The Scarab Path

Sixteen

The pen scratched as it went dry, and Thalric shook it irritably. He would have preferred a simple quill of rolled chitin, but the Regent must have only the best. These reservoir pens — manufactured in Helleron, or copied in Sonn — carried their own store of ink. No more constant dipping and messy inkwells. He found that they worked unreliably and that his handwriting became unrecognizable. Such was progress.

It was long past dark now, and well into the silent watches that dragged their way towards midnight, and Thalric was still writing his report.

Contact made with the Khanaphir First Minister. Relations generally friendly. The precise power structure here is opaque. Mentions have been made of certain 'Masters', but this would seem to be a purely ceremonial position, from my observations.

He had already written his assessment of the Khanaphir people, their character, their defences. He concurred with Vollen:

If the Empire brings force against Khanaphes, then there seems no prospect of a successful resistance. Their ground defences seem antiquated, and the Khanaphir have no visible means of defending their city or its holdings from the air.

So far so good. Yet he had barely written a new line for over an hour now, the pen poised, then scratching out letters, then crossing them through, pages being copied to disguise his indecision.

It was all academic, of course, since Marger would be preparing his own report. If the purpose of this expedition fell into Rekef territory, then it would be Marger giving the orders. Thalric was only an adviser. Still, here he was playing the Rekef officer because it was all he knew how to do.

I have made contact with the Collegium embassy. Their ambassador is Cheerwell Maker, niece of their general, Stenwold Maker.

He crossed it out and started again. His Rekef past and his more recent past hung on scales in his mind, each balancing the other. He found he did not want to be the man who put her name into the thoughts of General Brugan. The Rekef remembered names and he had no way to describe the two sides of Cheerwell Maker. List her accomplishments — fomenting rebellion in Myna, resistance in Solarno and Tharn — see her that way and she was such a threat that the Rekef death-orders would be signed the moment his report found home.

And yet I know she is just a foolish girl. She bumbles about the world meaning well, and trying to do the right thing, then gets it wrong as often as not, and must run to catch up with events. No, he did not want to be the man responsible for putting her on the List — inscribed beside her uncle — of those people the Rekef would remove when the new war broke out.

I am a poor Rekef man, a poor Imperial soldier. He had always tried to be loyal to his friends and comrades, but that had almost never worked. So where is my loyalty now? It seemed absurd that the sticking point for his muchabused fidelity could be a Beetle-kinden girl working for the opposite side.

Everyone else recognizes the risks. Maybe that was it. Che Maker never seemed to realize the danger she constantly put herself in. Watching her progress through life was like witnessing a constant series of near-misses, like seeing someone sleepwalk through a battle.

He shook his head. Once more he had written, The Collegium ambassador is known to me, but that begged the obvious question. He put down the pen and rubbed his eyes, smudging ink across his cheek. He was willing to bet that Marger would have completed his own report hours before, despite having the added chore of reporting on Thalric.

There was a scream from outside, so shrill with terror that Thalric leapt up instantly, spilling everything from the desk. He went to the window, found it too narrow to exit through. There was a lot of shouting from downstairs and from across the square. The scream was repeated, like the desperate cry of a man on the rack. An attack! But on who? He grabbed up his sword, discarded the scabbard and bolted out of his room.

He ran into a half-dressed Marger on the stairs, and with a common glance the two of them made for the door. As they hit the cool night air they found Gram outside, sword already drawn, the other hand held out with palm open towards the building on the other side of the Place. There were people spilling out of it, too, and Thalric spotted one of the Vekken already armoured, and glimpsed Che's Flykinden as well. Both of them held crossbows.

Oh, this could get messy. Gram and the Fly began shouting at each other, each demanding to know what the other had done. Without having to look, Thalric knew that Vollen, with his sting ready, would have taken station at one of the windows.

'There!' Marger snapped, and pointed. Thalric saw the body at the same time. Near the larger arch, a man lay on his back, one hand upraised as if to ward something off, the other arm flung over his eyes.

It was Osgan.

Thalric's heart sank as he ran across, dropping to one knee beside the fallen man. There was a lot of shouting going on, the pitch of tension rising and rising. 'Get them to shut up!' he told Marger, who backed away to quieten things down.

Osgan was shaking violently and he clung to the proffered arm as Thalric went to touch his shoulder. His face was a mask of tears and he reeked of alcohol. He kept pointing, though, and was trying to get some words out. Thalric followed the trembling finger, and for a second felt a twitch of what Osgan must be feeling. Then he cursed the man wearily and rounded on the escalating confrontation behind him.

Che had emerged now, bundled up in a grey Mothkinden cloak and calling for her own side to back down. Thalric could sense that Gram was more than ready for a fight, and even Marger had abandoned his easy manner and had drawn his sword.

'Down! Swords down! Back inside!' Thalric bellowed, and for a moment he was neither Rekef nor traitor, but Captain Thalric of the Imperial army shouting at a bunch of recalcitrant soldiers. 'We are not about to restart the war with the Lowlands here in Khanaphes. There is no problem, there is no attack. Everyone get back inside and go to sleep!' Even as he shouted it he could hear his words echoed by Che Maker ordering her people to do the same.

'Accius, listen to me,' she was yelling. 'Or Malius, whichever. Just … I will find out what's going on …Trallo, put that cursed crossbow down.' An old Beetle had come out, wearing a nightshirt and carrying a sword, until Che turned and swore at him, telling him to get back inside and leave this to her. 'This isn't a fight,' she insisted. 'Nothing's happened.'

Not yet, Thalric thought, but it very nearly did.

'That man of yours is a liability,' Marger remarked disgustedly.

'Right now we're all liabilities,' Thalric told him grimly. 'I'll deal with Osgan. You get your men back inside.'

It seemed to last for ever, this moment on the edge of violence. Then Marger turned away, and Gram followed him with such a belligerent backwards stare that Thalric guessed he must have scores to settle with the Lowlands, left over from the war. The Vekken had already stamped back inside and Che was shepherding the rest of her errant people out of sight.

Osgan had crawled over to the pond and was splashing water on his face. In the sudden quiet, Thalric could hear the ragged catch of his breathing.

'You bloody fool,' he said, but quietly. Osgan rolled over onto his back. He looked ill.

'You can't know …' he got out, 'what I saw-'

'I know exactly what you saw,' Thalric snapped, 'and be grateful I understand enough not to hand you over to Vollen and Gram,' He glanced over at what had spooked Osgan: just a statue. It was partly overgrown, hidden in greenery until now, and depicted a Mantis-kinden standing with his clawed gauntlet on, the blade folded back along the line of his arm. And I do understand. Tisamon could have modelled for it.

The release of tension left him feeling weak, shaking his head. He had no will left to discipline Osgan. The whole business just seemed ridiculous. He sat down heavily on one of the benches as Osgan eyed him cautiously.

'I'm sorry, Thalric. I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

'Oh, shut up,' Thalric said, without rancour. We could have been killing each other, over this. He chuckled despite himself, resting his head on one hand and staring into the water.

'Midnight manoeuvres for the Imperial army, is it?'

He jumped up and turned to find Che standing not ten feet away, still clutching that grey cloak about her. He snorted half a laugh before he could stop himself.

'Just an … It's not a problem.'

'Is he all right?' She peered round him at the prone figure of Osgan.

'He's fine. He's drunk.'

'Lucky him.' To his surprise one of her hands came up holding a clay jar from which she took a swallow. 'He's more than drunk. What happened?' She asked the question without guile, not a Lowlander agent prying for information — just Cheerwell Maker and Thalric caught up in another awkward situation.

'He ran into that statue over there, the Mantis one, and it gave him a bit of a fright,' Thalric explained. One harsh winter during the Twelve-year War, he had crossed a frozen lake on foot, his armour weighing him down too much for flight. He was reminded of that now: just pressing on carefully while waiting for the ice to give way, for everything to fall apart.

'Well, I can understand that.' She sat down with a whoosh of breath, raising the jar to her lips again.

Everyone gets a drink tonight except me, he thought. Now is that fair? 'I don't suppose,' he said, still negotiating the ice, 'there's enough there for a swig?'

She gave him a long look, and in his mind he heard the ominous creaking and cracking, but then she passed it over. He knocked back a gulp, tasted harsh spirits, far stronger than he had expected. He choked, forcing it down, then handed the jar back wordlessly.

Che gave a delighted shout. 'You know, I always thought temperance was one of your lot's virtues. I don't think I ever saw a drunk Wasp before.'

Osgan began to protest about being called drunk, but he slurred the words so much he was incomprehensible.

Thalric felt himself smile. 'Oh, bring three bottles of this gutrot to my room some time, and I'll show you one.' He waited for the final crack, the sudden icy cold, but she laughed out loud, the sound ringing around the Place of Foreigners. What Marger and the rest must have thought, he had no idea.

'I'm not … not that drunk. I'm not that … that drunk,' Osgan muttered, getting one elbow on to a bench and dragging himself into a sitting position. 'That … not that drunk … but … but I saw — it, him …' The words fell off into a choking sob.

Thalric gave Che a look of exasperation but realized she was nodding. 'Oh, the Khanaphir are far too good at statues,' she agreed. 'I had enough of a fright when I saw our door guards.'

Thalric glanced across at the Collegium embassy, not understanding for a moment, then reinterpreting the stone Moth-kinden there. 'Of course,' he added more quietly, 'he is dead.'

'Yes,' Che echoed. 'Yes, he is dead.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Are you really?' And the ice began to give way, just as it had in the Commonweal.

'You forget, I knew him,' Thalric said, in a tone that was quick and clipped. Why do I care what she thinks I think about her dead Moth? 'We went through that mad business in Jerez together. For that matter, I did my best to stop him getting stabbed.'

She was nodding, slowly. Another step taken and he hadn't fallen yet. 'I wasn't there. He wouldn't take me with him.'

'You … wouldn't have been able to change anything,' he declared.

She glared at him. 'Would I not, then?'

He turned away from her to look into the water again, his own expression looking as distant as those of the statues themselves. 'It's just what one says, in these situations, to spare people. To tell the truth there were things happening that night that I will never understand.'

There was a long pause, and he found her studying him, nodding slowly. 'I believe you,' she said, almost too softly for him to catch. 'I believe you, because I understand it a little, now.' He frowned at that and she shook her head, casting around for another topic of conversation. 'What's your friend got against Mantids?'

Osgan gave a hollow laugh. 'You can't know. You weren't there.'

Che frowned at Thalric. 'Where?'

Osgan struggled further up onto the next bench, and lay back on it, gasping like a dying fish.

'He was …' It was not a pleasant tale, would seem even less pleasant to her. Thalric pressed on regardless. 'He was a guest of the Emperor during a celebration to mark the anniversary of the coronation. There was a big blood-fighting match. He had the honour of serving as the Emperor's scribe for the evening. For the Consortium it's a real accolade.'

'Oh, I was doing well, back then. Well, well, well,' Osgan interrupted. 'I was flying high.'

'So what happened?' Che asked. 'Did the Emperor-?'

'Oh, the Emperor nothing,' Thalric said. He waited for Osgan to speak, then filled in the silence. 'It was because of your friend. I wasn't there, but I've heard all about it. Your friend the Mantis.'

'Tisamon.' Che breathed. The very name seemed to make the night more chill, and she shivered under the cloak, leaning closer to him, anxious to hear the rest.

'He was fighting for the Emperor's pleasure, but he got up into the stalls somehow. He went … mad,' Thalric said slowly. 'Tisamon went mad, that's what I heard. There were guards that tried to stop him, but …'

'You … weren't there,' said Osgan clearly. 'You can't know. They tried to stop him. They ran in from in front of the Emperor, and from all sides, and they flew from across the pit. They tried … they had stings and spears and swords, and they were trying to get between him and the Emperor, but he just … killed them.' His voice sounded raw, like an unhealed wound. 'He killed them and he killed them, and they didn't have a chance. They were throwing themselves on to his blade. They — so many — they were … so brave, all of them so brave. They were dying for the Emperor, and the Mantis wouldn't stop killing them. They didn't have a chance.' He choked again, descending back into his misery. 'So brave,' he got out one last time.

Che was looking somewhere beyond Thalric now, while automatically passing the jar back to him. 'She never said,' she murmured. 'Tynisa would never say just how it happened.'

Thalric put a hand to her shoulder, without thinking. All these dead we have in common. She covered it with her own, still peering into her own mind. For a moment, lost in memory and in drink, she had forgotten who he was.

'And the Emperor died, of course,' said Thalric. And from there come all my woes.

She focused her gaze on him again, and instead of the anger he had expected there was only puzzlement there. 'What are you doing here, Thalric?'

'Keeping an eye on you.' He said it before the Rekef in him could prevent it. 'And you?'

'Me? Oh, I'm mastering the art of self-deception. The others, they're here to study — although I don't expect you to believe a word of it. But I myself came here looking for … something else.' She gave a fragile smile. 'Something that isn't here, that never was.' No longer clutched so tight, the cloak had fallen open as she leant closer. Beneath it he saw the thin shift she wore, and under that, the swell of her breast. He felt a stab of arousal, absurdly inappropriate but powerful, and made to remove his hand from the warmth of her shoulder. For a second she held on to it, then let him reclaim it.

'We are such fools, aren't we?' she said. 'Brawling in the streets.'

'To the great amusement of our hosts,' he agreed.

'Well, Thalric, where does this leave us?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'Are we enemies, here and now?'

She met his gaze. 'You made a slave of me.'

'Che-'

'You would have had me raped. You would have tortured me — you would — don't think I've forgotten.'

He had gone cold. The ice had finally cracked and he had forgotten to be ready for it. 'I won't deny it.'

'I didn't think you would. You've never been less than honest.' She shrugged. 'And Uncle Sten thinks there's even hope for the Vekken, so why not you? What are you asking for, Thalric?'

'A truce? Until things degenerate between our factions again. A truce between you and me.' He took that final step across the perilous ice. 'For old times' sake.'

She snorted with laughter, but he was now on firm ground. He grasped her hand when she offered it to him, though he saw the faint flinch, her memory of what Wasp hands could do.

'We are both a long way from home,' she conceded, draining the last dregs from the jar. As she stood up it took her a moment to get her balance. 'We … we run out of old friends, do we not? They die, or they leave.'

He knew what she was saying: both of them marooned here at the ends of the earth. With whom did they share a past, however bitter, but with each other? He knew she would never have admitted it without the drink, but it was said now, impossible to retract.

'A truce,' she said. 'I know you're no good servant of your Empire, Thalric.' He must have twitched because she said quickly, 'and I'm no better. I came here for my own selfish reasons, however misconceived. A truce until the others start fighting again. Why not?' She squeezed his hand briefly, then released it.

He turned to Osgan and kicked the man's foot, drawing a startled exclamation.

'What-?'

'If you're intending to sleep, at least sleep indoors rather than under the stars like a Roach-kinden,' Thalric reproached him, and half-hauled the man to his feet. He glanced at Che again, and she gave him a fragile smile, a lop-sided shrug.

'Until next time,' she said, and turned for her embassy.

Petri Coggen was wide awake the next day — more awake than Che felt, certainly. Without fatigue to loosen her lips, she was now close-mouthed about the things she had said previously. Instead she eyed her fellow Collegiates cagily. You all think I'm mad, was written plain on her face.

'We will talk later,' Che whispered to her. After all, her great confessions had been disclosed only to Che, who was frankly not ready for further details. Between the disappointment and the drink she was feeling the morning keenly.

'You've lived for a while amongst these Khanaphir,' Berjek remarked. They were sitting together at a magnificently carved table, eating a local breakfast of honey and seedcake. The airy wave of his hand took in the city beyond the window, but ignored the servants that glided past him. 'I confess to seeing here a great deal that has mystified me. Their culture is not at all like ours, and yet we are of the same kinden.'

Petri Coggen nodded gloomily. 'Yes, they are not like us,' she said.

'Technologically, in particular,' Praeda put in. 'Which I think we can take as a valid yardstick of any culture-'

'Oh, nonsense.' The objection of Berjek the historian to Praeda the artificer.

She ignored him. 'These Khanaphir have a marvellous architecture, it's true, and I'm told they have some achievements in basic water-powered or weight-and-lever devices, but … but when Che first saw this place, she even thought they might be Inapt, and I must admit I can see why.'

Oh you can't, Che thought, around her headache. Really, you can't.

'Do you know much of their history?' Praeda asked.

'They do not talk about their history, for the same reason fish don't talk of water,' Petri told them. 'They are swimming in history. So much of this city is ancient, and so much more simply copied from that.'

Manny seemed to be suffering worse than Che, and had been listlessly chewing the same mouthful of seedcake for twenty minutes. Now he swallowed forcibly, and said, 'Maybe they achieved Aptitude more recently than we did.'

The others looked at him quizzically.

'Yes, yes,' he said irritably, 'I am a Master of the Great College. I may not be as respected as either of you two, but I'm a cartographer. I study maps, and I know that sometimes there are maps that I can't read: maps made by the Inapt, who frankly have no concept of how to draw one. But sometimes there are maps that are … trying harder. Those of the Fly-kinden, for instance. Fly-kinden maps dating from a couple of centuries ago are illegible, but modern ones, most of them, are clear as day.'

'It's a possibility,' Berjek allowed. 'The transmigration of Aptitude over time is a … contentious issue, academically speaking. I'm not sure that's something I want to get into.'

'Corcoran said something …' Che blurted out. What was it the Iron Glove factor had said?

'Corcoran advised us to study the Estuarine Gate,' Praeda recalled. 'I think we should take him up on it. He told me where their consortium has its factora located. I'm sure he'd be happy for us to engage his services for the day.'

The bright sun provided no antidote to a harsh night. Che staggered like a blind woman half the distance to the Estuarine Gate, before her eyes and brain reluctantly reached a detente with the new day. Corcoran seemed in annoyingly jaunty form, more than happy to help his fellow foreigners. He had been in Khanaphes for a while, she gathered, but the locals would not let him forget that he did not belong. He was enjoying the novelty of some company.

'The thing is …' Corcoran began, running his hand along the intricately cut stone of the Estuarine Gate's nearside pillar. 'No — tell you what, you take a look at it there, then you tell me.' He beamed around at the academics. Che could not yet make up her mind about him. He had the demeanour of a mercenary, and wore the dark armour of the Iron Glove at all times, but he talked like a merchant, instantly familiar, endearingly irreverent. His Solarnese features looked infinitely honest and Che would not have bought a kitchen knife from him.

Berjek and Praeda both stepped forward to take a look. The great column that formed the eastern Estuarine Gate towered above them, incised at every level with those ubiquitous pictographs that Khanaphes had tattooed itself with. Che forced herself to examine them, aware that behind her Manny Gorget had drifted off to accost a sweetmeat seller, while Petri Coggen stood biting at her nails and flinching away from the many Khanaphir that bustled past.

In frustration, Berjek had dismissed the designs as merely decorative. Che's eyes gave him the lie. They caught on the orderly lines of carving, drawn into following them. On most of the buildings it was like seeing a madman's scrawl, always promising sense, delivering nothing. Here on these ancient stones …

She blinked. For a moment just then it had seemed as though she saw words, had heard voices almost. In that day… Honour to … So it was … She averted her eyes, her headache stabbing sharply behind the eyes, then forced herself to look again. It was as though the sense they conveyed was hovering like a fish just below the surface — distorted, deceptive, but nevertheless there.

'Corcoran, tell me,' she said, 'what are these cursed carvings they engrave on everything?'

'No idea.' He grinned briefly. 'Just part of the Khanaphir way, their traditions. When they build something in stone they have special craftsmen come and put these squiggles on them. It's just what they do.' He gave a half-shrug, clearly not so bothered. 'They say the carvers train especially from a great book of the designs that the Ministers have, that shows all the permitted pictures they can use. Good luck in seeing that, though. Our hosts don't make it easy to understand them.'

Che filed the information away. I will see that book if I have to steal it.

'I really don't know what I'm looking for,' Berjek admitted, backing away from the towering structure. 'Or do you mean the statues on the estuary side? We saw those coming in.'

Didn't we just, Che thought. She had dreamt last night of Achaeos, the drink betraying her. He had been hunting her, the lethal lines of a snapbow in his slender hands, and she had tried and tried to hide, but he had always tracked her down, his white eyes blazing in fury. It had been Khanaphes he was hunting her through, a city empty of people, and with those colossal statues, in their eternal cold beauty, looming at every corner.

'I have it,' Praeda said at last. 'This is not of one piece. There are four sides to it, and it is hollow.'

'Very good,' Corcoran smiled. 'You can hardly tell, I know, but the cracks are there. Now look across at the side of the west gate, facing us. You see the groove there?'

'There is … Is that a chain?' Praeda leant out, alarmingly, over the river. 'It can't be.'

'They don't call this a gate for nothing,' Corcoran confirmed. 'Below us, way below the draught of any ship, there is a great big, bronze-shod, wooden gate, and inside those towers there must be the biggest drop-weights you ever saw. When they want to close the river, they close the river, though I've never actually seen it done. They tell me it was last raised about forty years ago, so I reckon it's in good working order still.'

'Still?' Berjek echoed. 'Yes, but "still" from when? Oh, it looks old enough, but then everything here does. When was this mechanism put in?'

'That I can't tell you,' Corcoran admitted, and when the academics turned sour faces on him, he raised a hand. 'Believe it or not, I wanted to know that as well. I'm an artificer, after all, and you get curious. The locals just say it's been here for ever, whatever that means. No help there, then. But I got friendly with a Spider-kinden captain, and she did a bit of digging for me — in exchange for a cheap deal on some crossbows from the Glove. She found some records of once when a Spider Arista was stopped at the gates by the Khanaphir — some diplomatic incident — and the Spider-kinden families don't forget insults. Their description of the gate is perfect, same then as now.'

'And when was this supposed to be?' Berjek asked, annoyed by the man's air of showmanship.

'Hold on to something,' Corcoran said, 'because it was at least — at least, mind — five hundred and fifty years back. And it didn't say anything about the gate being new, even then.'

Berjek stared at him. 'Well, that's impossible,' he protested, but something tugged at the corner of his mouth and he added, 'Isn't it?'

'Could Collegium have built this, then?' Che asked.

'No,' Praeda said simply. 'That long ago is before the revolution, back when we might really have been Inapt.'

'But the Khanaphir can't have been Apt for fifty — maybe a hundred? — years longer than we have,' said Berjek, scandalized. 'Just look at them! What happened? Are you telling me that all their artificers just gave up, closed their books and locked their workshops?'

'I'm not telling you anything,' Corcoran said mildly. 'They do the most impressive things you ever saw with simple mechanisms, and they'll have nothing to do with anything more, even if you promise to install it free of charge. You're right, it makes no sense, but that's the way it is.'

It doesn't make sense, Che agreed inwardly. And so there must be some reason for it that we have not found. Aptitude? It is all about Aptitude. This city has not truly taken to it, so … so …

So there may be something left, some survival, that the tide of progress has not washed away.

She fell back from the bickering academics to join Petri Coggen, who looked at her fearfully. Che could not blame her.

'You know this city,' Che began. 'You know it better than any of us.'

'What do you want?' Petri asked her, voice shaking slightly. There was clearly something in Che's expression she did not like, and Che was not surprised.

'There must be something … Even in Collegium, if one searches hard enough, one can find a mystic, some old Moth or halfbreed peddling prophecy from a doorway. You can't tell me there is nothing of that here.'

Petri stared at her aghast. 'But … why?'

'Never mind why,' Che replied, with more force than she intended. 'I want you to think carefully about what I have asked and then, when we can go without these scholars bothering me, you will show me what I want to see.'

Petri was already shaking her head slowly. 'I'm not sure …'

'You have told me your fears,' Che persisted. 'I have not dismissed them. In fact, I agree with you: there is something at the heart of this city that is very wrong indeed. But I must use unusual methods to find it.' It was dishonest, putting it like that, but she was desperate. 'Did Master — did Kadro go to those places?'

There was a very long pause, as shock registered on Petri's face.

'He did,' she whispered. 'I don't know how you know that, but he did.'

'Then so shall I.'