Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  This is wrong. Betrayal on betrayal, he who had already sold so much of his heritage to indulge his personal lusts. All the ancient traditions of his people were in pieces at his feet, and now he would trample them one more time. And he would grind a heel into her memory as well, for good measure: the Spider-kinden woman he had made his sacrifice for so long ago, who had been everything to him – and was she just one more thing to cast off, when he felt the urge to? And if so, if that was all she had been, why had he cast aside so very much, just to be with her?

  So turn away! Run away! He should leave Collegium. He should seek the Empire out, and then kill Wasps until they brought him down. He should flee so far that none who saw him would know him. He should open his own throat here and now rather than contemplate this sin.

  Mantis-kinden pair once, and are faithful beyond death. Everyone knows this.

  But his mind came back and back to her perfect grace, her eyes, the line of her blade and the flash of her wings, and he hurt with the sheer bitter longing of seventeen bleak years.

  Ancestors, save me.

  The sky grew dark as he sat up in his tower, and when the night came he had made his choice. He padded down the dusty stairs that were marked only by the tread of his own ascent, and he felt like a man falling. Something had infected him, had gnawed him to the heart. He let it take him away from the College, padding past over-late students and home-bound Masters, unseen by any of them.

  It was a short enough step from the gates of the College to those of the Amphiophos. Here there were guards, but he passed them unseen for all their vigilance. His disease had made him skilled.

  He could not stop himself now. He had fought that battle up in the tower, and he had lost. It was the hurt, that razoring hurt, that drove him on: a burning he could not quench save in this one way. He crept, quiet and half-clad, through the corridors of the hostels behind the Amphiophos, through the diplomats’ chambers and the rooms for the foreign guests of the Assembly. He knew he was ill.

  Ill and incurable, Tisamon thought. I should not be here.

  There were more guards here, of course, in case of Wasp assassins. Some were Beetles in their clanking mail; others were Fly-kinden, more subtle and able to see better in the dark. Tisamon evaded them easily, for he had spent a portion of his earlier career in the factory-city of Helleron, moving unseen through buildings like this. Everyone knew that his race were full of pride and honour, and so few realized how neither of those qualities was in any way compromised in being a skilled assassin. What was their Mantis totem, after all, but a stealthy killer of insects and men.

  It was a mark of his illness that, even as he crept past the guards, he did not think I must tell Stenwold to bolster the security here, but was simply grateful that the gaps in their watchfulness were sufficient for a Mantis to slip through. If they had seen him, well, they would recognize him, greet him, think no more of it, but he did not want to be seen. He wanted no other eyes to witness this failure of his. He was ashamed.

  He was nearing his destination now, and his heart, which would keep a steady pace through duel or skirmish, was beginning to speed. He was sweating: he felt physically ill now, feverish, but he suppressed it. No magician had ever inspired this dread in him, nor had any threat of death or pain.

  The doorway was straight ahead, down this little hall, and in his absorption he almost missed the figure lounging in the alcove next to it, very nearly passed the man by without seeing him, but then his instincts struck home. A moment later he was in his killing stance, with his claw-blade at the throat of… it took him a moment to see that the man’s face was familiar. It was the Spider physician, Destrachis, her constant shadow.

  He saw how his metal claw was shaking, a slight but noticeable tremor.

  ‘Interesting,’ Destrachis whispered, holding himself very still. ‘And here was I thinking you unarmed.’

  ‘People see what they wish,’ Tisamon said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  Tisamon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you think it would pain me to kill you, Spider?’ He would do it, too, not from will but because of the fever that clenched him in its jaws. He could not control himself. He had let slip the reins and perhaps he would never hold them again.

  ‘I think you would rather enjoy it,’ replied Destrachis carefully. ‘However, here I am.’

  ‘Speak your piece.’

  ‘Turn back.’

  Tisamon stared at him, hearing his own ragged breathing in his ears, almost like sobbing.

  ‘I know what you are about,’ Destrachis said. ‘I know also that she is waiting for you.’ His lips pressed together for a moment in thought. ‘I know of you, Mantis. There are people in this city who remember you from years back. Both of you are bringing chains to this meeting. That is unwise.’

  ‘I know,’ Tisamon said flatly.

  ‘Then turn back.’

  ‘Not at your word – not the word of a Spider-kinden. No games from you, no twists. If I think that you meddle in my life, Spider, I will kill you.’ I will kill you. I will kill you anyway. I cannot stop myself. And yet the Spider remained breathing, with that blade wavering at his throat.

  ‘Your life can end up on a stake or deep in the sea for all I care,’ Destrachis said. ‘I care about her.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘She is my patient, and I have sheltered her from the worst of the world as best I could.’ He sighed. ‘But I cannot shelter her from this. I can only ask-’

  ‘You have feelings, Spider? Your have feelings for her?’

  ‘I… am her doctor,’ Destrachis said. It was not clear whether the catch in his voice came from the sudden twitch in Tisamon’s blade or had some other cause.

  ‘If I came to believe you coveted her…’ Tisamon murmured. The threat went unsaid, nor did it need to be spoken.

  Destrachis made to speak, and then again, but no words came.

  Tisamon removed the blade from the Spider’s throat. ‘Go now. Do not presume to tell me this is wrong.’ A spasm of pain crossed his face, making Destrachis flinch back. ‘I know it is wrong. I am not master of myself. I am not… well. So go. This is no place for you any longer. I will kill you, if you do not go. I will kill you.’

  Destrachis nodded tiredly, seeming for a moment so haggard that he must have looked close to his natural age. His eyes flicked once towards her door, but then he shook his head and walked away, padding off as quietly as Tisamon had arrived.

  He is right. Tisamon clenched his fists. Perhaps he could yet salvage himself. He could step away now, force himself to go.

  That perfect poise, the delicate balance of her blade. Not since her… Seventeen years was a long time to go without something that had once been his life and very breath. I hurt! He still had his clawed gauntlet buckled on, and the urge came upon him to drive it into his own flesh, to excise the hurt from himself like a surgeon.

  And then her door opened, with Felise Mienn standing in shadow beyond, clad in her shift, staring out at him.

  ‘Tisamon.’ His name on her lips, in that softly accented voice. He lurched a step backwards, claw gone, staring. Unwillingly, as if tugged by wires, he approached her.

  She reached out, but stopped just before her hand touched his chest. She, too, was shaking very slightly. ‘Tisamon,’ she said again, her voice unsteady.

  She looked up into his face, and he wondered what she saw in his sharp features, his grey-flecked hair. He, who found his own face in the mirror both severe and haunted in turns, looked upon Felise and felt such fierce fire that he could barely keep his hands from her.

  She is not so young, not so young as she looks. She was widow, after all, as he himself was widower. They neither of them had the fresh gloss of youth still on them. Yet the Dragonflies were a beautiful people, and none was more beautiful than Felise Mienn seen through the eyes of the Mantis Tisamon.

  ‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘send me away. One word from you and I will go. I cannot
be here. I… betray…’

  She was biting her lip, her hand still hovering an inch from his torn shirt.

  ‘I could not keep myself from this place, because I had not the will,’ he confessed. ‘But you can banish me. Send me away. Your word is strong, where I have failed. Please.’

  ‘For so many years I have woken up screaming.’ She spoke at last, so very quietly that he instinctively leant in to hear – and then closer still, to scent her dark hair. ‘Not out loud, but in my head,’ she continued. ‘What the Wasps did to me, I carried it like a picture to look at every day. Now the picture is gone and the scream is just an echo. But it was not having Thalric at my blade’s mercy that did this, for all I thought it might.’

  ‘I have no such powers,’ he said softly. ‘Do not make me into such a healer.’

  ‘What do you want here?’ she asked him. ‘Are you here to fight me? Then I shall take up my sword. Is that what you want?’

  ‘No. It is not.’ He swallowed. I want to feel your golden skin, to taste the sweat on it, to bury myself in your grace and poise. No matter how he tried, the thoughts would not stay away from him.

  Abruptly his arms had swept her into his grasp and, with the same instinct that guided his blade faster than thought could take it, he had kissed her. For a moment she was stiff with shock, but then her arms gripped him, nails digging into his back, across pale skin sparsely signed with old scars and newer burns. Her thumb-claws inscribed fresh writing on him in shallow blood.

  He pushed her into the room, the door swinging shut behind them. He lifted her shift over her head, and his breath ran ragged with the sight of the lithe economy of her body.

  * * *

  A hand abruptly closed on Che’s, startling her out of half-sleep. For a moment she could not work out what had happened, and then she looked at him – and Achaeos’ eyes were slightly open, a line of white showing beneath each lid. Her heart shook, for joy, for worry. Was he even conscious? Could he speak? ‘Achaeos?’ she whispered. Around her, the other casualties slept on, turned restlessly, some murmured to themselves.

  She saw his lips move, moved her head closer to hear him, but there was no sound.

  ‘Achaeos, can you hear me?’

  ‘Che…’ Little more than a breath, but it was her name he spoke, her name on his breath. He still looked pale and hollow-cheeked, as though he should be dead. His featureless eyes might be focusing on her or staring into the abyss. He had said her name, though, and that was all that now mattered.

  ‘I’ll go and get a doctor…’ she started but his hand twitched on hers.

  ‘Che, wait,’ he breathed again. The interval before his next laboured words was agonizing. ‘I need… healers. No doctors. No physicians… I cannot stay here. I cannot heal here… This Apt city is killing me… This is not medicine.’ That much effort exhausted him and she clung to his hand as though he was drowning, being dragged into the dark water, and she was his only hope of rescue.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, and then, ‘This is… Your medicine is different. But that is because we are Apt here, and we do things differently. I remember…’ She recalled his own medicines of herbs and poultices at their first meeting, while she stitched his wound. How was it that he had such a habit of getting injured?

  ‘Che… the box… Is it…?’

  She did not want to tell him. She did not know if he could stand the news. Still, if she lied now then she would always have lied to him, whatever her reasons for it. Besides, he would inevitably read it in her eyes. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He shuddered. All that for nothing, he must surely be thinking. ‘Che,’ he said again, ‘help me.’

  ‘I love you, Achaeos. I’ll do anything for you. Just say it.’

  A fragile smile touched his lips, and she bent closer to hear him speak.

  Ten minutes later Cheerwell Maker paused on the man’s threshold, seeing a strip of lamplight beneath the door. A late night for him, then, and what would Major Thalric be doing up past midnight?

  She knew she should knock straight away, but, standing here, she ran her mind through the road the pair of them had travelled together. Herself as his prisoner, under threat of rape, under threat of torture; a pawn in his political games. She owed him no courtesy, she decided.

  She was about to throw open the door but changed her mind. She was here to beg, for all that it sickened her. She could not see any other way this could be done.

  Che raised her hand to knock, and his voice came from within: ‘Whoever is out there, what do you want?’

  She stood, frozen, feeling guilty and already hating him.

  ‘Open the door, clumsy assassin,’ suggested Thalric’s voice, and helplessly she did, pushing the heavy wooden door open and letting the lamplight stream out to narrow her eyes. Some had wanted him locked up still, but Stenwold had ruled against it. Perhaps, Che thought, my uncle hopes that he will overplay his hand, somehow, and reveal himself as a traitor. As a traitor yet again, she supposed, since he had already betrayed his own people.

  Thalric was sitting at a desk as if interrupted in the act of writing. He had an open palm raised towards the door. After a thoughtful pause, he lowered it and sat regarding her without expression.

  ‘Mistress Maker,’ he said. ‘Not a visitor I’d expected.’

  In the absence of either dismissal or invitation, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

  ‘What are you writing so late?’ she asked him.

  ‘Reports on Jerez,’ he said, and on seeing her look he added, ‘Who for, you ask? I don’t know, but old habits die hard. I fear nobody will believe them anyway.’ He put the pen down. Che saw that it was a good-quality Collegium-made reservoir pen. He had obviously not been slow in taking advantage of his hosts.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘are you here to warn me that the Dragonfly woman wants to kill me again, or is it simply that I’m to be arrested and tried at last?’

  ‘Would I come here alone for that?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d enjoy delivering such a message in person.’

  She stared at him, loathing him, yet knowing that she now needed him. ‘Don’t think that we’re like the people of your Empire here. We don’t all take joy in other people’s suffering.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘Yet your Mantis would kill me without a thought.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t torture you. He’d make it quick.’

  ‘What a consolation,’ he observed. ‘If a quick death was attractive to me, I’d have let my own people do it. This situation is ironic, is it not?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You now have the say of life or death over me. It’s not so long since our places were reversed.’

  ‘I remember you were intending to torture me.’

  ‘I remember that I never did.’

  She felt her anger flare up. ‘Because I was rescued! Not through any grace of yours!’

  For a second it seemed he would argue the point, to her astonishment, but then he just shrugged and turned back to his papers. From nowhere she could identify, she felt a sudden stab of utterly unwelcome sympathy, at seeing the failed spy still clinging to his ritual, for want of anything else.

  ‘Thalric…’

  ‘Mistress Maker.’ He did not look up at her.

  ‘I need your help.’

  He snorted with laughter, pen abruptly scratching on the parchment: not laughing at her so much as the sheer absurdity of that statement, after her words to him before. ‘What could I be qualified to do for you, Mistress Maker? Does the Assembly want some prisoners racking, whilst keeping their own hands clean?’

  She approached quietly, was at his desk even before he had finished speaking, her hands gripping the edge. He looked up at her at last, his gaze measuring, considering.

  ‘What, then?’ he asked, realizing that she was serious, and desperate. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I need your help,’ she said again, slowly. ‘I need to get into a
city that your people have occupied, and I don’t know how to do it.’

  She waited for some reaction, but there was none. He was an intelligencer by trade, and whatever he thought of her request was played out inside, and hidden from her.

  ‘Tharn,’ she said. ‘I have to go to Tharn.’

  Four

  The rap on his door was insistent, though if Stenwold had already got as far as his bed he would have ignored it. He heard Arianna stir at the sound. She had fallen asleep waiting for him, expecting him to join her hours earlier. But he could not sleep; he was too caught up with his worries: the defence of Sarn, and Balkus’ relief force; Salma’s mad Landsarmy; Tynisa’s guilt and Che’s grief; the litany of the wounded; the gallery of those faces who he would never see again, yet wished so dearly to take counsel with.

  Stenwold went to answer the door, if only because it gave him at least a brief respite. He discovered Destrachis standing there, the lean Spider with his long, greying hair. Stenwold blinked at him.

  ‘Are we under attack?’

  ‘We are not, Master Maker. Not yet.’ Destrachis made no sign that he wanted to come in, just hovered beyond the doorway, clearly ill at ease.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Four bells beyond midnight. Still one or two before dawn.’

  Stenwold goggled at him. ‘So late?’ I must go to bed. I will even drug myself to sleep if I have to. ‘What… why are you here?’

  ‘It would have been earlier, Master Maker… but I have not known how to say this to you. I have no claim on you, and yet I need your help. I have spent hours hunting for answers in my mind. I need you to do something.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘I need you merely to commit now. Act on it in the morning, but I need your word now, Master Maker.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Stenwold told him, ‘and so am I for not being already in bed. How can it be almost dawn, for the world’s sake?’