Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Depressingly, a large number of these people were halfbreeds. Most were Ant–Beetle crosses, just like himself, but there were some he could not even begin to identify, the mongrel results of a succession of taboo unions, or perhaps the get of kinden he did not yet know.

  The adults he saw were evidently not interested in legal employment. One and all they gave him a level, assessing stare, but they had seen his guide and let him be. His guide was well known, even in shrouded outline.

  Totho himself had already been given enough chance to study that uneven form. The man made a great show of his awkward, rapid shambling gait, but Totho noticed the way the cloak was pushed up and outwards by whatever was hidden underneath, and guessed this man was wearing armour, something outlandish and irregular, like some flashy prize-fighter. None of this made Totho happy about the present deal but if he stopped following now he would be lost, and then he would rapidly be prey.

  His guide turned abruptly aside and went over to a door in one of the sloping shacks. A quick fumble with a key and he was inside, holding the door open and gesturing for Totho to follow him. Follow he did, but not without qualms and a close grip on his sword.

  There was precious little light inside, and his benefactor seemed to have instantly disappeared. It was only when the back wall started to glow softly that he realized it was only a drape, with a lamp now lit behind it. He pushed his way carefully past the curtain.

  ‘Nine,’ said the voice of his guide as he did so. ‘Nine separate buildings.’ It answered his question.

  From the outside this small terrace of ramshackle huts had looked no different from the others. On the inside it was revealed as all one, a single dwelling. The contours were, of necessity, irregular, and there were no internal walls, just posts to keep the undulating ceiling where it should be. More hanging drapes of hessian and wool were all his host had to differentiate sleeping quarters from kitchen, storeroom from workshop. Workshop?

  Totho stared. Of all the things he had thought of on entering that door, it was not this, and yet here was something as familiar to him as his own name. Most of the floorspace was given over to benches on which half a dozen mechanisms had been anatomied for repair. Between the benches he recognized a big upright grinder, a bandsaw, a set of optic lenses and a punch-press. It was almost like coming home.

  ‘I took you for the type,’ his host remarked, and Totho snapped from his reverie. In his fascination he had almost forgotten the man existed.

  ‘Thank you for . . .’ He had decided to trust this man, and then, turning to look at him, he choked on his words. Scuto had cast his cloak back and he was indeed wearing armour, but it was an old leather breastplate that had been crudely cut to fit him. The rest of his shape was entirely his own.

  As a child back in Collegium, Totho had watched puppet shows on occasion, and even then he had been more interested in how it was done than in the stories and jokes. There had been one puppet that turned up in most of them which was known as the Malefactor and existed to get other puppets into trouble and so start off the plot. It had a great hooked nose that almost met its upward-curving chin, and Scuto looked just like that long-remembered manikin. Between nose and chin his mouth appeared as a crooked line in skin that was nut-brown and slightly shiny, and above the nose his eyes were small and suspicious. He was frankly hideous. It was not even the face that made him so, or the hunched back, for he bristled everywhere with curving spikes. There were small ones the size of fish hooks, and others as long as knife blades, and they sprouted from him at random and all over. His breastplate, his very garments, were roughly cut to avoid these, but still his tunic was darned a hundred times over, and ripped even so. It was a wonder, Totho thought helplessly, that this man had not cut himself to ribbons.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Scuto said sourly. ‘You ain’t a picture yourself, halfbreed.’ He shuffled over to one of the benches and put down his crossbow. It was a sleek repeater with a high magazine at the top, holding ten quarrels at least.

  ‘I— I’m sorry but . . .’ Even the sight of the crossbow could not keep Totho’s attention off the man himself.

  ‘But what, halfway? I’m a pureblood, me.’ Scuto’s smile showed barbed snaggle-teeth. ‘You don’t get so many of my kind down here, but the Empire knows us. They can’t stand us. Wonder why. Thorn Bug-kinden, that’s me, so live with it.’

  ‘You mean there’s . . .’

  ‘More of us?’ Scuto actually cackled, which improved his appearance not one bit. ‘Way north of here, boy, there’s more of us than anyone could sensibly want. And you know the real killer? There ain’t one of us quite like the other. You look on me, and you see a real ugly bug. Well that’s what I see in the mirror, boy, and that’s what I see when I look at all my folk.’

  Totho nodded. ‘I think I can . . . understand that.’

  ‘Bet you can, you being a hybrid boy and all.’ Scuto looked him up and down, from a vantage point focused around Totho’s chest. ‘So, you going to admit to being one of Stenwold Maker’s little helpers?’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ At this point it didn’t seem that there was much point denying it.

  ‘That bag there says you’re an artificer, boy. You just carrying it for someone else, or can you do something useful with your life?’

  ‘I’ve received my accredits from the Great College,’ Totho said with pride.

  ‘Don’t mean squat to me, boy. Till you show me you can do something, you ain’t no artificer to me.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Totho heaved his bag onto a bench and began rifling through it. ‘How do you keep all this stuff here anyway? You couldn’t keep it secret. They’d . . . hear you milling through the walls. Why hasn’t it been stolen or something?’

  Scuto spat, not as an insult, Totho guessed, but some local way of showing emphasis.

  ‘Listen, boy, in this neighbourhood I’m the man. That means half the eyes and spies out there are on my books. That means there are swords and crossbows out there that point where I tell them, and when I ask it, I can get a real doctor to come out here who knows he’ll be safe and get properly paid. It all adds up, because anyone out there who means me ill will run foul of the locals unless he’s got a damn army, believe you me. What with all that and your man Maker’s work to do, it’s a wonder I find time for my actual occupation.’

  ‘Which is artificing.’ Totho pulled a device from his bag and handed it over.

  ‘That it is.’ Scuto took the air-battery in his thorny hands and squinted at it. His look was suspicious at first, then surprised and at last appreciative. ‘Not bad work, boy. Very neat, very small. You’ve got good hands there. Pistons, is it? For powering engines?’

  ‘I was going to use it for a weapon. I . . . like weapons,’ Totho said awkwardly.

  ‘Not a lad your age that doesn’t,’ said Scuto, grinning. ‘This has potential. If Stenwold’s work leaves you any time free, I’d like to see what you do with it.’

  ‘Stenwold’s work?’ Totho’s instant smile suddenly soured. ‘What happened with your man?’

  Scuto grimaced. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘I do! Three of my friends are still out there, if they haven’t already been caught.’ He bit his lip. ‘I should never have left them. I thought they’d be right behind me. And all because your man sold us to the Wasps!’

  ‘No he didn’t,’ Scuto said, but he was looking down at his hands as they toyed with the air-battery.

  ‘Then how do you explain what happened? He led us right into an ambush!’

  ‘No he didn’t,’ said Scuto again. ‘On account of this morning I fished his body out of the reagent vats in the factory right behind us. Someone had dumped the corpse for a quick get-rid-of job, but picked the wrong vat.’

  ‘This morning? But—’

  ‘Oh I know, boy.’ When Scuto shrugged, the spines rippled across his shoulders and back again like grass in the wind. ‘I was watching at Benevolence Square, and I tracked you from there. I saw the bastard,
and for sure, it was Bolwyn, a man I’ve known for three years. And yet his body’s in the poorgrave five streets from here, and has been since near dawn.’ The Thorn Bug bared his teeth again. ‘Beats me, boy. Beats me.’

  It was one of the better tavernas of middle Helleron. Well appointed, its upper windows at least gave a view of the slopes where the gleaming white villas of the wealthy held sway. The service was known to be good, the host friendly and the watch were slipped enough coins to have them come running at the hint of any trouble. Most of all, though, the Grain Shipment Taverna was discreet. When Thalric entered, tipping his broad-brimmed hat to the host, the wide-waisted Beetle-kinden just nodded. Thalric was able to find a table, lean back in his chair, and in a short while the host’s boy was at his elbow with a bowl of watered wine and the murmured message that the back room would be ready for him any time he wished.

  Thalric felt no desire to hurry, though. He was not looking forward to this meeting. Behind him his two bodyguards had taken up positions beside the wall, keen eyed and, regrettably, looking like nothing so much as a pair of on-duty soldiers. They knew, of course, that if they got it wrong, if they chanced to be looking left when the action went right, then there would be no excuses. Not with Captain Thalric. He had a reputation that put men on edge all the way up and down the ladder of rank. In fact he was the very terror of the outlander Wasp war effort just now.

  He looked at his reflection in the wine, wondering how much the dark liquid was hiding of the lines the last few years had put on his face. The final year of the Dragonfly war had been a tough assignment: Thalric and his picked men behind enemy lines, and fighting a cat-and-mouse war with the Commonweal’s own Mercers, their heroes of covert war. When the word had come about rebellion flaring in Maynes, he had been relieved to be recalled to deal with it. Then the Empire’s eye had turned west, and he had been sent to Helleron.

  He felt as though he was already at war with Helleron, for the call of duty fought a nightly battle with his own desires, and did not always come away the utter victor. Imperial cities were simply not like this. Firstly, imperial cities were actually governed. Helleron had its council of the fat and wealthy, it was true, but Thalric had seen the city from all sides and he knew that, if it was governed at all, it actually governed itself. It was ruled through a thousand small concerns, ten thousand petty greeds, by gangs, factory magnates, artificer-lords, black marketeers and, of course, foreign agents. More, this was accepted, and even intended, by its people. It was all a great, sprawling, grasping chaos, the absolute anathema of the Empire’s iron rule, and Thalric found he rather enjoyed it. His line of duty, the sinuous line he was reeling through the fabric of Helleren society, had led him to many places that the Empire had not shown him. He had been to the theatre to watch a riotous play that openly derided the very people paying for the privilege of watching, and yet was applauded for it. He had gone to dinner with Beetle magnates and Spider slavemongers and renegade Ant weapons dealers and made polite conversation with them. He had talked business in exclusive clubs and richly decked chop houses and brothels that offered girls of every kinden he could name. For a military man with an active mind he was required to remind himself of his duty at least once a day.

  He was going to miss it all. He knew that the Empire’s rule, when brought to this place, would crush much that made it what it was. His trembling subordinates would never have guessed that his iron reputation would allow for such regret.

  Or for worry, come to that, but Thalric was a worrier by nature and that was why he was so good at his job. By worrying about everything, he allowed very little past him, and right then he was worrying about his contact. His contact had worried him for twenty years now, ever since they had started their unnatural association.

  Thalric stood up, tipped the wink to the host’s boy and went up the stairs to the back room. It would be dark, he knew, since Scylis did not like being seen, and anyway Thalric had decided it would be better not to see whatever face the man might present to him. A master of disguise he had told himself. A clever man with masks and cosmetics. As the history of their dealings had been written, such assurances to himself had begun to ring hollow.

  He had a particular fear – for fear was another thing he owned that his men would not guess at – that, should he suddenly unveil a lamp or light a candle at one of these meetings, the face he would see facing him would be his own.

  He could see the dark shape of the man by the open window. Always cautious, was Scylis. Thalric took his time, sitting down, getting comfortable, sipping the last of his wine.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘what went wrong?’

  Scylis made an annoyed sound. ‘What went wrong is that you might as well employ clowns and circus freaks as your soldiers, and your local talent is even worse.’ The voice was crisp, sarcastic, accentless. ‘They closed the trap too soon, and your children meanwhile made their farewells and left. I’d advise you to discipline your men but there aren’t that many of them that even managed to walk away alive.’

  Thalric nodded. His four errant ‘scholars’, as he had been briefed, were turning into quite the death squad. ‘Afraid for your life, Scylis?’

  The hidden man made a hiss of disdain. ‘If you had really wanted them dead, I would have killed them. As it was, I played my part. Do not think you will now withhold payment.’

  ‘Ever the mercenary.’

  ‘I could argue quite persuasively that being motivated by personal wealth is nobler than by imperialistic conquest,’ replied Scylis’s dry, amused voice. ‘However, my rates for scholarly debate are the same as those for my other services, so I doubt you would want to retain me as a pedagogue.’ He loved the sound of his own voice, Thalric knew. Not that he talked too much, but each word came out finely crafted and with relish. Yet he could sum up what he really knew about Scylis in seconds, and spend days over what he did not. From the shadow’s build, and the voice, he had decided that his catspaw was Spider-kinden, but Scylis could be Scyla for all he knew, and neither of those need be the agent’s real name.

  ‘You’ll be paid,’ Thalric said, ‘but could you impersonate any of them? Did you get a good enough look?’

  ‘It would be by appearance only,’ said Scylis. ‘I didn’t speak long enough to get to know them. Not like I did with Bolwyn.’

  Thalric considered Bolwyn. He had no doubt that Scylis had questioned him most persuasively, before the man’s death, in order to assume that role. He felt no regrets about him. It was for the Empire.

  ‘It may yet come to that,’ he told the shadow. ‘In the meantime, here is your price.’ A bag of coins, gold Helleron Centrals, clinked on the floor. ‘I’ll have work for you soon enough. Word by the usual route.’

  ‘A pleasure as always, Major Thalric,’ came Scylis’s reply.

  ‘Captain Thalric,’ the Wasp corrected.

  ‘Come now, would you respect me if I could be fooled by your games? We have danced, you and I, and I know you.’

  A characteristic Spider expression, and Thalric decided it was genuine, rather than a part the man was playing.

  ‘You know me, do you?’

  ‘I know your subordinates fear you, which is no strange thing in an officer, but your superiors fear you even more. Shall I utter the dreaded name and see what it conjures?’

  ‘Best you don’t,’ Thalric advised, as it came unbidden into his mind: Rekef. The army held a blade to the throat of the world, but he stood with his blade at the throat of the army, for the Emperor would tolerate no resistance, within or without. ‘Much more talk of that, Scylis, and even you might outlive your usefulness.’

  Scylis made a dismissive sound, but he obviously gave some weight to the warning, because he changed the subject smoothly. ‘Did your men tell you about the Spider-kinden duellist? Quite the fencer to watch.’

  Thalric nodded. ‘Yes they’re a proper bag of surprises.’ He stood up, feeling abruptly weary. Scylis always seemed to be mocking him, and he wished that he had s
ome other agent who could do what this man appeared to be able to do, however it was that he managed it. ‘If you come across any information, any leads, you know I’ll pay for it,’ he said, as he left the room.

  For the Empire. That was the rod at his core. No matter how much Helleron might tempt him with its decadent, delectable pleasures, when it was for the Empire he put all that aside and knew neither regret, worry nor fear. He was not a bad man, in his own estimation. No, he was a loyal man, and for an imperial citizen that was the crowning virtue. When the order had come to him, during the last war, to kill the three infant children of Prince Felise Dael, he had carried the knife himself to end the noble line, and known no remorse.

  This thought stopped him on the stairs, for he had children himself, hundreds of miles away, whom he had barely ever seen since they were born. A wife he no longer wrote to. The fear of his underlings and the loathing of his superiors. Coded orders on scrolls scheduled for burning.

  Their mother had been there, when he killed those three children, held restrained between two of his men. It was not that he had forced her to watch, simply that she had been in the nursery when he arrived. Standing on the stairs in the Grain Shipment Taverna he found that he wished she had been taken away.

  For the Empire. It made him feel stronger, just saying the words to himself, but sometimes he felt as though he was turning into something like Scylis: masks and masks and masks, until he could hold them all up before him, and not know which was truly his own face.

  Tynisa awoke slowly, but cautiously. She was somewhere she did not recognize. She could feel it from the bed, the sounds around her, the very smell. It could mean many things, from a kidnap to a successful liaison. She stayed quite still, allowing herself to come to without the world becoming aware of it.