Tane had no breath to speak, even if he had the words. His thoughts were turned inward, spiralling into a void like water down a drain; but those he could snatch and piece together were enough to provide him with the answers he needed. All this time, all this questioning and wondering and uncertainty, and all he needed was to have faith. He had not failed. He had trusted his goddess, against all his doubts and fears.
Why was he here? Why had she spared him from the shin-shin, set him on his path to walk with the Aberrants? He knew now, and the answer was so clear that he marvelled at his ignorance in not seeing it before.
She had sent him here to die, in the place of the Heir-Empress.
I owe the gods a life, he thought, and at last my debt is paid.
His eyes focused on Kaiku then, her irises red like a demon’s. Aberrant eyes, yet he found them no less beautiful for it. After all, he had sacrificed himself for an Aberrant, to safeguard their futures. And as the clutter of his mind swirled away, what was left was only truth. This was bigger than his beliefs; the Heir-Empress was precious to the world, even to the gods. She was important to them all. If by his life he had saved her, then it was worth giving up.
He drank in the features of Kaiku as she held him, and even contorted in grief as they were he could not look away, not even when they seemed to fade, and beneath them there was a stitchwork of golden fibres, a brightness and an ecstasy such as he had never imagined. He had done his work, and done it well, and the Fields of Omecha waited to receive him in splendour.
And if he might have felt a little resentful at being a pawn in the game of the gods, a sacrifice to be made for another’s sake, then at least they let him die in the arms of the woman he loved.
THIRTY-FOUR
They escaped Axekami at nightfall, passing out through the south gate under cover of darkness. It was simple enough. All eyes were on the Keep and the east gate, where the armies of Blood Batik were flooding into the city. Fires still raged unchecked in the great truncated pyramid that brooded on Axekami’s highest hill. The rioting had redoubled at the sight of the city’s figurehead edifice belching smoke and glowing with flame against the gathering dusk, and Blood Batik’s forces had responded savagely. In amid all of this, nobody noticed a covered cart drawing up to the quiet south gate. The sentries had their orders, of course; but oddly, after exchanging a few words with the hooded woman who sat next to the driver, they ignored them. The gates were opened, the cart drove through, and the kidnappers left Axekami behind them to boil and churn in its own anger.
Two miles south of the city, they turned off the road to a disused quarry. There they left the cart and took seven of the twelve fast horses that were being held for them there. The man who had guarded them looked worriedly at the child as she was passed into Zaelis’s arms.
‘Is it she?’ he asked reverently, his eyes glittering in the green-edged moonlight. The air felt charged tonight, and the fine hairs on their skin were standing up. Tomorrow, or the next day . . . it could not be long till the moonstorm struck. They would have to ride hard to outpace it.
‘It is,’ said Zaelis. ‘We must go. Every moment we waste brings her closer to death.’
The man swallowed and nodded, and watched as they rode off through the quarry, heading overland. He returned to the ramshackle hut he had been sheltering in these last few days, previously owned by the foreman of this cheerless place. It was one of several stops along the route the kidnappers would take, to switch horses. Speed was of the essence, for all plans had relied on one factor – that the kidnappers would vanish with the Heir-Empress and leave no clue behind them. Even the tired mounts they left behind would be carefully hidden away until they regained their strength. If their escape was marked and they were followed, the Fold would be placed in great danger, and there were too many innocent lives at risk for that. Most of the populace did not even know of the mission, and were ignorant of the schemes being played out beyond the broken lands of the Fault; the Fold was unprepared and unable to defend itself against the might of the Imperial forces. He was left wondering if they had managed to steal the child without anybody knowing, or if even now there were armies sallying forth from the capital in pursuit.
He tried to sleep, but for most of the night he had no luck. Only towards dawn he began drifting in and out of a drowse, and his dreams were vivid and confusing. When he awoke the next morning, he could not be sure what he had imagined and what had been real; but one image stuck with him, and refused to fade in the manner of nightmares.
He could have sworn to the gods that he saw things moving on the lip of the quarry, just before the dawn. Stilt-legged things with eyes like burning lanterns.
They rode hard, long into the morning. When finally Zaelis called a halt, their horses were lathered, flanks steaming and lips flecked with spittle. They had left the road entirely, racing overland, and were deep in the gently rolling plains and hills of the trackless Saramyr countryside. They took shelter under the vast, ancient boughs of a jukaki tree, which stood alone on a slope, and there they rested. The air hummed with insects and the sun beat down on the grass, brightening the colours of the world. It was an incongruously beautiful day, and it did not match their mood.
Kaiku was asleep the moment she dismounted. She had been driven past endurance, almost falling out of her saddle several times, and she had held back the wave of unconsciousness far too long. Yugi began a fire for cooking. Zaelis laid Lucia on the grass, and he and Cailin crouched by her. Mishani, Asara and Purloch sat in the shade, sore and tired.
They had done it. They had snatched the Heir-Empress out from under the noses of the Imperial family, and nobody had seen them; at least nobody who had lived. Luck had made their timing perfect. The explosions in the Keep and the coup pulled off by Blood Batik, the fact that Durun had intentionally taken Lucia and Anais away in secret so nobody knew where they were when he killed them; it was entirely possible that the Imperial Guards had not even discovered the Heir-Empress was missing yet, and that they still thought she was hidden somewhere in the Keep. In the midst of the shambles, the kidnappers had plucked the child away and left no trail to trace.
And yet it did not feel like a victory, for the child lay there on the grass, hovering between life and death. If it fell to the latter, it would all have been for nothing.
Lucia lay raggedly before them, her breathing shallow. A large portion of her thick blonde hair had gone, and the edges of the surviving fibres were singed black and broke off at a touch. When Zaelis carefully brushed it aside, they saw the terrible burns on her upper back and the nape of her neck, the flesh cracked and oozing.
‘Why is she like this?’ he asked softly. ‘Why won’t she wake?’
‘The burns go deep,’ said Cailin. ‘Near the spine.’
‘You cannot heal her?’
Cailin shook her head. Even without her sinister makeup, she possessed poise and gravitas. ‘I dare not. She is an unprecedented creature. We must hope her strength holds until we get back to the Fold.’ She glanced at Kaiku, curled up and asleep. Without her the child would be dead. Yet because of her, the child might still die. Cailin refused to consider the responsibility she would share for allowing Kaiku to come, when she knew how dangerous her powers were.
Mishani was exhausted and miserable, for reasons beyond even her concern for Kaiku and the state of Lucia. She had almost been executed not one day past. Her father’s change of heart had caught her in the backwash. Wasn’t that what she had once loved about the court, that if you took your eyes away for a moment everything might change? Well, it had, and it had nearly cost her life. It had certainly cost her family. There was no going back, not ever. Not to court, not to Mataxa Bay. She was an outcast.
She looked at Kaiku, her face tranquil in sleep. But at least I am not alone, she thought, and found a small measure of comfort in that.
They cooked and ate while they rested, using the supplies provided in the horses’ saddlebags. Zaelis drizzled warm honey mi
xed with milk into Lucia’s mouth and was gratified that she reflexively swallowed. He gently prised open her eyes and they reacted to the light. But she saw nothing; she seemed to have gone dead inside, cut herself off in reaction to the pain of the burning. Such a sensitive thing, so fragile . . .
‘I have to go,’ said a voice at his shoulder. He looked up to see Purloch.
‘I understand,’ he replied. ‘You have my thanks, and hers. You did a brave thing, to lead us back into the Keep and out again.’
Purloch nodded, unconvinced. The journey through the sewers had been harrowing, but mercifully there were no maku-sheng on the return journey. His nerves were frayed and tattered, and he felt strangely empty. If not for him, maybe Lucia would have grown up well, would have learned to disguise her powers and taken the throne. If not for him.
‘My debt is paid,’ he said. The words seemed hollow, but he said them anyway. There was a limit to his courage, and he had reached it. ‘I will retire, I think, and go east. You won’t see me again.’
‘I wish you luck,’ Zaelis replied.
‘And I you,’ Purloch said, and meant it. He glanced once at the stricken child, and then left to take a horse and ride away across the hills.
Then, too soon, it was time to leave again. They put out the fire and wakened Kaiku, who ate a few morsels of food before mounting up. She was still bone-weary, but the few hours of rest had done her much good. They put heels to their horses and galloped south, towards the Xarana Fault and safety.
They changed horses in the evening, and rode late into the night. Kaiku remembered little, for she drowsed in and out of semi-consciousness while her body kept itself barely righted in the saddle. Mishani rode alongside her, constantly concerned that she might fall. It was a dangerous way to go, but they could not afford to have someone lead her horse as Asara had once in Fo, or to have someone ride with her. They could not slacken the pace for anyone.
They camped again in the lee of a low and sheltered rocky outcropping, and there made a small fire, confident it would be invisible from afar. They had no need of the heat against the warm night, but they had to cook and boil water. Yugi had herbs that would either help them sleep deeply or keep them alert and awake, depending on whether they were on watch or not. He drank a large quantity of the latter, knowing he would not sleep until they were back in the Fold. Asara joined him on his vigil, for she needed little rest and could get by perfectly well without it. The others lay out under the triangle of moons that loomed in the northern sky and sank into oblivion.
The journey from the north edge of the Fault to Axekami took several days at normal travelling speed. Zaelis estimated they could make it in two, which put their time of arrival at the broken lands around nightfall the next day. The Heir-Empress was worsening visibly now, becoming feverish and pale, shivering and muttering. If Tane had been here, he might have used his knowledge of herblore to ease the burn, to clean the wound and keep it from becoming infected; but they had no such knowledge, and even Yugi’s expertise only extended to a few simple infusions. All they could do was mop the child’s brow and tear strips of rags to use as dressings over the burnt flesh at her nape. Cailin sent a message ahead to her Sisters in the Fold, ordering them to have a physician and men to meet them at the northern edge of the Xarana Fault; but looking at the Heir-Empress, she had her doubts if the child could even make it that far.
The next day was plagued with troubles. Mishani’s horse broke its leg in a rabbit hole, throwing her off. She was unhurt, but the horse had to be slain. She rode with Kaiku after that, who had become much more her normal self after a night’s rest, though she spoke little and sometimes wept in memory of Tane. They were forced to slacken pace a little, but Mishani was very light and the horse was still strong and rested; the difference did not amount to much.
Nuki’s eye was abominably intense towards midday, and Mishani became woozy with sunstroke. Zaelis did not stop, even to eat. He himself was beginning to suffer from sunburn across his nose and cheeks, but he drove them on, counting their discomfort a minor thing against the Heir-Empress’s life.
As dusk fell, they were hungry and exhausted, and Lucia’s breath had become a shallow wheeze. They watched with mounting dread as the dull white disc of Aurus loomed behind them, and small, bright Iridima arced up from the west, chased at a faster pace by Neryn. The air began to tauten and took on a metallic tang. Clouds raced in, drawn seemingly from nowhere, heading north in contradiction to the breeze.
They had reached the periphery of the Xarana Fault when the moonstorm struck at last.
It announced itself with a scream that made the horses whinny and shy, the sound of the air being torn under conflicting gravities. Purple lightning flickered between the clouds as they were shredded in the maelstrom of invisible forces, high up in the atmosphere. The land rose around them suddenly, great shoulders of rock dislodged by the ancient cataclysm that had swallowed the city of Gobinda and the Cho bloodline. Time had smoothed the edges with grass and soil and erosion, but it was still possible to trace the borders with the eye, the point where the unbroken earth suddenly descended into turmoil. They rode into its shelter with the screeching of the moon-sisters in their ears, just as the first spatters of warm rain began to dot the earth. In moments, it thickened to a deluge, and the sky opened to deliver a ferocious payload upon them. Zaelis hastily wrapped a blanket around the child he held in his lap, but he would not let them slow. They darted between enormous rocks, slithering down shallow slopes that were already turning to mud, and disappeared into the maze of the Fault.
Full dark had fallen by the time they pulled to a halt in a clearing surrounded by enormous boulders that hunkered around them like mythical stone ogres. Eerie purple light flickered across the scene, followed by an angry shriek from the sky. Mishani, who was riding with Yugi to give Kaiku’s horse a rest, flinched at the sound.
‘Why are we stopping?’ Kaiku called over the noise of the storm, water dripping from her cheeks and chin.
Zaelis whirled his mount, looking first one way and then the other, his eyes scanning the boulders. ‘Cailin?’ he queried.
‘They are meeting us here,’ she confirmed. ‘The physician, and stretcher bearers. They know better than to be late.’
‘But they are late,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she replied neutrally.
The sound of Asara priming the bolt on her rifle framed their concerns neatly enough, without the need for words. Yugi glanced about nervously.
Kaiku’s eyes fell to a rivulet of water, gently trickling and dripping into a tiny pool formed by the cup of the rock below. She could not have said what instinct made her narrow her eyes and look closer, but at that moment a flash of eerie lightning flickered across the night, and she saw that the clear rainwater was mingled with something darker, flowing from somewhere behind the rock. In the poor light, it was impossible to tell what it was by sight, but she recognised it by its slow, lazy swirl in the pool. Blood.
‘Your men are dead, Zaelis!’ she called, as every sense she had clamoured at her to get away from there. ‘It is a trap! Ride!’
Perhaps it was the conviction in her voice, or the fact that they were all on edge, but they reacted instantly and without thought to question. It was what saved their lives.
They raced out of the clearing at the same moment as two of the shin-shin leaped from hiding, springing down upon where they had been waiting brief moments ago. The remaining pair of demons were already racing along the rim of the boulders, their blazing eyes fixed on their prey as their spindly stilt-limbs propelled them rapidly over the uneven terrain. Lightning stuttered purple light across them, silhouetting them against the clustered moons, and then darkness fell again, and there were only the twin lamps of their eyes as they came after the Heir-Empress.
‘Scatter!’ Cailin cried, the reins of her mount gathered in one fist, wrenching it around to avoid sliding on the wet mud and crashing into a looming hunk of rock. The broken stones her
e provided a thousand routes to follow, and a person might lose themselves forever in this maze; but Cailin was not concerned about that now. Escape was the only option for them. She could not protect them against four shin-shin without her Sisters to help her.
Zaelis wheeled his horse, spraying rainwater from its flanks, and hunching over Lucia he spurred it through a narrow passage between two enormous slabs of granite. Kaiku went that way too. Asara was too late to check her momentum and squeeze through; instead she aimed for a short, muddy slope downward. Yugi followed with Mishani. Cailin went another way.
The sky screamed as if in thwarted fury, and Kaiku hunched her shoulders against its rage as she fought to control her mount. Zaelis was riding at a reckless pace, dodging through the rocks and trees with inches to spare while the rain conspired to blind them with wet gusts. Twice he almost dashed Lucia’s brains out against an unforgiving bulge of stone, for she lay clutched to his chest with her head lolling to the side. Kaiku focused only on Zaelis’s back, taking her cues from his movements. She scarcely dared to breathe as she whipped through gaps that threatened to smash her kneecaps, and she could not afford a second to look back and see where the shin-shin were.
You’ll not get me now, she thought to herself with surprising venom. I beat you once, and I will do it again.
They broke out into a short, flat stretch, a strip of sodden grass mottled with patches of stone. Thundering towards a line of trees ahead, Kaiku found a few moment’s grace to glance over her shoulder.
There were three of them that she could see; one racing along the ground after them and two darting between the boulders and outcrops that formed the walls of the maze their prey rode through. They were like living shadows, skinny patches of darkness that the eye refused to focus on, lunging through the rain with insectile speed.
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr, The Skein of Lament and the Ascendancy Veil Page 42
