Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

She settled down beside him again and he felt the warmth of her back pressing into his chest and belly. It struck him, and the thought surprised him, that she must feel even more alone than he did. Her city was so far, she had said, and she did not expect she would see it again. She must have been alone now for a long time, with only Wasps and Drephos for company. Perhaps in coming to him she was reaching out for the only contact that might not be a betrayal.

And if Totho accepted Drephos’s hand, that proffered gauntlet, would this become a betrayal for her, as if he was no more than a Wasp in truth?

He put an arm about her, his breath catching as it brushed beneath her breasts.

‘Once woken, I cannot sleep,’ she informed him, although she mumbled it sleepily enough. ‘You must talk to me, amuse me.’

So he talked to her. He told her of Collegium, and the Great College. He told her of the workshops there, and the Masters in their white robes. He spoke of the Prowess Forum, and he even spoke of Stenwold Maker, Tynisa and the Mantis Weaponsmaster, Tisamon. Of Cheerwell Maker he spoke not one word.

She left him before dawn, dressing herself in darkness. She explained that she had duties to attend to but he suspected that she did not want their liaison to be common knowledge. She feared the Wasps, more than anything, and she did not want them to think that she was free for the taking.

He dressed himself as the sun rose, in his artificer’s leathers, only hesitating as he began to buckle on the toolstrip that Drephos had returned to him. He was no artificer here, not yet. He was a prisoner of the Empire. If he emerged from this tent with his tools ready for use, would that suggest he had committed himself to the betrayal they were urging on him?

For it would be a betrayal of the cruellest kind. They were asking him to design weapons, as had been his dream throughout College. At Collegium his creations would have been graded and discarded. Anything made for the Wasps would be used.

They would be used on his own people.

But they would be used .

Something visceral rose up in him, thrilling at the very thought of the work: to undertake the work for the sake of the work, and never ask who it might be for.

When he did emerge there was a messenger waiting. It was strange to see Fly-kinden running errands just as they did back home. Amidst the Wasp army there was a whole cadre of them buzzing backwards and forwards wearing the gold and black of the imperial standard.

‘A message for you from the Colonel-Auxillian.’ The Fly was very young, perhaps only fifteen or so. ‘He’d like to see you in his tent.’

A chill went through Totho as he thought, Perhaps he will force a choice from me now, and if I refuse, as I must, surely I must, then I will be a prisoner indeed, and they will extract from me everything I know about the Lowlands and Collegium.

He went nonetheless, because he had no choice and no options.

He found Drephos lying back on the very chair that Totho himself had been secured to, when he first regained consciousness after the raid. It was a complex thing, that chair, and now it moved smoothly, the panels of the back pushing in and out with metal fingers, steam venting from the sides. Drephos had explained earlier how he suffered from particular back pains, so had been forced to devise his own relief. His first love remained the artifice of war but he was not slow in attending to his own comforts.

Kaszaat waited at the rear of the tent but did not meet Totho’s gaze.

Drephos opened one eye, and made a signal to the Fly, who darted outside again. The chair made a particularly complex sound and he groaned.

‘Bear with me,’ he said. ‘I am particularly out of sorts this morning.’

The man was not well, and indeed was not entirely whole. He limped when he walked and the arm he kept hidden behind metal must be injured in some way. Totho wondered which of his own inventions had turned on him, or whether this had been the work of his imperial masters.

‘You have a visitor,’ Drephos announced, although Totho could barely hear him over the chair and he had to repeat himself.

‘A visitor?’ Totho looked blank.

Drephos signalled to Kaszaat, who stepped over to the chair and drew the pressure from the boiler, sending steam venting out in hot clouds that forced Totho to stand well back. From that swiftly dispersing mist, Drephos finally emerged, pulling his hood up to shadow his blemished features.

‘But look, here he is now.’ The master artificer pointed, and Totho followed his finger to see a small figure being hustled in by a pair of Wasp soldiers. It was a Fly-kinden man, bald and lumpy-faced.

‘Nero!’ Totho exclaimed, noticing the Fly was not bound but neither was he free, for the soldiers were keeping a very close eye on him. He smiled grimly as he saw Totho, but there were mottled bruises across one side of his face and one eye was swollen almost shut.

‘Morning to you,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad to see you. Apparently you may be in a position to vouch for me.’

Drephos interrupted. ‘Who is this man, Totho?’

‘He’s a friend,’ Totho began, and then realized that this was imprecise. ‘He’s an old friend of. a College Master who was a good friend to me.’ Sudden inspiration struck. ‘He’s an artist, in fact, and I think he’s quite well known. We met in Tark,’ he added lamely.

‘You think he’s quite a well-known one?’ Drephos sounded amused. ‘How well known can he be, if you only think it?’

‘I don’t know about art,’ said Totho stubbornly. ‘And I don’t know why he’s here, either.’ He turned to the Fly-kinden. ‘Were you captured in the assault?’

‘Not exactly.’ Nero’s wan smile remained. ‘I came here to find out what had happened to you, as a matter of fact.’

‘Something which the soldiers who captured him did not quite understand,’ Drephos explained. ‘However, he kept repeating your name and eventually word came through to me.’

‘Since when the quality of hospitality around here has definitely improved,’ Nero put in, rubbing his wrists for emphasis. ‘Well, here’s a decent sight. You came through without a scratch, it seems.’

‘Without more than a lump,’ Totho confirmed. ‘But why did you come here? They could easily have killed you.’

Nero shrugged off the risks of it, but the gesture was unconvincing. He had not wanted to come, Totho could sense, yet he had been forced to, and by what other than his own conscience? ‘My old friend Sten, you see, we go way back,’ he said, sounding almost embarrassed about it. ‘We’ve been through a lot, him and me, what with the College and all.’ He glanced at Drephos. ‘Stop me if this is getting too sentimental or unmilitary for you.’

‘Say all you want, Master Nero. Knowledge is never wasted,’ said the Colonel-Auxillian.

‘Well then, there was a caper that Stenwold and the others went in for, a long time ago, pretty much the last — the second to last, really — that we did together back then. It’s history now, but it involved these fellows.’ He jerked a thumb back at the Wasp soldiers nearby. ‘And it was too hot for me. I bugged out of there quick enough, told him it wasn’t for me. I missed the fun, and then things went sour. Lost one good friend, and another died soon after. And I never forgot how I left them to it, because I didn’t like the odds. I know people think my kinden are a spineless bunch, and mostly they’re right, but it still didn’t sit well. Then, when you and the lad there turned up in Tark, I told myself I’d look after you, keep you on track. And a right job I made of that, too. So here I am still trying to put things right.’