Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘They’ll think we’ve gone the same way as the twins,’ she murmured, looking down at the cooking fire, the pole-mounted lanterns of the sentries.

  ‘Kaszaat,’ Totho said, ‘the twins… they weren’t actually machinists, were they?’

  ‘Of course they were, we all are,’ she said, and then, ‘but not just that. Not only.’

  ‘I’ve heard people talk about those two,’ he said. ‘They were alchemists as well. That was why Drephos recruited them.’

  ‘They worked the reagent that brought down the walls of Tark,’ Kaszaat agreed. From a certain reticence evident in her tone, Totho knew that she had already guessed at the suggestion he was about to make. Out there was her home city, currently in arms against the Empire, while here came Drephos to reforge the chains and bonds of imperial servitude.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she did not ask, For what? but just leant into him. She was trembling slightly.

  Why doesn’t she flee? he wondered. Why doesn’t she go back to her own people? But he knew the answer to that. It was the same invisible leash that kept him here. They had all of them severed their ties to their former homes when they joined Drephos’ cadre.

  He was not sure what impulse had made him spare her a further revelation that most likely would reveal nothing she had not already grasped, but instead he held close to her and said nothing more.

  Certainty was closer than he thought.

  They arrived in Szar itself soon afterwards. Smoke hung over its far side, smogging the city’s low, domed buildings. The only people abroad in the streets were Wasp-kinden soldiers and a few Scorpion Auxillians with mottled, yellowish skin and long-hafted axes cocked back over their shoulders. The artificers’ convoy made a snaking circle around a resting marketplace, where the rags and splinters of ruined stalls still crunched underfoot. Totho glanced at the nearby houses, expecting to see the faces of locals peering out suspiciously, but they seemed empty. The doors were mostly broken in, and some had been burnt out.

  Drephos half-climbed and half-flew down from the lead automotive, pausing halfway to look critically about him at the city. Totho could see what must be the governor’s palace, a heavy ziggurat of Wasp architecture louring over the smaller native buildings. As the convoy approached it, a delegation of Wasp soldiers issued forth in a large enough number to make Totho suspect some plot against Drephos. Their attention seemed locked towards the north, though, and the bulk of the city in that direction. There was a large Wasp of middle years nested within these soldiers, who only stepped forth when his escort had merged with that of the convoy. His face was marked with a livid, painful weal that seemed almost in the shape of a small hand.

  ‘Colonel Drephos?’ he asked uncertainly, and the hooded halfbreed raised his one metal hand.

  ‘You’re Colonel Gan, I take it. The governor here?’

  ‘I am, yes. I think-’

  ‘Have your men unload my wagons. I want as much space as possible within your palace cleared for a workshop.’

  Colonel Gan bristled. ‘Colonel-Auxillian Drephos…’

  ‘Listen to me, Governor,’ Drephos said sharply. ‘I did not ask to come to this wretched place. I did not ask to be the agent to relieve you from your own failures. I have work to do and a war to fight, and I want none of this provincial brawling. I will do here what I am commanded, and then I will leave.’

  ‘Now listen here-’ Gan puffed himself up, acutely aware of his soldiers listening.

  ‘Are you aware of my orders?’ Drephos demanded.

  ‘Of course-’

  ‘Repeat them to me, if you will.’

  ‘Repeat them?’

  ‘I wish to ensure,’ the master artificer said, ‘that you are fully aware of my brief, Governor. If you please.’

  ‘I am told, halfbreed,’ Gan said pointedly, obviously wishing he could have Drephos struck dead on the spot, ‘that you are here to put down the rebellion in my city.’

  ‘At whatever cost,’ Drephos prompted.

  ‘At whatever cost,’ Gan agreed. ‘And believe me, if you fail, they shall hear of it in Capitas.’

  ‘No doubt. Now kindly have my machinery unloaded so that I may get to work.’ Drephos turned his back on the purple-faced governor, and limped back over to his team. Behind him, soldiers had already begun to unbuckle the automotives’ loads.

  ‘Any comments?’ he asked his cadre.

  ‘You… are clearly not interested in making friends here, master,’ Totho said slowly. Some of the other artificers laughed a little at that.

  ‘The Empire has dozens of heavy-minded buffoons like Colonel Gan, all men of good family and narrow views. There is only one of me, however. Do not fear his retribution, for we will not feel it.’

  At that moment there was a loud clang as one of the unloaders dropped some piece of equipment, and Drephos rounded on them furiously.

  ‘Be careful, you fools!’ he shouted across at them. ‘There is not a piece there that is not delicate.’

  The Szaren garrison men stared back at him sullenly. Totho guessed that, while they might not be overfond of their own commander, they resented this halfbreed artificer striding into their city as though he owned it.

  One of them, quite deliberately, took the keg he was holding and dropped it ten feet off the back of an automotive, staring at Drephos expressionlessly. That was when it happened: Drephos twitched as if stabbed, and then shouted a warning at them all to move back and clear the entire area. The artificers were sufficiently used to his commands to scurry away as quickly as possible. Totho could even hear the faint hiss from the keg and, looking back from a distance that Drephos seemed to think was safe, he thought he detected a faint yellow mist in the air.

  By that time the garrison men nearest to the keg were either dead or dying, convulsing and arching their backs, clawing bloody lines in their own throats and faces. The rest were already running or airborne, but the slowest of them collapsed before they were clear of the circle of automotives, until there was a sprawl of dead soldiers radiating outwards from the dropped keg and a dreadful silence throughout the ruined market, the survivors staring not at the corpses but at Drephos.

  ‘Once again,’ the master artificer reminded them, ‘be careful. Am I understood?’

  Fourteen

  ‘You get used to the waiting, after a while, but I’m out of practice,’ Destrachis explained. They were at least arguably inside the castle: arguably because they were within the boundaries of the edifice, and yet there were no doors to keep them in, and few enough walls. They were instead in some kind of open garden, surrounded by a framework of struts that could become the supports for a ceiling or walls if needed. The town of Suon Ren was spread below and clearly within their vision, and Stenwold was constantly thrown by the loss of barriers, of structural certainty. In Collegium, I would have a score of people always close enough to touch, save for the walls between us. These Commonwealers certainly do like their space, their light and air.

  ‘They have a different sense of time, I suppose,’ Stenwold said vaguely.

  ‘The smallest measure of time they generally admit to is the passing of the seasons,’ Destrachis said. ‘But it’s their curse, I think, for they believe the world does not change, only revolves in its cycles. Their enemies – the Empire, the bandits – they try to make them seem just a passing blight that the next spring will cure.’

  ‘I hope I can convince them otherwise,’ Stenwold murmured. He meanwhile hoped that Allanbridge was not fretting too much. The invitation here, apparently, had been offered only to Destrachis and himself. Even Gramo had been turned away, mouth open like a fish’s, from the doors.

  And yet I could probably spot them down there, somewhere, seeing as there’s nothing but space between us. Only etiquette kept anyone from simply walking inside the palace’s notional boundaries. Was this a lesson about the Commonweal?

  ‘Ah.’

  Stenwold turned to see a Dragonfly woman standing in the garden, and it wa
s hard to say precisely where she had emerged from. She was perhaps a little younger than either of the Lowlanders, yet her hair, cut very short, was starting to grey, and there were lines of care on her face, unusual for her kind. She wore a plain quilted robe of green, edged in a metallic blue cloth that Stenwold had never seen before. She was barefoot.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘The physician is which of you?’

  ‘I am Felise Mienn’s doctor,’ Destrachis said. The woman strolled to the garden’s centre and sat down on a flat stone there, surrounded by burgeoning shoots.

  ‘So possessive,’ she noted. ‘Well now, sit, if you will.’

  Destrachis chose not to. ‘Do you know where she is? Felise Mienn?’

  ‘Now? No. I spoke with her before she left, though.’

  Unwillingly, Destrachis sat down before her. Stenwold knew he himself should back out of earshot, even leave the room. There was no room to leave, though. He had no idea of the proper distances and borders observed here. Besides, he wanted to know more.

  ‘Now,’ the woman began, ‘you are known as Destrachis. You have been in the Commonweal almost long enough to be considered a native.’

  ‘On and off,’ Destrachis conceded. ‘Please…’

  ‘One might wonder why you came here.’

  The Spider’s hands twitched in annoyance. ‘That’s my own business. The usual reasons, however, and all a long time ago. But-’

  ‘Felise Mienn has left this place,’ the woman explained. ‘You did the correct thing in bringing her to me.’

  ‘I didn’t bring her to you. Who are you, anyway? Tell me that at least,’ he demanded.

  ‘I am a mystic,’ she said with such simple gravity that the statement, which would have sounded ludicrous in Collegium, struck Stenwold as entirely reasonable. ‘You may call me Inaspe Raimm, if you wish, or whatever else you will.’

  Destrachis visibly calmed himself. ‘I know the Commonweal well enough to know that the word “mystic” represents a world of possibilities in itself. Which are you, though, and what did you say to her?’

  Inaspe Raimm smiled – a sad, pleasant thing. ‘Felise Mienn had lost her way,’ she said. ‘She had borne loss and pain more than she could carry. She had become detached from her purpose.’

  ‘Purpose?’ Destrachis asked.

  ‘All things have a purpose, although not all fulfil them.’

  ‘And this purpose, will it… will she…?’

  Inaspe reached out and touched his face unexpectedly, making him flinch back. She looked straight into his eyes and Stenwold saw the Spider’s face twitch with undefinable emotion.

  ‘You have been a good friend to her, though never appreciated, Destrachis. You have saved her over and over. You have done all you can. If in the final cast of fate, she is not to be saved, then it is not you who have failed her. You have given of yourself all that could be given.’

  ‘I am a doctor,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’m supposed to save people.’

  ‘Not everyone can be saved.’

  ‘You think she’s going to die,’ he accused her. ‘You’ve sent her off to die?’

  She was still touching his face, and that seemed to hold him in place. Stenwold saw one of his hands clench and unclench, as though wanting to reach for his dagger.

  ‘I have sent her away to fulfil her purpose,’ Inaspe said, and then: ‘But that is sophistry. Ask yourself, does death represent part of Felise Mienn’s purpose? Her own death or the deaths of others?’

  At last Destrachis relaxed, with the faintest, bleakest of smiles appearing on his face. ‘Well, of course,’ he replied blackly.

  ‘We are not blind, Destrachis. Our eyes see many things.’ Her voice had become very gentle. ‘You would go with her if you knew where she was bound. You would do that not because you are her healer, but because you wish only to be close to her.’

  Destrachis made such a strange, wordless sound that Stenwold wished he had absented himself. This was something he should not hear.

  ‘Know this, noble doctor: we have removed her from your care not from our concern for her but because we value you yourself. Have you not foreseen that she would slay you, sooner or later, if you kept pace with her? You have given her a reprise, but you cannot save her from her purpose,’ Inaspe explained. ‘Instead, we choose to preserve you, in whom we have found such admirable qualities. If you seek a reward, for warding our wayward daughter, you shall have it. Prince Felipe Shah shall gladly bless you. Your part in her life is done, though, and we now save you for greater things. We welcome you as a servant of the Commonweal.’

  Stenwold saw Destrachis rise to shout, to protest, but her hand was still on his face and something passed between them. Stenwold could explain it no more than as if Inaspe Raimm had somehow taken her own understanding and gifted it to the Spider, shining a light into his troubled mind. He opened his mouth again, and for a moment his face was just grief, all his buried emotion drawn to the surface by the woman that faced him.

  ‘She will die,’ he said.

  ‘All things die,’ she told him. Such a truism, it was the trite utterance of any street-corner philosopher, but coming from Inaspe Raimm it sounded different. ‘All things reach the end of their journey, be they trees, insects, people or even principalities. All things die so that others may take their place. To die is no tragedy. The tragedy is dying with a purpose unfulfilled. You have fulfilled your purpose, Destrachis. Now let Felise Mienn fulfil hers.’

  A great sigh went through him. ‘Well, then,’ he said, and, ‘Well.’ He did not seem to have anything else to say. She took her hand away and he seemed to deflate, a ragged Spider-kinden man with greying hair. He looked so old, just then, older than any Spider that Stenwold had ever seen.

  After Destrachis had left, locked up in his own thoughts, wrestling with what he had just been told, Stenwold came to sit before the self-proclaimed mystic.

  ‘My name is Stenwold Maker of Collegium,’ he announced, ‘but probably you knew that already.’

  She smiled at him, almost conspiratorially. ‘How many ears have heard that name? How many mouths might have told me? Yes, Stenwold Maker, your name is familiar to me. It takes no magic to know it.’

  ‘And my purpose?’

  ‘I am not Prince Felipe Shah. This is his land, and therefore his is the right to summon you to audience. Which he will. I, however, have advised him on many things, and my words fall sweetly on him. I would therefore examine you, Stenwold Maker. I would assess you, inspect you.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me my future, O mystic?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘No, I am going to tell the future,’ she replied, thus silencing him. Immediately he became aware of movement all around him. A dozen or so Dragonfly boys and girls, all seeming perhaps fourteen years of age, had suddenly appeared, holding… mirrors? No, but sections of glass, coloured glass in broad, oddly shaped panes. As Stenwold stared at them, and without their even acknowledging his existence, they began to take to the air, flitting up to the wooden framework and hanging their burdens here and there about it. The pattern they created was bewildering, without any logic and yet precise. The separate plates of glass, two and three feet across, were aligned and linked until the open garden had become a patchwork glasshouse, with walls and roof of stained green and red and blue, and open patches where the glass did not reach. The entire operation, bizarre and intricate, was completed in just ten minutes as Stenwold watched, utterly confused.

  He glanced at Inaspe when it was done, and saw that she, and the garden, and he himself, were all mosaiced in slashes of coloured light. The notional room had now become one bounded by colour, the sunlight being split around them into a prism of conflicting and complementing shades.

  ‘I have no idea what is going on,’ he admitted, bringing a wider smile to Inaspe’s face.

  ‘There are those in every age whose deeds echo in the world, for good or ill, and it is a great and terrible opportunity for a poor fortune-teller like myself to be faced with
such a man. You have made yourself the point of destiny’s arrow, and by casting your future I might see the course the whole wide world will take. Indulge me, Stenwold Maker. Felipe Shah shall smile upon you for it.’ She cleared the ground between them, and he saw that it was precisely where the colours met: a kaleidoscope in miniature. The entire room around them had become a lens that focused its hues right here. The artificer in him protested. Light in the Commonweal did not seem to behave in the same way as light in Collegium.

  ‘I don’t really believe that people can predict the future,’ he admitted.

  ‘People predict the future every day, Stenwold Maker,’ she replied, studying the rainbow carefully as the glass panels shifted slightly on the creaking wooded framework. ‘If you drop a stone, you may predict that it shall fall. If you know a man to be dishonest, you may predict that he will cheat you. If you know one army is better trained and led, you may predict that it will win the battle.’

  He could not help smiling at that. ‘But that is different. That is using knowledge already gained about the world to guess at the most likely outcome.’

  ‘And that is also predicting the future, Stenwold Maker,’ she said. ‘The only difference is your source of knowledge. Everything that happens has a cause, which same cause has itself a cause. It is a chain stretching into the most distant past, and forged of necessity, inclination, bitter memories, the urge of duty. Nothing happens without a reason. Predicting the future does not require predestination, Stenwold Maker. It only requires a world where one thing will most likely lead to another. So it was that I could not tell Felipe Shah precisely that Stenwold Maker of Collegium would come to him and seek audience, but I could say: there will be emissaries from the south, and they shall come to speak of war, they shall come by air and – because they do not understand the air – they shall be caught in a storm.’

  ‘Guesswork after the fact,’ Stenwold protested.