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.The Weave-lord was enjoying this.Slowly, patiently, he penetrated deeper into the gossamer shell of Tabaxa s domain.The illusory wind sighed through the framework of alarms, shifting them from side toside.In reality, Tabaxa had set the alarm network to vary slightly across the Weave, the better to catchunsuspecting intruders, but the effect manifested itself to Vyrrch s senses as a stirring of the web.Vyrrchhad to dodge aside as a huge thread ofsilver lunged past him.He kept himself small, a tight focus of consciousness, and crept through, deeper,inward.That was when the alarm was tripped.Vyrrch panicked as the web around him erupted in a deafening din, a stunning cacophony of resonances.For an instant, he flailed; then he regained himself, and cast about for the cause.Nothing! There wasnothing! He had been careful! He could feel the sudden, urgent movement of Tabaxa as he hefted hisbulk up and came racing down the web, searching for the intruder.Vyrrch tried to move, to get outbefore he was identified, but he was trapped, his consciousness snared.Frantically, he shifted back downto normal resonance, and there, to his horror, he found himself engulfed in some grotesque, slippery thing,half mist and half solid, a vile amoeba that was clutching his mind tightly.Vyrrch cursed.Tabaxa had not only employed alarms that were visible exclusively in the higher spectrum- the filmy ghosts he had seen before - but he had used ones that could only be seen in the normalspectrum too.Vyrrch had been caught out; he should have been switching between the two resonances.Enraged suddenly, he annihilated the amoeba with a thought, disassembling its threads in fury.ButTabaxa was almost upon him now, a dark, massive shape, eight legs ratcheting as he raced along thethreads of his weave to see what was amiss.It was too late to avoid a conflict, too late to escape andremain anonymous.Tabaxa would know he, Vyrrch, had been here.Heart s blood! he thought furiously.There s nothing else for it now.He tore out through the webbing of alarms, tattering it behind him, and crashed into the spider-body ofhis opponent.His world dissolved into an impossible multitude of threads, a rushing, darting tapestry oftiny knots and tangles, and he was in the threads, controlling them.Tabaxa was here too; Vyrrch sensedhis angry defiance.He was puzzled as to why Vyrrch had come into his domain, but eager to demolishthe older Weaver.There would be no quarter given, and none asked.The conflict was conducted faster than consciousness could follow.Each sought a channel into the other,so they dodged and feinted down threads, finding one suddenly knotted against them, untangling this oneor that, reaching dead-ends and loops that had been laid as traps or decoys.Each wanted to confuse theother long enough to break through the defences, while simultaneously shor-ing up their own.By manipulating the threads of the Weave, they jabbed and parried, darting back andforth, creating labyrinths for their opponent to get lost in or frantically unwinding a complex knot to createa channel into their enemy.But in the end experience won out, and Tabaxa slipped up.Vyrrch had left him a tempting channel as alure, and he impetuously took it; but it came up against a dead-end, and Vyrrch was waiting.With aspeed and skill unmatched among the Weavers, he fashioned an insoluble knot behind Tabaxa, trappinghim.Tabaxa tried to skip threads, to get out of the trap, but he only came up against another trap, andanother, and by that time it was too late.Vyrrch was already away, burrowing through his defences, andTabaxa could not get out in time.Vyrrch had identified a knot in Tabaxa s wall that was fraying, and hetore it open and raced through, into Tabaxa s mind like a meathook into a carcass, lodging in there andrending & He could feel the force of his enemy s haemorrhage as he withdrew, feel the flailing embers of Tabaxa sconsciousness as they were pulled back to his dying body.Tabaxa was even now spasming on the floorof his chamber, his brain ripped from the inside by the force of Vyrrch s will.The Weave-lord himselfwas retreating, the agony receding behind him rapidly as he raced out of the Weave, following thethreads back to his own body, cursing and raging.Vyrrch s eyes snapped open in the dim, filthy room where he sat.He shrieked in frustration, consumedby an anger that could not be borne.He had been careless! He, Vyrrch, the Weave-lord, had beencaught by a trap he should have avoided with ease, would have avoided a year ago.What was wrongwith him? Why could his mind not assemble his thoughts, lessons, instincts as it used to? He was perhapsthe most formidable Weaver in the land, and yet he had blundered into Tabaxa s trickery, and beenforced to kill him to protect his own identity.And all without getting close to Barak Zahn.A failure; anunmitigated failure.Vyrrch rose suddenly, another shriek coming from beneath his Mask.He picked up the unidentifiablecorpse on his bed and tossed it into the bloodied pool.He swatted aside a crystal ornament that stood inthe corner of the room, one he did not recall seeing before.It dashed into shards on the tiles, a fortunedestroyed in an instant.Like a whirlwind he swept through his chambers, breaking andthrowing anything he could pick up, screaming like a child in a tantrum before flinging himself to the floorand scratching at it until his fingernails snapped.The pain of his broken nails brought him to a momentary calm, a lull in the storm.He lay panting for amoment, before getting to his feet and stumbling to where a mouthpiece was set into the wall, connectedby an echoing pipe to the quarters of his personal servants. Get me a child! he rasped. A child, I don t care what sort.Get me a child, and& and bring me my bagof tools.And food! I want meat! Meat!He did not wait for a response.He threw himself to the floor again and lay there, his emaciated ribsheaving, waiting, drooling in anticipation.He did not know what would happen when the child got here.He never knew what would happen.But he thought he was going to enjoy it.NineThe compound of Blood Tamak was on the other side of the Imperial Quarter from Blood Koli s, butMishani chose to walk anyway.For one thing, it was a beautiful day, with cool breezes from the northoffering relief from the usual stifling heat of the city.For another, she preferred that her business thisafternoon remained a secret.The streets of the Imperial Quarter were wider than the usual thoroughfares of the city, and lesstrafficked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The Weave-lord was enjoying this.Slowly, patiently, he penetrated deeper into the gossamer shell of Tabaxa s domain.The illusory wind sighed through the framework of alarms, shifting them from side toside.In reality, Tabaxa had set the alarm network to vary slightly across the Weave, the better to catchunsuspecting intruders, but the effect manifested itself to Vyrrch s senses as a stirring of the web.Vyrrchhad to dodge aside as a huge thread ofsilver lunged past him.He kept himself small, a tight focus of consciousness, and crept through, deeper,inward.That was when the alarm was tripped.Vyrrch panicked as the web around him erupted in a deafening din, a stunning cacophony of resonances.For an instant, he flailed; then he regained himself, and cast about for the cause.Nothing! There wasnothing! He had been careful! He could feel the sudden, urgent movement of Tabaxa as he hefted hisbulk up and came racing down the web, searching for the intruder.Vyrrch tried to move, to get outbefore he was identified, but he was trapped, his consciousness snared.Frantically, he shifted back downto normal resonance, and there, to his horror, he found himself engulfed in some grotesque, slippery thing,half mist and half solid, a vile amoeba that was clutching his mind tightly.Vyrrch cursed.Tabaxa had not only employed alarms that were visible exclusively in the higher spectrum- the filmy ghosts he had seen before - but he had used ones that could only be seen in the normalspectrum too.Vyrrch had been caught out; he should have been switching between the two resonances.Enraged suddenly, he annihilated the amoeba with a thought, disassembling its threads in fury.ButTabaxa was almost upon him now, a dark, massive shape, eight legs ratcheting as he raced along thethreads of his weave to see what was amiss.It was too late to avoid a conflict, too late to escape andremain anonymous.Tabaxa would know he, Vyrrch, had been here.Heart s blood! he thought furiously.There s nothing else for it now.He tore out through the webbing of alarms, tattering it behind him, and crashed into the spider-body ofhis opponent.His world dissolved into an impossible multitude of threads, a rushing, darting tapestry oftiny knots and tangles, and he was in the threads, controlling them.Tabaxa was here too; Vyrrch sensedhis angry defiance.He was puzzled as to why Vyrrch had come into his domain, but eager to demolishthe older Weaver.There would be no quarter given, and none asked.The conflict was conducted faster than consciousness could follow.Each sought a channel into the other,so they dodged and feinted down threads, finding one suddenly knotted against them, untangling this oneor that, reaching dead-ends and loops that had been laid as traps or decoys.Each wanted to confuse theother long enough to break through the defences, while simultaneously shor-ing up their own.By manipulating the threads of the Weave, they jabbed and parried, darting back andforth, creating labyrinths for their opponent to get lost in or frantically unwinding a complex knot to createa channel into their enemy.But in the end experience won out, and Tabaxa slipped up.Vyrrch had left him a tempting channel as alure, and he impetuously took it; but it came up against a dead-end, and Vyrrch was waiting.With aspeed and skill unmatched among the Weavers, he fashioned an insoluble knot behind Tabaxa, trappinghim.Tabaxa tried to skip threads, to get out of the trap, but he only came up against another trap, andanother, and by that time it was too late.Vyrrch was already away, burrowing through his defences, andTabaxa could not get out in time.Vyrrch had identified a knot in Tabaxa s wall that was fraying, and hetore it open and raced through, into Tabaxa s mind like a meathook into a carcass, lodging in there andrending & He could feel the force of his enemy s haemorrhage as he withdrew, feel the flailing embers of Tabaxa sconsciousness as they were pulled back to his dying body.Tabaxa was even now spasming on the floorof his chamber, his brain ripped from the inside by the force of Vyrrch s will.The Weave-lord himselfwas retreating, the agony receding behind him rapidly as he raced out of the Weave, following thethreads back to his own body, cursing and raging.Vyrrch s eyes snapped open in the dim, filthy room where he sat.He shrieked in frustration, consumedby an anger that could not be borne.He had been careless! He, Vyrrch, the Weave-lord, had beencaught by a trap he should have avoided with ease, would have avoided a year ago.What was wrongwith him? Why could his mind not assemble his thoughts, lessons, instincts as it used to? He was perhapsthe most formidable Weaver in the land, and yet he had blundered into Tabaxa s trickery, and beenforced to kill him to protect his own identity.And all without getting close to Barak Zahn.A failure; anunmitigated failure.Vyrrch rose suddenly, another shriek coming from beneath his Mask.He picked up the unidentifiablecorpse on his bed and tossed it into the bloodied pool.He swatted aside a crystal ornament that stood inthe corner of the room, one he did not recall seeing before.It dashed into shards on the tiles, a fortunedestroyed in an instant.Like a whirlwind he swept through his chambers, breaking andthrowing anything he could pick up, screaming like a child in a tantrum before flinging himself to the floorand scratching at it until his fingernails snapped.The pain of his broken nails brought him to a momentary calm, a lull in the storm.He lay panting for amoment, before getting to his feet and stumbling to where a mouthpiece was set into the wall, connectedby an echoing pipe to the quarters of his personal servants. Get me a child! he rasped. A child, I don t care what sort.Get me a child, and& and bring me my bagof tools.And food! I want meat! Meat!He did not wait for a response.He threw himself to the floor again and lay there, his emaciated ribsheaving, waiting, drooling in anticipation.He did not know what would happen when the child got here.He never knew what would happen.But he thought he was going to enjoy it.NineThe compound of Blood Tamak was on the other side of the Imperial Quarter from Blood Koli s, butMishani chose to walk anyway.For one thing, it was a beautiful day, with cool breezes from the northoffering relief from the usual stifling heat of the city.For another, she preferred that her business thisafternoon remained a secret.The streets of the Imperial Quarter were wider than the usual thoroughfares of the city, and lesstrafficked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]