Outside his cell was a walkway of the same ubiquitous white stone that formed the bones of the complex. On one side was a long row of cells like his own, simple rectangular doorways; the other was open to the view.
It was something to wake up to, he had to admit that, even though the dregs of last night were somewhat blunting his appreciation. The ground sloped down to a wide road, again of white and aged stone, and beyond that it swept up, to where the scalloped slate roofs of the temples showed among the jagged green treetops. The swoop and swell of the mountainside hid dozens of them, all linked by dirt paths or flagged walkways that wound through the pines and kijis and kamakas. They were solid and crude in comparison to modern temples, but their form gave them a gravity that was primal and brooding, and the bas-relief friezes on their entablatures depicted scenes heavy with forgotten myth.
Araka Jo was ancient and in partial ruin, several of the temples little more than outlines of their original floorplan surrounded by mossy rubble. Despite the unfamiliar presence of inhabitants again – it had become the Libera Dramach's home these past few years – it still felt as if they were intruders there. The spirits never let them forget it.
There was a stone basin near his doorway, from which he splashed icy water on his face to wake himself. Once he was done, he removed the dirty rag from his forehead and wet his hair, smoothing it back into untidy spikes before reattaching the rag. He had slept in it, as usual.
That done, he went to find some lathamri. People were up and about even at this early hour, travelling to and fro along the roads of the complex, on visits and errands and business. Several people he greeted on his way, the cheery facade snapping into place automatically. Everyone knew him as the leader of the community. Unlike their previous hideout in the Fold, the Libera Dramach did not operate in secret in Araka Jo. Everybody here knew about Lucia, and the organisation that had been built around her. Everybody here was Libera Dramach by allegiance. Anybody who had not been able to stomach that had gone elsewhere in the Southern Prefectures.
He turned off the thoroughfare to where a side-road was lined with wooden stalls, feeling exhausted even by that short journey. The tiredness was not physical – he had always been healthy as a mule – but a weariness of spirit that weighed him down. His smile felt false now, more so than ever before: he was forced to use it too much. The people needed him to be positive, looked to him as an indicator of their fortunes. He could not afford to show weakness. He could not afford to let them know that he did not want to lead them any more.
Between the stalls were rows of stone idols, strange crouching things that had been smoothed by centuries of rain and wind. Their slitted, blank eyes stared across the side-road at each other, over the heads of the people who milled between them. Some kind of guardian spirits? Nobody knew. Araka Jo had been built in the early years after landfall, the result of a splinter religion taking advantage of the new freedom to explore their beliefs. They must have been particularly numerous and industrious to have created a complex of temples the size of a small town. Perhaps it was a mountain retreat, a place of prayer and meditation. But its purpose and its creators had been lost to history, and it had been abandoned. The folk of Saramyr were not interested in ruins.
Yugi bought a mug of lathamri from a merchant and drank it while staring at the statues. Frightening how easily the past could be forgotten. He wondered how the previous inhabitants might have felt, labouring towards what they thought was a great work, if they knew that mere centuries later nobody would know or care what they had done it for.
Perhaps they would have appreciated the irony, he thought. It was Saramyr's blithe ignorance of its past that now threatened its future.
The hot, bitter drink awakened him enough to face dealing with Cailin and Lucia, so he returned the mug to the merchant with a coin inside it and left. It was an old tradition: if the drink was not drained then the coin would be wet, so it was only polite to finish it all. Strange, Yugi thought as he walked away, that traditions linger long past the time that their origins had been lost to memory, yet the lessons of history can fade in a generation.
He headed back towards the building where his cell was, and over to the other side, where the lake lay. It was a bracingly cool and crisp day, and while there was no dew on the grass the air felt moist. He slept in what had once been the living-quarters of the worshippers who had built the place. There were about twenty of that type of building scattered around the complex, identically white and rectangular, differentiated by the carvings and sculptures on their corners. They were spartan and austere inside, being merely corridors and cells with a central atrium for cooking and washing, but Yugi did not overly mind. Some days he thought about moving down into the village that had been built around the lower slopes of the complex to house the overflow, but to do so would cause gossip, and now was not the time for rumours. Everything he did was political, whether he wanted it or not. He wished he had Mishani's faculty to enjoy that kind of life.
Beyond the building there was a long, grassy slope down to the shore of Lake Xemit. A dirt path led to a large boathouse from which fishermen issued across the water. Trees encroached in copses here and there, but not enough to obscure the magnificent view. Folk were scattered about, some talking, others on their way from one place to another. It was easy to forget the famine even existed here, in the heart of the Southern Prefectures. Life went on, regardless.
Yugi spotted Cailin and Lucia and made his way towards them. As he went, he looked out over the lake to the horizon. Lake Xemit was colossaclass="underline" forty-five miles across and nearly two hundred and fifty long. It was the second largest inland body of water in Saramyr after Lake Azlea, cradled between two mountain ranges.
He had been to the other side once before, during the assault on Utraxxa. It had been one of the most famous victories of the last four years. An ancient Weaver stronghold, deep in the heart of the Southern Prefectures. Though cut off from the other Weavers after the forces of the Empire had consolidated, it still exuded its foulness into the earth, still spawned more Aberrant predators to harry the troops of the Empire from within. Protected by the mountains, it took two years before the high families, led by Barak Zahn, managed to penetrate the monastery. Though the Weavers destroyed everything of value, even the witchstone itself, it was a triumph in the eyes of the people.
It was that, more than any other incident, that gave the men and women of the Empire the strength to fight on through the long years of war. The Weavers, who for so many generations had been held as mysterious and unfathomable beings by the common folk, were only mortal. They could be beaten. The fight could be won.
They needed another victory like Utraxxa, Yugi thought. He needed one.
Lucia and Cailin were walking together slowly, talking. It irked him that Cailin was the only one whom Lucia ever seemed attentive to; with most people she had a frustrating air of distraction. Yugi could not help noticing the odd behaviour of the wildlife as he approached: the way the ravens in the trees never stopped watching her, the cat that unobtrusively tracked her from downslope, the rabbits who would hop and hide, hop and hide, yet always keeping abreast of her. Natural enemies, yet with Lucia about they were not interested in each other.
Cailin noticed him coming and they stopped to let him catch up. She was a little taller than he was, her face painted like those of all the Sisters, her black hair drawn back through a jewelled comb into twin ponytails and a thin silver circlet set with a red gem placed around her forehead. Her sheer black dress and ruff of raven feathers lent her a somewhat predatory aspect, adding to the air of cool superiority she exuded. Yugi wondered how well her arrogance would stand up in bed, whether her icy exterior would shatter in the throes of orgasm; then he caught himself, and forced the thought away.