The Sea Watch

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘I am waiting for the strike,’ she told him. At his frown she elaborated. ‘Some careful, camouflaged creature, waiting as its prey drifts nearer and nearer, drawn in by some lure. Aradocles is the lure, I am the prey. Where is your trap, Stenwold Maker?’

  ‘I am not the trap-laying kind,’ he told her.

  ‘Then why? You were safe back with your people, so why are you now here?’

  ‘You think I mean your boy harm?’

  She studied him for some time before she said, ‘No, but I still don’t know why.’

  A new voice broke in, ‘You forget Master Maker’s essential nobility of character.’ Someone sat down briskly at their table, as naturally as if this new arrival were an old friend. Stenwold found himself looking into the face of Teornis of the Aldanrael.

  For a moment nothing was said. He had his little snap-bow concealed inside his tunic, ready loaded but not primed. His sword was at his belt. There were two of Teornis’s Dragonfly-kinden standing a respectful distance away, but their blades were to hand, slanted back over their shoulders, and Stenwold had no illusions about his own speed on the draw compared with theirs in response.

  ‘Teornis,’ he said, at last, ‘this is a . . . surprise.’

  ‘You might at least say a pleasant one,’ the Spider remarked, smiling amicably. He gave a nod to Paladrya. ‘My lady, outside the Edmir’s grasp you look decidedly more radiant – as do we all, I fancy.’

  ‘I knew you would somehow trick your way out of his clutches,’ Stenwold observed.

  ‘You make it sound as if that were unfair,’ Teornis said. ‘Was I unjust to cheat Claeon of his prize?’

  ‘Yes, if you did so by promising him the head of Aradocles,’ Stenwold replied flatly. He sensed Paladrya tensing.

  For a moment all humour dropped from Teornis’s face. ‘Remember your slippery friends freed you before Claeon introduced you to his pleasure chambers, Stenwold. You would have promised him a good deal more, I swear it, to be rid of his company. Ask her: I’ll wager she and I have that experience in common.’

  ‘But you are here for my Aradocles,’ Paladyra said softly. ‘I can see that much.’

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ and all the good nature was back on display. Teornis smiled at her fondly. ‘But I won’t harm a hair on the lad’s head. He’s far too valuable for that.’

  ‘You’ll use him to control Claeon,’ Stenwold confirmed, ‘and bring the sea-kinden down on Collegium, as your armada arrives.’

  ‘Even as you’d use him to oust Claeon and remove a threat to your city,’ Teornis agreed. ‘Were it not for the paltry matter of a disagreement between our peoples, I’d heartily support you.’

  ‘What do you want, Teornis?’ Stenwold asked. ‘We are now enemies. Your people have made us that.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ the Spider replied, his expression suggesting genuine regret. ‘No idea of mine, but we all have our duty. Still, surely we can sit here and speak awhile, without drawn blades? For who else has seen what we have seen? Who else from the land has been within Hermatyre, has endured that darkness, those depths? You and I and your Fly, wherever he is, but none else that has lived to tell the tale. And yet here we are, and don’t you think that unites us more than a traders’ squabble? We were friends once, Stenwold. When this is over, we’ll be so again. You’ll want friends in the east when the Empire returns, as we both know it will.’

  Stenwold looked at the man’s infinitely trustworthy, yet infinitely deceptive face, and shook his head. ‘Why couldn’t your family be happy with what it had already?’ he said, almost in a whisper. Paladrya glanced between them, sensing the weight of their history but knowing that it excluded her.

  ‘Only the dull and the foolish are ever happy with what they’ve got. Do you sit there, victorious son of the Apt revolution, and preach stagnation? No, and if we’d not moved to jostle the status quo, then one of your greedier magnates would have done so soon enough. Life is all about striving and change, Stenwold. What a bland creature you yourself would be, had the Empire not reforged you, eh?’

  ‘Happier, I’d say.’

  ‘We are not made for stale happiness,’ Teornis told him. ‘Look at us now, unthanked champions escaped from an impossible prison, returned from certain death, trekking across the Lowlands to hunt down a scion of a mythical kingdom, and to find him, too, and what odds would anyone have placed on that?’

  Stenwold felt something twitch, within him, but he held it at arm’s length, kept it from his expression. ‘Long ones, I’d say,’ was all he would commit himself to replying.

  Teornis stood up, still smiling. ‘There has never been a Beetle-kinden like you. Your people sorely underestimate you, and you’re wasted on them. After all this has blown over, after we’re friends again, come to Seldis. A man of your skills is wasted in Collegium.’

  Teornis bowed to them and strode off, just some Spider-kinden Aristos taking the morning air. A moment later, Wys and the other sea-kinden rejoined them hurriedly, staring after Teornis suspiciously.

  ‘Who was that?’ the little Onychoi woman demanded.

  ‘Our enemy, unfortunately,’ Stenwold explained sadly. Then he frowned. ‘Where’s Laszlo?’

  ‘He knew your man there,’ Wys gestured. ‘He went up.’ She mouthed the word almost superstitiously. The sea-kinden were still finding the concept of Art-powered flight hard to reconcile. They twitched every time some citizen of Princep coursed overhead.

  ‘Up?’ For a moment Stenwold didn’t understand, but then he rose quickly, trying to spot Teornis, but the Spider and his men were already out of sight. Laszlo’s gone to spy on Teornis, the fool. Doesn’t he realize how sharp-eyed those Dragonflies are? And yet Fly-kinden were a stealthy lot, renowned for getting wherever they weren’t wanted, and getting out again with what wasn’t theirs. And also, if I read Teornis’s words right, I am in dire need of learning what his plans are.

  He sighed. It was out of his hands now. Be safe, Laszlo, and next time try not to be so cursed rash.

  And succeed. If it’s possible, succeed.

  ‘What now?’ Wys asked him flatly. ‘We’ve got to wait for him to come back? Is the heir even here?’ Her gesture took in the busy chaos of Princep, a skeleton city still under construction.

  ‘My “friend” Teornis overestimates me, just as he says my people underestimate me,’ Stenwold murmured, drawing confused looks from all present.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Paladrya asked him.

  ‘I mean that his own researches are further ahead than ours, and he has told us something that we weren’t sure of until now, although Teornis assumed I’d possess the same knowledge as a matter of course. He knows that Aradocles is alive, and not only alive but somewhere in this city.’

  Forman Sands was waiting when Teornis returned to the Wayhouse, but the Spider waved him away, retreating into his private room with a bottle of the best wine the Way Brothers could provide him, and brooding there for almost an hour. At last he sent word by Varante that Sands should join him.

  ‘Tell me that you were successful at their palace, Master Sands,’ Teornis directed him. At the halfbreed’s expression, his face soured. ‘Or not, as the case may be?’

  ‘The man I met said only this: she sees no one.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Teornis raised an eyebrow. ‘I trust you waxed long to him on how important my business with Princep is. Does the name of the Aldanrael carry no weight, these days?’

  Forman Sands spread his hands helplessly. ‘No one, he said. The Monarch of Princep Salmae is in mourning and has been since the war. She makes appearances, sometimes, up on her balcony to wave to her people, but receives no ambassadors, no statesmen, no Assemblers, no Aristoi. She’d turn away the Wasp Emperor himself.’

  ‘Scarcely surprising, given recent history,’ Teornis murmured. ‘Has Maker got to them already? Are they primed against us?’

  ‘It’s not the impression I got,’ Sands reported. ‘In mourning, they said, and in mourning I believe. It’s a
weird place, this one; doesn’t work in any way I can work out. Not a city, just a load of people in one place with the same idea, it seems to me, except . . . this woman of theirs, this Monarch, I reckon they love her for it, even if all she does is mope.’

  Teornis made an exasperated noise. ‘Well, someone must make the decisions.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure about that, Master,’ Sands replied humbly in disagreement, ‘but she has underlings at the palace, yes, even if they are still building it. A whole grab-bag of them, and the man I spoke to called himself her chancellor. Roach-kinden fellow by the name of Sfayot, or something like that. A lot of them looked to be Roaches, at the palace. I reckon old Sfayot has invited his entire family in.’

  ‘We call them vermin in the Spiderlands,’ Teornis said disgustedly. ‘While here they call them chancellor. Great ladies preserve us! Well, will this Sfayot of yours at least spare me the time of day?’

  ‘He will meet with you in three days’ time,’ Sands said unhappily, expecting an outburst of anger.

  Instead, Teornis merely stared into the dregs of his wine. ‘Too long, that. We cannot know when Maker will make his sortie, and he has more influence here than I. We cannot let him get within the palace before us . . .’ He broke off as Varante suddenly dashed across the room to the window, drawing out his sword. A moment later the Dragonfly-kinden had squirmed outside, sliding out through the narrow opening with remarkable ease. They heard him on the roof seconds after, stalking about, but there was nothing more, no sounds of violence. Still, Teornis waited, holding up a hand for silence when Sands began to speak, until Varante reappeared the same way.

  ‘And?’ the Spider Aristos demanded.

  Varante shook his head, looking surly. ‘Nothing, my lord,’ was all he said, but his head was cocked on one side, still listening out for whatever had set him off.

  Teornis sighed. ‘Varante is a warrior,’ he explained for Sands’s benefit. ‘His people are loyal, skilled, reliable, but perhaps a little lacking in patience.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ Sands agreed vehemently. ‘One of the lads you sent with me to the palace got himself cut up on the way back.’ At Teornis’s frown he went on, ‘Some Commonwealer we ran into, and your man decided to start calling him names. They were out with those big swords before I knew it, and each cutting a chunk out of the other.’

  ‘Varante, explain,’ Teornis directed.

  The Dragonfly looked sullen. ‘It is a matter of honour between our peoples. We are of Solorn, one of the Seven Exiles, and we cannot stand by while those who betrayed our ancestors walk free.’

  Teornis put his hands to his forehead. Spider-kinden servants would not have these issues, but then they would not have been so free to act in Collegium, either, and Collegium saw few visitors from the Commonweal. This patchwork city had been named after a Commonwealer, though, and Teornis had already seen plenty of Varante’s northern kin out on the streets, curious visitors drawn by the name and reputation of Princep Salmae. When he had originally sent for Varante so long ago, to counter Maker’s Mantis-kinden, he had not expected their seven-centuries-old feuding to suddenly become relevant.

  ‘I should not need,’ he said stiffly, ‘to stress just how important this errand of ours is. I should not need to, because you are of my cadre, Varante, my servants, and therefore any order of mine is important enough to die for. I have relied on you, and I have placed my faith in your honour. Was I wrong?’

  There was a glowering pause before Varante replied, ‘No, lord.’

  ‘Then you will ensure your men keep to their place,’ Teornis instructed him, without an inch of concession in his voice. ‘More, we will move tonight. They can deny their palace and their Monarch to visitors all they like, but until they actually finish building the wretched place, it’s academic. We’re going in to take custody of the heir before Maker does.’

  ‘And Maker himself?’ Sands asked.

  ‘Will be slower, I hope.’ Teornis looked up at him. ‘Why do you ask, Sands?’

  ‘Let me kill him for you,’ Forman Sands offered.

  ‘You are ambitious.’

  ‘Master, I killed Beetle Assemblers for Helmess Broiler. They die just as readily as those that vote them in. It’s what I do, after all, so just give me the word and I’ll make sure Maker’s no longer in your way. You’ve seen this dive: there’s no law here. The folks of Princep will barely notice.’

  Teornis stared at him bleakly, ‘And, of course, Helmess Broiler will be delighted, should you then find yourself back in his service.’

  Sands shrugged. ‘Is it wrong if it serves him too?’

  Teornis closed his eyes. In repose, his face looked older and wearier, the face of a man who has slept too little, dared too much. When at last he looked on Sands again there was no pleasure in his expression, only a great measure of regret.

  ‘I will not give you the order,’ was all he said in the end, and Sands was left to shrug and back out of his presence.

  Down in the Wayhouse’s common room, Sands, too, procured a bottle of wine from the brothers and reflected. It was not any residual loyalty to Helmess Broiler that motivated him – or not chiefly. It would be useful to hold open the chance of his old employment – trusting a Spider-kinden was never entirely wise – but Sands now felt that it was a philosophical consideration that swayed him most. He had at first been keen to inveigle his way into Teornis’s service, for the prospect of learning the trade of the manipulator from one of life’s masters had been exciting, and he felt that he was becoming blunt in Helmess’s service. Everyone knew that Spiders were charming, erudite, ingenious, infinitely deceptive and utterly merciless. He had expected, even looked forward to, all of that. What he had not expected was sentiment.

  Kill Maker. It was that simple. Maker was a competitor and obstacle to Teornis’s ambitions, and therefore he should be removed. Sands could not understand what was staying the Spider’s hand. In Sands’s world, that curious world he had brewed for himself from academic philosophy and criminal brutality, there were the superior men, and there was the common swarm. The superior man recognized his own superiority, evidenced by his sophistication and his freedom of action – no chains of guilt or conscience, of ignorance or instinct, for him. The superior man was above the law, because the law was made to keep the swarm in place, not to check the aspirations of the few men able to master themselves. Stenwold Maker, in Sands’s view, was a man who had once had the potential to cross that barrier, but who had squandered his gifts on trying to improve the lot of his inferiors, which was like pouring water into the sands of the desert.

  Kill Maker. Sands stood up. Teornis would not give the order? But Teornis had not forbidden it, even so. If Sands came to him with Stenwold’s blood on his hands, he could be sure that the Spider would smile at the sight. And perhaps it’s a test, after all, for the superior man knows when to go beyond mere orders. The superior man sees what is necessary. He went to the door of the Wayhouse, stepped out into the street, hands instinctively checking on the hilts of his knives. He examined his knuckles, let the poisoned needles of his Spider-born art slide in and out. After all, he knew Maker, but Maker would not recognize him. It would be easy, therefore, to find a good moment to send the old man to his final rest, and thus satisfy Teornis and Helmess, and the harsh requirements of philosophy.

  When the Way Brothers had come here from Collegium to build their hostel, they had arrived with a Beetle-styled building in mind for themselves, which they would normally have built of stone. Stone was in short supply in Princep Salmae, however, so they had made do with wood, putting the whole thing up with beams and planking as best they could, but in the flat-roofed style of a Collegium inn. To keep the worst of the weather off the interior, they had constructed the Wayhouse with a space between the ceilings of the topmost rooms and the roof itself, an open-sided cavity only a foot in height where the moths roosted and the roaches crawled.

  It was a tiny, shadowed flatland of a wor
ld, but it was just large enough for an enterprising Fly-kinden to take refuge there and hear a great deal of what was said below him. Laszlo now lay spreadeagled in this confined space, Teornis’s last words to Forman Sands still ringing in his ears, ready now to make his way to the front of the building for a quick escape and an airborne return to alert Stenwold Maker. He had heard enough, and he had even been able to peek between the boards of the ceiling below him, to catch fragmented glimpses of Teornis’ face, and that of the Beetle-looking man he had called Sands.

  Laszlo hunched forward, and forward again, knees and elbows doing most of the work with a little sticking Art to give them purchase. He had almost suffered a heart attack when Teornis’s Dragonfly thug had burst out of the window below, surely after hearing an incautious movement of Laszlo’s. But the Dragonfly’s imagination was not a match for his senses, and he had soared straight up to the flat roof, to stalk about angrily immediately over Laszlo’s head, unable to locate his quarry.

  Laszlo shuffled to the front edge of the building, peering carefully out of the long, narrow gap between wall and shingles that had given him entrance to this hiding space in the first place. The first thing he saw was Sands himself standing at the front doorway below. The man – some kind of halfbreed, Laszlo guessed, but mostly Beetle in his looks – paused briefly, hands going through a brief ritual as casual as if he was adjusting his clothing. A Fly’s sharp eyes, though, saw the hilts of the weapons whose presence Sands found so reassuring. The man then strode off into the streets of Princep Salmae, and Laszlo had an uneasy feeling about his intentions, despite all that Teornis had said. His course could be set for a variety of destinations in the city, it was true, but surely Stenwold was in that quarter too.

  Laszlo bunched himself for a swift exit, knowing he would make better time through the air than the man walking the streets below him, and thus be able to warn Stenwold just in case. He reached for his Art, about to have his wings eject him from the dark space like a cork from a bottle, when the Dragonfly was abruptly before him, blotting Laszlo’s strip of light for a second before alighting on the roof again. Some movement, some shifting of balance on the Fly’s part, had been heard, and this time the man was obviously fighting mad, absolutely convinced that there was an eavesdropper, crossing back and forth about the roof, no doubt sword in hand ready to deal death to the intruder. Most often his pacing brought him to the very lip of the roof immediately above where Laszlo lay concealed.