The Skein of Lament (50 page)

She dreaded to think what that might mean.

Cailin tu Moritat’s eyes flicked open, and her irises were red as blood.

‘Kaiku,’ she breathed, aghast.

There were two other Sisters in the conference chamber with her. It was one of the upper rooms of the house of the Red Order, its walls painted black and hung with pennants and symbols of crimson. They had been sitting on mats around the table in the centre of the room, talking softly over the maelstrom that howled and battered at the shutters like some hungry and thwarted beast. The glow of the lanterns and the sinuous path of the scented smoke from the brazier that sat between them had taken on a malevolent quality under the warping influence of the moonstorm, and their identically painted faces seemed narrow and shrewd with conspiracy.

The other two looked at Cailin. They did not need to see her red eyes to know that something had happened; they had felt it stroking past them, a whisper in the Weave that could only have been one of their own.

Cailin stood up suddenly, rising to her full height.

‘Gather our Sisters,’ she said. ‘I want every one of us that resides in the Fold to be here in this house in an hour’s time.’

She left the room before the others could rise to obey, stalking away and down the stairs, out onto the muddy, makeshift streets. It was barely midnight. Zaelis would still be awake. Not that she would have hesitated to rouse him anyway; this was far too important.

She passed along the deserted ways of the Fold, a tall and thin shadow slipping through the rain, seeming to slide
between
the droplets, for as heavy as the downpour was it only dampened her slightly. She was furious and afraid all at once, and her thoughts were dark as she went.

Kaiku. Gods, how could she be so reckless? Cailin did not know whether to applaud her or curse her. She had been in an almost constant state of worry since Yugi and Nomoru had returned with news of the Aberrant army massed on the banks of the Zan, and of Kaiku’s refusal to return. If Kaiku had been captured during that time, the Weavers would have flensed her mind and gleaned everything they would need to know about the Red Order. Now, Kaiku had used the Weave to send a message more than a hundred miles, spooling a thread across all that distance. It only took one Weaver to sense it, to catch that thread and piggyback to its destination or track it to its source, and all the Red Order’s years of secrecy would be undone. Bad enough that the Weavers knew there was
one
Aberrant woman who could beat them at their own game – the previous Weave-lord Vyrrch had warned them of that just before she killed him – but one was only a freak occurrence, a lone misfire of nature like Asara was. Two of them communicating hinted at much greater things, at collaboration, at organisation. If the Weavers caught even the slightest indication of the Red Order’s existence, they would dedicate all their efforts to wiping them out.

The Red Order were the single biggest threat to the Weavers, maybe even greater than Lucia herself, because against them the Weavers did not have the superiority afforded them by their Masks. The Red Order could Weave too, but their power was inherent and natural to them, and that made them better at it than men, who needed clumsy devices to penetrate the realm beyond the senses.

But the Sisters were few, too few. And Cailin dared not expose them unless it was absolutely necessary.

Now, perhaps, that time had come. For as angry as she was with Kaiku for taking such a risk, Cailin was equally disturbed by the message. Matters had taken a very grave turn. Action was needed, and soon; but it might not be in the way that Zaelis imagined. Cailin’s overwhelming priority was the survival of the Red Order. Beyond that, very little mattered.

Though the journey between her house and Zaelis’s was a short one, the rain had stopped and the skies quieted by the time she got there. The moons were gliding apart again, and the raging clouds now drifted listlessly, thinning and dispersing. The storm had been quick and savage, and its ending was as abrupt as its beginning.

The dwelling that Zaelis shared with his adopted daughter Lucia was an unremarkable one, nestling on one of the Fold’s upper tiers amid several other houses that had been built to the same design. It was a simple, two-storey building of polished wood and plaster, with a balcony on the eastern side to look out over the valley, and a small shrine by its door with carved icons of Ocha and Isisya surrounded by burnt incense sticks and crushed flowers and smooth white pebbles. A single paper lantern burned outside, illuminating from within the pictograms of welcome and blessing it offered to visitors. Next to it hung a chime, which Cailin struck with the small hammer that hung alongside it.

Zaelis was at the door almost immediately, inviting her inside. It was a humble room, with a few mats and tables, potted plants nodding drowsily on stands, some ornamental weapons on the wall and an oil-paint landscape from a Fold artist whose work Zaelis seemed to admire, though the appeal had always escaped Cailin. A single lamp hung from the ceiling, putting the epicentre of illumination overhead and casting flattering shadows on everyone within. Lucia sat cross-legged on a mat in her nightgown, drinking a herbal infusion from a ceramic mug. She looked up as Cailin came in, her eyes blandly curious.

‘She couldn’t sleep,’ Zaelis explained. He noted absently that Cailin’s twin ponytails should have been dripping with water, the raven feathers of her ruff lank with moisture, her make-up smudged; yet none of these things were true. ‘The moonstorm.’

Cailin did not have time for niceties. ‘Kaiku has contacted me across the Weave,’ she said. Zaelis’s face fell at her tone. Lucia, unperturbed, continued to regard the Sister over the rim of her mug, as if she was merely relating something that the girl had known all along.

‘Is it bad?’

‘It is very bad,’ she replied. ‘The Aberrants are most certainly under the Weavers’ control, through the medium of those beings that Yugi reported, which she calls Nexuses. Several nights ago most of them departed northward by barge up the Zan, but thousands were still left. Now all but a few of those have departed as well. The Weavers have dropped their barrier, and the Aberrants are on the move.’

‘Where?’ Zaelis demanded.

‘East. Across the Fault. Towards us.’

Zaelis felt a pit open in the bottom of his stomach. ‘How long?’

‘They travel fast,’ Cailin said. ‘Very fast. She estimates we have four days and nights before they are upon us.’

‘Four days and nights . . .’ Zaelis repeated. He looked dazed. ‘Heart’s blood.’

‘I have matters to attend to in the wake of this news,’ Cailin said. ‘I imagine you do too. I will return in a few hours.’ She gave Lucia a peremptory tilt of her head. ‘I doubt any of us will sleep tonight.’

With that, she was gone as fast as she had come, walking back towards the house of the Red Order, where she would prepare for the arrival of her brethren. Around her, the first gently glittering flakes of starfall had begun, tiny crystals of fused ice drifting down in the green-tinted light of the triple moons. It would fall sporadically for the next day or so. She ignored it, for her mind was on other things. She did indeed have matters to attend to, and a decision that might well be the most important she ever had to make.

The Fold had been compromised, and the Weavers were coming. She knew as well as Zaelis that four days and nights was not enough time to try and evacuate the population of the Fold across the hostile Fault, and even if he did, they would be caught on the run and killed. Where would they go? What would they do? He would not abandon all he had worked for, all his weapons and supplies and fortifications; nor would he abandon the townsfolk. He would be forced to make a stand here, at least until an alternative could be made feasible.

Her choice was simple. Zaelis and the Libera Dramach were bound to this place, but she was not. Should the Red Order stand with them against the Weavers, or should they leave them to their fate?

Yugi arrived at Zaelis’s house shortly afterward. Lucia had dressed, and returned to her spot on the mat. She should have been asleep by now, but she did not appear to be tired in the slightest.

Zaelis had been too preoccupied to disapprove. His mind was full of dark musings in the wake of Cailin’s news. He was thinking of Weavers, and gods, and Alskain Mar. Did the Libera Dramach even stand a chance, if what the spirit had shown Lucia was true? If this was indeed some conflict of the gods, what hope did they have of resisting the tides? Were they like some cork bobbing on a stormy ocean, powerless to act, merely staying afloat? He had a depressing sense that his life’s work had been merely an illusion, an old man’s folly, creating a resistance that could not, in the end, resist anything. He blamed Cailin, bitterly, for bringing them to this: for holding them back, for advising secrecy when action was needed. And now, finally, their cover had been somehow torn away, and they were exposed. They were not strong enough to fight the Weavers head-on, Zaelis knew that. Yet the alternative was to give up, and that he could never do.

He realised immediately that Yugi had been smoking amaxa root. It was in the sheen of his eyes and his dilated pupils, and the pungent smell still clung to his clothes.

‘Gods, Yugi, I need you clearheaded!’ he snapped in lieu of a greeting.

‘Then you should have called for me in the morning,’ Yugi retorted cheerily. ‘As it is, I’m here. So what do you want?’ He saw Lucia and gave her a little bow. Lucia returned it amiably with a dip of her head.

Zaelis sighed. ‘Come inside and sit down,’ he said. ‘Lucia, would you brew something strong for Yugi?’

‘Yes, Father,’ she replied, and obediently went to the kitchen.

Zaelis sat opposite Yugi on the floor mat and studied him, gauging how far gone he was and whether he would take in anything that was said. Yugi’s recreational use of amaxa root had always been a source of worry, but he had been doing it ever since Zaelis first knew him, and despite the dangers it had never bloomed into addiction. Yugi seemed to possess an unusual resistance to its withdrawal symptoms, and he insisted that he was able to take it or leave it as he chose. Zaelis had been sceptical for a long time, but he had been forced to accept after a while that Yugi was right. He was able to go without for weeks and months at a stretch, and it had never affected his reliability. He said that he used it to ‘cope with the bad nights’. Zaelis was unsure what this meant, and Yugi would never talk about it.

It was simply an unfortunate moment that Zaelis had caught him at, and despite his annoyance he could not expect Yugi to be ready for action every moment of every day. Eventually, Zaelis decided that he was only mildly intoxicated, and that he would still be sharp-witted enough to understand what was being said to him. He had become adept at judging his friend’s state over the years. And so he began to explain to Yugi what had occurred.

Shortly afterward, Lucia came back with a brew of lathamri, a bitter black infusion that promoted awareness and stimulated the body. She paused at the threshold of the room, looking at the two men sitting locked in conversation. Her father, white-bearded and rangy beneath his robe, his swept-back hair seeming thinner than she remembered and the lines of his face etched a little deeper. Yugi, scruffy as ever in a shirt and trousers and boots, with the omnipresent rag tied around his forehead, penning the unruly spikes of his brown-blond hair. She was assailed suddenly by a terrible sense of the gravity of the situation, that these two men were discussing life and death for hundreds or even thousands of people, and it was all down to her.

They are coming for me
, she thought.
Everyone that dies here will die because of me
.

Then Yugi noticed her, and smiled, and ushered her over. He took the mug from her with a grateful nod and then said to Zaelis: ‘She should hear this. It concerns her.’

Zaelis grunted and motioned for her to sit down.

‘We need to get you to a safe place, Lucia,’ he said, his voice a rumble in the back of his throat. ‘There’s no way we can get the people out of the Fault in any number at short notice, and they would be too many to hide. But a few, a dozen or so . . . an escort . . . we could send you north-east. To Tchamaska. There are Libera Dramach there who can hide you.’

Lucia barely reacted. ‘And you will stay here and fight,’ she said.

Zaelis looked pained. ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘The Libera Dramach practically built this place. After we took it over all that time ago . . . well, the stockpiles alone are worth defending. If we can hold off this attack, we can buy time to move them out, to start again.’ He laid his hand on her arm. ‘People came here because
we
drew them here, even the ones who aren’t a part of the organisation. I’m responsible.’

‘You’re responsible for me too,’ Lucia said. Yugi looked at her in surprise. He had never heard Lucia use such an accusatory mode with her father.

Zaelis was plainly hurt. He drew his hand back from her. ‘That’s why I’m sending you out of harm’s way,’ he said. ‘It will only be for a short time. I will come and find you afterward.’

‘No,’ said Lucia, quite firmly. ‘I will stay.’

‘You can’t stay,’ Zaelis told her.

‘Why not? Because I might be killed?’ She leaned forward, and her voice was a furious hiss that shocked him. ‘You’ll abandon me, but you won’t abandon them! Well, neither will I! All these people, all my friends and my friend’s families, all of them are going to die here! Because the Weavers want
me
! Most of them will never even know why. And you want me to leave them, to go and hide again until the Weavers hunt me down and
more
people die?’ She was shouting now. ‘
I’m
responsible for these people as much as you are. You made me responsible when you promised them a saviour from the Weavers. You tied all their lives to me and you never once asked me if I
wanted
that!’