She knelt down over him, straddling his waist with her hips. Delicately, she plucked the dagger from his arm and laid it aside, then brought her face close to his. Her breath smelt of desert flowers.

'Your friend with the poisons is outstanding, is he not?' she purred. 'Before I killed him I persuaded him to give me the one you are enjoying at the moment.' A slow smile, cruel and mesmerising, touched her lips. 'I thought perhaps I would handle this matter myself. No need to trouble Reki; there would be so many . . . repercussions. And besides,' she added, her voice dropping to a whisper, 'I like my prey alive.

And I am so very hungry tonight.'

Keroki, believing himself to be in the clutches of some demon, tried anew to scream; but all he could force from his body was a whimper.

She laid a finger on his lips.

'Sssh,' she murmured. 'You will wake my husband.'

That was when Keroki finally realised who his a.s.sailant was. He had not recognised her at first, for he had never seen her face, and artistic renderings did not do her justice. Reki's wife. Asara.

She put her lips to his and sucked, until he felt something wrench free inside him and the rushing, bright flow of his essence came sparkling and glittering from his mouth into hers. His last thoughts as he felt the tidal pulses of his life retreating into darkness were strangely unselfish. He wondered what would be the fate of his land, the land that he loved although he had never known it till now, if a monster such as this stood at the right hand of the most powerful man in the desert.

FOUR.

The unification of the Baraks of Tchom Rin was made official at mid-morning, in the western courtyard of the Governor of Muia's residence. It was a suitably grand venue for a day so momentous, set high up above the surrounding houses, protected by a wall whose top had been moulded into spiked cornices. The white flagstones and the pillars that ran around the edge of the interior were dazzling where the sunlight struck them. Verdant troughs of lush flowers were arranged around the central s.p.a.ce; vines dangled through the wooden trellis that reached from the top of the pillars to the outside wall, forming a roof for the shaded portico. Steps went up to a dais at the western side, where the treaty was laid out, and beyond that it was possible to see to the cliffs where the enormous seated figure of Suran watched over proceedings with her odd-eyed gaze.

It was a remarkably sedate affair considering the importance of the occasion: merely a half-dozen speeches and a little pomp as the Baraks filed up with their retinues to sign the agreement. But then few people felt that this was truly a cause for celebration. Pride had been swallowed and old enmities grudgingly put aside, and the sting of it was bitter. Even as whole portions of Saramyr were overrun by the Weavers, even when Aberrants poured from the mountains to threaten their own homes, they had still squabbled and jostled between themselves for four years before finally accepting that they needed to band together for mutual survival in the face of the greater threat. It was not an easy matter to put their differences aside; they were buried deep in the grain.

One person who was celebrating was Mishani tu Koli. She stood near the back of the spa.r.s.e gathering, holding a gla.s.s of chilled wine, as the last of the signatures were put to the treaty and Reki delivered the final speech. The rays of Nuki's eye slanted across the courtyard and the clean heat on her pale skin was pleasant and soothing. She felt lighter of spirit than she had in a long time. The treaty was completed, and her work was done here.

She had been in the desert almost a year in an amba.s.sadorial role, for the Libera Dramach specifically and the western high families generally. Not that the time had darkened her complexion at all, but it had given her a taste for Tchom Rin fashion. Her dress was airier than she would have worn back home, a deep orange-brown like the last minutes of the sunset. Her black hair had been coiled and arranged with jewelled pins to fall in a mult.i.tude of braids down to the backs of her knees. She wore a dusky eye shadow, and small silver ear-ornaments. If not for her skin, she could have pa.s.sed as a woman of the desert.

'Mishani,' said a soft voice in greeting. Mishani turned her head to see Asara standing next to her, watching the events on the dais draw to a close. As always, it took a fraction of a second to connect her with the Asara that she had known in the past. Even after all the time they had spent in each other's company trying to arrange the treaty that was being signed today, she could not reconcile this woman with the one who had been Kaiku's handmaiden. Something fundamental and instinctive in her rebelled against it, and had to be mastered by intellect. After all, they were physically not the same. Nothing by which she might recognise the old Asara existed in this new form.

Had she not known better, she would have said she was looking at a purebred Tchom Rin woman from the n.o.blest desert stock. Her skin was tanned and flawless, her hair blacker even than Mishani's tied back in a simple ponytail that accentuated the elegant bones of her face, and drew attention to her almond-shaped eyes whose natural hue had been complemented by sea-toned eye shadow. Her pale blue robe was clasped at one shoulder with a brooch and clung to her figure, fluttering slightly in the warm breaths of wind that came from the west. She had dressed with the minimum of ostentation so as not to outshine her husband on this day, and yet all it served to do was to highlight how beautiful she really was.

But it was a false beauty. Mishani knew that, even if n.o.body else here did, except the Sister of the Red Order that observed from one side of the dais. Asara was an Aberrant, able to change her appearance to suit her desires. Her talent was unique among her kind, and Mishani was thankful that it was so. One of her was dangerous enough.

'You must be proud, Asara,' Mishani commented.

'Of Reki?' she appeared to consider this for a moment. 'I suppose I am. Let us just say I still find him interesting. He has come a long way since I met him.'

That was something of an understatement. Though they had never met, Mishani had heard accounts of Reki as an adolescent: bookish, timid, lacking the fire of his older sister the Empress. Yet when he returned to Jospa to take the t.i.tle of Barak after his father's death, he had been a different person.

Harder, more driven, ruthless in the application of his natural intelligence and cunning. And in four years he had not only made Blood Tanatsua into the strongest high family in the desert, but today he had succeeded in bringing the other families under his banner.

Mishani sipped her wine. 'You must be proud of yourself, also.'

'I do have a way of landing on my feet, don't I?' Asara smiled.

'You have heard, I suppose, about the events at Juraka?'

'Of course.' The Sister by the dais had told them both about it, having received the message from other Sisters who were present at the fall of the town.

'This treaty comes not a moment too soon,' Mishani commented. 'We cannot afford to be divided now.'

'You are optimistic, Mishani, if you think that the unification of the desert tribes will benefit the west,'

Asara told her. 'They will not go to your aid.'

'No,' she agreed. 'But while the Weavers divert their resources in their attempts to conquer the desert, their full attention is not on us. And with this treaty and the collaboration of the desert Baraks, they might never take Tchom Rin.'

'Oh, they will, sooner or later,' Asara said, plucking a gla.s.s from a servant who was pa.s.sing with a silver tray. 'They have the entire northern half of the continent and everything in the south-east outside of the desert. We hold the Southern Prefectures barely and Tchom Rin. We are encircled, and we have been on the defensive ever since this war began. Behind their battle lines, the Weavers have leisure to put into practice any scheme they can imagine. Like these . . . feya-kori.' She made a dismissive motion with her hand.

'I do not share your fatalism,' Mishani said. 'The Weavers are not in such a strong position as it would seem. Their very nature undermines their plans. Their territories are famine-struck because of the influence of their witchstones, and we hold the greatest area of cropland on the continent. They must feed their armies, and their armies are carnivorous, and need a great deal of meat. Without crops, their livestock die, and their armies falter.'

'And what of your own crops?'

'We have enough to feed the Prefectures,' Mishani said. 'The fact that we are driven into a corner means we have enough food to go around; if we had the whole continent to take care of, we would be starving. And since the fall of Utraxxa, I am told the blight is lessened slightly.'

'Is that so?' Asara sounded surprised. This was recent news, and she had not heard it, wrapped up as she was in foiling the inevitable attempt on her husband's life. 'That implies that it may retreat altogether. That the land might heal itself if the witchstones were gone.'

'Indeed,' Mishani said. 'We can only hope.'

Mishani and Asara stood side by side as the speech ended and the n.o.bles and their retinues mingled and talked among themselves. The usual machinations and powerplays seemed subdued now, although there was an unmistakable wariness in the courtyard. Asara made sure the man who sent last night's a.s.sa.s.sin knew she was looking at him, then stared coolly until he broke the gaze.

'Will you be travelling west again, now that the treaty is signed?' Asara asked Mishani, looking down over her shoulder at the diminutive n.o.blewoman.

'I must,' Mishani replied. 'I have been away too long. There are others here who can take my place. Yugi needs my eyes and ears among the high families in the Prefectures.' In truth, she was reluctant to leave, though she could not deny a keen pang of homesickness. But the journey across the mountains would be dangerous, and the memories of her trip here were not pleasant.

'I almost forgot,' Asara said. 'I have a present for you. Wait here.'

She slipped away, and returned a few moments later with a slender black book, its cover inlaid in gold filigree that spelt out the t.i.tle in curving pictograms of High Saramyrrhic.

Mishani's time in the courts of Axekami had taught her how to conceal her reactions, to keep her face a mask; but it would be rude not to let her delight show at such a gift. She took it from Asara with a broad smile of grat.i.tude.

'Your mother's latest masterpiece,' Asara said. 'I thought you might like it. This is the first copy to reach the city.'

'How did you get it?' Mishani breathed, running her fingertips over the filigree.

Asara laughed. 'It is strange. We have shortages of so many things that cannot get through to us due to the war, and yet Muraki tu Koli's books seem to find their way everywhere.' Her laughter subsided, but there was still an amused glimmer in her eye. 'I know of a merchant who smuggles fine art and literature, most of which I suspect he steals from the Weaver-held territories where they have scant need of it. I asked him to look out for your mother's works.'

'I cannot thank you enough, Asara,' Mishani said, looking up.

'Consider it a fortuitously-timed reward for helping us achieve what has pa.s.sed today,' Asara returned.

'At least now you will have something to read on your way home.'

Asara caught somebody's eye then, and excused herself to go and talk to them, leaving Mishani alone with the book. She stared at it for a long while without opening it, thinking about her mother. After a time, she left the courtyard un.o.btrusively and made her way back to her rooms. Her appet.i.te for celebration had suddenly deserted her.

Reki and Asara made love in the master bedchamber of the Muia residence, mere feet from where Asara had killed a man the night before. The silver light of the lone moon Iridima drew gleaming lines along the contours of her sweat-moistened back as she rode him to completion, gasping murmurs of affirmation. After they both had peaked, she lay on his stomach, face to face with him as she idly twisted his hair through her fingers.

'We did it . . .' she said softly.

He nodded with a languid smile, still luxuriating in the satisfaction of the afterglow. She could feel his heart thump a syncopation to hers through his thin chest.

'We did it,' he echoed, raising himself up on his elbows to kiss her.

When he had laid his head back on the pillow, she resumed stroking his hair, her fingertips tracing the white streak amid the black, then down his cheek to where the deep scar ran from the side of his left eye to the tip of his cheekbone.

'I like this scar.'

'I know,' Reki said with a grin. 'You never leave it alone.'

'It is interesting to me,' she offered as an explanation. 'I do not scar.'

'Everybody scars,' he returned.

She let it drop, and for a long while she just looked at him, enjoying the heat of their bodies pressed together. He was no longer the boy she had seduced back in the Imperial Keep years ago. The loss of his father and sister, the sudden impact of responsibility upon him, had broken the chrysalis of adolescence and revealed the man inside. No longer able to hide from the world in books, nor under the repressive disapproval of Barak Goren or overshadowed by the vivacious Empress Laranya, he had been forced to cope and had surprised himself and everyone else with how well he had done so. The boy whom most had perceived as a weakling, while still not physically strong, had a fort.i.tude of will beyond that which anybody had expected; and all his time spent in books had made him crafty and learned. His confidence in himself had multiplied rapidly, helped not least by the breathtaking woman who to his bewilderment had stayed with him through all his trials and supported him tirelessly. He was wondrously, madly in love with her. It was impossible not to be.

Of course, he still had no idea that she had murdered his sister Laranya and, by doing so, precipitated the death of his father Goren. n.o.body knew that but Asara, and she, wisely, was not telling.

Blood Tanatsua had always been one of the strongest of the Tchom Rin high families, even after the slaughter in the Juwacha Pa.s.s that had claimed Barak Goren's life. The small advance force that had lost their lives there had not crippled the family, for the bulk of their armies had still been in Jospa, unable to respond fast enough to the news of Laranya's death. But under Reki's astute guidance, they had risen over the s.p.a.ce of four years to the prime power in the desert.

It was not, however, all his doing. Circ.u.mstance had worked in his favour. The desert had remained a hard territory for the Weavers to conquer because the Aberrant predators that formed their army were not adapted to the sands and were at a great disadvantage there. But in recent months, a new type of Aberrant had appeared, one which might have been born for the desert, and it had begun decimating those territories near the mountains. Jospa, the seat of Blood Tanatsua, was in the deep desert and had yet to be threatened by this, but the other families had suddenly realised just how much danger they were in, and it was this that had spurred the sudden desire to unify. Blood Tanatsua had not been weakened by these attacks as their rivals had.

Then there was Asara. More than once a stout rival or an insurmountable obstacle to Reki's ascent had disappeared quietly and mysteriously. In the desert the use of a.s.sa.s.sination as a political tool was a little more overtly acceptable than in the west hence their more thorough security and Asara was the perfect a.s.sa.s.sin. Reki knew nothing of this: she took care to spend time away from him often, so that it would not occur to him that these instances of good fortune always coincided with her absences. Nor did he notice the occasional vanishing of a servant or a dancing-girl from their lands. He lived in ignorance of the nature of his wife; but then, he was far from the first man to ever do so.

'Reki . . .' Asara murmured.

'I recognise that tone,' he said.

She sighed and slid off him, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling. He rolled onto his side, his hand on her smooth stomach, and kissed her softly on the neck.

'You are going away again,' he said.

She made a noise low in her throat to indicate he was correct. 'Reki, this will not just be for a week, or even several weeks,' she said. She felt him tense slightly through his fingers on her skin.

'How long?' he said, his voice tight.

'I do not know,' she replied. She rolled onto her side to face him; his hand slid over to her hip. 'Reki, I am not leaving you. Not in that way. I will be back.'

She could see his distress, though he fought to hide it from her. She even felt bad about it, and guilt was not something that Asara was used to feeling. Like it or not, this man had got under her skin in a way n.o.body but Kaiku ever had before. She could not have said if she loved him or not she was too empty and hollow to find that emotion within herself but she did not despise him, and that to her was as good as love considering that she secretly despised almost everyone.

'I have to go with Mishani to the Southern Prefectures. To Araka Jo,' she said.

'Why?' he asked, and in that one word was all the pain of the wound she had just dealt him.

'There is something I must do there.'

It was as blunt an answer as he had learned to expect from her. Her past was off-limits to him, and he had been forced to accept that before they married. Though she seemed little older than him, she had a wealth of knowledge and experience far beyond her years, and she forbade him to pry into how she had obtained it. It was a necessary stain on their relationship. Even Asara might be caught out with a lie if she had to invent a watertight past for her new self and maintain it over years of intimacy. The truth was, she was past her ninetieth harvest; but her body did not age, renewing itself constantly as long as it was fed with the lives of others. To admit that was to admit that she was Aberrant, and that would ruin everything she had worked to achieve even if it did not result in her immediate execution.

Reki was bitterly silent. After a few moments, she felt she had to give him something more.

'I made a deal, a long time ago. It is something that we both want, Reki. But you must trust me when I tell you that you cannot know what it is, nor how much it means to me.' She ran a sculpted nail along his arm. 'You know I have secrets. I warned you that one day my past might affect our present.' Her fingers twined in between his and held his grip. 'Please,' she whispered. 'I know your frustration. But let me go without anger. You are my love.'

Tears were in her eyes now, and answering tears welled in his. He could not bear to see her cry, and Asara knew it. The tears were a calculated deceit; they melted him. He kissed her, and the sobs turned to panting, and they joined again with something like desperation, as if he could salve the grief in his breast by dousing it in her throes.

By the time they were spent, he had already resigned himself to sorrow. She could always make him do as she wished. She had his heart, even if sometimes he suspected that he did not have hers.

FIVE.

Nuki's eye was rising in the east as the barge lumbered downstream, following the river Kerryn towards Axekami. Paddle-wheels churned the water, driven by the groaning and clanking mechanism deep in the swollen belly of the craft. Vents on either side seethed a heavy black smoke that tattered and dispersed in oily trails. Once, there had been wheelmen to drive the paddles, swart and muscular folk who would labour below decks during those times when the barge headed against the flow or when the current was not strong enough to carry it. But their day was pa.s.sing; many of the vessels that plied the three rivers out of Axekami had replaced the wheelmen with contraptions of oil and bra.s.s, pistons and gears.

Kaiku stood on the foredeck, the morning wind stirring her hair, watching the land slide by with a sickened heart. She was no longer dressed in the attire of the Red Order; her clothes were simpler now, unflattering and tough, made for travelling in. Her face was clean of the Sisters' paint. The cares of the past decade had not seamed her skin, though they told in the bleakness of her gaze sometimes. And it was bleak now.

The world had lost its colour. The plains that stretched away to the horizon on either side were not the sun-washed yellow-green she remembered. Even in the pale light of the dawn, she could see that they had been drained of something, some indefinable element of life and growth. Now they were doleful, and the occasional trees that grew in copses seemed isolated in a dull emptiness. Even the hue of the river water was unsettlingly altered to her eyes: once a blue so deep it was almost purple, it now seemed greyer, its vigour robbed. In days gone by birds would have circled the barge and settled in its rigging in the vain hope that it was a fishing vessel; but here there was not a bird to be seen.

This is how it begins, she thought. The slow death of our homeland. And we do not have the strength to prevent it.

She looked to the west, along the river, and there she saw a dim smear on the horizon and realised what it must be. She had heard the tales from their spies and from the refugees who had made it to the Prefectures from the Weaver-held territories. But nothing could prepare her for the sight of what Axekami had become.

The once-glorious city was a louring fortress, shadowed under a gloomy veil of fumes. The great walls bristled with fire-cannons, and other devices of war which Kaiku had never seen before. A huge metal watchtower squatted outside the south-east gate, dominating the road and the river alike. Scaffolding and half-constructed buildings patched the exterior of the capital. Kaiku remembered how she had been thrilled as a child to see this place, the wonder of their civilisation, the cradle of thought and art and politics. She was appalled to find it turned so, a forbidding stronghold steeped in a dark miasma that drifted slowly up to sully the sky.

The shanties of the river nomads on the approach to the city proper were deserted, their stilt huts empty. The nomads were gone. No longer would they crowd the banks and squint suspiciously at the barges pa.s.sing by, no longer would they sew or string beads or pole out into the river for fish. The roofs of their huts were collapsing, crushed by the slow grip of entropy, and the supports on their rotting jetties tilted as they sunk into the mud. The clatter and growl of the barge's mechanisms disappeared into the silence as it slid by.

'What's been done to this place?' murmured Phaeca, who had joined her on the foredeck while she had been lost in reverie.

Kaiku glanced at her companion, but did not reply. She always found it strange to see Phaeca bereft of the accoutrements of the Order. Perhaps it was because she was more used to seeing her with the make-up than without it, but Kaiku thought it suited her better when she was painted. It shifted the emphasis of her face favourably; when it was not there, she looked too thin, and forfeited some of her mystery and character. Still, what she lost she more than regained through her natural style. She had grown up in the River District of Axekami, and had a flamboyancy about her that Kaiku faintly envied.

Her hair was always a masterpiece, her deep red locks twisted through elaborate arrangements of hair ornaments, here hanging in a tress, there coiled or bunched or teased into a curl. Her clothes were outrageous in comparison to Kaiku's, and though she had toned herself down today so as not to attract too much attention in the city, she still trod the thin line between elegance and gaudiness that characterised the fashions of the River District.

'Where is Nomoru?' Kaiku asked distractedly.

Phaeca made a noise that indicated she did not really care. Nomoru had, predictably, failed to endear herself to the Sister on their long journey from the Southern Prefectures. Even Phaeca, who was the soul of tolerance, had grown to dislike the scout's unremitting rudeness.

'Be aware,' Kaiku said after a time. 'The Weavers may be searching. Do not let your guard rest until we are out of the city again.' She looked again at the grim cloud seeping upward from the city and felt nausea roll in her stomach. 'And do not use your kana if you can possibly help it, except to hide yourself from their attention. It will draw them down onto us.'

'You're nervous, Kaiku,' Phaeca smiled. 'There's no need to remind me what to do; I know well enough.'

Kaiku gave her an apologetic look. Phaeca's ability to see through people was second only to Lucia's; she had an extraordinary talent for empathy. 'Of course I am nervous. What kind of fool would I be if I was not?'

'The kind of fool who volunteered for the mission in the first place,' Phaeca said dryly. Kaiku could not muster the humour to laugh. Her spirits had been too depressed by the ghastly shape of the unfamiliar city that loomed up before them.