Dragonfly Falling (83 page)

Something was building
in him, that hurt worse than burning, but he clamped down on it. He was
Drephos’s apprentice. There was no emotion he could not master. ‘Stop saying
that.’ He heard his voice shake. ‘I’ve found my place now. There’s nothing to
be sorry for. Feel sorry for yourself. You know what they’ll do to you.’ In his
mind arose the words, from the depths of his own soul.
What
they will do to her is nothing, compared to what they have done to me.

She was moving back to
the bars now, and one hand slightly extended, as if to touch his own. He
suddenly felt that, if he was to feel her skin on his, he might die. He
stumbled backwards, until he felt the incline of the steps behind him.

‘It’s over,’ he said.
‘Everything’s over.’ He tried to suppress the next words, but they forced themselves
out anyway. ‘I’m sorry, Che. I’m sorry it turned out like this.’

She was standing at the
bars when he left her, and the lantern’s last shine glinted on the tracks down
her face, and he thought they would be the only tears ever shed for him.

And
where is the damned box?
was the thought of Uctebri the Sarcad, stalking
the bounds of his comfortable cell. It had gone wrong. Not irretrievably wrong,
but wrong nonetheless.

He had been at pains to
keep his antennae out, groping around for the Shadow Box’s location. It had
mouldered in Collegium for a long time, but the Darakyon itself was becoming
restive. It had sensed his interest and there was always the chance that it
would find some champion for its cause.
Reaching so far
into the Lowlands is dangerous
, his own people would have told him, had
he cared to consult them.
The Moth-kinden have not
forgotten us
.

No, that was true. In
some decaying archive of Tharn or Dorax would be found the name of the
Mosquito-kinden, and the time when the Moths broke them, hunted them down, and
tried their best to wipe his entire kinden from history. These days the Moths
had other matters on their minds, though, so a clever old man might stretch his
arm as far as Collegium and cause no alarm, sound no warnings, especially if
that old man was working through an Empire blinded to the magical world by its
own Aptitude.

But the Empire itself
was being coy. They had not sent some squad of soldiers or Rekef men to
retrieve the box. The political situation, the distances, had all militated
against that strategy. Instead they had hired hunters.

And
one of those hunters knows too much.
Uctebri had felt the touch of her
mind, just briefly. Someone with training, with a gift for sly magic, was now
in possession of his prize. In that brief contact of minds the acrid taste of
betrayal was in his mouth.
She will not bring it to me. She
recognizes its value.

But she could not hide
it, not a thing of that power, now that it had been awakened. He could sense
her moving about, with that appallingly powerful treasure in her hands. Her
deceits would hide her exact whereabouts, but he could have drawn a circle on a
map and known for sure that she was within it.

He heard movement
outside, knew before the man even entered that it was the Emperor. The ruler of
the Wasps was in an ugly mood.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,
you honour me with your presence.’ Uctebri the Sarcad bowed sinuously as the
Emperor marched into his new suite of rooms.

‘We demand to know what
progress you have made,’ snarled Alvdan the Second. General Maxin had come in
behind him, but stood at the door as though he was no more than a guard. Alvdan
had found himself relying more and more on that man recently, what with
troubles in the Lowlands and similar. He reserved his own main attention for
this, though: the Mosquito’s ritual that would elevate him beyond the misery of
his father and his grandfather, and remove from him the one blight that had
constantly mocked his reign and stolen his joy.

The matter of his
succession: which potential traitor, from a nest of venomous things, should he
take to his bosom, or even breed himself? His successor, the heir that would
stand like an executioner beside his throne as soon as the child was born or
the decision made. But if Uctebri’s ritual should achieve its impossible end,
he need never worry about his successor again, because he would need none. He
would live for ever.

He was impatient to
start.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,
it wants but the time, the most auspicious date.’ The Mosquito glanced between
the Emperor and General Maxin. ‘And the box, of course. We must have the box.
Gifts such as you seek must be had only with the correct materials.’

‘It is coming,’ the
Emperor said. ‘Our agents carry it to us even now.’

‘I hesitate to correct
His Majesty in his proclamation,’ said Uctebri, turning to the nearest wall to
make another few chalk scratches.

‘You are not to use your
sarcasm on us, creature,’ Alvdan snapped. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘I am naturally
concerned at the progress of this most puissant gem, Great Majesty, but my arts
have told me that all is not well. Your agents have miscarried, have been
suborned or have turned traitor, for the box is no longer being fetched here.’

‘General?’ Alvdan
demanded, suddenly unsure. This news was as impossible as the mooted ritual,
but he had already accepted
that
as possible, and so
how could he feel sure that this creature could not know?

‘In truth, Your Imperial
Majesty,’ Maxin said slowly, ‘I had expected before now to hear from my
agents.’

‘But this is not good
enough,’ Alvdan reproached him angrily. ‘If we must possess this thing then we
will have it. Uctebri, where is it now? Your arts have surely furnished you
with that knowledge?’ He tried to make his tone mocking, but his uncertainty
sounded through it.

‘It has gone into the
lawless lands around Lake Limnia, where the Skater-kinden live and where many
things are lost and found – or change hands. My arts, alas, can be no more
exact.’

‘You have heard,’ Alvdan
turned to General Maxin. ‘Send your hunters there. Stop at nothing. Obliterate
every cursed Skater if you have to.’

‘As you wish, Your
Majesty,’ replied Maxin.

‘And, Worshipful
Majesty, if I might ask . . .’ Uctebri began softly.

‘What is it? Speak.’

‘I require the
opportunity to further examine your sister in closer detail.’

Alvdan smiled. ‘Oh, as
close as you wish, monster. Of all the things I have to give you, she is least
precious by far. I give her to you for whatever you need.’

The Mosquito’s answering
smile contained a hard edge that promised those words would not be forgotten.

Thalric loosed his sting
at her even as she came into the room, and Stenwold assumed it was over then,
an absurd anticlimax. The impact rocked her back, but the crackling energy just
scattered from her glittering armour, leaving black marks like soot. Then she
was on him.

He had the table between
them and Stenwold saw him try to get up quickly, and tumble backwards over the
chair, face suddenly twisting in agony as his unhealed wound racked him with
pain. With a single downward swing Felise cut the table in two, shearing the
wood across the grain in a way Stenwold would not have thought possible.

Thalric had lurched to
his feet, and his hands spat fire again, but she turned, shielding her face
with her pauldron and, although she had to brace herself against it, again the
crackling blast just danced off her mail.

If Thalric had been
whole and well, he might have stood a chance. He was a resourceful man, but his
wounds hobbled him. Even this much exertion had a fresh spot of blood leaking
through his tunic. When he raised his arm again the strange sword nearly took
the hand from his wrist, instead laying open the skin along the back of it.
Thalric hissed, and went for her, and in a moment of cool decision she reversed
the sword and smashed him across the face with the pommel.

He fell back against the
wall and slid to the floor, dazed, and she thrust the sword into one tilted
half of the table, as sickle-claws folded out from her thumbs.

He had his uninjured
hand extended at her defensively, but she lanced it through the palm with a
lightning jab of one claw and he gasped in pain and withdrew it. For a second
she regarded her talons, one bloody and one clean.

She placed them, very
gently, so that they pricked him in the hollows beneath his jaw, and began to
force him upright. For a moment he seemed about to resist, but then, as they
drew blood, he was struggling to his feet, digging at the wall with his elbows
for purchase until at last he was standing, face to face with her at last, and
so close they might be lovers.

She showed no
expression.

Stenwold stood at the
doorway with Tisamon watching over his shoulder, but now someone was pushing in
on the other side of him. It was Felise’s Spider-kinden companion.

‘Who are you, anyway?’
the Beetle asked him, as Felise held Thalric by the points of her thumbs,
staring into his face.

‘Destrachis, doctor.’
The Spider was watching the woman intently, waiting for something.

Thalric studied the face
of his antagonist, pushing his thoughts through the pain in his side, the pain
of his hands. ‘Before you kill me,’ he said, and even that drew some fresh
blood as his throat worked against her talons, ‘tell me one thing.’

Her face neither denied
nor permitted his request.

‘What will you do next?’
His last gambit, his last chance, and once the words were out he closed his
eyes and waited.

Destrachis leaned
forward, but Felise made no move. There was no sign that she had even heard the
words.

‘What is going on here?’
Stenwold demanded in a hoarse whisper.

‘This man Thalric has a
good mind,’ Destrachis said. ‘He has got to the heart of it.’

‘Next?’ came the voice
of Felise, uttering the word as though it was wholly unfamiliar to her.

‘We took him outside your
city, you see,’ Destrachis went on. ‘But he was near-dead, and so instead of
killing him she had me patch him up and send him on ahead. Because revenge on a
dying man was not what she was looking for.’

‘This is hardly better,’
Tisamon observed from behind.

‘He fought back this
time.’ Destrachis shrugged. ‘Now we must see if she can bring it to a close.’

‘Spider, I should have
slain you before,’ said Felise, still holding Thalric up on his toes, holding
her perfect pose without the slightest tremor. ‘What is this Wasp to you?’

‘Nothing,’ Destrachis
said. ‘I have never been the Empire’s.’

‘But you are not mine
either,’ she said. ‘Who is it that pays you, Spider?’

Destrachis pursed his
lips. ‘Must there be someone?’

‘You are no gangster
from Helleron, and it was no mere chance that we met. Do not take me for a
fool.’

‘Or I will be “next”?’
Destrachis wondered aloud. His voice was casual, but Stenwold could see how
tight his face had become with controlling his expression. ‘But you’re right,
of course. I spun my way into the fiefdoms of Helleron. I engineered it so that
I would travel with you.’

Stenwold could see
Thalric watching with the utter concentration of a man whose life is being
extended by every word spoken.

‘Mantis warrior,’ Felise
said. ‘If I asked you to slay that Spider there, would you do it?’

‘Without hesitation,’
Tisamon said, and Destrachis went pale all of a sudden, feeling a subtle change
of stance in the man beside him. The claw was abruptly raised to hover over
Stenwold’s back, the point pricking the nape of the Spider’s neck. Stenwold
himself had gone very still. He had been about to protest, to remind them that
they were in Collegium, in the very Amphiophos – but they were not. At least
Felise and Tisamon and Destrachis were not. The place they shared was
infinitely older, where such things as this were done.

‘If he gives me no
answer, you may slay him,’ Felise decided. She was still staring into Thalric’s
face, had not once taken her eyes off him. ‘Who has hired you to plague me,
Destrachis?’

‘Arante Destraii, your
aunt,’ Destrachis said, still holding tenuously on to calm. ‘Ask me no more
questions, Felise.’

‘I do not believe that,’
she said. ‘Shall I tell the Mantis to kill you? Tell me the truth. Tell it
all.’

‘Please, Felise, you do not—’

Thalric hissed in pain
as her claws dug into him a little, and Felise got out, ‘Mantis—’

‘Wait!’ Destrachis got
out. ‘You will kill me if I tell you, and have me killed if I do not. Is that
justice?’

‘Why is it that only the
unjust cry for justice?’ Tisamon said. His claw twitched, drawing a spot of
blood.

Stenwold felt himself
trapped in a world he suddenly did not understand. ‘What is going on?’ he
asked.

‘Precisely,
Beetle-kinden. Explain all, Destrachis.’

‘I am hired by your
family,’ he said quickly, ‘and that is no more than the truth. Not your
husband’s noble line, for the Wasps made sure no drop of his bloodline
remained. Your own family was not great enough to be extinguished, so you were
taken alive. Do you remember being a prisoner of the Empire, Felise?’

‘I was never a
prisoner.’

‘Of course you were, and
you were to be a slave, but the Arantes rescued you and . . .’ He stuttered to
silence.

‘Speak!’ she commanded.

‘You were . . . broken.’
He waited to see if the words would kill him. ‘You were not well, in your mind.
So your own family took you into their house and hired doctors to make you
well, but we . . . they could not. They tried so many ways, until eventually
one used an ancient craft to bring your mind back to the place where it had snapped,
and stitch that broken end onto the present day – or thus I can best describe
it. Shall I go on?’