Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

He was, however, aware that Che did not seek revenge, because Che was not Wasp-kinden, or Mantis-kinden, or even Spider-kinden. Her people did not place such a premium on personal honour. Moreover, Che saw the world very differently even from the bulk of her own people, for she suffered under a peculiar curse that had fallen upon her at the end of the war.

When Achaeos died, Thalric reflected uncomfortably, trying to dismiss any possible connection between the two. Still, the thoughts hounded him: When Achaeos died, when Tisamon died… why do I believe there is a link?

Che had then lost her Aptitude. She had lost that world of reason and mechanics and light that was her birthright, and instead she was groping through a new world of charlatanry and ignorance, living off scraps of esoteric knowledge left over from the Days of Lore. That Che’s new viewpoint had saved both her and Thalric more than once was something he was unhappy to consider, but that he could not avoid acknowledging. This thought was a grain of sand in his mind that no amount of explanation could turn into a pearl.

There was only one other person that Thalric could name who had suffered the same reversal, and the fact that she had done so was a closely guarded secret. Seda, Empress of the Wasps, was likewise become Inapt, and on nights like these, when sleep kept its distance from him, he was forced to confront that curious web of interdependence: Che and the dead man Achaeos, Seda and the dead man Tisamon. Why do I feel they are linked? Why? There could be no connection, and yet some part of him remained sure of it, beyond any rational argument.

And now Che is asking me questions about the Empress? Thalric sat before their guttering fire, Che sleeping beside him, Varmen snoring gently on the far side of it. He felt as though the night was full of huge, monolithic things moving silently but massively, coming together to built some terrible edifice that he would be afraid to look upon.

I should leave, he told himself, not for the first time. Che is not in her right mind. This entire business is madness.

But he made no move to go, just looked down at her face in the firelight. We have travelled a long road together, since my men caught you in Helleron, he considered. We shall walk a few miles more in each other’s company. Why not?

She shifted and twitched in her slumber, and he felt an unplaceable sense of danger.

Be careful what you dream of, Che.

Gathering information in Khanaphes was like reaching into briars, a delicate and unrewarding business. Amnon himself could have gone and spoken to a hundred people who would remember him as First Soldier, as saviour of their city, but each one of them was still tied by invisible, unbreakable strings of responsibility and duty that led all the way to the Ministers. That the Empress had been welcomed, and more than welcomed, suggested that a former First Soldier asking awkward questions might become an inconvenience. Without knowing precisely what game Ethmet and the others were playing, Amnon was loath to announce his presence in the city. It was not fear of the Wasps, Praeda knew, but fear of having to go up against his own people, those loyal servants of the city whom he had formerly led into battle.

Besides, the general feel about the city’s populace was one of bafflement. Khanaphes’ dealings with outsiders had not changed in centuries. Even the disastrous assault recently by the Scorpion-kinden had fitted a particular pattern: the Many of Nem had always been the city’s enemies, after all, and it was only a matter of degree. The sudden imposition of an Imperial garrison on the city, the obeisance of the Ministers, the utter lack of reaction or statement from the Khanaphir administration, had left the people at large unsure of precisely what was happening. Patterns had been broken, but in a way that demanded no immediate reaction from them. Instead they were very pointedly going about their business as if nothing had happened, paying the Imperial troops as little notice as possible, and yet cooperating with them abjectly whenever they were forced to acknowledge the invaders’ presence. Amnon and Praeda witnessed several examples of the Wasps taking their customary liberties with a subject population: goods taken from merchants, insults and beatings inflicted on locals who got in the way or looked at the soldiers too boldly, spontaneous and seemingly random arrests. Throughout it all, the Khanaphir simply bowed their heads, following the example of their Ministers and presenting their backs for the lash, as docile as broken slaves. This sheer calm acceptance of it all was plainly thwarting the Wasps’ natural instincts. They had come here ready for a fight, assuming that the Khanaphir would resist, however primitive their methods. Instead the city had fallen into their hands pre-subjugated. They did not know what to do, and their expressions, as they castigated some cringing, wretched porter or servant, were almost embarrassed – apologetic for the duties forced on them by Imperial policy.

If not from the Khanaphir themselves, Amnon and Praeda still needed some source of intelligence, and there remained a body of people in the city who were very keenly interested in what the Empire might be planning. In the inns and open houses by the Estuarine Gate, they found the foreigners: sailors, merchants, adventurers and mercenaries who had not been thrown out by the Wasps, yet, nor crept or bribed their way out of the city. They were waiting to see what happened, tied to the place either by their investments, their optimism or their curiosity. Praeda and Amnon’s appearance in their midst raised no questions, and it was plain that, while asking questions about the Wasps was an accepted custom, asking questions about the questioners was not.

After trying a few places, with Praeda doing most of the talking, they fell in with the right kind of company, meaning people that no self-respecting scholar of the College would have had anything to do with back home. As evening fell, they found themselves sharing a table with a trio of reprobates all evaluating their current fortunes, namely the merits and drawbacks of being stuck in occupied Khanaphes. There was a battered and ill-used-looking Fly-kinden man, sun-beaten and balding, who never quite admitted that he made a living by robbing the ruins of the Nem, but Amnon plainly knew the type, and would have disapproved furiously had he been in any position of authority any more. A Spider-kinden woman was also some manner of adventuress, not young and yet somehow ageless, the worn hilt of the rapier at her hip testifying to her chosen method of resolving disputes. The third was a Solarnese man, a publicly declared trader in gems and jewellery, or a smuggler when read between the lines. The three of them were plainly well matched, with enough petty villainy between them to give any number of Wasp-kinden pause for thought. Worse, they were waiting for a fourth who must surely be even more of a rogue than themselves, but they were not averse to Praeda and Amnon’s company while they passed the time and drank and talked politics.

‘It’s the same every time,’ the Solarnese merchant was holding forth. ‘Must be standard practice for the Jaspers. As soon as they’ve seized a place they go into a frenzy of imposing laws, curfews, taxes, all that, but never reliably. Sometimes you can get away with murder; other times they’ll throw you in a cell for sneezing. When Solarno fell, it was an absolute lottery: some real crooks were let in to moor at the high-end piers – without bribes, too – while respectable Spider-kinden traders got turned away as though they were plague ships.’

‘Keeps people off balance,’ the Spider considered. ‘Makes them fear. Still, you can only do that for so long. At the start, if people are getting arrested for the slightest reason, or no reason, they’ll toe the line. After a month, they’ll just think they have nothing to lose.’