Chris Wooding - The ascendancy veil

Mishani was never quite clear why the majority of the Tkiurathi had decided to stay. She suspected, from what she had learned of them, that it was simply a matter of whim, that there was no deeper meaning behind it other than that they wanted to. But for Tsata, it was different. He stayed for a reason.

Mishani had returned to Mataxa Bay after the high families were restored. She was, after all, still the heir to Blood Koli, and with her mother and father dead she was entitled to inhabit her childhood home again. Blood Koli were much diminished, having had most of their power taken away after the restoration of the Empire began. Much of their army had formed the Blackguard and were executed for their crimes. But Blood Koli still held powerful concessions, not least with Blood Mumaka, who had begun to trade with Saramyr from Okhamba again, transporting much-needed supplies from the Colonial Merchant Consortium to ease the famine. Mishani had once considered freeing Blood Mumaka of their obligations to her family in gratitude for what their scion Chien had done for her in the past, but she decided against it now. Blood Mumaka had weathered the conflict overseas; though they were mighty they had not acted with honour. And Mishani, as the head of a high family, needed all the advantage she could get.

Though there was grief and pain at the news of her parents' death, it passed. But there was another source of sorrow that did not heal with time. For Mishani had taken it upon herself to care for Kaiku, and every day the sight of her friend wandering listlessly through the grounds of her house pried open the wound in her heart.

Tsata visited Kaiku every day, travelling from the Tkiurathi settlement. He walked with her when the weather was fine, and talked with her often, though she never replied. She drifted like a ghost at his side, uncomprehending. Mishani watched them from the house sometimes, two distant figures on the cliff edge. His broken arm had healed clean and he was physically none the worse for his experiences in Adderach. But like Mishani, his wounds were of a different kind.

She wished sometimes that Kaiku had died on that day when she destroyed the witchstone. Anything would have been better than this torment. Kaiku was aware of her surroundings, and capable of learning ritual and reaction to certain situations, but inside her mind she was a wiped slate.

Mishani let her roam the house and along the cliffs above the bay on her own. Kaiku had demonstrated that she had enough sensibility to avoid harming herself. She made toilet of her own accord, she ate when she was presented with food, she went to bed and slept when she was tired. But she did not speak, nor did she appear interested in anything, and there was no indication that there was any intelligence left in her beyond the rudimentary logic of an animal. When she was awake, she shuffled around without purpose, or sat and stared at nothing. Her presence was disconcerting, but Mishani tolerated it; and though Mishani was ever busy, she always made time to talk to Kaiku, or read to her. But it had been a long time since she had any hope of bringing her friend back from wherever she had gone. Though Kaiku's kana still ministered to her, keeping her healthy and strong and fit, it was attending to an empty house waiting for a mistress that would not come home.

Her hair grew white from the day when she had lost her mind, and her eyes never changed back from their deep crimson hue. The Sisters and Cailin herself did what they could, but that amounted to nothing in the end. Once she had become untethered from her body they had no way to find her in the vastness of the Weave: it was like searching for one fish in all of the oceans.

'She has to make her own way back,' Cailin said to Mishani. But no one had ever done so, and privately she considered it impossible.

Tsata travelled from time to time, seeking medicines and physicians. The other Tkiurathi would take turns visiting Kaiku in his place. He sought out remedies both Saramyr and Okhamban, and even managed to arrange for a Muhdtaal from far Yttryx to visit and try his exotic techniques. But his chants and potions and crystals did nothing, and Kaiku remained a shell with no inhabitant. Tsata would only try again. After a year, Mishani wanted to suggest that he not exhaust himself over and over in a futile task when there was a life for him to lead. But she felt unworthy even thinking that, and she knew he would not listen anyway. Whether it was some memory of love that he bore, or loyalty to a companion as dictated by his beliefs, he would not give up.

But the spring of the second year since the witchstones' destruction turned to summer, and still Kaiku was not there. She slept in a bedchamber near the back of the Koli family house, which faced east over the cliffs to the bay. The sunlight drenched her room in the early morning as it shone low across the land, glowing through the wispy veil that hung across her window, and the sultry heat of midsummer began to ascend. The walls were cool stone and the floor was coral marble. She lay on a simple sleeping mat in the centre of the room, and dreamed of nothing.

Mishani and her visitor stood in the doorway, looking in on her.

'This is Kaiku,' Mishani said.

The woman nodded. She was tall and long-boned, with the narrow, sharp features of the Newlands, coolly elegant and beautiful. Her summer robe was light blue and white, and her skin was pale. Her hair was worn in looped braids, a fashion from the north-east that had never caught on in the west.

'Please, leave us alone,' the woman replied.

Mishani agreed without really knowing why. Certainly, this stranger's appearance at such an early hour was unusual, as was her tale: she was a healer, who had heard of Kaiku's plight and come to help her. She had arrived on a manxthwa-drawn cart, with her two children in the back, a twin son and daughter aged six harvests by the look of them. They were playing with the servants' children in the great tiered garden that ran down to the cliff edge, watched over by retainers.

Mishani felt that she should be suspicious, but could not think of any reason why someone should want to harm Kaiku. And though she did not admit it to herself, she almost hoped someone would. To end this half-life, to release her to Omecha's care, would be a mercy.

When Mishani had left, the healer crossed the room and knelt by Kaiku's side. The sleeping woman's cheek was limned in gold in the morning sun, the fine hairs of her skin incandescent. Her face was unlined, her expression peaceful, her mouth slightly open. For a long while, the healer watched her.

'They say you are lost, Kaiku,' she said quietly. 'That your mind wanders far from your body and cannot trace its way home.' She laid the palm of her hand lightly against the side of Kaiku's jaw, caressing her. 'I have carried a piece of you for many years, and you a piece of me. Perhaps this will help you.'

She bent down and put her lips to Kaiku's, and exhaled. And after a moment the breath became more than breath, a glittering passage of some ephemeral energy crossing between the women, gushing from one mouth to another. It went on for some minutes, longer than lungs could sustain, until finally Asara broke away, drawing her lips softly across Kaiku's as she did so.

Still Kaiku slept. From beyond the window came the high laughter of children.

'Do you hear them, Kaiku?' Asara said. 'My kind grow fast, it seems. Too soon they will be adults, and I will be a grandmother. I think it appropriate. I am not too far from my first century.' She smiled sadly, looking down at the woman she had once known. Maybe she had once loved her. She could not say.

She got to her feet. 'I have you to thank for them, Kaiku,' she murmured. 'You gave them life.'

Mishani offered her a meal, and they spoke of matters in the distant steppes of the Newlands. She left in the afternoon, taking her children with her.