Kerestyn forces had been smashed during the last coup, Blood Batik had walked unopposed into the city, and had grown since then. Even with overwhelming support from the other high families, Grigi knew it would be a close call. He had broken himself on the walls of Axekami once before; he would have to be very sure of himself before he would try it again.
Avun had brought him the solution to that problem this very day.
‘I have a new friend,’ he had said, as they walked through the chambers of the family house that morning. ‘One very close to the Emperor. I was contacted not long ago.’
‘A new friend?’ Grigi had asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘This person tells me that something is going to happen, very soon. We must be ready.’
‘Ready?’
‘We must assemble our support, so we can march on Axekami at a day’s notice.’
‘A day! Ridiculous! We would have to tell all the families well in advance, gather their forces here.’
‘Then we shall do so, when the time is right. There will be a signal. And when it comes, we must act swiftly, and have our allies ready to do the same.’
Grigi had adjusted his purple skullcap on top of his head. ‘That’s a little too much to take on trust, Avun. Tell me just who this new friend of yours is.’
‘Kakre. The Emperor’s own Weaver.’
EIGHTEEN
‘It’s time, Kaiku,’ said Yugi.
Darkness was falling. The sky was a soft purple in the east, the harbinger of oncoming night. Iridima stood alone at halfmoon amid a thick blanket of dim stars, pallid and ghostly in the dusk. The heat of the early autumn day was fading to a warm night, and a gentle breeze dispersed the muggy closeness of the previous hours.
They had found the Weavers’ barrier, the edge of the secret that they had crossed the Fault to uncover. Nomoru had announced that they were nearing the point where she had lost her way on her previous visit, and an hour later they returned to the same spot, despite having headed steadily westward. If that was not enough, Kaiku’s senses had begun to crackle; she was certain that she knew exactly where the barrier cut across the landscape, and when they had been turned around. She had been very careful to keep her kana reined tight as they passed into it. She did not want to try and tackle the barrier without the help of her father’s Mask.
The four travellers sheltered in a dell for a few hours to wait for the cover of night. Kaiku spent them sat against a tree, holding the leering, red-and-black face before her, looking into its empty eyes. When Yugi spoke to her, she barely heard him. He had to shake her arm before she looked up at him sharply, annoyed; then she softened, and smiled in thanks. Yugi’s eyes mirrored uncertainty for a moment, and he retreated.
Her mind flitted back, skipping over days of hard journeying, alighting eventually on the gloomy, doleful marsh where Yugi had lain dying. The battle to extract the demon poison was etched in Kaiku’s memory; every probing fibre, every twist and knot were mapped onto her consciousness in shining lines. Despite herself, she felt a small grin of triumph touch her lips, and her spirits rose. But then her gaze fell on Yugi, who was shouldering his pack, and her grin faded a little.
Ever since he had awoken, Yugi had been different somehow. She had sensed something when she had been inside him, a faint wash from his mind that hinted at something dark and unspeakably ugly. She could not guess what it was, only that it lay deep and hidden, and unconsciousness had loosened it from where it was fettered. She watched him, and wondered.
Yugi tried not to notice, but he could feel her eyes on his back. His brush with the demons had sobered him, that much was certain. The proximity of death had reminded him of a previous life, before he had joined the Libera Dramach. Days of blood and blade and mayhem. He began to play with the dirty sash wrapped around his forehead; a totem of those times, times that he wanted desperately to forget but never could.
He pushed the thoughts away as the travellers got to their feet and made ready to breach the Weavers’ barrier. The immediacy of the situation focused him. Their trip across the Fault had not been an easy one, but it would get worse from here on in.