Chris Wooding: The ascendancy veil

'Are we all here, then?' he asked, a little informally considering the occasion.

'There is one more,' said Kaiku. She had barely finished her sentence before the latecomer's arrival was heralded by a stirring in the Weave. The air thickened, and Cailin tu Moritat manifested herself at the opposite end of the table from Maroko.

She was a ghostly haze in the air, a white smear of a face atop a long streak of black that tapered away to nothing several inches above the floor. The vague impression of features could be made out, but they blurred and shimmered. Kaiku sensed the unease of those who looked upon her and allowed herself a private smile. Cailin could make herself appear in perfect clarity if she liked, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. But she loved her theatrics, and she was much more menacing as an oblique, half-seen entity hanging vulture-like over the proceedings. She preferred to frighten people.

Kaiku announced her for those who did not already know, adding the correct honorific: Pre-Eminent of the Red Order. She was the official head of the Sisterhood now, having taken the title when the Sisters declared themselves publicly in the wake of the Weavers' great coup. Though the Red Order had never operated as a hierarchy, Cailin had long been their leader in all but name, and she declared it necessary to sanction her position if they were to be taken seriously. Kaiku could not argue with her logic, but as with much that Cailin did, it left her with an uneasy suspicion that what seemed apparently spontaneous had in fact been set up long before, and was merely part of a greater plan of which she was not aware.

Maroko went curtly through the pleasantries of greeting and welcome, then settled to the matter at hand. 'I have read your reports, and I know of our losses,' he said. 'I am not interested in apportioning blame or merit at this point. What I want to know is: what in Omecha's name were those things in Juraka, and how do we beat them?'

It was clear that the question was addressed to the Sisters. Kaiku was the one to reply.

'We call them feya-kori,' she said. 'I say we call them that because we dubbed them ourselves: they are not like any demon we have heard of, in living memory or in legend.'

'You knew of them before they attacked us?' jumped in one old general. Kaiku remembered him: he was ever quick to throw accusations at the Sisterhood. Did he distrust them because they were Sisters, or Aberrants, or both? He would be far from alone in any case.

'No,' she said calmly. 'Our information reached us only during the assault. Sadly, the intelligence came too slow, or the Weavers moved too fast, for us to forewarn you. Even so, I think you will agree that the loss of five of our number is ample evidence that we were taken as much by surprise as you were.'

'Ample,' agreed Maroko, with a pointed glare at the general. 'Nobody here questions the loyalty of the Red Order.' He looked back to Kaiku. 'What information do you have?'

'Very little,' Kaiku admitted. 'Much of what we have is speculation. The Weavers have summoned demons before, but nowhere near the magnitude of the feya-kori. Even with the new witchstones they have awoken these past years, none of us had imagined that their abilities had increased so much.'

'Then how have they managed to do it?' asked another general, leaning forward on his elbows in the lanternlight. 'And how can we stop them?'

'To both questions, I have no answer,' she replied. 'We know only that they came from Axekami.'

'Axekami?' someone exclaimed.

'Indeed. These demons did not come from the depths of a forest, or a volcano, nor any other wild or deserted place where their kind might usually be found. These came from the heart of our capital city.'

There was consternation at this. The generals began to argue and theorise amongst themselves. Kaiku and Phaeca used the time to communicate with Cailin. Some of the generals threw them distasteful glances, noting the telltale coloration of their irises as they strung and sewed the Weave. The Sisters constructed patterns of impression and intent and flashed them across the four hundred miles that separated them from their Pre-Eminent. Kaiku took care of the security of their link, monitoring the vibrations of the threads for roaming Weavers who might listen in, but nothing threatened them that she could find.

'I think the first and most obvious thing we should do,' Yugi was saying, 'is to send someone to Axekami.'

His proposition silenced the murmurings that were going on across the table. Though he had no power in any official capacity, he was the leader of the Libera Dramach, the organisation founded to protect the disenfranchised Heir-Empress Lucia tu Erinima. The fact that both Lucia and the Red Order were closely tied in with them made them as much a force to be reckoned with as any of the high families of the Empire.

'I'm sure you are aware of how dangerous such an undertaking would be,' General Maroko said; but as he did so, he was stroking the end of his drooping moustache with his fingertips, a habit which indicated he liked what he was hearing. 'The capital is deep in the Weavers' territory, and reports indicate that it has… changed quite drastically.'

Yugi shrugged. 'I'll go,' he said.

'I doubt that we can afford to risk you,' Maroko replied, raising an eyebrow.

Yugi had expected such a response. 'Still, somebody must,' he said, absently taking a sip of wine from the cup on the table before him. 'These feya-kori represent the greatest danger we have faced since this war began. We have no idea how to deal with them. They're too powerful for the Red Order, and artillery seems to have little effect if the assault on Juraka is any measure. Someone needs to go to Axekami and find out what these creatures are and where they are coming from.'

'I agree,' Maroko said. 'But such a decision is not under my authority. Our responsibility is to hold the eastern line. However, we can pass our suggestion back to the councils at Saraku…'

'We need answers, not more arguments!' someone called, to which there was a smattering of laughter and a grim smile from Maroko.

'Then I'll handle it myself, as a Libera Dramach matter,' said Yugi. 'With your permission, of course,' he added, even though he had no real need of it.

'See to it,' Maroko replied. 'Inform us of your findings.'

Kaiku was forming a request to Cailin when she received the pre-emptive response. Cailin knew her prize pupil well.

((Go with them. Both of you)) Kaiku and Phaeca went to see Yugi after the conference had disbanded. They found him in his tent, which had been pitched in the grounds of the songbird-house, where paths wound between weed-choked ponds and overgrown gardens. The boughs nodded with the impact of the rain, drizzling thin ribbons of water from their leaves onto the soldiers below as they hurried back and forth busily like ants in a nest. It took some effort to locate the tent among the crowded grounds, but once outside they knew that they had the right place by the lingering scent of burnt amaxa root that clung to it.

There was no chime nor any method of gaining the attention of those within, so Kaiku simply opened the flap and stepped inside, with Phaeca close behind her.

Yugi looked up from the map spread on the table before him. He was sitting cross-legged on a mat. The rest of the tent was a clutter of possessions that he had not yet unpacked. In the wan light of the paper lantern above him, Kaiku thought how old he looked, how deep the lines on his face and how haggard his cheeks. He had not coped well with the pressures of leadership. Though his exterior was still as roguish and bluff as it had always been, inside he was deteriorating fast. His amaxa root habit had increased in proportion to his decline, the symptom of some inner turmoil the exact nature of which Kaiku was unaware. For long years, even before she had known him, he had smoked the narcotic in secret and it had never got in the way of his efficiency as a member of the Libera Dramach. He had always been able to take it or leave it, a biological quirk or facet of his character that allowed him to somehow sidestep the addiction that snared most users of the drug. But now, more and more often, she found him with that slightly too-bright edge in his eyes, and smelt the lingering fumes in places where he rested, and she feared for him.