She paused for a moment, and Kaiku noticed that even the spirits had quieted, and the ancient attention of the idols was on her. Do not say it, Lucia, she thought. Do not do this.
'A friend once told me I was an avatar, placed here by the gods to do their will,' she continued. 'I do not know. But I know this: we can face these demons and beat them, but we can only do so with the aid of the spirits. The entities that have lived in this land since long before we ever came here. If the Weavers can raise an army of such beings, then so can I.' She took a breath, and there was an infinitesimal tremor as she drew in the air, the only flicker of uncertainty that she showed.
'I will go to the oldest and most powerful spirit that our lore knows, deep in the heart of the Forest of Xu. I will speak with that spirit, and rouse it to our banner. The soul of the land will rise to its own defence.' Her voice was rising to a crescendo now. 'We shall make such war as the gods themselves will tremble to see it!'
The explosion of noise from the crowd was earsplitting. Cheers and cries of support rang around the hall and floated up into the night sky. This was the sign they had waited for all this time: the call to arms, the moment when their saviour would enter the fray and turn the tide. They did not care whether such a plan was even feasible; all that mattered was that Lucia had taken a hand, and with that, she had become the leader they had so desperately needed.
But though the people around her rejoiced, Kaiku was silent. She knelt where she was, and looked up at where Lucia stood, so terribly frail in the face of this riotous adulation. A battle had been lost today. Lucia was theirs now, irrevocably; she had forsaken her last chance of turning away.
As if sensing her thoughts, Lucia's eyes met hers, and in them was such sorrow as made Kaiku want to weep.
FOURTEEN
After that, there was little else to say.
The assembly dispersed with a sense that things had been left unfinished. Lucia's announcement had effectively ended the conference. Kaiku saw Cailin muttering into Yugi's ear, and she suspected that the seeds of action put forward today had only just begun to germinate. But diplomacy was not her strong suit, and she was content to leave it to people like Mishani, who appreciated the subtleties. She looked around for Nomoru, still worried about the scout's intentions, but could not find her in the crowd. Instead, she led Tsata and the Tkiurathi out of the temple and into the cool night beyond.
'We will go with you, if you will have us,' Tsata said to Kaiku, as they came to the edge of the complex where the trail ran back towards the Tkiurathi village.
He was assuming that she would not let Lucia follow this course alone. And what was worse, Kaiku reflected, was that he was probably right.
'Xu is no ordinary forest,' Kaiku said. 'The spirits hold sway there, and have done since before my people ever set foot on these shores.' Her eyes were grave. 'There is no more dangerous place in all of Saramyr for our kind.'
'The more reason for you to take us,' said Tsata.
Kaiku felt too weary to try and argue. She thanked them all – though she suspected by Tsata's expression that she did not need to – and bade them farewell, leaving the offer open. She was not the one to make such decisions, and she had no intention of bearing the responsibility for their deaths inside the Forest of Xu. Only the gods knew what awaited them in there.
It occurred to her, as she walked back to her house in the Libera Dramach village downslope of the temple complex, that she was already thinking about the journey in terms of when she went, rather than if.
Heart's blood, where did all my choices go? she thought in a morose moment, then snorted with disgust at her own self-pity.
She shared a house with Mishani here at Araka Jo as she had in the Fold, though the two of them were rarely there at the same time, as turned out to be the case tonight. She presumed Mishani had gone elsewhere with other members of the assembly to continue their discussions privately. The house was near the building where the Red Order met and where most of the Sister had their rooms, but Kaiku had not felt comfortable with the idea of living there as Phaeca did: it felt too much like surrendering a part of herself. The place was relatively nondescript and a little cold in the wintertime, but Kaiku had given up on the idea of having a stable home at least until the war was over, and as long as she had a roof and a private space she was happy.
It felt empty tonight. She slid the outer door closed behind her and listened to the darkness for a time. Outside, night-insects were chirruping and clattering. She walked through to her bedroom. The glow of the lanterns rose gently as flames kindled in their wicks at her passing, sparked by a small and frivolous use of her kana. Cailin would have disapproved. Kaiku didn't care.
Her bedroom was smalclass="underline" she only came here to sleep. There was a comfortable mat of woven, springy fibres, upon which was laid a thick blanket, and then a further blanket on top of that. Simple, unadorned, utilitarian. On the wall facing the curtained doorway was a mirror, an old one of Mishani's; she caught her reflection, and thought how well the make-up of the Order hid the melancholy mood that had descended on her. Even now, she projected a certain aura of authority and aloofness. On the far side of her sleeping-mat were a pair of chests flanking a dressing-table with another mirror, and on one wall hung a scroll with a verse from Xalis, another donation from Mishani. Kaiku was terrible at decorating: it seemed so unimportant to her. Her interest was not in material things.
She had sat down at her dressing-table and was preparing to remove her make-up when she spotted the Mask. She saw it over the shoulder of her double in the small vanity mirror, leering at her from where it hung on the wall, and it startled her so badly that she jumped with a yelp and sent little wooden pots of lip-paint scattering noisily to the floor. She stared at it, meeting its empty gaze in the mirror. It stared back at her.
Her skin crawled. She could not remember putting it up there.
She got up and slowly walked over to it. Its face of red and black lacquer was mischievous, mocking.
'Gods curse you,' she whispered to it. 'Leave me be.'
She took it down from where it hung on the wall. The contact of her hand brought a faint sense-memory of her father, the indefinable warmth of his presence. She bit back tears and put the Mask back in its chest.
Why couldn't she just destroy it? Why put up with that malevolent, insidious lure night after night? She could not have said herself. Perhaps because it was the last piece of her father she had. Perhaps it was the practicalities involved: she had used it twice before to breach the Weavers' barriers, and since the Weavers were still no wiser as to how she had done it, there was no reason it could not be used again. Cailin had made a brief stab at studying it, but there was little to learn beyond what the Sisters already knew. As True Masks went, it was young and weak and unremarkable, but no Sister dared probe too far into the workings of a True Mask, even one such as this. That way lay insanity.
Perhaps she kept it to remind her of what she was fighting against, and why she was fighting them. For this Mask had started it all for her: it had cost the lives of her family and set her adrift in the world. Until she found the Red Order; until she found another red and black mask to wear.
She caught herself. Thinking like that was not a good idea in her current state of lassitude. Seeing Lucia give herself up to her followers had drained her somehow, and she felt beaten and defeated. What was worse, she was resigned to going to the Forest of Xu, because someone that Lucia trusted had to be there, and she was the only option: Yugi was too valuable to go, and Mishani would be no use as part of such an expedition. Her talents lay elsewhere.