The Scarab Path (72 page)

‘Some,’
he acknowledged grudgingly. ‘I saw the spy, Scyla, doing her tricks with my own
face. It was no Art, and yet she did it – and I cannot say how.’

‘The
world is full of the inexplicable,’ she said. ‘I find it easier to see that
now.’ She felt his hand tense for a moment, then relax. ‘Or at least, I cannot
explain such things for you, but I can navigate them. Would you believe that?’

‘Just
because I cannot explain something does not mean that there is no rational
explanation,’ he replied. There was a faint edge to his voice that told her,
He’s frightened. He knows just enough to be frightened
.

‘If I
told you that I sensed the trap, where you saw nothing, you would say it was
because my eyes and my Art let me see better. If I told you that I can read
these carvings
because
of what I have lost, you
would say it was merely because I had studied.’ It made her feel lonely, saying
it out loud, the way that she had been cut off from so much of the world. ‘If I
told you that I did believe in magic, you would think me mad.’

Through
each revelation, she could feel him on the point of pulling away from her, but
he never quite did. ‘Che …’ he began. His hand tightened. ‘Actions are more
important than beliefs. You believe what you want, so long as you don’t start
bathing in the blood of slaves.’ His lips twitched, the long-absent mocking
smile coming back. ‘An Inapt Beetle? You’ve finally found a way to make
yourself completely useless to everyone.’

‘What?’
she snapped, and pushed him in the chest, hard enough to make him stagger. She
tried to follow up, but now he had the measure of where she was. In a moment he
was holding her against his chest, her forehead on his shoulder. She did not
dare look up and see what unguarded expression he wore.

She had
expected him to let go, while he made some other barbed comment, but instead he
stood quite still, his breath rising and falling against her.

‘Thalric
…’ It felt strange, comfortable and horribly guilty all at once. She kept
expecting the spectre of Achaeos to loom large in order to castigate her, but
it seemed to have absented itself since enticing her to this place. ‘What if I
told you now that I could open the doors to this room, from what I have learned
in the carvings here? Would you say it was just artifice?’

His
breath quickened. ‘You can open this room up?’

‘I don’t
know, for sure,’ she said. ‘But the carvings say I can, if I try.’

‘Then
I’d say it was magic and not care who heard me,’ he said quickly, but she knew
that was not true.
Achaeos was right: belief is easy in the
dark, but soon banished by sunlight. If we ever get out of this he will invent
some explanation to settle his mind
.

She
pulled away, was held tight for a moment and then released.
Oh this is wrong
. Stenwold would be mortified. In fact the
list of people who would recoil from her was long: Tynisa, Achaeos, Totho … How
many was she betraying by feeling this way about a Wasp, a Rekef Wasp? About
Thalric
.

It had
been growing on her since she spotted him in this city, a face if not friendly
then familiar, amid an ocean of strangers. It had been growing since she found
such common territory with him, her opposite number, her old adversary. Now,
looking at his face, she did not any longer automatically think of the cells in
Asta and Myna, of the interrogation and what he would have done to her, for the
Empire’s sake. The past had reclaimed its own. She had acknowledged the account
was settled, through what he had done later.

‘I
remember Myna,’ she said, and saw him stiffen, expecting rebuke. ‘The second
time, I mean. I remember that you gave yourself up for the resistance – and for
me.’

‘These
things never quite work out how you plan them,’ he said.

I remember Collegium, too, and the signing of the Treaty of Gold.
That moment we were able to speak freely, before the diplomacy claimed him
.

She felt
a wellspring of emotion about to burst, and fought it down.
Not now. Not here. But how strange that it should come to this
.
‘You try and rest,’ she advised. ‘You look as though you need it. I’ll work on
getting us out of here.’

We have reached a turning point, I think
, was
Accius’s conclusion. The two Vekken were crouching in the shadows of the
archway that linked the Place of Foreigners to the square fronting the Scriptora.
They had, from one vantage or another, been watching the pyramid since last
night, taking turns to sleep for short periods, knowing that the sleeper would
wake the instant the sentry called on him.

Last
night they had tracked the fugitive Beetle ambassador, street by street,
silently and with grim determination. The Wasps had helped. The Vekken had
followed Cheerwell Maker’s trail by watching the sky and hunting the hunters.
Their chase had been tireless, careful, and the Wasps had never guessed that they
were acting as beacons in a greater pursuit.

They had
been in time to see the Maker woman and her co-conspirators bearded at the
pyramid. They witnessed the Wasp advance, one fugitive captured, the other,
along with Maker, disappearing into the edifice itself. Two Wasps had followed
them. There had been a sound.

Cheerwell
Maker had not returned from inside that pyramid. Nor had any of theWasps,
either her companion or their pursuers. The Imperials above had fled the
structure, seemingly without cause or warning.

The Wasps still keep watch
, Malius noted.
They believe as we do, then, that they are still within
.

There
was a moment of silence between them, an understanding close enough that even
unspoken words were not needed. Neither one said,
We could
let this rest here
, but each knew the other was thinking just that.

I do not like that place
, Accius decided.
It is an irrational reaction, but something I cannot define
disturbs me about it
. He compared his perceptions with those of Malius,
and was comforted to find the same disquiet in his colleague.
The behaviour of the Wasps cannot be fully accounted for. They
fled very swiftly, from nothing that was apparent to us. I cannot say what, but
some other force is at work here – some force as yet invisible to us. We can
see only its effects
.

Agreed
. Malius hunkered down lower, while checking the
action of his crossbow. Again there was a pause in their thought-conversation,
each steeling himself.

Our suppositions to date are challenged
. It was Malius who
voiced this silently.
The Collegium ambassador’s game is
not so simple as one of loyalty or betrayal. There is division in the Imperial
camp also. We came here to determine the Collegiate plans, and how they might
affect our city. We know less now than we thought we did yesterday. We cannot
return without gaining more concrete information. Otherwise we would have
failed our city
.

It is clear, then, that whatever the Collegiate ambassador is up
to, it is substantially more complicated than we thought
, Accius agreed
with a sigh.
Only a proper interrogation will reveal it,
and for that we must catch her alive. And for that …

We must follow her
, Malius finished. They both felt the
strange dread exercised by the pyramid, but each took strength from the other.

I feel that this journey shall only be one-way
. Accius was
saying what they had both been thinking.
There is something
down there, something that I cannot give a name or shape to. There is only one
way to do this. We must separate
.

I shall—
Malius started, but Accius overrode him.
No
, I
shall. I shall venture within.
You must stay hidden up here and I shall report to you all I encounter down
below. If I meet the
ambassador, I shall relay her
explanations to you. If matters come to their worst …

I shall find my way home
, Malius stated firmly.
No matter what, I shall take what you learn there back to our
city. Your sacrifice shall be known. I only wish there was some other way
.

None suggests itself, none to be achieved with honour
.
Accius took a deep breath.
I fear
.

Take strength from me
.

I do
.

They shall know, back in Vek, that you did your duty
.
Malius shifted position, eyes still on the pyramid. The sky above was darkening
towards dusk, the square empty of life.
What words for your
comrades?

None but the usual: that through me the city shall prosper, and
our enemies fail
. Accius stood up slowly, seeking for inner calm. The
alien, hostile city all around them seemed to encroach, to loom and threaten.

I shall speak personally to your mate and children
, Malius
assured him.
I know you are fond of them
.
Is there any specific message?

What more could I want for my children, since they enjoy the
greatest gift already? They will be brought up as soldiers of Vek
.
Accius slung his crossbow.
The Wasps will see me as I
approach the pyramid
.

If they move to attack you, I shall draw their attention
,
Malius assured him.
A death or two should serve. I shall be
with you, brother
.

Accius
nodded, the bond of Art between them more potent than any clasping of hands,
and then he was moving at a swift, low run out towards the pyramid and up the
steps. Within moments, he was lost amongst the statues.

They had tied Osgan professionally. At least they had tied him in a
chair, their rope-work rough about the elegant Khanaphir carvings, his hands
bound together behind its back, palm pressed to palm, to stifle his Art.

They had
even given him some wine, feeding two bowls of it to him messily, perhaps
simply to keep him quiet. It had cleared his head a little, but he still had no
real image of what had happened at the moment they caught him.

There
had been a sound, a thunderous sound like a leadshotter going off … and
screams. Not Thalric’s scream, though, for they were not done hunting him.
Thalric was one of life’s survivors. Even brought to Capitas in chains as a
traitor, he had got out of it – though he’d had to marry the Empress to do so.

Osgan
shuddered, on recalling the hints Thalric had dropped about
that
situation, when his tongue had been loosened by drink
down in the palace cellars. Terrible things, terrible secrets. Osgan’s life
contained enough terrible things on its own, without Thalric loading him with
any more. Was that the price he must pay for Thalric’s unreliable patronage –
to be steadily eroded by ghastly secrets that he had no place knowing? He had
survived his own moment of horror, while crouching there by the Emperor’s side
as
He
, as the avenging monster, had come for them
both.

Osgan
felt the terrors building in him again, his muscles twitching with them, making
the chair creak. He was in some half-stripped room, some abandoned upper storey
where the Rekef were hiding out. If he cried out, only the guards would hear,
and then they would strike him again. His face was already overwritten with
their despite of him.

But
He
had been there. They did not understand. Even Thalric
had not understood.
He
had followed Osgan to
Khanaphes. He had been hovering over the summit of that pyramid. Osgan had not
actually seen that cruel face, nor any material form, but he had known it as
sure as if the Mantis had stood there in plain view.

It did
not matter that he had already seen the man dead, his blood mingling with the
Emperor’s. It only mattered that he was
here
, and
that he had found Osgan at last.

Osgan
whimpered, feeling the shakes build up inside him, and this time he could not
control them. He fought against his bonds, wrenching the joints of the chair,
while he cried out in fear and frustration. He cried out for help, though in
all the world there was not one with the ability and the inclination to help
him.

Perhaps
it was his mother that he cried for, in the end.

The door
kicked open and he flinched, but it was not one of the guards this time. It was
Marger, supposedly Thalric’s second at the embassy, now revealed as a Rekef
double-agent all this time. Not even the senior man, he was a puppet, a mere
mouthpiece. Sulvec and the Beetle were both his masters, and Marger was a man
dethroned.

‘Shut
up,’ Marger told him, ‘or we’ll gag you. Don’t think you won’t get your brain
boiled if anyone hears you and comes looking.’

There
were tears in Osgan’s eyes, amongst the puffiness of the bruising. Marger came
over and examined him more closely.

‘Waste
it, just look at you. What’s the point of you? You were a fool to come.’

Oh how true
, but Osgan could say nothing. His lips were
pressed tight to keep himself from sobbing.

There
was an uncomfortable expression on Marger’s face, which might have been pity or
disgust. ‘Call yourself an Imperial soldier?’ he asked, shaking his head.
‘Curse you, but they did a proper job on you, no mistake – not that it’ll make
much difference in the long run.’ Marger was talking too much, hiding some
nervousness.

‘And …
and you?’ Osgan got out. ‘How are they treating you? What’s it like as a
professional betrayer?’

‘In the
Rekef? Ask your friend Thalric, should you get the chance.’ Marger shrugged
easily, but it was clear that there was something else on his mind. ‘We’re
going back tonight, you know.’