The Skein of Lament Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked from one to the other, and then to Zaelis, who was thoughtfully running his knuckles over his close-cropped white beard. ‘You mean she would have to go to the coast? To show her face in a port?’ she asked, concern in her voice.
    ‘Nothing so simple,’ Mishani said with a wan smile. ‘Arranging it from this end would be next to impossible. I would have to travel to Okhamba.’
    ‘No!’ said Kaiku automatically, flashing a glare at Cailin. ‘Heart’s blood! She is the daughter of one of the best-known maritime families in Saramyr! Somebody else can go.’
    ‘That is exactly why she must go,’ said Cailin. ‘The name of Blood Koli carries great weight among the merchants. And she has many contacts still.’
    ‘That is exactly why she must not go,’ Kaiku countered. ‘She would be recognised.’ She turned to her friend. ‘What of your father, Mishani?’
    ‘I have evaded him these five years, Kaiku,’ Mishani replied. ‘I will take my chances.’
    ‘I cannot impress upon you enough the importance of this person,’ Zaelis said calmly, squaring his shoulders. ‘Nor the information they carry. Suffice to say that since they asked for assistance from us at all, there must have been no other option left to them.’
    ‘No other option?’ Kaiku exclaimed. ‘If this spy is as good as you seem to think they are, then why can they not make their own way back? There must be some ships, even if they are only running passengers. Or why not take the Quraal route? It would take a few more months, but—’
    ‘We do not know,’ Zaelis interrupted her, raising a hand. ‘We only have the message. The spy needs our help.’
    Mishani laid a hand on Kaiku’s arm. ‘I am the only one who can do it,’ she said quietly.
    Kaiku tossed her hair truculently, glaring at Cailin. ‘Then I am going with her.’
    The ghost of a smile touched the taller lady’s lips. ‘I would hardly expect otherwise.’

     
    THREE
    The pre-dawn twilight on Okhamba was a serene time, a lull in the rhythms of the jungle as the nocturnal creatures quieted and slunk away to hide from the steadily brightening day. The air was blood-warm and still. Mist hazed the distance, stirring sluggishly along the ground or twining sinuously between the vine-hung trunks of the trees. Moon-flowers which had turned in the night to track the glow of bright Iridima now furled themselves to protect their sensitive cells from the blazing glare of Nuki’s eye. The deafening racket of the dark hours trailed away to nothing, and the silence seemed to ache. In that hour, the land became dormant, holding its breath in tremulous anticipation of the day.
    Kaiku left Kisanth in that state of preternatural peace, following her guide. The port was surrounded by an enormous stockade wall on the rim of the basin where the lagoon lay, with a single counterweighted gate to let travellers in and out. Beyond there was a wide clearing, where the trees had been cut back for visibility. A dirt road crawled off along the coast to the north, and a thinner one to the north-west, their edges made ragged as the undergrowth encroached on them. A prayer gate to Zanya, the Saramyr goddess of travellers and beggars, stood in the midst of the clearing. It was a pair of carved poles without a crossbeam, their surfaces depicting Zanya’s various deeds in the Golden Realm and in Saramyr. Kaiku recognised most of them at a glance: the kindly man who gave his last crust to a fellow beggar, only to find that she was the goddess in disguise and was richly rewarded; Zanya punishing the wicked merchants who flogged the vagrants that came to the market; the ships of the Ancestors leaving Quraal, Zanya sailing ahead with a lantern to light the way. The gate was too weathered to make out what detail had once been there, but the iconography was familiar enough to Kaiku.
    She offered a short mantra to the goddess, automatically adopting the female form of the standing prayer posture: head bowed,