Salute the Dark

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  At last he saw that one Dragonfly face remained composed and still, and then he understood.

  With the greatest possible care, Stenwold stood up and made a low bow before Inaspe Raimm – teller of the future and Monarch of the Commonweal.

  ‘I . . . am a fool,’ he confessed.

  ‘That understanding is the first step to wisdom,’ the Monarch replied softly. ‘Perhaps Prince Salme Dien has not spoken to you of the proper role of a prince of our Commonweal. It is not to be heaped with honours and raised high, but to stoop low, to bear burdens for the people that the prince must serve. So it should be for a prince, and so much more for a monarch.’

  ‘And I am fortunate to come and find you here when . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘Or you knew, and came here especially to meet what the Lowlands would send.’ He had no scepticism left. Here in this ephemeral court they had finally drained him of it.

  She nodded slowly. ‘I have enjoyed our meeting, Stenwold Maker.’

  ‘But if I had known . . . I have requests . . .’

  ‘I am glad for your ignorance, then. I know already what you would request.’

  ‘What I came all this way to ask . . .’ he put in, feeling that he was teetering on the very edge of propriety. ‘Please, let me ask it.’

  ‘Even if we are bound to refuse?’ she said, and he gaped at her.

  ‘But you can’t know what I intend to ask you.’

  Her face remained very composed, solemn with melancholy. ‘We already know, Stenwold Maker, but if it would help you, please speak your requests. Let there be no possibility of doubt between us.’

  He had by now lost track of Commonweal opinion, whether he was being honoured or just very rude. He was struck suddenly with a great sense of urgency, absurd considering the long journey here, the distance involved. ‘We fight the Wasps even now, as they march on our cities. We lack strength to fight them, our enemies – the enemies of all of us, the Wasp Empire.’ The words came spilling out from him unsorted and jumbled, but still he pressed on. ‘I know from Salma the injuries they did to your own people, the bitter years of war, the principalities they stole from you with their treaties and their demands. I am a fool, perhaps, but not such a fool that I cannot see common cause. The Empire’s armies run thin, for they are fighting on all fronts, pushing outwards. They are mad for conquest. A Commonweal force that marched or flew east now could reclaim all that you have lost, and the Wasps would have no strength to resist you. And while they recoiled from you, their strikes at us would also weaken. They would be stretched until they snapped.’

  He finished, slightly out of breath, waiting anxiously for her response.

  It was too slow in coming. ‘Help us,’ he begged. ‘Help us, and help yourselves – please.’

  Inaspe Raimm lowered her gaze. ‘You do not understand. We cannot do as you ask. It is impossible.’

  Stenwold made sounds that he could not force into words. At last he said, ‘But . . . even a modest force?’

  ‘We cannot retake the lost Principalities,’ she said, simply. ‘The reason is very clear: we have signed the Treaty of Pearl. Those lands were ceded to the Empire.’

  Stenwold felt his mouth fall open, staring. ‘But they forced you to sign that treaty. You cannot have signed it willingly. Twelve years of war . . .’

  ‘I signed the Treaty of Pearl,’ she told him, and the hint of emphasis in her voice silenced him. ‘It is a shame that I myself shall continue to bear, and pass on to each monarch that succeeds me. True, we were dragged to it through a sea of our people’s blood. True it was a device of the Empire that they themselves would not pause for a moment before breaking. But that is not material.’

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’ he began.

  ‘Then I am sorry. Perhaps the Wasps did not understand either, when they bound us to the treaty, but I am the Monarch, and therefore responsible for all my people. The whole of my kinden have pledged themselves, through me. It was an oath, a promise made by the Commonweal entire. So we can never march upon those lost lands. We cannot go against our own soul. We cannot go to war with the Empire to aid you, though we would dearly wish to. Our word is final.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Stenwold said weakly, feeling as though she had just stabbed him through the gut. ‘Oh . . .’ All this way, through storm and bandits, and for nothing. Losing Felise, losing Destrachis, and all for nothing.

  ‘The Wasps will tear that paper up as soon as they are done with us,’ he protested hoarsely.

  ‘It seems likely,’ the Monarch agreed sadly. ‘Until they do, we remain bound by it. I am sorry that we cannot help you, Stenwold Maker. Your need is great and you are deserving. Perhaps some escort could travel with you back to your lands, to safeguard you.’

  ‘A Lorn detachment,’ Stenwold said, although they would not recognize the term. All hope was leaking out from him like life’s blood.

  To stand so fast by a meaningless treaty. The Wasps truly cannot have known what they were winning, through that one piece of paper.

  And then a thought: the Wasps will still be ignorant of what they have gained.

  ‘I . . . have an idea, O Monarch,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Speak, Stenwold Maker.’

  ‘Sleight of hand, Monarch. Shadows and illusions. Spider games. You are not without such resources, here in the Commonweal?’

  A few knowing looks around them. ‘Indeed we are not,’ Inaspe Raimm replied.

  ‘Then . . .’ This time he ordered the words carefully before he uttered them. ‘If a force was to mass . . . close to the borders of the stolen principalities. An army of soldiers, beasts . . .’ He had nearly added engines, war machines. ‘All the business of war, in fact. The treaty makes no mention of that, I am sure.’

  She regarded him, but he thought he saw a slight smile of comprehension there.

  ‘A Commonweal army on the border, O Monarch,’ Stenwold continued. ‘That is surely the current nightmare of the Empire, the Dragonflies returning for their lands. They cannot know, they do not know, that you will still honour your word. It would never occur to them, who would break their own so readily. Is that possible, O Monarch?’

  Inaspe Raimm looked past him to encounter the gaze of Felipe Shah. When she met Stenwold’s gaze again, she was nodding. ‘It is possible,’ she said. ‘It might indeed be accomplished.’

  Fifteen

  Hokiak had kept her in a cellar for what had felt like an age, but was probably only a couple of hours. Che had thought, Again! Again in someone’s cell. At the time she had not believed his claims. She had assumed that he would hand her over to the Empire, or perhaps simply to the highest bidder.

  She hoped Thalric had got away, at least. It was a strange thing to wish for, considering her own extremity. She had no illusions that he might come back for her.

  Then she was dragged up into the old Scorpion’s back room again, hauled into the lamplight and cuffed sharply when she stumbled. Hokiak was waiting there for her, leaning on his stick.

  ‘As promised,’ he said. His clients were all cloaked but, on peering up at them, she found herself looking into blue-grey Mynan faces.

  ‘Please . . .’ she said. ‘Help me—’

  Without otherwise showing any particular acrimony, one of them kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. As she choked and gasped around the pain, the other handed a pouch to Hokiak.

  ‘Compliments of the Red Flag,’ she heard.

  The Scorpion nodded. ‘And be sure you give your chief my regards. Anything she wants, she knows where to find me.’

  Without another word, the two Mynans hauled Che effortlessly upright. She felt something cold pressed against her side and knew it was a dagger blade.

  ‘Any struggle, one word from you,’ the man said, ‘and your masters’ll still be picking up the pieces in a tenday’s time. Understand?’

  ‘Please,’ she got out, ‘just take me to Kymene.’

  The dagger pricked her and she stopped.

&nb
sp; ‘One more word,’ said the Mynan flatly. ‘Any word you please, and I’ll gut you right here and now.’

  They hurried her through the city by the backstreets. It was night and she got little sense of the place, but there was a tension in the air. A lot of the locals were out under the dark sky, standing aimlessly as though waiting to be told what to do.

  Thalric was right about this place, she thought. Shame everything else has gone so wrong.

  They reached an anonymous-looking house in one of the many districts the Wasps had left to decay, and bundled her swiftly into it: from Hokiak’s cellar to the cellar of this place with the minimum of fuss. They locked her in, and left her there with her hands tied.

  It will all be all right, she tried to tell herself. Kymene will come, and she’ll believe me. It will all be all right. It served as a hollow little mantra to recite to herself.

  She guessed that most of an hour had gone past before the door opened again, and a Mynan man stalked down the stone steps towards her. A second man stayed aloft with a lantern, but Che did not need its light to recognize her visitor. For a moment his name escaped her, then it was blessedly in the front of her mind.

  ‘Chyses!’

  He stared at her, motioned for the lantern to come closer. The man had changed little, save that his expression of bitter dissatisfaction had deepened. He had a knife in his hand, and she realized it was not to frighten her so much as to whet his own anticipation. Tynisa always said she didn’t like him . . .

  ‘Chyses, it’s me,’ Che said. ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

  ‘Of course I recognize you,’ the Mynan said coldly. ‘That’s usually the case with traitors.’

  ‘I’m no traitor,’ she protested.

  ‘Hokiak thinks you are.’

  ‘Hokiak is wrong! Hokiak only thinks so because I came in with a Wasp. If I was really trying to infiltrate your people, would I do that?’

  Chyses regarded her without love. ‘I can’t think of anyone who would do something that stupid, so why not a traitor? It makes sense to me. Besides, I hear the Wasp ran after killing some of Hokiak’s men.’

  ‘He’s a renegade and the Empire wants him dead. He must have thought Hokiak was going to sell him out.’

  ‘You tell whatever story you want, right now,’ Chyses said. ‘Give me time and I’ll pare the truth from you, so you just go ahead and babble.’

  ‘Will you at least let me speak to Kymene?’ she asked.

  Chyses gave a smile that was brief and unpleasant. ‘Be careful what you ask for. She’s coming to see you, girl. For old times’ sake, maybe.’

  Maybe she thinks she owes me that much, Che thought. Or maybe she just wants to see me cut up with her own eyes.

  ‘I can help you, help the whole resistance,’ she insisted. ‘I came here to help.’

  ‘Of course you did, only not to help us.’ He crouched by her, the knife prominent. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have a talk, you and I. We’ll bare everything, every truth. Have no worries about that.’

  She was about to appeal to him again, but she could not. This was a man short on trust. He had lived his life in an occupied city, fighting his own private war, and to him she was just another excuse to sharpen his hatred. She guessed that he even preferred killing traitors to killing the enemy. Probably he liked to take longer over it, too.

  Then Kymene herself was stepping down into the cellar. The sight of her showed just how far the revolution in Myna had progressed. She wore a robe, but it was open down the front, exposing her black breastplate adorned with the two red arrows of the resistance: We have fallen, we shall rise again. She was armed, and she must have walked openly through the streets like that, along with her guards and unchallenged by the Wasps. Che guessed that areas of Myna like this must be virtually off-limits to the invaders now.

  But Kymene herself, beyond the clothes, was the same woman Che recalled: young and fierce and proud, her hair cropped short, truly a warrior queen of Myna. In her expression there was no acknowledgement of the night that both women had been freed from the Empire’s cells, no common cause.

  ‘It is her, isn’t it,’ she declared.

  Chyses nodded, stepping back. Che tried to speak but, in the face of Kymene’s piercing gaze, the words dried up.

  ‘Cheerwell Maker,’ she said, ‘they tell me you’re a Wasp agent these days.’

  ‘No,’ Che whispered. Kymene knelt beside her, scabbard-tip grating on the stone of the cellar floor.

  ‘I liked your uncle,’ the woman said. ‘As far as I’d trust an outsider, I’d trust him. You’re not him, though, for if he was here, like this, I’d take his word.’

  ‘Please,’ Che said, looking into her eyes. ‘I’m no traitor. I came with news, to help you. The Wasps never tortured me to make me their agent! They’re fighting my people even now.’

  ‘We have people in the palace – we had them there even then – and they know you were taken off to be interrogated. They heard the machines working, though sometimes all it takes is just the sight of them to break someone’s spirit.’ Kymene said it in a tone of dreadful reasonableness.

  ‘It . . . they didn’t really do it,’ Che insisted, aware of how wretched that must sound. ‘It was just a ploy . . . the man in charge was doing something complicated, political. He, please, he needed the noise as a cover to talk to one of his own agents . . .’

  ‘Did he. And who was this man?’

  ‘He was . . .’ The same man who fled from me at Hokiak’s. Kymene was eyeing her expectantly, though, so silence was not an option.

  ‘His name,’ Che said finally, ‘is Thalric. He went renegade later, for another reason. It’s complicated but, please, you have to . . .’

  Kymene cut her off with just a gesture. A thoughtful expression came over her face. Chyses shuffled, sensing a new turn in the conversation which he was not happy about.

  ‘Thalric,’ the Mynan leader repeated.

  ‘Yes . . .’ It was obvious that Kymene knew that name, but for the life of her Che could not work out how.

  ‘Kymene, this is nonsense,’ Chyses grated. ‘Let me work on her now. I’ll have the true story in two minutes.’

  ‘Thalric,’ Kymene repeated. ‘Yes, that was his name.’

  ‘What?’ Chyses demanded.

  Kymene stood up abruptly, and Che wondered if it was because she did not entirely trust Chyses behind her with a knife.

  ‘Thalric was indeed doing something political right then. I have cause to know it. So that much, at least, is true.’

  ‘Political? What’s that supposed to mean?’ Chyses snarled.

  Kymene’s smile was brilliant and hard. ‘He was killing the Bloat, Chyses. He’s the one who killed our last governor for us, rid us of good old Ulther.’

  To his credit, Chyses made no protest, merely stared.

  ‘Keep hold of her,’ Kymene ordered. ‘Untie her but keep her guarded. Find me this Thalric. Find me also people from Hokiak’s who’ll recognize him. I want to talk to him.’

  Thalric had found himself a low taverna by the river by the name of Flaneme’s. Under the stern gaze of a woman of the same name, who was a broad-shouldered, massive-armed matron, he took a cup of wine and considered his options.

  How madly optimistic he had been to think that his name would not have become common parlance in Myna! Seeing the facts inscribed on paper, uncovered during his idle investigations at Tharn, the idea had seemed clear to him. He had put himself seamlessly back into the spy game without recalling the pain that had sent him away from it.

  No doubt that old rogue Hokiak had since heard all the Rekef news: who was in and who was out. He bared his teeth in frustration and glowered into the wine, seeing there a darkened glimpse of his own reflection. Hokiak had obviously pegged Che as a Rekef turncoat, this new allegiance twisted into her painfully in the torture rooms of the governor’s palace. The irony of that notion was not lost on Thalric, who had in the end never quite found the proper moment to put Che to the
question. Now he could spare a thought to wonder whether the Scorpion would sell her either to the resistance or the Empire – and which of them, at this stage, would be kinder. Beyond that single speculation his own fate consumed his thoughts entirely.

  He was being shadowed, he knew. Whoever it was, acting for whatever side in the little brawl that was brewing in Myna, they did not yet want to broach him openly. They were waiting for him to put himself neatly where they could descend on him with the minimum of public fuss. That might mean that it was Kymene’s people come to finish him off. Or it might mean that it was the Rekef, who preferred to have people disappear without even a ripple. He was definitely being watched, however. He had come into Flaneme’s place because it was near-full with rivermen and labourers, men and women whose politics were probably not hot enough to set them against him. Still, he had gathered some filthy looks on entering, so the intelligence he had perused in Tharn had been right. Uprising was hanging on the air like smoke.

  Why in blazes did I come back to this wretched town? His past had crossed with Myna’s too many times: in the initial imperial conquest, when he had been a raw young officer under Ulther’s patronage; his betrayal of that same patron all those years later, on the orders of his Rekef masters; and now a third time with this debacle. He should have left it at just twice.

  He had to leave Myna immediately. He caught himself wondering how he would break this news to Stenwold. Fool! But it was true that abandoning Che had left a foul taste in the mouth. In a life composed of so many dark deeds this one, he realized, would stay with him.

  Just one more amongst the host, though, so he would live with it.

  A shadow crossing him made him look up. Flaneme stood there, burly arms folded. ‘Time for you to leave, Master Wasp.’

  He stared up at her, biting down his instinctive response. He knew this game well, for he had played it from across the table often enough.