Nine

Khanaphes, city of a hundred thousand years – or, at least, old enough that calendars failed to have any relevance. Even the ancient, opaque system of the Moth-kinden, with its animal years marching in erratic and seemingly random procession, was nevertheless younger than this ancient city. The Collegiate dating system, so popular now, had yet to reach the year 550. Perhaps Khanaphes possessed its own calendar, but if so it was locked in the ubiquitous, impenetrable carvings that were incised on every wall and every stone surface. The locals themselves did not count the years. Time for them was the year’s cycle: the flooding and the growing and the harvest, year without end, lives lived in annual segments that followed precisely the footprints that parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors had trodden. The Khanaphir had no use for time’s progressive arrow.

But that had changed.

The Khanaphir themselves, those solid, shaven-headed Beetle-kinden, were doing their best to pretend that they still possessed that unbroken line back into the deepest past. All of them, farmers, traders, clerks, soldiers and artisans, they were desperately mumming the lives that they remembered from only a year or so before, casting themselves in the grand mystery play of eternal Khanaphes. It was a lie, though, for change had come to Khanaphes with two swift dagger strikes: the first to wound and the second even now poised above them, ready to kill.

The Many of Nem, the wild Scorpion-kinden, had always been their enemies, and the Khanaphir had fought them since time out of mind, as part of their eternal rote. When they had come last, though, the Scorpions had brought new weapons, allegedly gifted to them by the Wasp Empire, and with these they had knocked holes in Khanaphes’s walls and rampaged through half the city. That they had been driven away at last did not go far towards disguising the damage they had done or the appalling number of the city’s people they had slain.

Still, had the city been left to its own devices, the old timeless cloak might have fallen across it once more. History is insistent, though, and now it had its hooks into Khanaphes. It was not long after the attack of the Many that the Empire had arrived.

Word had come to Collegium swiftly, following on the heels of the scholarly visitors who had become caught up in the fighting with the Nem. Scarcely had they returned home than some of them were embarking again, finding the first airship back east, bound for Solarno and the Exalsee and, from there, to Khanaphes.

Or not quite Khanaphes. Word had come that the Imperial hold on the city was tight, as always the case with a new addition to the Empire. The harbour was crawling with black and gold, and any ships that docked were subjected to a rigorous search. Still, there were plenty of convenient places to hide on a merchantman, and Praeda and Amnon might have risked it had they managed to find a ship’s captain willing to chance his cargo being confiscated by the Wasps’ Consortium.

Praeda Rakespear was a College scholar, an artificer and architect, young and keen-minded and mostly fed up with Collegium’s hidebound attitudes these days, whether it was towards foreign policy or the advancement of female academics. Back in Collegium, she had cultivated a reputation as possessing armour that was proof against any man’s advances. The presence of Amnon at her side was testimony to the only time that armour had been breached.

Amnon was Khanaphir, although he was now wearing Lowlander clothes. He was huge, massive-shouldered, tall and broad, and yet swift and precise with it, a true warrior’s warrior. In Khanaphes he had been their First Soldier, who led their armies and organized the city’s military forces. He had been exiled, too, which was just one of the topics that he and Praeda had not got around to discussing.

Their transport was a Solarnese ship, low and single-masted, that crept up the coast of the Sunroad sea until the desert had given way to the marshy delta of the Jamail. The vessel’s master, a lean woman, with grey hair shading to white and her sand-coloured face sun-weathered, had her two-man crew set a fire on an islet there, settling down to wait for the unnamed parties she was to meet. Praeda and Amnon knew little of her business, save that the protocols she was following had been put in place in case business went bad – and Imperial invasions certainly counted as that.

‘You did something like this when the Scorpions attacked?’ Praeda dared to ask.

The master nodded briefly. ‘He showed up then, sure enough, with bags all packed,’ was all she would say.

‘This friend of yours, he can help us into the city?’ Praeda pressed.

‘If he’s going back there.’ The ship’s master shrugged. ‘If he thinks it’s worth the candle.’

They waited a day before the marsh people came to investigate the fires, unconcerned by the crossbows the three mariners lifted against them. They were slight Mantis-kinden with grey-green skins, silent and staring, but the master offered them some token that looked just like a red stone to Praeda. They accepted it from her, in the manner of a contract concluded, and vanished into the thronging green again.

‘Now we’re running out of time,’ the master had declared. ‘Half a day more and we’ll have to catch the tide, so come along with us, or stay on your own.’

‘And your friend?’ Praeda asked her, but the woman shook her head, lips pressed together.

The friend never showed, and the master abandoned her hopes brusquely, as though it was nothing of any particular import. Nobody mentioned the Empire, even though it was the prime culprit in the man’s absence. Only as the little ship cast off, turning back for Porta Rabi, did Praeda see the Solarnese woman’s shoulders slump and her ramrod posture collapse. Their last view of the woman, as her vessel tacked swiftly away, might have been of her weeping.

‘Well,’ Praeda said soberly. ‘We’re on your ground, so what now?’

Amnon considered slowly. ‘We cannot travel the marshes, not so far from the city. The shipmaster’s token will be no good to us now. We must reach the desert and then take the long road to the Jamail.’

‘But surely the marsh-kinden will know you – you were First Soldier. They’re hardly going to sell you to the Ministers or the Empire, are they? Can’t they help us?’

His smile was fond. ‘Your people have such a belief that other kinden are just like you beneath the surface. Your logic is like bad wine, Praeda: it does not travel. You know a little of our histories?’

‘I know what you tell yourselves about your histories, but I don’t accept it as the truth. History never is,’ she replied defensively.

‘Then just this: the marsh people are pacted to us – rather, to Khanaphes.’ That self-correction was hasty and awkward. ‘Sworn to send their people to serve us, but in return we leave them their ancient ways. Stray from the river, stray into the delta, and you enter their domain and they will hunt you. They are very skilled in the hunt.’

They followed the borderlands of the marsh, where the ground was still damp but firm enough to walk on, where the riot of ferns and cycads and arthrophytes gave way to long, lush grass and thornbushes. A day and a half of muggy heat it took them, resting up beneath what shelter they could find during the hottest hours, pressing on after dark to make up the time. They encountered the marsh-kinden just once, when they had camped past midnight in a stand of cypress trees. The Mantis-kinden came padding up, five of them, to investigate Amnon’s fire, but they seemed to recognize that they were beyond their boundaries. Instead, they regarded the travellers solemnly, until Amnon offered them some of the fish he was cooking. Hesitantly they came forward, three women and two men, slight enough almost to be children. Those of their kin that Praeda had seen in Khanaphes went about as shaven-headed as the locals, but these had white hair, worn long and braided back, then twined and knotted in intricate patterns.

One of them reached out to touch Amnon’s stubbled scalp. The rest kept stealing glances at Praeda’s own head of long, dark hair. Such a small thing, but so important here. Shaving the head signified submission to the will of the mythical Masters of Khanaphes, the invisible lords of the city in whose ghostly name the Ministers governed. Praeda’s professional academic opinion was that they were long extinct, merely a convenient rod with which to keep the people of the city in line.

Amnon spoke with the marsh-kinden, trying to coax some news from them, but they would admit to no knowledge of recent developments within the city itself. If the pickings of their hunts had been richer, with refugees fleeing from the Empire’s advance falling into their hands, they made no mention of it.

How did the fight go? Praeda wondered. The magnificent army of the Khanaphir had been devastated by a Scorpion-kinden host armed only with obsolete Imperial cast-offs. How would they have coped when the Empire itself stood before their gates, rather than merely by proxy?

Towards the end of the next day the two of them had put the huge swathe of the delta behind them, and could now see the farmland lining the Jamail extending northwards along the river’s course. Khanaphes itself appeared brilliant in the sunlight, its stones fairly glowing. Praeda could make out those walls that had served it so poorly in the fighting, and beyond them the greater edifices of the city government. Nothing seemed to be on fire or even smouldering.

‘They’ll have guards on the gates,’ she said, recalling all she knew of the Empire. ‘They’ll be searching all the people coming in and going out. Anyone slightly suspicious will get thrown behind bars, interrogated, fined, made to disappear. In fact, a fair few people who aren’t suspicious, too, just to spread fear. Fear keeps people in line, especially the fear of arbitrary punishment. Nobody wants to be noticed, when that kind of regime’s in place. Nobody causes trouble when they don’t know for sure where the lines are drawn. So no doubt there’s some secret back way into the city, that only the First Soldiers know about?’

Amnon regarded her quizzically. ‘Why would anyone devise such a thing?’

‘But you have a plan,’ Praeda insisted. ‘If we just walk in, well . . .’ She swallowed, tilted her chin up. ‘I’ll shave my head. Then we’ll be locals. Will that be enough?’

‘Perhaps. As you say, I have a plan.’

Before dusk they had trekked through a mile of farmland, tracing an erratic path of roads and irrigation dykes to reach one specific farmhouse out of dozens. There were a few Khanaphir about, who watched them arrive, more of caution in their eyes than curiosity. At the door, a broad-shouldered old man met them, nodding at Amnon as though he was a tax collector.

‘I’d expected it,’ was all he said, and he plainly recognized the former First Soldier. ‘Inside, then, you might as well. Food?’

‘If you have spare,’ Amnon said with careful deference. He had to stoop some way to get under the lintel, Praeda trailing after him.

Most of the house consisted of a single room, where a long table had already been set. A woman of the old man’s years was bustling about it now, rearranging the places to find space for two more. She glanced from Amnon to Praeda, her dark eyes unreadable. Praeda realized that she herself had never seen a peasant home belonging to the Khanaphir, what with living out of an embassy and being the honoured guest of the Ministers. She had assumed that the foundation on which Khanaphir rested must be crushed down by its weight, impoverished and sullen – deprived as they were of anything like Collegium’s enlightenment and standard of living. Instead, the inside of the farmhouse was surprisingly well furnished, chairs and table all finely carved and clearly ancient, and the walls liberally adorned with those baffling carvings. Even these Khanaphir peasants lived neck-deep in history, she saw, and they bore their servitude with stubborn pride.

The Beetle-kinden they had seen outside now trooped in to take their places, and Praeda found that she and Amnon were directed towards the table’s head, sitting at the right hand of the old man. She guessed that it was the senior pair that owned and ran the farm, and the rest were hirelings and farmhands. The fare itself consisted of some kind of thick soup, flat bread, and some fish that had been pickled to within an inch of its life at some point in its distant past.

There was little conversation around the table, and even Amnon said nothing, just ate dutifully as though he was only a labourer himself. Nobody commented that an ex-First Soldier had just turned up out of nowhere, with a foreign woman. Praeda suspected that they were all buzzing with questions, but that it was not in their nature to ask them, and the presence of strangers had killed off any other kind of talk.

At last, as the meal was drawing to a close, Amnon grunted, ‘Need to get into the city. Going that way?’

‘What sort of question is that?’ The old man’s expression was openly disparaging. ‘Market, you well know. What of it?’

‘Room on the cart for two more?’ Amnon said, not even looking at the farmer.

This was greeted by an exasperated sigh. ‘Then you’ll work, load and unload, for I need all the hands I have, and you’ll leave two men sitting idle here, if you have your way.’ Both his tone and expression stated, clear as day, that Amnon had been personally sent by the Masters to inconvenience him.

Instead of rallying at this, Amnon’s head sank even lower and he shrugged, not in any way the man that Praeda knew. She looked about the table, but nobody met her eyes.

‘Excuse me,’ she said at last, almost relishing the shocked silence that greeted her words, ‘but you do know this is the First Soldier? That he saved Khanaphes from the Many of Nem?’

For a long while she thought that nobody would respond, that she had killed off all chance of anyone in this house ever saying anything again, but then the old man snorted with derision.

‘Was First Soldier. And who ever heard of such a thing as a man who was First Soldier, hm? And not such a great one even when he was. Now Thamat, before him, he was a great First Soldier. He’d never have let the Many get close to the walls.’ He shook his head, lamenting the youth of today, as any elderly College Master might – or any old man anywhere.

The next morning the old man had some of his fieldhands load up a wagon and hitch it to a tired-looking draught beetle, all without Amnon actually making any further request that Praeda could see, or anybody suggesting a plan. On to the bed of the sturdy wagon went sacks of flour – that Praeda guessed must be hand milled – and some dried fruit, and a surprising number of jars of some kind of liquor.

By that time the old woman had plucked up the courage to approach Praeda, though still saying nothing, but offering her the curved copper strip of a razor.

For a moment she closed her eyes against the thought, reluctant because her long hair was such a part of the way she imagined herself, but reluctant even beyond that, for some obscure reason she could not name. If she was to creep into occupied Khanaphes, however, she would have to pass as a local, and if the Wasps looked closely then a mere headscarf would not serve.

‘Will you do it?’ she asked. The woman nodded, and in her eyes was a fair measure of sympathy – and perhaps a little awe at ever seeing an adult Beetle-kinden with a full head of hair.

Most of an hour later, and it was done. Amnon’s reaction was the worst, trying to adjust to her transition from the exotic to the familiar. I am still the same woman, she told herself, but she did not feel like it with her bare head cold and itching.

Then they were on the wagon, and the old man flicked at the beetle with his crop until it began its weary plodding towards the city.

There were indeed Wasp soldiers stationed at the gate, but Khanaphes was large, and not even occupation by a hostile military could keep its doors closed, not if the occupiers themselves wanted to eat. There was a steady stream of locals going in and out, the oil on the wheels of commerce. When their wagon reached the gates, there was a cursory search, the confiscation of a few jars of homebrew, a narrow-eyed squint at each of the passengers, especially the large figure of Amnon, but they were all Beetles in a city and a nation of Beetles, so the Wasps waved their wagon on without hindrance. That one of the sacks also contained all of Praeda and Amnon’s possessions, the Wasps never knew.

Those few foreigners trying to enter or leave, they saw stopped and searched far more diligently, and most of them were turned back, either trapped inside or kept out.

After that, they were within the walls. The old man just nodded once at Amnon, again with no need for a word between them, then the big man slipped off the wagon, pulling Praeda with him.

‘Where now?’ she whispered, resisting her hand’s natural inclination to drift up to her scalp.

‘I know places,’ he murmured. ‘Near the docks first, maybe. We’ll see how the Wasps are dealing with the river trade.’ He cast a single glance back at the old man and the wagon, before heading off.

It was only three streets later that Praeda enquired, ‘Amnon, have I just met your parents?’ The thought had been absurdly slow in coming, and even then she was not at all sure until she saw his face. ‘Did you . . . did you not think to introduce me?’

‘I did. After you slept,’ he mumbled, looking awkward for a moment. ‘They liked you, I think.’

‘What . . . did you tell them?’ she demanded, but just then he pretended to spot a Wasp patrol and picked up the pace, leaving her glaring at his broad back.

Then the city had encompassed them, and she was abruptly wrestling with memories of how she had seen the place last, before her return to Collegium. The western half had been occupied by the Scorpion-kinden then, as the Many of Nem ravaged the farmland up and down the riverbank seeking for a way across, while she and Amnon and the mercenary artificer Totho fortified the bridge against them. Beyond that, she remembered the still dignity enveloping the city before the Scorpions came: the austere calm of its ministers, the solid and elegant lines of its architecture, the noiseless bustle of its shaven-headed citizens.

She remembered her colleagues who had died when the Wasps, and their Scorpion tools, had made their move. Seeing the black and gold now at every street corner made her clench her fists, wanting to lash out at them with all her tiny might. She remembered waiting after the battle, to learn if Amnon had lived or died.

It was strange that she remembered Che most of all, for there was no reason that Stenwold Maker’s niece should serve as a linchpin in her memories of this city. The girl had been a dismal failure as an ambassador, going missing half the time and seeming almost deranged, fixated on strange parts of the city’s history even when the walls themselves were tumbling. She had even been absent during the fighting, had not contributed to it at all, instead had gone off with the Imperial ambassador, who seemed to have gone rogue in the interim. Oh, Praeda had quite liked Che as a person but, still, the woman had hardly been an influential figure in the disaster that had been Praeda’s original visit to Khanaphes.

And yet somehow she had been. Praeda could not account for it, or explain her feelings on the matter, but Cheerwell Maker had been the hub of the wheel, standing at the heart of all things. This fact was inexplicable and yet undeniable.

Praeda suddenly stopped dead, so that Amnon went on another five yards before sensing her absence, and turning with a quizzical look. Praeda met his eyes but was not equal to the task of explaining, hiding her sudden shock by rushing to catch up with him.

I did not just see Cheerwell Maker, she reproached herself. That face in the crowd, it could have been anyone’s. Except no Khanaphir woman had hair like that. I did not just see the crowd part, and Cheerwell Maker, in that inexplicably open space, staring at me and then gone the next instant. It’s the heat. It’s the stress. My mind plays tricks.

They were almost at the docks by the time Praeda’s heart had stopped hammering.