’re not even in the Red Order! You’re still an apprentice! Gods, Kaiku, don’t you understand the threat?’ Yugi cried. ‘What happens if you’re caught? You know how paranoid Cailin is about exposing any of her operatives; what do you think will happen if a Weaver gets hold of you? You’ll jeopardise the whole of the Sisterhood! And besides,’ he finished, his voice dropping to a hiss as Nomoru shushed him, ‘you both know where the Fold is.’

Kaiku was unconvinced. ‘Someone needs to stay and let everyone know if this army begins to move. Only I can do that; only I can get a warning to the Fold instantly if the Weavers start to march.’

‘Correct me if I’m mistaken, but hasn’t Cailin forbidden long-distance commounication between Sisters?’ Yugi pointed out.

‘She has not forbidden it,’ Kaiku replied. ‘She has merely made it clear that it is only to be used when absolutely no other option is available. As now.’

‘And you think you are qualified to decide that? You think she would be happy for an apprentice to take that responsibility?’

‘I do not care what makes her happy or otherwise,’ Kaiku said dismissively. ‘I am not her servant.’ She paused for a moment, then continued. ‘Why do you think she let me go to Okhamba with Mishani? She needed someone who could thread the Weave. In case we could not get the spy away, I was to send her the information he held. That was how important she considered it. This is how important I consider this. It is our only chance to find out what the Weavers are up to.’ She swept her hand in a gesture of frustration. ‘All this time, we’ve been too careful. Cailin has been too careful. And look at the result. The Weavers have an army under our noses! The Red Order should have been looking for this kind of thing, but Cailin is too afraid of any of them getting caught. If we do not find out now what is happening, it will be too late!’ She met Yugi’s eyes earnestly. ‘We are here and they are not, and if I return, Cailin will never let me get close enough again to make a difference.’

And there it was. That was the truth of it. If they retreated now, Cailin would not let her risk herself again, and they would have missed a potentially crucial opportunity to discover the Weavers’ plans. She could not turn her back on this. Not with her oath to Ocha still smouldering in her mind, and her family’s deaths unavenged.

Ocha looked after me once, she thought, recalling her frozen trek through the Lakmar Mountains many years ago. He will do so again.

‘You’ll make a difference, I’ve no doubt of that,’ Yugi said, but he sounded defeated, and Kaiku knew that he would not argue any further. ‘Whether it is a triumph or a catastrophe, time will tell.’ He shrugged again. ‘I can’t stop you, Kaiku. Not by force or by reason. I just want you to know how many lives you’re playing with.’

‘For too long we have been too afraid of the Weavers,’ Kaiku said. ‘We have not dared to take a risk. We cannot hide forever.’ She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I will be careful.’

‘You’d better be,’ said Yugi, then flashed an unexpected grin. ‘I need you to come back safely to the Fold. So I can kill you for making me worry like this.’

The humour was forced, and nobody took it up.

‘Are you finished?’ Nomoru said drily. ‘Can we go?’

Kaiku gave her a poisonous glance, then leaned close to Yugi’s ear and breathed: ‘I do not envy your company for the trip back.’

Yugi groaned.

Reki tu Tanatsua, younger brother of the Empress of Saramyr, had begun to regret ever visiting his sister at all.

He sat on the wide stone shelf of a window-arch in his chambers, curled up with the soles of his shoes resting against one end and his back against the other. He was looking out northward over the mighty walls of Axekami and the plains beyond, with the sparkling Jabaza curving in from the left side of the panorama, heading for the horizon and the mountains. It had been a hot and sultry day, and the very land seemed to laze in the burnished light as Nuki’s eye sank to the west. Soft strips of cloud hung drowsily at the high altitudes, barely moving. Reki’s head was resting against the arch, his arms crossed, a study in thoughtfulness lit in gentle fire and warm shadow.

When he had learned that his request to travel to the Imperial City had been granted, he had been ecstatic. Not only because it would be his first opportunity to travel there unaccompanied by family – he was seventeen harvests then; eighteen since the beginning of autumn – nor because he loved his sister dearly and had missed her since she had gone to live in Axekami. No, most of his happiness was because he could finally get away from his father, Barak Goren, whose constant disappointment at Reki was wearing more and more at the boy’s nerves.

The age difference between Reki and Laranya, who was thirty-three harvests, was due to the fragility of their mother. Despite having a fierce strength of mind, she had a weak constitution. Giving birth to Laranya had nearly taken her life, and Goren, who cared for her deeply, would not ask her to try for another child. But though she saw how proud he was of his daughter, she knew that he wanted a son. Not as a matter of lineage, for Laranya was eminently suitable to become Barakess, and in Saramyr titles were passed down to the eldest regardless of gender, unless special dispensation were made to bestow it upon a different child. Rather, it was because he was the kind of man who needed to prove his virility through his offspring, and a strong son would make him proud in a way that even a firebrand like Laranya could not.

After many years, she could bear it no longer; she stopped drinking the herbal brew that prevented pregnancy, and she gave him Reki. And this one did take her life.

Goren was not so unfair as to blame Reki for the death of his wife; but as Reki grew, it soon became clear that there were other reasons for Goren to be resentful. Whereas Laranya had the robust constitution of her father, Reki inherited his mother’s frailty, and the rough-and-tumble of growing up always ended with him being hurt. He became shy and introverted, a lover of books and learning: safe things, that were not apt to turn on him. His father had little time for it.

The white streak in his hair and the scar running from the side of his left eye to the tip of his cheekbone were from childhood, a fall from some rocks where he hit his head and face. He knew even then not to go to his father about it, but simply huddled miserably until the pain and concussion went away.

His relationship with his father had never got any better, and Reki had long since ceased trying to please him. The opportunity to travel here from faraway Jospa was a relief to all concerned. But it was fast turning sour, and Reki began to wonder if he was not better off back at home in the desert. And whether Laranya might not be too.

The Blood Emperor’s behaviour was becoming terribly unbalanced. It seemed that scarcely a day passed by without some terrible argument between Mos and Laranya. Arguments for them were nothing new, of course, but these had a surpassing savagery; and after witnessing that moment in the pavilion when Mos had almost struck his pregnant wife, Reki was afraid for her.

Reki was Laranya’s confidant in these matters, and she passed on every detail. What he heard deepened his concern more and more. The Blood Emperor was suffering strange dreams that he talked about obsessively, even using them as accusations against his wife. Several times he had asked Laranya if she was being unfaithful to him. Once, he had asked her whose baby she carried; for they had tried for so long for a child, and it was no coincidence in Mos’s eyes that she had become such close friends with Eszel around the time she had miraculously conceived.

What Laranya did not know, and Reki did, was that Mos had already drunkenly threatened Eszel when the poet was unfortunate enough to be present during one of his rages. Eszel had confessed his fears for his life to Reki; but Reki had not passed them on to Laranya. He knew his sister too well. She would use it as ammunition to confront Mos, and get Eszel into deeper trouble.

Reki had told Eszel that the best thing to do would be to make himself scarce for the time being, and Eszel had taken his advice. He had gone on a long trip to ‘gather inspiration’ for his poetry, and wisely left no address where he could be contacted. Reki was not sure whether Mos had heard about this yet or not, but Laranya certainly had, and was bitterly hurt by his desertion.

It was not only the Blood Emperor’s personal life that was falling to pieces, however. His advisers hardly dared advise him, but they dared not act without his approval, either. Nothing was being done about the mounting crisis and the reports of famine in the far settlements of the empire. The high families’ cries went unheard.

Reki wanted to leave, and he wanted Laranya to come with him. It was not safe here for her, and not good for her child. But she would not go; she would not forsake the man she loved. And she begged him to stay with her, for she had nobody else to turn to.

How could he refuse? She was his sister, the only person who had loved him unconditionally all his life. There was nobody more precious to him.

His dark thoughts were interrupted by a chime outside the curtained doorway. He cursed softly and looked around the room for the small bell he was supposed to ring to indicate permission to enter. It was not a custom in the desert, and he found it annoying. Eventually he decided that he would not bother with formality, nor with moving from the window-shelf where he lounged.

‘Enter,’ he called.

The young woman who brushed aside the curtain was breathtaking. She was utterly beautiful in every aspect: her features were small and flawless, her figure perfect, her grace total. Her dusky skin and her deep black hair – drawn back tightly across her scalp and passing through a complex junction of jewelled pins and ornaments before twisting down her back in three braids – marked her as being from Tchom Rin, like Reki. She wore soft green and blue cosmetics around her almond-shaped eyes, and a subtle gloss on her lips; a necklace of carved ivory rested against her collarbone. She was dressed desert-fashion, in an elegant white robe clasped at one shoulder with a round green brooch, leaving one of her shoulders bare.

‘Am I interrupting?’ she asked, in a voice like thick honey.

‘No,’ he said, suddenly very conscious of the insolent way he was lazing on the window-shelf. He slid clumsily down from his perch. ‘Not at all.’

She slipped into the room and let the curtain fall behind her. ‘What were you doing?’ she asked.

He considered inventing something grand, but his courage failed him. ‘Thinking,’ he said, and blushed at the way it sounded.

‘Yes, Eszel said you were a thinker,’ she smiled, disarming him completely. ‘I admire that. So few men seem that way these days.’

‘You know Eszel?’ Reki asked, unconsciously brushing back his hair with one hand. Then, remembering his manners, said: ‘Would you like to sit? I can call for some refreshments.’

She looked over at the couches and the table he had indicated. There was a lach pitcher there on a silver tray, and several goblets of silver and glass, etched with swirling patterns. A selection of small cakes were arranged around the pitcher. ‘You already have wine,’ she said. ‘Might we share it?’

Reki felt the heat rising in his face again. There were always refreshments at his table; it was a courtesy provided to him as an important guest. The servants periodically replaced the pitcher to keep it cool, even though he never touched it. He had found it vaguely irritating to begin with, but he felt it would be rude to ask them to stop bringing it. He had got so used to their unobtrusive visits by now that he had quite forgotten the wine was there.

‘Of course,’ he said.

She arranged herself on the couch, lying sideways with her legs folded and tucked underneath her. Reki sat on another, awkwardly. The simple presence of this woman was excruciating.

‘Shall I pour?’ she asked.

He made an indication that she should do so; he did not trust his tongue.

She gave another flicker of a smile and picked up the pitcher. Her eyes on the wine as she tipped it, she said: ‘You seem nervous, Reki.’

‘Does it show so much?’ he managed.

‘Oh yes,’ she replied. She offered him a glass of the delicate amber liquid. ‘But that is why Yoru gave us wine. To smooth the edges of a moment.’

‘Perhaps you had better hand me the pitcher, then,’ Reki said, and to his delight she laughed. The sound ignited a bloom of warmth in his chest.

‘One glass at a time, I think,’ she said, then sipped her drink, regarding him seductively.

For Reki, the momentary pause seemed an endless silence, and he struggled to fill it. ‘You mentioned that you knew Eszel . . .’ he prompted.

She relaxed back into the couch. ‘A little. I know a lot of people.’ She was not making this easy for him. She seemed, in fact, to be enjoying his discomfort. Just being this near her was making his groin stir, and he had to adjust himself so that it would not show.

‘Why have you come to see me?’ he asked, and then inwardly winced as he realised how blunt it sounded. He took a swallow of wine to cover it.

She did not appear to be offended. ‘Ziazthan Ri. The Pearl Of The Water God.’

Reki was confused. ‘I do not understand.’

‘Eszel told me that you had read it, and that you gave him a very accomplished recitation of the story.’ She leaned forward a little, her eyes bright. ‘Is that true?’

‘I memorised it,’ Reki said. ‘It is only short. The accomplishment was the author’s, not mine.’

‘Ah, but it is the passion of the speaker, the understanding of verse and melody, that can bring the heart from a story read aloud.’ She looked at him with something like wonderment. ‘Have you really memorised it? I suspect it is not as short as you pretend. You must have an exceptional recollection.’

‘Only for words,’ Reki said, feeling that he was coming uncomfortably close to bragging.

‘I would be very interested to hear it,’ she purred. ‘If you would recite it to me, I would be very grateful.’

The tone in her voice forced Reki to shift position again to conceal his gathering ardour. He was blushing furiously now, and for a moment he could not think of anything to say.

‘Let me explain,’ she said. ‘I subscribe to the philosophy of Huika: that everything should be experienced once in the interests of a completeness of being. I have spent fortunes for a glimpse of the rarest paintings; I have travelled long and far to see the wonders of the Near World; I have learned many arts unknown to the land at large.’

‘But you are so young to have done so much . . .’ Reki said. It was true; she could not have been more than twenty harvests, only a little older than him.

‘Not so young,’ she said, though she sounded pleased. ‘As I was saying, I met Eszel before he left the Imperial Keep, and he told me about you.’ She leaned over, reached out and stroked her hand lightly down his face, whispered: ‘Ziazthan Ri’s masterwork inside your head.’ Then she let him go, and he realised he had been holding his breath. ‘There are so few copies in existence, so few uncorrupted versions of the story. There is little I would not do to experience something so rare.’

‘My father possesses a copy,’ Reki said, feeling the need to say something, ‘in his library.’

‘Will you recite it to me?’ she said, slipping off the couch and getting up.

‘Of . . . of course,’ he said, furiously trying to summon it to mind. His memory seemed to have become jumbled. ‘Now?’

‘Afterwards,’ she said; and she put out her hands for him to take, and lifted him to his feet.

‘Afterwards?’ he repeated tremulously.

She pressed herself gently against him, one finger tracing the line of the scar on his eye. The softness of her breasts and body make his erection painful. He felt drunk, but it was nothing to do with the wine.

‘I believe in a fair trade,’ she said. Her lips were close enough to his so that he had to resist the almost magnetic pull of her. Her breath was scented, like oasis flowers. ‘An experience for an experience.’ Her hand slipped to the brooch at her shoulder, and she twisted it; her robe fell away like a veil. ‘Unlike any you have ever had before.’

Reki’s heart was pounding in his chest. A voice was warning him to caution, but it went unheeded. ‘I do not even know your name,’ he whispered.

She told him just before her mouth closed on his.

‘Asara.’

The man screamed as the knife slipped under the warm skin of his cheek, slicing through the thin layer of subcutaneous fat to the wet red landscape of muscle beneath. Weave-lord Kakre rode the swell of the scream like an expert, angling the blade to account for the distortion in his victim’s face. He sheared upward to the level of the eye socket, then cut towards the back of the skull, gliding through the soft tissue until a bloody triangular flap peeled away. At the sight, he felt a deep peace, a fulfilment that never seemed to wane no matter how many times he sated himself. The post-Weaving mania was upon him, and he was skinning again.

His skinning chamber was windowless, hot and gloomy, lit only by the coals of the fire-pit in the centre of the room. Underlit in the red glow were his other creations, arranged on the walls or hanging on chains in the heights: kites and sculptures of skin gazing at him from empty eyes, watching him at his craft. His latest victim was placed on the iron rack which was his canvas, tilted upright in a spread eagle. This particular piece he had been carving since dawn, and now it was a patchwork, a frame of muscle with jigsaw skin and half the pieces missing.

Kakre felt inspired today. He did not know if he would get a kite out of this one or if it would simply be therapeutic, but the joy of cutting rendered it immaterial. It had been too long since he had worked at his art, too long; but the rigours of his Weaving had lately increased, and his appetite had increased with it.

He realised that he had been standing admiring the flap of skin he had peeled for some time, and in that time the man had fainted again. Kakre felt a pang of annoyance. He was usually so good at keeping his victims awake, with herbs and poultices and infusions. His knifework was shoddy as well, he noticed suddenly. He glared at his withered, white hand. His joints pained him constantly. Could that be a contributing factor? Was he losing his skill with a blade?

It was an idea too horrible to contemplate. Even though, distantly, he knew that his Mask was eating him from the inside as it had eaten its previous owners, the actual implications of that had never occurred to him. How strange, that a mind as sharp as his might miss something as obvious as that.

A moment later, he had forgotten about it again.

He put his bloodied blade listlessly on a platter with all his other instruments, and wandered to the edge of the fire-pit before easing himself into a sitting position. As always, he was planning.

Already the deceptions were being drawn. Blood Kerestyn and Blood Koli were gathering a formidable army, but it was not formidable enough to challenge the might of Axekami yet. In a few more years, maybe. But in those years, the source of the blight might be discovered by the people at large. He had heard of rumours, extremely accurate rumours, that were being repeated quietly in the courts of the high families. They worried him. Soon the famine would bring the country to the point of total desperation, and those rumours might be enough to make the high families turn their wrath from Mos onto the Weavers.

He did not have time to wait. Therefore, Kakre intended to tempt Mos’s enemies closer.

His overtures to Barak Avun tu Koli had been well received; but Avun was a treacherous snake, as likely to bite the one who handled him as the one he was set upon. Had Avun believed him? And could he convince Grigi tu Kerestyn to believe him as well?

You must strike when I say! he thought. Or this will all be for nothing.

More distressing than that, though, was a message that had come from the Imperial Keep itself, one sent by courier that he had failed to intercept. He was not sure who had sent it, but he knew Avun had received it, and he was anxious to know what it said. Another doublecross? But who was making deals behind his back?

It worried at Kakre’s mind even as he worried at the Blood Emperor’s.

At night, when Mos fell into a drunken sleep, Kakre wove dreams for him. Dreams of infidelity and anger, dreams of impotence and fury. Dreams calculated to tip him in the direction Kakre needed him to go. It was a dreadful risk, for if Mos began to suspect him, all would be lost. Even the best Weavers could be clumsy – he thought of his aching joints, and wondered if his skill in the Weave had suffered also – and they might leave traces of themselves behind that would fester, until the victim eventually realised what had been done to them. If Mos were not drinking too much and already beleaguered with stress, Kakre might not have dared it; but the Blood Emperor had become unbalanced long before the Weave-lord had begun to interfere with his mind.

Lies, deceit, treachery. And only the Weavers matter.

He sat in his ragged robes of badly-sewn hide and fur and little pieces of bone, rolling that phrase around in his head. Only the Weavers mattered. Only the continuation of their work. And it was Kakre’s job – no, his calling – to manipulate this crisis to ensure their survival. There was only one way out of it that he could see, but it required a game to be played so skilfully, so subtly, that the slightest miscalculation could mean disaster.

The pieces were in place. But the board was anyone’s yet.