Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

And she had seen . In glimpses, perhaps, and for that she was thankful, but she had caught sight of what still dwelled between the twisted trunks of the Darakyon, in all its hideous, tortured glory, and her world had cracked, and let in something new.

They were almost at the nameless little gambling den by the river, and there were plenty of shadows that could have hidden anything. She allowed her eyes to pierce through them, calling on her Art, but the shiver did not leave her. ‘Are they . have they come here?’ she asked him.

‘No. They could not, I think. But these dreams. they are calling to me. I do not know why, but I will in time.’

They paused at the door, nerving themselves. The Arcanum, mostly in the person of Gaff, the stocky little man of unknown kinden, had not been forthcoming. They had met with him several times, and sometimes with the Mantis Scelae as well, but received only evasion. Now word had come for them. They had been summoned by the Arcanum. Something had changed.

‘Do you think it could be a trap?’ she asked, and he nodded glumly. ‘But these are your people,’ she protested.

‘The Arcanum are not my people,’ he said. ‘They are the political arm of the Skryres, and they have no one leader but serve many in Dorax and Tharn. Much of the time, it is said, they run the personal errands of their masters, who do not always agree. The Arcanum has turned on its own people before now, so why not against us?’

‘What option do we have?’ she asked him.

‘None — but be ready for trouble.’

They saw Gaff as soon as they entered, in the midst of some game of chance. He noticed them too and made hurried apologies to his fellows, leaving money on the table and hurrying over to them.

‘You took your time,’ he grumbled. ‘Come right with me, sir and lady. There’s serious talk to be done.’

He took them into a backroom, heading past the place’s owner, and then into a room beyond, that must have been part of the building adjoining. It was dark in there, a single lamp burning on a desk, and it was crowded. When Gaff had taken his place there was quite a gathering of people ranged there facing them. Che felt her hand drift towards her sword-hilt now, though it would now be of no use.

Half a dozen were Mantis-kinden. Scelae was seated on one corner of the desk while the rest stood, lean and hard men and women watching the newcomers suspiciously. One bore a sword-and-circle pin that recalled Tisamon’s: a Weaponsmaster, then, who would be more than sufficient on her own to blot them out if she chose. Of the other kinden four were Flies, and three of those were robed and cowled like their masters. One was a Commonwealer Dragonfly. There were only three Moths in all that number. An elderly woman sat on the corner of the desk across from Scelae and a young man stood behind her, in an arming jacket with a bandolier of throwing blades strapped across it. Central behind the desk, though, was the obvious cause of all this assembly. He was thin and balding and, taken alone, his grey, hollow face and white eyes did not suggest any great pre-eminence, but Che could almost feel the crackle of authority surrounding him.

‘Master Achaeos of Tharn,’ the man said in a precise voice. ‘Mistress Cheerwell Maker of Collegium. Your recent careers have been quite remarkable. Do you know what we are?’

Che and Achaeos exchanged glances. ‘You represent the Arcanum, Master,’ Achaeos said.

‘We are the Arcanum, as far as its presence in Sarn now stands,’ the balding Moth explained. ‘This is all of us.’

The two newcomers exchanged glances, while the assembled agents watched them implacably.

‘You have come to us spreading warnings about the Wasp Empire. We are, of course, aware of those savages and we have no wish to involve ourselves in their affairs, either as allies or enemies. Still less do we wish to jump to the call of some Beetle magnate. We have retreated from the ugly and violent world that your kinden have built, and we would prefer that to be the end of it.’

And why get everyone together just to tell us this? Che felt her sword-hand twitch, but fought the instinct down. There was more to be said. There had to be.

‘You have no great reputation on Tharn, Achaeos,’ the Moth spymaster said, ‘and few friends either. Your choice of paramour has seen to that. We have no obligation to you, still less to this woman.’

A missed chance for an insult . Che found that she was holding her breath, and let it out carefully.

‘Master, I await your “however”,’ said Achaeos. ‘Or are all of these to be our assassins?’

Scelae smiled at that, and Che saw that she must have been murderess for the Arcanum in her day. The spymaster glanced at her, and then back.

‘We had considered it, but we would not have called you to a meeting for the purpose.’ The shadow of humour twitched over his face. ‘We are not so procedural as that. So here is our “however”, Achaeos. Matters have changed. Information has come to us that has forced our hand, however much we resent it. I have spoken, by our traditional ways, to the Skryres of Dorax. They have called me home to take fuller counsel with them. They have said that we must do what can be done, against these Wasp-kinden — for now, until the circumstances change.’

‘Thank you!’ Che burst out, and he fixed her with a withering stare.

‘Do not presume,’ he told her, ‘that we have any new affection for you or your people. It is the mere chance of our times that we stand together. No more.’

‘Chance or fate,’ she said, and knew immediately that she had overstepped the mark. For a second there was a tension about Scelae that was likely to become an attack, but the spymaster was not so much angry as shaken.

‘Fate,’ he echoed. ‘Fate’s weave has been unclear. ’ His composure seeped back and he shook his head. ‘Scelae shall lead the Arcanum here when I am gone, and what can be done shall be done. Tharn has no armies to set against this Empire, but there is little that eyes that know no darkness cannot see. For the moment, while this lasts, those eyes shall be used to see in your cause.’

It was two days before they discovered what had changed the Arcanum’s mind. Achaeos and Che came back from an errand in the foreigners’ quarter to find a sense of utter despair. Scuto was sitting at the large table in the common room of the taverna they were staying at, with his papers strewn utterly unheeded all about it, and some even on the floor. Beside him was Sperra, looking so ashen that Che thought at first her wounds must have reopened. She was trembling, and if Scuto had been less thorny it seemed she would have been clinging to him. Behind them both, Plius sat like a dead weight in a chair. He had a pipe out and was vainly trying to light it, but his hands shook so much that the little steel lighter kept going out.

‘What’s happened?’ Che asked, and then a terrible thought struck her. ‘Uncle Stenwold! The Vekken? Is he-?’

‘No,’ Scuto said hoarsely. His eyes were red, she saw, and his hands had clasped each other close enough to pinprick bloodspots with his own spines, the only time she had ever seen him injure himself. ‘No fresh news from Collegium.’ In truth news from Collegium was coming in all the time. All day great slow-moving rail automotives had been dragging themselves in at the depot with all those residents of Collegium who could not stay to defend their home. Che had expected people from all walks of life, and indeed there were many foreigners, whose lives in the College City had been measured in a few years only, but most of the refugees were children. They arrived with small bags of food, books, a writing kit and spare clothes, and with little notes telling the Sarnesh who they were. The Queen of Sarn was honouring her city’s ally in its time of need. With typical efficiency the homeless and the lost, all these displaced children, were found lodgings amongst the Ant families of the city.