Braided Path 03 - The Ascendancy Veil

by Chris Wooding

  ‘I had not realised my child could be so reckless,’ Muraki whispered, but a smile touched the edge of her lips.

  ‘It is a new experience for me too,’ Mishani grinned. She felt as if a heavy stone had been lifted from her chest. Even if she was caught now, it did not matter so much. It was done, and could not be undone. ‘Perhaps nature can change with time.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Muraki, then got up and went to the window-arch. She brushed aside the veil and looked out.

  ‘Daughter, I love you,’ she said, her back to Mishani. ‘I always have. Never doubt that, though I may not show it, though we may never have the opportunity to speak again. I am glad you came so I could tell you. We should not have left these matters so late.’

  Mishani felt tears start to her eyes. She knew how much it had cost her mother to say those words, and to hear them for the first time in her life was ecstasy.

  ‘Now listen to me,’ she said, turning away from the window-arch and letting the veil drop. ‘I have much to tell.’

  And she spoke then of Avun’s plans and schemes, of hints he had given and the intentions that he had expressed. She told of his failed plot to unseat Kakre, of the imminent creation of more feya-kori; of the true numbers of the Aberrants and the dire situation that the Weavers were in, how they faced starvation unless they could take the Prefectures by the next harvest. Mishani did not interrupt, filing every word in her memory, and as her mother went on she realised that her visit could turn out to be far more valuable than even she might have guessed: for this was information only days old, reaching her without the delay of months that was necessary in the publication of a book. She was staggered how much her mother knew. Avun discussed everything with her, it seemed, and the little snippets she had managed to secrete in her stories were only those few long-term events that she thought might still be relevant by the time they reached the hands of those she meant it for. In five minutes Muraki told her more than the entire spy network and the Sisterhood put together had managed to learn in four years.

  ‘Lord Protector!’ Ukadi suddenly cried from outside the doorway, and mother and daughter froze. Mishani went numb with the force of the sadness that struck her. Being discovered by her father was one thing, with all the lives that would be cost by her foolishness in coming here; but what was worse at this moment was the knowledge that now she and her mother had to part, that they would likely never meet again, that these precious handful of minutes out of ten years were all they would ever have.

  ‘Go!’ Muraki hissed, and Mishani hesitated, taking her mother’s hands, gripping them. ‘Go!’ she urged again, terror in her eyes.

  ‘I heard she was walking about,’ said Avun. ‘I must see her!’

  ‘She is being attended by my assistant,’ Ukadi was saying beyond the curtain. ‘Please, it would be best if you . . .’

  Mishani leaned forward quickly, kissed Muraki on the cheek, and whispered in her ear: ‘You were the strongest of us all, Mother. My heart will always be with you.’

  Then she got up and swept towards the doorway, just as Avun came through the curtain. Mishani made a deep bow, still walking, and passed by her startled father with her head down as he held the curtain aside for her. Due to the difference in height, he only saw the back of her head. It was an incredibly rude thing to do, and Avun’s shock prevented him from reacting for a moment; then, as he opened his mouth to call her back, Muraki cried: ‘Avun! Avun! Come here!’

  The volume of his wife’s voice, which was never more than a whisper, made him forget the servant immediately and hurry into the room, where Muraki embraced him and kissed him with an affection he had not witnessed in years, and she did not let him go. She drew him down onto the bed, and there she made love to him for the first time in longer than he cared to remember.

  So surprised and pleased was he that he entirely forgot about the physician’s assistant until long after she had left the Imperial Keep; and yet later he found he could not shake the insidious feeling that, even though he had not seen her face, he knew her from somewhere. But he could never recall quite where.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Word from Mishani reached Araka Jo a day later, via a Sister who operated secretly out of Maza. She was an important relay for the spies in Axekami, and Mishani went straight to her after leaving the capital. Her news caused great commotion. Nobody had known where Mishani had gone, only that she had departed Araka Jo some time before, saying that she was attending to business of her own. When the upper echelons of the Libera Dramach learned what she had done, she was denounced as being reprehensible for placing them all at such risk; but it was Cailin who defended her, who pointed out that great risk had brought great reward, and the information she had given them was priceless.

  A meeting was called immediately, and plans were put forward, many of which had been fermenting over the previous weeks and had been discussed in other meetings beforehand. Finally consensus was reached. There was no more room for delays. The time for action had come.

  It was the morning after that meeting when Kaiku made her way down the trail to the south of Araka Jo, and found the Tkiurathi village in a state of busy preparation. They had conducted their own meeting last night, in the wake of the one with the Libera Dramach. Each individual had been asked to make their own choice as to whether they would follow the course suggested by the council. Kaiku had come to find the results of that.

  She wandered through the Tkiurathi village, exchanging gestured greetings with a few men and women that she recognised. It was not hard to guess how the decision had gone. Blades were being sharpened, rifles cleaned, supplies made ready. They were packing for a journey.

  There was a simplicity to this place that Kaiku liked: the smell of the cookfires, the repka yurts which looked like huge three-armed starfish lying between the trees, the sense of ease in the interaction of the tattooed folk. They seemed so untroubled in their daily lives, even now, even knowing that they were heading into something that they might well not come back from. Laughter came easily to them when they were together. Some of them were breakfasting, taking from a communal pot, exchanging food from their plates. Even this small act of sharing made a difference, something so natural to them that they must have long ceased to think about it.

  She remembered a conversation she had had with Tsata long ago, in which he said that the Saramyr way of life resulted directly from their development of cities and courts and all the things Kaiku associated with civilisation; Tkiurathi shunned all that. Now that she had seen them, the way they interacted as a group, she wondered whose philosophy was better in the end.

  Kaiku asked after Tsata by making his name a question, and was directed towards a rough circle of Tkiurathi who sat talking and drinking from wooden cups shaped somewhat like pears or pinecones. There was a large bowl in the centre from which they took refills. Heth was there, too; he noticed her first, and hailed her by name. The circle broke to leave a space between Tsata and Heth, and she smiled her gratitude as she sat down and was immediately handed a cup by a woman she did not recognise. The woman took a new one and filled it for herself.

  She managed a general greeting in Okhamban in response to the one she received, then took a sip of the liquid. It was warm, and spicy and fiery on her tongue.

  ‘Daygreet. Have I interrupted?’ she asked Tsata, but her presence had cause barely a lull in the conversation, and they were already back to their discussion.

  ‘We are working out final details of our departure,’ Tsata said. ‘It is not anything of great importance.’

  ‘They agreed, then?’

  ‘Without exception,’ Heth said on her other side.

  ‘There was little doubt they would. It is a matter of pash,’ Tsata explained.

  ‘Gods, it seems such a short time since we came back,’ Kaiku mused, then she glanced at Heth. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I grieve,’ he said. ‘But Peithre has been returned to her people. I am thankful for that.’

 
Kaiku nodded, closing her eyes. In the Forest of Xu, Heth had refused to relinquish Peithre’s body until he had brought her back to the village. In the end, he and Tsata had gone separately from the others, for her corpse, even wrapped as it was, had begun to reek of decay. But still Heth would not bury her or burn her. Kaiku did not know what the rites of honouring the dead were in Tkiurathi culture, but she was sure that there had been something beyond mere companionship between Heth and Peithre.

  ‘Our course is set, then,’ she said. ‘One way or another, I think we come to the last movement of our war.’

  The meeting of the day before had been coordinated, via the Sisters, with Barak Reki tu Tanatsua and several other desert Baraks in Izanzai. Mishani’s information had been shared among all, though its source had been kept carefully secret for fear of compromising Muraki. Its most pertinent and pressing aspect was this: that the Weavers planned a massive surprise assault upon Saraku in the near future. Saraku, the centre of debate and administration, formed the heart of the Empire’s resistance as well as being where most of the nobles and high families resided. If Saraku were to fall then the Weavers would have an all but unassailable foothold deep behind the frontline. From there, they could strike at Machita or Araka Jo, or demolish the marshland cities to the east. Once the Prefectures were secured, they could overwhelm Tchom Rin at their leisure.

  But there was hope as well. For if the Weavers could be kept out of the Prefectures until the harvest could be gathered, then the tide might turn.

  ‘But we will not be able to keep them out,’ Cailin had said. ‘Not even with the information we have. We may be able to turn back the assault on Saraku, but they will strike at us again elsewhere before the summer. Unless they are forced to devote some of their forces to defending their territories. We must prove to them that nowhere is safe. We must attack Adderach.’

  Cailin had been the loudest voice advocating an attack on Adderach since Kaiku’s visit to Axekami, but now she found she had support at last. Lucia’s return had given them hope, a belief that they could face down the previously invincible feya-kori. And with their morale so restored, they were a little more inclined to consider the prospect, however uncertain or unlikely, of ending the war in one strike. They knew now that the Weavers’ forces did not number as many as they had believed, and that the Aberrants and Nexuses were disastrously overstretched: the Weavers were using them as an attacking force and relying primarily on the Blackguard to keep order in the cities. It was entirely possible that Adderach would only be lightly defended, for it sat deep in enemy territory and was undoubtedly protected by the Weavers’ shields of misdirection. The Weavers had consistently shown themselves to be inept at tactical thinking, and Adderach was one place they would certainly not have let the Lord Protector look after. Cailin had cleverly slanted her pitch so that the chance to get at the Weavers’ witchstones – which was her primary concern – was barely mentioned. Whether they were successful in that or not, the idea of destroying their enemy’s most prized fortress was too tempting to pass up. And there was an even sweeter aspect to the plan for the high families of the western Empire. None of their troops would be going.

  Thus the decision was made and agreed: a three-pointed attack upon the Weavers. The forces of the Libera Dramach and the western Empire would deal with the Saraku assault. Meanwhile, the warriors of Tchom Rin and the Tkiurathi, along with a number of Sisters, would make their way to Adderach. The desert folk would have the most arduous task: a trek along the mountains lengthwise to reach Adderach from the south. The Tkiurathi and Sisters would go by sea, passing through enemy-held waters to land north of Mount Aon. If all went well, the Weavers would be looking south, to the army of desert warriors; and they would not see the attack from the north until it was too late.

  But first there was the problem of getting the ships. Lalyara, to the west, was the only feasible option if they wanted to get to Adderach at roughly the same time as the desert folk. There were ships there enough for the Tkiurathi. But a week ago, the port had been blockaded by Weaver vessels. They made no move to attack, only to prevent anything entering or leaving. The Libera Dramach had guessed what the Weavers were up to even before Mishani confirmed it.

  The Weavers’ next target was Lalyara. And if they got there before the Tkiurathi did, then half of the assault on Adderach had failed before it had begun.

  Later, Kaiku and Tsata walked together in the forest. Kaiku needed some activity to keep her mind off their imminent departure. She knew that time was short, and she was chafing to be away; but organising supplies and equipment to send nearly a thousand men and women to war was not an easy matter, and would take more than a few hours.

  It was bright and still and cool, and their feet crunched on twigs as they wandered. They talked idly about things of little importance. Kaiku was trying not to think about the possible consequences of making Asara capable of breeding, and she had fretted about Lucia for so long that she was getting tired of her own voice. They did touch on her feelings about Mishani’s disappearance and her subsequent revelations, but Kaiku was not overly concerned about her friend. Since she had not known Mishani was in danger until she was out of it, she experienced nothing more than a vague sense of relief. It certainly went against Mishani’s character to do something like that, but the fact that Kaiku had not seen it coming only served to remind her how little contact she had had with her friend these past few years, and that saddened her.

  Kaiku was acutely aware that this was the first time that she and Tsata had been together alone since their kiss in the Forest of Xu. After that, the death of Phaeca and Peithre and the terrible events surrounding them had made any amorous notions seem wan and forceless amid all the grief. But there was something in Tsata’s manner today, some coiled tension, that expressed itself in quick glances and half-taken breaths to start sentences that never came. There was an urgency in the air, a sense that this might be the last few moments of peace before the storm broke and swallowed them all, and there were things that had to be said between them that would not wait.

  Eventually they found a spot where the land humped up and met the lake shore, dropping a dozen rocky feet to the water, which glittered in the sharp winter light. Distant junks cut slowly towards the horizon, and hookbeaks hovered on the thermals, questing for fish. Kaiku and Tsata sat side by side on a fallen tree that had been partially claimed by moss, and beneath the gently waving leaves of the evergreens they came to the moment they had been putting off.

  Tsata looked at his hands, caught in an agony of indecision that was so plain that Kaiku had to laugh a little. It broke the tension: he smiled in answer.

  ‘Your kind are never good at hiding your feelings,’ Kaiku said. ‘Say it, then.’

  ‘I am afraid to,’ he replied, then looked up at her uncertainly as if to gauge her reaction to this. ‘I fear I still do not know your ways, and you Saramyr place such store by etiquette.’

  ‘Most of us do. I seem to find it less important than they. Mishani is always telling me how uncultured I am.’ She looked at him with tenderness in her eyes, both wanting and not wanting to hear what he would say. ‘Honesty is better.’

  ‘But that is one of the things I cannot understand about your people. Though you say you want honesty, you seldom do. You are so in love with evasions that honesty makes you uncomfortable.’

  ‘Stop hedging, Tsata,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘It does not suit you.’

  Eventually he shook his head, as if ridding himself of some annoyance, and clasped his hands together. Kaiku noticed how the pale green tendrils of tattoo that ran along his fingers meshed beautifully when he did so.

  ‘I cannot do this your way,’ he said. ‘If this were—’

  Kaiku ran out of patience. ‘Tsata, do you want me or not?’

  The bluntness of this surprised even him. He turned towards her, and in the instant before he spoke she fixed the image of him there, preserving the final moments of flux before certainty solidifie
d their relationship one way or another. This picture she would keep in her mind, as insurance against his reply.

  But the reply, when it came, was: ‘Yes.’

  A breath passed.

  ‘Yet it is not that simple for you,’ he continued. ‘Is it?’

  Kaiku’s head bowed a little, her hair hanging down across the left side of her face, screening her from him. ‘Simplicity is something that my people do not do well,’ she said.

  She felt betrayed by herself, suddenly angry. Gods, had she not waited for this moment for long enough? She knew how she felt about him. She had known it, without admitting it to herself, since those weeks they had spent together in the Xarana Fault four years ago, hunting Aberrants and spying on the Weavers. It had not been a sudden thing, but something so gradual that she had trouble identifying it. In the time he had been away across the sea, she had almost managed to dismiss it as a fancy. Almost. Since he had come back, since that kiss in the forest, she knew it for what it was. Yet in some matters he was so hard to read, and she could never be certain if that feeling was reciprocated. Not until now.

  But it was nothing like she had imagined. Instead of a flood of joy, relief, release, she felt only an awful weariness, a sour negation of possibilities. Now she knew beyond doubt that he wanted her, she came up against all the barriers that she had carefully constructed in her heart over the years, shoring them up each time she had been wounded. She found that she had built them so well that they would not come down easily.