Seal of the Worm

Twenty-One

She awoke thrashing at her sheets, eyes open but seeing only that dark place and stark grey images of horror torn from another woman’s eyes.

Seda had ridden the waves of Che’s own despair and it had infected her, but it was not the children of the dark world that had touched her. The breeding of slaves was beneath her; let them live or die as they chose.

She had seen through Che’s eyes, but her mind had remained her own. She tore herself from sleep with a true understanding of what would happen to the world – her world! – and of the rules the Worm was breaking just by existing.

A vast void in the shape of a centipede. Kinden blurring into other kinden. A homogenized world contained within the freezing guts of a mindless ignorant god, forever and forever.

That was the future.

Morning in Capitas. As she stepped onto the floor of her chamber, she thought she could feel the ground tremble slightly, even from so many storeys up. The armies of the Worm were coming. There was no way of knowing where they would strike next. Nobody was safe, and there was no way to retaliate.

Seda could only close the door on them, leave them to their obscenities. Let them practise their rites on their slaves in the darkness. Let them scrape to their god, only let them not open the way for it to come here, and devour the sun.

For a moment, a great wave of hopelessness threatened to overwhelm her: the thought that none of it would be enough, that her painstaking calculations were wrong, that the entire concept was misguided. How do I know this will work? And, of course, she could never know, not until she had done it and seen the results. And there would only ever be one chance for her to stopper this bottle, to bury the Worm forever.

Because it’s my fault. I let them out. I must force them back.

But I must be right. I must be sure. Better to go too far than not far enough. I have no time for subtlety.

From the corner of the room, Tisamon watched her impassively, and she strode over to him, trying to read condemnation in his face – trying to read anything in his face. His pale dead features regarded her and did not judge. He was her creature, and he was the only one she could rely on. The rest – her generals, Brugan, all of them – they were mortal, fallible, weak. She must make use of them, for want of any better, but they were all poor tools. How is it that my people have come to this?

Once she stepped from her chambers, her anguish and desperation were left behind. She was the Empress; people bowed before her and feared her.

In her throne room she dismissed the waiting suitors and advisers and petitioners, all the detritus of state. She spared time only for her Red Watch, spread as it was across the Empire and beyond. In her mind she moved it as she would chess pieces, each member with its particular instructions and mandates coming to its mind inexplicably but irresistibly. It was her voice. That was no idle boast.

After that she summoned a handful of Consortium officers, men of the Quartermaster Corps and veteran slavers, those to whom she had entrusted the minutiae of her plan. None of them truly understood what this was all for and, though of course they did not question her, she suspected they did not even ask questions of themselves. If the Empress wanted an unprecedented concentration of slaves, whole camps crammed full of the luckless Inapt, then why should that raise an eyebrow, beyond the intellectual exercise of arranging the logistics?

They reported to her patiently and carefully, checking their numbers with each other. They confirmed that every airship of any size that the Empire could make use of had been diverted; that vessels crammed with the spoils of the war with the Spiderlands were coasting north up the Silk Road; that the Principalities were selling off their Dragonfly serfs with an open hand; that the Grasshopper-kinden of Sa had been culled, a full one in four currently on forced march towards Capitas. They spoke dispassionately about death rates: those who would not make the camps because of the pace or the overcrowding. They were regretful but only because such waste diminished the value of their service to her.

And she sat and listened to those dry voices, these men whose only war had been fought on paper, or against an enemy already in chains, and she felt a spasm of revulsion go through her that she should need such men, and that she should need this venture.

They will remember me as the mad Empress. History will never forgive me. Even though we win, history cannot condone what it is we do here. But I pay that price, and I make all these others pay that price. To save the world.

Put in those words, it sounded almost convincing.

‘It’s not enough.’

The words were hers. She could not deny them.

To save a world from the Worm, great sacrifices would have to be made. The Inapt made better gifts to oblivion, but she could not afford to restrict her ambitions. The Apt were still valuable to her, and she had far more of them still at her disposal. Entire cities full of them, if need be. Even if it took ten Apt deaths to equal one of the Inapt, why then, she would just find some place with Apt to spare, and have ten times as many killed.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ one of the Consortium men began, ‘forgive us. There are limits to what even the resources of the Empire may accomplish in so short a time. And there is the matter of feeding the slaves at the camps, keeping them alive for . . .?’ His small eyes searched her face for some indication of that ‘for. . .?’

And indeed, although she herself knew what for, how could she possibly accomplish it? She could hardly haul each one in turn to the museum for a ritual bloodletting. Could she ask Tisamon to pass amongst so many thousands to cut their throats? Even he – even being what he now was – would take too long about the task. And that was just the camps themselves. She had heard their reports regarding the numbers they were gathering. Surely that would not be enough, for the colossal hubris of the ritual that she was planning. Even the ancient Moths would not have dared what she was intending. The power she would require was unprecedented. Only an unprecedented toll would pay for it.

I could have my soldiers shoot them. Why not turn to the weapons of the Apt one last time? The blood would still flow, and it would be quicker. It could be effected with all the efficiency of these modern times.

But even then . . . and how many am I relying on to follow such orders? Too many, surely. And they would fight back, the Inapt slaves, and a city of the Apt even more so. Can I be sure that such bloodletting is possible, even with every soldier in the Empire at my bidding?

Do I even need the blood? Is that not simply an antiquated concept of savage peoples? What is blood, after all, but a symbol for the real power: death.

Death is all I need.

She dismissed them, the entire pack of them, exhorting them to double their efforts, and for a while she brooded, seated on the throne with only Tisamon for company.

Then she beckoned a servant close.

‘Bring me General Lien,’ she directed.

The Engineers had done so much for the Empire in recent years. Perhaps they would come to its rescue again.

When General Marent returned to Capitas from his unexpected trip to Collegium, he could readily ignore all those questions that inferior ranks dared ask of an army general. The only voices he would truly have to answer to were the Rekef and the Empress, and neither sent for him. General Brugan was seen less and less at the palace, so that some were beginning to say he was a spent force, and the Empress . . . The Empress was fixated on her own concerns, rumour of which was now rife across Capitas. She had a grand project, it seemed, but the more her people found out about it, the less they understood.

What could she need so many slaves for? Most assumed there would be some elaborate entertainment once the war was done, though even the optimists murmured that surely victory was not so imminent as all that. Others wondered at the creation of some new all-Auxillian army to throw against the Lowlanders, some hundred-thousand-strong suicide detachment in a vast war of attrition.

Marent waded through the questions of his inferiors without deigning to engage, brushing them aside before returning to his troops. Against the fact of a general jaunting across half the world without orders, nobody bothered enquiring as to why he had brought a Captain-Auxillian of Engineers back with him.

Ernain had orders signed by Major Oski to seek out parts and mechanical supplies because that had always been a beloved dodge of the Engineers to enable them to go wherever they liked at a moment’s notice. He would have preferred having Oski at his side as he stepped onto the Capitas airfield, but the Second Army’s chief engineer was not as free to skip about the world as General Marent.

The Vesseretti Bee-kinden had been the Empire’s first major conquest. That meant that by now they were everywhere: Auxillian soldiers, house slaves, Consortium men, labourers. A sturdy-framed and hard-working people, with a good grasp of all the Apt world had to offer, they were valued by the Wasps for their skill and industry. They fetched high prices, and as soldiers were often promoted to the lower ranks. The Wasps had almost forgotten the savage struggle their grandfathers had gone through to subdue the Bee city.

The Vesseretti had not forgotten, though.

Ernain remembered finding his way to his home city during the reign of the traitor governors, when the whole Empire was teetering on the brink. There had been grand meetings, open demonstrations, stand-offs between the beleaguered Imperial garrison and the locals. It had then seemed as though the Bees would throw off their shackles and declare independence.

Ernain’s voice had been loud at those gatherings. He had argued against. Vesserett was not so very far from Capitas. Whether the Empress or her rivals prevailed, Ernain had seen clearly that his city would not be able to hold on to its freedom. It was too alone, too cut off. They were not ready.

Instead, the Vesseretti had put away their ambitions and stepped back from the battle line. The turmoil in the city had subsided, and it had been made plain to the Wasp governor that the Bees were – after some considerable thought on the matter – loyal.

That had been the moment Ernain had held his breath: would there be purges? Would the Rekef descend upon his people to punish them for what might have been?

But the governor had understood. He had seen, there and then, that the Bees could have torn down the black and gold flag, and that they had not done so. There were no reprisals. Indeed, after the Empress’s victory, in which Vesseretti Auxillian troops had played their part, a few new freedoms had crept into the city, for even slaves could be rewarded for their loyalty. Other city-states had made the same calculated decision, as Ernain was well aware.

The plan had arisen out of the ashes of that civil war. It was not Ernain’s plan, not quite, but he had contributed to it. It was the work of many hands, with more hands joining all the time.

In Capitas he presented himself at the house of a Consortium magnate, ostensibly in quest of missing deliveries. It was a flimsy enough ruse – for who would trouble a colonel over such things? – but there was a curious feel to Capitas just then. Great invisible wheels were turning, centred about the palace and the Empress. Nobody was inclined to question small matters such as this.

The man that Ernain met was an old Beetle-kinden, Auder Bellowern, the senior scion of that sprawling clan whose fingers were in just about everything the Consortium ever did. He was prosperously fat, his hair white and wispy against his dark skin. At his shoulder was his body servant, a Vesseretti girl less than half his age, whose company the man vastly preferred to that of his wife. The girl was Alysaine and she was Ernain’s introduction.

Around them, the magnate’s study was virtually choked with the collected trinkets of a lifetime of avaricious acquisition, a clutter matched in value only by the utter disorder of its display.

The Beetle looked him over, his face avuncular, his eyes all measurement and judgement. ‘You’re the fellow, then,’ he noted.

‘Sir.’

‘You don’t look completely mad. I’d expected you to come in foaming at the mouth and babbling Moth prophecies or something.’ At a gesture from the old man, Alysaine poured two bowls of wine. Ernain took his with a nod of thanks.

‘I wouldn’t have expected you to ask a madman into your home, sir.’

‘Nonetheless, you are quite mad, Captain. I’ve been let in on your plans to only a modest degree and I can still see that.’

‘Sir?’

‘I’m sure you have a great deal of support from . . .’ Auder’s hand flicked towards Alysaine. ‘For her sake, I’ve listened. Bold plans without any visible means of execution. Even with the support of myself, or a dozen men like me, you cannot win because your plan does not address the heart of the matter.’ He nodded towards one of his windows, and Alysaine hurried to unshutter it. Auder Bellowern’s house commanded a good view of the palace.

‘Matters are in hand, sir. It is simply a matter of awaiting the right opportunity.’

The old Beetle snorted. ‘No plan ever worked that relied on waiting.’ He shook his head against Ernain’s attempted reply. ‘Oh, you pin your hopes on the Lowlands, but you’ve no guarantees. What if the Empire crushed them tomorrow? Where would your plan be then?’

‘Intact, sir,’ Ernain told him, ‘because the Empire will not change unless change is forced on it. What will all those generals do without an enemy? They will find a new one, or they will fall upon each other. Now we are ready to exploit it, the Empire will give us our opportunity.’

‘You plan for the long term, then?’

‘What other plans are worth making? You know enough, sir. If you passed my name to the Rekef, then you have sufficient information to have me racked and executed, though the plan would persist and prevail even so. Or perhaps you think this is worthy of your support.’

‘Of my support – and so of Consortium support,’ Auder murmured. He glanced at Alysaine, and Ernain caught a brief sliver of emotion alien to his lined face, a moment of genuine affection. ‘I’ll not put my name to anything, you can be sure. No Rekef interrogation rooms for me in my old age. If your moment arrives, though . . . if you make your move, well . . . the Consortium will do well out of your new world, I feel. We’ve chafed at the shackles of the throne as much as any slave, believe me. I wish you luck, Captain, I truly do. May we meet again when you have some more concrete achievement to report.’

In the light of his study, the lamps turned up high, General Brugan of the Rekef studied the latest reports.

Outside his window, the world was fading to twilight and, though he had ordered the shutters closed, still the darkness seemed to creep in around the edges, to steal into his room and hang heavy about him, as though his eyes were failing before their time.

He ordered the lamps turned up, but his servant assured him they were as high as they could go.

‘Bring me more lanterns,’ he croaked. ‘More light.’ To his own ears his voice sounded as his ghost might. How long had it been since he had spoken? His mind raised the spectre of General Reiner, a long-dead rival for power. The man had ruled his agents and spies in near silence, weaving a mystique about himself by his unspeaking presence, but Brugan knew that Reiner’s closed mouth had hidden only weakness. And when the man had died – Brugan had not even needed to kill him – all that fraudulent inscrutability had died with him.

Now Brugan found his own voice drying up because silence was preferable to disclosing any of the thoughts that sat rotting in his mind. Thoughts about the Empress. Thoughts about the nature of the world. Thoughts about his own death. Sometimes he imagined taking his own life, because that would at least be a decision he himself could make, an attempt to exert some vestige of control over the world, even in that one small way. But always he failed to turn such thoughts into execution, and recently he thought that it was not fear of personal extinction that stayed his hand, but a fear that she would somehow prevent him from carrying the business through – that, in his final moment of action, he would discover he was even less his own man than he had thought. As long as he did not attempt it, he could persuade himself that the attempt was possible. He did not want to discover that even death was no release.

At other times he thought that she would have him killed. He would look up, and every shadow would carry its knife. He would see her dark bodyguard, the pale Mantis called Tisamon, lurking in his sight, cold eyes fixed on him, and never know if this was the moment that the Empress tired of him. He had long since tired of himself. He was drained, traumatized. The Empress, their couplings, her rule over him, the failure of his coup: she had left him nothing of the strong man he had once been.

Sometimes he saw Tisamon, and the man was actually there. Sometimes the man was not there, but Brugan peopled the shadows with him anyway. ‘More light!’ he insisted, and his servants would run to light lanterns and candles for him, but the shadows only multiplied.

He stared at the reports, fighting against the encroaching darkness to read them. Here was matter that any Rekef officer should be gripped by: detailed movements of slaves, Auxillians, unauthorized meetings and journeys, gatherings of men who had no business being together save to plot treason.

His eye settled on one name: Captain-Auxillian Ernain of the Engineers, attached to the Second Army, but whose recent activities should be sounding the alarm even now, however much the man had tried to hide them. And that attempt at concealment was itself the action of a criminal or a traitor.

Brugan stared at the reports. He must act, of course. He must tell the Empress. He must send out his agents to have these people arrested and questioned.

But his hand shook, and the darkness only gathered closer about him, and he saw the gleam of Mantis steel in the corner of his eye, and he did nothing. He was lost in the night, and he could not find his way back to a place where any of his life made sense. He scanned the reports but saw only words, and the more he read, the less anything connected to anything. If the Empress could do those things he had seen her do, if she had become the impossible, then how could he trust any chain of logic? How could any of these suspicions bear the weight of his belief?

He swept the papers from his desk and called again for more light.

General Lien was lean and bald, and a man loyal to the Engineers first and foremost. His recent promotion, and the general advancement of his beloved corps, had bought his almost unquestioning support for the throne. He was one of the few who came promptly and gladly when called before the Empress.

Seda had caught him off guard, however. He had not expected to be quizzed on matters technical.

‘There are ways . . .’ he started, and then stopped again, and she could see him thinking the matter over as an artificer should, breaking down the problem into manageable pieces: the little cogs of mass destruction.

‘You have engines, surely?’ she prompted. She did not want to know the details, and indeed she could not have understood them if he had told her, but she wanted to know for sure that the Apt had advanced so far in this specialist field to be of use to her.

‘They could be devised, Majesty,’ Lien told her, and he was still elsewhere in his head, even in the presence of his Empress. He was a leader of engineers rather than a grimy-handed mechanic, but she had brought out the craft in him with her question. ‘What timescale . . .?’

‘Now, General,’ she told him. ‘Or very soon. I cannot wait for inventions and drawings and tests. Surely your engineers have something for me?’ She was thinking of all the work that lay ahead, the slaves, the cities, the unthinkable harvest that she must needs reap in order to reforge the Seal of the Worm.

At that, he looked up with a speculative expression.

‘Majesty,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘have you heard of the Bee-killer?’