They were a small folk, but almost grotesquely long-limbed. Every step involved a stalking, surreptitious and shifty motion. Though there were plenty of outsiders lodging in Jerez, the Skaters looked on them all with narrow-eyed suspicion, yet looked on their own kind with even more. They were blue-white of skin with long pointed ears, complementing pointed faces and pointed noses. Most of them wore drab, slightly ragged tunics that left much of the limbs bare, but some sported armour of tarnished metal scales. Almost all the adults seemed to be armed, and so far Achaeos had seen bows, slings, blowpipes, daggers, Wasp-pattern swords and even a few crossbows.
Watch them, Che. Watch how they set out. He fixed his eyes on one skinny creature that might have been female, watching closely as the Skater stepped out onto the water, then simply ran, skipping over the shallow waves, leaving nothing but a series of ripples to tell of her passage. They could all do this from an early age, for it was the Skater Art, and it was the last nail in the coffin of any Wasp attempt to control their smuggling and banditry.
But notice, he told Che in his head, how they stay close to the lake-shore, amongst the islands and the reeds. I have heard stories of great beasts, fish and insects, out towards the centre. Also they say that the lake is haunted, with strange lights appearing sometimes, deep below… Perhaps it is just talk to keep the Empire at bay, though I cannot imagine the Wasps being frightened by talk of ghosts and lights.
He stretched and yawned. He must have been living with daylight kinden for too long. The night-time, when his own people were most active, was becoming the time he felt a need for sleep. Be safe, Che, he exhorted her, across the miles that now separated them. Be safe and stay safe.
Morning brought little joy to Jerez, but a spark of it to Gaved. He looked out at the lake, now soiled by the dawn, at the stinking collection of hovels that formed the town, and he thought, I’m home.
Not true, of course. He was a drifter by nature, with no home to speak of, but business had brought him here so many times that he had almost acquired a fondness for the sorry place, second hand and with no questions asked, the way one acquired anything in Jerez. And there were even a few dwelling here that he might almost call friends, or as near to friends as his trade allowed. What’s a friend anyway? Someone to watch your back, and resist the temptation to put a knife in it.
He halted his step, still staring out at the lake, considering it. He had now seen a little of how the other half lived: Stenwold Maker and his extended clan of agents composed of all kinden; Tisamon and his daughter and their invisible bond; the joy of Stenwold’s niece when she had met again her Dragonfly comrade.
I’ll settle for the unknifed back and the freedom, he told himself.
‘You’re sure you know your business?’ The Moth’s voice came from behind him.
‘Better than anyone. My contacts here will let us in on whatever’s going on. You can’t throw this sort of thing onto the waters without causing a ripple.’
The man’s blank, suspicious eyes tried to read him but, even before receiving the burn-scar, Gaved’s face had never been particularly expressive. The Wasp gave him a nod and set off down the crooked alleys of Jerez, thinking, Trust always was hard to come by in this town.
Three streets further on he stopped a Skater child, murmuring to it as though he was merely asking directions. The skinny creature nodded, took his coin, and ran off. Gaved continued on his patient way, hands shoved into the pockets of his greatcoat. He looked as unassuming as a Wasp could get.
Two streets later and the same child returned, whispering to his ear, ‘A woman follows you: Spider-kinden, young, and very pretty.’ Gaved nodded sagely, handed over another coin, and made a change of direction as though acting on the child’s advice.
Well, no surprises. The girl reckons she can out-skulk the Skaters, but they were born for that game. It almost felt like relief, this evidence of their lack of faith in him. It added a sense of certainty to his life.
Time now to test other certainties, to see if they had rusted in the constant misting rain, for he had arrived at his destination. Of all the little shacks of Jerez this was perhaps the least prepossessing, barely more than an outhouse tacked onto the Cut Glass Export House, a Skater merchant cartel that specialized in buying in gems from the north and selling them on furtively to Consortium factors or imperial officers. Its clandestine associations with the regime were such that, even when posing under such an obvious name, it continued to operate within sight of the governor’s fort quite unchallenged.
The little outhouse was bigger on the inside than it looked, because it had bitten at least three rooms out of the neighbouring Cut Glass, with more space under negotiation the last time Gaved had been here. The Glass itself put up with them so long as prying eyes did not turn on the Export House itself.
There was a sign dangling haphazardly from the slanting roof, and Gaved saw approvingly that it had been repainted recently. The rains that came almost every other day to Jerez, that were slanting down even now, were ruthless on paint and ornament of any kind. Jerez signs eschewed words; even the advertising was underhand. The Cut Glass itself used a broken mirror, and the swaying, spinning piece of board that Gaved had sought out bore a simple eye, looking left. For those that had use for their services, it was enough.
Gaved pushed the door open and ducked inside, shaking the rain from his cloak. The first room was low-ceilinged enough to make him stoop, and empty save for the ubiquitous reed matting on the floor and a fitfully burning rush lamp hanging from the rafters.
‘Nivit!’ Gaved called out. ‘Customer!’
‘Come on in.’ A thin voice emerged from a doorway covered by just a tatty drape. The room beyond was much bigger and cluttered with half a dozen crates and a seven-foot statue of a robed Moth-kinden that Gaved recalled hauling in there, with some help, over a year ago. A lone Skater was perched on one of the crates, scratching inventories onto a slate. Nivit was bald and pallid, gaunt and hollow-cheeked even for his kind. His script was immaculate, the tiny characters crowding each other to make the most of the slate’s surface, but his writing pose was bizarre, with elbows and knees jutting out at all angles as he bent his long limbs to the task. The Skaters had clearly never been intended for literary folk.
‘Well look who it isn’t,’ Nivit crowed. ‘Himself, himself. Didn’t think I’d see you for another half-year at least.’
‘I always come back, sooner or later,’ Gaved replied.
‘Word said you pitched up in an airship. Going up in the world, is it? Or just up and down?’
‘I told them they’d not keep it a secret,’ Gaved admitted. Allanbridge had brought them down silently at night, pumped the gas out of the balloon and stowed it out of sight, the gondola abruptly transformed into a serviceable boat that they hauled through the mud of the shoreline until it was nominally afloat on the lake. Gaved had known that there was no such thing as a secret in Jerez, though. The Skaters saw everything. That was what he was counting on.
‘So tell me, chief, what’s the busy?’ Nivit put down the slate. With elaborate showiness he extracted a little bell from inside his tunic and rang it once. A moment later a young Skater, a girl as far as Gaved could tell, darted from somewhere still deeper inside the building and took the slate back with her.
‘She’s new,’ Gaved noted. ‘Business is good, I take it.’
Nivit gave a shrug, which transported his bony shoulders over a remarkable distance. ‘So I get lonely.’ Gaved knew that in a further room there rose rack after rack of shelves carrying hundreds of slates, with every transaction neatly ordered and dated. Nivit’s powers of organization were the secret of his success.
‘I’ve got a commission for us both,’ Gaved informed him.
‘So long as Nivit gets his cut, lay it on me,’ the Skater said. ‘Who’s the mark?’
‘Not who, this time, but what. Something that’s come to Jerez just recently. Something specialist and valuable, imperial contraband – or at le
ast the Empire will be looking for it. Whoever has it will be aiming to sell it, but the price will be steep as steep.’ It felt good to be back here, working with decent, honest crooks like Nivit rather than for the Empire. Not that there was any escaping the Empire here either, of course. Most of the work the two of them had previously tackled together had involved catching imperial runaways. As well as his hunting skills, that was what Gaved had brought to the partnership: an acceptable Wasp-kinden face for their imperial patrons to deal with.
Nivit nodded. ‘Well, now, luxury goods, is it?’ He smiled slyly. ‘Already got rumours coming in of some sort of auction, see. Nothing definite as yet save that it’s really, really by invitation only, but stay with me and I’ll pry out some details for you.’
This was, for Thalric, the acid test. Like a child who had been naughty, he was at last being let out on his own. Tisamon, he realized, would be sharpening the blade of his clawed gauntlet, not so much in anticipation of betrayal but in eager longing for it. There was a man for whom the last 500 years of history might as well never have happened.
The Mantis had wanted to go with him, of course, but Thalric had patiently talked and talked, and eventually convinced the man that he, Thalric, could go places alone in a way that a Wasp could not if he were tugging a belligerent Mantis bodyguard-jailer. Since he had been brought along as their imperial expert, they now had to let him get on with his job, or dispense with him.
He had phrased it just like that, waiting for that speculative look to come to Tisamon’s face. It had been a tense moment for Thalric, knowing that his wound would slow him too much, if it was death the Mantis decided on.
Instead he had read the man, a spymaster reading an enemy agent, and seen just a touch of confusion. Stenwold was not here, to give the word and endorse Tisamon’s bloodletting. Tynisa had gone tracking the wretched mercenary, and her father’s world was a simple one of black-and-white decisions divided by a blade’s sharp edge. Now they were actually here he did not know how Thalric could be put to best use.
‘I need to go out and gather information,’ Thalric had insisted. ‘I’m no use locked up here on the Maiden.’
‘Where he’d only get in my bloody way,’ pitched in Allanbridge, who had repairs to make to the gasbag, and so became an unexpected ally.
Tisamon’s spines had twitched along his forearms, and his lips had compressed thinly, but he had eventually nodded and let Thalric go.
And so here he was off the leash again, in Jerez, back in the Empire. A Wasp in civilian clothes it was true – but then that was nothing unusual here. Jerez had so far never resisted imperial rule. There had never been a Skater army lined up against the black-and-gold. There had barely even been a local leader when the Empire first arrived, since the Skaters had seemed to choose and dispose of their headmen virtually every tenday. They had welcomed the Wasps in as the only way to contain the constant infighting and feuding that were so ubiquitous amongst them. Or that was the story, at least. Since then, Jerez had become the eternal thorn in the Emperor’s side: a conduit for fugitives and contraband that the Imperial Army could not stopper. Worse, it was a corruptor of officers, for many previously honest men had seen the opportunity in using their power and rank to dabble in the black market and make themselves handsome profits. Added to all that, this loose, mobile town shifting about on the shores of Lake Limnia produced a bare pittance of tax revenue, tax gatherers who asked too many questions tended to disappear overnight, and any proper census of the town was just impossible. More than one governor had considered trying to wipe the place off the map, but then the Skaters would just pack up their possessions and creep over the lake to somewhere else.
Scyla was obviously familiar with this place, so Thalric knew there was no point in trying to find her directly. She was not who he was looking for, anyway, since she had merely been hired to grab this box for some imperial magnate. That meant that they would be looking for her, sending hunters after her, and there were places that imperial staff tended to frequent when sent to Jerez on missions like this. It was, after all, a regular occurrence for imperial spies to end up looking for someone in this mid-den of a town. Thalric now wanted to see if whoever the Empire had sent was unimaginative enough to follow the usual path.
The answer was clear enough once he had found the two-storey shack that served as a boarding house and tavern, and was known informally as Ma Kritt’s Place. It had a veranda out front with a view of the lake, as if that would appeal to anyone, and Thalric could see three Wasp soldiers seated there at a rickety table, nursing their drinks. They too were in their civvies, but he could tell just from the way they sat that these were not only soldiers but Rekef. Someone high up was still using the poor old service to do his dirty work.
Thalric had found his ideal vantage point, leaning against the wall of a ruinous hut, with his hood up and ostensibly gazing elsewhere. He was a master of surveillance through the corner of his eye, and he had a good enough view not only to interpret gestures, but even to recognize faces.
The man he took to be their leader was called Brodan, and had been a sergeant newly called into the Rekef when last encountered, but must surely be at least a lieutenant now. Brodan had been Reiner’s man, too, if Thalric was able to judge, and a sudden surge of hope came to him.
General Maxin might certainly want him dead, but Reiner… perhaps General Reiner would decide that he was worth protecting after all. If, for example, Thalric was able to haul in some useful prisoners, fresh out of Collegium, who knew what this box was supposed to be and why it was so important.
In his time Thalric had run a few double agents, and he knew the strange balancing point that existed there: to keep a turned agent in place, the original employers had to be kept sweet, had to be convinced that the agent was still true. Hence, the traitor must still have useful information to pass on to his former masters, even as he was sending their secrets back. The situation bred a strange kind of uncertainty, for the double agent became unsure about who he was betraying to whom. Thalric had been amazed how many had still professed, despite the obvious contradiction, that they still remained loyal to their original masters.
Of course he had never said to himself, I would never do that, in their place. He had never thought that he would be in that position himself.
But here he was now, in exactly such a quandary. What did he owe Stenwold and his people? Nothing. What did he owe the Empire, though?
The same nothing, but this was not about what the Empire could do for him, but what he could do for the Empire. Seeing his countrymen over there he felt such a keening sense of loss, of exclusion, as though he was peering into a warm room through a frost-touched window, locked out in the winter cold.
A quick step over to Brodan. Good day… lieutenant, is it now? Remember me? His mouth went dry all of a sudden. He wondered if Tisamon, or his wretched daughter, was watching from somewhere. If he acted quickly enough it might not matter.
He wavered.
He fell.
He stepped out into the open, heading towards the three reclining Wasps, trying to decide whether he was some greater degree of traitor now – and, if so, to whom.
Seven
On the waters of the Exalsee, Che watched a sleek boat with blue sails tacking between the islands. She had been on boats enough to recognize a Spider-kinden design, not so very different from the vessel that had carried her and Nero to Seldis.
It was a strange world out here: Spiders ruling a city of the Apt, Flies piloting warlike flying machines, barbarous Dragonfly pirates. It was beautiful, though, for the early-morning sun had turned the great inland sea to liquid gold that rippled out to the distant horizon, the islands in it cast now in black velvet. Below her were the stepped streets of Solarno, the bold red roofs, the blazing white walls. The city was just waking, and she could hear the very beginnings of the bustle that she had encountered as they docked. A city of a dozen kinden. A city of sudden violence and strange politics.
Che turned to see Taki standing in the doorway. The Fly-kinden was now dressed in a simple, much-darned tunic and trousers, not white as the Solarnese preferred but a dark grey. There was a pair of folded leather gloves thrust through her belt.
‘Going to work on your machine?’ Che asked her, recognizing clothes that wouldn’t show the dirt or the oil.
‘Yes, as it happens.’ Taki was a little taken aback by the observation. ‘My poor Esca Volenti took a hit or two in the scrap and, even before, she didn’t feel quite in balance. I can’t leave her repairs to the Destiavel’s mechanics. They’ll never get it right.’
‘You have…’ Che made an apologetic face. ‘I don’t mean to sound patronizing or anything, but you employ more artifice here than I would have expected. I was expecting the Spiderlands, if you know what I mean.’
Taki smiled. ‘You’ve not seen the Spiderlands then, not properly. The Spiders love their gimmicks and gadgets too, even if they can’t use them personally. There are cities down south that are just factory states, I hear, and Diroveshni – that’s south-west of here on the Spiderlands edge of the Exalsee – makes the best parts for fliers and auto-motives. We get all ours from there. What you mean is that the Spider ladies and lords don’t want to see any of that sweaty, greasy stuff, and so they keep it far away from their nice houses. Now, how about breakfast?’
‘Please.’
Taki motioned for her to follow, and they tapped their way downstairs to find a long, low table in the Fly-kinden style already set out with bread, grape jelly, ripe tomatoes and thinly sliced meat. There were about half a dozen people there, mostly the local Soldier Beetle types plus a pair of Flies and a single Dragonfly-kinden who sat cross-legged and stripped to the waist, his arms and chest showing an arabesque of brands and scars. A second glance revealed to Che that Nero was one of the Flies, but he seemed to have become native overnight. He was now wearing the white tunic and loose trousers of a Solarnese, and there was a little box-like hat with a small peak covering his bald head. He looked up at her and grinned, and only then was she absolutely sure it was him.
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