The Ascendancy Veil

'Then what do you propose?' Hikken demanded, barely hiding his contempt. 'Should we do nothing?'

'That is not so inadvisable as it sounds,' put in the Barakess Emira. She was a plain-faced woman somewhere near her thirtieth harvest, with dark brown hair worn long and straight. 'The Weavers' forces have seemed thinner of late. It is possible that their armies are starving due to the effects of their own blight. They are short of time, as we are. The question is, whose will run out first?'

'But our spies have been unable to confirm that their forces really are less than before,' Yugi pointed out. 'And we don't know the extent of their supplies. At best it's a guess.'

'However, if we could find some way to hold them off, to delay them, it might be enough to turn the tide,' Emira persisted.

'We have no way to hold them off,' Cailin said. 'That is the crux of the matter. The only limitation on the speed they can demolish our cities is their own need to revivify.'

'Perhaps a retreat to the mountains, then?' suggested a Libera Dramach man. 'If we cannot stand against them, we could disperse and strike at them like bandits.'

Yugi nodded. 'That's a last resort, perhaps. But I think that would be the end of us as surely as if we stood up to the feya-kori with only swords and cannon. And if the Weavers do to the Prefectures what they are doing to the territories they have already taken, then the famine will get far worse, and in the mountains there will be no food at all.'

'There is another alternative,' said Cailin. 'To strike at the witchstones.'

'It has been tried,' Hikken said. 'At Utraxxa. And it failed.'

'No,' Cailin replied. 'At Utraxxa we underestimated the Weavers. But their reaction indicates that we would have succeeded if we had been given a chance.'

'Perhaps you could explain for the benefit of our guests and our audience?' Kaiku prompted politely. The Tkiurathi had not spoken, except to mutter translations to each other. They knew little about the state of affairs in Saramyr, and were content to listen and learn.

Cailin inclined her head in acknowledgement. 'When we finally mustered the strength to assault the Weaver monastery that lay in the mountains west of here, across Lake Xemit, the Red Order had another plan in mind beyond simply destroying the witchstone there and ridding us of the blight. We intended to engage the witchstone, to learn about it. Through our own observations of how the Weavers' power grew with each stone awakened, and the information Lucia gleaned from the spirit of Alskain Mar in the Xarana Fault, we had determined that all the stones were connected in a manner similar to a net or a web. We believed that we could exploit that link, trace it to the other witchstones and destroy them, too. Instead of one victory, we would win them all at once.'

The assembly did not make a sound; only the faint sussuration of the wind could be heard. The temperature was dropping now that Nuki's light had fled the sky, settling towards a level that was cool but not unpleasant.

'We never got the chance. Just before we penetrated the chamber where the witchstone lay, it was destroyed. We can only assume that the Weavers used explosives. It was something we would never have expected them to do: they had always prized the witchstones' welfare above even their own lives. They were protecting the network by removing our way in.' She swept her gaze across the assembly then, and her tone became fiercer. 'But I say it was not a failure. We were close enough to glimpse the witchstone's nature as it came apart. Two years have passed since then, and we have not wasted that time. We have studied what we learned at Utraxxa, and we are more ready than ever now to engage a witchstone again. And this time we will destroy them all.'

Kaiku felt a thrill at the determination in her voice. Gods, the promise of action after so long in hiding or retreat or stalemate was enticing to her.

'And how do you propose to stop yourself becoming… cut off, as before?' Mishani asked.

Cailin settled herself again. 'The Red Order have reconstructed the network we observed between the witchstones and examined it. There is no stone that cannot be sacrificed, but there is one which will seriously damage the structure if it falls: the hub, if you will. As the Nexuses are the anchor for the beasts they control, so this stone is the anchor for the other stones. The Weavers had plenty of time during our long assault on Utraxxa to prepare explosives. But I think they will be much more reluctant to destroy their hub, the most powerful node of them all. And if we catch them by surprise, they may not have time to destroy it. If we can get to it intact, we can use it as a way in to the network, and reach all the witchstones in one swoop.'

Kaiku's skin prickled at the thought. Was there a chance, even so slim, that they could end this? She had not been at Utraxxa, having been reluctantly kept back by Cailin, but she had heard of the horrors that her brethren had experienced within. Could it be done? To go through the veins of their power structure, spreading like a virus?

'Do you know this, or is it merely conjecture?' Hikken asked. He was a prickly middle-aged man, with a deeply-etched face and prematurely grey hair, and his manner of speaking was aggressive and confrontational.

'It is conjecture,' Cailin admitted, spreading her hands to indicate helplessness. 'But it is based on very educated guesswork. We have seen how these stones operate. This is not a wild theory, nor would we be rushing at this blindly. If it were to be done, it would be our second attempt, and we would not make the same mistakes twice.'

'Where is this… anchor-stone?' It was Tsata who spoke.

'It is the first stone that was awakened,' Cailin replied. 'The one that started it all. It lies beneath the mountain monastery of Adderach.'

Hikken laughed rudely. 'And how do you propose we get to Adderach? Even if it were not deep in the mountains, it is surely the most fiercely guarded stronghold the Weavers have!'

'That is also conjecture,' Phaeca put in. 'We have no idea what awaits us at Adderach. Nobody has ever been there. I may remind the council that several times we have found the Weavers rely too much on their shields of misdirection and not on physical guards.'

'Those were in the days before the Red Order became known to them,' Mishani said.

'But they may think themselves protected by the mountains,' Phaeca argued. 'They may not be able to get enough food to such a remote place to sustain an army. Who knows what the Weavers think?'

'There are many ways to Adderach,' said Cailin. 'But none of them are easy.'

'And you think the Weavers will not notice an army marching towards Adderach?' Hikken cried. 'How exactly do you intend to do it?'

'We go quietly,' Cailin replied. 'And we-'

'This is pointless!' Lucia said suddenly. She had been customarily distracted up until this point, but she appeared entirely focused now. At the sound of her voice, everyone in the hall fell silent and looked to where she knelt.

'Pointless,' she repeated, softer this time. When she spoke, it was with surety and conviction, and she sounded like her mother the Empress. 'Even if we did attack Adderach, even if we succeeded, in our absence the Weavers would cut a swathe through the Prefectures and cause such murder as would make any victory too costly. And if the Weavers discovered our plan, they need only send one of the demons to defend Adderach and all would be lost. Whatever our other intentions, we need to be able to tackle the feya-kori. And the only way to stop an entity like that is with a similar entity.'

She stood up, and when she spoke, her voice was stronger than Kaiku would have believed possible from such a slip of a woman.

'It has been ten years since I was taken from the Imperial Keep in Axekami. Ten long years, and in that time there has been more blood shed for me than I dare think of. You have placed such hope in me and I have given you nothing in return but death. Now the time has come to live up to your expectations.'