War Master's Gate

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  There was not a sound save for their breathing, until Vrant finally said, ‘So where are they? Are they here?’ He had an open palm out, threatening the darkness.

  Sterro had crept forwards towards the lit entrance. ‘Someone lit the fire. Place isn’t abandoned.’

  ‘Maybe it was someone like us. Doesn’t have to be locals,’ Vrant opined, ‘Hey, perhaps it’s people from the other crash come to borrow our balloon, eh?’

  Nobody seemed to think that was funny.

  Sterro was at the entrance to the hut, the firelight reflecting on his pale features and making something corpselike of them. ‘Reckon it was locals all the same, though,’ he muttered, and Vrant went over to argue with him.

  Inside, the fire revealed itself as embers in a bronze bowl, the wood there more than half ash, with a faint scent of herbs or incense on the air. At the hut’s back wall, where it meshed itself with the gnarled trunk of a tree, there was a thing. It was hunched and crooked, an abstract sculpture in wood, piece upon piece tied and pegged in place to give it form, and all of it porous with rot, gnawed at by beetles and holed by their young. The sight of it sent a shudder through Vrant’s innards, disproportionate to any concrete property of the icon. Even when he realized that the two branches were in fact crooked arms, that it was a representation of the Mantis-kinden’s own totem, it was still instinctively disturbing in a way he could not account for.

  ‘Lovely,’ was his considered opinion. ‘Let’s not wait until they get back.’ He turned from Sterro to see Corver plainly keeping his distance, his face legible enough in the firelight that Vrant could have read the man’s whole haunted history there had he cared to. ‘Sir?’ he prompted.

  The sergeant snapped back to them visibly. ‘We move on,’ he agreed.

  ‘Sir, the place is empty. Couldn’t we wait for morning?’ Sterro pressed, although he was probably more motivated by the weight of gold he was dragging about than any actual strategy.

  Corver’s face froze for just a moment, his mind catching up with his senses.

  ‘Swords!’ he shouted.

  They were surrounded. Vrant had the right of it after all. The Mantis-kinden had never left.

  And yet some part of Corver’s mind was insistent: They were gone. The village had been abandoned, save for this one fire. The very huts themselves were ragged and piecemeal, eaten away by neglect!

  It was too dark to see them clearly, but he could sense them, all around, Vrant had gone almost back to back with him, Sandric to their flank. Sterro was crouching at the hut’s edge, caught in the firelight and yet trying to be unseen.

  Corver’s eyes raked the darkness. Hidden as they were, lost in the night and in their Art, he sensed them still. They stood before each hut, between the trees, tall and proud and armed, regarding the trespassers in their midst. Slowly they let him see them: their ornate carapace mail, crafted with centuries of skill into elegant flutes and crests; their slender blades, the spines of their arms; their haughty, autocratic features like the ghosts of kings.

  ‘Come on,’ he murmured, sensing the other two Wasps shifting their footing, readying themselves for the rush that must surely come. They were growing more and more tense, and he could hear Sterro’s whimpering breath, the Fly a moment from bolting for some mythical safe place away from here.

  Still the Mantis-kinden stood there, in all their antique grandeur – no tension there, but some feeling between them that Corver had no name for – some ineffable melancholy that had been lost to the rest of the world before the birth of the Empire.

  ‘Come on,’ he said again, but they were not coming. These four specimens of the new were too trivial to hold their interest. They were fading away between the trees – not turning, but simply evading his sight, falling back into history.

  ‘Did you see that?’ asked Corver eventually, when not a single Mantis remained in his sight.

  Vrant let himself relax only very slowly. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see a cursed thing.’

  In the end they pushed on for another fumbling, tripping, blind half-hour before Corver at last consented to let them stop. Then they rested for a few miserable hours, spending more time keeping watch than sleeping. By that time the leaden light creeping into the forest suggested morning, and Corver ordered the march. He himself had barely slept at all, staring into the darkness with Sandric whilst the other two dozed fitfully.

  By mid-morning they came across the other crash-site.

  Sandric gave out a whoop of triumph and began bounding through the trees towards it, with Sterro on his heels. Corver brought up the rear with Vrant, considerably more cautious. Ahead, in the clearing it had gouged for itself, was the gondola of an airship a little smaller than their own. It had obviously been strongly made, for the bulk of its structure was still intact whilst the trees it had come down on had given way. Its sloping deck was greened with moss, and vines had clutched their way up its curved side to colonize the railings. The keel was buried entirely, invisible beneath accumulated soil and leaf litter.

  ‘This . . . can’t be the right one,’ Vrant said slowly.

  Corver nodded, and doubled his pace, reaching the gondola’s near rail as Sandric was about to try the deck’s central hatch.

  ‘You say you saw this come down?’ he demanded.

  The pilot opened his mouth to answer in the affirmative, and then glanced about him. A flicker of doubt crossed his face. ‘Must have been . . . another crash . . .?’ he started.

  ‘Another crash?’ Corver echoed.

  ‘What, and we got right to it with that compass?’ Vrant demanded. The big man was jumpy, sword out again, starting out into the trees.

  ‘The balloon’s long gone, anyway,’ Corver noted.

  ‘This is a Collegiate design,’ Sandric told him. ‘The Beetle-kinden are a practical lot. Probably they had a spare. Help me with the hatch, sir.’

  Corver signed and hauled himself up and over the rail with some difficulty to join Sandric in prising the hatch open. Inside was far darker than the night had been. The morning sun illuminated a jumbled, decaying rubble of wood, earth and a shocking flourish of fungus, showing that the hull’s underside had mostly disintegrated. Rotting, like the idol, thought Corver, before he could stop himself.

  They had not thought about making their own light overnight for fear of drawing the ire of the forest, but now Corver was cursing himself for not bringing a lantern from their airship. Still, they had one superior pair of eyes amongst them. ‘Sterro, get down there.’

  ‘Me?’ the Fly-kinden demanded.

  ‘You. Get in there and look for a light, or if there’s no light just see what you can see.’

  ‘I’m not going in there.’

  Corver practically shoved the palm of his hand in the little man’s face. ‘You’ll obey orders.’

  Sterro’s lips drew back from his teeth in a furious grimace, but at the end he did not dare brave the sergeant’s temper. With a single backward glance, full of rage and fear, he ducked into the hatchway.

  I will have him kicked down to common soldier, Sterro told himself grimly. I will have him flogged. I will have him on crossed pikes. Oh, not now, certainly. Sterro’s current capacity for revenge upon Sergeant Corver was limited to wishing him the plague. Once they got back to camp, though . . .

  He held on to that once.

  He had never been a big noise himself, Sterro – using others and being used in turn, that was how the wheels of the Consortium were greased. Patronage and nepotism all the way, hence Sterro had found himself attached to an odious creature like the late Captain Ordan. There had been drawbacks – namely virtually every aspect of the aforementioned deceased – but the good captain had been a man assured of his command of his underlings – namely Sterro – and that confidence had overlooked a great deal of embezzlement over the years. Sterro had enough money stowed in safe places to ensure that Sergeant Corver led a very miserable life for years to come. In fact he had enough money right now on his pe
rson for that – but until he could get anywhere civilized enough to spend it, he had no choice but to suffer Corver’s abrasive and temperamental leadership.

  He clung to the underside of the deck, wings stirring slightly for balance and the weight of his coat dragging at him, letting his eyes accustom themselves and leach every last speck of light from the near-darkness. It looked as though this doomed ship had been more compartmentalized than their own – at least one cabin fore and one aft as well as the compact chamber he had crawled into. The surface beneath him – which given the tilt of the room meant part of the floor and part of one curved wall – was a mess of rotten wood, earth and sprouting mushrooms, the forest working diligently to conquer the work of man from beneath. This sure as orders isn’t whatever ship Sandric saw.

  He reached into his coat, located one pocket by touch and pulled out his steel lighter, flicking at its wheel until the fuel caught, with a small but steady flame that gave his eyes quite enough to work with. This chamber appeared to be picked clean, certainly, and he descended with a shimmer of wings, touching down and heading aft.

  Unlike their own, this craft had not slammed down stern-first, and the rear compartment seemed mostly intact. There was the rusting hulk of an engine here, cogs forever seized, and what might have been a galley, stove and all. There were compartments tucked up near the ceiling, some open, others closed, looking as though they belonged to the engineers’ mystery, rather than anywhere someone might stow valuables. Leave that for others to mess with. He padded back into the central room and headed forwards.

  There were smaller rooms forwards, cabins probably, all being reclaimed by the earth like the rest. Whoever had crashed here appeared to have made themselves scarce and taken the best of their loot with them, Sterro considered, or else the Mantids had come and carried off crew and goods.

  He ducked into the narrow triangular room at the bows, one hand holding the flame up, the other reaching about the bulkhead, and his hand fell on something soft and furry that moved slightly at his touch. For a moment his mind was full of a bizarrely atavistic loathing at what he might have disturbed, some sense of an impossible creature from another time lurking here in wait for him. After his instant recoil he thrust the flame forwards, and was vastly relieved to see nothing but a huge tarantula carpeting one wall, no doubt intending to rest out the daylight here. It was most of his own size, but he knew the type well – placid, retiring and preferring far smaller prey even than he. Satisfied, he found a stick and prodded the unfortunate arachnid until, after raising its legs and showing its fangs a few times, it gave up and crept off to hole up in another cabin. Sterro wouldn’t have bothered it even that much, save that beyond its furry bulk he had seen a little casket.

  He shoved the box to one side, out of sight of the door, and then let his wings carry him back to the central compartment and out into the open air to make his report.

  The Wasps conferred, and then Vrant went over to the rear of the deck and started stamping enthusiastically on the softened wood until he had made a scatter of rough-edged holes. Then, skylights installed, there was a general Imperial expedition to the ship’s aft compartment to check out the lockers.

  Sterro, overlooked once more, went off for the casket.

  It was locked, but another pocket disgorged his picks and a tiny flask of oil, for the skill was surprisingly well known amongst Consortium factors. In just over a minute he had the tumblers lined up – thanking the good Collegium steel for being proof against rust. What have we here then, eh? Some Beetle airman’s retirement fund, maybe? The fact that his pockets were already stuffed with gold was not lost on him, but there was always the chance that the Empire might confiscate that, whilst the contents of the chest were surely his by right.

  His disappointment, when the bulk of the chest’s weight turned out to be the chest’s own sturdy construction, was keen-edged. Inside there were a handful of coins – Helleron mint, and of trivial value – and a scroll that the damp had just started to make inroads into. He almost abandoned it without reading, but the thought of returning to the Wasps’ company was sufficiently unpleasant to him that he carried the document out into the beam of sunlight in the central hold and spread it out.

  Autumn 34th Day, he read, set down in regular, careful handwriting.

  So, new life, new journal. I am putting ‘Kernels of Truth in Pathaian Folklore and Language Use’ behind me. Perhaps, when I return from this voyage with something unarguable then I’ll re-title it and represent it, and nobody will know any better. For now, I am a new woman, and my life is a new life, and I have a new project.

  Sterro almost gave up then. How pissing jolly for you, he thought. Only the fact that his current environment showed that the writer had come to a nasty end kept him reading.

  I am somewhat late commencing this journal as we set off a day ago. However, I am now starting my record, like a good scholar. So, let it be known that I have, with the last of my funds, chartered the Plain Sailing to travel to Etheryon and make a study of certain archaeological sites there, assuming the locals will permit us. I have certain more desperate plans in mind if they do not, but I understand from my Sarnesh colleagues that the Mantids of Etheryon are relatively hospitable, for their kind, and I have high hopes for the success of our voyage.

  I should say that the Plain Sailing is a compact little vessel, barely sufficient to fit my few belongings and myself. She has a crew of two: Master Magnus Patcher is the owner and helmsman, or pilot, or whatever the correct term is, whilst Solamon is the engineer. He is from Kes, and I suspect he is a renegade, but the topic is not one I feel prepared to bring up, so I will have to let my curiosity rest. I am invited tonight to Master Patcher’s cabin to dine, although I expect the room will be sufficiently small that we will end up touching elbows as we eat. The food here is also not enthralling, being whatever Solamon cooks up over the burner, with a heavy emphasis on flatbread.

  Autumn 38th Day

  We were going to stop at Sarn, but Master Patcher has decided to go straight to the edge of the forest Etheryon for, as he says, various reasons of his own. I’d have thought it might be Solamon, had not Patcher’s tone suggested some prior incident in his own life. The man is a bit of a rogue, I believe. He is also remarkably forward, and I rather feel that I shall end up spending valuable research time fending off his advances.

  I am becoming more and more excited about the prospect of viewing Argax, or what remains of it. After talking to Master Patcher about the Etheryen I realized that the Mantis-kinden may still dwell there, or may have moved to dwell there, which will complicate matters, and may have obscured much of the original material. However, Mantis-kinden are noted for being protective of the past, and for not building much in stone, and my accounts insist that Argax, whether it is described as a town or a hold or a hall, was of stone and wood, and I hope to find at least the original stonework intact. The description in Tenrathaea is very vivid, although no doubt the infamous Walk of Statues has long gone, let alone the Cold Gates. One must allow for Inapt poetic licence. Perhaps I will find nothing, but even then I can hope that the locals have preserved some manner of oral history, as I have found so many of the Inapt races do so skilfully. If I can return to the College with a collection of hitherto-unheard Mantis-kinden ballads and sagas it will go some way to repairing the damage. From the accounts given in Tenrathaea and in the Prados coda I cannot believe that they do not still sing of Argastos.

  Sterro shivered, and lifted his eyes from the paper. He had never come across the name before, though he would guess it to attach to a Moth-kinden, from its form – and hadn’t it been the Moths who used to lord it over the Mantis-kinden in these parts, way back when? Still, something about the name, even seeing it there in the workaday writing of some Beetle academic, sent a chill through him. He shrugged off the feeling, though, and returned to his reading.

  Autumn 46th Day

  The Etheryen are not cooperating, but it is the manner of their lack o
f cooperation that is remarkable. We are moored at the forest’s edge, at a Sarnesh logging camp, and today a delegation of the Mantids came to speak to us. I explained to them who I was, and that I was an authority on pre-Revolution mythways (I put it in a manner more palatable to their pride, though!) and that I wished passage to Argax in order to study its ruins. No sooner had the name come from my lips than the entire Mantis party, some eight or so men and women, were on their feet and backing away, staring at me. Being as they were Mantids, everyone thought we were in for a fight, and half the Sarnesh nearby were suddenly making space and reaching for weapons. When it became clear that nobody was going to attack anybody, I asked them again. Their reply was ‘We do not go to Argax,’ and ‘Nobody goes to Argax.’ I couldn’t believe it. Here we were, centuries after, and the legend of Argastos is still going. There is a part of the forest Etheryon where the locals apparently don’t go – or at least don’t go there casually – because of the reputation of a man who was dust before the revolution. And – note – whatever remains of Argax must be undisturbed, untouched and unseen, or at any rate treated with a great deal of respect. I knew then and there that I had to see it, with or without the natives. Tenrathaea gives a good enough idea of where the hall was, with reference to other forest landmarks, and I have some hope we may even be able to spot the place from the air. Of course, I then had to convince Sol and Master Patcher, particularly Patcher. He wasn’t keen, notably because he thought the Etheryen wouldn’t like it, and might just kill us out of hand for flouting their superstitions. However, with sufficient application of wine I had him mocking the unsophisticated forest-dwellers, and swearing that he’d take me wherever I wanted to go. I did make certain promises against the department bursary, which I hope I will be able to sort out when the time comes. Still, if I find what I hope, then funding should not be an issue.