The Scarab Path (60 page)

Osgan
nodded weakly.

‘There
isn’t a proper doctor in this whole wretched city,’ Thalric complained. ‘They
don’t know the first thing about medicine.’

Che
thought about that. ‘I think you’re right, actually.’

He
barked a brief laugh. ‘The legendary cosmopolitanism of Collegium is rubbing
away, is it?’

‘Apt
medicine and Inapt medicine are very different,’ Che reproached him. ‘You and I
have good cause to remember that.’

It took
Thalric a moment to catch the reference, but she saw the understanding dawn in
his face.
Achaeos, in Collegium, asking to be taken back to
his own people – for all the good it did him
.

‘These
Khanaphir are Apt,’ Che went on, ‘but they’re … they’re trying to live like the
Inapt, for some reason.’

Thalric
made a derisive face. ‘They’re just backward, holed up at the east end of
nowhere.’

‘It’s
more than that,’ Che argued, the pieces falling into place one by one. ‘They
trade with the Exalsee ports, and they’re close enough to some of your Imperial
cities, for that matter. So it’s not geography, it’s …’

‘Wilful
ignorance,’ Thalric suggested.

‘It’s
something like that, yes. They are fighting tooth and nail to ignore the last
five hundred years. It’s like with the Moth-kinden, except … except these
people are Apt.’

‘Imperial
doctrine would say that this is why the Empire’s intervention is so necessary,’
Thalric said drily. ‘In this case, I’m not sure I disagree.’

‘They’re
Apt,’ Che repeated, trying to catch the fugitive train of thought, ‘but they
once had masters who were Inapt … whoever they were. And they still remember
those masters so keenly, with such reverence, that they refrain from anything
that might have offended them back in the Days of Lore. They hold themselves
back simply out of respect.’

Thalric
regarded her doubtfully. ‘Well, now it’s come back to sting them blind,
frankly. The Scorpions will be all over this city in a tenday, at the most.
Half the Khanaphir army’s dead in just the first engagement. If it wasn’t
us
out there, I’d be advising the Ministers to seek
Imperial protection right now. We’d make better masters than the Many of Nem.’

‘Is that
the plan?’ Che asked him. ‘Avenging Empire sweeps in and puts the invaders to
flight? Imperial governor gratefully received by the city? I don’t think that
would work so well, not here.’

‘I lose
track of the plan,’ said Thalric. She saw his face sag, for just a moment
showing her how tired he was. ‘The plan seems to be to kill me first, the city
second. I do not understand why they so badly want me dead.’ Seeing her
expression, he pressed on before she could speak. ‘Oh, I have done things
sufficient to warrant my death, but this makes no sense. This is the high
Rekef’s work, that much seems sure. This is … this stems from someone standing
beside the throne, if not the throne itself. It’s
personal
.’
He shook himself impatiently. ‘Che, you have to go now. You know what you must
do.’

‘As your
agent, yes.’ She smiled sourly. ‘After I’ve spoken with the others, I’ll find
Ethmet or some other senior Minister. I’ll warn them that the Imperial force
within the city will be looking to sabotage the defence, assassinate their
leaders and the like.’

‘It’s
what I’d do,’ Thalric confirmed. And then: ‘It’s what I’ve done.’

Che went
over to the shafts, paused there and looked back. ‘Be safe, Thalric. I’ll come
back for you.’

‘Send
Trallo with messages, if you can,’ Thalric said. ‘Che …’

His
urgent tone turned her back, as she was about to call upon her wings. He stood
regarding her with a calculating expression, as if making his tallies and
finding that they did not add up. This was Thalric the spymaster, she realized,
the old Thalric – and somehow she was about his business.

‘Why are
you not just leaving, Che? I don’t believe you think your intervention can save
Khanaphes from the Scorpions, even if you cared to. What is this place, to
you?’

The
spectre of Achaeos rose in her mind, and all the frustrations of her
Inaptitude. ‘Do you need to know?’ she asked him. ‘Really?’

After a
thoughtful pause he shook his head, and she scrambled out of the hatch, heading
above and into sight of the river.

She found the embassy unoccupied save for servants. In the moment she
entered, the desolate scene fell on her in pieces: the feeling of abandonment,
the eerie silence, the men and women industriously cleaning the floor of an
unmistakable stain.

‘What
has happened here?’ she demanded hoarsely.

They
pointed her towards the Scriptora, and there she found Berjek and Praeda, who
had been hurriedly ensconced in guarded rooms. She found them sitting together,
looking tense and fearful, whilst one of the Khanaphir ministers hovered
nearby.

‘Bloody
ink and seals!’ Berjek swore, as he saw her. ‘You’re here! We weren’t sure you
were even alive.’

‘What’s
going on?’ Che asked, because the Khanaphir, in their private way, had not told
her.

After
Berjek had done with his halting narrative, when the borrowed room had been
loaded with two absences, one large, one small, Che remained very quiet.

Too slow, Thalric, with your warnings. You must be losing your
touch
. ‘Manny, Trallo and Petri. Was Petri their victim as well?’

‘Unlikely.’
Berjek shook his head. ‘They mentioned her by name, as if expecting to find her
at the embassy. Che, if it hadn’t been for Amnon and the Vekken—’

‘Where
are the Vekken?’ Che demanded, feeling an uncomfortable twitch at the thought.
She was not so blind to the way they had been looking at her. She did not know
what conclusions they had come to in their hermetic little asylum of a shared
mind, but none of it boded well for her.

‘They …
would not accept our hosts’ hospitality,’ Berjek said, with an embarrassed
glance at the Khanaphir Minister. ‘Certainly not after what happened this
morning on the river.’ Seeing Che’s frown, he hastened to explain. ‘The
Scorpions are here, Che. They arrived with the dawn, and they’re setting up
outside the walls.’ The old Beetle sighed. ‘I was determined to leave today. I
came here looking for a ship out of here. That’s how I met Tathbir, here. He’s
the Minister of the Oceans.’

The
short, podgy Beetle genuflected briefly, bobbing his shaven head.

‘But
when the Khanaphir lowered the river gate this morning, the Scorpions were
already waiting for them,’ Berjek explained. ‘They put a leadshot into a
fishing boat, sank it with all hands. They see that the river could be used to
land a flanking force, is my guess. It doesn’t take a tactical genius to see
the opening. They’ve got a pair of leadshotters waiting out there to hole any
vessel that comes out. Meanwhile, nobody’s going anywhere until that can be
dealt with.’

‘We have
sent messengers to the Marsh people,’ Tathbir added. ‘They will take this
matter into their own hands. Until it is done, though, we cannot lower the
Estuarine Gate. We are sorry.’

‘The assault
on the city has yet to start,’ Berjek put in. ‘The Scorpions are displaying
unusual patience for their kind, I understand. Some small groups have come
within bowshot of the walls, to their regret, but the rest are setting their
engines to loose upon the city’s defences. I know my field enough to know that
the walls of Khanaphes were not designed to resist leadshotters.’

It was
the suddenly stiffened pose of Tathbir that heralded the new arrival, the
frisson of indignation radiating from the man. A shadow fell through the door:
a man in dark armour, one whose face Che used to know.

‘Are you
yet in the city?’ the Minister demanded. ‘I am sure the First Minister banished
you.’

Totho’s
stare remained intense enough for the stout man to take a step back. With his
snapbow slung under his arm, within easy reach, there was something of the
pirate about Totho now, a man outside rules. ‘I was called here,’ he said
flatly. ‘The First Soldier wishes to consult with me, so how could I say no?’
His eyes dismissed the Minister utterly. ‘Che, I need to talk with you.’

‘I
suppose you do.’ This was not a conversation she had been looking forward to
but, at the same time, she had been expecting it. ‘Elsewhere,’ she decided.
This was not for Berjek and Praeda, or for the Ministers.

She
chose the pump room, eventually, out of some perverse need for the appropriate
– the secluded room with its primitive vacuum pump that she no longer
understood.

‘Are you
going to start with pointing out how right you were?’ she began. He had paused
in the doorway as though there might be an ambush waiting. Now he stepped in
and found himself a seat on the horizontal shaft of the pump.

‘Would
that help? Probably not,’ he replied, his shoulder-plates scraping as he
shrugged. ‘The Empire never changes, as I should know well.’

‘You
were wrong about Thalric,’ she told him, before she could stop herself.

‘Was I?’
There was no admission of it in his face. ‘You think he hasn’t betrayed you,
just because you haven’t found out about it yet.’

‘The
Empire wants him dead,’ she said.

‘The
Empire has wanted him dead before. And then it calls, and he comes like a
trained cricket. He’s spent the last four months sleeping with the Empress.’

The
thought cut her more deeply than she expected. She had known it, of course, but
had steered her mind deftly away from it, every time. ‘You’ve done your
research.’

‘He hurt
you,’ Totho said simply, ‘so I found out what I could. We in the Glove have
sources in the Empire. You’d have to walk a long mile before you found a man as
untrustworthy as Thalric.’

She
could feel a wave of anger rising in her, hearing the man attacked behind his
back. Nothing but the truth, surely, and yet because it was a truth Thalric
himself owned to, with his chequered past so openly admitted, she felt that she
should be defending him.

‘New
topic, Totho?’ she said. ‘Unless all you wanted to do is come here and complain
about Thalric.’

She saw
his lips purse, but then he said, ‘I can get you out of Khanaphes. You and your
friends.’

She
stared at him, waiting for the catch. He, however just waited for her response,
looking down at his hands as they rested on his knees.

He got that from Uncle Sten
, she thought, and asked, ‘How?
They say the Scorpions have engines watching the river.’

‘My ship
is the
Fourth Iteration
, and she’s fast enough to
dodge leadshots, tough enough to shrug a few off before suffering. She’s a
Solarnese corsair with a reinforced hull. She even has some smallshotters for
the rails. She can leave as soon as the Khanaphir lower the gates, and for us
they’ll lower the gates because they want rid of us. Even with the Scorpions
outside their walls.’

She
stood up, with desperate hope. ‘Take Berjek and Praeda,’ she said. ‘Please,
take them away from here.’

‘No,’ he
said.

‘Totho
…’

‘I will
take you,’ he said. ‘I will take you, and with you, anyone you wish – save for
Thalric. I will not leave here without you.’

‘Totho,
the city’s under siege now. What will you do here, if you don’t leave? Don’t be
a fool.’

‘I’ll
just have to make sure the Scorpions lose, then, won’t I,’ he said.

‘You
are
a fool,’ she decided. ‘You’d risk your life, your
followers …’

‘Yes,
I’m a fool. One among many.’

‘But
why?’

‘You
know
why.’ He was on his feet suddenly and she shrank back
from him. ‘Che, you don’t need to ask that question. I will stay, if you stay.
I will also leave if you will leave with me. That’s because I love you. You
know that I love you. That I always have, since we were students and you were
copying down my answers in class.’

‘You’re
right. I didn’t need to ask,’ she replied, and then: ‘I wish I hadn’t.’

He took
the blow, rolled with it. ‘I never knew what you saw in the Moth,’ he said,
‘but I knew what you missed in me. I’ve tried, Che, to make something more of
myself. I’ve tried to patch the defects that nature gave me. I’m still a
halfbreed, but I’m a magnate now. I’ve money, prospects. They’d kiss my feet in
Helleron, if I walked in under Iron Glove colours. My hand is on the tiller of
artifice.’ He looked into her face, forcing her to avoid his gaze lest it
scorch her. ‘And I can see, though – I can see it’s not enough. So tell me what
you want me to be, Che. Tell me what it is I’m still missing. Or is it the
blood? It didn’t seem to matter to you, of all people, that I was a
half-caste.’

‘It’s
not your heritage,’ she said. ‘Do you really think I care about that?’

‘No,’ he
said, fiercely. ‘No, I don’t. I really don’t. So tell me what it is that’s
wrong with me.’

‘Oh,
Totho,’ she sighed, ‘all this time you’ve been trying to make yourself into
what you think I might want … but I can barely see the friend I once knew, let
alone anything beyond. You’ve built yourself a suit of armour for the inside as
well as the out. Just listen to you now!’ She felt suddenly frustrated with
him. ‘You’re bargaining for my affection with the lives of my friends, yet you
spent most of the war working for the Empire.’

‘To save
Salma!’ he put in hotly, but she came back just as hard.

‘Was
it?’ she demanded. ‘Was that what it was? And did they never give you a chance
to leave them, after that? Totho, you rail at Thalric for all the things he has
done, and, yes, he has done terrible things, but at least he tried to divert
his course
away
from them. You have just moved
towards
and
towards
. Totho,
tell me you could not have escaped from the army, if you had wanted.’