Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

And then she was being shaken, only gently but she snapped out of her dreams with one hand fumbling for her sword. The paper, had there ever been one, was gone.

‘What is it? Is it Thalric?’ she gasped, but then she recalled she was a prisoner no longer. They were in the shadow of the Darakyon, with the lights of Asta visible now to the south, and just last evening Salma had gone to follow the army to Tark with Skrill as his guide.

Her eyes finally obliged and the night grew pale for her — and there was Achaeos kneeling beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

‘What is it? Is it my watch now?’

‘Your sister is still on watch,’ he said, which, because they were plainly not sisters, oddly touched her.

She sat up, looking about. ‘What is it, then?’ Tynisa was indeed sitting alert on a hummock near the forest’s edge and, without her Art, Che would never have been able to see her.

‘I need to take you somewhere,’ Achaeos whispered.

She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Oh yes?’

‘I cannot say where it is, what it is, only that it is something that I need you to see.’

‘If I knew in advance, I wouldn’t go, is that it?’

‘It is.’ He said without shame. ‘Will you come with me?’

And in that was weighed the question: how far did she trust him? Was there some slaver or Wasp agent waiting there within the dark wood? What did she really know about this grey-skinned man with his strange beliefs and his unreadable eyes?

She rubbed her own eyes, stood up and threw her cloak over her shoulders against the night’s chill, then buckled on her baldric, the sword tapping against her leg like some familiar trained animal. She had been separated from it too long.

‘I will trust you,’ she decided, and he led her to the edge of the wood.

Tynisa watched them approach cautiously. ‘Che, you shouldn’t go with him if you don’t want to,’ she said.

‘It’s all right, I. . I want to.’

‘Well just shout if there’s any trouble.’ There seemed more to this warning than Achaeos taking liberties or even servants of the Empire lying in wait. Che frowned, but even as she opened her mouth to reply a shadow was looming beside her, making her squeak with fright.

‘Are you ready?’ asked Tisamon.

‘We are,’ Achaeos replied.

‘He’s coming too?’ Che asked, and the Moth nodded so very seriously.

‘We need him. We would not be safe without him. Not even I.’

‘Achaeos, what’s going on?’

‘I cannot tell you. Until you yourself have seen, you would not understand.’

Even to her enhanced vision, the Darakyon was dark. She wondered that Tisamon, padding ahead, could see anything, and she saw him keep one hand out ahead of him, brushing the bark of the old trees, as though he was making his way by touch combined with some other sense she had no concept of.

She decided that she was not fond of this forest, or forests in general — at least at night. It was filled with the sounds of small things, and not so small things, and at every step she made something, somewhere nearby, twitched. Achaeos’s hooded form was making its way resolutely ahead and being left behind would be even worse.

And then Tisamon had stopped and she saw his claw was on his hand, though she had not seen him don and buckle it.

‘I have returned,’ said Achaeos, and he announced it to the air and to the trees. ‘You know me, and your power marks me still.’

He had gone mad, that was clear enough, and she glanced worriedly at Tisamon. She saw him cock his head and it was a moment before she identified this as the reaction of someone listening .

‘I have brought her because I wanted her to see you,’ Achaeos continued and then, after a pause. ‘My reasons are my own.’

It seemed to her that a sudden breeze gusted through the trees, and shook the leaves a little.

‘I have no more favours, and besides,’ Achaeos said, ‘what could I offer, who am already bound?’

Che shook her head, reaching out to tap his shoulder, as if to demand the reason for this performance. The wind was becoming more insistent, gusting and then falling in irregular patterns. Unexpectedly, Tisamon’s hand encircled her wrist, drawing her hand away from the Moth’s shoulder.

‘Whatever you can ask of me, ask it,’ said Achaeos, but his voice trembled as he spoke.

And she heard . The rustle of the trees, the whisper of leaves, insects scraping in the night. A hundred natural sounds, but together they formed a voice. If she listened very carefully, they were a voice.

Heart and soul, blood and bone, mind and will, what would you give?

A whimper escaped her, and had it not been for Tisamon’s hand on her, she would have slid to the ground.

You return to us, little neophyte, with your prize and your temerity. What will we ask? Go and grow. Become great. Don Skryre’s robes and learn the secrets. Go to the ends of the earth if you will. But always know you are bound, bound to us, to our destiny, go you ever so far. One day, in a shadow, in a mirror, in the face of the waters, you shall see us, and we shall ask of you, and that time shall be soon.

‘Achaeos?’ she said, her voice reed-thin with fright.

‘You see them?’ His voice was soft, like that of a hunter who dares not take his eyes from his prey.

‘See? No, but I can hear. There are voices, Achaeos. Who else is here?’

‘Your eyes can cut the dark like mine can, Che. I want you to see .’

She looked around wildly, but there was no one there and, besides, nobody, no ordinary human being, could have given that voice life.

Tisamon , the composite voice of the forest spoke, and the Mantis let go of her and straightened up. Still there was nobody visible between the boles of the dark trees.

Tisamon , it said again, you have been altered since last you passed within these halls.

It shocked her that the Mantis, the most intimidating man she had ever met, gave a soft exhalation of fear.

You were Tisamon the Hollow Man when east you went. Now you are Tisamon of the Purpose. But your purpose is clouded to us, Tisamon. As clouded as it is to you yourself. Do you mean to send the girl into a better future, or weight her with the past?

Tisamon made no answer, but she saw his teeth were bared, his eyes fixed on something ahead. She followed that riveted gaze, and saw .

She collapsed then, hiding her eyes from them. There were so many of them, a score at least, and they were hideous. They were composed of smooth chitin and barbed spines, and knotted bark and thorns and twisted briars, and yet they were human beings, Mantis-kinden features as like to Tisamon’s as to be family. And their eyes were huge, and they stared and stared.

She had only a brief glimpse of them before she wrenched her head aside, but the image, the sight of them, would stay with her for all her remaining days.

Then she felt Achaeos’s hands on her shoulders, heard his voice, low and comforting, and she found that she clung to him because she had nothing else.

‘What are they? Why did you bring me here? Why? ’

‘This is the ghost story in the night, Che. This is the dream that is there when you wake. This is the worst of dark magic. And I want you to believe, Che. You must believe .’

She now had her face pressed into his chest, for fear of what she might see beyond him. ‘I can’t believe. I can’t have a world with such things in it. Please-’

‘And tomorrow you will tell yourself they were just men in costume, or that you saw them unclearly, or that you merely dreamt them, but I want you to remember this, Che. You must remember that what you have seen is real, and cannot be explained away.’