The Scarab Path sota-5

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  'Perish the thought.' Manny winked.

  Tiring of this conversation, Che caught Petri's eye and jerked her head towards the next room.

  Out of earshot of the others, she said firmly, 'Today, Petri.' It had been several days since she had first made her request, and she knew that Petri was trying to put her off.

  'I'm really not-'

  'Today,' Che repeated quietly. She sat down on a canvas-covered stool. 'You are not the only one of us this city is destroying.'

  'You don't understand.' Petri actually knelt before her. 'This thing, it is banned by the Masters … the Ministers, I mean. It is illegal. What would they think if they found you …? They call the very practice "the Profanity".'

  In Che's mind the ghost howled again, and Achaeos's blank eyes held only hatred. She could feel her hands shaking, ever so slightly. I will break, she decided, if I cannot claw some release from this city. 'I don't care,' she told Petri. 'Let that be my worry.' The words tasted foul in her mouth.

  'But the people … you must see, the people who practise Profanity, they are criminals, outlaws, outcasts. If you venture among them, they might just cut your throat.'

  'I am looking for mystics, whatever shabby oracles and seers this place can throw up,' Che said stubbornly, 'not for some den of murderers.'

  'They take their mysticism very seriously here. If the guard caught them, they would be executed. It is … a vice, an illegal pleasure. Fir, they call it.'

  'Fear?'

  'Fir,' Petri pronounced it more carefully. 'But it is not like taking some Spiderlands drug, or exotic women, or that kind of vice. There is … a whole under-society based around it, and they are mad, unpredictable. They might kill you on the spot — you can never tell. Kadro, he was good with such people, but he still didn't like to go looking for the Fir-eaters.'

  Che clenched her fists in frustration. She felt as though she was already experiencing withdrawal from some drug, cut off from a normality that she had breathed and eaten and slept with for twenty years. I cannot be doing what I am now doing. I am Cheerwell Maker, scholar of the Great College, citizen of Collegium, niece of Master Stenwold Maker. I am no criminal. Give me some other way to turn!

  'But they are mystics, or at least they talk like mystics do, about the past, and … impossible things,' Petri continued hoarsely. 'I do not know who else there is.'

  'Then take me to them,' Che demanded, before she could change her mind.

  The man Petri found was a starved-looking Khanaphir. He was bare-chested and Che could see each of his ribs distinctly beneath that taut skin. It was clear that sustenance came second to some greater love in his life.

  They met him at an 'open house' near the docks, meaning a place where the locals offered drink and other services to foreign mariners, so that they would not be tempted to venture any further into the city. The place was crowded, squalid, the outer shell of an older building fitted out with as many benches and tables as possible. Solarnese and Dragonfly and Spider-kinden sat shoulder to shoulder, and argued and drank and brawled.

  The lean man hunched forward towards the two Beetle women. His eyes were cavernous, hollowed. 'I hear you seek something this place here cannot provide,' he said. Che had to strain to catch the words.

  Petri glanced nervously at Che and then nodded, her hands clutched each other anxiously on the tabletop. 'Something special,' she explained. 'I know … someone I know said you could find it for us.'

  There was a bleak cynicism in the thin man's eyes. 'Be careful what you seek. The Profanity is not for all palates. It is not for foreigners.'

  'Do not presume to know who I am,' Che interrupted. The words came from within her, yet no conscious thought had formed them. As she snapped them out, she found herself pincering the man's bony wrist with her fingers. His recoiling twitch whiplashed down his long arm, but her grip held tight.

  'What do you want?' He was afraid now, not of them but of something else, something she could not see.

  'You know what I want.' Che's heart was racing. She felt as though she was hurtling downhill, and sometimes she was in control and sometimes she was just falling forwards. Something had come over her, some sharp inspiration. Could that be Achaeos's ghost, speaking through her?

  The lean man bit his lip, staring at her. 'This other … no, but you …Who are you? Where do you come from?'

  'I've come a long way.' Che finally released him, saw the shadow of her grasp on his skin, that he rubbed at resentfully. He would no longer look at either of them.

  'If you want, then you shall have. But do not complain, afterwards, that it was not what you sought.'

  'Just take me there,' Che said. 'Petri, you can go. You don't have to come with me.'

  'But … you can't just go off alone with him,' Petri protested. She dragged Che away from the table, out of the man's earshot. 'He'll kill you,' she insisted.

  'He might.' Che's hand moved to her sword, buckled on now that politeness was no issue. 'What else can I do?'

  'No, Che!' Petri hissed, casting the thin man a venomous look — as though she herself had not been the one who had led Che here.

  'Will you come with me, then?'

  'With him? Into the Marsh Alcaia again?' Petri bared her teeth in desperation. 'Not again … don't make me …'

  Someone right beside them rapped on a table with something hard, a dagger hilt. Both of them turned to see a Fly-kinden man, his face half hidden beneath a broad-brimmed hat. The neat beard gave him away and Che felt her stomach lurch at the thought of discovery.

  'Trallo,' she gasped.

  He tilted up the brim of the hat and gave her a broad smile. 'I reckoned you were up to something foolish,' he said. 'Thankfully you have people interested in keeping you safe, so I decided to keep an eye on you.'

  'Trallo, this isn't your business now.'

  He took a long breath, a tiny spot of calm in the rowdy open house. The lean man still watched them, clutching at the edge of his table.

  'You're about to do something really unwise, I can tell that. You're about to go somewhere very dangerous.'

  'It's my decision.'

  Trallo glanced from Che to the shaking Petri, and back. 'Fine, I'll come with you. That's my decision.'

  Che was caught in mid-protest, suddenly thinking, Was that not what I wanted? Trallo would surely be of more use than poor Petri, and Petri just as surely would not come willingly. 'Do you know … You know Khanaphes. You should know what we're about before you make such an offer.'

  Trallo shrugged. 'Like I said, our friends have asked me to ensure you're safe. They're worried about you.'

  Che thought of Berjek and the rest, and would not have believed that of them, but here the Fly was, all the same.

  She leant close to him. 'We are going to the Fir-eaters. You've heard of them?'

  'Heard of, but never met.' He made a face. 'Tell your hungry friend there to pack his bags, then. Bella Petri, you get yourself back to the embassy — and not a word of this to anyone, you understand?'

  Petri nodded gratefully and, before anyone could retract the offer, she was hurrying for the door.

  'I'm grateful for this, Trallo,' Che said.

  The Fly spread his hands. 'What are friends for?'

  And she was happy enough with that answer not to notice the signal he gave, as they left the open house.

  Eighteen

  There had been Scorpions keeping pace with them for at least three days, and Hrathen guessed probably a while longer. Since that morning they had let themselves be silhouetted against the barren skyline. On foot, or seated on their beasts, with spears held high, they had stared at the odd caravan but made no move against it.

  Why would they, Hrathen thought wryly, when we are so obligingly going where they want us to go? Imperial mapmakers had not made much inroad into the Nem. It was a wasteland of stones and dust, of coarse ridges of bloody-minded grass that cut the skin like knives, and of ruins. Here and there some fault in the rock beneath opened nar
row rootspace with access to underground water, nourishing stark, barrel-trunked trees with fleshy leaves shaped like the sort of arrowheads the Empire used to pierce strong mail. The going was uneven, the dusty terrain rising and falling with the stony bones of the land beneath. Sometimes those bones speared through into crags and juts of red-black rock that the coarse wind had rounded and bowed.

  The Imperial scouts, mostly staying with the dubious safety of the Slave Corps, had nevertheless ventured far enough to pinpoint a Scorpion-kinden camp, and it was this tenuous landmark that Hrathen had set his compass by. Overall, it was Brugan's plan but Hrathen's details. Hrathen found he liked this mission, as Brugan had known he would, and in liking it, he would remain faithful to it. Until it suits me otherwise. Such was the constant clash of his mixed blood: the Wasp crying, Serve yourself by serving the Empire, while the Scorpion roared out, Do what you will.

  The Scorpions of the Nem were not so dependent on outside trading to make their living as the Dryclaw tribes Hrathen had known, but still, a caravan of this size walking obediently towards one of their camps had attracted a lot of interest: three heavily laden automotives grinding their monotonous way over the desert ground, and each of them with two draught beetles plodding meekly in traces before them, not labouring as yet but ready to haul the wagons if they broke down or ran out of fuel. Hrathen had asked for a score of the Slave Corps's most intrepid, and Brugan had not stinted on obliging him. They were like old friends, to him, for he knew them for men who adulterated Imperial writ with their own self-interest, willing to go further and risk more for the sake of their profits and their pleasures. Proceeding alongside them were a dozen who wore the armour of the Light Airborne, but who mostly kept to themselves with a quiet discipline. Hrathen had marked these as Rekef agents, and guessed that they would be keeping a close eye on him.

  Still, twelve of them? He flatters me. Or perhaps Brugan had some other mission in mind, and that was an unwelcome thought. If these men had received orders to assassinate the Warlord of the Nemian Scorpions, then this expedition would be everyone's last service to the Empire.

  After the soldiers came the experts, who got to ride while the others walked. Chief amongst them, and most vocal, was Dannec, the political officer of the Rekef and its most overt representative. He was a thin-faced, ambitious man who did not relish being sent off into the wilderness, not even by the Rekef's supreme commander himself. He wasted no chance to complain, and even now he was suggesting that they drive the Scorpions off the ridge over to their left. Hrathen had ignored him from the start, and by now everyone else did, too. Aside from Dannec, there were eight men from the Engineering Corps, led by a grey veteran named Angved. They formed a mysterious and silent cabal of their own, and Hrathen was looking forward to putting them through their paces.

  The sky was darkening but the horizon ahead was heaping up with a range of stark artificial shapes: one of the famous ruins of the Nem desert that the Scorpions had made their own. There were flames to be seen there, burning bluish-white. They were fuelled by a rock-oil, Hrathen understood, that the Scorpions, or their slaves, extracted wherever it bubbled to the surface. Here in the desert it was more readily available than wood, and continued burning for days.

  The Scorpions began to close in now, bringing their mounts nearer and nearer until they had turned from scouts to an escort. They rode humpbacked black desert beetles that skittered along on high, long legs, fast over the dusty ground. They also rode low-slung scorpions, whose claws had been capped with sharp iron, sitting on them in strangely made offset side-saddles to keep the riders out of the path of the curved stingers. Others were on foot: tall and burly men and women with waxy-pale skin and snaggletoothed underbites, wearing brief garments the colour of dust. About half of these had armour too, some merely with primitive carapace scale, but many with mail or plated leather. One even wore an undersized banded cuirass that had once borne the Imperial colours.

  'Savages,' Dannec muttered, but Hrathen smiled to see them. He stood up from his seat on the lead wagon, letting all the Scorpions see him and know him as the leader. Enough of them were now riding ahead towards the camp to ensure there would be the right kind of welcoming committee. These were not the Aktaian Scorpions he was familiar with, but there was enough traffic between their two peoples for him to know he could expect similar customs.

  Here is fringe desert, with sporadic contact with the Empire, he reminded himself. The Warlord will not be so familiar or predictable. I must not become complacent.

  Sure enough, the whole camp had turned out to see them arrive. The ruins here were no more than three or four stone buildings that looked as though some ancient fire had started what wind and time had subsequently brought close to finishing. The camp itself was no more than awnings propped on sticks, a scattering of canvas all around. Scorpions were a hardy folk and not a private one. Simply getting to sleep up against the stone walls here would be a sufficient mark of rank and favour.

  As the caravan approached the camp a flurry of creatures rushed out to investigate. These were more scorpions, three or four feet long not counting the over-arching tail, and they scrabbled forth with their claws held high in threat. Hrathen heard Dannec swear and saw him recoil in fear. He himself jumped down from the wagon and dropped to his knees in the path of the leading beast, summoning up his Art, which had slumbered for so long.

  It was an Art little known, these days, though all kinden possessed some facet of it, and he guessed it had once meant sheer survival to people when the world was young. Now few deliberately sought it, fewer still chanced upon it. Hrathen had always been the exception.

  He extended his mind and felt the small, aggressive barb that was the beast's.

  Well, now, he thought to it, how is it with you, little brother?

  The creature was slowing, but its claws were either side of his head when it finally stopped. He could sense its confusion at the sound of the engines and the smell of the machinery. Confusion made it angry and it wanted to sting something.

  Oh, I know how that feels, he told it, believe me. It did not quite understand the words, but it felt the sense of them, and calmed. When he went to walk beside the lead wagon, it trotted at his heels, its claws now drawn in. The other animals were unsure at first, thrusting spread pincers at the newcomers, darting towards Hrathen and the slavers in mock charges. The lead beast had been the dominant one, and by earning its trust he had thwarted them all.

  He saw the chieftain approach, a hefty Scorpion wearing overlapping metal plates across his chest and shoulders. His hands were big and Hrathen could imagine them clenched into fists so as to free those scythe-like claws for fighting. The chief strolled up to the lead wagon as the artificers braked the engine, putting one taloned hand on the machine's flank.

  'We were not expecting such wealthy visitors,' Hrathen heard him say. 'Perhaps we should be wearing our fine clothes for you.'

  Hrathen faced him, making his stance a challenge. 'My name is Hrathen, of the Empire.'

  The Scorpion turned to squint at him through small yellow eyes. 'You do not look "of-the-Empire" to me, but I have met with the slavers before, and I know they are slack in what servants they take on.'

  'Is that so?' In fact it was indeed so. Some of the Slave Corps that Hrathen had once led had not been good Wasps: there had been Spider-kinden amongst them, rogue Ants and halfbreeds. Still, it did not do to let insults go unchallenged amongst the Scorpions.

  'I am Kovalin,' the chieftain rumbled. 'What is this you have brought me, Of-the-Empire?'

  'I bring many gifts for the Warlord of the Nem,' Hrathen said, loud enough for them all to hear. 'Will you show me to his camp?'

  'She will be grateful. She loves gifts,' said Kovalin, and Hrathen blinked at that revelation. Thinking like an Imperial, shame on you. Scorpion women fought just as fiercely as their menfolk, and indeed there was little to tell them apart. A little slighter at the shoulder, a little fuller at the chest, but otherwise as hai
rless, fanged and clawed as the males. They were no other race's ideal of beauty.

  'However,' Kovalin went on, revealing no more than Hrathen had expected, 'she does not love outlanders, not from your Empire, not from anywhere. It would serve better for your gifts to be given to her by one she knows well and loves well, such as I.'

  'No doubt,' Hrathen said, 'but that is not my plan. I will give her these gifts myself, with all my men present, and explain the workings of them.' He saw that his people, even Brugan's shadowy lot, had done exactly as he had forewarned them. They were arranged in a loose double line either side of the first wagon, swords out and pointedly ready to fight. There were perhaps fifty fighting Scorpions before them, once Hrathen discounted the rabble of attendant children. The locals were not obviously about to attack, but there was not one of them that did not have a spear or axe or halberd to hand.

  'And if I just take these things?' Kovalin asked. He was taller than Hrathen, his claws far larger. Hrathen's impure blood had given him a broad Art, but neither parent's inheritance showed as strongly as in a true-breed.

  'Why need to take gifts that will be freely given?' Hrathen said easily. He shrugged his shoulders, loosening his joints for the coming fight.

  'I take what I wish,' Kovalin declared. 'I give you the chance now: gather up your people and return to your Empire. You are not wanted here.'

  'Do you fear me so much?' Hrathen asked.

  Kovalin went very still, and two different waves of tension passed through the camp. The Wasps were ready for an explosion, and though he had ordered them not to intervene unless the rest of the Scorpions made a move, it seemed to them now that things were poised on the very cusp of violence. But Hrathen knew that the Scorpions were excited, not angry. They were about to be entertained.

  'Come on, then,' he said. 'Let us have this out. With nothing more than nature gave us, yes?'

  Kovalin eyed his rival's claws, eyes narrowing suspiciously. 'You may know no better than bare hands, Of-the-Empire, but I have this. He unslung a long-hafted axe from his back. The head was solid, dark metal, shaped in a vicious, heavy crescent.