‘Oh, I have, at that.’
‘You are perfect,’ he observed, with such utter sincerity. He was grotesque and hideous of spirit, and she was just a tool to him, but she was an implement that he valued and even had care for. It was a bitter truth that the Princess of the Empire had no other who showed her any greater regard than that, but it was a truth nonetheless.
‘We shall meet again tonight. I shall have them bring you to me. My invention is limitless when it comes to finding excuses to enjoy your company. So you shall come to me tonight, and we shall enact a little ritual all of our own. It is time you were tested.’
She dressed for him carefully. She wore a gown of red, in respect for his overriding obsession, that was worked with black in complex patterns at the hems. It was some Dragonfly war loot that had eventually found its way into her wardrobe, never worn before.
She sat before her mirror, with her body servants, and had them tend to her make-up as though she was to be flaunted before generals.
A test, she thought, and what if I fail? If she failed then, at least, when the worst came, she would look a true princess. In the Commonweal, where her dress came from, the women wore swords. She would have girded on a blade too, if custom had permitted. She still had her sting, of course, although she had never had cause to turn it on another human being. Knowing Uctebri’s passions, perhaps I shall have cause to turn it on myself.
I am so alone that I must find this repulsive monster my ally, putting my life in his thin hands.
She stood up, seeing in the mirror a reflected Seda of the might-have-been. For a moment she could not quite recognize herself in that image. There was pride there, and strength, and a cruelty that had graced the eyes of her father and now her brother. A moment later she was clutching at the shoulders of her servants, dizzy with it, for she thought she had seen, behind that silvered doppelganger, the flames of battle, countless airborne war-machines and a thousand soldiers marching against a reddened sky.
The guard had arrived to fetch her. She noticed him start slightly at the sight of her, trying to match this formidable image with the princess he had seen last.
The room she was brought to was lined with black stone as a result of the vanity of some courtier of her late father. She guessed that, over the last few days, the servants had been kept busy polishing, so that floor, walls and even ceiling all gleamed. In the centre stood Uctebri, surrounded by a ring of tall iron candelabra. Each candle-flame that he had lit was doubled and redoubled by the polished walls, until it seemed she and the Mosquito stood in a gloom pierced by a hundred guttering stars.
‘You are on edge, creature,’ Seda observed. ‘More than usual I think. What has caught you by the hair this time?’
Uctebri showed his teeth, either in grimace or grin. He had little enough hair, in truth, and his scalp gleamed in the candlelight.
‘Or have you decided to support my brother after all? It wouldn’t surprise me, given that he is Emperor already. What can I offer against that? Perhaps this has been his game to tempt me into treason.’
‘On his slightest word, you would die, Princess,’ Uctebri said. ‘Games, he might play, but he has no need to see any proof of your perfidy. It is not as though his fraternal love for you restrains him.’
‘That it does not,’ she agreed. ‘So what, magician? What has got into you?’
He said nothing for a moment, just went on lighting candles. Then: ‘You make a remarkable show tonight, Princess. I had not asked it of you.’
‘Should the spirits of fate not see me at my best? You have prodded and pried and measured me all this while, but now you say there are tests still to come.’
‘It is now time to make my real test,’ Uctebri said, as he lit the final flame. His expression, shifting and flickering with the light, looked doubting as he turned it on her. ‘All this time I have informed your brother of the tests I have conducted on you, some of it true, some false, but for me this is the real test – and you must pass.’
She felt a sinking in her heart. That was what was now different about the man: he was, for once, entirely serious. Gone were the coy insinuations, the mockery, even the grotesque flirtation he seemed to indulge in. Now he had become Uctebri the Sarcad, a magus of the legendary Mosquito-kinden, and he was about to determine her future.
‘And if I fail?’ she asked. She was used, through long experience, to appear calm in these times of trial. Her brother had put her through enough practice already.
‘Then you will be of no use to me. We will be of no use to each other. I shall instead make what I can out of your brother’s inferior clay.’ She thought she heard genuine regret in his tone. He would far rather it was me. Can I take comfort from that? She could not because, in her prolongedly precarious state, there was no comfort to be had from any source.
‘Make your test, then,’ she told him. ‘What must I do? Run? Jump? Do you wish me to sing to you, monster?’
‘My test has already begun. I simply require you to watch me and listen. I will know, after I am done, whether you are my suitable material or not.’
‘But all you’ve done so far is light candles…’ she observed.
‘Yes, so many candles.’ He moved about the room, seemingly aimless. The myriad darts of light confused her eyes. It was impossible to even tell where the walls were now, such was the multiplication of reflections. Surely he had stepped beyond this room somehow, she kept thinking, but then he would turn, and she had to take it on faith that there was a wall there that had turned him.
He was reflected alongside the constellations of candle-flames, of course, but as she watched she felt her stomach start to turn, because she could not quite match them to him, some were too far, others too near. ‘Sarcad…’ she whispered, ‘what are you doing?’
‘Magic,’ and he continued his pacing. ‘Do you hear me?’
‘Of course I hear you,’ she said, and felt that, even as she spoke, her words were covering some other voice that had given answer to the same question.
‘We are at the crux,’ Uctebri said, and she was surer than ever that he was not actually talking to her. ‘Come now. Make yourselves apparent.’ His tone was still low, almost conversational. Shrouded in his dark robe he seemed to appear and disappear as he turned towards and away from her, his face pale in the candlelight, until she had lost track of which was the real Uctebri, and which were merely the reflections.
The reflections…
She concentrated her gaze on the marble of the floor beneath her because it was the one keepsake left of the room she had walked into. She had only the hard sense of it beneath her feet, for her eyes now saw just a distant perspective of lights and darkness and the scrawny faces of the Mosquito-kinden, and her ears told her that the space about her was vast, with distant, forlorn winds channelling forever through twisted passages…
The reflections were all solely of him. There were none of her at all.
‘Be not shy,’ Uctebri murmured. ‘We must risk much so as to gain more. Come to me. Come now.’
The nearest reflection turned to regard her, and she realized that it was not Uctebri at all. The neck was thinner, and there was a wisp of beard on its wrinkled chin. An older man of the same race, with the same blood-red and protuberant eyes. Some others lacked Uctebri’s blotchy birthmark, and some, she saw, were haggard old women, as vile and balding as their menfolk. One by one they had all turned, and now every face there was staring at her, and she could not have picked Uctebri out from among them. The massed malevolence of that gaze, a score of desiccated, red-eyed monsters, rocked her and chilled her to the bone, but still she faced up to them. She stood her ground. If she fled now, she would, she knew, find herself beyond the stone room’s vanished walls, never to be seen again.
‘She sees us,’ one of the Mosquitoes declared.
‘Yes,’ said another, one that she recognized a moment later as Uctebri himself. ‘Yes, she does.’ His tone was one of relief, and she knew then that she
had passed his test.
‘What…?’ Her voice came out as a croak, so she swallowed and spoke again. ‘What does this mean?’
‘That you have entered our world,’ said another voice. Between the flickering light and the sheer number of them she could not discern who had spoken. ‘That we can make use of you.’
‘I have no wish to be made use,’ she told them. ‘I am no tool of yours.’
‘Yes, she will do well,’ said one of the women. ‘Your judgment is sound as ever, Uctebri.’
‘What does she know? How much have you told her?’ asked another, suspiciously.
‘Enough. Only what she needs to know,’ Uctebri said. ‘I intend to show her more, though. She can do more of her own will than when forced, but for that we must allow her a freer rein.’
‘You have the ear of their Emperor,’ said one, using the word with outright derision.
‘And I know what sound will best reach it,’ Uctebri said drily, from wherever he was. ‘I have an errand for some servant of ours, whoever is best placed to travel to Szar.’
‘The Bee-kinden city? Why should those primitives concern us?’
‘Oh, no great matter,’ Uctebri said, and at last Seda saw him clearly amongst the ranks of his peers, ‘save that there is some small piece of news they had best know.’
*
The messenger almost fell from his horse as he reached the Skiel barracks. Guards were already moving in on him, shouting out challenges. He tumbled to his knees, one closed hand out to forestall them. He had been riding for days and nights.
‘Identify yourself!’ the watch sergeant snapped again – but now he was close enough to add ‘Sir,’ on seeing a lieutenant’s insignia.
The messenger fumbled inside his tunic, coming out with a folded paper, thrusting it at the sergeant. The man took it wordlessly, beckoning a lantern over to read it by. A moment later he swore to himself and hurriedly handed the paper back. The lieutenant nodded, swaying slightly with fatigue.
‘Get the horse stabled,’ the sergeant called out. ‘Get this man somewhere to sit down, something to eat and drink. Send a message to the colonel – the new colonel, you know who I mean – and tell him there’s word for him.’
The messenger let himself be escorted to the barracks mess hall, empty at this hour. He took a bowl of the wine they offered, ignored the lukewarm stew. These had been the worst few days of his life: not the ride itself, since he was trained for that, but there had been those who had done their best to stop him in the surest way. He was bringing word that they had tried to keep secret, and here he was, at last, in the same building as the man they were trying to keep it secret from.
A soldier clattered in, saluting him. ‘The colonel will see you right away, sir.’
The messenger nodded, drained his bowl and slapped it down on the table. He was about to be let into the presence of a great man, a man he had worked for most of his professional life, and never seen. Dire times made for great opportunities. He followed the soldier out of the room and upstairs into the officers’ quarters, and deeper in still, up through the ranks, up the ladder of prestige.
He was finally led in. Before him, at the desk, sat the man he had never met before, and unmistakable for all of that: a thin man fit for a harsh season.
The guest quarters in the garrison barracks of Skiel were warm enough, a fire banked high and shutters closed against the cold. A meal was already spread out for the man, cooling slowly, the food barely sampled and the wine untasted. From the look of him, though, one would think him cold and starved. He sat in a high-armed chair, at a desk on which four pieces of paper were laid out neatly one beside the other. He could have been a clerk, perhaps, some mere servant or functionary.
Save that these were the quarters reserved only for the garrison commander’s most honoured guests – honoured, in this case, meaning most powerful.
His face was lean as a hatchet-blade. Men had dreaded that face, in their time. Some still did. In the past, dread was simply something that it inspired, but just now, there was a hint of the emotion on those same lean features.
He was a general, after all, and there was a war on – but there was always a war on. The Empire was forever expanding, or consolidating, but that was not the struggle that concerned him. The Empire was young, therefore its hierarchies and loci of power were not quite settled. By the end of the reign of Emperor Alvdan II, long might he last, they would be finally determined, and either this man would then stand beside the throne or his enemies would.
Currently his enemies seemed to have the upper hand, so he would have to do something about that. In fact he was journeying to Capitas for that very purpose. This was General Reiner of the Rekef, and his enemies were General Maxin and General Brugan, also of the Rekef. It had become increasingly clear, ever since Alvdan II had ascended to the throne, that the triumvirate system of the Rekef could not continue. Since then there had been a polite little war going on: a war of allegiance mostly, as each general did his best to put his own men into positions of power and dethrone the favourites of the others. There had been the odd man left dead as well, because recently General Maxin had gone a step further than his opponents had dared.
There was a respectful cough nearby. Reiner and the waiting messenger both glanced over at Reiner’s second, Colonel Latvoc, a grey-haired Wasp who had served him more than fifteen years.
Reiner raised an eyebrow, gave a gesture of one narrow hand, inviting Latvoc to report.
‘This is Lieutenant Valdred, sir,’ Latvoc began, ‘one of my men in Capitas. He has… news.’
The pause left no doubt as to the news’ character. Reiner took note of the young lieutenant’s pale face, and the hollow eyes that suggested this man had not slept in his determination to bring him this word. He nodded.
‘Sir…’ Valdred said. His uneven voice suggested he had obviously never been in the presence of a Rekef general before. ‘Sir, in Capitas, at the palace… They say the orders came from General Maxin, sir-’
Something impatient in Reiner’s eyes brought him up short. He glanced at Latvoc, who was carefully expressionless, and then swallowed nervously.
‘Colonel Lodric is gone, sir – replaced. And Major Tanik and Major Skan as well.’
All men Reiner had put in place. The general’s lips tightened fractionally.
‘The orders had the Emperor’s own seal, but the men that have replaced them, sir, are all Maxin’s men. I know it.’
Reiner looked at him bleakly. So that was eight years’ work at Capitas undone, all the men personally loyal to him thrown out of office at a stroke.
‘But there’s worse, sir,’ Valdred continued. He plainly did not want to say it, but his sense of duty forced it out of him, and Reiner respected that. ‘General Maxin is waiting for you to come, sir. He knows that you are planning it. He will have a reception planned for you. That is what I have heard, sir.’
‘The lieutenant here is in the Messenger Corps, sir,’ Latvoc explained. ‘A great deal of news travels through there, both official and unofficial.’
It was a gamble now: go to Capitas, and who knew what Maxin might have in store for him. Maxin had grown so cursedly powerful, ever since the bloody work he had made of the Emperor’s relations in order to secure the succession, eight years ago. He had not rested since then, either, and now he knew Reiner was coming, and had let out the news that he was ready for his old adversary.
Reiner was not without power or supporters, and Maxin would have gathered a whole new crop of enemies since then. Would any of them stir themselves to help a Rekef general, though? The Rekef ruled by fear, and fear, unlike love, did not outlive the possession of power.
‘General Brugan has not responded to our messages, sir,’ Latvoc reported. ‘I do not think he sees General Maxin as the threat that he is. He seems to want no common cause with us.’
Reiner turned to his papers. If not home to Capitas, then where? The answer was obvious, if unsatisfactory: to the pr
ovinces. Maxin had all the power in the capital, but there were plenty of provincial governors who owed their position solely to Reiner’s favour.
The war was not over yet.
The man and woman standing at one end of the roof terrace were councillors of Helleron, Totho knew. He watched as the portly man, dressed in gold-embroidered robes of Spider silk, laughed and pointed something out to the woman – something in the city below them. The Consellar Chambers of Helleron made great use of this roof, running a railed walkway all the way round it. Fly messengers used it regularly to arrive and depart, and the great and the good of Helleron often came here to gloat over their civic holdings, surveying a roofscape of fine townhouses that gave way, after a few streets, to smog-hung chimneys and the bleak and featureless walls of factories.
Helleron was now a city under occupation, and what had surprised Totho was how very little it had changed. True, there was a garrison force in, now: Wasp soldiers on the streets and Ant-kinden Auxillians from some far corner of the Empire. True the council was merely advisory to the imperial governor, who was a man beyond the social pale as far as they were concerned. Still, Beetles always endured. Beetles flourished everywhere. Totho, half-Beetle himself, had never appreciated that so clearly before.
He was able to sidle close to the two councillors, so long as he did not stare at them openly. They took him for a servant and therefore overlooked him graciously. The woman was now pointing at some district across the city that was mostly shrouded in smoke. They were fighting there now, she declared. Fighting on the streets of Helleron! She seemed to think it was simply marvellous.
Totho knew what the fighting was about. A war was being won and lost on a daily basis in Helleron because, whilst the Council of Thirteen had meekly bowed the knee as soon as the Wasp armies had appeared on the horizon, there had been others who had been left out of the deal, and were now holding onto their power as tightly as they could. This winter, the imperial garrison was busily engaged rooting out the fiefdoms.
They were criminal holdings, areas of the city run by gangs comprising as varied a mix as could be imagined: home-grown Beetle toughs, magnates fallen on hard times, Spider manipuli, close-knit Fly-kinden families or knots of exotic killers like Mantids or Dragonflies. The Empire was not accustomed to sharing power with other authorities either legal or illegal, nor did the Consortium of the Honest wish for its profits to be diluted in any way. Some of the criminal fiefs had since fallen into line, paying their dues and taking their orders, whilst others had dug in and mobilized their fighters. Each tenday now the Empire took on another little band or alliance and smashed it.
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