‘Like Aberrants,’ Kaiku murmured. ‘Like the Weavers,’ she added, her voice deepening with venom.
‘No,’ said Saran, with surprising conviction. ‘Not like the Weavers.’
Kaiku frowned. ‘You’re defending them,’ she observed.
‘No,’ he said again. ‘No matter how abhorrent their methods, the Fleshcrafters’ art comes from natural things. Herblore, incantations, spiritcraft . . . Natural things. They do not corrupt the land like the Weavers do.’
‘The maghkriin . . . I could not . . . I could not find it,’ Kaiku said at length, after she had digested this. ‘My kana seemed to glance off it.’ She watched Saran carefully. Years of caution had taught her that discussing her Aberrant powers was not something done lightly, but she wanted to gauge him.
‘They have talismans, sigils,’ Saran said. ‘Dark arts that they trap within shapes and patterns. I do not dare imagine the kind of tricks they use, nor do I know all that the Fleshcrafters can do. But I know they place protections on their warriors. Protections that, apparently, work even against you.’
He brushed the fall of dirty black hair away from his forehead and poked at the fire. Kaiku watched him. Her gaze seemed to flicker back to his face whether she wanted it to or not.
‘Are you tired?’ he asked. He was not looking up, but she sensed that he knew she was staring. She forced her eyes away with an effort of will, flushing slightly, only to find that they had returned to him again an instant later.
‘A little,’ Kaiku lied. She was exhausted.
‘We have to go.’
‘Go?’ she repeated. ‘Now?’
‘Do you think you killed it? The one that attacked you?’ he asked, straightening suddenly.
‘Certain,’ she replied.
‘Don’t be,’ Saran advised. ‘You do not know what you are dealing with yet. And there may be more of them. If we travel hard, we can be at Kisanth by mid-afternoon. If we stay and rest, they will find us.’
Kaiku hung her head.
‘Are you strong enough?’ Saran asked.
‘Strong as I need to be,’ Kaiku said, getting to her feet. ‘Lead the way.’
FOUR
‘Mistress Mishani tu Koli,’ the merchant said in greeting, and Mishani knew something was wrong.
It was not only his tone, although that would have been enough. It was the momentary hesitation when he saw her, that fractional betrayal that raced across his features before the facade of amiability clamped down. Beneath her own impassive veneer, she already suspected this man; but she had no other choice except to trust him, for he appeared to be her only hope.
The Saramyr servant retreated from the room, closing the folding shutter across the entryway as she left. Mishani waited patiently.
The merchant, who had seemed slightly dazed and lost in thought for a moment, appeared to remember himself. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Chien os Mumaka. Please, this way.’ He motioned to where the study opened onto a wide balcony overlooking the lagoon.
Mishani accompanied him out. There were exotic floor mats laid there, woven of a thick, soft Okhamban fabric, and a low table of wine and fruits. Mishani sat, and Chien took position opposite. The merchant’s house was set high up on the slope of the basin that surrounded Kisanth, a sturdy wooden structure raised on oak pillars to make its foremost half sit level. The view was spectacular, with the black rocks of the coastal wall rearing up to the left and Kisanth to the right, lying in a semicircle around the turquoise-blue water. Ships glided their slow way from the docks to the narrow gash in the wall that gave out onto the open sea, and smaller craft poled or paddled between them. The whole vista was smashed with dazzlingly bright sunlight, making the lagoon a fierce glimmer of white.
She sized up her opponent as they went through the usual greetings, platitudes and inquiries after each other’s health, a necessary preamble to the meat of the discussion. He was short, with a shaven head and broad, blocky features matched by a broad, blocky physique. His clothes were evidently expensive though not ostentatious; his only concession to conceit was a thin embroidered cloak, a very Quraal affectation on a Saramyr man, presumably meant to advertise his worldliness.
But appearances meant nothing here. Mishani knew him by reputation. Chien os Mumaka. The os prefix to his family name meant that he was adopted, and it would stay attached to his natural children for two generations down, bestowing its stigma upon them too, until the third generation reverted to the more usual tu prefix. Os meant literally ‘reared by’, and whereas tu implied inclusion in the family, os did not.
None of this appeared to have hampered Chien os Mumaka’s part in his family’s meteoric rise in the merchant business, however. Over the last ten years, Blood Mumaka had turned what was initially a small shipping consortium into one of only two major players in the Saramyr-Okhamba trade route. Much of that was down to Chien’s daring nature: he was renowned for taking risks which seemed to pay off more often than not. He was not elegant in his manners, nor well educated, but he was undoubtedly a formidable trader.
‘It’s an honour indeed to have the daughter of such an eminent noble Blood come visit me in Kisanth,’ Chien was saying. His speech patterns were less formal than Mishani’s or Kaiku’s. Mishani placed him as having come from somewhere in the Southern Prefectures. He had obviously also never received elocution training, which many children of high families took for granted. Perhaps he was passed over due to his adopted status, or because his family were too poor at the time.
‘My father sends his regards,’ she lied. Chien appeared pleased.
‘Give him mine, I beg you,’ he returned. ‘We have a lot to thank your family for, Mistress Mishani. Did you know that my mother was a fisherwoman in your father’s fleet in Mataxa Bay?’
‘Is that true?’ Mishani asked politely, though she knew perfectly well it was. She was frankly surprised he had brought it up. ‘I had thought it only a rumour.’
‘It’s true,’ Chien said. ‘One day a young son of Blood Mumaka was visiting your father at the bay, and by Shintu’s hand or Rieka’s, he came face-to-face with the fisherwoman, and it was love from that moment. Isn’t that a tale?’
‘How beautiful,’ said Mishani, thinking just the opposite. ‘So like a poem or a play.’ The subsequent marriage of a peasant into Blood Mumaka and the family’s refusal to excise their shameful son had crippled them politically; it had taken them years to claw back their credibility, mainly due to their success in shipping. That Chien was talking about it at all was somewhat crass. Chien’s mother was released from her oath to Blood Koli and given to the lovestruck young noble in return for political concessions that Blood Mumaka were still paying for today. That one foolish marriage had been granted in return for an extremely favourable deal on Blood Mumaka shipping interests in the future. It had been a shrewd move. Now that they were major traders, their promises made back then kept them tied tightly to Blood Koli, and Koli made great profit from them. Mishani could only imagine how that would chafe; it was probably only the fact that they had to make those concessions to her family that prevented them from dominating the trade lane entirely.
‘Do you like poetry?’ Chien inquired, using her absent comment to steer her in another direction.
‘I am fond of Xalis, particularly,’ she replied.
‘Really? I would not have thought his violent prose would appeal to a lady of such elegance.’ This was flattery, and not done well.
‘The court at Axekami is every bit as violent as the battlefields Xalis wrote of,’ Mishani replied. ‘Only the wounds inflicted there are more subtle, and fester.’
Chien smiled crookedly and took a slice of fruit from the table. Mishani exploited the gap to take the initiative.
‘I am told that you may be in a position to do a service for me,’ she said.
Chien chewed slowly and swallowed, making her wait. A warm breeze rippled her dress. ‘Go on,’ he prompted.
‘
I need passage back to Saramyr,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘Mistress Mishani, you’ve only just got here. Does Kisanth displease you that much?’
‘Kisanth is a remarkable place,’ she replied, evading the thrust of the question. ‘Very vibrant.’
Chien studied her for a long moment. To press her further on her motives for returning would be rude. Mishani kept her features glacial as the silence drew out uncomfortably. He was evaluating her; she guessed that much. But did he know that the front she presented was a charade?
Her connection to Blood Koli was tenuous at best. Though she was officially still part of the family – the shame in having such a wayward daughter would damage their interests – they shunned her now. Her betrayal had been carefully covered up, and though the rumours inevitably spread, only a few knew the truth of it.
The story went that Mishani was travelling in the east, across the mountains, furthering the interests of Blood Koli there. In reality, her father had been relentlessly hunting for her since she had left him. She was in little doubt what would happen if he caught her. She would become a prisoner on her own estates, forced to maintain the show of solidarity in Blood Koli, to conform to the lie that they had spun to hide the dishonour she had brought upon them. And then, perhaps, she would be quietly killed.
Her nobility was a sham, a bluff. And she suspected that Chien knew that. She had hoped that a merchant trader would not have access to the kind of information that would expose her, but there was something odd about the way he was acting, and she did not trust him an inch. Her father would be a powerful friend, and he would be greatly indebted to anyone who delivered his daughter back to him.
‘How soon do you have to leave?’ Chien said eventually.
‘Tomorrow,’ she replied. In truth, she did not know how urgent their departure really was, but it was best to appear definite when bargaining.
‘Tomorrow,’ he repeated, unfazed.
‘Can it be done?’ she asked.
‘Possibly,’ Chien told her. He was buying himself time to think. He looked out over the lagoon, the sun casting shadows in the hollows of his broad features. Weighing the implications. ‘It will cost me considerably,’ he said at length. ‘There will be substantial unused cargo space. No, three days from now is the absolute earliest we can be outfitted and under sail.’
‘Good enough,’ she said. ‘You will be reimbursed. And you will have my deepest gratitude.’ How convenient that a phrase like that, implying that he would be owed a favour by a powerful maritime family, could still be true when it meant literally what it said and nothing more. She did have money – the Libera Dramach would spare no expense to get their spy home – but as far as favours went, she had only what she could give, which was not much to a man like Chien. She almost felt bad about cheating him.
‘I’ve a different proposition,’ he said. ‘Your offer of reimbursement is kind, but I confess I have matters to deal with in our homeland anyway, and money is not an issue here. I’d rather not hold a family as eminent as yours in my debt. Instead, I’ve a somewhat presumptuous request to make of you.’
Mishani waited, and her heart sank as she listened, knowing that she could not refuse and that she was playing right into his hands.
Later, it rained.
The clouds had rolled in with startling speed as the humidity ascended, and in the early afternoon the skies opened in a torrent. Out in the jungle, thick leaves nodded violently as they were battered by fat droplets; mud sluiced into streams that snaked away between the tree roots; slender waterfalls plunged through the air as rain ramped off the canopy and fell to earth, spattering boughs and rocks. The loud hiss of the downpour drowned the sound of nearby animals hooting from their shelters.
Saran, Tsata and Kaiku trudged through the undergrowth, soaked to the skin. They walked hunched under gwattha, hooded green ponchos woven of a native fabric that offered some protection against light rain, but not enough to keep them dry in such an onslaught. Kaiku had been given one by her guide before they set out, and had kept it rolled in a bundle and tied to her small pack; the other two had their own. Setting foot in the jungle without one was idiocy.
The rain slowed an already slow pace. Kaiku stumbled along with barely the strength to pick up her feet. None of them had slept, and they had been travelling through the night. Under ordinary conditions, Kaiku would have found this endurable; however, the long month of inactivity aboard the Heart of Assantua, the wound in her side and the detrimental effects of unleashing her kana had combined to severely curtail her stamina. But rest was out of the question, and pride forbade her from complaining. The others had trimmed their pace somewhat, but not by much. She kept up miserably, leaving it to Saran and Tsata to look out for any pursuers. Without sleep, her kana had not regenerated and her senses had dulled. She told herself that her companions were alert enough for the three of them.
She brooded on the fate of her guide as they made their way back to Kisanth. It saddened her that the Tkiurathi woman had never told Kaiku her name. Saramyr ritual dictated that the dead must be named to Noctu, wife of Omecha, so that she could record them in her book and advise her husband of their great deeds – or lack of them – when they came hoping for admittance to the Golden Realm. Even though the woman had most likely not believed at all, it worried at Kaiku.
Saran and Tsata conferred often in low voices and scanned the jungle with their rifles ready, the weapons wrapped in thick rags and strips of leather to keep their powder chambers dry. The downpour – which would hamper anyone following by obliterating their trail – had not seemed to ease their fears one bit. Despite Saran’s reservations, Kaiku was certain that she had incinerated the assassin at the Aith Pthakath. And if there was a maghkriin still hunting them, Saran seemed to believe its tracking ability was nothing short of supernatural.
She found herself wondering why this man was so important, what he knew, what was worth risking her life for. She felt galled that her curiosity had not been satisfied yet. Of course, he was a spy, and she should have expected that he would not reveal his secrets easily, but it annoyed her that she should be going through all this without knowing the reason why.
Kaiku had tried to engage Saran in conversation occasionally throughout the morning, but was frustrated by his distractedness. He was too intent on watching out for enemies and jungle animals, which could be deadly even out near the coast where the land was a little more civilised. He barely listened to her. She found that it piqued her unaccountably.
By the time they stopped, exhaustion and the rain had combined to make her fatalistic. If a maghkriin was going to come, let it come. They could do nothing about it.
However, the cause of the halt was not the rest that Kaiku had hoped for.
It was Tsata who saw it first, a little way up the incline which rose to their left, overlooking their route. He darted back in a flash and pointed through the trees. Kaiku squinted through dewed lashes, but she could only see grey shadows in amid the shifting curtains of rain.
‘Who is that?’ Tsata asked her. Saran was at their side in a moment.
‘I cannot see,’ Kaiku said. The unspoken question: how should she know? She tried to pick out movement, but there was nothing.
Saran and Tsata exchanged a glance. ‘Stay here,’ Saran told her.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just stay,’ he said, and he disappeared into the undergrowth with a light splashing of mud. She caught a few glimpses of him heading up the incline towards where Tsata had pointed, and then he was swallowed.
She brushed her sodden fringe back and threw off her hood, suddenly feeling enclosed by it. The warm rain splashed eagerly onto her head and dribbled through to wet her scalp.
When she looked around, Tsata was gone.
The jolt of alarm woke her savagely out of her torpor. Her earlier fatalism was chased away. She drew a breath to call out for her companions, b
ut it died in her lungs. Shouting would be a foolish thing to do.
Hurriedly, she scrambled her rifle off her back and into her arms. The lack of visibility terrified her; she would not have time to react against an attack. She had barely survived when she was out in the open back at the Aith Pthakath, and now she did not even have her kana as protection: she was too exhausted to open the Weave.
The pounding rain and constant, disharmonious sounds of running or dripping water masked all but the loudest noises. She blinked and wiped her eyes, glancing around in agitation.
They would be back. Any moment, they would be back, and she would be angry at the way they had deserted her with barely a warning. A branch fell behind her, and she started and whirled, narrowly missing tangling her rifle in a hanging vine. Staring intently into the rain-mist, she looked for movement.
Her sword would be better at close quarters like this, but she had never been much of a swordswoman. Most of the training she had received had built on her natural skills, learned from her constant competition with her older brother back in the Forest of Yuna. They would fight to outride, outshoot, outwrestle each other, for she always was the tomboy; but swords were never a favourite of either of them, and too dangerous to spar with. The rifle was impractical here, but it was comforting. She shifted her grip on the underside of the weapon and scanned the trees.
Time passed, drawing out slowly. They did not come back. Kaiku felt a cold dread creeping along her bones. The effort of waiting here, so exposed, was too much for her. She needed to know what was happening.
Her eyes fell again on the grey shadow that Tsata had pointed out. It still had not moved. She thought on his earlier words. Who is that? What did he mean?
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr, The Skein of Lament and the Ascendancy Veil Page 48
