' No! ' Kaiku voice was sharp. 'I want the truth! What happens afterwards?'

Cailin's tone was faintly puzzled. 'You know this, Kaiku.'

'Tell me again.'

Cailin studied her for a moment, then turned away from the lantern. 'We take the place that the Weavers have occupied. We become the glue that holds our society together.' She turned her head to meet Kaiku's eyes. 'But there will be no conflict between us. We are not as the Weavers. We would not kill each other at our masters' behest, nor would we use our abilities to a.s.sa.s.sinate our masters' rivals.

We would have no masters.'

'And in such a way could you hold the whole of Saramyr to ransom,' Kaiku said.

Cailin regarded her steadily. 'Is that what you think we will do?'

Kaiku gave a short, humourless laugh. 'What does it matter what I think? The n.o.bles will think that. The Empire cannot be run when its power lies in the hands of the Red Order. Are the n.o.bles to believe that we would act out of charity? That we would dedicate our lives to being their mouthpieces, their messengers? We are not blood-bound to anyone, and hence we can do as we choose. Do you think they would stand that for long?'

'They would have little option,' Cailin said. 'Granted, we would be able to extract certain concessions, but not more than the Weavers took. We do not need lives as the price of our power.'

'No, Cailin. They are too clever to fall for that, and you know they are. That is not security enough.

Eventually, their fear of us would make them depose us. And I will wager that whatever plan you have for the Sisterhood is geared towards making that eventuality impossible. Even if it means deposing them first.'

'Your accusations are becoming insulting, Kaiku,' Cailin warned. 'Remember to whom you speak.'

Kaiku shook her head. 'I have heard you talk about how the Sisterhood are higher beings than men. I do not for one instant think that you would willingly be a servant to anyone. You are lying, Cailin. You have an agenda.' She brushed her hair back behind her ear. 'Otherwise, you would not have let the Weavers take the throne. You would not have let Axekami fall into ruin. You would not have let all those people die.'

Cailin was a thin, severe line of black against the blue light of the night that glowed through the paper screens. 'You have been speaking with Asara, I see.'

'No,' said Kaiku. 'I speak to her as little as possible. I have been thinking, though. It is all very obvious if I proceed from the premise that you like everybody else in this d.a.m.ned world, it seems are merely out for your own advantage.

'If we had resisted the Weavers at the first, if we had warned the n.o.bles and lent our strength to their cause, they might have stopped all this from happening. But what would we gain? The n.o.bles would have averted a terrible danger, and, once their lesson was learned, they would never let beings such as the Weavers beings such as us anywhere near a position of power again. Aberrants would still be Aberrants: despised, outcast and hunted. Lucia would have been executed.

'But what if it were different? What if the Weavers shattered the Empire? What if they were allowed to become a threat so terrible that anything would be preferable to them? What if the only way the Empire could be saved was by an Aberrant empress and by the Red Order? How could they refuse to let us be part of their new world then? Everyone already accepts that Lucia will be Empress if we win this war; and you have been making very certain that she holds you in the highest regard all these years. The Red Order will rise as she does. I imagine that the Red Order would rise even without her now. You have played your hand well.'

Kaiku stared hard at the Pre-Eminent. 'The Weavers had to crush the people so that they would accept us, and we let it happen. Maybe we even helped it along.'

Cailin gave a dismissive flick of her fingers. 'Of course we helped it along. Do you really think the Libera Dramach could ever have resisted the Weavers? Even with Lucia on our side, we would have gone the way of the Ais Maraxa, cut down as soon as we showed ourselves. The high families needed to be united against the Weavers, and that would never happen unless they were under real and direct threat. So yes, we wanted the Weavers to take the throne, no matter how many lives it cost. It was the only way to get the n.o.bles on our side, to make them see what was good for them. Such is the art of politics, and its results are not measured in lives but in who gets to write the history books.'

'So we manipulate them as the Weavers did,' Kaiku said, and lowered her head. 'We are the lesser of two evils, Cailin. But we are still evil.'

Cailin laughed bitterly. 'Evil! What do you know of evil?' Her laughter faded, and her face took on a hateful expression, her voice deepening. 'Evil is a village stoning a seven-harvest child and leaving her for dead in a ditch. Evil is being left to fend for yourself when you are afraid of even going to sleep in case the fires come, wandering from town to town, a slave and later a wh.o.r.e because you have no home, because each time the burning comes you have to run, you have to run into the wilderness and scrabble for roots and starve or the men with knives will come and kill you! Evil is the look in their eyes, those ignorant b.a.s.t.a.r.d cattle who populate this land, as they despise you for being Aberrant!' Her voice had risen to a shout, but now it dropped, and was hard with scorn. 'They can despise me, Kaiku. But they will fear me also.'

Kaiku was silent for a long time. The two of them faced each other across the room.

'I will help you destroy the Weavers,' said Kaiku. 'And after that, it is over. I want no part of you or your Order, Cailin. I see now that you are not what I was looking for all this time.'

She slid the screen open and left, shutting it behind her. Cailin stood alone, listening to the celebrations outside.

Barak Zahn found his daughter sitting on the roof of a temple.

It was a flat roof, made of white stone. Figures guarded the corners, eroded away to mere lumps; it was otherwise featureless. A stairway led up from beneath. Lucia was sitting inches from the edge, with her arms wrapped around her legs and her knees drawn up to her chin, looking out into the night.

When Zahn emerged and saw his daughter like that, he was momentarily at a loss for what to say. When he did speak, the words came awkwardly.

'The guards below told me I might find you here,' he said, redundantly.

She turned to look at him and smiled over her shoulder. 'Father,' she said. 'Come sit with me.'

Puzzled by this response, which was at odds with the one he had been expecting from the accounts of those who had spoken with her recently, he did as she bade, and settled his rangy frame next to her, dangling his legs over the edge of the roof.

'Everyone is happy tonight,' she said. The lights from the lanterns below were glowing strings in the pale blue of her eye. The dirt paths of the temple complex were bright and stalls were busy. People talked and drank or wandered down the slope on their left, towards the lake. Music drifted up to them from an unseen band.

Not knowing what to say to that, Zahn looked at the moons. Aurus was full in the north, dominating the sky, and Iridima peered out from behind it like a sharp white blister.

'I am glad to see you are recovered,' she said. 'I missed you.' G.o.ds, she was a beautiful creature, so much resembling her mother. It made him proud to think that she was his child.

'Your relatives will have to do better than that to get you from me,' Zahn said, his lips twisting into a grin.

'I have spoken with Oyo,' she said. 'It will not happen again.'

Zahn blinked. 'You did what?'

Lucia gave him an innocent look.

'But you did not even know it was her!' he exclaimed. 'Even I am not certain.'

'I knew,' she said calmly. 'It was obvious.'

'And you accused her? You have only been back a few hours!'

'I did not accuse her,' Lucia said, unfolding her legs and dangling them alongside his. 'I said to her that if you should die in the future, in any manner I found suspicious, I would disown Blood Erinima.'

Zahn was open-mouthed for a moment, then he laughed heartily and shook his head in disbelief. He had never known Lucia to be this a.s.sertive. 'Heart's blood, you really are getting to be like your mother.

Whatever happened in that forest, it certainly lit a fire in you.'

'Yes,' she said quietly, her eyes drifting to the horizon, to the north, where the Forest of Xu lay beyond the mountains and beneath the moons. 'Yes, it did that.'

Asara came to Kaiku's house in the dead of night. Kaiku had known she would. Kaiku was waiting for her.

'Sit down, Asara,' she offered as an invitation, motioning to the mats she had laid in the centre of the room. There was a table next to them, with bitter tea and wine and other spirits, as well as several snacks and small cakes. A proper reception for a guest; something that Kaiku rarely bothered with, if ever, and doubly strange to Asara since she had turned up unannounced. Trebly so, since she was under the impression that Kaiku hated her.

Asara stood just inside the door for a moment, caution evident on her face. Then she knelt on one of the mats, arranging herself elegantly. She had bathed and dressed and reapplied spa.r.s.e touches of eyeshadow, and she looked perfect, as ever. Kaiku wore a simple black robe of silk belted with gold, her hair damp and raked through with her fingers, as casual as if Asara were her sister and had dropped around for a gossip.

Asara looked frankly uncomfortable as Kaiku offered her tea. She had wine instead. Kaiku had the same, then sat cross-legged on the mat opposite.

'What is all this?' Asara asked.

Kaiku tilted her shoulder in a shrug. 'I felt like it.'

Asara's unease was not abated at all by that.

'I envy you sometimes, Asara,' she said conversationally. 'I envy the way you can change. How you can start again at any time. That is a wonderful gift, I imagine.'

'Are you mocking me?' Asara asked. It was impossible to tell by her tone.

'No,' Kaiku said. 'I mean it.'

'Then you have nothing to envy,' she replied. 'We do not learn from our mistakes. Age lends no wisdom, only removes the enthusiasm for foolishness. You could change yourself a thousand times and you would still dig yourself the same holes to fall into.'

Kaiku's eyes lowered to her gla.s.s. 'I was afraid you might say that.' She took a sip.

'Kaiku, are you in some kind of trouble?' Asara could hardly believe that those words had come from her mouth, but there was something in Kaiku's manner that moved her.

Kaiku raised her eyes, and her lashes dislodged a tear from each eye to run unevenly down her cheeks.

Asara almost reached across the gap between them to touch her arm in comfort, then stopped herself.

'Everything is falling apart, Asara,' she whispered, her throat tight. 'I cannot hold it together. I cannot hold anything together any more.'

Asara, shocked, could not think of a thing to say.

'I watch my friends die and I am powerless to prevent it,' she said. 'I have been fighting for almost ten years and it has gained me nothing. What good is victory? All I will succeed in is removing the only reason I have had to keep living ever since my family died. I will destroy the Weavers and be left with nothing. n.o.body I can trust, nothing I can believe in. Everyone proves false in the end, every ideal is a sham. I am not fighting to make my life better, I am just fighting to stop it becoming worse.'

'This is not like you,' Asara said at last. 'You are stronger than this.'

'Am I not allowed limits?' Kaiku cried. 'G.o.ds, how much am I expected to take before I go the way of Phaeca?'

Asara did not comment on that. She was not sure whether Kaiku blamed her for the death of her friend or not.

Kaiku wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. 'Oh, this is ridiculous,' she murmured to herself. 'I can hardly expect you to care.'

'But I have . . . contributed to your sorrow,' Asara said, wringing her hands in her lap. 'Forgive me.'

Kaiku shifted herself so that she was kneeling, and she put her arms around Asara and held her closely.

Asara, still perturbed by Kaiku's mood, returned the embrace. After a moment, it stopped feeling unnatural.

'I cannot hold you in enmity, Asara,' she said. 'You have been a friend to me, in your way.'

Asara let out a sigh, battling down an emotion that she did not wish to experience again. She held Kaiku for a long while, until she was sure she had herself under control, and then said: 'I will not hurt you again. I promise you that. I am selfish and cruel more than you know but I will not hurt you again.'

She heard a sob from Kaiku, and then she drew away; and Asara saw that Kaiku's eyes were red, and not only from weeping.

'It is done,' she said.

Asara's heart jumped a beat. She stared at Kaiku, not daring to believe.

'A small thing,' Kaiku said, 'Some kind of process that was not working as it should. I made it work.' Her face saddened a little. 'There has been too much death in this world. I would take this one chance to bring life. It is all I can do.'

When Asara still appeared stunned, Kaiku sobbed a laugh and wiped her eyes. 'Do not just sit there gaping. You are fertile. Go back to your husband.'

Asara exhaled a shuddering breath, and her eyes filled and spilled over. 'Promise me,' she whispered.

'Promise me you will never tell anyone of this. Of what you have done.'

'You have my promise.'

'I will never forget this, Kaiku,' Asara said tremulously. 'In all the emptiness of this world, you will always have me, for what that is worth to you.'

'It is worth much,' Kaiku said, then reached over and stroked her cheek, wiping a tear across her skin. 'I have never seen you cry,' she said thoughtfully.

Asara caught her hand and held it against her cheek, her eyes fluttering closed. Then she got to her feet and went to the door. She slid it open, looked back, and was gone, closing the door behind her.

An hour later, she had stolen a horse and was riding east, to the Tchamil Mountains and the desert beyond.

TWENTY-TWO.

The gate of the Imperial Keep stood open during the day to allow in and out the traffic necessary to keep such a vast building running. Carts of food, heavily guarded against the starving ma.s.ses outside, rattled in and returned empty. Others came with jars of wine and spices, vats of cleaning fluid, bolts of cloth; and not a few of them with unconscious men, women and children concealed inside, slender vagrants from the Poor Quarter to be delivered for the Weavers'

delectation.

There were Blackguard and a pair of Weavers at the gate, as always. They watched over the traffic, the Blackguard checking permits, the Weavers looking for any more subtle dangers: concealed bombs and the like. They stood hunched on either side of the wide entranceway like ragged gargoyles, immobile as they went about their invisible task.

Inside his carriage, the physician Ukida fidgeted nervously as they approached the gate.

'They have removed the blessing on the arch,' Mishani commented, staring out of the window. The arc of gold above the gate had indeed been smoothed clean.

Ukida made a vaguely questioning noise out of politeness; he was not listening to her, obsessed as he was with his own fear. Mishani looked away from the window and over at him.

'You will give us away, Master Ukida, if you do not control yourself,' she said sternly.

That stung him, and he made an effort at composing his demeanour, which made his state more obvious rather than less. He wished he had never taken the letter from Mishani in the first place. He should have just refused her. What could she have done? Taken him to face Imperial justice? Ha! There was no empire, and certainly no justice, and she would be arrested herself if she tried. Why had he not thought of that before, instead of clinging to his old notions of honour and ties of allegiance? If he had done so, his Mistress Muraki might not have commanded him to set up this deception, and he might not be in great peril of losing his life.

Hindsight was a cruel thing, and it crowed and gloated at him now as they drew up to the gate and one of the Blackguard approached the door of the carriage.

'Master Ukida,' he said in acknowledgement. He was a good-looking young man, wearing the dark bandana and leather armour that was the uniform of the Blackguard. 'Who is this?' he asked, his eyes shifting to Mishani, who sat meekly in the back of the carriage.

Ukida glanced nervously over the Blackguard's shoulder to the Weaver there, whose coral Mask was turned towards them.

'An a.s.sistant,' he said, brandishing a sealed roll of paper which he handed to the guard. 'Just temporary, you understand. Mistress Muraki is ill, something quite unusual, and has need of this one's special knowledge of such conditions.'

Mishani met the Blackguard's inquiring gaze calmly.