Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

‘Make your test, then,’ she told him. ‘What must I do? Run? Jump? Do you wish me to sing to you, monster?’

‘My test has already begun. I simply require you to watch me and listen. I will know, after I am done, whether you are my suitable material or not.’

‘But all you’ve done so far is light candles…’ she observed.

‘Yes, so many candles.’ He moved about the room, seemingly aimless. The myriad darts of light confused her eyes. It was impossible to even tell where the walls were now, such was the multiplication of reflections. Surely he had stepped beyond this room somehow, she kept thinking, but then he would turn, and she had to take it on faith that there was a wall there that had turned him.

He was reflected alongside the constellations of candle-flames, of course, but as she watched she felt her stomach start to turn, because she could not quite match them to him, some were too far, others too near. ‘Sarcad…’ she whispered, ‘what are you doing?’

‘Magic,’ and he continued his pacing. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘Of course I hear you,’ she said, and felt that, even as she spoke, her words were covering some other voice that had given answer to the same question.

‘We are at the crux,’ Uctebri said, and she was surer than ever that he was not actually talking to her. ‘Come now. Make yourselves apparent.’ His tone was still low, almost conversational. Shrouded in his dark robe he seemed to appear and disappear as he turned towards and away from her, his face pale in the candlelight, until she had lost track of which was the real Uctebri, and which were merely the reflections.

The reflections…

She concentrated her gaze on the marble of the floor beneath her because it was the one keepsake left of the room she had walked into. She had only the hard sense of it beneath her feet, for her eyes now saw just a distant perspective of lights and darkness and the scrawny faces of the Mosquito-kinden, and her ears told her that the space about her was vast, with distant, forlorn winds channelling forever through twisted passages…

The reflections were all solely of him . There were none of her at all.

‘Be not shy,’ Uctebri murmured. ‘We must risk much so as to gain more. Come to me. Come now .’

The nearest reflection turned to regard her, and she realized that it was not Uctebri at all. The neck was thinner, and there was a wisp of beard on its wrinkled chin. An older man of the same race, with the same blood-red and protuberant eyes. Some others lacked Uctebri’s blotchy birthmark, and some, she saw, were haggard old women, as vile and balding as their menfolk. One by one they had all turned, and now every face there was staring at her, and she could not have picked Uctebri out from among them. The massed malevolence of that gaze, a score of desiccated, red-eyed monsters, rocked her and chilled her to the bone, but still she faced up to them. She stood her ground. If she fled now, she would, she knew, find herself beyond the stone room’s vanished walls, never to be seen again.

‘She sees us,’ one of the Mosquitoes declared.

‘Yes,’ said another, one that she recognized a moment later as Uctebri himself. ‘Yes, she does.’ His tone was one of relief, and she knew then that she had passed his test.

‘What…?’ Her voice came out as a croak, so she swallowed and spoke again. ‘What does this mean?’

‘That you have entered our world,’ said another voice. Between the flickering light and the sheer number of them she could not discern who had spoken. ‘That we can make use of you.’

‘I have no wish to be made use ,’ she told them. ‘I am no tool of yours.’

‘Yes, she will do well,’ said one of the women. ‘Your judgment is sound as ever, Uctebri.’

‘What does she know? How much have you told her?’ asked another, suspiciously.

‘Enough. Only what she needs to know,’ Uctebri said. ‘I intend to show her more, though. She can do more of her own will than when forced, but for that we must allow her a freer rein.’

‘You have the ear of their Emperor ,’ said one, using the word with outright derision.

‘And I know what sound will best reach it,’ Uctebri said drily, from wherever he was. ‘I have an errand for some servant of ours, whoever is best placed to travel to Szar.’

‘The Bee-kinden city? Why should those primitives concern us?’

‘Oh, no great matter,’ Uctebri said, and at last Seda saw him clearly amongst the ranks of his peers, ‘save that there is some small piece of news they had best know.’

The messenger almost fell from his horse as he reached the Skiel barracks. Guards were already moving in on him, shouting out challenges. He tumbled to his knees, one closed hand out to forestall them. He had been riding for days and nights.

‘Identify yourself!’ the watch sergeant snapped again – but now he was close enough to add ‘Sir,’ on seeing a lieutenant’s insignia.

The messenger fumbled inside his tunic, coming out with a folded paper, thrusting it at the sergeant. The man took it wordlessly, beckoning a lantern over to read it by. A moment later he swore to himself and hurriedly handed the paper back. The lieutenant nodded, swaying slightly with fatigue.

‘Get the horse stabled,’ the sergeant called out. ‘Get this man somewhere to sit down, something to eat and drink. Send a message to the colonel – the new colonel, you know who I mean – and tell him there’s word for him.’

The messenger let himself be escorted to the barracks mess hall, empty at this hour. He took a bowl of the wine they offered, ignored the lukewarm stew. These had been the worst few days of his life: not the ride itself, since he was trained for that, but there had been those who had done their best to stop him in the surest way. He was bringing word that they had tried to keep secret, and here he was, at last, in the same building as the man they were trying to keep it secret from.

A soldier clattered in, saluting him. ‘The colonel will see you right away, sir.’

The messenger nodded, drained his bowl and slapped it down on the table. He was about to be let into the presence of a great man, a man he had worked for most of his professional life, and never seen. Dire times made for great opportunities. He followed the soldier out of the room and upstairs into the officers’ quarters, and deeper in still, up through the ranks, up the ladder of prestige.

He was finally led in. Before him, at the desk, sat the man he had never met before, and unmistakable for all of that: a thin man fit for a harsh season.

The guest quarters in the garrison barracks of Skiel were warm enough, a fire banked high and shutters closed against the cold. A meal was already spread out for the man, cooling slowly, the food barely sampled and the wine untasted. From the look of him, though, one would think him cold and starved. He sat in a high-armed chair, at a desk on which four pieces of paper were laid out neatly one beside the other. He could have been a clerk, perhaps, some mere servant or functionary.

Save that these were the quarters reserved only for the garrison commander’s most honoured guests – honoured, in this case, meaning most powerful.

His face was lean as a hatchet-blade. Men had dreaded that face, in their time. Some still did. In the past, dread was simply something that it inspired, but just now, there was a hint of the emotion on those same lean features.

He was a general, after all, and there was a war on – but there was always a war on. The Empire was forever expanding, or consolidating, but that was not the struggle that concerned him. The Empire was young, therefore its hierarchies and loci of power were not quite settled. By the end of the reign of Emperor Alvdan II, long might he last, they would be finally determined, and either this man would then stand beside the throne or his enemies would.