The Imperial Keep was in turmoil. The bombs that had been set to sow chaos and confusion had been more effective than any of the usurpers could have imagined. Scholars raced to save precious manuscripts or works of art from rooms threatened by flame; servants rushed to and fro with water from the pipes to quench the hungry fires; children ran bawling in search of their mothers. The Imperial Guards were in disarray. Since they were unable to trust even their own ranks, they could not mount any kind of coherent operation. The Imperial Family had been taken away into hiding, and none knew where they were. A body had been discovered at the base of the Tower of the North Wind, but it was so flayed by ravens that there was little more than a bloodied skeleton remaining. It would not be for many hours that the rings on the corpse's fingers would be recognised as those of Durun tu Batik, former Emperor of Saramyr. The Empress's body was discovered shortly after; but by then it was far, far too late.
It had all got out of control. The bombs and the madness were necessary to provide a cover so the Empress and her Aberrant spawn could be killed in secret, and their murder credibly blamed on somebody else. Now it worked against its instigators, for amid the confusion nobody stopped for two servants carrying an injured girl. Not many in the Keep had ever seen the Heir-Empress, and few would recognise her in this state if they did, with her clothes burned and her face covered by her hair. Slightly more remarkable was the fact that one of the servants was a woman dressed in man's clothes, and that she stumbled along with her eyes bound by a torn rag of cloth and her hand on her sickly-looking companion's
shoulder, evidently blinded by some shard of stone thrown by an explosion. But better the people of the Keep should see that than an Aberrant; for Kaiku's eyes were blood-red in the aftermath of using her kana, and would not fade for hours yet. The concentration involved in focusing her power to destroy only Durun's hand had drained her to exhaustion; and even then, she had failed. The Heir-empress lay unconscious and burned because she could not control the force within her well enough, and if she died it would be on Kaiku's head. She did not think she could bear the weight of that guilt.
So they hurried along as best they could, following Tane's memory back to the servants' quarters where Purloch waited for them. They had no time to think what might have become of the others. There was only flight.
((Asara!))
Asara pulled Mishani to a halt, dragging her to the side of the corridor behind a statue of Yoru, guardian of the Gates of Omecha, with his wine jug raised high. The cool, austere thoroughfares of the Imperial Keep had become manic now, and servants and soldiers rushed and clattered by, to and fro, boots clicking on lack, shouting commands and questions. They were in one of the interior corridors, where there were no outside windows, and even high-ceilinged and wide as it was, it felt terribly claustrophobic.
Both of them were sweaty and dishevelled. Their escape from the throne room had been a narrow thing, but the Imperial Guards had no interest in a noble lady and her handmaiden while they were locked in combat with each other. The loyal and the traitorous had become mixed and mingled hopelessly, and after Barak Mos had fled the battleground degenerated into a free-for-all. The robed advisors and scribes trapped in the room were ignored, and Mishani and Asara slipped away with them once their route was clear. One Guard had raised his sword to stop them, but Asara had killed him bare-handed in an eyeblink. Mishani still could not credit what she had seen, but astonishment was something that would have to wait. For now, she wanted only to escape this place. The pronouncement of her execution had shaken her enough so that she cared little about the Heir-Empress or the plans of the Libera Dramach at this moment; she needed only safety and sanctuary.
'What is it?' she asked, a little shocked at being roughly taken
aside by Asara. She was not accustomed to being manhandled like that by anyone. The Aberrant lady hushed her.
((Asara.))
It was Cailin. This was not the first time the Sister had spoken to Asara from afar, and it did not perturb her now as it had in the beginning. She disliked having anyone in her head, but Cailin at least was a considerate house guest, and if she pried into any of Asara's deeper secrets then it was too subtle for her to notice.
She concentrated a stream of images, recalling in a jumbled order what had happened to them, making it as clear as she could. There was no way for her to speak directly to Cailin – she did not have the mechanisms in her to send words – but impressions would be enough.
Cailin understood. She replied with another set of images, these ones embedded with instructions and information.
'What is it?' Mishani persisted.
Asara blinked, and the contact was gone. 'Cailin,' she said. 'She has done away with Vyrrch, and she has a free hand across the Keep. She is our eyes now.' She turned back the other way. 'We have something we must do.'
'What must we do?' Mishani's tone made it clear that she was not moving, and certainly not back towards the heart of the Keep.
'Kaiku and Tane have the Heir-Empress,' Asara said. 'We have to find them. Cailin will lead us there.'
'Kaiku?' Mishani said, and they were on their way.
Another explosion rumbled through the Keep, making the walls shake. This one was no bomb, but the stores of ignition powder down in the cellars. Kaiku stumbled and fell as they were crossing an intersection between two corridors, into the path of a frightened group of servant women who almost trampled her. The sound of running feet and the clank of armour came after, and Tane saw with a thrill of horror that a group of Imperial Guards was racing towards them. He shifted Lucia's weight to one arm and used the other to grab Kaiku and haul her to one side, then huddled down with her, shielding the Heir-Empress with his body as the Guards rushed by. They paid him no attention.
Kaiku's eyelids were drooping behind the cloth rag that concealed her eyes, her head lolling forward on to her breast. 'I cannot go on,' she said. 'I am so tired.'
Tane would not listen. The fever that had settled in his bones only seemed to make him more determined not to tire, more unforgiving of weakness; his or hers. Though he sweated and his skin seemed taut and yellowish, he would not allow himself to succumb, and was driving himself ever harder. Relinquishing Lucia for a moment, he dragged Kaiku to her feet. She moaned in protest. 'Be quiet,' he hissed, at the sound of new footsteps. He lifted Lucia up, put Kaiku's hand back on his shoulder, and they went on.
For Kaiku it was a descent into nightmare that was becoming all too familiar. The awful burning, the empty void left inside her after her kana had broken free stole her will to do anything but lie where she was and sleep. One day, unless she learned to tame it, it would be the death of her. It might already have been the death of the Heir-Empress, and the hopes of the Libera Dramach. She staggered in Tane's wake, hating him for forcing her to run when she could be asleep, hating herself for being so selfish when there was a child in his arms who could be dying even now.
Tane moved with certainty; after many years of finding his way through forests, the ordered corridors of the Keep presented no problem to him. Under his guidance, they made their way rapidly down into the lower levels, heading for the servants' quarters. Every new person that passed them by brought a fresh dread; every pair of eyes looking them over might recognise the child he carried, and that would be the end for them. But time and again their luck held, and they passed through the confusion unchallenged.
'Tane! Kaiku!'
They jumped at the sound of their names, but trepidation turned to relief as they recognised the voice. They paused on the narrow stairs they were descending, and from behind them came Asara and Mishani. The reek of hot smoke rose from below, but that was to be expected; they were almost into the corridors where Cailin waited.
'Kaiku, are you hurt?' Mishani cried, seeing the binding around Kaiku's eyes. Kaiku slumped, but Asara caught her and bore her up.
'She has used her kana,' Asara said. 'It drains her. She just needs sleep.'
Mishani's eyes flickered from her friend to the child in Tane's arms, then to Tane himself. He looked sick; his gaze was grey and bleak. He feared for the Heir-Empress.
'There is no time to waste,' Mishani said, deciding all questions could wait. 'We must go.'
And with that, they plunged down into the depths of the servants' quarters. Poisonous fumes undulated in thin veils along the ceiling. Distant wails and calls for help reached them faintly, even over the dull whine that had muted Kaiku's ears after she had been near-deafened by an earlier bomb. The walls had reverted to rough brick rather than varnished wood or lack, bits of rubble were scattered around their feet. People they passed were grimed with smoke and sweat, and the heat was almost intolerable. It was not so cramped here as the first time Kaiku and Tane had passed through it, for those who could escape had already done so, leaving behind only the wounded and those who were willing to try and help them.
They were beginning to hope they might make it back to the old donjon where Purloch waited when they ran into three Imperial Guards.
It was pure bad luck that placed them in the path of the four companions and their supine burden. The Guards had escaped the fighting in the throne room, their courage failing them in the confusion of not knowing who was an ally and who was the enemy, and they had fled down into the servants' chambers to avoid the bloodshed going on above. Their intention – if they were faced with a superior officer – was to offer the explanation of digging out those trapped by the blazing rubble; but ill fortune had brought the kidnappers right to them, and whether they were loyal or traitors, ihey would not allow the Heir-Empress to leave the Keep if they recognised her.
Tane, in the lead, almost bowled into the Guards as the companions rushed into a plain, square stone room that formed a junction between three corridors. Wooden drying racks hung from the ceiling, and clothes hung from them in turn, now bone-dry and crinkling in the heat. The coarse brown bricks of the walls had cracked in places from nearby bomb-blasts, and the floor was dusted with powder and chips of rock.
They were too surprised by the presence of soldiers down here to keep the guilt off their faces. Mishani was the honourable exception, but her efforts did no good.
'What's that?' one of them said, his rifle already aimed at Tane. The other two raised their own rifles, more in alarm at the violent arrival of the newcomers than in any expectation of a threat. They
were jumpy, for it would mean their necks if their cowardice were discovered. The three of them were sweating heavily, baking inside their metal armour, the white and blue lacquer streaked with dirt.
'She is hurt!' Tane cried. 'Let us by!'
'I saw you in the throne room,' said one of the other Guards, his eyes ranging over Asara. They flicked to Mishani. 'You too. The Empress sentenced you to death.'
Neither Tane nor Kaiku reacted to the news. Tane's mind was racing through options of escape, but it was sluggish with fever and would not deliver; Kaiku was almost comatose on her feet.
'And you should be with her, not down here with the servants,' Mishani replied smoothly. 'Unless, that is, you are false Guards, like the other traitors who tried to take our Empress's life.'
Tane quailed inwardly at her boldness, but it made the Guards pause for a moment. They were evidently weighing their loyalties, deciding on the best response to the accusation.
'That girl,' said the Guard who had spoken to Tane. 'Look at her clothes. She's no servant.'
'It's the Heir-Empress,' the second one said, his voice dull with menace.
'It can't be!' said the third.
The second narrowed his eyes. 'I've done duty in the Heir-Empress's chambers before,' he said. 'It's her.'
Tane felt a nausea creep into his gut as the first Guard turned a sickly smile upon Mishani.
'Indeed,' he said. 'Then Shintu smiles on us, for that child is a monster, and she must die.' He put the rifle to his shoulder, pointed it squarely at Tane and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The powder did not ignite. It was a misfire.
The expectation of the shot caused everyone to hesitate; except for Asara. She had covered the distance between her and the nearest Guard in a moment, her elbow smashing into his jaw as she grabbed the barrel of his rifle with her other hand, twisting it out of his grip. It fired with a percussive crack, blasting a spume of grey dust from the stone wall next to his companion's head, causing him to shy back with an oath of alarm. Tane shoved the child into Kaiku's arms, who was too weak to hold her, and the pair of them tumbled to the ground. By then the Guard who had misfired had his sword drawn, his rifle cast aside; but Tane was ready for him. He darted inside the Guard's thrust, grabbing him by the arm and
swinging him heavily into the wall. There was not enough force behind it, his fever-burned muscles failing him. The Guard grunted and lashed out with an armoured knee, catching Tane in the gut; it hurt, but it did not knock the breath out of him. Mishani pulled Kaiku out of the way, dragging her into the corner of the smoky room, leaving the unconscious Heir-Empress lying where she had fallen.
Asara's enemy was putting up more of a fight than she had anticipated, and whereas her first blow would have finished most men, this one was particularly resilient. He threw her back, trying to get his rifle in between them, but she knocked it away again. Quicker and stronger than she seemed, she grabbed his forearm and levered it up his back, then tripped him so he fell with his full weight on it. The bone snapped loudly, and his scream of pain was silenced as Asara drove her sandalled foot into his face, smashing the gristle of his nose into his brain.
At the same time, Tane shoved his own opponent away from him, pushing him off-balance towards Asara. He was about to make a follow-up strike while the advantage was his when out of the periphery of his eye he saw the third Guard raise his rifle, and looked to see what he was aiming at.
His first thought was that it might be Kaiku, but she was too weak to be a threat, and her eyes were still bound. Mishani had her in the corner, out of harm's way. It was not them that the Guard was aiming at. It was the Heir-Empress, lying unprotected in the middle of the floor.
Tane howled an oath, sprinting at the Guard; but he was too far away, too late to prevent the trigger from being pulled, the hammer to fall, the powder to ignite. But he was not too late to fling himself in front of it.
The force was like a giant's hand slapping him in the chest, blasting him back to tumble over the small body of Lucia, knocking his breath from him in a white blaze of agony. He was aware of falling, but the air had turned to a cloud of feathers and he seemed to float slowly down; and while the impact of the floor hurt more than he could have imagined it would at that speed, it was overwhelmed by the soft cushion of shock that had settled into him.
He heard someone scream his name, but all he saw was the incomprehensible, idiot shapes of the washing above him, hanging from the drying racks and swaying in the smoky haze.
A gun fired, primed, fired again; two bodies fell. Mishani and Asara jerked about as one to find the source of the sound, and there was Yugi, a rifle in his hand, and Zaelis next to him in the doorway. The last two Guards lay inert on the stone floor. Kaiku had scrambled across the room, tearing off her blindfold, desperation lending her strength from some untapped reserve, and she was screaming Tane's name. Tane could barely hear her. All sounds had become dull, muffled. His body felt numb.
Mishani pulled the child out from under him and handed her to Zaelis. His expression was grim as he looked her over; he exchanged a glance with Yugi. They had feared for the Heir-Empress when they had reached the roof gardens and found that Lucia had been taken away by Rudrec at Durun's command; but hope had returned when Cailin had contacted them and directed them to where the others were. Now he saw how badly hurt Lucia was, and that hope faded again. Things looked graver still.
'Bring him back! Asara, bring him back!' Kaiku was crying.
Asara came to stand over her. She looked down at Tane. His eyes were on something above them, focusing and unfocusing wildly. His tanned skin had gone ghastly and pallid. A bright bloom of black and red soaked his chest, and she could see from the way it ran out from beneath him that the rifle ball had gone right through.
'I cannot,' she said.
'Bring him backV she screamed, picking him up and holding him. If she had possessed an ounce of kana she would have used it, no matter what the consequences. To try and stitch his wound, sew up his insides, make him whole again. She had taken him so much for granted, this man; he had been her companion since he had found her in the forest, and she had given him nothing back, closing herself off from him. In that moment when she held him, she knew it was too late to make amends. Though her tears and her voice denied it, she knew his time was come, and no artifice of hers or anyone else's could undo it.
Tane had no breath to speak, even if he had the words. His thoughts were turned inward, spiralling into a void like water down a drain; but those he could snatch and piece together were enough to provide him with the answers he needed. All this time, all this questioning and wondering and uncertainty, and all he needed was to have faith. He had not failed. He had trusted his goddess, against all his doubts and fears.
Why was he here? Why had she spared him from the shin-shin, set him on his path to walk with the Aberrants? He knew now, and the answer was so clear that he marvelled at his ignorance in not seeing it before.
She had sent him here to die, in the place of the Heir-Empress.
I owe the gods a life, he thought, and at last my debt is paid.
His eyes focused on Kaiku then, her irises red like a demon's. Aberrant eyes, yet he found them no less beautiful for it. After all, he had sacrificed himself for an Aberrant, to safeguard their futures. And as the clutter of his mind swirled away, what was left was only truth. This was bigger than his beliefs; the Heir-Empress was precious to the world, even to the gods. She was important to them all. If by his life he had saved her, then it was worth giving up.
He drank in the features of Kaiku as she held him, and even contorted in grief as they were he could not look away, not even when they seemed to fade, and beneath them there was a stitchwork of golden fibres, a brightness and an ecstasy such as he had never imagined. He had done his work, and done it well, and the Fields of Omecha waited to receive him in splendour.
And if he might have felt a little resentful at being a pawn in the game of the gods, a sacrifice to be made for another's sake, then at least they let him die in the arms of the woman he loved.
Thirty-Four
They escaped Axekami at nightfall, passing out through the south gate under cover of darkness. It was simple enough. All eyes were on the Keep and the east gate, where the armies of Blood Batik were flooding into the city. Fires still raged unchecked in the great truncated pyramid that brooded on Axekami's highest hill. The rioting had redoubled at the sight of the city's figurehead edifice belching smoke and glowing with flame against the gathering dusk, and Blood Batik's forces had responded savagely. In amid all of this, nobody noticed a covered cart drawing up to the quiet south gate. The sentries had their orders, of course; but oddly, after exchanging a few words with the hooded woman who sat next to the driver, they ignored them. The gates were opened, the cart drove through, and the kidnappers left Axekami behind them to boil and churn in its own anger.
Two miles south of the city, they turned off the road to a disused quarry. There they left the cart and took seven of the twelve fast horses that were being held for them there. The man who had guarded them looked worriedly at the child as she was passed into Zaelis's arms.
'Is it she?' he asked reverently, his eyes glittering in the green-edged moonlight. The air felt charged tonight, and the fine hairs on their skin were standing up. Tomorrow, or the next day… it could not be long till the moonstorm struck. They would have to ride hard to outpace it.
'It is,' said Zaelis. 'We must go. Every moment we waste brings her closer to death.'
The man swallowed and nodded, and watched as they rode off
through the quarry, heading overland. He returned to the ramshackle hut he had been sheltering in these last few days, previously owned by the foreman of this cheerless place. It was one of several stops along the route the kidnappers would take, to switch horses. Speed was of the essence, for all plans had relied on one factor -that the kidnappers would vanish with the Heir-Empress and leave no clue behind them. Even the tired mounts they left behind would be carefully hidden away until they regained their strength. If their escape was marked and they were followed, the Fold would be placed in great danger, and there were too many innocent lives at risk for that. Most of the populace did not even know of the mission, and were ignorant of the schemes being played out beyond the broken lands of the Fault; the Fold was unprepared and unable to defend itself against the might of the Imperial forces. He was left wondering if they had managed to steal the child without anybody knowing, or if even now there were armies sallying forth from the capital in pursuit.
He tried to sleep, but for most of the night he had no luck. Only towards dawn he began drifting in and out of a drowse, and his dreams were vivid and confusing. When he awoke the next morning, he could not be sure what he had imagined and what had been real; but one image stuck with him, and refused to fade in the manner of nightmares.
He could have sworn to the gods that he saw things moving on the lip of the quarry, just before the dawn. Stilt-legged things with eyes like burning lanterns.
They rode hard, long into the morning. When finally Zaelis called a halt, their horses were lathered, flanks steaming and lips flecked with spittle. They had left the road entirely, racing overland, and were deep in the gently rolling plains and hills of the trackless Saramyr countryside. They took shelter under the vast, ancient boughs of a jukaki tree, which stood alone on a slope, and there they rested. The air hummed with insects and the sun beat down on the grass, brightening the colours of the world. It was an incongruously beautiful day, and it did not match their mood.
Kaiku was asleep the moment she dismounted. She had been driven past endurance, almost falling out of her saddle several times, and she had held back the wave of unconsciousness far too long. Yugi began a fire for cooking. Zaelis laid Lucia on the grass, and he and Cailin crouched by her. Mishani, Asara and Purloch sat in the shade, sore and tired.
They had done it. They had snatched the Heir-Empress out from under the noses of the Imperial family, and nobody had seen them; at least nobody who had lived. Luck had made their timing perfect. The explosions in the Keep and the coup pulled off by Blood Batik, the fact that Durun had intentionally taken Lucia and Anais away in secret so nobody knew where they were when he killed them; it was entirely possible that the Imperial Guards had not even discovered the Heir-Empress was missing yet, and that they still thought she was hidden somewhere in the Keep. In the midst of the shambles, the kidnappers had plucked the child away and left no trail to trace.
And yet it did not feel like a victory, for the child lay there on the grass, hovering between life and death. If it fell to the latter, it would all have been for nothing.
Lucia lay raggedly before them, her breathing shallow. A large portion of her thick blonde hair had gone, and the edges of the surviving fibres were singed black and broke off at a touch. When Zaelis carefully brushed it aside, they saw the terrible burns on her upper back and the nape of her neck, the flesh cracked and oozing.
'Why is she like this?' he asked softly. 'Why won't she wake?'
'The burns go deep,' said Cailin. 'Near the spine.'
'You cannot heal her?'
Cailin shook her head. Even without her sinister makeup, she possessed poise and gravitas. 'I dare not. She is an unprecedented creature. We must hope her strength holds until we get back to the Fold.' She glanced at Kaiku, curled up and asleep. Without her the child would be dead. Yet because of her, the child might still die. Cailin refused to consider the responsibility she would share for allowing Kaiku to come, when she knew how dangerous her powers were.
Mishani was exhausted and miserable, for reasons beyond even her concern for Kaiku and the state of Lucia. She had been sentenced to death by the Empress, in the full view of many of the Imperial Guard. No matter who took the throne now, some of those Guards would survive to carry the news. Her father's change of heart had caught her in the backwash. Wasn't that what she had once loved about the court, that if you took your eyes away for a moment everything might change? Well, it had, and it had nearly cost her life. It had certainly cost her family. There was no going back, not ever. Not to court, not to Mataxa Bay. She was an outcast.
She looked at Kaiku, her face tranquil in sleep. But at least I am not alone, she thought, and found a small measure of comfort in that.
They cooked and ate while they rested, using the supplies provided in the horses' saddlebags. Zaelis drizzled warm honey mixed with milk into Lucia's mouth and was gratified that she refiexively swallowed. He gently prised open her eyes and they reacted to the light. But she saw nothing; she seemed to have gone dead inside, cut herself off in reaction to the pain of the burning. Such a sensitive thing, so fragile…
'I have to go,' said a voice at his shoulder. He looked up to see Purloch.
'I understand,' he replied. 'You have my thanks, and hers. You did a brave thing, to lead us back into the Keep and out again.'
Purloch nodded, unconvinced. The journey through the sewers had been harrowing, but mercifully there were no maku-sheng on the return journey. His nerves were frayed and tattered, and he felt strangely empty. If not for him, maybe Lucia would have grown up well, would have learned to disguise her powers and taken the throne. If not for him.
'My debt is paid,' he said. The words seemed hollow, but he said them anyway. There was a limit to his courage, and he had reached it. 'I will retire, I think, and go east. You won't see me again.'
'I wish you luck,' Zaelis replied.
'And I you,' Purloch said, and meant it. He glanced once at the stricken child, and then left to take a horse and ride away across the hills.
Then, too soon, it was time to leave again. They put out the fire and wakened Kaiku, who ate a few morsels of food before mounting up. She was still bone-weary, but the few hours of rest had done her much good. They put heels to their horses and galloped south, towards the Xarana Fault and safety.
They changed horses in the evening, and rode late into the night. Kaiku remembered little, for she drowsed in and out of semi-consciousness while her body kept itself barely righted in the saddle. Mishani rode alongside her, constantly concerned that she
might fall. It was a dangerous way to go, but they could not afford to have someone lead her horse as Asara had once in Fo, or to have someone ride with her. They could not slacken the pace for anyone.
They camped again in the lee of a low and sheltered rocky outcropping, and there made a small fire, confident it would be invisible from afar. They had no need of the heat against the warm night, but they had to cook and boil water. Yugi had herbs that would either help them sleep deeply or keep them alert and awake, depending on whether they were on watch or not. He drank a large quantity of the latter, knowing he would not sleep until they were back in the Fold. Asara joined him on his vigil, for she needed little rest and could get by perfectly well without it. The others lay out under the triangle of moons that loomed in the northern sky and sank into oblivion.
The journey from the north edge of the Fault to Axekami took several days at normal travelling speed. Zaelis estimated they could make it in two, which put their time of arrival at the broken lands around nightfall the next day. The Heir-Empress was worsening visibly now, becoming feverish and pale, shivering and muttering. If Tane had been here, he might have used his knowledge of herblore to ease the burn, to clean the wound and keep it from becoming infected; but they had no such knowledge, and even Yugi's expertise only extended to a few simple infusions. All they could do was mop the child's brow and tear strips of rags to use as dressings over the burnt flesh at her nape. Cailin sent a message ahead to her Sisters in the Fold, ordering them to have a physician and men to meet them at the northern edge of the Xarana Fault; but looking at the Heir-Empress, she had her doubts if the child could even make it that far.
The next day was plagued with troubles. Mishani's horse broke its leg in a rabbit hole, throwing her off. She was unhurt, but the horse had to be slain. She rode with Kaiku after that, who had become much more her normal self after a night's rest, though she spoke little and sometimes wept in memory of Tane. They were forced to slacken pace a little, but Mishani was very light and the horse was still strong and rested; the difference did not amount to much.
Nuki's eye was abominably intense towards midday, and Mishani became woozy with sunstroke. Zaelis did not stop, even to eat. He himself was beginning to suffer from sunburn across his nose
and cheeks, but he drove them on, counting their discomfort a minor thing against the Heir-Empress's life.
As dusk fell, they were hungry and exhausted, and Lucia's breath had become a shallow wheeze. They watched with mounting dread as the dull white disc of Aurus loomed behind them, and small, bright Iridima arced up from the west, chased at a faster pace by Neryn. The air began to tauten and took on a metallic tang. Clouds raced in, drawn seemingly from nowhere, heading north in contradiction to the breeze.
They had reached the periphery of the Xarana Fault when the moonstorm struck at last.
It announced itself with a scream that made the horses whinny and shy, the sound of the air being torn under conflicting gravities. Purple lightning flickered between the clouds as they were shredded in the maelstrom of invisible forces, high up in the atmosphere. The land rose around them suddenly, great shoulders of rock dislodged by the ancient cataclysm that had swallowed the city of Gobinda and the Cho bloodline. Time had smoothed the edges with grass and soil and erosion, but it was still possible to trace the borders with the eye, the point where the unbroken earth suddenly descended into turmoil. They rode into its shelter with the screeching of the moon-sisters in their ears, just as the first spatters of warm rain began to dot the earth. In moments, it thickened to a deluge, and the sky opened to deliver a ferocious payload upon them. Zaelis hastily wrapped a blanket around the child he held in his lap, but he would not let them slow. They darted between enormous rocks, slithering down shallow slopes that were already turning to mud, and disappeared into the maze of the Fault.
Full dark had fallen by the time they pulled to a halt in a clearing surrounded by enormous boulders that hunkered around them like mythical stone ogres. Eerie purple light flickered across the scene, followed by an angry shriek from the sky. Mishani, who was riding with Yugi to give Kaiku's horse a rest, flinched at the sound.
'Why are we stopping?' Kaiku called over the noise of the storm, water dripping from her cheeks and chin.
Zaelis whirled his mount, looking first one way and then the other, his eyes scanning the boulders. 'Cailin?' he queried.
'They are meeting us here,' she confirmed. 'The physician, and stretcher bearers. They know better than to be late.'
'But they are late,' he said.
'I know,' she replied neutrally.
The sound of Asara priming the bolt on her rifle framed their concerns neatly enough, without the need for words. Yugi glanced about nervously.
Kaiku's eyes fell to a rivulet of water, gently trickling and dripping into a tiny pool formed by the cup of the rock below. She could not have said what instinct made her narrow her eyes and look closer, but at that moment a flash of eerie lightning flickered across the night, and she saw that the clear rainwater was mingled with something darker, flowing from somewhere behind the rock. In the poor light, it was impossible to tell what it was by sight, but she recognised it by its slow, lazy swirl in the pool. Blood.
'Your men are dead, Zaelis!' she called, as every sense she had clamoured at her to get away from there. 'It is a trap! Ride!'
Perhaps it was the conviction in her voice, or the fact that they were all on edge, but they reacted instantly and without thought to question. It was what saved their lives.
They raced out of the clearing at the same moment as two of the shin-shin leaped from hiding, springing down upon where they had been waiting brief moments ago. The remaining pair of demons were already racing along the rim of the boulders, their blazing eyes fixed on their prey as their spindly stilt-limbs propelled them rapidly over the uneven terrain. Lightning stuttered purple light across them, silhouetting them against the clustered moons, and then darkness fell again, and there were only the twin lamps of their eyes as they came after the Heir-Empress.
'Scatter!' Cailin cried, the reins of her mount gathered in one fist, wrenching it around to avoid sliding on the wet mud and crashing into a looming hunk of rock. The broken stones here provided a thousand routes to follow, and a person might lose themselves forever in this maze; but Cailin was not concerned about that now. Escape was the only option for them. She could not protect them against four shin-shin without her Sisters to help her.
Zaelis wheeled his horse, spraying rainwater from its flanks, and hunching over Lucia he spurred it through a narrow passage between two enormous slabs of granite. Kaiku went that way too. Asara was too late to check her momentum and squeeze through; instead she aimed for a short, muddy slope downward. Yugi followed with Mishani. Cailin went another way.
The sky screamed as if in thwarted fury, and Kaiku hunched her
shoulders against its rage as she fought to control her mount. Zaelis was riding at a reckless pace, dodging through the rocks and trees with inches to spare while the rain conspired to blind them with wet gusts. Twice he almost dashed Lucia's brains out against an unforgiving bulge of stone, for she lay clutched to his chest with her head lolling to the side. Kaiku focused only on Zaelis's back, taking her cues from his movements. She scarcely dared to breathe as she whipped through gaps that threatened to smash her kneecaps, and she could not afford a second to look back and see where the shin-shin were.
You'll not get me now, she thought to herself with surprising venom. / beat you once, and I will do it again.
They broke out into a short, flat stretch, a strip of sodden grass mottled with patches of stone. Thundering towards a line of trees ahead, Kaiku found a few moment's grace to glance over her shoulder.
There were three of them that she could see; one racing along the ground after them and two darting between the boulders and outcrops that formed the walls of the maze their prey rode through. They were like living shadows, skinny patches of darkness that the eye refused to focus on, lunging through the rain with insectile speed.
She heard Zaelis cry out ahead of her. The fourth shin-shin had appeared from the trees, blocking their path, rearing up on its stilt-legs with a screech. Zaelis's horse brayed and swerved aside to avoid the demon in its path. Its hooves found a patch of slick stone and skidded, and Kaiku watched in horror as it twisted and went down. Zaelis took the brunt of the fall, cushioning Lucia with his body; Kaiku heard the snap as Zaelis's leg went, crushed under the flank of the horse. He bellowed in pain, but Kaiku was already bearing down on him, leaning from her saddle.
'Give her to me!' she called desperately, slowing as much as she dared.
Zaelis, understanding dimly through the fog of agony, lifted the child up as far as he could; and Kaiku snatched her, the weight of the dying girl smacking into her arms and almost pulling her from her saddle. She reined around, righting herself, and came face to face with the shin-shin that had emerged from the trees. She took a single gasp- and then Asara's rifle cracked out across the night sky, and the shin-shin was blown aside by the force of the shot. It flailed on the ground, its black stilt-legs pawing spastically. Its three companions looked up at where the shot had come from, and one of them erupted into flame with a howl. Cailin was there, emerging from another gap in the rocks, her eyes blazing red.
'GoF Zaelis roared, his molten voice breaking under the pain as his horse thrashed itself upright and left him lying there.
Kaiku needed no second prompting. She spurred her mount savagely, and it leaped away towards the trees, chased by the sawing shriek of the storm as the moon-sisters watched her go.
She plunged into the dark, wet world of the undergrowth, where every shadow was a hard face of wood and every wrong move promised a sudden end. Her ears rilled with the sinister hiss of branches as they waved under the onslaught from the sky, slapping her shoulders as she passed. She was riding one-handed, the other arm crooked around Lucia, the Heir-Empress's head jogging against her chest.
The ground suddenly dropped before her and her horse reacted before she did, turning to take the slope at the best angle it could. Kaiku held on for her life as her mount slid and slipped through the trees and rocks, and it seemed their luck could not hold, that every near-miss and narrow dodge brought them closer to the moment when they would collide with a tree and she would be broken like a twig doll.
And yet somehow the slope gave up before her horse did, and they bolted out into a narrow gully, with a stream running along its bottom. They pounded through the shallow water, throwing splash and spray up behind them. Kaiku knew they were beyond help now. There was no way the others could have followed her down here, much less find her again. She could only hope that the other shin-shin had suffered the same fate as the one Cailin had burned; but she dared not wait around to see. Whether it was her or her burden the shin-shin sought, she fled.
The walls of the gully seemed to narrow, and when the storm shrieked again she shrieked with it, for the sound was amplified and deafening along this corridor of rock. Her eyes were narrowed against the pounding rain, yet she seemed to be able to see almost nothing, and had no idea whether she was heading toward level ground or a cliff that would send her to her death.
It was the latter. Some instinct warned her, some part of her subconscious that recognised the change in turbulence of the stream ahead, and she reined her mount in hard enough to bruise its mouth. The stallion whinnied in pain, scrabbling to a halt. Kaiku leaned back in her saddle and held Lucia tight to avoid being tipped over the horse's neck, down the fatal plunge to moon-washed treetops below. Hooves skidded on wet stones, and Kaiku felt a sickening lurch as she realised that they might not stop in time; but then her mount found its purchase, and they came to rest inches from the precipice. Kaiku gazed out over the dark landscape, so far down, and her stomach churned at the thought of toppling through that endless space, the jagged rocks of the cliff wall rushing by, rains dashing against her face, hurtling towards the ground below…
With a rough tug, she pulled the stallion away, looking over her shoulder as she did so. Two of the shadow demons dropped from the treetops into the gully behind, their lantern-eyes trained unwaveringly upon the child in her arms.
'You will not have her!' Kaiku spat into the howling wind. Then her horse tugged left, against the reins, and she saw that the gully had crumbled enough at the cliff edge to form a ragged, unstable slope that they could use to clamber out. The horse wanted to try it, motivated by the terror of the things behind; but Kaiku knew better. Its hooves were not equipped for such uneven terrain. But her feet were.
She swung down off the horse and slung Lucia over her shoulder like a sack. Her arms and legs were aching, and the child needed better care than this, but she had no time to be gentle.
'You will not have her!' she screamed again, and the moonstorm keened in response. With that, she scrambled up the broken slope, inches from the precipice to her right. A thin film of water slipped and hurried past her feet, and twice she stumbled and had to put a hand down to keep her balance, but she gained the lip of the gully, and saw there were trees again, crowding up to the edge of the drop. Her lungs burning, she threw herself into the dark shelter of the branches; though she knew that from the shin-shin they provided no shelter at all.
Her breath came out in pants, her heart thudding in her ears, as she pushed though the dark, dripping netherworld of the trees. She could not outpace them like this; she could only hope to hide until daybreak or until help could arrive. A wild thought came to her. If she could find an ipi, like Asara had that first time she had met the shin-shin… but ipi dwelt only in the deep forests, and this was little more than a dense fringe of woodland.
You cannot hide. You cannot outrun them. Think!
Her mind flitted traitorously to her kana, the sleeping thing lurking within her that had caused her so much pain. Though she might have used it as a last resort, even knowing it had nearly killed Asara and may yet account for the death of the little girl that jounced and jerked against her shoulder, she knew she did not even have that option now. She had not rested enough since the last time it had burst free; there was nothing inside her to draw on. She had drained herself.
There would be no reprieve this time.
The trees gave up suddenly, discharging her on to a flat table of rain-battered rock that jutted out into the night sky. The three moons glared at her, arrayed directly ahead, their edges overlapping amidst a nest of churning cloud and jagged tines of purple lightning. Their luminescence reflected wetly on the cold stone at her feet. She staggered to a halt.
'No…' she whispered, but even from this distance it was possible to see that she had cornered herself. The table of rock ended in another precipice; she could see by the curve of its edge that it ran all the way round to either side of her. She had been fleeing along a steadily narrowing promontory, from which there was only one way out:.back the way she had come.
She heard the shin-shin wail from the trees behind, and whirled in terror. That was no option.
Frantically, she fled across the bare rock to its edge. Perhaps there was a way down, perhaps it was not as bad as it seemed, if there was even a lake or a river there then she might dare to jump…
But the precipice fell on to a jumble of rocks below, a maw of wet and broken teeth that waited hungrily.
She spun round, the limp form of Lucia still in her arms and wrapped in the sodden blanket, but she knew what she would see before she looked. The shin-shin were there, creeping out of the trees, three of them. The creature Asara shot had not stayed down, and they had escaped Cailin before she could inflict any further damage on them. They came prowling into the moonlight, their bodies slung low between their stilt-legs, yellow eyes glittering like burning jewels.
Kaiku clutched the child tight, feeling Lucia's small heart beat against her breast. The creatures had slowed, knowing their prey was helpless and at their mercy. Kaiku took a shuddering breath and looked over her shoulder at the fall behind her, the rain plunging past to plash on the stone far below.
Dying is not so bad, she thought, remembering her words to the Empress. But she had so much still to do. An oath unfulfilled, a new life to begin. She did not want to die here. Lucia stirred against her, whimpering.
'Shh,' she murmured, her eyes never leaving the steadily approaching demons. She found the lip of the precipice with her heel. 'I will not let them take you, Lucia.' The wind whipped and teased around her, pulling her, and she thought what it would be like never to feel such a wind again on her face, and wanted to cry. The shin-shin stiffened suddenly, frozen. They turned their heads to the sky, raising themselves up on their tapering limbs as if sniffing at the air. Kaiku watched them in mingled puzzlement and terror. What was this?
A gust of wind blew a sheet of rain across the rock table, and as it passed something seemed to glimmer within it. It was gone so fast that Kaiku doubted it had been there at all; but the shin-shin reacted, the focus of their gaze shifting to where the glimmer had been. One of them took a hesitant step back, uncertain.
Kaiku looked behind her for the briefest of instants, suddenly convinced there was something over her shoulder that she could not see. But all there was was the massive, blotched face of Aurus, seeming big enough to swallow the sky, and beside her was the white disc of Iridima with the blue cracks and lines that gullied her skin, and hiding behind and between them both, peeping out, was the clear green ball of Neryn.
She turned back, and gasped. For now she could see something, a faint iridescence that seemed to hang in the air. Before her eyes, the shimmering coalesced and separated into three. The moonstorm screamed in fury behind her, and the shin-shin's pointed limbs tapped on the stone as they skittered back a few steps, heads bobbing in confusion.
The disturbances were taking on form now, towering to twice Kaiku's height. Slowly the sparkling rain began to gain coherence, knitting shape from the falling droplets of water and merging into a spectral mass.
The very air seemed to go still as the spirits took shape, and Kaiku's breath died in her throat.
They were slender, but great cascades of hair like feathers fell down their backs, and their radiance was a cool, cold light. Long robes, at once magnificent and ragged, tangled around their ankles and wrists, shreds of swirling fabric and strange ornaments swaying as they moved. Their skin was too taut, stretched across them in mockery of human form. They were women in shape, but terrifying of aspect, their features shifting and melting like the moons' reflection in a disturbed pond. They seemed emaciated yet somehow smoothed, joints and angles too curved, not prominent enough, like waxworks softened by the sun's heat. Long, hooked fingernails sprouted from thin, cruel hands. They looked down on Kaiku and the child, and in their eyes was a malice, an incomprehensibility of purpose that made Kaiku's body weak and her soul shrivel. It was like looking into eternity, and seeing only the void.
Yet in her terror she knew them for what they were, for there had been legends told of them since long before she was born. They came only on nights like this, sometimes to wreak vengeance, sometimes to bring spite; other times to heal, and protect and save. Their motivations were beyond human ken; they were mad, as the wolves who howled at their mistresses in the darkest nights. The spirits of the moonstorm. The Children of the Moons.
They turned to the shin-shin, and the shadow demons retreated warily, flattening themselves in submission. But the Children of the Moons were not so easily placated. The shin-shin mewled and writhed, and Kaiku was appalled to see the creatures she had so feared abase themselves before these monstrous spirit-women, how much greater the magnitude of the Children's power must be. The shin-shin seemed robbed of their demonic arrogance, cringing helplessly as the spirits approached them. Bright swords slid from beneath shredded, incandescent robes. The shin-shin responded in a frenzy, but like pinned butterflies they could only thrash. They could not escape. The swords glittered, rising in an arc.
The massacre was short, and ugly. The shin-shin jerked and spasmed as they were cut and torn, their bodies rent and dismembered, their blood steaming and turning to vapour as it spewed from them. The Children of the Moons hacked the demons apart, taking them to pieces with their shining, rain-wet blades. Kaiku's view of the killing was obscured by the dreadful sight of the spirit- women, but she could hear the repulsive – and surprisingly human – impact of blade against flesh, the breaking of bone, the crunch of gristle. The joyous, grating shrieks of the Children mingled with the shin-shin's wails and drifted into the storm-torn sky.
In moments it was over, and the demons had faded into nothingness like a dream.
Kaiku shivered in the rain and the wind, the girl still clutched to her, her terror not lessened in the least by the departure of the shin-shin. For the great spirits now turned their ghastly eyes back upon her, and they came close until they loomed over her again. She had nowhere to go, not even an inch she could back away to without plummeting to her death.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Gods, would it have been better to have jumped than to face this? Were these creatures any better than the shin-shin? She felt as if her soul could take no more, racked as it was with fear and pain and weariness. Get it over with, then. Have it done.
She opened her eyes again, and found herself face to face with one of the Children of the Moons.
The spirit was down on one knee, bringing herself to Kaiku's level. Her vast and fearful face was only a foot from Kaiku's own, her nose and cheeks seeming to dissolve and reform with the slight inclinations of her head, her eyes like pits into the aether. Kaiku felt her blood cool and slow as she looked into them.
Then the spirit brought her hand up, and with the long, curved nail of her index finger she touched the bundle in Kaiku's arms, the lightest pressure on the blanket that enwrapped the Heir-Empress. Kaiku felt a shudder run through her, a soft charge of something so sublime that she had no name for it. She felt herself lifted from within, as if her body had become suddenly buoyant, a rush of ecstasy such as she had only felt before when she had touched the hem of death and looked into the Weave. A joyous awe threatened to swallow her whole, and she saw suddenly the nature of these awful beings that stood before her, saw them for the unfathomable, magisterial vastness they embodied, so far beyond humankind's understanding that she felt like a mote in the ocean in comparison. She saw into the world of the spirits for an instant, and it humbled her.
And then a gust of wind blew a stinging wave of rain across her face, and she shut her eyes against it. When she opened them again, the Children of the Moons were gone.
She stood on the edge of the precipice, the rain swirling around her and the moonstorm slashing the clouds with lightning in the sky behind. Shakily, she stepped away from the drop, staggering to the safety of solid ground. The trees rustled emptily, a hollow audience to the wonder and terror of the last few moments. She raised her face to the sky and felt the rain lick it with warm spittle, and she could not think of a single thought or word that would sum up the experience of gazing into the face of one of the great spirits, of being touched by it. Stunned with awe, she barely noticed the child in her arms stir, nor did she see when the Heir-Empress opened her eyes. She only noticed Lucia was awake when the child put her arms about Kaiku's neck and hugged her.
'Did you meet my friends?' Lucia asked, and Kaiku nodded and laughed and cried at the same time.