uncommonly articulate when he wanted to be.
‘What do you think of us, Tsata?’ she asked. ‘Of Aberrants like me?’
Tsata considered that for a time. ‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘Nothing?’
‘We cannot help the circumstances of our birth,’ he said. ‘A strong man may be born a strong child, may always outmatch his friends in wrestling or lifting. But if he only uses his strength, if he relies on it alone to make him acceptable, he will fail in other ways. We should only be seen by how we utilise or overcome what we have.’
Kaiku sighed. ‘Your philosophies are so simple, and so clear,’ she said. ‘Yet ideals sometimes cannot weather reality. I wish that life were so uncomplicated.’
‘You have complicated it yourself,’ Tsata said. ‘With money and property and laws. You strive for things you do not need, and it makes you jealous and resentful and greedy.’
‘But with those things come medicines, art, philosophy,’ Kaiku answered him. ‘Do the wrongs in our society that we have to suffer outweigh the benefits of being able to cure plagues that would decimate less developed cultures like yours?’ She knew he would not take this as a slight; in fact, she had picked up some of his indelicacy of speech, for only days ago she would have phrased her meaning much more cunningly.
‘Your own scholar Jujanchi posited the theory that the survivors of such a plague would be the ones best able to carry on the race,’ he argued. ‘That your goddess Enyu weeds out the weaker elements.’
‘But you would allow yourself to be culled by the whims of nature,’ Kaiku put back. ‘You live within the forest, and let it rule you like it rules the animals. We have dominated this land.’
‘No, you have subjugated it,’ he replied. ‘More, you have annexed it from the Ugati, who by your own laws had the rights to be here. You did not like your own country, so you took another.’
‘And on the way, we stopped at Okhamba, and the Tkiurathi came of that,’ she reminded him. ‘You cannot make me feel guilty for what my ancestors have done. You said yourself: I cannot help the circumstances of my birth.’
‘I do not ask you to feel guilty,’ he said. ‘I am only showing you the price of your “developed” culture. Your people should not feel responsible for it; but it terrifies me that you ignore it and condone it. You forget the lessons of the past because they are unpalatable, like your noble families ignore the damage the Weavers are doing to your land.’
Kaiku was quiet, listening to the night noises, thinking. There was no heat in the argument. She had gone past the point of feeling defensive about Saramyr, especially since her culture had long ago ostracised her for being Aberrant. It was merely interesting to hear such a coldly analytical and unfavourable point of view on ways of life she had always taken for granted. His perspective intrigued her, and they had talked often over the last few days about their differences. Some aspects of the Tkiurathi way she found impossible to believe would work in practice, and others she found incomprehensible; but there were many valid and enviable facets to their mode of living as well, and she learned a lot from those conversations.
Now she turned matters to more immediate concerns. She brushed her fringe away from her face and adopted a more decisive tone.
‘Matters are beyond doubt,’ she said. ‘The Weavers have a way to control the Aberrants. We do not know exactly how, but it is connected to the creatures that we have found on the back of the Aberrant’s necks.’ She rolled her shoulders tiredly. ‘We can assume that every Aberrant down there has one.’
‘And we know now that it is not the Weavers who control them,’ Tsata added. ‘But the other masked ones.’
‘So we have that much, at least, to aid us,’ she said, scratching at some mud on her boot. ‘What is next?’
‘We must fill in the gaps in our knowledge,’ Tsata replied. ‘We must kill one of the black-robed men.’
The next day dawned red, and stayed red until late morning. History would record that the Surananyi blew for three days in Tchom Rin after the Empress Laranya’s death, striking unexpectedly and without warning. The hurricanes flensed the deserts in the east, sandstorms raged, and the dust rose like a cloud beyond the mountains to stain Nuki’s eye the colour of blood. Later, when the news of Laranya’s tragic suicide