Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  No more arguments now, not if he’s leaving tomorrow. That was a strangely calming thought. She would now play the dutiful niece for him, and in that way he would have less to worry about, and perhaps that would keep him safe. Two could play at this game.

  ‘If you’re travelling tomorrow, you should retire to bed now, Uncle,’ was all she said, to which he grunted an affirmative, levering himself up from the chair.

  ‘Come on,’ he offered, starting up the stairs. ‘We’ll have enough to say to each other in the morning.’

  There was a window on the landing which looked out onto the Siplan Way and the sea, and though Stenwold stomped on past it, Che paused, for it was open.

  ‘Uncle—’ she began, in warning, and then Stenwold roared in outrage.

  In the passage right in front of him there was a man, wrapped in dark cloth. A shortsword glinted. He must have been sitting in the shadows of the landing, waiting silent and patient, but he was all movement now.

  Stenwold went reeling backwards as the intruder’s blade passed before his chest and then the Beetle’s heavy hand lashed out and slapped him across the head, sending the assassin reeling into the wall. Stenwold went for him barehanded but the man was quicker, lunging with the blade and slicing a gash across Stenwold’s arm. The Beetle fell away with a hiss of pain and hit the door of his own bedroom, slamming it open and tumbling backwards inside.

  Che did not hesitate. Even as the dark figure turned she was on him, having instantly drawn the knife she carried everywhere for protection. It was a tiny thing, barely four inches of blade, but she raked it savagely across his back. At the same time someone else could be heard on the stairs, and that surely did not bode well. Stenwold’s attacker had swiftly rounded on her. For the moment he held her off at his sword’s length because in the dark he had not realized that she was just a teenage girl with a tiny knife. But heading up the stairs was a man wrapped in black, slender, grasping a long blade in one hand and a short one in the other. Before he could use either against Che, suddenly Tynisa was there too.

  She had been doing as instructed, packing for a dangerous journey, so in her hand was her own rapier, a slim blade to match the new assassin’s own. She started back as he ran at her, but her guard was up when he lunged, and she deflected both blades aside. He was quick, light on his feet and striking at her from all angles. She could fend him off satisfactorily but he had his offhand blade always ready for an opening, so bind and parry as she might she could not press the attack.

  Meanwhile, in the very stance of the man she was facing, Che recognized his realization of the meagre opposition he faced. Determinedly she went straight for him even as he made up his mind. His blade was just drawing back as she lunged and slammed into him low down, shoulder to his chest, even as his blade passed inches over her head. The collision knocked the breath from her and she bounced off him and would have fallen had she not grasped the folds of his tunic. She had cut him again, a shallow line across one side. Gripping his belt she clumsily grappled for his sword, hanging on tight as he tried to cast her away. She was so close she could smell the sour taint of beer on his breath, even the blacking that he had used to dull the glint of his blade. He kept trying to throw her out to arm’s length to get a chance at impaling her but she clung on stubbornly, trying to get her knife to him in turn.

  Tynisa waited for her own opponent’s next attack. Already she had gained a little measure of him. He was quick but unimaginative, his strikes were textbook. The next time he lunged for her, she passed under his blade. His offhand darted in, as she knew it would, but she was already past it, suddenly faster. As she passed him, she tried to bring the razor-sharp edge of her rapier across his throat, but he was pushing forward. The curved guard jagged off his chin and his feet tangled with hers. They were both off balance in a moment.

  She felt the balcony rail at her back, and then a moment later it was snapping under their combined weight, pitching them both into the hallway below. But she had a free hand and he did not. She hauled at him as they went over, trying to thrust him ahead of her.

  As his comrade vanished, the first assassin swore and hurled Che away from him. She hit the passage floor hard, but kept hold of her knife, desperately turning to menace him with it. He paused, catching his breath for a heartbeat, as swords scraped and rattled below them.

  ‘You!’ bellowed Stenwold, from the doorway of his room. The assassin turned swiftly, and froze.

  The reason was that Stenwold held a weapon levelled. It was a crossbow without the arms, a great, heavy four-barrelled thing with a quartet of broad metal bolts jutting aggressively out at the world, resembling javelins more than anything else. Che knew it as a piercer, and that there was a prodigious firepowder charge just waiting for the touch of a lever to explode.

  The assassin remained poised, and Stenwold studied him levelly, despite the blood soaking his own arm. ‘Sword on the ground, and perhaps—’

  Che noticed the man about to spring, hoping to catch Stenwold in mid-sentence, and she stabbed down with the knife hard enough to pin his foot to the floor. At that moment Stenwold pulled the trigger. It was as if the sound swallowed up every inch of the house, as a double charge of firepowder erupted in the confined space of the piercer. The assassin was punched off his feet, flung all the way down the landing and pinned to the far wall by three of the bolts. The fourth, without any human obstacle to travel through, rammed itself so far into the bare wall itself that its tip must have been visible from outside.

  The quiet that then descended, laced with the acrid smell of the spent powder, was absolute.

  ‘Where’s . . . Tynisa?’ Stenwold asked heavily. Che pointed mutely downwards.

  They got to the broken rail and looked down to see her standing with the second assassin splayed like a doll on the ground before her. As she stood, head bowed, looking at the first man she had ever killed, the blood-shiny rapier was still in her hand.

  Che heard her uncle suck in his breath. ‘Hammer and tongs,’ he murmured. ‘It’s her.’ Che caught a glint in his eye, some token of recognition that had nothing to do with Tynisa. The surroundings must be different, as must the dead man below, but this very tableau, this moment of stillness and contemplation, had caught him off guard. For just a second he was twenty years younger and elsewhere, seeing and wondering about some event long past.

  And then Tynisa looked up at him, pale and staring. He hurried down the stairs and took her in his arms. The first death, he thought. There came to him the image of an orthopter’s cabin in Myna with that Wasp soldier falling back. The first death by our hands is always hard. She would survive it, though, he knew. It’s in her blood.

  A moment later Tynisa pushed away from him and went over to Che, taking her foster-sister’s hand.

  ‘You’re not hurt?’ she said. ‘I thought he had you.’

  Che blinked at her. ‘Uncle Sten killed him.’ She had not expected such sympathy.

  ‘I need you to do something for me,’ said Stenwold to them both. He was now sitting on a nearby couch, the dead man at his feet. ‘One of you go and get Doctor Nicrephos for me, quick as you can.’

  ‘Doctor Nicrephos?’ Che asked in surprise. ‘But you want a proper doctor, surely?’

  ‘He’s an old charlatan, that one,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘But he knows his poisons, though. These killers . . . weren’t using clean blades.’

  Tynisa was out of the door in an instant, leaving Che gaping at him, feeling suddenly cold.

  ‘But you . . . You can’t . . .’

  Stenwold managed a smile. ‘Oh, I’m an old Beetle, remember, Cheerwell. My insides are made of leather. Take more than some street-corner thug’s blade-spit to floor me. Still, maybe you should reload the piercer. Spare bolts and powder are in my room.’

  She fairly flew back up the stairs, leaving him for a moment with his thoughts. He peeled the cloth from the face of the assassin there, recognizing the stamp of a halfbreed’s features: a blend of Spider, Beetle
and Ant-kinden. The other one had been pure renegade Ant, so Cheerwell had done well to even stave the man off. ‘Local talent, these two,’ he said to himself. Not Wasps, and nobody the Wasp Empire would either own or be connected to. The game had clearly changed.

  Che came back down the stairs, stuffing heavy bolts into the piercer’s muzzles. ‘Will Salma and Totho be in danger too?’ she asked.

  ‘Tonight? I don’t think so – but tomorrow is anyone’s guess. Cheerwell, I’m changing my plans.’

  ‘Changing them how?’

  ‘I have four seats reserved on the Sky Without for tomorrow. You’re going to be on it too. All of the Majestic will.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Plans change. Now I need to stay here long enough to close my books, so I’ll join you when I can.’ Seeing her about to protest further he held up a hand. ‘And I don’t mean that as some kind of euphemism for “I’ll never see you again”, Cheerwell. I never was a death-or-glory boy. I’ll catch up with you all in Helleron, but for now, as I said, I want to keep you safe. It’s a mad thought, but I think you’ll be safer with my people in Helleron than here alone with me.’

  Tynisa was back now, pulling in her wake a stooped, grey-skinned figure. Che stood back as the old Moth-kinden entered. She recognized him from the College but he taught the sort of disreputable classes that sensible young Beetles did not choose to attend. He was the very picture of a storybook wizard, with his long hair gone a dirty grey, and his slanted eyes blank-white, without iris or pupil.

  ‘Master Nicrephos,’ Stenwold began. ‘I have need of your services.’

  The Moth laughed between his teeth. ‘A believer at last, are you?’ he replied in almost a whisper. ‘No? Well, no matter. This morning I was your debtor. Tomorrow I shall not be, hmm?’

  ‘Just come and shake your bones or whatever,’ Stenwold grunted. ‘And then consider all debts paid.’

  Stenwold had gone out somewhere before Che was even up, leaving her with a clutching feeling of anxiety. The events of the previous night came back with a jolt at the sight of the ruined banister.

  The world has gone mad.

  She had watched while Nicrephos had ostentatiously tended to Stenwold’s wound, and had ground her teeth in frustration at it. This was no doctoring. Nicrephos had muttered charms over the wound, burned a few acrid herbs and tied a little bag of something about the Beetle’s arm. Stenwold had just sat there patiently, his dark features gone grey with pain or poison, leaving the quack to go about his mummery – even thanked him when he had finished.

  After the Moth had gone, Che had rounded on her uncle. ‘What was that all about? You can’t tell me you believe in that nonsense, like some . . . credulous savage?’

  Stenwold shrugged. ‘I can’t pretend it makes any sense to me, but I’ve seen Doctor Nicrephos bring back from death’s doorstep a man that all the real doctors in this town had given up on.’

  ‘But he barely even touched the wound!’

  Stenwold shrugged – then winced. ‘It’s easy, once the lamps are lit, to scoff at shadows,’ was all he said, and then he had retired to bed.

  And this morning he was gone already to bustle about the town, but at least he had scribbled Tynisa and Che terse instructions.

  The back room of the Taverna Merraia, third hour after dawn. Be packed. And that was all it said.

  The girls walked there together, and close together, for there were a lot of foreigners about on the streets during the Games. Some were simply merchants and artisans but others had a darker look. More was bought and sold during the tenday of the games, of all commodities, than in the entire month beforehand. As was their way, Beetles never let such a gathering go to waste. In the simple walk from Stenwold’s villa to the taverna they encountered a band of renegade Vekken mercenaries, all swagger and glower. They saw a Tarkesh slavemaster in conference with two Spider buyers, because whilst one could not own a slave within Collegium’s walls, one could sell them on paper – a neat distinction. There were men who looked like brigands here to tout their loot, Spiderland nobles and their cadres of followers, Mantis-kinden killers-for-hire with their bleak stares . . . It was a relief to simply reach the taverna without some new assailant dashing at them from the crowds, and both of them had hands close to sword hilts. Tynisa might have her customary rapier, but this time Che wore a proper shortsword, Helleron made. When the killers next came hunting her, she would provide them with a real fight.

  The Taverna Merraia was done up in a half-hearted Fly-kinden style, with low-set doorways they had to stoop through, and an interior walled with packed earth and carved wooden columns on three of its sides, while open shutters extended almost the whole of the fourth. The moment they entered, the miniature owner bustled out to them. ‘Ladies, ladies, pray let us not expose you to all these rude gapers. Come, I have a private room for you, yes?’ He raised a bushy eyebrow, and Che nodded slowly. It seemed that Uncle Stenwold had indeed been busy.

  The back room was the real Fly-kinden thing, rather than the basic tat displayed out front for the tourists. The table stood barely more than six inches off the ground, and there were cushions instead of chairs. Most importantly, should they need it, there was an escape hatch in the ceiling that would take them out to a street running behind the taverna. Flies were known for such fallbacks.

  ‘He must have sent word to the others too,’ Che guessed.

  Tynisa merely nodded. She had been oddly quiet today, hardly a word from her since they got up at dawn. Che examined her companion’s face, but the deftly applied make-up hid any clue as to whether the girl had slept well or not.

  ‘So? Last night?’ she said finally.

  Tynisa looked at her, captured her stare. ‘Have you . . . you haven’t ever . . . killed anyone, have you?’ the Spider-kinden asked quietly.

  Che shrugged, trying to look casual. ‘I could have killed that one that cut Uncle Sten. I got him . . . a couple of times.’

  Tynisa continued to hold her eyes until eventually Che admitted, ‘But no. I haven’t. I just fought, like we do at Prowess Forum. Till then I don’t think I really realized it could be . . . for real.’

  ‘I killed him.’ Tynisa looked down at her hands. ‘He was good, but I killed him.’ With great care she drew the rapier from its slim scabbard, and Che could remember being very jealous when Stenwold had bought it for her. It was a beautiful Spider-forged piece of work. They were not great smiths by and large, but certain skilled crafts held their interest, and sword-crafting was one of them. This one was done as a copy of the Mantis style, the back-curving guard that protected the hand was formed into sharp, curving leaves and the blade was ground to a slightly uneven taper that nonetheless left both edges keen. True Mantis-work was rare and expensive as weapons came, and Stenwold had not been able to find the genuine article for sale. They might be tree-living savages in so many ways, without comprehension of all the great things the revolution had brought to the Lowlands world, but when the Mantis produced a sword, or a bow, or anything else they turned their craft to, they made it with the skill of ages.

  ‘You had to kill him,’ Che said solemnly, her eyes still on the blade. ‘He would have killed you otherwise. Don’t feel bad.’

  ‘I felt . . .’ Tynisa pursed her lips together. ‘I felt so alive.’

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘In that moment, when I was past his guard, it was . . . Help me, Che, but it was wonderful. I forgot everything else. At that moment I didn’t care about you, or Sten. I just knew that I had won, and it was good. It was so good.’

  Che remembered the girl’s sudden concern after the fight, Tynisa trying to make up for the remorse she should have been feeling. ‘I don’t know, I—’ she started, and just then, blessedly, Totho and Salma were being ushered into the room by the taverna’s owner. Totho was bundled into a shapeless long coat, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder, so it was Salma who must have drawn any looks all the way across Collegium. He was known for dressing well, but un
derstated, always fashionable, never gauche. Now he was hidden somewhere within a hugely elaborate, high-collared robe and the garment was – as the saying went – almost splendid enough to be offered its own department at College. Blue and green and red, iridescent like mother of pearl, its curling hems were lined with plates of gold.

  ‘What exactly are you got up as?’ Tynisa demanded, recovering her customary cool. ‘Or did Sten’s note actually say you should look like a mad foreigner?’

  ‘It’s not my fault that nobody in this forsaken backward little town ever dresses properly,’ said Salma. ‘What was I supposed to do with my robe? Leave it behind?’

  ‘Don’t you have any . . . bags?’

  Salma opened the robe to reveal an inner garment of simply cut turquoise cloth lined with numerous pockets. There was even a sword scabbard sewn into it containing a short-bladed weapon of odd design.

  ‘You do realize that someone tried to kill us last night?’ Tynisa told him, although there was no reason he should know. ‘I suppose at least it won’t be me now drawing the arrow-shot.’

  ‘Tried to kill you?’ Totho asked, shocked.

  ‘Tried to kill Uncle Sten,’ corrected Che, ‘only we got in the way. The killers, they’re . . . dead, both of them.’ She remembered how the city guard had finally been called, and Stenwold had sent them on their way with the bodies and no questions asked, a clink of coin. Everyone, even Stenwold, seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened, and she suspected this was the way of it for those with secrets that too many questions could compromise.

  Stenwold came in just then, without ceremony. ‘Good,’ he said, on seeing them all present. He settled himself on the floor across the table from them, making sure he had the door on his right hand and not to his back. ‘Time for some truths,’ he began. ‘Although if you’re half the people I take you for, there’ll be no surprises. Che and Tynisa know the histories I’ve been teaching by heart now, and Salma’s Commonweal has first-hand experience of the Wasp Empire’s ways. And Totho . . .’