Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘I . . .’ Tynisa wanted to mock him, but he so clearly believed what he said, and she could tell that Tisamon did as well. ‘This is ridiculous.’ She contented herself with that.

  In the end, they made a compromise by clinging to the very forest edge. Even here the shadows lay heavily on them. Totho seemed oblivious to it all, but Stenwold cast a few anxious glances about him as it grew dark. Tynisa remembered his dealings with Dr Nicrephos in Collegium, and guessed that he was a Beetle of unusual experience.

  They set the lowest of low fires, embers stoked merely to blunt the chill that seemed to hang about them. As the night approached, while the trees behind them seemed to draw the darkness to themselves like a mother summoning her children, Tisamon stood up.

  ‘Don’t take any risks you don’t have to,’ Stenwold warned him. ‘That’s not a town, it’s a military camp and they’re going to be watching.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me, O historian,’ said Tisamon, and Tynisa guessed he was eager for his skills to be put to use again.

  ‘I’m going with him,’ she told Stenwold.

  A chill descended between the two older men.

  ‘I don’t think that’s wise—’ started Stenwold, but she folded her arms.

  ‘It’s my sister we’re going to find, near enough. She’s not even going to know who . . . who this man is, so I’m going.’

  Stenwold grimaced, glancing at Tisamon, whose shadowed face was unreadable. Then, after a moment, the Mantis nodded curtly. No words, no encouragement, but at least that. A moment later he was gone, buckling his claw gauntlet to his arm. Tynisa took one more look at Stenwold, who was looking unhappier than ever, and then followed him into the gathering dark.

  ‘Well . . .’ he began, and had nothing to follow it with.

  ‘I’m sure that . . . Tynisa can look after herself,’ Totho said awkwardly.

  ‘I just feel there’s an explosion waiting between those two. I didn’t ever want to leave them alone.’

  ‘She’s right about . . . well, if the first thing Che saw was your man there . . . He’s not exactly . . .’

  Stenwold conceded the point. ‘It’s an imperfect world.’ A moment later he frowned. ‘Where’s Achaeos?’

  For the Moth had vanished.

  Sitting with them in the shadow of those trees had taken courage he had not known he possessed. It had been the fat Beetle and the grease-fingered Totho that had been the spur. They had made their little camp, as happy as anything, and even Tynisa had joined in and had not cared. She was Spider-kinden and she should know better. It pained him to see how they had blinded her by bringing her up amongst the Beetles.

  Oh, Tisamon knew, of course. This place must stir up more dread in Tisamon than even Achaeos could imagine. It was the cautionary story that Mantis fathers raised their children on – warning of the price of hubris, that ancient corruption. His hands twitched instinctively for his bones, but they were gone. He felt as though he had lost a sense.

  Now the Mantis and the Spider girl had gone off, a ridiculous pairing, into the camp below to find Cheerwell Maker. So let them find her, and let this be over with. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Prepare, magician, he addressed himself. It was a title he had scant right to. He had never been a great champion of the lore of his own people. He knew enough of it, though, and it struck him now that if that same lore could do nothing to find Che, then the Beetles’ scepticism might as well be justified.

  I am a seer of Tharn, he told himself. So let me see. Away from the fire again, and yet not deeper into those appalling trees, he felt about for the strands of the world around him. He had touched Che. She even had his blood on her hands from the wound she had healed. There was a cord that ran between them – oh was there not! The cord that would not let him walk away.

  His awareness cringed from the tangled mass that rose behind him, but the Darakyon seemed quiet at least. The ancient wrongs that had been poured into the place were sleeping.

  There was a host of thousands of souls in Asta, but they were chaff. They were Wasps or the slaves of Wasps. Here and there was a spark of quality, some luckless scion of an elder race held in imperial servitude. If he had wished he could have found Tisamon and Tynisa easily enough, just by their heritage: Moths, Spiders and Mantids, the ancient rulers of the world.

  Che had no such Inapt heritage, but he felt for the cord that must have tied his fate to hers, through her ministrations – linked through more than that? He stamped on such thoughts. He reached out towards the makeshift town of Asta, the grey deadness of its machines, the legion of sleeping soldiers and slavers and artificers. Che!

  His powers were weaker even than he had thought. To find an acquaintance was surely not beyond them, not when he was as close as this. Was it all those machines that were confusing his magic? Or was he really such a poor seer after all and a burden on his people? He hunted, but there was no trail, not the faintest mark to lead him to her.

  His heart lurched. What is the first mark of the fool? his people asked, and the stock answer came back, That he listens to fools. So it was that fools clustered together to make their plots and their machines, and so it was that Achaeos had been drawn into fools’ company. Stenwold says they have taken her to Asta, but she is not there. Tisamon will waste his stealth, while we all waste our time. The answer brought a rush of relief to him, that at least his powers were not so atrophied – and then another of despair. So she is further, further than I can reach her, and I shall not be free.

  As he stood and made to return to the fire, he felt the Darakyon at his back flex and stretch and come awake.

  Oh we should not be here! and he hurried back towards the fire, and saw that he was not the only one.

  ‘Maker! Halfbreed!’ he called out. But he saw them already springing up from the fire and both reaching for their weapons. ‘Get away from the fire, you fools!’ Achaeos yelled sharply, and they blundered towards his voice, in the darkness that blinded them and was nothing to a Moth’s sight. It was so clear to him: the trees and the buckled land, the fire and his two clumsy allies. Clear, too, the Wasp soldiers who had been silently approaching, drawn to the dim glow of the embers.

  Stenwold and Totho were already into the pitch dark between the trees before the Wasps reached their fire. One of the intruders unshuttered a lantern instantly and cast the beam across the forest, till the others shouted at him to put it out. There were a half-dozen of them, Achaeos saw. One was kneeling to study the surrounding ground in the firelight. He heard, ‘I told you I saw a fire out here,’ and, ‘Smugglers, you reckon?’

  ‘Further into the woods,’ Stenwold murmured, ‘but quietly.’

  ‘No, not further into the woods . . .’ Achaeos began, but Stenwold and Totho were already retreating deeper into the Darakyon. All around them Achaeos felt the forest stir, not the trees themselves, but the blood that had been spilt there, the pain and terror of those who had died. He felt his breathing ragged, his heart racing. The Wasps were following after, though, creeping forward as silently as they could, listening for the crack of twigs.

  ‘Lantern now, then, and rush them!’ one whispered.

  ‘Fall back!’ Stenwold hissed, and they were ploughing deeper, running and stumbling away from the sudden light of the Wasps.

  The light passed across Achaeos, the sharp beam of the lantern. There was a shout, and a sting crackled out, flashing fire past him. He fled, almost sobbing with the sense of the Darakyon stirring all around, and the Wasps gave chase with a savage cry.

  He could see Stenwold and Totho ahead of him, staggering like blind men through a landscape Achaeos could see perfectly. He tried to catch them up. It should have been simple.

  Achaeos tripped. Those vines had not been there a moment before. He staggered on, the Wasps shouting behind him, letting loose their stings and crossbow bolts. The dense, thorny undergrowth seemed always in his way. He tried to push through it, but it raked at his hands, tore his sleeves. He turned aside, searching for ano
ther way round. Stenwold and Totho were further off now, and he realized that their path was curving back towards the forest’s edge whilst his own was only going deeper.

  I woke it up. I caught its attention. A horrible sense of inevitability had caught him. Better to be killed by the Wasps. But it was too late to make that choice. The trees around him were vast and twisted, their bark creased and stretched tight about their bulging trunks. There were thorns and briars everywhere, whole nests of them. Wherever he turned, only the path leading into the centre of the wood seemed clear.

  He heard a scream behind him, and he stopped running. He did not want to turn round, but something, some morbid curiosity, drew him to do it. There was enough of the forest to obscure his view, but the Wasps’ voices were now rising in panic, in horror. He heard, ‘What is it?’ and ‘Kill it! Kill it before—’ For just a moment he saw a shape, one that was not quite insect, or human, or plant, but possessed thorn-studded killing arms that rose and fell with lethal speed.

  Then there was quiet, and he thought of all the blood that was soaking into the soil of the Darakyon, and he closed his dark-seeing eyes and just waited.

  And the Darakyon waited, and when he opened his eyes there was no monster, no terrifying chimaera rising before him. There was a darkness, though, between the trees, that his eyes could not penetrate. There were shadows, and the shadows were shapes, and once he had understood that, he did his best not to look at them.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ he asked, his voice little more than a rattle in his throat, and still they waited, until he realized that whatever it was was posing the same question to him. He had been so bold as to catch its notice, and it wanted to know why.

  Nobody has spoken with the Darakyon for a hundred years.

  His people forbad it, and for good reason. Time and dark deeds had clawed away at this place, festering in it for centuries.

  There was a thought that was coming to him now, because he was standing, alive, in this ever-dying place, and it was waiting for his words. Nobody has spoken with the Darakyon for a hundred years, so what do they know – what do they really know – about what this place might do? The tales of his people regarding this place were all horrors to scare the children with, but the one thing they agreed on was that the Darakyon was strong.

  I came here for a purpose. It was while looking for Che that I felt the forest awake. I am a weak seer, unequal to the task of finding her, but I am standing at the heart of the greatest magic I have ever known.

  The night had lost its reality. He was outside time, outside all rules. In that moment he felt that he could accomplish anything, that he could overcome the losses of his race and turn back the revolution. and who knew what else?

  ‘Give me your power,’ he told the trees. ‘Loan me your power this night.’ And he reached forth to take it.

  And the Darakyon answered him back, Who asks? in a voice that was like a dry chorus of a hundred voices. He could not tell whether it came from the trees themselves or from between them, but the sound of it froze him. A voice like dry leaves and the dead husks of things, and the passage of five hundred years.

  Who would draw upon what we have hoarded? gusted the voice of the Darakyon, and Achaeos could barely speak. His breath plumed in the air, as the temperature plummeted instantly away. His great pride, that a moment ago had seemed to hold the world in its palm, had withered within him, like leaves when the winter comes.

  ‘I am Achaeos, a seer of the ancient paths of—’ he stuttered out.

  Hist! You are no more than a neophyte. What could persuade us to lend you our strength?

  He fought in vain to summon an answer, and then they said, What could save you from us?

  ‘I am a seer . . .’ he tried again, but there was laughter now, and it was worse than the voice itself had been.

  None would miss you. You are a stray leaf fallen far from your tree, little neophyte.

  He felt himself trembling from fear and cold both. His arms were still outstretched, but the power beyond his fingertips was so vast and so other that he could no more compel it than he could command the sun.

  Do you think the bearer of the sign can still ward you from us, you who have conjured us into wakefulness and come into our heart?

  ‘No . . .’ He choked, his fear was so high in his throat that he could barely speak. ‘I only sought . . . I was only trying to find . . .’

  Did you think these sacrifices would glut us in blood, little Neophyte?

  Sacrifices? ‘The Wasps . . . Yes, they are yours,’ he stammered out. A dry crackle of laughter echoed around him.

  And the other two, who now stumble within our borders, seeking a way out? The two slaves – are they also ours?

  It was a moment before Achaeos understood, and when he did the temptation was painful. Buy the Darakyon with the blood of Stenwold and Totho, a Beetle and a half-breed? If it were only that ill-favoured creature Totho . . . but Stenwold was her family. More, Stenwold was the only one who could control the Mantis, and the Mantis surely would know.

  ‘They are not for you!’ he choked out, and that rustling laughter came again.

  Such demands you make, who have so little power to stop us. Such dictation of what we may and may not do. What will you buy their lives with, little Neophyte? What entreaties have you for us?

  He felt his stomach lurch at this abrupt change of direction. ‘I just wanted to . . . to find her.’ It sounded pitiful, even to him.

  We shall see what you would do.

  The shapes between the trees shifted, and something infinitely cold seared through the inside of his head from front to back, hissing like acid. His mouth snapped open, unable even to scream. Bent backwards, choking, he fell to the ground, his limbs pulled in, every joint locked.

  And then it was gone, and he was left gasping, shuddering, lying on his side amongst the tangled roots of the Darakyon.

  You are pathetic, the phantom voice told him. You will not even own to why you seek what you seek. But we have seen. We have seen all, and the pain that you will suffer for the road you take. We cannot be commanded to lend you our power.

  Achaeos lay and trembled, crouched into a ball, and waited for the axe to fall.

  But we have seen through you, little neophyte. The shapes between the trees were more distinct now, though he knew that he did not wish to see them clearly. You show spirit, and we have always valued spirit, courage. Always.

  In that last word, lingering over it, there was contained a window opening onto a centuries-old loss, a betrayal, the end of an era. He remembered how the Mantis-kinden had dwelled here and that, although they lived here no longer, yet they were not gone.

  We cannot be compelled, by you or your betters, little neophyte, but we shall lend you what you ask. This forges a debt between us. We shall remember it.

  He opened his mouth to protest that he did not want their gifts, but it was too late. He had asked and he was given what he asked for. The cold that before had shrieked in his skull now hammered into his chest, infused him. He keened with it, burned with it. It shattered its way into him.

  He had so little time. On his back, in the bowels of that terrible place, he called out, not with his own voice, but with the vicarious power that filled him.

  Cheerwell!

  It was as though a hand, chill as ice, had placed its fingers on her forehead, and Che awoke, or tried to wake. Something caught her, like a spider’s web, halfway between sleep’s abyss and the conscious heights of the waking world.

  A voice was speaking to her. Cheerwell! A voice she should know from somewhere, and yet supported by a vast chorus of whispers, and all of them also saying her name.

  ‘What . . . what is it? Who . . . ?’ She knew she did not speak, and yet her words went out.

  Listen to me. You must hear me. And again that half-familiar tone that she could not place.

  ‘I hear you.’

  Do not fear, Cheerwell, for I am coming for you, to repay what is
owed. I am coming to free you.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’ She felt as though she was on some rushing, surging wave, being whisked away beyond her own control. She had no sense of place or time. The darkness was thick and absolute.

  You must tell me where you are, Cheerwell, said the voice – or voices – to her. Where are you? Let me find you.

  And at last the concept came to her and she trawled her mind, feeling even as she did that she was rising towards the waking world where things like this could not be.

  ‘Myna. Going to Myna.’

  And, even as she spoke, she felt a withdrawing, and she was suddenly rushing on towards wakefulness, pelting pell-mell for it, and at the last moment the owner of that voice came to her.

  Achaeos!

  ‘Achaeos!’ And she woke with her own voice and his name ringing in her ears.

  She opened her eyes on the storage bay that was their cell. Salma was sitting cross-legged across from her and his eyes were open also, as though just this moment he had been snatched from sleep. The Butterfly, Grief in Chains, lay on her side, but she too had pushed herself up onto one elbow, her white eyes wide. ‘Night brother . . .’ she said quietly.

  ‘Che, are you all right?’ Salma asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Che found she was panting heavily, as though she had been running. ‘What just happened?’

  ‘There was something here,’ Salma said definitely.

  ‘Something . . . what? Why did she . . . ?’ She turned to the Butterfly. ‘Why did you say what you just said.’

  Grief in Chains just stared at her.

  ‘I felt . . . Salma, tell me!’ Che pleaded.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t know enough, and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me it was . . . It was just a dream, that’s all.’

  Salma’s habitual smile found his face at last. ‘Of course.’

  Grief in Chains sat up fully. ‘You were touched,’ she said. ‘Darkness touched you.’ She seemed visibly upset. She had spoken very little during the previous day’s journeying, but when Salma reached a hand out to her she had clung to it.