Most of the shelving was bare. The lanterns lit to aid the grim daylight only served to add to the depressing atmosphere, for they reminded Ukida that there should have been no need for them at such an hour.

He and the herbalist a stout, rotund man with a whiskery moustache and a brisk, efficient manner exchanged a few friendly words before a list was pa.s.sed between them, and the herbalist disappeared into his preparation room to grind the necessary quant.i.ties. Ukida waited, tapping his fingers on the counter, looking idly about the shop.

'Master Ukida,' said a voice. 'You are looking well.'

The sound of his name startled him: he had thought the shop empty. He located the owner of the voice, appearing from a doorway that led into the back of the shop. She walked towards him, and his eyes widened in recognition.

'I have been waiting a long time for you,' she said. 'Three days.'

'Mistress Mishani!' he exclaimed in a hiss, too shocked even to bow. 'What are you doing here?'

'I have come to ask a favour of you,' she replied, her narrow face sallow in the bad light. She was not dressed in her usual finery. The robe she wore was battered and dirty, made for travelling, and her hair was worn in an unadorned ponytail and tucked into the back of her robe to disguise its length, the deception concealed by a voluminous hood. Tied tight against her small skull, it made her look faintly rodentine and not at all n.o.ble.

'You will be killed if they find you,' Ukida said, then added: 'I could be killed for just talking to you.' He glanced nervously over the counter, where the herbalist had been.

'He knows,' Mishani said. 'He remembers the days of the Empire, and he is loyal to them. I guessed you would come here eventually, so I asked him to let me wait for you.' She gave him a wry smile. 'This was always the only place you would come to for supplies. You were most insistent, even with my father, that you would settle for nothing but the best.'

'Your memory is good, Mistress, but I fear your judgement is not. You are in great danger in Axekami.

Did you walk through these streets alone? Such madness!'

'I know the risks, Ukida. Better than you do,' Mishani replied. 'I have a letter for you to deliver to my mother.'

Ukida shook his head in alarm. 'Mistress Mishani, you would risk my life!'

'There is no risk. You may read it, if you wish.' She drew the letter from the sash of her robe and held it out to him. It had no seal.

He looked at it uncertainly. Mishani could tell he was deciding where his loyalties lay in this situation. On the one hand, he was blood-bound to Mishani's family, and that meant her as well; she was still officially part of Blood Koli. On the other, all the retainers knew that Mishani was no longer welcome within that family, and her father would most likely have her executed if he caught her. At the very least, she would be imprisoned and interrogated. Her involvement in the kidnapping of Lucia was generally known now, though never officially ratified, as was her hand in the revolt at Zila several years later. The Weavers would show her no mercy if they found her, nor anyone who had abetted her.

'Take it,' she urged him. She was recalling how he had nursed her through childhood illnesses, tended to her scratches and grazes. He would not betray her; of that she was sure. The question was whether he would help her.

Reluctantly, he took the letter and unfolded it. There was no indication of the recipient or the sender, only a dozen vertical rows of High Saramyrrhic pictograms.

'It is a poem,' he said. And not a very good one, he added mentally.

'That it is,' said Mishani. 'Please, give that to my mother. You need not even say it was from me. n.o.body will know.'

'The Weavers will know,' he said. 'There are no secrets from them.'

'Do you really believe that?' Mishani asked him. 'I would not have thought you p.r.o.ne to their scaremongering.'

'They can pluck the guilt from a man's mind,' Ukida said.

'Only if they have reason to look there,' she replied. 'Trust me, Master Ukida. I have lived alongside the Red Order a long time. I know what the Weavers are capable of, and what they are not. There is a risk, but it is small. You are my only hope.'

Ukida studied her carefully, then folded up the letter and bowed to her. 'It shall be done,' he said tightly.

'You have my deepest grat.i.tude,' Mishani said. And with that, she returned his bow, purposefully choosing a more humble att.i.tude than she should have. She knew him: arrogance would not play well, even though he was still her servant. He seemed faintly shamed by her action.

She departed through the doorway to the back of the shop as the herbalist returned, his timing impeccable. Ukida paid for his supplies and left, the letter carefully concealed in his robe.

Muraki tu Koli sat at her writing desk in her small room, her quill scratching and jerking in the light of a lantern. The lack of windows meant that she took no account of day or night, and she had little desire to see the murk-shrouded disc of Nuki's eye anyway. Aside from the occasional meals that she took with her husband, she rarely left this room. She was nearing the end of her new volume of the adventures of Nida-jan, and she was lost in the world she had created, spurred along by the unstoppable momentum of the story. A part of her still felt bitter at the necessity of haste, for she took great pride in her work and she resented that matters of the real world had conspired to make her rush it; but though unpolished, her tales still had an energy all their own, and she lived for that.

She did not hear Ukida's chime outside the curtained doorway, nor did she notice him enter uninvited.

Her retainers had learned not to wait for her to reply, for she never did. He simply entered, bowed, and placed a letter on the edge of her writing desk. He cast an appraising eye over her, noting that she was very pale and looked consumptive. Bad air, bad eating habits, no exercise, no sunlight. She would sicken soon. He had told her so, and had dared to tell Avun too, but he had been politely ignored. With another bow, he withdrew.

Muraki continued writing. It was several hours before she stopped to ease the cramp in her hand, and then she noticed the letter and wondered how it had got there. She picked it up and unfolded it, read what was within. There was a short interruption in her breathing, a soft intake of surprise. She read it again, crossed out several of the pictograms, read it once more and then burned it to ash in the lantern.

Then she sat back at her desk and stared at the page that she had been writing.

After an hour, she got up and went to find Ukida, her soft shoes whispering as she went.

Avun tu Koli entered his study with a wary tread. It was dim and cool in here, the swirled lach floors sucking what warmth there was from the room. There was little furniture but a huge marble desk before a row of window-arches that looked out across the shrouded city, and a few cabinets for storing paperwork and stationery. He kept his private s.p.a.ce orderly and spartan, like his life.

He glanced around the room, unconsciously furtive in his movements, then, satisfied that it was empty, he slipped inside and let the curtain fall behind him.

'Welcome back, Avun,' Kakre croaked, and Avun jumped and swore.

The Weave-lord was standing behind his desk, but Avun had somehow not seen him there. His eyes had skipped over the intruder, a blind spot in his mind.

'You seem unusually nervous today,' Kakre observed. 'You have good reason to be.'

'Do not try anything foolish, Kakre,' Avun warned, but there was little strength in his voice. 'Fahrekh's actions were nothing to do with me.'

'Convenient, though. Oh, indeed,' the Weave-lord replied, shuffling around the edge of the desk. 'What excellent timing he possessed, to strike just after you had done your level best to exhaust me.' He c.o.c.ked his head to one side, the gaping corpse-Mask tipping in a grotesque parody of curiosity. 'Where have you been, my Lord Protector?'

Avun calmed himself, regaining his composure. Like his daughter, he valued the ability to control the expression of emotion, and it was a measure of how scared he was that Kakre had noticed his fear.

'I went to Ren to discuss the construction of a new pall-pit there,' he said.

'And was that not something you could have left to an underling?'

'I wanted to be there personally,' Avun replied, walking further into the room to a.s.sert that he was not afraid, that he had nothing to be afraid for. 'It is well to keep myself involved in small matters as well as large. It helps me to keep perspective.'

'Here is your perspective,' Kakre hissed. He cast one withered hand towards Avun, and the Lord Protector's insides wrenched as if twisted. The agony made him stagger, but he gritted his teeth and did not scream as he wanted to.

'You thought my anger might calm if you got out of my way for a few days?' Kakre snarled. 'You thought I would forget, perhaps? That my addled mind would not remember what you had done when you returned? Like Fahrekh, you underestimate me greatly.' His fist clenched, and Avun did cry out this time, and dropped to one knee. His pate was sheened with sweat and his face taut with pain.

'I knew . . . you would make . . . the wrong a.s.sumption,' Avun gasped.

'I think I know you well enough, Avun, to be confident that you were conspiring with Fahrekh to kill me,'

Kakre said. 'Treachery is second nature to you. But you chose the wrong victim this time.'

'I . . . it was not . . . I . . .' Avun could barely manage a breath now. Kakre was increasing the pain, and it was like knives had been shoved into his guts and were slowly revolving.

'More denials? I could search your thoughts to find the truth, if you would prefer,' the Weave-lord offered. 'Though I am not as precise as I used to be. The results could be . . . unfortunate.' His dead face stared pa.s.sionlessly from beneath the shadow cast by his hood. 'It would be easier just to kill you.'

'You cannot kill me,' Avun spat. Loops of crimson spittle hung from his narrow chin.

'Would you like me to try harder?'

Avun's teeth were pressed together so tightly that it was an effort to force them apart to speak. 'The Weavers . . . die with me . . .'

Abruptly the pressure on his organs loosened. Not much, but enough to let him breathe precious air easily again. He sucked in great lungfuls, on his hands and knees now. Blood dripped from his mouth onto the floor.

'Interesting,' Kakre said, his tone flat. 'And what did you mean by that, my Lord Protector?'

Avun delayed his answer for a moment, savouring the respite, choosing his words carefully. They meant the difference between life and death. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared up at the hunched figure who stood over him.

'There is n.o.body else who can lead your armies,' he said.

'Is that the best you can do?' Kakre mocked. 'Pitiful. There are many subordinates, generals of the Blackguard who would be eager to take your place.'

'And who chose those generals? I did. And I have been systematically removing all the good ones from positions of power for years now.'

Kakre was silent. Avun got one foot beneath him and rose unsteadily, clutching his thin stomach with one hand.

'Search their records, if you wish,' Avun said. 'None of them have any real experience of ma.s.s warfare.

They are peacekeepers, men whose expertise is policing our cities. The old generals were useless since we had Aberrants and Nexuses to fight with, so I got rid of them. You did not pay close enough attention to that, Kakre. It is well to keep yourself involved in small matters,' he managed a red-stained grin 'as well as large.'

Still the Weave-lord said nothing, merely regarding him from within the dark pits of the Mask's eyeholes. Avun stumbled to his desk and leaned one arm on it, supporting himself. He felt like he had swallowed broken gla.s.s.

'Remember the first months of this war? Remember how your armies were slaughtered by the generals of the old empire? That is how it will be again, if you kill me. There is n.o.body to take my place.'

'We can find one,' Kakre said darkly, but he sounded uncertain.

'Can you? Do you know what to look for in a leader?' Avun shook his head dismissively. 'No matter. It would take time for them to familiarise themselves with your forces, to a.s.semble a power structure.

Time you do not have. Your breeding programmes fail to provide you with enough Aberrants to both control your territories and attack new ones. And the more you produce, the faster your armies starve.

You need the Southern Prefectures, and you need them before Aestival Week. We will be hard pressed to do so as it is. If you get rid of me, your chances drop to nothing. And then begins the slow decline of your forces, and the Empire will take you apart, piece by piece, feya-kori or not. You can invade a city with your blight demons, but you cannot occupy it. For that you need armies. For that you need me! '

He raised himself to stand erect again, keeping the pain from his face, and turned his dull, reptilian eyes upon the Weave-lord.

'The new pall-pits are operational. The feya-kori are ready to be called. We need to work together or your precious monasteries will fall like Utraxxa did.'

With that, he walked boldly out of the room. The few steps it took him to get to the curtained doorway of his study were heavy with terror: he expected to be struck down and tortured. But then he was at the curtain, and through it, and though he felt Kakre's seething frustration and anger like a palpable thing, he knew he had won this round.

TWENTY-ONE.

Kaiku slid the screen closed on the celebrations throughout Araka Jo and looked across the room at Cailin.

'They are in rare spirits tonight,' Cailin observed.

'They are idiots,' Kaiku said rancourously. 'Like goats, blindly trusting in their herders.'

It was dusk, and the night insects were beginning their discordant chorus in the undergrowth, all but smothered by the cheers and raised voices and fireworks that arced over the rim of the mountains. The house of the Red Order was quiet in comparison. Most of the Sisters were out in the village or up at the temple complex, overseeing the festivities that had erupted at the news of Lucia's return.

'You are angry,' Cailin said.

'Yes,' Kaiku replied. She was not wearing the attire of the Order: she had come here directly after their arrival, having found the folk of the Libera Dramach waiting for them, warned by scouts of their approach.

'About them?' Cailin motioned beyond the screens.

'Among other things,' Kaiku replied.

Cailin was standing, lantern-light falling on one side of her painted face. A table sat against one wall with mats tucked underneath it, but she did not bring it out or invite Kaiku to sit. There was a hostility to her that Cailin did not like.

'They think this is a triumph?' Kaiku snapped. 'They think we return in splendour? We straggle back, only a handful of survivors, and all they care about is that Lucia has returned, and with her she brings some . .

. promise. That is all. No word of elaboration, nothing that might justify all those deaths, Phaeca's death.

She will not speak a word of what went on in that forest, except to say that the spirits will aid us when the time comes.'

'She means hope to them,' Cailin replied softly. 'They do not care about the cost. They feared to lose their figurehead. Their saviour. They may be foolish, but they are desperate too. If we had lost her, we would have lost the hearts of the people.' She watched Kaiku suspiciously. 'I am grateful to you, Kaiku.

Once again you have excelled yourself. You brought her back alive.'

'I am not certain I care for your grat.i.tude,' Kaiku said.

Cailin descended into icy silence. She would not rise to that. Let Kaiku say what she wanted to say; Cailin would not trouble herself to draw it from her.

'You should not have sent Phaeca with us,' Kaiku said eventually. But her tone was quieter, and Cailin surmised that even this was not the true cause of her ire.

'You should not have agreed to have her along,' Cailin countered. 'I note you did not protest overly at her inclusion.'

'She was too sensitive,' Kaiku murmured. 'It drove her mad. Maybe she would have recovered when we got out of that G.o.ds-cursed place. But she should not have been there at all.'

Cailin let this go past. She did not have anything to say to it. None of them had any idea about what the Forest of Xu was like before Lucia and the others had entered. Placing blame was useless. Cailin felt Phaeca's death as keenly as Kaiku did, though for different reasons: she grieved to lose one of her precious Order, Kaiku grieved to lose a friend.

'And Lucia?' she asked. 'How is Lucia?'

'Different,' Kaiku said, pacing restlessly around her side of the room. 'Cold. Taciturn. But since she visited the Xhiang Xhi, she has been clear of mind. She is no longer dreamy or unfocused. If she is unresponsive, it is because she wants to be. I do not know which way I preferred her: they are equally bad.'

The agitation of her body language was increasing. Cailin knew that she would soon come to her point, that she was delaying the moment. She was afraid to speak her mind, perhaps. But Kaiku's nature would drive her thoughts into the open eventually.

'I must know,' she said suddenly. 'The Red Order. I must know.' She stopped pacing, faced Cailin and said bluntly: 'What are we doing?'

'We are saving Saramyr.'