She was moving back to the bars now, and one hand slightly extended, as if to touch his own. He suddenly felt that, if he was to feel her skin on his, he might die. He stumbled backwards, until he felt the incline of the steps behind him.
‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Everything’s over.’ He tried to suppress the next words, but they forced themselves out anyway. ‘I’m sorry, Che. I’m sorry it turned out like this.’
She was standing at the bars when he left her, and the lantern’s last shine glinted on the tracks down her face, and he thought they would be the only tears ever shed for him.
And where is the damned box? was the thought of Uctebri the Sarcad, stalking the bounds of his comfortable cell. It had gone wrong. Not irretrievably wrong, but wrong nonetheless.
He had been at pains to keep his antennae out, groping around for the Shadow Box’s location. It had mouldered in Collegium for a long time, but the Darakyon itself was becoming restive. It had sensed his interest and there was always the chance that it would find some champion for its cause. Reaching so far into the Lowlands is dangerous, his own people would have told him, had he cared to consult them. The Moth-kinden have not forgotten us.
No, that was true. In some decaying archive of Tharn or Dorax would be found the name of the Mosquito-kinden, and the time when the Moths broke them, hunted them down, and tried their best to wipe his entire kinden from history. These days the Moths had other matters on their minds, though, so a clever old man might stretch his arm as far as Collegium and cause no alarm, sound no warnings, especially if that old man was working through an Empire blinded to the magical world by its own Aptitude.
But the Empire itself was being coy. They had not sent some squad of soldiers or Rekef men to retrieve the box. The political situation, the distances, had all militated against that strategy. Instead they had hired hunters.
And one of those hunters knows too much. Uctebri had felt the touch of her mind, just briefly. Someone with training, with a gift for sly magic, was now in possession of his prize. In that brief contact of minds the acrid taste of betrayal was in his mouth. She will not bring it to me. She recognizes its value.
But she could not hide it, not a thing of that power, now that it had been awakened. He could sense her moving about, with that appallingly powerful treasure in her hands. Her deceits would hide her exact whereabouts, but he could have drawn a circle on a map and known for sure that she was within it.
He heard movement outside, knew before the man even entered that it was the Emperor. The ruler of the Wasps was in an ugly mood.
‘Your Imperial Majesty, you honour me with your presence.’ Uctebri the Sarcad bowed sinuously as the Emperor marched into his new suite of rooms.
‘We demand to know what progress you have made,’ snarled Alvdan the Second. General Maxin had come in behind him, but stood at the door as though he was no more than a guard. Alvdan had found himself relying more and more on that man recently, what with troubles in the Lowlands and similar. He reserved his own main attention for this, though: the Mosquito’s ritual that would elevate him beyond the misery of his father and his grandfather, and remove from him the one blight that had constantly mocked his reign and stolen his joy.
The matter of his succession: which potential traitor, from a nest of venomous things, should he take to his bosom, or even breed himself? His successor, the heir that would stand like an executioner beside his throne as soon as the child was born or the decision made. But if Uctebri’s ritual should achieve its impossible end, he need never worry about his successor again, because he would need none. He would live for ever.
He was impatient to start.
‘Your Imperial Majesty, it wants but the time, the most auspicious date.’ The Mosquito glanced between the Emperor and General Maxin. ‘And the box, of course. We must have the box. Gifts such as you seek must be had only with the correct materials.’
‘It is coming,’ the Emperor said. ‘Our agents carry it to us even now.’
‘I hesitate to correct His Majesty in his proclamation,’ said Uctebri, turning to the nearest wall to make another few chalk scratches.
‘You are not to use your sarcasm on us, creature,’ Alvdan snapped. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘I am naturally concerned at the progress of this most puissant gem, Great Majesty, but my arts have told me that all is not well. Your agents have miscarried, have been suborned or have turned traitor, for the box is no longer being fetched here.’
‘General?’ Alvdan demanded, suddenly unsure. This news was as impossible as the mooted ritual, but he had already accepted that as possible, and so how could he feel sure that this creature could not know?
‘In truth, Your Imperial Majesty,’ Maxin said slowly, ‘I had expected before now to hear from my agents.’
‘But this is not good enough,’ Alvdan reproached him angrily. ‘If we must possess this thing then we will have it. Uctebri, where is it now? Your arts have surely furnished you with that knowledge?’ He tried to make his tone mocking, but his uncertainty sounded through it.
‘It has gone into the lawless lands around Lake Limnia, where the Skater-kinden live and where many things are lost and found – or change hands. My arts, alas, can be no more exact.’
‘You have heard,’ Alvdan turned to General Maxin. ‘Send your hunters there. Stop at nothing. Obliterate every cursed Skater if you have to.’
‘As you wish, Your Majesty,’ replied Maxin.
‘And, Worshipful Majesty, if I might ask . . .’ Uctebri began softly.
‘What is it? Speak.’
‘I require the opportunity to further examine your sister in closer detail.’
Alvdan smiled. ‘Oh, as close as you wish, monster. Of all the things I have to give you, she is least precious by far. I give her to you for whatever you need.’
The Mosquito’s answering smile contained a hard edge that promised those words would not be forgotten.
Forty-Two
Thalric loosed his sting at her even as she came into the room, and Stenwold assumed it was over then, an absurd anticlimax. The impact rocked her back, but the crackling energy just scattered from her glittering armour, leaving black marks like soot. Then she was on him.
He had the table between them and Stenwold saw him try to get up quickly, and tumble backwards over the chair, face suddenly twisting in agony as his unhealed wound racked him with pain. With a single downward swing Felise cut the table in two, shearing the wood across the grain in a way Stenwold would not have thought possible.
Thalric had lurched to his feet, and his hands spat fire again, but she turned, shielding her face with her pauldron and, although she had to brace herself against it, again the crackling blast just danced off her mail.
If Thalric had been whole and well, he might have stood a chance. He was a resourceful man, but his wounds hobbled him. Even this much exertion had a fresh spot of blood leaking through his tunic. When he raised his arm again the strange sword nearly took the hand from his wrist, instead laying open the skin along the back of it. Thalric hissed, and went for her, and in a moment of cool decision she reversed the sword and smashed him across the face with the pommel.
He fell back against the wall and slid to the floor, dazed, and she thrust the sword into one tilted half of the table, as sickle-claws folded out from her thumbs.
He had his uninjured hand extended at her defensively, but she lanced it through the palm with a lightning jab of one claw and he gasped in pain and withdrew it. For a second she regarded her talons, one bloody and one clean.
She placed them, very gently, so that they pricked him in the hollows beneath his jaw, and began to force him upright. For a moment he seemed about to resist, but then, as they drew blood, he was struggling to his feet, digging at the wall with his elbows for purchase until at last he was standing, face to face with her at last, and so close they might be lovers.
She showed no expression.
Stenwold stood at the doorway
with Tisamon watching over his shoulder, but now someone was pushing in on the other side of him. It was Felise’s Spider-kinden companion.
‘Who are you, anyway?’ the Beetle asked him, as Felise held Thalric by the points of her thumbs, staring into his face.
‘Destrachis, doctor.’ The Spider was watching the woman intently, waiting for something.
Thalric studied the face of his antagonist, pushing his thoughts through the pain in his side, the pain of his hands. ‘Before you kill me,’ he said, and even that drew some fresh blood as his throat worked against her talons, ‘tell me one thing.’
Her face neither denied nor permitted his request.
‘What will you do next?’ His last gambit, his last chance, and once the words were out he closed his eyes and waited.
Destrachis leaned forward, but Felise made no move. There was no sign that she had even heard the words.
‘What is going on here?’ Stenwold demanded in a hoarse whisper.
‘This man Thalric has a good mind,’ Destrachis said. ‘He has got to the heart of it.’
‘Next?’ came the voice of Felise, uttering the word as though it was wholly unfamiliar to her.
‘We took him outside your city, you see,’ Destrachis went on. ‘But he was near-dead, and so instead of killing him she had me patch him up and send him on ahead. Because revenge on a dying man was not what she was looking for.’
‘This is hardly better,’ Tisamon observed from behind.
‘He fought back this time.’ Destrachis shrugged. ‘Now we must see if she can bring it to a close.’
‘Spider, I should have slain you before,’ said Felise, still holding Thalric up on his toes, holding her perfect pose without the slightest tremor. ‘What is this Wasp to you?’
‘Nothing,’ Destrachis said. ‘I have never been the Empire’s.’
‘But you are not mine either,’ she said. ‘Who is it that pays you, Spider?’
Destrachis pursed his lips. ‘Must there be someone?’
‘You are no gangster from Helleron, and it was no mere chance that we met. Do not take me for a fool.’
‘Or I will be “next”?’ Destrachis wondered aloud. His voice was casual, but Stenwold could see how tight his face had become with controlling his expression. ‘But you’re right, of course. I spun my way into the fiefdoms of Helleron. I engineered it so that I would travel with you.’
Stenwold could see Thalric watching with the utter concentration of a man whose life is being extended by every word spoken.
‘Mantis warrior,’ Felise said. ‘If I asked you to slay that Spider there, would you do it?’
‘Without hesitation,’ Tisamon said, and Destrachis went pale all of a sudden, feeling a subtle change of stance in the man beside him. The claw was abruptly raised to hover over Stenwold’s back, the point pricking the nape of the Spider’s neck. Stenwold himself had gone very still. He had been about to protest, to remind them that they were in Collegium, in the very Amphiophos – but they were not. At least Felise and Tisamon and Destrachis were not. The place they shared was infinitely older, where such things as this were done.
‘If he gives me no answer, you may slay him,’ Felise decided. She was still staring into Thalric’s face, had not once taken her eyes off him. ‘Who has hired you to plague me, Destrachis?’
‘Arante Destraii, your aunt,’ Destrachis said, still holding tenuously on to calm. ‘Ask me no more questions, Felise.’
‘I do not believe that,’ she said. ‘Shall I tell the Mantis to kill you? Tell me the truth. Tell it all.’
‘Please, Felise, you do not—’
Thalric hissed in pain as her claws dug into him a little, and Felise got out, ‘Mantis—’
‘Wait!’ Destrachis got out. ‘You will kill me if I tell you, and have me killed if I do not. Is that justice?’
‘Why is it that only the unjust cry for justice?’ Tisamon said. His claw twitched, drawing a spot of blood.
Stenwold felt himself trapped in a world he suddenly did not understand. ‘What is going on?’ he asked.
‘Precisely, Beetle-kinden. Explain all, Destrachis.’
‘I am hired by your family,’ he said quickly, ‘and that is no more than the truth. Not your husband’s noble line, for the Wasps made sure no drop of his bloodline remained. Your own family was not great enough to be extinguished, so you were taken alive. Do you remember being a prisoner of the Empire, Felise?’
‘I was never a prisoner.’
‘Of course you were, and you were to be a slave, but the Arantes rescued you and . . .’ He stuttered to silence.
‘Speak!’ she commanded.
‘You were . . . broken.’ He waited to see if the words would kill him. ‘You were not well, in your mind. So your own family took you into their house and hired doctors to make you well, but we . . . they could not. They tried so many ways, until eventually one used an ancient craft to bring your mind back to the place where it had snapped, and stitch that broken end onto the present day – or thus I can best describe it. Shall I go on?’
She remained silent, but Tisamon shifted behind him, and so Destrachis continued. ‘It did not go well. It was not well done . . . better not to have meddled, would be my opinion now. But you remembered, at least, the name and face of the man who had done those atrocities to you, and you determined you would have your revenge, whatever the cost. Your family were concerned. They . . .’ And he stopped again, and Stenwold was surprised to see the Spider’s eyes glitter with tears. ‘Felise . . .’
‘I remember,’ she said slowly. Thalric saw something surface then in her eyes, and she looked at him anew. ‘I remember you now. You are the man who slew my children.’
He could not nod, would not speak, but something in his face confirmed it.
‘I remember,’ she said again. ‘What have I done?’ She took her hands away abruptly, looking back at the bisected table, at the upright sword, as though they were quite strange to her.
Thalric, shifted, sagging an inch, and faster than Stenwold could follow she whirled back to him, thumb jabbing at his face. It raked a line of blood down his cheek, but that was all.
‘Why can I not kill you?’ she screamed at him. Her clawed hands hovered right before his face, twitching and shaking, but still she could not strike. In the echo of that cry her onlookers were silent. Stenwold saw, in sidelong glances, the same stricken expression appear on the faces of both Tisamon and Destrachis.
Thalric let out a long, slow breath. ‘Because I’m all you’ve got,’ he replied between gritted teeth. ‘I wondered that, when you had me before. How many chances do you need? I’m right here now, so why not just do it? If you want me, what better chance can you possibly look for?’
In a voice almost lost, in the utter silence that followed, she whispered, ‘Help me.’
Destrachis moved forwards solicitously, but it was Tisamon who pushed past to clasp her by the shoulders. Her claws twitched at him but never reached him, although he made no move to stop her.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘I shall find you some food and drink, then a bed.’ He looked back at Thalric. ‘This man shall die at your command, I swear it.’
He led her from the room, pausing only to look Destrachis straight in the face. The Mantis made no threats, though, and after a moment looked away.
They did not come for Che the day after that, either, and she was even provided with a scant meal of soup and broken biscuit. The Wasp army camp become slowly a more permanent affair. She heard the sounds of rough carpentry overhead and guessed that the farmhouse was being extended and fortified. She kept her ears open because, if she could somehow later speak to her friends, she wanted to have something to report to them.
General Malkan, she overheard from the guards, was not moving the army onwards. Though hot-blooded, he was no fool. The casualties the Seventh had sustained meant that they would stand little enough chance before the walls of Sarn, even if Sarn stood alone. What she learned hardly raised
the spirits, but it did give some small sliver of satisfaction.
And Sarn was unlikely to be standing alone. Malkan and his officers must be concerned enough about that for the news to filter down to the lowest and the most luckless in their army and, through their bitter gossip, to Che.
Collegium was free of the Vekken, she also learned, and could therefore lend aid to Sarn if needed. Moreover there were fearful whispers of the Ant-kinden’s newest allies. Word was out about the Ancient League and the soldiers were rife with rumours of some age-old secret society binding all the Inapt of the west together, which the Empire’s presence had now brought into the light. Like all Apt races the Wasps had their dark past, when the old kinden had terrorized them with wizardry and nightmares, and some vestige of that remained even now. There was a current of fear running through the Seventh at the thought of having to confront such a thing as the Ancient League.
The more level-headed, however, put the problem as Malkan would see it: if, even with an army at full strength, he pitched against the walls of Sarn, the warriors of Ether-yon and Nethyon could simply swarm down from the north, catching him in a pincer movement. If he attacked them first, the Sarnesh would sally forth from their city. It was not the individual elements, but their combination, that concerned him.
I did this, Che thought to herself. Though she would meet her fate soon enough at the hands of the Empire’s minions, she would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that she had accomplished so much. Faced with the resistance she had helped to build, the Seventh was now going nowhere, merely waiting for another army to be freed to aid it and the Fourth in the conquest of the Lowlands.
Yet she had heard more recently that some problem had arisen with the Fourth and that messengers were not arriving as expected.
In lieu of better information or opportunity, the Wasps were knuckling down and waiting, and their energies were now invested in making their camp defensible. For this entire day they had therefore not been able to spare an artificer interrogator to rack poor Cheerwell, or perhaps they were waiting for the right torture machinery to be sent down the rail from Helleron.
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