Blood of the Mantis

Thirteen

Even after a cup of the bitter root tea that Nivit’s girl had brewed up, Tynisa had seemed shaken, oddly cold and light-headed from her lost moment in the rain. Gaved had been concerned enough about her safety to escort Tynisa to where Achaeos was awaiting news, which had clearly surprised her.

‘Why?’ Tynisa had asked him.

‘What?’ he had said, ‘I was going this way anyway.’

She had given him a wry smile, and he had thought, Spider-kinden women.

Gaved had handed his copy of Nivit’s notes to the fretting Moth-kinden, to show that he was at least earning his keep, then he had trekked back through the rain to Nivit’s place, to make further plans.

An hour later found him having planned what little he could, agreeing with Nivit about who should be looked into and who avoided, or who amongst the Skater’s old contacts might have heard a rumour or two about where and when. Beyond that they had settled into talking over old times.

‘I swear, I’m staying this time, once this job’s done,’ Gaved declared.

‘Depends whose back you get on to,’ the Skater replied. ‘This many big fellas about, even I might take a holiday away from Jerez.’

‘I never learn.’ Gaved shook his head. ‘Every time I strike off from here, it’s only the Empire that hires me. I am so sick of doing imperial errands.’

The shrug Nivit gave him was eloquent. It said: Which of us can escape his heritage?

There was a single knock at the door, soft and polite, but with a suggestion of more force available if necessary.

They exchanged glances. After the thought just voiced, it seemed entirely possible that there were Wasp soldiers outside.

‘There in just a moment!’ Nivit shouted, and crept to the door quite silently, putting an eye to a strategic peephole. In a moment he looked back at Gaved and mouthed Customers. He quickly opened the door, and stepped back hurriedly as a large man entered.

Gaved stood up as he did so, and wondered instantly if this was one of the rich buyers Nivit had mentioned or, more to the point, whether this was the rich buyer of unknown kinden.

No, he realized as recognition came, Beetle-kinden. Beetle-kinden of a breed he had never seen before, though. Not Lowlander, not imperial either. The newcomer was very tall, stooping even once he was past the lintel, and broad-shouldered with it. Despite the rain outside, he wore no cloak, but was armoured head to foot – though it was armour that Gaved for one had never seen before. Much of it was iridescent, like Dragonfly plate, but instead of greens and golds and blues, it was pale and milky, sheened with oily rainbow hues that danced in the light of the candles Nivit’s girl had set out. The edges of the plates were gilded, with gold of a red richness that was also beyond Gaved’s experience. The man’s skin-tone, in the guttering light, was not the rich brown of a Beetle-kinden from anywhere Gaved knew but pale as an albino, though his hair was dark, cut short and plastered back around his rounded skull. His mouth was wide, his eyes small, and he bore a staff that ended in some device, some cunning piece of artificing. As he came in, Gaved caught a brief glimpse through the open door of men, large and small, waiting outside in the rain, in the darkness.

He realized that he had never seen anyone like this before, despite the fact that here was a Beetle-kinden, a ubiquitous breed. This then was something entirely outside Gaved’s well-travelled experience.

He glanced at Nivit. The Skater was standing very still. ‘What’s it we can do, chief?’ he asked his visitor, and his voice seemed a little fragile.

‘You find people? That is your job?’ the large Beetle said, and Gaved’s uneasiness increased, because the man had an accent that was also entirely foreign to him. ‘Escaped people. Troublesome people.’

‘That’s us, chief,’ Nivit agreed. The broad smile that now lit the big man’s face was entirely unpleasant.

‘Find her,’ he said, thrusting a square of paper out in one gauntleted hand. Nivit nipped forward to take it, and froze even as his fingers touched it. He barely glanced at it further before handing it to Gaved.

It was not quite paper, but something waxy, something a bit like paper but slightly greasy to the touch. There was a portrait on it, a picture of a woman. Spider-kinden would be Gaved’s guess, although it was not quite so easy to tell. The picture was very exact, though, very detailed. Moreover, it was inscribed beneath the waxy layer.

‘Find her,’ the stranger said.

Even in the face of all this, Nivit had not forgotten his professional priorities. ‘There’s the matter of a fee, chief,’ he started.

The man reached for his belt, and when his hand came out, it was to display three lozenges of metal. ‘You shall have one now. The rest when you have restored our property to us.’

Nivit timidly plucked one piece from the man’s hand. Something in his expression, in his very bearing, told Gaved that this metal was gold.

‘Sold, chief,’ the Skater said hoarsely. ‘Where can we-?’

‘We will contact you, later. Meanwhile hold her for us.’ The man gave Gaved a level stare, and then turned, forcing his armoured bulk out through the doorway, and then heading out through the rain to his fellows. Some of those fellows, Gaved saw, were bigger even than their visitor, others as small as Fly-kinden.

Nivit closed the door, and then simply sat down on the rain-puddled floor with his back to it. ‘Oh cursing wastes,’ he breathed. ‘This is bad.’

‘Who was he?’ Gaved asked. ‘Who were they?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t,’ Nivit said, and at the same time he was dissembling so badly that Gaved could tell it straight off.

‘Nivit…?’

‘Don’t ask me. We don’t talk about it.’ The Skater’s frightened look was genuine enough not to provoke more questions. ‘I bet you, though,’ Nivit went on. ‘I bet there’s lights out on the lake tonight. I bet you any money you like.’

He would not be drawn further. His hands, holding the bar of gold and the waxed portrait, were shaking.

When Scyla opened her eyes it was there again: just a shadow, nothing but a shadow. She could have passed her hand through it, if she had dared: if she had not thought that to touch it, to fall under that shadow, would mean death.

She had always been one for darkness, had Scyla, for dark rooms and night-work. Now she crept off the end of her bed and threw the shutters wide. That had worked, before. When the shadow had first stood there, the glare of daylight had banished it.

She turned round. It was still beside the bed but it too had turned, craning over its shoulder, to look at her. The sunlight cut through, wherever it fell, but the dance of the dust motes kept its place where the darkness could not.

She had thought that this shadow was just a figment of her imagination, and then that it was a mere representation of whatever was contained within the box. By now she was realizing that this was an individual, the leader of the box’s inmates, and that it was becoming more real each day.

It was fading slowly now. She could not look on it for long but kept glancing back and back again to check that it was leaving.

Or at least that it was ceasing to be visible.

During the last two days she had begun to think that it went with her everywhere, even outside under the sun. She had begun to notice where the rain did not fall quite right, or where there were shadows reaching along the ground where nothing could cast them, ripples in the puddles to suggest a footless tread.

Scyla was no great magician. Her talents and her training were only for deception. She was horribly aware that she was now out of her depth. She should have passed the cursed Shadow Box on to the Empire and then forgotten about it. Even the profit she stood to make from the auction was paling in significance as each day went by.

The shape, the twisted, spine-ridged shape of it, was almost gone now. She felt that she wanted to weep, to scream at it. Whoever had made the box had been a poor craftsman, for it had been leaking steadily since her touch had reawoken it. It was infecting her waking hours. It had already poisoned her dreams.

There were just a few days now until the auction. She must hold on to her mind until then. Then the box would become some rich magnate’s problem, and she would listen carefully for the rumours of a great man thrown down or made mad. Or perhaps whoever bought it would be some Apt collector aware only of value and not of meaning, like the man she had stolen the relic from in the first place. Perhaps, even awake as it was, it would not trouble such a man. It might not be able to penetrate his dull and mundane mind.

It is in my mind, though. And what if she let the box go, sold it on, washed her hands of it… and the shadow still did not leave her?

Do not think of it. She would have done things differently, had she known better. She was falling apart. The box was prying at her constantly and she was just enough of a magician to understand what was happening.

Busy. I must keep busy. She would check with her factor here in Jerez to ensure the arrangements were properly made. Better still she would go abroad to spy on her potential purchasers. She would spy on her enemies, too. There were new Wasps in Jerez and she knew them for Rekef. Nobody could keep their secrets close in the Skater town, nobody except herself.

The Empire wanted its prize back. The joke was that at least two of her bidders would be imperial subjects, not averse to sneaking something special from beneath the noses of their peers. Self-interest was the universal rule of human nature, and the only rule she, too, had ever cared to obey.

Now, in the guise of a middle-aged Beetle-kinden man, she slipped from the room she was renting, out onto the waterlogged streets of Jerez. Even as she did, she made sure not to look down at the puddles, in case she saw the ripples and splashes of another’s unseen feet.

Lieutenant Brodan watched his informant pad out of the room: a lean, sinewy Skater-kinden with the same manner as the rest – all anxious-to-please on the surface, all hidden impudence. Brodan had long ago developed a pronounced dislike of the entire breed.

He checked his notes, cataloguing who had arrived, and who had left, notables seen abroad on the streets, those who were well protected and those who were not. He knew an auction of some kind was taking place but he had no details. Nobody seemed to know much. Except there was a whole assembly of unusual characters in Jerez these days, and so they must know something. He would have to expand his researches to include one of them.

Choosing a target was difficult, for some had connections he did not dare disturb, while some had proved impossible to reliably find or follow. Others, like the Spider-kinden, were simply unknown quantities, and he did not want to overplay his hand. If he scared off the vendor, if the transaction just decamped to start up again in some other haven of iniquity like the Dryclaw slave markets, or up north amongst the hill tribes… well, in that case Brodan’s career would be dead and buried.

It was a time for Rekef men to show themselves loyal. He was well aware that there were changes going on back home, by which he meant Capitas, a place he had never seen. Still, the regular lists of the newly denounced traitors kept filtering down to him, with some names added, and others crossed through with grim finality. He had no wish to find his own name included there, one day. It was that thought that concerned him far more than any hopes of promotion. These days a good Rekef Inlander agent had to keep running at top speed just to stand still.

He shuffled his papers once again, at a loss for a conclusion. The two Spider-kinden nobles had both invited him to drink with them, and each cautioned him against the other in no uncertain terms. One of the Beetle factors was dead. The Dragonfly had fled Jerez, probably on hearing word that Brodan was asking after him – but he would undoubtedly be back. Brodan guessed he and his servants were hiding out somewhere around the lakeside, that they would then fly in at exactly the right time to take part in the bidding. Brodan had men, or at least Skaters, watching for such a return.

One of his men came in, just then, ducking beneath the low ceiling of the little guesthouse room.

‘Sir, there’s an officer to see you.’

‘From the garrison?’

‘No, sir.’

Brodan stared at him, but the soldier was obviously not inclined to be any more informative, simply saluting abruptly and backing out of the room. Brodan hastily rearranged his papers in a face-down stack over to one side of the rickety little desk he had commandeered.

When his visitor arrived he stood up immediately, saluting.

‘Easy, Lieutenant.’ He was a greying, slightly corpulent man, wearing a long overcoat half-concealing the imperial armour beneath it. No insignia of rank, but none were needed.

‘Major Sarvad,’ Brodan said. ‘I hadn’t expected-’

‘Oh, sit down, Lieutenant,’ Sarvad said mildly. Brodan knew him for a long-term Rekef Inlander, a cunning politician who skipped from camp to camp without ever binding himself to anyone. Small wonder he always seemed to survive the culling.

A soldier brought a three-legged stool for him, all the landlord could spare, and Sarvad and Brodan sat down facing each other across the desk.

‘I’ve come from Capitas, Lieutenant,’ Sarvad explained. ‘They’re not encouraged by what they’re hearing from you.’

‘But I haven’t…’ sent a report yet. Brodan cut the words off short, but Sarvad smiled drily.

‘That’s just what concerns them, Lieutenant. Now, I told them, a man like Lieutenant Brodan, he’s a perfectionist. He takes his time but it’s worth it. So they told me, why not go and let him know just how important this matter is. You do know just how important it is, don’t you, Lieutenant.’

‘I – I do, sir. Yes.’

‘Progress, Lieutenant. Where are we, then, and why aren’t you already on your way home with your mission complete?’

‘This area has always been notorious for covert activities, sir.’

‘Excuses, Lieutenant?’

‘Only that it is never easy to find reliable sources of information.’ Brodan swallowed awkwardly. ‘The locals are a pack of lying wastrels, sir. They’re all engaged in something illegal. They’re loath to talk, and even more loath to tell the truth.’

‘I heard you had a man detained at the garrison. One of our own kinden.’

‘He denies all involvement, sir. He has produced references sending him here. I am waiting for authorization to properly interrogate him.’ A ray of hope. ‘I don’t suppose-’

‘I’m not here to do your job for you,’ Sarvad growled, his patience obviously fraying. ‘What else then? You must have more than that.’

Not so much more, Brodan considered. ‘I had contact with a Major Thalric, sir. He’s-

‘I know Major Thalric,’ said Sarvad, his eyes narrowing. ‘What did he want?’

‘I think he’s involved, sir. I have men out hunting for him even now.’

‘Hunting him?’ Sarvad leant over the desk towards him.

‘Yes, sir. He was on the latest list I received, sir. As a traitor…’

Sarvad’s expression gave him no encouragement, and for a moment Brodan wondered whether his lists were in fact accurate. Then Sarvad settled back, his expression becoming more reassuring.

‘I only meant to say, Lieutenant, that if you already had contact with him, I should think that no further hunting was necessary. He escaped you, it would seem.’

‘We will recapture him, sir, and then I’ll need no permission to interrogate him.’

‘I doubt that he knows much,’ Sarvad murmured, half to himself, and then continued, out loud, ‘If he happens to die resisting capture, Lieutenant, or indeed whilst being put to the question, there will be no tears shed. You understand?’

‘Perfectly, sir.’

Sarvad left the dingy little guesthouse and, just a street away, found an excuse to duck into a narrow and shadow-cloaked alley, out of sight of any eyes. Then, although a big, old Wasp major had gone in, it was now a Beetle-kinden merchant who walked out and behind both faces lurked a Spider-kinden spy.

Always good to keep a close eye on the competition. Scyla nodded to herself. She had worked with Sarvad a few times, just a few years back. He had then stuck in her mind as a useful face to wear, for his political acumen meant that he could plausibly turn up anywhere, and was also unlikely to wind up at the sharp end of imperial displeasure.

Mention of Thalric was unwelcome, however. He knew too much about her, and she might have to hunt him down and kill him herself. Still, perhaps Brodan’s men could now save her the trouble.

‘You want Spiders? Over here for Spiders,’ announced Nivit’s girl, who was taking her turn as tour guide about Jerez. Her name was Skrit, apparently, and she was certainly very young, although Skaters were so odd-looking she could have been equally ten or sixteen. With her long-legged gait she moved fast enough that even Tisamon and Tynisa had to almost run to keep up with her.

A Mantis and a Spider keeping company within the Empire, and the remarkable thing was that nobody stared. In Jerez nobody’s secret was safe, and at the same time nobody really cared. The locals lived in such a welter of gossip and speculation that any peculiarity of their visitors was picked up, turned over and soon cast aside.

They had the names from Gaved’s list and were now taking a look at the new notables of Jerez. It seemed the best way to track down the box, or at least the auction of it, though everybody was being very close-mouthed about the details for that event. Even Nivit had been unable to find out where and when it would be happening. Whatever Scyla had arranged, she was making very sure that, of all the secrets in and around Lake Limnia, hers was the one that did not get out. Achaeos had guessed it was because she had not yet set the place: the potential buyers would be notified personally in due course.

‘And can’t you find it by magic?’ Tynisa had asked him. ‘You got us all the way here by magic. Why not just sniff the thing out and let’s all go home?’

Jons Allanbridge had snorted at the superstition of such thinking. He was a practical man, partway through repairs to the Buoyant Maiden, the gondola of which still remained their base of operations. It meant that he and Achaeos were sharing – though not enjoying – a lot of their time.

‘I know the Shadow Box is somewhere here, within or very close to Jerez, but for more than that I am altogether too close, it is too great… It is like looking at the sun,’ Achaeos had explained. ‘And, besides, this Scyla, she has a little magic, a very little maybe, but she is used to hiding things.’ He had frowned then. ‘Tell me, Tynisa, have you observed anything… magical, whilst you were out on the streets?’

She had kept her face carefully blank at that point, thinking about the odd gap in her memory, the trance she seemed to have fallen into, the bleeding of her hand. She did not want to talk about it, she had decided. She would work that one out herself. She did not want Achaeos thinking that she was weak in any way.

Only when she departed with Tisamon and Skrit had she begun to wonder just where that decision had come from, whether it had been hers at all.

Since then, she and Tisamon had investigated four names on the list, and thus built up an interesting picture of life amongst the highest echelons of the collectors.

One had been a high-ranking Wasp officer who had been staying within the garrison but a few days before, or so the garrison servants had told Nivit. But the man had been arrested and imprisoned, and was even now under threat of interrogation; nobody knew why. Meanwhile, the wife of the Governor of Maynes, who had also been staying there, had gone to reside on a boat out on the lake.

‘What is going on within the Wasp camp?’ Tisamon asked, not expecting an answer, but it was something Tynisa felt better equipped to understand. She had Spider blood in her, after all, and so the puzzling out of politics should be second nature to her.

‘Whoever wanted the box originally and sent Scyla to steal it,’ she explained, ‘they’re here now. They still want it, but I’m sure they’re not going to want to pay for it. The other imperial buyers are getting out of the way fast, or getting caught.’

They had gone to look for a rogue Moth Skryre that Nivit had sworn was in town, with no success. The Dragonfly noble was also lying low. The Beetle-kinden Consortium factor that Founder Bellowern had been particularly interested in had since been found dead in a backstreet near the water, his throat slit and his guards nowhere to be seen. Clearly someone had seen a chance to rid the world of a little competition.

Now Skrit was taking them to see the two Spider-kinden who had journeyed so far north for the auction.

‘They must have started travelling within a tenday of Scyla getting here,’ Tynisa said. ‘How could they even have got word so soon? Unless Scyla herself sent out airship couriers or something.’

‘Magicians have always been able to talk at a distance,’ said Tisamon, in a tone suggesting that everyone would know this, and therefore she should have learnt it as a child, ‘and also know something of the future.’

Perhaps, if I had been brought up a Mantis, I would indeed have known that.

Tisamon’s attitude to magic confused her. He accepted it unconditionally, whilst she still found the whole idea strange and unlikely, despite any proofs that had been shown to her. Moreover, he was distinctly wary of it. Even Achaeos inspired his respect, and there seemed to be a fear in him beyond that, deeply incised in him by his heritage and his blood.

And now we’re in a town crammed full of magicians – or so I’m supposed to believe.

The two Spider-kinden were not hard to find, or shy of attention. They had taken over a guesthouse in its entirety, and had their servants deck the place out in silks of bright colours, reds and golds and azure blues. The whole front of the building had been thrown open to the fickle sun that morning, and Tisamon and Tynisa were thus able to watch the two of them holding court, one reclining at either end.

‘They are good at hating each other,’ Skrit remarked enthusiastically. ‘Always hating, so they keep eyes on each other at all times.’

‘Very wise,’ Tisamon granted. Earlier he had named the two as ‘Manipuli’, using a word which to Tynisa meant an intelligencer or spymaster, but apparently also meant a magician of a particularly Spiderish kind.

‘We should have a watch set on these two,’ Tynisa suggested. ‘Still, I’m sure they’ll be able to vanish away when the time comes.’

‘You want to see big man who pay the boss? Living just over there now. Moved his house yesterday.’ Skrit was reaching for Tisamon’s sleeve, but he held it out of her reach, irritated.

‘That would be this Founder Bellowern,’ he noted.

‘What was wrong with his old house?’ Tynisa asked.

‘House was fine, he just not liked it where it was, had it moved,’ Skrit explained, in a jumble of words. There was nothing for it but to follow her until she had led them to a two-storey wooden construction that was nothing like the rest of the local architecture: square-based, but widening as it rose, so that the roof was the broadest part of it, dotted with round glass-paned windows, and edged in metal besides.

Tisamon stared at it blankly, and it took Tynisa a while to recognize it. ‘An airship gondola,’ she said. ‘Like ours, but a whole lot bigger.’

‘Had it out on the water,’ Skrit explained. ‘Now he wants it inland. Put up his big float and just move it over, then float comes down and pulled down into the roof. Lot of work, that, no one knows why.’

They digested this curiously, but neither could make any sense of it.

‘Who’s next on the list?’ Tynisa asked.

‘Not found yet. All hiding. You have all there are,’ said Skrit, sounding oddly proud of it.

‘Well, they’ll all know whatever there is to be known about the auction,’ Tynisa said. ‘We need to speak to one of them: who’s our best wager?’

Tisamon looked back over his shoulder towards the big guesthouse but she knew that matters would go very badly for all concerned if he tried cutting the information out of those Spiders, whether they were magicians or not.

‘This one,’ she decided. ‘Bellowern.’

‘Why?’

‘He was the man who hired Nivit, and that shows initiative and open-mindedness. He won’t be a magician, because he’s Beetle-kinden. He’s imperial but not army, not actually a Wasp.’ She shrugged. ‘And also I want to know what made him move his house.’

Tynisa had not seen a gondola quite so grand since the Sky Without. Founder Bellowern’s temporary home was now virtually the most sumptuous building in Jerez, larger in all dimensions than the genuine houses around it. It was also apparently impregnable. There was a hatch, but it was ten feet off the ground and looked firmly closed. The windows were too small for even a Fly to get through. Conceivably there must be hatches on the deck above, but she would have to wait until dark before climbing up there.

She realized she did not even know whether Tisamon possessed the Art to climb a sheer surface like this. It was always a social awkwardness, asking questions about another’s Art, but she already knew that he could not take to the air as some Mantids did. His Art seemed concentrated in the spines on his arms and in the honed skill gifted to the Mantis-kinden in the simple business of killing people.

After they had been scouting out Bellowern’s place for about ten minutes, a Skater-kinden child approached them. Tynisa stared at the creature without affection, for the locals’ children were even less appealing than they were. The starved-looking thing, who could equally have been a boy or a girl, began a brief conversation with Skrit and then handed over a scroll. It was only after a moment that Tynisa spotted the relevance: the locals never used paper.

‘It’s from the man in the house,’ Skrit announced, for all the world as though she had just performed some public service. She held the rolled document out to them and Tynisa took it, breaking the neat seal and reading.

‘To Master Mantis and Madam Spider: I shall be taking my ease shortly at the taverna delightfully known as the Bag of Leeches and you are cordially invited to join me in the open where we can both be assured of a minimum of surprises.’ Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ she noted.

‘Bellowern,’ Tisamon said, and she nodded.

‘We’re on Skater-kinden ground, Tisamon. He’s wise enough to have some local eyes minding his business. If we do meet him, is this going to get messy?’

Tisamon’s expression worried her. He did not understand what was going on, and that made him jumpy, therefore dangerous. ‘We’ll meet him,’ he decided. ‘If the Beetle does want a fight then I’ve no objections. But eat nothing, drink nothing while in his company.’

‘He’s not going to be impressed with that.’

‘Good.’

Skrit guided them to the place mentioned: there was a large leather bag hanging over the low doorway, but Tynisa was not going to prod it to test the claim. Like most of the Skater buildings, the front was composed just of poles, shutter panels taken away each morning to let the dank air in, with all the rot and fish smells of Lake Limnia riding on it. They chose a large, uneven-legged table with a good view of the street and sat waiting, but not for long.

The affluent-looking Beetle-kinden that arrived after them, only a minute away from being on their heels, was identified by Skrit as Bellowern. He had a retinue with him, and Tynisa felt Tisamon tense at the sight: a dozen Wasp soldiers out of uniform, but surely army men seconded to the Consortium, plus at least half a dozen servants. Tisamon’s hand gestured briefly upwards, and she saw a Fly-kinden keeping watch up there, between the roofs and the cloud-hung sky.

‘Trusting sort, isn’t he?’ the Mantis murmured, as Founder Bellowern passed beneath the suspect leather bag and spotted them at their table. He was lean for a Beetle, but his dark skin and the receding grey hair cropped close to his skull were oddly reminiscent of Stenwold. He wore clothes in drab colours – black breeches, grey tunic and a dun shirt – but the cloth was all of the finest. Tynisa guessed from the way the tunic hung that he had armour beneath it, at least a leather vest and possibly more. At his belt there was a dagger that was almost a shortsword, mostly hidden by a plate-sized buckler shield. As a result he looked less the merchant lord and more the successful mercenary captain.

He looked them over, clearly weighing them up, and then sat down opposite them as easily as if he had known them for years. At a gesture, his guards positioned themselves around the taproom while his servants stood respectfully a few paces back.

‘I give up,’ Founder Bellowern said. ‘Who in the wastes are you?’

‘A curious question,’ Tynisa said.

‘I’m a curious man. You breeze in on a little airship, along with a Moth-kinden nobody seems to know, but whose name, my people inform me, is Achaeos – a new name to me. You could just be some pack of mercenary adventurers, a type that Jerez seems to attract like a corpse pulls flies. But then you start asking all the right questions to make it sound as if you’re genuine players. So what gives?’

‘You seem to be working on the assumption that we somehow answer to you,’ Tisamon said, low-voiced. His eyes were passing from one guard to the next, and Tynisa sensed a slight uncertainty in him. It was, she knew, because the guards were not watching Tisamon. Instead they were looking elsewhere, looking outwards. Then Tisamon’s gaze passed on to the servants, where it halted once again.

Bellowern smiled. ‘If I was that interested, I could easily find out,’ he told them. ‘But let me tell you what I think: you’re here with some two-bit quack conjuror who’s got just enough talent to be aware that something’s happening. Maybe he wants in. If so he’s going to be disappointed. I don’t say that to be unpleasant but the stakes are very high for this game. He simply can’t afford it, any of it.’

‘So you’re warning us off,’ Tynisa said. ‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t thank you for your wisdom and scurry away, right now.’

Bellowern grinned at her, unexpectedly boyish just for that brief moment. ‘Just what I expected to hear. Am I supposed to have my soldiers muscle over now and bend some iron bars to frighten you? Or perhaps I should just make veiled threats. Hmm, let me think…’

Tynisa had to fight an answering smile. It was very like her first meeting with Teornis, and she had not expected that here. The Beetle before her had been a man of influence in the Empire for decades, and a man whose influence was based on trade, not on the all-important military. She should have foreseen a certain deftness of manner.

‘Who is she?’ Tisamon said abruptly, and Founder’s entire bearing changed. All of a sudden his guards were watching, hands poised to unleash their stings. Caught off guard, Tynisa followed Tisamon’s gaze to one of Founder’s servants, a Spider-kinden girl, quite young… Or perhaps not wholly Spider? There was something odd about her, for certain.

‘Why do you ask?’ Founder said tightly, and Tynisa sensed that, for reasons beyond her, Tisamon’s next words could easily give them the fight he had been spoiling for.

‘I don’t know,’ the Mantis said slowly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Nothing,’ said Founder, and the tension ebbed away invisibly, but sensed by everyone there. ‘Just a new acquisition of mine.’

‘A slave?’

Founder’s smile was harder this time. ‘I had forgotten how much your kinden dislikes that trade. Well, you are in the Empire now, so fight a man for owning slaves and you’ll have more work than you have years to do it in.’

Tisamon’s returning look was cold, but he said nothing.

‘I believe you were warning us off,’ Tynisa prompted.

‘Actually, I wasn’t.’ Founder looked between her and the Mantis, as though weighing them on his merchant’s scales. ‘You see, it may surprise you to know that I recognize that badge there, that both of you are wearing. I’m a man of strange interests, which is of course why I’m here at all.’ The smile, the harder one, broadened. ‘I don’t know how much your little scholar is paying the two of you, but how would you like to work for me and earn yourselves a wage more worthy of your skills?’

‘We are not mercenaries for hire-’ Tisamon started. Tynisa cut him off. ‘Tell us what you mean, Master Bellowern.’

He smiled at her. ‘As I said, I know what that badge of yours means. I’m a knowledgeable man. To be amongst the real collectors you have to be. I was a roving factor for the Consortium for twenty-five years before they finally let me into their higher ranks, and I went to places you’ve probably never even heard of. We Beetles can go places that the Wasps can’t, or won’t. I’ve learnt a great deal, and I’ve found that history fascinates me, especially when it survives into the present, as that badge has done.’

‘You cannot think we would simply betray our current… employer,’ Tynisa said.

‘I rather hope you wouldn’t, in fact,’ Bellowern confirmed. ‘I don’t know the details of your contract, though. You might be fee’d by the day or even the hour. I’m proposing two contracts, though, and I want you to consider them. I’ll even buy you out of your current obligations if your master agrees. The thing is, as I said, I know that mark you wear. I’ll ask your Mantis word of honour on any deal we strike.’

‘Even knowing what it is we seek?’ Tisamon said. ‘You would take us to it, guide us to it, even knowing that?’

‘With your word on it, Mantis, and your sworn oath, I think I would.’ Founder Bellowern smiled like a man who has leverage on his opponent. ‘But let’s deal with the first matter first, as is always best in business. For the next few days, until that other business comes to hand, I feel myself in need of a little additional protection. Nothing more than that. Your badges suggest a level of skill I’d be willing to pay handsomely for. After that, well… we’ll see how satisfactorily we work together, shall we?’

‘What are you worried about, Master Bellowern?’ Tynisa asked him.

‘Just the usual. My peers and competitors are not principled people, so a little insurance is called for.’

You’re lying, Tynisa knew and, although his face was admirably bland, his eyes had flicked, just the once, to the mysterious Spider girl. This only confirmed Tynisa’s suspicions. Has the collector come into possession of some dangerous goods? It seemed certain.

Tisamon was looking put out, but he was waiting for her to make her next move, trusting that she knew what she was doing. In this arena, where motive and feelings were the main weapons at hand, she was better equipped than he was.

‘Master Bellowern, what can you offer us?’

‘Fifty Imperials per day,’ he said smoothly. ‘But, as I perceive you are a Lowlander from your speech, that would mean about half as much in Helleron Centrals.’

‘Forty Centrals in Helleron coin, each. Double if we fight,’ she said, straight back.

Founder Bellowern regarded her impassively, giving no clue as to whether she had just oversold or undersold herself. ‘Agreed,’ he said at last, letting her know that he would have agreed more. ‘But what of your current contract?’

‘We will have to speak to our patron,’ she told him. ‘However, I think he will be agreeable. As you guess, his purse is not large. Where shall we rejoin you?’

‘I am aware that you know where I have made my temporary residence,’ he said. ‘I shall expect you there.’ He stood, and she saw a thought come to him that got through his calm facade to twitch at his face. ‘Come before nightfall, if you come at all. That must be a term of the contract.’

When he had gone, she looked towards Tisamon, who was frowning, not at her but after the Beetle and his retinue.

‘He does not understand all he thinks,’ Tynisa said. ‘For I am not bound by any “Mantis honour”. I hope that does not disappoint you.’

He made no comment on it. Instead he said, ‘I confess I am intrigued. What is he scared of?’

‘There’s one obvious way to find out,’ she said. ‘Let’s tell Achaeos, and then we’ll present ourselves for Master Bellowern’s amusement. And perhaps, once he has us, he’ll find other uses for us, such as removing the competition. There are people out there who know what we want to know. Bellowern isn’t the only one, but he can lead us to the others.’