The statues in the garden of Honoured Foreigners were now watching her. As the moonlight caressed them, it touched not cold stone but cloth and flesh. Deep inside, a shiver of horror went through her – because if these statues could live, then why not others? – but her outer calm was barely cracked, staring at them.
They made no move, just stood in their places, but she saw them shift slightly, and their eyes tracked her as she crossed the garden. The Moth-kinden watched her with inscrutable patience, the Spiders with arch disdain. From his hiding place within the foliage, the eyes of the Mantis warrior gazed with narrow suspicion. Other kinden, some that she had never known in life, stared down on her, as their names were dredged from her memory: long-limbed Grasshoppers, hunchbacked Woodlice, poised and beautiful Dragonfly-kinden.
No Ants, no Beetles, not even a Khanaphir. But in the dream she understood that. It was because they were so very lowly: who would waste the fine white stone on a statue of Petri Coggen or any of her relations? They were the servants, the minions, the countless running hordes, whose myriad deaths and births passed unmarked season to season. These, here, were the nobility.
She turned away from their scathing looks and found herself facing the grand arch that led into the Place of Government, towards the Scriptora and the pyramid with its eternal watchers.
And tonight the statues have come to life. The struggling part of herself was rising to the surface fast now, howling for her to wake up. Here in her dream there were things that she did not want to see. Her feet were moving her forward, a pace at a time, with a sleepwalker’s slow inevitability. She felt the collective gaze of the foreign ambassadors prickling against her back, but none made a move to help her.
Help me, and yet there was no help, and her traitor feet kept taking her, pace by pace, towards that arch ahead. She tried to close her eyes against it, but this was a dream and she could not block it out.
All I wanted to do was leave, she wailed in protest, and the answer, in crystal-clear tones, came back to her.
We do not wish you to leave.
But what about what I want? Except that was beyond the point. She remembered then that she was a slave, that all her race were slaves, and that this dream came from the far past, when what any Beetle-kinden woman wanted carried no more weight than a grain of sand.
But we have broken from all that! The revolution …
But it was a dream from the past, and the revolution had never happened, and besides: this was Khanaphes where her people carried their shackles inside their minds every day, and were joyful about it.
She was now at the arch and stepping into its shadow. The steps of the pyramid rose before her. If she craned her gaze upwards she could see the first hint of white stone.
No!
She made a sudden, furious effort to wrest herself away from the dream – and abruptly she was falling, lurching from her bed in a tangle of sheets, and striking the floor with a cry of panic that must have woken half the embassy. She stayed motionless but trembling, waiting for some revenant left from the dream to rise up from within her mind and recapture her. Then she heard footsteps, and people suddenly shocked into wakefulness were shouting at one another.
I must tell Che, she thought. She’s the only one who might understand.
*
Che had not gone outside since the hunt. The rooms of the embassy had become her shell, the blather of the academics her unseen shield.
She had not seen Achaeos’s agonized form again since the hunt, either. She imagined it still hanging there inside the wicker cage of the idol, haranguing the Mantis-kinden for their lack of proper faith.
I am running out of places to turn. She felt that the world was waiting for her to step outside, yet some sense, previously unknown, kept feeding warnings to her. Seen out of the window, the day gone by had been piercingly bright, cloudless, like all Khanaphir days. But when she turned away and closed her eyes, her mind embroidered the unseen sky with louring grey, a towering thunderhead of storm. Something is about to happen! The feeling made her head ache, made everyone seem suspicious in the way they looked at her. In the corners of her eyes, those indecipherable little carvings that marched their endless rounds in every room, along every wall, seemed to jump and gibber. The scholarly pedantry of Berjek and Praeda seemed rife with double meanings, hidden secrets. She clung to their presence, though, for anything was better than being alone. Berjek was intent on his studies and nothing more, therefore no good company, while Praeda had her own worries, remaining quiet and thoughtful, as though something was eating at her mind.
Where now? There was one ‘where now’ left to her, but the thought made her heart tremble. She had skulked in the shadows of this problem all this time, and was not sure that she could take up a lance and strike to the heart of it. To do so would, at the very least, destroy any standing she retained as an ambassador.
Berjek and Praeda reached some kind of impasse in their discussion, and she sensed them turn towards her. She opened her eyes, to see that the sky beyond the windows was already darkening. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘We are in need of your services,’ Berjek said. ‘As an ambassador, they may listen to you.’
‘What do you want from them?’ Che asked blankly; their words had passed her by.
She saw Praeda make an exasperated face. ‘Che, we need this code-book of theirs, the one for their carvings,’ she said. ‘There is supposed to be a book containing a translation – a meaning – for these symbols. Berjek and I agree that this is more than idle decoration. There is information encrypted here, but we can’t read it, so we need the book.’
‘It’s one of those things where they clam up as soon as you mention it,’ Berjek said glumly. ‘They just change the subject, ever so politely.’
‘Sacred,’ remarked Che, and they stared at her.
‘What a peculiar notion,’ said Berjek at last.
‘It is a very old word,’ Che said softly, ‘but it’s the right word.’ She saw him bursting with questions but she held a hand up. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she warned. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. I cannot explain it in any way that you would understand.’
Berjek rolled his eyes and was about to say something very sharp, but then a drum began sounding out in the garden, a simple, low beat. The three Collegiates exchanged frowns.
‘Some local custom …?’ Berjek suggested, and then a stringed instrument, high and plaintive and intricate, had added its voice to whatever was going on. As one they passed out onto the balcony to see.
Whatever it was, it was happening right below them, where they would have the best view. Khanaphir servants had staked out torches that blazed with a steady, rosy light, outlining a rough circle on their side of the pond. Che saw some movement in the Imperial embassy across the way, the Wasps emerging to watch in equal puzzlement.
The two musicians, still playing quietly, sat cross-legged outside the circle. Four soldiers had stepped inside it: slender Mantis-kinden wearing chitin and hide cuirasses and helms, and bearing spears. They knelt at four points, spears pointing upwards and inwards, their razor tips describing a smaller space within the larger.
‘Is this a play?’ Berjek wondered.
‘Or an execution?’ Che said darkly.
Another figure came striding up towards the circle, and Praeda said, ‘Oh, hammer and tongs, look at him,’ hand to her mouth, for it was Amnon. The torchlight picked out the grim expression on his face. He wore only a kilt of white with a golden belt, and the dancing red light picked out the lines of his musculature. In each hand there was a sword, not the broad leaf-bladed things his soldiers carried, but blades like curved razors, thin and wicked-looking and extending longer than his arm. He went to the heart of the circle, within the threat of the four spear-points, and Che saw him take a deep breath. He raised the swords, one held forward, one underhand. Che glanced at Praeda and saw the woman had a look of exasperation on her face, one of clear dis
approval at whatever the big man was going to do. The thought came to Che, And yet she is still watching, to see what it is all about. If her mind had matched that face she would be back inside already.
The music stopped.
Amnon looked up, and Che knew he was seeking the face of Praeda Rakespear. His expression was so bleak that she thought, He’s going to kill himself. This is some kind of Khanaphir suicide ritual.
The drum exploded into greater life, the strings rattling alongside it, and Amnon began to dance.
Che had never seen anything like it. Like a man possessed, the First Soldier had gone mad. From that utter stillness he had become a leaping, spinning maniac and, wherever he went, the swords were weaving about his body in a blur of killing steel. He was in and out of the spearpoints, over and under them, whilst the Mantids that held them kept absolutely still, without a tremor. The swords passed everywhere, cut nothing. Amnon looked neither at the swords nor at the spears nor at his feet. His eyes were always fixed upwards, seeking out Praeda Rakespear.
It should have been ridiculous. Without the music it would have been ridiculous, but the swift, insistent rhythm was working some magic all of its own. Che felt something catch at her emotions, even though this entire spectacle was for a purpose to which she was purely incidental. He wants to reach out to her so much … But that great-framed man could not just bare his heart. Behind the armour of his office and the worship of his troops, he was as human as them all. He was dancing to display his vulnerability, even as he danced to show his skill.
Che glanced over at Praeda; the woman’s face still showed nothing. The Cold One, that’s what they called her. It seemed impossible that Amnon would not injure himself, or kill one of his soldiers, but the music forced him on and on. The sweat glowed on him, and Che wondered if there was an end to this, or whether he would go on until he took one wrong step and drew blood.
The music was still building, she realized. There is more to come. Amnon’s feet moved in a rapid patter, yet every step in perfect place. There was no margin for error in his dance, no chance to recover from placing a foot wrong. The spears glinted ivory in the red light; the swords seemed already stained with blood. Even the musicians seemed gripped by the same frenzy that made Amnon leap and spin.
He gave out a cry that must have come echoing back from the river, then sank down on one knee within the fence of spears. The swords, still unstained, were raised above his head, but the spearheads, all four, lay severed about him on the ground. At last he was looking down. At last he had freed Praeda from the barb of his attention.
Praeda had one hand to her mouth and there was a colour to her cheeks that seemed alien to her. Che’s first thought was that she had found the whole thing embarrassing. Praeda would not meet anyone else’s eyes, as she hurried inside.
Below them, with Praeda gone, Che saw Amnon finally allow himself to relax. His bare back heaved for breath, and he lowered the swords to the ground.
What would I feel, if that had been for me? Che wondered, and felt, at the edge of her mind, just a flicker of that fierce attention. In the face of the brief stab of envy she felt, despite herself, she wondered whether her assessment of Praeda’s reaction had been correct. She’s cold, but you’d have to be frozen through not to feel that warmth.
‘Remarkable customs,’ Berjek said, returning inside himself, giving every impression of being the muddled academic missing the point of everything he had just witnessed. In his wake, Che was now left with only one person on the balcony beside herself.
‘Help me,’ Petri Coggen implored her, as she stood there in her nightshirt, hands clutching each other before her. ‘Please, Che, before it’s too late.’
It had not occurred to her that the First Minister of Khanaphes would be waiting for her. Of course, he made a great show of finishing up business first. When she stepped into the great hall of the Scriptora, with its traitor fountain playing its serenade to the Aptitude of its creators, she found him at the far end, giving quick instructions to a clutch of clerks. Even as Che approached him, though, the menials began to disappear, bowing backwards off into oblivion, leaving Ethmet to turn and beam at her politely. She knew, then, that he had been here for this reason only: to meet with her.
‘O Beautiful Foreigner, O Ambassador,’ he said to her, ‘what favour may the city of Khanaphes enact for you?’
‘I need to speak with you,’ she said. She had resolved to be blunt, because she needed answers both for herself and for Collegium.
‘Of course. Nothing would be of more pleasure,’ he assured her. ‘Would it displease you if I pass about my duties as we speak?’ If he had been a younger man, and of another city, she might have accused him of mockery. The Khanaphir could revile you to your face, though, and you would never know it for sure.
‘We would need privacy, I think,’ she said. He was already turning away, pottering off into the next room, so she was forced to follow.
‘Ah, well, there are only servants to hear us, and they know their duty is to keep their ears close about them,’ Ethmet said absently. He plays the part of the avuncular old man so well.
The room he had passed into gave her a moment’s pause. It was a library, she guessed, or perhaps just some grand office of government. The circular floor was picked out in an intricate mosaic design devoid of meaning, and the walls were lined with wooden racks, criss-crossing diagonal beams that reached up to the high windows visible far above Che’s head. Steps on either side led to balconies for access to the higher shelves and, when they entered, there were at least two score clerks removing scrolls, filing them, or amending and updating them. Within a minute of Ethmet’s entrance, and without any signal that Che could discern, they had all carefully rolled up their work and departed from the room. Each one’s manner suggested merely that they had been about to do so in any case, and that Ethmet’s entry had not swayed them in the least. A moment later, as the shuffling of sandals receded, Che and Ethmet were left alone in the echoing room.
‘You wished, I believe, to have words with me?’ the old man enquired. He was standing at the nearest desk, a simple slab of stone with some half-furled scrolls resting upon it.
Che seized her courage in both hands, determined to crack the First Minister’s shell. ‘What happened to the scholar, Kadro?’ she asked.
Ethmet did not even blink. ‘We have been unable to locate him, I am sorry to say.’
Che gritted her teeth. ‘It has been … suggested to me that he may have been asking awkward questions, that the Ministers of Khanaphes may not have approved of his researches.’
Ethmet’s smile remained distantly polite. ‘I understand only that your compatriot was given to asking his questions, impolitic or not, in unwise places. He was seen much in the Marsh Alcaia, even out in the desert, where the writ of the Khanaphir Dominion runs regrettably thin. In seeking such company it would seem most likely that the manner of his researches, and not the subject of them, proved the cause of his difficulties.’ He gathered up some of the scrolls and made his patient way towards a flight of steps.
‘You’re telling me that you gave no orders …’ Che trailed off. In the face of such denial, such a wall of denial, what can I say?
‘None at all. Why should we?’ Ethmet replied, taking the stairs one at a time. Even in those few words, Che had the absolute certainty that he was lying. I can prove nothing, but Petri is right. She was becoming used to intuitions that arrived without logic, with nothing but an assurance of their own truth.
She followed him up the steps, trying to formulate the words that might trip him up, expose the man behind the mask. Then he remarked, as blandly as ever, ‘I understand that you have succumbed to the vice of Profanity.’
She stopped, as thoroughly thrown as she had ever been, ice coursing through her veins. This trap has sprung the wrong way. Ethmet was not even looking at her, carefully filing the scrolls, one by one.
‘I …’ she began, her heart hammering. She waited for th
e guards to suddenly spring out from their hiding places, but guards there were none, just herself and the old man within the big, echoing chamber.
‘We make it a crime,’ Ethmet continued, still at his deliberate filing, and she thought, The First Minister does not do a clerk’s job. He has brought me up here for some reason.
‘I … I know,’ she stammered. ‘What …What will you …?’
‘Do not fear.’ He looked at her directly then. ‘It is a law that is enforced only against those who are not … worthy.’
‘I do not understand.’ And she genuinely did not understand. He was waiting for her, testing her.
‘Word has reached us, O Foreigner, of you and your unusual heritage.’
‘They thought I was of the blood of …’ She could not bring herself to say it, but he completed the thought for her.
‘Of the Masters. But you are not.’ He was at the balcony rail now, hands resting on the carved stone. ‘But you are special nevertheless, or so we have been led to believe. Not for many ages has Khanaphes welcomed one like you. The eating of Fir is a practice not forbidden, but restricted. Through Fir do those of us bearing the blood hear the voice of the Masters.’
She gaped at him. ‘But you don’t mean … you mean that … the Ministers? You?’
‘The sin of Profanity is profane only when committed by the unrighteous who seek to steal that which is given freely to those who deserve it.’
She clenched her fists, utterly lost now. ‘Tell me what you’re talking about,’ she urged him. ‘Just tell me … tell me something plainly, please.’ She had joined him at the balcony’s edge, but his gaze did not even flick towards her.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘Am I plain enough in that?’
‘But I don’t—’ She stopped and, at last, followed his gaze down to the tiled floor of the chamber. After a moment she said, ‘Oh.’
The mosaic, the tiles of sepia and black and grey, swam before her eyes, and she felt Ethmet take her arm to keep her from simply pitching over the rail. What had been an abstract arabesque down below was suddenly recognizable, stylized but familiar. The floor was a map.
The Scarab Path Page 32
