The Scarab Path

Thirty-One

We have lost control.

Malius's gloomy response came back. We never had it.

We cannot remain long in this city, Accius told him. This war of theirs has no relevance to us. The Vekken were sitting side by side on one of the beds in their room, in their customary silence. The movements of the Collegiates, their babble and clumsiness, intruded on them through the closed door.

It has been claimed that the Empire is behind the attackers, Malius reminded him.

I am not convinced. I can see no gain for the Empire.

We are not best placed to know what the Empire seeks.

Accius sighed inwardly. They talk and talk of leaving. He referred to the Collegium delegation, who had been packing their belongings frantically, but yet never seemed to make any definite plans. The implication was clear.

A poor deception then: they intend to stay.

Denying us our chance to return home.

Home, Malius echoed, and his inner voice was wretched. But we cannot give up all hope.

Could we even find home, if we left this city on our own? They compared maps, mind to mind, trying to stitch the borders of where-they-were to those of where-they-knew. But Vek had lived in isolation for such a long time, it barely acknowledged Helleron and Tark, let alone the Exalsee. We are lost. Only by staying with the Collegiates can we ever hope to reach home. We could put a blade to their throats and force them to guide us, if need be. Accius was warming to the idea. Or we could take their Fly-kinden slave and force him, instead. Fly-kinden are pliable.

A plan, Malius admitted. But what would we tell the Court, after we found our home again? What have we accomplished? What have we discovered?

That Collegium seeks common cause with the Empire! was Accius's prompt response. That our enemies gather against us. Another thought followed swiftly on: They pretend to leave, but they must wait here to betray the local Beetles to the Empire. Perhaps that is what they have promised, in return for Imperial help against Vek.

Plausible, agreed Malius. Feeling the other man's alarm at the thought, he fed him caution in return. We must accomplish what we have set out to do. We cannot return empty-handed. We must attempt to spoil their plot.

We care nothing for this city, Accius argued. In fact, we hate it. This is a crude, loud, chaotic place.

Still, it is being attacked by our enemies. In following our course of action, we deprive our enemies of their advantage. We must kill the ambassador, as we planned.

Accius's mind signalled frustration. She seems to be able to appear and disappear like a Moth-kinden. Whenever she is present, others watch her. That Fly slave has his eyes on her often, yet at times even he cannot find her, or that is what he claims.

That is what he claims, Malius echoed. We no longer have the time to do this properly, like soldiers. We must resort to other facets of our training. They fight their battles even now. We must be expedient.

I understand you. Accius signalled his preference for a simple killing, out of sight and without subtlety, but he felt Malius holding firm and ultimately knew the other man was right. They were not, after all, diplomats by profession, nor were they wholly soldiers. They could fall back on other resources, if need be, and that need had made itself amply apparent.

She is here, in this building, right now, Malius told him, building his confidence. She has returned to her fellows. Tonight she shall sleep in her own bed. I shall watch out for the others and, when she is settled, you must make your move. It must be swift.

The swifter she is dead, the sooner we can make the others leave this place and return us to the Lowlands. To our own city. Accius felt a tremor of the old homesickness rack him momentarily, leaning on his comrade for support. This is a vile place, and we will be well rid of it.

Malius stood up, stepping out of the room and on to the landing, to look down at the bickering Beetles in the main hallway below. He was out of the room but not out of Accius's presence, and so he could feel his friend begin to prepare, removing his armour, blacking his sword. The assassin's knife would now be whetted for Ambassador Cheerwell Maker. She would be found dead by one of the others. Then they would leave.

Or, if they do not leave, we will cut them until they agree to, Malius thought with a spike of anger. He could feel Accius's approval radiating to him through the wall.

Below him, the Beetles were still arguing. Their Flykinden slave had just flown in with news that the Khanaphir army was returning.

'And in cursed poor shape,' the little man was saying. 'They got a bloody nose, and then some. They're all kinds of beaten up.'

They were all of them down there: the old man, the fat man, the ambassador woman, but their attention was focused on the other woman, the one who normally seemed so admirably detached. Malius saw, with disapproval, that her creditable reserve had broken down. She had her hands to her mouth, eyes locked on the Fly in some kind of emotion that Malius found uncomfortably overstated.

'I'm not going,' she insisted. 'I'm not going.'

'Praeda …' the ambassador started, but the other woman shook her head.

'No, I couldn't … How could he do this to me? Men!' She rounded on the fat man, for want of another target. 'This is unfair! How often I've been wooed by some fool — she prodded him in the chest — 'by some ignorant oaf, and I've not cared. It's never touched me, before.'

'Now, look …' the fat one started, but she would not be diverted. Leaning on the stone rail of the landing, Malius found himself perversely fascinated. All this bared emotion, it was almost as if he could actually look into their minds. It was as eye-catching as someone throwing a screaming fit in the street.

'And now he comes along,' the woman complained, 'and he … he was different. I thought: there's something special here. Because he wasn't just some magnate's son, flashing his wealth, some scholar all full of himself, or a merchant adventurer. He was real. He was genuine. He was honest. And then, the moment he's got my attention, he goes off to war and gets himself killed.'

'You don't know that,' the ambassador protested.

'Trallo, did you see him there?' the grieving woman asked.

The pause the Fly allowed made the answer obvious. 'Not as such, but there were a lot of people about.'

'If he's still alive, he would come here,' the woman insisted.

'He might be thinking exactly the same about you,' the fat man pointed out. 'Bloody women, honestly.'

'He would come here,' she said again, sitting down. 'And I will wait for him here. I'll wait all night, if I must.'

Mad, all of them, was Accius's silent comment. He was ready now for when the house went to bed. The ambassador would get her throat cut, and thus the last tie holding the expedition to Khanaphes would be severed. It's just as well the other woman's lover is dead. We might have had to kill him, then. Or her.

Luck has been scarce recently, Malius thought. We were owed some.

She felt the straps taut about her wrists and ankles, falling into that familiar nightmare once again. Che did not need to open her eyes to know where she was: the interrogation room in the Myna palace. It was the room that she had personally witnessed being gutted by the resistance, every implement there destroyed, but in her mind it remained whole and unassailable.

And he did not even use the machines on me, she reflected, half in and half out of the dream. Yet still it haunts me. How quickly would I have broken under torture, had he ordered it? And would they ever have been able to put the pieces of me back together?

And she opened her eyes, seeing above her the poised arms, the drills and saws and files of an artificer's trade now horribly suborned. The sound of the steam engine was turned up, the noise that Thalric had used to hide his conspiracies. She looked around for him now, for this was not the first time her dreams had dragged her back here.

But it was not Thalric, at the levers. It was a slighter man, in grey robes, and she did not need him to turn around to recognize him. Turn he did, though, regarding her coolly with those white eyes, and she cried out, 'Achaeos!'

'Why do you make me do this?' he asked, his hands hovering over the controls. She was fully in the dream, now, and no escaping. It had all become terribly real in such a short space of time.

'Let me go!' she begged him, wrenching at the straps. 'Achaeos, let me go!'

'Not this time,' he said. His voice was quiet but she could hear it clearly over the whine of all the drills and the rumble of the steam. 'Che, look at us.'

'Achaeos — what is it? Why are you doing this?'

'Because you force me, Che,' he explained.

'Just tell me what you want me to do,' she said quickly, tripping over the words. 'I've tried! I've tried to follow you when you appear to me. I've gone everywhere you led me.'

'You do not understand,' he said. 'You do not understand at all. What do I want, you ask me? What do you think I want?'

'I don't know! Tell me!' she shrilled, for the drill arms were descending jerkily now, under his ministrations

'What do you want, Che? Freedom? To be let go? Do you think I would do this if you were not forcing me?'

The wrongness, the discontinuity of the situation, tried to speak to her, but the drill was very close, glittering within her vision, and it took all of her attention. She squirmed and twisted, trying to shift herself from underneath it.

It dropped, and she screamed-

And she woke.

The darkness of Khanaphes at night. The cool air from the river. There was no sound of distant battle, or of nocturnal assault by the Scorpions. The city was not yet under siege. She took a deep breath, still shaking.

I cannot survive many more of those nightmares. And, following from that: What if I do not wake next time, as the drill comes down?

The slightest sound then, and she went cold all over because there was someone in the room with her. She was instantly and absolutely sure of it. Achaeos? she wondered, but the ghost had never announced itself by sounds — just a smudge in the air, or the harsh, authoritative voice in her head.

Her Art penetrated the darkness, leaving her with that muted grey clarity that must have been how he always saw the world. Her heart caught, on seeing the cloaked figure crouching by the window.

'Oh, you have gone too far now,' she berated him, sitting up. 'Thalric, what …?' And then her horrified pause as he stared through the darkness, towards her voice — because, of course, she had not seen him since matters had fallen foul with the Empire. Which of your flags are you flying tonight, Thalric? Is it the black and the gold once more?

'If you're here to kill me, you've missed your best chance,' she told him, sounding remarkably calm even to herself. She had a sword within easy reach of the bed, a habit learned from her uncle. He could sting her before her hand reached it, of course. She heard a ragged release of breath.

'I need your help, Che.'

He was not quite looking at her, just vaguely in the direction of the bed. She kept forgetting how the Wasps possessed no Art against the darkness. Seeing him more clearly, he looked as though the intervening days had not been kind to him. His clothes were creased and torn, and he was unshaven, hollow-eyed. He stayed close to the window, one hand reaching out towards the sill, as if ready to jump.

She swung her legs off the bed. In her flimsy nightshirt she would be just a shape in the dark to him, but he still made her feel self-conscious. She pulled on a tunic, telling herself it was against the chill.

'Help?' she asked him. 'Help against what?'

'The Empire,' he said, and she laughed at him. She had not meant to, and she saw his hurt expression, unguarded because he thought she could not see it.

'I'm sorry, Thalric, but-'

'I know,' he said flatly. 'I lose track myself, of whether they want me dead or alive. I certainly lost track this time, but now I know they want me dead. I don't know for what reason, but the orders must come from high up. I need your help, Che, because there's nobody else I can turn to.'

She had her sword in her hands now, not to wield but for the comfort it brought her. She padded towards him, seeing his eyes track her approach with difficulty. Little enough of the moonlight got in at her window.

How strange to see him so helpless. He sat himself back on the windowsill, within arm's reach of her — a man at the end of his resources but not defeated, never that. He had a wild look to him, the patient Rekef officer cast off for the moment, and she thought, This is how he looked in Myna — a man with nowhere else to go, and all the more dangerous for it. He will make some other Wasps pay for putting him here again, she thought, and it was oddly comforting. So he is on my side again. At least I know.

'What do you need?' she asked. 'If I can help you, I will.'

The sudden smile surprised her. He thought I would cut him loose. And why not? Do I need these complications, when everything else is falling apart? Despite the thought, she knew she would not turn him away.

'Osgan's on the run with me, and he needs medical help. We're holed up in a drinking den. I need … What I need is just someone who has the freedom of the city, to come and go. Someone to fetch for me and tell me what's going on. Above all, someone I can trust.'

'Major Thalric, are you trying to recruit me?' she asked with a slight smile, then collected her satchel, which held some basic medicines in it. When she turned to him again, his expression surprised her in its thoughtfulness.

'I have just described an agent's work, haven't I?' he said. 'No matter how hard I try, the old instincts just won't leave me alone.' He shrugged. 'Just as well, for I'll need them. Ready?'

She felt an odd leap of excitement at the thought, something she had been missing since the war. But I hated all of that, surely. She had served as her uncle's agent, therefore plunging into the invisible otherworld of the spymasters. Since the war's end, her life had been better in so many ways, and yet …

'So long as it doesn't interfere with my duties or endanger other people,' she told him, 'you have my services, Master Thalric.' It seemed a small enough promise to make.

'We should leave now,' he said, 'so I'll show you where Osgan and I are lying low. We can talk there, securely. Shall I meet you downstairs, outside?'

'No need,' she told him. She had her cloak on, now, and sandals, so she was ready to go. 'Lead on.'

He let himself fall backwards out of the window, his wings quickly catching him. She followed, pausing, with a knee on the sill, to look out over the silent city.

She let her wings carry her through the window and into the air, clumsy beside Thalric yet able to follow where he led.

Behind her, in her room, the door was pushed open once the sound of voices had faded. A figure crept in, and found the empty bed. A brief dialogue of puzzlement passed between the intruder and his kinsman, before the Vekken stalked over to the window and stared out, baffled and frustrated, at the night.

There was a sudden commotion behind him, somewhere within the building, and Malius's immediate command: Hide!

It should have been a simple job.

Vollen had gone over the details both with the newcomer Sulvec and with his Rekef commander, the Beetle-kinden Corolly Vastern. This covered the second stage of the Rekef operation in Khanaphes. Although Thalric, maddeningly absent, was still the primary target, they had some Imperial obligations to the force that would appear outside the city's walls soon enough.

Vollen himself had gone off to creep around some of the unoccupied embassies, enough to satisfy himself that each was built to a similar plan. Mustn't show favouritism to any of the ambassadors, he supposed. What it meant, in fact, was that his job was that much easier. He had never seen inside the Collegiate embassy, but now he knew for sure he did not need to.

They had gone over the complement of the Collegiate delegation, so in his mind there was a concise list.

'It's very simple,' Sulvec had explained. 'It is better for the Empire if word does not reach Collegium of what has happened until much later. Certainly not word brought by their own people. Therefore …' He had made a dismissive gesture with one hand, which had abruptly ended up with it raised and open, facing Vollen. Therefore kill them.

Sulvec had spared him seven soldiers. The Rekef force inside Khanaphes was not large, but that should be enough.

They burst in through three windows at the front of the building, two of which had not even been shuttered. The sound of the third window's wooden frame giving way was the first warning the Collegiates had of an attack.

'Into all the rooms. Drag everyone out to the main hall,' Vollen snapped at his men, setting himself down beside the front door. He could hear various sounds of confusion from the house, but no outright panic yet. 'Tell them that they'll live so long as they cooperate,' he added. It was not true but it might be effective. He wanted them all rounded up, as peaceably as possible, and the entrance hall was the quickest place for it. His men were already spreading out, some to the downstairs rooms, others heading up the stone steps to the landing and the bedrooms. Once the residents were gathered in one place he could put them up against a wall and make an end of them all together. Vollen was a neat-minded man.

He waited, looking at the blandly ceremonial decorations with which the Khanaphir had adorned the hall. They were different to those in the Imperial embassy, and yet they might as well have been the same. Their hosts clearly had a taste for the meaninglessly ornate — like all those little carvings they put everywhere.

His men were returning now, and he began his count.

The fat man came first, ballooning out his nightshirt and complaining vociferously. He had a half-full bottle in his hands and nearly tumbled down the full length of the stairs, saving himself only by clutching at the soldier who escorted him.

'What in the wastes is going on?' he demanded of Vollen. 'I'm a Master of the College of Collegium, curse you!'

'Shut up,' growled Vollen, and backhanded him into silence. In the ringing echo of the blow the fat man reached up to touch his reddening cheek and there were actual tears in his eyes. His flabby lips phrased words of protest, but no sound emerged. Vollen smiled approvingly.

The others were appearing now. A half-dozen servants had been rounded up by two of his soldiers, young Khanaphir men and women, wide-eyed but docile, being herded like beasts out into the hall. Best to kill them as well, Vollen decided. No witnesses, then. Not that this will be any great mystery, but let them wonder about it nonetheless.

The older man and the proud-looking woman were being hustled after them. He wore a loosely belted robe that bared his dark chest, wiry with grey hair, and thin enough for Vollen to have counted his ribs. The woman had obviously succumbed to the Khanaphir heat, for she was wrapped in a bedsheet and he guessed she was naked beneath. She was a good-looking piece of flesh as well, for one of inferior kinden. For a moment he wished he had more liberty and time to spare on this mission. She would have proved a welcome reward for staunch Imperial service. The Rekef came before personal pleasure, though, and besides, his men would all want a piece. That was bad for discipline, and this was not the Slave Corps, after all.

'Hurry it up,' he hissed, mostly to himself. There was another coming now from upstairs, a black-skinned Antkinden who was fully dressed, even to the now-empty scabbard at his hip. The soldier with him kept a few steps behind, well out of striking distance. Of the lot of them, he was the only one who looked dangerous.

There was a flurry of activity further along the landing. A small figure flitted out and over the rail, landing so close to Vollen that his forehead and Vollen's palm were just an inch from touching.

'Vollen, isn't it?' Trallo began, with a cheerful nod. He was fully dressed, and Vollen guessed he had been flying in and out this night already. They had not expected him to be here.

The Fly was now smiling up at him. 'What's going on?' he asked, looking around the academics and the soldiers.

'Just stand with the others, Fly-kinden,' Vollen told him sharply.

'Now, wait, you know me and Ambassador Thalric …' The sentence died as Trallo registered Vollen's expression. Vollen saw something click into place in the little man's head, an understanding quicker and deeper than any to be found amongst the Beetles.

He goes first, Vollen decided. If anyone has a chance of escaping, it's him. 'Keep a stern watch on that one,' he instructed his men.

The last of his force was leaning over the landing rail now, waiting for orders.

'Where are the others?' Vollen demanded of them.

'That's all there are, sir,' one of them reported. 'We've gone through every room.'

That's not right. There was that woman who had met them when they arrived, and most of all there was the ambassador. Something else was niggling at him too, but he could not immediately place it.

'Where's your ambassador?' he demanded of the old man.

'Abed,' was the dignified reply. 'My name is Berjek Gripshod and if you have diplomatic business, at this late hour, I shall assist you.'

'There's nobody else here, sir,' the soldier left on the landing insisted.

Vollen put a hand out to pincer the old man's chin with thumb and forefinger, the heat of his sting already warming his palm. 'Where,' he said again, 'is the ambassador?'

'She was here.' It was the Beetle woman. 'She's been here all day, and I saw her going to bed.'

How did she know? was Vollen's immediate thought, because he understood instantly that the woman Cheerwell had somehow fled the embassy already, abandoning her companions to their fate.

He had a sudden and unwelcome conviction that she would be somewhere with Thalric. The two of them had seemed too close for Imperial propriety.

'Where is the other woman? The …'What was the name now? 'Coggen.'

'Dead,' Gripshod explained. 'Some days back.'

Vollen released him, stepping back and levelling his hand. It seemed to him that he had heard something of that, now it was mentioned.

'What is going on?' the old man asked, rubbing at his jaw. 'You must be mad.'

'Vollen, listen to me,' Trallo spoke quickly. 'Vollen, there are other ways than this. There's no war between Collegium and the Empire — not yet. Do you really think that this will go unnoticed? Vollen, nobody wants these kind of complications, really, when you think about it clearly, come on-'

Vollen turned his open palm on the little man, choking off the words. Fly-kinden — loathsome, treacherous vermin, and this one most of all.

'Deal with them,' he snarled.

The crossbow bolt took him by surprise, lancing into the back of the man standing nearest to the Vekken prisoner. Vollen's own stingshot went wild as the Fly-kinden ducked desperately away. There was another Vekken on the balcony. There were two of them? Of course there were two of them! So little had been seen of either of the Ants that somehow the two had become one in his mind. The ambassador's had been the absence that Vollen had fixated on.

The soldier on the balcony turned his sting towards the newcomer, but the Vekken had closed already, and they were sword to sword instantly.

'Kill them!' Vollen shouted. 'All of them!' The first Vekken was now wrestling with another of his men, holding both wrists away, trying to bend the Wasp backwards. Vollen turned back to the Beetles.

The fat man moved. It was a ponderous lunge at the man next to him, but unexpected. The bottle smashed over the Wasp's head, and one thick hand closed about the man's sword-hilt and wrenched the blade from its sheath, hard enough to spin the Wasp half around. With a grunt of effort he drove it into the disarmed soldier as hard as he could. It punched into the man's armour, leaving a savage dent and knocking the man off his feet. The Wasp's sting flashed, more by instinct than intent, knocking the fat Beetle backwards.

The old man made a try for Vollen, but the Wasp punched him in the face as hard as he could, laying him out on the floor. The Khanaphir slaves were cowering away, keeping as low as they could. Vollen snarled and looked around for the woman with his hand already extended.

Something struck him hard, almost throwing him from his feet. He felt a blade scrape across his armour, and then the Fly-kinden, Trallo, was fighting with him, trying to wrench his arm aside. Vollen made a grab for him, but the little man was agile, tugging and pulling at him and escaping his clutching hands — a nuisance with a small knife, but a nuisance that was taking all of Vollen's attention.

The Beetle woman lunged at him and broke a chair across his back, smashing the priceless Khanaphir craftsmanship to splinters. Vollen hit the ground hard, feeling his shoulder take the brunt of the attack. He turned onto his back, palms up. The woman grabbed one of his arms, trying to twist it flat. Trallo raised his dagger, his face a white mask of fear.

The flash of the soldier's sting warmed Vollen's face, and the little man was thrown halfway across the entrance hall by the impact of it. The woman screamed and leapt away, staring at the Fly's charred body.

Vollen whisked himself to his feet with a flick of his wings. 'Right,' he said, fully aware that he would receive no commendations for this. Then the front door burst open.

He turned to see a huge Beetle-kinden in Khanaphir armour, a sword in his hand and bloody murder on his face.

Emperor save us! he thought. It's the First Soldier.

Amnon made a wordless sound and charged. Vollen's sting spat its fire, melting a hand-sized section of scale mail but not slowing the giant in the least. Then Amnon's leaf-bladed sword was thrust, effortlessly to the hilt, into his chest.

Vollen fell to his knees, everything around him suddenly more than he could cope with. Amnon had his sword raised again, and the two Vekken were still spoiling for a fight. Two of his men fled out of the windows, the rest were already dead save for one man, who made a feint at Amnon and then plainly decided the big Khanaphir was too much to deal with. He tried to fly away, too, but the Vekken crossbowman picked him off even as he lifted into the space of the entrance hall.

Feeling the world fall from him, Vollen toppled face-first onto the tiles of the Collegiate embassy.

Praeda crouched beside Berjek Gripshod, calling his name and shaking him roughly. At last his lips moved and his eyelids fluttered. Peering up at her from floor level, his gaze was unsteady. 'Uncalled for,' he murmured. 'Quite uncalled for.'

'They killed Trallo,' she got out. 'Oh Berjek, they killed Trallo.'

She looked up, and saw another fallen body. Her hands went to her mouth again, she was feeling ill. 'Oh, Berjek …'

The old man levered himself up, and then saw what she had seen. He struggled to his feet, a hand to his head, and staggered over.

'Gorget! Get up! Manny …'

Praeda saw him stop as he reached the great sprawling form, then drop painfully to his knees. She joined him there tentatively. There was no doubt at all from the outraged expression in those open eyes, or from the char-edged burn-hole in his chest. Mannerly Gorget was dead.

Praeda stared about her, as though, somehow, someone would be able to help. Do magic. Bring back the dead. She saw the two Vekken standing close beside each other, like some trick with mirrors. And we would all be dead, if not for them. Then her eyes found Amnon. His face, though expressionless, was watching her.

Trembling, she put out a hand towards him. Without a moment's thought he swept her up in his arms, clasping her to his broad chest where the armour was still warm from the Wasp's stingshot. There she let herself go, sobbing into his embrace, shuddering over and over until at last she could manage the words.

'You came,' she said. 'You came for me.'

'It should have been sooner,' he said gently. 'But I had a dying friend I could not leave. This has been a night for death. First my Penthet, and now your companions. I am sorry, I should have come sooner.'

'You came,' she said.

Berjek gave a long, sad sigh. 'This is too much,' the old man's voice came to her. 'Too much to bear. War … murder … the time has come to cut our losses, Praeda. We should have left long before, while we all could.'

She felt Amnon's arms tighten slightly and she said to her colleague, 'Go. You must leave. The Khanaphir will find a ship for you, and lower the Estuarine Gate.' Around Amnon's shoulder she met his gaze. 'But I will stay.'

'I suppose I should not be so surprised at that,' he said sadly. 'And, as for Cheerwell, she will not leave, I am sure. Something in this city has its hooks in her.' He glanced up at the Ants. 'And you two?'

'We have a task unfinished here,' replied one of them. Berjek could not guess at the conversation that they were holding, in the space between their heads. 'We may decide to leave with you, but it depends on other factors. Perhaps, if the ambassador leaves with you, she could assist us on the journey back.'