old folk melodies. The mismatched instruments and varying skill of the players made for a controlled raucousness, raw-edged and visceral. The low, sawing drone of the threestringed miriki was counterpointed by the glassy, plucked chimes of the reed harp and the mournful double-barrelled melodies of the two dewhorns. The rhythm was dictated by a swarthy man and his animal-skin drum, while over it all played the true talent of the group, a lady who had once been a courtesan for the Imperial family before the last coup. She played the irira, a seven-stringed instrument of leather and bone and wood that produced a hollow and fragile keening, and her achingly sweet touch on the strings almost made the air glimmer.
Kaiku, red-cheeked with wine and heat and laughter, danced a peasant dance with the young men and women of the Fold. It was much more energetic and less elegant than the courtly fashion, but far more fun. She spun and whirled from one man’s arms to another, and then found herself with an Aberrant boy, whose skin was clammy as a dead fish and whose blank eyes were bulbous and blind. After the initial moment of surprise, she led him through the wild motions until someone else took his hand and they parted. Exhilarated and not a little drunk, she let the music sweep her up, and for once her cares were forgotten in the movement and the motion of the dance.
The song ended abruptly as she was being passed from one dancer to another, and she was surprised to find Yugi before her as the revellers rested in the pregnant silence between tunes. They were both breathing hard from the exertion, and exchanged a guilty grin.
‘My timing is as good as ever, then,’ he said. His eyes were very bright, his pupils huge. ‘May I have the honour?’ He held out his hand, inviting her to partner him for the next dance.
But Kaiku had seen a figure watching her on the edge of the lantern light, leaning against one of the wooden poles that held up the overhead banners.
‘My apologies, Yugi,’ she said, kissing him on his stubbled cheek. ‘I have someone I have to see.’
And with that she left him, the music started up again behind her, and he was gathered up by a pretty Newlander girl and drawn into the heart of the dance. Kaiku left the noise and the warmth, walking out to where the darkness and quiet held ready to invade, and where Saran was waiting.
‘Do you dance?’ she asked, tilting herself flirtatiously.
‘Regretfully not,’ he replied. ‘I do not think we Quraal have such loose joints as your folk seem to.’
It took her a moment to realise that it was a joke, delivered as it was in a tone dry as dust.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked. She wavered slightly, but the flush in her cheeks and her more inviting manner only heightened her allure to him.
‘This is not my celebration,’ he said, his features dark against the moonless night.
‘No, I mean: where have you been?’ she persisted. ‘It has been days since the assembly. Have you forgotten me that soon? Could you not even muster a goodbye? Spirits, I am leaving the day after tomorrow to cross the Fault!’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Tsata is going with you.’
‘Is he?’ Kaiku asked. That was news to her. ‘And what about you?’
‘I have not decided yet.’ He was silent for a long moment. ‘I thought things would be awkward,’ he said at last. ‘So I stayed away.’
Kaiku regarded him for a time, then held out her hand. ‘Walk with me,’ she said.
He hesitated, studying her intensely; then he took it. Kaiku tugged him gently away from the pole he had been leaning on, and they made their way around the edges of the celebration, back towards the town. To their left, the valley was like a void, only defined by the lighter night sky that surmounted its rim. To their right, there was fire and laughter and feasting. They walked the line of the limbo in between, where the two sides met and blended and neither could quite find dominance.
‘Part of me . . .’ Kaiku began, then stopped, then began again. ‘Part of me is glad to be going. I have been idle too long, I think. I have been helping the Libera Dramach in my own small way over the years, but these subtle increments of progress do not satisfy me.’ She looked up at Saran.