The Scarab Path (82 page)

With a
supreme effort he grasped a strut of the starboard railing. A crossbow bolt
struck the slanting deck nearby and fell back into the river.

Sorry, my love
, he mentally addressed the dying ship,
but it’s time we were parting
. He bunched himself for the
effort of hauling himself over the rail, but then the engine went with an
enormous crack, shaking him loose, and the stern half of the
Iteration
tore itself to pieces in a hail of splinters and
shrapnel that scattered even the Scorpions on the bank.

The interrogation room was filled with the sound of engines, the hiss of
the steam boiler below and the whine and rumble of the tools above her. She
could barely hear one word in three of the careful conversation that Thalric
was holding with the engineer, Aagen. It was some convoluted piece of Wasp
politics involving the governor and the Butterfly-kinden Grief in Chains. She
strained her ears to catch it, since any information would be useful.

Thalric
had now finished, telling Aagen, ‘Now, dispatch it straight,’ and the engineer
left them swiftly. She felt the straps taut about her wrists and ankles. The
mechanical drills and blades vibrated on their extending arms, spread above her
like the limbs of a spider. Thalric had gone to the levers and was regarding
them cautiously. She realized that he was not artificer enough to know how to
turn the device off.

‘The one
at the end!’ she shouted out to him. ‘The red band!’

He
turned to regard her, with a slight smile on his face. His hand found another
lever and pulled it, in a brutal, brief motion, and the tool assembly dropped
three feet, until it hovered right above her.

‘Thalric!’
she yelled, and he headed over, still smiling. One of his hands brushed against
the surgical tools laid out beside her, and as it came away he was holding a
narrow blade.

‘Thalric,
listen to me!’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll talk. I’ll tell you. Please …’

‘The
time for that has passed,’ he said. ‘I thought you understood as much. You
cannot claim that I have not given you sufficient opportunity to speak
voluntarily.’ The light glinted on the scalpel blade as he dipped it to caress
her cheek. ‘Fortunate, really, that your kinden are not such a comely people. I
had cause to interrogate a Spider once, and they have so much more to lose.’
There was a dreadful reasonableness in his voice and expression that was more
terrifying than outright anger could ever be. She felt her breath catch and
shudder as sheer terror started building inside her.
Don’t
cut me. Please, don’t cut me
.

‘Thalric,
listen to me. You don’t want to do this. Not when you can just … just ask. Just
ask and I’ll say. You might … you might have a use for me later. For me whole.
Please …’

‘There
is an economy of information, in the intelligencer’s trade,’ he told her,
reaching up and bringing down a mechanical separator on its jointed arm.
‘Information freely given is debased coinage. How can it be trusted, after all?
However, when I have excruciated you until you beg and scream and plead, until
you would betray everything and anything you have ever loved for a moment’s
cessation of pain, then you shall give me information of purest gold. There is
a point when everyone, be they ever so strong or wilful or honour-bound,
crosses over into the realm of pure honesty. We shall find where your point
lies. Similarly with your future service, when I have put my mark upon you in
sufficient detail, the very memory of it shall keep you loyal, for you will
know in full what shall await you if you betray me. You are right-handed, are
you not? I shall start with your left hand.’

She
stared at him in horrified fascination. ‘Please …’

His
smile only broadened, becoming sharp as the blade he held. He touched the point
to the back of her hand, holding her fingers flat.

He cut.
The pain was short, sharp, almost lost in her bucking, twitching reaction to
it. A shallow incision, but now he lowered the separator towards it, inserting
the cold spars of the device between the lips of the wound, and then jabbing
down. She screamed for real this time, though it was nothing more than
preparation, sliding the machine’s fingers between the bones of her hand. There
was a delicate clockwork motor contained in the fist of it, and he wound it
carefully so that she could hear its contented ticking.

She felt
the slightest pressure affecting the bones of her hand. Amid the welter of
pain, it meant little to her, but the prongs of the separator would slowly
grind their way apart whilst Thalric worked on other parts of her – or even
left the room entirely. It would torture her by infinitesimal degrees, all by
its mindless self.

She was
babbling by then, trying to tell him all sorts of things, about Stenwold, about
Collegium, about anything she could imagine the Empire might be interested in.
There was a sickness welling inside her, above and beyond the pain. She had not
realized, before this moment, just how weak she had always been.

‘Now,’
said Thalric, ignoring her rush of words entirely, ‘nature has gifted you with
two eyes. One might almost think this was so that the loss of one would serve
as an irresistible inducement to cooperate, lest you face the loss of the
other.’

He
brought the scalpel up and cleaned it meticulously, as though the intrusion of
her own blood might cause her some infection. The pressure against the bones of
her hand was noticeably intensifying. She clenched her teeth vainly against it.

His
smile as he brought the razor-edge of the blade towards her face was fond,
almost doting. She jerked her head back, shrieking at him, twisting as he pulled
a strap tight across her forehead to hold her still.

‘Now,’
he said.

*

The
interrogation room was filled with the sound of engines, the hiss of the the
steam boiler below and the whine and rumble of the tools above her. She could
barely hear one word in three of the careful conversation that Thalric was
holding with the engineer, Aagen. It was some convoluted piece of Wasp politics
involving the governor and the Butterfly-kinden Grief in Chains. She strained
her ears to catch it. Any information would be useful.

Hold on—

Thalric
had finished, telling Aagen, ‘Now dispatch it straight,’ and the engineer left
them swiftly. She felt the straps taut about her wrists and ankles.
No, wait a moment…
The mechanical drills and blades
vibrated on their arms, spread above her like the limbs of a spider. Thalric
had gone over to the levers and was regarding them cautiously. She realized
that he was not artificer enough to know how to turn the device off.

‘The one
at the end!’ she shouted out to him. ‘The red band!’

He
turned to regard her –
Haven’t I been here before? –
and there was a slight smile on his face. His hand found another lever and
pulled it, in a brutal, brief motion, and the tool assembly dropped three feet
until it hovered right above her.

‘Thalric!’
she yelled. His tongue touched his lips, wetting them, as he regarded her, eyes
flicking to the tool assembly, spoiled for choice. When they rested on her
again they were blank white, like milk.

‘The
interrogator is in an admirable position amongst all trades,’ he said to her,
one hand coming to touch her cheek lightly. ‘There are so very many tools he
may employ, and no restraints on him whatsoever. So long as he can turn out his
goods, meaning information, he is very much left to his own devices.’ His hands
found the collar of her tunic and, in a single savage motion, he ripped it down
the front all the way to the waist.

This is wrong –
Wrong, of course it’s wrong –
I’ve been here before. This is the room in Myna …

She was
feeling a bizarre doubling in her mind, of image over image. Thalric, with his
blank Moth eyes, was trailing his hand across her breasts, whilst the other
reached up for some tool of torture. Part of her was reacting with fear and
revulsion, terrified of the pain and shame, but on another level she was
watching everything as though from behind a pane of glass – or some clever
Spider mirror that served as a window from one side.
But
this isn’t the way it happened the first time. This isn’t the way it happened
last time
.

First time? Last time?

How
many
times?

‘Now,’
said Thalric …

The interrogation room was filled with the sound of engines, the hiss of
the steam boiler below and the whine and rumble of the tools above her.
Wasn’t I just here …?
She could barely hear one word in
three of the careful conversation that Thalric was having with the engineer,
Aagen.
But Aagen just left …
It was some convoluted
piece of Wasp politics involving the governor and the Butterfly-kinden Grief in
Chains. She strained her ears to catch it. Any information would be useful.

Thalric
had finished, telling Aagen, ‘Now, dispatch it straight,’ and the engineer left
them swiftly. There was something wrong with Thalric’s face. It was pallid,
greying, changing. He was slighter than she remembered.

She felt
the straps taut about her wrists and ankles. The mechanical drills and blades
vibrated on their arms, spread above her like the limbs of a spider. Thalric
had gone to the levers and was regarding them cautiously. She realized that he
was not artificer enough to know how to turn the device off.
And neither am I for that matter. So why do I say:

‘The one
at the end!’ she shouted out to him. ‘The red band!’

He
turned to regard her, and his face rent her more than the knives could ever do:
the pointed, grey-skinned visage of a Moth she had once known. His hand found
another lever and pulled it, in a brutal, brief motion, and the tool assembly
dropped three feet until it hovered right above her.

‘The
true interrogator,’ he informed her, ‘can extend a moment into a lifetime. He can
stretch time as easily as flesh, denying the subject any chance of escape …’

‘Achaeos?’
Wrong, all wrong. I know it’s wrong. I’ve been here before,
and before that, and before that, and …

He
reached up for the tools and she felt cracks all around her, her mind
fragmenting into lens after distorting lens, one beyond the other, reaching
further and further out. She stared up at the machinery above her.
I don’t know how this works. I don’t remember how it works. I
only remember that I once remembered
.

And Achaeos could never know
.

I dreamt this. This is my dream, one of many. What did he say?

What did he say in my dream?

That I was doing this to myself …

That I was …

That I was using him to torture myself
.

That I
was …

She
opened her eyes.

From the steady lamps of that remembered cell in Myna to the dancing
bluish flames of the tombs beneath Khanaphes: Che blinked, aware that she was
lying awkwardly on one arm, and for a moment unsure where she was. She
registered some cool, damp place where the stone beneath her was gluey with
slime.

Now she
remembered, the pieces falling into her head out of order: the Wasps, the
halls, the carvings, the sarcophagi.

The
Masters of Khanaphes.

She sat
up suddenly, becoming aware of her surroundings. The vaulted halls seemed to
lean in on her, each alcove hosting its own stone memorial.

Thalric
…? But he was there. They all were. Strewn around
her were three bodies, not dead but not sleeping either. Their eyes were open
but unseeing, and they twitched and kicked in the grip of whatever memory or
thought was tormenting them. Thalric kept pulling his hands in as though
avoiding something, his expression racked and unrecognizable. The other Wasp’s
fingers flexed over and over as though he was in the midst of loosing his
sting. Accius of Vek had an expression only of concentration, moving not at all
save for the shivers that pulsed through his muscles.
And
what is he here for? What is his part in all this
?

She
reached a hand out to Thalric, hoping he might wake, but his skin crawled under
her touch.
I must have been like this but a moment ago,
with my mind sent back to the rack in Myna
. What horrors would a Rekef
spymaster’s memory hold
? Felice’s children? Surely he
relives his murder of her children
.

She
belatedly became aware that she was being watched, that the three twitching
bodies were not her only company. Then she remembered, and her heart skipped
and lurched as she looked round.

She
was there, looking as though she had been standing
there for hours, waiting for Che to wake – and as though she could stand there
for a hundred years if need be. There was a patience about her that would wear
down stone. Elysiath Neptellian, Lady of the Bright Water, She whose Word
Breaks all Bonds, Princess of the Thousand, the risen denizen of her own tomb.
Her gravity and presence made Che feel as though she should kneel, that the
mere existence of this woman was sufficient to make a slave of her. She fought
off the feeling angrily, and noticed the faintest movement of the woman’s
mouth. It was not a smile, for a smile on that face would have been fearsome,
but perhaps an iota of approval.

Che
hauled herself to her feet, still barely reaching above the woman’s waist, then
realized that Elysiath Neptellian was not alone. Another gigantic figure had
emerged from the gloom, and now walked ponderously to stand at her shoulder. He
was a thick-waisted man with a fleshy face that spoke of all manner of terrible
deeds, and no guilt at all. A second woman now sat on her own plinth, combing
her hair in slow, careful strokes, while ignoring Che utterly. Their hair was
magnificent, waves of blue-black that gleamed in the undersea light. Both the
women wore it down to the waist, cascading in slow ripples down their backs
and, like the men, they were clad in little more than a few folds of cloth. Had
they been Beetle-kinden, they would have been fat, had they been any other
kinden they would have been grotesque, but they carried their bodies with an
absolute assurance, without admitting the possibility of ugliness or
awkwardness or shame. They were beautiful, all three, and it was something that
partook of their bodies and those cruel faces, but that went far beyond. They
were royalty, by their very nature, and Che was the lowest of commoners.