The Scarab Path

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘I am not the girl you knew at the College,’ she said softly, after releasing him. ‘You are not that boy, nor is Thalric the same Rekef man who came hunting us. None of us are those people any more.’ A sudden realization struck her that made her feel unsteady on her feet. ‘Totho, I understand you.’

  He was frowning, desperate for help from any quarter.

  ‘Totho,’ she told him, ‘you still carry a picture of me in your mind, a memory from all those years ago. You let it torment you, but it’s not me, Totho. It’s not me that hurts you. I would never want to hurt you. You do it to yourself. Let go of me, please. I’m not who you think I am any more, and you deserve more than that.’

  She heard movement behind her and turned to see Thalric. He had a shallow gash across his temple and one hand clutching to his shoulder, but she knew the strength of his armour of old. His old tricks had always preserved him before and, as the bolt had struck him, she had guessed that not even Totho’s snapbows were his equal. In the instant she glanced at him, she noticed his expression was pure murder, his hand extended ready to sting. Che quickly interposed herself between them, to protect Totho from the Wasp’s rage.

  Thalric grimaced, made two efforts to speak, to order her out of the way, his eyes fierce with incomprehension. On the scales, his personal and cultural pride swung up and down against how she would see him if he killed her former friend.

  He finally closed his hand and took a long breath, but it still was a long time before he could lower his hand.

  ‘Che …?’ Totho began quietly, as though releasing her name into a great silent room and waiting for the echo.

  ‘I’ve used you badly,’ she told him quietly. ‘I’m sorry. And for what you did during the war, I have no right to judge, because I wasn’t there.’ She put a hand on his arm, feeling the battered mail. ‘Be safe, Totho.’

  He closed his eyes, keeping his expression very still, and then he nodded, and she half expected to see a filmy grey shape leave him, the ghost of all of their failed futures exorcized at last.

  At last, he smiled, something weak and faint but still recognizable as a smile, and then he turned and left.

  Thalric was working patiently with one hand to free the bolt in his shoulder. She reached to help, finding that the missile had punched through the fine rings of his copperweave but was snagged hopelessly in layers of cloth beneath. Spider silk, she realized.

  ‘If you’re wondering,’ he said, ‘it still hurts like the rack.’ His voice was taut, with pain and the stale dregs of his own emotions. She opened her mouth to reply and he said, ‘That was very elegantly handled. You’re a born ambassador.’

  ‘What, breaking a sword over him and then mouthing platitudes?’ she replied.

  ‘Everyone walked away from it.’ Thalric finally held up the bolt and she saw a pinprick of blood at its tip.

  ‘Closer than you’d like to admit?’ she suggested.

  ‘Being the pleasant-natured creature you are, and beloved of so many, you cannot imagine how many have tried to kill me over the years,’ he told her, and she could not decide whether he was mocking her, and to what extent. ‘That halfway artificer hasn’t come the closest, and he’s more reason than many to attempt it.’ His smile was flat. ‘I happen to agree with him. I think you’re worth killing for too.’

  She instantly felt deeply uncomfortable, remembering that he was a killer from a race of killers. At the same time, something responded in her that someone should say such a thing about her and not her sister … her sister … Tynisa.

  ‘Where now, Thalric? Where do we take this now?’

  ‘I have some temporary plans, regarding some matters I need to put right. All the more so if you’ll be travelling with me.’

  ‘I have plans as well,’ she told him. ‘There is something I must do.’ The feeling of that moment’s wrath, that Mantis-fury pure and deadly as forged steel, still terrified her. Not Tynisa, she thought. You shall not have her.

  *

  There was a ship that had already departed, and a ship that was preparing to leave. Two voyages to mark the end of this blighted moment in Khanaphir history.

  Already on the seas were the Iron Glove men, finally enacting their long-promised banishment. Che had not spoken to Totho before he left, by unspoken consent. The fragile détente they had achieved would not bear too much inspection.

  Now there was a second vessel, a Spider trader called Flighty Drachmis, and it would be heading to Porta Rabi, and from there one could find a way to Solarno, and from Solarno, home.

  They were fewer than they had been, the Collegiate scholars. Trallo of the dubious loyalties had been loyal enough to die for them, and poor Mannerly Gorget too. They were also reinforced though, for as well as Praeda and old Berjek Gripshod, and the brace of Vekken, there was now the looming figure of Amnon, former First Soldier of Khanaphes. Even in his simple white tunic he still looked like a warrior.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not coming with us, Miss Maker?’ Berjek asked. ‘What precisely am I to tell your uncle?’

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ Che said, producing a folded and sealed letter. ‘This will satisfy him. I’ll send messengers when I can – if I can. Tell him not to worry about me.’

  He huffed, and asked balefully, ‘Any other impossible tasks?’ After a moment he added, sadly, ‘It’s not worked out well here, has it?’

  ‘Not so well, no,’ she admitted. ‘I have had my hand in that, I think. I’m sure I could have done more.’ She thought of Petri Coggen, and knew that, of all of their losses, she could have prevented that death, had she not been so wrapped up in her own problems. I am sorry. There were so many people that she owed apologies to, and most would never hear them.

  ‘Che, come back to us,’ Praeda told her. ‘If not now, then soon.’

  Che shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. ‘I will try. I can make no promises. I have a long road.’

  Praeda glared at Thalric, over Che’s shoulder. ‘And you’d travel with this Wasp, rather than us?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  The other woman made a wry expression. ‘Well, be safe.’

  ‘And you.’ After which, Che turned to the last two waiting to embark. They looked back at her from near-identical faces, dark and expressionless.

  ‘What will you say?’ she asked them.

  Accius and Malius shared a moment of silent conference before Malius finally answered. ‘That we cannot understand why you came here, but it involved no plot against Vek. That our cities are both enemies of the Empire. That …’ She had the impression that Accius was prompting him before he went on. ‘That there may be some cause for common ground between us. Perhaps.’

  She took a deep breath. So little conceded, and yet see how far we’ve come! ‘My uncle is a genuine man, and he does not wish another Vekken war. I know he will treat fairly with you. I know that you cannot take my word on that, but all I ask is that you keep an open mind.’

  ‘That was humour?’ Accius interposed unexpectedly. Caught unawares, Che stared at him in surprise.

  ‘Open mind?’ she realized at last. ‘The Ant mindlink.’ A smile forced its way unbidden to her lips. ‘Humour, fair enough. Travel safely, both of you.’

  ‘Do not fear for us,’ Malius said, halfway between affront and reassurance. It was hard for Che to keep in mind how both of them had been present there beneath the earth, one in body, the other just in mind.

  She watched them take ship, as the Spider-kinden crew cast off moorings and let the current take them out towards the Marsh channels without raising sail. Her own route would take them upriver as far as the Forest Alim, and further still.

  ‘Have you actually any idea where we’re going?’ Thalric said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Che replied, ‘every idea, but you’re not going to like it. You won’t be made very welcome.’

  ‘That hardly narrows down the list of places I know,’ he said drily.

  ‘The Commonweal,’ she said, remembering
Tisamon’s shade saying, She is amongst the Dragonflies. ‘Tynisa is in the Commonweal. Feeling any reservations now?’

  ‘No, that’s good,’ he said, surprising her. ‘It’s out of the way, and I feel the need to be invisible for a while. News travels more slowly in the Commonweal – although there is a single message that I must send first. Just a little unfinished business.’

  General Brugan retired to the desk in his study after a long day. The Khanaphir expedition had returned at last, or what was left of it. Detailed interrogations could wait, but the ranking officer had some plea for mitigation he wanted to make, sounding tiresomely technical. Other than that, Captain-Auxillian Hrathen was dead, which was no loss. The Scorpions of the Nem had been decimated, likewise, and half of Khanaphes had been sacked. How one sacked half a city was a mystery to General Brugan, but it suggested poor planning.

  There had been no definite word, however, regarding his chief concern, and that irked him. Sulvec and the entire Rekef team seemed to have died as well, which was a shame. Brugan was left only with the uneasy hope that they had at least accomplished their mission before vanishing so utterly.

  It was late now, but the Rekef paperwork would only accumulate if he postponed it. Unlike his predecessor, he kept as many layers of clerks between himself and the sources of information as possible: good, trained men who knew how to judge what was important.

  He sorted through the summaries and reports, gleaning the essential information from a quick glance, reading in more detail when it was merited. His mental picture of Rekef operations within the Empire, and without, was advanced by one day.

  He came to one sealed scroll and broke it open, and paused. The seal on the outside was top priority from the governor of Shalk, his eyes only. The handwriting within was no clerk’s, though, too solid and blocky and uneconomical. It was a soldier’s hand, and Brugan knew it already. He felt his stomach twist just to see it, even before he read the words:

  General Brugan,

  I hope this missive finds you in good health and secure in the heart of your power.

  You will be pleased to hear that I have solved the matter of the assassinations. It took a few more attempts and a confession for the pattern to become clear, but now I understand. I have been painfully slow in this task, not befitting a Rekef agent, and I apologize for this.

  I understand that, when I was chosen to stand beside our Queen, it was because I was a man entirely at her mercy, who would have nothing without her support. I was her husband to satisfy the conservatives, while she was my preservation against the crossed pikes.

  I had not thought at that time what other plans I might be intruding on, but I was given no choice, after all. It is not quite true to say that I would rather the pikes than share Her bed, but there is yet some truth in that.

  And I know now that it is not enemies of the Empress that seek my death, nor any of that multitude whose lives I have personally ruined at the call of my professional career. It is simply because a man loves a woman, and would remove the only barrier between them.

  Let me tell you, General: I give her to you with all my heart. She is yours. Keep her if you can. You deserve each other.

  Tell her I died in Khanaphes. I do not intend to expose the lie. I do not intend that any word of me will reach the Empire for a very long time. If you send more killers after me, though, I will get word to her of your actions, and I do not believe she will see them in a favourable light.

  Tell her I died. I don’t imagine she will mourn for long.

  But if this does not move you to forget about me, General, then know that, just as this letter has found you in good health at the heart of your own Empire, then so can I. I have one Rekef general’s blood on my hands, and I would not scruple at there being two. Keep sending killers, and what would I have to lose?

  I hope you and the Empress are as happy together as she’ll let you be.

  Yours

  Thalric, formerly Major.

  General Brugan stood for a long time with the scroll still in his hands, and then he cursed and consigned it to the fire.

  Glossary

  People

  Accius Vekken Ant-kinden ambassador

  Achaeos Moth-kinden, lover of Cheerwell, deceased

  Akneth Khanaphir Beetle-kinden tax gatherer

  Amnon Khanaphir Beetle-kinden, First Soldier of Khanaphes

  Angved Wasp-kinden engineer

  Arianna Spider-kinden former agent, Stenwold’s lover

  Berjek Gripshod Beetle-kinden scholar

  Brugan Wasp-kinden Lord General of the Rekef

  Cheerwell Maker (“Che”) Beetle-kinden scholar, niece of Stenwold

  Corolly Vastern Beetle-kinden Rekef agent

  Corcoran Solarnese Beetle-kinden factor for the Iron Glove

  Dannec Wasp-kinden Rekef officer

  Dariandrephos (“Drephos”) halfbreed artificer, former Imperial officer

  Dariset Khanaphir Beetle-kinden soldier

  Ethmet Khanaphir Beetle-kinden, First Minister of Khanaphes

  Faighl Solarnese Beetle-kinden Iron Glove guard

  The Fisher Khanaphir halfbreed information broker

  Genraki Scorpion-kinden warrior

  Gjegevey Woodlouse-kinden advisor to the Empress

  Gram Wasp-kinden Rekef agent

  Hakkon halfbreed helmsman with the Iron Glove

  Halmir Khanaphir Beetle-kinden soldier

  Harbir the Arranger Khanaphir Beetle-kinden assassin

  Helmess Broiler Beetle-kinden statesman, enemy of Stenwold

  Hrathen halfbreed Rekef agent

  Jakal Scorpion-kinden, Warlord of the Many of Nem

  Jodry Drillen Beetle-kinden statesman, ally of Stenwold

  Jons Allanbridge Beetle-kinden aviator

  Kham Khanaphir Beetle-kinden soldier

  Kadro Fly-kinden scholar

  Kovalin Scorpion-kinden chieftain

  Malius Vekken Ant-kinden ambassador

  Marger Wasp-kinden Rekef officer

  Mannerly Gorget (“Manny”) Beetle-kinden scholar

  Meyr Mole Cricket-kinden Iron Glove factor

  Mother halfbreed Fir eater

  Osgan Wasp-kinden supply officer

  Parrols Beetle-kinden aviator

  Petri Coggen Beetle-kinden scholar, Kadro’s assistant

  Praeda Rakespear Beetle-kinden scholar

  Pravoc Wasp-kinden colonel

  Ptasmon Khanaphir Beetle-kinden soldier

  Seda Wasp-kinden Empress

  Stenwold Maker Beetle-kinden statesman

  Sulvec Wasp-kinden Rekef officer

  Tathbir Khanaphir Beetle-kinden Minister

  Te Berro Fly-kinden spy, former Rekef agent

  Te Rallo Alla-Maani (“Trallo”) Fly-kinden caravan master

  Te Schola Taki-Amre (“Taki”) Fly-kinden aviatrix

  Tegrec Wasp-kinden ambassador from Tharn to the Empire

  Teuthete Mantis-kinden Chosen

  Thalric Wasp-kinden Regent of the Empire, former Rekef officer

  Tirado Fly-kinden Iron Glove messenger

  Tisamon Mantis-kinden Weaponsmaster, deceased

  Totho halfbreed artificer, leader of the Iron Glove

  Tynisa halfbreed Weaponsmaster, daughter of Tisamon

  Vargen Wasp-kinden governor of Tyrshaan

  Vollen Wasp-kinden Rekef agent

  Places

  Alim forest, source of the river Jamail

  Capitas chief city of the Wasp Empire

  Chasme city on the Exalsee, noted for its mercenary artificers

  Collegium Beetle-kinden city in the Lowlands, noted for its academics

  Commonweal Dragonfly state north of the Lowlands, part-occupied by the Empire

  Darakyon forest, formerly Mantis-kinden hold and, until recently, haunted

  Exalsee inland sea east of the Lowlands

  Helleron Beetle-kinden city in the Lowlands, noted for its merchants

  Jamail river running from the Forest Ali
m to Khanaphes

  Khanaphes Beetle-kinden city far to the east of the Exalsee

  Maynes Ant-kinden city, formerly occupied by the Empire

  Myna Beetle-kinden city, formerly occupied by the Empire

  Ostrander Ant-kinden outpost on the Exalsee

  Porta Rabi Solarnese outpost on the Sunroad Sea

  Sarn Ant-kinden city allied with Collegium

  Shalk Fly-kinden city in the Empire

  Solarno Spider-ruled city on the Exalsee

  Sonn Beetle-kinden city in the Empire

  Spiderlands wide expanse south of the Lowlands, ruled by the Spider-kinden

  Szar Bee-kinden city, formerly occupied by the Empire

  Tark Ant-kinden city, formerly occupied by the Empire

  Three City Alliance coalition of Myna, Szar and Maynes

  Tyrshaan Bee-kinden city in the Empire

  Vek Ant-kinden city, traditional enemies of Collegium

  Zafir Khanaphir city on the Jamail

  Organizations and things

  Assembly governing body of Collegium, elected

  Consortium of the Honest the mercantile arm of the Empire

  Great College academic establishment at the heart of Collegium

  Iron Glove a merchant house trading out of Chasme

  Mercers agents of the Commonweal’s Monarch

  Rekef Inlander the Imperial secret service arm devoted to internal security

  Rekef Outlander the Imperial secret service arm devoted to external security

  Scriptora the seat of Khanaphir government

  Skryres the magi-rulers of the Moth-kinden

  Speaker the leader of the Assembly

  Twelve-year War the campaign waged against the Commonweal by the Wasp Empire.