Salute the Dark

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Her eyes, insubstantial as they were, held him tight. You know your own crimes. Are you not seeking atonement even now, in this spiritless city?

  ‘There can be no atonement,’ he choked out.

  And so you must atone forever? That is a familiar concept of our kinden. We have so many laws and rules, and therefore we cannot avoid breaking them. We are always imperfect by the impossible standards that we set ourselves. Do we not therefore live our lives in an agony of thwarted desires, our laws pressing against our skin like sharp thorns?

  ‘Who are you?’ He stared at her. ‘What are you?’

  I am a monument to Mantis pride and failure, Tisamon. They called me Laetrimae, before my fall. Five hundred years I have wept and atoned, and yet I still have not escaped the consequences of my actions. Nor shall you.

  He had no words, no thoughts save that surely this must be the thing he had gone looking for when he fled Collegium. Surely this was the judgment he deserved.

  What shall I judge you for, Tisamon? she asked him. You were false to your people in the lover you took. You were false to yourself, in the guilt you felt for it. You were false to your lover in your abandonment of her, and of your daughter as well. You have been false to your past lover in your new love, and now false to your new love in your turning away from her. Is there anything of worth you have not cast aside, Tisamon?

  ‘No.’

  But there is. You may have thrown aside the badge, but you are a Weaponsmaster still. Are you not aware of the duties that role carries? You are yet the defender of your people, all your people – even those such as I who have fallen so far that your own disgrace now seems but a stumble.

  ‘What could you need defending from?’

  Evil and rapacious men who would steal that which belongs to our kind – our legacy, our history.

  ‘I am unworthy—’

  It is because you are unworthy that I reach out to you, she continued urgently. You have suffered, but there is a suffering and disgrace that no one of our kind should bear. Who else but a vessel already broken can be asked to withstand the strain?

  ‘What do you want of me?’ he demanded.

  There are, even now, men coming to take you prisoner, Tisamon. You have attracted their notice. They wish to take you and enslave you. You have been sold by your own factor. She leads them to you even now.

  He was on his feet on the instant, the blade of his claw opening. ‘Rowen has betrayed me?’

  The betrayer betrayed. Her words silenced him. If you would truly seek atonement for your pride, Tisamon, you must let them take you. You must submit to the worst before you might hope for any redemption.

  ‘Take me? You mean . . . ?’

  Or have you pride, yet, that fears to be broken?

  He was at the door now, pointing his blade at her. ‘You cannot ask me to become a slave. No Mantis has ever fallen so far.’

  The shadow that was Laetrimae drifted closer, passing right through the cramped bed. I am a slave, Tisamon. I am a slave to the Shadow Box that you let slip. Now, as a result, I am a slave of our enemies. Believe me, I am all that is Mantis: all fragile pride and fear of failure. I do not ask this of you lightly. She was standing before him, still transparent, a mere smudge on the air. In this way you may erase the stain that you see on your soul.

  ‘Is it so bad?’ he said hoarsely.

  No, she said simply, save in your own mind. But that is one judge that you can never escape from, nor hope to deceive.

  A great weight settled on him, even as he heard the clump of feet at the foot of the stairs. That would be Rowen and whoever she had sold him to. Wasps, most likely.

  He let the claw slip away, banishing it, and went to sit on the bed to await their arrival

  Seven

  Thalric straightened his armour, which felt strange on him now after even so short a time without it. Perhaps it’s because I no longer have a right to wear it, he thought wryly.

  ‘Right,’ he said. The curving-sided hold of the Cleaver was crowded with fuel barrels, save for a space near the pilot’s chair that had been fenced off for Achaeos’ sickbed. The Moth had propped himself up on his elbows, still ghastly pale, but watching Thalric with something that might, in a healthier man, be considered humour.

  ‘So, how is this going to work, Major?’ he asked, just loud enough to be heard over the engines.

  Is it Major, or is it Captain? Thalric asked himself. Do I now go in as army or Rekef ? Rekef would make more sense, but a Rekef major of his description might strike an unwelcome chord in the wrong quarters. It would be his wretched luck to encounter another man who both recognized him and had heard of his disgrace.

  ‘I can see the city now,’ Che called out to them from her seat, peering through a viewing slit past which driving rain was lashing. Fortunately the Cleaver was a solid, workmanlike flier, and Thalric wondered if a flimsier vessel could even have made it here through the foul weather of the last day or so. It was the last gasp of winter, he guessed, stomping up and down the east of the Lowlands and making its presence known.

  He discovered himself as nervous as an actor about to go on stage. This is absurd. This is my profession. Or at least it had been, not so long ago.

  ‘Where do I bring us in?’ Che asked.

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’ Thalric snapped at her. ‘I don’t imagine the builders included an airfield, unless they were more prophetic even than legend gives them credit for.’

  ‘No, I see it now,’ Che said. ‘They’ve set aside some fields, I think, just some fields and some huts. There are some heliopters there, and a collapsed airship. I’ll bring us in beside it. Thalric, you’re ready with your speech, right?’

  Thalric nodded, then realized that she could not see it, and said, ‘Yes, right,’ in a voice that, to him, lacked all conviction. Now came the testing moment.

  The Cleaver jostled with the wind, was buffeted in return, and then the lurch in his stomach informed him that they were dropping in fast. He heard Achaeos groan at the change – for an airborne race such as the Moths it was remarkable how much mechanical flight distressed them. Then Che had touched the Cleaver down harder than was wise, and Thalric was bounced off his feet, sitting down hard up against the curving wall, hearing Achaeos’ pained gasp. They were instantly slewing sideways, and Thalric had a moment to think of their altitude, the narrow mountain platforms, a makeshift airstrip that was no more than a mud-slicked field. He clutched at the lashed-down barrels, wondering if he could get the hatch open before . . .

  The Cleaver struck something solid and skidded back a few feet before coming, blessedly, to a stop.

  ‘There are some soldiers coming over here, in a hurry,’ Che said helpfully. Thalric straightened up and went across to the hatch, slipping back the catches that held it shut. As he pushed it open, the rain drove down hard, but he flashed his wings and pushed himself up on to the barrel-like hull of the Cleaver. There were indeed soldiers coming, a full dozen of them, some on the ground and some in the air, all brandishing spears. He waited patiently for them, feeling the rain soak into his hair, into the arming tunic beneath his mail. As soon as they saw that a Wasp had emerged from the unknown flier their headlong approach slowed a little, and then a sergeant alighted before him, with a salute.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, we weren’t notified—’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been,’ Thalric cut him off. ‘I require lodgings for three, an engineer to repair this vehicle, and a meeting as soon as possible with your duty officer. Oh, and round up some doctors. Local ones would be best.’

  The sergeant blinked at him. ‘I’ll first have to ask who you are, sir, and what’s your authority.’

  And here goes the dice. ‘Captain Manus, sergeant, on my way to Capitas. Rest assured the duty officer will get all the details he needs.’

  The sergeant was still not convinced, but in Thalric’s experience they seldom were. Nevertheless the man sent some of his men off to relay Thalric’s requests, which wa
s perhaps as much as could be expected.

  ‘Good,’ Thalric commented. ‘Now get two of your men inside the flier. I have a casualty that needs to get under cover without delay.’

  He dropped back inside ahead of them, confident that the sergeant would follow to keep him in sight, and that he would get his chance to win the man over then and there.

  The sergeant and his man came next and stopped short, staring suspiciously at Achaeos and at Che.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Sergeant?’ Thalric asked sharply.

  ‘Sir, these are—’

  ‘Servants of the Empire, Sergeant,’ Thalric said firmly. ‘There is a war on, you may have heard. Some places are no longer safe for servants of the Empire.’ He placed just the right stress on the words because, of course, an officer of the imperial secret service, the dreaded Rekef, would never say it, not straight out, but there were always times when it paid to be recognized for what they really were.

  The sergeant was clearly not a stupid man and it was fairly well known how the Rekef Outlander employed agents of all races. Now his hurried salute and his issuing orders to his men provided all the reassurance Thalric needed.

  Shortly thereafter, Thalric had Achaeos safely stowed in an infirmary, with some of his Moth-kinden kinsmen staring nervously at him from around the door, and Che sitting at the man’s bedside. By that time Thalric himself was standing before the local Rekef Outlander officer.

  The man was another sergeant, and Thalric could not believe his luck. He guessed that Tharn merited the barest minimum of Rekef presence, probably making do with this one man alone. Nobody cared about such backward little places. As far as the Empire was concerned, the garrison here was merely to keep the Moths from bothering Helleron, so the Tharen governor was only a major and the Rekef had better things to do. He would feel ashamed, later, of the way in which he now browbeat the wretched Rekef sergeant, but maybe that aggression was something he had been needing to get out of his system for a long time.

  And news travelled fast. After that, when he strode the corridors of Tharn, now lit with hastily cobbled-together gas-lanterns, the locals and the conquerors alike gave him a wide berth, pointing him out to each other as the Rekef’s man. In the shock of relief, he almost forgot that it was not true, and that Che and Achaeos were even there. Instead he went to the suite of rooms he had commandeered, with good-sized windows cut into the outer wall of the mountain, and waited there for the information he had requested. For what else would the Rekef’s man do, after arriving, but receive reports and pick the local intelligencer’s brains?

  Che had wanted to stay with Achaeos throughout, but the Moths refused to tend him in her presence, finding that a Beetle-kinden in their halls was more of an insult than any number of Wasps. Only after she had reluctantly withdrawn did his people begin their business with him. The doctors arrived before the inquisitors: administering salves and poultices, chants and charms, two full days of careful ritual and healing skill. By the time the questions started Achaeos was fit enough to raise himself up on one elbow. He was able, at least, to look his questioner in the eye.

  She was a Moth of middle-young years with a severe face, and two others came in behind her. One of them was a young scribe with a scroll, and the other a woman bearing a staff, which identified her to Achaeos as a guard, although the Wasps present would not have guessed it. He supposed that the Wasps must have banned the carrying of weapons inside Tharn, but a staff was beneath their notice.

  ‘I understand you to be a Rekef agent,’ began their leader, with enough questioning in her tone for him to know that he had not been condemned out of hand. The presence of the doctors should already have told him that, but he was taking nothing for granted. Even now he did not know whether it was simply his imagined link to the conquering Empire that protected him from his own people’s wrath.

  ‘Is that all you understand?’ he asked her. His voice was weak, and he kept it soft, making her strain to hear his words. At this point, words were all he had to fight with.

  ‘You are Achaeos,’ she noted, ‘you didn’t leave here in glory. In fact you nearly did not leave here at all. During this last year you have progressed from uninspired student to positive maverick – and now here you are.’

  He kept his feelings from his face. ‘Is a man not allowed to come home? I may have dallied with exile, but I do not believe a sentence of exile was ever passed.’

  She glanced backwards, but not at her companions, so he knew that they were being overheard by another – one of the Skryres he guessed – who might be anywhere in Tharn.

  ‘There are no Wasps guarding the door,’ she said, ‘so we speak only before our own people. Or at least my own people. Do you really still claim the Moths of Tharn as yours?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then you are no Rekef, or Wasp agent.’

  ‘Well deduced.’

  If she felt he was baiting her, she gave no sign of it. They faced each other without expression. ‘Our situation here is currently delicate. We do not wish some agitator appearing in the halls of Tharn, spreading confusion.’

  ‘You would rather remain slaves?’

  ‘It takes more than a single glance to truly tell the master from the slave.’

  That made him pause. Again she was unreadable but there had been something in her tone, in that simple platitude, to suggest that there was more going on here than he had thought.

  He narrowed his eyes as she glanced over her shoulder again. It was a bad habit of hers and there was no need for it. It suggested someone who had spent a long time away from her own people. But where? And the answer was quick to suggest itself. She has been in the Empire, surely. What is going on here?

  It was not that she was simply being observed, either. She must be receiving instructions from a Skryre and they did not sit well with her. Her expression was beginning to tell him things.

  ‘I am Xaraea,’ she announced suddenly.

  He held on to that for a moment, feeling his heart leap, for his people did not give up their names easily. It was a sign of status: to know a name gave you power. To be given a name made you at least an equal. That could only mean he had been let into something.

  ‘What is happening here?’ he asked her.

  ‘You know much of what passes in the Lowlands?’

  ‘I know some of it.’

  She considered him. ‘You are not strong enough yet to leave your bed.’

  ‘I am stronger than I was, but no.’

  ‘But later you will be, and there is someone you must meet.’

  He stared at her suspiciously. ‘And who would that be?’

  At last her mouth twisted into a slight smile. ‘Who else but our new master, the governor of Tharn?’

  Che paused at the doorway of Thalric’s room, suddenly doubting herself. Surely there must be some other option, but they had shooed her out of Achaeos’ sick-room with venomous looks and mutterings about their Hated Enemy.

  The corridors of Tharn had never been friendly, save when Achaeos had been beside her. Even with her Art-given sight, which could pierce the darkness the Moths habitually lived in, it was a world of hostile gazes, pointedly turned backs, and lantern-bearing Wasp soldiers who stared suspiciously at her. It was enough to make her wish she could not see it all.

  She had spent some time at an exterior window, watching the rain lash down over the landing strip where the Cleaver was almost lost amongst a dozen imperial flying machines. The rain had made her unhappy. She had found herself yearning to fly, as she had done for the first time, when last she was here.

  And so here she was, hand poised to knock on . . . what? The Moths had few doors, only arches and more arches, so that every room was part of a labyrinth of chambers that went back and back further into the mountain, all of them as chill as the weather outside. What doors they had were hidden screens and secret panels in the stone, which no stranger would guess were there. The Moths never seemed to notice the cold either, these
strange people who otherwise seemed so frail. She had seen imperial soldiers well wrapped up in scarves and greatcoats, their breath steaming as they complained to each other, whilst Moth servants padded past them in light tunics and sandals.

  She heard a shuffling noise from inside, a shadow cast over the shifting light that spilled out of the room, and there he was in the doorway: Thalric, in his banded armour still, a Wasp amongst his own people once more.

  This was a mistake, she decided. The strange thing was that he seemed to think so, too. His expression, on finding her there, was bitter, almost resigned.

  ‘What?’ she asked him instinctively.

  ‘Forgive me, it is you who appear to have sought me out,’ he said, stepping back. She could feel the warmth inside, a fire lit to complement no fewer than four lanterns: a little corner of the Empire staked out against this foreign darkness.

  ‘I . . . wanted to talk to someone, anyone,’ she said. ‘And the Moths don’t like me, and I can’t be beside Achaeos, and I don’t care for Wasps.’

  He raised an eyebrow at that, and she scowled at him. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I do.’ He returned to his desk, where he had been sifting through papers, dozens of them, some rolled up and bound, some held open with polished stones. ‘Should I be flattered by that?’

  ‘I can go, if you prefer,’ she said, and he was on his feet again, a strange expression on his face.

  Is he lonely? But it was not that. Instead it as the expression of a man with news, who needed to tell someone. Anyone. We are well met, it appears.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, sweeping some papers off a bench and taking a seat. It seemed strange to be taking the initiative with him, strange to find him appearing so shaken, here amongst his own people.

  ‘What made you come here, now?’ he asked, but it was a rhetorical question. ‘Cheerwell Maker, how is it that you have not yet got yourself killed? You have absolutely no sense of place or time. You just go blundering in wherever you please like . . . like a Beetle. I caught you that way in Helleron, and General Malkan caught you after the Battle of the Rails. You only narrowly escaped Solarno, from what I hear, so why are you still amongst the living?’