Blood of the Mantis

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Every so often the water would take one of their chorus, either by the flier’s own clumsiness or through the predatory skills of some lake-dweller. There would be a deep plunk punctuating the nocturnal serenade, a few errant ripples not caused by wind or weather, then no more.

  Then something more substantial struck the water near its edge, raising a great sheet of spray that battered against the reeds. For a second there was nothing but the waves washing back and forth, and then something was crawling out of the shallows, dragging itself through the mud, tearing at the lakeside vegetation for purchase. The insect choir was joined by the gasping and choking sound of a man fighting for life.

  And then stillness, save for his ragged breath. His wings had failed him at the end, but close enough to shore that the water had not claimed him. He had stretched himself out there with his feet still in the lake, every muscle strained, his wounds burning with a slow fire.

  Lieutenant Brodan lay on the lakeshore and felt out the extent of his injuries. The Mantis had scored a long gash across his right arm and side, raking him with pain, but it had only sliced shallowly over his ribs and not cut into anything vital. He lay still and tried to breathe, wondering if life was even worth it now that he had failed the Rekef. Better to die, surely, than face whatever repercussions his superiors would dredge up for him.

  His men were dead, every one of them. Only a superior prudence garnered from experience had kept him alive, and that would prove a double-edged sword when the accounts came to be tallied.

  There was a rustle nearby and he craned his neck to see the shabby, shrouded form of Sykore picking his way towards him. He tried to stretch an arm out towards her, to burn her for her betrayal, but she hissed at him disdainfully, planting the end of her walking stick on his chest, causing an agony so severe that he nearly passed out.

  ‘Foolish,’ she said. ‘Foolish Wasp. Fool of a Rekef. Can you accomplish nothing by yourself?’

  He glared at her, furious but impotent. The haggard creature sighed and removed her stick from him, baring her pointed teeth in annoyance. ‘We must have the box. You only want it for your silly games, but my master needs it. He shall have it. I shall save you and your reputation, Lieutenant Brodan, since it falls to me.’ Sykore hissed. ‘I shall risk more this night than I would like to but, just as you, I must account to my superiors, and their punishments for failure throw the devices of your Rekef into shadow.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Brodan got out.

  ‘You would not understand,’ Sykore told him. ‘Nor would you believe.’ Inwardly, she steeled herself. Spying on the Spider-kinden girl was easy enough, thus seeing the world through the link of blood that she had forged. How much could she borrow, though? How far could she take it? Could she hold the Spider long enough to have her bring the box?

  She thought not. The link had become fragile and, besides, the Moth seer would surely detect it if she borrowed so heavily.

  She needs must expose herself, her own body, to danger. None of her kind relished that, for by nature they were lurkers in the shadows. She was loathe to risk so many decades of precious life in such an attempt, but the tools available to her were now few. She had only her own hands with which to take the box.

  ‘Await me near here,’ she told Brodan. ‘I shall come to you with the box, if I can.’

  He stared at her sullenly, mistrustfully. She scowled at his ingratitude.

  ‘I shall save you, Lieutenant,’ she told him flatly, ‘both from your own stupidity and the wrath of your lords. Think simply of that.’ And with that she was hobbling off into the night.

  The Buoyant Maiden had received a few new scars from Wasp sting-shot, most notably a smashed steering vane that had made even their return to Jerez problematic, and so Allanbridge had taken her away for emergency repairs. The next morning would see them sailing for Collegium, leaving this sodden town behind them at last.

  They would not be sorry to leave it.

  ‘For me,’ Gaved informed them, ‘this is as far as I go. I won’t be on the airship with you tomorrow.’ Sef was cradled in one arm, wrapped in an ill-fitting robe that Nivit had somehow been able to procure.

  Nivit regarded his old partner doubtfully. ‘No way you can keep her here,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Not here,’ Gaved agreed. ‘We’ll find somewhere, though. Somewhere . . . somewhere beside some lake that has no cities in it.’

  Nivit chuckled scratchily. ‘Never thought I’d see you become smitten.’

  Gaved shrugged. ‘I’m just sick of the life, Nivit. I need a break from it.’

  ‘You’ll be back at it, wherever you go. You’re a hunter born.’

  Sadly, Gaved agreed that it was probably true.

  Nivit’s offices were getting crowded now. Thalric was asleep, or feigning it, recovering from the stress he had put on his wound, having commandeered Nivit’s own bed. Tisamon sat in one corner, perhaps meditating, perhaps just keeping an eye on the two Wasps. A frown on her face, Tynisa was bandaging her hand, which was bleeding yet again. Achaeos watched her until she met his gaze, then he gave up on looking at anything else within the shack but the object he held in his hand.

  Shadow Box. Box of Shadows. Soul of the Darakyon.

  He had not expected it to be so beautiful, so very elegant, its surface intricate and twisted, wrought of unknown wood, layer on later of carvings, so that within the outermost cage of briars there were deeper and deeper details to be discerned, creatures and trees and mere suggestions of form. Form and movement.

  He blinked, he whose eyes knew no darkness. Yet here it was, this mythical concept he had heard so much about but never seen, for there was no box within the carvings, no core to it at all but merely a darkness at the box’s heart. His seer’s senses were blinded by it, a caged piece of night that was likewise to magic as staring directly at the sun was to the eye, so great and potent that it could not be properly viewed.

  What am I to do with this, now I have it? What would the Wasps have done with it, ignorant as they were of the magical arts?

  What indeed? Was there merely some demented collector in the Wasp Empire, some man of great political power and no true knowledge, who had somehow set his heart on this thing that held the death of an age within it? Or perhaps . . .

  Perhaps someone in the Empire truly understood what it was. A Wasp magician? Surely that was impossible.

  In the shadows of magic, however, there was so little that was impossible.

  The Wasps intended to use the box. He was sure of it, irrationally, without being able to give a reason. This was no mere collector’s toy. They wanted it. But how did one use it? What did one do with the Shadow Box? Holding it within his hands now, he realized that it had never been made with any purpose. It had never been made at all. No craftsman’s hands had added that wealth of shifting detail. It had formed from the very death of the Darakyon, shaped itself out of hate and pain and failure.

  Use it.

  If the Wasps wished to use it, that meant it could be used. And the Wasps did not have it, because he held it in his hands. He, Achaeos, pawn of the Darakyon, he had reclaimed it for the forest and the ghosts, but why should he himself not use it? What blows could be struck with this relic, against the Empire?

  It seemed to him that there was now another with them, there in Nivit’s home. Some shadow-thing hidden from him, but lurking at the edge of his senses.

  Use it.

  His hands played over the box, gripping it, feeling the endlessly reiterated features. How else would one use a box?

  He came to his senses suddenly: becoming aware of himself and what he was about to do. His mind was already issuing the countermand but, before he could recover his self-possession, his traitor hands had acted.

  He opened the box.

  Darkness came flooding out.

  *

  The walls were twisting, inwards, downwards, all knotted and thorny, and he was falling, drowning, a world opening about him . . .
/>   Sef screamed, clutching at her head, but Gaved was bewildered, seeing nothing. Tisamon had leapt to his feet, claw ready on his hand . . .

  The world was made of knotted, diseased trees, thorned, running awry with briars, leprous with fungi, and the space between the trees was darkness and shadows and yet more trees and he waited for the jump, the snap taking him back into Nivit’s dingy little hut, but it did not happen.

  Achaeos climbed to his feet, and saw his hands were empty and the box was gone.

  No. Iam within it.

  The prison of the Darakyon, home of all the horrors that warped place could muster, and he was now inside it.

  He turned all about, breath issuing swift and ragged, but he was alone, all alone . . .

  Is this it? Am I here now? For ever?

  ‘I am Achaeos, Seer of Tharn,’ he declared, choking on his own voice. ‘I demand that you acknowledge me.’

  We acknowledge you.

  But this was not the great voice of the Darakyon, only the voice of the creature from his dream.

  ‘Laetrimae!’ He turned.

  She was there, a Mantis-kinden maid possessed of their lean, angular beauty, and dressed now in the carapace-steel armour of centuries ago, looking fair and pale and terrible.

  What have you done? She approached him, picking her way through tortured ground that writhed and contorted all around them. You have opened the box. No other has ever dared to come here.

  ‘I am here.’ I cannot admit weakness now, because she is Mantis, and she would kill me. ‘I have followed the commands of the Darakyon. What would you have of me?’

  She raised a hand, and he flinched, expecting thorns, but it was live, warm skin held against his cheek, and then she leant down and kissed him, briefly but passionately, on the lips, engaging his white eyes with her own.

  You, little neophyte? she mocked. We want nothing of you. You are not the one.

  And, despite himself, he let out a cry when the thorns and spines burst bloodily from her skin, ripping her apart, goring her through and through, the arcing, piercing and repiercing briars, and the jagged chitin that ripped through her armour and turned it to rust. And he heard—

  ‘Achaeos!’

  A voice from behind him. A real, live voice. Staggering back from Laetrimae, he turned to see Tynisa struggling towards him, brandishing her rapier in her hand. The sword gleamed with a green-white light, and he saw an answering gleam from deeper within the trees.

  ‘Oh,’ he said slowly, because he had not appreciated the true scale of the problem.

  ‘What in the wastes is going on?’ Tynisa demanded. He looked back to Laetrimae, but the Mantis creature had gone, fading into smoke the moment he glanced away from her.

  ‘I . . . may have made a mistake,’ he stuttered. She gaped at him and he recalled how she had been brought up by dull Beetle-kinden. She looked as though she was on the very brink of going mad.

  ‘Achaeos, we were in Nivit’s. We . . . Where are we now?’

  ‘Calm. Be calm,’ he told her. Small help, as he sounded less than calm himself. Here now was the other gleaming light, striding out of the broken darkness: Tisamon with his claw blazing, his eyes locked on Achaeos.

  ‘Magician, what have you done?’ he asked. ‘Where have you brought us?’

  ‘Can you not tell?’ Achaeos asked of him. ‘You of all people? We are in the heart of the Darakyon, Tisamon. We are inside the Shadow Box.’

  Tisamon stopped, and Achaeos saw his throat work silently, his eyes widen. He knows at least enough to be afraid.

  ‘Sef!’ Achaeos called out. ‘Sef, come to us.’ Who else? Not Gaved, not Thalric, and Nivit’s girl was out somewhere on business. ‘Nivit, are you there?’

  ‘Help me!’ It was Sef’s voice, shrill with terror. Another Spider brought up by Beetles, Achaeos supposed.

  ‘Here! Follow my voice! Come here!’ he called out.

  ‘Achaeos, how long are we going to be here?’ Tynisa demanded of him.

  He was glad that Sef appeared just then, stumbling and almost falling, until he caught her and set her on her feet. She promptly dropped to her knees, hugging herself, with eyes closed. He could not blame her.

  ‘I . . . I need time to investigate our surroundings,’ he said, knowing his words were meaningless. What if Gaved or someone plucks the box from my hands? Will we be wrenched out of here, or trapped for good?

  ‘Then get on with it!’ Tynisa snapped at him, on the very edge of self-control. Tisamon put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘We are safe here,’ he said slowly. ‘We are safe from this place. You and I.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’ she asked.

  ‘Because this is our place, a Mantis place.’ He was looking into the coiling dark, stretching out his free hand, and for a second Achaeos saw Laetrimae there, just a glimmer of her, reaching back to him. You are not the one, she had said.

  Tisamon?

  ‘Achaeos, there’s someone else out there,’ Tynisa hissed, and he looked, seeing only the suggestion of movement.

  Has she seen Nivit? Or was it a . . . native?

  ‘Nivit, is that . . . ?’

  It was not Nivit. Achaeos felt the words dry up in his throat, seeing the newcomer approach so effortlessly. Gaunt and robed, it might have been a Moth Skryre, except that the gait and the build were all wrong – too tall, too thin, too pale.

  A cadaverous face with bulging eyes that glared red in a world of green and black, Achaeos had never seen this man before but he remembered enough of his own people’s lore to know. The recognition came as a blow, but he drew strength from it as well. Suddenly he was not just a lone seer in a hostile place, he was his whole kinden, its emissary to this ancient enemy.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘have I drawn you here as well – or is this the last hole your people have found to hide in?’

  The newcomer’s thin lips drew back, exposing needle-sharp teeth. Tisamon shifted uncomfortably, and Achaeos knew that he, too, must recognize this thing from folk stories.

  ‘Oh, we are not gone at all,’ it said. ‘Hidden, but not quite gone, young Moth. We can hide more cunningly than your kind can ever search for us.’ One emaciated hand gestured at their surroundings. ‘Yet what a hiding place this would have made. No, I will not say that I have been drawn here, but merely accepted the invitation.’

  ‘What is your part in this?’ Achaeos demanded.

  ‘Must we be adversaries even here, even after so very long? Surely your kinden have realized how all we old powers are standing together now against the encroaching tide of progress and history. All the wars of the Days of Lore are long forgotten – by all save you and me. Who cares now about that fifty-year struggle with the Centipede-kinden who rose from beneath the earth? Who recalls the coup of the Assassin Bugs, and how it was turned aside? Who recounts the struggle for rulership between the Moth-kinden and the Mosquito-folk? None, save you and I.’

  Achaeos stared at him uncertainly.

  ‘My name is Uctebri the Sarcad,’ the Mosquito told him. ‘My physical form is many leagues distant from you, so I am glad that your actions have allowed us to meet.’

  Sarcad. It was, he thought, their word for Skryre. A powerful magician, then? ‘I am Achaeos, seer of Tharn,’ he said. ‘I ask you again, what is your part in this?’

  ‘I need the box, young Moth. I must have it.’

  ‘Then we are enemies, after all,’ Achaeos replied. He saw a brittle, sad smile on the Mosquito’s face and realized that the man’s words about the passing of so much history from the world had been quite sincere. ‘I do not hate you for your kinden. You are right, that is gone. I have the box, though, and I cannot give it to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Uctebri quietly, ‘you cannot. I am sorry for that.’

  ‘Achaeos,’ Tisamon said tensely. ‘Where is Tynisa? Where has my daughter gone?’

  ‘Tynisa?’ Achaeos looked round, but the Spider girl was nowhere to be seen. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

/>   The Mosquito was gone now, swallowed by the blackness. Was it all the time closing in? ‘Stay close by me,’ he said, feeling Sef clutch at his leg.

  ‘Achaeos, something is wrong,’ Tisamon said, and a riveting pain lanced through the Moth, searing into his side and all the way through him. And suddenly he was falling . . . falling . . .

  And then gone.

  Tynisa snapped awake to see Thalric rushing towards her with a ragged cry. He vaulted some obstacle on the floor and she saw – actually saw – the crackle of his sting flower in his palm. She flung herself back and tripped over Nivit’s low table. The flash of the sting seared over her head.

  Her rapier was in her hand, as it had been in the dream. She bounded back up from the floor and lunged at him, and he twisted desperately to avoid her thrust.

  I should have struck him. The blade was strangely sluggish in her hand. She tried to follow after him, feeling that perhaps this was still part of the dream, that maybe she had not awoken at all.

  The blade of her sword was clotted with blood. Perhaps she had struck him after all, but she could see no wound on him even as he struggled away. He was shouting, though, shouting a name . . .

  She saw movement behind her as Gaved tried to grab her. He got one arm about her throat, but she slammed her elbow into his face, catching him right in the jaw, and he reeled back. Wasp traitor! He and Thalric must have been in it together from the start, and more fool Sten for trusting them.

  She tried to stab Gaved right in the face. Again the blade seemed heavy, lifeless in her grip, and it plunged past and into the wall. The twisted hilt smashed him across the jaw, though, and he fell back, stunned at least. The blade slid from the shoddy rotten wood of Nivit’s shack and she turned on Thalric again.

  ‘You’ve had this coming far too long!’ she shouted at him, and something snapped in him, clearly something he had been holding back. A moment later he leapt at her, and her blade had only grazed his side before he slammed her to the floor with a grimace of rage. She punched him in the face, and he rammed her head back against the floorboards hard enough to make her vision blur, and then she dug her fingers deep into his side, where his wound was, as hard as she could, and he bellowed in pain and rolled off her.