Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

‘Then the plan failed,’ Achaeos informed them, ‘for the Shadow Box did not go to Helleron,’ He unrolled a somewhat tattered map across the table. Stenwold studied it but could see little there: the colours and shapes made no real match to places and lands that were familiar to him. It was an old map, he knew, prepared by Achaeos’s own kinden when this city was still theirs. Just as Achaeos could not grasp how to fire a crossbow or turn a key in a lock, so Stenwold could not decipher the way the Moths represented distance and places on a page.

‘I have charted the course of this Scylis, or whoever holds the box,’ Achaeos explained, although of his audience only Tisamon could follow his markings. ‘Not to Helleron, in fact, but some severe detour. A detour north and then east, here to Lake Limnia.’

‘Jerez,’ Gaved said instantly.

‘You know it?’

‘I’ve done good business there,’ the Wasp hunter replied. ‘That’s Skater-kinden land: marsh and swamp, bandit and smuggler country. Imperial writ runs thin there and so that’s where the fugitives go, hoping to get into the Commonweal, or even escape over the northern borders.’

‘So tell me,’ Achaeos said, ‘why take the box there? Nobody would go into the Empire just to get out again. Scylis could have gone straight north from here and found a pass into the Commonweal.’

‘The black market,’ Thalric suggested disdainfully. ‘Skater-kinden, degenerate creatures as they are, they thrive on it.’

‘He’s right,’ Gaved confirmed. ‘You can buy almost anything around Jerez.’ He raised his eyebrows at Achaeos. ‘And sell anything, too.’

‘Then we have to go to Jerez,’ Achaeos decided. ‘Now. Today if we can.’

‘Achaeos, it’s inside the Empire,’ Che reminded him.

‘Just a few of us. Myself. Tisamon and Tynisa,’ he told her.

‘Just for some box?’

‘Che, I have never been more serious in my life,’ he said. ‘You were there in the Darakyon. You saw . I made you see. That is what this is about. You have to trust me.’

‘I do trust you but… you can’t wander in and expect to find Scylis just… sitting there on this box, waiting to hand it over. I don’t care how thin imperial law runs there, it’s still the Empire.’

‘Then we shall take a guide,’ the Moth said simply.

Unwillingly, Che found her eyes being dragged down the length of the table towards Thalric. He and Gaved had both been her captors, and she had made her escape from each before they had truly had a chance to make her rue it. She saw the difference between them: Gaved had some quality in him, something that told her he might have handed her over to worse men but not touched her himself. Thalric had merely been putting off the moment when she would have screamed beneath his artificer’s knife, but it would have come sooner or later. His iron sense of duty would have subjected her to such torture without remorse.

Stenwold opened his mouth to issue one of his usual blanket refusals, but it was clear in his face that he was unsure whether being in the Empire without a guide would be worse than being there with one.

‘If he comes with us, I shall watch him,’ Tisamon supplied, ‘and he knows what I will do to him if he betrays us. There is nowhere in the Empire or beyond that will then shelter him.’

‘And I’ll watch him too,’ Che added.

‘No,’ Achaeos said, and she had been so ready for Stenwold to forbid her that it was her uncle she glared at before realizing whose voice had actually spoken.

‘There is nobody I would rather have as my companion,’ the Moth told her, ‘as you know. But this is a task not fit for you. Stealth and secrecy, Che. A handful of us and no more, to find the box as swiftly as we may, then seize it without fail, and return. I would not involve you in this, as I would not bring along Stenwold or the Ant Balkus.’

‘But…’ She looked half angry with him and half aggrieved.

‘Your uncle will have other tasks for you, I am sure,’ he reassured her. ‘We all must play our parts. I am already taking from him two of his closest allies and, Master Maker, you cannot understand why I must do this, but I must. Tisamon has agreed, and Tynisa also, I am told. Will you allow us Thalric? He was a spymaster of the Empire, so he will have ways of hearing things, uncovering things, that we don’t have.’

Stenwold glanced at the ex-Rekef major whose face remained a watchful blank. ‘I am a fairly decent judge of people,’ he said. ‘Remember, I have been in the intelligence game for twenty years, almost: that gives me the right to say no more than that I am a decent enough judge. I do not trust you, Thalric, and I would almost rather have Tisamon kill you here and now than risk your betrayal. I know you will attempt one.’

‘Then you have more foreknowledge of my future than I do,’ Thalric said implacably. ‘What would you have me swear by? I seem to have lost most of the things I used to own.’

‘Gaved,’ Stenwold turned to the Wasp seated at the far end. ‘A word with you.’ He stepped away from the table, far enough that his low tones would be lost to those who waited for him. Gaved rose, his eyes fixed cautiously on Tisamon, and followed him. Stenwold looked him over once more, registering the long greatcoat made of tough leather that had seen patches added and tears stitched up in its time, and noting the burn-scar on his face, the self-consciously unmilitary posture.

‘So you’re a mercenary, indeed?’

‘I try to be.’

‘That can’t be an easy resolution to keep, for a Wasp living inside the Empire.’

Gaved studied him for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. ‘That’s true, and I do work for Empire coin, on matters too shabby for the Rekef and too delicate for the army. But I work for others too, Master Maker, private work, for those that pay: tracing, hunting, finding.’

‘You value your freedom?’

‘All the more for it being hard come by.’

Stenwold shook his head. ‘I had not thought that a Wasp might be just as much a prisoner of the Empire as any of its slaves.’ He met Gaved’s suspicious gaze again. ‘I have a commission for you.’

‘You want me to go after this box?’

Stenwold was watching him closely, watching every blink of his eyes. ‘I have the impression you know the country?’

‘Better than any save the locals. My trade does well there.’

‘I will pay some now, some later, in good coin, if you would go with them, aid them in their task and, most especially, keep an eye on Thalric,’ Stenwold told him.

‘So you trust me, do you?’

‘More than him,’ Stenwold admitted. ‘Once the box is recovered, you can even make your own way home, if you want, although it will mean missing half of your money.’

Gaved took a deep breath. ‘The Empire hired me to find that same trinket, Master Maker. That contract’s dead to me, if you now hire me, but…’ He shrugged, groping for the right words.

‘But how can I know for sure that you won’t sell us out?’ Stenwold finished for him. ‘I had considered myself a fair judge of men of any kinden, and by asking that question you’ve confirmed my judgment.’

Gaved looked away from him back to the group gathered around the table. ‘And your Mantis will kill me if I so much as look at him in a funny way?’

‘Of course,’ Stenwold agreed.

Gaved smiled slightly. It tugged at the burn-scar and did little to enhance his features. ‘You have a deal, then.’

The war with Vek had made many names newly famous in Collegium, but none so comfortable with it as Teornis of the Aldanrael, Spider-kinden Aristos and Lord-Martial of Seldis, whose naval assault had broken the Vekken army, burning their ships and landing his mercenary soldiers along the beaches to drive the Ant-kinden from the city. He had been paraded through the streets in triumph and, though he had been in the company of a great many others, it had been Teornis that the men and women of Collegium had talked about afterwards, especially the women. He was young and handsome and always impeccably dressed.