‘Real ghosts?’
The woman started at finding Che before her in the flesh. ‘This place is clogged with ghosts,’ she remarked quietly. ‘Argastos did not come here alone when he was imprisoned here, and he has gained plenty of company since, I think.’
‘We need to find the others.’
Maure nodded, ‘I’ve been trying to-’
But Che held a hand up to cut her off.
There was a new voice.
Cheerwell Maker.
Che froze, knowing immediately who had spoken, and that knowledge sent a sudden stab of fear through her — far more than Argastos’s voice might have done. Immediately she was raising defences, filling her mind with thought of armour and shield, walls, fortifications. In that moment, the encroaching dark of this subterranean domain was nothing compared to her fear of her rival, her jagged memories of the last time.
And at last, she replied, Seda.
She sensed a hint of amusement at all her preparations. Well, sister, how very far you have come from the little girl you once were. You have grown into your power. I’ll not catch you unawares again. Possibly there was a trace of respect there, or Seda might be trying to inveigle her way through Che’s defences by instilling some false confidence.
What do you want, Seda? Che demanded. Using the woman’s given name represented a calculated insult. Under no circumstances would she use the title ‘Empress’ and, of course, to show someone that you held their name was to have a hook in them from the start.
You have spoken with Argastos, of course?
‘Any sign of the others?’ Che murmured sidelong to Maure, and thought, So?
Even as Maure answered in the negative, Che heard Seda sigh. We will fight, you and I, over his power. We are opposites, and I will destroy you if I can, just as you would destroy me. We are two people standing in the same place, and neither of us can tolerate that. This rivalry is the last joke of the Masters of Khanaphes. But, for now, Argastos’s power is firmly bound within Argastos himself, and he has brought us both here for his own purposes.
I came here only to stop you, Che growled at her.
Tell yourself that if you wish, but I know the truth. If you had discovered Argastos first, then it would be I chasing at your heels to keep him from you. We are sisters, you and I. We are not so different. You feel the pull of power just as I do.
Che’s instant response died within her mind, leaving her wondering if Seda was right after all. And surely she would have justified it to herself, how she needed his strength to hold off Seda later on, or to deal with some other threat. . or just because if was safer in her hands than any other’s. .
What do you want? Che repeated.
A truce, for now, until Argastos has played his hand. We are stronger than he is, but not if we fight each other. Let us recommence our feud over his body.
You’re supposing that I want to fight him, Che shot back, but the disdain with which that remark was greeted was withering.
Do you honestly think he means you any good? Seda demanded. Or either of us?
Well, no doubt he’ll tell us soon enough, Che snapped irritably, then calmed herself, feeling her defences grow shakier as she gave in to anger. But, for now, you want a truce?
Until Argastos’s intentions become clear, I will harm neither you nor your companions.
Maure tugged at her sleeve, demanding to know what was going on, and Che explained in as few words as possible.
‘What do you think?’
The necromancer frowned. ‘All I know is that this is just the sort of place that gives my profession a bad name. Moth magic is bad enough most of the time, with all that Path of Shadows business, and Mantis magic is all about death, and this place reeks of both of them in the worst possible way. Whatever is left of the man that was, whatever Argastos has become, it can’t intend any good to us — or to anyone. And I get the impression that the original man himself wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue.’
‘He was a hero,’ Che responded automatically, and then stopped, surprised at herself.
‘He saw himself as a hero,’ Maure corrected her carefully. ‘So do many others, who do the most appalling things. By believing yourself a hero, all your actions become heroic, no matter what they are.’
Che closed her eyes again, feeling exactly the opposite — that no course of action open to her now was in any way desirable. Very well, let us have our truce, Seda, whilst privately adding, but I’m not lowering my defences or trusting you an inch.
Good. The response was brisk and pragmatic. As a token of goodwill, I have located your companions.
Che froze, fighting down the whirl of thoughts that statement prompted.
They are unharmed, although I need your help with the halfbreed girl.
And. . Thalric? It had been Che’s terrible fear that Thalric might simply be gone, his Aptitude untraceable in this maze of the Inapt.
Here with me, Seda informed her, with a proprietorial air that made Che bristle.
Let me see him. Let me see you.
Again that arch amusement: Very well. And abruptly Che found the path between them laid out plainly, skirting all of Argastos’s tricks and sleights of hand.
The landscape around them remained uncertain of precisely what it was supposed to be, from blurred impressions of forest to caverns to occasional suggestions of the metal-walled maze, but Che found she could ignore it, simple force of will driving it away from her. Maure walked almost in her shadow, one hand resting on her shoulder.
And, in so few steps, she found herself face to face with Seda.
In her mind the Empress of the Wasps had become a monster, ten feet tall and dripping with blood, inhuman and ravening, evil written in every feature of her. It was hard, then, to remember that here was the outward truth: this slender Wasp girl, younger even than Che, with her pale skin and golden hair. The power that stirred within her was the sibling to Che’s own and, when they met there — their first physical meeting, and in such a place — the world around them seemed to shudder for a moment, as at the tolling of a huge but silent bell.
Che heard Maure’s sucked-in breath, and she wondered if, all over the Lowlands, magicians were twitching awake with a start, or crying out in their dreams. But surely we are not so important, she and I? How much does the mark of Khanaphes count for?
‘Che!’
Then Thalric was there, coming close but stopping out of reach, his eyes flicking between Che and Seda. And Che began to go to him, to throw her arms about him for the simple joy of seeing him alive, but there was an abrupt crackling sense of chill from Seda, and she held back.
But of course. She had forgotten that Thalric had been Seda’s once. Che had pushed that knowledge right out of her mind. It hurt a great deal, she discovered, to be reminded.
And if I press matters now. . if I call Thalric and demand that he comes to me? Then, she guessed, her truce with Seda might be broken sooner than either of them was ready for, because she could sense it there — the tie between the Empress and her former consort — not a bond of love, she told herself, but one of presumed ownership.
‘Where is Tynisa?’ she asked, because she had to say something to kill the tension. Her eyes sought Thalric’s and found his gaze evasive. What were they doing together, before I arrived? How long. .? She repressed the thought.
‘With Tisamon,’ Seda declared.
Che’s stomach lurched. ‘Then-’
‘Yes. And I can stop him, but not her. Between us we must separate them. We may need them against Argastos and his minions.’
Tynisa fought, and the fight had no beginning and no end.
She fought in the sewers beneath Myna. She fought in the Prowess Forum of Collegium. She fought in the Commonweal. She fought in the forest of the Nethyen. One fight spread over the years, as she tried to escape from the shadow of her father.
He was faster than her, but not by so much as he once had been. Death had dulled him a little, whilst her life
had only sharpened her. She had learned new tricks that he had not taught her: every fight that she had entered into since his death had honed her, whilst he had remained the same broken thing he had always been.
In this dim no-place they dodged and cut, rapier against claw, a constant negotiation of reach and distance. She danced with him, Weaponsmaster to Weaponsmaster. Part of her mind was roiling with the need to destroy him, for the abomination he was; to strike down the insult to the man he had been, but there was more than that. No matter what he had become, what manner of revenant the Empress had raised from his memory, her blade and the mystery of her order knew that the fight itself was pure. This was the fight her life had been leading up to — and the fact that she and Tisamon had been allies, before the man’s death, had been only a temporary diversion.
No matter that she hated what he was, part of her exulted in fighting him again at last.
And sometimes he struck the death blow, and sometimes, less frequently, she did, but those strikes never landed, and they found themselves apart again, blade-tip to blade-tip. . and then began again. Over and over, they began.
How long they had been fighting, Tynisa could not know. She was living in the eternal present, moment by moment ticking by and yet the clock standing still.
When something changed, and when the voice came, she resisted hearing it, so perfect was this instant she was living in. She stepped through her paces, her rapier a blur as it fended off Tisamon’s strikes and made its own inroads into his defence. But, at last, the demands became too insistent to ignore.
Tynisa! Che’s voice was an unwelcome reminder that there was more to life than this.
Stop this! You have to stop fighting!
The concept seemed utterly alien to her, and she shrugged it off, but Che was insistent.
Tynisa, Seda is going to rein in Tisamon, but only if you yourself stop. This is pointless. We have more important problems right now.
For a moment, Tynisa lost her rhythm, and a scything sweep of Tisamon’s claw nearly killed her, but she ceded three paces and repaired her defence.
Tynisa-
Go away, Che. And Tynisa applied herself utterly to the duel.
She sensed her foster-sister’s abrupt frustration with her, which might once have been a source only of amusement, but now there was a great power building behind it, a wave of influence that increased and increased until all that Tynisa represented, her badge, her sword, her whole being, was tiny in comparison.
‘No!’ she cried out, and heard, I’m sorry, in reply. And then the great fist of Che’s strength descended and clasped itself about her, locking her rigid, every limb frozen.
She had a moment of staring into Tisamon’s helm, that dark, half-seen face that was so familiar, and she tried to brace herself for the death strike. . but she could not even do that.
Then he had frozen as well, his blade already halfway towards her, and a moment later they were not alone: Che, Thalric, Maure. . and there too was Seda, whom Tynisa had seen in Capitas only the once, on the day that her father had died.
The grip left her, and she dropped to her knees with a curse.
‘I’m sorry,’ Che repeated, as Tisamon stalked stiffly over to Seda’s side.
Tynisa glowered up at Che. ‘If you ever do that to me again, I swear. .’ But she was not sure what she could swear to, considering the sheer strength of the girl, the utter reversal of their roles. For the first time in her life, Tynisa suddenly felt ignorant and useless compared to whatever it was that Che had access to. And is that the way that she had always felt, before?
She got to her feet, sword already home in its sheath. ‘What now?’
‘Now?’ And they all spun about at this unexpected intrusion. He stood there in his chitin scale mail, shoulders broad beneath his open grey robe, and his winged helm under his arm: Argastos the warlord, the Moth who went to war. ‘Now you shall come with me as my guests,’ his rich voice resonated. ‘We have much to talk about.’
Thirty-Three
That next morning, word had been sent to every Assembler remaining in Collegium. College Masters, merchant magnates, the great and the good who had not left the city or died in the fighting were all visited at the stroke of dawn. To avoid any unfortunate shooting of messengers, Helmess had used the Collegiate Guild to carry his instructions, demonstrating that business as usual, in some small way, was still the order of the day.
The message itself was simple. The Collegiate Assembly was still very much in existence, and a full gathering of its members would be held later that morning. Attendance was mandatory. Collegium had passed through a time of turmoil and needed the help of all of its leaders to regain its feet, and anyone who felt that they had better things to do would be noted in their absence.
Turnout was impressive, certainly more so than the last two emergency Assemblies presided over by the late Jodry Drillen.
They met in the same ruins as before, in the harsh light of the early morning, and Helmess marvelled at the discipline of it — all those men and women, brought here by their learning, their wealth, their power, and where were the divisions, where the mutterings, the heckling, the unseemly jokes? Where were those who merely came to snore through the speeches, or to conduct private business while matters of state were discussed? Every eye was upon him, rapt with attention.
Although, he had to admit, most eyes did tend to twitch to the three score Wasp soldiers that had dropped down to form a loose perimeter about the proceedings.
‘My friends,’ he addressed their silence. ‘Thank you for answering the call of your city in its time of need.’ He had a scroll in one hand, which was unfurled almost down to his knees, and, as he spoke, his eyes flicked over the Assemblers and he marked off name after name. ‘I had thought of taking roll call, as they do in the College,’ he explained with a self-deprecating smile, ‘but that would not be becoming of the dignity of our body. Still, no hiding at the back, there. It would be tragic if I was to overlook any of you, after all.’ He permitted himself a little frown, knowing that his audience was hanging on the very minutiae of his expression. ‘Still a few absentees, I see. Ah well.’
There was a slow building of murmured discontent, as he had expected. ‘Masters, the world around us has changed, but this our city — and our Assembly — do not need to change so much as you might think. The Empire, whose borders now encompass Collegium, need not be such a harsh master as you might imagine. After all, we have resisted them, fought them with all our misguided strength, and still they have agreed that our Assembly shall remain — properly supervised of course — and I think you will find that, with a little adjustment, our citizens will hardly notice that there is a black and gold flag where once there was none. I. . yes?’
For someone had stood up, a burly, heavy-set man that it took Helmess a moment to identify as one of the airship magnates. Helmess ticked his name off meticulously as the man clenched his fists and took a deep breath.
‘I don’t know where you yourself spent the evening, Master Broiler, but I think our citizens are well bloody aware that your Wasp friends are here, because they were surely helping themselves to every cursed thing in the city last night. Two of my clerks are gone this morning: one because the fool went out after this “curfew” and the other because she. . because one of your friends decided that she was. . that she was worth a moment of his time, and no more. And you say that everything’s just rolling along like normal, do you? You think our folk will just play along? If this Assembly still exists, then what is it going to do about it, eh?’
‘Why, Master Parrymill,’ Helmess snapped back, with a sideways glance towards the soldiers that nobody missed — and abruptly the airship magnate’s voice stuttered to a halt. Helmess smiled. ‘What a pertinent question,’ he added cordially. The soldiers did not descend on Parrymill and bundle him away there and then, but suddenly their loosely spaced cordon seemed like the walls of a prison, and the outspoken Assembler sat down heavily, his face tur
ning grey.
‘I should take steps right now to correct what may be a fundamental misapprehension,’ Helmess went on. ‘This Assembly is convened not to complain or object. We are not here to plot against the Empire, or to work against its laws. We have a simple function, Masters. We are here to make the Empress’s will a reality as simply as possible. Because what the Empire wishes will happen, make no mistake, and how much better for Collegium that it happens through our own mediation? The Empire will have its commands carried out in the most efficient way, Masters, and if you wish to spare our citizens the rod, then you must ensure that any leniency also serves that same efficiency. I know that all of us will have to make adjustments. Some of you may find it difficult to grasp your new role. You may find it harsh, restricting, even oppressive.’ He gave them a moment to decide that this was indeed so. ‘But I put to you one inarguable point: last night was nothing. Last night was the soldiers of the Second and their allies being given their just rewards for all we put them through on the way to our city. Did you think we could kill their friends, bomb them, starve them, and they would act like genial College tutors once they closed our gates behind them? No, Masters, they are soldiers, and they were owed their due reward. But believe me, General Tynan has kept them on a tight rein. The sergeants of the Second have been on watch to ensure that indulgence has not become excess. Consider how few buildings burned, how few deaths there actually were, and even rape in moderation. Believe me, Masters, it could all have been so much worse. We truly are blessed in the enlightened attitudes of our conquerors.’
They stared at him, some still defiant, others simply appalled, or else bewildered as though they could not have heard him correctly. A fair proportion, though, would not meet his eyes, and he counted them as the ones who had already accepted the logic of his words.
‘And there will be benefits. We all recall the endless infighting, the factions, the timewasting speeches of our august body here. Yes, you all complained about it, just as much as you contributed to it. It’s amazing we accomplished anything at all. But now, Masters, if we want a crime punished, a law made iron, we need only submit our request to the Imperial governor, and it shall happen. Our government will be given the firm hand it has always lacked. We shall go forward in partnership with the Wasp-kinden, and they shall profit from our wisdom, we from their strength.’
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