Seventeen

When Varmen had pulled ahead, Thalric found a moment to murmur to Che, ‘You look terrible. What’s wrong? You’re ill?’

‘Not ill,’ Che assured him. Her dream last night had stayed with her this morning with unwelcome clarity. When she had embarked on this business of pretending to be some kind of magician, she had perhaps anticipated some manner of prophecy, portentous images that she might decode after much thought, and no doubt riddle out too late to be of any use. Achaeos had always spoken of dreams thus, but then he had ranked low by the standards of Moth magicians. Only the fact that he had somehow attracted the notice of the spirits of the Darakyon had marked him out in any way. The ancient Mantis-kinden dead of that abandoned forest had used him as a tool, in their quest to recover the Shadow Box that had held their collective heart, and when he called, they had come.

Che retained the memory with perfect and unwanted clarity: Achaeos touching her mind whilst she fought in Myna and he undertook a ritual in Tharn. Achaeos borrowing strength from her, even as his own failed, and using that same strength to call out to the Darakyon.

And the Darakyon had invaded both their minds, cold and hideous and thorned, and Achaeos, still weak from half-healed wounds, had died.

She had felt every moment of his passing through the bond that had connected them.

She was beginning to wonder if the world of magic would do for her as well. She would have liked to convince herself that it was merely her own imagining that had put her back in Khanaphes, but she found she could not stretch credulity so far.

I cannot be seeing these events as they occur, she complained to herself. Sometimes it is day in Khanaphes, whilst I sleep here. But last night . . .

She had never intruded into the dream before, never been anything other than a bodiless observer, watching the Empress and Praeda and the others, and coasting on their thoughts, seeing pictures in their minds, dreams within dreams. But the Mantis-kinden had seen her, as though she had physically been standing between Amnon and Praeda. And then, just for a moment, Praeda had seen her too.

Che had woken up with a start then, and not dared go back to sleep.

I really need to talk to someone knowledgeable about this. But she had already made cautious enquiries of Varmen. Hunting magicians was an old practice here in the Principalities, though the game had grown scarce indeed. During the occupation, the Wasps had singled out any who had claimed such powers, not because they believed the claims, but because supposed seers and mystics were often a focus of rebellion amongst Commonweal loyalists. Since the Empire itself had receded, the new lords of the Principalities had apparently kept up the practice with gusto, and if there were any magicians left, they were certainly not announcing it to the world.

But we near the Commonweal proper, assuming Varmen can get us across the border. I will find all the magicians I want amongst the Dragonfly-kinden.

‘What’s your plan for getting over the Commonweal border, then?’ she asked Varmen.

‘We need to hop a barge soon,’ he said. ‘Easiest way, always.’ When Che looked puzzled he explained, ‘They have these canals all over. A couple cross right between the Principalities and the Commonweal proper, see?’

Thalric was frowning. ‘Why not just cross by land. Surely that’s easier?’

‘Oh, you’d think so.’ Varmen gave a grin, then repressed it. Since his discovery of Thalric’s former role in the Empire, his manner had become odd: now friendly, now standoffish, as though he had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t like Thalric any more. Che found his attitude almost endearing. Clearly he was not a man who held grudges well.

And a Wasp, too, like Thalric – and who knows how many other Wasps there are, that I would like if I ever got to know them? She felt a stab of anger at the Empire, and at the Empress who was invading her dreams piecemeal. These people could be so much more, if they were only allowed, but their kin and their rulers sharpen them into weapons, over and over.

‘What?’ said Varmen suspiciously, and she realized that she had been staring at him.

‘Nothing,’ she told him. ‘You were saying about a barge?’

Two days later found them camping beside a slipway, on the banks of a canal that looked as though it had been old when Collegium was built. The great grey stones of its walls had crumbled and fallen away in places, and the water was green and ribboned with weed, dancing with the golden flecks of insects.

‘You see, there’s a whole load of raiding that goes on across the border, heading both ways,’ Varmen was explaining. ‘This side, the local captains and what-have-you are all men who have just a little slice of things, pushed to the edge of power, and so they’re basically bandits in all but name, stealing from their neighbours ’cos they want something to bargain with, with their betters, right? Only, on the other side there’s not much better. No princes or nobles, much, because this is where the army stopped, and the nobles who used to hold all these lands are dead or driven off. So the Commonwealers raid right back, fighting all over the place. Couldn’t tell you where the actual border was, it moves about so much.’ He pointed along the straight line of the canal, where it was cut into the hillside, a water-road running east–west as far as the horizon. ‘There’s trade, though, and ’cos the trade comes from the big noises in the Principalities, and goes to the bigger brigands and the dodgier princes on the other side of the border, it’s not a good idea for your little fellows around here to get in its way. Nobody wants a hundred soldiers turning up and asking awkward questions, right? So the way things work is that only the big boys use the canals – and anyone on land is fair game.’

‘That sounds utterly unworkable,’ Che told him. ‘How could they be sure nobody would try and rob them?’

‘Well, they have guards and the like, and I reckon some of them do get hit, but it must work out all right, most of the time, or they’d not still be doing it.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, the next boat comes past, we’ll hop a ride, offer our swords, tell them the . . . you know, the Rekef story or whatever feels right. Then we’re over the border, and I’ll find me someone wanting an escort back.’

After a day and a night’s tense wait, a barge came as promised. Its master was a surprise, neither local nor Wasp but a spindly Skater-kinden, hunched up in a Commonweal-styled robe that failed to hide his fantastically long limbs. He had a face that was all sharp angles, down to the forked beard he affected. Varmen clearly recognized him, and seemed moderately glad to see him, naming him ‘Skelling’.

Skelling needed suspiciously little cajoling to take them on as additional guards, though he had half a dozen armed Dragonfly-kinden already on board. While they waited for the barge, Che had spotted two roving parties of what she took for bandits, so she had the impression that the border troubles Varmen had mentioned were now going through an active phase.

The barge itself was a long, graceless thing built of heavy timbers, its hold stuffed with all manner of crates and sacks that Skelling expressly forbade them to meddle with. The vessel moved ponderously, and at first mysteriously. There was a sail but it seemed ludicrously small to shift such a weighty craft, nor did the crew seem to be doing anything to contribute to its motion. The vessel was double-ended, too, and it was clear that, had Skelling wished, they could simply have headed back the way they had come, as the canal had very little current to it.

However, as they moored up after their first day’s travel, Che noticed a great disturbance at the vessel’s fore, as something broke the surface there. She caught only a glimpse, but divined that it must be some manner of insect nymph trained to the task of hauling. One of the Dragonflies appeared to be the creature’s handler, for he had spent the day’s journey at the bow, and he now threw chunks of something into the water where the beast had last surfaced. She wondered whether the man possessed that elusive Art that allowed him to speak to the creature.

‘Skelling reckons we’ll get within the general region of the border tomorrow,’ Varmen explained. ‘Exactly where the border runs is a matter for debate, as they say, but by dusk we’ll be inside the Commonweal proper. Assuming nothing bad happens.’

Che merely nodded, She was holding her dream-catcher in one hand, uncertain what to do with it. Last night she had left the thing inside her pack and, as a result, whatever dreams had come to her had failed to remain in her waking mind. Instead she had suffered all morning with a terrible feeling that something was going wrong: that some threat was approaching that she had thus blinded herself to.

But the dream of Praeda and Amnon had frightened her. They had been in great danger, in that dream, and she had been moved to step in. Or it was just a dream, and none of it happened. She could not believe that, even for a moment. She had already crossed some line, in coming to their aid, and she knew, beyond understanding why, that she had somehow opened herself up now, made herself somehow both vulnerable and powerful.

Achaeos never spoke of influencing the world thus, through a dream. Nor had any of the old tomes she had read in Collegium mentioned such a thing. What is going on? Even if I am a magician now, I must be the most wretched and powerless of them all. What is happening to me?

She put the dream-catcher down, knowing that whatever she did now, it would be the wrong choice.

The next day, Skelling set off before dawn, and everyone knew, without being told, that there would be trouble. The Dragonfly crewmen all had their bows ready strung, with spare quivers of arrows hooked on to the side rail, within easy reach. They also erected boards on either side of the barge, big solid pavises that would give them some protection from inbound arrows. Che had wondered if Varmen would take out his suit of mail, but in the end he obviously decided against it. He would vanish forever into the murky water should he go over the side in so much steel.

Sunrise showed them sparsely wooded canal banks providing ideal ambush territory, and the local brigands were predictable enough to take advantage of it. The first arrow whipping from between the trees actually fell short, a remarkably poor shot for a Commonwealer, but soon there were plenty of other shafts in the air. Skelling’s crew and passengers crouched behind the pavises, waiting for a more personal introduction to their assailants. Che had the impression that these wooden shields were Skelling’s own innovation, rather than standard fittings aboard Commonweal barges.

– dark stone halls, and only a guttering lamp to guide her – Che blinked and shook her head uncertainly. The sun was bright in the east behind them, and the sporadic thud-thud-thud of arrows into wood had slowed as their assailants evidently realized they were simply wasting ammunition. Everyone around her was now drawing weapons: the Wasps with their cross-hilted shortswords and the Dragonflies with their punch-swords, whose blades jutted straight out from the knuckle-guard. She hesitantly laid a hand on her own weapon’s hilt.

‘Che?’ she heard Thalric address her, obviously noticing something in her face that worried him.

‘I’m . . .’ she began, but lacked the words to say just what she was. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, which turned out to be a gross exaggeration because—

– the slave Gjegevey leading the way, his own eyes proof against the darkness, and how she envied that now. In her dreams, these tombs had been visible by a curious grey half-light, devoid of colours, and she had wondered if that was how the Moth-kinden saw through their blank white eyes –

There was combat all around her. She heard a clatter of steel on steel, and the brief crack and sizzle of Wasp stingshot, the very sound of it striking fear into her stomach, but its wielder was standing right over her, defending her prone form.

‘Thalric?’ she called out.

‘Che, get up!’ he shouted down at her, as his hand spoke golden fire again. She heard a man scream, and a dying Dragonfly-kinden dropped to the deck before her eyes, a hole charred into his leather cuirass.

I’m with Wasps, fighting Dragonflies. The thought rattled through her mind. I was in Khanaphes . . .

No! I wasn’t in Khanaphes. That was the dream, but last night I didn’t catch any dreams. I let them go.

Thalric was crouching beside her, in a moment of stillness while the barge’s crew and Varmen continued fighting on every side.

‘Che, what’s wrong?’ the Wasp demanded.

‘Thalric . . . I don’t know. Help me.’

His face said eloquently that he had no possible way to do so.

‘The Empress . . .’ she started. And then—

The walls and floor of this place were slimy, so that each foot set down skidded slightly, then came up trailing threads of ooze. The lamp that Gjegevey had started for her set every surface glistening unhealthily.

They had been underground for long enough that Seda knew it would be dawn already above, but down here was a labyrinth of vast halls, lined with statues, every wall inscribed with the ancient glyphs of the Khanaphir. For hours they had walked, at first with the old Woodlouse choosing their path, and later with Seda herself taking the lead. By then she realized why they were finding nothing but empty chambers: the power here had been turning them aside.

‘Stop,’ she ordered the old Woodlouse.

‘We have been travelling for some, mm, considerable time,’ he admitted. ‘One might almost think that we were, ah, going round in circles.’

‘It is a test,’ she decided. ‘One I do not appreciate, but I shall pass it nonetheless.’

‘There is, hm, a great deal of, ah, latent power here,’ Gjegevey conjectured cautiously. ‘I would hesitate to . . .’

‘Yes, you would – and you would be wise to. I am of a different order, however. I am the Empress of the Wasps.’

‘I am not sure such titles will, ahm, mean a great deal to our hosts.’ The Woodlouse-kinden’s hollow eyes glittered in the lamplight.

‘Then I shall enlighten them,’ she replied pleasantly, and thrust a hand in the air as though grasping for something invisible.

The power awoke in her, digging its roots into the stonework of this place, then feeding, cannibalistic, on the ages of magic laid down here when the world was younger. She felt her blood stir and sing with all the borrowed life and youth she had taken into herself. In my dream she gained an audience with the lords of this place, and so shall I.

For a moment the monolithic grip of the place seemed immovable, and she was worried that she might not have enough reserves of strength within herself, for then her only option would be to seek the blood of another. And to lose Gjegevey would be a true tragedy, for he had been one of her very first supporters – since before she had even come to her throne.

But then she had hold of it and she twisted, with little finesse, but drawing upon that strength that she had been given, to make up for all that she had lost.

She felt the Masters of Khanaphes, sensed their slow minds come to a decision, and then they struck—

Che opened her eyes, expecting to find the fight still ongoing, but there was no sound of it. She was not even on the barge.

‘Ah . . .’ She hurt, but it was all inside. She bore no wounds.

At her faint sound, Thalric was kneeling again beside her. ‘Che!’

‘What’s happening?’

‘You tell me! You were . . . it was as though you were sleeping, but I couldn’t wake you.’

She sat up painfully, seeing that they were camped beside the canal: Thalric, Varmen, Skelling and his crew. The crew was two men short, she noticed. ‘We’re . . .’

‘Right up near the border, in so far as there’s a definite “border” at all,’ Thalric confirmed. ‘Che, what in the wastes happened to you?’

‘Thalric, she’s there.’

He opened his mouth to question her, but the pieces fell into place before he had to.

‘She’s seeking the Masters,’ Che told him urgently, as though there was something he could do about it. The world around her now seemed different, but then she realized that it was her senses that had changed. She had become charged with magic, connected to the world’s weave like a spider at the heart of its web, feeling the strands tug and twitch. Not only was she still aware of Seda as a dull and distant ache in her mind, but she felt that, if she could turn her mind just so, then she would be able to sense each and every magician, each ancient site of power across the hills of the Commonweal and beyond, even to the furthest horizon. Her mind remained locked inside her skull, but only just.

‘Thalric, I can . . .’

But an old, familiar taint had just touched the edge of her consciousness, snapping her back to the business at hand.

Is it . . .. is it him . . .?

Pressing on Thalric’s shoulder for purchase, she stood up abruptly, staring wildly about. For a moment there she thought she had caught a glimpse of . . .

Tisamon . . .

Why is it so hard for me to remember what I came here for? Her quest to control her dreams, to know more about the magic that seemed to be engulfing her, that was secondary. She had come to save Tynisa from the spectre of her father. Only now did her roving mind fix on that task again – and only because she sensed the Mantis-kinden’s ghost ahead of them, for the very first time since inside the tombs of Khanaphes.

There was no mistaking the touch. She had carried that twisted presence in her mind for a long time, believing it to be the bitter shade of her lover, Achaeos. Only through the power of the Masters of Khanaphes had the truth come out – and by that time the creature was freed from her. Immediately, Tisamon had set off to find his daughter. In life he had been an intimidating man, a fierce killer whose life was hedged about by an untenably harsh code of conduct that had, in the end, left him no other goal but to seek his own death. Oh, he had been an honourable man, and loyal to a fault, but the spectre that Che had faced seemed to have been pared down, cut away until only that self-destructive slayer remained.

Che reached out, trying to ascertain how far ahead the spectre was, though in truth she was unsure whether such a concept had any real meaning for what Tisamon now was. Again, as she touched him, there was a feeling of bitterness and ashes, but this time she heard his voice inside her head.

What will you do, Beetle child?

I will stop you, she told him flatly. Tynisa does not deserve this.

She is mine. What can you do to stop me?

From nowhere, or perhaps from some forgotten conversation with Achaeos, the word surfaced. I shall bind you in a tree perhaps. I shall lock you away.

I shall kill you before you have the chance, came his cold reply.

Will you so? She had thought long and hard on how she might compel this creature, on the journey from Khanaphes. Would you kill Stenwold’s kin?

The silence that followed told her that she was right; that some vestige of the man he had once been still remained within Tisamon.

She gathered her strength then, while he seemed uncertain, for she was not sure herself how long such a leash would hold him. She tried to reach out again. Almost, almost there, and then at least Tynisa can find her own way . . .

—she was hiding under her bed, because she knew the bad man was coming, the man that had called her father ‘friend’ and never meant it—

‘No!’ cried Che, feeling the shade of Tisamon slip away from her. ‘Thalric!’

‘I’m right here,’ the Wasp snapped in frustration. ‘Che, what is happening to you?’

—steps echoed outside the children’s bedchamber, and the door pushed open—

The world was sliding away from her, or she was falling aside from it, as though some giant hand had tilted it upon its side. She clutched impotently at Thalric, trying to stay with him. ‘Hold me! Don’t let me go, please!’

His arms were about her, but she could feel his bafflement in every movement. ‘Che, I’m right here . . .’

‘I’m losing you . . .’ she got out.

And then she was gone.