Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

Freed from the cells, their first look at the streets of free Myna had not been inspiring. Life under the Imperial boot had taught harsh lessons to the Mynan people, which would not soon be unlearned. There were plenty of weapons on display, and soldiers drilling with sword and crossbow, and even a few of the new snapbows that had made such an impact during the war. The red and black flag of Myna was displayed everywhere, as though people were afraid it might be taken away from them again. Non-Mynans were regarded on a sliding scale of suspicion. The Ant-kinden of Maynes and the Bees of Szar were tolerated, as they represented Myna’s neighbours in its Three-State Alliance. Others, like Che, were treated coldly, as though every one of them was suspected of being a Rekef infiltrator. Thalric had resorted to a hooded cloak, but was still stopped several times by guards, to be searched, questioned and insulted. The papers Kymene had provided were pored over, creased, frowned at. The Mynans would take a long time to grow easy with their new freedom, and Che only hoped that such time would be granted to them.

Since their release they had found their own lodgings in the city. Thalric’s gold had sufficed to get them a room, but it was a dwindling resource that they needed to save for other tasks, and so this single chamber, this one bed, was all they felt able to afford.

Sleeping beside Thalric was a strange experience. Achaeos had slept quiet and still, breathing so softly she could hardly tell he was there. Thalric seemed to take up all available space, and in the darkest pit of the night he would twitch and start, pursued by all the bad dreams that his varied career had gifted him with.

Sleeping beside him was all that had happened, so far. Twice now they had come close to something else but, like a ship’s master suddenly seeing hidden rocks, she had steered away from it. She was a little scared of him, and feared what his effect on her would be. And then there was Achaeos, poor dead Achaeos, whose ghost she had been trying to exorcise ever since his death during the war. The revelation that the spectre that had formerly tormented her had not been his at all had not driven away that host of memories. The greater part of her felt that she was teetering over of an abyss of guilt, and that to give in to Thalric’s wishes would be to fall.

And the rest of her, a minority vote, wanted to jump just so she could be rid of this burden of propriety that was tying her in knots. Would Achaeos truly have wanted me to be chained to his corpse for ever?

The obvious riposte to that was: Achaeos would not under any circumstances have ever wanted to see me with Thalric.

They hit the streets early, leaning into those ubiquitous hostile stares as though into inclement weather. They managed to get a street away from the boarding house before the first guard stopped them for their papers. Looking into the man’s face, Che had a sudden revelation: not hatred, not loathing, not a lust for vengeance, but fear. The man now staring at Kymene’s signature was of Che’s own age. He had never known his city be free, until the uprising a few years back. It must seem that the least breath of air could snatch it away from him.

The guard had turned away, his initial interest subsiding into mere dislike, and in that instant Che had stumbled, leaning for support against Thalric, conscious of a ripple passing through the people around her, as they shrank away from her as though she had the plague.

‘Che, what…?’ Thalric had been asking, but she had only stared: bright sunlight, not Myna’s overcast skies; a beating heat she recognized. And the stone walls inscribed with legion upon legion of tiny carvings, spilling a thousand years of history across every surface…

Khanaphes.

And for a moment there had been a Beetle woman staring at her from amid the Mynan crowd, clad in Khanaphir peasant dress but with a Collegiate face. Praeda…?

And Thalric was virtually shaking her, as the crowd ebbed back from them, and there were guards approaching, so they would be arrested again, or worse, if she did not…

‘I’m fine.’ She felt anything but fine, though. Each night she woke to find shards of her dreams scattered about her like broken glass. Ever since Khanaphes, where she had been changed. Ever since awaking into the presence of the Masters. She had gone to that city because the war – and Achaeos’s death – had robbed her of her Aptitude, stripped from her the mechanical inheritance of her people, and thrown her into a world of magic she had never entirely believed in. In Khanaphes she had begun to understand, however, and the ancient, callous Masters had taught her more. But more doors had been opened than she knew how to close: her mind was leaking visions every night, fleeting and unremembered, just bright but receding shards inside her mind as she awoke. But this… never before in daylight, not like this.

She never remembered those dreams, save for one thing: they were dreams of Khanaphes.

‘Let’s move,’ she said shakily, wanting to lose herself in a crowd that would only reject her.

With the Mynan authorities unwilling or unable to help them further, she and Thalric had fallen back on an old acquaintance. Hokiak’s Exchange had not been changed much by the city’s liberation. It still possessed the same shabby emporium at the front, a drinking den at the back, and no doubt the same constant flow of smugglers, criminals and fugitives looking to use the old man’s services. Che was vaguely surprised that the new, iron-handed Mynan leadership had not decided to curb their old semi-ally’s practices, but then, no doubt, the ancient Scorpion-kinden had gathered a lot of incriminating information over the years which would be awkward if made public. Whatever the reason, he was apparently still operating as freely as during the Imperial occupation.

The man himself had barely changed, either. Che and Thalric had both encountered a great deal of the Scorpion-kinden in the recent past, in all their hulking and brutal glory. Hokiak was what happened when that glory burned out and withered away. He was a hollow-chested, paunchy, stick-limbed old creature, his white skin wrinkled and baggy, with one thumb claw become nothing but a broken stump. He walked with the aid of a stick, had developed a rasping cough, yet still exercised a remarkable amount of underhand influence over a great many people.

That he remembered Che and Thalric was clear. He did not welcome them effusively, not quite, and indeed the circumstances of their last meeting had been ambivalent to say the least, but something lit up in his yellow eyes when they found their way into his back room after so long.

Perhaps things are quieter here, with the Wasps gone, Che wondered. Perhaps the old man’s getting bored.

‘Well now, who’s this, eh? Maker’s girl, and the Wasp assassin.’ He leered at them through the stumps of his fangs. ‘Trouble coming, is there? For certain there is.’ He used his stick like a lever, prying his laborious way across the room before dropping down into a creaking chair. ‘Come join me,’ he invited. ‘Tell me what trouble you’ve brought us.’

‘No trouble, I hope,’ Che replied, and Hokiak chuckled.

‘They hanged two Beetle-kinden yesterday,’ he remarked, without further explanation.

CheandThalricexchangedglances.‘Whodid?’sheprompted.

‘The militia. Said they were Rekef. For once I believe it. They were asking questions before they were caught, these two stretch-necked fellows. There’s a certain stink off them, more even than normal Rekef, and that stink goes all the way to Capitas.’

‘What questions?’ Thalric asked.

Hokiak’s rotting smile was hideous. ‘You don’t need to ask it, assassin.’