Empire in Black and Gold

Twenty-four

Hokiak’s Exchange was still there in the dingiest corner of the eastern plaza, just as Stenwold remembered it. Furthermore, so was Hokiak himself, although the intervening years had not been kind to him.

He was the oldest Scorpion-kinden that Stenwold had ever seen, perhaps the oldest there was. They were a ruthless, primal people in their desert home and a man did not live long amongst them once his strength began to wane, unless he possessed some edge over his fellows. Hokiak’s edge was a self-imposed exile. Even when Stenwold had known him, he had been too old to go home. Now he was positively decayed, his waxy skin folded into sallow creases and his once-yellow eyes faded to a dim sepia. His throat was as creased as a discarded shirt and the characteristic large frame of his breed had slumped to fat now, and even that was ebbing like a low tide, leaving his bare chest an unsightly ripple of wrinkles and old scars. One of his foreclaws was a jagged stump that had not regrown, and his jutting jaws revealed a ghastly thicket of rotting spurs on protruding gums. He sat on a wicker chair and smoked, and occasionally skewered candied insects from a box with a thumbclaw.

The Exchange itself was clearly faring better than its namesake. Stenwold and Totho pushed into a small room made smaller still by stacks of heaped boxes. The air was thick with spices, and the pungent, dizzying tobacco that Hokiak still smoked. His staff was hard at work prising the lids off crates, cataloguing their contents and then nailing them back. There were three youngsters engaged at the work: a pair of Fly-kinden around Totho’s age and a dark Mynan girl no older than thirteen. They were supervised by a Spider-kinden man who couldn’t have been much short of Hokiak’s own years. Spiders aged rather better, though. This one had long silver hair and a trace of an aristocratic demeanour, but was almost skeletally thin.

‘Stenwold, are you sure about this. . this looks like a pirate’s den,’ Totho whispered as he took a glance at the place. He was right, too. Most of the commodities that were hanging from the rafters, or being hurriedly boxed, were exotic plunder from far parts of the world, and Stenwold knew that there would be a back room with the real contraband in it.

‘Our friend Hokiak,’ he murmured, ‘was a black marketeer — and is one still, unless I miss my guess. Now the sort of people we’re looking for will have good use for someone who can smuggle goods in and out. It’s all about contacts, Totho.’

‘Don’t just stand there letting the dust in,’ Hokiak suddenly complained in a surprisingly deep voice. ‘In or out, Master Beetle.’

Stenwold closed the door behind him. With Totho dogging his every step nervously. ‘Well now, Master Scorpion, how’s about finding a little work for a tramp artificer and his boy?’

‘You any good?’ Hokiak blinked rheumy eyes at him. ‘Always can find work for a good ’un. You got references?’

‘There’s an old, old Scorpion-kinden I know who used to be able to vouch for me,’ said Stenwold. ‘His name’s Hokiak. You might even know him.’

The Scorpion squinted at him. ‘Windblast you! I don’t know. .’ His voice tailed off, and he scratched his withered throat with his remaining claw. The Spider-kinden man was now looking over, Stenwold noted, with a hand on a dagger’s hilt: not a threat, but just to be ready in case Stenwold turned out to be one.

‘Stenwold Maker?’ Hokiak said in a small voice. ‘Can’t be, surely. Stenwold Maker must be dead three times by now.’

‘If any of us is guilty of living beyond his time, old man, it has to be you,’ Stenwold told him. ‘I didn’t know whether I would still find you here.’

Hokiak had fumbled a stick to his hand, and it bent alarmingly under his weight as he heaved himself to his feet. He took a very close look at Stenwold, their faces only inches apart. ‘Blast and blow me, if it ain’t old Stenwold himself,’ he concluded, and the Spider removed his hand from his blade. ‘Didn’t ever figure I’d see you again. Now, Gryllis, this old boy and I did a load of business before the conquest.’

The Spider nodded cautiously. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Master Maker,’ he said, in a voice still sounding cultured. By now the three youngsters had stopped working in order to listen, and Gryllis turned and cuffed the nearest Fly boy irritably. ‘Dirty your hands, you little parasites. Don’t think the arrival of one Beetle-kinden’s cause for a holiday!’

‘So what in the wastes brings you all the way back here?’ Hokiak asked Stenwold. ‘I figured you’d made tracks once this place came under new management.’

‘I thought you might have done the same.’

The old man shrugged. ‘Ain’t got nowhere to go, me. Besides, don’t matter who you are, everyone needs the services of an importer-exporter now and then. Matter of fact, the Black Guild business is better than ever.’

The Black Guild was Lowlander parlance for smuggling, although it never approached anything like a genuine guild’s unity. ‘You’re shifting goods for the Wasps now, are you?’ Stenwold asked him, a little uneasily.

Hokiak grinned at him, an appalling sight. ‘Now you know it ain’t like that. I just shift for them that asks. I ain’t never one to nail my heart to a flagstaff, and no mistake. So if you got some business you ain’t keen for them stripeys to figure, you came to the right place.’

Stenwold nodded. It could be a bad mistake, of course, to trust this old villain. He could find himself in the cell next door to Che’s in no time, if she was still even in this cursed city. Still, his options were fast running through his fingers like grains of sand.

‘Let’s just say,’ he replied, ‘that I want to meet some people the Wasps aren’t too anxious for anyone to meet.’

Hokiak nodded sagely. ‘Not dealings I’d want to see in an establishment like mine. You’d better help me hide my eyes.’

Stenwold placed two coins on a crate in front of him, gold, stamped each with a winged sword and the words ‘Central Mint of Helleron’. Hokiak whistled when he picked them up.

‘Centrals, no less. Your coin’s good, Stenwold. These’re harder than the Empire stuff these days. In that case, I’d advise you to go straight into the back-room bar and get yourself and your lad here a drink. I’ll join you there presently. Gryllis, you can watch the shop for me.’

‘I’m sure I can manage,’ replied the Spider laconically.

As well as the hidden contraband store, there was a liquor house at the back of Hokiak’s, and there had been long before the Scorpion had lent his name to this place. They found seven drinkers there already, and none of them looking the type to stare at too closely. Stenwold registered a pair of Ants of a colour he did not recognize and a trio of Fly-kinden gamblers with knives laid out on the table to indicate theirs was a closed game. There was a female Beetle with a tremendous scar down one side of her face and one hand on a big under-over double-armed crossbow, whom Stenwold thought was probably a game hunter. There was even a Wasp-kinden man in repainted armour, who must surely have been a mercenary or even a deserter. Behind the bar stood a Mynan woman, one of that local strain that seemed to be a stable half-breed of Ant and Beetle, and for a couple of small coins she handed out clay beakers of an acrid clear liquid.

‘Don’t drink it,’ Stenwold warned Totho as they found a table.

‘I have tried drink before, sir,’ the artificer said stiffly.

‘Not drink like this. The first time I tried this stuff I was left blind for a day.’ Stenwold realized that he had chosen his seat to face the door. Old habits were coming back to him.

‘How much do you trust that old man?’ Totho inquired.

‘I wish I knew.’ Stenwold sighed. ‘I wish I knew. I don’t think he’d go out of his way to hand us in, but it’ll be different if there’s a reward out. Just be ready to jump if it all falls over.’

Totho nodded, and Stenwold looked up to see Hokiak poling his way over with the help of his stick. With a wheezing sigh the old man lowered himself into a chair at their table.

‘Don’t you look at me like that, Maker. I still got years left in me,’ he said, between ragged breaths.

‘You’ll outlive the pair of us,’ said Stenwold, hoping it wasn’t true. ‘Tell me, your deputy-’

‘Partner,’ Hokiak corrected. ‘Old Gryllis is the soul of discretion. He ain’t the kind to draw attention to himself. Used to be a player, way down south, and got enemies still on the look-out for him. He likes a quiet life now, same as all of us.’ He produced a squat clay pipe and lit it, sending a worm of smoke that trailed across the width of the table. ‘Mind, you seem to be looking for a mite more noise in yours. You’re after the Red Flag lot.’

‘Am I?’

‘That’s what they’ve gotten to callin’ ’emselves these days — on account of what they leave behind at the scene. You sure you want to mix with them? Don’t get me wrong. They’re good customers of mine. Always on the look for me to get ’em things in, or people out sometimes. Still, they ain’t what you’d call nice boys and girls.’

‘Living under the Wasp boot will do that to you,’ Stenwold observed. ‘Anyone left over from my time?’

‘A few, just a few,’ Hokiak confirmed. ‘Mind, it’s the young bloods what run it now, mostly. You get me a handful of those Centrals and, sure, I can get you where you’ll meet ’em. I just got to warn you, you mayn’t like it when you do.’

‘I’ll take that chance,’ said Stenwold. ‘I need their help. Maybe I can even help them in exchange. How many’s a handful, Hokiak?’

The old man gave him a carious smile. ‘Blast me, but it’s been a long while. You used to have always that madcap lot with you, din’t you? That Spider-kin who was such a looker, and there was your Mantis feller what did the prize-fighting that year. I won a parcel and a half on him. If’n you was new, Maker, I’d have bigger hands, but seeing as you remember an old man after all this time, call it a dozen and we’re happy.’

It was a lot of money; for Totho, more money than he had ever seen in one place. Still, he saw Stenwold count it out willingly and without regret.

The old Scorpion had made the arrangements and then given them directions, which had led them by moonlight to a dark square. Stenwold kept his gaze steady, his breath rising as a slight plume in the night air. There were many such faded locations, away from Myna’s centre and its main thoroughfares and the grotesque wart of the governor’s palace. This had been a rich area of the city before the conquest. The surrounding houses here were three-storeyed, many of them, and some still sported empty iron hanging baskets where flowers had once been kept, or the peeling traces of ochre or dark blue where the lintels had been painted about the doors and windows. Many windows were shutterless now, and others had them hanging precariously off one hinge. Stenwold guessed that half of these houses were abandoned now, and such occupants as remained were not those families that had originally held court here.

Hokiak had directed him here, though. They would meet here.

Totho, beside him, had Scuto’s repeating crossbow in his hands, with a full magazine slotted into the top. Stenwold was beginning to wish he had brought a crossbow himself, and not just his sword. If the Scorpion had betrayed them this would be a poor place to get trapped by Wasp soldiers.

‘Master Maker,’ Totho whispered a warning.

Stenwold started and turned to see two tall men in yellow shirts and black breeches passing into the square. One held a staff, and the other a lantern. They pointedly paid no attention to the two foreigners, instead lighting two braziers with exaggerated care before moving on. The dim red light lent the scene little warmth, however. Stenwold and Totho had seen many such men — and women — in Myna, standing guard at markets or patrolling the streets. They were substitute soldiers, brought in for the inferior tasks that the Imperial Army disdained, having been conscripted from elsewhere in the Empire. Stenwold thought they were probably Grasshopper-kinden from Sa, which was far enough from Myna that they would not be tempted to rebel or defect. Auxillians, they were called: slave soldiers of the Empire.

The lamplighters passed on, but there was something so very private in their manner that told Stenwold they had been expecting him to be there. He began to feel nervous, or at least more nervous. There were too many shadows in this part of Myna and his night vision had never been of the best. That was part of the Art that had always eluded him. Closer into the city’s hub there would have been gas lamps flaring, but out here there was only naked flame, primitive and unreliable against the darkness.

‘Master Maker,’ said Totho again, after a short while of waiting.

‘Stenwold — call me Stenwold, please. Or even Sten,’ the older man said.

‘Sten’ was clearly too much for the young artificer who, after a pause, began again: ‘Stenwold, then. . There’s something I’ve been meaning. . that is, when I had the opportunity. .’

Stenwold kept his eyes on their surroundings, but he nodded to show he was listening. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s only that. . When we’ve freed Che. . freed Cheerwell I mean. And Salma of course. But when we have. .’

The boy was certainly taking a long time over this, whatever it was. Meanwhile Stenwold clutched his hand about his sword hilt. The night was getting colder, too, the sky above ripped clear of clouds, pockmarked with stars.

‘It’s just, I’ve never met her parents, you see,’ Totho continued wretchedly.

Caught unawares, Stenwold could genuinely not think what he meant. ‘Her parents?’ he asked, turning a blank expression to the youth.

‘Only. . I haven’t asked her at all. She doesn’t. . She doesn’t even know, I think.’ Totho’s dark face twisted. ‘But since you’re her uncle. .’

‘Totho, are you talking about a proposal?’ Stenwold asked, completely thrown by this, in this place and at this time.

‘I. .’ Totho read in his face something that Stenwold would have hidden had he realized it was there. The young artificer lowered his head in humiliation. The thought etched on Stenwold’s brow had been clear enough, even in the dull light. His plans for Che, whatever they might be, had not included welcoming a halfbreed artificer into the family.

Stenwold saw his reaction, divined it accurately. ‘Totho, I don’t mean to say-’

‘It’s all right, Master Maker.’

‘You’re a fine lad, but-’

‘They’re here, sir.’

Stenwold stopped, turned. They were, indeed, there.

Men and women were emerging from the shadows around the other end of the square. They were not as stealthy-silent as Tisamon was, but they moved with a minimum of fuss, only the occasional clink of metal or scuff of leather. Stenwold made a quick headcount, and by the time his eyes had passed back again to catch the stragglers there were fifteen of them.

Most were men and most were young. Almost all of them wore a scarf or some kind of cloth hiding half their faces. They had hoods, cloaks too. All of them had a blade out and ready, even if it were no more than a sharpened kitchen knife. A couple even had crossbows raised, bolts to the string.

Stenwold stayed very still. He noticed that Totho held his repeater aimed casually downwards, and he silently approved. There was an ugly mood amongst these newcomers, as Hokiak had warned him.

He studied the few exposed faces. There was one older woman whom he thought he should know, from way back. Another was a lanky Grasshopper-kinden, and he guessed that these young fighters had contacts in the Auxillians who would ensure they were not disturbed here.

Amongst the few bare faces was one who must be their leader, from the way he stood and the way the others gathered around him. He was young, five years over Totho at most, and he bore a shortsword of the old Mynan style that was no longer made. There was a peaked helm on his head, of black-painted steel, and the bulkiness of his tunic suggested a breastplate underneath. Their scarves and masks were coloured red or black, and Stenwold knew the hidden armour would be too. The thought brought back a flash of that final day in Myna all those years ago, his younger self watching by telescope as the defenders readied themselves. This man would have been only a child then.

With his offhand, the man drew a dagger from his belt, and Stenwold tensed absurdly, despite the fact that there were swords and knives and crossbows levelled at him already. Wordlessly the same weapon was cast at his feet to clatter on the flagstones. There was a ribbon tied about its pommel. This, Stenwold guessed, was the ‘red flag’ that Hokiak had spoken of, which they left behind as their sign.

‘The old man said you were after meeting us,’ the leader began. ‘An old Beetle and a halfway? Why?’

Not so old, not yet. ‘Because I need your help.’

‘And what gives you the right to that?’ The man stepped forward so that the dagger was immediately at his feet, and Stenwold within reach of his swordblade. ‘I am Chyses, old man, and these are my people. We help ourselves and our city, but not foreigners.’

Stenwold kept himself calm, blotted out the sword, the implicit threat. ‘My name is Stenwold Maker, and I have been here before — before the conquest, in fact. Does none of you here know my name? You,’ he turned to the older woman. ‘You would have known me, perhaps. I spent some time here.’

She frowned at him, then looked to Chyses, who signalled for her to speak. ‘I remember a Stenwold Maker, a Beetle-kinden,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t tell if you’re him. I won’t vouch for you.’

Stenwold glanced around the semi-circle of resistance fighters, seeking other heads with greyer hair. Nobody else? ‘I did my best, then, to help your people.’

‘I remember a Stenwold Maker,’ rumbled another man. ‘I was an artificer’s apprentice when the conquest came. I remember a Stenwold Maker who talked us into some mad plan that didn’t work. I remember how we were betrayed.’

Stenwold stayed very still, because one of the crossbows was now directed straight at his head. ‘Not by me,’ he said, and he could feel Totho as tense as a wire beside him. He realized that the current mood could not last: it would ebb or it would break in blood. ‘I did not betray you. I did my best to help you and I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.’

‘I think this is a Wasp scam,’ said Chyses, half to Stenwold, half to his followers. ‘All too easy, isn’t it? “Oh, I was here before the conquest”, “Oh, I did my best for your people”, and then we show you where we hide and what we do and, the next thing we know, the Rekef’s down on us. Sound familiar, old one?’

Stenwold took a deep breath, but before he could even deny it, Chyses cut him off.

‘I don’t want to hear it. We’ve been tricked before — but not ever again. Kill them. Dump their bodies in the sewers.’

‘Chyses!’ It was a squeak more than a cry. The resistance leader turned to see that the crossbowman, so recently menacing Stenwold, was now himself held hostage.

‘Tisamon,’ said Stenwold, and the flood of relief was almost embarrassing. The Mantis had his off-arm lightly about the man’s throat, his forearm spines in deep enough to draw pinpricks of blood. His right arm was raised, the claw of his gauntlet folded, ready to strike at any that came near.

‘Kill him,’ Chyses ordered, but something in Tisamon gave them all pause.

‘Don’t you know me?’ the Mantis asked. ‘Not you, Khenice?’ he asked the older woman, whose name that instant returned to Stenwold’s halting memory. ‘I saved the life of your son once, in a brawl with two Ant mercenaries. Was that for nothing?’

Khenice stared at him, and Stenwold was reminded again how little Tisamon had changed compared to him, or any of them.

At last his name fell from her lips. ‘Tisamon.’ And then, ‘Perhaps it was for nothing. He died fighting the Wasps at the gate, when your outlander plans failed. But yes, yes you did. I remember.’

The revolutionaries were in disarray now. Some still held close to Stenwold, some were trying to watch Tisamon. Now others saw that Tynisa, with her rapier drawn, had crept up unseen and unheard behind them. Stenwold guessed that somewhere in the gloom of the higher buildings he would find Achaeos, to whom night and shadow were no barriers.

‘I have been a friend of Myna before now,’ Stenwold persisted. ‘And I have something I must do here. You may wish to help me, or not. I hope you may even gain by it, so will you at least hear me out?’

Chyses looked from him to the uncertain faces of his supporters, and the nodding of Khenice. At last, with obvious reluctance, he agreed.

For those three, entering Myna had apparently been easy, so easy that Stenwold wondered whether he should not have simply sent them in and himself stayed at home. As soon as night fell, Tisamon had made the decision. He did not see it as disobeying Stenwold’s instructions. He had simply wanted to keep a personal eye on matters. It annoyed Stenwold to acknowledge that his friend had been right.

They had taken the wall swiftly and silently, with Achaeos aloft keeping watch as they climbed. Tisamon did not have the Art for it, to cling to the stones, but Tynisa did, and she let down a rope for him. It was mere minutes and one dead sentry later before they had invaded Myna.

After that it was a simple piece of work to locate Stenwold, for of course Tisamon remembered old Hokiak, and was remembered in turn. The old man had at first been reluctant to give details of his business but, between old acquaintanceship and Tynisa’s charm, he had been persuaded. All this was still playing catch-up, of course, for Stenwold and Totho had already been on their way to the meeting. The painful fact was that Tisamon and his fellows were simply faster, more sure of themselves in the darkness.

I should be grateful, Stenwold told himself. Instead it just seemed to reinforce the fact that he was neither as young nor as good at this game as he seemed to have believed. Certainly Chyses would have killed him and Totho without a qualm, had Tisamon not been as fleet and decisive as he was.

The Red Flag had led them into ever more dubious parts of the city, quarters that the occupation had let go to rot. Stenwold guessed that the Wasps were now paying for that neglect. He saw enough lurking figures to guess that there were whole neighbourhoods here that the resistance had gained effective control over. He began to wonder just how strong Chyses’ people might be.

Myna. He had seen the city fall. It had been his great failure, that had set him on this intelligencing path. He forced himself away from any thought that now he could save it. I am here for Che and Salma. I cannot fight their wars for them. It’s not as though I did a very good job the last time.

And then the next thought: If I cannot accomplish something against the Empire here, then my next great failure may be Collegium itself.

Telling the tale, Stenwold found that it was simpler than he had thought. Putting words to it brought home just what was at stake and what was important.

His niece and another student of his had been captured by the Wasps in Helleron. It was believed — and here he could not stop himself from glancing at Achaeos — that they had been brought to Myna for questioning. A rescue was urgently needed.

With good reason the resistance in Myna — the Red Flag — did not trust the sky. Wasps held airborne patrols and they employed enough Fly-kinden in their ranks as well. The stubborn heart of Myna had therefore gone underground. There were some thirty men and women in this resistance cell, which had tentative links to other cells across the city, and they were now in a rambling warehouse cellar near the river, heavy with damp. The walls were a history unto themselves. The upper stones were the pale, plain pieces that the Mynans themselves favoured, but the bottom three rows were crumbling carved masonry centuries older. Some other place had stood where Myna stood now, and had fallen and been forgotten long before the Wasps ever arose to trouble their neighbours.

The cross-section of Mynan life found here was a broader version of the group that had come so close to ending Stenwold’s personal story earlier. Most of them were too young to hold any clear memories of the conquest, but the occupation had scarred them all. They had grown up second-class citizens in their own city, but their parents, those whose parents still lived and were free, had nevertheless passed the city’s pride on to them. They took this burden very seriously. Chyses was obviously their leader but Stenwold saw that it was a temporary arrangement. The man steered them by main force, and yet his orders were up for debate. They were debating now, turning over Stenwold’s words and passing them back and forth.

Eventually it was Chyses who had come back to them, and brought along with him one of the foreign militia, a very tall woman with a long face and close-cropped dark hair.

‘You’re in luck,’ the resistance leader told Stenwold shortly. ‘You see, we have friends amongst the Auxillians.’

‘I’d noted that,’ Stenwold said. ‘I was surprised to see it.’

‘The Wasps’ve got no imagination,’ sneered Chyses. ‘There’s a detachment of men and women from Myna serving as Auxillians far east of here, and instead they pass us a bunch of Sa’en Grasshoppers to keep the peace, as though it’s just the same. They see us all as dirt. They don’t make any distinctions.’

Stenwold nodded. He had never been to Sa but he had known a few Grasshopper-kinden. They could certainly fight, when they wanted to, but they were a peaceful people by nature, a thoughtful people: fighters, perhaps, but not warriors. Still, it was not in the Wasps’ nature to make exceptions regarding the way their slave races served them.

‘The more they tighten their grip on us,’ said Chyses, ‘the closer together they bring us.’ It was obviously a slogan that he was repeating. ‘This here is Toran Awe. She’s a sergeant-auxillian in the militia. Tell him.’

The Grasshopper-kinden gave Stenwold a brief bow. ‘There are not so many outlander prisoners being kept in the palace cells,’ she said. ‘Locals mostly, and anything else raises rumour. Three came in not long ago: a Beetle girl, a Commonweal Dragonfly and a dancer.’

‘I don’t know about the dancer, but the other two must be ours.’ Stenwold’s gaze twitched unwillingly to Achaeos, who was sitting cross-legged on a displaced block of masonry and staring straight back at him.

‘Then we can help you,’ Chyses said. ‘And you can help us. Because we need a rescue too.’