Salute the Dark

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Stenwold wouldn’t want me to kill you,’ she remarked pensively.

  ‘The Beetle general.’

  ‘Stenwold Maker,’ she replied softly. ‘He is a fat, bald, clumsy old man. Also, he is mine.’

  The third cut on his neck was due to his own surprised reaction. He was becoming impatient, his Wasp temper rising, in a situation where impatience could prove fatal. ‘So, what?’ he demanded.

  She doesn’t know.

  But she was already saying, ‘I had wanted . . . wanted to try to talk to you, to convince you . . .’

  He opened his mouth to say something, and just then a lieutenant of the watch put his head into the tent, mouth open to speak.

  Arianna stabbed, even as Tynan tried to hurl himself off the bed.

  Twenty-Eight

  I can wait no longer.

  Tynisa had been in the imperial city now for days enough to know that no magical voice would solve this one for her. She had distributed her affections among the groping hands of a half-dozen well-placed Wasps, each believing her a slave, or a whore, or a Rekef agent, depending on what role would best unlock their confidences. She could easily have brought Stenwold back a hundred of the Empire’s most guarded secrets.

  But it was not enough to get her what she wanted, because she had run into an unexpected barrier. The Empire survived off its slaves, the living produce of its foreign conquests. Everywhere throughout the Empire all the menial work was performed by them. There was only one place where that was not the case: the imperial palace in Capitas, where Tisamon was currently being held.

  She could not get inside. None of her besotted Wasps could get her in, for those very few slaves of other kinden that lived within the palace were there for specific reasons. There was no room for random and unaccompanied foreigners in this very heart of the Empire. So, unless she put herself forward as a pit-fighter, and thus sold herself into real chains, she could not hope to enter the palace with the Empire’s consent.

  She had considered the situation very thoroughly, and she had no option but to assume that Tisamon wanted to be freed. Therefore if Tisamon desired to be free, yet was not free, it could only be because the pit-fighters’ cells held him so tightly he could not escape. In those circumstances she would become as much of a prisoner as he was.

  So she would therefore rely on old-fashioned methods: the resources of her mother’s and father’s kin.

  Tonight she intended assaulting the Emperor’s residence to get her father back.

  Reaching the palace through the dark streets was challenge enough, for Capitas was an ordered city and only Wasps were allowed about after nightfall. It was a well-lit city, too, with gas lamps flaring at each street corner, so that the Emperor could look down after sunset and see himself at the heart of an almost geometric constellation.

  She stalked the palace from the shadows, a tiny hunter approaching her monumental prey unseen. The nightly patrols and watchmen, with their pikes and lanterns, did not see her. She drew upon the Art inherent in her blood until she was right beside the palace walls.

  There was too much light here, but she had no time to catch breath. The main door was impossible, but the Wasps erected their public buildings so that they rose in tiers, each succeeding step of the ziggurat narrower than the last. Somewhere up there, there must be an unguarded way in. She had to believe that.

  What would Tisamon do in the same circumstances? And the answer was simple. He would just go, without all this deliberation. He would act.

  She went skimming up the wall and on to the next tier in moments, her Art keeping her hands and feet close to the immaculately dressed stone, up the wall and over it, and down half that distance to the ground on the other side. It was a garden enclosed in a walled courtyard, she found: a low assemblage of shrubs and ferns that must be monstrously difficult to keep properly watered. There were doors at the far end of it and she skulked towards them.

  Locked, of course, so she must still keep going upwards. Someone was bound to have left a balcony door open, a window unshuttered. She staved off the thought that the airborne Wasps would not necessarily lessen their security at a higher altitude, and that Tisamon’s cell would be deep below ground, and therefore that she was getting ever further away from him.

  Tisamon would keep going, and so shall I.

  She ascended two more tiers, staying well clear of the slit windows that might betray her presence. Each time, she found doors that were firmly sealed, or open doorways giving on to brightly lit rooms where Wasps were working: servants or clerks or scribes. Nowhere inside them was there a gap dark enough for her to slink in unseen.

  She went up once more, covering each vertical as quickly as possible for fear that some late messenger might spot her clinging there. A glance backwards showed her the Emperor’s own view: the pinprick lights of his city spread like candles below her.

  Anyone might have delusions of grandeur, seeing that.

  She clambered up on to a low-walled balcony, feeling exhausted by the ascent, for constant use of her Art was draining her. Tynisa had never climbed so far and so fast. She crouched for a moment, crouched very low within the shadow of the wall, to catch her breath.

  This must be some Wasp lord’s private view, she decided, allotted to some favourite of the Imperial Court. There was a carved stone table where perhaps the lord took his meals, and beyond it . . .

  Beyond it was the open door. Not all the way open, but some careless servant had left it an inch ajar. Not locked, not barred, but ready for her – as though it had been left so at her order.

  Quiet as quiet, she slipped into the darkened room beyond. She found herself alone there, in some antechamber hung with drapes. She crept on, one hand close to her rapier’s hilt.

  ‘Your boldness astounds me,’ said a dry voice, ‘but I presume that would be the Mantis blood.’

  She could see no source for the voice, but her blade was in her hand instantly, impotently.

  ‘Once you have been marked by my kinden,’ continued the thin voice, ‘we can always sense you.’

  ‘Show yourself,’ she hissed.

  She was abruptly no longer alone. There was a dark-robed shape in the room’s corner that she had somehow missed. She rounded on it with her blade drawn back to strike, but then darkness rose about her on every side, clawing at her and dragging her down. She felt the rapier fall helplessly from her grip, and then she too was falling, dropping further and futher and away.

  Tynisa awoke.

  There was a pain in her head, but not suggesting she had been struck, unless it was possible to sustain a blow from within the skull.

  She opened her eyes. She saw only black and yellow.

  She cursed, kicking herself to her feet from the cold stone floor, but there were chains clasped about her ankles and she stumbled back against the wall of . . . of a cell. She was in a cell with a single barred window high up, one so small that a Fly-kinden child would have difficulty squeezing through it even without the bars.

  ‘Well now,’ said a dry voice.

  There were two Wasp-kinden guards in full armour, motionless and faceless behind the full helms of the Slave Corps. Between them stood a slight, robed figure, face hidden within a cowl. Pale, long-nailed hands were folded demurely before it.

  Tynisa said nothing. Even to ask, Who are you? or What happened to me? would be to show weakness. She forced herself to remain calm. Her mind held no memory at all of what had befallen her.

  ‘We meet formally at last,’ said the robed figure. ‘I have previously had only my subordinates’ reports about you, and they have not done you justice. Tynisa Maker, I suppose they call you amongst the Beetle-kinden, but it’s clear to me that the name is only borrowed.’

  ‘You have me at quite an advantage,’ she replied, finally, and her voice was at least steady. She had no idea who this thin creature was, but there was no reason she could not win it over.

  The fragile-looking man approached her, and she could now
make out some of his pale face beneath the cowl. ‘You have shown yourself remarkably gifted in reaching Capitas still a free woman,’ he said. ‘Aside from a little push, initially, I have not needed to assist you in your journey at all.’

  She felt something uneasy twist inside her. ‘A . . . push?’

  ‘Oh now, who do you think brought you here? Who gave you the idea? None but my servant, working according to my plan. Still, you have proved remarkably able. After this is done, perhaps I can find a use for you, if you survive.’

  ‘And for what possible purpose could you want me here?’ she asked, but her voice was less steady now that he was so close. There was something about him that frightened her, for no reason she could have named.

  ‘Insurance,’ he explained simply. ‘You see, your father is due to die for me tomorrow, and I thought that he might need motivating.’

  She went for him then, clawing for his face, but the chains that restrained her brought her up short. As he caught one of her wrists in his thin-looking hand, she found his grip was far stronger than it had any right to be.

  ‘As it happens, our dear Tisamon seems more than happy to cast his life away. He considers it his destiny, and perhaps it is.’ The half-seen lips, bluish in that white face, twitched. ‘It is such a shame that my people never discovered the Mantis-kinden in the way our enemies did. They were the Moths’ private army of fanatics for centuries: superstitious, malleable, easily led for all their pride. And you, my dear Tynisa, have inherited all that from your poor doomed father. I barely had to extend myself to bring you here. You practically locked your own shackles.’

  ‘You’re going to kill Tisamon.’

  ‘No, no, he can see to that himself, being the expert after all. It seems likely though, that after all your travels you may not be needed after all.’ His eyes were red, she noticed. She could see them bloody and glistening under the shadow of his hood. He smiled at her, avuncular. ‘But still, why leave even that to chance? I shall keep you close to me, tomorrow, the slave of a slave, and if his heart turns before he steps on to the sand, then his daughter’s blood shall provide sufficient leverage to change his mind.’ He smiled. ‘It seems you will get to watch him die, after all.’

  They set him against scorpions.

  It was the anniversary of the coronation of his Imperial Majesty Alvdan the Second. There were public games being held throughout the Empire and the populace was encouraged to celebrate. On the whole the people did so willingly.

  There would be a half-dozen separate arenas shedding blood across the city of Capitas alone but the Emperor would be present at this one only, the grandest and the largest. It was a great open space of sand surrounded by high barriers, with tiers of seats beyond, entirely roofed over with silk rendered luminous by the sun. Ult and his fellows, the trainers and jailers, had devised an ever-mounting spectacle of contests: men against beasts, men against machines but, more than any other matching, men set against men. Slaves had killed each other with awkward desperation to the crowd’s amusement. Experienced pit-fighters had slaughtered deserters. Rebels and criminals had died at the hands of imperial soldiers. There were those who had never held a blade before being cast out on to the sand, but also there were veterans of a score of fights, their brief moments of celebrity written in the scars on their bodies.

  And then there was Tisamon. Few had ever seen a Mantis-kinden fight, for they did not submit themselves to capture and slavery often. Above all, none had seen a Mantis Weaponsmaster.

  They had given him first the animal: a great pale-shelled scorpion, old and cunning. It had lain with its belly close to the sand and waited for him to come to it. He had stalked it, wary of those heavy claws held so tight to its body, but it had struck with its sting only, the claws providing shields to ward him off. The crowd had known it well, and called it ‘Opalesce’ and expected it to win. They had called out its name frenziedly until the moment when Tisamon had vaulted over those protective claws to land on its back and, catching the lethal sting in one hand, had driven his claw down between its eyes.

  He was back now, having rested for the space of five contests, and a murmur went through the crowd when they saw him. He heard his own name on their lips.

  Ult sat close to the gladiators’ gate, and Tisamon caught his eye briefly. The old Wasp merely nodded, a neutral gesture, but Tisamon saw doubt in his face. This was to be the promised unarmed match and Ult was not entirely sure that Tisamon was up to it.

  Tisamon’s opponent was already waiting: Scorpion-kinden instead of scorpion animal. He was built on a massive scale, twice as broad across the shoulder as Tisamon himself, barrel-chested and with arms almost contorted with muscle. His hands formed claws, thumb and forefinger grown into long blades of bone. He was stripped to the waist and the physiology thus revealed looked something beyond human.

  Tisamon shrugged off his slave’s tunic, looking like a child or a toy before the Scorpion, but his own blades flexed in readiness from his forearms. He dropped into his fighting stance, perfectly balanced and waiting.

  The Scorpion moved faster than someone of his bulk had any right to, a sudden scuttle across the sand, claws driving for Tisamon’s face, trying to run him back against the wall. Tisamon swayed to one side, feeling the man’s finger-blade cut the air just an inch from his eye, while thrusting a leg out to trip the man in his charge. The Scorpion stumbled, but held his feet, delivering a murderously swift backhand blow as he passed. Tisamon disengaged, stepping out of range and back into his stance, watching to see how the other man had taken it.

  There was no anger in the Scorpion’s eyes: his savagery was entirely divorced from his emotions. Tisamon noted this, and reassessed his opponent.

  He spotted the slight flexing of muscles before the Scorpion’s next charge, and so was better ready for it. He moved in to meet the man, and hammer-blows from the Scorpion, which would have broken his arm if he blocked them, were turned away by precise circular gestures of Tisamon’s hands, until he stood calmly in the eye of the storm. The Scorpion had reach, though, and he kept Tisamon at the end of it, slightly too far to strike back. He kept methodically assaulting the Mantis’ defences, looking for any weakness, seeking a way in.

  Tisamon stepped out of reach three times without having struck a blow in return, and there was still no sign of fatigue or frustration at all in his opponent, just a dreadful patience. Tisamon watched carefully and waited.

  The crowd was getting restless, shouting for this fight to be finished one way or another. Tisamon did not care: they could go hang themselves for all it meant to him. The Scorpion was a professional, though. The crowd’s approval was his reward. It eventually made him take a chance.

  Tisamon saw the feint coming, at the last moment realized it was the offhand that would be the danger. The claws of the Scorpion’s right clipped his shoulder in a little dart of pain, but then Tisamon was inside the man’s reach, past the upward-driving left, and he brought his own spines down sharply on either side of the man’s neck. He drew blood, but not enough, for the man’s hide was Art-strong, durable as leather. Tisamon kicked upwards, getting a foot on the man’s thigh, then another on his shoulder, vaulting over him and turning to face him. The Scorpion backed off three steps, blood trickling its way down his chest.

  There was a tremble in his eyes that had not been there before. He had scars, but they were old scars, or small scars, evidence that nobody had recently come so close. The crowd held its breath.

  Tisamon attacked, moving from still to swift without a warning, but the Scorpion was still almost ready for him, blocking three blows before the fourth speared past his guard to cut a gash across his chest – not his throat as Tisamon had intended. The big man tried to carry the fight back at him, stabbing at Tisamon’s stomach, but the Mantis twisted sideways about the strike, lashed his spines across the other man’s face in passing and then dropped to one knee behind him. With clinical precision he sliced across the back of the man’s legs, stepping out
of the way as his opponent fell.

  The crowd had gone silent as Tisamon stood beside his victim, hearing the man’s breath hissing, raw, amid his pain. He knew the custom now, as Ult had explained it to him. It would be for the Emperor alone to decide.

  Tisamon looked up at the Emperor for the first time since the man’s hurried visit to the cells, and his eyes began seeking for a way in.

  Below the first row of the crowd there was a ring of soldiers atop the high wall of the pit, men in full armour with spears. They would be the first barrier to overcome. The Emperor, of course, had his own private room facing the arena, a long enclosure constructed out of fabric that hid him from the crowd on both sides, so that only those sitting across from him could see him clearly, and then only from well outside of sting range. More soldiers were standing on guard directly before the Emperor and on either side of his box.

  Alvdan the Second sat staring down at the victor and, when their eyes met, Tisamon thought he saw the man flinch. He noticed an older man, balding and thickset, seated almost beside the Emperor, and behind him . . .

  For a moment Tisamon just stared, feeling something kick inside him. There was a darkness behind the Emperor that might be a robed man, a pale smear that must be a face half-hidden beneath a cowl, and to one side a younger Wasp woman whose face resembled the Emperor’s own, but on the other side of the cowled figure was . . .

  Atryssa.

  Atryssa, his long-dead lover, looked down on him, and she nodded. He saw it distinctly. She nodded her approval, her permission.

  The Emperor drew a dagger and held it high, and Tisamon, obedient to the signal, drove his spines down into the Scorpion-kinden’s throat, finishing him. The Mantis barely realized what he had done, though. He felt as though a monstrous weight had been suddenly lifted from him.

  She approves. She forgives. He almost stumbled as he left the arena.