The Ascendancy Veil

ELEVEN

Kaiku spun and sewed, looped and knotted, moving on a thousand fronts at once as she darted through the labyrinth of the Weave. Her opponent was fast as she, faster, blocking her, confusing her, burrowing into her stitchwork defences; but Kaiku would not relent, would not allow even the most fractional lapse of concentration. For every gain her opponent made, they lost an equal amount. Tangles frayed, nets were strung, traps laid and avoided; a scurrying combat like an army of tiny spiders warring on a golden web so complex that it stunned the mind.

Kaiku used every trick she knew, and improvised some she didn't. Sinkholes that sucked threads into an insoluble muddle; scatter-stitch that created an endless and disorientating array of possible routes across the battlefield, ultimately heading nowhere. She plucked strings like a harp and meshed them with other resonances to set up interference patterns, disguising her movements. Sometimes her methods were effective, sometimes not; but then, the same applied to her opponent's attempts. This battle had raged for long minutes in the world of human senses. In the Weave, it seemed like it had been going for years, and still neither combatant flagged, neither wavered. They were evenly matched. Stalemate.

Then, finally, her adversary withdrew. Kaiku did the same. They hung there, disembodied, exhausted and wary, like bloodied tigers at bay. On the edge of her perception, she sensed the shift and glide of the leviathans that haunted this glittering world, ever elusive, unreachable. They were calling to each other in their fashion, concussive pops and creaks passing back and forth along the Weave. Kaiku knew that her senses were only interpreting the sounds to accommodate her human mindset, for there was no sound at all in this place; but even so, it was eerie and magical to hear. The leviathans spoke more and more often now.

At the signal, she drew her kana back, retreating into herself like the tentacles of an anemone, and opened her eyes. She was kneeling on a wicker mat in the centre of a wood-panelled room. A paper lantern hung overhead, casting shadows in the cool gloom, half-illuminating the charcoal etchings that hung on the wall, the tiny tables with their vases of dark blossoms. An incense burner filled the room with the scent of kama nuts, bitter and fruity and smoky all at once. Opposite Kaiku was Cailin, regarding her approvingly, her irises a rich red. Both were breathing hard, their skin glistening with sweat in the lantern-light. Both wore the attire of the Order.

Cailin smiled. 'Congratulations,' she said.

Kaiku could not suppress a short laugh of exultation. She had fought her tutor to a standstill for the first time ever. She had taken on the most powerful Sister alive, the Pre-Eminent of the Red Order, and not been beaten by her. It felt magnificent.

Cailin stood up, and Kaiku with her. 'Walk with me,' she said.

Kaiku was a little unsteady, but she obeyed, flushed with success. They walked through the building that housed those Sisters who lived in the village downslope of Araka Jo, and went out into the night.

The village was haphazard and a little ramshackle, as had been the town of the Fold where most of its inhabitants had come from. The Libera Dramach had taken Araka Jo as their own after being driven from the Xarana Fault, since nobody else appeared to want it. The nobles and high families, used to their luxury, had retreated to cities like Machita and Saraku; the latter had become the unofficial capital of the Empire's territories while the war raged.

They followed dirt paths between stilt-legged dwellings. Lights glowed on porches in the darkness; candles flickered in small shrines of stone and metal. Chikkikii popped and cracked in the bushes; mountain rodents sang to each other as they darted in quick bursts from shadow to shadow. Aurus hung high and full in the east, massive and looming.

They did not speak for a time, except to acknowledge the occasional hail from the villagers. The Sisters were well regarded here, and Kaiku enjoyed the attention. Eventually, the houses became sparser, the trees crowded close to the paths, and the gentle sound of the village faded behind them and left only the sounds of the night, riotous and yet strangely restful.

'You have been something of a trial, Kaiku,' Cailin said, then looked at her. 'I hope you see now why I persevered with you.'

'You were right,' she said. She had to admit that, at least. 'It took me a long time to understand, but you were right.'

The taller woman smiled indulgently. 'You have no idea how it felt to let you go, knowing what a talent you had. To watch you throwing yourself into anything and everything with scarce an inkling of your abilities. The gods forbid I ever have children, if they cause me such worry as you.'

Kaiku laughed softly. 'Muleheadedness is one of my less admirable traits.'

They walked on for a time.

'Would you?' Kaiku asked. 'Have children, I mean?'

'None of us should,' Cailin replied. 'Not yet.'

'None of us? You mean the Red Order?'

'We do not know what might happen if we did. We dare not think what might come of it.'

'But surely someone has tried? An accident, even?'

'Nobody has tried. Accidents have occurred, but they have been dealt with.' She saw the expression on Kaiku's face, and added: 'They chose to do it. They knew that now was not the time.'

Kaiku did not like what she was hearing. Children were something that had barely even occurred to her – she assumed herself lacking in the maternal instinct – but to have the choice taken away from her was not something she would condone. Cailin sensed that, and attempted to explain.

'We are long-lived in the Red Order, Kaiku. We are few, but we are tightly knit. More so, perhaps, than any other faction in Saramyr. The nobles continue their internecine squabbling even in the face of famine and destruction. Look at what has happened to Barak Zahn. But the Red Order remains united, and that is because our highest priority is ourselves.'

'Then perhaps we are the most selfish of all, then,' Kaiku murmured.

'That is your Tkiurathi friend talking,' Cailin snapped. The warmth had fled from her now. 'Need I remind you that not even ten years ago any of us would have been killed for manifesting the abilities we possess? That most of us died through burning ourselves alive or committing suicide for shame at what we had become? This is still happening in the Weaver territories, Kaiku. Children are still manifesting kana and dying for it, and we can only get to a small fraction of them. Were it not for our selfishness, you would not be here and nor would I, and the Weavers would have had this land long ago.'

Kaiku lapsed into angry silence. She could not argue with that, but Cailin's tone made her furious. The mention of Tsata only made things worse: it reminded her of the news they had received from Zila, which told only of the destruction of the town and the fact that the Tkiurathi were there, but not whether Tsata had survived it. Beneath her carefully suppressed exterior, she was frantic.

'We are a breed apart,' Cailin went on in a softer tone. She laid a hand on Kaiku's shoulder to stop her walking. 'The first of an upward step in humanity. It is our duty to preserve ourselves, our purpose to make a world in which we can live. That is why we fight the Weavers. When that threat is gone, when this land is stable and we have found our place in it, then perhaps children will come. But until then, Kaiku, they are too uncertain.' She sighed, bowing her head, and closed her painted eyes. 'Look how dangerous we are; it is only through the Red Order that we even know how to cope with the gift we have been given. What if our offspring possess power greater than ours? What if they begin to manifest that power from birth instead of adolescence? A child who could annihilate half a town in a fit of pique? What would we do with such a creature? Kill it? Could we? And what would the mother say to that?'

Kaiku would not meet her eyes. She would not concede, though she saw the sense in the argument. But nobody would choose for her on a matter such as this, not even Cailin.

'We have enough troubles to contend with for now,' Cailin said. 'We remain focused and united, and nothing must jeopardise that.'

'Enough!' Kaiku replied tersely. 'You have made your point. I do not wish to discuss it.'

The triumphant glow of their battle had faded now and left her feeling irritable. She began to walk again, not caring whether Cailin came with her or not; but the Pre-Eminent joined her after a few steps.

'I have something to show you,' she said.

'Indeed?'

'You have earned it, I think.'

This caught Kaiku's interest. She brushed her hair back from her face and gave Cailin an expectant look.

'Not here,' she said. 'Come with me.'

They walked on a little way. The path they were taking turned and sloped upward. Kaiku knew where they were heading: a small and remote building that had presumably been some kind of temple in past ages, hidden amid the trees in a tiny dirt clearing. There was a dry stone font at the entrance to the clearing, and beyond was a mound-shaped structure with sealed doors at each point of the compass, topped with a cone of concentrically tapering discs that ended in a small gold bobble at the tip. Around its base were fashioned symbols in a dialect of High Saramyrrhic too old for Kaiku to understand.

'This?' Kaiku asked. She had often wondered what was inside. It exuded a faintly watchful emanation.

'No,' Cailin replied. 'I only wanted to be sure we were alone. I would have it that we kept what I have to show you between ourselves. Only a select few know of it.'

'More secrets?' Kaiku asked wearily. Deception did not sit easily with her; it went against her character.

'It is better to always have something with which to surprise those who might turn on you,' Cailin said. 'Look at the Weavers. They must have spent centuries developing their crafts, and still we have not the barest idea of what may yet lie unrevealed.'

'We are not the Weavers,' Kaiku replied.

'Do not be obtuse, Kaiku.' Cailin's velvety voice was frosting over again. 'I ask that you keep this matter secret. Even from Phaeca. It is a small favour, but important to me. Do we understand each other?'

'I understand,' Kaiku said, but she fell diplomatically short of agreeing.

'Watch, then.' Cailin closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath.

Kaiku felt the Weave stirring, tiny currents across the unseen realm. Her sensory powers had increased dramatically since she had applied herself to her studies, and now she was always aware of the Weave even when she was not actively Weaving. Like her Sisters, she could tell an Aberrant just by looking at them, and she could perceive the trails left by spirits and the imprints of strange places that most people could only feel as a kind of sixth-sense unease, if at all. With a little more effort, she could sense bonds between family and friends and even enemies, charting the physical and emotional response between their bodies.

Cailin had once told her, Tane, Asara and Mishani that they walked a braided path, that they were fated to be drawn back together no matter how far they were apart. Kaiku had asked her then how she knew; now she had the answer. Cailin had seen the insoluble ties: Kaiku's friendship with Mishani; Tane's love for her; the link that existed between her and Asara through sharing breath. But Cailin did not know all, it seemed. Tane had died, and none of the Sisters' vaunted powers could do a thing to predict that.

Then, before her eyes, Cailin disappeared.

She blinked. It was if a shadow had passed before the moon across the tall, thin figure of the Pre-Eminent, and when it was gone, so was she.

And yet… and yet she was not gone. Kaiku could still feel her there, her imprint on the Weave. Her eyes were just not seeing her.

She slipped into the Weave herself, and there was Cailin, contoured in innumerable strings of light.

((How?)) She was aghast with wonder.

((There is more. Touch me with your hand))

Kaiku did so, reaching slowly towards the Pre-Eminent, using her Weave-imprint to see her. She rested her hand on Cailin's shoulder: but where she should have found flesh and bone, there was nothing. She inhaled a sharp breath in surprise. Again she tried, again she failed. She passed her arm through where Cailin's body should be, and apart from a faintly glutinous drag on her fingertips, she touched only air.

((Impossible…)) Kaiku felt foolish as soon as she had transmitted the thought, but she could find no other way to express it. Cailin was in the Weave, and only in the Weave; her physical body was… gone.

((We have arts of which you have only scratched the surface, Kaiku)) Cailin's communication came without words, phrased instead in a semantic blaze. ((New techniques of manipulation that we have laboured on in secret for decades. You are ready to begin learning the inner mysteries of the Red Order))

The Weave warped, flexing inward and knotting into a singularity that existed for the slenderest of instants before bursting back into shape; and there was a leviathan.

Its very presence was enough to stun them. Distance had no meaning in the Weave except in how human minds interpreted it, but until this moment the leviathans had been far, far away, unfathomably aloof. Now one of them appeared in such close proximity that the backwash almost scattered the Sisters' consciousnesses, shaking them out of coherence. They regrouped, overwhelmed; but the entity was still now, and calm descended.

Its size, its sheer impact on the Weave was colossal. The Sisters were motes in its presence: it dominated utterly the world of golden threads. It was a white void, an aching, blazing split that burned the eye with its brilliance. There was no shape to it, for it seemed to exist in many shapes all together; yet the human mind could not allow that, and so they put their own shape to the leviathan, fixed it in their perception. It was vast and smooth and streamlined, something like a whale in form but so alien to any creature they knew that analogy was impossible; and they were plankton against its flanks.

They regarded it in utter terror, not daring to do anything but hang there, motionless, while their Weave-senses fought to cope with what was happening.

It regarded them, too. They felt its attention brushing them as the hull of some dark, gargantuan ship sliding past, a crushing force missing them by inches. It could destroy them with the weight of that scrutiny. Kaiku had once faced the Children of the Moons, spirits so old that it was not within humanity's grasp to comprehend them; yet they were children indeed compared to this. This was a factor of magnitude so far beyond those spirits that sanity would not hold long enough to consider it.

A moment passed, and then, without warning, the Weave furled like a flower into a knot of infinite density, and then sprang back. The leviathan was gone, but the resonation of its passing rang like a bell.

Kaiku and Cailin left the Weave together. Cailin was visible again. For a long minute, they stood listening to the banal night, breathing, feeling the touch of the wind on their faces and in their hair.

Questions were lancing back and forth beneath the skin of reality. The other Sisters had sensed the leviathan. But neither Cailin nor Kaiku could respond. They stared at one another, and did not say anything. They did not have the words. A few days later, Mishani arrived at Araka Jo.

She found Kaiku by a small lake a little way east of the temple complex. She was standing at the edge of a wooden viewing-platform, looking out across the carpet of lily pads and floating blossoms of white and red. The lake was surrounded by kamaka trees, their leaves hanging over the water in long drowsy chains. Nuki's eye had that peculiarly sharp winter's quality; it was pleasantly warm in his gaze, but where the shade obscured it there was a faint chill.

Kaiku was not wearing the attire of the Order. She had dressed in a thick robe, purple and blue and lavender, belted with a green sash. To Mishani, who was used to her friend's tomboyish tendencies, it was an unexpectedly feminine choice of clothing. Mishani watched her for a time from the end of the viewing-platform, simply enjoying the sight of her in contemplation.

'I know you are there, Mishani,' she said, a smile in her voice. 'I am long past the stage where you could sneak up on me.'

Mishani laughed, and Kaiku turned around to embrace her.

'Gods, I am glad to see you safe,' she murmured.

They talked for a long while, for they had much to tell. It had been over a year since they had last met, just before Mishani departed for Tchom Rin. Kaiku's talk was mostly of her training, for she had not travelled so far as her friend had. Mishani carried the bulk of the conversation; Kaiku was eager to hear all about the desert cities.

'And look at you now!' Kaiku said, plucking at Mishani's sleeve. 'You look like a desert noble yourself!'

'I will confess a certain fondness for the fashion,' Mishani grinned. Then she sobered and said: 'I have to tell you this, Kaiku: Asara is here.'

Kaiku's mirth flickered like a guttering candle. 'Asara?' For an instant, she was reliving that moment in the Fold, when she had seduced a man named Saran Ycthys Marul, not knowing that it was Asara in another shape. The sheer betrayal still scorched her. Then her smile returned, a little forced now. 'She can wait. Come, let us walk.'

They followed a trail around the edge of the lake, a dirt path scattered with worn stones that had mostly sunk into the ground with the passing of centuries. Ravens and jays hopped about the undergrowth, or took off in a startled flap of wings, blasting leaves and twigs in their wake. Most of the foliage in Saramyr was evergreen, but the people held some residual genetic memory of the time when their ancestors dwelt in temperate Quraal, and even more than a thousand years after they had come to this land there was a faintly disjointed feel to the wintertime. A sensation that something should be, and was not. The majority of the trees here never bared themselves, and that jarred with old instincts.

Kaiku felt happy to be with her friend again. There was an ease between them that nobody else in her life shared. As always, she was surprised that she could forsake that feeling so easily, that she could forget how it was when they were together; and yet she knew that when they were next parted, she would forget anew.

As they walked, Mishani told Kaiku of her journey back across the mountains.

'My impression was that the peaks were swarming with Aberrants, but we saw scarcely any, and those at a distance,' she said. 'Even when we got to the plains, and we had to cross the South Tradeway and skirt north of the marshes, our journey was unhindered. I had thought I was fortunate not to have encountered any trouble when I first crossed into the desert, but I am beginning to think that fortune had nothing to do with it.'

'Our scouts report the same,' Kaiku agreed. 'The Weavers are concentrating their forces in the cities, and fewer of them are roaming the countryside. There is speculation that even they do not have the numbers to stretch adequately across all that territory. They lost hundreds of thousands in the early months of the war, before they learned to fight tactically. Maybe they cannot breed enough, or capture enough – or however they are replenishing their armies – to cover the shortfall.'

'In that, at least, we can take heart.'

There was a pause, filled with the soft tread of their shoes and the rustling of the leaves, long enough to elicit a new subject.

'I read your mother's new book,' Kaiku said.

'So did I. Several times.'

'There is something odd about it. About those last lines, especially.'

Mishani nodded sadly. 'The words Nida-jan says to the dying man? They are the first stanza of a lullaby she used to sing to me, one that she wrote herself. We were the only ones that knew it in its entirety.'

'I know it,' Kaiku said. 'You sang it to me once, when you were telling me how you discovered Chien was working for your mother.'

'You remember that?' Mishani asked in surprise. She had not thought of the unfortunate merchant for a long time now. He had been poisoned by her father's assassins during the siege at Zila; but not before Mishani had found out that he had been charged by her mother in secret to protect her from those same assassins.

Kaiku's lip twitched at the edge. 'She does have a gift for words. It sticks in the mind.' She kicked at a branch that lay across their path. 'After I read those lines, I could not shake the sensation that she meant something by them.'

'That is plain enough,' said Mishani.

'So I began to read her earlier books. The ones since her style changed, since your father became Lord Protector. Trying to divine what her intention might be, what she was trying to express.'

'And did you come to any conclusion?' Mishani was fascinated by this, that her friend should have been thinking along exactly the same lines as her.

Kaiku tilted her shoulders in a shrug. 'Nothing, beyond a certainty that there is something there. The answers remain impenetrable.'

Mishani felt a twinge of disappointment. She had hoped her friend might have some kind of resolution for her.

'Tsata is back,' Kaiku said, apropos of nothing.

'Here?'

'In Saramyr. He is coming to Araka Jo with the Tkiurathi.' Kaiku had charged the Sister present at the attack to find out whether Tsata had survived. It had taken several days, for the Tkiurathi had departed from the main army some time before, and the Sister had other things to do; finding someone who remembered one man amid an army of people who looked identical to her eyes was not an easy task. But the answer had come that morning.

Kaiku had been almost giddy with relief: she had not realised how tautly she was wound until the tension inside her slackened.

'Strange days indeed,' Mishani said wryly, looking up at Kaiku, who was several inches the taller.

'Do not use that tone!' Kaiku laughed. 'I know what you insinuate.'

'He has crossed an ocean to come back to you, Kaiku,' Mishani pointed out.

'He has crossed an ocean to fight the Weavers,' she replied. 'You know his kind; it was the only logical course of action to him.'

'I do not know his kind,' said Mishani. 'Their ways are hard for me to understand. Not for you, though, it seems.'

Kaiku made a prissy little moue at her friend. 'Perhaps I should be the ambassador, then, instead of you.'

'Ha! You? We would be at open war within the day!'

And so it went. They meandered along the lakeside in the bright light of the winter's day, and for a time they forgot their cares in the simplicity of companionship. Such moments were all too brief, for both of them. In the Imperial Keep at Axekami, the evening meal was served.

The Lord Protector Avun tu Koli knelt opposite his wife at the small, square table of black and red lacquer. Between them were woven baskets which steamed gently, separate ones for shellfish, saltrice, dumplings and vegetables. Little bowls of soup and sauces, tall glasses of amber wine. The servants ensured everything was satisfactory and then retreated through the curtained archway, leaving their master and mistress alone.

They sat in silence for a time. The room, though not so large, seemed cavernous and hollow; the sound of their breathing and their tiny movements were amplified by the empty space. It was not yet late enough to merit lanterns, but the murk over the city choked the sunlight that came in through the trio of floor-to-ceiling window-arches in the western wall and left only a drab gloom. Vases and sculptures were positioned in alcoves, but the central space was open, and only they were there, kneeling on their mats with the table and the food between them.

'Will you eat?' Avun said eventually.

Muraki did not respond for a few seconds. Then she began to slip on the finger-cutlery. Avun did the same, and they took food from the baskets and put it onto their plates.

'Did your writing go well today?' he asked.

'Well enough,' she replied quietly, an unspoken accusation in her voice.

'I thought you should get away from that room,' Avun said. 'It is not good for your health, to shut yourself away like that.'

Muraki glanced up at him through the curtains of her hair, then looked meaningfully out of the window and back to him. Healthier than breathing this air, her gaze said.

'I am sorry for having interrupted you, then,' he said, pouring a dark sauce over the shellfish, holding the bowl with his unencumbered thumb and forefinger. 'I wanted to have a meal with my wife.'

She did not reply to that. Instead, she began to eat, cutting portions with the tiny blades and forks set on silver thimbles that she wore on the middle and ring fingers of her right and left hand, taking small and delicate bites.

'The feya-kori are on their way back from Zila,' Avun said. He needed to say something to breach his wife's wall of silence. When she did not respond, he persevered: 'The troops of the Empire were driven out with barely any resistance at all. The Weavers are pleased with their new creations; more will join them soon, I think.'

The quiet became excruciating once again, but Avun had given enough to expect something in return. Eventually, Muraki asked: 'How soon?'

'A matter of weeks. It is uncertain.'

'And then?'

'We will overrun the Southern Prefectures, and after that we will turn to Tchom Rin.'

'And will you turn their cities into places like this?'

'I cannot see why the Weavers would do so,' he replied. 'There will be no need for feya-kori once they have control of the continent. And so, there will be no need for this miasma.'

'Will there be a need for us, do you think?' she asked softly. 'When they have control of the continent?'

Avun smiled gently. 'I am no fool, Muraki. I do not think they would keep me as Lord Protector out of gratitude. I will be invaluable to them still. The people need a human face upon their leader. They will never trust a Mask.'

'But they will trust you?'

'They will trust me because I will give them their skies back,' Avun said. He took a sip of wine. 'I do not want to live under this murk any more than you do; it is unnatural. But the sooner we are rid of the opposition, the sooner we can dispense with the feya-kori and dissemble the pall-pits.'

'And the temples?'

Avun was lost for an answer for a moment. His wife had a way of pricking his sorest spots in a tone so submissive that he could not take umbrage. 'The temples will not return. The Weavers do not like our gods.'

Muraki's silence was more eloquent than words. She knew he still prayed in the dead of night, in the empty interior of the temple to Ocha on the roof of the Keep. The dome still remained in all its finery, though the statues of the gods that had ringed it were gone, and the altars and icons stripped away. It had an appallingly wounded feel to it now, and Muraki would not go near it. But Avun did.

Muraki wondered how he reconciled his actions to himself: he was not the most pious of men, but he would not forsake his gods, even though he would tear down their temples. Did he expect forgiveness? She knew of no deity so divinely gracious as to provide him with that, after the crimes he had committed against the Golden Realm.

Avun dodged the subject in the end, returning to his previous point. 'In the end, the world will be as it was. The blight can be contained once the Red Order are overthrown, for the Weavers will not need so many witchstones. The miasma will be gone. And the land will be united once again.'

'That is what the Weavers say? I had not heard that before now.'

'I met with Kakre this morning. I persuaded him to divulge. It was not easy.' Avun seemed proud of himself; she had no trouble believing that it was a courageous thing to do. She knew what had happened to him in the past when Kakre was displeased.

'Why?' she asked, puzzled. 'Why did you do it? You have been content in ignorance until now.'

He gazed at her levelly. 'Because my wife does not like the air here,' he said. 'And I had to be able to tell her it would be pure again one day.'

Muraki's eyes flickered to his, and then back to her plate. It was the only outward sign of the flutter she felt in her breast. For a long while, she said nothing.

'Do you believe them?'

'It is the only way I can make sense of it. The alternative is to continue to poison the land. To do that would kill their own people, their own army. There is not enough food, and the famine will get worse.'

'Or perhaps we do not see the Weavers' greater plan,' she whispered, her voice softening with the terror of contradicting him. 'Perhaps Kakre is merely mad.'

Avun nodded. 'He is mad.'

Muraki looked at him in surprise.

'I have been watching his decline most carefully,' Avun said. 'It has steepened since he awakened the feya-kori. I think the effort of controlling them has hit him the hardest. His sanity is eroding fast.' He took a bite of a dumpling, chewed for a moment and swallowed, as if what he was saying was just idle conversation and not something he might be executed for. 'I suspect he would not have told me the Weavers' long-term plans if he had not been quite so addled.'

'But if the Weave-lord is mad,' Muraki breathed, 'who will direct the Weavers?'

'That,' he said, raising his glass, 'is the question.'