Thirteen

Gathering information in Khanaphes was like reaching into briars, a delicate and unrewarding business. Amnon himself could have gone and spoken to a hundred people who would remember him as First Soldier, as saviour of their city, but each one of them was still tied by invisible, unbreakable strings of responsibility and duty that led all the way to the Ministers. That the Empress had been welcomed, and more than welcomed, suggested that a former First Soldier asking awkward questions might become an inconvenience. Without knowing precisely what game Ethmet and the others were playing, Amnon was loath to announce his presence in the city. It was not fear of the Wasps, Praeda knew, but fear of having to go up against his own people, those loyal servants of the city whom he had formerly led into battle.

Besides, the general feel about the city’s populace was one of bafflement. Khanaphes’ dealings with outsiders had not changed in centuries. Even the disastrous assault recently by the Scorpion-kinden had fitted a particular pattern: the Many of Nem had always been the city’s enemies, after all, and it was only a matter of degree. The sudden imposition of an Imperial garrison on the city, the obeisance of the Ministers, the utter lack of reaction or statement from the Khanaphir administration, had left the people at large unsure of precisely what was happening. Patterns had been broken, but in a way that demanded no immediate reaction from them. Instead they were very pointedly going about their business as if nothing had happened, paying the Imperial troops as little notice as possible, and yet cooperating with them abjectly whenever they were forced to acknowledge the invaders’ presence. Amnon and Praeda witnessed several examples of the Wasps taking their customary liberties with a subject population: goods taken from merchants, insults and beatings inflicted on locals who got in the way or looked at the soldiers too boldly, spontaneous and seemingly random arrests. Throughout it all, the Khanaphir simply bowed their heads, following the example of their Ministers and presenting their backs for the lash, as docile as broken slaves. This sheer calm acceptance of it all was plainly thwarting the Wasps’ natural instincts. They had come here ready for a fight, assuming that the Khanaphir would resist, however primitive their methods. Instead the city had fallen into their hands pre-subjugated. They did not know what to do, and their expressions, as they castigated some cringing, wretched porter or servant, were almost embarrassed – apologetic for the duties forced on them by Imperial policy.

If not from the Khanaphir themselves, Amnon and Praeda still needed some source of intelligence, and there remained a body of people in the city who were very keenly interested in what the Empire might be planning. In the inns and open houses by the Estuarine Gate, they found the foreigners: sailors, merchants, adventurers and mercenaries who had not been thrown out by the Wasps, yet, nor crept or bribed their way out of the city. They were waiting to see what happened, tied to the place either by their investments, their optimism or their curiosity. Praeda and Amnon’s appearance in their midst raised no questions, and it was plain that, while asking questions about the Wasps was an accepted custom, asking questions about the questioners was not.

After trying a few places, with Praeda doing most of the talking, they fell in with the right kind of company, meaning people that no self-respecting scholar of the College would have had anything to do with back home. As evening fell, they found themselves sharing a table with a trio of reprobates all evaluating their current fortunes, namely the merits and drawbacks of being stuck in occupied Khanaphes. There was a battered and ill-used-looking Fly-kinden man, sun-beaten and balding, who never quite admitted that he made a living by robbing the ruins of the Nem, but Amnon plainly knew the type, and would have disapproved furiously had he been in any position of authority any more. A Spider-kinden woman was also some manner of adventuress, not young and yet somehow ageless, the worn hilt of the rapier at her hip testifying to her chosen method of resolving disputes. The third was a Solarnese man, a publicly declared trader in gems and jewellery, or a smuggler when read between the lines. The three of them were plainly well matched, with enough petty villainy between them to give any number of Wasp-kinden pause for thought. Worse, they were waiting for a fourth who must surely be even more of a rogue than themselves, but they were not averse to Praeda and Amnon’s company while they passed the time and drank and talked politics.

‘It’s the same every time,’ the Solarnese merchant was holding forth. ‘Must be standard practice for the Jaspers. As soon as they’ve seized a place they go into a frenzy of imposing laws, curfews, taxes, all that, but never reliably. Sometimes you can get away with murder; other times they’ll throw you in a cell for sneezing. When Solarno fell, it was an absolute lottery: some real crooks were let in to moor at the high-end piers – without bribes, too – while respectable Spider-kinden traders got turned away as though they were plague ships.’

‘Keeps people off balance,’ the Spider considered. ‘Makes them fear. Still, you can only do that for so long. At the start, if people are getting arrested for the slightest reason, or no reason, they’ll toe the line. After a month, they’ll just think they have nothing to lose.’

‘Oh it calms down,’ the Solarnese agreed. He was a pleasant, prosperous-looking man whom Praeda wouldn’t have trusted an inch. ‘Even Wasp-kinden can’t maintain that level of arbitrary hostility for long. They’ll get a basic administration in place, a governor and the like set above the Ministers here, and then things will find their own rut and stay there.’

The Fly spat. ‘The Empire, stay here? What in the pits for?’

‘Don’t worry, little man. They won’t cut into your sort of trade,’ the Spider jibed.

‘That’s what you think.’ The Fly bared yellow teeth. ‘Scouts are already heading off into the desert, have been almost since the first soldiers arrived. What are they after, eh? Or is it to invite the Scorpions back?’

‘That wasn’t the Empire, they say,’ the Solarnese opined, but rather uncertainly.

‘It was the Empire,’ Amnon declared. They glanced at him thoughtfully, and read a great deal of certainty on his face.

‘You’re local. You fought them?’ the Spider asked. ‘On the bridge, was it?’

‘On the bridge,’ Amnon agreed heavily, and the weight of memories bled into his words, lending them conviction that could not be denied.

‘I was there too,’ Praeda put in. ‘There were Wasp-kinden directing the artillery, flying in with grenades. In the city, too – Rekef, they said.’ She did not mean to, but she gave that word a hushed and fearful emphasis. From the reactions of the others it was entirely appropriate.

‘They’re after Solarno, for sure,’ said the smuggler-merchant savagely. ‘Flanking us, that’s what they’re doing.’

‘There’s the whole of the Nem between Khanaphes and the Exalsee,’ said the Spider woman dismissively. ‘What sort of flanking manoeuvre sees half your army dead of thirst before it arrives? The Spiderlands is next on their menu, you take my word. They know that, if they want to push their ambitions anywhere south of Toek, they’ll have to make a sustained assault on the Houses, and they’re looking for a way in. Probably air armada over the Forest Aleth.’

The Fly-kinden shook his head. ‘You’re not listening. First thing when they got here, they’re looking west. Not Solarno but the desert. They’ve had surveyors and artificers and wildsmen out there for days now. This isn’t just a staging post. Solarno and the Nem are it.’ The others stared at him, and he glowered right back.

‘You think they’re going to rob your tombs before you can get to them?’ the Spider said somewhat disdainfully.

‘Know what?’ The Fly snorted. ‘I don’t know what in Waste’s name they’re after, but they’re after it with all their bastard hearts. And while it won’t be my business they’re muscling in on, they won’t want someone like me anywhere close by, I can tell you. Maybe it’s time I went and followed up some leads down Tsovashni way.’

‘And at last!’ The Spider woman stood up, as their missing fourth had finally arrived. ‘Someone who can give us the real story. Grab a chair, Emon.’

Praeda looked over, seeing a short, dark man, his greying hair cut almost to the skull: a Bee-kinden with an artificer’s toolstrip slung over a dark tabarded breastplate. Only when she saw the symbol on his chest did she start. A grey gauntlet embroidered on grey cloth, yet some trick of the weave made it catch the light differently, making it clear and distinct and ominous.

‘Iron Glove?’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d have thought you’d want to be well away from the city. Surely the Empire are shooting you people on sight.’

‘And hello to you too.’ The Bee, Emon, sat down and snagged a mostly empty jar of wine, draining the dregs of it. ‘Who are these?’

‘Travellers who want us to think they’re locals. Or the other way round,’ the Spider woman said wryly. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Perhaps not.’ The Bee then squinted and appeared to change his mind. ‘Or perhaps, yes. You’re . . .’ his eyes widened, staring at Amnon, and there was a tense moment in which revelations and violence hovered very close together. ‘Never mind,’ the Bee concluded. ‘None of my business.’

‘They fought on the bridge, they reckon,’ the Fly explained, watching the Iron Glove man carefully.

‘Oh, to be sure. I, on the other hand, fought on the river.’

‘The Fourth Iteration?’ Praeda pressed, for it was the name the Glove had given to their ingenious ship that had taken such a toll of the attacking Scorpions, until the Imperial artillery had finally silenced it.

Emon nodded. ‘A lovely craft it was, too, but in the end it was swim or fly, when sailing couldn’t keep us afloat any more. Not that many of us made it to shore.’

The Solarnese merchant had called for more wine, and the Bee accepted a jug gratefully. ‘So I can see why you’d think I was tempting fate by sitting here, but it’s not so. We’re just arrived, and here because we’re invited.’

That brought all the others leaning closer, waiting for the catch. A trap? was the plain thought on their faces, as if the Empress herself would go to such lengths to punish a cartel of weapons traders.

‘Himself’s shadow is here,’ Emon murmured darkly. ‘He’s not exactly talked it over with the crew, but word is that the Glove is about to shake hands with the Empire, after all this time. Over in Chasme, we’ve made some remarkable advances, they tell me,’ meaning the squatting little artificer town on the Exalsee that the Glove virtually owned these days. ‘A poor sailor-engineer like myself wouldn’t know where to start second-guessing Himself and his adopted son, but the Empire’s the biggest market in the world. Makes sense that we’d want to set things straight and makes sense that the Wasps would want to let us. Nothing but the best for the army, after all, and we surely do make the best.’

Himself’s shadow? Praeda wondered. ‘But what if the Empire won’t talk . . .?’

‘It’s like I said,’ Emon explained, ‘the Empire asked first. I reckon we probably sent them a catalogue, like merchants do sometimes, when they have special goods for sale. I reckon the Imperial artificers just about must have had a fit when they saw what we’ve cooked up.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘I reckon the world’s about to change in all manner of directions, I do.’

To Angved’s surprise, Varsec had proved surprisingly good company. The Engineer was used to always having to compete with other officers, and all too used to failing at it, too. He and the aviator were still prisoners, and yet still being treated in a curiously tentative manner by their captors, who were all from the Engineering Corps themselves. Angved had meanwhile got a look at the machinery that had travelled the dusty road south to Khanaphes ahead of them, and he now felt cause to be hopeful.

Of course, they might have decided they don’t need me to make it work, but why bring me along at all, in that case? And if they needed Angved, having decided to roll the dice and gamble on his discovery, then the same seemed to be true of Varsec, who was housed in the same cell and given the same uncertain treatment.

Of course the Khanaphir expedition didn’t have a direct bearing on Varsec’s particular work, but he and Angved had already got past their initial caginess regarding their plans, and it was clear to both that the one could help the other. Aboard the airship – the Empress’s own airship! – they had taken every piece of paper they had been given and begun scrawling schematics and plans, diagrams of force and tension . . .

There had come a moment, far into the morning hours of a night that had slipped past almost unnoticed, when the two men had suddenly stared at one another, the plans spread out between them. Their shared gaze had spoken eloquently of a small part of the world changed for ever, the toothed wheels of progress moving on a notch.

They had called for the guard and demanded access to a messenger. The Fly-kinden who arrived was on the Empress’s own staff, as he informed them in extreme annoyance at having been woken at the whims of prisoners. He then refused to take their messages until Colonel Lien had been summoned and shown the schematics.

The Fly was on his way north almost immediately after that, dropping from the airship and speeding for the factories of Sonn, where some of Varsec’s initial ideas were already being worked into reality. It must change. It must all change. It will be better.

Now the two of them had been transferred to a room inside one of the embassies, still not considered quite as dignitaries but not quite as prisoners either, without rank and yet treated with cautious deference. Varsec was sketching again, drawing wing joints in delicate detail. He had kept the beard, trimmed down neatly now that they had given him a razor, but still a departure from the Imperial norm, and if his clothes were the simple tunic and sandals of a slave, at least they were clean and intact. He seemed at peace with it, too, their curious half-life. Angved himself still felt the pinch of ambition, of his additional years and his lack of success. I must be close, though, now. Close to an end or a new beginning, anyway. Khanaphes again, and I didn’t even need a leadshotter to get within the walls.

He had been ready for some time, when the message finally came. For the last few hours both he and Varsec had sensed the approach of it. Whatever they were here for, death or glory, it was coming.

Dusk had come and gone, as the messenger arrived, and Angved caught himself wondering what precisely they were being called to that had to be done under cover of darkness. The bland-faced, efficient Wasp-kinden come to fetch them had brought uniforms with him: tunics in the black and gold. ‘We need to make a good show,’ he explained, and neither of the prisoners asked for whom.

They were taken to a vast mass of stone shot through with small windows, encrusted with glyphs and friezes, fronted by vast colonnades. ‘The Scriptora,’ Angved guessed aloud, obscurely proud of having amassed some little local knowledge, even if it had only been for the purposes of knowing which parts of the city to knock down. From this gigantic mausoleum of an edifice, the Ministers governed their backward city. There were no Khanaphir in sight, though, only some Wasps guarding the entrance. The city’s leaders and their staff had been given the night off, it seemed.

As he was about to enter, Angved glanced back. In the centre of the square fronting the Scriptora was a truncated pyramid topped with an uneven ring of statues that resembled no Khanaphir he had ever seen. In the torchlight, their white stone took on a ruddy glow, and they seemed to dance a little, and even watch him, the flickering flames lending life to both limbs and eyes. Angved shuddered, obscurely unsettled, and hurried inside.

Bald, stern Colonel Lien was waiting for them, staring at the pair as though they were some faulty mechanism that might or might not be worth the fixing.

‘Stay behind me,’ he instructed. ‘Watch and learn.’

Angved was already watching. There were a half-dozen soldiers inside the Scriptora’s grand hall, but it was plain to his eyes that they were not simply the Light Airborne that their armour denoted. The way they stood, the nuances of their physiques, their ages: these were Engineers, and most likely men who had outranked Angved even when he had still been a lieutenant. Whatever’s here, it’s not to be known outside the Corps, he thought, and in that he was at once quite correct, and quite wrong.

There was the scrape of armour, and a handful of newcomers came striding into the Scriptora as though they owned it. Not the Khanaphir Ministers, though, but four men and a woman wearing a badge that made Angved twitch. The last time he had seen that open gauntlet, grey on grey, these people had been his enemies.

Lien must have expected some reaction from him, because he cast a warning glance over his shoulder. Angved was calm, though. Artificers were a practical, pragmatic breed, and he had not been deaf to the Corps rumour mill, even after being stripped of his rank. A look from Varsec suggested that Angved’s fellow prisoner was thinking just the same thing. The Iron Glove cartel had been working some remarkable miracles of artifice down on the Exalsee’s southern shores. Who they were, who led them, was a matter of some debate and of considerably more lurid speculation, but their credentials as artificers could not be denied, for all the Corps might wish otherwise. The Empire had never been shy of borrowing the inventions of other states and kinden for its artificers and, whilst this process usually resulted from armed conquest, trade was also an option wherever force would not yield results.

Still, what was this? The Glove and the Empire had been doing tentative business for a while now, but this piece of cloak-and-dagger promised rather more.

Four of the Iron Glove wore dark leathers, with blackened breastplates showing under their tabards, more like mercenaries than merchants. The woman and two of the men were Solarnese, the last man a thuggish-looking Bee-kinden. They were plainly no more than an honour guard, however, for the man in their midst was armoured head to foot in elegant, fluted plates – a perfectly machined carapace that looked as though it could withstand anything up to and including artillery. Angved held himself perfectly still, for he had witnessed just such armour in use, through a telescope, while he had watched the fighting on the bridge last time. It had been worn by the handful who had turned back the ambitions of the Many of Nem.

The armoured man took off his helm, and an uneasy ripple passed through the Wasp-kinden, for here was an insult, a slap in the face to Imperial doctrine – the Glove were being led by a halfbreed, a close-faced man who looked to be some mongrel of Ant and Beetle stock.

‘Colonel Lien, I take it?’ the halfbreed nodded to the lean, bald Wasp. ‘Here we are, as ordered.’

The chief of the Engineering Corps visibly steeled himself, before stepping forward to face the Iron Glove’s spokesman. ‘You have authority to negotiate for your cartel’s leader?’

‘You have the same for the Empire?’ the halfbreed shot back.

‘Believe me, what’s said here will bind the Empire. Of that you can be sure,’ replied Lien, with a heavy emphasis that caught both Angved and the Iron Glove man off guard.

What don’t I know? Angved asked himself and then, quickly after that, Who else is with us?

The halfbreed glanced about the hall, the same thoughts clearly on his mind, but then shrugged his armoured shoulders. ‘Then let’s get to it. Let us be blunt. We have what you want. We had a delegation from your Consortium guesting with us last month, and they made plenty of notes on what they saw. The Empire has completed its reunification, and you’re casting your eyes towards your neighbours again.’ He held up a hand even as Colonel Lien opened his mouth. ‘I’ll say no more. Feel free to pretend that I mean you’re concerned about their territorial ambitions. Maybe Myna’s going to make a strike for Capitas? Who knows? However, the sort of thing that your buyers want isn’t our normal stock in trade. We save that for special customers – so special, in fact, that we’ve yet to sell them to anyone. And then the Empire pays us a visit.’

‘And you start thinking of a price,’ Lien interrupted. ‘And you agree to meet us here, not quite Empire yet, and therefore safer for you, because you mistrust us. So tell me your price.’ The current of dislike in his voice could not be hidden, but both he and the halfbreed plainly understood that personal feelings – or even the prejudices of whole kinden – could not be allowed to get in the way of business.

‘Oh, money – lots of money,’ the halfbreed agreed. ‘You’ve seen the greatshotters in action, and your Consortium men took away with them the cost of those per unit. More, the artificers in that delegation were asking a lot of questions about improved war automotives and, after we’re friends again I’ve some plans to show you that will have you sending to the treasury all over again. But we have a few additional concerns – and that part about being friends again is one of them.’

‘You’re merchants,’ said Lien carefully, ‘isn’t that so?’

‘We’re being honest with each other. We’re artificers, we deal with realities. Let’s leave the pretences and the lies to the Inapt, Colonel.’

For a moment it seemed that Lien was going to press on with his prepared position, but then his narrow shoulders rose and fell. ‘Well, then . . . is it true?’ In that last word there was almost a note of pleading, although it was not clear whether he was seeking the halfbreed’s confirmation or denial.

‘Our first condition is a pardon,’ the halfbreed announced, ‘for the Colonel-Auxillian.’

Angved choked, loud enough to draw all eyes towards him. But he’s dead! he wanted to shout. The Colonel-Auxillian was the only man to bear a rank that they had invented specifically for him, for he was the genius halfbreed who had captured cities for the Empire in a dozen ingenious ways before falling victim to his own devices at Szar. The master artificer, Colonel-Auxillian Dariandrephos, was most certainly dead – except that his name was revived by Engineering Corps rumour-mongers almost every tenday, and recently more and more of those murmurings had also mentioned the Iron Glove. Angved would rather that creature was dead, but he sensed relief in the way that Lien stood.

So the genius outweighs the man’s tainted blood, the arrogance, the apparent desertion and betrayal? Angved considered. Those Consortium artificers guesting with the Glove must have been extremely impressed.

Colonel Lien glanced aside, seeking guidance from the shadows. ‘Dariandrephos wishes to return to the Empire?’

‘He wants the air cleared, no more than that. We’re happy there in our workshops in Chasme, thank you,’ the halfbreed stated flatly. ‘A public pardon, retirement with honours, and no reason for any Rekef man or ambitious Slave Corps officer to get ideas about him. Unambiguous and exact, just as we artificers like it.’

‘It may not be out of the question,’ Lien hedged, before another voice took the initiative.

‘Of course, a pardon. The Empire can hardly reach agreements with those still considered deserters and criminals, after all.’ The new voice was a woman’s, and it echoed with peculiar impact between the carved walls of the Scriptora. There was the softest shuffle of footsteps and the speaker stepped into view, although later Angved was never sure quite where she had emerged from. The same went for her escort, a pair of armoured Mantis-kinden with the steel claws of their killing gauntlets very much in evidence. Everyone went absolutely still and silent, as she stepped into their midst – even Lien, who had plainly known she was watching.

It’s her! Angved had never seen the Empress before, yet he had no doubt whatsoever that this was really the mistress of the Wasp-kinden, the last scion of her Imperial bloodline. Where her youth and beauty had once made her seem vulnerable, she seemed to be gathering some invisible strength from the stone walls and endless hieroglyphs, growing in stature without ever growing taller, each footfall resounding with a thunder just outside hearing. Here, in this ancient, torchlit hall, even the shadows seemed to throng at her beck and call, and Angved felt her physical presence almost like a blow. In that moment he would have done anything for her, obey any command, fall on a blade for love of her. The next morning, such memories of this meeting would horrify and shame him, and all the more so because the chains forged this night would bind him also in sunlight. The thought of turning against this woman would be like a knife point pricking at his eye, making him wince away at the very notion.

For now, though, her attention was focused on the halfbreed, who swallowed convulsively, staring back. She gave a small, cruel smile as she advanced toward him.

‘Yes, a pardon for the Colonel-Auxillian, but more than that surely? What about a pardon for those of his followers who went with him into exile? Surely you are not throwing yourself on my mercy, Sergeant-Auxillian Totho?’

The halfbreed jerked as she spoke his name, and then she was abruptly very close to him, taking his chin in one hand before he could pull away, and studying his face. The Iron Glove people remained tense, confused, and her Mantis bodyguards were plainly ready for any kind of casual violence at any moment – but then Mantis-kinden were always like that. The situation was suddenly unreadable.

‘I am told by my artificers that the Iron Glove has great plans for machines and devices that they lust after,’ the Empress declared. For a moment she studied Totho’s expression, and he kept as still as if she had a sword to his throat, but then she let him go. ‘I am told that my own inventors would match them, in time, but history is pressing on us. The Empire has a destiny, and we cannot wait. I am no artificer, but I know sincerity when I hear it. So we are here. You shall have your pardon, and so shall your master and such other deserters as walk in his shadow. Any other Imperial subjects that might find their way to you subsequently are to be returned, however, or purchased for full value. Remember that you are merchants, and not some band of idealists like the Broken Sword.’ She had looked away, her keen gaze sweeping across Lien, Angved, Varsec, all the other artificers dressed as soldiers.

Now her eyes pinioned Totho again. ‘You shall have your money, but I leave the tawdry details to the Consortium. We shall have your machines, and moreover, we shall even let your master come and see them put to use.’ She grinned at Totho’s start of surprise, for a brief moment seeming her true age. ‘But that was your request to make, was it not, and I have answered it too early.’ And the steel was back in her gaze. ‘Tell your master that we understand him, even if we do not understand his machines. People are transparent to us, and he is no exception. He needs us more than we need him, because what point is there to his machines if they are never used, and who would ever use them properly if not the Empire? So when the armies march again, you shall march with us, not sporting your old ranks and titles, but doing the Empire’s work nonetheless. That was all your master sent you to ask for, was it not?’

Totho stammered, then nodded, words failing him, but she had not finished yet, had not dismissed him.

‘It is not all,’ the Empress continued. ‘There is one thing we will have of you. Khanaphir and the Nem belongs to the Empire now, whatever face we put on that fact for the rest of the world. From dusk tomorrow, the Glove is forbidden – and any other foreign influence will disappear into the sands, never to be heard from again. You shall remove your people from these walls. You shall retrieve all your expeditions and agents from the Nem, all those diggers and robbers that you think we do not know of. This is non-negotiable, and no pardon shall save any of you from retribution if you disobey. We shall wipe the whole of your Chasme off the map if we must, and you know how the rest of the Exalsee shall cheer us on. Do you understand?’

Totho was silent for several foot-dragging seconds, no doubt weighing the odds in his mind: what could be gained where, and what were the percentages in trying to play both ends. The eyes of the Empress brooked no equivocation, however, fixing him like a specimen skewered on a pin until he finally nodded.

‘Of course,’ he got out. ‘It shall be as you say.’

‘It always is,’ she said sweetly. ‘And now I shall not keep you further. I will let my artificers and Consortium factors manage the details, but you may tell your master he shall have the pardons signed by my own hand. He cannot ask for any greater surety than that.’

After the Iron Glove people had departed, the Empress turned to Lien.

‘They will be gone by dusk tomorrow. The day after, you shall commence your work.’

‘If they keep their word, Majesty,’ Lien muttered darkly.

‘Do you doubt me, Colonel?’ The words were said quite pleasantly, but a deadly silence descended instantly upon the Scriptora’s echoing hall.

Lien shook his head convulsively. ‘Majesty, of course not.’

She nodded, easily satisfied, it seemed. ‘These are the men you spoke of?’ And to Angved’s alarm she was looking in his direction. He missed Lien’s confirmation, his heart hammering, as she stared at him. He found himself terrified, out of all proportion even to the temporal power she wielded, and yet at the same time a shock of attraction surged through him as their eyes met, a physical desire such as he had not felt in a decade.

‘This man is Varsec, from the Solarnese expedition,’ Lien explained distantly. ‘While in prison pending trial, he wrote the book you saw, about a new model air force, and how it might be accomplished, the adjustments, the Art . . .’

The Empress waved a hand. ‘The technical details I leave to you, Colonel. It is enough that you have confidence in it. That is, after all, your role. I understand that this Varsec’s proposals are drastic, and I approve the measures required. The Empire must move forward. We cannot cling to the past.’

‘And this is Angved, of the . . .’ Lien paused awkwardly, because of course the Empress had publicly denied any responsibility for the mission that had sent Angved to Khanaphes the last time. ‘Who was in the Nem recently,’ the colonel finished lamely. ‘You recall his reports on the Nemean rock oil and its properties.’

She nodded, it being clearly another matter she was happy to rely on her artificers for. ‘Proceed in all things as you have described to me,’ the Empress instructed. ‘The work in the desert and the adjustments back home. The Empire will make use of every tool to hand, whether it be the discoveries of these men or the inventions of the Iron Glove. We will be strong and we will break down the walls my brother balked at. We have a future to claim, Major Angved, Major Varsec.’

There was a moment of silence before the two men realized what she had just said, and after that Angved could have wept: not a prisoner now, not even an over-age lieutenant. I’ve done it. I’m made. He saluted, catching sight of Varsec copying the gesture from the corner of his eye.

‘There will be an expedition heading into the Nem. You have seen the machinery we have brought here. You know the operation you must begin. Before you return from the desert, matters must be well in hand,’ Colonel Lien reminded him. ‘You have seen the trust the Empress has personally placed in you and you can imagine your fate if you get this wrong, Angved.’ It was plain that Lien would rather see him rot than profit like this, but the man was an artificer, as pragmatic as that trade demanded. He would use what tools he had. ‘Varsec, you’ll accompany him while measures are put into place back home – factories converted, the recruiting sergeants briefed. You’ll be sent for when they’re ready for you. Expect to see Capitas in two months, at the latest, but until then I’ll leave you with Angved. You’ve witnessed, how his oil will solve some of your problems.’

Varsec nodded thoughtfully. ‘I have that, Colonel. I’ve a new sheaf of notes to send on to Capitas already, for the attention of the factory foremen.’

Lien turned away from them and saluted the Empress. ‘Your Majesty, you have shown a faith in the Engineering Corps that your brother, whose loss we mourn, did not. With your support, we shall build for you the future that you have envisaged. I am only glad that you understand our craft so well.’

In response to that, something about the Empress’s face struck a momentary wrong note, revealing some bitterness that Angved could not account for, but then she was smiling again. ‘I shall hold you to your promises,’ she told Lien. ‘The dreams of my grandfather and my father and my brother are relying on you, General Lien. It is time that the Engineers took their proper place within our Empire.’