'Gods, they should see the River District in Axekami,' Kaiku commented to Tsata, then remembered that Axekami was not as it once was, and saddened a little.
Eventually, they left the circle and wandered around the rest of the camp. Everywhere Kaiku looked, she found something out of the ordinary, whether it was the way the Tkiurathi fashioned their tools, the smell of their strange meals or the startling way they slept in the trees.
'It is an old instinct,' Tsata explained. 'There are many things on the ground that cannot reach us in the branches. Some people still prefer it, even in a safe forest like this one. The rest of us sleep in the repka.'
'No forest is truly safe,' Kaiku said. 'The animals have become steadily more violent as the blight has encroached on our land.'
'In the jungles that we come from, Saramyr animals would not last a night,' Tsata said. 'We are used to worse predators than bears or wolves. I doubt you have anything that would trouble us much.'
'Ah,' said Kaiku. 'But we have Aberrants.'
'Yes,' Tsata said, who had gathered a good deal of experience at hunting them on his last visit. 'Tell me about them. I hear things are different now.'
So Kaiku told him about the latchjaws in the desert, and about other new breeds they had identified and named. Nobody was sure if these species had recently appeared or if they had simply not been seen frequently enough to be noticed in the past. Certainly, there always seemed to be a few reports of Aberrants that nobody recognised, in among the usual ghauregs and shrillings and furies.
Then Tsata told her about the Aberrant man he had tried to rescue in Zila, and they were off on a new tack.
'Of course they still hate us,' Kaiku said, as they walked around the edge of the village. 'People have always been susceptible to the fear of difference. But things are progressing at a different pace in different areas. Aberrants who are outwardly freakish are despised more than those who look "normal." I do not think most people even think of Lucia as Aberrant any more: they have elevated her into something else, some nebulous and divine saviour to suit their purposes, and the high families appear content to encourage it. They need a figurehead, and if the price of winning back their Empire is to have Lucia on the throne, then so be it. At least she is of noble blood. Plus she has Blood Ikati and Blood Erinima on her side, and the Libera Dramach. Between them they form the strongest alliance by far, and nobody wants to be divisive and oppose them.'
'And what of the Red Order?' Tsata asked.
A brief look of frustration passed over her face. 'The high families do not like us, despite the fact that we saved them from destruction, despite the fact that we are the ones who protect them from the Weavers, who could otherwise simply reach into their heads from Axekami and kill them.' She snorted. 'The Red Order is mistrusted, as if we were another kind of Weaver.'
'And aren't you?'
She should not have been surprised: he was ever blunt. 'No!' she said. 'The Weavers killed Aberrants for centuries to cover the evidence of their own crimes. Their post-Weaving whims still account for more deaths than I would like to think. And they have taken the land from us.'
'As your people took it from the Ugati,' Tsata reminded her. 'I know the Sisters are not so foul nor so cruel as the Weavers, but you seek to fulfil their role within the Empire. Will you be content as servants? The Weavers were not.'
'The Weavers never intended to be. They always meant to dominate, whether they knew it themselves or not. The god that pulls their strings demanded it. It was the only way they could get to the witchstones.'
'You have not answered the question,' he chided softly.
'I do not know the answer,' she replied. 'I do not intend to be a servant of the high families when this is done, but I do not know what plans Cailin has made. I have an oath to fulfil, and that oath requires the destruction of the Weavers. If I can make it that far, I will die content.'
'You must consider the consequences of your actions, Kaiku,' Tsata said, though it was evident by his tone that he meant it as general advice rather than referring specifically to the Sisters. 'You must look ahead.'
'What point is there in that?' she asked. 'There is no alternative. We have but one path in this matter. The Red Order are trying to help people achieve that.'
'This land has been stung once before by placing their trust in beings more powerful than they,' Tsata said. 'It is understandable that they are wary of you.'
She let it drop at that. Tsata was a questioner, and she admired that in him – he made her examine herself, to scrutinise her own choices and opinions – but he was also tenacious, and she did not want to get into an argument now. Instead their talk drifted to other things. Surrounded by Tkiurathi, she found herself wondering about Tsata's childhood, and began to ask him about it. She was surprised that she had never done so before, but she had always been afraid to pry for fear of making him reveal something he did not want to: Okhambans were unfailingly obliging, but they did not like their generosity abused. He was perfectly open, however.
'We do not have parents in Okhamba.' He saw the smile growing on her face, and corrected himself. 'I mean, we do not assign responsibilities to the ones who give birth to us. The children are raised equally as part of whatever pash they are. Everyone takes a hand in child-rearing. I do not know which of them were my parents, though I had an inkling. The biological bond is discouraged. It would lead to favouritism and competition.'
They talked of gods and ancestors also. Kaiku had learned in the past that Okhambans did not revere deities, but rather pursued a form of ancestor-worship similar to Saramyr folk, if much more extreme. Whereas Saramyr respected and honoured their ancestors, Okhambans had a more ruthless process. Those who had achieved great things were treated as heroes, with stories told about them and legends spun so that their deeds might be passed on to inspire the younger generation. Those who had not were forgotten, and their names were not spoken aloud. Okhambans believed that a person's strength and courage, ingenuity and wit and inspiration came from themselves alone; that they were responsible for all that they did, that there was no deity to make reparations to or to blame when things went bad. Tsata saw deities as a kind of cushion against the brutal and raw realities of existence.
Kaiku, on the other hand, could not believe how an entire continent of millions could not see what every Saramyr saw: that the gods were all around them, their influence felt everywhere, that they might be capricious and sometimes terrible but that they were undoubtedly there.
'But Quraal has different gods,' he had said once. 'How can you both be right?'
'Perhaps they are merely different aspects ascribed to the same entities,' Kaiku had countered. 'We put our own faces on our gods.'
'Then who would they side with in a war between Quraal and Saramyr?' Tsata had returned. 'How do you know who is right if you do not know what they want?'
But Kaiku could only think how empty her life would be if she believed that the world as she perceived it was all that there was. She knew otherwise. She had looked into the eyes of the Children of the Moons. Tsata's ruthless practicality and realism failed to take into account the spirits that haunted both their lands.
'Spirits are beings that cannot be explained,' he had said, 'but we do not worship them, or ask them for forgiveness.'
'If you cannot explain spirits,' Kaiku had replied, 'then how much else can you not explain?'
'But what if your gods are merely spirits of a much greater magnitude?'
So it had gone on. But that was a debate that she had no wish to revisit, so she steered away from contention. She talked about her own beliefs, hopes and fears, and was surprised anew by how easy it was. For such a guarded soul, she found it remarkably effortless to lower her defences to this man. He was so honest that she could not believe him capable of deception, and deception was what she feared the most: she had been duped too many times in her life. So caught up was she that she did not notice Nuki's eye slipping westward through the trees. When she did, she gave a start and clutched his arm.