Action, any action, was better than cowering in the rain. Even crossing the small distance that would bring her close enough to that half-obscured blot to see what it was. With one last look around, she began to tread warily up the incline, her boots sinking into the mud as she went, rivulets of water diverting to fill up the holes that she left.
The leather wrapped around the powder chamber of her rifle was sodden on the outside. She hoped that none of it had got in to wet the powder, or her rifle would be merely an expensive club. She wiped her hair away with her palm and cursed as it flopped back into her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard that she felt her breastbone twitch with each pulse.
The grey shadow resolved all of a sudden, a gust of wind blowing the rain aside like a curtain parting with theatrical flair. It was revealed for only an instant, but that instant was enough for the image to burn itself into Kaiku’s mind. Now she understood.
Who is that?
It was the guide, lashed by vines in a bundle as if she had been cocooned by a spider. She hung from the stout lower boughs of an enormous chapapa tree. Her head lolled forward, eyes staring sightlessly down, the arrow still buried in her throat. Her arms and legs were wrapped tight together, and she swayed with the sporadic assault of the rain.
Kaiku felt new panic clutch at her. The maghkriin had left it as a message. Not only that, it had predicted exactly the route its prey would take and got ahead of them. She stumbled back from the horror, slid a few inches in the dirt. Intuition screamed at her.
A maghkriin was here. Now.
It came at her from the left, covering the ground between them in the time it took her to turn her head. The world seemed to slow around her, the raindrops decelerating, her heartbeat deepening to a bass explosion. She was wrenching her rifle up, but she knew even before she began that there was no way she would get the muzzle in between her and the creature. She caught only a sharp impression of red and blackened skin, one blind eye and flailing ropes of hair; then she saw a hooked blade sweeping in to take out her throat, and there was nothing in the world she could do about it in time.
Blood hammered her face as she felt the impact, the maghkriin smashing into her and bearing her to the ground in a blaze of pain and white shock. She could not breathe, could not breathe
– drowning, like before, like in the sewers and a filthy, rotted hand holding her under –
because the air would not get to her lungs, and there was the taste of her own blood in her mouth, blood in her eyes blinding her, blood everywhere
– spirits, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe because her throat had been opened, hacked like a fish, her throat! –
Then movement, all around her. Saran, Tsata, pulling the weight off her chest, wrenching away the limp corpse of her attacker. She gasped in a breath, sweet, miraculous air pouring into her lungs in great whoops. Her hand went to her neck, and found it blood-slick but whole. She was being pulled roughly up out of the mud, the rain already washing the gore from her skin and into her clothes.
‘Are you hurt?’ Saran cried, agitated. ‘Are you hurt?’
Kaiku held up a hand shakily to indicate that he should wait a moment. She was badly winded. Her eyes strayed to the muscular monstrosity that lay face-down and half-sunk in the wet earth.
‘Look at me!’ Saran snapped, grabbing her jaw and pulling her face around roughly. ‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded again, frantic.
She slapped his arm away, suddenly angry at being manhandled. She still did not have enough breath in her to form words. Palm to her chest, she bent over and allowed the normal airflow to return to her lungs.
‘She is not hurt,’ Tsata said, but whether it came out accusatory, relieved or matter-of-fact was lost amid his inexperience at the language.
‘I am . . . not hurt,’ Kaiku gasped, glaring at Saran. He hesitated for a moment, then retreated from her, seemingly perturbed at himself.
Tsata reached down into the mud and hauled the maghkriin over onto its back. This one was more humanoid than the last, its clothing burned away in rags to reveal a lithe body slabbed with lean muscle beneath ruddy, tough skin. Only its face was bestial: what of it there was left, anyway. One side was charred and blistered by fire; the other had splintered into bloody pulp by a rifle ball. In between the damage were crooked yellow teeth and a flat nose, and its hair was not hair at all but thin, fleshy tentacles that hung flaccid from its scalp.
Kaiku looked away.
‘It was the one that you burned,’ said Tsata. ‘No wonder it was slow.’
‘You shot it?’ Kaiku asked numbly, trying to make sense of the confusion. Had he said it was slow? The pounding rain had cleansed the blood from her face now, but pink rivulets still raced from her sodden hair. Mud clung to her back and arms and legs. She didn’t notice.
Tsata tilted his chin up. It took a moment for Kaiku to remember that this was a nod.
‘You left me,’ she said suddenly, looking from one to the other. ‘You both left me, and you knew that thing was out there!’
‘I left you with Tsata!’ Saran protested, glaring at the Tkiurathi, who returned with a cool green stare, his tattooed features calm beneath his hood.
‘It made sense,’ Tsata said. ‘The maghkriin would have hunted for you, Saran, as you went away alone. But if we were all alone, it would choose the most dangerous or the most defenceless prey first. That was her, on both counts.’
‘You used me as bait?’ Kaiku cried.
‘I was hidden, watching you. The maghkriin did not suspect that we would willingly endanger one of our own.’
‘You could have missed!’ Kaiku shouted. ‘It could have killed me!’
‘But it did not,’ Tsata said, seemingly unable to comprehend why she was angry.
Kaiku glared in disbelief at Tsata, then at Saran, who merely held up his hands to disavow any knowledge or responsibility.
‘Is this some Okhamban kind of logic?’ she snapped, her face flushed. She could not believe anyone would casually gamble with her life that way. ‘Some spirit-cursed primitive matter of pash? To sacrifice the individual for the good of the group?’
Tsata looked surprised. ‘Exactly that,’ he said. ‘You are quick to learn our ways.’
‘The gods damn your ways,’ she spat, and pulled her hood up over her head. ‘It cannot be far now to Kisanth. We should go.’
The remainder of the journey was undertaken in silence. Though Saran’s and Tsata’s alertness had not diminished in the slightest, the danger seemed to have passed now, at least for Kaiku, who nursed her fury all the way to Kisanth. When they emerged again from the jungle it was in front of Zanya’s prayer gate. The sight of the pillars brought a flood of relief and weariness over Kaiku. She walked slowly over to it and gave her thanks for a safe return as ritual dictated. When she was done, she saw that Saran was doing so as well.
‘I thought you of Quraal did not give credit to our heathen deities,’ she said.
‘We need all the deities we can get now,’ he replied darkly, and Kaiku wondered if he was serious or making fun of her. She stepped through the gate and stalked onward toward the stockade wall of Kisanth, and he followed.
FIVE
Axekami, heart of the empire, basked in the heat of late summer.
The great city sat astride the confluence of two rivers as they merged into a third, a junction through which most of the trade in north-western Saramyr passed. The Jabaza and the Kerryn came winding their ways across the vast yellow-green plains from the north and east to enter the sprawling, walled capital, carving it up into neat and distinct districts. They met in the centre of Axekami, in the Rush, swirling around a hexagonal platform of stone that was linked across the churning water by three elegant, curving and equidistant bridges. In the middle stood a colossal statue of Isisya, Empress of the gods and goddess of peace, beauty and wisdom. Saramyr tradition tended to depict their deities obliquely rather than directly – as votive objects, or as animal aspects –
believing it somewhat arrogant to try to capture the form of divine beings. But here tradition had been ignored, and Isisya had been rendered in dark blue stone as a woman, fifty feet high, robed in finery and wearing an elaborate sequence of ornaments in her tortuously complicated hair. She was gazing to the north-east, towards the Imperial Keep, her expression serene, her hands held together and buried in her voluminous sleeves. Beneath her feet, in the Rush, the Jabaza and the Kerryn mixed and mingled and became the Zan, an immense flow that pushed its way out of the city and headed away in a great sparkling ribbon to the south-west.
As the political and economical centre of Saramyr, Axekami was an unceasing hive of activity. The waterside was lined with docks and warehouses, and swarmed with nomads, merchants, sailors and labourers. On the south bank of the Kerryn, the colourful chaos of smoke-dens, cathouses, shops and bars that crowded the archipelago of the River District were trafficked by outrageously-dressed revellers. To the north, where the land sloped upward towards the Imperial Keep, gaudy temples crowded against serene library domes. Public squares thronged with people while orators and demagogues expounded their beliefs to passers-by, horses crabstepped between creaking carts and lumbering manxthwa in the choked thoroughfares of the Market District, while beneath their bright awnings traders hawked all the goods of the Near World. From the sweat and dust of the roads it was possible to escape to one of the many public parks, to enjoy a luxurious steam bath or visit one of a dozen sculpture gardens, some of them dating from the time of Torus tu Vinaxis, the second Blood Emperor of Saramyr.
North of the Market District, the Imperial Quarter lay around the base of the bluff which topped the hill, surmounted by the Imperial Keep itself. The Quarter was a small town in itself, inhabited by the high families, the independently wealthy and patrons of the arts, kept free from the crush and press of the rest of the city. There, the wide streets were lined with exotic trees and kept scrupulously clean, and spacious townhouses sat within walled compounds amid mosaic-strewn plazas and shady cloisters. Ruthlessly tended water gardens and leafy arbours provided endless secret places for the machinations of court to be played out in.
Then there was the Keep itself. Sitting atop the bluff, its gold and bronze exterior sent blades of reflected sunlight out across the city. It was shaped like a truncated pyramid, its top flattened, with the grand dome of the Imperial family’s temple to Ocha rising in the centre to symbolise that no human, even an Emperor, was higher than the gods. The four sloping walls of the Keep were an eye-straining complexity of window-arches, balconies and sculptures, a masterwork of intertwined statues and architecture unequalled anywhere in Axekami. Spirits and demons chased their way around pillars and threaded into and out of scenes of legend inhabited by deities from the Saramyr pantheon. At each of the vertices of the Keep stood a tall, narrow tower. The whole magnificent edifice was surrounded by a massive wall, no less fine in appearance but bristling with fortifications, broken only by an enormous gate set beneath a soaring arch of gold inscribed with ancient blessings.
Inside the Keep, the Blood Emperor of Saramyr, Mos tu Batik, glowered at his reflection in a freestanding wrought-silver mirror. He was a stocky man, a few inches shorter than his width would suggest, which made him barrel-chested and solid in appearance. His jaw was clenched in barely suppressed frustration beneath a bristly beard that was shot through with grey. With terse, angry movements, he arranged his ceremonial finery, tugging his cuffs and adjusting his belt. The afternoon sun angled through a pair of window-arches into the chamber behind him, two tight beams illuminating bright dancing motes. Usually the effect was pleasing, but today the contrast just made the rest of the room seem dim and full of hot shadows.
‘You should compose yourself,’ creaked a voice from the back of the room. ‘Your agitation is obvious.’
‘Spirits, Kakre, of course I’m agitated!’ Mos snapped, shifting his gaze in the mirror to where a hunched figure was moving slowly into the light from the darkness in the corner of the room. He wore a patchwork robe of rags, leather and other less easily identifiable materials, sewn together in a haphazard mockery of pattern and logic, with stitchwork like scarring tracking randomly across the folds. Buried beneath a frayed hood, the sun cut sharply across the lower half of an emaciated jaw that did not move when he spoke. The Emperor’s own Weaver, the Weave-lord.
‘It would not do to meet your brother-by-marriage in this condition,’ Kakre continued. ‘You would cause him offence.’
Mos barked a bitter laugh. ‘Reki? I don’t care what that bookish little whelp thinks.’ He spun away from the mirror and faced the Weave-lord. ‘You know of the reports I received, I assume?’
Kakre raised his head, and the radiance of Nuki’s eye fell across the face beneath the hood. The True Mask of Weave-lord Kakre was that of a gaping, mummified corpse, a hollow-cheeked visage of cured skin that stretched dry and pallid over his features. Mos had found his predecessor unpleasant enough, but Kakre was worse. He would never be able to look at the Weave-lord without a flinch of distaste.
‘I know of the reports,’ Kakre said, his voice a dry rasp.
‘Yes, I thought you would,’ Mos said poisonously. ‘Very little goes on in this Keep without you finding out about it, Kakre; even when it’s not your concern.’
‘Everything is my concern,’ Kakre returned.
‘Really? Then why don’t you concern yourself with finding out why my crops fail year after year? Why don’t you do something to stop the blight that creeps through the soil of my empire, that causes babies to be born Aberrant, that twists the trees and makes it dangerous for my men to travel near the mountains because the gods know what kind of monstrosities lurk there now?’ Mos stamped across to where a table held a carafe of wine and poured himself a generous glassful. ‘It’s almost Aestival Week! Unless the goddess Enyu herself steps in and lends us a hand, this year is going to be worse than the last one. We’re on the edge of famine, Kakre! Some of the more distant provinces have been rationing the peasants for too long already! I needed this crop to hold out against the damned merchant consortium in Okhamba!’
‘Your people starve because of you, Mos,’ Kakre replied venomously. ‘Do not apportion blame to the Weavers for your own mistakes. You started the trade war when you raised export taxes.’
‘What would you have preferred?’ he cried. ‘That I allowed our economy to collapse?’
‘I care little for your justifications,’ Kakre said. ‘The fact remains that it was your fault.’
He drained the glass and glared balefully at the Weave-lord. ‘We took this throne together,’ he snarled. ‘It cost me my only son, but we took it. I fulfilled my part of the deal. I’ve made you part of the empire. I gave you land, I gave you rights. That was my half of our agreement. Where is yours?’
‘We have kept you on your throne!’ Kakre replied, his voice rising in fury. ‘Without us, your ineptitude would have seen you deposed by now. Do you remember how many insurrections I have warned you of, how many plots and assassination attempts I have unearthed for you? Five years of failing harvests, crumbling markets, political disarray; the high families will not suffer it.’ Kakre’s voice fell to a quiet mutter. ‘They want you gone, Mos. You and me.’
‘It’s because of the failed harvests that this whole damned mess has come about!’ Mos cried, choking on his frustration. ‘It’s this spirit-cursed blight! Where is the source? What is the cause? Why don’t you know?’
‘The Weavers are not all-powerful, my Emperor,’ croaked Kakre softly, turning away. ‘If we were, we should not need you.’
‘There he is!’ grinned the Empress Laranya, slipping away from her fussing handmaidens and hurrying across the small chamber to where Mos had just entered. She swept into the Emperor’s arms and kissed him playfully, then withdrew and smoothed his hair back from his face, her eyes roaming his.
‘You look angry,’ she said. ‘Is anything wrong?’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Anything that I could not fix, an
yway?’
Mos felt his bad mood evaporate in the arms of his lover, and he bent to kiss her again, with feeling this time. ‘There’s nothing that you couldn’t fix with that smile,’ he murmured.
‘Flatterer!’ she accused, darting out of his grasp with a flirtatious twist. ‘You’re late. And your clumsy paws have ruffled my dress. Now my handmaidens will have to put it right. Everything must be in order in time to receive my brother.’
‘My apologies, Empress,’ he said, bowing low with mock sincerity. ‘I had no idea that today was such an important day for you.’
She gasped in feigned disbelief. ‘Men are so ignorant.’
‘Well, if I’m going to be insulted so, I may go back to my chambers and get out of your way,’ Mos teased.
‘You will stay here and make ready with me!’ she told him. ‘That is, if you still want to have an Empress by tomorrow.’
Mos acceded graciously, taking his place by his wife and allowing his own handmaidens to see to his appearance. They began spraying him with perfumed oils and affixing the paraphernalia that tradition demanded of his station. He endured it all with a lighter heart than before.
The pomp and ceremony involved in being Blood Emperor taxed his patience at the best of times; he was a blunt man, not given to subtlety and with little time for ritual and age-old tradition. The process of welcoming an important guest for an extended stay was complex and layered in many levels of politeness and formality, depending on the status of the guest in relation to the Imperial family. Too little preparation, and the guest might be offended; too overblown, and they would be embarrassed. Mos wisely left all such matters to his advisers and latterly to his new wife.
The chamber around him was aswarm with retainers clad in their finest robes, Imperial Guards in white and blue armour, servants carrying pennants and elegant courtesans tuning their instruments. Handmaidens ran to and fro, and Mos’s Cultural Adviser sent runners here and there to fetch forgotten necessities and make last-minute adjustments. The entrance hall was only the surface gloss to the entire operation. Later, there would be theatre, poetry, music and a myriad other entertainments that were all but interminable to a man of Mos’s earthy tastes. Only the feast that would signal the end of the ceremony held any interest for him at all. But despite his own feelings about their visitor, this was Laranya’s brother, to whom she was very close, and what made her happy made him happy. He steeled himself and resolved to make an effort.
The Braided Path: The Weavers of Saramyr / the Skein of Lament / the Ascendancy Veil Page 49
