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

by Chris Wooding

  Zaelis led them to a small, dark room that had once been a washroom for guards and prisoners alike. A pair of rudimentary showers belched and splattered water on to the black, slick stone tiles. Clothes were heaped on a low stand in one corner.

  ‘The water still runs, as you see. I managed to make it work; unfortunately I cannot turn it off again. Be quick,’ Zaelis instructed.

  They showered in pairs, the women first. The water was lukewarm and clean, heated by the sun through pipes high above. Once she had sluiced off as much of the foulness as she could, Kaiku dressed in the clothes of a male servant while Cailin attired herself more appropriately. Kaiku cared little. She fit men’s clothes as well as women’s, and she doubted it would raise a comment. Attired in simple grey trousers and loose shirt – folded right over left in the female fashion – she emerged from the washroom looking reasonably clean.

  The others showered and dressed, and Zaelis instructed them to leave those weapons that could not be concealed behind. There was consternation at this, but Zaelis silenced them with a glare.

  ‘Servants do not carry swords and rifles!’ he snapped. ‘Our objective is stealth. If it came to a fight in the heart of the Empress’s Keep, I very much doubt any of us would survive it, weapons or not. Purloch will look after them.’

  Kaiku glanced at the cat-burglar, who seemed almost shamefaced about staying. But he had done his part; he had got them into the Keep, and he would not risk himself further. Zaelis could get into the roof gardens far more easily than he could. Besides, he was their guide out of the Keep, and too valuable to lose. He would wait here, and lead them when the time came, back through the sewers to freedom.

  The six who were left made their way out of the disused prison section, finally clambering through a large grille that led into a stockroom full of jars of dried food. The grille was set at ground level, hidden behind a pile of sacks in a corner. Kaiku suspected the entrance to the old prison had been built over long ago, but this sly back way had survived.

  ‘Beyond this point, you are servants,’ Zaelis instructed. ‘Behave as such. My presence will be enough to deter questions.’

  With that, he took them out of the stockroom and into the Keep.

  Behind his bronze Mask, the Weave-lord Vyrrch’s myopic eyes flickered open.

  He was in his chambers. A scrawny jackal roamed about nearby, chewing on what morsels it could find. Vyrrch had demanded he be brought a jackal two days ago now; for what reason he could not remember. The canny creature had managed to stay alive while trapped in here, evading his clutches. He suspected he had brought it in to track down that girl who was still hiding somewhere hereabouts, but it had evidently not been one of his more sensible ploys.

  He had not seen the girl for weeks now, and he was reasonably sure he hadn’t killed her. He still came across signs of her from time to time, objects moved from their rightful place, food gone missing. She was somewhere in the many rooms of Vyrrch’s domain, seeking a way out, finding none. Yet how crafty she was, to have stayed out of sight for this long. He almost respected her.

  Another strange shiver in the Weave, and Vyrrch was reminded what had jarred him. Concern flickered across his malformed face, though the expression was unrecognisable on features warped by long exposure to the witchstone dust in his Mask. Since dawn, he had been preoccupied, spreading his consciousness thinly over the Keep. There were many elements to bring into play here, and he was the overseer of all of them. It was vital that he be ready to correct the slightest slip in this day’s events, for the future of the Weavers rested upon them. By nightfall, the Weavers’ position would be secured.

  And yet there had been stirrings. Last night he had sensed a tugging in the Weave, a foreign thing, like the footstep of another spider on the edge of his web. It was slight, this disturbance; too faint to be a fellow Weaver. He had been asleep at the time, and slow to wake, for he was heavy with the amaxa root he had smoked the night before in a post-Weave craving. By the time he was ready to seek it, it had diminished and disappeared.

  He could not imagine what it could be, but it had been close. It gave him cause to worry.

  Now he felt something again. Much fainter this time, but because he was actively looking out for it, there was a thrill of recognition; and with it, sudden dread.

  Whatever had disturbed the Weave last night was inside the Keep. And it was not the Heir-Empress.

  He closed his eyes again, sinking back into the Weave. He searched down the tendrils of the threads, sending his consciousness out, searching, probing; then, like an anemone at the touch of a hand, the presence closed up and was gone.

  It had sensed him, and concealed itself.

  Vyrrch felt his skin grow clammy. Something that was not a Weaver, manipulating the Weave? Impossible! Not even Lucia could manipulate the Weave like a Weaver could; her powers were more subtle, less direct.

  But he had felt it. And it knew he was looking for it.

  Sudden alarm seized him. There could be only one explanation. Whatever it was, it was sent to thwart him, to meddle with his plans! If it was no artifice of the Weavers, then it must be an enemy. He searched for it frantically, but it had disappeared like a ghost.

  His decision was immediate. All around the Keep the last of his bombers waited by the bombs they had constructed. Servants and handymen, their minds skewed gradually in the manner of the army Unger tu Torrhyc had supposedly led, their bombs concealed in baskets, in cupboards, in vents or strapped to their bodies.

  He could wait no longer, not with that thing inside the Keep. It must be now.

  Down the Weave, he sent the command to begin.

  Zaelis led the intruders through the corridors of the servants’ quarters, in the lowest levels of the Keep. In contrast to the elegance above, the servants’ quarters were of bare stone and devoid of ostentation. It was unbearably hot and stuffy down here, for there were no arched windows or screens to catch the day’s breeze, no bright, open state rooms or lach floors. The muggy air from outside found its way in to mingle with the steam from clothes presses and kitchens and the exhalation of a thousand people working. The light came from lanterns that sat in alcoves in the walls, and while they provided enough illumination, they reinforced the closeness of the cramped rooms. This was a part of the Keep that was still underground, buried inside the foundations of the hill; and here was where all the unpleasant and unseemly tasks of running such a vast building were carried out.

  They walked with purpose but without hurry, following Zaelis’s lead. The servants who squeezed by on errands of their own paid them no mind, beyond a swift bow at Zaelis. The heat and sweat had dishevelled them all enough to make them look like servants – and conveniently disguised Tane’s illness – but Zaelis’s finery marked him out as a man of importance. Kaiku began to relax a little, content that they would not be instantly decried as intruders. She kept her eyes low as a servant should, and walked on.

  She felt the twitching of the Weave at the same time Cailin did, but her perception of it was far more vague. It could only be the Weave-lord Vyrrch. She saw Cailin stiffen slightly, and then felt the slip and sew of her response, hiding herself away within the Weave. Cailin glanced back at Kaiku automatically. The muzzling of her kana would have rendered her invisible to the one who was probing them; but it was loose again, and wild, and so Cailin extended her protection to include Kaiku. Kaiku met her gaze, and a flicker of surprise crossed her face. Cailin’s eyes had darkened from green to red-brown. If she used any more of her power, they would become the freakish Aberrant red, and the game would be up.

  ‘Zaelis,’ she hissed, in a rare moment when no servant was nearby. ‘Vyrrch is searching for us. Get me to a safe place. I cannot deal with him here.’

  Zaelis’s reply was the barest nod. He steered them off the main corridor, into a narrower thoroughfare along a row of rooms where tubs of clothes soaked in hot water, and women stirred them with great pestles. Kaiku felt the creeping sensation of being wa
tched. Did the Weavers somehow know of her? Could they sense the oath she had given to Ocha to avenge herself against them? The very air seemed pregnant with movement now, scurrilous fingers running just beneath the surface of sight, invisible manipulations that registered only to her Aberrant instincts. She could feel herself trying to slip into the Weave, her kana stirring in response, and she gritted her teeth and fought to hold it back.

  And then time seemed to slow suddenly, a premonition of disaster settling on her shoulders like a leaden shroud. She stumbled, not sure where it was coming from, only that something was about to happen, something inevitable. Her senses had warned her too late, and all she could do was wait with sickening dread for that something to arrive. She saw Cailin turn towards her, moving as if through treacle, and as their eyes met she knew the Sister had felt the same thing.

  A moment later, the bombs exploded.

  THIRTY-ONE

  For one dreadful second, Mishani thought that the Empress’s Imperial Guards were going to behead her where she knelt like some common servant, without any of the rituals of execution used to honour a noble adversary. Then she felt rough hands on her, pulling her upright. Asara was being treated similarly. Anais and Durun were sitting on their thrones, looking down. Anais’s face was dispassionate, Durun’s a smirk. She would be led to the proper place, and there her head separated from her shoulders. She was noble, even if an enemy. She would be allowed to die in a dignified fashion with her handmaiden alongside, and not on the floor of the Empress’s throne room.

  The Barak Mos stood to one side of the dias, watching her blandly. She met his eyes, and saw nothing there. There would be no help for her, or Asara. Her time had truly come.

  Then, chaos.

  The sound was a deafening roar that shook the Keep from its foundations up. The Guards who held Mishani and Asara stumbled backward to regain their balance. A moment later, a second bomb exploded, nearer to hand. This one made the room buck, and a scatter of loose stones showered down from a ceiling that had suddenly become spidercracked. The Guard by Mishani went down, and pulled her over with him. Shouts of alarm cluttered the air, suddenly multiplying as a third, more distant explosion rumbled through the room. Durun tried to get to his feet and had to grab on to the arms of his throne for support. The Barak Mos was casting around wildly in confusion, with an expression of what looked like anger on his bearded face.

  ‘What is this?’ Anais cried, mingled fear and outrage in her voice. ‘What is this?’

  ‘The Keep is attacked!’ someone cried.

  The main door to the throne room burst open, and in ran several dozen Imperial Guards, their swords drawn. Mishani, who had squirmed out of the grip of the man who held her, thought for a moment they had come to join the Guards already inside; but it took only that moment to see she was wrong. They were not here to guard anything. They were here to kill.

  Swords swung high through the morning sun and smashed through armour, muscle and bone. Those Imperial Guards who had been unbalanced by the blasts did not react quickly enough; they were hacked down before they had even got to their weapons. The throne room erupted into turmoil, Guards running this way and that to take position in defence of the Blood Empress. The man who had held Mishani grabbed her ankle as she crawled away, unwilling to let her go; but in the scramble Mishani kicked him viciously in the face, feeling gristle crunch as his nose broke, and he slumped and went limp. Suddenly Asara was there, pulling her to her feet; her own Guard lay supine, having suffered a similar fate to Mishani’s.

  Blades were crashing together all around them and men were shouting. They were in the midst of a surging tide of white and blue armour, with no way to tell who were the Empress’s and who were the imposters who had stormed the throne room. Mishani shied in fright as someone backed into her and turned automatically, his sword raised to strike. Whether the Guard would have struck or not when he had recognised the noble lady cringing before him was a question never answered; Asara rammed her hand into his throat, fingers rigid, and crushed his oesophagus with a single blow. He collapsed trying to clutch at air that would not come.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Barak Mos cried to his son, standing on the steps of the dais with his great, curved sword held before him. His choice of weapon reflected his style of politics: force over finesse. Behind him Anais was calling useless orders, her voice unheard over the tumult. She seemed robbed of her imperial strength now, and all the uncertainty, fear and worry she had suffered since this ordeal began showed on her face. She was betrayed somehow. Someone had got into the Keep. And if they were in the Keep, they might get to—

  ‘Lucia!’ she cried, as her husband grabbed her arm.

  ‘Come on!’ he snapped, pulling her away from the throne. The imposters had broken through the main door, but there was another door at the back for the Emperor and Empress, beyond which were stately rooms where they could arrange themselves in their finery before emerging to give audience. The Imperial Guards who were loyal had formed a defensive barrier, clearing a way to that door for Durun and Anais to escape.

  They were hurrying down from the dais when a Guard suddenly broke through the struggling mass, an imposter masquerading as one of the loyal defenders, and ran for the Empress. He met the sword of Barak Mos instead, who leaped to interpose. The man hesitated, taken off-guard by this unexpected opponent, and Mos hewed him down. He fell with an expression of comical surprise on his face.

  ‘Rudrec!’ Durun shouted as he led his wife to safety. One of the Guards, wearing the colours of a commander, broke away from the defensive line and ran to him. ‘Go!’ he hissed, so that nobody but they three would overhear. ‘Find Lucia and bring her to the Sun Chamber.’

  Rudrec grunted and left without bothering to salute in his haste. He was a hoary old campaigner with little time for niceties, but he was also one of their most trusted men. Anais took some small comfort in that. She clung to her husband, suddenly glad of his strength. She had ever been a formidable woman, despite her pale, elfin looks and slight stature, but she had never been threatened with physical violence in her life beyond the bedroom games she played with Durun. Now he was the one with the power, brandishing his sword in one hand as he led her with the other.

  Six men joined them as they hustled out of the door and away, a retinue of bodyguards. Alarm bells were being rung in the high places of the Keep as they fled, and Anais felt a terrible sinking in her heart, a void of uncertainty that whispered her folly to her, ever to think that she could dare to put her daughter on the throne and live through it . . .

  Kaiku coughed and choked as she stumbled through the smoke, her boots sliding on loose rubble. Nearby she could hear the rumble and growl of fire, the heat scorching her through the dark pall that filled the corridor. Someone was wailing somewhere; other people shouted orders and instructions, rendered incoherent by the ringing in her ears. She shielded her face with her arm and narrowed her streaming eyes, clambering forward through the hot murk, seeking.

  She had lost sight of the others within seconds of the explosion. The bomb had been terrifyingly close, destroying a large portion of the nearby scullery and devastating the surrounding corridors. Kaiku had been knocked flat by the concussion and bruised by rubble that fell from above, and she had been rendered temporarily deaf by the noise. When she had regained her wits, she had found the already unfamiliar corridors in ruin, and disorientation had been immediate. Desperate servants hunted through the burning rooms for survivors; smoke made it impossible to see. Kaiku was picked up and then bustled out of the way when it was clear she was unhurt, pushed into a side corridor and told to make her way upstairs. By the time she knew where she was, she was lost.

  The most frightening thing about the explosion was the abject panic it had provoked in the servants. Those running past her were scared out of their minds, unable to understand why their previously stable world had suddenly turned to smoke and fire in an eyeblink. Several were blank-faced and staring, zombie-like with shock, as
if the explosion had wiped their brains from their heads. She had never seen people look so utterly void.

  The fires were becoming too much now; the flames had spread and become fiercer and she could barely approach them without her skin burning. She was beginning to doubt whether she would find any of the others in this madness, much less find her way out; but she kept looking. It seemed the only thing she could do.

  Over the squeal in her ears there came the sound of a man screaming. She considered for the briefest second that there was nothing she could do for him, that there was nothing she could do for anyone here and she should save her own skin, for her mission was more important than all of them. It did not matter. She could not ignore him.

  Doggedly, she forged on into a room with walls ablaze. She kicked away a smouldering chair and ducked low to snatch a breath of lung-scorching air, then headed through the small doorway at the other end.

  It had once been a kind of laundry room, she supposed; but the water in the washing troughs was boiling now, and the clothes and sheets heaped here had turned to ash. The far wall was almost totally demolished, and she could see through the smoke to what was left of the rooms beyond: a great disorder of rubble, for the roof had fallen in and the room above had tumbled down on top. She glanced up nervously at the ceiling beams, and saw they were bowing and splitting in the heat.

  The scream again, and her tearing eyes picked out a man laid in one of the washing troughs, his skin blackened and one leg a bloody stump. The burns on his body were horrible. He had been caught by the blast, and somehow crawled into the trough, seeking the protection of the water; but the water was boiling, cooking him like a lobster. He went under and surfaced again, shrieking. Kaiku could not help him, but she could not turn her back either. Her eyes welled with fresh tears of sympathy and sorrow.