The Scarab Path (12 page)

A
crossbow bolt flowered suddenly in the dirt five feet ahead of her. She stopped
dead, glaring up at the windows. She saw one of the Vekken there, knowing it
would not be the shooter, who would now be out of sight and reloading.
I cannot let these madmen have free run of the world
, she
decided.
We must observe reason
. She took a deep
breath and marched towards the door. There was no second bolt.

She
stormed upstairs, and they were waiting for her, standing almost shoulder to
shoulder. One kept an eye on the street outside, the other faced her,
expressionless.

‘What
have you done now?’ she demanded. They said nothing. She waited a count of five
for their answer, and then pressed on. ‘There is an entire mountain full of
Antkinden just over there, so what do you hope to gain?’ She was fighting to
keep her tone reasonable, though not entirely succeeding.

The
Vekken stared at her for a moment longer. ‘We defend ourselves,’ said one, who
must therefore be Accius. ‘They bring the war to us and we defend ourselves.’

‘By
doing what?’ she asked him. ‘Trespassing, they said. Where did you go? Were you
spying on them?’

There
was a dry cough from a corner of the room. She now noticed Berjek Gripshod
there, looking somewhat the worse for wear. His robes were dusty and there was
a graze across his forehead. She had been so intent on the Vekken that she had
missed him entirely.

‘My
apologies, Madam Maker, but the trespass was mine – mine and Miss Rakespear’s.’

Che
stared at him and the old man gave her a weak smile. ‘We went to look at their
home, that extraordinary construction. It would seem we were paying too much
interest. One forgets how Ant-kinden can be.’

Che
heard footsteps on the stairs and a bedraggled Praeda Rakespear stepped into
the room. She had obviously heard the end of Berjek’s statement, because she
was nodding agreement.

‘Suddenly
they were looking at us in an unfriendly manner,’ she said, always given to
understatement. ‘We decided to withdraw. They followed. Then they caught me
when I stumbled.’

‘I’m
afraid for our Vekken friends here it was something of a confirmation of all
their fears,’ said Berjek. He was shaking slightly, but she thought she
discerned a dry amusement now that the immediate crisis was past. ‘They broke
out the crossbows and starting sending out warning shots at the locals. If you
and the Fly had not arrived when you did, then matters might have become
considerably worse.’

There
was no particular gratitude in his voice but Che realized that it was thanks
nevertheless. She waved it away, mumbling something about it being due to Manny
Gorget’s finding her. Underneath, the two scholars were still reeling from
having been under such unaccustomed threat so recently. Che felt the Vekken
still staring at her. She supposed she should be thankful that they had not
shot any of the Ostranden dead. All of a sudden she felt very tired.

‘Well,
it could have been worse,’ she declared.

Berjek
exchanged a sidelong glance with Praeda. ‘It may even have been worthwhile,’ he
suggested, choosing his words carefully. ‘What expense we have unwittingly
incurred, I shall cover from my own funds. Madam Rakespear and I observed some
remarkable things in the short space of time we were allowed. It has quite
whetted our appetites for Khanaphes.’

That night, for once, Che absented herself from Trallo’s company, leaving
him to play dice with Manny and a pair of Solarnese he seemed to be looking to
hire. Instead she sought out Berjek and Praeda, as they sat together in a
corner of the lodging house’s common room. The old man nodded when he saw her
approach.

‘I
thought so. Still some scholar there beneath the ambassador.’

‘What
did you see?’ she asked them.

They
exchanged looks. ‘The building … or perhaps artifact … is entirely artificial,’
Praeda explained. ‘It is made of stones and earth cemented together. I have
never seen anything like it before, and so it is impossible to say how old it
is, but …’ She gestured to Berjek.

‘There
are carvings,’ the old man continued for her. ‘Around the base – to a height of
perhaps twenty feet. Continuous carvings, made of many small, discrete images.
They have eroded so far that it is impossible to make out the detail, but the
style … I have seen some of the papers that Master Kadro sent back to
Collegium, though I had to pry them out of Jodry Drillen’s hands. The style of
carving is Khanaphir, no mistake: Kadro had made rubbings and sketches. The
tradition that was responsible for etching this monument, long before these
Ostranden took up residence, is alive and well in Khanaphes to this day.’

In her dream she was below ground, walking beside a subterranean river in
a darkness that was no darkness to her. The walls she passed were heavily
carved, the details obscured by moss and damp. Ahead, where watercourses met
and crossed, there was a plinth and a statue rising from the murk. The statue
was long ruined. Only its broken base, showing the lowermost folds of a robe,
still spoke of whatever dignitary or hero had been immortalized here. It was
all so old that, in her dream, she wondered,
Is this
Khanaphes?

When she
awoke she realized that her dreamscape was no more than the sewers beneath
Myna: the ones they had rushed her through after rescuing her from Thalric’s
cells and torture chambers. For a moment she laughed at herself, but then she
thought again:
old.
The Mynan sewers, seeming
impossibly large, had been carved for another city – were the only relic of a
time when the Apt folk of Myna had been mere slaves. There were also buildings
in Collegium – parts of the Amphiophos and the College – that dated back to
before the revolution. They had been put up by Beetle hands, but not for Beetle
masters.

We know so little.
For the Beetle-kinden, history proper
began five centuries before, when they had thrown off their chains and driven
out their masters. Of what had gone before that she had never really thought,
until she had met Achaeos. The world appeared different to him, for he stood on
the other side of that historic line. To him, the history of the world
stretched back and back, full of ancient wars and pacts and rituals, but had
been stripped bare in the last few centuries by the voracious jaws of progress.

And I am standing on his side of that line now.
Achaeos
knew of entire kinden that his people had once fought, traded with, defeated
and cast into the darkness, that were mere myths to the Beetle-kinden, or less
than myths. The scholars of Collegium were only now rediscovering the deep
roots of the world they lived in, and their tragedy was that they would never
understand what they uncovered. Their Aptitude, and therefore the limits of
their world-view, would always stand in the way.

There was magic in the world, once
. And her fellow
Collegiates would never believe it.

*

On the
road to Porta Rabi, only the slaves travelled first class. The Solarnese rug
merchant had not been able to conclude his business in time, and so the Collegium
delegation were obliged to set out beside the Spider-kinden slaver and her
merchandise. She rode beneath a parasol in a howdah atop a burly, plodding
beetle, while her stock in trade sat in a covered wagon drawn behind her. They
had shade, they had water, and they were always fed first.The guards rode on
footboards alongside the trailer, exposed to the sun and dust. Only after a day
into the journey did Che realize that these guards were also slaves.

‘Why
don’t they escape?’ she asked. ‘Why not free the others and escape?’

Trallo
gave her the look he reserved for mad foreigners. ‘Why should they? They’ve got
it good: get fed, even get money. Only thing they ain’t got is freedom, and
that’s an overvalued commodity.’

He had
secured them a rattling automotive in which to make the trip, together with a
pair of Solarnese to serve as driver and guard. The machine was broad-wheeled,
all wooden save for the steam engine and its casing. Most of its open rear was
loaded with coal and waterskins to quench the automotive’s constant hunger and
thirst. The academics and the Vekken were crammed into whatever space remained.
A smaller beetle scurried behind them, so loaded with their luggage that only
bags and legs could be seen of it. They kept pace easily with the slaver and
her bulky animal, giving them plenty of time to reflect on the flesh trade.

The
guards were Solarnese, as were most of the slaves within the wagon. All were
debtors, petty criminals or the plain unlucky. Their patient, uncomplaining
presence made Che feel wretched. It was not just that slavery was outlawed in
Collegium: it was that she herself had been where they were now. True, slaves
of the Wasps were treated worse, for the Wasp slave corps cared little for the
physical condition of its stock and more for head count, but slavery was
slavery. Che was watching a crime taking place here, and she knew she should
make some protest, but there was nothing she could do. She seemed to be the
only one who cared. Praeda and Berjek studiously ignored the whole slave party,
and Mannerly Gorget had a speculative look in his eye. He leant over the side
of the automotive thoughtfully but, when Che challenged him on it, he shrugged
his rounded shoulders.

‘They do
things differently here,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes, I
know
it’s wrong. Morally wrong and economically unsound. I’ve been to all the same
lectures as you. Only we of Collegium are rather the exceptions, because most
of the world is quite happy about it. And you haven’t had the trouble with
servants that I’ve had. Sometimes I do wonder whether the Spiders have the
right idea.’

Che
clambered forward to where one of the Solarnese stood beside the simple levers
that controlled the machine. She was a lean, scarred woman with her hair cut
very short. Her counterpart, a solidly built man, stood behind, ready with the
next waterskin when it was needed. They both carried slender, curved Solarnese
swords, and the driver also had a winch-crossbow slung across her back. She
gave Che a wary nod when the Beetle girl reached her. The heat from the engine
only added to the heat of the day.

‘This is
a desolate place,’ Che said, trying anything for conversation.

The
woman shrugged lopsidedly. ‘This is the edge of the Nem,’ she replied, one hand
taking in a landscape that was merely scrub-covered hills and dust-filled air
as far east as the eye could see. ‘This is friendly. Go east and you’ll know
what harsh means.’ There must have been a sudden change in the tone of the
engine that Che had not detected, for the woman now turned from her levers and
rattled a hopper of coal down into the furnace, shouting at her colleague for
more water.
I should help
, Che thought, and then
recalled,
I can’t
. She had lost all sense of how
things worked. She would only get it wrong, yet not be able to see why.

*

The road
between Ostrander and Porta Rabi was like a string of three pearls, each pearl
a water stop. The first was a great stinking steam-powered pump with a
caravanserai enclosed by a palisade wall. The second was an oasis, where the
land fell down almost sheer towards a sheen of dark water, fringed with an
absurd riot of ferns and horsetails. Trallo’s party were not the first to take
advantage of it. As they drew near, with evening visible already in the sky to
the east, they spied two pitched tents, one gleaming white and the other painted
in jagged patterns. Trallo hopped aloft and flew ahead, his arms out to
indicate peace, to see who they would be spending the night with. By the time
the slaver’s entourage had coaxed her huge beast to the water’s edge, there was
a welcome ready, of sorts. Che saw two handfuls of hard-looking men and women
with weapons to hand, but lowered. They were waiting to see if this was a
trick, if they would have to fight. It was an insight into Trallo’s world, for
all his smiles and banter. The caravan life was clearly an uncertain one.

There
were a good eight Dragonfly-kinden there, reminding them how close they were to
Princep Exilla, with its piracy and violence. They had long-hafted swords and
recurved bows, and they wore loose clothes with cuirasses of leather and
painted wood on top. Their faces were tattooed into scowls.

Beside
them was a smaller knot of armoured men. They wore dark metal, with helms that
hid their faces, and their shimmering tabards showed a dark hand prominent on a
dark field.
Iron Glove Cartel
, Che remembered. There
were only three of them, but their facelessness, their stillness, gave them a
greater air of menace than the posturing Dragonflies. Che found her attention
coming back to them over and over, as though their very presence was a secret
she could not read.

The
Spider slaver was helped down from her mount, giving both groups an impartial
nod. Trallo flitted over to instruct his two hirelings where to pitch camp.

‘Once
we’re all set up,’ he said, ‘we’ll pitch torch-posts around everyone, get us a
fence. We’re about as far from home as you can get on this road, so I don’t
think anybody minds cosying up.’

‘What
are they here for?’ Che asked him. The Dragonflies and the Iron Glove men had
gone into one of the tents, leaving a single painted warrior standing watch
outside.

‘Not
that they exactly told me,’ the Fly said, ‘but it’s the weapons trade. I hear
the Monarch of Princep doesn’t like the Gloves and won’t deal with them. They
make the best kit, though, so all the little chiefs are falling over themselves
to set up deals like this. No need to say, we’ve none of us seen any of this.’

Wake up!