The Scarab Path sota-5

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Che put a hand up to stop her. 'It sounds … forgive me for saying this, but it sounds as though Kadro was fond of dangerous places.'

  'He knew what he was doing!' Petri snapped back, then put a hand over her mouth, horrified. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' she said after a moment.

  'But did you tell our hosts that he was missing?' Che pressed her. 'Did they look for him?'

  'They know!' Petri insisted. 'They did it. They took him, because he found out something. They made him vanish.'

  But can you prove it? Looking at this shaking woman, Che knew the answer already. In this state, Petri Coggen was of no use to anyone.

  'You think I'm mad, don't you?' Petri visibly sagged. 'You don't believe me.'

  Che studied her and saw haggard exhaustion, hysteria, but not madness. 'Something has clearly happened to Kadro, so I will need to meet the local leaders. I'll ask them about him and see how they react. How would I get an audience with the Masters of Khanaphes — or will they send for me?'

  Petri laughed out loud, a wretched and unexpected sound. 'You can't,' she said bitterly. 'You can't. And if they send for you …' She laughed again from pure despair. 'Kadro wanted to meet the Masters, after we came here. Everyone talks about them. They have ceremonies, to give them thanks. But whoever sees the Masters? Kadro thought they were a myth. He thought that was the whole secret …'

  'But who runs the city?'

  'You've already met him.' She stifled another strained laugh. 'Ethmet.'

  'What, that …?'

  'That nice old man? That was what you were going to say, weren't you?' Petri chewed at her lip, which was already ragged from it. 'The First Minister rules Khanaphes. He says he's only a servant of the Masters, and that the Ministers know everything, see everything. There are palaces and halls in which the Ministers are supposed to serve the Masters, but Kadro was sure they were empty. It's Ethmet, telling everyone the lie.'

  'I can see why it might be dangerous to find out the truth of that,' Che said slowly. 'Although I can't see how you could really keep that fact secret from a whole city.'

  Petri collapsed back on the bed with a groan. 'You won't let them take me?' she pleaded.

  'Nothing's going to happen to you, now that we're here,' Che assured her. 'You're not alone any more.' She saw Petri's shoulders shake, realized that the woman was barely stifling an outburst of sobs. Whatever the truth, something happened here. On the heels of that came a more selfish thought: I hope she recovers soon. We need to learn what she knows. Che was ashamed of it but that made it no less true. She went to the door as quietly as she could, prompted by the sudden, irrational feeling that there was a servant there, silent and listening, just a moment before. That way madness lies, she decided.

  From the bed Petri began murmuring, just a noise at first, then becoming words. 'But when he had done his researches …' she said, though Che could barely catch it. 'When he had gone into the desert, and spoken to the Marsh people, Kadro started doubting it all. At the end, just before he vanished, he was talking as though there was another secret inside the secret … as though he had begun to believe in the Masters after all.'

  Che stood there waiting for a long time, but there was no more. At long last, sleep had found Petri Coggen.

  Beyond the windows the city of Khanaphes bustled, bright with sunshine, busy with the simple industry of its people, and happily concealed under the mask of its own innocence.

  'I hope I get used to them soon,' Berjek grumbled. 'It's all very decadent having them around, but …' He shook his head. The grand entrance hall to the makeshift Collegiate embassy was opulently decorated: with wall friezes depicting scenes of hunting and farming; with twin statues of Khanaphir soldiers cast in bronze; with those countless pictograms carved in their eternal lines. Mostly, however, it was decorated with servants. Standing halfway up the broad marble-faced staircase, Berjek could see a good dozen of them going through the never-ending business of keeping the edifice spotless. One was even retouching tiny chips in the friezes.

  'I know what you mean,' Praeda Rakespear said. 'I woke up in the middle of the night and thought we were being robbed. They never seem to stop working.'

  'I like it.' Manny smirked at them. 'I could live here. It's like being in the Spiderlands without having the Spider-kinden.' From sounds heard last night, Che guessed he had enticed one of the female servants into a different kind of service. She also suspected the woman had simply seen that as part of her duty.

  'Remember this is just because we're honoured guests,' she reminded him. 'The common people of Khanaphes don't live like this.'

  'I've never been common anywhere I went,' Manny replied airily.

  She shook her head, about to make some suitable remark, when a servant stopped on the stairs beside her and straightened Che's robe, tugging the creases and folds expertly into place as though the girl had been born in Collegium. Che was left with her mouth open, the words evaporating. Manny cackled.

  'You're happy to stay here on your own?' she eventually asked Berjek. 'Only, I promised-'

  'Madam Coggen, yes,' Berjek finished for her. 'I was never one for gatherings, whether formal or informal. In fact I became a scholar of dead ages just to avoid the onerous chore of talking to the living. Go and suffer it, by all means. I would rather stay here and make notes about the wall-hangings.'

  'And make sure to look in on Petri, every so often,' Che reminded him. 'And check that the servants don't … bother her.'

  'And that, yes. Now go. Our hosts will be waiting for you.' There was a hint of a smile on his face and, inwardly, Che thanked him for being reliable.

  The messenger the Ministers had sent to them was still waiting patiently by the door, and had done so for an hour as the academics changed into their formal robes. When they descended the stairs, Che, Manny and Praeda, they looked every bit the proper representatives of the Great College of the most enlightened city in the world. Skipping after them, half walking and half gliding down the stairs, came Trallo, whose baggy Solarnese whites provided a close enough match to their finery.

  There was abruptly a Vekken at the foot of the steps, waiting for them. Che had assumed they would not be interested in a formal reception and, in truth, had not taken many steps to let them know about it. Still, here was one of them, which one she could not discern. At first she was going to remonstrate, or try to, since he was dressed in full armour, chainmail hauberk hanging to his knees and sword belted to his hip. But why not? We wear the dress of Collegium. He dresses as an Ant. Let our hosts judge for themselves.

  'Are you ready?' she asked him. In that strangely nervous moment, with the mystery of unknown Khanaphes waiting just beyond the door, she almost felt like offering the grimfaced Ant her arm. He would not have known what to do with it, she thought glumly — would probably mistake it for an attack.

  He nodded curtly. No doubt the other one would be lurking about the embassy somewhere, receiving reports or making notes.

  The messenger was a woman, although it was difficult to tell with these locals. The females' off-shoulder tunics were cut slightly differently, so as to hide both breasts, and it was the garments, more than the facial features, that distinguished one gender from the other. Che sensed it was not so much a close kinship, as with the Ants, but simply a willingness to be interchangeable.

  But what do I know about it? Che reproached herself. I'm just being an ignorant foreigner.

  She led the way, after the messenger, towards the grand arch at the far side of the Place of Foreigners. Behind her she heard the others following her: Manny's slightly laboured breath and the faint clink of Vekken armour. As the messenger darted ahead, through the archway, Che followed, and stopped.

  'Oh,' she remembered saying. Just that and no more. The others backed up behind her, but at that moment she didn't care.

  The square beyond was twice the size, and the buildings lining it correspondingly grander, great facades rising four, five storeys, ranked with pillars in the shape
of horsetails or scaled cycads, or of battle scenes where the faces of square columns continued the scene that unfolded on the wall behind them, so that the figures — as the watcher passed — moved behind one another, locked in their endless combat. Everywhere torches were lit, making a whole constellation out of each majestic facade. Che stepped forward with eyes wide, oblivious to most of the pageantry and seeing only what lay straight before her.

  It was a stepped pyramid that took up most of the square's centre, and rose thirty feet to an oddly squared-off apex. But there were figures up there, great shining figures, and Che rushed forward to stare up at them. For a moment she felt their heavy regard, their cool amusement at this plain foreign girl who dared invade their presence.

  She fell to one knee. She had no choice. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm all I have. I'm sorry.'

  'Cheerwell … Madam Maker!' It was Praeda's voice, and Trallo's small hand was busy plucking at her robe. She blinked, looked back towards them, then was staring up again.

  'What is it?' Trallo was saying, and Praeda added: 'They're statues, Cheerwell, only statues.'

  Che stood up slowly, shaking her head. On closer inspection in the dance of the torchlight, they were merely forms carved of white marble, gazing down on her from their lofty vantage point. But they are not only statues, never that, an inner voice insisted. Even seeing them as dead stone could not strip them of their majesty. These effigies were cousins to the great watchers that flanked the Estuarine Gate, and they possessed the same callous beauty, the same thoughtless power.

  'Who are they? Who were they?' she asked, because they were not Beetle-kinden, nor any kinden she had ever seen. The thought was irresistible: These were surely the Masters, when they lived, but who were they?

  She allowed Trallo to guide her towards the most imposing of the edifices bordering the square, and there she spotted Ethmet, framed by torches. Her eyes met his, and she found there something quite different from the reserved patience that she had come to expect. His attention focused on her, just for a moment, with such intensity that she almost felt the heat of it.

  Fifteen

  Che had been expecting some kind of formal banquet, perhaps, but what she got instead was a kind of menagerie, with herself and the visitors from Collegium the prime exhibits. The building Ethmet stood waiting in front of looked like a tomb designed for a dead giant. Its exterior promised dingy windowless rooms and cramped passageways, but instead they emerged into a massive hall, its lofty ceiling supported by two rows of columns — carved figures of Khanaphir men and women reaching up to support the colossal weight of the roof. They were painted, stylized, and the craft that had gone into them was as nothing compared with those alien faces that topped the truncated pyramid outside. In between these caryatids, frozen in their eternal labour, light issued from a hundred shafts that burrowed upwards through the fabric of the monumental building. The effect tricked the eye into believing that the sun shone from all directions at once, although the day was growing late even before Che and the others had entered.

  'There must be mirrors,' Praeda had been murmuring. 'Mirrors and lanterns and lenses perhaps. It's remarkable.'

  Che remembered the intricacy of the Moth-kinden architecture at Tharn, and the tricks they could play with stone. Ancient techniques: Inapt craftsmen making up in ingenuity for their lack of artifice.

  'Honoured and Beautiful Foreigners,' Ethmet addressed them, 'be so kind as to let me introduce you to my cousin Nafir, who is Minister for the Estuarine Waters.' Nafir had been pressed from the same mould as Ethmet, albeit more recently. He made the same genuflection, spreading hands out from his stomach, and Che did her best to copy the gesture. The great chamber was scattered with other Khanaphir men and women, two score at least, and it reminded her enough of the Collegium Assembly to suggest this was the combined Ministry of the city, gathered here expressly to scrutinize the foreigners. They did not crowd around: Ethmet would no doubt lead her past them all in turn. Instead, they were gathered in small groups, talking quietly. Only a few sat, although there were several stone benches arranged around the fountain that burbled gently in the hall's centre.

  Nafir made some polite comments, and was soon left behind. Next a group of three turned out to be called Hemses, Methret and Pthome, and already Che's mind was swimming with the names. Of the faces she had lost all hope because, although the features varied, their expressions were so unified that she knew it would be impossible to recall them later.

  A musician had struck up somewhere, playing something plaintive on delicate strings. At the far end of the room there was food laid out, a complex arrangement of meat, insects and unfamiliar vegetables. The sight of it obviously broke the back of Manny's patience, because he was off in that direction with a mumbled apology. Che looked around and saw that Praeda had already abandoned her, was now sitting studying the fountain. The Vekken, whichever one he was, remained standing sullenly in the shade of a column, the scale of its carving making him look like a sulky child.

  'And here …' Ethmet went on, and introduced her to yet another Minister, and she smiled and nodded, and reflected that there were certain ubiquitous aspects of the Beetle-kinden character she could happily do without. Stenwold had always tried to avoid attending these kinds of receptions, and she wondered now if it had been to spare the visiting ambassadors from one more bewildering introduction.

  '… is Amnon, the First Soldier of the Royal Guard,' continued Ethmet blandly, and Che started to repeat her threadbare greetings but, in the end, just said, 'Oh,' instead. To start with she was speaking to his chest, because he was more than a head taller than she was. It was a chest covered in gilt-edged metal scales, she noticed, for Amnon was wearing the most magnificent cuirass she had ever seen. She remembered the splendour of the escort that had welcomed them at the docks, and decided that they must have been wearing their everyday garb, because this, this was a dress uniform. Each scale had been enamelled in turquoise, and then minute figures painted on top, images of soldiers parading, throwing spears, giving battle. There was room for plenty of scales, too, because Amnon was broad as well as tall, his bare shoulders and arms bulging with muscle. He was grinning down at her with dazzling white teeth and, despite everything, she felt a flutter within her. She had never met anyone quite so robustly physical before, a man who looked as though he could break steel bars with his hands.

  'It is of course a pleasure to meet one so distinguished,' he announced, and made an elaborate genuflection, beginning with the stomach and ending with the forehead. 'I shall look forward to when I know you and your fellows better. The First Minister has suggested that I arrange a hunt in your honour.'

  'I'm sure that won't be necessary,' stammered Che, but he was already magnanimously overruling her.

  'The great land-fish of the Jamail have grown fat and fierce,' he declared grandly, 'and the Marsh folk wait only for my word before they take up their spears and bows. No personage of distinction should be absent, for it shall be the greatest hunt in a tenyear.'

  'Well, that's very kind,' she managed. The sheer robust presence of him was overwhelming. She was grateful when Ethmet moved her on to meet someone less energetic.

  Eventually, of course, she was left to her own devices, with her head already leaking names and faces and titles. Ethmet had proved the perfect, mild-mannered host throughout, so it had been difficult to countenance all the dire warnings of Petri Coggen. She had bearded him at the end, though, declaring, 'The work of the First Minister of such a great city must be hard.'

  'It is not so,' he had assured her modestly. 'I am only here to give reality to the wishes of my Masters.'

  'And how might a poor foreigner seek an audience with those Masters?' she had asked carefully.

  His smile had not altered. 'Alas it cannot be so. If they request to see you, then so be it, but you may not petition them. They are beyond such dealings, and you must content yourself with this poor servant.'

  She had responded to that
with the necessary compliments, and all had been well. There had not been the slightest pause in their conversation to warn her of dangerous ground, but she had felt the pit yawning at her feet, despite it.

  She looked round to check up on the rest of her party. Manny was in close conversation with two of the women, who Che thought were young enough to be servants rather than Ministers. She decided it was probably the safest place to leave him. Praeda was still sitting at the fountain, staring silently at the waters as they swelled and leapt from their bed of coloured stones. As Che watched, she beckoned a servant over and put some question to him. Beyond her, Che noted the dark form of the Vekken ambassador, standing near the display of food but obviously unwilling to risk eating any. She felt a sudden misplaced surge of sympathy for a man so obviously out of his depth.

  She was already regretting the impulse before she reached him, but she pressed on regardless. His glance towards her was less suspicious than usual, but only because their strange surroundings had already stretched his capacity for suspicion to breaking point.

  'Are you … Is there anything you need?' she asked him. 'Should I introduce you to anyone here?'

  He looked at her as though she was mad, not unreasonably given the interminable round of meeting and greeting she herself had just endured. 'I am waiting,' he replied flatly.

  'Waiting? For?'

  'You know what I mean.'

  She sighed, because she did. He was still waiting for the trap to be sprung. He had been holding his breath for it, no doubt, ever since he had left Vek. How can anyone live in such a ferment of constant hostility? She wanted to explain to him that there was no great dark motive for their coming here, but he would never have believed her and, besides, was that actually true? I have my own motives and they are not those of my uncle, or the scholars accompanying me. Perhaps the Vekken have sensed that.

  'If they wanted to kill us, it would not be by poison,' she said tiredly. 'We are defenceless in their city. We would be dead if they wanted us dead.' Deliberately, she broke off a sliver of meat and swallowed it. It was tender, flavoured with honey, and she discovered that she was hungry enough to take a larger piece. His eyes followed her hands as though she concealed a knife in them.