The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr / the Skein of Lament / the Ascendancy Veil

by Chris Wooding

  Towards dawn, he returned to the lodging house briefly to collect his possessions. He avoided Asara’s room, not wishing to face her. There was much he had to think on, insoluble questions he had to find answers to. He could not do it here in Chaim, and he could not do it in company. He would leave Asara to watch out for Kaiku’s return for the time being. He trusted her that far, at least.

  He had gathered everything from his draughty, rickety wooden room and was about to leave when he saw a note on his bed, signed in Asara’s flowing hand. Hesitantly, he picked it up.

  Should you change your mind, he read, take this note to the priests at the Temple of Panazu in Axekami. Tell them you wish to come to the fold. They will understand.

  A ghost of a frown crossed his tanned brow, and then he pocketed the note and left. There would be trader carts going south with the sunrise. He intended to be on one of them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The snow crunched beneath her heavy boots as Kaiku forged her way westward through the high peaks of the mountains. From a distance, she looked like a shambling mound of fur, buried as she was in the patchwork coat she had taken from the dead man in the cave three days ago. Her voluminous cowl flapped over the smooth red and black Mask that she wore on her face, and she walked with the aid of a tall staff, her rifle slung across her back.

  Heart’s blood, she thought to herself. When does it end?

  The last of her stolen rations had been consumed yesterday, and she was once again faint from hunger. Some inner voice had told her to push on with all her strength, to travel through the night and make good time while she still had something more than snow in her belly. That voice had told her that the peaks must give up their secrets soon, that she could not be more than an overnight trek from the monastery. Now, at mid-afternoon of the next day, the voice was conspicuously silent.

  She rested for a moment, leaning on her staff like a crutch. There was no chance of catching anything to eat out here, and the snow had buried any plants or roots beneath three-foot drifts. The wilderness was a bleak, empty maze of white, and the only signs of life were the distant cawing of gristle-crows and the occasional howl of the Aberrants at night. Once again, she was facing starvation, and all she could do was keep going.

  The Mask felt natural on her now, as if it had moulded itself subtly to the contours of her face. She remembered the fear and trepidation she had felt at the thought of putting it on, her worries of insanity or addiction. How ridiculous that seemed now. The Mask was not her enemy. In fact, it was perhaps her only hope of survival out here. She trusted the Mask, took comfort in it; and though it had proved remarkably ineffective thus far, her faith had seemed to grow still. And it was here, after many days, that her faith was finally rewarded.

  She raised her head and saw a gorge she recognised.

  Crossing to it, she stood at its snowy lip and puzzled over it for a time. She was certain she had been here before, and yet she would have remembered coming across such a vast rent in the landscape, and she could not recall seeing it on her journey. At its southern end was a path that led in between two of the more foreboding peaks; she knew that, too, with a certainty that seemed strangely groundless, as she was equally certain that she had not passed it since she began her trek into the mountains.

  When she investigated, she did indeed find a path, and she took it.

  As the day wore on, she found more and more landmarks she knew: an enormous, twisted tree that raked out of the snow and held crooked fingers to the sky; a flat, glassy plain of ice that was passable by following a rocky spine of black stone through its midst; a forked mountain peak, split asunder by some great and ancient disaster. Each sight triggered a memory that was not hers, but which belonged to one of the previous wearers of the Mask, and which had been absorbed into its wooden fibres by some incomprehensible osmosis.

  Father, she thought. She could feel tears threatening. It seemed as if the wood smelled of Ruito, a cosy, musky smell of old books and fatherly affection, the scent she got when she sat in his lap as a child and burrowed into his chest to sleep there. She sensed him as a ghost in her mind, frustratingly elusive but present nonetheless, and she felt as that child again.

  The next day, hungrier and weaker, she came across a strange phenomenon. Walking along an unremarkable curve of rock, an insect in the snowy waste, she felt the Mask grow suddenly warm. Her head began to feel light. The sensation was not unpleasant, but a little worrying. As she moved onward, the heat grew greater; experimentally, she tried backtracking, and to her surprise the heat faded.

  There is something there, she thought.

  There was nothing to do but go on. She walked slowly, feeling the presence of something vast and invisible before her. Instinctively, she put out a hand, fearing to walk into something, though there was nothing that any of her five primary senses could tell her.

  Her hand brushed the barrier, and the glittering Weave opened up to her.

  It was breathtaking: a vast, sweeping band of golden threads, stretching from horizon to horizon. It lacked the definition a wall would have; rather, it was a thickly clustered mass of whorls and loops, slowly revolving, turning inside out, swallowing each other and regenerating once again. The shining threads of the Weave were thrown into turmoil here, as if the stitching of the world had caught and snarled into a seething mess. And yet the barrier followed the contours of the land, always staying at approximately six metres high and six deep. Chaos within an ordered framework. This was no accident, nor some freak of nature. This was placed here on purpose, and by beings who knew how to manipulate the world beyond human sight with great skill.

  With a gasp, she drew her hand back, and the barrier faded from sight. The Mask was radiating in response, making her dizzy. This was how the monastery had stayed hidden all this time. The barrier turned an unprotected mind around, misdirecting it, disorientating. Only with the Mask could someone hope to break through.

  More firmly now, Kaiku put her hand out to the barrier. A slight pressure, and the stirring fibres slid apart to admit her. She closed her eyes, took a breath and said a short prayer to the gods, then stepped into it.

  She was engulfed in light, swallowed by the womb of the Weave. The fibres surrounded her, a gently swirling sea of wonder, and she felt she could simply let herself be swept away by it and never have another care again. But she was not so unguarded against the dangers of the Masks that she would surrender herself to her desire. This was how it felt when she had died, this beauty, this perfection of ecstasy; and so she knew there would be no coming back if she yielded. She remembered that this was how the world appeared to her when the burning came upon her, when her irises turned to red and she saw the Weave that sewed its way beneath the skin of human sight. She feared that, and held on to that fear, for it kept her anchored to reality. She pushed onward, through the sublime paradise, and broke through to the ugly and harsh light of the world on the other side.

  It felt as if she had been robbed of something beautiful, like a lover’s betrayal. She looked over her shoulder, but the barrier had receded into invisibility again. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to be back there, enfolded in the light instead of this cruelty of cold and hunger. Then she turned her head, and walked on, the Mask cooling on her face.

  Over time, she had developed a tendency to mutter to herself, an unconscious reaction to the oppressive loneliness of her journey. Most of her monologue was random and meaningless, but a lot of it involved her condition, a rambling and repetitive confession that she was an Aberrant and a danger to others, that she should stay out here in the wilderness where there was nobody to harm and nobody to shun her. Sometimes she talked to her father and brother as if they were beside her. Sometimes she imagined a huge boar was walking with her, just out of sight on the edge of her vision, and its presence comforted her.

  Delirium and hunger had lent these fantasies strength, and they had taken hold of her weakened mind and fastened there. They were what kept her goi
ng when her endurance flagged, and they would have kept her walking till she dropped and died, had she not come across the monastery when she did.

  She saw it first through a gap between two mountain slopes to the south. It was a clear day, or she might have missed it entirely; but the air was cold and sharp as crystal, and her eyes were still keen. It was buried in the mountainside a mile or two away, a great façade hewn out of the surrounding rock, massive and stolid. She found it hard to make out any detail at this distance, but she could see the narrow stone bridge that arced from the entrance to the other side of a deep gorge, and presumed that it was there she should be heading if she wanted access.

  It took her most of the day to find the way up to the monastery, which was a set of wide, steep steps carved out of the mountain’s stony skin. The sheer scale of it provoked a vague awe through the haze of exhaustion. The steps had been carved centuries ago, their edges weathered to curves and crumbling; if the Weavers truly lived at the top, then they must have occupied the monastery rather than built it, for the stairway was older than the Weavers were. Snow-buried statues guarded it from pedestals set to either side, but when Kaiku cleared away the snow she found them moss-covered and worn smooth by the elements, so she could not tell what they were. The seemingly endless stairway sapped what little stamina she had remaining, and she was asleep on her feet by the time it ended.

  The change in the rhythm of her steps woke her out of her shallow drowse, and she found herself on a narrow path, part of a small outpost that clung precariously to the flanks of the mountain. There were several buildings of brick and stone, linked by curving paths that went where the shape of the mountain would allow. The dwellings were old and looked abandoned, waiting silently with their shutters creaking in the freezing breeze. They were ugly and simplistic, like the houses in Chaim but more sturdy. A little further up, she saw where the bridge began, a stout and unornamented span of stone that leaped across the massive divide, where only a snowy murk drifted below. There was no sign of life.

  By now exhaustion had claimed her, and she knew she would soon be unable to go no further. Stumbling towards the nearest building, she pushed open the wooden gate and found that it was a chicken barn, long empty but still retaining some mouldy hay in the pens. She clambered into one, gathered the hay about her, and was instantly asleep.

  Cramps in her stomach woke her rudely from slumber, and she was dragged unwillingly into awareness again. She lay with her eyes closed for what seemed a long while, until the scuffing of someone’s feet in the hay next to her made her jerk in alarm.

  Someone was leaning over her. For one terrifying moment, she thought it was the ghost of the man she had slain in the cave; but though the clothes were similar, they were not identical. This one’s ragged robes were of different kinds of fur, and the Mask that peered at her was pale blue, and made of wood rather than bone. It was a portrait of idiot curiosity, a fat moon-face with a pooching lower lip and wide, dark eyes set in an expression of surprise. Kaiku scrambled back, but her progress was impeded by the stone wall behind her. Her rifle lay nearby, though not near enough so she could easily lunge for it.

  The moon-face tipped its head to one side, then bobbed closer, peering intently. It was like being sniffed by some wild animal who was trying to decide whether she was food or not. Kaiku did not move.

  Silently, the blue moon-face withdrew and lost interest. The Weaver turned and climbed out of the chicken pen, pausing to examine a few other things on the way. Then he left, closing the gate behind him.

  Kaiku’s heart was pounding. What did this mean? In the days since she had left the cave in the mountains, she had never once considered that the death of the man whose robes she wore might have repercussions. Now she knew it had been a foolish oversight. What if they recognised each other by their robes as much as their Masks? What if the Weaver who had worn this red and black Mask was known to them? Kaiku’s father might have killed him as Kaiku had killed the Weaver in the cave. If they found that the one wearing these blood-spotted robes, this leering Mask was not the man they knew . . .

  . . . the man . . .

  It hit her then, something so obvious that she had overlooked it in her delirium. The Weavers were exclusively male. No women were allowed in their order. It was only by grace of their heavy, disfiguring garments that her body shape was not recognisable; yet even then the slope of her breasts could be faintly determined, unless she hunched her shoulders forward. If she so much as spoke, she would be discovered.

  Feeling sudden panic welling within her, she grabbed her rifle and hurried to the door of the building. Opening the gate a little, she feared to see Moon-face running towards the monastery to raise the alarm; but instead she saw the shambling figure wandering about a little way down the path, idly poking and pushing things or picking up stones for closer scrutiny.

  She stepped out warily. It was morning, bitterly cold and damp. The snow-dusted flanks of the gorge were hidden by white mists, churning far below. The bridge hung in the air nearby, spanning the chasm. It seemed impossibly fragile, the worse because its lack of ornamentation made it feel temporary, incongruous with the carven façade on the other side. Kaiku looked at it, and at the mouth of the monastery beyond. She was suddenly afraid. What had she been hoping for when she climbed up here? Why had she not considered the danger? Why had she not held back and observed?

  A pang in her stomach reminded her. She could not afford the time to wait and spy out the land, for she was starving. To return to the wilderness far below meant certain death.

  There was no choice.

  A quick search of the outpost – carefully avoiding the attentions of Moon-face – revealed nothing but deserted buildings, and yielded no morsel to eat. So it was that Kaiku found herself crossing the narrow stone bridge to the monastery, leaning on her staff like an old man, and hoping only that whatever was within would not question her disguise.

  The monastery façade was stern and simple. Great pillars held up a roof that sloped back to merge with the rock of the mountainside, and beneath it there crouched four mighty statues, four creatures all haunch and scale and fang. As Kaiku approached, she saw that the pillars were decorated with thousands of tiny, intricate glyphs and pictograms, and that the statues were not weathered like their inferior counterparts on the stairway she had climbed yesterday. These were so carefully carven that it was almost possible to believe they breathed. The portal to the monastery had heavy stone gates, but they were open and inside it was dark.

  Kaiku hesitated. The statues made her skin crawl. She had a notion that their eyes were on her, a sensation too strong to be put down to nerves. She looked back across the bridge and saw Moon-face watching her from the other side of the gorge. The fear of discovery assailed her anew; but she could not turn back. Steeling herself, she walked onward and into the stone throat of the monastery.

  The corridor she came into bore torch brackets but no torches. By the morning light that shone in through the square portal, she could see hints of statues to either side, deformed beasts that pawed at her or gathered themselves to leap. Beyond that, all was black. She went forward, her shadow preceding her, gradually merging with the darkness until she was swallowed by it.

  Her eyes adjusted slowly as she went, tapping her staff before her. This place seemed as deserted as the outpost, and yet Moon-face had come from somewhere. Though she was weak and fragile, her hunger drove her onward, even after the light from the entrance had disappeared with the turn of a corner.

  And then she saw new light, and became aware of someone coming towards her from below. She stopped still at the top of a staircase she had been about to tumble down. The flickering torch came nearer, until she could see that it was held by another creature of motley and rags, this one with a face like a grinning skull, made of blackened bone. The newcomer came up the stairs and halted a few steps below Kaiku. She was stooped so that her robes buried her, the better to conceal her femininity; but she felt her heart beg
in to accelerate as the Weaver regarded her. Was he waiting for her to speak? She could not: to open her mouth would be to give herself away. After a short pause that seemed to stretch agonisingly, he grunted and handed Kaiku his torch, then walked past her, without fear of the darkness. Kaiku let out a pent-up breath.

  The steps took her down to a new corridor, and as she progressed along this one she found that the torch brackets were occupied more often than not, and smoky flames cast warm reddish light about the pathways of the monastery. The walls, ceiling and floor were built of massive bricks of a sandy-coloured stone, and decorations were strewn haphazardly about: here a little votive alcove, there a hanging, chiming talisman. Sometimes there were tiny carven idols standing on shelves, and sometimes Kaiku had to duck beneath hanging streamers. She could discern no pattern to the imagery; it was as if someone had hoarded the detritus of a dozen religions together. There were icons from far-off lands, heathen dolls from the jungle continent of Okhamba, ancient Ugati carvings, depictions of the Saramyr pantheon including some of those gods who had been all but forgotten. She even saw a graven fountain, now dry, that had the three aspects of Misamcha set into its pedestal in the classical Vinaxan style, from the very beginning of the Saramyr Empire.

  The corridor split off into two, and that into four, and soon Kaiku was hopelessly lost within the subterranean maze of the monastery. She wandered through chamber after chamber, finding them arranged utterly without order or direction, as if planned by some madman. She passed other masked Weavers several times, but all of them ignored her, and she began to relax a little, content that her disguise hid her gender well enough.

  Presently, after walking for some time down deserted ways, she came across an area which she took for some kind of prison. There was no light burning and nobody present, but the sound of shuffling and scraping from the dark recesses of the cells told her that at least some of them were occupied.