The Skein of Lament

by Chris Wooding

Some of the assembly shifted uneasily at the impertinence of this Quraal upbraiding them for their history, when it was the Quraal who had driven them to Saramyr in the first place; but Kaiku noted that Cailin wore a faint smile on her painted lips.

  ‘I will be brief, and begin with the good news,’ Saran continued, flicking back his hair and fixing Zaelis with a haughty eye. ‘Later, I am sure, I will have an opportunity to give a more detailed account to those who wish to hear it.’ He made an expansive gesture with his arm to encircle the assembly with his account. ‘In all my travels throughout the Near World, I was looking for three things: firstly, evidence of the corruption that is spreading through your own land, that we now generally believe is a side-effect of the Weavers’ witchstones; secondly, the Weavers themselves, or beings analogous to them; and finally, the witchstones, since these are the source of the Weavers’ powers.’

  He began stalking back and forth again, his features profiled in the sunlight from outside. ‘I am pleased to report that on two counts, I found nothing at all. Nowhere did I find any kind of blight that could not be accounted for by insect plague or other natural explanation, and none that possessed the insidious persistence of the one that affects Saramyr. And nowhere did I find anything that might be described as a Weaver, except those few that reside in distant colonies on other continents. Certainly, there are those who possess abilities unusual to the common folk; our own priests are an example, having learned to communicate in a rudimentary fashion with the spirits of our land. The honourable Kaiku tu Makaima, here present, was witness to the abilities of the Fleshcrafters of Okhamba; and there are worse things even than Fleshcrafters in the hidden world of the deep jungle. In Quraal there are the Oblates, in Yttryx the Muhd-Taal. But however these talents are attained, it is through processes either natural or spiritual. Even the Aberrants, who were born from the corruption that the Weavers create, do not actively participate in its spreading.’ He paused, ran a finger along his cheekbone. ‘I found no Aberrants outside your own shores. There were the deformed, and lame, and crippled, but these are not Aberrants, merely the way of nature. In this land, most people do not differentiate any more; though if I may say, those in this room provide the exception to that rule, and I applaud you for it.’

  Kaiku watched him as he held court, her mind wandering to the lean physique that she imagined underneath his strict black Quraal clothing. Why had she rejected him, anyway? It did not have to mean anything, to share a bed with him for a night. Why allow her mistrust of her own emotions to get in the way of enjoying herself?

  She realised that she was drifting, caught herself and returned to the matter at hand.

  ‘From this, we can surmise that the blight is responsible for Aberrancy,’ Saran was saying. ‘This we had already guessed, but now I believe it proven beyond doubt. There is no blight outside of Saramyr, and hence no Aberrants. But there are witchstones.’

  This brought general consternation to the assembly. Kaiku ate a spiced dumpling and kept quiet, her eyes flickering over the suddenly animated audience.

  ‘He plays his crowd well,’ Cailin whispered, leaning over to her.

  ‘He craves the attention, I think,’ Kaiku murmured. ‘It flatters his vanity.’

  Cailin gave a surprised laugh and subsided with an insinuating glance at her pupil. Kaiku ignored it.

  ‘But if the witchstones cause the corruption in our land, how is it that there are witchstones abroad, but no blight?’ someone called.

  ‘Because they have not been found yet,’ Saran said, raising a finger. The assembly hushed. ‘They lie deep in the earth. Dormant. Waiting. Waiting to be woken up.’

  ‘Then what wakes them up?’ asked the same man.

  ‘Blood,’ Kaiku said. She had meant to say it to herself, but it came out louder than she had intended and the assembly heard it.

  ‘Blood. Indeed,’ said Saran, giving her a disarming half-smile. ‘Of all of us here, only Kaiku has seen a witchstone. She has witnessed the human sacrifice that feeds them. She has seen the heart.’

  Kaiku felt suddenly embarrassed. Her account of her infiltration into the Weavers’ monastery in the Lakmar Mountains on Fo was a subject of some scepticism among the Libera Dramach. Many argued, quite reasonably, that what she had seen in the chamber where the witchstone was kept could have been a hallucination. She had been weak from exhaustion and starvation, and had been wearing a Weaver’s Mask for days, which was dangerous to anyone’s sanity. But for all that, Kaiku knew what she saw and stuck by it. She had seen the great branches of stone that reached from the witchstone’s main mass into the walls of the cavern, too organic to be formed by pressure or any other geological force. She had seen into the witchstone as it fed, seen the bright veins running through the rock, seen the pulsing core at its centre. Whatever the witchstones were, they were more than just inert matter. They were alive, like the trees were alive. They grew.

  ‘How do you know the witchstones are there if they haven’t been found?’ Yugi asked Saran.

  ‘At least one has been found, in Quraal, five hundred years ago or more,’ Saran said. ‘It is mentioned in texts I stole from the Librum of Aquirra’s own vaults, which I brought here at great peril to myself. These texts tell of an incident in a rural province wherein a small mining village began exhibiting sudden and violent behaviour. When soldiers were sent in to quell the disturbance, they were overwhelmed, with survivors reporting strange bouts of insanity and displays of unholy abilities by the villagers, such as being able to move objects without touching them and killing men from a distance without using weapons. The Theocrats sent in a much greater force to stamp out the heretics, and they triumphed with heavy losses. In the mine beneath the town, they found evidence of an altar upon which blood sacrifices had been made. The soldiers later said how they had been drawn to the altar by evil temptations and promises, but their faith was strong enough to resist, and with explosives they destroyed the altar and pounded it to dust, then sealed the mine.’ He tossed his black hair and looked around the room. ‘I am certain that what they found was a witchstone.’

  ‘So they can be destroyed?’ Zaelis asked.

  ‘If the account is to be believed, yes,’ Saran replied.

  ‘You said that at least one has been found,’ another member of the assembly asked. ‘Do you imply that there are others?’

  ‘Consider this,’ Saran said. ‘There are four witchstones that we know of in Saramyr, and all of them the Weavers have built monasteries on. Two in the Tchamil Mountains: one beneath Adderach and one beneath Igarach on the edge of the Tchom Rin desert. Another in the Lakmar Mountains on the isle of Fo. The last in the mountains near Lake Xemit. We know that the witchstones are there, thanks to the efforts of Kaiku and her father Ruito, because these are the epicentres of the surrounding corruption. That is four in Saramyr alone. Why should our continent be the only one to have them?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it?’ asked Yugi. ‘Unless you know what they are and how they came to be there, then who knows how they are distributed over the lands?’

  ‘But I do know,’ Saran said. He turned his back on his audience a moment, walking over to the railing, looking down onto the shambolic rooftops of the Fold, the narrow streets through which children ran, the bridges and pulleys and stairways. ‘This may be hard for you to hear.’

  Kaiku sat up straighter, a thin shiver passing through her. A subdued mutter ran around the room.

  Saran turned and stood leaning on the railing. ‘I found records of a fire from the sky,’ he said, his handsome face grave. ‘Many thousands of years ago, in Quraal, back when our language was young. A cataclysm of flaming rocks, annihilating whole settlements, boiling lakes, smashing the earth. We believed it a punishment from our gods.’ He tilted his head slightly, the sunlight shifting to add new accents to his cheekbones. ‘I found pieces of the same story in Okhamba, where there is no written history, only their legends. Tales of destruction and burning. The same in Yttryx; more coherent documents
this time, for theirs was the first alphabet. There is even talk of primitive paintings somewhere in the Newlands of Saramyr, where the Ugati made their own records of the catastrophe. Every ancient culture in the Near World has their version of the event, it seems, and they all correspond.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Then, following the advice of a man I met in Yttryx, I returned to Okhamba and went deep into it, to its centre, and there I found this.’

  He walked quickly over to a table, where he picked up a roll of what looked like parchment. He knelt on the wicker matting in the centre of the room and smoothed it open. The assembly craned for a closer look.

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘This is over two thousand years old, and it was copied from a document even older than that.’

  This drew a collective gasp from the audience. What had seemed to be parchment was in fact animal skin of some kind, cured by some forgotten technique and in remarkably good condition considering its incredible age.

  ‘I will, of course, pass it to our allies in the Red Order to verify its authenticity,’ Saran went on. ‘But I myself am convinced. The Fleshcrafters of the tribe I stole it from certainly were. It cost the lives of ten men to bring that here to you.’ He exchanged a look with Tsata, who was watching him expressionlessly, his pallid green eyes blank.

  Kaiku moved around to get a better view. The picture itself was enough to make her uneasy. The main characters were all but unidentifiable, stylised and jagged horrors that might have been men dancing or animals rutting. There was a fire in the central foreground, its flames time-dimmed but still visible. Kaiku found herself marvelling at the preservation methods that had carried it through all the ages. If it were not for Saran’s promise to let the Red Order verify it – which they could easily do, at least as far as telling how old it was – then Kaiku would have not believed it could be so ancient.

  She looked around its border, which was inscribed with many strange patterns, searching for the clue that Saran wanted them to find. At the top, in the centre, was the blazing lower half of the sun, and below that, in a crescent shape, were the moons.

  The moons!

  ‘There are four moons,’ Yugi said, before anyone else could.

  Kaiku felt something deep shift inside her, an unpleasant stirring that made her feel slightly nauseous. He was right. There was Aurus, biggest of them all; Iridima, with her cracked skin; Neryn, the small green moon; and a fourth, the same size as Neryn, charcoal black and scratched with dark red lines like scuff marks. Kaiku’s skin began to crawl. She frowned, puzzled at her own reaction, and then noticed that Cailin was looking at her inquiringly, as if she had noted Kaiku’s discomfort too.

  Saran folded his arms and nodded. ‘There were clues. I found several references to an entity called Aricarat in Yttryx, and one in Quraal to Ariquraa. I had assumed they were different versions of the same root word, but I could not imagine to what they referred. Even though they were almost always used in conjunction with stories of the other moon-sisters, I did not guess. After all, it was always referred to as male. Then I found an old Yttryxian creation myth that made reference to Aricarat as being born from the same stuff as the other moons, and it suddenly made sense.’ Saran bowed his head. ‘Aricarat was the fourth moon. He disappeared thousands of years ago. The moon-sisters, it seems, had a brother.’

  If Saran had expected a barrage of abuse or denial, he was disappointed. The Saramyr pantheon had never held anything but three moons, and the genealogy of the gods was something taught to all children at an early age. To accept what he was suggesting ran counter to more than a thousand years of belief. But the assembly looked merely dazed. A few belligerent dissenters said loudly that his idea was ridiculous, but soon quieted, finding little support. Kaiku had sat down, overwhelmed suddenly by a terrible, creeping dread that made her lightheaded and faint.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ Cailin asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ Kaiku said. ‘Something . . . there is something about Saran’s account that is troubling me.’

  ‘You think he is wrong?’

  ‘No, I think he is right. I am certain of it. But I do not know why I am certain.’

  Zaelis stood up. ‘I believe I understand,’ he said, his molten voice commanding attention. ‘You think the fourth moon . . . Aricarat?’ Saran tilted his head in a nod. ‘You think that Aricarat was destroyed somehow back when the world was young, and that it fell to earth in pieces. And these pieces are the witchstones.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Saran said.

  ‘This is a wild theory, Saran.’

  ‘I have evidence to support it,’ the Quraal man said, unruffled. ‘But that will bear close examination, and will take time. There are dry tomes and parchments that require translating from dead languages.’

  ‘You will permit me to see this evidence?’

  ‘Of course. I am convinced of its authenticity. Anyone who wishes can study it.’

  Zaelis limped in a slow circle around Saran, his brow furrowed, his hands linked behind his back. The wind chimes rang softly into the silence. ‘Then I will reserve judgement until I have done so; and I would urge you all to do the same.’ This last was addressed to the general assembly. He returned his attention to Saran, stopped pacing, and put a curled forefinger on his white-bearded chin. ‘There is one thing that puzzles me, though.’

  ‘Please,’ Saran said, inviting his inquiry.

  ‘If pieces of the moon rained down all over the Near World all that time ago, then why are they only found in the mountains? Why not the deserts and the plains?’

  Saran smiled. He had been anticipating this.

  ‘They are in the deserts and the plains,’ he said. ‘You are looking at the matter from the wrong angle. First, we should be asking how we know where the witchstones are at all. It is only through the Weavers. How do the Weavers find them? That I do not know. But until five years ago, the Weavers were not allowed to own land in Saramyr; the only places they could inhabit were the mountains, where no land laws applied as there were no crops to be had. It is not easy for them to mine something out from so deep underground and keep it a secret; yet in the mountains, behind their shields of misdirection that our spies cannot penetrate, they have leisure to do so. The reason that the only witchstones we know of are in the mountains are because they are the only ones the Weavers have been able to get to.’

  ‘But not any more,’ Zaelis concluded for him.

  ‘No,’ Saran agreed. ‘Now the Weavers have bought land all over Saramyr and guard it jealously, and on that land they erect strange buildings, and not even the high families know what they do there. But I believe I know. They are mining for witchstones.’

  There was a grim attentiveness fixed on him now. It was not a new idea to them, but in conjunction with what Saran believed he had discovered about the origin of the witchstones, it made for an uncomfortably neat fit.

  ‘But why seek out new witchstones?’ Zaelis asked. ‘They seem to have enough for the Edgefathers to make Masks.’

  ‘I do not pretend to know that,’ Saran said. ‘But I am certain that they are seeking them. And that is not the worst of it.’ He spun around melodramatically from Zaelis to face the audience again. ‘Extrapolate from this. Since they first appeared, the Weavers have infiltrated society and made themselves indispensible. You pay a terrible price for their powers, but you cannot be rid of them. Now that they are part of the empire itself, they are even harder to dislodge. All of us know that the Weavers must be removed; all of us know that they desire power for themselves. But I ask you, what if the Weavers’ sole purpose is to find these witchstones? What if they grow to dominate all of Saramyr? Even if they somehow subverted your entire continent, they would be stuck. No other land would permit Weavers onto its shores in any number; we have a healthy and sensible mistrust of them. So what then?’

  ‘They invade,’ Cailin said, standing up herself. All eyes turned to her. She walked slowly into the centre of the room to stand by Zaelis, a tower of darkness against the noon su
n. ‘Perhaps you extrapolate too far, Saran Ycthys Marul.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘And perhaps not. We know nothing of the motives of the Weavers other than what history has shown us; and in that, they have proved to be as aggressive and acquisitive as they have been able while still at the mercy of the high families. But I believe soon the high families will be at the Weavers’ mercy, and then there will be no stopping them. And there would be no stopping an invading army backed up by Weavers, either. No other country has any kind of defence against that.’ He looked to Tsata again; Kaiku caught the brief glance. ‘This is not only a threat to Saramyr; this is a shadow that could fall on the whole of the Near World. I would have you aware of that.’

  His report concluded, Saran walked to where the tattooed Tkiurathi was and sat next to him. It had been a lot for the audience to digest, and it was uncomfortable for them. He could see some of them already dismissing his findings as ridiculous speculation: how could he make guesses like that, with the little they knew of the Weavers? But they were the voices that would bring down the Libera Dramach if they were allowed to prevail, for Saran knew better than to allow the Weavers even an inch of leeway, to let them have the benefit of any doubt.

  ‘Saran’s information sheds a somewhat more foreboding light on another piece of news I received this morning,’ said Zaelis. ‘Nomoru, please stand.’

  It was a young woman of perhaps twenty winters who responded. She was wiry and skinny and not particularly attractive, with a surly expression and short, blonde-brown hair in a ragged, spiky tangle. Her clothes were simple peasant garb, and her arms were inked with pictures, in the manner of street folk and beggars.

  ‘Nomuru is one of our finest scouts,’ Zaelis said. ‘She has just returned from the westward end of the Fault, near where the Zan cuts through it. Tell them what you saw.’

  ‘It’s what I didn’t see,’ Nomoru said. Her dialect was clipped and sullen, muddied with coarse Low Saramyrrhic vowels. Everyone in the room immediately placed her as being from the Poor Quarter of Axekami, and weighted their prejudices accordingly. ‘I know that area. Know it well. Not easy to cross the Fault lengthways, not with all that’s in between here and there. I hadn’t been there for a long time, though. Years. Too hard to get to.’