The Ascendancy Veil

TWENTY-THREE

Word from Mishani reached Araka Jo a day later, via a Sister who operated secretly out of Maza. She was an important relay for the spies in Axekami, and Mishani went straight to her after leaving the capital. Her news caused great commotion. Nobody had known where Mishani had gone, only that she had departed Araka Jo some time before, saying that she was attending to business of her own. When the upper echelons of the Libera Dramach learned what she had done, she was denounced as being reprehensible for placing them all at such risk; but it was Cailin who defended her, who pointed out that great risk had brought great reward, and the information she had given them was priceless.

A meeting was called immediately, and plans were put forward, many of which had been fermenting over the previous weeks and had been discussed in other meetings beforehand. Finally consensus was reached. There was no more room for delays. The time for action had come.

It was the morning after that meeting when Kaiku made her way down the trail to the south of Araka Jo, and found the Tkiurathi village in a state of busy preparation. They had conducted their own meeting last night, in the wake of the one with the Libera Dramach. Each individual had been asked to make their own choice as to whether they would follow the course suggested by the council. Kaiku had come to find the results of that.

She wandered through the Tkiurathi village, exchanging gestured greetings with a few men and women that she recognised. It was not hard to guess how the decision had gone. Blades were being sharpened, rifles cleaned, supplies made ready. They were packing for a journey.

There was a simplicity to this place that Kaiku liked: the smell of the cookfires, the repka yurts which looked like huge three-armed starfish lying between the trees, the sense of ease in the interaction of the tattooed folk. They seemed so untroubled in their daily lives, even now, even knowing that they were heading into something that they might well not come back from. Laughter came easily to them when they were together. Some of them were breakfasting, taking from a communal pot, exchanging food from their plates. Even this small act of sharing made a difference, something so natural to them that they must have long ceased to think about it.

She remembered a conversation she had had with Tsata long ago, in which he said that the Saramyr way of life resulted directly from their development of cities and courts and all the things Kaiku associated with civilisation; Tkiurathi shunned all that. Now that she had seen them, the way they interacted as a group, she wondered whose philosophy was better in the end.

Kaiku asked after Tsata by making his name a question, and was directed towards a rough circle of Tkiurathi who sat talking and drinking from wooden cups shaped somewhat like pears or pinecones. There was a large bowl in the centre from which they took refills. Heth was there, too; he noticed her first, and hailed her by name. The circle broke to leave a space between Tsata and Heth, and she smiled her gratitude as she sat down and was immediately handed a cup by a woman she did not recognise. The woman took a new one and filled it for herself.

She managed a general greeting in Okhamban in response to the one she received, then took a sip of the liquid. It was warm, and spicy and fiery on her tongue.

'Daygreet. Have I interrupted?' she asked Tsata, but her presence had cause barely a lull in the conversation, and they were already back to their discussion.

'We are working out final details of our departure,' Tsata said. 'It is not anything of great importance.'

'They agreed, then?'

'Without exception,' Heth said on her other side.

'There was little doubt they would. It is a matter of pash,' Tsata explained.

'Gods, it seems such a short time since we came back,' Kaiku mused, then she glanced at Heth. 'How are you?'

'I grieve,' he said. 'But Peithre has been returned to her people. I am thankful for that.'

Kaiku nodded, closing her eyes. In the Forest of Xu, Heth had refused to relinquish Peithre's body until he had brought her back to the village. In the end, he and Tsata had gone separately from the others, for her corpse, even wrapped as it was, had begun to reek of decay. But still Heth would not bury her or burn her. Kaiku did not know what the rites of honouring the dead were in Tkiurathi culture, but she was sure that there had been something beyond mere companionship between Heth and Peithre.

'Our course is set, then,' she said. 'One way or another, I think we come to the last movement of our war.'

The meeting of the day before had been coordinated, via the Sisters, with Barak Reki tu Tanatsua and several other desert Baraks in Izanzai. Mishani's information had been shared among all, though its source had been kept carefully secret for fear of compromising Muraki. Its most pertinent and pressing aspect was this: that the Weavers planned a massive surprise assault upon Saraku in the near future. Saraku, the centre of debate and administration, formed the heart of the Empire's resistance as well as being where most of the nobles and high families resided. If Saraku were to fall then the Weavers would have an all but unassailable foothold deep behind the frontline. From there, they could strike at Machita or Araka Jo, or demolish the marshland cities to the east. Once the Prefectures were secured, they could overwhelm Tchom Rin at their leisure.

But there was hope as well. For if the Weavers could be kept out of the Prefectures until the harvest could be gathered, then the tide might turn.

'But we will not be able to keep them out,' Cailin had said. 'Not even with the information we have. We may be able to turn back the assault on Saraku, but they will strike at us again elsewhere before the summer. Unless they are forced to devote some of their forces to defending their territories. We must prove to them that nowhere is safe. We must attack Adderach.'

Cailin had been the loudest voice advocating an attack on Adderach since Kaiku's visit to Axekami, but now she found she had support at last. Lucia's return had given them hope, a belief that they could face down the previously invincible feya-kori. And with their morale so restored, they were a little more inclined to consider the prospect, however uncertain or unlikely, of ending the war in one strike. They knew now that the Weavers' forces did not number as many as they had believed, and that the Aberrants and Nexuses were disastrously overstretched: the Weavers were using them as an attacking force and relying primarily on the Blackguard to keep order in the cities. It was entirely possible that Adderach would only be lightly defended, for it sat deep in enemy territory and was undoubtedly protected by the Weavers' shields of misdirection. The Weavers had consistently shown themselves to be inept at tactical thinking, and Adderach was one place they would certainly not have let the Lord Protector look after. Cailin had cleverly slanted her pitch so that the chance to get at the Weavers' witchstones – which was her primary concern – was barely mentioned. Whether they were successful in that or not, the idea of destroying their enemy's most prized fortress was too tempting to pass up. And there was an even sweeter aspect to the plan for the high families of the western Empire. None of their troops would be going.

Thus the decision was made and agreed: a three-pointed attack upon the Weavers. The forces of the Libera Dramach and the western Empire would deal with the Saraku assault. Meanwhile, the warriors of Tchom Rin and the Tkiurathi, along with a number of Sisters, would make their way to Adderach. The desert folk would have the most arduous task: a trek along the mountains lengthwise to reach Adderach from the south. The Tkiurathi and Sisters would go by sea, passing through enemy-held waters to land north of Mount Aon. If all went well, the Weavers would be looking south, to the army of desert warriors; and they would not see the attack from the north until it was too late.

But first there was the problem of getting the ships. Lalyara, to the west, was the only feasible option if they wanted to get to Adderach at roughly the same time as the desert folk. There were ships there enough for the Tkiurathi. But a week ago, the port had been blockaded by Weaver vessels. They made no move to attack, only to prevent anything entering or leaving. The Libera Dramach had guessed what the Weavers were up to even before Mishani confirmed it.

The Weavers' next target was Lalyara. And if they got there before the Tkiurathi did, then half of the assault on Adderach had failed before it had begun. Later, Kaiku and Tsata walked together in the forest. Kaiku needed some activity to keep her mind off their imminent departure. She knew that time was short, and she was chafing to be away; but organising supplies and equipment to send nearly a thousand men and women to war was not an easy matter, and would take more than a few hours.

It was bright and still and cool, and their feet crunched on twigs as they wandered. They talked idly about things of little importance. Kaiku was trying not to think about the possible consequences of making Asara capable of breeding, and she had fretted about Lucia for so long that she was getting tired of her own voice. They did touch on her feelings about Mishani's disappearance and her subsequent revelations, but Kaiku was not overly concerned about her friend. Since she had not known Mishani was in danger until she was out of it, she experienced nothing more than a vague sense of relief. It certainly went against Mishani's character to do something like that, but the fact that Kaiku had not seen it coming only served to remind her how little contact she had had with her friend these past few years, and that saddened her.

Kaiku was acutely aware that this was the first time that she and Tsata had been together alone since their kiss in the Forest of Xu. After that, the death of Phaeca and Peithre and the terrible events surrounding them had made any amorous notions seem wan and forceless amid all the grief. But there was something in Tsata's manner today, some coiled tension, that expressed itself in quick glances and half-taken breaths to start sentences that never came. There was an urgency in the air, a sense that this might be the last few moments of peace before the storm broke and swallowed them all, and there were things that had to be said between them that would not wait.

Eventually they found a spot where the land humped up and met the lake shore, dropping a dozen rocky feet to the water, which glittered in the sharp winter light. Distant junks cut slowly towards the horizon, and hookbeaks hovered on the thermals, questing for fish. Kaiku and Tsata sat side by side on a fallen tree that had been partially claimed by moss, and beneath the gently waving leaves of the evergreens they came to the moment they had been putting off.

Tsata looked at his hands, caught in an agony of indecision that was so plain that Kaiku had to laugh a little. It broke the tension: he smiled in answer.

'Your kind are never good at hiding your feelings,' Kaiku said. 'Say it, then.'

'I am afraid to,' he replied, then looked up at her uncertainly as if to gauge her reaction to this. 'I fear I still do not know your ways, and you Saramyr place such store by etiquette.'

'Most of us do. I seem to find it less important than they. Mishani is always telling me how uncultured I am.' She looked at him with tenderness in her eyes, both wanting and not wanting to hear what he would say. 'Honesty is better.'

'But that is one of the things I cannot understand about your people. Though you say you want honesty, you seldom do. You are so in love with evasions that honesty makes you uncomfortable.'

'Stop hedging, Tsata,' she said, not unkindly. 'It does not suit you.'

Eventually he shook his head, as if ridding himself of some annoyance, and clasped his hands together. Kaiku noticed how the pale green tendrils of tattoo that ran along his fingers meshed beautifully when he did so.

'I cannot do this your way,' he said. 'If this were-'

Kaiku ran out of patience. 'Tsata, do you want me or not?'

The bluntness of this surprised even him. He turned towards her, and in the instant before he spoke she fixed the image of him there, preserving the final moments of flux before certainty solidified their relationship one way or another. This picture she would keep in her mind, as insurance against his reply.

But the reply, when it came, was: 'Yes.'

A breath passed.

'Yet it is not that simple for you,' he continued. 'Is it?'

Kaiku's head bowed a little, her hair hanging down across the left side of her face, screening her from him. 'Simplicity is something that my people do not do well,' she said.

She felt betrayed by herself, suddenly angry. Gods, had she not waited for this moment for long enough? She knew how she felt about him. She had known it, without admitting it to herself, since those weeks they had spent together in the Xarana Fault four years ago, hunting Aberrants and spying on the Weavers. It had not been a sudden thing, but something so gradual that she had trouble identifying it. In the time he had been away across the sea, she had almost managed to dismiss it as a fancy. Almost. Since he had come back, since that kiss in the forest, she knew it for what it was. Yet in some matters he was so hard to read, and she could never be certain if that feeling was reciprocated. Not until now.

But it was nothing like she had imagined. Instead of a flood of joy, relief, release, she felt only an awful weariness, a sour negation of possibilities. Now she knew beyond doubt that he wanted her, she came up against all the barriers that she had carefully constructed in her heart over the years, shoring them up each time she had been wounded. She found that she had built them so well that they would not come down easily.

'Tsata, I am sorry,' she said. 'You deserve a better response than this.'

He looked down at his hands again. She straightened, brushed her hair back behind her ear and turned to him, taking one hand and clasping it in both of hers. She tried to find words that would not be mawkish or hurtful, but she had never been good at expressing herself in this way.

'I want you also, Tsata,' she said. 'I do. That is small comfort to you now, I think, but I want you to know it. Do not doubt that, whatever else.' She was lost again for a moment, before beginning on a new tack. 'Since the beginning, everything I thought good and stable has collapsed. My family, my friends, my… relationships. The Sisterhood has failed me, too. Perhaps even the Libera Dramach cannot be trusted now; I cannot let myself be sure.' She gripped his hand harder, willing him to understand. 'I was beginning to feel love for Tane when he was taken from me; I was betrayed by Saran – by Asara – just as I had allowed myself to believe that there could be something between us. There were men in between, whom I did not love so fiercely, but they, too, ended in betrayal or disappointment.'

He had raised his head now, and was looking at her.

'Each time I let something or someone close to my heart I am left with a new scar,' she said, a pleading note in her tone, seeking to make him forgive her. 'I want to be alone, to need nobody; and yet I see Asara, and what that has made of her, and I know that is no way to go either. But I cannot bear another wound, Tsata. I cannot bear to let myself love you, and then have you killed in the conflict to come, or to return to your homeland and leave me, or to find another woman. Your people do not believe in exclusive pair-bonding.'

'No,' he murmured. 'But you do. And for me, that would be enough.'

She frowned. 'What do you mean by that?'

'It is hardly unheard of,' Tsata said. 'My people have lived near Saramyr settlements for a thousand years. Tkiurathi have paired monogamously with Saramyr before. Some have even married. It is a matter of personal choice, of redefining the pash.'

'And you would do that for me?'

'I would,' he said. He stared out across the lake. 'I had been… unsure for a long time. I would have spoken of these feelings then, even when I did not know if I wished to do anything about them. But that is our way, and it is not yours. I knew it would cause you confusion and in all probability would have driven you away, so I stayed silent. I did not know if we could ever be together; I thought our cultures too fundamentally different. But then, in the forest, when I saw you defend us against the soldier, when you refused to leave Peithre fallen…' he trailed away, and then turned and looked back at her. 'That was when I knew.'

And now she felt it, like a physical pressure spreading outward from her chest, a warm swell that filled her. It struck her so suddenly that she had to exhale, a short huff of air that turned into an involuntary smile. But it lasted only a moment, for she forced it down again, knowing what it meant, knowing what it would lead to.

But do I have a choice? she thought. If I turn this man away, this man whom I know I can trust more than anyone not to deceive me, how will the rest of my life be?

She bit the inside of her lip gently and closed her eyes. Could she live that way, ever guarded, secure and numb? Or was that the beginning of a downward slope from which there was no return? If she came through this war she faced a long, long span of years. Not even the Sisters knew how long. Maybe forever.

And if you let this man into your heart, could you stand to watch him age when you do not?

She would not face that question now. It had occurred to her before in a more general sense, but it was too vast to deal with. What was the alternative? Again, there could be only one: to shut herself off, to be alone forever, barriered against the world. Cloistered, with the Red Order the only safe company, who would be similarly ageless. That was no option, either. All ways led to pain in the end; it was only a question of time.

'Time,' she murmured softly, so quietly that Tsata barely heard it. Puzzlement showed on his face. 'Give me time… to think about this.'

He was about to speak again, but he thought better of it. Instead, he withdrew his hand and got to his feet, and she rose with him. They stood together, caught in an instant of prolonged parting and neither wanting to leave it that way; then Kaiku kissed him swiftly on the lips and withdrew into the forest, leaving him behind. She did not look back. She did not want him to see the tears gathering in her eyes. The Tkiurathi travelled fast and light. By evening they had stripped their village of everything they needed for their journey to Lalyara. Cailin had arranged for the ships at their destination to be stocked with the provisions necessary for what would come afterward. In less than a day, the village was hollow and empty, the fires doused and the repka tied closed, awaiting their return. They were gathering in a valley north of the temple complex, ready to depart at dusk. Dozens of Sisters would be travelling with them, including Cailin herself. Kaiku was going too.

After seeing Tsata she spent the rest of the day hurrying around her house, finishing last-minute preparations and ensuring all was in order. She did not know whether Mishani would return soon or not, so she had to prepare the place for a possible period of vacancy. She cleaned and tidied, packed and repacked, prayed briefly at the house shrine, prepared food and ate it in quick, nervous bites. In truth, she needed to be doing something to stop her thinking. Her course was chosen now. She would not turn from it. She was heading to Adderach, the birthplace of the Weavers. Her oath to Ocha, taken long ago, demanded that she do so. Everything else – everything – could wait. Her business was with the Weavers, and if there was any chance of ruining them, of breaking their power, then she had to take that. Her family's spirits would not forgive her otherwise.

In a fit of bitterness, she debated whether or not to take the dress of the Red Order with her or just burn it there and then. But when it came to the choice, she was reluctant to destroy it. Though it represented an allegiance she no longer felt, she could not deny the sense of authority and power it conferred on her, and she would need all the courage she could get in Adderach. In the whole length of the war, she had never been into battle without it.

Very well, then, she thought. I will wear it again. Until the Weavers are gone.

The last thing to take was the Mask from the chest where it lay. She snatched it up in one swift, disgusted motion and stuffed it in her backpack. Then she shut the pack and secured it.

She was about to depart when she heard a chime outside, and went to open the door. It was Lucia, with two Sisters behind her as guards.

'May I come inside?' Lucia asked. Kaiku invited her, waited to see if the Sisters intended on coming also, and when they did not, she slid the door shut. The room was all but bare, the minimal furniture having been put away. Lucia crossed the floor, stood with her back to Kaiku for a moment, and then turned around decisively.

'You are leaving?' she asked. 'Now?'

'I was about to,' Kaiku said.

'I only heard about it a short while ago,' Lucia said.

'You were at the meeting,' Kaiku said. 'You knew the Tkiurathi were going.'

'I did not know you were going,' Lucia replied. 'Were you intending to leave without telling me?'

Kaiku studied her. Lucia's light blonde hair was growing out a little, after years of her keeping it boyishly short. Kaiku wondered what this meant, or if it meant anything at all, or if anything meant anything any more.

'I did not think you would be interested,' Kaiku said truthfully, and was surprised at how cruel it sounded.

The look on Lucia's face showed plainly how deep she felt the barb. 'That is unfair, Kaiku.'

'Is it? You have not seemed to want to know me since your visit to the Xhiang Xhi. What had I done to deserve such treatment?'

'You should know more than anyone that I have… matters to deal with,' Lucia replied. 'I would expect a little more latitude.'

Kaiku was bewildered by her tone: she sounded nothing like the Lucia she knew. She was much more strident.

'Forgive me, then,' said Kaiku, tossing her a casual apology that had no weight to it. 'But how am I meant to know when you will not talk to me? Before we entered the forest, you were at least you, even when you were not lucid. But since then you have changed. I am not sure who you are or what you want now.' Her voice softened as she realised she was being harsh; the emotional rigors of these last days and her nervousness at the prospect of leaving had made her callous. 'What happened to you in there?'

It was the concern in the question that caused Lucia to crumble. Abruptly she seemed to shed her thorny exterior and become once again the Lucia of old. She told Kaiku of what the spirit had said to her, of the true purpose of the Weavers and the veil of ascendancy. But she made no mention of the price that the spirits' aid would entail.

Kaiku listened. It all seemed curiously unimportant to her, and revelations that should have shocked her barely penetrated. The scale was too large: it did not interfere or impact upon her sworn purpose. But Lucia's evasions were obvious, and when she was done, Kaiku said: 'There is something else you are not telling me.'

'That is between myself and the Xhiang Xhi,' Lucia replied.

That brought them to an impasse for a time.

'I am sorry for being rude,' Kaiku said eventually, with sincerity this time. 'You are under a great deal of strain, and you cannot or will not share the burden. It was ungracious of me to leave without saying farewell.'

'Let us forget all this,' said Lucia. 'I want you to know that I did not mean to treat you badly these last few days, and that all I said to you in the emyrynn village still holds true. You have always cared for me, and I for you. I do not wish our last goodbye to be tainted with rancour.'

'What makes you think it is our last?' Kaiku asked. The question was phrased with enforced lightness, to counter the thrill of dread at Lucia's words.

Lucia did not answer: instead she approached Kaiku and embraced her gently. It was worse than any reply she could have given.

'Lucia, what is it?' Kaiku whispered, suddenly terrified. 'What do you know that you are not telling me?'

Lucia released her, and her pale blue eyes were full of sorrow and pity.

'Goodbye,' she whispered, and then she walked away.

Kaiku wanted to call after her, to demand an answer to her question, but she could not think of a single thing to say that might change Lucia's mind. Some part of her did not want to rupture the purity of the moment with anger and shrill entreatments. She felt crushed by the pressure of something invisible and inevitable that she did not understand, and by the time she had recovered herself the door had slid shut and Lucia was gone.

Kaiku stood in the emptiness of the house for a time. It felt like a tomb now, and she could not bear to be here. She snatched up her pack and shouldered it, and she left her house to head to the valley where the Tkiurathi were meeting.

As she walked away up the dirt street, she was suddenly conscious that it might be the final time she ever saw the place. She did not look back.