Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

Backing against the far wall of her cell, she stared and saw him at last, as not friend, nor lover, but enemy.

‘You?’

‘All me.’ Now he had her attention, his lust for recognition was leaching out of him, leaving only a hollow bitterness. ‘So I can’t just walk away from this, Che. I have become this. I have paid in blood, and none of it my own.’

‘Oh, Totho. ’

He waited for her condemnation that he surely deserved, the last gasp of her defiance before the interrogators pried it out of her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And the expression on her face told him, beyond any shadow or suspicion, that her concern was purely for him, for her lost friend.

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.