The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “Hornets,” said Lzi.

  The Dead Man looked at her. The Gage might have also: it was hard to tell in a creature that did not need eyes to see and did not seem to turn his head except when he remembered to.

  “They’re called corpse-wasps,” Lzi said, feeling pedantic even as she embarked upon the explanation. “But taxonomically speaking, they are hornets. They form nests. Colonies.”

  The Dead Man leaned forward. “So we must expect a great many of these creatures?”

  She nodded.

  The Gage said, “But they’re probably not interested in humans unless you threaten their nest, right? They eat fruit or something?”

  “The adults eat fruit,” she agreed. “But…”

  The weight of their attention stopped her, then compelled her to continue.

  “…they do sting animals, including people, and carry them back to the nest for the larvae to feed on. That’s why they’re called corpse-wasps. Although, technically, they’re not feeding on corpses, at least not to start, because the prey animals are just…well, paralyzed.”

  “Oh, there’s your maggots,” the Gage said to the Dead Man.

  The Dead Man rocked back explosively. “You knew about these things?”

  “I know they exist,” Lzi said defensively. “I didn’t know there were any here. Anyway, if you separate the infertile workers from the hives, they become really docile.”

  She had a sense they were both staring at her though with the Gage it was hard to tell.

  “They make great pets.”

  “Pets,” the Dead Man said. “People use them like…watchdogs?”

  “Oh, no. They’re far too tame for that.”

  “Ysmat’s bright pen,” the Dead Man said, and closed his eyes above his veil.

  —

  They discussed waiting until nightfall, but Lzi pointed out that many insect species were more active at dusk and after dark, and the hornets could probably sense warmth anyway, so moving by daylight would actually afford them more protection.

  “Theoretically,” the Gage said.

  “Theory is what we have,” Lzi answered. “I think it’s unlikely, however, that they will be able to carry you off, Brass Man.”

  He chimed like a massive clock: his mechanical laughter. “That does not, however, solve the problem of how to get you two past them.”

  “Mud,” Lzi said, the excitement of an idea upon her. “And more zodia. The pillars of the palace look too close together for the wasps to fly or crawl through, so I think if we reach it, we should be mostly safe inside. But to get us there—”

  “Mud,” the Dead Man said.

  Lzi nodded. “And lots of it.”

  —

  The first half of their approach across the barren to the palace went, Lzi thought, surprisingly well. The green, heady scent of the zodia surrounded them densely, almost palpable on the air, making her light-headed. Their skin was invisible under a layer of pounded plant pulp and mud.

  The only problem was that the mud/leaf compound, which had stayed pliable in the moist shade under the leaves, began to dry and whiten almost immediately as they came out into the punishing sun. She thought they would be all right if they hurried, but the mud cracked and flaked off, and they had not thought to plaster the Gage. It might not be possible for the corpse-wasps to sting him or carry him off, but it seemed as if the sunlight dazzling from his brazen hide nevertheless attracted the giant insects.

  They had been walking, crouched down under camouflage improvised from handfuls of palm fronds she’d cut with her long knife, the saw-toothed-stem edges wrapped in torn cloth to protect their hands. The heavy thrumming heralded a shadow passing over: first one, then another, and another, until the crushed shells underfoot were darkened with blurry blotches. The corpse-wasps swirled down toward the Gage, who uttered what Lzi assumed was an ungentlemanly word in his own tongue and drew his ragged homespun robes and hood close about his featureless form.

  Lzi ducked. “I should have thought of that.”

  “So should I,” the Gage answered. A wasp as long as he was tall veered down, rumbling like a charging elephant, and clanged against his upstretched arm. Lzi stared for a moment. She thought of drawing her knife, then thought how laughable a blade merely as long as her forearm would be against something like that.

  Then, as a second shadow swelled around her, she found her feet and glanced over at the Dead Man, who beckoned with an outstretched hand, too polite to grab her elbow and drag her with him. His eyes were white-rimmed, and as she started toward him, bent almost double, he turned and fled beside her.

  She was getting the impression that he held no real love for bugs.

  Another clang and a heavy, squashing thud followed them. Lzi stumbled while trying to look back and this time the Dead Man did touch her shoulder. “He’ll be fine.”

  She had to trust him. Side by side, they ran toward the completely theoretical safety of the palace.

  —

  They were doing all right until they tripped over the corpse. It was just inside the pillars, where the shadow of the roof made it nearly impossible to see through the glare of the sun without. In retrospect, Lzi realized that she’d smelled it before she found it, but between the stench of the tomb, that of the festering mud, and the reek of the zodia her memory hadn’t automatically supplied the information that this particular terrible odor belonged to some sort of large and very dead thing.

  The body had probably been that of a man, but it was bloated with stings now, the skin stretched and crackling with the products of decomposition. Lzi was startled to see that no maggots writhed through its flesh: surely the smell should have attracted every blowfly on the island by now.

  Lzi hadn’t fallen, but she’d sprawled against a pillar in the second rank and her palm fronds had gone everywhere. She turned back, the breath knocked out of her, looking for the Dead Man. She wheezed in horror, her spasming lungs unable to shriek a warning, as the corpse lurched and twitched and began to push itself upright behind him.

  Fortunately, Lzi’s wits, even scattered, were sufficient. With her right hand, she fumbled for her blade and shook it free of the sheath, which fell at her feet. She’d worry about that if she lived. Her bruised and scraped left hand, she raised, waving it frantically to get the Dead Man’s attention and pointing past his shoulder.

  He had good reflexes, and must have decided she was worthy of at least some trust. He ducked even as he turned, and the corpse’s clumsy, club-handed swipe whistled over his head and thudded against the pillar with a noisome splatter.

  “He isn’t dead!” the Dead Man yelped.

  “Oh, he’s dead all right,” Lzi answered. “And mercifully, too.” She could see what the Dead Man could not. The corpse’s spine had been eaten away, and beneath the shredding skin pulsated the translucent segments of a great larva.

  She hoped he was dead, anyway. Hoped with all the force of her rising gorge even though thick blood welling slowly from some of the fresh tears in the necrotic flesh seemed to give the lie to her desire.

  Even as Lzi recoiled, the innate curiosity that had led her to natural philosophy made her focus her attention on the grub. It had a glossy black head like polished obsidian, and Lzi could see the pincery mouth parts embedded in the base of the dead man’s skull. The visible part of each was long as her finger, and the gentleness of the taper suggested that they continued for some distance more within the base of the brain. Segmented legs were visible here and there, grasping deep within the festering body.

  The larva contracted along its length, a sick, rippling pulse. The corpse convulsed, whirling toward Lzi now in its staggering, seizing dance. The foul arms windmilled and she glimpsed, with ever-increasing horror, that the eyes within the slipping skin were clear, not clouded and dead.

  Storm dragons cleanse it with thunder, she thought, and lunged out of the way. She swung with the knife, but the floor under a layer of plant detritus was mosaic, and what had once been
smooth was now heaved by roots. Chunks of stone littered it from the collapsing roof. They snagged her feet and slammed her toes so sharp pain shot up her legs. She wasn’t sure how she kept her feet, then she wasn’t sure how she had lost them. She twisted, falling, and landed on her ass, looking up at the deliquescing face of the horror that pursued her.

  The thing staggered like a drunk, dragging one leg and stomping wildly with the other, swaying and wavering. She stuck her long knife out like a ward. Over the blade, she saw the Dead Man raise his right hand. Something glinted bright against the blue of his veil, followed by a stone-cracking retort and the cleansing reek of black powder. The parasite jerked with the impact and collapsed unceremoniously across Lzi’s lower legs, twitching faintly.

  Lzi screamed through clenched teeth, in disgust as much as pain, and yanked her ankles clear. She huddled, panting, while the Dead Man swiftly reloaded his gun. A shadow fell over her and she looked up, pulse accelerating.

  It was the Gage, his robe and brass carapace streaked with fluids of two or three colors. Ichor, she judged, and probably venom. He was wiping his big metal gauntlet-hands on the robe, leaving unidentifiable streaks. Then he bent and picked up her soft leather scabbard from where it had fallen among the litter.

  “Well,” he said, offering a cleaner gauntlet to Lzi, “that seems to have got their attention. Get up. There’s a flight headed this way and they might be able to squeeze through the pillars.”

  “Or,” said the Dead Man, without holstering his pistol, “there might be more of those.” He gestured at the thing on the ground, which still quivered faintly. “There were four sets of footprints.”

  Lzi pulled herself up with the Gage’s help, bruises stiffening. She stowed her knife. Then she bent down and with both hands hefted a sizeable chunk of rubble, one that made her grunt to lift. She thought of the brown, clear eyes in the parasitized thing’s melting face.

  She lifted the rock to chest height, and threw it toward the ground. It struck the host’s skull with a terrible sound and the quivering stopped.

  “Now we can go.”

  —

  The droning buzz of the corpse-wasps grew heavier, more layered, until Lzi felt the vibrations in the hollowness that had been her chest. She imagined she could watch the tremors shimmer across the Gage’s surface. If she looked back, she could see that the light was dimming not simply because they picked their way deeper into the palace complex, but also because the bodies of enormous wasps layered one over another blocked the white glare of the sun. The insects had a smell, in such quantities: musty, like dry leaves. But not so clean.

  None of the travelers asked how they would be able to leave the palace now that they had won entrance to it, but Lzi was thinking about it. Maybe they could wait until it rained. A soaking thunderstorm was never far, in the Banner Islands, where the dragons roamed the Sea of Storms. Flying insects took shelter in rough weather, lest they be blown out to sea.

  She hoped that applied to insects eight feet long.

  There was light ahead and they made for it. The Dead Man’s teeth chattered behind his veil, but his gun hand was steady. He held a scimitar drawn in his off-hand, and that seemed steady too. The Gage moved with surprising delicacy between the columns, though his carelessness could probably have knocked the whole moldering palace down.

  They came to an open space, unroofed, where the drone of the swarm was pronounced but distant, rising and falling like the mechanical noise of cicadas. Litter-filled ornate fountains and statuary bore witness that this had been a formal courtyard. A gigantic tree rumpled the surrounding paving stones and clutched benches it must once have shaded in gnarled roots, as if at any moment it might heave itself free of the earth and come forward, swinging them as weapons. Beyond, a tall building was surrounded by the litter of its own crumbling verandas. Like the pillars, it was shaded from black through white to red. It had once had glass windows, a profound luxury for the era and the place when it was built, and a few unbroken panes still gleamed.

  “Can we cross that?” the Gage asked, stopping within the shelter of the penultimate rank of pillars.

  “We must,” the Dead Man answered, with a glance at Lzi. She was the employer, she remembered. She could call this off right now.

  But her life was service. And besides, they could not go back.

  “We must,” Lzi agreed. And was looking about her for a plan, or at least a cluster of zodia plants, when the painted door up the steps behind the wreckage of the veranda opened, and a woman dressed in a white skirt and twining sandals, her long hair braided back as thick as Lzi’s wrist, stood framed against interior darkness.

  Lzi touched the hilt of her long knife. “Well, don’t just stand there,” the woman said. “It’s safe to cross the open space right now as long as you move quickly. I spent a long time studying the corpse-wasps. I know a great deal about parasites.”

  —

  The darkness inside the doorway, once they had scrambled over the rubble of the wrecked courtyard and climbed gingerly up the steps—which settled under the Gage’s weight but did not crack—was less absolute than Lzi had anticipated. It was only the contrast with the glare of the direct sun that had made it seem pitch-black behind the woman. In reality, the interior of the palace was comfortably dim and cool.

  And the interior of the palace was in much better repair than the courtyard or the pillared colonnade.

  Ropes of necklaces and heavy bangles shifted and shone as she closed the door behind them, the gold rich against her brown skin. She was tanned—Lzi could see the paler brown behind the waistband of her skirt—but there were no tan lines behind the jewelry. There were wooden amulets sewn into the wrap cloth, though, and those looked long established, with frayed threads and bits of mud in the fine lines of the designs.

  “The Emperor is waiting for you. I am the Lady Ptashne, his Voice.” She spoke with awkward dignity, worn like those unaccustomed jewels, and gestured them to follow her.

  The woman’s feet and ankles were dirty under the sandals, as if she had walked through soupy mud then shod herself without being able to first clean her feet. Lzi saw the Dead Man gazing at them speculatively over his veil, and she knew he was comparing their size to the footprints beside the canoe. She was about to ask how a Voice came to be so presently arrived in a deserted kingdom, but words interrupted her.

  Someone spoke…her name.

  She glanced around. There was no one present except the Gage, the Dead Man, and this Ptashne. They were in an entrance hall of crumbling grandeur, hung with silk brocade so brittle it was shredding under its own weight and stacked with furniture coated in layers of dust. The walls were pale coral in shades of pink and white. They had once been hung with tapestries, but the tapestries had broken their threads and fallen from their rings. No one could be hiding behind them.

  And the voice that said her name again was like a rustle of wasp wings in her mind. :Doctor Lady Lzi. Have you too come to disturb my rest, Granddaughter?:

  She blinked with shock, and though the floors here were smooth, she stumbled so the Gage had to steady her elbow. She saw the Lady Ptashne glance over her shoulder speculatively and frown. Lzi kept her face carefully blank. Experimentally, she thought, King Fire Mountain Dynasty?

  :You serve the new King.:

  How is it that you are speaking to me, your majesty? I am not your descendant.

  :Are you sure?: She could sense his amusement. :Descent through a mother’s line is often forgotten. And what person can say for certain who is his father? You have enough of my blood in you for the palace to awaken to your steps.:

  Lzi considered that for a moment. She allowed herself to drift to the end of the group trailing Lady Ptashne, where Lzi could just follow the shoulders in front of her and not concern herself too much with what her features showed.

  Who was the man with the wasp inside him?

  :Lady Ptashne’s companion. One of them. There are two others. I think one was her husband.:


  Do you control the wasps? Did you do…that…to him?

  :The wasps are my guardians, but I do not control them. Long ago, I did bind their ancestors to this place. He and the others trespassed and the wasps defended me.: He sounded matter-of-fact.

  If he was Lady Ptashne’s companion, how did he come to trespass?

  :She was yet Ptashne,: the old King said. :But not yet Lady when it happened. She brought the men with her as a sacrifice, and she has some little talismans that give her certain powers. Will you be my Voice, Granddaughter?:

  So the Lady Ptashne was, as the canoe had suggested, a recent addition to the royal household. How had she come to pass unscathed through the corpse-wasps, Lzi wondered, apparently alone of her party of four? And why did she seem so calm, despite the deaths?

  I spent a long time studying the corpse-wasps. I know a great deal about parasites.

  Lzi said—or thought, hard and clearly—You have a Voice.

  :So I do,: the dead King answered. :One Voice. After a fashion. Is it not better to have a choice, than to have no choices?:

  But…you have a Voice. Already.

  :And you have one, too. Do you speak out with it in your own words? Or do you silence it except when commanded to its use by another?:

  It was the same question he had asked before, which she had dodged, but more provocatively phrased this time. Was the dead King needling her? Trying to get her to rise to the bait?

  What if I don’t have anything to say?

  The undead King did not answer. She wondered if she needed to intend to speak to him for him to hear her, or if he were politely ignoring her own interior monologue.

  I serve King Pale Empire, she said. But he does not own my voice.

  :That is good to hear, Granddaughter. Ah, you are nearly to the presence chamber. Do not allow Lady Ptashne to know that you can speak to me, Doctor Lady Lzi. Not yet. It would be…unwise.:

  Well, that painted Lzi with a wash of unease.

  Ahead, Lady Ptashne had stopped before an ironbound door. It seemed recently maintained, and there were fresh scratches around the keyhole, which was sized to admit an enormous old-fashioned key. Ptashne lifted just such a key from inside her skirt pocket. A ribbon connected it to the material of her garment: it had been sewn into place with hasty stitches and thread that did not match.