‘Such as those you were intending to destroy my airships with? And what further problem would you encounter with that?’
Totho still watched, and by some chance three of the airships loosed their charges, that flared into being within seconds of one another before bursting across the city. ‘Cost,’ he suggested, and Drephos crowed.
‘So few artificers even consider it, but we will still have to drop so many incendiaries before Tark is ours. Something cheaper?’
Totho racked his brains, considering all the mechanisms and devices he had learned of. After a moment, Drephos laughed again.
‘No matter. You’ve come far enough to repay my foresight in saving you. You must learn to think simply, where simply will suffice. Tell him then, Kaszaat.’
‘Simple cord,’ said the Bee-kinden woman. ‘Cord of differing lengths—’
‘And when it reaches its length, it pulls out a trigger, and ignites the incendiary!’ Totho saw clearly, and for a moment was so in love with the elegance of the idea that he did not see a city burning at all, simply a demonstration of artifice and skill. ‘That’s brilliant—’ And he stopped, abruptly shamefaced.
Drephos had not noticed the catch in his voice, but merely watched the airships as they began to make their slow way back to the Wasp camp. ‘They will be nearly out of incendiaries now,’ the master artificer said. ‘And my range-finders do not work well in the dark. I have yet to devise a machine that can see in the dark as well as I can. Do you see my point, though, Totho?’
‘Your . . . ?’
‘That this is the proper place for you. Here, where the metal meets. You must have guessed the great secret of our artificer’s craft, since it comes to all the best minds eventually. War, Totho. Think how many inventions and advances come from war. Not just weapons but in all branches of our science. It is war that is the catalyst, that inspires us and whips us on. Artifice feeds off war, Totho. You must see that. And war feeds off artifice, so that each clings to the other, like a great tree growing ever higher and higher. They are the left and right hand of mankind, so as to allow him to climb to the future. War is the future, Totho. War to hone our skills, and our skills to make war.’
‘There must be more than that . . .’ Totho started. ‘At some point war would have to end because the weapons would become . . . so terrible that if anyone used them . . . everyone would die.’
Drephos’s laugh came again, no less gaily than before. ‘Do you think so? I disagree. There is no weapon so terrible that mankind will not put it to use. On that day that you describe, the end to war would only come after the end of everything else.’
‘And that is what you are working towards?’ Totho said.
‘Look down there, boy!’ Drephos’s mismatched hands encompassed not only the camp but the fitfully burning city. ‘What of that would you save? Take away my machines and they would be at each other’s throats with swords and knives instead. Then take away their steel and they would pick up rocks and clubs. There is no saving them: they are merely the fuel for war’s engines. Only we, Totho – we are the point, the reason. We, because, alone amongst this destruction, we create, and we create so that they may destroy, so that we may create anew.’
‘I cannot join you,’ Totho whispered, but something had swelled in his heart, that stopped the words ever being properly heard: something that beat along with Drephos’s words, and the pitiless, sterile glory that he spoke of.
‘Only think,’ Drephos said softly. ‘Only think, and watch, and learn. Is it so terrible to be a master of the world – to control, rather than be lost to the current? Come, I will teach you some more that you never learned at the College. I like you, Totho. I see a keen mind, an artificer’s mind. That is the most valuable thing in the world, and I would not see it wasted.’
Drephos descended the gantry awkwardly, dark wings flickering once or twice to keep his balance, and once a hiss of pain as his injured leg locked briefly. Kaszaat had simply floated down on her own, leaving Totho to make the downwards journey rung over rung, wondering if Drephos was humouring him by doing the same, and deciding not.
‘The general and his clowns are done for the day,’ Drephos observed, making off into the camp with his uneven stride. ‘In truth, they are done for the war. All the planning is now here, in my mind. They merely stand slack-jawed and wait for me to hand the city over to them. But I will show you how they play with the toys I have given them. Here!’ His gauntleted hand picked out a large tent ahead of them, near the centre of the sprawling camp. The three of them ducked inside, finding the officers’ map table and a crudely sketched ground-plan of Tark.
‘The battle plan is remarkably simple, as all the best plans are,’ Drephos explained to Totho. ‘The airships batter a neighbourhood with the incendiaries, and sometimes with targeted explosives if there’s a barracks or a similar hard shell to crack. The incendiary material I have devised burns exceptionally hot – enough to fracture stone – but briefly, and so, once an area has been swept clear, the Empire’s soldiery can move in without fear of immolation. In this way we secure more and more of the city, a street at a time.’
‘But what about the people left behind by the retreat?’ Totho asked. ‘They cannot be taking everyone with them, surely?’
‘You forget the admirable self-possession of the Ant race, Totho. They forget nobody, leave nobody unless they are forced to. Their civilians evict themselves in good military order. And so hundreds, thousands even, will flee their homes, and the remainder of the city becomes more and more crowded. And the results of the next airship bombardment, therefore, become all the more effective.’
Totho stared at the map, seeing red markers for the latest positions of Ant forces, black and yellow for the heavy hand of the Empire that was creeping in from the sundered wall.
Totho had not slept at all well, yet. The city of Tark had been under the radiant shadow of the airships for four days now. The same savage pattern had been repeated over and over. The Tarkesh formed up against the Wasp advance, the airships drifting in like weather. The Tarkesh then retreated, or they burned. A third of the city was now a blackened ruin, the Wasps’ encroachments dark with the ash of their victories.
Totho had not slept well simply because his dreams were troubled with small modifications, innovations and tinkerings, by which this entire process could be made more efficient.
In the day he had a limited run of the camp, because Kaszaat watched over him and there were always guards within shout. He made no attempt to escape, however. He had nowhere to go. It would be simpler if they killed me, he thought, but made no attempt to provoke that. Sometimes Drephos would call upon him, and then he would be put to the test, examined on his artifice, or shown again the map table, given some lecture on the order of battle. The very artifice of war, of supply and strategy, in itself held a keen interest for the Colonel-Auxillian.
Drephos rearranged the blocks on the rough sketch of the city, heedless of the damage he was doing to the tactical situation. Everything would have to be moved soon enough to represent the latest advance.
‘You see, the Ants don’t give ground lightly,’ he explained to Totho. ‘They fall back and regroup, as good soldiers should, and then they press forward again. And toe-to-toe they’re better than the imperial soldiers, make no mistake. That mindlink their Art gives them is a wonderful advantage. Some Wasps have it, true, and the Empire has specialist squads, but not enough to make a difference. Especially as our men at the front are the light airborne, and they can’t possibly hold off heavy Ant infantry. So what do we do?’
‘I am . . . not a tactician, sir,’ said Totho cautiously.
‘A good artificer must become one, or at least become familiar with that trade. You must know how your creations are being used, how to best put them to work. Remember, any army officer, given half the chance, will waste any advantage you give him. Kaszaat, explain.’
The Bee-kinden woman glanced at the table, and then looked up at Totho
with a bright, challenging look in her eyes. ‘When the Ants engage, we target their soldiers directly. In order to use their superior discipline they must stand close, solid formations. Then the airships take them. It is the best time. Our forces are more mobile. Most at least can avoid the fire.’
‘Most?’ Totho asked weakly.
‘What’s the matter?’ Drephos asked, mocking him. ‘I thought these Wasps are your enemies. If their own officers care nothing for their lives, why should we?’
Memories of the bright orange flares, the incendiaries flowering over Tark in all their deadly wonder, lit up Totho’s mind, and he shivered.
‘Are you going to . . . wipe them all out, destroy Tark?’
Totho had begun to believe it. The fighting had been fierce. The Ants had ambushed the Wasp airborne a dozen times, killing scores of them in each engagement before themselves being wiped out or driven back. The fiery rain over the city continued relentlessly, relieved only by nightfall or when the airships had to return to the gantries for rearming and refuelling.
Though the Ants had tried, they could not adapt to this new warfare. They had been fighting the same set-piece war against their neighbours for centuries. Now the Empire had reinvented the word: ‘war’ no longer meant what they thought.
‘That may be necessary,’ Drephos said, evidently none too interested. ‘But unless the Tarkesh are very different from the Ants of Maynes, it will not be. You see, they are a pleasingly logical breed, Ant-kinden, and there is an inevitable conclusion bearing down on them: that if they wish to save anything of their people, anything at all, then they must lay down their arms and accept what treatment the Empire gives them. A third of their city is already in ruins, and it will mean years to rebuild what these few days have taken from them. They will realize, eventually, that their destiny as slaves offers them more of a future than their destiny as martyrs. Then they will surrender. Because they are a rational people – an Apt people – they understand the numbers, you see.’
Totho was feeling very cold all over. The logic was icy and unassailable. ‘But they are soldiers – every one of them. Surely . . .’
‘They are soldiers who cannot fight back. They will eventually realize this. Their civic pride will be heated and cooled, heated and cooled, until it is at last thrust into the waters one time too many, and it breaks. A month to take Maynes?’ Drephos clenched his gauntleted hand. ‘Now I have given them Tark in a tenday. For that, they will give me whatever they want. Including you.’
‘I cannot—’
‘You cannot accept it, of course. You would rather be returned to their hands, to be questioned as they call it, or tortured, as I would say. You would rather be a menial slave than an artificer. Morality is not something that has overly plagued me, but I respect it in others. It is your choice, but delay a little before you make it. Once that decision is made you cannot change your mind.’
Twenty-One
There was a rapid hammering on the door of his room and Stenwold pushed himself from his bed and went to answer it. For the first time in a long while he had been doing nothing except stare at the ceiling and brood. No plans, no action or mental juggling of his contacts and agents. He felt depressed, powerless, now that he had finally gone before the Assembly. It was all out of his hands.
He opened the door on Tynisa, who looked agitated. Her sword was already drawn, he saw with a sinking heart.
‘What is it?’
‘You had better get your gear together,’ she told him. ‘Arm yourself and go out the back way.’
‘Is it the Wasps?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘Your own people.’
She was off down the stairs, but he bellowed after her, ‘What do you mean, my people?’ He stomped out, barefooted, and wearing nothing but a tunic.
‘Balkus has just got in,’ she told him, halfway down. ‘He says there’s a squad of Collegium’s militia on its way here with one of the Assemblers.’
‘Well that’s what we’re waiting for, isn’t it?’ Stenwold demanded.
‘We want word from them, not a whole armed guard. Why would they bring a guard here, if not to arrest you?’
‘I won’t believe it.’
‘Believe it!’ she yelled at him. ‘You have to leave, now!’
‘I won’t!’ He clenched his fists before him. ‘This is my city, and if they will not help me, then there is nothing I can do on my own. I do not value my freedom so very much. Even imprisoned by the Assembly, I may be able to talk them round. I will not leave, Tynisa. But you should go – you and Balkus.’
‘Not a chance,’ she told him. ‘Will you at least arm yourself? If things have gone really badly, they may not be coming just to arrest you.’
‘I won’t believe it,’ he said again, but he turned back to his room and took up his baldric, slinging it over his shoulder. The weight of the sword was a comforting burden at his hip.
Balkus and Tynisa were waiting for him below with rapier and nailbow at the ready, as strange a pair of honour guards as he had ever known. He stood between them with hand to sword-hilt and awaited his fate.
Tynisa met them at the door. There were a dozen Collegium guardsmen in chainmail and breastplates, looking uncomfortable and awkward, and in their midst a grey-haired old man in formal robes. After a moment’s pause she recognized him as the Speaker for the Assembly, Lineo Thadspar. She supposed this was meant to be an honour, to be personally arrested by the top man.
‘What do you want?’ she asked him. She had the rapier in her hand but was hidden behind the door. Her tone made the guardsmen tense and she saw a few lay hands on their sword-hilts or mace-hafts.
‘Excuse me, what do you want, Master Gownsman Speaker Thadspar?’ she corrected, realizing that she had not been helping the situation.
‘I had rather hoped to speak with Master Maker, my child,’ Thadspar said, seeming utterly unperturbed.
‘Then your men can wait in the street, Master Thadspar. I trust that will be agreeable.’
He smiled benignly. ‘I can think of no reason why I should need them.’ One of his men tugged at his sleeve worriedly but Thadspar waved him away. ‘I shall be quite safe. Trust must start somewhere, after all. Now, my child, would you convey me in?’
She stepped back, managing to scabbard her sword without showing the men outside that it had been drawn. Thadspar noticed, though, and raised an eyebrow.
‘There have been all manner of affronts done on the streets of Collegium in recent days,’ he said mildly. ‘Some of which I rather think you were involved in, my dear child. We will have to sort through them at some point. After all, Collegium is a city under the rule of law, yet.’
‘Any blood I have shed I can account for,’ she told him. ‘And don’t call me that – I am not your child.’
‘I suppose you aren’t.’ A smile crinkled his face. ‘There was some considerable debate, at the time, as to whose child you were. Stenwold was mute on the matter, of course, but as you grew it seemed clear enough to me whose you were. By the time you were twelve years, there were few who recalled Atryssa – but I did, and I knew.’
Caught off-guard, Tynisa paused. ‘You knew my mother?’
‘I taught her logic and rhetoric for a year. She was an impatient student, a strange trait for a Spider-kinden woman.’
Tynisa would have asked him more, but they had come to the doorway of Stenwold’s parlour. Stenwold himself was seated behind the table, waiting with all apparent calm, but Balkus loomed at his shoulder with his nailbow not quite directed at Thadspar.
‘Master Maker,’ the old man said, and ‘Master Thadspar,’ Stenwold acknowledged formally, followed by, ‘Will you sit?’
Thadspar sat gratefully as Tynisa fetched a jug of wine and a couple of bowls. Balkus was still eyeing the old man suspiciously, as though he might be some kind of assassin in cunning disguise.
Stenwold himself poured the wine. ‘I take it you’ve not come here to discuss next year’s curriculum, Master
Thadspar.’
Thadspar shook his head. ‘You have caused us all a great deal of trouble, Stenwold, and I really rather wish that you had never come back to Collegium to lay this business before us. We will all have a great deal to regret before this is over.’
‘So you have come here to do something you regret,’ Stenwold suggested. ‘And what would that be?’
‘You heard Master Bellowern speak, of course,’ Thadspar continued.
‘Yes, he spoke well.’
‘And he reminded us of who we are. He reminded us that Collegium is a centre of thought, of peace, and of law. You would now make us into some desperate mercenary company, springing about the Lowlands in search of a war that is not ours. That was his main point, I think.’
Stenwold nodded, watching him through hooded eyes.
‘We have been deliberating ever since, it seems,’ the old man said. ‘Every member of the Assembly had some contribution to make, and most of it nonsense, of course. Some were for the Wasps, saying that here was a people we could learn from. Some were for you, echoing your assessment of the evils of their Empire. Some others were for you for entirely the wrong reasons, in my view. They were advocating the purity of the Lowlands and the fight against any outside influence, malign or beneficial. And some, no doubt, were for the Empire for the wrong reasons as well, because of personal profits to be made, or perhaps even in return for some prior arrangement.’
‘Bribes, do you think?’
‘I cannot think otherwise. If even a lowly market trader thinks to grease some Assembler’s palm to favour his suit, then why not an Empire? That seems to be the way of the world. However, I know a good number of the Assembly who would not take bribes, and I suppose we should hold that up as virtue, in this grimy world.’
‘Master Thadspar—’
‘Stenwold, I think after your performance today you have earned the right to call me Lineo.’
‘Well, then, you came here for a reason, Lineo,’ Stenwold said. ‘You came here with soldiers, I am told. I am wholly at your disposal.’
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