It came for all of us, Salma thought. We are all grown now We are all grown now. Che, when the Wasps enslaved her and put her before their torture machines. Tynisa when she discovered her birthright. To me on the point of a sword . . . and to Totho here and now. We have put childish things behind us, and look at the world we have grown into. Che, when the Wasps enslaved her and put her before their torture machines. Tynisa when she discovered her birthright. To me on the point of a sword . . . and to Totho here and now. We have put childish things behind us, and look at the world we have grown into.

There were streaks of moisture on Totho's face but he was putting on an angry mask to hide the despair.

I have no right to play the martyr here, nor have I the strength.

'I'm sorry, Totho,' he said softly. 'I hope you find that you have done the right thing.'

Totho had a.s.sumed that the Imperial Fourth Army would be splitting, some to be led west by General Alder and others staying to secure the half-ruined city of Tark. Garrison duty was beneath the Barbs, though, and a new force had come tramping out of the desert following its Scorpion guides. A garrison force, Totho understood, was different to a field army. It contained more auxillians, for one, usually around one man in two, and many of the Wasp-kinden included were veterans who had now earned an easier a.s.signment than open battle. All this he learned from Kaszaat. The garrison was commanded by a governor who was usually also a colonel in the imperial army. Running a garrison was less prestigious than commanding a field army, but having a whole city at one's disposal, she explained, was an unparalleled opportunity for acquiring both power and wealth. More than one general had willingly taken the demotion.

General Alder was not that kind of soldier, however. He was already busy organizing the Fourth to move westwards. Expecting no answer, Totho had enquired of Drephos, and was surprised when the artificer had told him that the plan was very simple.

'The Fly-kinden settlements of Egel and Merro will be invited to avail themselves of imperial protection. There seems little doubt, given the timorous and pragmatic character of the race, that they will accept. Then the army will proceed on to the island city-state, Kes.'

Totho knew that the garrison force had resupplied the Fourth with more than just rations and ammunition. Two dozen battle heliopters had been a.s.sembled on the airfield by the camp, with four hulking carrier heliopters monstrously clumsy machines that could each hold three hundred men in the open cage of its belly. 'These are just to draw out Kes's airpower,' he guessed.

'Quite,' Drephos confirmed. 'We have a few soldiers who could fly all the way from the mainland, but most of them would tire halfway and drop into the sea. So we will ship them over in droves, to die over Kes and to destroy its flying machines and its riding insects and whatever else shall come against them. Then the airships will drop incendiaries upon the Kessen navy, which I believe is formidable, and drop rockbreaker explosives on its sea-wall and its artillery. After that, the city itself will burn and we will begin landing our forces. I estimate that it will take General Alder three times as long to take Kes as it did to take Tark, partly because the city is naturally more defensible, and partly because I shall not be there with him.'

Totho nodded. That seemed only reasonable.

'We shall shortly be embarking on our own journey, however,' Drephos continued, 'so we shall see none of it. I have faith that General Alder will prove his usual mixture of military efficiency and imaginative bankruptcy.' He went striding with his uneven gait back towards his tent. 'First, though, I have something I would like your opinion on, Totho.'

Totho hurried after him. He was forever surprised to find himself so free just to run around. It seemed the black and yellow that he wore was a shield against persecution, for all that he earned plenty of disparaging looks from the Wasps.

In his tent, Drephos had a.s.sembled a little workshop of the most delicate tools Totho had ever seen. There was a grinder for machining metal, a casting ladle and a set of wax moulds, and everything he needed to replace parts and help maintain his devices in the field. Turning, Drephos had something in his hands, long and wrapped in dark cloth, and for once he seemed almost hesitant.

'You are a gifted artificer, Totho,' he said. 'That is, of course, why I plucked you from captivity.'

'At least you hope I am, sir,' Totho said.

'I do not recognize hope hope. Instead I calculate. I gather information,' said Drephos. 'You had on your person certain devices which I guessed were of your own invention, and schematics to incorporate them into a larger plan. A plan that you have never, I would guess, been able to undertake.'

Totho stared at the bundle in his arms and found himself abruptly short of breath. 'Never . . .' he began, then his mouth was sand-dry, all of a sudden. 'What have you done?'

'While you were with your friend, yesterday, and while Kaszaat was making the arrangements for his liberation, I had time to myself, the first spare hour I have had since this siege began. Time weighs heavily on my hands and I hate to be idle, so I took out your plans and did what I could. The results are . . . imperfect. The facilities here are limited. However, I hope it meets with your approval.'

'My . . . ? My approval?' Totho stared into the man's blotched face. 'But, Colonel-Auxillian . . . ?'

'No rank, please, not amongst my cadre at least,' said Drephos. A hard look came into his eyes as they flicked towards the tent-flap. 'Let those outside bandy such words about between themselves. Though we wear their colours we are none of theirs. Indeed, we are greater than them. We are artificers. Call me "Master" if you wish it, as you would your teachers at Collegium, but we are the elite here, and we are above their petty grades and distinctions. And I seek your approval, Totho, because it is your invention therefore your triumph.'

His bare hand whipped the cloth away, and there lay Totho's long-held dream. It was rough, as Drephos said. His air battery possessed a coa.r.s.e grip now, and a long tube extended from it. Much of what he had planned was absent, because he had not included it on his drawings, but it was still there in his head, and the prototype could be improved.

'Does it work?' he asked, and Drephos nodded.

'You'll have the chance to test it, of course, and to improve on it. As I said, we have a journey to make. We are going to h.e.l.leron, Totho.' He held the device out, and Totho took it, wonderingly.

'h.e.l.leron, Master Drephos?'

Drephos was already striding past him. 'Where else should an artificer go when he wishes to work?'

'But h.e.l.leron is-'

'Ours, Totho.' Drephos was now outside, and Totho hurried to join him.

'How?'

'General Alder is about to move west along the coast, but I had word yesterday that General Malkan and the Seventh Army were moving on h.e.l.leron. They should be there by now. By the time we arrive the city shall fly the imperial flag. Imagine it, Totho! The industrial might of h.e.l.leron, all the forges, the foundries, the factories! What could we not do there?' He stopped, abruptly rueful. 'If I were pureblood Wasp-kinden I would have them make me governor. Perhaps I shall anyway. Perhaps Malkan can be prevailed upon. Still, we must do what we can with what we are given.'

And they stepped out again into sight of the airfield and found it had received a visitor, in that short s.p.a.ce of time. The most beautiful flying machine Totho had ever seen was roosting in one corner, well away from the gross bulk of the heliopters. An open lattice of light wooden struts, with twin propellers and immaculately folded wings, it was such a work of light and shadow that it seemed hardly there at all, even in broad daylight, He saw Kaszaat inside it already, checking the clockwork engine that crouched aft. She was wearing heavy robes, he saw, despite the warmth of the day.

'We're going to fly to h.e.l.leron in that?' he asked Drephos.

'I want to waste as little time travelling as possible. Whatever I have here, I will have sent on. h.e.l.leron will have to provide in the meantime, and no doubt it shall do so splendidly.' He reached the flier and ran his metal hand along the imaginary line that would define its flank. 'My beautiful Cloudfarer Cloudfarer, back at last from running the errands of others. She has been ill-treated, but that shall change, for none can fly her as I can.' He was actually smiling, genuine gladness making his face seem something quite alien. Totho realized that all his other smiles had been just in mockery or pretence.

'We shall be in h.e.l.leron in two days, three at the most.

Do you believe that?'

'It hardly seems possible, Master Drephos.'

And the smiled broadened, and lost its warmth. 'But we are artificers, Totho. We shall make it possible.'

Twenty-Four.

In the chasm of silence throughout the stateroom Sperra clasped her hands together to stop herself fidgeting. They were all looking at her, and most of all the stern-faced woman who was enthroned in their centre, so that Sperra felt very small and frightened.

This was all Scuto's fault and she should never have agreed to it. They had been waiting days now for an audience. Plius the milliner had been doing his best but the Queen and much of her court had left the city of Sarn on the very day that Scuto had met with him. Instead, he had secured a brief interview with some minor official at the Royal Court, and that was when the problem had occurred.

'We've waited long enough,' had been Scuto's position. 'I'll go and see this fellow, whoever he is, and we'll squeeze a better audience out of him and pull ourselves up the chain. By the time the Queen's back, we'll be camping out on her doorstep.'

'Scuto,' Plius had said, 'you might want to rethink yourself.' There had been an odd, slightly amused expression on his face.

'What's wrong with the plan?' Scuto had challenged him.

'The plan, nothing. The planner, on the other hand . . .'

Scuto had folded his hook-studded arms. 'What?'

'Listen to me,' Plius had said. 'I've done my level best to get you this far, and you are not going to ruin it by going in there and being . . . well how can I put this, Scuto? By being all ugly and spiny.'

'Now, you listen here. I know I ain't any picture, but-'

'Scuto, you've been working where? In the slums of h.e.l.leron? And why's that? I know you're a decent grade of artificer,' Plius said. 'So why not get in with the magnates, the propertied cla.s.ses? No, you're not that kind of fellow, Scuto. And this isn't some h.e.l.leron mining baron here, this is the Queen of Sarn. And she won't want to see you you because, let's face it, no sane person would. And she won't want to see me either, because as an Ant late of Tseni stock I'm barely welcome even in the foreigners' quarter, never mind how things're supposed to have changed round here. So what's your move, Scuto?' because, let's face it, no sane person would. And she won't want to see me either, because as an Ant late of Tseni stock I'm barely welcome even in the foreigners' quarter, never mind how things're supposed to have changed round here. So what's your move, Scuto?'

And then he and Scuto had turned and looked at Sperra, but she had refused. She had flat-out refused, protested, complained and objected and, at the end of the day, she had found herself going to meet with a dismissive Ant officer who had sneered down at her because she was a Fly and a foreigner. The next day there had been a better officer who had been sympathetic, but unhelpful, and then there had been a commander who seemed to have something to do with the Royal Court, but very little time. Then there had been a smiling woman, who Sperra had later discovered was a commander involved in counterintelligence, and who had suspected her of being a spy, although spying for whom, Sperra never found out. In any event their conversation had been manipulated so carefully that Sperra realized that she had learned nothing new at all and told everything that she knew, just about.

And then the next day half a dozen soldiers had marched her to the Royal Court, which was where she had been trying to get to all along, but at that moment decided she would rather avoid. She had spent two hours waiting to talk to a serious-faced Ant-kinden who was one of the Queen's tacticians, therefore the highest of the high amongst the city-states. She spoke to him for a full ten minutes, but he seemed not in the least interested in what she had to say. Instead, he quizzed her about the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on the Queen.

That was the first she had heard about it, and her surprise must have seemed genuine enough because he did not question her for long. She understood that, whilst the Queen was out hunting with her bodyguards and some of her court, there had been a surprise encounter with a pair of Vekken crossbowmen. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sins had died resisting capture and understandably everyone was concerned to know what this was all about.

At around that same time the news had come to Sarn that the Vekken were indeed on the march, but that Collegium was their objective. Since then Sarn had been in an uproar, mustering its armies and breaking out its automotives, ready to defend the alliance the city-state had made with its Beetle neighbours.

And the day after, Sperra had been sent for by the Queen. So here she was, a woman of three foot nine inches, in plain and darned clothes, appearing before the Royal Court of Sarn.

Ant-kinden did not need hundreds of spectators to witness their deeds of state. Mind-to-mind, the whole city could be allowed to hear what words were said when it was deemed necessary. There were merely fifteen men and women in that room, gathered around one long table. The height of the table itself demanded that a servant fetch a stool for Sperra to stand on, just so she could be seen.

In the middle of the table's far end sat the Queen herself, and there could be no doubt of her ident.i.ty. Since their increased dealings with other kinden, the Sarnesh had fully learned the use of symbols and insignia to distinguish themselves. The Queen of Sarn was the one with the crown sitting in the gilded chair, Sperra had divined. Other than that she looked just like any other Ant woman, her unwelcoming features in no way dissimilar from any of her kin. The Sarnesh were a dark-haired, brown-skinned people, but the severe set of their faces was that of Ant-kinden everywhere.

The others around the table were mostly more of the same: tacticians of Sarn, the governing body from among whom, and by whom, the ruling monarch was selected. They were men and women wearing armour, even here, and none of them with a smile to offer her. The grim drabness of this array was broken by a pair of darker Beetle-kinden, both women, whose garments were dreary by Collegium standards but looked positively flamboyant here. They had clearly been around Ant-kinden too long and had borrowed their paucity of expression.

The silence had stretched on for a while now, and Sperra realized that she should probably be saying something. 'Your Majesty,' she began, and her voice was shaking. 'I have come here with a very urgent message from Collegium.'

'We have received messengers from Collegium only yesterday,' noted one of the tacticians. 'We understand that you have been pet.i.tioning for this audience for almost a tenday. It seems news has outstripped you.'

'Yes and no, masters,' Sperra said wretchedly. 'I am come from Master Stenwold Maker of the Great College to bring a warning of war.'

'War has come,' a female tactician intervened, almost dismissively. 'We will go to the aid of Collegium and fight the Vekken. You should have no concern over that.'

Sperra coughed, finding her voice dry up. 'There is a greater war than that, ah, Your Majesty and esteemed masters.' She had no idea of the proper address for an entire Royal Court at once, or even whether there was one. 'You must have heard of the Wasp-kinden and their Empire, as they call it.'

That took them a little longer to consider, and Sperra sensed the thoughts flashing between them. At last it was one of the Beetles that spoke up, after a nod of a.s.sent from the Queen.

'The city-state of Sarn is not without resources,' she said. 'We have of course had intelligence of these people, and know that they are currently investing Tark, the result of which we await keenly. The extent of their ambitions is unknown but we are considering what threat they may pose to us, should they continue to expand and their ambitions remain unchecked.'

'Then could I say something about what I have seen, and about Master Maker, and Scuto, who's the person that recruited me.' She was aware she was now jumbling it all horribly. 'Only I can tell you what the Wasps want. They're planning to take over all of the Lowlands. They'll do it city by city, you see, and they hope that everyone will just sit back and let them. On account of . . . it's like you said, just then. Tark is under attack and, well, n.o.body really likes Tark. Anyway. I certainly don't.' She looked from face to face. One of the Beetles nodded, but there was precious little encouragement to be found anywhere else.

'Anyway,' she went on, 'so Tark goes down soon enough, because these Wasps, they've done Ant-kinden cities before. There's a place called Maynes east of h.e.l.leron, and they took that years ago, and they're much better at it now. Tark is gone, let's say, and who cares? Only next they head for . . .' She wanted to say Merro, her own home, but that would not have strengthened her case. 'For Kes, say. They get some boats and lay siege to the place. And of course, I suppose you don't get on well with the Kessen either?' She looked at them, and they gave her no response, but this time she waited until a smile twitched the Queen's lips, who said, 'The enmity between the cities of our kinden is well doc.u.mented, Fly-woman. Make your case.'

'Well it's made, then, Your Majesty,' Sperra said, 'because we're all sitting about glaring at each other, and waving flags every time one of our neighbours gets got, until here they are, at the gates of Sarn, say, and who do we call upon?'

'We are Sarn,' said one of the tacticians shortly. 'Therefore we fight our own wars.'

'But what if they had ten times as many soldiers, and better weapons, and they can fly, and just shoot you down with their bare hands? What then? What if they're too big for any one city to take on? That's what Master Maker keeps saying: there are lots of them, more than any one city could fight.'

A silence. Again she looked from face to face. 'Please, do you not believe me?' she asked.

The Queen shared a moment's glance with some of her advisers. 'Your words are understood, but we have more immediate concerns. You would not wish us, I am sure, to have us rush to the aid of Tark while the Vekken besiege Collegium. We shall remember your words, however. Once our present business with Vek is resolved, then we shall speak further. We see some merit in what you say.'

And that, Sperra realized, was the extent of her royal audience.

'Something's wrong, isn't it?' Che said.

Achaeos sent her a sidelong glance, but then admitted, 'I have not been sleeping well, recently.'

She allowed herself a smile. 'Am I to blame for that?'

'When I do sleep, I have dreams . . . uncertain ones.'

She was about to give a flippant answer but thought better of it. 'I suppose dreams are important to your people.'

'They are, and I think . . . I fear I know where these dreams come from. You remember the Darakyon, and what we both saw there?'

'I could never forget.' Although she had tried. It had been after he helped rescue her from the Wasp slave cells in Myna: they had been heading for h.e.l.leron and in the way was the knotted little forest of the Darakyon. A Mantis-kinden name, she knew, but no Mantis-kinden lived there now. However, Achaeos had told her that those who had once called the place their home, centuries before, had never left. All nonsense, of course. All superst.i.tious foolishness from a people of hermits and mystics, except that one night he and Tisamon had taken her into that wood and shown her. It had been Achaeos reaching out to her, over the barrier that separated their peoples' worldviews.

And she had seen seen. In glimpses, perhaps, and for that she was thankful, but she had caught sight of what still dwelled between the twisted trunks of the Darakyon, in all its hideous, tortured glory, and her world had cracked, and let in something new.

They were almost at the nameless little gambling den by the river, and there were plenty of shadows that could have hidden anything. She allowed her eyes to pierce through them, calling on her Art, but the shiver did not leave her. 'Are they they . . . have they come here?' she asked him. . . . have they come here?' she asked him.

'No. They could not, I think. But these dreams . . . they are calling to me. I do not know why, but I will in time.'

They paused at the door, nerving themselves. The Arcanum, mostly in the person of Gaff, the stocky little man of unknown kinden, had not been forthcoming. They had met with him several times, and sometimes with the Mantis Scelae as well, but received only evasion. Now word had come for them. They had been summoned by the Arcanum. Something had changed.

'Do you think it could be a trap?' she asked, and he nodded glumly. 'But these are your your people,' she protested. people,' she protested.

'The Arcanum are not my my people,' he said. 'They are the political arm of the Skryres, and they have no one leader but serve many in Dorax and Tharn. Much of the time, it is said, they run the personal errands of their masters, who do not always agree. The Arcanum has turned on its own people before now, so why not against us?' people,' he said. 'They are the political arm of the Skryres, and they have no one leader but serve many in Dorax and Tharn. Much of the time, it is said, they run the personal errands of their masters, who do not always agree. The Arcanum has turned on its own people before now, so why not against us?'

'What option do we have?' she asked him.

'None but be ready for trouble.'

They saw Gaff as soon as they entered, in the midst of some game of chance. He noticed them too and made hurried apologies to his fellows, leaving money on the table and hurrying over to them.

'You took your time,' he grumbled. 'Come right with me, sir and lady. There's serious talk to be done.'

He took them into a backroom, heading past the place's owner, and then into a room beyond, that must have been part of the building adjoining. It was dark in there, a single lamp burning on a desk, and it was crowded. When Gaff had taken his place there was quite a gathering of people ranged there facing them. Che felt her hand drift towards her sword-hilt now, though it would now be of no use.

Half a dozen were Mantis-kinden. Scelae was seated on one corner of the desk while the rest stood, lean and hard men and women watching the newcomers suspiciously. One bore a sword-and-circle pin that recalled Tisamon's: a Weaponsmaster, then, who would be more than sufficient on her own to blot them out if she chose. Of the other kinden four were Flies, and three of those were robed and cowled like their masters. One was a Commonwealer Dragonfly. There were only three Moths in all that number. An elderly woman sat on the corner of the desk across from Scelae and a young man stood behind her, in an arming jacket with a bandolier of throwing blades strapped across it. Central behind the desk, though, was the obvious cause of all this a.s.sembly. He was thin and balding and, taken alone, his grey, hollow face and white eyes did not suggest any great pre-eminence, but Che could almost feel the crackle of authority surrounding him.

'Master Achaeos of Tharn,' the man said in a precise voice. 'Mistress Cheerwell Maker of Collegium. Your recent careers have been quite remarkable. Do you know what we are?'

Che and Achaeos exchanged glances. 'You represent the Arcanum, Master,' Achaeos said.

'We are the Arcanum, as far as its presence in Sarn now stands,' the balding Moth explained. 'This is all of us.'

The two newcomers exchanged glances, while the a.s.sembled agents watched them implacably.

'You have come to us spreading warnings about the Wasp Empire. We are, of course, aware of those savages and we have no wish to involve ourselves in their affairs, either as allies or enemies. Still less do we wish to jump to the call of some Beetle magnate. We have retreated from the ugly and violent world that your kinden have built, and we would prefer that to be the end of it.'

And why get everyone together just to tell us this? Che felt her sword-hand twitch, but fought the instinct down. There was more to be said. There had to be. Che felt her sword-hand twitch, but fought the instinct down. There was more to be said. There had to be.

'You have no great reputation on Tharn, Achaeos,' the Moth spymaster said, 'and few friends either. Your choice of paramour has seen to that. We have no obligation to you, still less to this woman.'

A missed chance for an insult. Che found that she was holding her breath, and let it out carefully.