Heirs of the Blade (Shadows of the Apt 7)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Please, sieur,’ Che said, falling back on the Solarnese title for no reason she could think of, ‘we’re looking for my foster-sister, Tynisa.’

  ‘Tynisa?’ For a moment his face was blank, then something fell into place. ‘Ah, Maker Tynise. And you are her sister?’

  ‘Foster-sister,’ Che explained. ‘I’ve travelled a very long way, we all have.’

  ‘She’s left the column,’ the Mantis told her. ‘She’s flown off to Leose, along with most of the nobles.’

  So close. Che sagged a little. A day gained somewhere and I’d have caught her. ‘You’re taking your soldiers to . . . Leose then?’ she asked, stumbling a little over the name.

  ‘I return there myself, so accompany me if you will.’ He was still studying Che’s face, without expression. She wondered how much he could read there of her recent history.

  ‘We’ll make better time on our own,’ Thalric suggested. The Mantis’s eyes flicked towards him sharply, a man with no love for Wasp-kinden, nor fear of them either.

  ‘You’ll do better to approach Leose with a friend to gain you admittance,’ Maure murmured. ‘The Salmae’s doors don’t open even as wide as Felipe Shah’s, I’ve heard.’ She wore a wry smile, no doubt thinking of her reception back at Suon Ren.

  Che glanced between them, keenly aware of the Mantis’s gaze turning back to her. ‘Then, yes, we’ll travel with you, and gladly,’ she told him at last. ‘Cheerwell Maker of Collegium,’ she introduced herself, then named her companions in turn.

  The Mantis’s name was Isendter, pronounced with a typical Commonweal flourish that Che found almost impossible to replicate. He was called Whitehand also, apparently, so she settled for that. As the day wore on, it became clear why he had set himself aside as the only one who would reach Leose. Little detachments of the makeshift soldiers were constantly abandoning the column, their ranks thinning and thinning as time wore on: the peasants were returning to their farms and villages, their herds and crops, Che realized, and clearly glad to be putting the military life behind them. It was spring, after all, and a farmer had better things to do than go chasing about with a spear. She thought of those soldiers of Collegium, who were re-purposed tradesmen, artisans and shopkeepers, yet had still accounted for themselves well enough during the war. Then she thought about the Empire, whose every male son was given a uniform and a weapon, and allowed no other trade but fighting.

  How did we ever beat them? she asked herself, but then had to admit, We did not. They were not beaten: they just stepped back to deal with a little infighting. And they have since whipped their rebel governors into line, and they now have their new Empress, and surely I can hear the sound of a thousand thousand swords being drawn even now. What is to stop them?

  ‘Che?’ Thalric touched her arm and for a moment she wanted to run away from him and from his brutal birthright. Instead, she hugged him tight because he was surely proof that redemption was possible, even for the Wasp-kinden.

  Thirty-Four

  Che had the impression that Whitehand was a man who spoke little, yet he broke his rule to ask her about Tynisa, and through his few terse questions he managed to prompt from her a great deal of the curious story of Stenwold Maker, of Cheerwell, and of Tynisa’s mother. Che approached the subject of Tisamon carefully, never quite naming him as Tynisa’s father in case Isendter held any great grudge against halfbreeds, but making the strength of their relationship clear. Whitehand’s face remained impassive throughout, but Che had the impression that he had been waiting for a figure such as Tisamon to turn up in this account.

  As she recounted what she knew of Tisamon’s death, Isendter nodded fractionally, but that small movement spoke volumes, the only acknowledgement he had made. ‘And they were close?’ he put in.

  ‘Very,’ Che agreed. ‘And I believe . . .’ For a moment the old Collegium Che rebelled against the words, or perhaps felt embarrassed at speaking them before Thalric, but she pressed on. ‘I believe that he is haunting her now. I think that his ghost takes its duties as a . . .’ she almost said ‘father’, ‘. . . as a mentor very seriously indeed.’

  ‘It may be as you say,’ was all Isendter Whitehand replied, but Che knew that he had sensed something or seen something in Tynisa. ‘There was a shrine of my people, in the woods, out west. We came upon it while hunting. After that . . .’

  Che nodded, seeing the perfect gateway through which the ghost could have stepped, directly into Tynisa’s mind.

  By the time they came to Leose, most of the impromptu army had disbanded, hurrying back to lives that had no need of conflict or bloodshed in them. Che found herself and her companions quickly abandoned in a great courtyard, lined to one side with ranks of stables, and roofed by a wooden lattice that Maure explained was for dragonfly steeds to land on. They had just enough time to wonder if they had been forgotten, when a lean Grasshopper-kinden woman wearing dark colours came out to them, looking them up and down with that crisp and slightly disapproving expression of senior servants the world over.

  ‘The champion tells me you are here to see the Spider-kinden girl,’ she remarked. ‘Which of you is her sister?’

  ‘Her foster-sister.’ Che raised a hand. ‘Cheerwell Maker of Collegium. This is Thalric, this Varmen, and this—’

  ‘Maure,’ said the mystic quickly, cutting her off, and Che wondered if magicians were supposed to introduce themselves, or whether being named by another might diminish their power, or some such. And is that real, or just superstition? There’s so much I don’t know.

  The Grasshopper stared at the halfbreed necromancer for a long moment. ‘Lisan Dea, seneschal of Leose,’ she named herself.

  ‘There are those who might use my services here? The lady of the house, perhaps?’ Maure enquired, as though simply having turned up there as a solitary vagabond.

  ‘Not the lady, I think,’ Lisan Dea replied, ‘but there are others, nonetheless.’ She had clearly somehow recognized the services that Maure could provide, and there was a hint of some small tragedy written in her features, some impenetrable loss that Che would never dare ask about, and that Maure would never report. The Grasshopper nodded suddenly, gathering her composure about her like a cloak. ‘You are welcome here, Maure, for the gifts you bring. You are welcome, Cheerwell Maker, as the sister of our guest. Your companions are not so welcome, however.’

  Che opened her mouth to protest, but the Grasshopper held up one lean finger. ‘They will be lodged with other servants of the Salmae.’

  ‘Go,’ Thalric suggested. ‘Do what you’ve come to do and then we’ll be well rid of this place.’

  Stepping into the shadow of the Commonwealer castle caused an almost physical shock, so that Che was forced to clutch at Maure’s arm, feeling disoriented by the shift between what she saw and what she felt. That it was daylight outside, channelled in by the high windows, seemed to be denied by every part of her but her eyes. That the high-vaulted ceilings made the halls beneath airy and spacious, her senses insisted was false, a mere gloss. She felt as though she was entombed underground. She felt as though those lofty arches were not for the convenience of a flying kinden, but simply to accommodate ponderous forms of much greater stature than herself, and that these Commonwealers were merely living in their discarded shells.

  In short, although the design was as different as several hundred miles of distance, and perhaps several centuries of time, could account for, she felt that she already knew the builders of this place. Their presence, even the last decaying scraps of it, oppressed her. Of all the kinden of the world, and of all the secrets of history, she’d had enough of them.

  She glanced at Maure, but it was impossible to tell whether the necromancer recognized her disquiet. In front of Lisan Dea, the mystic was all business.

  ‘Your sister came to us at the start of winter, from Suon Ren,’ the Grasshopper was saying. She had deliberately slowed her long-legged pace to let Che keep up, but because of that she seemed to be watching always from the co
rner of her eye, reading every least twitch of Che’s features. The Beetle girl made a dutiful show of listening.

  ‘It seemed she was not in favour, and had little to offer us, nor did she know our ways or how to behave. It seemed that would be the end of it, and that the spring would see her dispatched back to the Lowlands.’ Lisan Dea recited the words neutrally, taking no side.

  ‘This has changed, then?’ Che put in, because she felt it was expected of her.

  ‘After winter she demonstrated talents that fit the times,’ the seneschal replied. ‘So she is in favour, so long as those times last.’

  Talents that fit the times. Under Tisamon’s tutelage Tynisa had devoted herself to one particular talent and, now that the man’s ghost was guiding her through this time of conflict, the seneschal’s words were not difficult to understand. ‘She was always skilled,’ she managed. The presence of Tynisa, through walls of stone, seemed palpably closer, and Che was wondering what manner of reception she might receive. What would the ghost drive her sister to do?

  Then the Grasshopper made an abrupt turn, leading her guests through an arched door flanked by tapestries of red and gold – and there was Tynisa.

  The room she stood in was lit by oblique shafts of light descending from windows cut high into one wall, a light so crisp and clear that Che wondered whether guests were only received in this chamber at this one particular time. The rush matting on the floor, left mostly in shadow, spoke of martial practice. At the far end of the room stood Tynisa herself, where the floor stepped up to a raised platform from which instructors had no doubt guided their charges through their paces.

  She was not alone, though. A Dragonfly-kinden man was speaking softly in her ear, and Che had the impression that Tynisa must have just completed some fencing passes on the floor. He seemed young to be a mentor, though, and stood too close, so for a moment Che hovered awkwardly in the doorway, realizing that she was intruding, hesitant to press on and yet even less willing to lose this opportunity.

  Then Lisan Dea was stalking across the room, and the Dragonfly looked up and took a step away. The Grasshopper seneschal practically radiated an icy disapproval directed, in so far as Che could tell, solely at the man.

  There was something curiously familiar about him, now that Che saw his face: some passing likeness that she felt she should recognize. Then the Grasshopper had drawn him aside and hissed something in his ear, and his crooked grin transformed into incredulity as he stared down the length of the room towards Che.

  That was it, she suddenly realized: he looked a little like Salma, or at least more than most young Dragonfly men did. Given where they all were, he must be some manner of relative.

  Then, without ceremony, Lisan Dea was shepherding him out of the room. Che could not see his expression as he gazed back briefly at Tynisa, but his parting look at the Beetle herself was nothing short of contemptuous, making plain his surprise that this woman could claim a sisterhood with that one.

  Maure had hung back – no, Maure had ducked out of sight entirely and was now gone from her side. Unexpectedly, after the varied escorts Che had enjoyed since leaving Khanaphes, she was left alone with Tynisa.

  She approached, skirting the edge of the fighting mat as if it was the ground of the Prowess Forum in Collegium. From her elevated position, Tynisa watched her closely, and there was nothing in her face or stance that recognized Che at all. Her expression was bleak as winter, and her hand hovered near her sword. Che was no great warrior, scarcely a warrior at all, but as she drew near she became acutely aware of an invisible circle about Tynisa dictated by the broad reach of her blade, and that to cross into it uninvited would be fatal.

  In that stance, in that arch expression, it was Tisamon who stood before her, or part of him at least. That segment of the Mantis-kinden which had been so devoted to Che’s uncle Stenwold was repressed or excised, along with those few times he had smiled or laughed, or shown himself something like human. Instead this was a sharp-edged and brittle creature of skill and bloodlust that was poised to strike at her, the same despairing figure of tragedy that had dashed itself to death against its love for the Dragonfly Felise Mienn, as Mantis heroes were traditionally wont to do.

  Then something flickered in the girl’s eyes that owed nothing to that thousand years of dark and bloody heritage, and she said, ‘Che?’

  ‘No other,’ the Beetle replied, edging closer and feeling that circle around Tynisa flex as she touched it, like a tripwire, and then vanish, the danger gone as if it had never been. Feeling as though she had been given permission, Che stepped forward and embraced her near-sister.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Tynisa asked of her, not annoyed as Che had anticipated, only wondering.

  ‘Looking for you,’ she explained. ‘You disappeared, remember?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘And if you’d found me just a few months ago, I’d not have been grateful for it, I think. Still, things have changed since then. Life’s better than it was.’

  Che regarded her cautiously. ‘Is that so?’

  The smile that met her gaze was unfamiliar. The Spider-kinden girl Che had grown up with had possessed a grand stock of smiles, knowing, subtle, gleeful, suggestive, a veritable arsenal that had brought about the ruin of many a young man. Tisamon, in contrast, had smiled rarely: his killing grin when shedding blood, and a more human expression reserved for his conversations with Stenwold. This smile belonged neither to the dead father nor to the daughter, as she had faced the world back then, but Che had a feeling that, had Tynisa ever let anyone into her heart, without masks and mirrors, this is what they might have seen.

  ‘You saw him, saw Alain?’ Tynisa asked her eagerly.

  Che frowned for a second before connecting the name to the man. ‘I did,’ she conceded.

  ‘Well?’

  There was obviously some immediate comment she should be ready to make, but Che could not find it.

  Tynisa shook her head impatiently. ‘How like his brother he is. The very image, yes?’

  Che looked her in the eyes, reading a lot there. Oh, Salme Dien had mocked Che, in his time, but fondly, always fondly. He would never have assumed that expression of condescension that Che had seen on the face of Salme Alain as he departed. But she said, ‘Yes, very,’ nevertheless, because this was not the time, nor the challenge she had come here to deliver. ‘Tynisa, you must know . . . You say things have changed for you?’

  ‘I have a purpose now,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘I have Alain.’

  ‘And was there a moment, when that change occurred?’ Che pressed.

  Tynisa looked at her oddly. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Your father, Tynisa?’ Because to barrel on, at this point, seemed the only way – whilst keeping a weather eye open for some murderous reprisal from the man’s ghost. Yet Tynisa’s expression seemed honestly baffled. ‘Tynisa, I know. I saw him for myself. I know that the ghost of your father has sought you out, and I’m here to help you.’

  For a long moment Tynisa just stared at her, and Che tensed, waiting for that glint of steel in her eyes that would herald Tisamon clawing to the forefront of her mind. Then she laughed: a snort of amusement that emerged despite all of Tynisa’s attempts to control it. ‘Ghosts, Che? There’s no such thing as ghosts. Don’t tell me fifteen years of College education didn’t teach you that.’

  Che stared back at her, caught utterly off guard. ‘But . . . you can’t tell me you haven’t felt him, seen him even . . .?’

  Tynisa’s expression sobered. ‘Oh, I won’t deny I’ve enjoyed some strange company when I’ve been on my own – on my way here and during the winter. I won’t say I didn’t see him.’ She held a hand up to forestall Che. ‘Achaeos, too, and Salma. You can’t imagine the fright it gave me to see Alain for the first time. I thought that I really was going out of my mind. But that was just me, Che, because I was all alone and I’d lost . . . everything, or so it seemed. I don’t think anyone could blame me for indu
lging in a few fantasies. But that’s done now, since I found Alain. I’m a new woman now.’

  Gazing at her, Che could all but see the malignant form of Tisamon lurking at her shoulder. She could feel the dead Weaponsmaster’s presence like a chill in the air, but Tynisa kept smiling slightly condescendingly.

  ‘Ghosts, Che? Seriously? You’ll find plenty of people here who believe in them. But we know better, surely?’ Her smile was so brittle that Che could almost detect the cracks, but in Tynisa’s eyes there was absolutely no recognition of that looming presence which Che felt like a physical pressure.

  ‘We have to talk, Tynisa,’ Che said at last, recognizing defeat in the first skirmish, and retreating to a prepared position. ‘But I’ve come a long way, and I need to catch my breath. Tomorrow perhaps?’

  ‘And where were you?’ Che asked Maure, when she had tracked her down, after considerable searching.

  ‘Looking after your best interests by absenting myself,’ the mystic told her. ‘The ghost knows me – and knows me for its enemy. It wouldn’t have helped, me being there. When I meet it again, I want it to be somewhere that I’ve warded. Besides, I’ve been asking questions on your behalf.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That steward wanted my services, so I said I’d help her. We talked. She was close-mouthed, but I worked out what put the sour look on her face.’

  ‘Tynisa?’ Che suggested glumly. ‘They don’t think she should be associating with their prince, I suppose.’

  Maure gave her a curious look. ‘Well, you’ve got it completely backwards but, other than that, you’re right. Prince Alain has a reputation with women, and I get the impression that Lisan Dea was doing her best, as warden of the castle’s hospitality, to keep the two of them apart. But that’s all gone to the pits now, as you saw.’

  Che closed her eyes briefly. ‘That’s a complication I don’t think I can deal with just at the moment. Let me stay with my brief and free her from the ghost, if I can. She’s never had any difficulties with relationships before.’ Even as Che said that, she saw Tynisa’s face again in her mind, all those layers of social accomplishment stripped away, leaving something as raw and vulnerable as her father ever was. Had not Tisamon himself made such unhappy personal relationships the very meat and drink of his downfall? ‘If that’s how this Lisan Dea feels, why hasn’t she warned Tynisa?’