Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

‘It is him, isn’t it?’ the other woman remarked, apropos of nothing. ‘I don’t know the sickly one, but your other man, that’s definitely… oh, what’s his name?’ And finally she glanced at Che, as if looking for help.

And Che had always been helpful. ‘Thalric,’ she supplied automatically, and found that mentioning the name opened up a whole world of other memories, unwelcome because she should now have been safe from them. But none of that has happened yet, and, as she thought that, she felt the world around her unravelling, unable to retain its integrity in the face of her returning knowledge.

No – it’s Achaeos! But instantly she felt embarrassed, caught pretending ignorance, when all the time she knew it was not her dead lover. She could not live this over again. It was false- A solid catapulted stone thundered down nearby, indicating that the Wasp artillerists positioned on the roof of the governor’s palace had finished moving the piece into place. Their angle of attack was awkward, but it still showered the nearest Mynans with sharp chips of masonry. Che shrank back, throwing an arm up, even though none of the fragments came anywhere near her.

Kymene stalked past just then, a retinue of self-appointed junior officers trailing after her. The night was dragging on, and the Wasps occupying the palace remained stubborn in their resistance. Everyone knew that Imperial reinforcements were on their way, and if there were still Wasp soldiers within the city when they arrived then the revolution that everyone had fought so hard for would be caught between the two, and most likely crushed.

Another detachment of Mynans was forming up, getting ready to rush the gates. The great doors to the palace were already gone, but the Wasps had put up a makeshift barricade, and were holding there with crossbow, spear and sting. The Mynans massively outnumbered them, but the Imperial defensive position was formidable. A dozen similar assaults had already been thrown back. Che stared at the citizens readying themselves for the push: men and women of all ages from mere youths to white-haired veterans, and most of them wearing either captured Wasp armour or the old black-and-red Mynan breastplates and peaked helms. The front half held triangular shields, the rear had a motley collection of crossbows. They were not trained soldiers, but then Myna had been occupied and enslaved for almost twenty years. These men and women were tough, bitter street fighters who had cut their teeth during the resistance, but this now was a soldier’s job, and they were not trained for it. And even professional soldiers might have balked at the task that awaited them.

One of them stepped out of the line: not a Mynan, this one, but some kind of muddied halfbreed woman not much older than Che herself.

‘At first I thought this was before the war, but you’re too young for that,’ she observed, approaching Che with her hands behind her back, as if the scene about her was intended merely for her personal amusement. ‘I suppose the Empire has been fighting all manner of people elsewhere, but in the Commonweal it’s almost impossible to get any news of it.’

‘Commonweal?’ Che eyed her blankly, but even as she said it there were new thoughts trickling into her mind. Yes, I will travel to the Commonweal, but that’s later, much later, and with that thought she was forced to accept that all of this, all the frenzy and bravery of the Mynan resistance, was history.

‘I charged the gates,’ Che murmured, recalling the moment in awe. She looked at the strange woman, who was holding a hand out to her.

There was pain, concealed in the palm of that hand, and Che wanted none of it. She turned away.

In Solarno, the angry crowd surged back and forth, the supporters of the Crystal Standard and Satin Trail parties shouting slogans, clashing messily with their slender, curved swords. Che had backed away as far as she could from them, waiting for the moment when this angry demonstration of Solarnese government-by-mob would flow over the low wall of the taverna and wash her away. But the fight flowed back and forth, prowling about the wall’s edge like a hungry animal, repeating the same round of violence over and over, and she knew she could wait for ever, the world trapped in amber, and be safe.

‘You Lowlanders live lives of such violence,’ the strange half-breed woman remarked. ‘Cheerwell Maker, come to me.’

The sight of her filled Che with a nameless fear and she turned away, searching for somewhere…

It was quiet here in the farmhouse cellar, and she could almost believe there was no army camped above. A few tens of thousands of Wasp-kinden and their Auxillians, but she would hardly have guessed at their presence had she not been their prisoner.

On the morrow no doubt they would question her, torture her most likely, but she had all night to think about that, and ‘all night’ could last as long as she wished, this little moment of shadowed calm stretching out indefinitely.

It was a strange place to find sanctuary, but she could not fault it.

This will do, she decided, and then the door above opened, and a solitary figure was stepping down into the dark. She thought it was Totho, at first, as it should have been, but instead it was- The jolt of recognition was physical this time. That same halfbreed, the woman Che had never met, and yet who seemed to be acquiring a grim inevitability.

‘Cheerwell Maker, listen to me,’ the woman started, but Che did not want to listen to her. There must be somewhere…

The Prowess Forum was well attended today – some favourites were listed to fight and the connoisseurs of the amateur game were looking forward to some interesting matches. None of which will involve me, Che reflected, and the thought was reassuring. I am nothing special here. Nobody will trouble me. Eventually they would call upon her to fight, of course, and she would match swords with the clumsy nephew of some Collegium magnate, and she would lose, of course, and be mortified at letting her friends down. The thought now brought nothing more than a wry smile to her face: back when the trivial had mattered.

I will hold time still here. In the Prowess Forum, with her friends about her, and the stern Ant-kinden Master Kymon just stepping out into the circle, many months before he would end his life transfixed by a Vekken crossbow bolt.

She smiled, and took a seat on the lowest step of the tiered stone benches. How little she knew, how young she was! Whatever joy the future held, the hours took more than they gave, in the end.

‘I have no idea where this is, now,’ said a woman sitting beside her. For a moment Che felt a surge of outrage and horror: her, here? But the sensation was gone almost as soon as it had arrived, for she was home, here, ignorant and safe.

The halfbreed woman had stood up, and was gazing over at Che’s fellow duellists. Her accent had been oddly familiar, Che decided.

‘Excuse me, but are you a Commonwealer?’ she asked timidly.

‘I have that honour,’ the woman replied. ‘My name is Maure and you are Cheerwell Maker.’

Che blinked, fighting down a queasy feeling of discontinuity. ‘Are you a friend of Salma’s?’ she asked. ‘Salme Dien, that is.’

Maure’s eyes flicked towards the elegant Dragonfly youth preparing to meet his opponent. ‘Ah, no – but I know of him.’ She seemed sad about that, and Che had to forcibly prevent herself from remembering why that might be.

She realized she was desperate to make the woman go away, but at the same time she was meek Cheerwell Maker, who was always polite and had never really been hurt. She clung to that. It was all that was left between her and the storm.

‘I am sent to be your guide, Cheerwell Maker,’ Maure stated.